Guerrilla Warfare (book)
Guerrilla Warfare, published by Ocean Books (2006)
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| Author | Che Guevara |
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| Language | English |
| Genre | History, Military Tactics, Revolutionary Ideology |
| Publisher | New York: Monthly Review Press |
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Publication date
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1961 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 175 |
| ISBN | |
Guerrilla Warfare (Spanish: La Guerra de Guerrillas) is a book by Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara that was written right after the Cuban Revolution and published in 1961. It soon became the guidebook for thousands of guerrilla fighters in various countries around the world.
After his success in the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara gained a global reputation as a rising revolutionary figure, which eventually led him to write Guerilla Warfare. In the manual, Guevara espouses three reasons for revolution: a lack of legitimacy by the incumbent elite to govern the country, the existence of tensions that cannot by redressed by regular channels, and all legal avenues to change the situation are perceived as closed. Although providing enough evidence and support for his ideas and tactics, Guevara on multiple occasions states that, while these tactics were effective for him and his men in Cuba, they will not necessarily be successful in other regions.
Guerrilla Warfare is a manual for the left-wing insurgency that draws on Guevara's experience as a participant in the Cuban revolution. It elaborates the foco theory (foquismo), for which the guerrilla operates as a vanguard even before the development of the "objective" conditions for a popular uprising.
While many draw parallels with Mao Zedong's On Guerrilla Warfare, Guevara claimed he had not read Mao's book. Instead it draws on the lessons of fighting during the Cuban Revolutionary War, which in turn were informed by two books from the Spanish Civil War, Nuevas guerras and Medicina contra invasión, stressing the need for an underpinning political motivation to guerrilla methods, organisation and supply.
Guevara goes on and divides the book into three different Chapters, each entailing their own perspectives on the roles of those who belong to a revolutionary cause. The first chapter labeled “General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare”, goes on and discusses the basics of what it means to be part of a Guerrilla War, the topics range from the essences of Guerrilla Warfare to tactics, strategies, and suburban warfare. Chapter two labeled “The Guerrilla Band” talks about the roles that a Guerrilla fighter must take on while being part of a revolution, things ranging from being a Social Reformer to being a combatant, to even the organization and development of the band before and after the war. Chapter three labeled “Organization of Guerilla Front” which focuses more on the logistics of a Guerrilla War, ranging from supplies to training, it is an all aspects sorts of a chapter which goes into further detail than the previous two chapters. Much of the manual is devoted to matters of a practical nature, such as the type of armaments best suited to guerrilla forces, and the optimum size of a given guerrilla band.
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