Mao's Protracted War: Theory vs. Practice

摘要

In the spring of 1938, Mao Tse-tung delivered a series of lectures at the 'Yenan Association for the Study of the Anti-Japanese War.' The Japanese War had been going on for almost a year. The Communists and the Nationalists had joined in a tenuous 'United Front,' and the Communists' Eighth Route Army, commanded by Chu Teh, was in the field. Japanese forces, driving out of Manchuria, had overrun the northern area of China down to the Shantung peninsula and in the south were well established on the Yangtze River. Chiang Kai-shek had borne the brunt of the Japanese attack and, despite heavy losses around Shanghai, had managed to preserve the fighting strength of his army. The Communists, in the meantime, had begun the political organization of the thinly held Japanese territory in Shansi-Hopeh provinces. Their base area in northwest Shensi had not been reached by the Japanese. Chairman Mao was being pressured to be more active in the military fight against the invading Japanese Army. Some were discouraged and felt there was little hope of defeating the relentless Japanese military machine. Mao used the theory of 'protracted war' to encourage and unify his people and to turn the energies of his party to expanding political control over the peasants and establishing guerrilla bases. Mao's brilliant examination of the existing contradictions in the Sino-Japanese struggle and his three-stage portrayal of China's victory plan has become a modern military classic. It is taught in many service schools and widely used by scholars in explaining the Vietnamese Communist strategy, first against the French and later against the U.S./South Vietnamese forces in the unending Indochina War. The purpose of this paper is to look at the essentials of this strategy and to see if the historical evidence of the Sino-Japanese War supports the contemporary acclaim accorded to Mao's theoretical opus.