What caused MCP strategy to radically change in October 1951, and to what effect? This chapter shows the MCP believed it had to change as geodemographic control tightened, and how it switched to a ‘long war’ strategy with lower force and incident levels but more determined subversion and greater use of the deep jungle. It then traces how that new strategy played out over 1951–4, until by the latter date the headquarters had retreated to south Thailand, numbers were falling slowly but inexorably and the MCP had started to contemplate negotiation. Above all, this chapter threads together the story from the communist perspective, both above with Chin Peng and colleagues, and from below in its struggles in the New Villages.