The appalling poverty I experienced in my childhood and youth tempered me. In later years, I often recalled the plight of my childhood with a view to… - Peng Dehuai

History is always moving ahead in a wavelike fashion, and the people of today outpace those of yesterday in their continuous forward advance.

Compared with its enemy, the Red Army had poorer equipment and a far smaller number of men, and had no rear support. But it won a great victory, smashing enemy encirclement through a series of strategies and tactics previously unknown in China and abroad. This was a new development of Marxism-Leninism — Mao Zedong’s military dialectics which expressed the basic content of his military thought which the People’s Liberation Army troops have discussed so often. If imperialism dares launch a new world war, Mao Zedong’s military dialectics remain an important weapon for guiding the people’s war to victory.

Our goal was illegal (revolution), and legality was but a means of achieving that goal. Otherwise we would have been using legality for the sake of legality and would have become the will.