People's War

People's war is a strategy that mobilizes a population through political organization and sustains armed struggle over a prolonged conflict. It is associated especially with Maoist revolutionary theory.

Protracted people's war: A Maoist strategy that builds revolutionary strength over time, moving from guerrilla warfare toward conventional operations. This is the named strategy most closely associated with people's war.
Mao Zedong: Chinese communist revolutionary and political leader who led the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. Mao developed the strategy's most influential theoretical account.
Vietnam War: A mid-twentieth-century conflict involving North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against South Vietnam and its allies. Communist forces combined political organization with prolonged guerrilla and conventional warfare.
Coup d'état: The sudden seizure of government power by a small group, usually through military or political action. A coup seeks rapid control by a narrow group rather than prolonged mass mobilization.
Guerrilla warfare: Irregular warfare in which small forces use mobility, surprise, and local knowledge against stronger opponents. It is the characteristic military method during the early stages of many people's wars.
On Protracted War: Mao Zedong's 1938 lectures analyzing how China could defeat Japan through a prolonged war. The work sets out the strategic logic later associated with people's war.
Naxalite insurgency: A Maoist-led insurgency in India that began with an uprising in Naxalbari in 1967. Its organizations explicitly drew on people's war theory in seeking rural revolution.
Insurrection: An organized uprising against political authority, often concentrated in a short period or particular place. People's war emphasizes sustained organization and attrition rather than a single decisive uprising.
Insurgency: An organized armed rebellion against an established government or occupying power. People's war is one strategic form an insurgency can take.
Chinese Civil War: The conflict between Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces, ending with Communist victory on the mainland in 1949. The Communist victory became the central historical example of Maoist people's war.

Linked from 11 pages