Mao Zedong

=== Military strategy ===
Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one, especially in manners of guerrilla warfare, at which Mao is popularly regarded as a genius.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ghandhi |first=R.K.S. |date=1965 |title=Mao Tse-tung: His Military Writings and Philosophy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44635448 |journal=Naval War College Review |volume=17 |issue=7 |pages=1–27 |jstor=44635448 |issn=0028-1484 |via=[[JSTOR]]}}</ref> The [[Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre)|Nepali Maoists]] were highly influenced by Mao's views on [[On Protracted War|protracted war]], [[New Democracy|new democracy]], [[Mass line|support of masses]], [[Continuous revolution theory|permanency of revolution]] and the [[Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Upreti |first=Bhuwan Chandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gwGa885LPQAC&pg=PA56 |title=Maoists in Nepal: From Insurgency to Political Mainstream |date=2008 |publisher=Gyan Publishing House |isbn=978-8178356877 |pages=56 |language=en |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Mao's major contribution to the military science is his theory of [[People's War]], with not only guerrilla warfare but more importantly, [[Mobile Warfare]] methodologies. Mao had successfully applied Mobile Warfare in the Korean War, and was able to encircle, push back and then halt the UN forces in Korea, despite the clear superiority of UN firepower.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Zhang, Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953, 1995 {{!}} US-China Institute |url=https://china.usc.edu/zhang-maos-military-romanticism-china-and-korean-war-1950-1953-1995 |access-date=19 May 2023 |website=china.usc.edu |language=en}}</ref> In 1957, Mao also gave the impression that he might even welcome a [[nuclear war]].<ref>[[Fox Butterfield]], "[https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1226.html Mao Tse-Tung: Father of Chinese Revolution]". ''The New York Times''. 10 September 1976</ref>{{efn|The often-cited evidence quote as proof is as follows: "Let us imagine how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. If it is a little higher, it could be half. ... I say that if the worst came to the worst and one-half dies, there will still be one-half left, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. After a few years there would be 2.7 billion people again."{{sfn|Dikötter|2010|p=13}}<ref>{{cite Q|Q97657492}}<!-- The forgotten communist quarrel in Le Monde Diplomatique -->, quoted this comment, saying it was from 1957.</ref> Historians dispute the sincerity of Mao's words. [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]] says that Mao "was deadly serious",<ref>[[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Frgm5QodnFoC&dq=editions%3AFrgm5QodnFoC&pg=PA321 ''Comrades!: A History of World Communism.''] [[Harvard University Press]], 2007. p. 321. {{ISBN|067402530X}}</ref> while Frank Dikötter claims that Mao "was bluffing ... the sabre-rattling was to show that he, not Khrushchev, was the more determined revolutionary."{{sfn|Dikötter|2010|p=13}}}}