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Guerrilla Warfare: A Method
Guevara's name is indissolubly linked with guerrilla
warfare — in practice as well as theory. In Mexico he
had been the outstanding student in the training that preceded
embarkation on the Granma. In the Sierra Maestra he had risen
to the rank of comandante (major), the highest conferred in
the Rebel Army. His most celebrated book was Guerrilla Warfare.
And, of course, he met his death in the course of the guerrilla
fighting in Bolivia. The following is the complete text of his
article, 'Guerrilla Warfare: A Method' in Cuba Socialista
of September, 1963.
Guerrilla warfare has been employed on innumerable occasions
throughout history in different circumstances, to achieve different
aims. Of late it has been used in various people's wars of liberation
when the vanguard of the people chose the path of irregular
armed struggle against enemies of greater military power. Asia,
Africa and America have been the scene of such actions when
trying to attain power in the struggle against feudal, neo-colonial
or colonial exploitation. In Europe, guerrilla warfare was used
as supplementary to their own or allied regular armies.
 Guerrilla
warfare has been waged many times in America. As a case in point
closer to home the experience of Augusto César Sandino
fighting against the Yankee expeditionary force on the banks
of the Segovia in Nicaragua can be noted, and recently Cuba's
revolutionary war. Since then in America the problems of guerrilla
warfare have become a question for theoretical discussions for
the continent's progressive parties, and whether it is possible
or expedient to use it, has become the subject of head-on controversial
discussions.
This article will try to present our views on guerrilla warfare
and how to use it correctly.
Above all, it must be made clear that this form of struggle
is a means — means to an end. That end, essential and
inevitable for all revolutionaries, is the winning of political
power. Therefore, in analysing specific situations in different
countries in America one must use the concept of guerrilla warfare
in the limited sense of a method of struggle in order to gain
that end.
Almost immediately the question arises: Is guerrilla warfare
the only formula for seizing power in the whole of America?
Or at least will it be the predominant form? Or will it simply
be one of many forms used in the struggle? And in the final
analysis it may be asked: Will the example of Cuba be applicable
to the actual situation of other parts of the continent? In
the course of polemics those who advocate guerrilla warfare
are often accused of forgetting mass struggle, almost as if
guerrilla warfare and mass struggle were opposed to each other.
We reject this implication. Guerrilla warfare is a people's
war, a mass struggle. To try to carry out this type of war without
the support of the population is to court inevitable disaster.
The guerrillas are the fighting vanguard of the people, stationed
in a specified place in a certain area, armed and prepared to
carry out a series of warlike actions for the one possible strategic
end — the seizure of power. They have the support of the
worker and peasant masses of the region and of the whole territory
in which they operate. Without these prerequisites no guerrilla
warfare is possible.
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We consider that the Cuban Revolution made three fundamental
contributions to the laws of the revolutionary movement in the
current situation in America. They are: Firstly, people's forces
can win a war against the army. Secondly, we need not always
wait for all the revolutionary conditions to be present; the
insurrection itself can create them. Thirdly, in the underdeveloped
parts of America the battleground for armed struggle should
in the main be the countryside. (Guerrilla Warfare)
Such are the contributions to the development of the revolutionary
struggle in America, and they can be applied to any of the countries
on our continent where guerrilla warfare may be developed.
The Second Declaration of Havana points out:
In our countries two circumstances are joined: underdeveloped
industry and an agrarian regime of a feudal character. That
is why no matter how hard the living conditions of the urban
workers are, the rural population lives under even more horrible
conditions of oppression and exploitation. But, with few exceptions,
it also constitutes the absolute majority, sometimes more than
70 per cent of Latin American populations.
Not counting the landlords who often live in the cities, the
rest of this great mass earns its livelihood by Working as peons
on the plantations for the most miserable wages, or they work
the soil under conditions of exploitation indistinguishable
from those of the Middle Ages.
These are the circumstances which determine that the poor population
of the countryside constitutes a tremendous potential revolutionary
force. The armies are set up and equipped for conventional warfare.
They are the force whereby the power of the exploiting classes
is maintained. When they are confronted with the irregular warfare
of peasants based on their own home grounds, they become absolutely
powerless; they lose ten men for every revolutionary fighter
who falls. Demoralisation among them mounts rapidly when they
are beset by an invisible and invincible army which provides
them no chance to display their military-academy tactics and
their fanfare of war, of which they boast so much to repress
the city workers and students.
The initial struggle of small fighting units is constantly nurtured
by new forces; the mass movement begins to grow bold, the old
order bit by bit breaks up into a thousand pieces and that is
when the working class and the urban masses decide the battle.
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What is it that from the very beginning of the fight makes those
units invincible, regardless of the number, strength and resources
of their enemies? It is the people's support, and they can count
on an ever-increasing mass support. But the peasantry is a class
which, because of the ignorance in which it has been kept and
the isolation in which it lives, requires the revolutionary
and political leadership of the working class and the revolutionary
intellectuals. Without that it cannot alone launch the struggle
and achieve victory.
In the present historical conditions of Latin America the national
bourgeoisie cannot lead the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist
struggle. Experience demonstrates that in our nations this class
— even when its interests clash with those of Yankee imperialism
— has been incapable of confronting imperialism, paralysed
by fear of social revolution and frightened by the clamour of
the exploited masses.
 Supplementing
these statements, which constitute the essence of the revolutionary
declaration of America, the Second Declaration of Havana in
other paragraphs states the following:
The subjective conditions in each country, the factors of consciousness,
of organisation, of leadership, can accelerate or delay revolution,
depending on the state of their development. Sooner or later,
in each historic epoch, as objective conditions ripen, consciousness
is acquired, organisation is achieved, leadership arises. and
revolution is produced.
Whether this takes place peacefully or comes to the world after
painful labour, does not depend on the revolutionaries; it depends
on the reactionary forces of the old society; it depends on
their resistance against allowing the new society to be born,
a society produced by the contradictions of the old society.
Revolution, in history, is like the doctor who assists at the
birth of a new life: it does not use forceps unless it is necessary,
but it will unhesitatingly use them every time labour requires
them. A labour brings the hope of a better life to the enslaved
and exploited masses. Revolution is inevitable in many countries
of Latin America. Nobody's will determines this fact. It is
determined by the frightful conditions of exploitation which
afflict mankind in America. It is determined by the development
of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses, by the world
crisis of imperialism and by the universal movement of struggle
of the world's subjugated peoples.
We shall start from this basis to analyse the whole question
of guerrilla warfare in America.
We have asserted that it is a means of struggle to achieve an
end. Our first concern is to analyse the end and to see whether
the winning of power here in America can be attained in any
other way than by armed struggle.
Peaceful struggle can be carried out through mass movements
and can — in special situations of crisis — compel
governments to yield, so that the popular forces eventually
take power and establish a proletarian dictatorship. Theoretically
this is correct. When analysing this on the American scene we
must arrive at the following conclusions: Generally speaking,
on this continent there exist objective conditions which impel
the masses to violent actions against the bourgeois and landlord
governments; in many other countries there exist crises of power
and some subjective conditions too. Obviously, in the countries
where all these conditions are given, it would be criminal not
to act to seize power. In others where this situation does not
occur, it is right that different alternatives should emerge
and that the decision applicable to each country should come
out of theoretical discussion. The only thing history does not
permit is that the analysts and executors of proletarian policy
should blunder. No one can claim the role of vanguard party
as if it were a university diploma. To be a vanguard party means
to stand in the forefront of the working class in the struggle
for the seizure of power, to know how to guide this struggle
to success by short cuts. That is the mission of our revolutionary
parties, and the analysis should be profound and exhaustive
in order that there will be no mistakes.
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At present there is in America a state of unstable balance between
oligarchic dictatorship and popular pressure. By "oligarchic"
we mean the reactionary alliance between the bourgeoisie and
the landlord class of each country with a greater or lesser
preponderance of feudalism. These dictatorships continue within
certain frameworks of legality, which they set up for themselves
to facilitate their work during the whole unrestricted period
of their class domination, while we are undergoing a stage in
which the pressure of the people is very strong and is knocking
at the doors of bourgeois legality which its own authors have
to violate in order to cheek the impetus of the masses. The
barefaced violations of all established legislation —
or of legislation especially instituted to sanction their deeds
— only heighten the tension of the people's forces. The
oligarchic dictatorship, therefore, endeavours to use the old
legal order to change constitutionality and further suppress
the proletariat without a head-on clash. Nevertheless, this
is just where a contradiction arises. The people now do not
tolerate the old, still less the new, coercive measures adopted
by the dictatorship, and try to smash them.
We must never forget the authoritarian and restrictive class
character of the bourgeois state.
Lenin refers to it thus:
The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability
of class antagonisms. The state arises when, where, and to the
extent that class antagonisms objectively cannot be reconciled.
And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the
class antagonisms are irreconcilable. (State and Revolution)
In other words, we must not allow the word democracy, used in
an apologetic manner to represent the dictatorship of the exploiting
classes, to lose its deeper meaning and acquire the meaning
of giving the people certain liberties, more or less good. To
struggle only to restore a certain degree of bourgeois legality,
without at the same time raising the question of revolutionary
power, is to struggle for the return of a certain dictatorial
order established by the dominant social classes; it is only
a struggle for a lighter ball to be fixed to the convict's chains.
In these conditions of conflict, the oligarchy breaks its own
contracts, its own mask of "democracy," and attacks
the people, although it always tries to make use of the superstructure
it has formed for oppression. At that moment, the question again
arises: What is to be done? Our answer is: Violence is not only
for the use of the exploiters; the exploited can use it too,
and what is more, ought to use it at the opportune moment. Martí
said: "He who wages war in a country that can avoid it
is a criminal; so is he who fails to wage a war that cannot
be avoided."
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And Lenin said:
Social-Democracy has never taken a sentimental view of war.
It unreservedly condemns war as a bestial means of settling
conflicts in human society. But Social-Democracy knows that
so long as society is divided into classes, so long as there
is exploitation of man by man, wars are inevitable. This exploitation
cannot be destroyed without war, and war is always and everywhere
begun by the exploiters, by the ruling and oppressing classes.
He said this in 1905. Later, in "The War Program of the
Proletarian Revolution", in a profound analysis of the
nature of class struggle, he affirmed:
Whoever recognises the class struggle cannot fail to recognise
civil wars, which in every class society are the natural, and
under certain conditions, inevitable continuation, development
and intensification of the class struggle. All the great revolutions
prove this. To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, would
mean sinking into extreme opportunism and renouncing the socialist
revolution.
That is to say, we should not be afraid of violence, the midwife
of new societies; only such violence should be unleashed precisely
at the moment when the people's leaders find circumstances most
favourable.
What will these be? Subjectively, they depend upon two factors
that are complementary and that in turn deepen in the course
of the struggle: the consciousness of the necessity of change
and the certainty of the possibility of this revolutionary change.
These two factors, coupled with the objective conditions —
which in nearly all of America are highly favourable for the
development of struggle with the firm will to attain it as well
as the new correlation of forces in the world, determine the
form of action.
However far away the socialist countries may be, their favourable
influence will make itself felt among the fighting peoples who
will be given more strength by their enlightening example. On
the 26th of July this year (1963), Fidel Castro said:
And the duty of the revolutionaries, especially at this moment,
is to know how to recognise and how to take advantage of the
changes in the correlation of forces which have taken place
in the world, and to understand that these changes facilitate
the struggle of the peoples. The duty of revolutionaries, of
Latin American revolutionaries, is not to wait for the change
in the correlation of forces to produce a miracle of social
revolutions in Latin America, but to take full advantage of
everything in it that is favourable to the revolutionary movement
— and to make revolution!
There are people who say: 'We admit that in certain specific
cases revolutionary war is the proper way to attain political
power; but where can we find those great leaders, the Fidel
Castros who will lead us to victory?" Fidel Castro, like
every human being, is a product of history. The military and
political leaders, merged if possible into one man, who may
lead risings in America, will learn the art of war in the exercise
of war itself. There is no job or profession which can be learned
from textbooks alone. In this case, struggle is the great teacher.
Naturally the task is not simple, nor is it exempt from serious
threats all the way along.
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During the development of the armed struggle there appear two
moments of extreme danger for the future of the revolution.
The first of these arises in the preparatory stage and the way
it is dealt with gives the measure of the determination for
struggle and clarity of purpose of the people's forces. When
the bourgeois state advances against the positions of the people,
obviously there must emerge a process of defence against the
enemy who attacks in this moment of superiority. If the minimum
subjective and objective conditions have already been developed,
the defence must be armed but not in such a way that the people's
forces become mere recipients of the enemy's blows; nor should
the stage of armed defence be transformed into nothing but a
last refuge for the pursued. Guerrilla fighting, though at a
given moment it may be a defensive movement of the people, carries
within itself the capacity to attack the enemy and must constantly
develop it. This capacity is what determines, as time goes on,
the catalytic character of the people's forces. That is to say,
guerrilla fighting is not passive self-defence; it is defence
with attack, and from the moment it is recognised as such, it
has as a final perspective the winning of political power.
This moment is important. In social processes the difference
between violence and non-violence cannot be measured by the
number of shots exchanged; it depends on concrete and fluctuating
situations. And one must know how to recognise the exact moment
when the people's forces, conscious of their relative weakness
but at the same time of their strategic strength, should take
the initiative so that the situation does not worsen. The balance
between the oligarchic dictatorship and the pressure of the
people must be upset. The dictatorship constantly tries to function
without resorting to force. Being obliged to appear without
disguise, that is to say, in its true aspect as a violent dictatorship
of the reactionary classes, will contribute to its unmasking,
and this will deepen the struggle to such an extent that it
will not be able to turn back. The resolute beginning of long-range
armed action depends on how the people's forces fulfil their
function, which amounts to the task of forcing a decision on
the dictatorship — to draw back or to unleash the struggle.
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The skilful avoidance of the other moment of danger depends
on the ability to develop the growth of the people's forces.
Marx always advised that once the revolutionary process has
begun, the proletariat must strike and strike without rest.
A revolution that does not constantly deepen is a revolution
that goes back. The combatants, once wearied, begin to lose
faith, and then some of the bourgeois manoeuvres to which we
have been so accustomed may bear fruit. These can be the holding
of elections to hand over the government to some other gentleman
with a more honeyed voice and a more angelic face than the outgoing
dictator, or the staging of a coup by reactionaries, generally
headed by the army and supported, directly or indirectly, by
progressive forces. There are others as well, but it is not
our intention to analyse such tactical stratagems.
Let us focus our main attention on the operation of the military
coup mentioned above. What can militarists contribute to true
democracy? What kind of loyalty can be asked of them, if they
are mere instruments of domination by the reactionary classes
and imperialist monopolies and, as a caste whose worth rests
only on the weapons in their hands, they aspire only to maintain
their prerogatives?
When, in situations difficult for the oppressors, the military
men conspire to overthrow a dictator who in fact is finished,
it can be taken for granted that they do so because they are
unable to preserve their class prerogatives without extreme
violence, a procedure which generally does not coincide with
the interests of the oligarchies at that moment.
This statement certainly does not mean rejecting the services
of military men as individual fighters who, separated from the
society they have served, have, in fact, rebelled against it.
And they should be made use of in accordance with the revolutionary
line they adopt as fighters and not as representatives of a
caste.
Long ago, Engels, in the preface to the third edition of The
Civil War in France, remarked:
The workers were armed after every revolution; . . therefore
the disarming of the workers was the first commandment for the
bourgeois at the helm of the state. Hence after every revolution
won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with the defeat of
the workers." (Quoted by Lenin in State and Revolution)
This play of continuous struggles in which some formal change
is brought about and then strategically withdrawn, has been
repeated for decades in the capitalist world. But the continuous
deception of the proletariat along these lines has been practised
periodically for more than a century.
There is also a danger that the leaders of the progressive parties,
desiring to prolong conditions more favourable for revolutionary
action by using certain aspects of bourgeois legality, lose
sight of the goal, something that is very common in the course
of action, and forget the definite strategic objective: the
seizure of power.
These two difficult moments of the revolution which we have
briefly analysed can be surmounted when the Marxist-Leninist
party leaders are capable of clearly seeing the implications
of the moment and of mobilising the masses to the maximum, leading
them onto the correct path of resolving fundamental contradictions.
In elaborating the thesis, we have assumed that eventually the
idea of armed struggle as well as the formula of guerrilla warfare
as a method of fighting will be accepted. Why do we think that
guerrilla warfare is the correct way in the present situation
in America? There are fundamental arguments which in our opinion
determine the necessity of guerrilla action as the central axis
of the struggle in America.
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First, accepting as true that the enemy will struggle to maintain
itself in power, it is necessary to consider destroying the
oppressor-army. To do this, it is necessary to confront it with
a people's army. This army is not born spontaneously; it must
be armed from the enemy's arsenal and this demands a long hard
struggle in which the people's forces and their leaders will
always be exposed to attack by superior forces and be without
adequate conditions of defence and manoeuvrability. On the other
hand, the guerrilla nucleus, established in areas suitable for
fighting, ensures the security and continuity of the revolutionary
command. The urban forces commanded by the general staff of
the people's army can perform actions of the utmost importance.
But the eventual destruction of these groups would not kill
the soul of the revolution, its leadership. This would continue
to spark the revolutionary spirit of the masses from its rural
stronghold, organising new forces for other battles.
Moreover, in this area begins the construction of the future
state apparatus entrusted with leading the class dictatorship
efficiently during the whole period of transition. The longer
the struggle, the greater and more complicated the administrative
problems, and to solve them cadres will be trained for the difficult
task of consolidating power and economic development at a later
stage.
Secondly, the general situation of the Latin American peasantry
and the increasingly explosive character of its struggle against
feudal rule in the framework of an alliance between local and
foreign exploiters.
Returning to the Second Declaration of Havana:
At the outset of the past century, the peoples of America freed
themselves from Spanish colonialism, but they did not free themselves
from exploitation. The feudal landlords assumed the authority
of the governing Spaniards, the Indians continued in their painful
serfdom, the Latin American man remained a slave one way or
another, and the minimum hopes of the peoples died under the
power of the oligarchies and the tyranny of foreign capital.
This is the truth of America, to one or another degree of variation.
Latin America today is under a more ferocious imperialism, more
powerful and ruthless than the Spanish colonial empire.
What is Yankee imperialism's attitude confronting the objective
and historically inexorable reality of the Latin American revolution?
To prepare to fight a colonial war against the peoples of Latin
America; to create an apparatus of force to establish the political
pretexts and the pseudo-legal instruments underwritten by the
representatives of the reactionary oligarchies, in order to
curb, by blood and by iron, the struggle of the Latin American
peoples.
This objective situation demonstrates the latent, unused strength
in our peasants and the necessity to utilise it for the liberation
of America.
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Thirdly, the continental character of the struggle.
Could this new stage of the emancipation of America be conceived
as a confrontation of two local forces struggling for power
in a given territory? Hardly. The struggle between all the forces
of the people and all the forces of repression will be a struggle
to the death. This too is forecast by the passages quoted above.
The Yankees will intervene because of solidarity of interests
and because the struggle in America is decisive. In fact, they
are already intervening in the preparation of repressive forces
and the organisation of a continental apparatus of struggle.
But from now on they will do so with all their energy; they
will strike the people's forces with all the destructive weapons
at their disposal. They will try to prevent the consolidation
of revolutionary power; and if it should be successful anywhere,
they will renew their attack. They will not recognise it. They
will try to divide the revolutionary forces. They will introduce
all types of saboteurs, create frontier problems, engage other
reactionary states to oppose it, and will try to strangle the
new state economically — in a word, to annihilate it.
This being the picture in America, it is difficult to achieve
and consolidate victory in a country that is isolated. The unity
of the repressive forces must encounter the unity of the people's
forces. In all the countries in which oppression becomes unbearable,
the banner of rebellion must be raised, and this banner of historical
necessity will have a continental character. As Fidel said,
the Andes will be the Sierra Maestra of America, and all the
immense territories that make up this Continent will become
the scene of a life-and-death struggle against the power of
imperialism.
We cannot tell when this struggle will acquire a continental
character nor how long it will last; but we can predict its
advent and its triumph, because it is the inevitable result
of historical, economic and political conditions and its direction
cannot be changed. It is the task of the revolutionary force
in each country to initiate it when the conditions are present,
regardless of the situation in other countries. The general
strategy will emerge as the struggle develops. The prediction
of the continental character of the struggle is borne out by
analysis of the strength of each contender, but this does not
in the least exclude independent outbreaks. Just as the beginning
of the struggle in one part of a country is bound to develop
it throughout its area, the beginning of a revolutionary war
contributes to the development of new conditions in the neighbouring
countries.
The development of revolution has normally produced high and
low tides in inverse proportion: to the revolutionary high tide
corresponds the counter-revolutionary low tide; and conversely
at moments of revolutionary decline, there is a counter-revolutionary
ascendancy. At such moments the situation of the people's forces
becomes difficult, and they should resort to the best defence
measures in order to suffer the least loss. The enemy is extremely
powerful, continental in stature. Therefore the relative weaknesses
of the local bourgeoisie cannot be analysed with a view to making
decisions within restricted limits. Still less can one think
of an eventual alliance of these oligarchies with an armed people.
The Cuban Revolution has sounded the alarm. The polarisation
of forces is becoming complete: exploiters on one side and exploited
on the other. The mass of the petty bourgeoisie will lean to
one side or the other according to their interests and the political
skill with which it is handled; neutrality will be an exception.
This is how revolutionary war will be.
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Let us consider the way a guerrilla centre can start.
Nuclei of relatively few persons choose places favourable for
guerrilla warfare, sometimes with the intention of launching
a counter-attack or to weather a storm, and there they begin
to take action. But the following must be made clear: At the
beginning, the relative weakness of the guerrilla fighters is
such that they should only endeavour to pay attention to the
terrain in order to become acquainted with the surroundings,
establish connections with the population and fortify the places
which eventually will be converted into bases.
A guerrilla unit can survive only if it starts by basing its
development on the three following conditions: constant mobility,
constant vigilance, constant wariness. Without the adequate
use of these elements of military tactics, the unit will find
it hard to survive. It must be remembered that the heroism of
the guerrilla fighter at such times consists in the scope of
the planned objective and the long series of sacrifices that
must be made in order to attain it.
These sacrifices will not mean daily combat or face-to-face
struggle with the enemy; they will assume forms more subtle
and difficult for the individual guerrilla fighter to endure
physically and mentally.
The guerrillas will perhaps suffer heavily from the attacks
of enemy armies, at times be split up while those taken prisoner
will be martyred. They will be pursued like hunted animals in
the areas they have chosen to operate in, with the constant
anxiety of having the enemy on their track, and on top of all
this with the constant doubt that in some cases the terrorised
peasants will give them away to the repressive troops in order
to save their own skins. They have no alternative but death
or victory at times when death is a concept a thousand times
present, and victory a myth only a revolutionary can dream of.
That is the heroism of the guerrilla. That is why it is said
that to be on the march is also a form of fighting, and to avoid
combat at a given moment is another form. Faced with the general
superiority of the enemy, the way to act is to find a form of
tactics with which to gain a relative superiority at a chosen
point, either by being able to concentrate more troops than
the enemy or by making the best use of the terrain to secure
advantages that upset the correlation of forces. In these conditions
tactical victory is assured; if relative superiority is not
clear, it is preferable not to take action. As long as one is
in a position to choose the "how" and the "when,"
no battle should be fought which will not end in victory.
Guerrilla forces will grow and be consolidated within the framework
of the great politico-military action of which they are a part.
And within this framework they will go on forming the bases,
which are essential for their success. These bases are points
which the enemy can penetrate only at the cost of heavy losses;
they are bastions of the revolution, both shelters and starting
points for bolder and more distant raids.
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Such a time will come if the difficulties of both tactical and
political discipline have been overcome. The guerrillas must
never forget their function as vanguard of the people, the mandate
entrusted to their care, and therefore they should create the
necessary political conditions for the establishment of a revolutionary
power based on the full support of the masses. The main demands
of the peasantry should be met to the degree and in the form
which circumstances permit, so as to bring about the unity and
solidarity of the whole population. If the military situation
is difficult from the first moments, the political situation
will be no less delicate; and if a single military error can
wipe out the guerrillas, a political error can check their development
for a long period.
The struggle is politico-military; so it must develop, and so
it must be understood.
In the course of its growth guerrilla fighting reaches a point
at which its capacity for action covers a given region, for
which there are too many men and too great a concentration.
Then begins the beehive action, in which one of the commanding
officers, a distinguished guerrilla, hops to another region
and repeats the chain development of guerrilla warfare, but
still subject to a central command.
Now, it is necessary to point out that one cannot hope for victory
without the formation of a people's army. The guerrilla forces
can be expanded to a certain size; the people's forces, in the
cities and in other enemy-occupied zones, can inflict losses,
but the military potential of the reactionaries would remain
intact. It must always be remembered that the final outcome
should be the annihilation of the enemy. Therefore all these
new zones that have been created, as well as the penetrated
zones behind the enemy lines and the forces operating in the
principal cities, should be under a unified command. It cannot
be claimed that there exists among guerrilla forces the closely
linked chain of command that characterises an army, but there
is a strategic command. Within certain conditions of freedom
of action, the guerrillas should carry out all the strategic
orders of the central command, which is set up in one of the
safest and strongest areas, preparing conditions for the union
of the forces at a given moment.
The guerrilla war or war of liberation will generally have three
stages: First, the strategic defensive when a small force nibbles
at the enemy and makes off, not to shelter in passive defence
within a small circumference, but rather to defend itself by
limited attacks which it can carry out successfully. After this,
comes a state of equilibrium, during which the possibilities
of action on the part of both the enemy and the guerrillas are
established; then comes the final stage of overrunning the repressive
army, ending in the capture of the big cities, large-scale decisive
encounters and the total annihilation of the enemy.
After reaching a state of equilibrium, when both sides are on
guard against each other, in the ensuing development guerrilla
war acquires new characteristics. The concept of manoeuvre is
introduced: big columns attack strong points; and mobile warfare
with the shifting of forces and of considerable means of attack.
But owing to the capacity of resistance and counter-attack that
the enemy still retains, this war of manoeuvre does not entirely
replace guerrilla fighting; it is only one form of action taken
by the larger guerrilla forces until finally they crystallise
into a people's army with army corps. Even at this time, the
guerrillas will play their "original" guerrilla role,
moving ahead of the actions of the main forces, destroying communications
and sabotaging the whole defensive apparatus of the enemy.
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We have predicted that the war will be continental. This means
it will be protracted; it will have many fronts, and will cost
much blood and countless lives over a long period. But besides
this, the phenomena of polarisation of forces that are occurring
in America, the clear division between exploiters and exploited
that will exist in future revolutionary war, mean that when
the armed vanguard of the people seizes power, the country or
countries that attain it will, at one and the same time, liquidate
both their imperialist and national exploiting class oppressor.
The first stage of the socialist revolution will have crystallised;
the people will be ready to staunch their wounds and begin to
build socialism.
Will there be other possibilities less bloody?
Some time ago, there took place the last dividing up of the
world, in which the United States took the lion's share of our
continent; today the imperialists of the Old World are developing
anew, and the might of the European Common Market is threatening
the United States itself. All this might lead to the belief
that it will be possible to watch as spectators the inter-imperialist
struggle in order to attain further advances, perhaps in alliance
with the stronger national bourgeoisie. Apart from the consideration
that in class struggle a passive policy never brings good results
and that alliances with the bourgeoisie, however revolutionary
they may appear at a given moment, have only a transitory character,
the time factor will induce us to take another path. The sharpening
of the fundamental contradiction in America appears to be so
rapid that it upsets the "normal" development of the
contradictions within the imperialist camp in its struggle for
markets.
 The
national bourgeoisie is for the most part united with United
States imperialism and has to throw in its lot with the latter
in each country. Even cases of agreements or coincidences of
contradictions between the U. S. and the national bourgeoisie
and other imperialists happen within the framework of a fundamental
struggle that in the course of its development inevitably embraces
all the exploited and all the exploiters. The polarisation of
antagonistic forces among class enemies is so far more rapid
than the development of the contradictions among exploiters
over the division of the spoils. There are two camps: the alternative
becomes clearer for every individual and for every particular
stratum of the population.
The Alliance for Progress is a design to check what cannot be
checked.
But if the advance of the European Common Market, or any other
imperialist group on the American market, were more rapid than
the development of the fundamental contradiction, the people's
forces would only have to be introduced as a wedge into the
open breach, carrying on this whole struggle and utilising the
new intruders with a clear consciousness of their final intentions.
Not a single position, not a single weapon, not a single secret,
should be given up to the class enemy, under penalty of losing
all.
The eruption of the struggle in America has actually begun.
Will its storm centre be in Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia,
Peru, Ecuador? Are these present skirmishes only a manifestation
of a restlessness that has not come to fruition? It does not
matter what will be the result of today's struggles. It does
not matter, so far as the final result is concerned, whether
one or another movement is temporarily defeated. What is certain
is the determination to struggle which ripens day by day, the
consciousness of the necessity for revolutionary change, the
certainty that it is possible.
This is a prediction. We make it with the conviction that history
will prove us right. An analysis of the subjective and objective
factors in America and in the imperialist world points to us
the accuracy of these assertions based on the Second Declaration
of Havana.
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