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Robert L. Emory
A Theoretical Discussion of People's War
Political Science
M.A.
Thesis abstract
The analytic concep~ of "revolutionary perspective" is developed as a
tool for explaining different concepts of and approaches to people's war. This
involves three aspects: a writer, his specifie framework of people's war, and
the national environment. Part one of the thesis examines national environment;
part two discusses and analyzes the writings of Ernesto Guevara, Regis Debray,
Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh, Frantz Fanon, and Mao Tse-tung.
Part two of the thesis shows that there is a progression of sophistication
in the views of the authors examined and this is reflected in the definitions
of guerilla warfare, revolutionary warfare, national liberationary warfare, and
people's war offered in part three. The thesis concludes that while local con
ditions are extremely important in determining the path of a struggle an author's
conception and definition of the struggle itself (whether considered as continuing
after "national liberation" or not) can be more important.
A THEORETICAL DISCUSSION OF PEOPLE'S WAR
by
Robert L. Emory
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science.
McGil1 University Montreal, Canada
l(i) Robert. L. F.morv
Spring, 1970.
1970 1
'.".' .• '.:r,
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While this author alone is responsible for the analysis
in this thesis he would like to thank the following for their
valuable assistance: Professor S. J. Noumoff, the author"'s
graduate advisor at McGi11 University; Professor Michael
Elliot-Bateman, University of Manchester; William Rinton,
author; and General Richard L. Clutterbuck, Ministry of
Defense, Whitehall.
\,
" "TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ••••••.••••••••••••.••.••••••••••. 1
Chapter l - Introduction •••••••••••••••••••••• ".... 1
Chapter II - Revolutionary Perspective: The Author and His National Environment •••••••• 14
Chapter III - Revolutionary Perspective: Specifie Frameworks of People's War 55
Chapter IV - Conclusion ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 125
Bibliography ...................................... 136
. '
CHAPTER l
INTRODUCTION
Lin Piao claims that the writings of Mao Tse-tung
have, "not only been valid for China, (but also) a great
contribution to the revolutionary struggles of the
oppressed nations and people's throughout the world
Comrade Mao Tse-tung's theory of people's war solves not
only the problem of daring to fight a people's war, but
1 also that of how to wage it". Another view of Mao
Tse-tung's writings was expressed in an article in the
liorld Marxist Review. "On the ideological (emphasis in
original) plane, the theses of the Chinese leaders come
dangerously close to some of the most threadbare con-
cepts of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalism i~
Latin America •••• lt (the Chine se ideological campaign)
has thus become a factor retarding the building of the
national liberation fron and qaus,ing fdeological disunity 2
in the camp of Latin American revolution".
1 Lin Piao, Long Live the Victory of People's War!,
(Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), pp. 43, 47. 2 R. Arismendi, "Some Aspects of the Revolutionary
Process in Latin America", (World Marxist Review, Vol. II, No. 4), p. 18 •
The polemical debate between Marxists and non
Marxists, between Marxists of differing persuasions and
between other groups and individuals has qot clarified
2
the issue. Analysis based solely on doctrinaire
ideological position leads, by its very nature, to a
clouding of the question. In seeking to clarify different
frameworks of people's war it is necessary to divorce
the investigation from the polemical level and conduct
an analysis which isolates and explains the specific
formulations of each theory. In reading such diverse
writers as Mao Tse-tung, Lin Piao, Regis Debray,
Ernesto Guevara, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh,
and Frantz Fanon one finds that rather than examining a
constant, static condition for which one model of
revolution could be sufficient. These writers are
examining an ever-changing, dynamic situation.
For these authors the laws of history dictate
a scientific development of society. They see this
development as both necessary and inevitable. But while
this movement is a "constant" there is no consensus on
the "tactical" means· to be used to carry· the process
through to the end. While an historical imperative is
3
recognized by these writers there is no agreement beyond
this recognition. Schafik BandaI, for example, has
commented on the Chinese attempt to influence Latin
American revolutionary movements by saying, "Beyond
question, the attempt of the Chinese Communist Party
leadership to impose their theoretical ideas on the
wor1d revolutionary movement did, at a definite stage,
exert a distinct influence on the polemics. But that
influence has now waned and the debate is mainly on the
real and basic problems of the Latin American (emphasis
in original) revolution!'. 3
Recognizing that people's war revolves around
a f1uid situation most authors warn that they are
writing "an outline, not a bible". 4 Debray goes to
great 1engths to offer an argument against doctrinaire
acceptance of one formula.
That an intellectual, especially if he is a bourgeois, should speak of startegy before aIl else is normal. Unfortunately, however, the right road, the only feasible one, sets out from tactical data, rising gradually to-
3Shafik BandaI, "Reflections on Continental Strategy ~or Latin American Revolution", (World Marxist Review, Vol. II, No. 4), p.SO.
4Ernesto Guevara, Guerilla Warfare,(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1961), p. 88.
4
ward a definition of strategy. The abuse of strategyand the lack of tactics isa delightfuI vice, characteristic of the contemplative man - a vice to which we, by writing these lines, must also plead guilty. All.the more reason to remain aware of the inversion (emphasis in original) of which we are victims when we read theoretical works. S
In a different context Debray offers a justifi-
cation for Revolution in the Revolution? It, he says,
"had only one ambition: to play a part in breaking down
a mental, theoretical, and practical block hindering
the upsurge of the revolutionary armed struggle where,'
and only where, it was then under way; and to lift what
might be called an historica1 ban by an aggressive and
crude formulation of that which was on1y just able to
ho1d in check.,,6 Debray is arguing against the 1ine of
"self-defense" which has been accepted by certain Latin
American Communist Parties as the major path toward·
national 1iberation. Gilberto Vieira's writings serve
as an examp1e. "Mass se1f-defense is a feature of the
popu1ar movement in Columbia. It is an integra1 part of
SRegis Debray, Revo1utio~ in the Revolution? (New York Month1y Review Press, 1967), p. 60. (Hereafter cited as Revolution).
6Regis Debray, "A Rep1y", (Month1y Review, Vol. 20, No. 9), p. 14 (hereafter cited as Rep1y).
5
the revolutionary process •••• In our conditions mass
defense is a combination of the peaceful and non-peace
f~l way.,,7
Debray becomes very specifie when he says,
When l drafted the booklet, the specifie question of the antagonism People's War/ Communist Parties had arisen in a polemic form for comrades in specifie countries -Venezuela and Guatemala - and in a specifie period, from approximate1y 1964 on. This question was suspect and disconcerting because historically ne~T; and wherever it was posed by events, it crysta11ized the most important facet of the contradiction between the reformist 1ine and the consistent 1ine. Thus it became the vital question within the armed revo1utionary movement in the precise sense that the very 1ife or death of the movement depended on Hs solutioll. What was required was to throw the 1ight of these experiences one upon the other, to compare fai1ures and euëcesses, differences and simi1arities, so as to bring to 1ight the lessons to be drawn from them. 8
Debray's comments indicate that rather than attempt-
ing to justify one specifie method of peop1e's war he is
c1arifying the Cuban Revo1ution's path and placing it
7Gi1berto Vieira, "Growth of Militarism in Columbia and the Line of the C.P.", (Wor1d Marxist Review, Vol. 6 No. 4), p. 17.
8Regis Debray, Reply, op.cit., p. 15.
6
within the context of the revo1utionary movements in
Latin America. In quoting from the French journal,
Humanite Nouvelle, however, Peking Review describes
Debray's book as, "the manifesto of a po1itical 1ine
which is anti-revisionist in appearance ••• but anti
Marxist in rea1ity. It 1eads a11 honest people dis
gusted with revisionism to a side track, down the drain,
to a blind a11ey. ,,9 The article go es ~n to cal1
Revolution in the Revolution? ·"an attack on Marxist-
Leninism, Mao Tse-tung's thought, and to deny the
univers al significance of Mao Tse-tung's theories."10
In order to show the importance of understanding
an author's approach in the matter of 1iberation
strugg1e and theory it wou1d be instructive to examine
a series of criticisms of Regis Debray and see how a
few commentators react to Revolution in the Revo1uton?
9peking Review, No. 30 (Ju1y 28, 1968), p. 11.
10Ibid •
7
We sha11 see that each writer has his own particu1ar
approach to the question of national 1iberation and if
BebrâyJ. ... ~:'"tfeem -iconocla-st1e.:· then he must be refuted.
One criticism from the authors of Month1y Review wou1d
seem to contradict the thesis presented by Debray and
Lin Piao quoted above. "In the last analysis, it seems
to us, the greatest weakness of Debray's theory is not
its specifie errors and omissions, as important as they
are, but its attempt to prescribe a course of action
which aIl Latin !merican revolutions must fol1ow.,,11
A more fundamental criticisffi comes from another
article in Regis Debray and the Latin American Revolution.
Andre Gunder Frank and S.A. Shah comment, "If Debray had
wedded a program for revolutionary action to an analysis
of Latin American society, or perhaps even of Cuban society,
instead of deriving it mainly from an analysis (adequate or
not) of the Cuban and Latin American revolutionary movements,
he could never have been led to counsel revo1utionary practice.
without - or rather with false - revolutionary theory.,,12 Al-
though Debray's book never makes exp1icit his assumptions we have
found another context in which Debray hascommented on his earlier
l~eo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy, "Debray: The Strengths and the Weaknesses", Regis Debray and the Latin American Revolution, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), p. 9.
12Andre Gunder Frank and S.A. Shah, "Class, Po1itics and Debray", Ibid., p. 15.
8
work. The above cirticisms would indicate that Debray's
analysis has been misunderstood. Debray says, "To
return to the criticisms which l think you are addressing
to me, they seem to me ta be perfectly correct in them
selves but to depend in this case to a misunderstanding.
l mean the misunderstanding which translates into
deficiencies in a narrow and specialized work (such as
Revolution in the Revolution?) everything which too broad
and exacting a reader failed to find in it. ,,13.
The fundamental problem, it seems, is that
criticisms of any theoretician of revolution centers on
the attacker's own personal and ideological inclinations
and not on the specifie conditions in which the new
specifie theory has been created. An Afr1can Communist
has criticised Debray for not strictly following Leninist
lines. "In contrast to Debray's more engaging qualities,
one is unpleasantly affected by his arrogant attitude to
most Latin American Communists, who have behind them a
lifetime of struggle and sacrifice, an experience and
13 Regis Debray, Reply, op.cit., p. 17.
9
knowledge of their countries which no outsider could
hope to rival. He depicts the bulk of the Communist
Party leaderships in the area as sitting back and waiting
for the evolution of a revolutionary situation without
14 any realist plan of how to awaken the masses."
While the ab ove criticism may be justified if
Debray's framework of people's war was applicable to the
specifie conditions which more traditional Marxist writers
were concerned this attack seems to have missed Debray's
subtle analysis of the present role of a "proletarian
party" in the Latin American context. Any mechanis tic
approach to the use of violence as a means of national
liberation should be closely examined and perhaps con-
demned. Yet in this brief examination of one writer and
his cri tics we have found that most judgements are based
solely on the foregone conclusion by the critic and not on
a careful reading and examination of the the ory itself.
Yet any theory can be mechanistically accepted as weIl as
rejected.
14 Joe Slovo, "Latin America and the Ideas of Regis Débray", (The African Communist, No. 33),p. 42.
10
We find, for examp1e, that the writings of Frantz
Fanon have attracted a great dea1 of attention in black,
urban communities throughout the wor1d. One might wonder
how much of Fanon's background, perception, and approach
are understood when his works are praised and studied.
Eldridge C1eaver has cal1ed Fanon's The Wretched of the
Earth "a c1assic study of the psycho1ogy of oppressed
peop1es, (and) is no~ known among the militants of the
black 1iberation movement in America as 'the bible.' ,,15
One can not reject an author simply because his frame-
work is different and does not specifically take local
characteristics into account. In order to completely
reject a thesis of revolutionary struggle it must have no
re1evance to the actual struggle. On the other hand, it
shou1d not be rejected because it does not specifically
consider a different local contexte
A conceptual tool which will enable us to explain the
differences of outlook and approach betw.~en the authors
examined in this thesis is ''revolutionary perspective'!.
15Eldridge Cleaver, "Psychology: The Black Bible", ~ldridge Cleaver, Robert Sheer, ed., (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 18.
11
It should be understood at the start that this term is
not a definitional end in itself but a means to und er
standing different approaches to people's war. Revolu
tionary perspective deals with three variables in the
struggle toward national liberation: the specific
author, his national environment, and his specific
approach to people' s war " In its simpliest form
revolutionary perspective might be used to explain an
author's approach to people's war in terms of the national
environment in which the strugg1e is engaged.
In discussing an author's national environment
much more than just the people within the geographic
area should be considered. National environment includes
the institutions, the ideologies, the "po1itical culture"
and "politica1 subculture", the "greater" and "lesser"
traditions within the society, the path of reform or
revolution that the society has fo1lowed, and aIl other
factors affecting the region. National environment also
inc1udes the extra-national influences on the society.
Just as a ~~iter can be inf1uenced by external traditions
so can a society. Thus it is necessary to understand the
national environment,.as no successful theory of people's
12
war can be divorced from it.
In examining a specifie author's framework of
people's war two important aspects must be investigated:
the writer's view of the end of the struggle and the means
to be used to attain this end. These should not be
examined apart from the national environment. Yet an
author's approach can be based on a subjective analysis
and not rest on the objective conditions within his
geographic area. It is possible, however, to abstract
the author's view of the end and means and place them
within a different national environment and see if
liberation is possible. We can, therefore, assess each
author's structure of people's war as a whole and compare
it with other formulations of revolution~ry struggle.
While this will not enable us to analyze its usefulness
in terms of an action model for revolutionary warfaœit
will permit an examination of the different goals and
methods of people's war.
The first section of this thesis will deal with
revolutionary perspective as described above. The second
sèction will examine the frameworks of Ernesto Guevara,
13
Regis Debray, Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh, Frantz Fanon,
and Mao Tse-tung. These writers have been chosen because
they have exp10red the major prob1ems in peop1e's war
and the addition of more authors wou1d be of 1itt1e value.
The first two sections of this thesis, then,will investi
gate why and how formulations of people's war differ.
The third section will define gueril1a warfare,
national liberation war, revolutionary war, and people's
war. Through the examination of revolutionary pers
pective, specifie conceptions of the means and end of
peop1e's war, and specifie formulas of people's war we
sha1l see that the definitions reflect the author's
different conceptions of revolutionary struggle.
CHAPTER II
REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE: THE AUTHOR AND HIS NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
The writer of a theoretical work on the subject of
people's war is influenced by his own particular develop-
ment and the historical setting of the people within the
geographic area of the struggle. These differing structures
and people within a society influence an author's approach
to and conception of revolutionary struggle. It is not
the inten~ion of this thesis to set up categories to
classify approaches to liberationary warfare; it is felt,
however, that certain questions when answp.red can be very
helpful in exp~aining the differences between authors here ~\
examined.
A fundamental aspect of national environment is the
historical form of the struggle already in progress. One
should consider if the struggle is in a period of realizing
its objectives or not, who is carrying out the struggle,
if the struggle has gained roots in the society, if so, in
which part, whether the struggle is in a period of reform
or armed revolution, whether the reform has been suppressed
and caused a turn to revolution, whether the struggle is
15
rural or urban. Rather than viewing these as strict1y
the historica1 basis for the present it would be useful
to attempt to place the individual within ,the historical
process. This is a much more specifie concept than
l " it relates primarily to a country's "political cu ture as
view of legitimate and illegitimate change.
The histo~ical development of a society is therefore
crucial to understanding a concept of people's war. The
writings of Mao Tse-tung, for example, in relating to
the anti-Japanese Struggle reflect Mao's having viewed the
development of the Chinese struggle from the Taiping
Rebellion and earlier to the present. If the author views
the former period of struggle as legitimate and questions
only the means employed his theoretical framework will
reflect this. But just because the former path of '--- \
struggle is approved this does not necessitate the same
theoretical strategie or tactical formulations. In con-
sidering the author's view we must understand the course
of the revolution and its stage of development. This
does not mean examining how long it will take for one
class to overthrow another; it means seeing how the author
views the struggle, his suggested methods, and his pro
jection of the course the revolution will follow. To
compare Mao Tse-tung with Regis Debray, for examp1e,
16
we wou1d fi,ld that Mao wrote at a time when China was
passing through a period of bourgeois reformism under the
leadership of the KMT and concluded that only a violent
revolutionary process would be great enough to change
the course of the Chinese struggle. Debray, on the other
hand, wrote to justify the military as opposed to peaceful
struggle in Latin America.
In addition to examining the stage in which the
author views the struggle we must also determine the
l' ..
extent to which the revolution has succeeded or failed. In
looking again at Mao and Debray we can see that when Mao
first wrote he viewed the short-term aspects of the struggle
with dismay (at the time of the Canton Commune and August
Harvest Uprising) but felt confident that in the long run
the revolution would be successful. Debray was pointing to
the Cuban Revolution's success and explaining that other
countries might follow this same path to liberation.
It is not only important to identify a country's
17
revolutionary path but also the specifie writer's place
within it. We can then see if his writings have been . .
influenced by past writers. One writer familiar with
Mao's writings has said the following, Su Tzu's " 'The
Art of War' has had a profound influence throughout
Chinese history and on Japanesemilitary thought; it is
the source of Mao Tse-tung's strategie and of the tactical
doctrine of the Chinese armies.,,16 General Griffith a1so
feels that Mao borrowed his tactical strategems from
Sun Tzu. His four slogans, for example, "When the enemy
advances, we retreat!", when the enemy ha1ts, we harass!",
"wh en the enemy retreats, we persue!" are almost identical
to Sun Tzu's. Sun Tzu, like Mao, conceived of two types
of forces, the regulars who battled in open mobile '.
campaigns and irregulars, similar to guerillas who engaged
in surprise attacks. But wh en it comes to the most importan~
aspect of war, Sun Tzu's and Mao's conception of war are
totally different. For Mao, the struggle must be a pro-
tracted one; for Sun Tzu, a short quick campaign. While we
find many tactical similarities between Mao Tse-tung and
l6Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans1ated with an introduction by Samuel B. Griffith, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), preface, p. xi.
18
Sun Tzu the mostimportant strategie conceptions are not
at aIl alike.
"Victory is the main object in war. If this is
long de1ayed, weapons are blunted and moral depressed
When the army engages in protracted campaigns the resources
of the state will not suffice •••• For there has never
been a protracted war from which a country has benefitted.,,17
Whi1e two writers may be within the same tra~ition as most
fee1 that Mao and Sun Tzu are, the different conceptions
of the means of struggle are very different. lt is
important to see that Sun Tzu was speaking about war
between two states and Mao about essentia11y a Civil War.
But the differences ref1ect more than just the adversaries
in war. Maors tactics remain the same for both the
anti-Japanese War and Civil War. lt is essentia1 to
see that it is the historie dimension of the strugg1e that
is aIl important and not necessari1y the question of
whether the strugg1e is between two states of Civil War.
We can see that an author can be great1y inf1uenced
17 lb id., p. 73 •
19
by his country's military history without accepting it
entirely. For Mao, Sun Tzu's tactical formulations were
useful but the strategic considerations did not coincide
with his conception of the present phase of China's
struggle.
A subsequent consideration is the extent to which
the author is dependent on previous analyses or whether he
has engaged in substantial innovation. In Mao' s.,case we
can again see that he'was substantially aware of Sun Tzu's
formulations. While revolutionary warfare hus not been
the primary concern of m~st well-known military strategists
some have been concerned with irregular warfare as
exemplified by Von Clauswitz, Napoleon and Lenin. 18 The
types of warfare that they examined led them to the con-
clusion that the primary objective of this type of activity
was to destroy rather than create. Military history would
not bea~ this out as guerilla warfare is dërived from
18 See, for example, Michael Elliot-Bateman, Defeat in the East, (London: Oxford University Press, 1967),
,Chapter' 1 for a discussion of Napoleon; Carl von ~usewitz, On War, Book 2, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1962), pp. 341-350; and V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Il, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub1ishing House, 1962), pp. 213-223. The word "guerilla" is derived from the Spanish guerrillos which was the name given the Spanish partisans harassing the French invaders.
20
partisan warfare within a country to expel an invader.
In examining an analysis degree of thoroughness
must be considered. While it is certain that most
exponents of irregular war examine their strengths and
weaknesses, the levels of sophistication vary. Let us
consider the case of Ernesto Guevara in Bolivia. It is
clear from Guevara's Diary that a detailed examination of
the area for the original foco had not been made. Guevara
relied heavily upon the Cuban experience where the peasants
were easily organized and the middle class supported Castro
because of Batista's oppressive police measures. Guevara
also seems to have felt that the Bolivian tin miners would
revoIt as they had previously done.
We must not insist that a book on the subject of
people's war must contain a formaI analysis. Debray did
not write Revolution in the Revolution? as a guide to action
but rather as a polemic to influence a debate on tactics.
We are speaking of investigations such as Mao Tse-tung's
Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society and Report of an
Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan. These
are concrete judgements on the role of specifie classes in
21
China at a specific time OMarch, 1926; and March, 1927).
It wou1d be mechanistic to assume that since we find no
consideration of Bo1ivia in any of Guevara's l~itten works
that none were conducted; what happened·in Bo1ivia, however,
wou1d seem to indicate that an adequate ana1ysis had not
been carried out. o
It appears that the more comprehensive the ana1ysis
the greater the chances of correct1y identifying the
tactica1 means to emp10y. The more fami1iar the theoretician
is with the country and its people the greater the chances
for success. Mao is quite specific in his ana1ysis of
Chinese society and starts with, "Who are our enemies?
Who are our friends? This is a question of the first
importance for the revo1ution. The basic reason a11
previous revo1utionary strugg1es in China achieved so 1itt1e
was their fai1ure to unite rea1 friends in order to
attack the rea1 enemies.,,19 Mao's ana1ysis has und er-
stood the continuities and changes in the Chinese strugg1e
19Mao Tse-tung, The Se1ected.Works of Mao Tse-tung, l, "Ana1ysis of the Classes in Chinese Society", (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), p. 13.
22
for liberation.
environment. 20
Mao has understood the Chinese national
It is impossible to assess theoretical works on
people's war without examining the historical path of
struggle. National environment must include, therefore,
the course that the revolution has taken from its start.
This means that not only the struggle itself must be
understood bu: how it has affected the people, who has
been most affected, why they and not others have been so
affected. Not only is domestic analysis important, but
also what sort of foreign help has been available, through
whom, and has it been accepted or rejected. An examination
such as this would include a consideration of the form of
struggle, whether peaceful or violent, whether the leaders
have always remained the same and functioned as a
cohesive group or have either split and formed splinter
groups or a faction has completely taken over the old
20 Success is the only criterion for judging whether a correct analysis has been conducted. In reviewing the history of the Chinese Communist Party we find that Mao Tse-tung was dismissed from his post in Hunan and from the Provisional Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP for the "serious ••• mistakes made by the Hunan Provisional
-Committee". (John Rue, Mao Tse-tung in Opposition, p. 80). Mao had correctly seen the rural struggle as most important but'the leaders of the CCP had note
23
group. The movement's content must also be investigated:
has it been primarily an agricultural movement which has
turned into an armed struggle, an armed struggle from its
inception, or a civil war though these are not necessarily
mutually exclusive.
The above considerations reflect the particular
characteristics of each struggle but they directly
influence the writing of any theoretical work. If we
look for a minute at the Chinese Revolution, we will find
certain important references in Mao's writings exemplifying
his view of the Chinese struggle; perhaps this will later
enable us to explain the uniqueness of Mao's theory of
people's war.
The Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, the Reform Movement of 1898, the Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition - the revolutionary or re(orm movements which aimed at extricating China from her semi-colonial and semi-feudal state - aIl met with serious setbacks, and China remains a semicolonial and semi-feudal country ••• China's (present) liberation movement, with its cumulative development over the last hundred years, is now different from that of any previous period •••• It is on the basis of this progress that China's present war of liberation can be protracted and can achieve final victory.2l
2~0 Tse-tung, The Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung, "On Protracted War", (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), p. 197 (hereafter cited as S".M. W.)
'24
Mao's writings contain a complete ana1ysis of
those·events in China's past necessary for understanding
the path of the strugg1e to the present. This shou1d not
be dismissed as a Marxian attempt to re~~ite China's
history but a ref1ection of Mao's understanding and res-
pect for the pasto The Chinese Communists fee1 that in
order to understand the present and the reasons for
society's present deve10pment the pest must be under-
stood.
It is beyond the scope of this thesis to examine
each writer's ana1ysis of his country's past strugg1e
though we have seen this is a most important aspect in a
framework of peop1e's war. Its exclusion certain1y does
not mean that it has not been given carefu1 thought.
Ho Chi Minh, for examp1e, a11udes to Vietnamesehistory in
one of his works as, "From the days of the Trung Sisters,
the Zoans (sic) of Arc of Vietnam, throughout a thousand
years of Chinese ru1e, the Vietnamese rose time and again
against alien domination.,,22 There may be important
22 Ho Chi Minh·, Vietnam l'le Have Fought a Thousand·
Years Another Thousand If Need Be, (Calcutta: Cardinal Press, 1968), Introduction, p. ii.
25
reasons for not discussing a country's historical struggle.
General Vo Nguyen Giap's book, People's War People's Army,
contains no refer~nces to Vietnam's historical struggle
with China. 23
It seems peculiar that in examining Latin American
writings on revolution we find virtually no mention of
the historical dimension of national environment. Each
writer pays allegiance to his country's national hero but
there is no concrete evaluation of the struggle's ante-
cedents. In examining aIl the writings on revolutionary
struggle in Latin America in the World Marxist Review24
we find that most articles are concerned with only the
present form of the struggle and its justification.
Historical considerations seem not to have entered the
polemical debate. We have seen that Debray's book is not
concerned at aIl with the historical dimension (though
23It is interesting to see that Ho Chi Minh makes a strong reference to the Chinese in the book quoted above. At that time it was necessary for the Vietnamese to make their position explicit especia1ly after Lin Piao's c1ear pronouncement of 1966. Giap, on the other hand, wrote his essays at a time when it was necessary to maintain a strong friendship with China and criticism of the Chinese wou1d not have been expedient.
24 The same is true for Peking Review. In 1961 an article by Guevara appeared dea1ing with gueri1la warfare. Though Guevara's conception of gueri1la warfare differed considerably from the Chinese position the article was printed to show the friendship that existed between Cuba and China.
26
Debray can not divorce his analysis from it) and writings
such as Guevara's are tactical and are not concerned with
historical perspective.
The historical aspects of national environment must
also include the author's role within the revolution. His
position, role, and influence must be considered. To
what extent his influence increased or decreased and the
effect of this upon the leaders of the struggle. If the
leaders of the revolution were following a path other than
the author's what impact did the new pa th have upon both
the leadership and the struggle. The reasons for this
divergence must be explained. The result of the dis-
agreement, if any, might be reflected in a variety of ways
and these must be examined.
These considerations assume that an author was
engaged in an actual struggle for liberation; this is not
a correct assumption to make. Debray says, "Cuba's real
significance and the scope of its lessons, which had been
overlooked before, are being discovered. A new conception
of guerilla warfare is coming to light.,,25 We must not
25Regis Debray, Revolution, op.cit., p. 19.
e. 27
assume, therefore, that an author must engage in armed
strugg1e to write about it. But it is instructive to
examine a writer's relation to the strugg1e he writes
about. 26
We will brief1y examine severa1 writers and see
if their position at the time of.writing has inf1uenced
their frameworks of peop1e's war. We can see which aspects
an author at a specific time considershe most important.
We do not want to argue that sincean author does not
state an exp1icit position on one part of the strugg1e he
does not find it important. We will find, however, that
- a writer's position at the time of writing does influence
his works.
The writings of Mao Tse-tung are again instructive.
Mao's ear1iest essays inc1uded in the first volume of
his Se1ected Works was written during the 1926-1927
26 Certain writers do not agree that a person can form a framework of people's war without engaging in the strugg1e. .See section III of this thesis, especial1y re: Mao Tse-tung, On Practice.
28
periode Mao is primarily interested in the classes in
China and their relation to the Revolution. His next
writing is specifically a class analysis of Hunan Province.
Mao is here concerned with the tactical aspects of the
Chinese struggle. His next entry in the Selected Works
is concerned with the establishment of a Communist
government in China. Subsequently Mao is concerned with
both political and military aspects of struggle. But
Mao still considers the formation of a Communist
Government as a tactical (as opposed to strategie) goal.
His tactical concerns at this time may be a reflection of
his position in relationship to the leadership struggle
then occurring within the Chinese Communist Party.
While Mao has now (1929-1930) begun to write about
questions eoneerning the Communist Party it is still from
a tactical perspective. Significantly, it is not until
after attaining the leadership of the Communist Party
that Mao writes about strategie questions. He now uses the
tactical knowledge he has gained to investigate the larger
questions of strategy. Mao's "tactical writings", On
Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism, Problems of Strategy
in China's Revolutionary War, and On Protraeted War, form
29
the basis for "strategie writings" such as On Practice
and On Contradiction.
It is important to see an author's perspective in
the strugg1e for 1iberation. Whi1e Mao's writings can not
be examined on1y in regard to a position within the
0-movement we see that this does have aogood dea1 of
influence. As the Chinese Communists came c10ser to
victory on the Main1and Mao becomes more concerned with the
tactica1 considerations of rebui1ding the Chinese
economy. On Coalition Government, On the People's
Democratie rictatorship, and Turn the Army into a Working
Force concern methods to overcome the economic dislocation
of the Civil War. Just as ear1ier we sa'-7 how Mao' s
writings move from the tactical to the strategie in the
military aspects of peop1e's war,now we find that On the
Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the Pe~ple is
the strategie ref1eetion of Mao's development.
An author's theoretieal and actua1 position at
the time of writing must be considered. If an author
fee1s that the leaders of the revo1ution have lost their
zeal or have removed him from the ruling group or have
30
fo11owed what he considers an incorrect path of strugg1e
his writings usua11y ref1ect this. lt is important,
therefore,· to examine the author in relation to both the
ideo1ogica1 and institutiona1 dimension of the revo1u-
tionary leadership (both interna1 and externa1). The
Cuban case serves as a good examp1e.
B1as Roca said of Cuba's pre-Castro Communist·
Party, "The Party believed that the growing mass strugg1e
wou1d deve10p into an a11-embracing and protracted
genera1 strike 1eading to the fa11 of the tyranny ••••
A1though we had foreseen and had pointed to the need for
armed strugg1e, we had done practica11y nothing to pre
pare for it.,,27 Lenin's writings see a Communist Party
as the leader of the revo1ution. Debray argues that
Latin American "Communist Parties" are not Communist at
a11. Most Marxist writers fee1 that a party is "r;,.'nlIUunist"
by virtue of the c1ass consciousness of its leaders,
members and programs. A party, by virtue of its consciousness,
is able to 1ead the strugg1e to victory. This is not
27B• Roca, "8th National Congress of the Popu1ar Socia1ist Party of Cuba", (World Marxist Review, Vol. 3, No. 11), p. 38.
31
always the case. In Peru, "the left and democratic forces,
and especially the Communist Party, were faced with the urgent
problem of what attitude to take to the guerilla movement.
The Communist Party at once declared its solidarity with the
28 guerillas." The case of Cuba and Peru reflect the same
attitude of their ~espective Communist Parties.
Rather than leading the struggle the Peruvian Communist
Party was forced to either approve of the guerilla struggle
and join it or condemn it. Lenin,. in his writings, had not
specifically considered conditions similar to Perurs but this
does not exclude using Lenin as a general reference. The
cases of Cuba and Bolivia are instructive.
"When Fidel had first begun his struggle against
Batista, the Communist Party had regarded him as a sort of
well-meaning adventurer whose tactics could not succeed
When the CP saw that in spite of the failure of the general
strike, the people still backed Fidel Castro, it changed its
tactics and got behind his movement.,,29 Castro did not join
28 Cesar Levano, "Lessons of the Guerilla Struggle in Peru" , (World Marxist Review, Vol. 9, No. 9), p. 45.
29 Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy, Cuba Anatomy of a Revolution, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1960), p. 65.
32
the Communist Party of Cuba during his struggle but he did
create his own movement which r'esembles a political party.
The 26th of July ~ovement was able to perform the same functions
that the Chinese Communist Party did in China. As for the
Cuban Communist Party, "it was only after Fidel and his rebel
army.were already weIl on the way to vic tory that the
Communists sent an emissary to the Sierra offering their
support.,,30
Guevara's.experience in Bolivia is important for under-
standing the role of a vanguard party and the .-rG;1e .:an ,.~;. .... position
plays in his framework of people's war. Guevara's Diary con-
tains many entries reflecting the strain between his group and
the Bolivian Communist Party.
The conversation with Monje began with generalities but he quickly came down to his fundamental premise; stated in three basic conditions:
1. He wou Id as party leader but wou Id obtain its neutrality (my emphasis), and cadres would be brought for the struggle.
2. He would be the political and military leader of the struggle as long as the revolution was taking place in Bolivia.
3. He would handle relations with other South American parties, trying to persuade them to support liberation movements (he mentioned Douglas Bravo as an example).31 (my emphasis)
30 Ibid., pp. 150-151.
31 Ernesto Guevara, The Complete Bo1ivian Diaries of
Che Guevara, Daniel James,editot', (New York: Stein and Day, 1968). D. 95_
33
The Bolivian Communist Party had already tried to
interfere with Guevara before the formation of Guevara's foco.
It now appears that Guevara was forced 'to negotiate for the
BCP's neutrality. The BCP had also done nothing to promote
armed struggle in other South American countries. In examining
the World Marxist Review it would appear that the BCP viewed
the peaceful struggle as the most appropriate for Bolivia. One
month after the above was written Guevara said, "As was
expected, Monje's attitude was evasive since the first movement
and treacherous after. Now the party is up in arms against us
and 1 don't know how far they will go, but this does not scare
us, and maybe, it will benefit us in the long run ••• ,,32
The actual conditions of armed struggle can not be
divorced from the theoretical work. One Latin American has
written,
The popular armed struggle is governed by laws common to aIl national-liberation wars which cannot be disregarded at any stage of the struggle It would be a mistake mechanistically to apply the experiences of other countires •••• We must not equate social processes of 'the same type taking place in two different countries, necessary though it 1s to utilize the experience of one to accelerate the other. 33
32 Ibid., p. 108.
33Alberto Gomez, "The Revolutionary Forces of Columbia and Their Perspectives, (World Marxist Review, Vol. 10, No. 4), p. 59.
34
A further consideration in placing an author within his
national environment is to examine when an author wrote his
work. Not only the specifie point in the.struggle but also
such points as did the writing follow the.successful outcome of
part of the revolution, were th~y written in the field or in the
Capital after the enemy's defeat and was this the first
codification of the author's thoughts.
It is difficult to find any theoretical study of the
Cuban Revolution written by a participant. Much has been
written by outsider commentators to justify or malign certain
aspects of the struggle. Both Castro and Guevara wrote after
Bat~sta's downfall but there is no attempt to record both the
tactical and strategie considerations of the Revolution.
G~evara was interested in the tactical struggle of the individual
guerilla; Castro, on the other hand, was concerned with the
strategie considerations of the struggle. Yet neither Castro
nor Guevara have given a complete account of the actual path they
followed to achieve victory in Cuba. Castro's most specifie work,
History Will Absolve Me, comes the closest to a framework of
people's war but is essentially concerned with social and economic
rather than military problems and was written before Castro
~turned to Cuba on the Granma.
35
Guevara became interested in economics. after the for-
mation of the Cuban Provisional Government. His writings, like
those of Mao Tse~tung, become more concerned with economics,
but while Mao was aware of and wrote of this problem during the
Civil War, Guevara only wrote about them after Batista's fall.
This, of course, can be attributed to the prolonged nature of
the Chinese struggle and the relatively brief Cuban war of
liberation. It is also a reflection of the differing concepts
these two writers have of people's war.
If one compares Guevara's earlier works, Guerilla Warfare,
with a later analysis, Cuba - Exception or Vanguard? we can
see that Guevara was affected by his brief interlude as an ~
economist. The more experience Guevara gained in his economic
post in the Government the more his writings reflect his awareness
of the specific problems caused by the war. The Cadre, Backbone
of the Revolution, On Beinga Communist Youth, and The Cuban
Economy.reflect the change in him.
In evaluating why a particular emphasis is provided by
a particular writer it is of importance to consider his position
at that time. While this is not important in the long-run, it
provides a perspective as to which aspects are considered salient.
36
The above cited writings of Guevara reflect this. We see that
Guevara refocused his thoughts on people's war as he changed
positions from guerilla leader to State Minister. 34
After dealing with the writer's 'position in the struggle,
the author's perception of the struggle, and the revolution's
historical context, it would be fruitful to look specifically
to why the author writes. It should be investigated whether the
writer is trying to justify his role in the struggle, to influence
his own organization or a rival faction, if the aim is domestic
or international propaganda, to justify the path which the
revolution took, to explain one part of the struggle (i.e.
violent vs.peaceful), or to aid others. Most writers do not
specifically state why they have written and it is often very
difficult to extract reasons from the actual texts. We shall
start with Regis Debray not because he is the MOSt profound but
because he has clearly stated his reasons for writing
Revolution in the Revolution?
34Guevara eventually returned to his first role as guerilla leader in Bolivia. His writings on guerilla warfare are much clearer than those on economics but this May not be a true reflection of his actual abilities. His writings on guerilla warfare show a concern for detail which are not present in his economic writings.
37
Debray wrote at a time when Latin American communists
vigorously debated whether violent struggle was the only
method to attain national liberation. The Cuban Revolution
had not yet been recognized as a model for other Latin
American countries. Debray wanted to clarify his thoughts on
the debate, to propose that the Cuban Revolution was a valid
model for Latin American countries to follow, and not to set
for th a complete framework of people's war.
Debray says, " ••• Revolution in the Revolution? was an
attempt to rediscover a new coherence behind apparent old-style
aberations in a minor work for particular circumstances."35
Leaving aside the question of whether or not the Cuban Revolution
established what Debray thought it did we can see that "a1l this
1ight baggage has never pretended, nOr cou1d it pretend, to be
a body of 'theses', rigorous1y deduced one from the oth~r, an
estab1ished system or the final definition of a 'b1ue-print'.
With regard to revo1utionary action such termino10gy is so
36 frightening that it makes one smile."
Guevara's major work, Guerilla Warfare, seems to be a
35 Regis Debray, Rep1y, op.cit., p. 16.
36 Ibid., p. 22.
38
practical guide for the guerilla. It is important to under-
stand that fighting is the end and not the means to which Guevara
addresses himself. The book contains many things which a
peasant in the bush would find extremely helpful. Guevara pro-
bably found it necessary to include these seemingly universally
known facts because many of those who came to the Sierra
Maestra had no conception of the physical problems which guerilla
warfare might cause. Nowhere in the book do we find any type of
systematic analysis of the situation in the country, no attempt
to justify the use of force and no justification for guerilla
warfare. Guevara's sole interest here is writing a manual for the
guerilla. His book, therefore, reads like a how-to-do-it handbook
rather than a theoretical framework for people's war.
A good deal of the book consists of sketchas and drawings.
But the book is written about the Cuban Revolution. Guevara is
careful to explain that ~ie is giving his OWll experience as a
guide to action though he feels that it has univers al application.
He says, for example, "the sketch below shows the form in which
these defences were constructed in the Sierra Maestra. They were
ffi i t t us from mortar fire. ,,37 su cent 0 pro ect The sketch shows.
a defense useful in a dry climate or dry period but would not be
37Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Guerilla Warfare, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1961), p. 70.
39
useful during the monsoon season in Vietnam.
A good part of the book deals witb defense. Guevara
was almost killed during tbe Cuban Revolution and tbis May
account for bis great empbasis on defense: any guerilla must
be over-conscious of defense, bowever. He devotes a major
portion of the book to tbe guerilla band, its organization,
development, and problems. Except for a few pages dealing
superficially with tbe strategie aspects of tbe struggle
Guevara's major concern in tbis book is witb tbe individual
guerilla.
A few lines from Guerilla Warfare will make tbis clear.
He says, liA blanket is indispensable, because it is cold in
tbe Mountains at nigbt Shoes sbould be of the best
possible construction •••• Since tbe 8uerilla figbter carries his
bouse in bis knapsack, the latter is very important •••• Tbe
guerilla fighter sbould carry a plate, knife, and fork ••••
Tbe ammunition belt can be of commercial type or bomemade ••••
A canteen or a bottle for water is essential."38 Guevara is
writing to make the guerilla's life simpler and bopes that the
38 Ibid., p. 52-53.
40
guerilla will take his advice. He feels that the guerilla
will be unfamiliar with weapons and explosives and attempts
to explain this. He goes so far as to explain exactly how to
make a Molotov cocktail in one footnote!
Guevara is quite specifie in explaining the purpose of
his book.
Though geographical and social conditions in each country determine the mode and particular forms that guerilla warfare will take, there are genera1 laws that ho1d for aIl fighting of this type. Our task at the moment is to find the basic principles of this kind of fighting and the ru1es to be fol10wed by peop1es seeking 1iberation; to deve10p theory from facts; to genera1ize and give structure to our experience for the profit of others. 39
Guevara is interested on1y in gueri11a warfare. He relates
his experience in this mode of fighting hoping that they will
aid others. In a different context Guevara attempts to exp1ain
40 that "a gueri11a war is a peop1e's war, and it is a mass strugg1e."
(emphasis in original). Whi1e we sha11 deal with this conceptua1
prob1em in a 1ater part of this thesis, Guevara, as 1ate as
1963, still equated gueri1la warfare with peop1e's war. Guevara
39Ibid., p. 16.
-: 40 John Gerassi, ed., Vencere~?s! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara, "Guerilla Wàrfare;· A Method", ·(New York: Macmillan Co., 1968), p. 267.
41
continues, "the plan, in the face of the enemy's general
superiority in one chosen place, whether by being able to con-
centrate more troops than the enemy or by .securing advantages
arising out of utilization of the terrain, thus upsetting the
41 correlation of forces."
One writer whose book combines Debray's and Guevara's
approach is Kwame Nkrumah. In his Handbook of Revolutionary
Warfare, Nkrumah argues that guerilla warfare is the only way
to achieve African national liberation; his writings reflect
Debray's polemical arguments. Nkrumah's handbook, like
Guevara's,contains many charts and sketches; but while Guevara
is concerned with action Nkrumah discusses organization. He
assumes that "the new phase of the armed revolutionary struggle
in Africa embraces the entire continent.,,42 Nowhere is there
any analysis which would justify his viewpoint. Just as
Guevara felt that there should be a continental Latin American
revolution Nkrumah feels that the same should hold true for
Afric·a. As he is an exile Nkrumah perhaps felt that he must
keep in contact with African revolutionaries. It would seem
4lIbid., p. 276.
42 Kwame Nkruma., Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare (New York: International Publishers, 1969), p. 1.
42
that his on1y reason for writing is to present his point of view.
Un1ike Debray, however, Nkrumah does not base this framework on
any practica1 exp.erience in armed strugg1e.
Lin Piao claims that the writings of Mao Tse-tung,
"have been proved by the long practice of the Chinese revo1ution
to be in accord with the objective 1aws of such wars and to
be inevitab1e. It has not been va1id for China, it is a great
contribution for the revo1utionary strugg1es of the oppressed
nations and peop1es throughout the wor1d".43 Mao Tse-tung
c1aims, howevl~r, that there is a higher truth - not the Thought
of Mao Tse-tung - the princip les of Marxism-Leninism. Mao
is concerned with p1acing their truths within the framework of
Chinese experience.
In discussing China's revo1utionary war Mao says, "The
seizure of power by armed force, the sett1ement of the issue
by war, is the central task and the highest form of revo1ution.
This Marxist-Leninist princip1e of revo1ution ho1ds good
universa11y, for China and for a11 other countries. But whi1e
43Lin Piao, Long Live the Victory of Peop1e's War!, op.cit., p. 43.
43
the principle remains the same, its application by the party
of the proletariat finds expression in varying ways according
to the varying conditions.,,44 For Mao, people's war is a
constant,only the means change.
The question of why Maowrote still remains unanswered.
There is a Chinese tradition dating from Sun Tzu where a
military strategist writes down his theories. This coincides
with the Marxist tradition which is essentially the same.
The reason seems to be different than these. Mao seems to be
the first modern theorecian of warfare who realized that although
a modern (or ancient) theory may have been useful in one in-
stance this does not mean ipso facto that it will ah'ays be so
useful. In assessing the historical perspective discussed ,
above we saw how the Chinese Revolution in its earlier stages
was guided by foreign advisors tied to the Comintern who based
their advice on traditional Marxian concepts of revolutionary
struggle.
As the revolution was slowed down by their advice Mao
came to the conclusion that their methods were not valid for
44 Mao Tse-tung, S.M.W., "Problems of War and Strategy,"
op.cit., p. 269.
44
China. There was a very 1imited proletariat, Chiang Kai-shek
did not seem very revo1utionary, the K.M~T. was adopting an
increasing1y anti-Connnunist posture, and urban uprisings
were quick1y smashed. The 1essons Mao 1earned from the
August Harvest Uprising and the Canton Connnune were perhaps
more important than his reading of Marx and Lenin.
Mao came to understand that the particu1ar aspects
of the Chinese Revolution were as important for the theory
of peop1e's war as were the strategie concepts of Marx, Lenin,
and Sta1in. Mao's primary reason for writing, however,·was
because the process of writing was a1so part of his concep-
tion of 1earning and know1edge.
"Perception on1y solves the prob1em of phenomena; theory
a10ne can solve the prob1em of essence.,,45 For Mao one must
advance beyond the 1eve1 of practice.
The dia1ectica1-materia1ist theory of know1edge places practice in the primary position, holding that human know1edge can in no way be separated from practice and repudiating a11 the erroneous theories which deny the importance of practice or separate know1edge from practice. Thus, Lenin
45Mao Tse-tung, I, "On Practice", op.cit., p. 299.
45
said, 'Practice is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity of universality, but also of Immediate actuaIity.46 (emphasis in original)
The actual act of writing has significance of Mao. "Only
through personal participation in the practical struggle to
change reality can you uncover the essence of that thing or
class of things and comprehend them".47 The act of writing is
the culmination, for the time being, of the practical aspect
of the struggle.
Thus it can.be seen that the first step in the process of cognition is contact with the objects of the external world; this belongs to the stage of perception. The second step is to synthesize the data of perception by arranging and reconstructing them; this belongs to the stage' of cognition, judgement and inference. 48
For Man the interrelationship between engaging in a struggle
for national liberation and the writing of a theoretical
construct are not equally important but part of the same
process which can only continue by having both actions.
46lbid • , p. 297. 47
300. lb,id. , p.
48lbid • , p. 302.
--
46
In thus answering why Mao has written extensively about China's
revolutionary war we can see that it is part of the Maoist
perception of re~lity.
Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. 49 (my emphasis)
While we make a distinction between the actual fighting and
the process of writing about the struggle for Mao they are
part of the same process of learning and knowledge. For
Debray, Guevara, Castro, Fanon, and Nkrumah the act of writing
is not considered a part of the struggle: for Mao the
struggle and summing up can not be divorced due to the pro-
tracted basis of the struggle.
If we re-examine Lin Piao's statement above it would
seem that Mao's writings are not what Lin claims. Lin argues
that Mao's writings are universally correct in this period
49Ibid ., p. 308.
47
while Mao claims that things are always changing and to reach
an understanding of a society it is necessary to move in a
dialectical path from practice to theory. , Mao never claims
that his writings are the highest level of such a dialectic.
We can infer that he may correctly identify the highest stage
of both the ory and practice but this is certainly not
mandatory in Maots gnosiology.
One further aspect of national environment is to whom
the author is writing. In considering who an author addresses
in his works one should investigate whether he is interested in
reaching one specifie class or an entire country. A crucial
factor to examine is the author's influence on groups which
he did not intend to reach. The writings of Guevara are perhaps
the easiest to examine. They amount to a drill sargent
lecturing his recruits. He takes the same approach that Colonel
Bayo must have taken in Mexico. Guevara wrote as ,a guerilla
fighter and leader. He addressed his books to simple people,
he spoke in simple language, he rejected his bourgeois back-
ground and became a "revolutionary". In addition to speaking
to the peasant in the bush Guevara spoke to a large group of
urban young who were not interested specifically in the guerilla
-warfare aspects of the writings but in the positive affirmation
48
of a set of beliefs which reject the basic foundations of
western, capitalist society. Guevara has become their
Patron Saint.
To them it matters little that Guevara's Bolivian
campaign ended in his death. They are not interested in
how a guerilla fighter should dress, eat, sleep; this is only
of vicarious interest. What matters i~ the way,of lite
that Guevara lived. His rejection of organized, bourgeois
society is crucial for them. To a generation that has
viewed society as being crushed by machines, technology, and
government Guevara's'tall:.ing to simple people resembles
Thoreau's Walden Pond. Guevara seems to speak directly to
this group when he says,
p. 424.
We have already described the guerilla fighter as one who shares the longing of the people for liberation and who, once powerful means are exhausted, initiates the fight and converts himself into the armed vanguard of the fighting people. From the very beginning of the struggle he has the intention of destroying an unjust order and therefore an intention more or less h1,dden, to replace the old with something new. 50
Another writer who has unintentionally affected a
50 Gerassi, "Message to the Tricontinental", op.cit.,
49
larger audience than he intentionally sought is Frantz Fanon.
One reason is that Fanon is black or, at least, non-white.
This bridges a credibi1ity gap that is created between white
writers on revolution and non-white fo1lowers. The main
reason is Fanon's approach to revolution.
Humanity is waiting for something from us other than such an imitation (of Europe), which wou1d be an obscene caricature. If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe, and America intQ a new Europe, then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted of us. But if we want humanity to advance a step further, if we want to bring it up to a different 1evel than thatwhich Europe has shown it, then we must invent and we must make discoveries. (my emphasis) If we wish to live up to our peop1e's expectations, we must seek the response e1sewhere th an in Europe. Moreover, if we wish to rep1y to the expectations of the people of Europe, ft is no good sending them back a reflection, even an idea1 ref1ection, of their society and their thought with which from time to time they fee1 immeasurab1e sickened. For Europe,' for ourse1ves, and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man. 51 (my emphasis)
It would appear that Fanon is ta1king primarily to Africans,
to Africans who must shun the European mode1 of man.
Yet this is the same basis on which Guevara's romantic
SlFrantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1968), pp. 315-316.
50
reputation has evo1ved. Whi1e Fanon wrote for the black
African, his fo110wing has come from the large, urban, black ,
communities throughout the wor1d. This isbecause Fanon has
addressed himse1f not on1y to the question of revo1ution but
a1so from where the revo1ution will start and grow. One
perceptive commentator has said, "Basica11y, what his readers
have responded to in his writings is his insistence that
revo1utions are made by having revo1utions - i.e., by direct,
inc1uding violent, action. They have a1so taken from Fanon
the notion - despite his prime emphasis on the peasantry - that
this is something that can happen in cities as we11 as in
vi11ages".52
In North America Fanon's influence has penetrated
into the urban ghetto. Eldridge C1eaver gives an ana1ysis of
what the Afro-Americans have found in the writings of Frantz
Fanon.
During a certain stage in the psycho10gica1 transformation of a subjected people who have begun strugg1ing for their freedom, an impulse to violence deve10ps in the collective unconsciousness. The oppressed people fee1 an uncontro11ab1e des ire to ki11 their masters When the revo1utionary impulse to strike out against the oppressor is stif1ed,
52peter Wors1ey, "Revo1utionary Theories" (of Frantz Fanon), (Month1y Review, Vol. 21, No. 1), p. 46.
distortions in the personality appear •••• The rare significance of this book is that it contains the voice of a revolutionary black
,intellectual speaking to his own people and 'showing the way to harness their forces. 53
51
For blacks the most important apsêct of Fanon is his con-
ception of violence. Cleaver has said, "What this book do es
is legitimize the revolutionary impulse to violence. It
teaches colonial subjects that it is perfectly normal for them
to want to rise up and cut off the heads of the slavemasters,
that it is a way to achieve their manhood, and that they mu~t
oppose the oppressor in order to experience themselves as
54 men" •
While Fanon was speaking to the urban and rural African
in the process of national liberation,The Wretched of the Earth
seems to have also been written for ghetto dwellers in most
countries throughout the world. Fanon's'conception of revolution
is one which speaks to any oppressed individual. His very notion
of revolutionary tactics attracts the oppressed.
53Eldridge Cleaver, op.cit., pp. 18-19.
54Ibid ., p. 20.
52
National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the
,new formulas introduced, decolonization is alway~ a violent phenomena. 55
Most of Maots writings were originally speeches
delivered at significant times during China's Revolutionary
War. Each of the speeches had one specifie purpose and
audience. Report on An. Investigation of the Peasant Move-
ment in Hunan, for example, was "written as a reply to the
carping criticism both inside and outside the Party then
being levelled at the peasant's revolutionary struggle;,,56
The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains was a "report·sub-
mitted ••• to the Central Commit tee of the Communist Party
of China.,,57 Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary
War was written "to sum up the experience of the Second
Revolutionary Civil War and (Mao) used it for his lectures
at the Red Army College in northern Shensi".58 This
approach goes back to Mao's view of the purpose of writing.
Each lecture or speech leads to a new and higher level of
perception.
55Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, op.cit., p. 35.
56 Mao Tse-tung, l, op.cit.,.Note, p. 23.
57Ibid ., Note, p. 73.
58Ibid ., Note, p. 179.
53
Mao's wri~ings have been collected and issued as an
aid for others engaged in revolutionary war. His audience
has grèatly expan~ed but his concepts have remained the same.
They are meant to apply to the Chinese Revolution and only
incidently to other struggles. In an effort to apply the
lessons of the Chinese Revolution a mechanistic copying of
its methods May result. As seen in the introduction of this
thesis Many writers have argued that revolutionary warfare
does not lend itself to any type of a model. Most of Mao's
writings deal with specifies. They are based on a concrete
analysis of China during the Revolutionary War and as such
are limited in the sensethat they are addressed to a
specifie topic or group but they run the same danger as does
any theoretical work: the reader May not make a correct
analysis of conditions in his ~ountry or make a mechanistic
analysis based on the work he has read.
This section of the thesis has attempted to examine
revolutionary perspective from the standpoint of national
environment. lt has not been the goal of this part to
examine the specifie national environment of the authors who
are to be dealt with in the next part but rather to develop
a series of questions that will help to explain why frameworks
• S4
of people's war differ. We have provided enough background
material, however, so that when we do examine specifie
frameworks of people's war theywill not be divorced from
national environment.
CHAPTER III
REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE: SPECIFIC FRAMEWORKS OF PEOPLE'S WAR
The first section of this thesis examined national
environment as a means of explaining different approaches
to people's war. What at first was seen as an aberration at
second examination was nothingmore than facile deviations made
necessary by changes of circumstances and organization. We
attempted to show how local conditions affect the path a
struggle follows. The main emphasis was on the tactical as
opposed to the strategie. We do not mean to infer, however,
that national environment only affects the day to day aspects
of the struggle; this would be incorrect. National environ-
ment also influences an author's long-run conception of the
revolution as was clearly shown in the writings of Mao Tse-tung.
This section will deal with the larger "strategie"
questions involved in people's war. In making a distinction
between tac tics and strategy we are making both an arbitrary
and somewhat misleading categorization. The terms "tactical"
and "strategie" relate to means and the goal itself. When we
finally arrive at a definition of people's war we shall find
that the above distinction is useful as it allows us to dis-
tinguish between approaches to people's war, the differences
S6
based bath on the means ane the goal itself.
Having established a framework for explaining different
tactics we now find it necessary ta explain the varying con
ceptions of the goal itself. Up to now we have been imprecise
in our language and have called most of the authors considered
writers on the subject of people's war. Again in this section
we shall use the terms "people's war", "national liberation
war" , "revolutionary struggle", and "revolutio~" interchangeably.
But in diseussing each writer we shall find that their views on
the struggle itself are different.
In attempting to discuss revolution it becomes apparent
that each specifie writer defines the goal of the struggle in
his own terms but again we find no precision in using eaeh terme
While it makes no difference to the revolutionary what he
specifieally calls what he is doing an academie examination of
the subject necessitates a clearer usage of these expressions.
Rather than defining them before examining specifie frameworks
it is felt that after considering several authors it will be
easier to identify clear distinctions in approach and concep
tion; the conclusion, therefore, will define these terms and
place each writer examined in this part of the thesis within
57
one approach.
We sha11 start with the writings of Ernest Guevara.
The armed vic tory of the Cuban people over the Batista dictatorship was not only the triumph of heroism as reported by the newspapers of the world; it a1so forced a change in the old dogmas concerning the conduct of the popu1ar masses of Latin America. It showed p1ain1y the capacity of the people to free themse1ves by means of gueri11a warfare from a government that oppresses them. 58 (myemphasis).
Guevara is concerned with 1iberation in terms of the winning
of state power by what he considers "carries us forward, step
by step, in a progressive and necessary order of concern for
the prob1ems of the Cuban peop1e.,,59 In addition, Guevara
considers on1y one aspect of the strugg1e to be important in
terms of the means.
We emphasize ••• at the beginning of this work (that) ••• gueri11a warfare (was) the basis of
60 the strugg1e of a people to redeem itse1f ••••
Guevara's framework of peop1e's war relies on gueri11a warfare
as the most important part of the strugg1e and views it as the
58 op.cit., 15. Guevara, p.
59Ibid • , p. 115.
60Ibid • , p. 16.
58
on1y means of'overthrowing a dictatorship. He sees the
mi1itary overthrow of Batista as the most important act of
national liberation and views national 1ib.eration as this
act itself. For Guevara the gueri11a as a collective group
is the most important aspect of the revolution.
We must come to the inevitab1e conclusion that the gueri11a fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps a11 his unarmed brothers in ignomy and misery. He 1aunches himse1f against the conditions of the reigning institutions at a particu1ar moment and dedicates himse1f with a11 the vigor that circumstances permit to breaking the mo1d of these institutions. 61 (emphasis in original).
To Guevara it is the gueri11a, and the gueri11a a1one,
who is capable of overthrowing the dictatorship. It shou1d
be understood that Guevara speaks of gueri11as as a group and
not of the gueri11a as an individua1.
the mi1itary means. Nowhere in any of his works does Guevara
more th an scant attention to any other factors which might 1ead
to an overthrow of a dictatorship. "Since in these places the
61Ibid ., p. 17.
·e 59
struggle of the people for reform is aimed primarily and al-
most exclusively at changing the social form of land owner-
ship, the guerilla fighter is above aIl an agrarian
revolutionary.,,62 It is the guerillas' task to destroy the
old system of latifundia but there is to be no effort before
the tr~umph of the revolution to replace this system.
'rbe struggle never proceeds equally in aIl regions in
a country. In China, for example, this permitted the Red
Army to establish base areas and form provisional governments
which aided in initiating land reform. For Guevara the
guerillas' commitment is political but the means are totally
military. The geographic considerations should not be
neglected. The Sierra Maestra were not large or secure enough
to permit a provisional government to function. When applying
the lessons of the Cuban Revolution to other Latin and South
American countries this must be understood.
One writer has said,
To support a movement, the peasant must be enabled to detect a link between the concrete goals the ideology proposes and what he himself desires. AlI he needs is a promise for more of something he is fervently seeking ••• most of aIl - social justice.
62 Ibid., p. 18.
It is the relevance of the promise, ald not the validity of the thought .process justi~3ing·the
. promise, that influences the peasant.
'60
A link must be established between the guerilla fighter (in
Guevara's terms) and the peasants. But Guevara do es not talk
about this link. He makes no basis for showing the guerilla
fighter, to Guevara only a mi1itary man, can establish this
1ink. "The Cuban experience has shown that when a revolutionary
situation is fermenting, the armed strugg1e can, under certain
conditions, become a powerfu1 1evel of the revo1utionary pro
cess".64 (emphasis in original) Professor El1iot-Bateman has
commented, "The guerilla is not a social reformer, but a social
destroyer. In fact, the 1ast thing he wants is reform which
lies in the province of the established government".65 This
is true if we consider El1iot-Bateman's thesis that it is only
the legitimate government which can initiate reforme
Guevara continues, "The guerilla force is not a form of
passive self-defense. It is a defense involving attack, and
63M• Beqiraj, Peasantry in Revolution, (Ithaca: Cornell University' Press, 1966), p. 93.
64Hugo Barrios Klee, "The Revolutionary Situation and Liberation Struggle of the People of Guatemala", (World Marxist ieview, Vol. 7, No. 3), p. 22.
65Michae1 El1iot-Bateman, personal correspondence, June 17, 1969.
61
from the moment it .is established as such, it has as its
ultimate aim the conquest of political power".66 Guevara
sees the actual fighting as able to move the revolution
forward. A member of the Guatemalian Communist Party has
commented, " ••• a people's armed struggle in countries
where the ruling class have rendered this objectively Inevitable
can be launched even before aIl the conditions for revolution
have matured ••• ,,67 In Cuba the middle class, the students,
and a good many peasants had already been politicised by
Batista's repressive measures. The guerillas served as the
manifestation in military terms of the revolution. Guevara
says, "The guerilla force is the people's fighting vanguard,
located in a specific part of a given territory, and it is
armed and ready to carry out a series of military actions
tending toward the only possible strategic aim: seizure
of power". 68
Guevara equates guerilla warfare with national -
liberation. His manual deals only with the specific actions of
the guerilla and do es not attempt to open up a greater political
66 Guevara, op.cit., p. 272.
67Alfredo Guerra Borges, "The Experience of Guatemala: Some Problems of the Revolutionary Struggle Today", (World Marxist Review, Vol. 7, No. 6), p. 14.
68 Guevara, op.cit., p. 268.
62
role for the guerilla •. Guevara.does speak of the guerilla as
a social reformer but does not suggest how this is manifested.
Perhaps the fact that the Cuban peasant had been so weIl
organized in the past led Guevara to feel that most peasants
would lend increasing support to the guerilla movement.
Huberman and Sweezy comment, "Most important, of
course, in winning the campesinos to the revolution was the
agrarian reforme Here again they learned that this army's
program was not just promises - it was promises fulfilled.
As the revolutionary army spread out over more and more
territory, it introduced agrarian reform measures".69
Guevara hardly mentions this aspect of the struggle. For
him it was the peasant guerilla fighter al one who waged the
armed struggle. Another commentator writes,
It was the students and recent gradua tes of the Havana University and other Cuban colleges, led by Fidel Castro, once a student leader himself, who accomplished the assault on the Moncada Barracks and who later formed the initial core of the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra as weIl as the underground anti-Batista movements in the towns. 70
69 Huberman and Sweezy, Cuba Anatomy of a Revolution, ~. cit., pp. 57-58.
70Roque Dalton, "Student Youth and the Latin American Revolution", (World Marxist Review, Vol. 9, No. 3), p. 54.
63
It was not the gueri11as a10ne who accomp1ished the linkage
between the people and the revo1ution. Guevara's focusing on
the gueri11a and exc1uding the other aspects creates a mis-
impression of the Cuban experience.
Guevara ca11s the Cuban Revolution a "peop1e's war".
It is c1ear that this term is used because, obvious1y, it
was the Cuban people who overthrew Batista. When we define this
concept we sha11 see that Guevara insinua tes more than is meant
by the idea of peop1e's war. His view of revo1ution is
1imited to the violent overthrow of an exp10iting regime by
gueri11a warfare. It is on1y after the dictatorship had been
overthrown and Castro estab1ished power that Guevara considers
another aspect of the str,ugg1e.
The Cuban Revolution must be separated into two abso1ute1y distinct stages: that of the armed action up to January 1, 1959, and the po1itica1 1 economic, and social transformation since then. 7
(myemphasis).
Rather than seeing these two stages as two parts of the
revo1ution Guevara divides the strugg1e 'into two stages. When
71Gerassi, op.cit., p, 121.
64
he writes about the guerilla fighter he is concerned only with
the attaining of power.
Each of those brief historical movements in the guerilla warfare framed distinct social concepts
._and distinct appreciations of the Cuban reality; they outlined the thought of the military leaders of the Revolution - those who in time would also take their positions as political leaders. 72
While the commitment is political Guevara views these men as
essentially military commanders who are forced to switch roles.
lt is not a military-political leader who puts down his gun
and becomes aState Minister but a military man who completely
changes roles. The land reform is viewed as part of the
revolutionary's military effort to attain state power.
Thus it is clear that guerilla warfare is a phase that does not afford in itself opportunities to arrive at complete victory. lt is one of the initial phases of warfare and will develop continuously unti1 the guerilla army in its steady growth acquires the characteristics of a regu1ar army. At that moment it will be ready to dea1 final blows to the enemy and to achieve victory. Triumph will a1ways be the product of a regular army, even though its origins are in a gueril1a army.73
Sorne have argued that Guevara's concern for the mi1itary
aspects of the Cuban struggle result from the divided responsi-
72 Ibi~., p. 122.
73 Guevara, op.cit., p. 20.
65
bility with Fidel Castro. Even if we assume that this is the
case it is difficult to explain Guevara's attributing land
reform solely to the military dimension of the revolution.
Land reform is a political measure within the military
struggle. Guevara's failure to remember this may help explain
why his foco was unsuccessful in Bolivia. By relying on the
guerilla foco alone to mobilize the local peasants the political
aspect was neglected. By strictly following the Cuban example
where the small geographic are a limited the formation of base
areas Guevara felt forced to minimize the relationship between
the military and political. This shows the danger of a mechanistic
application of any "example" of revolutionary struggle.
Guevara saw no continuation in the process of,
revolution. The quote above indicates that he viewed revolution
as a two step process, each process being completely distinct
and separate from the other. The military phase is concerned
only with the winning of state power and the political phase
begins only with the overthrow of the dictatorship. Fidel Castro's
writings, on the other hand, place greater emphasis on the political
aspects.
66
The guerilla is bound to be the nucleus of the revolutionary movement. This does not mean that the guerilla movement can rise without any previous work; it does not mean that the guerilla is something that can exist without p~litical direction. Nol We do not deny the role of the leading organizations, we do not deny the role of political organizations. The guerilla is organized by a political movem~nt, by a political organization. 74
Castro, as opposed to Guevara, gives the leadinf ,le
to the political organization of which the guerilla is part.
Castro finds that the guerilla must have some direction, some
way to bridge the gap between the peasant and the revolution's
motivation. In fact, Castro completely disagrees with Guevara
on the division of the Cuban Revolution into two distinct
parts.
We believe that the triumph of revolutionary ideas among the masses - not the masses in their entirety but a sufficiently broad part of them is an absolute requisite. This do es not mean that action must wait for the triumph of ideas, and this is one of the essential points of the matter. There are those who believe that it is necessary for ideas to triumph among the masses before initiating action, and there are others who understand that action is one of the most efficient instruments for bringing about the triumph of ideas
'. among the masses. Whoever hesitates while waiting for ideas to triumph among the greater part of the masses before initiating revolutionary action will never be a revoluntionary.75
74Fidel Castro, (Ravana: Stenographie Department of the Cuban Government), Speech at the First Conference of the Latin American Organization of Solidarity, August 10, 1967, p. 118.
75Ibid ., p. 112.
67
Castro feels that there must be this connection bet~?en
the guerilla and the masses. There is no great break between
the acquisition of power when the struggle militarily ends and
the acquisition of political power from this point on. To
Castro it is equally important to destroy and build. In his
farewell letter to Fidel Castro, Guevara said,
I want it known that I do it (leave Cuba) with mixed feelings of joy and sorrow; I leave here the purest of my hopes as a builder, and the dearest of those I love. And I leave a people that received me as a son. That wounds me deeply. I carry to new battle fronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling themost sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be. 76
For Guevara revolution was always directed toward the
destruction of an imperial power. The struggle for nat:f.onal
liberation was viewed as the throwing off of the imperialist
power and establishment of a Marxist-oriented government. The
struggle was to be a people's war only in so far as it involved
the residents of a country and those who came to ~id them.
The inclusion of outsiders was justified on the grounds that they,
too, were anti-imperialist and could aid the struggle. But for
76 Che Guevara, (Ravana: Stenographie Department of the Cuban Government), "Farewell Letter to Fidel Castro", p. 50.
68
Guevara, the prime importance of struggle was to overthrow, to
defeat, to destroy. In the end he returned to this aspect of
the struggle.
Revolution in the Revolution? poses some extremely
important questions concerning armed struggle in Latin
America. Its subtitle, Armed Struggle and Political Struggle
in Latin America, immediately sets it apart from Guevara;s
work as Debray includes the political dimension within the
immediate struggle for political power.
In Latin America today a political line which, in terms of its consequences, is not suscep-tible to expression as a precise and consistent military line, cannot be considered revolutionary.77
Debray, as opposed to Guevara, places the primary emphasis on
the political and not the military. "Any military line depends
on a political line which it expresses".78 For Debray, the , means to achieve political power are both m1litary and political.
Yet Debray, like Guevara, seems quite interested in the role of
the military and thus the role of the guerilla.
77 Regis Debray, Revolution, op.cit., p. 24.
78Ibid •
69
Guevara's book, Guerilla Warfare, contains no analysis
of conditions in Latin America. Debray's aiso contains no
investigation of Latin America but he expl,ains why. "It is
very clear that this booklet omits an analysis of the modes·.
and relations of production prevalent in Latin America today,
as weIl as of the patterns and class structures arising from
them".79 Debray is aware that such an analysis has not been
made. When we examined earlier why Debray wrote the book we
found that he considered such an analysis not necessary for the
puX'.poses of the wri ting •
Debray is not interested in showing the strategie path a
people's war should take. His concern is much more for the
tactical considerations necessary in attaining political power in
Latin America. He wants to explain the Cuban Revolution to other
that they are separated. Debray is concerned that if a few
members of the foco are discovered the entire movement will suffer
terribly. Debray gives two reasons for this division.
First, to protect the population against the repressive army. Faced with elusive guerrilleros the army takes vengence on the peasants it suspects of being in contact with them •••• Mobility, the special advantage of the guerilla forces over the civilian population, imposes a
79 Regis Debray, "A Reply", op.cit., p. 17.
special responsibility on them with respect to the peasants •••• Second, to protect the safety of the guerilla force itself: 'Constant vigilance, constant mistrust, constant mobility' - the three golden rules. AlI three are concerned with security. Various considerations of common sense nec essitate wariness toward the civilian population and the maintenance of a certain aloofness. 80
70
In any kind of struggle involving guerilla warfare it is
necessary to harness the peasantry's energies at some point as
Debray points out. Debray advises caution because he has found
that governmental repression in Latin America is strong and best
avoided. 8l
Thus far Debray differs from Guevara primarily on the
question of political versus military emphasis. But here Debray
takes a step ~hich Guevara never considered. Guevara was limited
in scope as he considered only the military aspects of the struggle.
He considered guerilla warfare without its political counterpart.
Debray warns,
It was the purpose of Revolution in the Revolution? to show that in specifie conditions, when armed struggle was under way, the separation of the political from the military becomes artificial and dangerous and that the political can th en be expressed in a military form. 82
80 Ibid., p. 42.
8lA separate study should be made of the effect of government repression on a mass movement. One could compare, for example, the Batista "extermination campaigns", the Japanese mop-up raids, Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Campaigns, and Many others.
82Debray, Reply, op.cit., p. 18.
'\-- .... -
71
Debray continues,
In many countries of America the guerilla force has frequently been called the 'armed fist' of a liberation front, in order to indicate its dependence on a patriotic front or on a party. This expression (is) copied from models elaborated elsewhere. In the absence of concrete knowledge of a concrete and different situation, and particularly if the differences themselves are not understood, it is dangerous to import organizational formulas. To subordinate the guerilla group strategically and tactically to a party that has not radically changed its normal peacetime organization, or to treat it as one more ramification of party activity brings in its wake a series of fatal military errors. 83
Debray, is concerned with the separation, in physical
terms, between the guerillas and the party - of what happened
to Guevara in Bolivia. Both Debray and Guevara consider the
military viewpoint; Debray, on the other hand, broadens the
perspective to include who con troIs the military part of the
struggle. Rather than depending on an urban political party
Debray considers that the military can create the.same organiza-
tion as a party.
Under certain conditions, the political and the military are not separate, but form one organic who le , consisting ~f the people's army, whose nucleus is the guerilla ar~. The vanguard 'p'artz can·exist in the form of the guerilla foco itself. The guerilla force is the party in embry~---(emphasis in original).
83 Debray, Revolution, op.cit., pp. 67-68.
84 Ibid., p. 106.
72
We must examine why Debray feels that the military àspect
of the struggle is capable of creating the political organiza-
tion within itself. Is it due to the nature of the In1litary
itself or the nature of what Debray regards as the "old-line"
Marxist parties in Latin America?
Debray's view of armed struggle is based, to a great
extent, on his view of Marxist parties in Latin America - part
of the Latin American national environment. It is on this
·basis that he views the foco as eventually creating its own
political organization. This does not me an that the foco
remains only a military organization.
It has been widely demonstrated that 6uerilla warfare is directed not from outside but from within, with the leadership accepting its full share of the risks involved. In a country where such a war is developing, most of the organizationh leaders must leave the cities and join the guerilla army. The reconstitution of the Party into an effective directive organism, equal to the historic task, requires that an end be put to the plethora of commissions, congresses, conferences ••• 85
Debray sees these parties as incapable of leading an armed
struggle due to their past experiences. He says, "certain
behavior patterns become inappropriate under conditions of
85 Ibid., pp. 101-102.
. ... _ .. -
73
an objective state of war".86
lt i8 primarily, then, the behavior of Marxist parties
in Latin America today which Debray sees as preventing them
from leading the armed struggle.
Marxist-Leninist parties which do not fulfill their revolutionary obligations must be prevented from setting themselves up as associations for the protection of threatened interests, thereby impeding the inevitable rise of new forms of organization and revolutionary action. By the name they bear and the ideology they proclaim, they occupy de jure the place of the popular vanguard; if they do not occupy it de facto, they must not be permitted to keep the post vacant. There is no exclusive ownership of the revolution. 87
Debray sees these parties as being counter-productive and in some
cases counter-revolutionary. He finds that they argue amongst
themselves and rarely achieve anything concrete. "A national front,
heterogeneous by nature, is the scene of political wrangling,
debates, endless deliberations, and temporary compromises; it
can unite and exist only under conditions of imminent danger and
in confrontation with the enemy".88 Thus, Debray sees these parties
as unable to perform the task which Lenin felt they should carry out.
86Ibid • , p. 103.
87Ibid • , p. 125.
88Ibid • , p. 86.
74
Lenin made a distinction between a revolutionary army
and a revolutionary government; Debray makes no such distinction.
Yet to Debray the task of the guerilla ~ is to grow militarily
and politically. Lenin said,
The revolutionary army is needed for military struggle and for military leaders of the masses against the remnants of the military forces of the autocracy. The revolutionary army is needed because great historical issues can be resolved only by force ••• 89
Lenin wrote about Russia, and the conditions that applied during
the Russian Revolution were quite different from the present con-
ditions in Latin America. This view is fundamental1y opposed to
Debray's for Lenin said,
The revolutionary government is needed for the immediate laùnching of the po1itica1 reforms for the sake of which the revolution is being made •••• The revolutionary government is necessary for the political unification and the po1itical organization of the insurgent section of the people. 90
Lenin's view appears to resemb1e Guevara's more than Debray's.
For Lenin indicates that he sees the army only as a means to
achieve state power and with the establishment of 1iberation by
the army the government cou1d then carry out the necessary reforms.
89V.r. Lenin, "The Revolutionary Army and the Revolutionary Government", in William Pomeroy, editor, Guerilla Warfare and Marxism (New York: International Pub1ishers, 1968), p. 76.
90Ibid •
75
After seeing why Debray feels that the vanguard party in
Latin America can not be an ordinary political par~let us
examine how the guerilla foco becomes a political party. As
we have seen it is only at the beginning of an armed struggle that
the foco is kept away from the people. Debray has never said
that the foco should be always keptfrom the people and therefore
exert no political (or military) force. He has said just the
opposite. liA guerilla forcecannot develop on the military level
if it does not become a political vanguard". 9l (emphasis in
original). Debray becomes more specifie.
Precisely because it is a mass struggle ••• the guerilla movement, if it is to triumph militarily, must politieally assemble around it the majority of the exploited classes. Victory is impossible without their active and organized partieipation. 92
(emphasis in original)
Rather than depending on an urbanized party to organize the masses
Debray feels that the foco itself can perform this function.
As the foco is able to expand so is its area of influence and
ability to organize. As expansion continues the foco becomes more
than just the military director of the struggle; it takes on the
9~ebray, Revolution, op.cit., p. 108.
92Ibid •
76
role of both fighter and organizer.
Thus, in order for the small motor really to set the big motor of the masses in motion, without which its activity will remain limited, it must first be recognized by the masses as their only Interpreter and guide. In order to bring about this recognition, the guerillas must assume aIl the functions of political and military authority. Any guerilla movement in Latin America that wishes to persue the people's war to the end ••• must become the unchallenged political vanguard
The people's army is its own political authority. The guerrilleros play both roles, indivisibly. Its commanders are political instructors for the fjghting , its political instructors are its commanders. 9
Debray does not argue, as some have said, that the struggle
for liberation should be based only on the military foco. It is
not that Debray argues against a poli tic al vanguard leading the
revolution but that he argues against an "old-fashioned" vanguard
partly being able to lead the struggle. It is not that the
military alone can successfully complete the revolution as Guevara
has attempted to show but that the military is the "small motor"
which, in turn, sets the larger motor of the revolution in motion
and creates a political organization from within the !oco. When
one finds that criticisms such as Debray's concept of "the
subordination of the party to the guerilla force", heretical in
94 Marxist terms, is meant to show that Debray is wrong, we can only
93 Ibid., pp. 109, 114.
94Clea Silva, "The Errors of the Foco Theory", in Huberman and Sweezy, Regis Debray and the Latin American Revolution, op.cit., p. 18.
77
say that Debray has not been understood.
Yet when we return to Debray's concept of revo1ution we
find that his view is quite similar to Guevara's. To Debray
the purpose of the strugg1e is to.acquire power for a progressive
Marxist party. A revolution "is not a matter of destroying an
army but of seizing state power in order to transform the social
structure".95 In conceptual terms we find that while Debray
differs a great deal from Gllevara in regard to the method of
achieving power they are quite alike in the end itse1f - they
both make the distinction between the strugg1e for power and
the further struggle (toward socia1ism) after the acquisition of
power. They both fail to see the struggle as a tota1ity pro
gressing toward a goal greater than just the gaining of state
power; they both fail to view people's war as one process with
the acquisition of power as the first step.
General Vo Nguyen Giap's book, People's War Peop1e's
Army, goes farther in terms of the approach of peop1e's war than
d6es Debray's or Guevara's. For Giap' the main thrust of the
war of liberation is political.
95Debr~y, Revolution, op.cit., p. 95.
78
The Vietnamese people's war of liberation was a just war, a1ming to win back the independence and unit y of the country, to bring land to our peasants and guarantee them the right to it, and to defend the achievements of the August Revo.lution. That is why it was first and foremost a people's war. To educate, mobilise, organize and arm the whole people in order that they might take part in the Resistance was a crucial question. 96 (emphasis in original)
While one may question the fact that Debray was writing about
the acquisition of power and Giap about the reacquisition of
power (and there is no reason to believe that the circumstances
of these two must differ) we can see that there is a fundamental
difference between them. Debray, on the one hand, views the
guerilla foco itself as able to play a politieal role within the
armed struggle; Giap also feels that this can be part of the
task of a people's army. But Giap feels that it is not the army
itself that leads.
The Vietnamese people's war of liberation attained this great victory ••• above aIl because it was organized and led by the Party of the working class: The Indochinese Communist Party, now the Viet Nam Workers' Party.9/ (emphasis in original)
To Giap the Party must direct the struggle. However, in
the first section of this thesis when we examined national en-
96Vo Nguyen Giap, People's War People's Army, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1962), p. 27.
97 Ibid., p. 36.
79
vironment we found that one of the reasons why Debray felt that
the foco must itself become the leader of the struggle was be-
cause the Party was not capable of doing this. lt was on the
basis of his own experience which led him to theorize about the
role of a vanguard party. But in the Vietnamese case the role
of the Party was different from that which Debray saw in Latin
America. In attempting to show the task of the Party one
writer has said, "To wage a long resistance war, the entire
people must be united and single-minded. lt is the same with our
people as with a bundle of chopsticks. If the chopsticks are
bound together it 'is difficult to break them. But if they are
separated, nothing is easier than to snap them one by one until
the last".98
Both Giap and Truong Chinh were leaders in the Viet Nam
Workers' Party and were therefore in a position to control both
the military and political aspects of the Resistance. Raving
seen the Japanese and French occupations of Viet Nam they both
felt that military means were necessary to liberate their country.
But they felt that a military struggle alone would be insufficient
to attain complete national liberation. Though Giap was the
98Truong Chinh, Primer for RevoIt, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, lnc., 1963), p. 118.
80
military commander it is Truong Chinh's book which goes into
greater detail about the role of the military in the struggle.
In discussing the relationship between the military and political
aspects Truong Chinh says,
Military action is a measure by which politics are executed. 'War is a means of politics. War is the continuation of politics by other mea~ (emphasis in original) This is why military action can only succeed when politics are correct. Andconversely, politics cannot be fulfilled without the success of military action. When military
_.action is successful the aim of the war is realized. "After a war comes to an end, poli tics continue to be carried out by other, more moderate means. This is the relation between military affairs and politics.99
There i8 no question about the inter-relation between
politics and military action. There is also no reason for a
struggle to fail if military tactics are incorrect - they can
always be corrected. If the military tactics are incorrect
the enemy will succeed until these errors have been eliminated.
What is difficult to understand is how military tactics can be
correct if political analysis is incorrect. This is the question
which Debray examines. Giap and Truong have no reason for con-
sidering this aspect of the struggle as the Vietnamese Communists
99Ibid ., pp. 178-179.
81
had a1ways given po1itics primary consideration.
A noticeab1e feature of the activity of the Party in prepari~g for the armed insurrection is to have made the masses conscious of the preparation for it and led them to become active participants in it. lOO
It was for the politica1 branch of the struggle, the Party,
to organize the military branch of the struggle, the> '~rmy. It
seems difficult to explain how the army cou Id succeed if the
party had been wrong. Truong has written,
If the Party's line and politics are correct, its organization pure and strong, the ideological stand of its cadres and members firm and thorough going, this will bring about aIl vic tories to our working class and people. Indeed, the Party is the foremost factor for the victory factor for the victory of the revolution. lOl
There can be no correct military line with an incorrect
military line. But Truong does recognize one aspect which
Debray also spoke of: the correctness of the political line as
100 Ibid., p. 30.
l°Irroung-Chinh, President Ho-Chi-Minh Beloved Leader of the Vietnamese People, (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing Bouse, 1966), p. 54.
82
estab1ished by a Marxist Party. Whi1e in the above quote
Truong says that on1y if the Party 1ine and po1itics are
correct will the revo1ution be successfu1 it is difficu1t
to find any reference in his writings to where any Marxist
party has fo11owed an incorrect 1ine. This may be
attributed to "Marxist solidarity". But this is imp1icit in
the history of the Vietnamese Communist movement. Through
the many re-organizations of the actua1 personnel under first
the Comintern and eventua11y Ho Chi Minh the Party became
homogeneous, both ideo1ogica11y and po1itica11y.102
When we return to Giap's writings we find that a1though
he was the mi1itary commander. of the Vietnamese forces his
concern is for the po1itica1 aspects and Truong's for the
mi1itary. We find such a division of responsibi1ity in most of
the strugg1es we have examined: Mao Tse-tung-Chu Teh, Fidel
Castro-"Che" Guevara, Truong Chinh-Genera1 Giap. Professor
E11iot-Bateman has commented, "it (is) a mistake to divide the
responsibi1ities po1itica11y and mi1itari1y too distinct1y
between the leaders mentioned. l fee1 that in practice the
102 See Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embatt1ed, I, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1967), pp. 159-227 and Roang Van Chi, From Co1onia1ism to Communism, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1964), pp. 41-57.
83
responsibilities and personalities merged, rather as in modern
marriage".103
Giap differs considerably from the thoughts of both
Guevara, Debray, and Truong Chinh. While he is concerned with
the political to a larger extent th an the military his concern
for the military is almost totally within a political contexte
Giap rarely, if ever, speaks of military matters without ex
ploring the political implications. But Giap i8 concerned with
only one aspect of his people. "A people's war is essentially
a peasant's war under the leadership of the working class".104
(emphasis in original). Thus, Giap is concerned only with "the
mobilization of the rural masses".lOS Giap, then, do es not dis
trust the Party as did Dèbray when he said, quoting Fidel Castro;
" 'The city is a cemet~ry of revolutionaries and recources'
•••• The lack of political power leads to logistical and
military dependence of the mountain forces on the city".106
(emphasis in original).
l03Michael Elliot-Bateman, op.cit.
l04Giap , People's War People's Army, op.cit., p. 27.
lOSIbid.
84
Giap can stay within the orthodox Leninist framework
of the vanguard of the revolution as he views the Marxist
party as one capable of exerting leadership throughout the
struggle For Giap, the leadership of this Party is a
necessity and the revolution could be led by no other
organization. Giap's view, however, ia based on his own
experience in Vietnam's struggle for national liberation.
He says, " ••• it was the Party which proceeded to make an
analysis of the social situation and of the balance of forces
••• in order to determine the fundamental tasks of the people's
national democratic revolution •••• It was the Party which found
a correct solution to the problems •••• ,,107 As opposed to
Debray with the guerilla foco creating its own party from within
Giap finds that the army and party are both parts of the same
whole but the party is the larger part. l08
107Giap , People's War People's Army, op.cit., pp. 35, 36.
1081t is beyond the scope of this thesis to speculate on what would have happened if different local conditions had applied to each revolutionary struggle. Giap, we find, would not be quite as dogmatic had conditions in Vietnam not proven the Communist party's program to be correct. Giap certa1nly would place greater emphasis on the political role of the military than do es Debray and geographic conditions in Vietnam would permit a different type of armed struggle than Debray envisages. But it is conceivable that Giap, if placed within a Latin American context, would be forced to conclude that Debray's analysis contains certain points difficult to refute. We certainly do not want to say that Giap would agree with Debray's foco theory; it could be argued, however, that Giap's emphasis-OU-the Party would have to be replaced by a dependence on some other political organ. It would seem that both Giap and Truong Chinh would agree.
85
When we view both Giap's and Truong's view of the question
of liberation we find their outlook to be broader than both Guevara's
and Debray's, though we found Guevara's to be the Most limited
of aIl. Giap said, "From an exhaustive analysis, the Vietnamese
people's war of liberation was essentially a people's national
democratic revolution carried out under armed form and had two-
fold fundamental task: the overthrowing of imperialism and the
defeat of the feudal landlord class, the anti-imperialist
struggle being the primary task".109 For the first time we find
that a writer has formulated a definition of struggle which
includes both the overthrow of a dictatorship along with the
simultaneous overthrow of specifie classes within the society.
Not only, then, is their destruction within the process, but also
there is a constructive, building process.
Truong also viewed the struggle for national liberation as
something greater than just the establishment of a more pro-
gressive government. First of aIl, the "August Revolution was a
110 revolution for national liberation". While for Giap the
revolution was part of the world-wide anti-imperialist struggle,
for Truong it was essentially a nationalist struggle. "It aimed
109Giap , People's War People's Army, op.cit., pp. 27-2B.
86
at liberating the Vietnamese people from the colonial yoke and
making Viet Nam an independent country".lll In regard to the
second aspect both of these writers agree ~hat it."must be an
agrarian revolution so as to confiscate the lands of the feudal
landlords and distribute them to the peasants".112 (emphasis in
original).
In discussing the revolution both writers mention the
setting up of resistance bases. While Guevara and Debray mention
these only for the purpose of military tactics for Giap and
Truong these form an'-integral part of both the political and
military struggle. Truong says, " ••• the Party launched a
vast guerilla movement to seize local power ••• ,,113 Thus, the
military tac tic of setting up the base is basically a political
move as it aids the guerilla in linking up with the people. But
the difference in emphasis between Giap and Truong again appears.
For Truong, the bases are primarily military in nature. He says,
for example,
Our guerilla base in the enemy-held regions can appear to be mere enclaves surrounded by the enemy. But aIl these guerilla bases, together with the broad free zones, form a huge net encircling the enemy in return. 114
lllIbid. ~
l12Ibid •
l13Ibid ., p. 23.
114 ~., p. 142.
87
Giap, on the other hand, is aware of the importance the
bases have in the po1itica1 dimension.
The Vietnamese peop1e's war of 1iberation brought out the importance of building resistance bases in the countryside and the close and indissoluble re1ationships between the anti-feuda1 revo1ution.11S (emphasis in original)
The bases serve both as a support area for the gueri11as to
regroup, rest, and recover and for the po1itica1 movement to
organize, recruit, and invo1ve the population. The strugg1e
against the imperialist force is strengthened by the
strengthening of the anti-feuda1 strugg1e. With the setting
up of these bases both the po1itica1 and mi1itary aspects of
the strugg1e meet. The question of the 1eve1 of the anti-feuda1
struggle is dea1t with by both writers and this level is quite
important in the anti-imperia1 struggle.
If, on the one hand, the anti-feudal struggle is raised
to such a high 1eve1 that'· almost a11 of the large 1and-owners
are 1eft landless they will not in turn support the strugg1e.
If, on the other hand, the large 1and-owners have nothing taken
from them, then the peasants will see no reason to support the
11SGiap , People's War People's Army, op.cit., p. 31.
88
revo1ution. Therefore, some form of compromise must be
found as it is "on1y'by uniting the who1e people within the
bosom of the firm and wide national united front based on the
worker-peasant a11iance,,116 that the resistance can win.
Base areas become an end in themse1ves because they become
part of the governmental structure of the strugg1e. They be-
come a 1ink between the Party and the people, between the
Party and the army, and between the people and the army. The
base becomes much more than just an area where the gueri11as
can reste It becomes the seat of a provisiona1 government.
Compare this view with Guevara's. nIt is a1ways essentia1 to
preserve a strong base of operations and to continue to
strengthen it during the warn•117
For Giap, the 1ink must be estab1ished between the
Party, the army, and the people. As discussed above, one way
to achieve this was through the establishment of base areas.
But a more important way to achieve this goal was for the Party
to a1ways control the army.
The Viet Nam Peop1e's Army has been created by the Party, which cease1ess1y trains and educates it. It has a1ways been and will a1ways be under
116Ibid ., p. 33.
117 Guevara, op.cit., p. 23.
the leadership of the Party which, al one , has made it into a revolutionary army, a true people's army.118 (emphasis in original).
89
The army must always be under the control of the Party as it
is the Party which is always directing the Revolution. As
the Party represents specifie class interests it must control
the army so that the army maintains the same class con-
sciousness.
Since its creation and in the course of its development, this leadership by the Party has been made concrete' on the organizational plan. The army has always had its political commissars. In the units, the military and political chiefs assume their responsibilities under the leadership of the Party Committee at the corresponding echelon. ll9
l18Giap , People's War People's Army, ~.cit., p. 54. For Giap politics comes before the armed struggle can commence. The Party must exist before the establishment of the army., There woula ·seem to be no way to reconcile Giap's framework of people's war with Debray's foco. As has been seen for Debray the foco itself creates the po1itica1 organization. Even if the foco had fue leve1 of class consciousness that Giap attributes to the Party it is a mi1itary organization. If it had this level of consciousness it wou1d be po1itical. For Debray the initial commitment is mi1itary; for Giap, politica1.
119 Ibid., pp. 54-55.
e
90
Giap gives his Party credit for "defining the funda
mental principles of politicalbuilding of the army".l20
The most fundamental principle in the building of our army is to put it under the Party's leadership •••• The Party is the founder, organizer and educator of the army •••• To carry out and strengthen the Party's leadership great attention must be given to the work of building the Party and political works, and the system of Party Committee and political comm1ssar must be firmly maintained".121 (emphasis in original)
For Giap, "Political work is party work and work of mass
mobilization of the Party in the army".122 The party branch
within the army at its grass root level is to the entire army
what the base area is to the resistance. ln the branch of
the Party in the army we find the connecting link between the
Party and the army and, thus, between the Party and the
people. ln the base areas we find the same link between the
same groups. The base area and Party branch within the army
perfor:m very similar functions. Even in the context of the
military struggle it is the political factors which are most
important to Giap and his approach to people' s war. -',
l20Ibid • , p. 120.
12lIbid •
l22Ibid • , p. 121.
91
The distinction which Guevara and Debray make between
the army and party is an impossible one for Giap. In speak-
1ng of any army Giap 1s essent1a1ly speak1ng about a branch
of the p01it1ca1 party wh1ch engages in armed struggle. Since
Giap sees the struggle as consisting of both a p011tica1 and
a m111tary phase they are both part of the same wh01e and at
different t1mes different aspects are emphas1sed.
At the beginning, the polit1cal struggle was the main task, the armed strugg1e a secondary one. Gradually, both the political strugg1e and the armed strugg1e became equa11y important. Later, we went forward to the stage when the armed struggle occupied the key role. 123
But even when the military aspect was most important it was
politically motivated.
The Peop1e's Army is the instrument of the Party and of the rev01utionary State for the accompl1shment, in armed form, of the tasks of the Revolution •••• Therefore, the political work in its ranks 1s of the first importance. It 1s the soul of the a~ly.124 (emphasis in original).
For Giap, the army 1s a "small motor" quite similar to--Debray' s
f~co but only to the extent that it follows the direction of
123Ibid ., p. 76.
124Ibid ., p. 55.
92
the Party. The army is not capable, by itself, of creating
any of the conditions for waging the struggle.
Debray saw that in the Cuban Revolution there was no
party which would be capable at the beginning to lead the
struggle and since the Cuban peasantry was weIl organized to
begin with,a guerilla foco could, under these circumstances,
play a role similar to a party's. But his conception of the
use of force in the struggle is militarily motivated rather
than politically motivated. While Debray recognizes this fact
and spoke of it in his work he still saw the military aspect
of the struggle as being the only v\ethod of starting the larger
political motor. Giap, basing his book on the Vietnamese
experience, saw that the most important aspect of the struggle was
political. Rather than relying on military force to overcome
the peasant's reluctance to overthrow the dictatorship (or in the
Vietnamese case to overthrow the imperialists) Giap saw the
revolution as a politicRl struggle with a political leader and
not a military leader. r
While we have shown that Debray did not rely completely
on the military foco as a military instrument he does give the
armed aspect much more importance than the political aspect.
93
We see thet Giap saw the army as only a part of the political
struggle with the polit1cal aspect as both the "small motor"
for the larger political aspect of liberation as weIl as the
"small motor" for the armed aspect. The differences seem to
be attributable to the speerl in which the armed struggle can
proceed. To both Guevara and Debray it would seem that this
aspect is not actually considered. They seem to feel that the
foco itself can create the conditions spontaneously. They
seem to feel that the military "small motor" is capable of
creating the conditions for a political victory, though Guevara
would seem not even to have considered this approach.
Rather than leaving any of this to chance, Giap has
seen the necessity of building a resistance on the basis of a
firm political base. In regard to the po1itica1 struggle it is
first of aIl directed against the imperia1ist power and second1y
against the feudal classes. This political "sma11 motor" is
capable of harnessing the political to the armed strugg1e. The 1
armed forces serve as the direct 1ink and work to achieve a much
stronger bond. Whlle Truong Chinh is more.·concerned with the
actua1 mi1itary aspects of the strugg1e he also sees the po1itica1
aspects as the "sma1l motor".
94
Guevara, as we have seen, is concerned only with the
militaryaspects. He reallynever considers the political
aspects of the Cuban Revolution.
By the time Castro and his forces entered Havana in January of the following year the economy of the country had been eroded, the mass of the people were united behind the revolution, the ruling group was disunited and demoralized. In short, the classical Marxist-Leninist 'revolutionary situation' was obtained. 125
Guevara, then, missed what amounts to the central core of any
people's war. Debray, also, seemingly has missed this essential
aspect. Professor Michael Elliot-Bateman feels that the Cuban
Revolution and Debray's revolutionary perspective led him to base
his work on a series of "flukes".126 Rather than attempting to
explain that the Cuban Revolution was political in character but
l25Douglas Hyde, The Roots of Guerilla Warfare, (London: The Bodley Head, 1968), p. 37. Hyde goes on to say, however, "But it came at the.end of five years of armed struggle. lt was not the starting point. lt had been created by armed struggle". This makes the same mistake as doe's. Guevara and Debrayas shown above. The armed struggle was only one aspect. lt was the political part of the armed struggle that had motivated the ~easants to support Castro. lt was the political aspect of the armed struggle that created what Debray calls the "small motor'" which was the political aspect. In Cuba the political dimension developed without a formaI Party.
126Michael Elliot-Bateman, op.cit.
95
that this dimension was developed without the complex political
organization of the Vietnamese Revolution, both Guevara and
Debray stress th~ military without giving any form of analysis
of how the political dimension was created withouta vanguard
party. This would lead one to assume that the peasants in
Cuba automatically supported Castroj this view is incorrect.
Giap, on the other hand, had shown that it is the political
rather than the military aspects of the struggle that are the
MOst important.
Before turning to the writings of Mao Tse-tung let us
briefly examine a writer whose works have become very influential
within certain national liberation movements. The writings of
Frantz Fanon deal with only one aspect of liberation but an
aspect which Many authors take for granted. While in Fanon one
will not find the approach of Guevara in the actual waging of an
armed struggle Fanon offers something perhaps more valuable. As
we examined in the first part of this thesis on national environ'-../"
ment an author's position is extremely important in explaining an
approach to people's war. In Fanon's case this is very apparent.
As ,a psychologist Fanon was interested in the effects of
the Algerian struggle not only upon the French imperialists but
96
also upon the natives. But Fanon's concern wa$ not specifically
ltmited to just psychology but grew into the whole question of
violence as a method of decolonization. Fanon is interested in
examining what has been called the "cultural levél" within a
country. By this is meant aIl the contributing factors - social,
economic, political, military - which form the people's motiva-
tional momentum toward peopleh war. Fanon has analyzed this in
Algeria where after the revolution, "This community in action,
renovated and free of any psychological, emotiona1, or 1egal
subjection, is prepared today to assume modern and democratic
responsibi1ities of exceptiona1 moment".127
AlI the authors examined in this thesis so far have
assumed that the cultural 1evel within the country has a1ready
been explored. It is Fanon's contribution to the study of
people's war that he has undertaken a study of the cultural 1eve1s
in Algeria within the context of the violent overthrow of
colonia1ism. Fanon is not concerned with the path toward '-./
libp.ration in the same terms as is Giap, for examp1e. For Fanon
the struggle is not seen in terms of po1itical parties, gueri1la
127Frantz Fanon, A Dying Co10nia1ism, (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967), p. 179.
97
warfare, or base areaSj Fanon is concerned with the entire
process of decolonialism in Africa. Fanon attempts.an analysis
which explains violence not as the only tac tic for liberation
but violence as a tac tic necessitated by colonialism.
As we have seen earlier Fanon views the entire process of
decolonialism as a violent one. He says, "To tell the truth, ..
the proof of success lies in a whole social structure being
changed from the bottom up.,,128 Colonialization was the
beginning of a pro cess which ends only when the colonizer has
been defeated.
The violence which has ruled over the ordering of the colonial world, which has ceaselessly drummed the rhythm for the destruction of native social forms and broken up without reserve the systems of reference of the economy ••• that same violence will be c1aimed and taken over by the native at the moment when deciding to embody history in his own persan, he surges into the forbidden quarters •••• The natives' challenge to the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of points of view. It is not a treatise on the universa1, but the untidy affirmation of an original idea propounded as an abso1ute. 129 1'-
Fanon sees violence as the only means 1eft to the colonized to
throw off the colonizers. It is a violence, however, which must
128 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, op.cit., p. 35.
129 Ibid., pp. 40-41.
98
be controlled. But even more than that, it must be violence
which is directed. And for Fan~~, the direction is the
cultural level of the native.
Fanon seems almost as concerned with the control of the
natives' violence as he is with the violence itself.
In a war of liberation, the colonialized people must win, but they must do so cleanly, without 'barbarity'. The European nation that practices torture is a blighted nation •••• An under- . developed people must prove, by its fighting power, its ability to set itself up as a nation, and by the purity of every one of its acts, that it is, even to the smallest detail, the most lucid, the most self-controlled people. 130
Fanon viewsviolence, therefore, not necessarily as an
end in itself, but as a stage in the process not only of
motivating the peasant to fight against the colonialist power
but also as the means of establishing communication between the
aim of anti-colonialism and the individual peasant. This seems
a more sophisticated view of violence than either Guevara's or
Debray's. Fanon, like Giap, vie~violence primarily as a
political force which enables the peasant to become part of a
130Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, op.cit., p. 24.
99
movement before he has fully thought out his reasons for
allegiance. It could a1most be thought of as po1itical
b1ackmai1. But vio1ence's purpose to Fanon is a link.
The mobi1ization of the masses, when it arises out of the war of 1iberation introduces into each man's consciousness the idea of a common cause, of a national destiny, and of a collective history. In the same way the second phase, that of the building-up of the nation, is helped on by the existence of this cement which has been mixed with b100d and anger. l31
For Fanon, violence forms the same function as Debray's
gueril1a foco. While Debray saw the foco as eventua1ly
turning into something much 1arger, Fanon seems to not consider
this aspect of organization except in so far as he discusses the
politica1 party. But the comparison between the function of
violence and the function of the foco is 1egitimate. For
violence is that which gives the native something which makes him
stand above the European, violence gives the native not on1y
self-respect which 1eads him to identify with the national
liberation movement. While the foco is not seen as invo1ved in
any attempt to give the peasant any motivation in terms of self
the foco is intended to direct the struggle toward liberation.
l3lFrantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, op.cit., p. 94.
100
But for Debray the violence of the foco is seen as the means
toward national liberation in terms of the overthrow of a dictator-
ship; for Fanon violence is seen both as a means of achieving
national liberation in the military sense but also national
1iberation in the sense that it gives the individua1 political
motivation to move toward the struggle.
Unlike most Marxists, Fanon does not see the revolution
as being led by the working class. In fact, he fee1s that the
working c1ass can be a brake on the revolution. Leaving this
aside for the moment, let us examine the classes that Fanon feels
are the vanguard of the African revolution and see the conclusions
which are draloffi from this.
The peasantry is systematically disregarded for the most part by the propaganda put out by the nationalist parties. And it is c1ear that in the colonial countries the peasants alone are revo1utionary, for they have nothing to loose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exp10ited to discover that on1y violence pays. For him there is compromise ••• 132
One of the leading classes of the revolution~ then, is the
peasantry. A class with nothing to loose - in Marxist terms
very similar to the proletariat - and a class that will accept only
132 Ibid., p. 61.
101
violence.
Within the urban areas Fanon finds .another class which
Jan help lead the revolution.
lt is within this mass of humanity, this people of the shanty towns, at the core of the lumpenproletariat, that the rebellion will find its urban spearhead. For the lumpenproletariat, that horde of starving men, uprooted from their tribe and from their clan, constitutes one of the MOst spontaneous and the Most radically revolutionary"forces of a colonized people. 133
Fanon has found two classes which have really no political
influence within the colonial regime and would have no influence
on any form of political movement which could be initiated to
attempt to make decolonization a non-violent process.
Fanon rejects the notion of a political party as the
leader of a revolution as does Debray but for different reasons.
To Fanon, the modern political party is not capable of mobilizing
the necessary political strength to overcome the imperialist
regime. "The overwhelming majority of nationalist parties show a
deep distrust toward the people of rural areas".l34
l33Ibid ., p. 129.
l34Ibid ., p. 109.
102
Fanon views political parties as immitations of the European
parliamentary organizations and not creations through which the
co10nized peoples. can liberate themselves.
The political parties do not manage to organize the country districts. Instead of using existing structures and giving them a nationa1ist or progressive character, they Mean to try and destroy living tradition in the colonial framework •••• Thus from the capital city they will 'parachute' organizers into the vi.llages who are either unknown or too young, and who, armedwith instructions from the central authority, Mean to treat the douar or village like a factory cell. 135
Fanon and Debray agree that the control of the revolution by
an urban party is impossible. They both see that they are too
attached to their old ideas and conceptions. But while Debray
argues that the foco is the answer Fanon argues for a new type
of po1itica1 organization.
Rather than remaining in the city the radical members of
the po1itical parties will go into the "suburbs". But with the
police and armies after them they will become part of the
peasantry. "The peasant's c10ak will wrap him around with a
gentleness and firmness that he never suspected" .136 lUth con-
tact between these radica1s from the city and the peasants a
l35Ibid ., pp. 112-113.
l36Ibid ., p. 126.
·e 103
new bond is estab1ished. "They come to understand, with a sort
of bewilderment that will from henceforth never quite 1eave
them, that po1itical action in the towns will always be power
less to modify or overthrow the colonial regime".l37
For Fanon, like Debray, the movement creates its own
po1itica1 vanguard. 138 But un1ike Debray, Fanon sees this as
a po1itical instrument. The problems of the po1itica1 party
are quite simi1ar in each framework of people's war. For
Debray those fleeing the city are interested in forming a
military foco' wJlich will gr~into a politica1 movement; for
Fanon the organization to be estab1ished is po1itica1.
Those leaders who have fled from the use1ess po1itical activity of the towns rediscover politics, no longer as a way of lul1ing people to sleep not as a means of mystification, but as the on1y method of intensifying the strugg1e and of preparing the people to undertake the governing of thëir country c1ear1y and 1ucid1y. The leaders of the rebel1ion come to see that even very 1arge-sca1e peasant risings need to 3 be contro11ed and directed into certain channe1s. 1 9
For Debray, the foco is able to create certain objective con-
dltions for the revo1ution. For Fanon, the rural po1itica1
137Ibid •
138peter Wors1ey, "Revo1utionary Theories", op.cit., p. 39. Wors1ey on1y identifies the simi1arities. His ana1ysis is quite convincing when dea1ing with Fanon but is not as c1ear wh en dealing with Debray.
139Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, op.cit., p. 135.
104
party accomplishes this. One writer has conunented, " •••
contrary to the theory of the foco, and above aIl contrary to
the mechanical application of this theory .••• the PAIGC got
under way only after a protracted phase of preparatory political
work ••• without this preparation (and it can be made under
arma) any guerilla action runs the risk of being transformed into
an isolated commando strike ••• the guerillas are cut off from
the people".140
Perhaps the most important reason why Fanon has become
so weIl known to urban strategists is his emphasis given to the
city. Just as earlier we saw how Guevara could be speaking
directly to one group which he did not intend to address, so
Fanon can be seen as speaking directly to the exploited black
urban ghetto residents when he saya,
The lumpenproletariat ••• brings aIl its forces to endanger the 'security' of the town ••••. 50 the pimps, the hooligans, the unemployed, and the petty criminals ••• throw themselves into the struggle for liberation •••• These classless idlers will by militant and decisive action discover the path that leads to nationhood The prostitutes too, and the maids who are paid two pounds a mon th, aIl the hopeless dregs of humanity, aIl who turn in circles between suicide and madness, will recover their balance, once more go forward, and march proudly in the great procession of the awakened nation. 14l
l40Gerald Chiliand, Armed Struggle in Africa, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), pp. 117, 119.
l4lIbid ., p. 130.
·e 105
For Fanon, the emphasis of the revolution is on the
individual. His concern is for the individual within the
context of the entire movement and struggle. He seems to say
that revolution must be done and not spoken about. But in
considering the effect of the revolution on the individual
Fanon, again, goes beyond the writings of those we considered
above. Part, but not aIl of this can be attributed to Fanon's
medical background.
Fanon's entire conception of the process of national
decolonization centers around the decolonization of the
individual. While it is true that Fanon speaks of the mass
rather than of the individual it is always c1ear that he is-
speaking of the individual within the mass - of the effect of
the mass on the individual. Fanon is emphatic about this. ·In
dealing with the masses he says, "To educate the masses politi-
cally is to make the totality of the nation a reality to each
citizen".142 (my emphasis). For Fanon, education performs the
same function as does violence. In Fanon's view of revolution
violence is education, for through violence the native is able
to become part of the process of decolonization and, thereby,
regain his self.
142 Ibid. II. p. 200.
Total liberation is that which concerns aIl sectors of the personality. The ambush or the attack, the torture or the massacre of his brothers plants more deeply the determination to win, wake up the unwary and feeds the imagination. When the nation stirs as a whole, the new man is not an a posteriori product of "that nation; rather, he co-exists with it and triumphs with it. This dialectic requirement explains the reticence with which adaptations of colonialism and reforms of the f~céne are met. Independence is not a word which can be used as an exorcism, but an indispensable condition for the existence of men and women who are truly liberated, in other words who are truly masters of aIl the material means which make possible the radical transformation of society.143
106
Fanon sees revolution as a two-step process; but not
the same process as we saw in Guevara and Debray. For Fanon it
is the individual who is the means and the end of revolution.
lt is first necessary to liberate the individual through
violence. The culmination of this process is national liberation.
The second process is the re-building of the nation. But the two
stages are mutually dependent. It is only after the individual
is no longer subjugated that the nation can be lifted up. From
his analysis of the cultural level of the native and Algeria we
can see that Fanon has carried his conception of people's war one
step further than either Debray or Giap. For Fanon has considered
l43Ibid ., p. 310.
• 107
the individua1 within the context of the struggle for national
1iberation. Fanon is the first writer considered in this thesis,
so far, who has ~onsidered the individual within his own cultural
level.
In considering the writings of Mao Tse-tung we must be
aware that Mao wrote before either Giap, Guev.ara, Debray or
Fanon and these writers, therefore, have been able to take
advantage of Mao's framework of people's war. But Mao, as we
shall see, is the only one whose military writings are based on
and a part of a philosophical-politicarmilitary system. We
have seen that Guevara wrote only of the armed struggle. Debray
mostly of the armed struggle, Giap about the political aspects of
the armed struggle, and Fanon about the individua1 within the
violent process of decolonization. Mao, however, writes about
the struggle within the philosophie framework of contradictions.
As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internaI and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamentai cause of the deveIop~nt of a thing is not external but internaI; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing, hence its motion
108 .
and development. Contradictoriness within a thing ia the fundamental cause of its development, while ita interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes. I44 (my emphasis)
In his conception of people's war Mao sees the most
important aspects as developing within the struggle itself;
the political situation within the country must develop to
such a point where the revolution will be able to commence.
Mao's philosophical base differs from the orthodox Marxian con-
cept of the dialectic. Rather than going from the Hegelian
dialectical path of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, Mao goes from
a single subject with thesis and anti-thesis as parts of the
same whole. There is never a stop to the development of history.
While other Marxist writers felt that with the establishment of
a Communist society contradictions would cease to exist, for
Mao,non-antagonistic contradictions never are totally finished.
Mao speaks of different aspects.
Of course, unless we understand the universality of contradiction, we have no way of discovering the universal cause or univers al basis for the movement or development of things; however, unless we study
144 Mao Tse-tung, The Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, l, "On Contradiction", op.cit., p. 313.
109
the particularity of contradiction, we have no way of determining the particular essence of a thing which differentiates it from other things, no way of discovering the particular cause or particular basis for the movement or development of a thing, and no way of distinguishing one thing from another or of demarcating the fields of science. 145
But when one examines a specifie situation one finds
that there are more than one contradiction which affects the
particular movement. The process of differentiating is a
complex one. Mao says,
In order to reveal the particularity of the contradiction in any process of development of a thing, in their totality or interconnections, that is, in order to reveal the essence of the process, it is necessary to reveal the particularity of the two aspects of each of the contradictions in the process; otherwise it will be impossible to discover the essence of the process.146
Mao nowhere offers a systematic way in which to iden~ify
the primary aspect of the contradiction but his essay, On
Practice, discussed in part one of this thesis, offers the
closest that Mao comes to respcnding to the proble~.
l45Ibid ., p. 320 •
. l46Ibid ., p. 322.
Thus it can be seen that the first step is the process of cognition with the objects of the external world; this belongs to the stage of perception. The second step is to synthesize the data of perception by arranging and reconstructing them; this belongs to the stage of cognition, judgement and inference. It ia only when the data of perception are very ~ich (not fragmentary) and correspond to reality (are not illusory) that they can be the basis for forming correct concepts and theories. 147
110
For Mao, it is only through participation within an event that
one is able to gain "perception", and it is only through
"perception" that one can reach the stage of "cognition". It
is only through direct participation that one can find the
fundamental contradiction. "The fundamental contradiction is
the process of development of a thing and the essence of the
process determined by this fundamental contradiction will not
disappear until the process is comp'leted ••• ,,148 An object 'a
development is government by its internaI contradictions.
"There are many contradictions in the process of
development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily
the principle of contradiction whose existence and development
l47Ibid., "On Practice", p. 302.
l48Ibid., "On Contradiction", p. 325. During the Chinese Revolution Mao identified the anti-Japanese contradiction as primary and the contradition with the bourgeoisie as secondary.
e
111
149 of the other contradictions". In the process of develcp~
ment, therefore, of any object there is on1y one aspect which
is the most inf1uentia1 in the movement of the objecte It is
through the movement of the principal contradiction that there
is motion. In dea1ing with contradictions it is necessary to
see that an object contains both aspects of the contradiction
(thesis and anti-thesis) within itse1f. " the existence of
each of the two aspects of a contradiction in the process of the
deve10pment of a thing presupposes the existence of the other
aspect, and both aspects coexist in a single entity".150 Motion,
or the deve10pment of a thing, depends on the mutua1 interaction
of both aspects of the contradiction which are both present within .
the thing itse1f. " ••• in a given condition, each of the two
contrary aspects transform itse1f into its opposite". 151
For Mao, this is the "transmutation of opposites". Whi1e
at first this seems to re1y heavi1y on abstractions, Mao quick1y
moves to the concrete. Un1ike the writings of Hegel, and, to a
1esser extent, Lenin and Sta1in, Mao's writings are very specifie.
149Ibid • , p. 331.
150Ibid • , p. 337.
151Ibid •
112
Each point is reinforced by a common sense example.
The fact is that no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation. Without its opposite aspect, each looses the condition for its existence •••• Without life, there would be no death, without death, there would be no life •••• Without landlords, there would be no tenant-peasants; without tenant-~easants, there would be no landlords ••• 15
As for the transmutation of opposites, "by means of revolution
the proletariat, at one time the ruled, is transformed into the
ruler, while the bourgeoisie, the erstwhile ruler, is transformed
into the ruled and changes its position to that originally
occupied by Hs opposite".l53
When he said above that two opposite things can exist in a single entity and can transform themselves into each other because there is identity between them, we were speaking of conditionality, that ia to say, in givcn conditions things can be united and can transform themselves into each other, but in the absence of these conditions, they cannot constitute a contradiction, cannot coexist in the same entity and cannat transform themselves into one another •••• We May add that the struggle between opposites permeates a proceas from beginning to end and makes one process transform itself intQ another, that it is ubiquitous, and that struggle is therefore unconditional and aboslute.154
l52Ibid., p. 338. 153
Ibid., pp. 338-339.
l54Ibid ., pp. 342-343.
113
To explain the above Mao uses an analogy between a stone
and an egg. The egg has within itself the capability of becoming
a chickenbut the stone can never become a chicken by virtue of
its lacking these specifie features. Throughout his consideration
of contradiction Mao always views the process as a continuing one
in which it is necessary that movement always continue in the
dialectical path which he explained in On Practice. As Mao
writes as a Marxist he feels that "the struggle of the proletariat
and the revolutionary people to change the world comprises the
fulfillment of the following tasks: to engage the objective
world and, at the same time, their subjective world ,,155 For
Mao, like Fanon, the revolution is to be a force to change not
only the nation but also the individual.
In concluding our discussion of the philosophical basis
of Mao's theory of people's war we must see how he applies
contradictions to the struggle; we must see "the place of anta
gonism in contradiction". If we remember that On Contradiction
was an essay delivered by Mao as a lecture at the Anti-Japanese
Military and Political College in Yenan, it would seem that this
essay forms a link between Mao's strictly military writings
l55Ibid ., "On Practice", p. 308.
114
and Mao's phi1osophy, though they can not be artificial1y
divorced. For Mao's view of contradiction is po1itical1y
motivated and it is this violence which i~ capable of continuing
in the devel~pment of the contradiction between theexploited
and the exp1oiters.
The question of the struggle of opposites includes the question of what is antagonism. Our answer is that antagonism is one form, but not the only form, of the struggle of opposites. In human history, antagonism between classes exists as a particular manifestation of the struggle of opposites. Consider the contradiction between the exploiting and exploited classes ••• it is not until the contradiction between the two classes develops to a certain stage that it assumes the form of open antagonism and develops into revolution. Before it explodes, a bomb is a single entity in which opposites coexist in given conditions. The explosion takes place only when a new èondition, ignition, is present ••• It is highly important to grasp this facto It enables us to understand that revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society and that without them, it is impossible to accomplish Any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win po1itical power ••• Contradiction and struggle are universal and absolute, but the methods of resolving contradictions, that is, the form of struggle, differ'accordin~ to the differences in the nature of the contradic.tions. l 6
Mao, therefore, is the only author we have considered who
has based a concrete theory of people's war on a philosoph~cal,
156Ibid ., "On Contradiction", p. 343-344.
e· 115
as opposed to a vague political, outlook. While one may argue
that aIl Marxists base their view of people's war on the
question of contradictions it can be seen.from the authors
examined in this thesis that Mao is the only one who has made
this explicit in his framework. For Mao the basis for any form
of "just" struggle is the dialectical world outlook. Mao is the
only author who has taken this aspect of analysis as his base ana
built a framework applicable to China and the world around it.
Mao, like aIl the writers examined, agrees that the "tactical"
approaches to the struggle differ but he is explicit in the
formulation of the conception of the approach; his writings
.reflect an outlook which embraces more than just the actual
struggle. Mao's writings on people's war reflect a view which·
is concerned with the development of a society. Unlike Guevara
and Debray who see the struggle as being divided into two phases
Mao sees the struggle as a continuing one which does not end
until aIl the "antagonistic contradictions" have become "non
antagonistic".
We saw how General Giap carried the analysis of Guevara
and Debray to a higher level by including the political variable
as the most important one. Fanon was concerned with the cultural
revel of the society in regard to the process of decolonialization
116
but 1eft the individua1 to construct his new societyafter the
vio! 'lt strugg1e had been comp1eted. In viewing Mao~ s writings
we see that the leve1 of ana1ysis has been carried one step
farther. The strugg1e is a po1itica1 one but the process of
national 1iberation is not separate from that of the individua1.
It is equa1ly important for the individua1 to become 1iberated
as it is for the nation but they are both parts of the same
process which begin at the same time. While Giap and Fanon con-
ceive of the strugg1e as both affecting the individua1 and the
nation they do not see it as a process of changing the
individua1 - at least not in the same was as does Mao. They do
.not see it as part of a pro cess which seeks to free the indivi-
dual not on1y from an imperia1ist power but also from an imperia1
mental outlook. Mao sees the strugg1e, therefore, as liberating
individua1 and nation, not as a strugg1e to 1iberate the indivi-
dual without rep1acing his outlook with somethi~g different.
When Mao speaks, then, of the two stages of the Chinese
157 revo1ution, he is not dividing the strugg1e mechanistica11y
into stages as did Guevara but a framework in which the Chinese
Communist Party cou1d lead China into the socialist periode
157 Mao Tse-tung, The Se1ected Works of Mao Tse-tung, II, "On New Bureaucracy", op. cit. , Dividing the revo1ution into bourgeois and 1ater socialist phases is certain1y not the same as Guevara's conception of first, armed, and then peaceful transformation. Force is necessary in the first phase as both Mao and Guevara recognized but it is the po1itica1-military dichotomy which Mao rejects.
117
It i8 not a division of military and politic8 but of the
different roles of classes in China. For as we have seen, it
i8 the primary contradiction which Mao iS.referring to and the
different stages of the Chinese Revolution are based upon the
roles which these classes will play. In examining Mao's
framework of people's war we should keep in mind that we are
examining, for the most part, only that which pertains to the
winning of political power. This, however, is not divorced
from the individual and his remoulding. As we have seen, one
of the distinguishing features of Mao's writings is his
philosophical base which enables him to view the national and
individual aspects of the struggle as inseparable.
Mao begins his consideration of people's war with an
assessment of the conditions in China. Unlike Fanon who was
concerned with the pro cess of decolonialization in general,
Mao is concerned with only the Chinese people and.their path
toward national liberation.
Once we understand aIl these contradictions, we shall see in what a desperate situation, in what a chaotic state, China finds herself. We shall also see that the high tide of revolution against the 'imper~alists, the warlords and the landlords is inevitable, and will come very soon. AlI China i8 littered with dry faggots which will soon be
aflame. The saying, 'A single spark can light a prairie fire', is an apt description of how the current situation will develop. We need only look at the strikes by the workers, the uprisings by the peasants, the mutinies of soldiers and the strikes of students which are developing in many places to see that it cannot be long before a 'spark' kindles 'a prairie fire'.158
118
In his assessment of China's cultural level Mao found it
necessary to conduct a class analysis. It was for Mao to decide
which classes were counter-revolutionary, which classes neutral,
and which classes supported the revolution. It is very signifi-
cant that the first essay in Mao's Selected Works is his Analysis
of the Classes in Chinese Society. In concluding it Mao says,
" ••• it can be seen that our enemies are aIl those in league with
imperialism •••• The leading forces in our revolution is the
indus trial proletariat". 159
Mao's strategic and tactical considerations are never
abstractions; they are always related to actual circunistances
about which he is writing. While Fanon was concerned with the
role of three groups - the settler, the colonized, the colonizer -
l58Ibid ., l, liA Single Spark Can Light a Prairie Fire", p. 121.
159 Ibid., "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society", p. 19. Mao later came to feel that the,.peasantry would play the greatest role. In 1926 he was still influenced by the Comintern approach to the Chinese Revolution.
119
Mao's ana1ysis revolves around the role which each c1ass will
play in the revo1ut1on.
One of the major efforts to be made, therefore, dur1ng
the revolution is to form a united front of aIl the classes
which support the revo1ution.
The advocates of united front tact1cs say, if we are to make a proper estimate of the poss1b1l1ty of form1ng a broad revolut1onary national united front, a proper estimate must be made of the changes that may occur in the a1ignment of revo1utionary and counter-revo1utionary forces in China •••• In order to attack the forces of the counter revolution, what the revolutionary forces need today is to organize millions upon millions of the masses and move a mighty revolutionary army into action. 160
The establishment of the united front is essential for the
forming of a po1itica1 link between the ideology, Marxism-
Leninism, and the majority of the people. It is through the
United Front that people can be pol1tica11y and m1litarily
mobil1zed. It is the re1ationship of classes to the primary
contradiction which is most important for as classes become
more revo1utionary they become part of the front; the more
reactionary they become the less chance they have of being a
. part of the front.
160Ibid ., "On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism", pp. 164-165.
120
••• in forming a united front with the bourgeoisie, ••• the party of the proletariat must carry on a stern and resolute strugg1e on two fronts. On the one hand it is necessary to combat the error of neglecting the possibi1ity that th~ bourgeoisie may join in the revo1utionary struggle at certain times and to a certain extent •••• On the .. other hand, it is also necessary to combat the error of identifying the programme, po1icy, ideology, practice, etc. of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie.16l
But the united front must be established and led. In
his analysis of Why Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist
in China? Mao enumerates several reasons why red power emerged
and continues to existe He says, "another important condition
(is) that the Communist Party organization should be
strong and its policy correct".162 For Mao, then, the main-
stay of the revo1ution i9 the leadership of the Communist Party
with a correct policy •
••• in an era when the proletariat has already appeared on the po1itical stage, the responsibility for leading China's revolutionary war inevitably falls on the shoulders of the Chinese Communist Party. In this era, any revolutionary war will definitely end in defeat if it lacks, or
16lIbid ., II, "Introducing the Communist", pp. 289-290.
l62Ibid ., l, "Why Is Exist in China", pp. 66-67. policy must be correct.
It That Red Political Power Can Notice that Mao says that the
121
runs counter to, the leadership of the proletariat and the Communist Party.163
For Mao, the leadership of a Communist Party is a necessity.
lt is the Party as a representative of a class ideology which
leads the revolution. The Party is an organism which grows
with the revolution. But the organization is only as good as
its cadres.
Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people. 164
lt is the interaction between politics and the individual which
is important for Mao.
" 'War is the continuation of politics'. In this sense
war is politics and war itself is a politica1 action".165 As
we saw earlier there is a direct connection between war and
peace for Mao - they are different aspects of the same contra-
diction. "But war has its own particu1ar characteristics and
163Ibid ., "Problems of Strategy in China's Revo1utionary War" , p. 192.
l64Ibid ., II, "On Protracted War", pp •. 143-144.
l65Ibid ., p. 152.
e· 122
in this sense it cannot be eqûated with politics in general.
War is the continuation of politics by other ••• means".166"
The means to be used in war is a people's war •
••• the existence of a regular Red Armyof adequate strength is a necessary condition for the existence of Red political power. If we have local Red Guards only but no regular Red Army, then we cannot cope with the regular White Forces, but only with the landlords' levies. Therefore, even when the masses of workers and peasants are active, it is definitely impossible to create an independent regime, let alone an independent regime which is durable and grows daily, unless we have regular forces of adequate strength. l67
A people's army represents the class consciousness of those
who make it up. As such, it is necessary that "the Party
commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to con
trol the Party".l68
It is not the purpose of this thesis to examine Mao's
military tactics. 169 For the most part the discussion of Giap's
framework of peop1e's war covers the same tactical points that
166. Ibid., p. 153. 167Ibi~II, "Why Is It that Red Po1itical Power Can
Exist in China", p. 66.
168Ibid ., "Prob1ems of War and Strategy", p. 224.
169See Michael El1iot-Bateman, Defeat in the East, (London: Oxford University Press, 1967) for an excellent discussion.
e· 123
Mao covers. Guerilla warfare, both for Giap and Mao, is the
means to achieve military parity with the enemy before the
strategie counter-offensive.
For Mao, as to Giap, the agrarian revolution was a very
significant aspect of the struggle for it was around this that
the united front could be formed. It was through this that
base areas could be built. As base areas grew the governmental
structure could grow and with this expansion necessarily the
Party could gain experience. The agrarian revolution, like the
Anti-Japanese United Front, was part of the process of establish
ing a liriS with the peasants. In the case of the Vietnamese
Revolution the effort to expel the French could be compared to
the Chinese effort to overcome the Japanese. In both cases
nationalism played a very large role in uniting the people. But
as we have seen, nationalism was not the only factor.
In the Maoist view of people's war there is never any
doubt that poli tics must always be the controlling factor.
'Like Fanon, Mao bases his writings on an analysis of the cultural
level but goes beyond Fanon when he examines' specifie conditions
in China. For Fanon, the emphasis is on the individual in the
violent process of decolonia11zation; for Mao, the emphasis is
)
124
on the transformation of the nation and the individual. For
Fanon, the transformation is necessarily through violence;
for Mao, violence is necessary for national liberation but
not for individual liberation.
The factor which puts Mao beyond the others examined
in this thesis is his philosophie basis for change. The trans
formation of the individual is a necessity vhether the indivi
dual has reached a feudal, capitalist, socialist, or communist
society. The other writers are concerned only vith a very
limited and specifie perspective of change. Change to Guevara
and Debray can only be accomplished by military means. Giap
comes closer to Mao in method but is concerned vith struggle
only until the nation is liberated. Fanon is closest to Mao in
his emphasis on the individual but only the individual in the
violent process of decolonialization. For Mao, change is not
limited to violence. People's var continues after national
liberation.
e-CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
In examining differing frameworks of people's war we
have essentially been looking at one form of change. We have
seen' that conceptions of change revolve around one's view of the
problem - the author, the societal and institutional back
ground, the national environment, and an author's conception of
the revolution - a specifie framework of people's war. This
thesis has not tried to arrive at definitions; it is felt,
however, that having examined these three elements a useful end
product would be precise definitions of guerilla warfare,
revolutionary warfare, national liberation, and people's war.
These definitions are not meant to be ends in ther. . ives; they
are useful, however, in showing the different concept~ons of
struggle of the authors examined in this thesis.
Guerilla warfare: the use of irregulars, native or
otherwise, either by direct military or military-political
action to overthrow an established government or crea te in
security within a given country, territory, or city. As the
goal becomes more political in organization and function. In
most cases guerilla warfare must expand into regular warfare
e- 126
in order to overthrow an established government.
Revolutionary Warfare: the use ofmilitary and
political means to overthrow an exploiting regime and replace
1t with a regime controlled by the former exploited class.
National Liberation War: a revolutionary war where
either an exploiting class is overthrown or an occupying power
18 expelled from the country, or both.
People's War: a primarily political struggle being based
on an analysis of both the cultural level and class composition
of a given territory in which the fundamental goal is the
reorienting of a people's mental out look and this necessitates
the expulsion of the present government.o The process of national
liberation is seen as part of the process of individual libera
tion. In the first period of struggle the emphasis is on the
national aspect but never to the detriment of the individual.
In the second period the emphasis is on the individual. Thus,
the individual is the central focus in the entire process.
In order to achieve "victory" it is seen necessary to
mobilize at least a majority of the people within the area to
127
support first the national struggle and then the persona1
struggle." This mobilization is achieved essentially through
politica1 means and when military means are emp10yed it is
their po1itica1 effect which is important. The process is
viewed as a continuaI one as "contradictions" will always
exist within a society. However, the military aspect will
cease to be important when "antagonistic contradictions" r
both internaI and externa1 have ceased to existe
In fitting the writers discussed in this thesis to the
definitions above we shou1d remember that a1l the definitions
deal with change and although there is a progression from the
simpler to the more complex this does not mean that one form
is better than another. We must go back to revolutionary per-
spective and consider not only the method or approach which an
author envisages but also his reasons. The first" two parts of
this thesis have attempted to analyze the authors from their
perspectives. This third section will briefly examine each
author in terms of the four definitions offered above.
Guevara, as we have explained, is concerned primarily
with guerilla warfare. For Guevara, guerillawarfare is within
~he framework of both revolutionary and national liberation war
128
as th~goa1 is the expulsion of the Batista dictatorship.
But when we examine Guevara within the context of peop1e's
war we find that he has not ~onsidered the individua1 with
in the strugg1e except in so far as the individua1 within
the strugg1e except in so far as the ind J '~dua1 can con
tribute to the mi1itary victory. As Guevara exp1ained, he
has on1y interested in defeating imperia1ism. There is no
reason, therefore, to say that Guevara is writing about
peop1e's war.
Debray, on the other hand, is more concerned with the
po1itica1 in the sense that the revo1ution must be 1ed in its
final stages by a po1itica1 organization. Debray views
gueri11a warfare as a me ans to startthe "sma11 motor" but
gueri11a strugg1es are viewed from a mi1itary-po1itica1 point
of view with revo1utionary and national 1iberation war as his
writings are concerned with the overthrow of the Batista (or
any reactionary, Latin American) regime and its implications
for armed struggle in Latin America. Like Guevara, Debray is
not thinking of peop1e's war. Debray makes no effort to see
the connection between the individual and the process of
revo1ution. He considers many of the links between the ideology
and the strugg1e (Le. united front, vnaguard party) whicl:t pro
mote the political strugg1e as being counter-productive in
Latin America.
129
In viewing Debray's revolutionary perspective we came
to see why these formulations were necessary. But by separating
these without attempting to establish the' link by other means
~ Debray neg1ects the individual. Even though he views his book
as a polemic with specifid purposes we still find his con
ception of revolution very clear. While Debray says that he is
not considering an assessment of the classes of Latin America
in Revolution in the Revolution? his other works give only a
very superficial analysis. Perhaps the most important reason
why Debray is not speaking of people's war is that he never
sees the link between his foco and the individual both within
the foco and outside of it. Debray never discusses how the
foco grows, why the foc~ grows, or how the foco becomes a
political party. If it happened in Cuba as Debray feels it did,
there is no analysis of the development. Debray is concerned
only with the establishment of power in the nation's Capital and
not with how the individual fits into the process.
When we consider the writings of General Giap and Truong
Chinh we find that the emphasis has moved away from guerilla
warfare toward a stress on the actual war of national liberation.
Both Giap and Truong spend a good deal of time discussing the
guerilla action of the August Revolution but their analysis of
130
gueri11a strugg1e is important only as the strugg1e applies
to the liberation of the country. In their works we find
a much greater emphasis on the political aspects of the
struggle and see, for the first time, mention of the speci
fically po1itical part of the struggle, the agrarian revolution.
Thus, while not considering the individual specifically within
the process of people's war they are both concerned with the
individual within the process toward national liberation.
Giap and Truong have written specifically about the
Vietnamese struggle and their books are based on an examination
of conditions in Vietnam at that time. Giap has depended on
the Party to make this analysis but his view of people's war
depends on it. But Giap's emphasis is still on the expulsion
of the French and not on the cultivation of a new individual.
He speaks of peopleh war only to the extent that he recognizes
that one major way to form a united front is to carry out the
agrarian reform; this reform, however, is viewed as a means of
gaining support and not as a means of changing the peasant's
mental outlook. It would seem, therefore, that Giap is writing
about national liberation rather than peop1e's war though his
framework of revolutionary warfare contains some essential
aspects of people's war.
131
Fanon is not concerned withO
gueri11a warfare except as
it may be a means for the colonized to overthrow the colononized.
We have seen that Fanon is concerned with the struggle for
national liberation but he brings the struggle down to the
personal aspects and considers the individaul within the process.
But Fanon is concerned with the effects of the struggle on the
individua1 and not with the affect of the individual on the
struggle. He has based his judgements on both an assessment of
the class composition within Africa and othe cultural level of
Algeria. For Fanon, the process of national liberation is part
of the process of individual liberation but only to the extent
that the individual becomes involved through violence.
While Fanon do es not preach violence and can not be con
sidered racist as sorne have previously said his stress on the
violent aspects of the struggle indicate that there is no
chance for a peaceful t~ansition. While many wou Id agree that
change can only occur through a violent form when the overthrow
of an exploiting class is concerned Fanon does not consider
change as being possible in a non-violent fashion. He is interested
in change only as the decolonizing of a country and when the
exploit ers have been expelled the former exploited will be ready
to start the rebuilding. But where, according to Fanon, has the
132
change come about within the individua1 to make him capable
of this new outlook toward constructing rather than destroying?
True, Fanon has felt it necessary for a p01itical party to lead
the revolution but there is no mention of how the Party should
act as a catalyst when the violence ends.
It would seem, therefore, that violence itself is the
transmitting force. Like Debray, Fanon conceives . of the
actual role of violence as being the core of change; for Debray,
violence is limited to the struggle itself; for Fanon, violence
becomes the political agent that enduces and produces change.
While we might see the actual process of decolonization as the
political link between the individual and the reconstruction of
the individual and society there is not the link that Giap saw.
For Fanon, there is no counter part to the agrarian revolution.
While Fanon is discussing a framework of people's war, then, and
his framework involves a political aspect - decolonization -
his stress on the individual is motivated by his concern for the
individual only as it applies to the violent aspects. In part
one of this thesis we partially attributed this to Fanon's medical
training. Though Fanon speaks of and to the individual the
fundamentally political aspect of people's war is neglected.
While Fanon is concerned with national liberation and people's
133
war he is mostly concerned with the violence and violent phase
of it. Fanon emphasises the war aspect of people's war.
Though the individual is important it is only within the context
of the war.
In turning to the writings of Mao Tse-tung we find that,
like Fanon, the emphasis is on the individual but the emphasis
is on the changing of the individual's"mental outlook which is
not necessarily a part of the armed struggle. Mao views
guerilla warfare only as a means to achieve political organiza
tion, political leadership for the revolution, and military
victory. For Mao, the process of change is as important as
the process of the armed struggle - the emphasis of the armed
struggle is the change of the individual. We have seen how Mao
conceives of change. It is a dialectical path which leads to
the development of an individual whose mental outlook has changed.
But, whereas Fanon leaves the change to occur as a result of the
process of decolonization and violence Mao views change as a
result of the political guidance of the struggle and the
vanguard party.
For Mao, the process of developnlent would continue whether
~n a war of national liberation or after liberation. The move-
134
ment toward personal 1iberation is governed by the political
1deology of the vanguard party. Thus, during the struggle for
national 1iberati.on 1t is the Mandst Party which must lead
the struggle. In the struggle toward personal liberation it
1s also the Marxist Party which must 1ead. But the Party i8
only the embodiment of a class ide010gy. It is necessary that
the Party ref1ect this ideology; if it do es not, then it must
engage in struggle.
Mao began his analysis with a consideration of the
cultural level of China and a class analysis which oriented the
Revolution. The class analysis holds good for a violent
struggle for liberation of a non~violent struggle (but predicated
on violence) to overcome "non-antagonistic"'contradictions within
the society. For Mao, the conceptual framework of a people~s
war is the same whether violence is used or note The individual
is both the object and means for the revolution. Revolution is
viewed as one process of change in which it is necessary to use
force to overcome the exploiting class. But this process creates
the conditions which are continued in a later stage. The three
stages of protracted war - the enemy's strategie offense, pre
paration for the counter offensive, and our strategie counter
dffensive - can be applied to the individual.
135
In the beginning the inclividual's thought process is
governed by an exploiting ideology. The first task of the
'struggle is to move this into its second stage - the neutralizing
of this thought process. The third stage is achieved when the
peasanth thought process has been harnessed to the Revolution -
the new thought process. This analogy can be carried to a
peaceful struggle within Mao's conception of people's war.
Once the classes have become less antagonistic and no "antagonistic
contradictions" exist it is no longer necessary to consider the
first stage since this has been neutralized by virtue of no
exploit1ng classes remaining. It is still necessary, however,
to remould the thought process with the new ideology. It may
be necessary to engage in artificial revolutions like the
"Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" to cleanse both the
individual and the Party. But always the emphasis remains on the
individual and his position within a class society.
Mao's conception of people's war, then, is far broader
than the other frameworks considered in this thesis. Not only
does he consider the violent aspects of the struggle but he is
specifically interested in changing the individual both during
and after the violent aspect. For, as Mao has said, "The
people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making
of world history".170
l70Ibid ., III " , On Coalition Government", p. 257.
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