Chapters 5-9｜All quotations cited on this page are tagged with chapter numbers; click a chapter name to return to the original.
Five chapters form a complete sequence
Chapters 5-9 are the most complete structural group: Chapter 5 on the nature of war and attitude, Chapter 6 on sizing up the enemy, Chapter 7 on the will to struggle, Chapter 8 on the organization of people's war, Chapter 9 on the nature of the army. Five chapters run from strategic judgement to unit-building.
Most quotations here come from military writings of 1936-1949, with 'Problems of strategy in China's revolutionary war' (Dec 1936) and 'On protracted war' (May 1938) cited most often.
Paper tiger: a two-layer judgement of strategy and tactics
Chapter 6's very title is a sentence: 'Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers'. The book's full statement of this is two-layered: strategically despise the enemy, treat him as a paper tiger; tactically take him seriously, treat him as a real, iron tiger.
This two-layer structure is the most worth-reading part of the chapter. It opposes two tendencies at once: fearing the enemy and not daring to fight, and underestimating him and making no concrete preparation. The book puts the two side by side as 'despise strategically, take seriously tactically'.
People's war: the three-way organizational form
Chapter 8 is about organization. The book's plan is the combination of main-force corps, regional corps and militia guerrillas, base areas as the footing, and mobilizing the masses into production and intelligence. The core judgement: victory depends not only on the army but on whether the broad masses can be organized in.
Chapter 9 goes one step further: the army is not only for fighting. The book requires the army also to produce and to do mass work, linking with Chapter 13 (officers and soldiers) and Chapter 14 (army and people).
Why guerrilla war is raised to strategy
The book's handling of guerrilla war is not tactical harassment but a strategic problem. The reason, stated clearly in Chapter 8, is that under conditions of a stronger enemy and a vast country, guerrilla war performs the function of attrition, pinning and accumulating strength, creating conditions for regular war.
'Problems of strategy in guerrilla war against Japan' (1938) is the main source; several entries in Chapters 5 and 8 here are cited from it.
The boundary to watch when reading the military chapters
The judgements of these five chapters rest on the war conditions of the 1930s-40s: an agrarian country, a vast population, foreign invasion. When conditions change, the concrete conclusions need not transfer directly. This site presents them as documents in the history of military thought, without present-day extension.
Also, 'paper tiger' is often quoted alone for its first half. This site lists both the strategic and tactical layers in full in Chapter 6, to avoid the misreading that such clipping produces.
All reactionaries are paper tigers.
It is the people, not a new weapon, that decide the outcome of war.
Our strategy is 'one against ten'; our tactics are 'ten against one'.
Key chronology
- 1936'Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War' on strategy and the whole
- 1938'On Protracted War' on protraction and transformation
- 1946Interview with an American correspondent: 'all reactionaries are paper tigers'
- 1945'On Coalition Government' on the mobilisation of people's war
'Paper tiger' is a judgement of the balance of forces, not contempt
Chapter 6's 'paper tiger' line is often misread as mere bravado. The book's full logic has two layers: strategically and in the long run, dare to despise difficulties because reactionary forces will in the end be overthrown by the people; tactically and in each concrete battle, take difficulties seriously and treat every engagement as real. The two layers must not be taken alone.
This 'despise strategically, take seriously tactically' structure runs through Chapters 5 to 9, and is the book's consistent epistemological posture toward the 'enemy' as an opposing concept.
People's war: rooting the war in people
Chapters 8 and 9, on 'people's war' and the 'people's army', turn on two points: the deepest source of war's power lies in the people, so they must be mobilised and relied on; and the army and the people must become one, with officers and men on an equal footing.
Chapters 9, 13, 14, 15 and others - on internal army relations (officer-soldier unity, army-people unity, the three democracies) - can be read as this 'work with people' unfolded inside the army. Read this set as a method of mobilisation and organisation, not merely a military technique.