Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare

New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Ninth Printing. Hardcover. [6], 114, [8] pages. Footnotes. Figures. Tables. Appendix. Name of previous owner on fep. Minor page discoloration. Introduction by the translator, Brigadier-General Samuel Griffith. Number 99 in the series Praeger Publications in Russian History and World Communism. Brigadier General Samuel Blair Griffith II (May 31, 1906 – March 27, 1983) was an officer and commander in the United States Marine Corps. Griffith entered the Marines in 1929 after graduating from the United States Naval Academy. He served in and commanded Marine units in the Pacific theater of World War II and retired from service in 1956. After his retirement, Griffith wrote several books and numerous articles on military history and lectured widely. Prior to World War II, he took part in the Second Nicaraguan Campaign, and served in China, Cuba, and England. From 1935 to 1938, he studied the Chinese language while attached to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he mastered Chinese. During World War II, following a period observing British commando training in England and Scotland, he returned to the 1st Marine Division and served as executive officer and later commander of the 1st Marine Raiders Battalion on Guadalcanal, and executive officer of the 1st Raider Regiment in operations on New Georgia. He received the Navy Cross on Guadalcanal in September 1942 for "extreme heroism and courageous devotion to duty" during the fighting near the Matanikau River. For his exploits in July in New Georgia, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. From 1946 to 1947, he held staff positions in Qingdao, China, giving him a front-row seat to observe the escalating Chinese Civil War. After participating in the post-World War II occupation of North China, where he commanded the 3rd Marine Regiment and later the U.S. Marine Forces in Qingdao, he was a student and then a faculty member at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport from 1947 to 1950. From 1951 to 1952, he was chief of staff, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, and from 1953 to 1956, General Griffith was on the staff of the U.S. Commander in Chief, Europe. He retired from the Marine Corps in 1956, after completing more than 25 years of active service. Following his retirement, General Griffith entered Oxford University (New College) and was awarded his D.Phil. in Chinese Military History in 1961. With an interest in China and the Chinese language dating back to pre-World War II days, he translated Mao Zedong's On Guerrilla War in 1961 and Sun Tzu's The Art of War in 1963. On Guerrilla Warfare is Mao Zedong’s case for the extensive use of an irregular form of warfare in which small groups of combatants use mobile military tactics in the forms of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army. Mao wrote the book in 1937 to convince Chinese political and military leaders that guerilla style-tactics were necessary for the Chinese to use in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Since its first publication in 1961, Griffith's English language translation On Guerrilla Warfare has become one of the classics of military literature and the essential manual for understanding revolutionary warfare. In his translation, Brigadier General Samuel Griffith traces the development of Mao's strategic thought and assesses its impact on global affairs. Read by President Kennedy and others, On Guerrilla Warfare had a major role in the creation of American counter-insurgency doctrine and forces. Griffith pioneered the American study of Chinese military thought, translating from Chinese the ancient strategist Sun-Tzu, as well as Mao, and was instrumental in alerting the American people to the challenges of unconventional warfare. Griffith's original introduction and notes are important in their own right. Have Mao's beliefs that revolutionary wars can succeed without the need for conventional forces been proven false? What can we learn from the test of time? Condition: Very good.

Keywords: Tactics, Guerrilla Warfare, Insurgency, China, Communism, Resistance, Tse-Tung, Peasants, Mao Zedong, Partisans, Military Strategy, Military Tactics

[Book #83344]

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