On Guerrilla Warfare
by Mao Tse-tung, Samuel B Griffith
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mao Tse-tung, Samuel B GriffithEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); Chinese (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-09-21
ISBN: 0252068920
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Book Reviews of On Guerrilla Warfare
Book Review: Learn from the master
Summary: 5 Stars
I think Mao intended this essay to be another one of his theoretical Marxist works (Mao thought of himself as a first-class Marxist theoretician). But without question it also served as an instruction manual for his ragtag Red Army while fighting among the tortuous terrain in northwestern China, in part against Japan, in part against Chiang. Considering his success as a practitioner of guerrilla warfare, one would have to be insane to ignore this work.
I'm struck how short that chapter is on guerrilla wars in history. Mao was widely read in Chinese and world history and it would have been his style to display this knowledge in a work like this had he chosen to do so.
Perhaps Americans should not think of themselves as only at the receiving end of guerrillas. Washington learned this kind of fighting during the French and Indian Wars, and he put some of this experience to good use against a British army better armed, better trained, and greater in numbers than the Continentals. He exploited geography, made surprise raids, used mobility and patience to wear out the red coats - all hallmarks of guerrillas. The all-important Battle of Trenton was such kind of unconventional warfare: an Indian raid, essentially. But it sure got results. Regular or conventional battles like Yorktown only came later, when British impatience was at the breaking point. As Franklin had predicted, the British could and did occupy all the towns - including Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston - up and down the eastern coast but they could not hold onto them. (The comparison with Iraq is irresistible. The redcoats never numbered more than 30,000 or so men, fighting among 2.5 million American civilians. Now America has 5 times as many troops in Iraq (about 150,000) as there were redcoats in the 13 colonies. But Iraq's population is 25 million! And that's not counting foreign fighters from Iraq's neighbors. American guerrillas probably had better geography than Iraqi insurgents but the Iraqis seem more eager to commit suicide missions.)
Mao really could have done better than just cite Russian resistance to Napoleon as an example. (Never mind his other Chinese examples. for the moment.) Apart from Washington, the Spaniards also tore the Grand Armee to pieces with guerrillas - in fact, Spain's where the word came from. Lawrence of Arabia sabotaged Turkish railways in northwestern Arabia (rather like insurgents blowing up Iraq's pipelines) - to great effect. Of course, another great example of guerrilla warfare was the block-by-block, street-to-street fighting at Stalingrad. But always, to my mind, the Teutoberg forest was where guerrillas first made their greatest name in Western history. (I know little Greek history to comment further.) Octavian lost three Roman legions thanks to the German barbarians, and Rome hadn't suffered a panic quite like this since Spartacus.
Believe it or not, Mao got his inspiration not from Lenin (though he paid much lip service to him), not even from Sun Tsu (whom he read only when his military career was over), but from the classic historical novels of ancient China, especially The Water Margins and Three Kingdoms. That he didn't cite these is understandable enough: he always insisted on learning truths from facts, and novels don't provide facts though they do generate interest in the motivated reader. And Mao was nothing if not motivated.
Griffith's extraordinary credentials are not worth repeating here. His intro is excellent. He is dead right that guerrillas thrive anywhere: from the dense jungle of Vietnam to the flat deserts of Iraq. Where there are clear political objectives (knowing the difference between long- and short-term goals), men willing to fight (and die), a will to win, and lots of patience, all it takes is a little hard thinking to make the worst-equipped great guerrilla warriors. Let us learn from the master, not by regurgitating his rules, which he would never have done himself, but by thinking critically and philosophically through his logic.
Summary of On Guerrilla Warfare
'One of the most influential documents of our time, Mao Tse-tung's pamphlet on guerrilla warfare has become the basic textbook for waging revolution in underdeveloped and emergent areas throughout the world. Recognizing the fundamental disparity between agrarian and urban societies, Mao advocated unorthodox strategies that converted deficits into advantages: using intelligence provided by the sympathetic peasant population; substituting deception, mobility, and surprise for superior firepower; using retreat as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants on the ideological basis of the struggle.This radical new approach to warfare, waged in jungles and mountains by mobile guerrilla bands closely supported by local inhabitants, has been adopted by other revolutionary leaders from Ho Chi Minh to Che Guevara. Mao wrote On Guerrilla Warfare in 1937 while in retreat after ten years of battling the Nationalist army of Chiang Kai-shek. Twelve years later, the Nationalist Chinese were rousted from the mainland, and Mao consolidated his control of a new nation, having put his theories of revolutionary guerrilla warfare to the test. Established governments have slowly come to recognize the need to understand and devise means to counter this new method of warfare. Samuel B. Griffith's classic translation makes Mao's treatise widely available and includes a comprehensive introduction that profiles Mao, analyzes the nature and conduct of guerrilla warfare, and considers its implications for American policy'.Military Books
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