As noted many postings ago, I believe that Che is a boob.
You don't always get to chose your enemies, so not having won against the best isn't necessarily a knock.
Mao took advantage of the situation he had and shaped it for his own ends. Eventually, there was only Mao, Chiang and the Japanese, but during Mao's and Chiang's rises, there were plenty of other warlords. And there was always the peasant's choice to do nothing, and let history march past as it had for centuries. One of Mao's skills was making them choose, and the political work chapter of Basic Tactics deals heavily with that. The unit "song and dance section" was a tool of that indoctrination. The unit "joke section" was such a tool too. The guidance for that section was threefold. First, "when jokes are told, we must make them easy to understand. We can take materials from joke books and such, but they should not be too obscene." Then, "when telling stories, we should devote much time to stories about the abundant exploits and great enterprises of the ancients, and to their excellent words and admirable conduct, in order to achieve an inspirational effect" and "when reporting on the news, we should devote attention to our own victories and to the atrocities of the enemy."
On the Long March, reading between the lines of Marxist rhetoric, it seems that Mao recognized it as a military failure, but effectively spun it into a propaganda victory, which in the protracted war he was fighting proved to be just as good. Here are Mao's observations, from a speech "On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism":
Quote:
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Speaking of the Long March, one may ask, "What is its significance?" We answer that the Long March is the first of its kind in the annals of history, that it is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding-machine. Since Pan Ku divided the heavens from the earth and the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors reigned, has history ever witnessed a long march such as ours? For twelve months we were under daily reconnaissance and bombing from the skies by scores of planes, while on land we were encircled and pursued, obstructed and intercepted by a huge force of several hundred thousand men, and we encountered untold difficulties and dangers on the way; yet by using our two legs we swept across a distance of more than twenty thousand li through the length and breadth of eleven provinces. Let us ask, has history ever known a long march to equal ours? No, never. The Long March is a manifesto. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. It has proclaimed their utter failure to encircle, pursue, obstruct and intercept us. The Long March is also a propaganda force. It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation. Without the Long March, how could the broad masses have learned so quickly about the existence of the great truth which the Red Army embodies? The Long March is also a seeding-machine. In the eleven provinces it has sown many seeds which will sprout, leaf, blossom, and bear fruit, and will yield a harvest in the future. In a word, the Long March has ended with victory for us and defeat for the enemy. Who brought the Long March to victory? The Communist Party. Without the Communist Party, a long march of this kind would have been inconceivable. The Chinese Communist Party, its leadership, its cadres and its members fear no difficulties or hardships. Whoever questions our ability to lead the revolutionary war will fall into the morass of opportunism. A new situation arose as soon as the Long March was over. In the battle of Chihlochen the Central Red Army and the Northwestern Red Army, fighting in fraternal solidarity, shattered the traitor Chiang Kai-shek's campaign of "encirclement and suppression" against the Shensi-Kansu border area and thus laid the cornerstone for the task undertaken by the Central Committee of the Party, the task of setting up the national headquarters of the revolution in northwestern China.
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I think Mao was lucky in his enemies, but he did shape the battlefield as much as it shaped him. One of Che's greatest failings was his belief that he could create a revolution wherever he went by virtue of his own ideological purity or charisma. Mao was far shrewder than that.
BTW, "Dave" is just there because the usernames seem too impersonal. There is a man behind these posts. A man who feels, and can cry, and who hurts sometimes.... A man who got picked on a lot as a kid and thirsts for the sweet nectar of revenge.... A man who... wait, did I say all that out loud?
