Stalin had been one of the early "guerrillaists" in the Red Army and when the civil war was over he stressed in a speech the importance of the rear in the fight against the White generals. But what has been interpreted by some writers as a manifesto of guerrillaism turns out to be, on closer scanning, nothing more than a reference to the "tacit sympathy, which nobody hears or sees" — scarcely a characteristic of the armed struggle.54 Stalin, the archdisciplinarian, forever suspicious of independent initiative, the leader who wanted to concentrate all decisions in his own person, was bound to regard partisan warfare with disfavor — except in extremis, and under the close supervision of the party and the secret police. When war broke out in 1941, great efforts had been made to strengthen Soviet artillery, tank units, the air force and other parts of the regular army. No such preparations had been made for partisan warfare.
In the light of these facts, the emergence of a cult depicting Lenin and Trotsky as great guerrilla strategists is difficult to understand and impossible to justify. Mao Tse-tung did not join this chorus; in his speeches and writings he did not attribute any special significance to the lessons of the Russian Civil War. Some of the blame for the cult rests with Western military historians, and theorists who "discovered" Lenin in this context in the 1950s and 1960s. In their search for the key to the mysteries of revolutionary warfare, they failed to discriminate between the various modes of revolutionary struggle in different ages, countries and societies. For both ideological and practical considerations, the Soviet approach to guerrilla war was as ambivalent as the Tsarist attitude. While not entirely ruling out its applicability in certain extreme situations, a political regime such as the Soviet Union, based on centralized control, order and discipline, could not tolerate an inherently disorderly system of warfare based on lack of central control and on individual enterprise. Furthermore, Soviet military thinking has always been oriented towards the concept of masses and large numbers, not the feats of small groups of intrepid men. Bolshevism derived some of its inspiration from the Jacobins, and the reliance on mass armies was part of this inheritance. In the ig20s and 1930s books on the civil war partisans were not uncommon, and there were films dedicated to the exploits of Shchors and Chapayev. But the patron of guerrilla warfare in the Soviet Union between the two world wars was not the army, but the secret services.55 Guerrilla warfare was interpreted as one specific aspect of intelligence and sabotage work behind enemy lines, to be carried out by highly trained individuals, or very small teams. The idea of a people's war on guerrilla lines was rejected as unfeasible not for the Soviet Union alone, but for the advanced capitalist countries as well; it was sporadically entertained as one of the forms the revolutionary struggle might nonetheless take in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Thus, as an instance of this occasionally qualifying attitude, the sixth Congress of the Comintern (1928) recommended that, "the situation permitting," Communists should proclaim slogans calling for national-revolutionary uprisings and the immediate formation of national-revolutionary guerrilla units. But the situation did not permit, the third (radical) period of the Communist International was followed by the conciliatory popular front era, and save for the Chinese Communists, acting quite independently of Moscow, no one heeded the Comintern resolution of 1928. Manuals were published and courses instituted in the twenties and thirties for tutoring and training in conspiratorial work and insurgency technique in major cities, but not one on guerrilla warfare.
Of the twelve chapters in a Soviet guide to insurrection published between the two world wars only one, the very last, deals with "revolutionary guerrilla methods."56 It was written by a young, "friendly, unassuming Indochinese revolutionary" named Ho Chi Minh. Ho argued that in the overall pattern of the class struggle guerrilla movements play the role of an auxiliary factor; they cannot of themselves achieve historic objectives, but can only contribute to the solution provided by another force — the proletariat. The peasant movement, however large, could not count on any conclusive success if the working class did not move. Ho predicted that Soviet power would initially establish itself in China in some province or group of provinces possessing a great industrial or commercial center such as Kwangtung, Hupeh or Hunan — not in Kansu or Kweiehow.57 Subsequent events in China and Indochina did not bear out these predictions; the guerrilla movement was not just an auxiliary factor, the working class did not move and Soviet power established itself far from the industrial centers. It has been suggested that Ho at the time may have known better but that he had to pay lip service to the collective wisdom of the Comintern. It is far more likely, however, that he changed his views only later, when he realized that Asian revolutionaries could not possibly wait for a working-class initiative and that the peasants would be the main force in the Asian revolution. Ho's essay included some valid observations; conditions for guerrilla warfare varied from country to country; the strength of the guerrilla was not in defense (because they were not strong enough for defensive action); guerrillas had to avoid decisive encounters if the circumstances and the balance of forces were not in their favor. But these insights had been common knowledge for centuries and there was nothing specifically Marxist-Leninist about them. Ho's specific predictions and guidelines were quite wrong; but like Lenin and Mao, he was an opportunist of genius. He was quick to recognize that if the workers were too weak or would not fight, peasant movements led by intellectuals constituted a promising alternative. In 1928 there was only one young Chinese leader who dissented from the collective Leninist wisdom that "the city inevitably leads the village"; but even Mao did not at the time advocate guerrilla warfare.
There were a few articles in 1937-1940 in Soviet periodicals about Mao's experience in northern China, but there is no evidence that Soviet military leaders took notice.58 Mao's famous treatise on guerrilla warfare was published in Russia only in 1952 as far as can be ascertained, years after it had first been translated into English. Guerrilla warfare was peasant warfare, and the Bolsheviks were, after all, primarily a working-class party.
Connolly and the Problem of Street Fighting
Among the few socialist thinkers of the early twentieth century who gave more than passing thought to military affairs was that highly unorthodox Irish Catholic revolutionary, James Connolly. Analyzing the lessons of the Russian revolution of 1905 as they might apply to his native country, he wrote that the tactics of the Moscow insurgents had been basically right; but for their miserable equipment, they would have seized the army's field guns. The rising was doomed because there were no simultaneous uprisings in other Russian cities and the peasantry had been hostile. But Moscow had shown that a well-defended line of houses was a position of strength. This surely had some important implications in relation to the Irish struggle. Ireland, Connolly acknowledged, was no ideal guerrilla country in the traditional sense, it had no mountainous passes or glens. But
a city is a huge mass of passes or glens formed by streets and lanes. Every difficulty that exists for the operations of regular troops in mountains is multiplied a hundred fold in a city. And the difficulty of the commissariat which is likely to be insuperable to an irregular or popular force taking to the mountains, is solved for them by the sympathies of the populace when they take to the streets.59
Connolly's observations, while superficially plausible, were grounded, in fact, on the old fallacies of nineteenth-century barricade fighting. Street fighting was admittedly difficult for regular troops, especi ally if they were untrained for this purpose and if the population were hostile. But a frontal collision constituted the very antithesis of guerrilla warfare. An insurgency such as Connolly envisaged would either lead within a few hours to victory or, more likely, to defeat, as it did in Dublin in 1916. A later generation of Irish insurgents, having digested the lesson, did not opt for street fighting. Looked at in retrospect, the Moscow rising of 1905 provided fresh hope for some revolutionaries, but far from being a panacea, it could well result in failure and ruin.
Ira
The history of the Irish struggle for independence from the time of Wolfe Tone's "United Irishmen" until the Easter Rising of 1916 is a chain of abortive conspiracies and defeats. Ireland was indeed, as Connolly had recognized, bad guerrilla country and the Irish insurgents were ill prepared to conduct that kind of fighting. Britannia still ruled the waves and could easily prevent arms reaching Ireland from the United States and the Continent. The Fenians were internally split and they could not keep a secret; forthcoming operations were widely discussed. The British secret service had effectively penetrated the ranks of the Irish nationalists; one of its agents operated for almost a quarter of a century in the leading councils of the American Clan-na-Gael.60 Last but not least, the clergy, however patriotically inclined, did not support military action; as Bishop Moriarity of Kerry said of the Fenians: "Hell is not hot enough nor Eternity long enough to punish such miscreants."
In the 1860s the Fenians enlisted several American officers of Irish extraction who had gathered guerrilla experience in the American Civil War. Conspicuous among them was a Captain McCafferty who had been one of Mosby's rangers. According to a colleague, he was essentially a man of action, who thought, quite mistakenly, that insurgent cavalry on the American pattern could achieve a great deal in Irish conditions:
He began by saying, "I believe in partisan warfare". Probably only O'Reilly and one or two more knew what the word "partisan" meant, but if he had said "guerrilla" warfare they would have understood him.61
McCafferty was to be in charge of the attack on Chester Castle in the uprising of 1867, but as so often in the history of Irish rebellions, either the British were forewarned or the Irish failed to gather in time for the operation. Later on McCafferty made an even more daring suggestion — the kidnapping of the Prince of Wales — but this scheme the Fenian leaders rejected.
It was only during World War I and its aftermath that large-scale armed struggle in Ireland became a reality. As Wolfe Tone had noted one hundred years earlier: "England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity."
The Easter Rising of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood was quickly and ruthlessly suppressed by the British armed forces, and fifteen of its ringleaders were executed. The Irish leaders had given up the old idea of guerrilla war in favor of an urban insurrection. But an urban insurrection could only succeed if it was not confined to one town, although in this case its indubitably poor preparation was not the determining factor; it is virtually certain that the rising would have failed even if it had received more widespread support. It should have been clear that for political reasons Ireland's opportunity would come only after the war; revolt at that particular time could have had a chance only if the British army had been in an advanced state of disintegration — which it was not.62
But if the Easter Rising of 1916 was a crushing defeat, it still gave fresh impetus to the nationalist movement; it helped to mobilize a whole new generation of activists to the Irish cause. The blood of the martyrs had not been shed in vain.63 By war's end it was obvious that Ireland would attain self-government, the only question now being how soon and on what conditions. In the December 1918 elections the Sinn Fein Republicans emerged as the strongest party by far; in January 1919 they convened the first Dail (parliament). Independence, however, was still not at hand and was to come only after three more years of bitter fighting.
Outstanding among the leaders of the Irish Volunteers (later the IRA) was Michael Collins, then in his late twenties. Intellectually a self-made man and a military amateur, Collins provided the very qualities which the Irish rebels had palpably lacked in the past, including an appreciation of the paramount need for strict organizational control and secrecy. As head of intelligence and later as chief of staff, he masterminded a strategy of revolutionary terror directed above all against the "G" (intelligence) branch of the British police in Ireland and their informers. Some hundred and twenty policemen were killed and almost two hundred injured in these attacks in 1919-1920; other victims included "collaborators" with the British such as judges and civil servants. In a venturesome raid in April 1919 Collins's men seized all the secret files of the Special Branch in Dublin. British intelligence, which Collins regarded as the single most dangerous enemy, was effectively paralyzed.64
Throughout 1920 the IRA continued its campaign of terror, its ambushes and raids against police barracks, the assassination of political enemies. It found it easier to cope with the fifty-thousand-odd British soldiers who had been concentrated in Ireland than with the Black and Tan volunteers and the Auxiliaries, many of them former British officers and NCOs. These anti-IRA irregulars, unlike the army, responded with a campaign of counterterror, militarily quite effective but politically counterproductive. Indiscriminate retaliation drove many waverers into the ranks of the IRA.
Outside the urban centers the IRA set up flying columns, but its members knew little about explosives and their use; they had, as a rule, only one week of collective training. Their task was to "inflict more casualties on an enemy force than those it would suffer."65 But in the event, the IRA sustained more losses than the British in men killed (about six hundred) between January 1919 and July 1921, when a truce came into force. If, according to Collins, the effective strength of the IRA was three thousand, it had lost almost a quarter of its men, not counting those injured.
In Ulster, the IRA attacks provoked fighting along sectarian lines and a Protestant backlash. Thus, when the war ended, the IRA guerrillas, while appearing all-powerful to the general public, "were in fact almost at the end of their tether. Losses had been heavy and arms were running dangerously short."66
The truce did not satisfy the extremists, some of them regarding the acceptance of the Free State perpetuating the division of Ireland as an act of betrayal. In the civil war that followed, Michael Collins was to be assassinated as were many other leading figures, the wounds still remaining open to this day. The IRA was declared illegal in the Irish Free State and, although it continued to exist and to engage in small-scale operations, it was reduced to insignificance for many years to come. It made the headlines in 1939 when bombs were placed in London and Coventry. But since this new campaign coincided with the outbreak of World War II, even its publicity value was short-lived and it petered out in the spring of 1940.
During the war the IRA established contact with Nazi Germany through Sean Russell, its chief of staff, and Frank Ryan who had fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. A radio link between the German intelligence and the IRA was established; it did not, however, contribute much to the German war effort.67 The circumstance is of interest only in view of the subsequent ideological development of the IRA, its official leadership in the 1960s veering sharply to the left.
During its first postwar heyday, from 1919 to 1922, the IRA was the military arm of a national movement. It was a genuinely popular little army — workmen of this and that kind, small farmers, shop assistants, employees. Their inspiration was fiercely nationalist and sectarian. It received financial help, as before and after, chiefly from the United States. And if it eventually achieved some of its objectives, it was not alone because the political constellation was auspicious, but also because it had had paralyzed enemy intelligence and created a general climate of lawlessness and fear. Its main weapon was not partisan warfare but individual assassination. It had few full-time soldiers; most of its members continued to pursue their regular civilian work, being mobilized on short notice for a few hours or a few days for special operations. Specific conditions in Ireland dictated the employment of terrorist methods rather than guerrilla warfare. It is doubtful whether IRA partisan bands roaming the countryside would have been able to hold out for very long; the cities, on the other hand, provided conveniently anonymous cover.
To combat a terrorist organization effectively, the British would have needed several more divisions. But after a long and costly war public opinion in Britain would not stand for this. Most people in Britain were sick and tired of the Ir
ish troubles; some Englishmen would admit that the Irish had been wronged and those who had no guilt feelings thought that Britain would be better off without Ireland anyway; they had reaped nothing but ingratitude, insults, and endless murderous attacks. If the Irish preferred secession to belonging to a great Commonwealth, they should be given the opportunity to go their own way. This, in briefest outline, was the psychological and political background to the decision granting Ireland independence. The establishment of the Free State brought the immediate terror to a halt, but, as the years were to demonstrate, by no means eliminated its sources and failed to prevent a major revival in Ulster five decades later.
Imro
Twentieth-century European guerrilla movements were usually separatist in character and, in view of the geographical dispersal of minorities, this frequently involved them in a three- or four-cornered conflict. It was one thing to appeal for a holy struggle against foreign rulers or invaders; it was far harder to come to terms with neighboring nationalities or minorities who did not share the same aspirations. Thus, the IRA in its clash with the British after World War I failed to establish its predominance in the north. And thus partisan activity in wartime Yugoslavia was hampered by the ethnic antagonism inside the country, and the Macedonian IMRO, which came into being in opposition to the Turks, was fighting Greeks and Serbs as well at one and the same time.
IMRO (the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) was founded in the 1890s when Christian villagers in Turkey, inspired by the example of the Serbs, Bulgars and Greeks, were roused into a striving for their own national independence. Because they were a small people and since their territorial claims conflicted not with one country alone, they early on elected to integrate into Bulgaria. Their struggle against the Turks began with isolated raids from across the border engineered by Macedonians who had already emigrated to Bulgaria. But the local population was something less than enthusiastic and it was only in later years, with the growth of the movement inside Macedonia itself, that guerrilla warfare became possible. IMRO's motto was "Freedom or Death," its banner a black flag bearing a crimson skull and crossbones. It aimed at a concerted national uprising, which took place on Ilin Den (St. Elias Day), 2 August 1903. About fifteen thousand Macedonian irregulars fought a total of forty thousand Turkish soldiers for seven weeks. More than a hundred Macedonian villages were completely destroyed in the course of this insurrection and five thousand Macedonians and Turks found their death. A frontal assault against the Turks was bound to fail, and if IMRO had hoped that the Bulgarians or the Russians would come to its assistance, it soon realized that it had been sadly mistaken. Its guerrilla tactics between 1896 and 1903 had been more effective; these had been small-scale operations, usually carried out by two or three volunteers so as to prevent Turkish punitive raids. The Macedonians had virtually established a state within a state, collecting taxes, even running their own "revolutionary postal service"; Turkish rule was confined to big towns such as Salonika — and only in daytime at that.68 According to Macedonian sources, 4,375 Turkish soldiers had been killed in 132 skirmishes during the guerrilla war prior to Ilin Den — no doubt a grossly exaggerated estimate.69 IMRO never quite recovered its influence in Thessaly and Turkish Macedonia after the defeat, which resulted in the migration of thousands of Macedonians to Bulgaria. Most of IMRO's subsequent operations took place in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The IMRO insurgents fought bravely, but their strategy had been at fault, along with its being based on a mistaken assessment of the international situation.
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