(Study Material for IPS LCE) National Security: Meeting the Maoist Challenge Police Response - Mr. Shankar Barua (IPS)

By:  — Mr. Shankar Barua (IPS)
Courtesy: Ministry of Home Affairs

What is Maoism? Is it a typical Communist ideology, is it a call to arms, is it a manual for rural guerrilla warfare? It appears to be all this and much more. The rise of Mao Tse Tung and his People’s Liberation Army in China was the culmination of a series of factors in China. One was the humiliations faced by the Chinese from the mid 19th century when foreign powers such as UK, USA, and other European countries forced the Qing dynasty to grant them trading concessions. Second was the grabbing of huge chunks of Chinese territory by Russia and Japan in the 19th century Third was the all pervading corruption of the Chinese administration where the peasantry bore the brunt of a corrupt and feudal system From 1926 the Guomindang party and the Communists had allied to drive out the foreigners and warlords from China. Gradually the Communists under the leadership of Mao Tse Tune and Zhou Enlai, Ju Deh and others built up their guerrilla bases and guerrilla areas and by 1949 had thrown both the Japanese occupation army and Chiank Kai Chek out of the Chinese mainland. One point overlooked by many is the help received by the Chinese Red Army from the Russians. The Russians had played an important role in defeating the million strong Japanese army in Manchuuria in 1945. The Russians handed over to the Chinese Communists huge amounts of captured Japanese military supplies—3700 artillery pieces, 600 tanks, 861 planes apart from many naval vesels (‘Guerrilla warfare & Marxism’—International Publishers- p 27).
The following quotations from Mao Tse Tung clearly illustrate the principles of revolutionary war propounded by him. Every communist must grasp the truth, “ Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” (Mao Tse Tung, in “Problems of War & Strategy”, Nov 6, 1938, Selected Works, Vol II p. 224.) “War is the continuation of politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character…
But war has its own peculiar characteristics and in this sense it cannot be equated with politics in general. War is the continuation of politics by other… means” ….. It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. ( Mao Tse tung in “On protracted war” May 1968, Selected Works Vol II, pp 152-153.) The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is thew central task and the highest form of revolution. The Marxist Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries…. Mao Tse tung According to Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the “omnipotence of war.” Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed (Mao Tse Tung in “Problems of War and Strategy” Nov 6, 1938 Selected Works, Vol II p 223.)

Our Principles of Operation are:

1. Attack dispersed, isolated enemy forces first; attack concentrated, strong enemy forces later
2. Take small and medium cities and extensive rural areas first; take big cities later.
3. Make wiping out the enemy’s effective strength our main objective; do not make holding or seizing a city or place our main objective. Holding or seizing a city or place is the outcome of wiping out the enemy’s effective strength, and often a city or place can be held or seized for good only after it has changed hands a number of times.
4. In every battle, concentrate an absolutely superior force (two, three, four and sometimes even five or six times the enemy’s strength), encircle the enemy forces completely, strive to wipe them out thoroughly and do not let any escape from the net. In special circumstances use the method of dealing the enemycrushing blows, that is, concentrate all our strength to make a frontal attack and an attack on one or both his flanks, with the aim of wiping out one part and routing another so that our army can swiftly move its troops to smash other enemy forces. Strive to avoid battles of attrition in which we lose more than we gain or only break even. In this way, although inferior as a whole, (in terms of numbers) we shall be absolutely superior in every part and every specific campaign, and this ensures victory in the.

Courtesy: Ministry of Home Affairs