5. Warfare on Unfavorable Ground
In order to carry on warfare in country that is not very hilly, lacks forests, and has many roads,
all the fundamental requisites of guerrilla warfare must be observed; only the forms will be
altered. The quantity, not the quality, of guerrilla warfare will change. For example, following the
same order as before, the mobility of this type of guerrilla should be extraordinary; strikes should
be made preferably at night; they should be extremely rapid, but the guerrilla should move to
places different from the starting point, the farthest possible from the scene of action, assuming
that there is no place secure from the repressive forces that the guerrilla can use as its garrison.
A man can walk between 30 and 50 kilometers during the night hours; it is possible also to
march during the first hours of daylight, unless the zones of operation are closely watched or
there is danger that people in the vicinity, seeing the passing troops, will notify the pursuing army
of the location of the guerrilla band and its route. It is always preferable in these cases to operate
at night with the greatest possible silence both before and after the action; the first hours of night
are best. Here, too, there are exceptions to the general rule, since at times the dawn hours will
be preferable. It is never wise to habituate the enemy to a certain form of warfare; it is necessary
to vary constantly the places, the hours, and the forms of operation.
We have already said that the action cannot endure for long, but must be rapid; it must be of a
high degree of effectiveness, last a few minutes, and be followed by an immediate withdrawal.
The arms employed here will not be the same as in the case of actions on favorable ground; a
large quantity of automatic weapons is to be preferred. In night attacks, marksmanship is not the
determining factor, but rather concentration of fire; the more automatic arms firing at short
distance, the more possibilities there are of annihilating the enemy.
Also, the use of mines in roads and the destruction of bridges are tactics of great importance.
Attacks by the guerrilla will be less aggressive so far as the persistence and continuation are
concerned, but they can be very violent, and they can utilize different arms, such as mines and
the shotgun. Against open vehicles heavily loaded with men, which is the usual method of
transporting troops, and even against closed vehicles that do not have special defenses-against
buses, for example-the shotgun is a tremendous weapon. A shotgun loaded with large shot is the
most effective. This is not a secret of guerrilla fighters; it is used also in big wars. The Americans
used shotgun platoons armed with high-quality weapons and bayonets for assaulting
machine-gun nests.
There is an important problem to explain, that of ammunition; this will almost always be taken
from the enemy. It is therefore necessary to strike blows where there will be the absolute
assurance of restoring the ammunition expended, unless there are large reserves in secure places.
In other words, an annihilating attack against a group of men is not to be undertaken at the risk
of expending all the ammunition without being able to replace it. Always in guerrilla tactics it is
necessary to keep in mind the grave problem of procuring the war materiel necessary for
continuing the fight. For this reason, guerrilla arms ought to be the same as those used by the
enemy, except for weapons such as revolvers and shotguns, for which the ammunition can be
obtained in the zone itself or in the cities.
The number of men that a guerrilla band of this type should include does not exceed ten to
fifteen. In forming a single combat unit it is of great importance always to consider the limitations
on numbers: ten, twelve, fifteen men can hide anywhere and at the same time can help each other
in putting up a powerful resistance to the enemy. Four or five would perhaps be too small a
number, but when the number exceeds ten, the possibility that the enemy will discover them in
their camp or on the march is much greater.
Remember that the velocity of the guerrilla band on the march is equal to the velocity of its
slowest man. It is more difficult to find uniformity of marching speed with twenty, thirty, or forty
men than with ten. And the guerrilla fighter on the plain must be fundamentally a runner. Here the
practice of hitting and running acquires its maximum use. The guerrilla bands on the plain suffer
the enormous inconvenience of being subject to a rapid encirclement and of not having sure
places where they can set up a firm resistance; therefore, they must live in conditions of absolute
secrecy for a long time, since it would be dangerous to trust any neighbor whose fidelity is not
perfectly established. The reprisals of the enemy are so violent, usually so brutal, inflicted not
only on the head of the family but frequently on the women and children as well, that pressure on
individuals lacking firmness may result at any moment in their giving way and revealing
information as to where the guerrilla band is located and how it is operating. This would
immediately produce an encirclement with consequences always disagreeable, although not
necessarily fatal. When conditions, the quantity of arms, and the state of insurrection of the
people call for an increase in the number of men, the guerrilla band should be divided. If it is
necessary, all can rejoin at a given moment to deal a blow, but in such a way that immediately
afterwards they can disperse toward separate zones, again divided into small groups of ten,
twelve, or fifteen men.
It is entirely feasible to organize whole armies under a single command and to assure respect and
obedience to this command without the necessity of being in a single group. Therefore, the
election of the guerrilla chiefs and the certainty that they coordinate ideologically and personally
with the overall chief of the zone are very important.
The bazooka is a heavy weapon that can be used by the guerrilla band because of its easy
portability and operation. Today the rifle- fired anti-tank grenade can replace it. Naturally, it will
be a weapon taken from the enemy. The bazooka is ideal for firing on armored vehicles, and
even on unarmored vehicles that are loaded with troops, and for taking small military bases of
few men in a short time; but it is important to point out that not more than three shells per man
can be carried, and this only with considerable exertion.
As for the utilization of heavy arms taken from the enemy, naturally, nothing is to be scorned. But
there are weapons such as the tripod machine gun, the heavy fifty-millimeter machine gun, etc.,
that, when captured, can be utilized with a willingness to lose them again. In other words, in the
unfavorable conditions that we are now analyzing, a battle to defend a heavy machine gun or
other weapon of this type cannot be allowed; they are simply to be used until the tactical
moment when they must be abandoned. In our Cuban war of liberation, to abandon a weapon
constituted a grave offense, and there was never any case where the necessity arose.
Nevertheless, we mention this case in order to explain clearly the only situation in which
abandonment would not constitute an occasion for reproaches. On unfavorable ground, the
guerrilla weapon is the personal weapon of rapid fire.
Easy access to the zone usually means that it will be habitable and that there will be a peasant
population in these places. This facilitates supply enormously. Having trustworthy people and
making contact with establishments that provide supplies to the population, it is possible to
maintain a guerrilla band perfectly well without having to devote time or money to long and
dangerous lines of communication. Also, it is well to reiterate that the smaller the number of men,
the easier it will be to procure food for them. Essential supplies such as bedding, waterproof
material, mosquito netting, shoes, medicines, and food will be found directly in the zone, since
they are things of daily use by its inhabitants.
Communications will be much easier in the sense of being able to count on a larger number of
men and more roads; but they will be more difficult as a problem of security for messages
between distant points, since it will be necessary to rely on a series of contacts that have to be
trusted. There will be the danger of an eventual capture of one of the messengers, who are
constantly crossing enemy zones. If the messages are of small importance, they should be oral; if
of great importance, code writing should be used. Experience shows that transmission by word
of mouth greatly distorts any communication.
For these same reasons, manufacture will have much less importance, at the same time that it
would be much more difficult to carry it out. It will not be possible to have factories making
shoes or arms. Practically speaking, manufacture will have to be limited to small shops, carefully
hidden, where shotgun shells can be recharged and mines, simple grenades, and other minimum
necessities of the moment manufactured. On the other hand, it is possible to make use of all the
friendly shops of the zone for such work as is necessary.
This brings us to two consequences that flow logically from what has been said. One of them is
that the favorable conditions for establishing a permanent camp in guerrilla warfare are inverse to
the degree of productive development of a place. All favorable conditions, all facilities of life
normally induce men to settle; but for the guerrilla band the opposite is the case. The more
facilities there are for social life, the more nomadic, the more uncertain the life of the guerrilla
fighter. These really are the results of one and the same principle. The title of this section is
"Warfare on Unfavorable Ground," because everything that is favorable to human life,
communications, urban and semiurban concentrations of large numbers of people, land easily
worked by machine: all these place the guerrilla fighter in a disadvantageous situation.
The second conclusion is that if guerrilla fighting must include the extremely important factor of
work on the masses, this work is even more important in the unfavorable zones, where a single
enemy attack can produce a catastrophe. Indoctrination should be continuous, and so should be
the struggle for unity of the workers, of the peasants, and of other social classes that live in the
zone, in order to achieve toward the guerrilla fighters a maximum homogeneity of attitude. This
task with the masses, this constant work at the huge problem of relations of the guerrilla band
with the inhabitants of the zone, must also govern the attitude to be taken toward the case of an
individual recalcitrant enemy soldier: he should be eliminated without hesitation when he is
dangerous. In this respect the guerrilla band must be drastic. Enemies cannot be permitted to
exist within the zone of operations in places that offer no security.
6. Suburban Warfare
If during the war the guerrilla bands close in on cities and penetrate the surrounding country in
such a way as to be able to esta-blish themselves in conditions of some security, it will be
necessary to give these suburban bands a special education, or rather, a special organization.
It is fundamental to recognize that a suburban guerrilla band can never spring up of its own
accord. It will be born only after certain conditions necessary for its survival have been created.
Therefore, the suburban guerrilla will always be under the direct orders of chiefs located in
another zone. The function of this guerrilla band will not be to carry out independent actions but
to coordinate its activities with overall strategic plans in such a way as to support the action of
larger groups situated in another area, contributing specifically to the success of a fixed tactical
objective, without the operational freedom of guerrilla bands of the other types. For example, a
suburban band will not be able to choose among the operations of destroying telephone lines,
moving to make attacks in another locality, and surprising a patrol of soldiers on a distant road; it
will do exactly what it is told. If its function is to cut down telephone poles or electric wires, to
destroy sewers, railroads, or water mains, it will limit itself to carrying out these tasks efficiently.
It ought not to number more than four or five men. The limitation on numbers is important,
because the suburban guerrilla must be considered as situated in exceptionally unfavorable
ground, where the vigilance of the enemy will be much greater and the possibilities of reprisals as
well as of betrayal are increased enormously. Another aggravating circumstance is that the
suburban guerrilla band cannot depart far from the places where it is going to operate. To speed
of action and withdrawal there must be added a limitation on the distance of withdrawal from the
scene of action and the need to remain totally hidden during the daytime. This is a nocturnal
guerrilla band in the extreme, without possibilities of changing its manner of operating until the
insurrection is so far advanced that it can take part as an active combatant in the siege of the
city.
The essential qualities of the guerrilla fighter in this situation are discipline (perhaps in the highest
degree of all) and discretion. He cannot count on more than two or three friendly houses that will
provide food; it is almost certain that an encirclement in these conditions will be equivalent to
death. Weapons, furthermore, will not be of the same kind as those of the other groups. They
will be for personal defense, of the type that do not hinder a rapid flight or betray a secure hiding
place. As their armament the band ought to have not more than one carbine or one sawed-off
shotgun, or perhaps two, with pistols for the other members.
They will concentrate their action on prescribed sabotage and never carry out armed attacks,
except by surprising one or two members or agents of the enemy troops.
For sabotage they need a full set of instruments. The guerrilla fighter must have good saws, large
quantities of dynamite, picks and shovels, apparatus for lifting rails, and, in general, adequate
mechanical equipment for the work to be carried out. This should be hidden in places that are
secure but easily accessible to the hands that will need to use it.
If there is more than one guerrilla band, they will all be under a single chief who will give orders
as to the necessary tasks through contacts of proven trustworthiness who live openly as ordinary
citizens. In certain cases the guerrilla fighter will be able to maintain his peacetime work, but this
is very difficult. Practically speaking, the suburban guerrilla band is a group of men who are
already outside the law, in a condition of war, situated as unfavorably as we have described.
The importance of a suburban struggle has usually been under-estimated; it is really very great. A
good operation of this type extended over a wide area paralyzes almost completely the
commercial and industrial life of the sector and places the entire population in a situation of
unrest, of anguish, almost of impatience for the development of violent events that will relieve the
period of suspense. If, from the first moment of the war, thought is taken for the future possibility
of this type of fight and an organization of specialists started, a much more rapid action will be
assured, and with it a saving of lives and of the priceless time of the nation.
CHE GUEVARA
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