People's war or protracted people's war is a Maoist military strategy. First developed by the Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the basic concept behind people's war is to maintain the support of the population and draw the enemy deep into the countryside (stretching their supply lines) where the population will bleed them dry through guerrilla warfare and eventually build up to mobile warfare. It was used by the Chinese communists against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and by the Chinese Soviet Republic in the Chinese Civil War.
The term is used by Maoists for their strategy of long-term armed revolutionary struggle. After the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, Deng Xiaoping abandoned people's war for "People's War under Modern Conditions", which moved away from reliance on troops over technology. With the adoption of "socialism with Chinese characteristics", economic reforms fueled military and technological investment. Troop numbers were also reduced and professionalisation encouraged.
The strategy of people's war was used heavily by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. However, protracted war should not be confused with the "foco" theory employed by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
Overview
In China
In its original formulation by Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong, people's war exploits the few advantages that a small revolutionary movement has—broad-based popular support can be one of them—against a state's power with a large, professional, well-equipped and well-funded army. People's war strategically avoids decisive battles, since a tiny force of a few dozen soldiers would easily be routed in an all-out confrontation with the state. Instead, it favours a three-phase strategy of protracted warfare, with carefully chosen battles that can realistically be won.
In phase one, the revolutionary force conducting people's war starts in a remote area with mountainous or forested terrain in which its enemy is weak. It attempts to establish a local stronghold known as a revolutionary base area. As it grows in power, it enters phase two, establishes other revolutionary base areas and spreads its influence through the surrounding countryside, where it may become the governing power and gain popular support through such programmes as land reform. Eventually in phase three, the movement has enough strength to encircle and capture small cities, then larger ones, until finally it seizes power in the entire country.
Within the Chinese Red Army, the concept of people's war was the basis of strategy against the Japanese, and against a hypothetical Soviet invasion of China. The concept of people's war became less important with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasing possibility of conflict with the United States over Taiwan. In the 1980s and 1990s the concept of people's war was changed to include more high-technology weaponry. Historian David Priestland dates the beginning of the policy of people's war to the publication of a "General Outline for Military Work" in May 1928, by Chinese Central Committee. This document established official military strategies to the Chinese Red Army during the Chinese Civil War.
The strategy of people's war has political dimensions in addition to its military dimensions. In China, the early People's Liberation Army was composed of peasants who had previously lacked political significance and control over their place in the social order. Its internal organization was egalitarian between soldiers and officers, and its external relationship with rural civilians was egalitarian. Military success against an adversaries with major material advantages (in Mao's experience, the Nationalist forces and the invading Japanese army), required weakening the adversary through attrition and strengthening one's own forces through accumulation, a method which could only succeed if the guerilla army had the people's support. As sociologist Alessandro Russo summarizes, the political existence of peasants via the PLA was a radical exception to the rules of Chinese society and "overturned the strict traditional hierarchies in unprecedented forms of egalitarianism."
Other usage in Chinese rhetoric In China, the generalized use of military terminology to other aspects of society is influenced by factors including the use of military terms in political struggles and media as well as the longstanding respect for the People's Liberation Army.
Chen Boda's 1960 strategy of "electrocentrism", through which the electronics industry should develop technological advancements and become embedded at all levels of China's economy, incorporated the philosophy of fighting a people's war to "smash electronic mysticism" and rapidly develop in the age of electronics. This included small-scale enterprises (not just large enterprises) producing electronics to spur development.
In 2014 Party leadership in Xinjiang commenced a People's War against the “Three Evil Forces” of separatism, terrorism, and extremism. They deployed two hundred thousand party cadres to Xinjiang and launched the Civil Servant-Family Pair Up program. Xi was dissatisfied with the initial results of the People's War and replaced Zhang Chunxian with Chen Quanguo in 2016. Following his appointment Chen oversaw the recruitment of tens of thousands of additional police officers and the division of society into three categories: trustworthy, average, untrustworthy. He instructed his subordinated to "Take this crackdown as the top project," and "to preempt the enemy, to strike at the outset." Following a meeting with Xi in Beijing Chen Quanguo held a rally in Ürümqi with ten thousand troops, helicopters, and armored vehicles. As they paraded he announced a “smashing, obliterating offensive,” and declared that they would "bury the corpses of terrorists and terror gangs in the vast sea of the People's War."
In February 2020, the Chinese Communist Party launched an aggressive campaign described by General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping as a "people's war" to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Outside China
Mao's doctrine of people's war influenced various Third World revolutionary movements including the Naxalites and the Shining Path.
From 1965 to 1971, China held yearly military training for Palestinian fedayeen, including instruction in Mao Zedong Thought on guerilla warfare and people's war.
From 1966 to 1970, Syria was indirectly ruled by the neo-Ba'athist and totalitarian regime of General Salah Jadid, which actively promoted the ideas of Marxism–Leninism and the Maoist concept of People's War against Zionism, which was expressed in its huge support for communist and socialist Palestinian fedayeen groups, granting them considerable autonomy and allowing them to carry out attacks on Israel from Syrian territory. Just a few months after the coming to power, Jadid's regime completed the formation of the Palestinian paramilitary Ba'athist group called al-Sa'iqa, which carried out attacks on Israel from Jordanian and Lebanese territory, but was completely under the control of the neo-Ba'athist regime in Syria.
Mao-era China contended that the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War demonstrated that only people's war, not other strategies or methods, could defeat imperialism in the Middle East.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf's (PFLOAG) goal was to use people's war to establish a socialist Arab state in the Gulf region.
In Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used the protracted people's war against Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.
List of people's wars
Conflicts in the following list are failed and successful wars labelled as people's wars by Maoists, and also both failed and ongoing attempts to start and develop people's wars. In addition to the conflicts in the list, there also have been conflicts not primarily led by Maoists or seen as people's wars, but had Maoist groups involved within them who viewed the conflicts partly as such, including the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Arab–Israeli conflict) and the Communist Party of Burma (Myanmar civil war). DateConflictStateRebel groupRevolutionary base areaDeathsResult1 August 1927 – 7 December 1949Chinese Civil WarChinese Communist Party Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (1927–1937) People's Liberation Army (1946–1950)Communist-controlled China13 million+ killed Communist victory2 April 1948 – 21 September 1988Communist insurgency in MyanmarCommunist Party of Burma People's Liberation ArmyShan State3,000+ killedGovernment victory1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975Vietnam WarViet Cong People's Liberation Armed Forces of South VietnamWar zone C Lộc Ninh 1,326,494–4,249,494 killedCommunist victory23 May 1959 – 2 December 1975Laotian Civil WarLao People's Party Pathet LaoXam Neua20,000–62,000 killedCommunist victory 1961 – 1979Nicaraguan RevolutionSandinistas Sandinista Popular ArmyNorth Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region30,000+ killedCommunist victory – 3 November 1990Communist insurgency in SarawakNorth Kalimantan Communist Party North Kalimantan People's ArmySarawak400–500 killedGovernment victory1965 – 1983Communist insurgency in ThailandCommunist Party of Thailand People's Liberation Army of ThailandNakhon Phanom Province6,500+ killedGovernment victory18 May 1967 – presentNaxalite–Maoist insurgencyCommunist Party of India (Maoist) People's Liberation Guerrilla ArmyRed corridor14,000+ killed since 1996Ongoing17 January 1968 – 17 April 1975Cambodian Civil WarCommunist Party of Kampuchea Khmer RougeRatanakiri Province275,000–310,000 killedCommunist victory 29 March 1969 – presentCommunist rebellion in the PhilippinesCommunist Party of the Philippines New People's ArmySamar40,000+ killedOngoing12 September 1972 – presentMaoist insurgency in TurkeyCommunist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist Liberation Army of the Workers and Peasants of Turkey Maoist Communist Party
People's Liberation ArmyTunceli ProvinceOngoing1972 – 1974Araguaia Guerrilla WarCommunist Party of Brazil Araguaia Guerrilla ForceState of Goiás90+ Maoists killedGovernment victory, failed to develop a people's war1976 – 1996GRAPO insurgencyCommunist Party of Spain (Reconstituted) First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups84+ killedGovernment victory, failed to develop a people's war1977 – presentMaoist insurgency in Afghanistan (including the Soviet–Afghan War and the anti-Taliban insurgency)Liberation Organization of the People of AfghanistanAfghanistan Liberation OrganizationCommunist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan120+ Maoists killed (only the ALO)Ongoing17 May 1980 – OngoingInternal conflict in PeruCommunist Party of Peru–Shining Path People's Guerilla ArmyAyacucho Region70,000+ killedShining Path declines, but continues insurgency 25 January 1982Amol uprisingUnion of Iranian Communists (Sarbedaran)Amol County300+ killedGovernment victory, failed to develop a people's war1 June 1993 – presentMaoist insurgency in EcuadorCommunist Party of Ecuador – Red SunChimborazo ProvinceOngoing1993 – 2022Maoist insurgency in BangladeshPurbo Banglar Communist PartyPurba Banglar Sarbahara PartyKhulna1,200+ killedGovernment victory13 February 1996 – 21 November 2006Nepalese Civil WarCommunist Party of Nepal (Maoist) People's Liberation Army, NepalRapti Zone17,800+ killedCommunist victory2008 – presentMaoist insurgency in BhutanCommunist Party of Bhutan (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist) Bhutan Tiger ForceSarpang DistrictOngoing
See also On Protracted War Attrition warfare Soviet partisans Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare Colombian conflict (1964–present) Paraguayan People's Army insurgency
References Citations
Sources
Further reading VK Shashikumar. Red Terror: India under siege from within, CNN-IBN, March 16, 2006.