Millet plus rifles

{{Short description|Phrase used by Mao Zedong}}

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| title =Millet plus rifles

| label1 = Chinese|data1=小米加步槍{{cite book|title=Chinese-English Glossary of Current Terms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KKfjAAAAMAAJ|year=1964|publisher=Commercial Press|pages=417–}}

| label2 =Literal meaning|data2=a rifle with bags of millet

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Millet plus rifles ({{lang-zh|s=小米加步枪|t=小米加步槍|p=Xiǎomǐ jiā bùqiāng|first=s}}),{{cite book|author=Kent G Deng|title=China's Political Economy in Modern Times: Changes and Economic Consequences, 1800-2000|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1aWpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA107|date=4 October 2011|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-65513-5|pages=107–}}{{citation|author=Abraham M. Denmark|title=U.S. Strategy in the Asian Century: Empowering Allies and Partners|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiTCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT52|date=18 August 2020|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-55227-1|pages=52–}} also known as "Millet and rifles"{{cite book|author1=James Lilley|author2=David L. Shambaugh|title=China's Military Faces the Future|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HHiTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44|date=1 July 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-50104-8|pages=44–}} or "a rifle with bags of millet",{{cite journal |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002190960303800406?journalCode=jasa|title=China's Military after the Sixteenth Party Congress: Long March to Eternity|author=Wei-Chin Lee|journal=Journal of Asian and African Studies|date= October 1, 2003|volume=38|issue=4–5|pages=416–446|doi=10.1177/002190960303800406|s2cid=154639394|url-access=subscription}} was a phrase used by Mao Zedong to describe the materials and supplies of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).{{cite book|author=Chinese Publications Service Center|title=Compilation of Important Historical Documents of the Chinese Communist Party|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OoEPAQAAMAAJ|publisher=Service Center for Chinese Publications|pages=17–}} The first recorded instance of Mao using this phrase is in a speech he gave at a party meeting in Yan'an. He was recalling a conversation with David D. Barrett, an American military officer sent to observe the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces fighting in WWII. When warned that the Americans would support Chiang Kai-Shek against the CCP if they refused to enter into a coalition government, Mao had responded:{{cite web |last1=Zedong |first1=Mao |title=The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_01.htm#bm25 |website=Marxists.org |access-date=1 March 2022}}

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If you Americans, sated with bread and sleep, want to curse the people and back Chiang Kai-Shek, that's your business and I won't interfere. What we have now is millet plus rifles, what you have is bread plus cannon. If you like to back Chiang Kai-shek, back him, back him as long as you want. But remember one thing. To whom does China belong? China definitely does not belong to Chiang Kai-shek, China belongs to the Chinese people. The day will surely come when you will find it impossible to back him any longer.

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The phrase became well known in the west after Mao repeated it in an interview with American war correspondent Anna Louise Strong on August 6, 1946.{{cite web |url=https://www.cctv.com/special/756/1/49835.html|title=Talk with the American Correspondent Anna LouiseStrong on August 6, 1946|author=|work=CCTV.com|date=2010-09-15}} He said:

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..Take the case of China. We have only millet plus rifles to rely on, but history will finally prove that our millet plus rifles is more powerful than Chiang Kai-shek's aeroplanes plus tanks...

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It reflects Mao's view that the inferior equipment of the PLA was enough to defeat the well-equipped and well-supplied Kuomintang (KMT) soldiers in the Chinese Communist Revolution, since the people of China were behind the communist cause.{{cite book|author1=William Hinton|author2=Fred Magdoff|title=Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QYgTCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA103|date=April 2008|publisher=New York University Press|isbn=978-1-58367-175-7|pages=103–}}{{cite book|author=Mao Tse-Tung|title=Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung: Volume 4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FSKoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA21|date=18 May 2014|publisher=Elsevier Science|isbn=978-1-4831-5434-3|pages=21–}} Millet (along with wheat), was the main food source of the Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and was considered by the soldiers to have been a mediocre foodstuff. Rifles, of course, were the main armament of the Chinese armies of that period, with the CCP mainly using those they acquired from the Soviet Union.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}} The phrase was quickly adopted by the CCP as propaganda to heroize their underdog struggle against the KMT.{{cite book|author=Ying-Mao Kau|title=Revival: The People's Liberation Army and China's Nation-Building (1973)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6mZQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA58|date=29 September 2017|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-351-71622-2|pages=58–}}{{cite book|author=Peter Van Ness|title=Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aufIKy9Ufl8C&pg=PA40|year=1973|publisher=University of California Press|pages=40–|id=GGKEY:966F0LCC9P2}}