Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
Resident Bidet has said on at least two occasions that you need planes and tanks to fight the government. These remarks didn’t age so well; the Commander-in-Cheat had his ass handed to him by cave-dwelling Afghan zealots with room-temperature IQs. For the most part, they were armed with AK-47s manufactured back when disco was still a thing. (As a parting gift with all but a pink ribbon tied around it, the jihadists were left an enormous, unguarded arsenal of military hardware, and now the Taliban does have aircraft and armor at last. Your billions of tax dollars at work!) Moreover, the Bidet junta claims that a few hundred unarmed protesters staging a half-baked sit-in at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 came within a hair’s breadth of taking over the government. His softer-headed supporters actually believe it!
So, then, what’s the real deal? Is it possible for a guerrilla insurgency to win against a modern army? More to the point — and just as a theoretical discussion, mind you — what would it take to make a popular revolution work? What they say at Yale’s political science department — which is considered the gospel truth among Washington’s “Inside the Beltway” crowd, since this is the alma mater for many of them — all revolutions have elite backing of some sort. (Such a viewpoint, holding that these conflicts are extensions of disputes among the elites, implies that there’s no such thing as a true popular revolution.) A different answer comes from a very iconic pinko. He and about 20 companions initiated a successful military uprising without support from the upper classes or state sponsorship. Surprisingly, he also had some sensible things to say here and there.
To Americans, Ernesto “Che” Guevara is best known for the “Guerrillero Heroico” picture of 1960. Everyone has seen it: the beret, wild hair, stringy beard, far-off gaze, and determined expression are unmistakable. It’s an image that’s appeared on countless T-shirts and campus dorm-room walls, turning a tidy profit for the capitalist running dogs who manufacture clothing and posters. (If his mug ever appears on a tortilla, call Havana right away!) He was one of the most notable revolutionary beardos of Cuba, second only to Uncle Fidel himself. Even so, hardly any of the rebels without a clue who wear a St. Che shirt know much about their hero, other than that he was a motorcyclist.

To put it very briefly, Che Guevara was born to a family of richer-than-God landowners in Argentina and was of partial Irish descent. (Cue “O Danny Boy.”) He became a doctor, but rather than settling down to treat runny noses in Buenos Aires, he went on his famous road trip which brought him to Mexico. There, he joined the Castro brothers and other Cuban radicals in exile. They went on the warpath, and Che ended up among 82 who took a badly-overloaded boat designed for a dozen passengers to assault Cuba. (How do you get 20 Cubans into a paper cup? Tell them it floats! The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?) When they landed, a disastrous first battle reduced their numbers to about 20. From this difficult beginning, the revolutionaries made a remarkable comeback, recruiting others and overthrowing the Batista régime in a little over two years.
Many journalists had high hopes for the Cuban rebels and their charismatic leader. (There’s a reason why Havana’s Museum of the Revolution has a typewriter on display from a New York Times reporter.) The optimism was even shared by some who were not comsymp suck-ups, such as Ed Sullivan, who likened Uncle Fidel to George Washington in an interview that he conducted with him in Havana, and which aired on American television on January 11, 1959. Surely this lack of discernment became quite embarrassing in later years! The problem was that the country had traded out one asshole dictator for another. This may come as a shock to those who thought the Cuban Revolution was fought by Robin Hood’s Merry Men in the Sierra Maestra. (See Stephen Paul Foster’s “The Confession of a Political Pilgrim” for more on this.)

It’s true that Castro cleaned up a massive heap of corruption, but he also produced a massive heap of dead bodies. It would be one matter if they actually deserved it, but they were executed mainly over ideological differences. This included summary executions — at least hundreds of which Guevara took pleasure in performing himself — show trials, and hardcore political repression; the usual sort of pinko mischief. It wasn’t the first time that a revolution went too far, of course.
Despite sadism that would give any Rightist a fiendish notoriety for the following century, somehow Public Opinion never caught on about Comrade Guevara. Other than Cuban exiles, few are aware of his Year Zero thuggery. Instead, he was canonized as St. Che, a legend in his own time, finding his place in the constellation of Leftist heroes. For example, Chapter Three of the counterculture classic Do It! describes a pilgrimage of sorts. Jerry Rubin was one of “84 Amerikan students visiting Cuba illegally in 1964” who got an audience with the great beardo himself:
As Che rapped on for four hours, we fantasized taking up rifles. Growing beards. Going into the hills as guerrillas. Joining Che to create revolutions throughout Latin America. None of us looked forward to returning home to the political bullshit in the United States.
Then Che jolted us out of our dream of the Sierra Madre. He said to us:
You North Amerikans are very lucky. You live in the middle of the beast.
You are fighting the most important fight of all, in the center of the battle.
If I had my wish, I would go back with you to North Amerika to fight there.
I envy you.
I have to hand it to him — he had a point. Radicalinskis such as Rubin and his Yippies were most effective at raising hell over here. Even so, the thought of 84 “Amerikan” pinklets and burnouts taking up arms and roughing it in the tropical jungle is rather amusing. For that matter, I couldn’t imagine those dope-addled counterculture weenies lasting even a week on a collective farm.
Following the revolution, Guevara became the Minister of Finance and ran the Bank of Cuba, later moving to a cabinet post as Minister of Industries. But economics really wasn’t his strong suit, to say the least. Returning to his greatest passion, it was off to the battlefield again to export revolution. The Black Book of Communism gives a brief summary of that:
His strongest desire was to spread the Cuban experiment far and wide. In 1963 he was in Algeria, and then in Dar es Salaam, then in the Congo, where he crossed paths with the Marxist Laurent Kabila, who is now the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo and who never hesitated to massacre civilians. Filled with passionate hatred for the United States, in 1966 he took his guerrilla forces on a crusade through South America, with a slogan encouraging the creation of “two, three, many Vietnams!”
Castro used Guevara for tactical purposes. Once their rupture was complete, Guevara went to Bolivia. There he tried to apply his theory of the guerrilla foco (cell), taking no notice of the policies of the Bolivian Communist Party. Not a single peasant joined his group there.
Soon it was the end of the trail for St. Che. The above actually gives a hint as to what went wrong; more on that soon. In any event, whatever his failings were it’s fair to say that he had considerable street cred in asymmetric warfare. Following the Cuban Revolution, he literally wrote the book on it, titled plainly as La Guerra de Guerrillas, which for us gringos has been translated as On Guerrilla Warfare.
It makes for an interesting read, other than the usual sort of commie blather and bitching about Yanqui imperialism appearing occasionally. Fortunately, those parts are not too annoying. I’m recapping the book primarily for historical interest. Guerrilla warfare does remain relevant today, especially given the counterproductive military adventures launched by the Bushes and the Obama/Cupcake team-up. These Zionist bootlickers in Washington have delivered on St. Che’s promise — that is, to trouble us with “two, three, many Vietnams.”
Note well, I don’t endorse the violent tactics that the book advocates. Rather, I would like to discourage anyone who might be tempted to do something rash. That said, there are principles which are adaptable to peaceful change.
Introduction
My edition begins with a Preface by Marc Becker. It starts off with a biographical overview. Then it distills three key principles in Guerrilla Warfare:
First, it demonstrated that people can organize themselves into a small guerrilla army and overthrow a large, powerful, established regime. Second, popular movements do not have to wait for the proper economic conditions before organizing a revolutionary war; the insurrectionary guerrilla force can create them. Third, Latin American revolutionary struggles should, according to Che, be based in a rural, peasant population.
There’s further discussion of this. The second item in particular is disputed. The Preface notes that elsewhere in Latin America, there were copycat revolts inspired by the Guevara script, but “those who attempted to implement it failed miserably.” This includes St. Che’s last rodeo in Bolivia. (Again, let this be a warning not to undertake anything rash!) Moreover:
Many people have criticized Che for overemphasizing the role of armed struggle in a revolutionary movement and have pointed out that, although a relatively small guerrilla force overthrew Batista in Cuba, this came only after years of leftist political agitations and rising worker expectations. Because of his role in guerrilla battles in the mountains, he either was not aware of or discounted a coalition of urban student and worker movements that served to undermine the Batista regime.
Furthermore:
Many of the ideas in Guerrilla Warfare were not new; what Che did contribute to revolutionary theory was a creative adaptation of existing notions to the Latin American context. He did not realize, however, how unique the Cuban situation was and his defeat in Bolivia was a result of a failure to reinterpret what he had learned for a new and different situation. Subsequent guerrilla armies learned from the fiasco in Bolivia to reinterpret Che’s theories for their own local reality and never to apply mechanically what had worked in one situation to another.

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That’s a pretty clear warning against cookie-cutter tactics, or what we’d term a cargo cult mentality. That is, a successful revolutionary strategy will likely rely on certain necessary preconditions — such as revolutionary ferment, i.e. a condition in which the public’s desire for régime change has reached critical mass. (In the case of Cuba, the “have-nots” were in such desperate conditions that they had nothing to lose.) Without accounting for these preconditions, staging a copycat revolution will lead to overconfidence and unexpected problems. That’s what doomed the expedition in Bolivia.
Moreover, surely there were some idealistic Leftists with more bravado than good sense who read the book and decided that overthrowing their country would be a splendid adventure. (It’s not too difficult to understand. Looking at it in a certain way, revolutions can be pretty exciting — but it’s no fun if you get guillotined or the like.) The problem is that they got themselves in a lot of hot water, or else their quest for glory ended in a dirt nap. Any would-be imitators should heed their friend Chairman Mao’s saying that revolution isn’t a dinner party. If not regarded with utmost caution, Guevara’s guerrilla guide will become essentially as dodgy as an insurrectionist’s handbook by the venerable Acme Corporation. The consequences of a botched revolution are quite severe indeed, so buyer beware!
Apart than that, Guevara preferred rural operations. Much of that is because he was accustomed to Latin America’s verdant countryside, with its abundant forest and jungle, which provided excellent cover. Obviously a change in tactics was necessary in different terrain; for instance, a Middle Eastern desert patrolled by drones. Those who are curious about urban guerrilla tactics may consult a different pinko, Carlos Marighella of Brazil, whose monograph was one of the influences on William Pierce’s eminently naughty novel The Turner Diaries.

Courtesy of Stonetoss
Finally, the Introduction’s discussion of the third item hearkens back to a very old Marxist debate about whether a Communist revolution is feasible in an agrarian country, or if there needs to be a transitional industrialization phase. Marx himself considered the peasantry to be inherently reactionary. He had a point about it; the good ole boys just don’t cotton to none of that commie bullcorn. I’ll further add that a greater problem is of course that factory workers, their target demographic, haven’t shown much enthusiasm for Marxism, either, despite decades of efforts to use trade unionism as a gateway drug.
Rather than taking Marx’s particular dogmatic approach to it, Guevara tended toward the relative pragmatism of Lenin and Mao, who made partial concessions to acknowledge local conditions in their countries. That is to say, if the great majority of the locals are subsistence farmers, then would-be revolutionaries must work with what they’ve got and adapt their message accordingly.
Lastly, the Introduction offers mild criticism of Guevara for not realizing the potential for racial agitation. From our perspective, this means St. Che wasn’t as noxious as he could’ve been, as far as Leftists go. For that matter, despite being a cold-blooded killer, I figure he was probably pleasanter company than a typical diversity droid delivering workplace struggle sessions to a captive audience — but that’s not saying much.
One analysis of his racial views — make of it what you will — suggests that he was a bit pessimistic about blacks. This is of course flagrant heresy by today’s standards. But he later advocated universalist views. My take is that the data points were rather scanty, so we’d need to consult an Ouija board to say for sure how he really felt. (I got a hot tip that in a movie based on his Motorcycle Diaries, Guevara riffed on the pan-Hispanic “Cosmic Race” idea, but I couldn’t find the quote in the original book.) From what I’ve read in Guerrilla Warfare and its supplementary appendices, it seems he put social class in first place. This probably remained so, notwithstanding the occasional reference to the black masses in Africa. If he experienced a conversion to cultural Marxism during his remaining years, then he would’ve harped on race interminably — and probably also taken on sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ableism — leaving no doubt about his views.
General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare
Guevara’s text begins with a dedication to Camilo Cienfuegos. By all accounts, he was the least tight-assed of Cuba’s fabled revolutionary beardos, much unlike the sadistic motorcyclist himself.
Then, getting right down to business, Comrade Guevara provides lessons learned from the “the triumph of heroism as reported by the newspapers of the world” he brought about in Cuba. (Hey, at least someone had nice things to say about our mainstream media!) In his words, these core principles are:
- Popular forces can win a war against the army.
- It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them.
- 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.
Obviously the second paragraph tempers line item two. Sometimes independence movements will win even if they’re not backed by the majority at the beginning. (The American Revolution, for example, began with only a third of the public in favor of independence.) On the other hand, trying to start a revolution without a necessary degree of revolutionary ferment will be a suicide mission.
The good news is that if peaceful change is a possibility, then there’s no requirement for preexisting popular support, and things really can begin from the ground floor. I’ll add that when possible, normal political solutions are preferable, as obviously they don’t risk the hazards of armed conflict. As they say, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Now that we’re entering fifth-generation warfare, which to a certain degree is a battle of information and narratives, it’s possible to make advances without firing a single shot. Sun Tzu would’ve approved!
There’s a very important lesson in all this – and any would-be violent accelerationists should take it from the guy who literally wrote the book about guerrilla warfare. This applies to those coming from the Left, from the Right, or from Epsilon Eridani. There’s a ritual that’s developed lately, which inevitably ends in its performer’s death — or rarely, life imprisonment. If some misguided anti-depressant junkie pastes together a manifesto, dresses up in camo, and goes postal on random people who never did anything to him, this certainly won’t produce the desired results! These typical lone-nut operations usually have very counterproductive results, to say the least. It seems they’re not thinking this through.
In historical hindsight, the Cuban Revolution succeeded because the necessary preconditions were right. For one thing, the Batista administration was an illegitimate and remarkably unpopular kleptocracy. The government had a weak grip on power, which they tried to make up for through repression. That strategy ultimately backfired, as it often does. Moreover, Castro’s guerrillas worked hard to win the hearts and minds of the public in their area of operation. It’s not like they just hit the beach, did the pinko version of a Rambo rampage, and then marched on Havana a week later.
As for the amount of revolutionary ferment necessary, the subversion script described by Yuri Bezmenov describes a destabilization phase in which disunity makes a country start falling apart at the seams. For an acceptable starting point, Guevara himself had in mind a condition where a government can no longer maintain even an illusion of legitimacy, and there’s no political solution to it. There’s another very necessary precondition, too:
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.
There’s definitely something to this; obviously it’s very helpful if a guerrilla can blend into the local population (which is willing to shelter them) and hide out as needed. If the rebels can rely on them for food and other supplies, that’s helpful, too. They also need to recruit new fighters. For this kind of support, the citizens in the area must detest the government to the point that they’re willing to back the rebels despite the obvious risks. For example, if the local farmers live under a repressive government, but they suffer from misplaced patriotism or fear retaliation, they won’t support a revolution.

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Failing to heed this principle with great care led to St. Che’s fatal miscalculation in Bolivia. He chose a rural area of operation, as usual, but the locals didn’t have much of a gripe with the government. (Perhaps some research on his part would’ve warned him about this.) Consequentially, he didn’t win any recruits and the locals didn’t support his efforts otherwise. In short, the necessary revolutionary ferment simply didn’t exist there, nor could enough be generated ex nihilo by a band of Communist bushwhackers.
What could’ve paved the way? Metapolitics would’ve been a necessary first step. After that, urgency — which often takes the form of desperation — is another prerequisite. As Sir Oswald Mosley put it, “Nothing happens until the old show breaks down.” I do believe he had a point in that. It’s something that those of us who are frustrated by the slow pace of progress should bear in mind. Perhaps the day will come, for instance, when white liberals will finally get sick of being played for chumps.
Next up is a discussion of typical guerrilla strategy: stealth, hit-and-run operations, and so on. This covers everything from the early beginnings of a campaign, when merely struggling for survival is the main objective, to the advanced stage in which the guerrilla forces evolve into a regular army. During the middle phase, it’s too early to press for victory; weakening the enemy is the main objective at that point. I’ll add that obviously it must take great patience to stick it out until things change for the better! Even so, there are notable historical examples in asymmetric warfare demonstrating that sheer determination to persist pays off in the end. Whoever holds out the longest ends up running the show.
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.
Again, this will require the locals’ cooperation. Propaganda groundwork is necessary; after all, they won’t help rebels if they believe the government is their friend!
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.
At this point the rebels are highly motivated, know what they are fighting for, and keep their big yaps shut. (Surely there’s a lesson in this that is applicable to non-violent activism as well.) Then the book turns to tactics, particularly encirclement.
This section includes a discussion of sabotage and terrorism. Much of it describes suitable targets for Marxist guerrillas to blow up. For example, Guevara writes that it’s nonsensical to damage a soft-drink factory, which would only put some workers out of a job, but a power plant makes an effective target. During the discussion he includes a warning about wasted efforts and counterproductive actions:
Acts of sabotage are very important. It is necessary to distinguish clearly between sabotage, a revolutionary and highly effective method of warfare, and terrorism, a measure that is generally ineffective and indiscriminate in its results, since it often makes victims of innocent people and destroys a large number of lives that would be valuable to the revolution. Terrorism should be considered a valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing forces well known for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression, or other quality that makes his elimination useful. But the killing of persons of small importance is never advisable, since it brings on an increase of reprisals, including deaths.
Following that are subsections about warfare conducted on both favorable and unfavorable ground. This goes beyond the basic considerations that Sun Tzu wrote about long ago. Much detail goes into this, from unit size to signaling. Certain logistical support is to be provided at base camp, such as manufacturing shoes, shotgun shells, and so on. But it’s taken as a given that ammo will always be scarce and will usually have to be taken from the enemy. After that is a discussion of suburban warfare, a yet more difficult situation. Some modifications are necessary: small unit size, night operations only, no local discretion on target selection, etc.
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2 comments
Joseph Robinette Bidet’s advice about how the Second Amendment is anachronistic because you need trillion-dollar gun and bomb platforms to fight modern pitched wars against foreign governments, itself was stupid because every modern military musters their first ranks with main battle rifles or “assault” rifles.
Today this might be something resembling an AR-15 or an AK-47, whereas in the late-18th century it was something more like what Daniel Boone would have carried.
This is what the Founding Fathers meant by forming “a well-regulated militia.” It means your neighbors forming up with their privately-owned weapons and ammunition to meet a threat. Some countries like Switzerland have even issued citizen-soldiers the most modern rifles and machine guns of their regular army to take home in readiness.
Our current President ─ and his (((apparatchiks))) like the Attorney General, who hold White people in contempt and see us as the real enemy ─ can’t quite imagine that to protect their communities local citizen militias might ever one day need to put scruffy mobs down with something like “a gentle whiff of grapeshot.”
Good thing we still have a few Minutemen like Kyle Rittenhouse who learned how to shoot.
🙂
I’ll have to credit Rittenhouse with finally taking the piss and vinegar out of the 2020 rioters when nobody else did. The Social Justice Warriors tried to kill the wrong guy. After he shot back, it wasn’t fun and games any more. It’s a disgrace that The System tried to prosecute him for defending himself.
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