From books on the shelves to boots on the ground : Mao Zedong's revolutionary guerrilla strategy in context, development, and application.

Abstract

Between 1950 and 1953, the People's Republic of China (PRC) military leaders subscribed to a doctrine that incorporated revolutionary guerrilla warfare as standard operating procedure during the Korean War. Though influenced by a number of long-standing cultural and philosophical traditions, the Chinese Communist Party Central Military Commission (CCP CMC) relied on Mao Zedong's approach to warfare. Indeed, this doctrine guided Chinese military thought and theory for much of the early twentieth century as the Red Army, the guerrillas of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), transitioned into the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the conventional forces of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Even after the creation of the PRC, the PLA and especially the Chinese People's Volunteer Forces (CPVF) in Korea continued to operate under this doctrine because of the limited industrial and economic development of China. This subscription to Mao military thought, however, did not completely divorce the doctrine of the PRC from traditional approaches to war. Indeed, the revolutionary guerrilla warfare of Mao demonstrated clear continuity with the methods of eras past such as pragmatism, efficiency, and adaptability. The experiences CPVF troops gained from the stalemate of the Korean War demonstrated several implications for the future of the twenty-first century. The Korean War revealed the limited capabilities of revolutionary guerrilla war outside of the country where the cultural-national troops originated. It also demonstrated the military power of the PRC and its ability to halt the advances of industrialized and technologically superior Western forces, signaling the reestablishment of Chinese political and cultural dominance of Asia. Perhaps most important as a "lessons taught" approach to history, the CPVF demonstrated the viability of revolutionary guerrilla warfare as a means for struggling, former colonial states to combat the supposed strengths of Western, industrialized, and modern state military powers.