GUERRILLA WARFARE -- A METHOD
. By Ernesto Che Guevara [Continued from last issue. |
During the development of the armed struggle, two moments of extreme danger for the future of the revolution appear, The first of these, aris-= ing in the preparatory stage, concerns the way in which the decision to struggle and the clarity of the goal of the popular forces conform to each other, When the bourgeois state advances against the positions of the people, it must evidently produce a process of defense against the enemy who, at this moment: of superiority, is attacking. If the minimum objective
and subjective conditions have already developed, the defense must be armed, but in such way that the popular forces are not converted into mere recipients of the enemy's blows; neither must the area of armed defense be permitted to become transformed simply into an ultimate refuge for the persecuted, Guerrilla warfare, a defensive movement of the people at a given moment, bears in itself -- and it must be constantly developed -- a capacity for attacking the enemy. This capacity is what in time determines its character as a catalyzer of the popular forces, This means that guerrilla warfare is not passive self-defense, it is a defense that includes attack and from the moment that this is posed as such, it has as its final perspective the conquest of political power,
This moment is important. In social processes the difference between violence and nonviolence cannot be measured by the number of shots exchanged; it corresponds to concrete and fluctuating situations, And it _is necessary to be able to see the instant at which the popular forces, conscious of their relative weakness, but at the same time of their strategic power, must oblige the enemy to take the necessary steps to prevent the situation from deteriorating. It is necessary: to upset the | equilibrium between the oligarchical dictatorship and the popular pressure, The dictatorship constantly seeks to exercise its rule without the ostentatious use of force, To oblige it to present itself undisguised; that is, in its true aspect of violent dictatorship of the reactionary classes, contributes to unmasking it. This deepens the struggle to such a degree that recovery is impossible, The firm beginning of an armed action of wide scope depends on how well the forces of the people accom~ plish the task they have assumed of compelling the dictatorship to. ‘worsen or unleash the struggle through military means,
Emergence from the other dangerous moment depends on the power held by the popular forces of an ascending development, Marx always recommended that once having begun in the revolutionary process, the revolutionary proletariat must strike and strike without rest, Revolution that does not constantly deepen is revolution in regression, The fighters, tired out, begin to lose faith and can then lend success to some of the maneuvers to which the bourgeoisie have so accustomed us, These can be elections in which power is given to another gentleman with a more honeyed voice and angelical face th nan the alternative dictator; or a coup by the reaction~ aries headed, in general, by the army supported, directly or indirectly, by the progressive forces. There are others, put it is not our intention to analyze tactical stratagems. °
We call special attention to the maneuver noted above of a military coup. What can the militarists offer in genuine democracy? What loyalty can they demand if they are mere instruments of domination wielded by the reactionary classes and the imperialist monopolies, and a caste which, through the arms it possesses, seeks only to maintain its own prerogatives?
When, in situations of difficulty for the oppressors, the militarists conspire and overthrow a dictator, already defeated in reality, it must be assumed that they do this because he is no longer capable of preserving their class prerogatives without extreme violence, something that, in general, does not correspond at present with the interests of the oligar~ chies,
‘This conelusion by no means signifies that military figures should.
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not be utilized as individual fighters, separated from the social medium in which they have served and against which they have really rebelled, And they must be utilized within the framework of the revolutionary leadership to which they belong as fighters and not as representatives of a caste,
In the already distant past, in the preface to the third edition of . The Civil War In France, Engels said: "The workers, after every revolution, are armed; because of this the disarming of the workers has always been the first commandment of the bourgeois who find themselves at the head of the state, Hence, after every revolution won by the workers, a new struggle has- broken out, ending in their defeat..." (Cited. by Lenin in State and Revolution, )
This game of continual struggles in which a formal change of some kind was gained along with a strategic. setback, had been repeated for dozens of years in the capitalist world. The permanent cheating of the proletariat in this respect has now been going on periodically for more than a century.
Another danger is that the leaders of the progressive parties, carried away by the desire to maintain for.some time more favorable conditions for revolutionary action through the use of certain aspects of bourgeois legality, confuse two goals, something that is very common in the course of action, and forget the definitive strategic objective ~- to take power.
These two difficult moments of the revolution, which we have briefly analyzed, are obviated when the Marxist-Leninist party leaders prove capable of clearly seeing the implications of the moment and mobilizing the masses to the maximum, taking them along the correct road to resolving the fundamental contradictions.
In developing the theme we have assumed the eventual acceptance of the idea of armed struggle and also of the formula of guerrilla warfare as a method of combat. Why do we consider, under present oonditions in the Americas, that guerrilla war is the correct road? . There are fundamental arguments which, in our opinion, determine the necessity for guerrilla action in the Americas as the. central axis of struggle.
First: Accepting it as true that the enemy will struggle to maintain. power, it is necessary to consider how to destroy the oppressor's army. For this a popular opposing army must take the field, This army is not born spontaneously; it must arm itself from the arsenal which the enemy boasts, and this entails a hard and very long struggle, in which the popular forces and their leaders are always exposed to attack from superior forces without adequate conditions of defense and maneuverability.
Against this, the guerrilla nucleus, based in terrain favorable to the struggle, guarantees the security and permanence of the revolutionary come= mand, The urban forces, directed from the better location of the army of the people, can carry out actions of incalculable importance, The acci~ dental destruction of these groups does not kill the soul of the revolution, its command, which, from the rural fortress, continues to catalyze the aad spirit. of the masses, organizing new forces for other battles, .
In addition, in this zone begins the construction of the future. state apparatus charged with efficiently guiding the class dictatorship during
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‘, the transition period. The greater the struggle, the bigger and more com plex are the. administrative problems; and their solution trains the cadres for the difficult. task of consolidating power and developing the economy at a.future stage,
Second: The general situation of the Latin-American peasantry and the more and more explosive character of its struggle against the feudal structures in the framework of a social situation of alliance between local and’ foreign exploiters.
Returning to the Second Declaration of Havana:. "The peoples “of America liberated themselves from Spanish colonialism at the beginning of the last century, but they did not free themselves from exploitation, The feudal landowners assumed the authority of the Spanish rulers, the Indians continued in painful servitude, the Latin-American man in one form or another continued to be a slave and the tiniest hopes of the people gave way under the power of the oligarchies and the yoke of foreign capital. This has been the truth of America -- in one hue or another, Today Latin America lies beneath an imperialism fiercer, much more powerful and crueler than the Spanish colonial empire,
"and before the objective reality and the historically inexorable . LatineAmerican. revolution, what is the attitude of Yankee imperialism? To prepare to wage a colonial war against the peoples of Latin Americas; to create an apparatus of force, the political pretexts and the pseudo-legal instruments subscribed to by the reactionary oligarchies to repress with blood and fire the struggle of the Latin-American peoples,"
This objective situation shows us the dormant, neglected force of our peasants and the need to utilize it for the liberation of the Americas, >
Third: The continental character of the struggle.
Can this new stage in the emancipation of the Americas be conceived as the. confrontation of two local forces struggling for power in a given territory? With difficulty. The struggle will be to the death between all the populer forces. and all the forces of repression, The paragraphs cited above also predict this.
The Yankees will intervene out of solidarity of interests and because the struggle in the Americas is decisive, In fact they are already inter~ vening in the preparation of the repressive forces and the organization of a continental apparatus of struggle, But from now on they will do this with all their energy, punishing the popular forces with all the arms of destruction within reach; they will not let the revolutionary power become consolidated and, if someone succeeds in doing so, they will return to the attack, not recognize it, seek to divide the revolutionary forces, introducing’ saboteurs of all kinds, creating frontier problems, launching other reactionary states against it. attempting to economically smother the new state, to annihilate it, in short,
Given this American panorama, it is difficult for victory to be won and consolidated in an isolated country. The union of the repressive forces must be answered by the union of the popular forces. In all countries in which the oppression reaches unbearable levels, the banner of rebellion must be raised, and this banner will have, out of historic
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necessity, continental characteristics, The Cordillera of the Andes is destined to be the Sierra Maestra of the Americas, as Fidel said, and all the immense territories which this continent contains are destined to be scenes of struggle to the death against . the imperialist power.
We cannot say when these continental characteristics will be acquired, nor how long the struggle will endure; but we-can predict its arrival and its triumph, because it is the result of inevitable historic, economic and. political circumstances and its course cannot be deflected. To initiate ~ it when the conditions are given, independently of the situation in other countries, is the task of the revolutionary force in each country, The. development of the struggle will determine the general strategy; the pre= diction concerning its continental character results from analysis of the opposing forces, but this does not exclude <-~ far from it -- an independent outbreak, Just as the initiation of the struggle at one point in a coun= try is destined to develop throughout its breadth, the initiation of revo , lutionary war contributes to developing new conditions in the neighboring countries,
The development of revolutions occurs normally through inversely pro= portional surges and refluxes; the. revolutionary surge corresponds to the counterrevolutionary reflux and, vice versa, in- the moments of revolution= ary decline there is a counterrevolutionary rise. At these instances, the situation of the popular forces becomes difficult and they must resors. to better methods of defense in order to suffer less damage. The enemy is extremely strong on a continental scale. Because of this the relative weakness of local bourgeoisies must not be analyzed with the thought of. making decisions of restricted scope, Still less can one think of a possible alliance between these oligarchies and the people in arms, The Cuban Revolution has rung the alarm bell, The polarization of forces will become total -- exploiters on one side and the exploited on the other; the mass ‘of the petty bourgeoisie will incline to one of the factions or the other in accordance with its interests and the political skill with which it is handled3; neutrality will constitute an exception, That's the way the revolutionary war will go.
Let us consider how a guerrilla focal center can be started.
Relatively small nuclei of persons decide on favorable places for guerrilla warfare whether it. be to open a counterattack or to ride out a storm and’ there they begin to act. The following must be established very clearly: in the first period the relative weakness of the guerrilla forces is such that they must work only to become established in the terrain, to get to know the surroundings, establishing connections with the population and reinforcing the places that will eventually be converted into their’ base of support.
There are three conditions for the survival of. a guerrilla force that begins its development under the premises outlined here: .constant mobile ity, constant vigilance, constant mistrust, Without the adequate use of these three elements of military tactics, the guerrilla force ¢an hardly survive, It is necessary to state that the heroism of the guerrilla. fighter, at this time, consists in the greatness of his objective and the enormous series of sacrifices that must be made to carry it out.
These sacrifices are not the daily ‘combat, the face to face struggle
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x with the enemy; they take on more subtle forms, more difficult for a person” engaged in guerrilla fighting to resist.
They will perhaps be severely punished by the enemy armies; split into groups at times; martyrized if they fall prisoner; pursued like harried animals in the zones in which they chose to act; with the constant uncer~ tainty of having enemies dogging one!ts steps in the guerrilla conflict; with constant mistrust of everyone, since terrorized peasants can turn them-over to the repressive troops, in some cases to get rid of the . pretext for the troops being theres without any other alternative than death or victory at a time when death is a concept present a thousand times while vietory is a may th in which only a revolutionary could dream.
This is the heroism of the. guerrilla fighter. Because of this it is said that to move is also a form of fighting, that refusing combat at a given moment is only a form of fighting,.. The basic thing is, in face of ‘the general superiority of the enemy, to find the tactical form of gaining relative superiority at a chosen point, whether it be to concentrate more. effective forces than the foe or to assure advantages in utilizing the terrain that will reverse the relation of forces, In these conditions tactical victory must be assured. If relative superiority is not plain, . it is preferable not to act. Combat that does not produce a victory must. not be undertaken so long as it is possible to choose the “how” and the “when, .
Within the frame of wide politico-military action, of whieh it is an element, guerrilla warfare continues to grow and to become consolidated. Bases of support then eontinue to be formed as the fundamental element. in. which the guerrilla army can: prosper. These bases ofrsupport are points in which the enemy army can penetrate only at the cost of great losses -= bastions. of the revolution, the refuge and resort of the guerrilla forces for incursions of greater and greater distance and daring.
Now comes the time to determine whether the difficulties of a tactical and political order have been simultaneously overcome, The guerrilla fighters can never forget their function as vanguard of the people, the mandate they incarnate, and because of this they must create the necessary political conditions for the establishment of the revolutionary power based on the total support of. the masses, The great demands of the peasan~ try must be satisfied in the measure and form required by the circumstances, converting the entire population into a compact and decided conglomeration.
As difficult as the military situation is at first, politics is no. less delicate; and if a single military error can liquidate the guerrilla forces, a political error can put a brake on its development for long periods.
The struggle is politico-military; this is how it must be developed and, consequently, how it must be understood,
The guerrilla struggle, in its process of growth, reaches a time in which its capacity for action covers a specific region where there are more than enough men available and the concentration in the zone is too great, Then comes the beehive effect in which one of the chiefs, a distinguished guerrilla fighter, shifts to another region and goes on repeat= ing the guerrilla chain,. subject, of course, to a central command,
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It is necessary to point out here that it is not possible to aspire _ to victory without the formation of a popular army. The guerrilla forces can be increased up to a certain size; the popular forces, in the cities and- other zones accessible to the enemy can cause havoc, but the military potential of the action still remains intact. It must always be borne in mind that the final result must be the annihilation of the adversary. To accomplish this, all the new zones that have been created, plus the zones of perforation behind the enemy's lines, plus the forces operating in the principal cities, must have a relation of dependency in regard to command, The closed hierarchical order that characterizes an army should not be attempted, simply a strategic order, Within determined conditions of freedom of action, the guerrillas must carry out all the strategic orders of the central command installed in one of the zones, the safest, the surest, preparing the conditions for the union of the forces at a given. moment,.
Guerrilla warfare or a.war of liberation will have in general: three phases: first, the strategic defensive, in which a small force that flees bites the enemy; it doesn't take refuge in order to carry out a passive defense in a small circle; its defense consists in the limited attacks it ~ can make, This stage passed, a point of equilibrium is reached in which possibilities of action between the enemy and the guerrilla forces become established and, then, the final moment of flooding over the repressive army which leads to taking the big cities, to the big decisive encounters, to the total annihilation of the adversary.
After reaching the point of equilibrium, where both forces respect each other, on continuing its development guerrilla warfare acquires new characteristics, It begins to introduce the concept of maneuver; big columns that attack strong points; a war of movement with transfer of forces and relatively strong means of attack, But, due to the capacity of resistance and counterattack which the enemy still retains, this war of maneuver does not definitively displace the guerrillas; it is only a form of their action, a greater magnitude of guerrilla forces, until, at last, a popular army is crystallized with divisions of armies, Even at this moment, marching ahead of the actions of the principal forces, go the guerrilla fighters in their "pure" form, cutting communication lines, sabotaging the whole defensive apparatus of the enemy.
We have predicted that the war will be continental, This signifies also that it will be prolonged; there will be many fronts, it will cost much blood, innumerable lives for a long time, But, something more, the phenomena of polarization of forces that is occurring in the Americas, the clear division between exploiters and exploited which will exist in future revolutionary wars, signify that when the armed vanguard of the people takes power, the country, or countries, that succeed in this, will have simultaneously liquidated in the oppressor both the imperialists and national exploiters, The first stage of the socialist revolution will have crystallized; the peoples will be ready to heal the wounds and to. begin the construction of socialism,
Will there be other, less cruel, possibilities?
It has been some time since the last division of the world occurred in which the United States took the lion's part of our continent; today the imperialists of the old world are developing again and the strength of the European Common Market terrorizes the North Americans themselves. - All this makes it possible to believe that the possibility exists of watching
ARM cas teres as spectators at an interimperialist battle, after which new advances 4 could be made, perhaps in alliance with the strongest national bourgeoisies, Leaving aside the fact that passive politics never brings good results in’ the class struggle and that alliances with the bourgeoisie, however revolutionary it may appear at a given moment, have only a transitory character, there are considerations relating to time that induce one to take a different position, The sharpening of the fundamental contradiction appears to be so rapid in the Americas that it disrupts the "normal" development of the contradictions of the imperialist camp in its struggle for markets.
The national bourgeoisies have united with North American imperialism in their great majority and must encounter the same fate as the latter in each country, Even in cases in which pacts or coincidental contradictions appear between the national bourgeoisie and other imperialisms against the North American, this occurs in the framework of a fundamental struggle that will necessarily involve, in the course of its development, all the exploited and all the exploiters. The polarization of the antagonistic orces of the class adversaries has been, up to now, faster than the development of the contradictions between the exploiters over the division of the booty, There’are two camps: the alternative will become clearer for every” individual and for every special layer of the population.
The Alliance for Progress isan: attempt to restrain the unrestrain« able.
But if the advance of the European Common Market or any other imperialist group into the markets of the Americas were to occur more rapidly than the development of-the fundamental, contradictions the only recourse would be to introduce the popular forces like a wedge in the open breach;taking them all into struggle and utilizing the new intruders. with clear consciousness of their ultimate intentions,
Not a position, not an arm,-not a secret must be handed over to the enemy under penalty of Losing everything.
The fact is that the eruption of the American struggle has occurred. Will its vortex be in Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador. .. ? Will the present skirmishes be only manifestations of an uneasiness that has not ripened? It does not matter how the struggles of today turn dut. _ It does not matter, in the final analysis whether this or that movement is temporarily defeated. What is definitive is the decision to struggle which is maturing day by day, the consciousness of the necessity for revo» lutionary change, the certainty of its possibility.
This is a prediction. We make it with the conviction that history will prove us right. Analysis of the objective and subjective factors of America and the imperialist world indicates to us the accuracy of these assertions based on the Second Declaration of Havana.
[The end. ]
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ayes Directeuregérant: Pierre FRANK. oo