TRANSLATORS NOTE (1940) [U.S. has not yet entered the Second World War]
In July, 1941, the undeclared war between China and Japan will enter its fifth year. One of the most significant features of the struggle has been the organization of the Chinese people for unlimited guerrilla warfare. The development of this warfare has followed the pattern laid out by Mao Tse-tung and his collaborators in the pamphlet Yu Chi Chan (Guerrilla Warfare), which was published in 1937 and has been widely distributed in “Free China” at 10 cents a copy.
Mao T’se-tung, a member of the Chinese Communist Party and formerly political commissar of the Fourth Red Army, is no novice in the art of war. Actual battle experience with both regular and guerrilla troops has qualified him as an expert. The influence of the ancient military philosopher Sun Tzu on Mao’s military thought will be apparent to those who have read The Book of War. Sun Tzu wrote that speed, surprise, and deception were the primary essentials of the attack and his succinct advice, “Sheng Tung, Chi Hsi” (“Uproar [in the] East, Strike [in the] West”), is no less valid today than it was when he wrote it 2,400 years ago. The tactics of Sun Tzu are in large measure the tactics of China’s guerrillas today.
Mao says that unlimited guerrilla warfare, with vast time and space factors, established a new military process. This seems a true statement since there are no other historical examples of guerrilla hostilities as thoroughly organized from the military, political, and economic point of view as those in China.
We in the Marine Corps have as yet encountered nothing but relatively primitive and strictly limited guerrilla war. Thus, what Mao has written of this new type of guerrilla war may be of interest to us. I have tried to present the author’s ideas accurately, but as the Chinese language is not a particularly suitable medium for the expression of technical thought, the translation of some of the modern idioms not yet to be found in available dictionaries is probably arguable…
Samuel B. Griffith, Captain, USMC
A FURTHER NOTE (1961) [U.S. had ~3,200 military advisors in Vietnam, up from 900 the year before.]
The preceding note was written twenty-one years ago, but I see no need to amplify it…
Mao wrote Yu Chi Chan during China’s struggle against Japan; consequently there are, naturally, numerous references to the strategy to be used against the Japanese. These in no way invalidate Mao’s fundamental thesis.
For instance, when Mao writes, “The moment that this war of resistance dissociates itself from the masses of the people is the precise moment that it dissociates itself from hope of ultimate victory over the Japanese,” he might have added, “and from hope of ultimate victory over the forces of Chiang Kai-shek.”
However, he did not do so, because at that time both sides were attempting to preserve the illusion of a “united front.” “Our basic policy,” he said, “is the creation of a national united anti-Japanese front.” This was, of course, not the basic policy of the Chinese Communist Party then, or at any other time. Its basic policy was to seize state power; the type of revolutionary guerrilla war described by Mao was the basic weapon in the protracted and ultimately successful process of doing so.
Samuel B. Griffith, Brigadier General, USMC (Ret.)
Until reading this I hadn’t really appreciated the extent to which the CCP’s fight against the Japanese and the Nationalists was the paradigmatic case of modern guerrilla warfare, setting the pattern for so many of the wars of national independence in the 20th century. Full text available here. Recommended so far.
Samuel B. Griffith is worth your time too. He was on the ground in the Nicaraguan Civil War (1926-27), spent three years studying Mandarin in Beijing, including observing both Chinese and Japanese forces after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. In the Second World War he fought in the Guadalcanal and New Georgia campaigns – leading from the front and earning multiple medals in the process. He spent another 18 months in China from 1946, and completed a PhD in history at Oxford in 1961.