Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" () is a phrase and slogan which was coined by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. The phrase was originally used by Mao during an emergency meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on 7 August 1927. Mao used the phrase following the decimation of CCP ranks by the Nationalist government's White Terror and the beginning of the Chinese Civil War, advocating that the party needed to establish "revolutionary base areas" in the mountains and develop its own military.

History

In April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek broke the First United Front with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), beginning the White Terror. The Nationalist government arrested, jailed, tortured, and executed tens of thousands of people. CCP membership declined from 60,000 to 10,000 people. Some members, including Mao Zedong, contended that if the CCP were to survive it must develop its own military.

With CCP ranks depleted, Mao advocated that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" and that the party should retreat into what it termed "revolutionary base areas" in the mountains. He first used the phrase during an emergency meeting of the CCP on 7 August 1927, during this early phase of the Chinese Civil War.

Mao employed the phrase a second time on 6 November 1938, during his concluding speech at the 6th Plenary Session of the CCP's 6th Central Committee. The speech was concerned with both the Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had commenced the previous year.

In 1960, a portion of the 1938 speech was excerpted and included in Mao's Selected Works, with the title "Problems of War and Strategy". However, the central phrase was popularized largely as a result of its prominence in Mao's Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1964).

Sixth plenary session

The 1938 paragraph containing the phrase is reproduced below; the central phrase (in bold), cited as deriving from the 1938 speech via the Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung:

See also Civil control of the military No War but the Class War Workers of the world, unite! Serve the People Si vis pacem, para bellum War is a continuation of politics by other means

References

External links Quotations from Mao Tse Tung, Mao Tse Tung Internet Archive (marxists.org)