Mao on Revolution: Political Power and the Barrel of a Gun

The Quote

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

— Mao Zedong, Speech at the Sixth Plenum of the CCP Central Committee (1938)

Historical Context

Mao Zedong delivered this statement in 1938, during the second Sino-Japanese War, when the Chinese Communist Party was fighting both the Japanese occupation and the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. The Chinese revolution was at a critical juncture. The Long March had ended only three years earlier, and the CCP had established a base in Yan'an, but its survival was far from assured. The party was a fraction of the size of the Nationalist army, and its control over territory was limited and contested. The question of how the CCP could achieve power was not a theoretical question but a practical one of survival.

Mao's statement is a blunt assertion of the primacy of force in politics. The passage appears in a speech about the relationship between the party and the army, and Mao's argument is that the party must control the gun — that the armed forces must be subordinate to the political leadership of the party. The statement is often quoted as a celebration of violence, but its meaning in context is more complex. Mao is not saying that power is nothing but force; he is saying that force is the ultimate foundation of political power, and that those who seek power must be prepared to use force to achieve it and to defend it.

The context of the Chinese revolution shaped Mao's understanding of the relationship between force and politics. The CCP had been nearly destroyed by the Nationalist purges of 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek turned on his communist allies and massacred thousands. The lesson that Mao drew from this experience was that the party must have its own armed forces — that it could not rely on the goodwill of its enemies or on the peaceful development of the class struggle. The revolution would be won by armed struggle, not by parliamentary maneuvering or peaceful protest.

Philosophical Interpretation

Mao's statement is a radical assertion of the power of coercion in politics. The claim is that political power — the ability to control the behavior of others, to make and enforce laws, to determine the direction of society — ultimately rests on the capacity to use force. Those who have the guns have the power, and those who do not have the guns are at the mercy of those who do. This is a realist theory of politics that echoes the arguments of Machiavelli and Hobbes and that stands in stark contrast to the idealist tradition that sees politics as a matter of persuasion, deliberation, and consent.

The statement is also a contribution to the Marxist theory of the state. In the Marxist tradition, the state is understood as the instrument of class rule — a committee of the bourgeoisie, as Marx and Engels put it, that manages the common affairs of the ruling class. The state's monopoly of legitimate force is not a neutral mechanism for maintaining order but a weapon in the class struggle. Mao's statement is a distillation of this theory into a single, memorable phrase: the state is the organized force of the ruling class, and the struggle for power is ultimately a struggle for control of that force.

The relationship between the party and the army that Mao articulates in the speech is also significant. Mao insists that the party must control the gun, not the gun the party. The armed forces must be subordinate to the political leadership, and the political leadership must be guided by the correct theory. This is the doctrine of the "party-army" — the idea that the military is not an independent force but an instrument of the party's political will. The doctrine has been central to the organization of the Chinese military and to the political stability of the Chinese state.

Related Concepts

Mao's statement about the relationship between force and power connects to the broader tradition of revolutionary theory and political realism. The question of the role of violence in politics is one of the central questions of political philosophy, and the debate between those who see violence as a necessary instrument of social change and those who see it as incompatible with the goals of justice and freedom is a debate that runs through the entire history of political thought.

The statement also raises questions about the relationship between revolution and authority. If power grows out of the barrel of a gun, then what is the basis of legitimate authority? Is authority simply a function of the capacity to coerce, or is there a moral dimension to political power that cannot be reduced to force? These questions are at the center of the debate between revolutionary and liberal theories of politics, and they remain as relevant today as they were in Mao's time.

Sources

1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Mao Zedong." Covers Mao's contributions to Marxist theory, his philosophy of revolution, and his role in Chinese history.
2. Mao Zedong, "Problems of War and Strategy," in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 2 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965). The speech from which the quoted passage is taken.
3. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Mao Zedong: An Overview." An accessible overview of Mao's thought and its significance.