Quote:
Originally posted by NousDefionsDoc
I was waiting for you (I didn't know who it would be).
Take out the Japanese invasion and put a competent leader in Kai-shek's position and how good is Mao?
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Why?
Take out the French and the Americans and get rid of Bao Dai and Ngo Dinh Diem (actually him we did get rid of...) and how good is Giap or Uncle Ho? Take out the vainglorious Antiochus Epiphanes and how good was Judah the Hammer?
A leader shapes and is shaped by his environment. Mao knew his enemies, knew his own forces and knew the battlefield. He knew his Sun Tzu as well as his Marx (since Marx' military ideas were Clausewitzian and Clausewitz drew from Napoleon and as a junior officer Napoleon read the French Jesuit missionaries' translation of the Art of War, the circle is complete).
Besides, what other revolutionary leader bothered with details like this: "
Song and dance section. In accordance with the circumstances in which the unit finds itself and the nature of its tasks, this section composes all sorts of songs in order to stimulate the interest of the officers and soldiers in singing songs, or it puts on dances in costume, assuming various comical attitudes, in order to make the onlookers laugh until they hold their sides." (
Basic Tactics, Chapter XV, Section 10.4(c).
Dave