(December 1936)
* This work by Mao Zedong was written to summarize the experience of 's Second Civil Revolutionary War . At that time, he gave a speech at the Red Army University established in northern Shaanxi. According to the author, this book only completes five chapters, and still has strategic offensive, political work and other issues. Because the Xi'an Incident occurred in , I didn't have time to write it anymore, so I put aside the writing. This was the result of a major debate on the party's military issues during the Second Civil Revolutionary War, and it was a view to expressing one line against another. Regarding the debate on this route, the Zunyi Conference held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in January 1935 reached a conclusion, affirming Mao Zedong's opinions, and denying the opinions on the wrong route. After the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China moved to northern Shaanxi in October 1935, Mao Zedong immediately made a report in December " on the Strategies Against Japanese Imperialism ", systematically solving the problems on the party's political line during the Second Civil Revolutionary War. The next year, in 1936, Mao Zedong wrote this book, systematically explaining various issues related to China's revolutionary war strategy.
Chapter 1 How to study war
Section 1 The law of war is the development
The law of war - this is a problem that anyone who guides war must study and solve.
The law of revolutionary war - this is a problem that anyone who guides the revolutionary war must study and solve.
The law of China's revolutionary war - this is a problem that anyone who guides China's revolutionary war must study and solve.
We are now engaged in wars, our war is a revolutionary war, and our revolutionary war was carried out in the semi-feudal country of China, a semi-colonial . Therefore, we must not only study the laws of general wars, but also study the laws of special revolutionary wars, and also study the laws of more special Chinese revolutionary wars.
Everyone understands that no matter what you do, if you don’t understand the situation, its nature, its relationship with things other than it, you don’t know the rules of that thing, you don’t know how to do it, and you can’t do that thing well.
War - a highest form of struggle that has begun since private property and classes, and is used to resolve contradictions between classes and classes, nations and nations, states and states, political groups and political groups at a certain stage of development. If you don’t understand its situation, its nature, and its relationship with things other than it, you don’t know the laws of war, you don’t know how to guide the war, and you can’t win a war.
Revolutionary War - a revolutionary class war and a revolutionary national war, in addition to the circumstances and nature of general wars, has its special circumstances and nature. Therefore, in addition to the general laws of war, there are some special laws. If you do not understand these special circumstances and nature, and your special laws, you cannot guide the revolutionary war and you cannot win the revolutionary war.
China's Revolutionary War - Whether it is a civil war or a national war, it is carried out within the special environment of China. More general wars and general revolutionary wars have their special circumstances and special natures. Therefore, in addition to the laws of general war and general revolutionary war, there are some special laws. If you don’t understand these things, you cannot win the Chinese revolutionary war.
So, we should study the laws of general war; we should also study the laws of revolutionary war; finally, we should also study the laws of revolutionary war in China.
There is a kind of person's opinion that is wrong, and we have already refuted this opinion; they said: Just study the laws of general war, and specifically, just follow the military regulations published by the reactionary Chinese government or the reactionary Chinese military schools. They did not know that these regulations were just the laws of general war and were copied from foreign countries. If we copied them exactly the same and did not change their form or content at all, we would definitely cut our feet and defeat the war.Their reason is: Why should we not get what we have obtained from bleeding in the past? They don’t know: Although we should respect the experience of bleeding in the past, we should also respect our own experience of bleeding.
Another kind of opinion is wrong, and we have already refuted this opinion; they said: Just study the experience of the Russian Revolutionary War, and specifically, just follow the guiding laws of the Soviet civil war and the military regulations issued by the Soviet military organs. They didn't know that the laws and regulations of the Soviet Union contained the particularities of the Soviet civil war and the Soviet Red Army. If we copied them exactly, no changes would be allowed, and we would also cut our feet and put them into a good position to defeat the war. The reason for these people is: the Soviet war was a revolutionary war, our war was also a revolutionary war, and the Soviet Union was victorious, why do there still room for choice? They do not know: although we should especially respect the Soviet war experience, because it is the experience of the revolutionary war of the recent era, and was obtained under the guidance of Lenin and Stalin. However, we should also respect the experience of the revolutionary war of China, because there are many special circumstances in the Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Red Army of .
Another kind of opinion is wrong, and we have long refuted this opinion; they said: The experience of Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1927 is the best, and we should learn from it, specifically, learn from the Northern Expedition to advance and seize big cities. They don’t know that the experience of the Northern Expedition should be learned, but they should not be used in a stereotyped manner, because the current situation of war has changed. We should only adopt the things that can still be applicable in the current situation in the Northern Expedition, and we should stipulate our own things according to the current situation.
It can be seen that the different situations of war determine different war guidance rules , with differences in time, region and nature. From the perspective of time, the laws of war and war guidance are both developed, and each historical stage has its characteristics, so the laws of war also have their own characteristics and cannot be moved to different stages in a rigid manner. Judging from the nature of war, revolutionary wars and counter-revolutionary wars have their own characteristics, so the laws of war also have their own characteristics and cannot be used rigidly with each other. Judging from the regional conditions, all countries and ethnic groups, especially large countries and nations, have their own characteristics, so the laws of war also have their own characteristics and cannot be used dullly. When we study the guiding laws of wars in different historical stages, different natures, different regions and nations, we should focus on their characteristics and development, and oppose mechanical theories on the issue of war.
This is more than that. For a commander, he could command a small corps at first, and later he could command a large corps, which was progress and development for him. One place is different from many places. At first, they would fight in a familiar place, and later they would fight in many places, which made it progress and development for a commander. Because of the development of technology, tactics and strategies between the enemy and us, the situations in each stage of a war are also different. You will command in the lower stage, and you will also command in the higher stage, which will make a commander even more progress and development. It can only be adapted to a certain corps, a certain place and a certain stage of war development, which is called no progress and no development. There is a kind of person who has no progress with his own skills and insights. Although this has some effect on the revolution, it has no major effect. We demand great roles in war guides. All the laws of war guidance develop according to the development of history and develop according to the development of war; there is nothing that remains unchanged.
Section 2 The purpose of war is to eliminate war
War - This monster that humans kill each other will eventually be eliminated, and it will be eliminated in the near future. However, there is only one way to eliminate it, which is to use war to oppose war, use revolutionary war to oppose counter-revolutionary war, use national revolutionary war to oppose national counter-revolutionary war, and use class revolutionary war to oppose class counter-revolutionary war.There are only two types of wars in history: just and injustice. We support the Just War against the Injustice War. All counter-revolutionary wars are injustice, and all revolutionary wars are just. The era of human war life will end in our hands, and the war we are engaged in is undoubtedly part of the final war. But the war we face is undoubtedly part of the greatest and cruelest war. The greatest and most cruel injustice counter-revolutionary war is forced upon us, and if we do not raise the banner of just war, the majority of mankind will be destroyed. The banner of the Just War of Mankind is the banner of saving mankind, and the banner of the Just War of China is the banner of saving China. The war held by most of mankind and most of the Chinese is undoubtedly a just war, a cause of supreme honor to save mankind and China, and a bridge to turn the history of the whole world into a new era. Human society has advanced to the point where it eliminated the class and the country. By then, there will be no war, no counter-revolutionary war, no revolutionary war, no injustice war, no just war, no just war, no justice war. This is the era of permanent peace for mankind. Our study of the laws of revolutionary wars is based on our desire to eliminate all wars. This is the boundary that distinguishes us from all exploiting classes.
Section 3 Strategic issues are things that study the laws of the overall situation of war
As long as there is war, there is the overall situation of war. The world can be a whole of war, a country can be a whole of war, an independent guerrilla zone, a large independent combat aspect, or a whole of war. Any nature that needs to take care of all aspects and stages is the overall situation of the war.
Studying the rules of war guidance with global nature is the task of strategy learning . Studying localized war guidance laws is the task of battle learning and tactic learning .
Why is it necessary to require combat commanders and tactical commanders to understand some degree of strategic laws? Because you understand global things, you will be more aware of local things, because local things belong to global things. It is wrong to say that strategic victory depends on tactical victory, because this opinion does not see the main and first problem of victory or defeat in the war, which is whether the overall situation and the stages are well taken care of or not well. If there are important shortcomings or mistakes in the overall situation and various stages of care, the war must fail. To say "If you are not careful, you will lose everything" means that it is a global, that is, a move that has a decisive meaning to the overall situation, rather than a move that has a locality, that is, a move that has no decisive meaning to the overall situation. This is true for playing chess, and so is war.
However, global things cannot be independent of the locality, and the global is composed of all its parts. Sometimes, some parts are destroyed or failed, and the overall situation may not have a significant impact, because these parts are not something that is decisive to the overall situation. Some tactical or unsuccessful failures or unsuccessfulness in wars often do not cause the overall situation of the war to deteriorate because these failures are not decisive things. But if most of the battles that make up the overall situation of the war fail, or one or two battles with decisive significance fail, the overall situation will change immediately. Most of the battles mentioned here and one or two battles are all decisive things. In the history of the war, some people suffered one defeat after winning all the battles and even wasted all their efforts, while others won one victory after winning many defeats and thus launched a new situation. The things mentioned here that "all the battles are successful" and "many defeats" are all local and do not play a decisive role in the overall situation. The "one defeat" and "one victory" mentioned here are all things that are decided. All of this illustrates the importance of caring for the overall situation. The most important thing for those who command the overall situation is to focus their attention on taking care of the overall situation of the war.Mainly based on the situation, taking care of the composition of the troops and corps, taking care of the relationship between the two battles, taking care of the relationship between each combat stage, and taking care of the relationship between our entire activities and the enemy's activities. These are the most difficult things. If you lose this and work on some secondary issues, you will inevitably suffer losses.
Speaking of the relationship between the global and the local, not only is the relationship between strategy and battle, but also the relationship between battle and tactics. The relationship between the division's movements and the movements of the regiment camp, and the relationship between the movements of the company and the movements of the squad are examples. The chief at any level should focus his attention on the most important and decisive issues or actions for the overall situation he commands, rather than on other issues or actions.
Saying important and saying has decisive significance. It cannot be stipulated in general or abstract situations, but must be stipulated in specific situations. When choosing the assault direction and assault point during combat, it should be stipulated according to the current enemy situation, terrain and your own military strength. In places with abundant supplies, be careful not to make the soldiers eat too much, and in places with insufficient supplies, be careful not to make the soldiers hungry. In the white area, the subsequent battle can be failed because of the leak of just one message; in the red area, the problem of leaking news is often not the most important. In some battles, senior commanders need to participate in person, while others do not need to do so. The most important issue of a military school is to choose principals and teachers and formulate educational policies. A mass congress should mainly pay attention to mobilizing the people to attend the meeting and put forward appropriate slogans. And so on. In short, one principle is to pay attention to those important joints about the overall situation.
To learn the guidance rules of the overall situation of war, you must think carefully. Because this kind of global thing cannot be seen by your eyes, you can only understand it with your heart. If you don’t think about it carefully, you won’t understand it without thinking about it. However, the overall situation is composed of local. People with local experience and those with combat tactics are willing to think carefully and understand those more advanced things. Strategic issues, such as the so-called care for the relationship between the enemy and us, the relationship between each battle or between the various stages of the operation, the (decisive) parts of the overall situation, the characteristics of the whole situation, the relationship between the front and rear, the consumption and supplement, combat and rest, concentration and dispersion, attack and defense, advance and retreat, shade and exposure, main offensive and assist, assault and restraint, centralized command and dispersed command, protracted and rapid decisive battle, positional warfare and mobile warfare, this army and friendly forces, these arms and those arms, superiors and subordinates, cadres and soldiers, veterans and new soldiers, senior cadres and subordinates, veterans and new cadres, old cadres and new cadres, red Color and white areas, old and new areas, central and marginal areas, hot and cold weather, victory and defeat, large and small corps, regular and guerrillas, eliminate the enemy and fight for the masses, expand the Red Army and consolidate the Red Army, military and political work, past and current tasks, current and future tasks, tasks in that situation and tasks in this situation, fixed fronts and non-fixed fronts, civil wars and national wars, this historical stage and that historical stage, etc., are all things that cannot be seen by the eyes, but if you think about it carefully, you can understand, catch, and be proficient. This means that all important issues in war or war can be solved with a higher principle. To achieve this goal is the task of studying strategic issues.
Section 4 The important question is to be good at learning
Why organize the Red Army? Because you have to use it to defeat the enemy. Why learn the laws of war? Because these laws are to be used in war.
Learning is not an easy task, and it is even more difficult to use. The knowledge of war is taken in lectures or in books. Although many people speak very well, they can win or lose when fighting. The history of war and our own war life prove this.
So, what is the key?
We cannot ask for a de facto victorious general, which has been rare since ancient times. We demand a brave and wise general who wins battles in general during the war - a wise and brave general. To achieve the point of being both wise and brave, there is a method that needs to be learned. This method should be used when learning, and this method should be used when using it.
What method? That is to be familiar with the situations of both the enemy and us, find out the laws of their actions, and apply these laws to their own actions.
Military Regulations issued by many countries indicate the need to "use principles according to the situation" and also indicate the way to deal with the battle when defeating. The former means not to make subjective mistakes by the commander because of the deadly principle; the latter means to tell the commander how to deal with it when the commander makes subjective mistakes, or the objective situation changes unpredictably and majeurely.
Why do you make mistakes subjectively? It is because the deployment and command of war or battle are not suitable for the local situation at that time and in the local area, subjective guidance and objective real situation are inconsistent, inconsistent, or it is called the failure to resolve the contradiction between subjective and objective. This is inevitable for people to do everything, and there is only a difference between being able to do it in a relatively good way and being able to do it in a relatively good way. The matter requires a relatively good deal, but in the military, it requires a relatively more victory. On the contrary, it requires a relatively less defeat. The key here is to align the subjective and objective.
Tactic example. The attack point is on a certain wing of the enemy's position, and it is the enemy's weak part. The assault is successful. This is called subjective and objective conformity, that is, the commander's reconnaissance, judgment and determination are consistent with the actual situation of the enemy and its configuration. If the attack point is on the other wing or center, it is hitting the enemy's nail and cannot attack, it is called inconsistent. The appropriate attack timing, the use of the reserve team is neither too late nor too early, and various combat handling and combat actions are beneficial to us and not to the enemy, which means that the subjective command and objective situation in the entire battle are all in line with each other. Everything that matches everything is extremely rare in war or battle. This is because the two sides of the war or battle are armed living people and keep secrets from each other. This is very different from dealing with still life or daily events. However, as long as the command is generally suitable for the situation, that is, suitable for the situation in the decisive part, it is the basis for victory.
The correct deployment of the commander comes from the correct determination, the correct determination comes from the correct judgment, the correct judgment comes from thoughtful and necessary reconnaissance, and the joint thinking of various reconnaissance materials. The commander uses all possible and necessary reconnaissance methods to remove the various materials of the enemy's situation from reconnaissance, remove the essence, remove the false and retain the truth, think from this and the other, from the outside and inside, and then adds his own situation to study the comparison and mutual relationship between the two sides, thus forming a judgment, making up his mind, and making a plan. This is the entire process of the military strategist's understanding of the situation before making plans for each strategy, battle or battle. The careless military strategist does not do this and builds the military plan on a willing basis. This plan is fantastic and does not conform to reality. The reason why reckless and enthusiastic military strategists are inevitably deceived by the enemy, tempted by the enemy's superficial or one-sided situation, and encouraged by the irresponsible and unscientific suggestions of their subordinates, is that they do not know or are unwilling to know any military plan, which should be based on the necessary reconnaissance and careful thinking of the enemy and us situation and their mutual relationship.
The process of understanding the situation not only exists before the establishment of the military plan, but also after the establishment of the military plan. When implementing a certain plan, from the beginning of execution to the end of the battle, this is another process of understanding the situation, that is, the process of implementation. At this time, whether the things in the first process meet the actual situation needs to be re-checked.If the plan and situation do not conform, or are not fully in line with it, it is necessary to form a new judgment based on the new understanding, make a new determination, and change the planned plan to make it suitable for the new situation. Almost every battle has changed, and everything has changed occasionally. The reckless family does not know how to change, or is unwilling to change, but just blindly works, but it will end up hitting a wall.
The above is a strategic action, or a battle and combat action. If a soldier with a lot of experience learns humbly, he will be familiar with the temper of his own troops (commanders, combatants, weapons, supplies, etc. and their overall), and will be familiar with the temper of the enemy troops (same as commanders, combatants, weapons, supplies, etc. and their overall), and will be familiar with all other conditions related to war such as politics, economy, geography, climate, etc., such soldiers will be more confident in guiding wars or operations and be able to win battles. This is the result of knowing the situation between the enemy and us for a long time, finding out the laws of action, and resolving subjective and objective contradictions. This process of understanding is very important. Without this long-term experience, it is difficult to understand and grasp the laws of the entire war. Being a truly capable senior commander is not something that can be done by a newbie or just a good person to talk about war. It must be learned in war.
All principled military laws, or military theories, are summaries of past war experiences made by predecessors or present people. These bloody lessons left to us by these past wars should focus on learning it. This is one thing. However, there is another thing, which is to test these conclusions from one's own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is not useful, and increase what is unique to oneself. The latter thing is very important. If we do not do so, we cannot guide the war.
Reading is learning, and using is learning, and it is more important to learn. Learning war from war – this is our main approach. Those who do not have the opportunity to enter school can still learn war, that is, learn from war. Revolutionary wars are the people's business. Often, it is not about learning well before doing it, but about doing it before learning. Doing is about learning. There is a distance between the "people" and soldiers, but it is not the Great Wall of 0,000 miles, but it can be quickly eliminated. Doing revolution and war is the way to eliminate this distance. To say that learning and using is not easy, it means that learning thoroughly and using is not easy. To say that ordinary people can become soldiers soon means that this gate is not difficult to enter. Putting the two together can be done with an old Chinese saying: "Nothing is difficult in the world, I am afraid of those who are determined." It is not difficult to get started, but you can also do further studies. As long as you are determined and good at learning.
The laws of military, like the laws of other things, are the reflection of objective reality[1] in our minds. Except for our minds, everything is objective reality. Therefore, the objects of learning and cognition, including both aspects of enemies and enemies, should be regarded as the objects of research, and only our mind (think) is the subject of research. There is a kind of person who knows himself clearly and knows his enemy secretly. There is a kind of person who knows his enemy clearly and knows his enemy secretly and knows himself secretly. They cannot solve the problem of learning and using the laws of war. The sentence "Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles" in the book of the ancient Chinese military scientist Sun Wuzi [2] is said in the book "Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never be defeated by fighting a hundred battles" including learning and using them, including understanding the laws of development in objective reality and following these laws to decide to take action and overcome the current enemy; we should not underestimate this sentence.
War is the highest form of mutual struggle between nations and nations, states and states, classes and classes, political groups and political groups; all laws of war are used by nations, states, classes and political groups that engage in war in order to win their own victory. The outcome of a war is mainly determined by the military, political, economic and natural conditions of both sides of the war, and there is no problem. However, it is not only that, but also determined by the ability of both parties to the war.Military strategists cannot attempt to win the war beyond the scope permitted by material conditions, but military strategists can and must strive for victory in the scope permitted by material conditions. The stage for military strategists' activities is built on objective material conditions, but military strategists can direct many colorful and majestic live dramas with this stage. Therefore, our Red Army's guides, on the established objective material basis, namely military, political, economic and natural conditions, must exert our power, carry the entire army, defeat those national and class enemies, and change this bad world. This is where our ability to guide subjectively is used and must be used. We do not allow any Red Army commander to become a reckless family who bumps into a mess; we must advocate that every Red Army commander becomes a brave and wise hero, not only has the courage to overwhelm everything, but also has the ability to control the changes and development of the entire war. Commanders swim in the sea of war. They do not sink themselves, but make themselves decide to reach the other side in a step-by-step manner. The law that guides war is the swimming technique of war. The above is our method.
Chapter 2: The Communist Party of China and the Revolutionary War of China
: The Revolutionary War of China that began in 1924 has passed two stages, namely the stage from 1924 to 1927 and the stage from 1927 to 1936; the future will be the stage of the national revolutionary war against Japan. The revolutionary wars in these three stages are led by the Chinese proletariat and its political party, the Communist Party of China. The main enemy of China's revolutionary war is imperialist and feudal forces. Although the Chinese bourgeoisie can participate in the revolutionary war at some historical opportunity, due to its selfishness and lack of political and economic independence, it is unwilling and unable to lead the Chinese revolutionary war on the road to complete victory. The Chinese peasants and urban petty bourgeois masses are willing to actively participate in the revolutionary war and are willing to make the war completely victorious. They were the main force of the revolutionary war; however, their small production characteristics restricted their political vision (part of the unemployed people had anarchic ideas), so they could not become the correct leaders of the war. Therefore, in an era when the proletariat has entered the political stage, the leadership responsibility of China's revolutionary war has to fall on the shoulders of the Communist Party of China. At this time, any revolutionary war will definitely fail if it does not or violates the leadership of the proletariat and the Communist Party. Because among all the social classes and political groups in semi-colonial China, only the proletariat and the Communist Party are the least narrow-minded and selfish, the most lofty political vision and the most organized, and the most humbly accept the experience of the advanced proletariat and its political parties in the world and use it for their own cause. Therefore, only the proletariat and the Communist Party can lead the peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, overcome the narrowness of peasants and petty bourgeoisie, overcome the destructiveness of the unemployed, and also overcome the bourgeoisie's wavering and incompleteness (if the Communist Party's policies do not make mistakes), and put revolution and war on the road to victory.
The revolutionary war from 1924 to 1927 was basically carried out under the political influence and political cooperation between the international proletariat and the Chinese proletariat and its political parties on the Chinese national bourgeoisie and its political parties. However, at the critical moment of revolution and war, the revolutionary war was defeated first due to the rebellion of the big bourgeoisie and the automatic abandonment of revolutionary leadership by the opportunists in the revolutionary ranks.
The Agrarian Revolutionary War from 1927 to the present was carried out under new circumstances. The enemy of war is not only imperialism, but also an alliance between the great bourgeoisie and the great landlords. national bourgeoisie has become the tail of the big bourgeoisie. The Communist Party is the only one who leads this revolutionary war. The Communist Party has formed absolute leadership over the revolutionary war. This absolute leadership of the Communist Party is the most important condition for persevering the revolutionary war to the end.Without such absolute leadership of the Communist Party, it is impossible to imagine that revolutionary wars can have such persistence.
The Communist Party of China bravely and resolutely led China's revolutionary war. In the long years of fifteen years [3], in front of the people of the whole country, it expressed itself as a friend of the people. Every day is to protect the interests of the people and stand at the forefront of the revolutionary war for the freedom and liberation of the people.
The Communist Party of China has played a great educational role among the tens of millions of people of the nation through its hard struggle experience and the bloody sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of heroic party members and tens of thousands of heroic cadres. The great historical achievements of the Communist Party of China in the revolutionary struggle have given China, which is at the critical moment of national invasion, today, the condition is to have a political leader trusted by the majority of the people and tested by the people for a long time and therefore selected. What the Communist Party says now is easier to accept than what any other political party says. Without the hard work of the Communist Party of China over the past fifteen years, it would be impossible to save a new danger of national destruction.
In the revolutionary war, the Communist Party of China not only made the two mistakes of Chen Duxiu's right-leaning opportunism [4] and Li Lisan's "left" opportunism [5], but also made the following two mistakes: First, it was the "left" opportunism [6] from 1931 to 1934. This mistake caused extremely serious losses to the Agrarian Revolutionary War, and achieved the result of being unable to defeat the enemy in the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" and losing its base and weakening the Red Army. This error was corrected during the Zunyi meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, which was expanded in January 1935. Secondly, Zhang Guotao's right-leaning opportunism from 1935 to 1936 [8], which developed to the point where he destroyed the discipline of the Party and the Red Army, causing some of the main forces of the Red Army to suffer serious losses; however, due to the correct leadership of the Central Committee, the awareness of party members and commanders and combatants in the Red Army finally corrected this mistake. All these mistakes are of course unfavorable to our party, our revolution and war, but they have finally been overcome by us. Our party and our Red Army have trained stronger from the overcoming of these mistakes.
The Communist Party of China has led and continued to lead the vigorous and glorious victory of the revolutionary war. This war is not only the banner of liberating China, but also has international revolutionary significance. The revolutionary people of the world are all looking at us. In the new stage of the anti-Japanese national revolutionary war, we will guide the completion of the Chinese revolution and will also have a profound impact on the revolution in the East and the world. The revolutionary wars of the past prove that we not only need a correct political line of Marxism, but also a correct military line of Marxism. Fifteen years of revolution and war have trained such a political and military line. In the new stage of war in the future, we believe that such a route will be more developed, enriched and enriched according to the new environment, so as to achieve the goal of defeating the national enemy. History tells us that correct political and military lines are not naturally and safely produced and developed, but are produced and developed from struggle. On the one hand, it must fight against "left" opportunism, and on the other hand, it must fight against right-leaning opportunism. It is impossible to fight differently to these harmful tendencies that endanger revolution and revolutionary wars, and to completely overcome them, the construction of the right line and the victory of the revolutionary war. I often mention the wrong opinions in this booklet, just for this purpose.
Chapter 3 Characteristics of China's Revolutionary War
Section 1The importance of this issue
People who do not recognize, do not know, or do not want to know that the characteristics of the Chinese Revolutionary War regard the Red Army's combat against the Kuomintang army as the same as the general war, or the same as the Soviet civil war. The experience of the Soviet Civil War led by Lenin Stalin has worldly significance. All Communists, the Communist Party of China, are guided by this experience and Lenin Stalin's theory of this experience.But this does not mean that we should use this experience mechanically under our conditions. Many aspects of China's revolutionary war have their own characteristics that are different from the Soviet civil war. It is certainly wrong to not estimate or deny this characteristic. This has been fully demonstrated in our decade of war.
Our enemies have made similar mistakes. They do not admit that fighting with the Red Army requires different strategies and tactics than other operations. They rely on their advantages in all aspects, despise us and stick to their old tactics. This was the fourth "encirclement and suppression" period of the enemy in 1933 and the situation before it, and the result was that they had suffered successive failures. The first thing that put forward new opinions on this issue in the Kuomintang army was the reactionary general of the Kuomintang, Liu Weiyuan, and later Dai Yue. In the end, their opinions were adopted by Chiang Kai-shek. This is the process of the emergence of Chiang Kai-shek's Lushan Officer Training Corps [9] and its reactionary new military principles [10] implemented in the fifth "encirclement and suppression".
However, when the enemy changed its military principles to make it suitable for combat with the Red Army, people who returned to "old-fashioned" appeared in our team. They advocated going back to the general situation, refusing to understand any special situation, rejecting the experience of the Red Army's bloody battle history, despising the power of imperialism and the Kuomintang, despising the power of the Kuomintang army, and turning a blind eye to the new reactionary principles adopted by the enemy. As a result, all revolutionary bases except the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region were lost, reducing the Red Army from 300,000 to tens of thousands, reducing the Communist Party of China from 300,000 to tens of thousands, and almost all party organizations in the Kuomintang area were lost. In short, it was a huge historic punishment. They call themselves Marxist-Leninists, but in fact they have not learned any Marxist-Leninism. Lenin said: The most essential thing of Marxism, the living soul of Marxism, lies in analyzing the specific situation in detail [11]. These comrades have forgotten this.
This shows that without understanding the characteristics of China's revolutionary war, one cannot guide the Chinese revolutionary war, and one cannot guide the Chinese revolutionary war to the path to victory.
Section 2 What are the characteristics of the Chinese revolutionary war
Then, what are the characteristics of the Chinese revolutionary war?
I think there are four main characteristics.
The first feature is that China is a semi-colonial power with unbalanced political and economic development, and has also gone through the revolution from 1924 to 1927.
This feature points out that the Chinese revolutionary war has the possibility of development and victory. When some of the comrades in Jinggangshan, the border area of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, raised the question of "how long does the red flag last?", we pointed it out (the first congress of the Hunan-Jiangxi border party [12]). Because this is a most basic question, we cannot go further without answering the question of whether the Chinese revolutionary base and the Chinese Red Army can exist and develop. In 1928, the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China [13] responded to this question again. The Chinese revolutionary movement has since had a correct theoretical basis.
Let this problem be taken separately:
China's political and economic development is unbalanced - a weak capitalist economy and a serious semi-feudal economy exist at the same time, several modern industrial and commercial cities and stagnant rural areas exist at the same time, millions of industrial workers and tens of millions of farmers and handicraft workers under the rule of the old system exist at the same time, the large warlords who manage the central government and the small warlords who manage the provinces exist at the same time, and the reactionary army includes the so-called Central Army affiliated to Chiang Kai-shek and the so-called miscellaneous army affiliated to warlords of various provinces. Several railway, airline, automobile roads and common wheelbarrows, roads that can only be walked with their feet and roads that are difficult to walk with their feet.
China is a semi-colonial country-the inconsistency of imperialism affects the inconsistency among Chinese ruling groups. There is a difference between semi-colonial countries dominated by several countries and colonies dominated by one country.
China is a big country - "If the east is not bright, the west is bright, the south is bright", and there is a north if it is dark", so there is no room for maneuver.
China has undergone a great revolution - the seeds of the Red Army were prepared, the leader of the Red Army, the Communist Party, and the people who participated in the revolution were prepared.
So we say that China is a semi-colonial country that has undergone a revolution, has unbalanced political and economic development, which is the first feature of China's revolutionary war. This feature not only basically stipulates our political strategies and tactics, but also basically stipulates our military strategies and tactics.
The second feature is the strength of the enemy.
What is the situation of the Kuomintang, the enemy of the Red Army? It is the party that seized power and relatively stabilized its regime. It received assistance from major counter-revolutionary countries around the world. It has transformed its army - it is different from the army of any historical era in China, but is generally the same as the army of modern countries in the world. The supply of weapons and other military supplies is much stronger than that of the Red Army, and its number of troops is greater than that of any historical era in China and the standing army of any country in the world. Its army is really a world of difference compared to the Red Army. It controls the hub or lifeline of politics, economy, transportation and culture in China, and its regime is a national regime.
The Chinese Red Army is in front of such a powerful enemy. This is the second feature of China's revolutionary war. This feature makes the Red Army's operations different from the general wars, the Soviet Civil War and the Northern Expedition.
The third characteristic is the weakness of the Red Army.
The Chinese Red Army was born after the failure of the First Great Revolution and started with the guerrillas. It is not only in the reactionary period of China, but also in the period when the reactionary capitalist countries in the world are relatively stable in politics and economy.
Our regime is a scattered and isolated mountain or remote regime without any external aid. The economic and cultural conditions of the revolutionary base areas are lagging behind those of the Kuomintang. The revolutionary base areas only have rural areas and small cities. The area was very small at first, but not very large later. Moreover, the base areas were unstable; the Red Army had no real base areas to consolidate.
The number of the Red Army is small, the weapons of the Red Army are poor, and the supply of materials such as food, clothing, etc. is very difficult.
This feature is a sharp contrast with the previous feature. The Red Army's strategy and tactics took place in this sharp contrast.
The fourth feature is the leadership of the Communist Party and the agrarian revolution.
This feature is the inevitable result of the first feature. This characteristic creates two situations. On the one hand, although the Chinese Revolutionary War was in a reactionary period in China and the capitalist world, it was able to win because it had the leadership of the Communist Party and the assistance of the peasants. Although the base area is small, it has great political power. It is in opposition to the huge Kuomintang regime and has given great military difficulties to the Kuomintang's attack because we have the assistance of farmers. Although the Red Army was small, it had strong combat power because the Red Army personnel under the leadership of the Communist Party were born from the agrarian revolution and fought for their own interests, and there was political consistency between the commander and the fighter.
On the other hand, it is in sharp contrast with the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang opposed the agrarian revolution and therefore had no aid from farmers. Although its army is large, it cannot make the soldiers and many lower-level cadres from small producers consciously fight for the Kuomintang. There are political differences between the officers and soldiers, which reduces its combat effectiveness.
Section 3 This produces our strategy and tactics
After a great revolution, a semi-colonial power with political and economic imbalance, powerful enemies, weak Red Army, and agrarian revolution—these are the four main characteristics of the Chinese revolutionary war. These characteristics stipulate the guiding line of China's revolutionary war and its many strategic and tactical principles. The first and fourth characteristics stipulate the possible development of the Chinese Red Army and the possibility of defeating its enemies.The second and third characteristics stipulate that the Chinese Red Army's inability to develop quickly and the impossible to defeat its enemies quickly is stipulated that the war lasts, and if it is not done well, it may fail.
This is the two aspects of the Chinese revolutionary war. These two aspects exist at the same time, that is, there are both smooth conditions and difficult conditions. This is the fundamental law of the Chinese revolutionary war, and many laws occur from this fundamental law. Our decade of war history proves the correctness of this law. Whoever opens his eyes and cannot see these fundamental laws will not be able to guide China's revolutionary war, and whoever can't make the Red Army win the battle.
It is obvious that the strategic direction is correctly stipulated, oppose adventurism when attacking, oppose conservatism when defense, and oppose fugitive when transferring; oppose guerrillaism in the Red Army, but also recognize the guerrilla nature of the Red Army; oppose protracted wars in the battles and quick decisive wars in the strategy, recognize the protracted wars in the strategy and quick decisive wars in the battles; oppose fixed battles and positional wars, recognize non-fixed battles in the battles; oppose defeat wars, recognize annihilation wars; oppose two fistisms in the strategic direction, recognize one fistism; oppose large rear system, recognize small rear system; oppose absolutely The right centralized command recognizes relative centralized command; opposes simple military views and banditism [14], recognizes the Red Army as the propagandist and organizer of the Chinese revolution; opposes banditism [15], recognizes serious political discipline; opposes warlordism, recognizes restricted democratic life and authoritarian military discipline; opposes incorrect sectarian cadre policies, recognizes correct cadre policies; opposes isolation policies, recognizes all possible allies; and finally, opposes pausing the Red Army to the old stage and striving for the development of the Red Army to a new stage - all these principles require correct resolution. The strategic issue we are going to talk about now is to explain these issues carefully based on the experience of the ten-year bloody war history of the Chinese Revolutionary War.
Chapter 4 "Encirclement and suppression" and anti-"encirclement and suppression" - the main form of Chinese civil war
For ten years, from the day when the guerrilla war began, any independent red guerrillas or Red Army, or any revolutionary base area often encounters the enemy's "encirclement and suppression". The enemy regarded the Red Army as a foreign object and wanted to capture it as soon as it appeared. The enemy always followed the Red Army and always surrounded it. This form has not changed in the past decade. Without the national war instead of civil war, then this form will not change until the day the enemy becomes the weak and the Red Army becomes the powerful.
The activities of the Red Army adopted the form of anti-"encirclement and suppression". The so-called victory mainly refers to the victory of the anti-"encirclement and suppression", which is the victory of strategy and battle. Opposing a "encirclement and suppression" is a battle, often organized by several or even dozens of battles. Before a "encirclement and suppression" was basically broken, even if many battles were won, it cannot be said that they had already won strategically or in the entire battle. The ten-year history of the Red Army’s war is a history of anti-"encirclement and suppression".
The enemy's "encirclement and suppression" and the Red Army's anti-"encirclement and suppression" adopt two forms of battles: offense and defense, which is no different from the wars between ancient and modern times, China and abroad. However, the characteristics of China's civil war are due to the long-term repetition of the two. During a "encirclement and suppression", the enemy attacked against the Red Army's defense, and the Red Army defended against the enemy's attack. This was the first stage of the anti-encirclement and suppression campaign. The enemy defended against the attack of the Red Army, and the Red Army defended against the enemy with attack. This was the second stage of the anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign. Any "encirclement and suppression" includes these two stages, and it is repeated for a long time.
Saying long-term repetition means repetition of war and combat forms. This is a fact, anyone can tell at a glance. "Encirclement and suppression" and anti-"encirclement and suppression" are the repetition of war forms. The first stage of the enemy defending us with attack, the second stage of the enemy defending us with attack, the second stage of the enemy defending us with attack, and the second stage of the enemy defending us with attack, is the repetition of the battle form in every "encirclement and suppression".
As for the content of war and battle, it is not simply repeated, but different each time. This is also a fact, anyone can tell at a glance. The rule here is that the scale of "encirclement and suppression" and anti-encirclement and suppression is larger and larger, the situation is more complicated and the battle is more intense.
However, it is not without ups and downs. After the fifth "encirclement and suppression", the Red Army was greatly weakened and all the southern bases were lost. The Red Army moved to the northwest, not in the most important position to threaten the domestic enemies as in the south. The scale, situation and combat of the "encirclement and suppression" were smaller, simpler, and more eased.
What was the failure of the Red Army? Strategically speaking, only if the anti-"encirclement and suppression" has not been successful at all is called failure, and it can only be called local and temporary failure. Because the fundamental failure of the civil war is the destruction of the entire Red Army, however, there is no such fact. The loss of the vast base areas and the transfer of the Red Army were temporary and partial failures, not eternal and complete failures, although this part included 90% of the party, army and base areas. We call this fact the continuation of defense, and the enemy's pursuit the continuation of attack. This means that in the struggle between "encirclement and suppression" and anti-encirclement and suppression, we did not turn from defense to attack, but instead broke our defense by the enemy's attack, our defense became retreat, and the enemy's attack became pursuit. However, when the Red Army arrived in a new area, for example, we moved from Jiangxi and other places to Shaanxi, the repeated "encirclement and suppression" appeared again. So we say that the strategic retreat of the Red Army (Long March) is the continuation of the Red Army's strategic defense, and the strategic pursuit of the enemy is the continuation of the enemy's strategic offensive.
The Chinese civil war is the same as any war between ancient and modern times, both in China and abroad, and the basic combat form is only two types of offense and defense. The characteristics of China's civil war are the long-term repetition of two types of combat, namely "encirclement and suppression" and the long-term repetition of offense and defense, and include a great strategic transfer of more than 10,000 kilometers at a time (Long March) [16].
The same is true for the so-called failure of the enemy. Their strategic failure is that their "encirclement and suppression" was broken by us, our defense became an offensive, and the enemy moved to a defensive position, and we must reorganize to have another "encirclement and suppression". The enemy does not have the same situation as we call a strategic transfer of more than 10,000 kilometers, because they are national rulers and they are much stronger than us. However, some things have happened. The enemy in several base areas, which were besieged by the Red Army, broke out and retreated to the white area to reorganize the attack. This happened. If the Civil War was extended and the Red Army's victory was wider, this would have increased. But their results cannot be compared with the Red Army, because they do not have people's assistance and the officers and soldiers are inconsistent. If they also learn from the Red Army's long-distance transfer, they will definitely be eliminated.
During the Lisan Line period in 1930, Comrade Li Lisan did not understand the persistence of China's civil war, so he could not see the long-term and repeated laws of "encirclement and suppression" and "encirclement and suppression" in the development of China's civil war (at that time there were three "encirclement and suppression" on the Hunan-Jiangxi border [17], two "encirclement and suppression" in Fujian [18], etc.). Therefore, when the Red Army was still young, it ordered the Red Army to fight Wuhan and ordered the nation to hold an armed uprising in an attempt to win the national revolution quickly. This makes the mistake of "left" opportunism.
The "left" opportunism from 1931 to 1934 does not believe in the repeated rule of "encirclement and suppression". There is a so-called "partial division" in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border base area [19]. Some leaders there believe that the Kuomintang after the failure of the third "encirclement and suppression" [20] was just a partial division. To attack the Red Army, imperialism must take the lead in taking on the main force. The strategic policy under this estimate is to fight Wuhan.This is consistent in principle with some comrades in Jiangxi calling on the Red Army to fight Nanchang, opposing the work of connecting the base areas, opposing the battle to lure the enemy into depth, putting the victory of a province on the basis of seizing the provincial capital and central cities, and believing that "opposing the five 'encirclement and suppression' is a decisive battle on the revolutionary road and the colonial road", etc. This "left" opportunism planted the wrong line in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border region opposed the fourth "encirclement and suppression" [21] and the Jiangxi Central District opposed the fifth "encirclement and suppression" struggle, forcing the Red Army to be incompetent in the face of the serious "encirclement and suppression" of the enemy, causing great losses to the Chinese revolution.
The direct connection with the "leftist" opportunism that denies the repeated "encirclement and suppression", and it is also completely incorrect to say that the Red Army should not adopt defensive measures at all.
Revolution and revolutionary wars are offensive—this statement has its correctness. From the occurrence to the development, from small to large, from the lack of power to the seizure of power, from the lack of the Red Army to the creation of the Red Army, from the lack of revolutionary bases to the creation of the revolutionary bases, we always have to attack, and we cannot be conservative, and the tendency of conservatism should be opposed.
Revolution and revolutionary wars are offensive, but there are also defenses and retreats - this statement is completely correct. Defensive for attack, retreat for advancement, side for front and side for straight roads, are inevitable phenomena in the process of development of many things, let alone military movements.
The previous statement among the above two statements can be correct politically, but it will be wrong to move it to the military. Politically, it is just right in one situation (when the revolution advances), and it is wrong to move to another situation (when the revolution retreats: all retreats, such as Russia in 1906 [22], China in 1927; partial retreats, such as Russia in 1918 Brest Treaty [23]). Only the latter conclusion is the correct truth. The "left" opportunism from 1931 to 1934 mechanically opposed the use of military defense means, but was just a very naive idea.
When will the repeated form of "encirclement and suppression" end? In my opinion, if the civil war is extended, it is when the strength of the enemy and us have changed fundamentally. If the Red Army changes to being stronger than its own enemies, then this repetition will end. At that time, we encircled and suppressed the enemy, and the enemy attempted to counter-encircle and suppress the enemy, but the political and military conditions would not allow the enemy to gain the same status as the Red Army as the Red Army. At that time, the "encirclement and suppression" repeated this form. Even if it was not said to be completely over, the general end could be asserted.
Chapter 5 Strategic Defense
In this question, I want to explain the following issues: (1) Active defense and passive defense; (2) Preparation for counter-"encirclement and suppression"; (3) Strategic retreat; (4) Strategic counter-offensive; (5) Problem of the start of counter-offensive; (6) Concentration of troops; (7) Mobile war; (8) Speedy decisive battle; (9) Annihilation war.
Section 1: Active defense and passive defense
: Why start with defense? After the failure of China's first national united front from 1924 to 1927, the revolution became a very profound and cruel class war. The enemy is the ruler of the country, and we only have a little force, so we started with the enemy's "encirclement and suppression". Our offense is closely linked to breaking the "encirclement and suppression". The fate of our development depends entirely on whether we can break the "encirclement and suppression". The process of breaking the "encirclement and suppression" is often tortuous, not straightforward. First and the serious problem is how to preserve strength and standby to defeat the enemy. Therefore, the issue of strategic defense has become the most complex and important issue in the Red Army's operations.
In our decade-old war, two tendencies often occur when it comes to strategic defense issues. One is to despise the enemy, and the other is to be frightened by the enemy.
Because of despising the enemy, many guerrillas failed, and the Red Army's "encirclement and suppression" of several enemies could not be broken.
The revolutionary guerrillas first started, and leaders often viewed the situation between the enemy and us incorrectly.They saw themselves victorious with a sudden armed uprising in one place, or mutiny from the White Army, and the temporary environment was smooth, or they could not see it despite the serious environment, so they often despise the enemy. On the other hand, I don’t understand my own weaknesses (no experience and weak power). The enemy is strong and we are weak, which is an objective phenomenon, but people are unwilling to think about it. They only talk about attack, not defense and retreat, and mentally disarm the defense, thus leading the action to the wrong direction. Many guerrillas failed because of this.
The Red Army cannot break the "encirclement and suppression" for the same reason, there is the failure of the Red Army in Hailufeng District, Guangdong in 1928 [24], and the Red Army in Hubei, Henan and Anhui Border Region in 1932, under the guidance of the so-called Kuomintang partial division theory, which made the opposition to the fourth "encirclement and suppression" lose its ability to deal with Yuru.
There are many examples of frustration caused by the enemy being frightened.
In contrast to those who underestimate the enemy, people value the enemy too much and look down on themselves too much, so they adopt an unnecessary retreat policy and mentally disarm the defense. As a result, either the failure of the guerrillas, the failure of certain battles of the Red Army, or the loss of base areas.
The most prominent example of losing a base is the loss of the central base in Jiangxi during the opposition to the fifth "encirclement and suppression". The errors here arise from a right-leaning point of view. The leaders were afraid of the enemy as if they were like tigers, and they set up defenses everywhere and resisted step by step. They did not dare to launch an attack that was originally favorable to attack the enemy's rear, nor did they dare to let the enemy go deeper, gathered and annihilated it. As a result, they lost the entire base, causing the Red Army to carry out a Long March of more than 12,000 kilometers. However, this kind of mistake often leads to the mistake of "left" underestimating the enemy. The military adventurism that attacked the central city in 1932 was the root cause of the negative defensive route later adopted in the fifth "encirclement and suppression" against the enemy.
The extreme example of being scared by the enemy is the retreat-oriented "Zhang Guotao Line". The failure of the Western Route Army of the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army to the west of the Yellow River [25] was the final bankruptcy of this route.
Active defense, also known as offensive defense, also known as decisive defense. Passive defense is also called special defense, also known as simple defense. Passive defense is actually fake defense. Only active defense is real defense, and defense for counterattack and offensive. As far as I know, any valuable military book, any smart military strategist, and no matter ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, regardless of strategy or tactics, does not oppose passive defense. Only the stupidest person, or the arrogant person, has adopted passive defense as a magic weapon. However, there are people like this in the world who do such things. This is a fault in the war and a military manifestation of conservatism, and we should firmly oppose it.
The imperialist countries that have risen and developed rapidly, namely the military families of Germany and Japan, actively advocate the interests of strategic offensives and oppose strategic defense. This kind of idea is simply not in line with the Chinese revolutionary war. German-Japanese imperialist military strategists pointed out that an important weakness of defense is that they cannot inspire people, but instead shake people's hearts. This means that the class contradiction is fierce, and the interests of war only belong to the reactionary ruling class and even the reactionary power-based state. Our situation is different. Under the slogan of defending the revolutionary base and defending China, we are able to unite the most people to fight together because we are oppressed and invaded. During the Soviet Civil War, the Red Army also defeated the enemy under defensive form. Their war was not only carried out when the imperialist countries organized the attack of the White Party, but also under the slogan of defending the Soviet Union, but also under the slogan of defending the capital during the preparations of the October uprising. The defensive war of all just wars not only has the effect of paralyzing political dissidents, but also mobilizes backward people to join the war.
Marx said that the attack should not be stopped for a moment after an armed uprising [26]. This means that the masses who suddenly revolt while taking advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness should not allow reactionary rulers to have the opportunity to conserve the regime or restore the regime. Take this moment to catch the reactionary ruling forces in the country off guard, and do not be satisfied with the victory you have already won, despise the enemy, relax their attacks on the enemy, or shrink back, and lose the opportunity to destroy the enemy, which leads to the failure of the revolution. that's right. However, it is not to say that the enemy and us are already in military confrontation, and the enemy is the advantage, and when oppressed by the enemy, the revolutionaries should not take defensive measures. If you think so, you will be the number one fool.
Our past wars were entirely attacking the Kuomintang, but they adopted the form of breaking the "encirclement and suppression" militarily.
Military, our war is an alternating application of defense and offense. For us, it is okay to say that the attack is after defense, or before defense, because the key is to break the "encirclement and suppression". "Encirclement and suppression" was not broken before, but the "encirclement and suppression" began to attack once it was broken. It was only two stages of a matter, and the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" and its "encirclement and suppression" are connected. Among these two stages, the defense stage is more complex and more important than the offensive stage. This stage contains many problems of how to break the "encirclement and suppression". The basic principle is to recognize active defense and oppose passive defense.
From the civil war, if the Red Army's strength exceeds the enemy, then there is generally no need for strategic defense. The policy at that time was just a strategic offensive. This change depends on the overall change in the power of our enemies. By then, the remaining defense measures were only partial things.
Section 2 Preparation for the anti-"encirclement and suppression"
For the enemy's planned "encirclement and suppression", if we do not have necessary and sufficient preparations, we will inevitably fall into a passive position. If you take the fight in a hurry, you will not be sure of victory. Therefore, it is completely necessary to prepare for our anti-"encirclement and suppression" while preparing for the enemy. The opinions of opposition preparedness that have happened in our team are childish and ridiculous.
There is a difficult problem here, which is prone to debate. That is, when will we end our offensive and enter the preparation stage for anti-"encirclement and suppression"? Because when we are in a victorious attack and the enemy is in a defensive position, the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" preparations are carried out secretly, and it is difficult for us to know when they will start the attack. Our work to prepare for the anti-"encirclement and suppression" began early, and inevitably reduced the interests of the offensive, and sometimes gave several adverse effects to the Red Army and the people. Because the main steps in the preparation stage are military preparation for retreat and political mobilization for retreat. Sometimes when you prepare too early, it will become waiting for the enemy; after waiting for a long time, the enemy will have to launch a new attack in the future. Sometimes our re-attack just started, and we happened to meet the beginning of the enemy's attack, putting ourselves in a difficult position. Therefore, the choice of timing to start preparing has become an important issue. To determine this opportunity, we must focus on the situation between the enemy and us and the relationship between the two. In order to understand the enemy's situation, we must collect materials from the enemy's political, military, financial and social opinions. When analyzing these materials, you must sufficiently estimate the entire enemy's strength. You must not exaggerate the degree of the enemy's past failure, but you must never miscalculate the contradictions within the enemy, financial difficulties, the impact of past failures, etc. For oneself, you must not exaggerate the degree of past victory, but you must never fail to estimate the impact of past victory.
However, the timing of starting preparation is generally more difficult than to lose too late. Because the latter's losses are smaller than the former, and their interests are to be prepared for any trouble and be fundamentally invincible.
The main problems in the preparation stage are the preparation of the Red Army, political mobilization, recruitment of new recruits, preparations for finance and food, and disposal of political dissidents.
The so-called Red Army’s preparation for retreat means not to make the Red Army in a direction that is not conducive to retreat, do not attack too far, and do not make the Red Army too tired. This is the necessary disposal of the main Red Army on the eve of the enemy's large-scale attack. At this time, the Red Army's attention should be mainly focused on creating the battlefield, collecting funds, expanding itself and training itself.
Political mobilization is the first important issue in the fight against "encirclement and suppression". This means that we will clearly, resolutely and fully tell the Red Army personnel and the people in the base area about the inevitability and urgency of the enemy's attack, the seriousness of the enemy's attack endangering the people, and at the same time, about the enemy's weaknesses, the excellent conditions of the Red Army, our willingness to win, the direction of our work, etc. The Red Army and the entire people were called on to fight against "encirclement and suppression" and defend the base areas. Apart from military secrets, political mobilization must be made public and strive to be popularized to everyone who may support the interests of the revolution. The important joint is to convince cadres.
Recruiting new recruits must start from two aspects: on the one hand, considering the people's political awareness and population situation; on the other hand, considering the situation of the Red Army at that time and the possible limits of the Red Army's consumption in the entire anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign.
Financial and food issues needless to say that they are of great significance to opposing the "encirclement and suppression". We must take into account the possibility of extending the "encirclement and suppression" time. It should be calculated that the main thing is the Red Army, and the people in the revolutionary base areas have the minimum required material resources in the entire anti-"encirclement and suppression" struggle.
When political dissidents, you should not be unwarranted from them; but you should not be too afraid of their betrayal and take excessive warning measures. There should be differences between landlords, merchants, and rich peasants, mainly to explain to them politically, strive for them to be neutral, and organize the people to monitor them. Only a very small number of the most dangerous elements can severe measures be used, such as arrests.
The degree of victory in the anti-"encirclement and suppression" struggle is closely related to the degree of completion of tasks in the preparation stage. The relaxation of preparation that occurs due to underestimating the enemy and the panic that occurs due to being frightened by the enemy's attack are all bad tendencies that should be firmly opposed. What we need is a warm and calm mood, a tense and orderly work.
Section 3 Strategic retreat
Strategic retreat is a planned strategic step taken by the disadvantaged army in the face of the attack of the superior army, because considering that it cannot quickly defeat its attack, in order to preserve its military strength and wait for the opportunity to defeat the enemy, it is a planned strategic step. However, military adventurists firmly oppose this step, and their claim is the so-called "defending enemies outside the country."
No one knows that two boxers are right, smart boxers often give in, while stupid people are aggressive and use all their skills when they turn their heads off, but they are often defeated by the give in.
Teacher Hong in "Water Margin" wanted to beat Lin Chong at Chai Jin's house, and called several "come", "come" in a row. As a result, Lin Chong, who was giving in, saw the flaws of coach Hong and kicked over coach Hong [27].
In the Spring and Autumn Period, Lu and Qi were fighting [28]. At first, Duke Zhuang of Lu had to go to fight without waiting for the Qi army to be exhausted, but later he was stopped by Cao Gui and adopted the policy of "the enemy was exhausted and we fought" to defeat the Qi army, creating a famous battle example in the history of China's war. Please read the narrative of the historian Zuo Qiuming [29]:
"Spring, Qi army attacked me. The Duke was about to fight. Cao Gui asked to see him. The villagers said, "Where are those who eat meat to plan for it?" Kui said, "The meat to eat is despised and cannot make far-reaching plans. Then he came to see him. Question: Why fight? Duke said, "If you don't dare to concentrate on food and clothing, you must divide people." Reply: "Small favors have not been spread, and the people will not follow. Duke said, "If you sacrifice jade and silk, you will not dare to add it. You must trust it." Reply: If you don't believe in the small faith, you will not be blessed." Reply: If you don't believe in the small faith, you will not be blessed. . The Duke said: Even if the prison of the small and big cannot be observed, it must be based on emotions. He replied: "Zhen Zhong is a member. You can fight one time. If you fight, please follow him. The Duke took advantage of it. Fighted at Changshao. The Duke was about to drum it. The Duke said: It is not possible. The Qi people drum three times. The Duke said: It is okay. The Qi army was defeated. The Duke was about to jump. The Duke said: It is not possible. He looked down at the stroke, climbed the train and looked at it, and said: It is okay. Then he chased the Qi army. After defeating, the Duke asked the reason. He replied: "Fighting is courage. One drum was made, and the other was declining, and the three were exhausted. He exhausted me, so he defeated him.A great country is difficult to predict, so I am afraid of being underestimated. I saw that the rules were chaotic and saw that the flag was weak, so I chased them. ”[30]
The situation at that time was that weak countries resisted strong countries. The article pointed out the political preparations before the war - winning the trust of the people, and described the position that was conducive to the transition to the counterattack - Changshao, and described the opportunity that was conducive to the start of the counterattack - when they were exhausted, and described the opportunity that was the beginning of the pursuit - when the flag was chaotic. Although it was a small battle, it also talked about the principle of strategic defense. There are many examples of victory in China's war history. The Battle between Chu and Han and Chenggao[31], New Han The battle of Kunyang [32], the battle of Yuan and Cao Guandu [33], the battle of Chibi in Wu and Wei [34], the battle of Yiling in Wu and Shu [35], the battle of Feishui in Qin and Jin [36] and other famous battles are all different in strengths and weaknesses. The weak give in first and then take action, and thus defeat them.
Our war started in the autumn of 1927, and there was no experience at that time. Nanchang Uprising [37] and Guangzhou Uprising [38] failed, and the autumn harvest Uprising [39] troops in the border areas of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi. , and several defeats were also fought and moved to the Jinggangshan area on the border of Hunan-Jiangxi. In April of the following year, the troops preserved after the failure of the Nanchang Uprising were also transferred to Jinggangshan through southern Hunan. However, starting from May 1928, the basic principles of guerrilla warfare with a simple nature that adapted to the situation at that time had emerged, that is, the so-called "the enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy garrisons will disturb me, the enemy is tired, and I will fight, the enemy retreats and I will chase me." The military principle of this 16-character rule was recognized by the central government before the establishment of the third line. Later, our combat principles There was further development. When the Jiangxi base area first anti-"encirclement and suppression" was launched, the policy of "tempting the enemy to go deeper" was proposed and successfully applied. By the third "encirclement and suppression" to defeat the enemy, the principles of all Red Army combat were formed. This was a new stage of military principles, with great enrichment of content and many changes in the form, mainly surpassing the simplicity of the past, but the basic principle is still the sixteen-character formula. The sixteen-character formula incorporates the basic principles of anti-"encirclement and suppression" and the strategy The two stages of defense and strategic offensive include two stages of strategic retreat and strategic counterattack during defense. What happened later was just its development.
However, since January 1932, after the party's "three 'encirclements' were crushed and fought for the first victory of several provinces" that contained serious principles and errors, the "left" opportunists fought against the correct principles, and finally revoked a set of correct principles and established another set of opposites. It is called "new principle", or "formal principle". From then on, things that were formerly could not be called formal, that is "guerrillaism" that should be denied. The air of anti-guerrillaism ruled for three whole years. The first stage was military adventurism, the second stage turned to military conservatism, and finally, the third stage, it became escapism. It was not until the Party Central Committee held an expanded Politburo meeting in Zunyi, Guizhou in January 1935 that the bankruptcy of this wrong line was declared and the righteousness of the past line was re-recognized. Accuracy. What a great price to get it!
Comrades who vigorously opposed "guerrillaism" said: It is wrong to lure the enemy into depth, and they gave up many places. Although they have won battles in the past, isn't it different from the past? And isn't it better to defeat the enemy without giving up land? Isn't it better to defeat the enemy in the enemy area or at the junction of our area? Things in the past have no formality, they are just ways to use guerrillas. Now our country It has been established, and our Red Army has been formalized. Our battle with Chiang Kai-shek is a battle between the state and the state, and the army is a battle with the army. History should not be repeated, and all things of "guerrillaism" should be abandoned. The new principle is "complete Marxism". Things in the past were produced by guerrillas in the mountains, and there is no Marxism in the mountains. The new principle is contrary to this: "One should be ten, ten should be a hundred, brave and courageous, and catch up with the victory", "attack the whole line", "capture the central city", "two fists hit people".When the enemy attacks, the way to deal with it is to "defend the enemy outside the country", "take the initiative first", "not destroy the jars and jars", "not lose inches of land", "dividing troops from six directions"; it is a "decisive battle between the revolutionary road and the colonial road"; it is a short-term assault, a fortress war, a war of attrition, and a "protracted war"; it is a rear-levelism, an absolute centralized command; and finally, it is a large-scale moving. And whoever does not admit these will be punished, plus the title of opportunism, and so on.
Absolutely, all the theory and practice are wrong. This is subjectivism. This is a manifestation of the revolutionary fanaticism and revolutionary acute diseases of the petty bourgeoisie when the environment is smooth; when the environment is difficult, it will change into death, conservatism and escapism according to the changes in the situation. This is the theory and practice of reckless people and laymen, something that has no Marxism at all, it is something that is anti-Marxist.
This is just about strategic retreat. Jiangxi is called "tempting the enemy into deeper" and Sichuan is called "tightening the position." The former military theorists and practicalists also admitted that this was a policy that weak troops must adopt at the beginning of the war when fighting against strong troops. Foreign military strategists once said: "In the strategic defensive operation, most people first avoid unfavorable decisive battles, so that they can seek decisive battles in favorable situations." This is completely correct, and we have not increased any of this.
The purpose of strategic retreat is to preserve military strength and prepare for a counterattack. The reason why retreat is necessary is that if you are in the face of a strong enemy's attack, if you do not make any compromise, it will endanger the preservation of military strength. In the past, many people firmly opposed retreat, believing that this is an "opportunistic simple defensive line." Our history has proved that this objection is completely wrong.
To prepare for a counterattack, you must choose and create several conditions that are beneficial to me and not conducive to the enemy, so that the balance of enemy and us will change, and then enter the counterattack stage.
In our past situation, we must obtain at least two of the following conditions in the retreat stage to be considered to be beneficial to me and to enable ourselves to enter a counterattack. These conditions are:
(I) Actively assist the people of the Red Army;
(II) Positions that are favorable to combat;
(III) All concentration of the main forces of the Red Army;
(IV) Discover the weak part of the enemy;
(V) Fatigue and frustrate the enemy;
(V) Make the enemy wrong.
The people's condition is the most important condition for the Red Army. This is the conditions of the base. And due to this condition, the fourth, fifth, sixth and other conditions are also easily caused or discovered. Therefore, when the enemy attacked the Red Army in large quantities, the Red Army always retreated from the White District to the base area, because the people in the base area were the most actively assisting the Red Army in opposing the White Army. There are also differences between the marginal areas and the central areas of the base area; for blockade of information, reconnaissance, transportation, participation in war, etc., it is better for the people in the central area to compare the marginal areas. Therefore, when Jiangxi opposed the first, second and third "encirclement and suppression" in the past, they all chose areas with the best or better people's conditions. Based on this characteristic of the land, the Red Army's operations made great changes in the more general operations, and it was also the main reason why the enemy had to adopt fortificationism later [40].
The retreating army can choose its favorable position as it wants, forcing the attacking army to reach my range. This is an excellent condition for internal combat. If a weak army wants to defeat a strong army, it must pay attention to the condition of position. But having this condition alone is not enough, and other conditions are required to cooperate with it. First of all, it is the people's conditions. In addition, it is also necessary to fight enemies, such as the enemy is tired, or has made mistakes, or the enemy advancing on that road is relatively lacking in combat effectiveness. When these conditions are not met, even if they have a good position, they have to ignore them and continue to retreat to meet the conditions they want. The white area has no excellent positions, but no excellent people's conditions. If other conditions have not been caused or discovered, the Red Army has to retreat to the base. The difference between the marginal area and the central area of the base area is generally the case.
Apart from local troops and squeezing forces, all assault forces are based on the principle of concentration.The Red Army is often dispersed as we attack the strategically defensive enemy. Once the enemy attacks us in a large scale, the Red Army will implement the so-called "seeking the heart to retreat." The end point of retreat is often chosen in the middle of the base area; but sometimes it is in the front and sometimes it is in the rear, which is determined according to the situation. This kind of retreat can completely concentrate all the main forces of the Red Army.
Another necessary condition for a weak army to fight a strong army is to pick the weak and fight. However, when the enemy starts to attack, we often do not know which unit of the enemy is the strongest, which unit is the strongest, which unit is the weakest, and which unit is the weakest, which unit is the weakest, which unit is the weakest, which unit is the reconnaissance process. It often takes a lot of time to achieve this goal. This is also a reason for strategic retreat.
If the number and intensity of the attacking enemy exceed our army far in terms of quantity and strength, we require that the comparison of strength and weakness will change, and we can only achieve our goal when the enemy goes deep into the base area and eats up all the hardships of the base area, just like the chief of staff of a certain brigade of Chiang Kai-shek said during the third "encirclement and suppression", and also like the commander-in-chief of the "encirclement and suppression" army's Western Road Commander-in-Chief Chen Mingshu said, "The national army is dark everywhere, and the Red Army is bright everywhere." At this time, although the enemy is strong, it is greatly weakened; the troops are tired, the morale is depressed, and many weaknesses are exposed. Although the Red Army was weak, it was accumulating energy and waiting for labor. At this time, the comparison between the two sides can often achieve a certain degree of balance, or the absolute advantage of the enemy's army changes to relative advantages, and the absolute disadvantage of our army changes to relative disadvantage, and there are even cases where the enemy is inferior to our army, and our army is superior to the enemy. When Jiangxi opposed the third "encirclement and suppression", the Red Army implemented an extreme retreat (the Red Army was concentrated in the rear of the base area), but it was not possible to defeat the enemy, because the "encirclement and suppression" army at that time was more than ten times more than the Red Army. What grandson said, "avoid their sharpness and return to their laziness" [41] means to make the enemy tired and depressed in order to reduce their advantage.
The last requirement for retreat is to cause and discover the enemy's fault. It is not possible for any wise enemy commander to make a little mistake for a long time, so the possibility of us taking advantage of the enemy's brink always exists. The enemy will make mistakes, just as we ourselves sometimes make mistakes and sometimes give the enemy a chance to take advantage of. Moreover, we can artificially cause the enemy's faults, such as the so-called "showing the form" of grandson (showing the form in the east and hitting the west, which is called "showing the east and hitting the west). To do this, the end of retreat cannot be limited to a certain area. Sometimes when you retreat to the area, you still have no chance to take advantage of, so you have to take a few more steps back and wait for the enemy to take advantage of the "break" you can take advantage of.
The favorable conditions for retreating are roughly as mentioned above. However, it is not to say that these conditions must be fully met before a counterattack can be carried out. It is impossible and unnecessary to meet these conditions at the same time. However, based on the current situation of the enemy, striving for several necessary conditions is what the army with weak enemy strong inside combat should pay attention to, and the objections on this are incorrect.
Where is the final destination for retreat, the entire situation must be used as the starting point. In the eyes of the local situation, it is beneficial to me to turn to a counterattack. If it is not for the eyes of the whole situation, it is incorrect to decide to retreat the end based on this. Because the beginning of a counterattack must be calculated later changes, and our counterattack always starts from a local level. Sometimes the end of retreat should be chosen in the front of the base area, such as the second and fourth anti-encirclement and suppression of Jiangxi, and the third anti-encirclement and suppression of Shaanxi and Gansu. Sometimes it must be in the middle of the base area, such as when Jiangxi first anti-"encirclement and suppression" was launched. Sometimes it is in the back of the base area, such as when Jiangxi's third anti-"encirclement and suppression" was launched. These are all determined by connecting the local situation to the entire situation. The fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" in Jiangxi, our army did not retreat at all. The reason is that we do not pay attention to the local situation and the entire situation. It is really a reckless way to destroy the situation. The situation is caused by conditions; observing the connection between the local situation and the entire situation, we should break down whether the conditions held by both the enemy and us at that time were beneficial to our counterattack to a certain extent.
The end point of retreat can be roughly divided into three types in the base area: front, middle and rear.However, are you completely refusing to fight in the white area? No. We refuse to fight in the white area, just referring to dealing with the enemy's large-scale "encirclement and suppression". The strength of the enemy and us is very different. Only when we preserve the principle of defending the army and waiting for the opportunity to defeat the enemy, we advocate retreating to the base and luring the enemy into depth, because only in this way can we create or discover conditions conducive to counterattack. If the situation is not so serious, or the severity of the situation makes the Red Army unable to start a counterattack in the base area, or if the counterattack is unfavorable, it should be recognized to choose the retreat end in the white area, at least in theory, although we have little such experience in the past.
The end point of the white area retreat can be roughly divided into three types: the first is in front of the base, the second is on the side of the base, and the third is behind the base. The first end point, for example, when Jiangxi's first anti-"encirclement and suppression", if the Red Army did not have internal inconsistency and local party divisions, the two difficult problems of Lisan Line and AB Regiment [42] existed, and it can be imagined that the troops were concentrated between Ji'an, Nanfeng and Zhangshu were concentrated to hold a counterattack. Because the enemy's military strength advanced from Gansu and Fu River [43] at that time was not very advantageous compared to the Red Army (100,000 vs. 40,000). Although the people's conditions are not as good as the base, they have positions, and they can defeat them one by one when they advance in different directions. The second end point, for example, when Jiangxi's third anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, if the scale of the enemy's attack was not that large at that time, and the enemy advanced from Jianning, Lichuan and Taining at the junction of Fujian and Jiangxi, and the power of this journey is suitable for our attack, it can also be imagined that the Red Army is concentrated in the white area in western Fujian, and first breaking this enemy without taking a detour to Ruijin to Xingguo. The third end point is also, for example, when the third anti-"encirclement and suppression" in Jiangxi mentioned above, if the enemy's main force did not go west but south, we might be forced to retreat to Huichang, Xunwu, and Anyuan areas (where it is a white area), and lead the enemy to advance southward, and then the Red Army will attack from south to northward toward the base area. At this time, there will be not many enemy troops in the base area in the north. However, the above explanations are all assumed that if there is no experience, it can be regarded as a special thing, and cannot be regarded as a general principle. For us, when the enemy holds a large-scale "encirclement and suppression", the general principle is to lure the enemy into depth and retreat to the base to fight, because this is the way to break the enemy's attack with the most confidence.
People who advocate "defending the enemy outside the country" oppose strategic retreat because they retreat and lose land, endanger the people (the so-called "breaking jars and jars"), and also have adverse effects on the outside. In the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression", it was said that we took a step back, and the enemy's fortress pushed further, and the base area was frightened and could not recover. If luring the enemy deeper was useful in the past, then the fifth "encirclement and suppression" of fortificationism was useless. To deal with the fifth "encirclement and suppression", we can only use the method of division of troops to resist and short-term assault.
It is easy to answer these opinions, and our history has answered it. Regarding the issue of land loss, there are often cases where only loss can one not lose. This is the principle of "you must first take what you want" [44]. If we lose land, but we gain victory over the enemy, restore land, and expand land, this is a profitable business. In market transactions, if the buyer does not lose money, he cannot obtain goods; if the seller does not lose goods, he cannot obtain money. The losses caused by the revolutionary movement are destruction, while its achievements are progressive construction. Sleep and rest lose time, but gain the energy to work tomorrow. If there is a stupid person who doesn't know this and refuses to sleep, he will lose his energy tomorrow, which will damage his business. This is precisely because of our loss of money during the fifth "encirclement and suppression" period of the enemy. Unwilling to lose part of the land, but as a result, the entire land was lost. The tough battles in Abyssinia also resulted in the loss of the whole country, although this is not only the reason for the failure of Abyssinia.
The same is true for issues that harm the people. If you do not break some jars and jars in some people's homes, you will make all people break jars and jars and jars for a long time. Fearing for temporary adverse political influence comes at the cost of long-term adverse effects.After the October Revolution, if the Russian Bolsheviks refused to grant the German peace treaty in accordance with the opinions of the "left communists", the new Soviets were at risk of premature death.
This "left" opinion that seems to be revolutionary comes from the revolutionary impatient disease of petty bourgeois intellectuals, and also comes from the local conservatism of peasant small producers. They only look at the problem from a part, they have no ability to see the overall situation, they are unwilling to connect today's interests with tomorrow's interests, and they connect part of the interests with all interests, and they will not let go of something that has been killed in a certain period of time. Right, everything that is beneficial to the overall situation and the entire period, especially the decisive part and time, should be seized according to the specific situation at that time, or we will become self-reliant or laissez-faire. This is the reason why retreating requires an end. However, this must not be relied on the myopia of small producers. What we should learn is the intelligence of the Bolsheviks. We do not have enough eyesight and should use telescopes and microscopes. The Marxist approach is to use telescopes and microscopes in politics and military aspects.
Of course, strategic retreat is difficult. The choice of the beginning of retreat, the choice of the end of retreat, and the political persuasion of cadres and the people are all difficult problems and must be solved.
The issue of the timing of retreat is of great significance. If our retreat in Jiangxi's first anti-"encirclement and suppression" situation was not at that time, that is, if it was too late, at least the degree of our victory would be affected. Of course, both too early and too late are all losses. But generally speaking, the loss of too late is greater than that of too early. Retreat in time and make yourself completely in the initiative, which will have a great impact on rectifying the team's situation after reaching the retreat end and moving on to the counterattack with ease. Jiangxi's first, second and fourth "encirclement and suppression" battles to smash the enemy calmly. However, in the third battle, because the enemy was defeated so badly after the second battle, the new attack came so quickly (on May 31, 1931, we ended the second anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, and Chiang Kai-shek began their third "encirclement and suppression" on July 1), the Red Army hurriedly took a detour, which made them very tired. How to choose this opportunity depends entirely on collecting necessary materials and judging from the general trend of both the enemy and us, and the same method used to choose the beginning of the preparation stage mentioned above.
Strategic retreat, when cadres and the people have no experience, and when the authority of military leaders has not reached the point where they are convinced by cadres by concentrating the decision on strategic retreat in the hands of a small number of people or even one person. Because the cadres had no experience and did not believe in strategic retreat, they encountered great difficulties in this issue during the first and fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" period. During the first anti-"encirclement and suppression", due to the influence of the Lisan Line, the opinions of cadres did not retreat but attacked before being persuaded. During the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression", due to the influence of military adventurism, the cadres' opinions were against preparations. During the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression", the cadres' opinions began with continuing military adventurism against the idea of luring the enemy into depth, and later became military conservatism. Zhang Guotao's line does not believe that our base cannot be established in Tibetan and Huiren areas [46], and we will only believe it after hitting a wall. This is also an example. Experience is necessary for cadres, and failure is indeed the mother of success. However, it is also necessary to accept other people's experiences humbly. If you have to wait for your own experience, otherwise you will be stubborn and refuse to accept them. This is a complete "narrow empiricism". Our war has suffered a lot of losses.
The people do not believe in the need for strategic retreat because they have no experience. It is when Jiangxi opposes the "encirclement and suppression" for the first time. At that time, local party organizations and people in Ji'an, Xingguo, Yongfeng and other counties all opposed the retreat of the Red Army. However, after gaining this experience, there was no such problem at all when we opposed the "encirclement and suppression" several times.Everyone believes that the losses of the base areas and the hardships of the people are temporary, and everyone has the confidence that the Red Army can break the "encirclement and suppression". However, the trust of the people is closely related to the trust of the cadres, so the main and first task is to convince the cadres.
The whole function of strategic retreat is to turn to a counterattack, and strategic retreat is only the first stage of strategic defense. The key to the decision of the entire strategy is whether the subsequent counterattack stage can win.
Section 4 Strategic Counterattack
The attack of defeating the absolutely dominant enemy depends on the changing situation caused by the strategic retreat stage, which is beneficial to us and is not conducive to the enemy, and compares the situation when the enemy starts to attack, and this situation is caused by various conditions. This has been mentioned before.
However, the conditions and situations that are beneficial to me are not conducive to the enemy have not failed. This condition and situation has the possibility of deciding victory or defeat, but it is not the reality of victory or defeat, and the victory or defeat of the two armies has not yet been achieved. To achieve this victory or defeat, we rely on the decisive battle between the two armies. Only by a decisive battle can we solve the problem of who wins and who loses between the two armies. This is the entire task of the strategic counterattack stage. Counterattack is a long process, the most exciting and active stage of defensive warfare, that is, the final stage of defensive warfare. The so-called active defense mainly refers to this strategic counterattack with a decisive battle.
Conditions and situations are not only caused in the strategic retreat stage, but continue to cause in the counterattack stage. The conditions and situation at this time are not completely in the same form and nature as the conditions and situation in the previous stage.
It can be of the same form and nature. For example, the enemy's more fatigue and loss of staff at this time is just a continuation of fatigue and loss of staff in the previous stage.
But there must be completely new conditions and situations. For example, if the enemy defeats one or several battles, the conditions that are beneficial to us and are not conducive to the enemy at this time are not only fatigue of the enemy, but also new conditions for the enemy to defeat the war. The situation has also changed. The enemy's mobilization and inappropriate actions, the strengths and weaknesses of the two armies are different from the previous ones.
If one or several defeats belong not to the enemy, but to our army, then the favorable conditions and situation will also change to the opposite. That is to say, the enemy's disadvantages have decreased, and our disadvantages have begun to occur, and even expand. This is completely new and different from the previous ones.
No matter where the failure is, it directly and quickly arouses a new effort from the loser, which is to try to save the crisis, so as to get rid of this new conditions and situation that are not conducive to me and the enemy, and recreate the conditions and situation that are not conducive to me and the enemy to oppress the other party.
The winner's efforts are contrary to this, and they strive to develop their own victory and cause greater harm to the enemy, and strive to increase or develop conditions and situations that are beneficial to me, and strive to prevent the other party from completing their attempt to escape from disadvantages and recover the crisis.
So, no matter where, the struggle in the decisive battle is the most intense, complex, and changing, and the most difficult and difficult time in the entire war or the entire battle. In terms of command, it is the most difficult time.
In the counterattack stage, there are many problems, mainly such as the problem of counterattack start, the problem of concentrating forces, the problem of mobile warfare, the problem of quick decisive battle, and the problem of annihilation war.
The principles of these issues, whether for counterattack or for offense, are no different in their basic nature. In this sense, it can be said that counterattack is attack.
However, counterattack is not entirely an offense. The principle of counterattack is applied when the enemy attacks. The principle of offensive is applied when the enemy is defending. In this sense, there are several differences.
For this reason, although many of the problems in combat are all mentioned in the counter-offensive department of strategic defense, and only other problems are mentioned in the strategic offensive department to avoid duplication, when we apply it, we cannot ignore the similarities and differences.
Section 5 Counterattack start problem
Counterattack start problem, that is, the so-called "first battle" or "order battle" problem.
Many bourgeois military strategists advocate careful initial battles, whether in strategic defense or strategic offensive, and defense is especially important. We have also raised this question seriously in the past. Jiangxi's fight against the enemy's first to fifth "encirclement and suppression" has given us rich experience, and it is not unhelpful to study these experiences.
At the first "encirclement and suppression", the enemy divided into eight columns to attack the Red Army base from north to south, from the line between Ji'an and Jianning. At that time, the Red Army had about 40,000 people concentrated in Huangpi and Xiaobu areas in Ningdu County, Jiangxi Province.
The situation at that time was: (1) There were only 100,000 troops on the "suppression" and they were not Chiang's direct lineage, and the overall situation was not very serious. (2) The enemy Luo Lin division defended Ji'an, separated by the west of Ganjiang River. (III) The enemy troops Gong Bingfan, Zhang Huizan and Tan Daoyuan occupied Futian, Donggu, Longgang and Yuantou areas in southeastern Ji'an and northwest of Ningdu. Master Zhang’s main force is in Longgang, while Master Tan’s main force is in the source. Futian and Donggu did not trust the Red Army because of the deception of the AB regiment and opposed the Red Army. It was not suitable to choose a battlefield. (4) The enemy Liu Heding's army is far away in Jianning, Bai District, Fujian, and may not necessarily cross Jiangxi. (5) The enemy troops Mao Bingwen and Xu Kexiang advanced to the Touti, Luokou and Dongshao areas between Guangchang and Ningdu. Toubi is a white area, Luokou is a guerrilla area, and there is an AB regiment in Dongshao, which is easy to leak information. And then he fought Mao Bingwen and Xu Kexiang and fought westward, for fear that the three divisions of Zhang Huizan, Tan Daoyuan and Gong Bingfan were concentrated in the west, and it would be difficult to win and the problem would not be solved in the end. (VI) The Zhang and Tan Divisions are the main forces of "encirclement and suppression", the commander-in-chief of Jiangxi Chairman Lu Diping, the commander-in-chief of the "encirclement and suppression" army, and Zhang is also the commander-in-chief of the front line. By destroying these two divisions, the "encirclement and suppression" will be basically broken. The two divisions have about 14,000 people, and the Zhang Division has two separate places. It is an absolute advantage for me to fight one division at a time. (7) The main force of the Zhang and Tan Divisions are located in Longgang and the Source area close to our concentration area, and the people are in good conditions and can be close to each other. (8) Longgang has excellent positions. The source is not easy to deal with. If the enemy attacks Xiao Bu and me, the position will be good. (9) I can concentrate my maximum force in the direction of Longgang. There is still an independent division of more than a thousand people in Xingguo, dozens of miles southwest of Longgang, which can also be detoured behind the enemy. (10) Our army carried out an intermediate breakthrough and opened a gap in the enemy's front, and the enemy's east and west columns were separated into two groups at a distance. Based on the above reasons, we decided to fight and attack Zhang Huizan's main brigades and a division headquarters in the first battle. All nine thousand people, including the division commander, were captured without missing a single person and a horse. The victory of the battle scared Mr. Tan to run towards Dongshao and Mr. Xu to Toupi. Our army pursued Tan's army and wiped out half of it. Two battles were fought within five days (December 30, 1930 to January 3, 1931), so the DDT, Donggu and Toupi retreated one after another, and the first "encirclement and suppression" ended.
The situation during the second "encirclement and suppression" was: (1) The "advance and suppression" army was 200,000, and He Yingqin was the commander-in-chief and stationed in Nanchang. (2) Just like during the first "encirclement and suppression", they were all Chiang's non-direct troops. Cai Tingkai's 19th Route Army, Sun Lianzhong's 26th Route Army, and Zhu Shaoliang's 6th Route Army were the strongest or stronger, while the rest were weaker. (III) The AB regiment was cleared and all the people in the base area supported the Red Army. (IV) Wang Jinyu's Fifth Route Army arrived from the north and expressed fear. The left-wing divisions of Guo Huazong and Hao Mengling were generally the same. (5) Our army started from Futian and swept eastward. We can expand the base areas in Jianning, Lichuan and Taining areas at the junction of Fujian and Jiangxi, and collect funds to facilitate the breaking of the next "encirclement and suppression". If it is fought from east to west, it will be limited to Ganjiang River and there is no room for development after the war situation is over. If you move eastward after the battle, it will take time to work hard. (VI) Although the number of our soldiers decreased slightly compared with the last battle (more than 30,000), we had four months of restoring our energy. Based on the above reasons, we decided to find Wang Jinyu and Gong Bingfan (a total of eleven regiments) in Futian area to fight the first battle. After victory, he then beat Guo, Sun, Zhu, and Liu [47].During the fifteen days (from May 16th to 31st, 1931), I walked 700 miles, fought five battles, and seized more than 20,000 guns, and broke the "encirclement and suppression" with great pleasure. When we were fighting Wang Jinyu, we were between the two enemies of Cai Tingkai and Guo Huazong, more than ten miles away from Guo and more than forty miles away from Cai. Some people said that we were "going to the point of being a lie", but we finally got it through. This is mainly due to the conditions of the base area and the inconsistency between the enemy troops. After Guo Shi was defeated, Hao Shixing fled back to Yongfeng at night and was spared from the difficulties.
The situation during the third "encirclement and suppression" was: (1) Chiang Kai-shek personally took office as the commander-in-chief, and was divided into the commander-in-chief of the three left and right routes. He Yingqin, in the middle, stationed with Jiang, stationed in Nanchang; Chen Mingshu, stationed on the right, stationed in Ji'an; Zhu Shaoliang, stationed on the left, stationed in Nanfeng[48]. (2) The "suppression" army was 300,000. The main force is Chen Cheng, Luo Zhuoying, Zhao Guantao, Wei Lihuang, and Jiang Dingwen, the main force of Jiang's direct line, with a total of about 100,000 troops in each division. The next one is Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai and Han Deqin's third divisions[49], with 40,000 people. The next one is Sun Lianzhong's army, with 20,000 people. Yu is not Jiang’s direct lineage and is relatively weak. (3) The "advance and suppression" strategy is to "go straight in", which is very different from the "step-by-step" of the second "encirclement and suppression", which attempts to oppress the Red Army in the Ganjiang River and eliminate it. (IV) It took only one month to end the second "encirclement and suppression" and the third "encirclement and suppression" began. After the hard battle, the Red Army did not rest or supplement (about 30,000 people), and took a detour and returned to Xingguo Concentration in the western part of the southern Jiangxi base. At that time, the enemy had already divided the routes and forced them to face them. In the above situation, the first policy we decided was to break through Futian point through Wan'an, then go from west to east, sweep across the enemy's contact line, allowing the enemy's main force to go deep into the southern Jiangxi base area and place it in a useless place, and set this as the first stage of the battle. When the enemy turns north, they will be very tired. Taking advantage of the opportunity to hit the person who can be hit is the second stage. The center of this policy is to avoid the enemy's main force and fight against his weakness. But when our army advanced towards Futian, it was discovered by the enemy, and Chen Cheng and Luo Zhuoying arrived. I had to change my plan and return to Gaoxingwei in the western part of Xingguo. At this time, there was only one food court and dozens of miles away that allowed our army to concentrate. After one day of concentration, he decided to advance towards Liantang in the east of Xingguo County, Liangcun in the south of Yongfeng County, and Huangpi in the north of Ningdu County. On the first day, he passed the forty-living gap between Jiang Dingwen and Jiang, Cai and Han troops on the night, and moved to Liantang. The next day, he contacted Shangguan Yunxiangjun (one of his own divisions and Hao Mengling's divisions). The first battle was fought on the third day, and the second battle was fought on the fourth day, and then the third battle was fought on the third trip to Huangpi. He won all three battles, and he won more than 10,000 guns [50]. At this time, all the main forces of the enemy going westward and southward turned their flags eastward, focused their attention in Huangpi, advanced together, fought with us, and approached our army in a dense encirclement posture. Our army sneaked over a mountain with a gap of twenty miles between Jiang, Cai, Han, Chen and Luo, and concentrated from the east to the west to Xingguo. When the enemy found out that he was advancing west again, I had been resting for half a month, but the enemy was hungry, exhausted, powerless, and determined to retreat. I took advantage of the retreat and attacked Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai, Jiang Dingwen, and Han Deqin, and eliminated Jiang Dingwen's brigade and Han Deqin's division. The two divisions of Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai were in a confrontation and allowed them to escape.
The situation during the fourth "encirclement and suppression" was: the enemy was divided into three routes and advancing towards Guangchang, the main force was on the East Road, and the two divisions on the West Road were exposed to me, and they were approaching my concentration. Therefore, I was able to first attack the western route in the southern Yihuang area and eliminate the two divisions of Li Ming and Chen Shiji in one fell swoop. The enemy divided two divisions from the left to cooperate with the middle to advance again, and I had to destroy one of his divisions in the southern part of Yihuang. After two battles, more than 10,000 guns were paid, and this "encirclement and suppression" was basically broken.
The fifth "encirclement and suppression" was the enemy's new strategy of fortificationism, and first occupied Lichuan. But I tried to restore Lichuan, defend the enemy from outside the base area, and fight the enemy's consolidated position north of Lichuan and saltpeter in the white area. He was unable to win in one battle and also fought against Zixi Bridge in the southeast, which was also the enemy's consolidated position and the white area, but he was unable to win. Then he went around and fought between the enemy's main force and the fortress, completely falling into a passive position. Finally, the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" war lasted for a year, and there was no obvious possibility of independent activity. Finally, I had to withdraw from the Jiangxi base.
The above-mentioned experience of our army's combat during the first to fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" period proves that the Red Army, which was in a defensive position, wanted to break the powerful "advance and suppression" army and the first battle of counterattack, had a very important relationship. The victory or defeat of the first battle has a great impact on the overall situation, and even continues to affect the last battle. Therefore, the following conclusion is drawn:
First, you must win. The enemy situation, terrain, people and other conditions must be beneficial to us and not to the enemy. We are sure to take action. Otherwise, you would rather give in and standby. There are always opportunities, and you cannot take it. When we first anti-"encirclement and suppression", we wanted to attack Tan Daoyuan first. Just because the enemy did not leave the condescending position at the source, our army advanced twice, but twice endured and retreated. After a few days, we found Zhang Huizan who was easy to fight. During the second anti-"encirclement and suppression", our army advanced to Donggu. Just because we waited for Wang Jinyu to leave his Futian to consolidate his position, he would rather offend the danger of leaking news, reject all suggestions for quick attacks, and force the enemy to live. After waiting for twenty-five days, he finally met the requirements. Although the third anti-"encirclement and suppression" situation was so stormy and stormy, when we returned from the army for thousands of miles, the enemy discovered our plan to deviate from the side, we still endured it and turned to the middle to break through, and finally fought the first good battle in Liantang. During the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression", the attack on Nanfeng was unsuccessful, and resolutely took the step of retreat, finally turned to the enemy's right wing, concentrated in the Dongshao area, and began a great victory in southern Yihuang. Only when the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign was over, he did not know how important the relationship between the first battle was. He was shocked by the loss of Lichuan City. He started from the attempt to save the situation and went north to the enemy. After Yu Xunkou did not expect to encounter victory (destroy an enemy division), he did not regard this battle as the first battle, nor did he regard the changes that were inevitable in this battle, but rashly attacked the inevitability of saltpeter. It is the stupidest and worst way to play.
Secondly, the plan for the first battle must be the organic prelude to the full battle plan. Without a good full battle plan, there must never be a truly good first battle. This means that even if a victory is fought in the first battle, if the battle is not only not beneficial to the entire battle, but is harmful, even if the battle is won, it is only considered defeat (such as the Xunkou battle during the fifth "encirclement and suppression"). Therefore, before fighting the first battle, we must think about how to play the second, third, fourth and even last battles in general. If I win one battle in order, how will the enemy's overall situation change, and if I lose, how will it change again. Although the results may not even be as expected, you must carefully and truly understand them based on the overall situation of both parties. Without the overall situation in mind, you will not really throw a good piece of chess piece.
Third, you must also think of articles from the next strategic stage. If you only care about counterattack, regardless of the counterattack victory, or in case of failure of counterattack, what is going on below will still not fulfill the responsibility of the strategic guide. When a strategic supervisor is in a strategic stage, he should calculate to most stages in the future, at least to the next stage. Although the future changes are difficult to predict and the farther you look, the less you look, the more you look, the general calculation is possible and it is necessary to estimate the future prospects. The kind of guidance method that takes one step at a time is not good for politics and war. Take a step, you should look at the specific changes in that step, and modify or develop your own strategic campaign plan based on this. If you don’t do this, you will make the mistake of taking risks and rushing straight. However, a long-term policy that has been generally understood and has been completed through the entire strategic stage or even several strategic stages is absolutely indispensable. If you don’t do this, you will make the mistake of hesitation and sleepiness, which is actually suitable for the enemy’s strategic requirements and you will fall into a passive position. It should be noted that the enemy's command has a certain strategic vision. Only by making ourselves superior in practice can we have the possibility of strategic victory. The reason why the strategic guidance of the "left" opportunistic line and Zhang Guotao's line during the fifth "encirclement and suppression" period was mainly because it did not achieve this. In short, the counterattack stage must be calculated in the retreat stage, the offensive stage must be calculated in the counterattack stage, and the downward stage must be calculated in the offensive stage. Without such calculations, the interests that are bound to the immediate is the way to failure.
It is necessary to win; it must take care of the entire battle plan; it must take care of the next strategic stage: these are the three principles that must not be forgotten when fighting the first battle.
Section 6: Concentrating troops
: Concentrating troops seems easy, but it is quite difficult to implement. Everyone knows that the best way is to win by more than one is the best way, but many people cannot do it. On the contrary, they often disperse their troops. The reason is that the instructor lacks strategic mind and is confused by the complex environment. Therefore, they are dominated by the environment, lose their autonomy, and adopt coping.
No matter how complex, serious and miserable the environment is, the first thing military instructors need is to organize and use their own strength independently. It is common to be forced to passively by the enemy, and it is important to quickly restore the initiative. If this status cannot be restored, the following is failure.
Active status is not unimaginable, but concrete, material. The most important thing here is to preserve and gather the largest and vibrant army.
Defensive wars are prone to falling into a passive position, and defense wars are not as good as offensive wars to fully exert their initiative. However, defensive warfare can have active content in a passive form, and can transfer from a formal passive stage to an active stage in a formal content. A fully planned strategic retreat is forced out in form, and in content, it is to preserve military strength, wait for the opportunity to defeat the enemy, lure the enemy into depth and prepare for a counterattack. Only those who refuse to retreat and face the challenge in a hurry (such as saltpeter battle), seem to be striving to take the initiative on the surface, but in fact they are passive. Strategic counterattack not only has the content active, but also gives up the passive attitude of retreating in form. For the enemy, counterattack is the effort of our army to force it to give up its initiative and at the same time give it a passive position.
To fully achieve this goal, concentrating troops, mobile warfare, quick decisive battle, and annihilation war are all necessary conditions. Concentrating troops is the first and the main one.
The reason why concentrating troops is necessary is to change the situation of our enemy. First, it is to change the situation of advancement and retreat. In the past, the enemy advanced and we retreated, but now we are trying to achieve our goal of advancing and retreating. Concentrate troops to win in one battle, this purpose is achieved in this battle and will also affect the entire battle.
Second, it is to change the offensive and defensive situation. Retreat to the end of retreat, it basically belongs to the negative stage in defensive war, that is, the "guarding" stage. Counterattack belongs to the active stage, that is, the "offensive" stage. Although it is not out of the defensive nature in the entire strategic defense, counterattack and retreat are not only in form but also in content. Counterattack is a transitional thing between strategic defense and strategic offense. With the nature of the eve of the strategic offensive, concentrating troops is to achieve this goal.
The third is to change the situation of internal and external lines. The army that is strategically fighting in the inside, especially the Red Army, which is in an environment of "encirclement and suppression", suffers many disadvantages. But we can and should completely change it in battle or battle. A large "encirclement and suppression" of our army was changed to many small encirclement and suppression of our army on the enemy. The strategic division and joint attack of the enemy against our army was changed to the strategic division and joint attack of our army against the enemy's battle or battle. Change the strategic advantage of the enemy over our army to the advantage of our army in battle or combat against the enemy. Adhere to the enemy who is strategically in the position of the strong, so that they can be in the position of the weak in battle or battle. At the same time, change your strategic position as the weak and change it to the strong in battle or combat. This is the so-called external combat in the inside battle, encirclement and suppression in "encirclement and suppression", blockade in blockade, offense in defense, advantage in disadvantage, strong among the weak, advantage in disadvantage, and active among the passive. Fighting for victory from strategic defense basically relies on the concentrating force.
In the war history of the Chinese Red Army, this issue often becomes an important issue of debate. In the Battle of Ji'an on October 4, 1930, we carried out advance and attack without waiting for the troops to be fully concentrated. Fortunately, the enemy (Deng Yingshi) fled by itself, and our attack itself did not work.
Since 1932, there was a so-called "all-round attack" slogan, requiring attacks from all directions from east, west, south and north of the base area. This is not only wrong in strategic defense, but also in strategic offense. When the situation of the entire enemy-to-me comparison has not fundamentally changed, whether it is strategy or tactic, there are two aspects: defense and offense, clamping and assault. In fact, there are very few so-called full-line attacks. The slogan for attacking the whole line is military egalitarianism that comes with military adventurism.
In 1933, the military egalitarians had the so-called "two fists hit people", which divided the main force of the Red Army into two attempts to win at the same time in two strategic directions. The result was that one fist was put in useless, one fist was exhausted, and there was no maximum victory that could have been achieved at the time. According to my opinion, under the conditions of a strong enemy, no matter how many troops you have, within a time, there should only be one main direction of use, not two. I don't object to the combat directions that have two or more, but the main directions, in the same time, should only have one. The Chinese Red Army appeared on the battlefield of civil war as a weak person. Its record of shocking the world by defeating strong enemies repeatedly depends on the concentration of troops and the number of users is very large. No matter which big victory is, this can be proved. "One should be ten, ten should be hundred" is a strategic statement, which is in comparison with the entire war, and in this sense, we are indeed like this. Not for battle and tactics; in this sense, we should never do so. Whether in counterattack or attack, we always gather our strength to fight the enemy. In January 1931, the battle against Tan Daoyuan in Dongshao District, Ningdu County, Jiangxi Province, the battle against the 19th Route Army in Gaoxingxu District, Xingguo County, Jiangxi Province, July 1932, the battle against Chen Jitang in Shuikouxu District, Nanxiong County, Guangdong Province, and in December 1933, the battle against Chen Cheng in Tuancun District, Lichuan County, Jiangxi Province, all suffered from the lack of concentration of troops. For example, wars like Shuikouxu and Tuancun are usually considered victories, and they are also considered victories (the former defeated Chen Jitang's twenty regiments, and the latter defeated Chen Cheng's twelve regiments [51]). However, we have never welcomed such victories. In a sense, it can be said that it was a defeat. Because no seizure or the seizure does not exceed consumption, it seems to us that there is little meaning. Our strategy is "one to ten", and our tactic is "one to one", which is one of the fundamental laws for us to defeat the enemy.
Military egalitarianism developed to its extreme when it was the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" in 1934. "Six lines divide troops" and "resist all sides" and thought that they could defeat the enemy, but the result was that they were controlled by the enemy. The reason was that they were afraid of losing land. Concentrate the main force in one direction, and the other directions have the force of clamping, which will naturally cause damage to the land. However, this is a temporary local loss, and the price is to win the attack direction. If the assault direction is victorious, the loss in the clamping direction can be recovered. The enemy's first, second, third and fourth "encirclement and suppression" caused us to suffer land losses, especially when the enemy's third "encirclement and suppression" was almost completely lost in the Jiangxi Red Army base. However, our land was not only restored, but also expanded.
Because the power of the people in the base area cannot be seen, the wrong mentality of fearing the Red Army staying away from the base area is often caused. This mentality happened when the Jiangxi Red Army went far away to attack Zhangzhou, Fujian in 1932, and when the Red Army turned to Fujian to attack after the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign in 1933. The former is afraid of the entire base area being occupied, while the latter is afraid of the occupation of a base area, and opposes concentrating troops and advocating division of troops to guard it, which all proves wrong. In the eyes of the enemy, on the one hand, the base area made them afraid to advance, and on the other hand, the Red Army who fought to the white area was their main danger. The enemy's attention is always directed at the location of the main Red Army. Putting aside the main Red Army and focusing on the base area is rarely done like this. When the Red Army was implementing defense, the enemy's attention was still focused on the Red Army.The plan to narrow the base is part of the enemy's entire plan; but if the Red Army concentrates its main force and eliminates its entire route, the enemy's commander will have to turn their attention and their military strength toward the Red Army. Therefore, the enemy's plan to shrink the base can also be destroyed.
"In the period of the five 'encirclement and suppression' of fortificationism, we cannot concentrate on fighting, we can only divide our troops to defend and engage in short-term assaults." This statement is also wrong. The fortification tactics of the enemy's fortifications, which were promoted every three or five miles away, were completely facilitated by the Red Army's own resistance. If our army abandons the tactics of resistance in the inside line and then turns to the enemy's inside line when necessary and possible, the situation will inevitably be another. The law of concentrating troops is the tool to defeat fortificationism.
The concentration of troops we advocate does not include guerrilla wars that give up the people. The Lisan Line advocated aborted small guerrilla war, and "a gun was also concentrated in the Red Army", which has long been proved wrong. From the perspective of the entire revolutionary war, the guerrilla war between the people and the main Red Army is the right hand in hand with each other. There is only the main Red Army but no people, like a one-armed general. The people's conditions in the base area, specifically, especially for combat, are armed people. The enemy regards it as a daunt, and it is mainly at this point.
It is also necessary to set up the Red Army’s detachment in the secondary combat direction, and not everything must be concentrated. The concentration of troops we advocate is based on the principle of ensuring absolute or relative advantage over battlefield operations. For strong enemies or important battlefield operations, absolute superior forces should be taken. For example, on December 30, 1930, the first battle against "encirclement and suppression" was concentrated, 40,000 people were attacked by Zhang Huizan's 9,000 people. For weak enemies or irrelevant battlefield operations, it is enough to use relatively superior troops. For example, in the last battle against "encirclement and suppression" on May 31, 1931, the Red Army only used more than 10,000 troops to fight against Jianning's 7,000 troops.
It doesn’t mean that you need superior troops every time. In some cases, relative or absolute disadvantages can also appear on the battlefield. Relative disadvantages, for example, there is only a small Red Army in a certain area (not a soldier but not concentrated). In order to break the attack of an advantageous enemy, when the people, terrain or weather conditions can give us great assistance, guerrillas or small detachments will be used to pinch its front and one wing. The Red Army will concentrate all its strength to suddenly attack part of its other wing, which is of course necessary and can be won. When I attack part of one of its wings, the comparison of forces still applies to the principle of advantage over disadvantage and victory over the less. Absolute disadvantages, such as the attack on the White Army's large corps, which is only a small part of it, also apply the above principles.
The concentrating army on a battlefield is restricted by the terrain, roads, supplies, resident locations, etc., and should also be viewed separately. These restrictions are somewhat different from the Red Army and the White Army, because the Red Army can tolerate greater difficulties than the White Army.
We defeat the more with less - we say so to the rulers of China as a whole. We win by more than the less - we say this to the enemies in various parts of the battlefield. This is no secret, and the enemy is familiar with our temper. However, the enemy cannot cancel our victory, nor can they avoid their losses, because they do not know when and where we do so. We keep this secret. The Red Army's operations were usually surprise attacks.
Section 7 Mobile War
Mobile War, or Position War? Our answer is: Mobile warfare. Without a large number of troops, no ammunition supplement, and with only one Red Army fighting in each base area, positional warfare is basically useless to us. For us, positional warfare is not only basically not allowed to use it when defending, but also when attacking.
One of the prominent characteristics of the Red Army's combat due to the strong enemy and the poor Red Army's technology is that it has no fixed combat line.
The Red Army's combat line obeys the Red Army's combat direction.The combat direction is not fixed, which affects the combat line. Although the general direction does not change during a period, the small direction in the general direction changes at any time. If one direction is restricted, it must be turned to the other direction. After a period of time, the general direction is also restricted, and even this general direction has to be changed.
During the revolutionary civil war, the battle line could not be fixed, and this situation occurred in the Soviet Union. The difference between the Soviet army and our army is that its unfixed degree is not as good as ours. No war can have an absolutely fixed battle line, and the changes in victory, defeat, advance, and retreat cannot be like this. However, relatively fixed combat lines are often seen in general wars. However, the difference between the strength and weakness of the enemy and us is the exception. The Chinese Red Army, which is at the current stage, is an exception.
The imbalance of the combat line will affect the imbalance of the base area. It is common for large and small to shrink and stretch, and it often happens when it rises and falls. This territorial mobility comes entirely from the mobility of war.
War and territory mobility also affect various construction work in the base area. Construction plans for several years are unimaginable. Frequent changes in plans are common in our lives.
Acknowledging this characteristic is beneficial to us. Starting from this characteristic, we set our agenda, do not fantasize about wars that have advances and no retreats, do not be shocked by the temporary flow of territory and military rears, and do not attempt to establish a long-term specific plan. Adapt our thoughts and work to the situation, be ready to sit down, and be ready to walk, and do not throw away the dry food bags. Only by working hard in the current mobile life can we strive for a relatively non-mobility in the future and strive for the final stability.
The strategic policy of dominating the so-called "formal war" during the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" period, denying this mobility and opposing the so-called "guerrillaism". Comrades who opposed the flow had to pretend to be rulers of a big country to do their business, but as a result they had an unusual flow-the Long March of 25,000 miles.
Our Democratic Republic of Workers and Peasants is a country, but today it is still an incomplete country. Today we are still in the strategic defense period of the civil war. Our regime is still far from a complete state form. Our army is still far from being apart from the enemy. Our territory is still small. Our enemies will be happy to destroy us at all times. The principle that stipulates our policy from this is not to generally oppose guerrillaism, but to honestly recognize the guerrilla nature of the Red Army. It's useless to be shy here. On the contrary, guerrilla is our characteristic, our strengths, and our tools to defeat our enemies. We should be prepared to abandon guerrillaism, but we cannot abandon it today. Guerrillaism will definitely be something that must be shy and must be abandoned in the future, but today it is something that must be maintained.
"If you can win, fight, and if you can't win, leave." This is the popular explanation of our mobile warfare today. There is no military strategist in the world who only admits to fighting or not leaving, but it is not as good as ours. For us, walking is usually more time than fighting, and it is better to fight one big battle every month on average. All "going" is for "fighting", and all our strategic and combat policies are based on a basic point of "fighting". However, there are several difficult situations in front of us: first, there are too many enemies in front of us, but they are not easy to fight; second, although there are not many enemies in front of us, they are very close to neighboring enemies, and sometimes they are not easy to fight; third, generally speaking, any enemy who is not isolated but possesses a very solid position is not easy to fight; fourth, when fighting but cannot resolve the battle, it is difficult to continue fighting. At the above times, we are all ready to leave. Such a journey is permitted and necessary. Because we admit that we must go, we are under the conditions of first acknowledging that we must beat. The basic characteristics of the Red Army's mobile warfare are here.
The basic is mobile warfare, not a rejection of necessary and possible positional warfare. During strategic defense, we should constrain the detention of certain fulcrums in terms of strategic attacks. When encountering isolated enemies when we attack strategically, we should admit to using positional warfare to deal with them.We have already experienced many experiences in using such positions to defeat the enemy; many cities, fortresses, and villages have been opened by us, and some degree of enemy field positions have been broken through. We must increase our efforts in this area in the future to make up for our weaknesses in this area. We should fully advocate positional attack and positional defense that is required and permitted by the circumstances. What we oppose is simply to adopt general positional warfare today, or to treat positional warfare equally and mobile warfare.
The guerrilla nature of the Red Army, without a fixed combat line, the mobility of base areas, and the mobility of base areas construction work, hasn't changed at all in the Ten Years' War? There are changes. From Jinggangshan to Jiangxi before the first anti-"encirclement and suppression" was the first stage. In this stage, guerrilla and mobility were very high. The Red Army was still in their childhood, and the base area was still guerrilla areas. From the first anti-"encirclement and suppression" to the third anti-"encirclement and suppression" to the second stage, guerrilla and mobility have been greatly reduced during this stage. The front army has been established, and bases containing millions of people have already existed. From the third anti-"encirclement and suppression" to the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" to the third stage, guerrilla mobility has been reduced. The Central Government and the Revolutionary Military Commission have been established. The Long March is the fourth stage. Due to the erroneous denial of small guerrilla and small flow, a large guerrilla and large flow came. It is currently the fifth stage. Due to the failure to defeat the fifth "encirclement and suppression" and the great movement, the Red Army and the base areas have been greatly reduced, but they have established their footholds in the northwest, consolidating and developing the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region base areas. The three main fronts of the Red Army have been in command, and this matter is unprecedented.
According to the nature of the strategy, it can also be said that the Jinggangshan period to the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" period was one stage, the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" period was another stage, and the Long March has been the third stage. During the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression", people mistakenly denied the previous correct policy. Today, we correctly denied the wrong policy of people during the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression", and resurrected the previous correct policy. However, it is not denied that everything during the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign is not everything that was resurrected before. What is resurrected is the good things in the past, and what is denied is the wrong things in the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression".
Guerrillaism has two aspects. On the one hand, it is informal, that is, inconcentration, inconsistent, lax discipline, simplified work methods, etc. These things were brought by the Red Army in their childhood, and some were needed at that time. However, at the advanced stage of the Red Army, they must be gradually and consciously removed, so that the Red Army is more concentrated, more unified, more disciplined, and more meticulous, that is, it makes them more formal. In combat command, we should also gradually and consciously reduce the unnecessary guerrilla characteristics in the advanced stages. Refusing to move forward in this regard and stubbornly pausing to the old stage is unauthorized, harmful, and unfavorable to large-scale combat.
On the other hand, the policy of mobile warfare, the guerrilla nature of strategic and combat operations that are still needed now, the mobility of the base areas that cannot be stopped, the flexible change of the base areas construction plan, and the regularization of the Red Army construction that should not be untimely and formalized. In this regard, rejecting historical facts, opposing retaining useful things, rashly breaking away from the current stage, and blindly running towards the so-called "new stage" that is unattainable and has no practical significance in the current situation, is also unauthorized, harmful, and unfavorable to the current combat.
We are now on the eve of the next new stage of the Red Army's technology and organization. We should be ready to move to a new stage. It is wrong not to make such preparations and is not conducive to future wars. In the future, the technical and organizational conditions of the Red Army have changed, and the construction of the Red Army has entered a new stage. The relatively fixed direction and combat line of the Red Army has emerged; positional warfare has increased; the mobility of war, territory and construction has been greatly reduced, and in the end, it will be eliminated; now what restricts us, such as the superior enemy and the consolidated positions they hold, cannot limit us.
On the one hand, we oppose the wrong approach during the reign of the "left" opportunistic rule, and on the other hand, we oppose the resurrection of many informalities that were not needed at present in the childhood of the Red Army. However, we must resolutely restore many valuable military-building principles and strategic and tactical principles that the Red Army has used to win battles along the way. We must summarize all the fine things from the past and become a systematic, more developed and richer military route, so as to strive to defeat the enemy today and prepare to transform to a new stage in the future.
In terms of the implementation of mobile warfare, there are many problems, such as reconnaissance, judgment, determination, combat deployment, command, shade, concentration, advance, development, attack, pursuit, attack, position attack, positional attack, position defense, encounter battle, retreat, night battle, special combat, avoiding the strong and fighting against the weak, besieging the city to attack aid, feint attack, air defense, being between several enemies, fighting beyond the enemy, fighting continuously, fighting without rear, and the need to accumulate strength, etc. These issues have shown many characteristics in the history of the Red Army's war. They should be described in an orderly manner and should be summarized. I will not talk about them here.
Section 8: Quick Decisive Battle
: Protracted war of strategy, quick decisive battle of battle and battle, these are two aspects of one thing. These are the two principles of equal importance to both civil war, and can also be applied to wars against imperialism.
Because of the strong reactionary forces, revolutionary forces gradually grew, which stipulates the durability of war. Impotence is a disadvantage in this regard, and it is incorrect to advocate "quick decision" on this regard. The revolutionary war that has been going through ten years may be amazing to other countries, but for us, it seems that the eight-legged articles have only made problems, inherited questions and started [52], and many lively articles are still behind. In the future development, under the influence of all internal and external conditions, there will undoubtedly be a greater possibility of increasing the speed than in the past. Because the international and domestic environment has changed, and greater changes will come, it can be said that we have deviated from the slowly developing lonely situation in the past. However, we should not plan to succeed tomorrow. The spirit of "destroying this morning food" [53] is good, but the specific plan of "destroying this morning food" is bad. Because China's reactionary forces are supported by many imperialists, our revolutionary war is still lasting until the domestic revolutionary forces accumulate to a major position that is enough to break through the internal and external enemies, and before the international revolutionary forces break and suppress most of the international reactionary forces. From this point of view, stipulating our strategic policy for long-term operations is one of the important policies for strategic guidance.
The principle of battle and battle is contrary to this, not lasting but quick decision. Fighting for quick decisions in battles and battles is the same in ancient and modern times, both in China and abroad. On the issue of war, both ancient and modern times, China and foreign countries have also requested quick decisions, and they always think that it is unfavorable after a long period of time. Only China's war must be treated with the greatest patience and with the protracted war. Some people laughed at our practice as "boxing tactics" during the Lisan Route (which means that we can only capture big cities when we fight), and laughed at us for having to wait until we get white before we can see the victory of the revolution. This kind of mood that shows acute diseases has long been proven to be wrong. But their criticism is very correct if it is not on strategic issues but on combat and combat issues. The reason is: First, the Red Army's weapons, especially ammunition, have no source; Second, the White Army has many troops, and the Red Army only has one unit. To break the "encirclement and suppression", we must prepare for rapid continuous combat; Third, although each of the White Army advances in separate ways, they are mostly relatively dense. If one of them cannot quickly resolve the battle, the rest will come. For these reasons, a quick decisive battle cannot be carried out. For us, it is often time to solve a battle for hours, a day or two. Only under the policy of "siege and fight aid", the purpose is not to fight the enemy, but to fight the enemy. The battle against the enemy is quite long-lasting, but it is still a quick decision against the enemy. In strategic defense, we defend the strongholds in the field of restraint, fight isolated enemies during strategic attacks, and eliminate white strongholds in the base area. At these times, we often give a lasting policy of battle or battle.However, these protracted wars only help but do not hinder the rapid decisive battle of the main Red Army.
A quick decisive battle is not something that can be successful if you want to do this in your heart. It also requires many specific conditions. The main conditions are to be sufficient preparation, seize the opportunity, concentrate superior forces, surround the roundabout tactics, have a good position, fight the enemy in the movement, or fight the enemy whose position is not yet consolidated. It is impossible to seek a quick decision in battle or battle without solving these conditions.
Breaking a "encirclement and suppression" is a major battle, and the principle of quick decision is still applied, rather than the principle of lasting. Because the human, financial, military and other conditions in the base area are not allowed to last.
But under the general principle of quick decision, it is necessary to oppose improper impatientness. It is completely necessary to give necessary patience and endurance to the enemy's conditions, to the highest military and political leadership organs of a revolutionary base, to estimate these conditions of the base, to estimate the enemy's situation, to not be frightened by the enemy's aggressive force, to not be frustrated by the difficulties that can still endure, to not be discouraged by certain setbacks, to give necessary patience and endurance. Jiangxi broke the first "encirclement and suppression", which only lasted for one week from the first battle to the end, and only half a month to break the second "encirclement and suppression", which lasted for three months after breaking the third "encirclement and suppression", which lasted for three months, the fourth time was three weeks, and the fifth time lasted for a whole year. However, when he was forced to break through the siege without breaking the "encirclement and suppression" for the fifth time, he also showed that he should not have had to engage in haste. Depending on the situation, you can still last for two or three months to rest and recuperate the army. If this is the case, and if the leader after breaking through is a little smarter, the situation will be very different.
Although this is the case, it still does not undermine what we call the principle of striving to shorten the entire battle time. In addition to the conditions such as concentrating troops and mobile warfare, and to eliminate the enemy's vital forces in the internal line (in the base area) and quickly resolve the "encirclement and suppression", when the "encirclement and suppression" has proven that it cannot be solved in the internal line, the main force of the Red Army should be used to break through the enemy's siege line and turn to our outside line, that is, the enemy's internal line to solve this problem. Today, with the development of fortificationism, this method will become a regular means of combat. Two months after the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" was carried out, when the Fujian Incident occurred, the main force of the Red Army should undoubtedly advance to the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi regions centered on Zhejiang, galloping across Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuhu, Nanchang and Fuzhou, transforming strategic defense into strategic offensives, threatening the enemy's fundamental important areas, and seeking combat in the vast fortress-free areas. Using this method, the enemy who attacked the western part of Fujian in southern Jiangxi can return to its fundamental important areas, crush its attack on the Jiangxi base, and assist the Fujian People's Government. This method will surely assist it. This plan is not used, and the fifth "encirclement and suppression" cannot be broken, and the Fujian People's Government has to fall. After a year of fighting, although it is not conducive to leaving Zhejiang, it can also change to a strategic offensive in another direction, that is, to advance to Hunan with the main force, not to Guizhou through Hunan, but toward central Hunan, mobilize the enemy of Jiangxi to Hunan and eliminate it. This plan is not used. The hope of breaking the fifth "encirclement and suppression" will be finally cut off, leaving the Long March.
Section 9 Annihilation War
The proposition of "striving and consuming" is untimely for the Chinese Red Army. "Bibao" is not comparing the Dragon King to compete with the Dragon King, but beggars comparing the Dragon King, which is ridiculous. For the Red Army, which took almost everything to the enemy, the basic policy was to annihilate the war. Only by annihilation of the enemy's biological forces can we break the "encirclement and suppression" and develop revolutionary bases. To kill and hurt the enemy is taken as a means of annihilation, otherwise it will be meaningless. I consumed it because I killed and injured the enemy, and supplemented it because I annihilated the enemy. This not only compensated the consumption of our army, but also increased the strength of our army. A defeat war is not something that basically determines the outcome of a strong enemy. Annihilation war immediately had a significant impact on any enemy. For a person, it is better to cut one finger than to hurt one finger; for an enemy, it is better to annihilate one of his troops than to defeat one of his troops than to defeat one of his troops.
For the first, second, third and fourth "encirclement and suppression", our policy is to destroy the war. The enemies that are annihilated each time are only part of the enemy, but the "encirclement and suppression" is broken.During the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression", the opposite policy was adopted, which was actually to help the enemy achieve their goals.
Annihilation war and concentrating superior forces and adopting siege and detour tactics are the same. Without the latter, there would be no former. Conditions such as people's sponsorship, good positions, easy-to-fight enemies, and unexpected surprises are all indispensable to achieving the goal of annihilation.
It is meaningful to defeat, and even to let the enemy escape, it is just for the main force of our army to hold an annihilation battle against the determined enemy in a full battle or in a full battle, otherwise it will have no meaning. This is another occasion where something is wrong and gains are meaningful.
We establish a military industry and we must not promote dependence. Our basic policy is to rely on imperialism and the military industry that is domestic enemies. We have the right to the arsenals in London and Hanyang and sent them through the enemy's transport team. This is the truth, not a joke.
comment
[1] According to Chinese characters, the concept of "actual" has two meanings: one refers to the real situation, and the other refers to people's actions (that is, what ordinary people call practice). Mao Zedong often applied this concept in his works.
[2] Sun Wu's son is Sun Wu, a famous military scientist in the Spring and Autumn Period in China, and wrote thirteen chapters of "Sun Tzu". For the quotes in this article, please see "Sun Tzu: The Attack".
[3] It was fifteen years from the founding of the Communist Party of China in July 1921 to the time when Mao Zedong wrote this article in 1936.
[4] Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), from Huaining, Anhui. One of the main leaders of the May Fourth New Culture Movement. After the May Fourth Movement, he accepted and promoted Marxism and was one of the main founders of the Communist Party of China. He was the main leader of the Party for the first six years after the founding of the Party. Chen Duxiu's right-leaning opportunism refers to the right-leaning surrenderism represented by Chen Duxiu in the first half of 1927. At that time, he gave up his leadership over the peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie, especially the leadership over the armed forces, advocated all union, denied struggle, and adopted a policy of compromise and surrender against the conspiracy of the right-wing Kuomintang anti-communist and anti-people. As a result, when the representatives of the big landlords and bourgeoisie, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei, successively betrayed the revolution and attacked the people suddenly, the Communist Party of China and the vast revolutionary people could not organize effective resistance, causing the first domestic revolutionary war to fail. On August 7 of the same year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held an emergency meeting in Hankou, summarizing the experiences and lessons of the failure of the Great Revolution and ending the rule of Chen Duxiu's right-leaning surrenderism in the Party Central Committee. Later, Chen Duxiu was pessimistic and disappointed with the future of the revolution, accepted the Trotskyist views, established small organizations within the party, and carried out anti-party activities. He was expelled from the party in November 1929. He was arrested by the Kuomintang government in October 1932 and released from prison in August 1937. He died of illness in Jiangjin, Sichuan in 1942.
[5] Li Lisan (1899-1967), from Liling, Hunan. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1921 and was one of the main leaders of the Chinese workers' movement. Li Lisan's "left" opportunism refers to the "left" adventurism mistakes represented by him during the Second Civil Revolutionary War. On June 11, 1930, under the leadership of Li Lisan, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee passed the resolution "New Climax and First Victory of One or Several Provinces", advocating that all parts of the country should prepare for an uprising immediately. Soon, an adventure plan was formulated to organize an armed uprising in central cities across the country and concentrate the Red Army on attacking the central cities across the country. Then, the leading organs of the Party, Youth League, and Trade Unions were merged into action committees at all levels to prepare for an armed uprising, causing all regular work to stop. In September of the same year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held the Third Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, correcting Li Lisan's "left" adventurous mistakes. Later, Li Lisan accepted the party’s criticism of his mistakes, recognized and corrected his mistakes, and was continued to be elected as a member of the Central Committee at the Seventh and Eighth National Congresses of the Communist Party of China.
[6] In January 1931, at the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Wang Ming (Chen Shaoyu) and others achieved leadership in the Party Central Committee with the support of the Communist International and its representative Miff.They confuse the boundaries between democratic revolution and socialist revolution politically, and put anti-bourgeoisie and anti-imperialism and feudalism together; deny the obvious changes in domestic class relations after the September 18th Incident, and regard the intermediate forces as the "most dangerous enemy"; continue to implement the "urban-centered theory", advocating that the Red Army seized the central city to achieve the first victory of several provinces in a province and to form a national victory. In the military, adventurism was first promoted, and then it became conservative and escapist. In organization, we practice sectarianism and carry out "cruel struggles and ruthless blows" against those who disagree with their wrong claims. Wang Ming's "left" adventurism ruled within the party for four years, causing significant losses to the party and the revolutionary cause. In January 1935, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a Zunyi meeting, establishing the correct leadership of the new central government represented by Mao Zedong, thus ending Wang Ming's "left" adventurism in the Party Central Committee.
[7] The Zunyi Conference refers to the enlarged meeting held by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Zunyi, Guizhou during the Long March in January 1935. This meeting focused on discussing and correcting military and organizational mistakes, ended Wang Ming's "left" adventurism ruled in the Party Central Committee, established the correct leadership of the new central government represented by Mao Zedong, and saved the Red Army and the Party at the most critical moment.
[8] See this volume "On the Strategies Against Japanese Imperialism" Notes [23] and Notes [24].
[9] Lushan Officer Training Corps is an organization that Chiang Kai-shek trained anti-communist military cadres. It was founded in July 1933 and is located in Lushan, Jiangxi Province. The regiment conducted military and political training on officers from Chiang Kai-shek's direct troops besieging the Red Army, so as to generally implement building bunkers and other methods of attacking the Red Army. By 1934, the training targets were expanded to officers from various non-direct troops, so as to strengthen Chiang Kai-shek's control over local warlords.
[10] The new military principle of the fifth "encirclement and suppression" mentioned here mainly refers to the "fortress policy" that advances the bunkers and takes every step forward by the Kuomintang reactionaries. See Note [5] for "Care for the lives of the masses and pay attention to the working methods" in this volume.
[11] See Lenin's "Communism". In this article, Lenin criticized Hungarian Communist Party member Kuhn Bella and said: "He ignored the essence of Marxism and the living soul of Marxism: make a specific analysis of the specific situation." ("Complete Works of Lenin", Volume 39, People's Publishing House, 1986 edition, page 128)
[12] The first congress of the Communist Party of China's Hunan-Jiangxi border was held in Maoping, Ninggang County, Jiangxi Province in May 1928. This conference analyzed the political situation at that time, discussed tasks such as developing party organizations, deepening the agrarian revolution, consolidating and expanding the Red Army and revolutionary base areas, and initially answered the questions raised by some people in the Red Army of "how long does the red flag last?" The conference also elected the Special Committee of the Communist Party of China's Hunan-Jiangxi Border with Mao Zedong as secretary. This conference promoted the development of the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base Area.
[13] See this volume of "The Sparks Can Start a Prairie" Note [11].
[14] See this volume for Notes [4] and Notes [5] on Correcting Errors in the Party.
[15] Banditism refers to looting without discipline, unorganized, and clear political goals.
[16] refers to the Long March when the Central Red Army (First Front Army) departed from Ruijin, Jiangxi and other places to northern Shaanxi. See note [22] of this volume "On the Strategies Against Japanese Imperialism".
[17] See note [7] of this volume "The Sparks Can Start a Prairie".
[18] In July 1929, the Kuomintang troops stationed in Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong launched the first "encirclement and suppression" against the Red Fourth Army and the revolutionary base in western Fujian. The Front Committee of the Red Fourth Army decided to stay in western Fujian with the first column and fourth column, and the military headquarters led the second and third columns to attack central Fujian. In September, the main force of the Red Fourth Army, which attacked central Fujian, encountered great difficulties in the middle of the journey, so they returned to western Fujian and annihilated the enemy troops in Shanghang, Wuping and other places. At the same time, under the leadership of the CPC Fujian-Xi Special Committee, the First and Fourth Columns carried out guerrilla wars with the vast number of masses, forcing the enemy in Jiangxi to retreat to Changting and Liancheng, and the enemy in Guangdong to retreat to Yongding. The first "encirclement and suppression" was shattered at this point.In early January 1930, the Kuomintang troops in Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces used the strength of 14 regiments to "encircle and suppress" the Red Army in western Fujian. In order to smash the enemy's "encirclement and suppression", the Front Committee of the Red Fourth Army decided to advance into Jiangxi and attack the rear of the Jiangxi enemy's main force, the main force of the "encirclement and suppression" army. The enemy troops in Jiangxi hurriedly returned to rescue themselves, and the enemy troops in Fujian also retreated from western Fujian due to internal conflicts. In this way, the enemy's second "encirclement and suppression" was soon broken.
[19] "Pinous division" means not the main force, but only part of the flank army.
[20] From December 1930 to May 1931, the Kuomintang army carried out two "encirclement and suppression" of the revolutionary base areas in Hubei, Henan and Anhui, but were both defeated by the Red Army. In September 1931, Chiang Kai-shek began to plan the third "encirclement and suppression" of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui revolutionary base areas. By November of the same year, the Kuomintang troops gathered around the base area had reached fifteen divisions. Due to the unprecedented rise in the fight against Japan and Chiang Kai-shek after the September 18th Incident, the contradictions within the Kuomintang are becoming increasingly intensified, and the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" operation has not begun. The Red Fourth Front Army, established in early November, took the initiative to destroy the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" plan. By June 1932, it launched four battles: Huang'an, Shang (cheng) Huang (chuan), Sujiabu and Huang (chuan) Guang (shan), annihilated about 60,000 enemies, and completely broke the third "encirclement and suppression" plan of the Kuomintang army in the Hubei, Henan and Anhui revolutionary base areas.
[21] In June 1932, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized more than 300,000 troops to carry out the fourth "encirclement and suppression" of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui revolutionary base. Zhang Guotao, who was the secretary of the Central Branch of the Communist Party of China Hubei, Henan and Anhui at that time, was stunned by the victory of the previous three anti-"encirclement and suppression". In the face of the serious "encirclement and suppression" of the Kuomintang army, he did not prepare to lead the Red Army to fight against "encirclement and suppression", but instead ordered the Red Army to besiege the enemy's strong fortified cities and prepare to seize Wuhan. When the enemy attacked in large numbers, he did not adopt the combat policy of luring the enemy into deep and waiting for a counterattack, but ordered the Red Army to fight in a hurry, causing the Red Army to fall into a passive position. In October 1932, the main force of the Red Fourth Front Army was forced to move to the outside line to fight. Since then, he has not returned to the base area again, and the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" struggle in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui revolutionary base area has been failed.
[22] refers to the retreat of the revolution in Russia after the failure of the 1905 period of revolution, which changed from a period of upward tide to a period of gradually downward tide. See Section 3 of Lenin's "The Innocent Disease in the Communist Movement" (Volume 39 of "Complete Works of Lenin", People's Publishing House, 1986 edition, pages 6-11) and Chapter 3, Section 5 and 6 of "A Brief Tutorial on the History of the Communist Party of the United Nations (Bolsheviks)" (People's Publishing House, 1975 edition, pages 88-105).
[23] The Treaty of Brest was a peace agreement concluded by the Soviet Union in Brest-Ritovsk (now Brest) in western Russia with Germany, Austria-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and Türkiye. At that time, the German imperialist army was invading the Soviet Republic, the old Russian army on the front had collapsed, and the new revolutionary army had not yet been organized. In order to prevent the newly established Soviet Republic from dying under the attack of the German army, Lenin advocated temporary retreat, accepting the conditions for cede land and compensation proposed by German imperialism, and signing a peace treaty immediately. The signing of this peace gave the Soviet Republic time to consolidate the proletariat's regime, adjust the economy, and establish the Red Army, allowing the proletariat to maintain its leadership over the peasants, gather strength, and defeat the White Army and armed interferers in Britain, the United States, France, Japan, Poland and other countries from 1918 to 1920.
[24] At the end of October 1927, the farmers in Hailufeng, Guangdong decided to hold the third uprising under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. In November, Haifeng, Lufeng and nearby areas were occupied, the Red Army was organized, and the democratic regime of workers and peasants was established. By March 1928, the Red Army in this area had failed due to the siege of the superior enemy and the "left" blind movement in leadership and command.
[25] In July 1936, after the Red Fourth Front Army and the Red Second Front Army joined forces, due to the active struggle of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the struggle of Zhu De, Liu Bocheng and other commanders and fighters of the Fourth Front Army, Zhang Guotao was forced to agree to go north with the Second Front Army and arrived in Huining, Gansu in October of the same year. In late October, a unit of the Fourth Front Army crossed the Yellow River westward under the instructions of the Central Military Commission and implemented the Ningxia battle plan.In early November, according to the decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Central Military Commission, the crossing forces were called the West Route Army. They fought alone under extremely difficult conditions for four months and wiped out more than 20,000 enemies. In the end, they failed in March 1937 because the enemy was large and we were few.
[26] See Marx's letter to Kugman on the Paris Commune on April 12, 1871 (Selected Works of Marx and Engels), Vol. 4, People's Publishing House, 1972 edition, pp. 392-393); see Engels' "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany" Section 17 (Selected Works of Marx and Engels", Vol. 1, People's Publishing House, 1972 edition, pp. 585-586).
[27] "Water Margin" is a famous novel in China describing peasant wars. It is said to be written by Shi Nai'an, a man in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty in the 14th century AD. Lin Chong and Chai Jin are both heroes in the book. Teacher Hong is a martial arts teacher in Chai Jin's family. For a story about the competition between Lin Chong and coach Hong, see the ninth chapter of "Water Margin" "Chai Enlists Guests in the World, Lin Chong beats coach Hong".
[28] Lu and Qi were two countries in the Spring and Autumn Period of China (722 BC-481 BC). Qi is a great country, in the central and northeastern parts of today's Shandong Province; Lu is smaller, in the southern parts of today's Shandong Province. Duke Zhuang of Lu was the king of Lu from 693 BC to 662 BC.
[29] Zuo Qiuming, a native of Lu in the late Spring and Autumn Period, is said to be the author of the famous chronicle "Zuo Zhuan" in the Spring and Autumn Period. An article quoted in this article is shown in "Zuo Zhuan•Tenth Year of Duke Zhuang".
[30] "Carnivore" refers to an official. "Why do you have to be in the middle?" means "why do you have to be in the middle of the toilet?" In the sentence "If you dare to sacrifice jade and silk, you must trust us." In the sentence "Sacrificing jade and silk" is an item that worships God, and "adding" means false retribution. Duke Zhuang of Lu said that he reported the sacrifice according to facts, indicating that he kept his trust in God. "Loyalty is a part of it. You can fight." "Loyalty" is to do your best to do your duty. Cao Gui means: If a monarch handles a lawsuit in a reasonable manner, he will be supported by the people and can fight. The "drum" of "the three drums of the Qi people" both mean that the drums are sounded to command soldiers to charge. The "Shi" in "Climbing the Shi and looking at it" is a horizontal wood that provides the handrails for the passengers in front of the car. It is located at a high position on the car, so you can see the distance by climbing the Shi and climbing the Shi.
[31] The ancient city of Chenggao is located in the northwest of Xingyang County, Henan Province, and is an important military location in ancient times. In 203 BC, King Liu Bang of Han and King Xiang Yu of Chu had a stalemate here. At that time, Xiang Yu successively captured Xingyang and Chenggao, and Liu Bang was almost defeated. But later Liu Bang finally waited for the opportunity to cross the Chu army in the Sishui River, defeated the Chu army and seize Chenggao again.
[32] Kunyang Ancient City is located in the territory of Ye County, Henan Province. In the second and third year of AD, Liu Xiu (later known as Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty) defeated Wang Mang (he called the emperor in the eighth AD and named the country Xin) army here. The military strength of the two sides in this war was very different, with Liu Xiu only 8,000 or 9,000 people, while Wang Mang had more than 400,000 people. However, Liu Xiu used Wang Mang's generals Wang Xun and Wang Yi to underestimate the enemy and slack off, and used three thousand elite troops to break through the backbone of Wang Mang's army, attacked with a sharp attack, and defeated the enemy.
[33] Guandu is located in the northeast of Zhongmu County, Henan Province. In 200 AD, Cao Cao's army and Yuan Shao's army fought here. At that time, Yuan Shao supported 100,000 troops, while Cao Cao had few troops and had enough food. However, Cao Cao took advantage of the Yuan army's underestimation of the enemy and carried out a sneak attack on the enemy, burning the Yuan army's baggage. Yuan's army was in a panic, and Cao's army attacked and annihilated the main force of Yuan's army.
[34] Wu refers to Sun Quan's side, and Wei refers to Cao Cao's side. Chibi is located on the south bank of the Yangtze River northwest of Puqi County, Hubei Province. In 208 AD, Cao Cao led hundreds of thousands of troops to attack Sun Quan. Sun Quan sent 30,000 troops and joined forces with Liu Bei to take advantage of the epidemic disease of Cao's army and was not familiar with water wars. He used fire to attack Cao's army ships in the Chibi area and defeated Cao's army.
[35] Yiling is located in Yichang County, Hubei Province. In 222 AD, Wu general Lu Xun defeated Liu Bei of Shu Han here. At the beginning of this war, the Shu army won all the battles. When they entered Yiling, they had already entered Wu territory for five or six hundred miles. Lu Xun guarded the battle in July and August, and waited for Liu Bei to "exhausted and frustrated, and he would not be able to recover." He used the wind to set fire and defeated the Shu army.
[36] In 383 AD, General Xie Xuan of the Eastern Jin Dynasty defeated King Fu Jian of Qin in Feishui, Anhui. At that time, Fu Jian had more than 600,000 infantry, 270,000 cavalry, and more than 30,000 guards, while the Eastern Jin Dynasty had only 80,000 naval and army troops.When the two armies confronted each other across the Feishui River, the generals of the Jin army asked the Qin army north of the Feishui River to give up a battlefield so that the Jin army could cross the water and fight to the decisive battle. The Qin army agreed to retreat, but once they retreated, they could not stop. The Jin army took the opportunity to cross the water and attacked, defeating the Qin army.
[37] On August 1, 1927, in order to oppose the counter-revolution of Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei, the Communist Party of China launched an armed uprising in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Under the leadership of Zhou Enlai, secretary of the Communist Party of China's Foreign Enemy Committee, He Long, Ye Ting, Zhu De, Liu Bocheng and others, the rebel troops occupied Nanchang City after fierce battles. This uprising fired the first shot of the Chinese people's armed resistance to the Kuomintang reactionaries. From then on, a new era of independent leadership of the revolutionary armed struggle of the Communist Party of China began. The rebel troops evacuated Nanchang and headed south to Guangdong. In early October, he encountered a siege from the superior enemy troops in Chaozhou and Shantou and failed. Some of the preserved uprising troops arrived in the Hailufeng area and continued to fight; the other part, led by Zhu De, Chen Yi and others, moved to southern Hunan to launch the southern Hunan Uprising. In April 1928, they met with the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army led by Mao Zedong in Jinggangshan.
[38] See this volume "Why can the red regime in China exist? 》Note〔8〕.
[39] 〕After the failure of the revolution in 1927, the Communist Party of China launched the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Guangdong and other provinces. The most famous of these was the uprising led by Mao Zedong in Xiushui, Tonggu, Pingxiang, Liling, Pingjiang, Liuyang and other places on the borders of Hunan and Jiangxi. The Workers and Peasants Armed Forces and the Guard Regiment of the Second Front Command of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, which participated in this uprising, formed the First Division of the First Army of the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army. In October, Mao Zedong led the army to Jinggangshan, where the first rural revolutionary base was established.
[40] See note [5] in this volume "Care for the lives of the masses and pay attention to the working methods".
[41] See "Sun Tzu•Military Battle".
[42] The AB Group was a right-wing Kuomintang organization with the purpose of anti-communism established in Nanchang, Jiangxi at the end of 1926, and it has not existed for a long time. Since May 1930, the so-called purge of the AB regiment was launched in the southwestern Jiangxi Soviet Area. The struggle continues to expand, seriously confusing the conflict between the enemy and us.
[43] refers to the area between the Ganjiang River and Fuhe River in central Jiangxi Province.
[44] See "The Strategies of the Warring States Period•Wei Ce". The original text is: "If you want to defeat him, you must assist him; if you want to take him, you must accompany him."
[45] Abyssinia is Ethiopia. In October 1935, Italian fascists sent troops to attack Ethiopia. The Egyptian army fought a positional war and failed in May 1936. After the beginning of World War II, the Ethiopian people cooperated with the anti-fascist allies in 1941 to drive away the Italian invading army and restore the country's independence.
[46] The Tibetans mentioned here mainly refer to the Tibetans in Xikang (now divided into Sichuan and Tibet) and Gansu. The Hui people mentioned here refer to the Hui people in Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang.
[47] Liu refers to the Kuomintang army Liu Heding.
[48] During the third "encirclement and suppression", Chiang Kai-shek served as the commander-in-chief of the "encirclement and suppression" army, and He Yingqin was the commander-in-chief of the front line, and his command centers were all stationed in Nanchang. Under the jurisdiction: the left-wing army, He Yingqin also serves as the commander-in-chief; the right-wing army, Chen Mingshu as the commander-in-chief and stationed in Ji'an; the reserve army, Wei Lihuang as the commander-in-chief and stationed in Linchuan.
[49] Jiang Guangnai was originally the commander-in-chief of the 19th Route Army. During the second "encirclement and suppression", Cai Tingkai was the acting commander-in-chief. During the third "encirclement and suppression", the 60th Division of the 19th Route Army, the 61st Division of the Dai Ji and the 52nd Division of the Han Deqin were organized into the First Corps of the Right-wing Army, and Cai Tingkai served as the acting commander-in-chief. The "Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai, Han Deqin" here should be "Cai Tingkai, Dai Ji, Han Deqin"; the "Jiang, Cai, Han" below should be "Cai, Dai, Han", and "Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai" should be "Cai Tingkai, Dai Ji".
[50] During the third anti-"encirclement and suppression", the First Red Army attacked Shangguan Yunxiang's division, Hao Mengling's division, and Mao Bingwen's division, and wiped out more than 10,000 enemies in three victories, and seized more than 6,000 guns.
[51] The Nanxiong and Shuikou battles, including the battles of Chijiang, Meiling Pass, Dayu, Shuikouwei, etc., defeated Chen Jitang's fifteen regiments of the Guangdong Army.Among them, the battle in Shuikouwei defeated ten regiments of the Guangdong Army.
[52] Eight-legged essay is a special style stipulated by the feudal dynasty examination system of China's Ming and Qing dynasties. Each eight-part article consists of eight parts: breaking the topic, following the topic, starting the lecture, starting the stock, starting the stock, starting the stock, middle stock, back stock, and binding stock. To solve the problem, two sentences are usually used to explain the essence of the problem. The following questions are generally used to describe them in three to five sentences, and the meaning of solving them is explained in accordance with the question. The whole story is the beginning of the discussion. Start it as the starting point after the talk. The four paragraphs of starting stock, China Stock Exchange, Hou Stock Exchange and Shu Stock Exchange are the official discussion, and China Stock Exchange is the center of the whole text. In these four paragraphs, each paragraph has two lems and two lems, and there are eight lems in total, so it is called eight lems, also called eight lems. Mao Zedong used the process of writing eight-legged essays from part to part to metaphor for various stages of revolutionary development. But in normal occasions, Mao Zedong used things like eight-legged essays to describe and satirize dogmatism.
[53] See "Zuo Zhuan•Second Year of Chenggong". In 589 BC, the troops of Qi and Jin fought in Hu (now Licheng County, Shandong Province). At the beginning of the battle, Duke Qing of Qi thought it was easy to defeat the enemy and said, "I am destroying this and eating in the court." "This" refers to these enemies. The meaning of this sentence is: first eliminate these enemies, and then have breakfast. As a result, the Qi army was defeated by the Jin army. Later, people often used this to describe the determination to fight and to immediately eliminate the enemy.
