Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun
	Unissued 1967 stamp with the quote
Traditional Chinese	槍桿子裏面出政權
Simplified Chinese	枪杆子里面出政权
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	qiānggǎnzi lǐmiàn chū zhèngquán

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun (Chinese: 枪杆子里面出政权) is a phrase which was coined by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong. The phrase was originally used by Mao during an emergency meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on 7 August 1927, at the beginning of the Chinese Civil War.^[1]

Mao employed the phrase a second time on 6 November 1938, during his concluding speech at the 6th Plenary Session of the CCP's 6th Central Committee. The speech was concerned with both the Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had commenced the previous year.

In 1960, a portion of the 1938 speech was excerpted and included in Mao's Selected Works, with the title "Problems of War and Strategy". However, the central phrase was popularized largely as a result of its prominence in Mao's Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1964).^[2]

^ Li Gucheng, ed. (1995). A Glossary of Political Terms of the People's Republic of China (Illustrated ed.). Chinese University Press. p. 325. ISBN 978-9622016156.
^ Mao Zedong (1972). Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. p. 61. ISBN 9780835123884.

[1] Li Gucheng, ed. (1995). A Glossary of Political Terms of the People's Republic of China (Illustrated ed.). Chinese University Press. p. 325. ISBN 978-9622016156.

[2] Mao Zedong (1972). Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. p. 61. ISBN 9780835123884.

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