The enemy is entrenched politically, militarily, and enjoys status quo relations with local and foreign powers. It faces a “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” (5). The guerrilla almost by definition is at an initial disadvantage in terms of political legitimacy, resources, and firepower. He declares him a person who is both “a fighter and a statesman,” “without the victory of the people would not have been achieved” (63). Guevara gives much credit for the Cuban revolution to Fidel Castro.
GUERRILLA WARFARE DEFINITION RESON MANUAL
Rather than a communist revolution, Guevara describes the Cuban “war of liberation” as a fairly straightforward anti-imperialist affair, offering broad generalized guerrilla principles for the peoples of the Americas (62).Ĭhe’s manual describes the Cuban revolution as an “armed victory of the Cuban people over the Batista dictatorship.” It offers three lessons: that “popular forces can win a fight against the army,” that the insurrection itself can create the conditions for revolution, and that in the Americas, the countryside is the basic environment of fighting (3). Despite the specter of Communist Che arising from popular culture and history, in his own book Guevara laments that “the word ‘Communism’ began to envelop the figures of the leaders and of the triumphant guerrilla fighters.” This label serves only to give the United States a reason to rise up in the name of “anti-communism” on behalf of “all those who resented the loss of their unjust privileges” (100).
In an Epilogue, Guevara warns that “they will attack us as Communists, but they are not going to eliminate us as imbeciles” (108). Guerrilla Warfare hardly mentions communism or socialism, and doesn’t refer to Marx or Lenin. Guevara describes in detail not only these tactics but also the ideal behavior and attitude of an effective guerrilla fighter. It makes the political case for the guerrillas’ militancy, and explains step-be-step how an insurgency can be grown in strength and number, taking advantage of local and regional conditions, relations with sympathetic inhabitants, and tactics of ambush, sabotage, and psychological warfare.
The manual is based on lessons learned from his part in the successful anti- Batista revolution in Cuba in 1959. Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare is a practical manual for how a small band of guerrilla fighters might use specific strategies and tactics to resist and defeat an oppressive state enemy in asymmetrical warfare.
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