Page 247 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume I.indd

STRATEGY IN CHINA’S REVOLUTIONARY WAR 241
The exponents of the strategy of “regular warfare” which dom-
inated our fifth counter-campaign denied this fluidity and opposed
what they called “guerrilla-ism”. Those comrades who opposed
fluidity managed affairs as though they were the rulers of a big
state, and the result was an extraordinary and immense fluidity —
the 25,000-li Long March.
Our workers’ and peasants’ democratic republic is a state, but
today it is not yet a full-fledged one. Today we are still in the period
of strategic defensive in the civil war, the form of our political power
is still far from that of a full-fledged state, our army is still much
inferior to the enemy both in numbers and technical equipment, our
territory is still very small, and our enemy is constantly out to destroy
us and will never rest content till he has done so. In defining our
policy on the basis of these facts, we should not repudiate guerrilla-ism
in general terms but should honestly admit the guerrilla character of
the Red Army. It is no use being ashamed of this. On the contrary,
this guerrilla character is precisely our distinguishing feature, our
strong point, and our means of defeating the enemy. We should be
prepared to discard it, but we cannot do so today. In the future this
guerrilla character will definitely become something to be ashamed
of and to be discarded, but today it is invaluable and we must
stick to it.
“Fight when you can win, move away when you can’t win” — this
is the popular way of describing our mobile warfare today. There is
no military expert anywhere in the world who approves only of
fighting and never of moving, though few people do as much moving
as we do. We generally spend more time in moving than in fighting
and would be doing well if we fought an average of one sizable battle
a month. All our “moving” is for the purpose of “fighting”, and all
our strategy and tactics are built on “fighting”. Nevertheless, there
are times when it is inadvisable for us to fight. In the first place,
it is inadvisable to fight when the force confronting us is too large;
second, it is sometimes inadvisable to fight when the force confronting
us, though not so large, is very close to other enemy forces; third,
it is generally inadvisable to fight an enemy force that is not isolated
and is strongly entrenched; fourth, it is inadvisable to continue an
engagement in which there is no prospect of victory. In any one of
these situations we are prepared to move away. Such moving away
is both permissible and necessary. For our recognition of the necessity