A Maoist primer

"Long live the victory of People's War" is a Chinese text first published in 1965. It's attributed to Lin Biao, who was the Minister of Defence at the time. Due to its strong anti-American tone and dire warnings to the United States never to attack China (or else), the text created quite a stir. This was not how a government official was supposed to sound like.

In 1969, Lin became Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the officially designated heir to Mao Zedong himself. In 1971, Lin disappeared under mysterious circumstances, perhaps after an attempted coup against Mao. He is said to have died in a plane crash over Mongolia shortly afterwards, attempting to escape to the Soviet Union. (I'm not entirely sure whether this version of events have ever been independently confirmed.)

For a long time, Lin Biao was a virtual non-person in China, which is ironic, since "Long live the victory of People's War" is a relatively good introduction to Maoism. Or at least one particular version of it. The Chinese Communist Party changed its line several times, and the party leadership was split in several different factions, which Mao skilfully attempted to balance. Lin Biao's text was written before the Cultural Revolution, but nevertheless during a period when Chinese foreign policy was very radical (or at least radical-sounding). It's mostly known for its advocacy of "people's war" (i.e. rural-based guerrilla struggle) as a general strategy for all Third World nations, and its claim that the Western nations must be encircled by the Third World in the same way as the People's Liberation Army in China encircled the cities from the surrounding countryside. This is probably to be taken metaphorically, since Lin Biao never actually says that the United States could be conquered by Third World guerrillas.

The rest of Lin Biao's text concentrate on China, although he draws general lessons from these experiences as well. On the one hand, Lin calls for a people's front between the proletariat, the peasantry and the patriotic bourgeoisie, and points out that the Chinese Communists even united with some big landlords during the liberation struggle against Japan. On the other hand, Lin also says that the united front must be led by the Communist party, that the Communists should have full freedom of action and freedom to take bold initiatives in the struggle, and that the Communist guerrilla forces should never be disarmed. He also emphasizes the need to organize the peasants and create "red base areas" on the countryside. To those versed in the ideological nooks and crannies of the world Communist movement, this is a more radical line than that of Joseph Stalin. There is also an obvious difference with Lenin, however, since Lenin never called for peasant guerrilla warfare, but rather believed that the anti-imperialist united front would be based in urban settings. Lin then discusses the relationship between "new democracy" and socialism, and here too he tends to take a more radical position than Moscow, since he emphasizes that there is no "Chinese Wall" between the two stages.

Lin further states that "United States imperialism" is the main enemy of the peoples' of the world. He expresses full support to the war waged by the Vietnamese Communists against the United States. This is interesting, given the later shifts in Chinese policy, which tended to be in the pro-American and anti-Vietnamese directions. (Some have speculated that Lin wanted to topple Mao because of opposition to the latter's rapprochement with Nixon and Kissinger.) Lin warns the United States about attacking China, and actually uses the argument that since the Chinese are so many, they can withstand even nuclear attacks! I always assumed this was a chauvinist, anti-Chinese argument, but apparently China used it itself. As already mentioned, Lin Biao regards prolonged people's war as a tactic applicable in the entire Third World. If and how a socialist revolution should be organized in the United States or Western Europe, is never discussed. Lin seems to have believed that no such thing was possible at the time. (He was, of course, right.)

"Long live the victory of People's War" was a quite well known text during its time. I actually have a Swedish translation from 1970. The text faded into obscurity both because of Lin's strange fall from power, and the later and more "right-wing" shifts in Chinese foreign policy. Yet, it remains a Maoist primer.