On Mao Zedong’s Opposed Yet Unified Military Thought

Mao Zedong’s opposed yet unified military thought is the prime of our age. It is the combined product of Marx’s universal principle and Chinese revolutionary practice. Till now, it can still guide us to military victory. It is the historical task of our and the following generations to analyze the formation process of his opposed yet unified military thought, to grasp its fundamental connotation and to learn to use it to analyze military affairs and to guide our military practice. To end war with war, to eliminate military affairs with military affairs and eventually to accomplish our goal of a classless society is a developmental track of human society which also conforms to the universal principle of Marxism. Mao Zedong offers a dialect perspective on the concept of war:in a class society, war is inevitable and will exist for quite a long time, but with the elimination of class it will be eventually eliminated; there are just and unjust wars; it is important to skillfully deal with the relation of military action to politics and economics. In a military action, a successful commander should handle the following relations properly:the part and the whole, the powerful and the weak, weapon and human, the initiative and the passivity, strategies and tactics, army and people, so as to end the unjust (reactionary) war with just and revolutionary war (military action).This essay is consisted of four parts. The first chapter analyses the theoretical and practical origin of Mao Zedong’s opposed yet unified military thought from three aspects:the enlightenment of Chinese ancient military thoughts, the lessons of ancient wars and last but not least, the crystallization of the Communist Party of China’s revolutionary practice. The second chapter mainly focuses on the historical process of Mao Zedong’s opposed yet unified military thought, which is mainly divided into five stages:sprout, formation, maturity, sublimation and development. The third part makes a profound analysis on the connotations of the unity of opposites in Mao Zedong’s military thought, generally from three aspects:macroscopic outlook on war, medium strategic view and microscopic tactical outlook. The last part studies the contemporary enlightenment of Mao Zedong’s opposed yet unified military thought.