A Philosophical Perspective Of Mao Zedong 's Military Thought

The philosophical perspective is to explore the ultimate reason and the basis of the existence of things in the spirit of philosophy. The philosophical perspective of Mao Zedong military thought is to grasp, through study of Mao Zedong military thought, the reason and basis of the miracles created by Mao Zedong in maneuvering troops, that is, the inherent logic of how Mao Zedong vanquished the enemy in the long-term situation of using weak forces to fight against strong enemies.The dissertation points out that the reason and basis of Mao Zedong’s miracles in maneuvering troops is his superb thinking way of war. The inherent logic of how Mao Zedong vanquished the enemy is taking the outlook of war and methodology in the studies of war as theoretical guidance, studying the practical problems of the Chinese Revolutionary War, summing up the basic laws of the Chinese revolutionary war, that is, the way to win wars, applying these laws in guiding the Chinese revolutionary war, developing flexible strategies and tactics, and finally realizing the objective of winning the war.The first two chapters of the dissertation explores the theoretical origin and development of Mao Zedong military thought, whereby sorting out the origin and history of Mao Zedong’s thinking method of wars. Mao Zedong military thought absorbs outstanding military theoretical achievements of home and abroad. Its theoretical origin has three aspects. First, it absorbs and innovates traditional military intelligence of china; Secondly, it critically absorbs military thought created by the bourgeoisie; Thirdly,it directly inherits and develops Marxist and Leninist military science. The emergence and development of Mao Zedong military thought has experienced four stages: it came into being gradually in the land revolution war period, matured in the Anti-Japanese War period, continuously improved in the war of liberation, and developed after the founding of the PRC. From the development history of military thought of Mao Zedong, this dissertation investigates how Mao Zedong, when facing new situations and new challenges, studied and resolved the problems, and how he theoretically generalized these experiences, played the theoretical guiding role in promoting the historical process of the Chinese Revolutionary War. Mao Zedong military thought deeply roots in the practice of China’s revolutionary war, is the most successful combination of Marxist and Leninist doctrines of military science with China’s revolutionary war practice.Mao Zedong military thought has rich contents. It is a complete scientific and logical theory system, an indivisible whole, and it embodies the unique logic of Mao Zedong in understanding war.Outlook of war and methodology in the studies of war. Outlook of war is the basic view and remark of war, including the origins, vanishing, essence, and nature of war, as well as such topics as our basic attitude towards war. Mao Zedong’s outlook of war is the inheritance and development of Marxist and Leninist outlook of war. The main contents include the most general laws of war, the existence of private ownership and class as the origin of war, the essence of war being the continuation(i.e. the bleeding continuation) of politics, the nature of war being just or unjust, the basic attitude towards the war being opposing unjust wars and supporting just wars. Mao Zedong’s methodology in studying wars is a dynamic expansion of his outlook of the world and of war. The main content emphasizes the application of philosophy, especially the great epistemological instrument of Marxist philosophy in the Chinese revolutionary war. It adheres to the priority of practice, proposing the learning of war in the process of war itself, trying to achieve consistency of the subjective and the objective on the basis of practice. Namely, it means getting familiar with both the situation of ourselves and that of the enemy through investigation and study, thus finding out the rules, and applying these rules to our actions. Mao Zedong’s methodology in war study is an application of dialectical materialism in the military field. It always proceeds from reality, seeks truth from facts, and discovers the essential relationship and internal contradictions from through the analysis of all factors of both sides, and finds out the objective law of war, and then work out war plans and programs of actions and put them into the practice of war. This superb methodology of Mao Zedong is unchangeable in the winning wars in complex environments.The revelation of ways to win wars. Mao Zedong started from the analysis the war winning factors, illustrated the connotations and the different types of the law of war, and then revealed the fundamental law of Chinese revolutionary war. Mao Zedong paid high attention to the basic role of such objective material conditions as economy, technology, weapons and so on. He specifically pointed out that the economic capacity, political organization and military force of the two sides, though being main restrictive factors of war power, can not determine the outcome of the war. People, not material conditions, determine the winner of wars. A war is a competition of man power and the will of the people. The army and the people are the foundation of victory. How the war strength is played depends on people’s consciousness.Mao Zedong emphasized to find out the principal and essential relationship from the many factors of both sides of the war. That is the law of war. Mao Zedong acknowledged that there are special features and different classifications of the law of war, including the classification of general law and special law, and that of laws of war and laws of directing war. Under the guidance of those, Mao Zedong made a detailed analysis of the specific characteristics of Chinese revolutionary war, integrated the many factors of both sides into the advantages and disadvantages, and conducted a contrast analysis on the dynamic change of their advantages and disadvantages, whereby drawing the conclusion that the fundamental laws of revolutionary war in Chinese is to adhere to the nature of justice war, to mobilize the people and rely on the people’s war, to build the people’s army under the leadership of the party, and to take flexible strategies and tactics, in the typical situation of using a weaker force to fight a stronger enemy. Strategically, this is a process of the weak and small winning the strong and big. Tactically, it should be that of the strong and big winning the weak and small. The accumulation of the latter leads to the shift of advantageousness and finally gets the victory.The fundamental law of China revolutionary war embodies the development process of the new things growing from small to large, from weak to strong. It has solved one of the difficult problems in the human military history, namely, how to realize victory of the weak against the strong and that of the small against the large. In military practice, Mao Zedong reproduced rare examples of victory of the weak and small against the strong and large, even making it become inevitability in strategy. It reflects the brilliant course of the people’s army growing from small to large and that of the Chinese revolutionary war winning strong enemies with a weak force.The bridge from theory to the practice of military war. Mao Zedong summed up a set of effective, flexible principles of strategies and tactics from the practice of Chinese revolutionary war, which reflects the superb art of war guidance. From the "Sixteen characters" to the "ten major military principles" and to other major issues, it answered the questions about the guiding ideology, the main target, the basic tactics, the fighting styles and operation support of combats conducted by the people’s army. The following principles are included: The first prerequisite of military is to preserve oneself and destroy the enemy. The highest guiding principle is fighting in my own ways regardless of the ways of the enemy. That is to say, fighting when I can win, and refusing to fight when I can not win. It means to grasp firmly the control of war, to keep priority to myself, and to strive for military freedom and flexibility. Despise the enemy strategically, but take the enemy seriously tactically. The overall strategic policy is for active defense and against passive defense. The basic guiding principle is to concentrate superior forces to fight a battle of annihilation, crushing the enemy one by one. Prepare for war so as to prevent war. Never fight without preparation or confidence. Either avoid a war or win a war. Be careful with the first fight. Focus on the worst possibility. Have many strings to one bow. These strategies and tactics are filled with military philosophical wisdom, which are a magic weapon of the people’s army to vanquish the enemy in the long run.Finally, the dissertation elaborates the historical position and contemporary value of Mao Zedong military thought. Mao Zedong military thought is precious spiritual wealth proved in the long-term revolutionary war practice of China. It is a complete and scientific theoretical system, which has extensive and far-reaching influence in the military history. It is the guiding ideology for contemporary Chinese national defense construction, army building and future wars. The scientific understanding of the theoretical value and practical value of Mao Zedong Military thought means not only to grasp its complete system historically and perfectly, but also to use its basic theory in the background of modern information war era, so as to guide the research on contemporary war rules, and on guidance principle and tactics of future operations, and to adhere to and development of Mao Zedong military thought in the new conditions of practice.