LETTER TO GENERAL SAMUEL V. GRIFFITH FROM ALLEN W. DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 37
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 27, 2002
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 30, 1961
• Content Type: LETTER

STAT
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 CIA-RDP80B01676R0035000
0004-3
i oD /P . .,~ , ... - - ~,
General Samuel V. GriffidL/
Dear General Griffis:
Many thanks for your "Introduction to Masts Yu Chan".
which I have passed to our QW Staff for further study. Your
capsule, sommartes sod conclusions ore particularly appreciated.
and are still in process of being sated. With Mao's effort rapidly
attaining the status of a classic in U field. valid Interpretation wits
be of continuing interest.
I plan to hold you to your written cernsoitms to provide Mme
with an author's complimentary copy of your upcoming translation
of Sun Tau's Art of W s. In the meantime, your c11s4ca of locale
for the summer mcr O cannot be faulted. In dosing let me say
that many of your old Meads in the Agency send their regards as
do I.
t - ER
CC/DDCI
Original - Addrgs.sffe--?-
STALT_ /p
1 -
Sincerely.
Allen W. Duties
Director
DDPI 1 - A /DDP/A
8 0 AUG 1961
STAT
CA / Chrono
STATDDP 24 Aug 61) (Retyped A/DDP/b/26 Aug 61)
Signature ecommen ed:
E AUG 1961
Deputy Director (Plans) L' r"T
.a
STAT
Approved For Release 2002/ 7/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/0
-RDP801301676R003500090004-3
2 4 AUG 1961 61 - 6 7e30
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Comments on General Sam Griffiths'
Introduction to Mao Tse Tung's
Yu Chi Chan.
1. This memorandum requests action on the part of the
Director of Central Intelligence, in the form of signing the attached
personal letter to General Samuel V. Griffithi-, General Griffith;.
has forwarded to you a draft of his Introduction to his original
translation of Mao Tse Tung's Yu Chi Chan.
25X1
2. In the estimate of th General Griffith44'
introduction is a. tangible contribution to the interpretation of Mao Tse
Tung's classic. So long as General Griffith's' effort is viewed in the
above light, it can scarely be faulted.
3. If the General's interpretation is regarded as a global
reference point for GW, it becomes misleading and subject to valid
difference of opinion. For example, there is no reference to nationalism
as a factor, and to full outside provocation. Again using the global
spectrum, it is felt that the insistence on political indoctrination will
not hold up. (The Meos would tend to refute this - their political
sophistication, if any, is minimal; they are fighting to maintain their
home land. This applies also to the Spanish guerrilla effort in the
Napoleonic wars, which he cites). Exception is also taken to the
concept that once Phase One is completed (political indoctrination of
th
e masses), the process is not reversible.
4. In sum, if viewed as General Griffiths may have intended it
to. be, i. e. , interpretation of Mao's work, Limited to China, the effort is
a solid contribution.
25X1
Approved For Release 2002/08-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 25X1 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 :'CIA-RbP80B01676R003500090004-3
Dear Mr. Dulles,
I must apologize for having taken so long to get this to you.
Praeger, who will publish this "Introduction" together with MW
original translation of Mao's Yu Chi Chan as "Mao Tse-tung on Guer-
rilla War" on 13 October put me on a "crash" schedule.
We are enjoying it very much here, and I am proceding all out
on revision of ny,Oxford doctoral thesis, which will be published
in the spring by the Clarendon Press. This is a new and I hope
definitive translation of Sun Tzu's classic "Art of War", with a
six chapter "Introduction" by me.
I will see that you get an author's complimentary copy of each
o Vese earth-shaking tomes.
With best regards,
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
INTRODUCTION
The Nature of Revolutionary Guerrilla Mar
N - - - - - the guerrilla campaigns being
waged in China today are a page in history
that has no precedent, Their influence will
be confined not solely to China in her pres-
ent anti-Japanese struggle, but will be
world-wide.a
l!so Tse-tung, IM Chi 2b S, 1937
At one end of the epectr a, ranks of electronic boxes buried deep
in the earth hungrily consume data and spew out endless tapes. Scies-
ttets and engineers confer in air-conditioned offices; missiles are checked
by intense'meen who move about them silently, almost reverently. In forty
minutes count-down begins.
At the other and of this spectrum a tired man wearing a greasy felt
hat, a tattered shirt and soiled shorts is seated, his back against a
tree. Barrel pressed between his knees, butt resting on the moist earth
between sandalled feet, a Browning automatic rifle. Hooked to his belt,
two dirty canvas sacks, one holding three homemade bombs, the other
four magazines loaded with.30 calibre ammunition. Draped around his
neck, a sausage-like cloth tube with three days' supply of rice. The
man stands, ro s a water bottle to his lips, rinses his mouth, spits
out the water. He looks about him carefully, corks the bottle, slops
the stock of the Browning three times, pauses, slaps it again twice, and
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
disapr-ears silently into the shaadoi -. in forty minutes his group of
fifteen men will occupy a previously pxepared ambush.
"ties.
It is probable that gu
nationalist and revolutionary
ties revolved that the tempo of "wars of liberation" should be stepped
up. Exactly a month later (6 January 1.961) the Soviet Premier, an unim-
peachable authority on "national liberation wars", propounded an inter-
esting series of questions to which he provided equally interesting on-
awers:
no attention to this warning.
In December 1960 delegates of eighty-one Con zunist and Workers pa
in nature, will flare up in one or more of half a dozen countries during
the next few years. Those outbreaks nay not initially be inspired, or-
ganized or led t local, communists - indeed, it in probable that they
will not be. But they will receive the moral support and vocal encour-
agement of international Communism, and where circumstances permit,
expert advice and material assistance as well.
As early as November 1949 we had this assurance from China's Number
Two Communist, Uu Shao-r hai, when, speaking before the Australasian
Trade Unions Conference in Peking, he prophesied that there would be
other Asian revolutions which would follow the Chinese pattern. We paid
"Is there a liltihood of such wares recurring?
Yes, there is. Are uprisings of this kind
likely to recur? Yes, they are. But were
of this kind are popular uprisings. Is there
the likelihood of conditions in other coup--
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
trios rnac',iing the polht where the cur of the
popular patience overfltawa and they take to
arm? Yes, there is Such a likelihood. of
is the attitude of the sts to such up-
risings? A most favor+le attitude. . . .
These uprisings are directed against the cor-
rupt reactionary regimes, against the colon-
ialists. The Cord sts support Just uaZrs of
this kind wholehe rtodly and without reserve-
tions. o
ry 1961
Implicit to the farther assurance that any popular movement infiltrated
and captured by the communists will develop an anti moteern character
definitely tinged, in our own hemisphere at least, with a distinctive
anti-American coloration.
This should not surprises us if we remember that several hundred
millions less fortunate than we have Arrived, perhaps reluctantly, at
Vie conclusion that the western peoples are dedicated to the per-
petuation of the political, social and economic statt tus guo. In the
not too distant past vokny of these millions looked hopefully to America,
Britain or !rAnce for help toward the realization of their justifiable
sepirat-tons. But today many of them: feel that these aims can be achieved
only by a desporste revolutionary struggle which we will probably oppose.
This is not an hypothesis, it is fact.
A potential revolutionary situation exists in any country where
the government consistently fails in its obligation to insure at least
a minimally decent standard of life for the great majority of its citi-
zens. If there also exists even the nucleus of a revolutionary party
able to supply doctrine and organization there remains but one missing
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
ingredient: the instrument for violent revolutionary actin.
In many countries there are but two n .es, the rich and the mis--
erably poor. In these countries the relatively small middle class -
r;erchsnts, bankers, doctors, lawyers, ongineers - lacks forceful lender-
ship, is fragmented by unceaoing factional quarrels and is politically
ineffective. Its program, which usually posits a socialized society
and some form of ? ihoral p +rliaamentary democracy, is anathen to the
exclusive and tightly snit possessing minority. It is also rejected
by the frustrated intellectual. youth who move irrevocably toward violent
revolution. To the illiterate and destitute, it represents a package
of promises which experience tells them will never be fulfilled.
3a
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
People who live at subsistence lev,i want first things to be put
first. They are not particularly interested in freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, free enterprise as we understand it, or the secret
ballot. Their needs are more basics land, tools, fertilisers, something
better than rags for their children, a house instead of a shack, freedom
from police oppression, medical attention, primary schools. Those who
have known only poverty have begun to wonder why they should continue
to wait passively. They see - and not always through red-tinted glasses -
examples of peoples who have changed the structure of their societies
and they ask, *Wtaat have we to lose?" When a great many people begin to
ask themselves this question, a revolutionary guerrilla situation is in-
cipient.
A revolutionary war is never confined within the bounds of military
action. Because its purpose is to destroy an existing society and its
institutions and to replace them with a completely new state structure,
any revolutionary war is a unity of which the constituent parts, of va-
riable importance, are military, political, economic, social and psycho-
logical. For this reason it is endowed with a dynamic quality and a
dimension in depth which orthodox wars, of whatever scale, lack. This
is particularly true of revolutionary guerrilla war, which is not suscept-
ible to the type of superficial military treatment frequently advocated
by antediluvian doctrinaires.
It is often said that guerrilla warfare is primitive. This general-
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
isation is dangerously misleading and true only in the technological
sense. If one considers the picturo as a whole a paradox is immediately
apparent and the primitive form is seen to be in fact more sophisticated
than nuclear war or atomic war or war as it was waged by conventional
armies, navies and air forces. Guerrilla war is not dependent for suc-
cess on the efficient operation of complex mechanical devices, highly
organized logistical systems, or the accuracy of electronic computers.
It can be conducted in any terrain, in any climate, in any weather; in
swamps, in mountains, in farmed fields,.4 Its basic element is
man, and man is more complex than any of his machines. He is endowed
with intelligence, emotions and will. Guerrilla warfare is therefore
suffused with, and reflects, man's admirable qualities as well as his
less pleasant ones. While it is not always humane, it is bi ean, which
is more than can be said for the strategy of extinction.
In the United States we go to considerable trouble to keep soldiers
out of politics, and even more to keep politics out of soldiers. Guer-
rillas do exactly the opposite. They go to great lengths to make sure
that their men are politically educated and thoroughly aware of the issues
at stake. A trained and disciplined guerrilla is much more than a patri-
otic peasant, workman or student armed with an antiquated fowling-piece
and a home-made bomb. His indoctrination begins even before he is tqugbt
to shoot accurately and it is unceasing. The and product is an intensely
loyal and politically alert fighting man.
Guerrilla leaders spend a great deal more time in organization,
5
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA' RDP86B01676R003500090004-3
instruction, agittion and pr.pegands work than they do fighting. For
their most irportsrt job Is to udn over the people. We must patiently
explain," aayv Mao Tse-tung. "Explain", "persuade", "discuss", "con-
vince* - these words recur with monotonous regularity in many of the
early Giinese essays on guerrilla war. icao has aptly compared guerrillas
to fish, and the people to the water in which they swim. If the politi-
cal temperature in right the fish, however few in number, will thrive
and proliferate. It is therefore the principal concern of all guerrilla
leaders to get the water to the right ter,:perature and to keep it there.
Over ten yaars ago I concluded an analysis of guerrilla warfare
with the suggestion that the problem urgently demanded further "Serious
study of all historical experience". Although a wealth of material
existed then, and much more has since been developed, no such study
has yet been undertaken in this country, so far as I am aware. In Indo-
China and Cuba Ho Chi- uinh and Ernesto (Cho) Guevara were more assiduous.
One rather interesting result of their successful activities has been
the common identification of guerrilla warfare with communism. But
guerrilla warfare was not invented by the communists. For centuries
there have been guerrilla fighters.
One of the most accomplished of them all was our own Revolutionary hero,
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80SO1676R003500090004-3
?renois Marion, "The Swamp 'oar". These present at his birth would
Perhaps not have foretold a martial future for hima the baby was not
gar than a New England lobster oncl might easily enough have, been put
into a quart pot."
row up in South Carolina arid had little
formal schooling. xe was a former. In 1759, at the age o." 27, he joined
a regiment raised to fight the Cherokees, who were than ravaging the
borders of the Carolinas. For two years he served and in the course of
these hostilities stored away in his mind ouch that was later tco be put
to good use against the British.
When the Revolution broke out Marion immediately accepted a commis-
sion in the Second South Carolina Reg tent. By 1780 he had seen enough
of the gar to realize that the Continentals w*aro evsrlooking a very prof-
itable field - that of partisan warfare. Accordingly he nought and ob-
tained permission to organize a company which at first consisted of twenty
(Castro's "base" was twelve men).
ill-equipped men and bcyi~. The appearance of this group, with a heter-
ogeneous assortment of arms and in ragged and poorly fitting clothes
provoked considerable jesting among the regulars of General Gates, but
Marion's men were not long in -roving that the Appearance of a combat
soldier is not always a reliable criterion of his fighting abilities,
rion's guerrilla activities in South Carolina soon told heavily
cn the British and most seriously inconvenieneed Cornw-ral iis, Vone Plans
were continually d'srupted by them. Eris tactics were those of nll suc--
easeful guerrillas. Operating -with the grootest speed from Inaccessible
bases which he changed frequently, he struc'c his blown in rapid succee-
7
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA?RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
Isolated garrisons, convoys and trains. His informs
always timely and accurate,, for the people supported him.
The Iritiah, unable to cope with 'Marion, branded him a- eriminal,
tom lained bitterly that he fought neither "like a gentleman" nor "a
Christian",, a a! rarge tahic&t orthodo soldiers are wont to apply in all
land* and in all ware to eue ubiquitous, intangible and deadly antag-
oniets its 1rancie Marion
However, the first e z at?pie of guerrilla operations on a grand soda
WAS in Spain between the years 1808 one, 1813. The Spaniards vhc fled
from Napoleon's invading arr=myr to the mountains were patriots loyal to
the ruler whose crown had been taken from him by the npeeror of the
French. They were not revolutionists. Most did not desire a change
in the form of their government. Their single objective was to help
Wellington force the French armies to leave Spain.
"Brytent, in .: s~ o- Sng o of Sofy~~ line 5
of i#o as, wrote Aaammma* that shoved that
he had a better understanding of guerrilla tactics and psychology than
many who have followed more martial pu rsuitst
"Woe to the English soldiery,
That little dreads us nears
On then shall come at midnight
A strange and sudden fear;
When, waking to their tents on fire
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP86B01676R003500090004-3
A few yosr3 later thousgnla of Russian Cossacks a?n~ peasants hart ed
'2 a V$/ e d I/tf; -SS 9
Napoleon's Grande Arr oe r. ' staring and freaking, dew the
ice--covered road to Smolensk. This dying army felt again and sg iin the
cudgel of the people's war.which, as Tolatoi ?steer wrote, Owns raised in
all its menacing and ^,s estic wower; and troubling itself about no ques-
tion of anyone a s tastes or rules, s btu
pid simplicity, with perfect consistency
distinctions, with stu-
and fell and belaboured
the `Tench until the whole invading army had been driven out."
A little more than a century and n quarter later Hitlerle armies
fell back along the 3molcnek road. They too would feel the fury of an
groused people. But in neither case were those who wielded the Cudgel
revolutionists. They worn triotic Russians.
Only when Lenin came on the scene dish guerrilla warfare receive the
potent political injection that was to alter its character radically. But it
renaainod for moo Tse=-tung to produce the first systematic study of the
subject. This appeared in a treatise written almost twenty-five years
ago. gig study, now endowed with the authority which deservedly accrues
to the wora of a :pan who led the Yost radical revolution in h1 story,
will continue to have a decisive effect in societies ready for change.
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
II
Profile of a Revolutionist
ioal power acmes out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao Tee-tut, 1938
Mao Tse-tung, the man who was to don the mantle of Lenin, was barn
1 China in 1893. His father? an industrious
former, had managed to acquire several acres, and with this land the
status of a "middle" peasant. He was a strict disciplinarian, and Mao's
youth was not a happy one. The boy was in constant conflict with his
father, but found an ally in his mother, whose "indirect tactics" (as
he once described her methods of coping with her husband) appealed to
him. But the father gave his rebellious son educational opportunities
which only a tiny minority of Chinese were then able to enjoy. Mao's
primary and secondary schooling use thorough. His literary taste was
catholic; while a pupil at the provincial normal school he read omnivorously.
This indiscriminate diet included Chinese philosophy, poetry, history and
romances as well as translations of many western historians, novelists and
biographers. However, history a
cal sciences particularly ap-
pealed to him; In them, he sought, but without success, the key to the
future of China.
His studies had led him to reject both democratic liberalism and par-
liamentary socialism as unsuited to his country. Time, he reali$ed,
was running out for China. History would not accord her the privilege of
gradual political, social and economic change; of a relatively painless
and orderly evolution. To survive in the power jungle, China had to change,
Approved For Release 2002/07/294"CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
to change radically, to change fast. But how?
Shortly after graduating from Normal wool in 1917, Mae stpted
a position an assistant in the Peking University library. Here he an-
sociated himself with the Marxist study groups set up by Li Tao-chap
and Chaen Tu-hsiu; here he discovered Lenin, read his essays, pored
over Trotsky's explosive speeches, and began to study Marx and Bagels.
By 1920, 3 aao was a convinced coirsuunist and a man who had discovered
his missions to create a new China according to the doctrine of Marx
and Lenin. When the C.C.P. was organized in Shanghai in 1921, Mac joined
The China Mao decided to change was not a notion in the accepted
sense of the word. Culturally.. China was of course homogeneous; polit-
ically and economically China was chaos. The peasants, four hundred
million of them. lived from day to day at subsistence level. Tens of
millions of peasant families owned no land at all. Other millions cul-
tiva-ted tiny holdings from which they scraped out enough food to sus-
tain life.
The peasant was fair game for everyone. Pillaged by tam collectors,,
by landlords and usurers, at the mercy of rapacious soldiery and
bandits, afflicted by blights, droughts, floods and epidemics, his single
stark problem we simply to survive. The tough ones did. The others
ly starved, died of disease, and in the fierce winters of North
China and Manchuria, froze to death.
It is difficult for an American today to conceive tens of thousands
of small comities in which no public services existed, in which there
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
were no doctors, no schools, no running water, no electricity, no paved
streets and no sewage disposal. The inhabitants of these communities
were with few exceptions illiterate; they lived in constant fear of
army press gongs and of provincial officials who called them out
ant, in his own expressive idiom, "ate bitterness" from the time he could
walk until he was laid to rest in the burial plot beneath the cypress
trees. This was feudal China. Dormant within this society were the
ingredients which were soon to blow it to pieces.
An external factor had for almost a century contributed to Vie chaos
of China: the unrelenting pressure and greed of foreign powers. French,
British, Germans and Russians vied with one another in exacting from a
succession of corrupt and feeble governments commercial,, juridical and
and winter alike to work on military roads and dikes. The Chinese pen
al colony. Moo once described the China he knew in his youth as "semi-
colonial and feudal". He was right.
aae~+a afar
Shortly after Chiang gaaai Shek took command of the National Ra9er-
lutionary Army in 1926, Mao went to Haan to stir up the peasants. The
campaign he waged for land reform in his native province can almost be
described as a one-man show. The fundamental requisite in China was
them, as it had long been, to solve the land question. Reduced to ele-
mentary terms, the problem was how to get rid of the gentry land-owners
who fastened themselves to the peasants like so many leaches and whose
financial concessions which had do faoto turned ?hini
12
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
exactions kept the people constantly impoverished, In the circumstances
there wce only one way to accomplish this necessary reform: expropria-
tion and redistribution of the land. Naturally, the Nationalists, eager
to retain the support of the gentry (historically the stabilizing element
in Chinese society) considered such a radical solution social dynamite.
But in Mao's vie4here could be no meaningful revolution unless and until
the power of this very class had been completely eliminated,
While Mao was making himself extremely unpopular with the landed
gentry in Hunan the revolutionary armies of the Kuo Min Tang were march-
ing north from Canton to Wuhan on the Yangtze, where a Nationalist gov-
rnment was established in December 1926. These armies incorporated a
number of communist elements. Nast by the time the vanguard divisions
of Chianges army reached the outskirts of Shanghai in March 1927, the
honeymoon was almost over. In April, Chiangas secret police captured
and executed the radical labor leaders in Shanghai and began to purge
the army of its communist elements. In the meantime the left-wing govern-
merit in Wuhan had broken up. The communists walked out; the Soviet advis-
ors pocked their bags and started for home.
While the Generalissimo was thus engaged, the communists were hav-
ing their own troubles, and these were serious. The movement was liter-
ally on the verge of extinction. Those who managed to escape Chiang's
secret police had fled to the south and assembled at Ching Kong Shan,
a rugged area in the Fukien-Kiengai borderlands. One of the first to
reach this haven was the agrarian agitator from Hunan. As various groups
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 :'IA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
drifted in to the
n stronghold, M o and Chu Teh (who had arrived
in April 192$) began to mould An army. Several local bandit chieftains
were induced to join the co .uniets, whose operations gradually became
more extensive. Principally these were of a propaganda nature. Dis-
trict Soviets were established; landlords were dispossessed; wealthy
merchants wer
territory under Re
secure, operations cotmsaenc
to suppress t
0 ware supposed
the early summer of 1930 aan ominous directive was received at
Ching Kang Shan from the Central Coatittea of the party, then dominated
n. This directive requi-, the cor unist arries to to as the
offensive against cities hold 7a,
he Nationalists. The campaigns which
c. 7ra3a
followed were not entirely successful, and
munist defeat at Chang She in' September, On the thiri
month the single most vital decision in the history of the Chinese Cox-
munist Party we taken; the ultimate responsibility for it rested equally
n the shoulders of Yao and Chu `eah, These two agreed that the only
hope for the movement was to abandon i aeac1iately the line pros
cow in favor of one of ciao a s own devising. Basically the a
which split the Chinese Communist Party wide open and Valch alienated
the traditionalists in iiosacow revolved about this question: Maas the
Chinese revolution to be based on the Industrial prolotaria
ist dogma proscribed - or =was it to be based on the pessent? Mao
U
It to make patriotic contributions. Gradually the
area temporarily
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
knee and trusted the peasants, and had cor tly guaged their r iutie>n-
axy potential, was convinced that the Chinese urban proletezist were
too fear in number and too apathetic to make a revolution. This decision,
which drastically re-oriented the poli cf the Chinese Communist Part',
toss thereafter to be carried out with vigorous consistency. History
has proved that i s was right, Moscow wrong. And it is for this reason
that the doctrine of Kremlin infallibility is so frequently challenged
by Peking.
In October, 1930 the Generalissimo, in the misguided belief that
he could crush the communists with no difficulty, announced with great
fanfare a "Bandit Suppression Campaign". This was launched in December.
How weak the Nationalists really were was now to become apparent. The
campaign was a complete flop. Government troops ran away or surrendered
to the coemtuniste by platoons, by companies, by bsttslions. Three more
"Suppression" campaigns, all failures, followed this fiasco. Finally,
in 1933, the Generalissimo reluctantly decided to adopt the plans of his
German advisors and to comanoit well-equipped, veil-trained and loyal
"Central" divisions to a coordinated and methodical compression of the
corns antat-controlled area. As the Nationalists inched southward, sup-
ported by artillery and aviation, they evacuated peasants from every
village and town and constructed hundreds of mutually supporting wired--
in blockhouses. The comunists, isolated from the support of the peas-
ants they had laboriously converted, found themselves for the first
time .almost completely deprived of food and Wort -tion. Chiang's
15
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP8OB01676R003500090004-3
troops were slowly strangling
sta. For the first time,
Cams*nist morale sagged. It was -gin this Oontext that the bold derision
to shift the bass to Shensi province wee taken, and the now celebrated
march of almost six thousand miles was begun.
This was indeed one of the fateful migrations of histoiys its P
pose, to preserve the military power of the Communist Party. Row tsnry
pitched battles and skirmishes the Reds fought during this epic trek
cannot now be established. It is known however that for days on and
their columns were under air attack. They crossed innumerable mountains
and rivers and endured both tropical and sub-arctic climates. As they
marched toward the borders of Tibet and swung north, they sprinkled the
route with cadres and caches of arms and asRnunition.
The Reds faced many critical situations but they were tough and
determined. Every natural obstacle, and there were many, use overcome.
Chiang's provincial troops, ineffective as usual, were unable to bar
the way, and the exhausted remnants eventually found shelter in the
loose eaves of ?so An.
Later, after the base was shifted to Yenan, Mao had time to reflect
on his experiences and to der've from them the theory and doctrine of
revolutionary guerrilla war which he embodied in Tu =, a".
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
Strategy, Tactics and Logistics in Revolutionary War
'"ire first law of war is to preserve ourselves and
destroy the eneW.0
Mao Tee-tong, 1937
Mao has never claimed that guerrilla action alone is decisive in
a Struggle for political control of the state, but only that it is a
possible, natural and necessary development in an agrarian-based revo-
lutionary war.
MAO conceived this type of war as passing through a series of
merging phases, the first of which is devoted to organization, consoli-
dation and preservation of regional. base areas situated in isolated
and difficult terrain. Here volunteers are trained anc indoctrinated,
and from here agitators and propagandists set forth, individually or in
small groups of two or three, to *persuade" and "convince" the inhabi-
tants of the surrounding countryside and to enlist their support. In
effect, there Is thus woven about each bass a protective belt of sym-
pathisers willing to supply food, recruits and information. The pattern
of the proeek#,:its conspiratorial, clandestine, methodical and progres-
sive. Military operaaic+tas 'wfl ba'`epordic.
In the next phase-direct action assumes an ever increasing import-
ance. Acts of sabotage and terrorism multiply; collaborationists and
"reactionary elements" are liquidated. Attacks are aede on 4ulnerable
military and police outposts; weak columns are ambushed. The primary'
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
purpose of these operations is to procure arms, ai unition and other
the
s radios. As
particularly mc'di c +l suppl.ie a
essential material,
growing guerrilla force becoies better equipped and its capabilities
improve, political agents proceed with indoctrination of the inhabitants
of )eriphereai districts soon to be absorbed into the expanding "liber-
ated" area.
One of the primary objectives during the first phases is to par--
susde as many people as possible to commit themselves to the movement,,
so that it gradually acquires the quality of amass". Local "home guards"
or militia are formed. The militia is not primarily designed to be a
mobile fighting force; it is a "back-up" for the better trained and
equipped guerrillas. The home guards farm an indoctrinated and partially
trained reserve. They function as vigilantes. They collect information,
force merchants to make "voluntary" contributions, kidnap particularly
obnoxious local landlords and liquidate informers and collaborators.
Their function is to protect the revolution.
Following Phase I (organization, consolidation and preservation)
and Phase II (progressive expansion) comes Phase III: decision, or des-
truction of the enevy. It is during this period that a significant per-
centage, of the active guerrilla force completes its transformation into
an orthodox establishment capable of engaging the enevy in conventional
battle. This phase may be protracted by "negotiations". Such negotiations
are not originated by revolutionists for the purpose of arriving at amicable
arrangements with the opposition. Revolutions rarely compromise. compro-
mises are made only to further the strategic design. Negotiation, then,
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : Cl RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
is undertaken for the dual purpose of gaining time to buttress a position
(military, political, social, economic) and to veer down, frustrate and
harass the opponent. Few, if any, essential concessions are to be expected
from the revolutionary side, whose Aim is only to create conditions which
will preserve the unity of the strategic line and guarantee the develop-
ment of a "victorious situation".
-9x01;es
Intelligence is the decisive factor in planning guerrilla operations.
" dhere is the enemy? In what strength? What does he propose to do? What
is the state of his equipment, his supply; his morals? Are his loaders
intelligent, bold and imaginative or stupid and impetuous? Are his troops
tough, efficient and well disciplined, or poorly trained end soft?" Guer-
rillas expect the mer!bers of their intelligence service to provide the
answers to these and dozens more detailed questions.
Guerrilla intelligence nets are tightly organized and pervasive. In
a guerrilla Area every person without exception must be considered an
agent. Old men and women, boys driving ox carts, girls tending goats,
fans laborers, store-keepers, school teachers, priests, boatmen, scaven-
gers. The local cadres "put the heat" on evefyone without regard to age
or sex to produce all conceivable information. And produco It they do.
As a corollary, guerrillas deny all irfcriptation of themselves to
their onemy who is enveloped In an impenetrable fog. Total inability
to got information was a constant complaint of the Nationalists during the
first four CA s 3gnss ass it woo later of the Japanese in
Approved For Release 20029'CIA RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
China and of the French in both Indo-China and Algeria. This in a char-
acteristic feature of all guerrilla w errs. The enemy stands as on a light-
ed stage; from the darkness around hire thousands of unseen eyes study
intently his every ;move, his every gesture. "hen ;;e strikes out he hits
the air; his antagonists eve in ub tantial, as intangible as fleeting
s':tEido;m in the moonlight.
Because of superior infor:aration guorrillen alweys engage under con-
dit-1on of their own choosing; because of sujerior knowledge of terrain
they are able to use it to their advantage and the enemy's discomforture.
Guerril-les fight only when the chances of victory are weighted henvily
in their favor; if the tt le of battle unexpectedly flows against them
they withdraw. They rely on i^Aginative leadership, distraction, surprise
and mobility to create a victorious situation before battle is joined.
Tae Brie ay is deceives' and again deceived. Attacks are sudden, sharp, vi-
cious and of short duration. Many are harrasaing in nature; others de-
signed to dis! oeste tho eneermy's plans and to agitate and confuse his
commanders. The iind of the enemy and the will of his leaders is a tar-
get of for tore inportaneo than the, bodies of his troops. ?ao once re-
marked, not entirely facetiously, that guerrillas must be expert at run-
ning avey, since they do it so often. They avoid static dispositions;
their effort is alloys to Peer the situation as fluid as possible; to
strike %hore any? when the enemy least expects them. Only in this way
can they retain the initiative and so be assured of freedom of action.
Usually designed to lure the enerri' Into a baited trap, to confuse his
Approved For Release 2002/07/ RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
leadership, or to distract his attention from an area in which a more
decisive blow is imminent, "running, away" is thug paradoxically offensive.
Guerrilla operations conducted over a wide region are necessarily
decentralized. Each regional corder must be familiar with local con-
ditions end is expected to take advantage of local opportunities. The
same applies to commands in subordinate districts. This decentralization
is to some extent forced upon guerrillas because they ordinarily lack a
well-developed system of technical communications. But at the same time
decentralization for normal operations has many advantages, particularly
if local leaders are ingenious and bold.
The enemy's rear is the guerrillas' front; they themselves have no
rear. Their logistical problems are solved in a direct and elementary
fashions the enemy in the principal source of weapons, equipment and
aam unition.
Mao once acid,
We have - a claim on the output of the argon
of London as well as of B'aanyang, and, what in
more, it is to be delivered to us by the
eneany's own transport corps. This is the
sober truth, not a joke.
If it is a joke, it is a macabre one as for as American tax payers are
concerned. Defectors to the communists from Chiang Keai-shekcs American--
equipped divisions were numbered in the tens of thousands. When they vent
S vt re2 o~Pi"ed ~ 6 P 7L ~ Pql in
mountains of American-made individual arms,
jeeps, tanks, guns, basookas, mortars, radios and automatic weapons.
Approved For Release 2002/079: CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
It is interesting to examine Mao's strategical and tactical theories
in the light of his principle of "unity of opposites". This seems to be
an adaptation to military action of the ancient Chinese philosophical
concept of f-. am. Briefly, the XLn and the YAM are elemental and
pervasive. Of opposite polarities, they repres t meal d,,-k
and ~~~ eat and cold recession Their reciprocal
interaction is endless. In terms of the dialectic, they may be likened
to the thesis and antithesis from which the synthesis is derived.
An important postulate of the =-Tan theory is that concealed within
strength there is weakness and within weakness, strength. It is a weak-
ness of guerrillas that they operate in small groups which can be wiped
out in a matter of minutes. But simply because they do operate in small
groups they can move rapidly and secretly into the vulnerable rear of
the enemy.
In conventional tactics, dispersion of forces invites destruction;
in guerrilla war this very tactic is desirable both to confuse the enemy
and to preserve the illusion that the guerrillas are ubiquitous.
It is often a disadvantage not to have heavy infantry weapons avail-
able, but the very fact of having to transport them has until recently
tied conventional columns to roads and well-used tracks. The guerrilla
travels light and travels fast. He turns the hazards of terrain to his
advantage and makes tropical rains, heavy snow, intense heat and freezing
cold his ally. Long night marches are difficult and dangerous, but the
darkness shields his approach to an unsuspecting enemy.
Approved For Release 2002/W29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 `~. Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
In every apparent disadvantage there is some advantage to be found.
The converse is equally true, in each apparent advantage lie the seeds
of disadvantage. The f is not wholly =, nor the ant wholly IM.
only the wise general, said the ancient Chinese military philosopher
Sun Tzu, who is able to recognise this fact and to turn it to good account.
Guerrilla tactical doctrine nay be summarized in four Chinese char-
acters pronouneed 1MR, JhA H", which means "Uproar (in) East;
Strike (in) West". Here we find ex ceased the all-important principles
of distraction on the one hand and concentration on the other; to fix
the enemy's attention and to strike where and when he least anticipates
the blow.
Guerrillas are stern of the arts of si ulntion and dissimulation;
they create pretenses and simultaneously disguise or conceal their true
semblance. Their tactical concepts, dynamic and flexible, are not out
to any prarticular pattern. But Mao's first law, of wear, to preserve
one's self and destroy the enemy, is always gover .
Approved For Release 20041'gtiIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
t4
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
IV
"Historical experience is written
in blood and iron."
Mao Tse-tung, 1937
The fundamental difference between patriotic partisan resistance
and revolutionary guerrilla Love +eents is that the first usually looks
the ideological content which always distinguishes the second.
A resistance is characterized by the quality of spontaneity; it
begins and then is organized. A revolutionary guerrilla movement is
organized and then begins.
A resistance is rarely liquidated, and terminates when the invader
is ejected; a revolutionary movement terminates only when 't has succeeded
in displacing the incumbent government or is liquidated.
Historical experience suggests that there is very little hope of
destroying a revolutionary guerrilla movement after a ura iv +e he
first and hags a aired the ehtet o - s%lpp - .rt ref t gignificant
nagmennt of the pulatia n. The size of this "significant segment" will
vary; a decisive figure might range from fifteen to twenty-five percent.
In addition to an appealing program and popular support, such fac-
tors an terrain, communications, the quality of the opposing leadership,
the presence or absence of material help, technical aid, advisors or
"volunteers" from outside sources, the availability of a sanctuary, the
relative s li' - fieiency and the political flexibility of the ine:use-
Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
2 C(
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
bent governor nt are n +tura?
survive and exparA.
In specific napea
course differ, but i
ively analyzed in the light
phase
might have 1001ke1d sm AI ;, n ; l i' a that be' ,
4. Quality 1)f Troops
".on of surv?iv al and
ediocre to
Base Area terrain 0per ationially favorable Unfavorable (3
(10)
9. Base Area Comrnuni
cations
70. Sanctuary '"Torso (0)
eved For
lutionary guerr
Finder of
island (10)
of
object-
iota
govern- oppressive
reactionary
In guerrilla
situations
ransport,
supplies
labia
Available for
rest, re-training
utpment
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
Had an impartial analyst applied such criteria to Vietnam six
to eight months before the final debepie, he !night
more ar less similar to that belowt
have, produced a short
et. rminrsx~ Ho ChIL-gla
,' can (French) Roml
1.
Appeal of Program i'temie (7)
No program (0)
2.
Popular Support Growing (7)
Diminishing,
Sli
ht (
)
lity of ?'grad- Good (7)
g
3
G
d (
erahip
oo
7)
/-.
Quality of?roops Good, improving (6)
Very good (7)
5.
Military Efficiency Very good (g)
Good (6)
In guerrilla
Internal Unity Excellent (8)
Rquiprarzt Fair but improving (7)
Operational
Terrain Favorable (10)
E *ellent (8)
Generally well
equipped (9)
Unfavorable (3)
situations
Received
from China and
taken from
French
9.
Y?.
Operational.
Area Commun ions Favorable (l0)
sanctuary Available in Chine (8)
Unfavorable (5)
Remainder of
docs (10
Here determinants 1, 2, 8 and 9 definitely favored the guerrillas,
who also (unlike Castro) had an available sanctuary. Two others, 3 and
6, might have been considered in balance. Although the Viet Minh had
demonstrated superior tactical. ability in guerrilla situations, an'ez-
perienced observer might have been justified in weighing "military ef-
ficieneya equally; the French were learning.
Approved For Release 2002/W/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
While other determine
no doubt be adduced, those used are,
I belierve, valid so far as they go, and the box scores indi"UVWo
These show that Ceatroas chances of success might have been estimated
as approximatel/ i /s/ a~ Ho Chih in's as approximately four to
three.
These aanalysos
ving been formulated after
the event; it is, however, belief that the outcome in Cuba and Indo-
Chino could have been predicted some time before the respective move-
r-rents had emerged from the staq;e of organization and consolidation --
Phaase T.
At the present time much attention is being devoted to the devel-
opm me of "gsdgstxy". A good example of this restricted approach to
the problem was recently reported in "Newsweek" ("The Periscope", July
3rd 1961).
FP. dTAGON - A new and fiendishly ingenious
anti--guerrilla weapon to being toted by the
Ptnvy. It's a delayed-action liquid explosive,
squirted from a flame-thrower-like gun, that
seeps into foxholes and bunkers. Seconds later,
fed by oxygen from the air, it blows up with
terrific force.
Apparently we are to assume that guerr..h:las will conveniently ar:sconce
themselves in rea?ily identifiable "foxholes and bunkers" awaiting the
arrival of half a dozen admirals armed with "flame-thrower-like goner"
to march up, squirt, and retire to the nearest officers' club. To
anyone even remotely acquainted with the philosophy and doctrine of
Approved For Release 2002/07/2: 2IA-RDP80B01676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA=RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
revol*-tt - guerrilla mar, this sort of thing, is not hilariously
funny. There are no mechanical panaceaas.
I do not mean to suggest that proper weapons and equipment will
not nlay an important pert in anti-guerrilla operations, for of course
they will. Constant efforts should be made to reprove: communication,
food, medical Ord surgical "packs". 1eapona and ammunition must be
drastically reduced in weight; there would seem to be no technical
reason why a sturdy, light, accurate automatic rifle weighing a aesximsrue
of four to five pounds cannot be develo sed. And the search for new and
effectlie weapons must continue. But we must realise that aflame-thrower-
like" guns and bullets are on "y a very small part of the answer to a
challenging and complex problem.
*""e*
The position of active third parties in a revolutionary guerrilla
war and the timing, nature and scope of the assistance given to one
side or the other has become of great importance. Basically, this is
a political matter; responsibility for a decision to intervene would
naturally devolve upon the head of state. What assistance is given
should, however, stop short of participation in combat.
of a
third party should be restricted to advice,, nteriaale and technical tr,ining.
government, aid must be given while it is still possible to isolate and
eradicate the movement; if to the revolutionary side, made available during
the some cr ; ti ca' period - that is, when the movement is vulnerable and
its existence quite literally a matter of life and death.
Approved For Release 2002/07/ RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
 Approved For Release 2002/07/29 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R003500090004-3
From a purely military point of view, anti-guerri.' lea operatid>
maay be summed up in three weds: lotion, isolation and eradialation.
In briefly defining each term, A,;t will be well to veer in mini' the fact
that these activities axe not rigidly comcartmfonted.
Location of lase ores or arer;-, requires careful terrain studies,
photographic and physical reconnaissance and possibly infiltration of
th movement. Igo a an involves separation of guerrillas from their
sources of information and food. It may Involve movement and re-:30t',-19-
sent of entire communities. Eradication presupposes reliable informs-
tion and demands extreme operational flexibility and a high degree of
mobility. Parachutists and helicopter-borne condo-type troops are
essential,
The tactics of guerrillas must be used against them. They must
be constantly harried and constantly attacked . Every effort must be
made to in