Three Stages.

This is coolbert:

For those wondering what the Maoists of India [and Maoists anywhere else in the world for that matter} espouse and how they conduct warfare, here is the concentrated and abbreviated dope.

Revolution, insurrection, the overthrow of the established order, the forces of the central government, the oppressive ancien regime cast aside and replaced by the benevolence of the communist dictatorship!

"an·cien ré·gime - - 2. A sociopolitical or other system that no longer exists"

Mao, the Chinese Great Helmsman, theorizing that "people's war", an insurrection by the "downtrodden masses" could succeed by following a three stage approach. An "approach" that would follow as:

"Maoist theory of people's war divides warfare into three phases. In the first phase, the guerrillas gain the support of the population through the distribution of propaganda and attacks on the machinery of government. In the second phase, escalating attacks are made on the government's military and vital institutions. In the third phase, conventional fighting is used to seize cities, overthrow the government, and take control of the country." - - Mao's seminal work, "On Guerrilla Warfare"

The three stages - - to repeat - - are:

1. Organization and preparation. NOT necessarily violent.

2. Guerrilla warfare in the classic sense. Highly-mobile squad size units primarily conducting the "war of the flea" type of warfare. Ambush, raid, sniping, mining.

3. Conventional warfare. Guerrilla bands coalescing into larger and larger units, platoon, company and finally battalion size formations, marching on the capital, fighting a more or less conventional type of battle against the military of the "central government".

Comment:

The communist revolutionary movement in Vietnam [Indo-China] had begun Phase One of the three-stage approach in the 1920's. Preparation of the battlefield [often referred to as agitation and propaganda [agit-prop]] for combat with the French. By the time the American military arrived in Vietnam in force [mid-1960's], the communists had been in conflict [violent and non-violent] with the forces of the "central government" for almost FORTY YEARS PRIOR!!

coolbert.