The formation and development of the "16-character formula" in guerrilla warfare

During the period of the new democratic revolution, the people's army led by the party carried out an important strategic and tactical principle of guerrilla warfare. This easy-to-understand "16-character formula" method of warfare has created miracles in the history of revolutionary war, plunging the enemy into the siege of the people's guerrilla war. This method of warfare has also been widely absorbed and used by many foreign countries, leaving a strong mark in the history of world warfare. On the basis of previous research, the author analyzes the formation and development of the "16-character formula" from the perspective of the analysis and use of literature and historical materials.

The idea that the "16-character formula" was pioneered by Mao Zedong is more popular in academic circles. As early as April 5, 1929, Mao Zedong, who served as the secretary of the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army, summarized and elaborated on the struggle between Fujian and Jiangxi at that time and some guerrilla tactics of the Red Army in the "Letter from the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army of the Communist Party of China to the Central Committee. The letter pointed out that the war tactics adopted by the Red Army over the past three years "are guerrilla tactics. The main point is: 'divide the troops to mobilize the masses and concentrate on dealing with the enemy '. 'The enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy harasses me, the enemy exhausts and I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase.'" This is the first time in Mao Zedong's works that the connotation of guerrilla tactics is fully expressed in summary words, and it is also the first time that its complete expression appears in the party's historical documents. On September 28 of the same year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in its letter of instructions to the Front Committee of the Fourth Red Army (the "Letter from the Central Committee in September"), for the first time stated that "the enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy is stationed in me, the enemy is tired and I fight, and the enemy retreats. I chase" is referred to as "16-character formula". In late December 1930, the General Front Committee of the Red First Army held a swearing meeting for the army and civilians in the Soviet area in Ningdu. On both sides of the venue, there was a huge couplet: "The enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy is stationed and I disturb, the enemy is tired and I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase, guerrilla warfare has a chance to win; stride forward and retreat, lure the enemy in depth, concentrate troops, break, and destroy each one, and destroy the enemy. This has left the majority of the military and civilians very impressed by the "16-character formula.

In December 1936, Mao Zedong wrote "Strategic Issues of the Chinese Revolutionary War" in response to the severe situation of the domestic revolutionary struggle and the War of Resistance Against Japan at that time, which focused on reviewing and summarizing the battle history of the Red Army: "Starting from May 1928, The basic principles of guerrilla warfare with a simple nature adapted to the situation at that time have been produced, the enemy is tired and I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase." This is the first complete expression of the "sixteen character formula" to the height of "basic principles of guerrilla warfare" in the documents published so far. In April 1945, the "Resolution on Certain Historical Issues" made at the Seventh Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out in the form of a party resolution: "Comrade Mao Zedong's military line starts from two basic viewpoints:... From the second viewpoint, the Red Army must recognize that guerrilla warfare and guerrilla mobile warfare were the main forms of warfare during the Agrarian Revolutionary War,... Therefore, the Red Army must carry out the practice of' dividing forces to mobilize the masses and concentrating on dealing with the enemy'; 'when the enemy advances, we retreat, when the enemy is stationed, we disturb, when the enemy is tired, we fight, and when the enemy retreats, we chase '." In August 1964, when talking with Zhou Peiyuan, then vice president of Peking University, and Yu Guangyuan, deputy director of the State Science and Technology Commission, Mao Zedong said in person: "I am also engaged in politics step by step. I am even more so in the military. In the Jinggangshan Mountains, we had a small victory, followed by two big defeats. So I summed up my experience and summed up the experience of fighting guerrillas in 16 words: 'when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy is stationed, we disturb; when the enemy is tired, we fight; when the enemy retreats, we chase.'"

The memories of some senior cadres of the party and the Red Army also mentioned the formation and development process of the "sixteen character formula" many times. Zhu De pointed out in his book "Guerrilla Tactics against the Enemy" published in January 1938: "Comrade Mao Zedong once explained a famous 16-character guerrilla tactical principle, that is, 'the enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy is stationed and I disturb, the enemy is tired and I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase '." He also pointed out in his speech at the meeting of the organs directly under the Military Commission of the Central People's Government to commemorate the 29th anniversary of the founding of the party on July 1, 1950, "The principle of guerrilla tactics stipulated by Chairman Mao at that time was: 'The enemy advances and we retreat, the enemy is stationed and we are disturbed, and the enemy is tired. I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase. 'This is Chairman Mao's sixteen-character formula on tactical principles in the development of guerrilla warfare. We executed this sixteen-character formula and kept winning." Peng Dehuai pointed out in "Several Prerequisites for the Victory of the Protracted War of Resistance" written in November 1937: "Comrade Mao Zedong once invented a famous sixteen-character principle of guerrilla tactics." Chen Yi, Zhang Lingbin, Xiao Ke, He Changgong, Zhang Zongxun, Chen Zhengren and others all have similar memories that Mao Zedong first proposed and summarized the "sixteen-character formula.

There are also some historical materials that believe that the "16-character formula" was pioneered by Zhu de. Marshal Nie Rongzhen wrote in a commemorative article specially written on the occasion of Zhu de's 100 birthday in December 1986: "during the Jinggangshan period, in order to effectively deal with the enemy's 'advance and suppression' and 'encirclement and suppression', Comrade Zhu de explored a set of effective methods of play through practice, and then rose to theory, comrade Mao Zedong affirmed the 16-character tactic of" the enemy stationed in me, the enemy tired and I fought, the enemy retreated and I chased. In his later book "Strategic Issues in China's Revolutionary War," Comrade Mao Zedong praised the 16-character formula as a "simple basic principle of guerrilla warfare '." Founding Lieutenant General Zhao Rong has been following Zhu De since the beginning of 1927. He stressed in his publicly published memoirs that Zhu De "put forward the 16-character formula of" the enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy stationed and I harass, the enemy tired and I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase "during a discussion on guerrilla tactics in Jinggangshan in May 1928. This complete 16-character tactic of guerrilla tactics was immediately praised by Chairman Mao and often quoted." The Great Road written by Smedley also wrote: At a meeting in Jinggangshan before the Red Fourth Army, "Zhu De summarized the military tactics as the following points: (1) The enemy advances and we retreat. (II) the enemy to stay and disturb us. (III) the enemy is exhausted and we fight. (IV) the enemy retreats and we chase." Fan Shude, who was the director of the logistics department of the Fourth Red Army, and Wan Xixian, a party representative of the Tenth Division of the Fourth Red Army, once pointed out that Zhu De proposed a 16-character formula for guerrilla warfare.

In addition, there is the "16-character formula" which was pioneered by Zhang Shixi. Zhang Shixi was the Secretary of the CPC Jiangxi Wan'an County Committee and the representative of the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. After attending the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in the Soviet Union in July 1928, he mentioned in a written report to the Communist International: In January 1928, after the Wan'an workers and peasants occupied the Wan'an County, they were attacked by the Kuomintang army on a large scale. "The strategy of fighting with the enemy is'to clear the field, the enemy will come and retreat, the enemy will go and I will chase, the enemy will stay and I will attack ', therefore, despite the stalemate for half a month, the Kuomintang army has always been helpless against the Wanan agricultural army." Although there are slight differences between this statement and the "16-character formula", the general intention and spiritual essence of the two are basically the same.

The academic community's views on the formation and development of the "16-character formula" have their own rationality. This is because scholars draw conclusions based on the analysis of the documents and historical materials they possess, and because of their different choices of historical materials and different perspectives and methods of argumentation. Based on the analysis of the formation and development of the "16-character formula" from the perspective of comprehensive comparison of the literature, two key points should be grasped:

First, the formation of the "sixteen-character formula" of guerrilla warfare is not a simple "impromptu speech" or a "one-time molding" short-term behavior, it has experienced guerrilla warfare practice-summing up experience-theoretical sublimation-propaganda and promotion-guiding practice-rising to the principle of the process, gradually from shallow to deep, from immature to perfect. There is a difference between the expression in the process of formation and the complete expression, and there are also oral expressions and written records. Second, in the party's literature or classic works, memoirs, biographies, oral materials and other historical data carriers, especially when there are contradictions between arguments, how to objectively and fairly judge, reasonably choose and consider the accuracy and value of each argument, and how to combine direct historical data with indirect evidence is the key to test the level of researchers. Generally speaking, the historical value of party documents or classic works is higher than that of memoirs, and memoirs are higher than general biographies.

The historical situation is extremely complex, and it is not always possible to preserve a clear and detailed documentary basis under the cruel war environment of the year. Therefore, it is necessary to synthesize all kinds of materials to investigate and analyze, to examine each other and even to supplement reasonable reasoning. The "Sixteen-character formula" is the refinement of the guerrilla warfare experience in the Jinggangshan base area and the crystallization of development and innovation through collective practice. In addition to the Central Soviet Area, some Red Army soldiers in other Soviet areas at that time also had similar experiences to varying degrees and more or less. For example, He Long put forward "You come and I fly, you go and I return, if there are many people, you run, and if there are few people, you do it"; Xu Xiangqian proposed "Concentrate on fighting and disperse guerrillas; The enemy advances and I retreat, and the enemy retreats and I advance, to some extent, some strategies and tactics of guerrilla warfare are embodied. Of course, it is certain that the contributions of Mao Zedong and Zhu De are the most important. Therefore, the Biography of Mao Zedong (1893-1949) draws the following conclusion: On May 4, 1928, at the celebration meeting of the two armies of Zhu and Mao held in Ningganglong City, "Mao Zedong and Zhu De summed up on the basis of summing up their experiences that' the enemy advances and we retreat, the enemy stationed and we harassed, and we fought, the 16-character formula of guerrilla warfare in which the enemy retreats and I chase." General Secretary Xi Jinping's "Speech at the Symposium to Commemorate the 130 Anniversary of Comrade Zhu De's Birth" pointed out: He and Comrade Mao Zedong jointly summarized "the enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy is stationed in me, the enemy is exhausted and I fight, the enemy retreats and I chase". The six-character formula is the basic principle of guerrilla tactics summarized from the reality of the Chinese revolutionary war. This should also be the most objective and comprehensive understanding of the formation and development of the "16-character formula" in academic circles.

January 12, 2018 Source: Guangming Daily