[1] With the war drawing to a close, commands fell to Robert Mugabe, previously ZANU's number two leader after Tongogara and head of the movement's political wing.

From 1972 onwards, ZANLA adopted the Maoist guerrilla tactics that had been used with success by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO): infiltrating combatants into the country, politicising the peasantry and participating in 'hit-and-run' ambush operations.

[4]: 12  The ZANLA gloried the gun as a symbol of power and of "cleaning up the rot" as the purges to liquidate cadres who showed insufficient willingness to embrace the party line wholeheartedly were known.

[4]: 12  The ZANU leadership ruled via fear, and Ndlovu-Gatsheni described "violent disciplinary measures" and the execution of those cadres who differed from the party line as routine and normal.

[4]: 12 Beside their overall political ideologies, the main differences between the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), the armed wing of the pro-Soviet Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), and ZANLA were that: During the late 1970s, the predominantly Shona tribe ZANLA fighters were deployed in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces, areas where the predominantly Ndebele ZIPRA mostly operated.

ZANLA fighters were well known for their savagery when it came to dealing with Ndebele civilians who were usually taken into what were called overnight bases and forced to sing songs in Shona denouncing ZAPU and its leader Joshua Nkomo.