As soon as the SKS was brought into service in 1949, it was rendered obsolete for the Soviet military by the new AK-47, which was adopted by the Soviet military later that year. However, it found a longer second life in the service of other Soviet-aligned countries, in particular the Chinese army, who found it well suited to their own style of warfare, the "People's War" whose main actors were highly mobile, self-reliant guerrilla bands and rural militias protecting their own villages. In the philosophy of "the People's War", the emphasis was on long-range sniping, spoiling attacks, and ambushes. For this the Chinese army preferred its own domestic version of the SKS (the Type 56 carbine) to the AK pattern.