Episode 10: Mao Zedong’s Strategy for Revolutionary War
Professor Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, joins Beatrice and Paul to discuss the founding father of the Chinese People’s Republic, Mao Zedong.
Mao Zedong was both a Leninist strategic theorist and the leader of the Chinese Communists in their fight to overthrow the Chinese nationalists – while not exerting themselves too much in the battle against Japanese occupation.
There is a considerable gulf between Mao’s theoretical writings on strategies for insurgency and civil war, and the practices he followed, Professor Tsang explains. Nevertheless, his three-stage concept for a successful guerrilla movement has inspired other Communist revolutionary movements the world over.
Another disciple of Clausewitz, Mao used the tenet that war is a continuation of politics by other means to argue, famously, that peace is also a time of fighting – even if the tools are not those of war. He made this his main argument for breaking with the Stalinist tradition that sought to rely only on Communist strategic thinkers, and with Soviet tutelage. For Mao, ‘Fighting in times of peace is politics, war is also politics, even if it uses special means’. This doctrine perfectly captured the spirit of the Cold War.
Professor Steve Tsang is the Director of the SOAS China Institute. Previously, he was the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, and before that a Professorial Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He is also an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College.
The views or statements expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by RUSI employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of RUSI.
Recommended reading
Tse-tung, Mao: On Guerrilla Warfare, trs. by Samuel Griffiths (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1961).
Tse-tung, Mao: Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963).
Schram, Stuart: The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1969).
McCord, Edward: ‘Mao Zedong and the Issue of Military Power in the 1926 National Revolution’, American Journal of Chinese Studies 25:2 (2018).
Lai, Sherman X: Springboard to Victory: Shandong Province and the Chinese Communist Military and Financial Strength, 1937-1945 (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
Tsang, Steve: The Cold War’s Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership between the Republic of China and the United Kingdom, 1950-1958 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006).
Tsang, Steve (ed.): Combating Transnational Terrorism: Searching for a New Paradigm (Santa Barbara: Praeger Security International, 2009).
FEATURING
Beatrice Heuser
Senior Associate Fellow
Paul O’Neill
Senior Research Fellow
Military Sciences