Mao Zedong’s Philosophy of War Cover Image

Myśl wojskowa Mao Zedonga
Mao Zedong’s Philosophy of War

Author(s): Damian Winczewski
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Military policy, History and theory of political science
Published by: KSIĘGARNIA AKADEMICKA Sp. z o.o.
Keywords: Mao Zedong; philosophy of war; marxism; maoism; communism

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article was to do some critical analysis of Mao Zedong military writing. Our method was to intepretate his manuscripts and compare his thesis to thesis of top marxists thinkers like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg about the war and warfare. In next step we also compare Mao strategic thought with thought of classical masters of art of war like Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Zi. Finally we did some comments on political aspects in Maoist theory of war. In result we draw some conclusions. Firstly we can say that Mao did nothing new in marxist philosophy of war and his dialectics of war were vague and vulgar. Secondly we can say that his military writings was mostly influenced by Clausewitz through soviet military thought rather than Sun Zi. In the other hand his theory of guerilla warfare was to some extent original and finally we can describe Mao’s strategic thought as some kind of progress in twenty century art of war.

  • Issue Year: 15/2018
  • Issue No: 55
  • Page Range: 77-102
  • Page Count: 26
  • Language: Polish