Even the urban guerrilla who carries out rigorous and precise tactical operations, and abides by security rules, is vulnerable to error. There is no perfect urban guerrilla. So he must do his best to reduce the margin for error since we are all human.

We can reduce our margin of error by thoroughly knowing and fighting against the urban guerrilla's seven sins.

The first sin of the urban guerrilla is inexperience. An urban guerrilla blinded by this sin thinks the enemy is stupid, underestimates his intelligence, and believes everything is easy. In his actions lie the seeds of his disaster. Inexperience also causes the urban guerrilla to overestimate the strength of the enemy. So thinking, he becomes intimidated, insecure, and indecisive, and so paralyzed that he lacks audacity.

The second sin of the urban guerrilla is vanity. The urban guerrilla who suffers from this sin thinks that the revolutionary war will be won by him and his comrades in the large cities, ignoring entirely the role to be played by his comrades in the rural areas. Blinded by immediate success, he seeks to achieve total victory through swift and incautious action, thereby risking his entire organization. Urban guerrillas struggle within the city's strategic circle. They cannot break out of this encirclement, but must await the advent of rural guerrilla warfare to achieve final victory. Those who do not know this truth risk disaster.

The fourth sin of the urban guerrilla comes from overestimating his strength. By so doing he undertakes ambitious projects for which he lacks both adequate strength and organization.

The fifth sin of the urban guerrilla is precipitous action. The urban guerrilla who commits this sin lacks patience, suffers from an attack of nerves, waits for nothing, and foolishly throws himself into the fight, suffering untold defeats.

The sixth sin of the urban guerrilla is to attack a prepared enemy who is expecting the attack.

The seventh sin of the urban guerrilla is to attack impulsively, without adequate planning.