“Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed” is from Chinese leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976); his collected speeches from 1938 were published under the titled “On Protracted War.”
 
“Politics is war without the incident of bloodshed” was cited in the New Orleans (LA) Daily Picayune in 1901, but it is not known if the saying had much currency before Mao’s 1938 speech.
 
 
Wikiquote: Politics
War, military, and peace
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
Mao Zedong, “On Protracted War” (May 1938)
   
Wikiquote: Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong or Mao Tse-tung in Wade-Giles; Simplified Chinese 毛泽东 ; Traditional Chinese: 毛澤東 (1893-12-26 – 1976-09-09) was the chairman of the Communist Party of China from 1945 until some few days before death.
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Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.
. Quoted in The Logic of Violence in Civil War (2006) by Stathis N. Kalyvas, p. 38
 
Wikipedia: On Protracted War
On Protracted War (simplified Chinese: 论持久战; traditional Chinese: 論持久戰) is a work comprising a series of speeches by Mao Zedong given from May 26 to June 3, 1938, at the Yenan Association for the Study of the War of Resistance Against Japan. In it, he calls for a protracted people’s war as a means for small revolutionary groups to fight the power of the state.
 
The book calls for small assaults on Japanese supply lines instead of large confrontations on the battlefield. The book was highly criticised by the Nationalist Party - it considered the book, along with Mao’s theory, an excuse for avoiding fighting against Japan. The Communist Party justified that the book did not deny the effectiveness of the big battles carried out by the Nationalists, it just provided an alternative means of resistance before the Chinese army became powerful. Once the Chinese army became powerful enough, the Communist Party explained, the guerrilla warfare aspect of the strategy should be deemphasized, and conventional forces should take over the primary prosecution of the war.
 
Quotations from Mao Tse Tung
War and Peace
“War is the continuation of politics.” In this sense, war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character…. However, war has its own particular characteristics and in this sense, it cannot be equated with politics in general. “War is the continuation of politics by other . . . means.” When politics develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles from the way…. When the obstacle is removed and our political aim attained the war will stop. Nevertheless, if the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue until the aim is fully accomplished…. It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
“On Protracted War” (May 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 152-53 *
 
20 July 1901, New Orleans (LA) Daily Picayune, “An Attack on Schley,” pg. 1, col. 7:
The announcement, however, that Mr. Wimberly had indorsed Mr. Baldwin, with the approval of the two senators, the entire delegation in congress and the businessmen of the city, dispelled all gloomy forebodings, while the early and easy settlement of the matter by Postmaster General Smith rather disproves the general theory that politics is war without the incident of bloodshed.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
War without bloodshed : the art of politics
Author: Eleanor Clift; Tom Brazaitis
Publisher: New York : Simon and Schuster, 1997, ©1996.
Edition/Format:  Book : English : 1st Touchstone ed