“It is necessary to be completely unsympathetic to abstract formulas and rules and to study with sympathy the conditions of the actual fighting, for these will change in accordance with the physical and economic situations and the realization of the people’s aspirations. These progressive changes in conditions create new methods.”

Mao Tse-Tung (1893 to 1976)

Mao was the principal Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier, and statesman who led his country’s communist revolution. He was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1935 until his death, and he was chairman (chief of state) of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1959 and chairman of the party also until his death.