Che Notes - Summary Guerrilla Warfare PDF

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Citation Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (Latin American Silhouettes) (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2002), Edition: Third Edition, 422 pages, 2002).

Author Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), also known as El Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. In Mexico City, Che met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yaght Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victoriouss two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime. As part of the Castro Government, Che play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and in bringing the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Terms foco, foquismo. Foco is Spanish for “focal point” or “nucleus.” Communist insurgent strategist Ernesto “Che” Guevara and a contemporary, Regis Debray, articulated the belief that a small but energetic and morally guided insurgent group could spark a revolutionary passion among the rural poor. The insurgency would then quickly blossom and, in the best-case scenario, lead directly to government collapse. This concept differs from Mao Tse-tung’s insurgency theories in that it offers the possibility of spontaneous uprising rather than a purposefully long war. The term is typically associated with communist or communist-inspired insurgency movements in Latin America in the 1960s and early 1970s, none of which bore fruit. Guevara himself was killed in a failed attempt to ignite a foco insurgency in Bolivia. Foquismo is a descriptor.

Analysis Che split with Mao, espousing the fanciful foco modification to Chinese communist rural insurgency theory. Both Mao Tse-tung and Che Guevara describe a progression of force structure, although they envision development and end state occurring through somewhat different mechanisms. Mao also allows for dissonance in time and space: Portions of the insurgency may shift back and forth between phases in various places at various times in response to government activity and available support. Both Che and Debray envision an insurgency that is typically on the move and shuns the recurring periods of isolation that allowed Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese communist insurgents to survive their darkest days: The Long March ended at an internal sanctuary. The emphasis Guevara placed upon rural operations grossly underestimated the extent to which Castro’s victory had actually depended upon the contribution made by urban groups; the latter not only supplied the Rebel Army with recruits and arms but also prevented Batista from

devoting his full resources to the campaign against the Sierra-Maestra based insurgents. (UK Ministry of Defense, 2001, p. A-1-D-1) Che Guevara saw mixed results. His philosophy was proven in Cuba and then disproven in the disastrous foco campaigns that followed.

Outline Pages (50-74) Three Fundamental Lessons Learned from Cuban Revolution: (50) 1) Popular forces can win a war against an army. 2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making a revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. 3) In underdeveloped America, the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting. 

The first two contradict the defeatist attitude of revolutionaries or pseudorevolutionaries who remain inactive and take refuge in the pretext that against a professional army nothing can be done. (50)

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. (51) When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken. (51) 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. (52) The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable position… the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer… he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors… he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery. (52) Two types of guerrilla warfare: (53) 1) Struggle complementing great regular armies 2) 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. [T]he 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. (53) War is always a struggle in which each contender tries to annihilate the other. (54)

It is always possible to carry out guerrilla attacks in such a way as to assure surprise… it is the duty of the guerrilla fighter to do so. “Hit and run,” some call this scornfully, and this is accurate. (54) Guerrilla warfare is a phase that does not afford in itself opportunities to arrive at complete victory… triumph will always be the product of a regular army, even though its origins are in a guerrilla army. (54-5) The guerrilla fighter, who is general of himself, need not die in every battle… [a guerrilla fighter] is ready to die, not to defend an ideal, but rather to convert it into reality. (55) 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. (55) The enemy solider in a zone of operations ought not to be allowed to sleep… at every moment the impression ought to be created that he is surrounded by a complete circle… in order to do all this the absolute cooperation of the people and a perfect knowledge of the ground are necessary. (56) When the guerrilla band has reached a respectable power in arms and in number of combatants, it out to proceed to the formation of new columns. (57) It is essential always to preserve a strong base of operations and to continue strengthening it during the course of the war. (57) Tactics are the practical methods of achieving the grand strategic objectives. (58) The fundamental characteristic of a guerrilla band is mobility… the guerrilla band can dedicate itself exclusively to fleeing from an encirclement which is the enemy’s only way of forcing the band into a decisive fight that could be unfavorable… characteristic of this war of mobility is the so-called minuet, name from the analogy of the dance. (58) A dead soldier of the guerrillas ought never to be left with his arms and his ammunition. (58) Another fundamental characteristic of the guerrilla soldier is his flexibility, his ability to adapt himself to all circumstances, and to convert to his service all of the accidents of the action. (59) The form of attack of a guerrilla army is also different; starting with surprise and fury, irresistible, it suddenly converts itself into total passivity. (60) A fundamental part of guerrilla tactics is the treatment accorded the people of the zone… conduct toward the civil population ought to be regulated by a large respect for all the rules and traditions of the people of the zone, in order to demonstrate effectively, with deeds, the moral superiority of the guerrilla fighter over the oppressing soldier. (62-3) It is the countryside that offers ideal conditions for the fight. (72)

The guerrilla fighter ought constantly to give orientation in ideological problems, explaining what he knows and what he wishes to do at the right time. (73) Pages (148-162) We must emphasize at the outset that this form of struggle [guerrilla warfare] is a means to an end. That end, essential and inevitable for any revolutionary, is the conquest of political power. (148) Guerrilla warfare is a people’s war; to attempt to carry out this type of war without the population’s support is the prelude to inevitable disaster. (148) No one can solicit the role of vanguard of the party as if it were a diploma given by a university. To be the vanguard of the party means to be at the forefront of the working class through the struggle for achieving power. (151) Violence is not the monopoly of the exploiters… Marti sad, “He who wages war in a country, when he can avoid it, is a criminal, just as he who fails to promote war which cannot be avoided is a criminal.” (152) Guerrilla warfare may adopt a defensive movement at a certain point, yet it carries within itself the capacity to attack the enemy and must develop it constantly. (153) Guerrilla warfare is not passive self-defense; it is defense with attack. And from the moment we recognize it as such, it has its final goal the conquest of political power. (154) A revolution which does not constantly expand is a revolution which regresses. (154) * Mentions, indirectly, the concept of speed and time within a revolution. (154-5) “The skillful avoidance…” (154) “There is danger also that…” (155) A guerrilla force which has just begun its development must follow three conditions in order to survive: (158) 1) Constant mobility 2) Constant vigilance 3) Constant distrust: they must distrust everyone, for the terrorized peasants in some cases will give them away to the repressive troops in order to save themselves. Their only alternatives are life or death. (159) It is imperative to point out that one cannot hope for victory without the formation of a popular army. The guerrilla forces can be expanded to a certain magnitude… but the military potential of the actionaries will still remain intact. (160) Guerrilla war or war of liberation have three stages: (160) 1) Strategic defensive

2) State of equilibrium in which the possibilities of action on both sides are established a. The concept of maneuver is introduced: large columns which attack strong points; mobile warfare with the shifting of forces and means of attack of relative potential. 3) Overrunning the repressive army We have predicted that the war will be continental. This means that it will be a protracted war; it will have many fronts; and it will cost much blood and countless lives for a long period of time. (160) The time factor will induce us to choose another ally. The sharpening of the most important contradiction in Latin America appears to be so rapid that it disturbs the “normal” development of the imperialist camp’s contraction in its struggle for markets. (161) Pages (313-324) Despite the poverty of rural Bolivians and the history of political instability, the Bolivian revolution had created very special circumstances that challenged any literal application of Che Guevara’s analysis: (317-8) 1) Bolivia was not a Caribbean-type dictatorship in the early 1960s… there was an institutionalized political party system that included both parties. 2) Physical terrain of Bolivia provided no suitable cover for guerrillas 3) Thousands of peasants were given land, which all but guaranteed that Indians would move toward a conservative political position and support the government. 4) Bolivia lacked a vanguard party, rural cadres, and linkages between urban and rural opposition movements. Other Areas We offer an outline, not a bible. (111) [T]errorism and personal assaults are entirely different tactics [from sabotage]. We sincerely believe that terrorism is of negative value, that it by no means produces the desired effects, that it can turn a people against a revolutionary movement, and that it can bring a loss of lives to its agents out of proportion to what it produces. (116) Sabotage is one of the invaluable arms of a people that fights in guerilla form… Sabotage has nothing to do with terrorism, terrorism and personal assaults are entirely different tactics. (116) Indoctrination should be carried out with a maximum dedication and for the maximum amount of time possible. (124)...