Chen Dong: How Mao Zedong Summarized the Experience of Revolutionary War—An Interpretation of Telegrams Drafted for the Central Committee (Military Commission) During the Liberation War
Valuing the summary of experience and excelling at it has become a glorious tradition, a distinct characteristic, and a political advantage of our Party as an important leadership style and work method.
In July 1965, during a meeting with Li Zongren and Cheng Siyuan, Mao Zedong stated frankly: I "make my living by summarizing experience." He noted: "For example, in the battles of our Liberation Army, we always conduct a summary after a campaign to promote strengths, overcome weaknesses, and continue advancing on the crest of victory, leading the revolution from one victory to another." During the War of Liberation, Mao Zedong drafted various telegrams on behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC). (The core chapters currently collected in the Chronicle of Mao Zedong, the Collected Military Writings of Mao Zedong, and the Military Chronicle of Mao Zedong are mostly comprised of these telegrams; even in major documents like the Selected Works of Mao Zedong and the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, telegrams account for a relatively high proportion of the entries from that period. This constitutes the historical origin and documentary basis for this article's examination of Mao’s summarization of revolutionary war experience through telegrams.) Mao guided the entire army to "acquire experience," promptly "summarize experience" and "evaluate experience," and instructed the whole Party to "study experience." This resulted in a timely, continuous, and systematic summation of the PLA's operational experiences. The facts of Mao Zedong's drafting of telegrams and his summarization of experience undoubtedly provide a classic sample for investigation. "Historically, important documents and telegrams within the Party were generally drafted by Mao Zedong himself," and Mao himself consistently advocated for the "timely and constant" summarization of experience. Focusing on the telegrams Mao drafted for the Central Committee (CMC) during the War of Liberation, this article attempts to deepen existing research on Mao's summation of war experience to provide certain references.
I. Mao Zedong Consistently Valued the Summarization of War Experience
During the War of Liberation, the Chinese revolution entered a critical stage that would decide its fate. Under historical conditions where the balance of power, the form of warfare, and strategic tasks underwent profound changes, the core issues affecting the direction of the war included how to refine laws from existing combat practices, transform experience, and elevate scattered battle examples into strategic principles with overall guiding significance. By drafting a vast number of telegrams for the CPC Central Committee (CMC), Mao Zedong conducted the war while simultaneously constructing an experience-generation mechanism with the basic links of "acquiring–summarizing–evaluating–studying experience," creating an interaction between war practice and theoretical sublimation. In this sense, the summarization of experience was no longer a post-war review, but a leadership style and work method that permeated the entire process of the war.
(1) Guiding the whole Party to attach great importance to "acquiring experience" in ideological understanding
On April 30, 1949, Mao Zedong drafted a telegram to the various field armies and provincial/municipal committees in the name of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC. In the telegram, Mao proposed that because there is "written evidence to rely on, a scope to follow, speed, and a basis for subordinates to comply with," high-level leading organs of the Party should "predominantly rely on writing telegrams and issuing general orders" to implement policies and carry out work. Throughout the War of Liberation, Mao not only made such requirements but also personally practiced them consistently.
Guiding the whole Party to "strive for experience" was intended for creation, so as to meet the challenges brought by new era tasks and the situation of the struggle. In June 1946, the Third Revolutionary Civil War [1] broke out in full. "Whether we can win and how to win" became the "central question" of intense concern for the military and civilians in the Liberated Areas. Prior to this, through operations during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, our Party had accumulated important experience in struggle. However, when faced with adjusting the Party's overall strategic deployment—especially accelerating the shift in military strategy from both "ideological" and "operational" perspectives to meet the multiple needs of transitioning from a war of self-defense to a war of liberation, and from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare—Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee advocated starting from the needs of the actual struggle, actively guiding the whole Party to "acquire experience" to "improve combat capability" and "fight better." Mao Zedong’s drafting of numerous telegrams formed a timely, continuous, and systematic summation of the experiences of the Third Revolutionary Civil War, encouraging the whole Party and army to "acquire experience," which can be understood from the following three aspects.
First, by promptly creating and summarizing new operational experiences to meet the requirements of diverse strategies and tactics under complex situations. In May 1946, Mao telegraphed Lin Biao, informing him that "the bandit forces [2] intend to use tanks in the Siping area, and it is hoped you will study techniques for defeating them." This was a new tactical problem raised based on the needs of urban defensive operations in the Northeast. Subsequently, Mao telegraphed several military region commanders, instructing all major strategic units to "focus on practicing siege warfare, including the use of yellow explosives [TNT]. This matter is extremely important; it is hoped that the attention of the entire army will be raised." He emphasized that yellow explosives must become important siege weapons, that they should learn from miners how to use explosives, and that each corps should specially assign technical personnel for explosives, adding: "It is hoped that each military region will quickly summarize its own experience and telegraph it to the Central Committee." On June 10, after troops of the Second Sub-district of Taihang captured Yangyi Town in Taigu, Shanxi, Mao immediately telegraphed the commanders of various war zones using this battle as a case study. He not only informed them of the successful experience of "organizing engineers under the cover of infantry fire to suddenly approach, carry out explosions, blast enemy strongpoints, and wipe out two enemy companies," but also required that "every brigade and regiment in the entire army organize engineer demolition units, stockpile large quantities of yellow explosives, and create new records in our army's siege techniques." The following day, he telegraphed Chen Yi and others again, requesting a "summary by telegraph of the experience of capturing Tai'an, Zaozhuang, Dezhou, and other places, especially the experience of using yellow explosives and the organization of engineers."
Second, by guiding and creating new technical and tactical experiences for capturing cities, he promptly reflected the Party's important adjustment from guerrilla warfare with dispersed forces to mobile warfare with concentrated forces. The whole Party and army faced new challenges at every stage of the war; Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee had to "develop" experience based on realistic needs. Based on the balance of power and the offensive-defensive posture during the strategic transition and strategic defense phases, this adjustment also required a comprehensive consideration of military, political, economic, and other factors. Therefore, the acquisition of experience—moving from "dispersed guerrilla warfare" to firmly establishing the idea of "operating without a rear"—played an important role in facilitating the Party's successful completion of tasks at various stages.
Third, providing experiential guarantees for the smooth completion of strategic tasks at each stage. Based on the successive wartime requirements of shifting to urban operations, innovating dispersed guerrilla warfare, and opening up operations without a rear, Chinese Communists—with Comrade Mao Zedong as their chief representative—not only constantly "developed" and "obtained experience" from the actual war situation but also consciously established institutional norms to "oppose lack of discipline and anarchy, oppose the erroneous attitude of not asking for instructions beforehand or reporting afterward, oppose the unprincipled phenomenon of reporting only good news and not bad, and oppose empiricism and guerrilla-ism [3]." This provided an experiential guarantee for the strategic task of "the army moving forward, production increasing by an inch, strengthening discipline, and transitioning from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare."
(2) Grasping the laws of war and excelling at "summarizing experience"
"Summarizing experience" is for the sake of discovery, so that the Party's system of experience can be updated in the process of transforming traditional experience. The key to directing a war lies in grasping military laws, and applying these laws to war guidance requires the timely summarization of experience, simultaneous with the promotion of that experience.
Mao Zedong believed: "All military laws or military theories of a principled nature are summaries of past war experiences made by predecessors or contemporaries." By the time of the War of Liberation, some commentators marveled: "No one predicted the speed and skill with which Communist commanders could transfer their experience of anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare to campaigns of mobile warfare." In Mao’s view, this "transfer" should involve both absorbing useful experience and rejecting the useless, and even more so, adding experience that is unique to oneself.
First, when drafting telegrams for the Central Committee, Mao focused on actively "transforming" and "adding" experience, while also valuing the presentation of "empirical evidence" and explaining the "basic reasons" for victory in war, thereby providing the whole Party with the latest experiential guidance and summaries of laws. For instance, regarding the strategic and tactical pointers of "mobile warfare in general" and "concentrating a superior force to destroy enemy forces one by one," Mao summarized these experiences and instructed the whole Party. This was a specific elaboration of the principle of concentrating forces to destroy the enemy based on established strategic deployments and actual combat conditions. During the War of Liberation, the summarization and sublimation of experience by Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee across strategic, operational, and tactical dimensions, as well as their recognition of the laws governing the transition from guerrilla to regular warfare, laid an important foundation for the rapid victory of the Chinese revolution.
Second, urging both higher and lower levels to "evaluate experience" [4] to correct and deepen the understanding of the laws of war through an orderly political mechanism; instructing all units to "study experience" was for the purpose of reference, seeking to obtain more authoritative universal education and targeted guidance. In May 1945, at the Party's Seventh National Congress, Mao pointed out that the Party had committed errors and suffered defeats in the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, policy issues, and fighting battles, but "making mistakes is not a problem; if you grasp the mistake in your hands, turn it into experience, and use it as a weapon," it can play an "extraordinary" role. A year later, the War of Liberation broke out in full. Although our Party had gained rich experience from ten years of civil war and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression behind enemy lines, it was inevitable that it would encounter setbacks, take detours, and commit errors under the new war situation and struggle tasks. In response, Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee promptly urged and helped the entire Party and army to "evaluate experience," emphasizing the importance of "citing negative battle examples as a warning," in the hope of making mental and material preparations for executing new strategic tasks and achieving new victories.
Fundamentally, evaluating experience is an ideological and organizational activity that reflects on past experiential facts—especially by summarizing lessons from failures or examining existing deficiencies—to serve as a warning in practice. From the telegrams issued by Mao on behalf of the Central Committee, it is easy to find that in the process of leading and guiding the War of Liberation, the entire Party gradually created a mechanism for evaluating experience that functioned vertically (interaction between top and bottom) and horizontally (cross-referencing between units). A classic example is the top-down evaluation of experience at the Central Committee level. For instance, in September 1946, to reinforce the principle of concentrating forces to destroy the enemy one by one, Mao conducted an evaluation from a global strategic level in an internal Party directive drafted for the CPC Central Committee: Currently, many of our army's cadres favor this principle in peacetime, but fail to apply it once battle begins; "this is the result of underestimating the enemy, and also the result of failing to strengthen education and focus on research." To this, the whole Party must fully realize that "implementing this method leads to victory; violating this method leads to failure." In addition to reflecting on such principled issues, the specific tactical and operational lessons of wartime were what Mao and the Central Committee examined most frequently.
(3) Attaching importance to guiding the "study of experience"
During the War of Liberation, Mao Zedong guided the whole Party to obtain, summarize, and evaluate experience through a series of telegrams, which greatly promoted the transformation of successful experiences into action guidelines for the entire Party and army. Whether it was summarizing, evaluating, or studying experience, the ultimate goal was to help the whole Party and army acquire experience to guide the war and strive for victory. As for how to study experience, Mao frequently planned and instructed the "way of learning" based on the needs of the actual struggle and the nature of the experience's content. This included general experience briefings and universal learning requirements from a global strategic perspective, as well as targeted guidance based on operational and tactical needs, and specialized opinions urging subordinates to refer to or imitate models. Although the scope, content, and requirements of such learning varied, the core demand—to ensure the results of experiential summaries were implemented effectively—remained highly consistent.
First, when dealing with highly significant or broad-reaching experience, Mao often stood at the height of global strategy, using telegrams to brief the whole Party and army on specific experiences, or approving and transmitting important summaries reported by subordinates to the Central Committee. This elevated them into experiential instructions that embodied the will of the CPC Central Committee (CMC) and possessed universal significance for execution. Second, after giving a brief positive evaluation of experiences reported by subordinates, he would directly forward them to the whole Party and army for study, reference, or imitation. Third, to provide direct reference for specific campaigns and battles, Mao emphasized instructing subordinate operational departments to study various "exemplars" when drafting telegrams for the Central Committee. Fourth, beyond urging the study of experience at the strategic and tactical levels, in terms of combat psychology, Mao particularly focused on using typical battle cases to inspire the will to struggle.
Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee established the principles for the whole Party to carry out the study and mutual learning of experience across multiple levels—strategic, tactical, and psychological. This became the key for the entire army to grasp the laws of war, maintain the initiative, and fully promote the rapid victory of the War of Liberation.
The spectacle of "Chairman Mao commanding the world's largest people's war from the smallest command post" centered on his use of telegrams to summarize combat experience in a timely manner, thereby leading the war comprehensively, deeply, and systematically. From seeking and summarizing experience to reviewing [5] and ultimately learning from it, Mao Zedong’s timely, continuous, and systematic summation of combat experience during the Liberation War [6] consistently followed the requirements of Marxist epistemology. He prioritized using a regularized understanding of warfare to guide operations, adjusting strategy and tactics through the summation of specific lessons, and driving the Chinese Revolution toward victory.
II. The Formation of Strategic Principles and Tactical Innovations
If the previous section revealed the overall picture of Mao Zedong’s construction of an experience-summation mechanism at the ideological and institutional levels, then what strategic experiences did Mao actually acquire and summarize in the concrete practice of war? How did these experiences ascend from the level of campaign tactics to operational principles with universal guiding value? And how were they transformed into the collective consciousness of the entire Party and army through institutionalization? To address these questions, it is necessary to systematically comb through the war experiences acquired, summarized, and reviewed by Mao Zedong during the Liberation War.
(1) Dispersed Guerrilla Warfare
Under the comprehensive consideration of multiple military, political, and economic factors during the Liberation War, how to acquire experience in "dispersed guerrilla warfare" became a critical issue for Mao Zedong.
Practice proved that "dispersed guerrilla warfare" was the policy our Party had to maintain to persist in and win a long-term war with frequent battles, particularly in achieving the transition from strategic defense to strategic counter-offensive. Mao Zedong once believed this was the fundamental basis for the Party to seek great strategic victory. In fact, it served as an effective strategy to break the Kuomintang's [7] "comprehensive offensive," eventually forcing Chiang Kai-shek to adjust his strategy toward "targeted offensives" against the Shandong and Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Regions. Responding to these changes, Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee immediately sought verification from relevant units on whether the tactic of "using one part to pin down one enemy route while boldly using the main force to strike another" could break the offensive. When Hu Zongnan attacked Yan'an with twelve brigades, Mao immediately notified Nie Rongzhen and others, instructing that when facing the Diehard Army’s [8] (similar to the Shandong battlefield) "new tactics of dense horizontal advancement, steady strikes, and refusal to split forces," every theater "no matter where they fight, as long as they can annihilate the enemy, it constitutes coordination with other regions. It is hoped you will earnestly summarize the experiences and lessons of combat to facilitate better operations." Following the victory of the Qinghuabian Campaign, Mao sent a special telegram to Peng Dehuai and others, re-emphasizing that in the face of "the enemy’s 'small rice-mill' tactic [9], one must patiently exhaust and consume them over a long period, force them to disperse, find their weaknesses, and then annihilate them." Simultaneously, he further affirmed Peng Dehuai's plan to attack Panlong, noting that "if victorious, the impact will be great; even if not, experience will be gained." This method of seeking experience through practice and even trial-and-error was frequently seen in Mao’s telegrams to Lin Biao and Liu Bocheng, intended to reassure and inspire them by noting that although "the operation did not entirely resolve the enemy, experience has been gained," and "though some units did not fight well in several battles, they completed the massive task of concentrating our forces and dispersing the enemy."
(2) Operations Without a Rear
With the arrival of the strategic counter-offensive phase, how to firmly establish the concept of "operations without a rear" became a new subject for the entire army. This was the key to realizing the shift from interior-line operations to exterior-line operations, and subsequently reversing the strategic situation entirely. To this end, in October 1947, Mao Zedong telegraphed the commanders of various theaters. Besides informing them of the situation and experiences on the Northwest battlefield, he proposed the strategic pointer of "replenishment directly from the captives" and demanded that "not only should the Northwest have this experience, but every region must also have it. It is hoped this will be summarized to deepen the lessons for the troops and strive for victory in the Great Counter-offensive." In fact, the practical problems of the strategic counter-offensive phase were far more complex than merely handling the relationship between combat, supply, and rest. A series of specific logistical needs—such as desert operations and resisting extreme cold—also entered the scope of the People's Liberation Army’s problem-solving. This required the Party to base itself on institutional construction and orderly establish a long-term mechanism for "acquiring experience" to respond to complex warfare and its strategic and tactical demands. Consequently, establishing a system of requesting instructions and submitting reports became urgent. In January 1948, Mao drafted an instruction for the CPC Central Committee regarding the establishment of a report system, and in March, he telegraphed various Central Committee Bureaus, Sub-bureaus, and Front Committees to provide supplementary regulations for this system. In August, he again telegraphed the various field armies, military districts, and central bureaus, detailing the specific contents of "pre-action requests for instruction" and "post-action reports." During the same period, Mao approved and distributed a review telegram from the Northeast Bureau regarding the implementation of the report system along with the Central Committee's reply. He emphasized that continuously "acquiring experience" through institutionalized methods was the "central link" for the whole Party to realize the "transition from small-scale local guerrilla warfare to large-scale national regular warfare, and from local victories to national victory."
(3) "Mobile Warfare in General" and "Concentrating a Superior Force to Destroy the Enemy Forces One by One"
The strategic and tactical pointers for the PLA during the strategic adjustment and defensive phases were primarily "mobile warfare in general" and "concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one." This was not merely a tactical choice made by the Party before the balance of power between the Kuomintang and the CPC shifted, but rather a profound strategic consideration. In August 1946, the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu Field Army attacked the Longhai Railway and achieved victory. Mao Zedong immediately telegraphed Liu Bocheng and others, informing the heads of all theaters, summarizing the experience, and instructing the whole Party: "In every battle against the Diehard regular army, one must apply superior force against the enemy; the ratio should preferably be four-to-one, or at least three-to-one. Annihilate one part, then strike another, then a third, breaking them one by one." Simultaneously, he urged them to "overcome the concept of underestimating the enemy by spreading strength evenly and seeking universal victory in campaigns and battles." The victory of this campaign, which annihilated two enemy divisions, lay in adhering to the principle of winning with many against few (using 11 regiments against 3 enemy regiments). This summation was Mao Zedong's concrete explanation of the operational principle of "concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one," starting from established strategic deployments and actual combat conditions.
A week later, Mao telegraphed leaders in the Shandong and Central China Liberated Areas, informing the Party committees and the heads of all divisions and columns. This telegram specifically cited the "excellent examples" of the Yugou Campaign in Northern Jiangsu (a 7:2 force ratio) and the Southwest Rugao Campaign in Central Jiangsu (a 10:2 force ratio) to analyze the benefits of "concentrating great force to strike one part of the enemy" (which, on the whole, "saves effort and yields more success, ensures victory in every battle, and achieves both total annihilation and quick resolution"). He then demanded that all units "adopt this universally" and "plan everything" accordingly. Regarding the essence of this method, it still lay in concentrating forces to facilitate total annihilation and rapid resolution. This approach not only helped solve the problems of scarce combat resources and manpower but also maximized the preservation of our own forces while destroying the enemy’s effective strength. This was the tactical point Mao relied upon most. During this same period, in addition to summarizing the Central Jiangsu experience, Mao used the Dingtao Campaign in a telegram to the Datong front to say that "experience tells us" two points: first, concentrate superior forces to first annihilate one or two enemy regiments to boost our morale and cause panic in the enemy, then destroy them one by one; second, prepare for five to seven days of long-term combat to eliminate strong enemies part by part. Although these experiential instructions were no different from the Longhai Railway experience, they actually contained new thinking and preparations for the changing war situation. Indeed, on September 14, 1946—the day after issuing the "Circular on the Combat Experience of the Liu-Deng Army" on behalf of the Central Military Commission—Mao again telegraphed Liu and Deng, instructing them to "learn the tactic of concentrating superior strength to strike one point" to exhaust the enemy when facing a strong foe, concentrate on their weaknesses, and ensure the initiative through sufficient rest and reorganization. Liu and Deng were the commanders of the Dingtao Campaign and the original summarizers of its victory; Mao’s issuance of two consecutive telegrams was not merely to deepen the summary of that specific campaign but also contained forward-looking judicial judgments on future war experiences.
To further strengthen these operational principles throughout the army, in September and October 1946, Mao drafted two internal Party instructions for the Central Committee, systematically explaining the principle of "concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one" from multiple levels. He pointed out: this principle was not newly proposed during the civil war but was a fine tradition of our army for over a decade. During the War of Resistance [10], our army focused on guerrilla warfare with dispersed forces; currently, our combat methods must change with the situation, adopting mobile warfare with concentrated forces (this should be even more the case when the enemy holds the advantage). Meanwhile, the experience of annihilating 25 enemy brigades in the past three months proved this principle was the "main method for defeating Chiang Kai-shek's offensive," and even the "only correct method of operation." Therefore, it had to be deployed at both the campaign and tactical levels. After this instruction was issued, Mao immediately telegraphed Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, and others, requiring all subordinate units to use the opportunity of rest and reorganization to hold cadre meetings to relay this, seeking the effect of "firming up confidence in long-term combat." Soon after, in the Xinkailing Campaign on the Northeast battlefield and a series of operations in North and East Manchuria, this instruction was effectively implemented. Facing successive victories, Mao, in addition to continuing to affirm the value of concentrating forces at the campaign and tactical levels, also emphasized the objective experiential facts that "encircling a city to strike reinforcements [11] is an important method for annihilating the enemy" and that "only by adopting a policy of brave offensive can victory be achieved." These documents and telegrams represented a comprehensive strategic and tactical expansion of the principle of concentrating forces to destroy the enemy one by one, laying the foundation for responding to the subsequent adjustment of the Kuomintang's strategy (the shift from comprehensive offensive to targeted offensive).
According to the established strategic and tactical deployments, the PLA successively annihilated Hu Zongnan's 135th Brigade and Zhang Lingfu's Reorganized 74th Division in the key Yan'an and Shandong battlefields. Regarding the former, Mao believed it proved two points: first, using only the existing forces in the Border Region without any outside help could gradually resolve Hu’s army; second, patience, waiting, and avoiding impetuousness could create opportunities to annihilate the enemy. Regarding the latter victory, he believed it "proved that in the current region of operations, as long as one is not impatient and does not split forces, one can break the enemy’s offensive and achieve victory using the method of destroying them one by one." Mao vividly characterized this tactic as "mushroom" tactics—that is, wearing the stubborn enemy down until they are exhausted before seizing the opportunity to eliminate them. The flexible application of these strategies and tactics helped our army effectively push through strategic adjustments. Following the launch of the Southwest Shandong Campaign in June 1947, Mao and the Party Central Committee had the opportunity to summarize the entire army's combat experience over the previous year, issue instructions for the following year’s strategic policy, and subsequently provide a scientific summary of the army's combat experience in the "Ten Major Military Principles." These three summations became important experiential references for the Party to effectively solve new problems in the strategic offensive phase, such as "how to combine the capture of cities with the annihilation of the enemy's effective strength, how to combine mobile warfare with positional warfare, how to combine combat with rest and reorganization, and how to combine rear supplies with taking from the enemy and the local area."
As the war progressed, Mao continued to produce new analyses and summations. These included, as emphasized in a telegram to Peng Dehuai, the victory of annihilating two of Hu Zongnan’s main divisions, which "proved that using the methods of 'recounting grievances' and 'three check-ups' [12] to train and reorganize the troops, and promoting political, economic, and military democracy, yields enormous results." There was also the summary of the battles against the units of Huang Baitao and Huang Wei in a telegram to the Central Plains Field Army, which similarly emphasized: "Experience proves that for an enemy with tenacious combat effectiveness, they cannot be annihilated by relying on sudden raids; one must adopt several means—fragmentation, reconnaissance, approach work [sapping], and concentration of troops and firepower with infantry-artillery coordination—to annihilate them." Furthermore, at the Second Plenary Session of the 7th CPC Central Committee, he proposed three patterns for resolving the remaining Kuomintang forces: "the Tianjin pattern of resolution through combat, the Beiping pattern of peaceful reorganization, and the Suiyuan pattern of deliberately and temporarily maintaining the status quo for later reorganization." Collectively, these included the summation and sublimation of the experiences of the Liberation War by Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee from the multiple dimensions of strategy, campaign, and tactics, as well as a regularized understanding of the transition from guerrilla to regular warfare, laying an important foundation for the rapid victory of the Chinese Revolution.
III. The Review, Learning, and Institutionalization of Operational Principles
The value of war experience does not end with a review of past cases; it lies in transforming that experience into replicable and generalizable operational principles and organizational norms through review and reflection. As the Liberation War entered the phase of strategic decisive battles, the situation became increasingly complex and severe, making local failures and tactical deviations unavoidable. The key issue was not whether problems occurred, but how to face them, summarize them, and avoid repeating errors through institutionalized learning. In this process, Mao Zedong not only emphasized the importance of acquiring experience but also attached great importance to the review of mistakes and the re-confirmation of operational principles. By continuously carrying out summation, review, and learning, the People's Army constantly cultivated the capacity for self-correction and self-improvement. It was through this continuous reflection that several operational principles of global significance were consolidated and deepened, allowing war experience to truly ascend to the level of strategic consciousness.
(1) Summarizing and Reviewing Experience
First, examining lessons from fighting battles without preparation or assurance of success, which led to setbacks such as the failure of the 5th Independent Brigade under He Long [13] to capture Boluo, the inability of the Liu-Deng Army [14] to persist after forty days of continuous combat without rest, the missed opportunities to annihilate the enemy by the two columns of the Yang-Luo-Yang Army [15] due to grain shortages, and the use of incorrect tactics during operations at Shahousuo and Wangdaotun in the Northeast. Regarding these, Mao Zedong repeatedly warned various units in his correspondence to reduce unnecessary impetuosity and to never fight a battle for which they were unprepared.
Second, examining the failure to implement the operational principle of concentrating a superior force, which resulted in situations such as the missed opportunity to annihilate the 74th Division during the Qingtuosi Battle on the Shandong front, the unsuccessful attack on Heshui on the Northwest front, and the confusion over the primary direction of attack on the Northeast front. Mao Zedong emphasized the need to draw lessons from these events, stressing that while the main force must generally be concentrated to attack a single point, one must also account for the multiple possibilities inherent in every military action.
Third, examining ideological deviations such as underestimating the enemy due to previous victories. Although the Central Committee had already circulated a report from the Second Field Army [16] analyzing ideological trends within the Party—and required the entire army to be briefed and educated on the fact that while there were no longer major battles on the scale of Western Liaoning or Huaihai to be fought, the enemy was still struggling and the war was continuing—the army "must by no means be led toward the thought of underestimating the enemy." However, in practical action, especially after the founding of New China was proclaimed, the lesson of the failed attack on Quemoy (Jinmen) occurred during operations to eliminate remnant enemy forces on the coastal islands of Fujian. Mao Zedong admonished the whole army: as the War of Liberation draws to a close, leadership cadres at all levels are even "more prone to underestimating the enemy and falling into moods of impetuosity; the Quemoy Incident must be taken as a profound warning. Education must be conducted for those corps still in combat; it is of the utmost importance to strictly guard against underestimating the enemy and impetuosity, and to annihilate the remaining enemy steadily and according to plan to liberate the whole country."
Beyond these dimensions, Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee also required various units to conduct their own examinations of experiences, successes, and failures based on specific battle cases. For example, in October 1947, in order to establish throughout the army the "ideology of solving all problems through winning battles," he on the one hand proposed that the experience of the Northwest front be taken as a model for study, while on the other hand requiring the commanders of each unit to investigate whether there existed among their cadres the "notion that winning great victories requires regular long rest periods, full-strength units of two or three thousand per regiment, large numbers of civilian laborers and carts following the army, and a sufficient rear-area supply of grain and ammunition—complaining bitterly at the slightest fatigue or reduction in personnel." This was intended to firmly establish the conviction across the army of "taking everything from the enemy and not relying on relief from the rear." At the tactical level, such "face-to-face" [17] requirements for examination were even more frequent. In October 1947, due to Wang Xinting’s failure in the siege of Yuncheng, Mao Zedong sent a special telegram to the relevant personnel, stating bluntly that "Yuncheng was not captured, and the reinforcements were not fully annihilated"; he noted that as long as they "humbly study the experience," they would be able to win. Wang Xinting subsequently summarized the experience, adjusted his tactics to include tunnel demolition and multi-pronged assaults, and successfully captured Yuncheng. In June 1948, in a telegram to the Northeast Field Army, Mao Zedong inquired whether the units were employing new tactics such as small-group attacks, tunnel demolition, or "underground corridor" warfare for urban sieges. He specifically followed up by asking "whether a meeting of cadres at the division level and above has been convened to examine combat experience," emphasizing that such a move was "of great significance." At the end of 1949, in view of the lessons from the failed attack on Quemoy, while formulating the plan to take Hainan Island, he specifically telegraphed Lin Biao stating that he "must study this lesson," and instructed all combat units to "investigate Su Yu's entire experience in sea-crossing operations to avoid repeating the mistake of Quemoy."
As fighting was frequent during the War of Liberation, the daily correspondence from Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee could provide timely help and instructions for units to examine their experiences, but it was difficult to maintain total control or provide guidance on every single detail. Given this, it was extremely important to establish a normalized mechanism for self-examination. Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee addressed this through two measures.
First, they mandated that units examine experiences during intervals between battles. In December 1946, the Central Military Commission issued instructions on troop training and cadre instruction, explicitly requiring all units to be adept at utilizing combat lulls for military and political training. The core content included "conducting inspections and summaries regarding command, tactics, techniques, coordination between arms, and cooperation between various departments," with the intent of obtaining practical experience through profound examination to "meet the needs of long-term war and frequent combat." In early 1947, Mao Zedong telegraphed the leaders of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, requiring them to "examine past experiences and deploy for new operations" based on two given basic conditions, striving to fight "great battles of annihilation." In May of the same year, he telegraphed the leaders and all comrades of the Central Plains Military Region, proposing that under the leadership of Zheng Weisan and Li Xiannian, they "examine experience according to the Central Committee’s line" and prepare for new combat missions. In July 1948, in a telegram to the Central Plains Field Army, he again required subordinate units to "examine lessons" during the forty-day rainy season respite. It is easy to see that the objects of these required periodic examinations were not solely failures, but also comprehensive summaries of the phased experiences and lessons of each unit. This type of examination was essentially an organizational learning behavior and a systematic summary of experience aimed at "reflecting on the past to open the way for the future." [18]
Second, they established the internal Party reporting system. The original intention of both was "to reflect the situation in a timely manner, making it possible for the Central Committee to help various regions avoid or reduce errors either beforehand or afterward." The core of such reports was, first, the requirement that the act of subordinates reporting to the Central Committee be regarded as the "primary work of the daily routine" for the whole Party, and second, the requirement to "report self-examinations to us (the Central Committee)" regarding the results of implementing policies and strategies. As for how to write the reports, Mao Zedong also provided strict norms in telegrams to the whole army: he first suggested that the report on the status of troops and the training plan after the Jinzhong Campaign be taken as a "model"; second, he emphasized that the content should be "analytical and conclusive, not empty; it must describe both strengths and merits as well as weaknesses and errors"; third, he instructed that "all telegrams of value, sufficient to serve as models for various corps and military regions," be forwarded to all units for reference. The creation of the aforementioned mechanism for examining experience ensured that the experience of various units could be aggregated and circulated. This made timely, continuous, and systematic examination of experience and information exchange possible, which was of great benefit to the sharing of experience and coordinated operations across different theaters of war.
(2) Persisting in "Learning from Experience" to Bolster the Will to Fight
Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee established guidelines for the whole Party to engage in the mutual study of experience across strategic, tactical, and psychological levels. This became the key for the entire army to grasp the laws of war, maintain the initiative, and fully propel the War of Liberation toward a rapid victory.
First, the dissemination of successful experiences. Mao Zedong focused on using telegrams to report successful experiences to the entire Party and army, reflecting the will of the CPC Central Committee (and the Military Commission) and thereby exerting a significance for universal implementation. In July and August 1946, Mao Zedong twice telegraphed the various Central Committee Bureaus and Military Regions—forwarding the messages to the heads of divisions and columns—to report the successful experience of Chen Geng’s and Su Yu’s units in concentrating forces to annihilate the enemy piecemeal. He issued the instruction that "it is of the utmost importance to use this method of warfare to generally educate officers at the regimental level and above," and requested that "every region act accordingly, and let it be known to all subordinates to pay attention to this." In such correspondence, he both provided a secondary summary of the experiences described in the incoming telegrams and, after giving affirmation and praise, issued specific requirements for study and actual implementation. Other such telegrams and requirements included: in August 1947, telegraphing major theater commanders such as Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Chen Geng, and Peng Dehuai to inform them that after entering the stage of strategic counter-offensive, our army must simultaneously pay attention to giving the enemy both "annihilation" and "annihilatory blows"; in January 1948, circulating Deng Zihui's report on the Bohai Army consolidation experience to the entire army, requiring that "in all units where officer-soldier relations are poor, discipline is bad, and combat effectiveness is weak, the Bohai experience should be adopted, soldier committees should be organized, and the democratic movement of the soldier masses should be given free rein—there is only benefit and no harm," emphasizing that this was "the best system for strengthening unit unity, preventing warlordism, and increasing combat effectiveness." This kind of experiential content, reported and circulated via Mao Zedong in the name of the Central Committee, took on the normative significance of an executive order at the level of the entire Party and army, going beyond merely expanding the audience of the telegram.
Second, affirming experience reported by subordinates and attaching importance to forwarding it to the entire Party and army for study and reference after giving it a positive evaluation. In November 1946, Mao Zedong forwarded the briefing on the Huaxian Campaign reported by Liu Bocheng and others to various strategic zones for reference. In February 1948, he forwarded Deng Xiaoping's supplementary opinions on land reform policy in new Liberated Areas to the Central Working Committee, the various Central Bureaus, and the Front Committees of the Field Armies, emphasizing that "the Dabie Mountains experience is extremely precious, and it is hoped that all regions and armies will adopt and apply it." In November of the same year, he forwarded Peng Dehuai's summary of work on winning over prisoners to "all quarters for reference," and forwarded the report on the Northeast Field Army’s operations at Xuqi to "the Front Committees of each Field Army for reading and reference." In January 1949, he forwarded the report on the East China Field Army’s disciplinary rectification to the "whole army for reference." During the forwarding process, although Mao Zedong did not always provide detailed explanations or deeper summaries as he had previously, once these local experiences were given authoritative validation and recommended by the leader, they inevitably exerted global guiding significance for the War of Liberation, greatly facilitating the transformation of successful local experiences into action guidelines for the entire Party and army.
Third, emphasizing the role of exemplary models. For instance, regarding operational methods, in preparation for the Pinghan Campaign and operations in Shandong and Central China, Mao Zedong telegraphed the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Central Bureau and the New Fourth Army in 1945, proposing that they utilize the experience of the Shangdang Campaign—concentrating forces and fighting multiple consecutive battles—to achieve victory. In April 1946, to guide operations on the Northeast front, he twice telegraphed Lin Biao and others, first requiring them to study the experience of the Handan Campaign to inspire subordinate units to engage in "days of repeated hand-to-hand combat," and later instructing them to study Zhan Caifang’s road-destruction experience in the Suizhong operations to better prepare for urban defensive warfare. In May and July of the same year, he telegraphed Xiao Hua, Zhang Dingcheng, and others, instructing that in operations to defend Benxi and other areas, they should concentrate forces when attacking and, when defending, should study the Siping model—insisting on holding out with a few against many and never retreating. The above examples all occurred during the period of strategic adjustment when the War of Liberation had not yet officially begun; these telegrams precisely demonstrate the importance the CPC Central Committee placed on typical "battle cases" as an effective means of compensating for the lack of struggle experience under the new strategic situation. By the time the full-scale civil war broke out, the "exemplary models" and study instructions in the relevant correspondence increased even further. For example, in January 1947, Mao Zedong telegraphed Chen Yi that he "should take the Sudong Campaign as an example and strive to fight great battles of annihilation." In July 1948, he telegraphed Xu Xiangqian to adopt the urban assault methods of the Shandong troops to capture Taiyuan within ten days. In December 1948, he telegraphed Su Yu and others that they should take the tactics used against Liao Yaoxiang’s corps on the Northeast front as a reference, boldly thrusting between the enemy's various armies to facilitate their annihilation. By promoting typical battle cases and their successful experiences, the transplantation and referencing of combat experience across various theaters were facilitated, helping the Central Committee to implement global planning and directional guidance for the war without resorting to "remote control." [19]
Fourth, regarding operational principles, combat experiences from different theaters could also be mutually referenced. To this end, Mao Zedong would first summarize and affirm the experience before giving clear instructions for study. In July 1946, Mao Zedong telegraphed Zhang Dingcheng and others, using the fact that "Su’s unit annihilated twenty thousand enemies and fought very well" as evidence to instruct the Central China Military Region that "future operations likewise should not be too impetuous; winning the battle must always be the principle." In February 1947, he telegraphed Nie Rongzhen and others, encouraging all subordinate units that "future actions should follow the principles of the Chen-Su, Liu-Deng, and Chen-Xie [20] zones—marching and retreating in great strides and maintaining complete initiative in combat," so as to concentrate superior forces and annihilate the enemy's effective strength. In June and October, facing the enemy's tactic of massing heavy troops, he telegraphed Chen Yi, Lin Biao, and others, proposing that they take the experiences of the Yan'an and "Inside the Pass" [21] fronts as a reference and persist in the policy of striking out along separate routes and conducting decentralized operations. At the end of 1948, to resolve issues of campaign deployment during the strategic decisive battle phase, he telegraphed Su Yu, Yang Dezhi, and others, instructing them to follow the principles used in the Jinan Campaign and the Xu-Beng (Huaihai) operations—replenishing while fighting, fighting while replenishing, inspecting prisoners immediately, and putting them into battle immediately—to maintain the manpower and high morale of combat units for continuous operations and the large-scale annihilation of the enemy. By utilizing high-level channels to promote the vertical connection and horizontal referencing of combat experience, the CPC Central Committee achieved timely adjustments and unified deployment of operational principles. Compared to the mutual referencing of tactical experience, this had an even more profound impact on the war as a whole.
In addition to urging the study of experience at the strategic and tactical levels, Mao Zedong also paid special attention to using typical battle cases to inspire the will to struggle at the psychological level. For example, when encountering situations where the enemy had massed heavy troops, making it difficult to annihilate them, and units were plagued by the pitfalls of fragmenting their forces or being overly impetuous...
In April 1947, [Mao] successively sent telegrams to Peng Dehuai, Chen Yi, Su Yu, and others, consoling them by stating they "must have great patience," waiting for the opportune moment and "not prematurely alarming the enemy's rear." In February 1948, in order to deploy for the Pingsui Campaign [22], he telegraphed Nie Rongzhen, Yang Dezhi, Lin Biao, and others, requiring that during combat operations they systematically study the "spirit of arduous struggle" shown by the armies of Liu-Deng, Chen-Su, and Chen-Xie [23]. He noted these forces were "daring to fight against a powerful enemy between the Yangtze, Huai, Yellow, and Han rivers, far from their rear areas, without standing civilian laborers, and without rear-area supplies of ammunition or new recruits for long periods." He urged them to "explain to all commanders and fighters the spirit of Lin [Biao] and Luo [Ronghuan]’s army in daring to fight against a powerful enemy in completely enemy-occupied areas under weather conditions of thirty degrees below zero," and "never yield to any conservative tendencies, ensuring victory in distant mobile operations." In September 1949, while planning the operation for Dinghai, he telegraphed the East China Bureau of the CPC, insisting they "adopt a cautious attitude" and "strictly guard against arrogance and underestimating the enemy."
Mao Zedong solemnly proposed: For many years, our Party "has possessed rich experience. However, there has been no summation, allowing this experience to be buried, allowing various mistaken policies and methods to be repeatedly committed, and restricting good experiences to a single locality such that the whole Party cannot emulate them." This situation "must attract the attention of the whole Party." The process by which Mao Zedong summarized combat experience during the Liberation War period is, without doubt, an exemplary model for study and reference. Entering the New Era, the whole Party has attached high importance to Mao Zedong’s methodology for summarizing experience, both actively inheriting it and fully developing it. Regarding the issue of "obtaining experience," Xi Jinping has emphasized: "One can first conduct pilot projects, crossing the river by feeling the stones [24], respecting practice and creativity, encouraging bold exploration and the courage to open up new ground, carving out new paths in practice, and then promoting them once experience has been obtained." Regarding the issue of "summarizing experience," the Party Central Committee maintains that it is imperative to "well-summarize the glorious journey the Party has traveled, well-summarize the brilliant achievements the Party has led the people to attain, well-summarize the precious experience of the Party in advancing revolution, construction, and reform, and well-summarize the theory and practice of the cause of the Party and the state as it forged ahead since the 18th National Congress." Regarding the issue of "reviewing experience," a consensus has formed within the Party that "mistaken experiences and failed experiences are also precious wealth." Furthermore, it has become the Party’s political consciousness to "dare to face its own existing problems head-on, have the courage for self-revolution, and always maintain advancement and purity." Regarding the issue of "learning from experience," the whole Party has consistently believed in and practiced the political conviction that "the Chinese Communists relied on learning to get to where they are today, and will inevitably rely on learning to move toward the future." This fully demonstrates that on the new journey of the New Era, Mao Zedong's successful experience in summarizing combat experience has become a precious tradition of the Party.