Peking's Revolutionary Strategy in the Developing World: The Failures of Success

Three facets of China's strategy of revolutionary war are examined in this article: (1) the Mao Tse-tung-Lin Piao theory of "people's war"; (2) the history of Chinese Communist involvement abroad in promoting "national liberation wars"; and (3) some constraints upon this instrument of Chinese policy. The contradiction between theory and practice is explained by real-world restraints upon Chinese desires. The Maoist theory is essentially an analogy between the Chinese pre-1949 revolutionary past and the realities of the present-day world political situation. The analogy is imperfect, however, and many of the problems which China has encountered in fostering revolutionary movements abroad may be traced to this fact. Chinese leaders, prisoners of their limited world outlook, cannot admit this. In fact, there is a low level of actual Chinese involvement in the "Third World"; nowhere have the Chinese become, or are they about to become, a major element in attempts to overthrow local governments by rural-based guerrilla tactics. Three sets of limitations—internal, external, and historical—are important because together they place severe limits on the level and the direction of Chinese involvement. The possibilities for successful revolutionary war lies in the hands of those who elect to pay more attention to local circumstances than to the niceties of the Chinese theory.