Guerilla Warfare
Che Guevara
1. Essence of Guerrilla Warfare
The armed victory of the Cuban
people over the Batista dictatorship was not only the
triumph of heroism as reported by the newspapers of the
world; it also forced a change in the old dogmas
concerning the conduct of the popular masses of Latin
America. It showed plainly the capacity of the people to
free themselves by means of guerrilla warfare from a
government that oppresses them.
We consider that the Cuban Revolution contributed three
fundamental lessons to the conduct of revolutionary
movements in America. They are:
1. Popular forces can win a war against the army.
2. It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for
making revolution exist; the insurrection can create
them.
3. In underdeveloped America the countryside is the basic
area for armed fighting.
Of these three propositions the first two contradict
the defeatist attitude of revolutionaries or
pseudo-revolutionaries who remain inactive and take
refuge in the pretext that against a professional army
nothing can be done, who sit down to wait until in some
mechanical way all necessary objective and subjective
conditions are given without working to accelerate them.
As these problems were formerly a subject of discussion
in Cuba, until facts settled the question, they are
probably still much discussed in America.
Naturally, it is not to be thought that all conditions
for revolution are going to be created through the
impulse given to them by guerrilla activity. It must
always be kept in mind that there is a necessary minimum
without which the establishment and consolidation of the
first center is not practicable. People must see clearly
the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals
within the framework of civil debate. When the forces of
oppression come to maintain themselves in power against
established law, peace is considered already broken.
In these conditions popular discontent expresses
itself in more active forms. An attitude of resistance
finally crystallizes in an outbreak of fighting, provoked
initially by the conduct of the authorities.
Where a government has come into power through some
form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at
least an appearance of constitutional legality, the
guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the
possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been
exhausted.
The third proposition is a fundamental of strategy. It
ought to be noted by those who maintain dogmatically that
the struggle of the masses is centered in city movements,
entirely forgetting the immense participation of the
country people in the life of all the underdeveloped
parts of America. Of course, the struggles of the city
masses of organized workers should not be underrated; but
their real possibilities of engaging in armed struggle
must be carefully analyzed where the guarantees which
customarily adorn our constitutions are suspended or
ignored. In these conditions the illegal workers'
movements face enormous dangers. They must function
secretly without arms. The situation in the open country
is not so difficult. There, in places beyond the reach of
the repressive forces, the inhabitants can be supported
by the armed guerrillas.
We will later make a careful analysis of these three
conclusions that stand out in the Cuban revolutionary
experience. We empha- size them now at the beginning of
this work as our fundamental contribution.
Guerrilla warfare, the basis of the struggle of a
people to redeem itself, has diverse characteristics,
different facets, even though the essential will for
liberation remains the same. It is obvious-and writers on
the theme have said it many times-that war responds to a
certain series of scientific laws; whoever ignores them
will go down to defeat. Guerrilla warfare as a phase of
war must be ruled by all of these; but besides, because
of its special aspects, a series of corollary laws must
also be recognized in order to carry it forward. Though
geographical and social conditions in each country
determine the mode and particular forms that guerrilla
warfare will take, there are general laws that hold for
all fighting of this type.
Our task at the moment is to find the basic principles
of this kind of fighting and the rules to be followed by
peoples seeking liberation; to develop theory from facts;
to generalize and give structure to our experience for
the profit of others.
Let us first consider the question: Who are the
combatants in guerrilla warfare? On one side we have a
group composed of the oppressor and his agents, the
professional army, well armed and disciplined, in many
cases receiving foreign help as well as the help of the
bureaucracy in the employ of the oppressor. On the other
side are the people of the nation or region involved. It
is important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war
of the masses, a war of the people. The guerrilla band is
an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It
draws its great force from the mass of the people
themselves. The guerrilla band is not to be considered
inferior to the army against which it fights simply
because it is inferior in firepower. Guerrilla warfare is
used by the side which is supported by a majority but
which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in
defense against oppression.
The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people
of the area. This is an indispensable condition. This is
clearly seen by considering the case of bandit gangs that
operate in a region. They have all the characteristics of
a guerrilla army: homogeneity, respect for the leader,
valor, knowledge of the ground, and, often, even good
understanding of the tactics to be employed. The only
thing missing is support of the people; and, inevitably,
these gangs are captured and exterminated by the public
force.
Analyzing the mode of operation of the guerrilla band,
seeing its form of struggle, and understanding its base
in the masses, we can answer the question: Why does the
guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable
conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social
reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry
protest of the people against their oppressors, and that
he fights in order to change the social system that keeps
all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery. He
launches himself against the conditions of the reigning
institutions at a particular moment and dedicates himself
with all the vigor that circumstances permit to breaking
the mold of these institutions.
When we analyze more fully the tactic of guerrilla
warfare, we will see that the guerrilla fighter needs to
have a good knowledge of the surrounding countryside, the
paths of entry and escape, the possibilities of speedy
maneuver, good hiding places; naturally, also, he must
count on the support of the people. All this indicates
that the guerrilla fighter will carry out his action in
wild places of small population. Since in these places
the struggle of the people for reforms is aimed primarily
and almost exclusively at changing the social form of
land ownership, the guerrilla fighter is above all an
agrarian revolutionary. He interprets the desires of the
great peasant mass to be owners of land, owners of their
means of production, of their animals, of all that which
they have long yearned to call their own, of that which
constitutes their life and will also serve as their
cemetery.
It should be noted that in current interpretations
there are two different types of guerrilla warfare, one
of which-a struggle complementing great regular armies
such as was the case of the Ukrainian fighters in the
Soviet Union-does not enter into this analysis. We are
interested in the other type, the case of an armed group
engaged in struggle against the constituted power,
whether colonial or not, which establishes itself as the
only base and which builds itself up in rural areas. In
all such cases, whatever the ideological aims that may
inspire the fight, the economic aim is determined by the
aspiration toward ownership of land.
The China of Mao begins as an outbreak of worker
groups in the South, which is defeated and almost
annihilated. It succeeds in establishing itself and
begins its advance only when, after the long march from
Yenan, it takes up its base in rural territories and
makes agrarian reform its fundamental goal. The struggle
of Ho Chi Minh is based in the rice-growing peasants, who
are oppressed by the French colonial yoke; with this
force it is going forward to the defeat of the
colonialists. In both cases there is a framework of
patriotic war against the Japanese invader, but the
economic basis of a fight for the land has not
disappeared. In the case of Algeria, the grand idea of
Arab nationalism has its economic counterpart in the fact
that nearly all of the arable land of Algeria is utilized
by a million French settlers. In some countries, such as
Puerto Rico, where the special conditions of the island
have not permitted a guerrilla outbreak, the nationalist
spirit, deeply wounded by the discrimination that is
daily practiced, has as its basis the aspiration of the
peasants (even though many of them are already a
proletariat) to recover the land that the Yankee invader
seized from them. This same central idea, though in
different forms, inspired the small farmers, peasants,
and slaves of the eastern estates of Cuba to close ranks
and defend together the right to possess land during the
thirty-year war of liberation.
Taking account of the possibilities of development of
guerrilla warfare, which is transformed with the increase
in the operating potential of the guerrilla band into a
war of positions, this type of warfare, despite its
special character, is to be considered as an embryo, a
prelude, of the other. The possibilities of growth of the
guerrilla band and of changes in the mode of fight, until
conventional warfare is reached, are as great as the
possibilities of defeating the enemy in each of the
different battles, combats, or skirmishes that take
place. Therefore, the fundamental principle is that no
battle, combat, or skirmish is to be fought unless it
will be won. There is a malevolent definition that says:
"The guerrilla fighter is the Jesuit of
warfare." By this is indicated a quality of
secretiveness, of treachery, of surprise that is
obviously an essential element of guerrilla warfare. It
is a special kind of Jesuitism, naturally prompted by
circumstances, which necessitates acting at certain
moments in ways different from the romantic and sporting
conceptions with which we are taught to believe war is
fought.
War is always a struggle in which each contender tries
to annihilate the other. Besides using force, they will
have recourse to all possible tricks and stratagems in
order to achieve the goal. Military strategy and tactics
are a representation by analysis of the objectives of the
groups and of the means of achieving these objectives.
These means contemplate taking advantage of all the weak
points of the enemy. The fighting action of each
individual platoon in a large army in a war of positions
will present the same characteristics as those of the
guerrilla band. It uses secretiveness, treachery, and
surprise; and when these are not present, it is because
vigilance on the other side prevents surprise. But since
the guerrilla band is a division unto itself, and since
there are large zones of territory not controlled by the
enemy, it is always possible to carry out guerrilla
attacks in such a way as to assure surprise; and it is
the duty of the guerrilla fighter to do so.
"Hit and run," some call this scornfully,
and this is accurate. Hit and run, wait, lie in ambush,
again hit and run, and thus repeatedly, without giving
any rest to the enemy.
There is in all this, it would appear, a negative
quality, an attitude of retreat, of avoiding frontal
fights. However, this is consequent upon the general
strategy of guerrilla warfare, which is the same in its
ultimate end as is any warfare: to win, to annihilate the
enemy. Thus, it is clear that guerrilla warfare is a
phase that does not afford in itself opportunities to
arrive at complete victory. It is one of the initial
phases of warfare and will develop continuously until the
guerrilla army in its steady growth acquires the
characteristics of a regular army.
At that moment it will be ready to deal final blows to
the enemy and to achieve victory. Triumph will always be
the product of a regular army, even though its origins
are in a guerrilla army. Just as the general of a
division in a modern war does not have to die in front of
his soldiers, the guerrilla fighter, who is general of
himself, need not die in every battle. He is ready to
give his life, but the positive quality of this guerrilla
warfare is precisely that each one of the guerrilla
fighters is ready to die, not to defend an ideal, but
rather to convert it into reality. This is the basis, the
essence of guerrilla fighting. Miraculously, a small band
of men, the armed vanguard of the great popular force
that supports them, goes beyond the immediate tactical
objective, goes on decisively to achieve an ideal, to
establish a new society, to break the old molds of the
outdated, and to achieve, finally, the social justice for
which they fight.
Considered thus, all these disparaged qualities
acquire a true nobility, the nobility of the end at which
they aim; and it becomes clear that we are not speaking
of distorted means of reaching an end. This fighting
attitude, this attitude of not being dismayed at any
time, this inflexibility when confronting the great
problems in the final objective is also the nobility of
the guerrilla fighter.
2. Guerrilla Strategy
In guerrilla terminology, strategy is understood as the
analysis of the objectives to be achieved in light of the
total military situation and the overall ways of reaching
these objectives.
To have a correct strategic appreciation from the
point of view of the guerrilla band, it is necessary to
analyze fundamentally what will be the enemy's mode of
action. If the final objective is always the complete
destruction of the opposite force, the enemy is
confronted in the case of a civil war of this kind with
the standard task: he will have to achieve the total
destruction of each one of the components of the
guerrilla band. The guerrilla fighter, on the other hand,
must analyze the resources which the enemy has for trying
to achieve that outcome: the means in men, in mobility,
in popular support, in armaments, in capacity of
leadership on which he can count. We must make our own
strategy adequate on the basis of these studies, keeping
in mind always the final objective of defeating the enemy
army.
There are fundamental aspects to be studied: the
armament, for example, and the manner of using this
armament. The value of a tank, of an airplane, in a fight
of this type must be weighed. The arms of the enemy, his
ammunition, his habits must be considered; because the
principal source of provision for the guerrilla force is
precisely in enemy armaments. If there is a possibility
of choice, we should prefer the same type as that used by
the enemy, since the greatest problem of the guerrilla
band is the lack of ammunition, which the opponent must
provide.
After the objectives have been fixed and analyzed, it
is necessary to study the order of the steps leading to
the achievement of the final objective. This should be
planned in advance, even though it will be modified and
adjusted as the fighting develops and unforeseen
circumstances arise.
At the outset, the essential task of the guerrilla
fighter is to keep himself from being destroyed. Little
by little it will be easier for the members of the
guerrilla band or bands to adapt themselves to their form
of life and to make flight and escape from the forces
that are on the offensive an easy task, because it is
performed daily. When this condition is reached, the
guerrilla, having taken up inaccessible positions out of
reach of the enemy, or having assembled forces that deter
the enemy from attacking, ought to proceed to the gradual
weakening of the enemy. This will be carried out at first
at those points nearest to the points of active warfare
against the guerrilla band and later will be taken deeper
into enemy territory, attacking his communications, later
attacking or harassing his bases of operations and his
central bases, tormenting him on all sides to the full
extent of the capabilities of the guerrilla forces.
The blows should be continuous. The enemy soldier in a
zone of operations ought not to be allowed to sleep; his
outposts ought to be attacked and liquidated
systematically. At every moment the impression ought to
be created that he is surrounded by a complete circle. In
wooded and broken areas this effort should be maintained
both day and night; in open zones that are easily
penetrated by enemy patrols, at night only. In order to
do all this the absolute cooperation of the people and a
perfect knowledge of the ground are necessary. These two
necessities affect every minute of the life of the
guerrilla fighter. Therefore, along with centers for
study of present and future zones of operations,
intensive popular work must be undertaken to explain the
motives of the revolution, its ends, and to spread the
incontrovertible truth that victory of the enemy against
the people is finally impossible. Whoever does not
feel this undoubted truth cannot be a guerrilla fighter.
This popular work should at first be aimed at securing
secrecy; that is, each peasant, each member of the
society in which action is taking place, will be asked
not to mention what he sees and hears; later, help will
be sought from inhabitants whose loyalty to the
revolution offers greater guarantees; still later, use
will be made of these persons in missions of contact, for
transporting goods or arms, as guides in the zones
familiar to them; still later, it is possible to arrive
at organized mass action in the centers of work, of which
the final result will be the general strike.
The strike is a most important factor in civil war,
but in order to reach it a series of complementary
conditions are necessary which do not always exist and
which very rarely come to exist spontaneously. It is
necessary to create these essential conditions, basically
by explaining the purposes of the revolution and by
demonstrating the forces of the people and their
possibilities.
It is also possible to have recourse to certain very
homogeneous groups, which must have shown their efficacy
previously in less dangerous tasks, in order to make use
of another of the terrible arms of the guerrilla band,
sabotage. It is possible to paralyze entire armies, to
suspend the industrial life of a zone, leaving the
inhabitants of a city without factories, without light,
without water, without communications of any kind,
without being able to risk travel by highway except at
certain hours. If all this is achieved, the morale of the
enemy falls, the morale of his combatant units weakens,
and the fruit ripens for plucking at a precise moment.
All this presupposes an increase in the territory
included within the guerrilla action, but an excessive
increase of this territory is to be avoided. It is
essential always to preserve a strong base of operations
and to continue strengthening it during the course of the
war. Within this territory, measures of indoctrination of
the inhabitants of the zone should be utilized; measures
of quarantine should be taken against the irreconcilable
enemies of the revolution; all the purely defensive
measures, such as trenches, mines, and communications,
should be perfected.
When the guerrilla band has reached a respectable
power in arms and in number of combatants, it ought to
proceed to the formation of new columns. This is an act
similar to that of the beehive when at a given moment it
releases a new queen, who goes to another region with a
part of the swarm. The mother hive with the most notable
guerrilla chief will stay in the less dangerous places,
while the new columns will penetrate other enemy
territories following the cycle already described.
A moment will arrive in which the territory occupied
by the columns is too small for them; and in the advance
toward regions solidly defended by the enemy, it will be
necessary to confront powerful forces. At that instant
the columns join, they offer a compact fighting front,
and a war of positions is reached, a war carried on by
regular armies. However, the former guerrilla army cannot
cut itself off from its base, and it should create new
guerrilla bands behind the enemy acting in the same way
as the original bands operated earlier, proceeding thus
to penetrate enemy territory until it is dominated.
It is thus that guerrillas reach the stage of attack,
of the encirclement of fortified bases, of the defeat of
reinforcements, of mass action, ever more ardent, in the
whole national territory, arriving finally at the
objective of the war: victory.
