Page 239 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume I.indd

STRATEGY IN CHINA’S REVOLUTIONARY WAR 233
succeeding stages, or, at the very least, the following one. Even though
future changes are difficult to foresee and the farther ahead one looks
the more blurred things seem, a general calculation is possible and
an appraisal of distant prospects is necessary. In war as well as in
politics, planning only one step at a time as one goes along is a harmful
way of directing matters. After each step, it is necessary to examine
the ensuing concrete changes and to modify or develop one’s strategic
and operational plans accordingly, or otherwise one is liable to make
the mistake of rushing straight ahead regardless of danger. However,
it is absolutely essential to have a long-term plan which has been
thought out in its general outline and which covers an entire strategic
stage or even several strategic stages. Failure to make such a plan
will lead to the mistake of hesitating and allowing oneself to be tied
down, which in fact serves the enemy’s strategic objects and reduces
one to a passive position. It must be borne in mind that the enemy’s
supreme command is not lacking in strategic insight. Only when we
have trained ourselves to be a head taller than the enemy will strategic
victories be possible. During the enemy’s fifth “encirclement and
suppression” campaign, failure to do so was the main reason for
the errors in strategic direction under the “Left” opportunist and
the Chang Kuo-tao lines. In short, in the stage of retreat we must
see ahead to the stage of the counter-offensive, in the stage of the
counter-offensive we must see ahead to that of the offensive, and
in the stage of the offensive we must again see ahead to a stage of
retreat. Not to do so but to confine ourselves to considerations of
the moment is to court defeat.
The first battle must be won. The plan for the whole campaign
must be taken into account. And the strategic stage that comes next
must be taken into account. These are the three principles we must
never forget when we begin a counter-offensive, that is, when we fight
the first battle.

6. CONCENTRATION OF TROOPS

The concentration of troops seems easy but is quite hard in practice.
Everybody knows that the best way is to use a large force to defeat
a small one, and yet many people fail to do so and on the contrary
often divide their forces up. The reason is that such military leaders