During its heyday urban terrorism had presented a problem for the American and West German police but politically it failed to become a force to be reckoned with. The white American revolutionaries, in the words of a friendly critic, were the children of middle-class families who knew no oppression. They substituted their own personal hang-ups and moods for the demands of "the people," claiming to speak for a people they had never met. The black militants were acting in a milieu far more congenial to violent action and their revendications were much less far-fetched. But they too found little sympathy for their cause within their community. Their protest was nationalist in inspiration, or, to be precise, racialist — a response to the racial oppression American Negroes had encountered throughout their history. The occasional invocations of Marxism should not be given too much weight, and the same goes, a fortiori, for the Weathermen and the SLA. Their problem was not the lack of freedom but a surfeit of freedom; their godfather was neither Lenin nor Mao but liberalism running wild.
Fanon
Except when they were made in conjunction with separatist national movements, all attempts in the 1960s to conduct guerrilla warfare in the economically developed, industrialized societies of Western Europe and the United States generally failed. Guerrilla warfare was more successful in Africa against the remaining European colonial outposts. Most African countries attained national independence without an armed struggle but some did not, and it was in these parts that fighting occurred and that attempts were made to formulate a specific African guerrilla doctrine. Of the ideologists of armed struggle, Frantz Fanon, a native of Martinique and a psychiatrist by profession, was the most important by far — not so much as regards his actual impact on guerrilla warfare, but certainly with regard to the repercussions of his writings outside Africa. Fanon did comment on occasion on military issues in the narrow sense — such as the question of arms supply to the Algerian FLN (which had become difficult to secure following French counterinsurgency measures).65 But it was not for such technical advice that his fame spread; rather he provided a new ideology on the cathartic role of violence in the African revolution. Violence, as he saw it, was a cleansing force, liberating the African from his inferiority complex, his despair and inaction; it made him fearless and restored self-respect; it bound the Africans together as a whole.66 "Violence alone, violence committed by the people, violence organized and educated by its leaders makes it possible for the masses to understand social truths and gives the key to them. The Mau Mau insistence that each member of the group strike a blow at the victim was a step in the right direction, since it required each guerrilla to assume responsibility for the death of a settler. Marxism-Leninism was acceptable as far as it went, but it did not encompass the colonial situation, ignoring its racist aspects.
The idea of violence is central to Fanon's thought but he was a stranger to Africa, and it is interesting to note that he has been far more widely read and admired among American blacks than among Africans. He also had many white admirers among the European and American left even though certain aspects of his views were sometimes regarded as embarrassing or disturbing: in part because such murderous humanism was difficult to digest, and partly because the origins of the cult of violence were not, to put it cautiously, altogether respectable. It is not really material whether Fanon had been familiar with Sorel's writings67 — the uncomfortable fact still remained that the ideological precursors of Italian Fascism, such as Corradini, had already argued that the proletarian nation has a moral obligation to resort to noble violence. Mussolini himself had declared that there was a violence that liberated and a violence that enslaved, a moral violence on the one hand and a stupid, immoral violence on the other. Whereas Sorel had created his mystique of violence in the context of the struggle of a working-class vanguard, Fanon saw the peasantry and the Lumpenproletariat as the spontaneously revolutionary forces. The peasants, with nothing to lose and everything to gain, he argued, were the first to discover that violence paid off. The working class, however, pampered by the colonial regime, was in a comparatively privileged position. The Marxist idea about the history making role of the urban proletariat had been disputed before by Wright Mills and others: but Fanon went even beyond Bakunin in his enthusiasm for the role of "the hopeless dregs of humanity," the pimps, petty criminals, hooligans and prostitutes. He thought that their revolutionary potential was enormous and, if the insurgents did not give it full attention, colonialism would make use of it.68 This concept was not likely to endear him to the Communists and neither was his argument that there was "no true bourgeoisie" in Africa.
The critics argued that Fanon had got his facts wrong, that he brought confusion and division to the revolutionary movement.69 In fact, Fanon was more acute than his critics; the Lumpenproletariat (given a broader definition than his own) was about as patriotic as the rest of the population, and did play a part in the armed struggle. There were few workers in the guerrilla units simply because there were not many of them in Africa in the first place; the rank and file consisted of peasants. In other respects Fanon revealed a naïveté uncommon among students of the human psyche. He argued that the people who played a violent role in the national liberation would allow no one to set themselves up as "liberators"; one could hardly think of a more mistaken prediction of the political future of Africa. It is true that on various occasions he expressed grave misgivings about the political regimes likely to emerge after decolonization which, he feared, would only constitute a "minimal readaptation." He suspected that the new leaders would not heed his appeal to turn their backs on European civilization, to destroy European institutions, to make an end, not only to colonial rule, but also to the corruption of the settlers, to the brightly lit towns with their asphalt and garbage cans.
Fanon died at the early age of thirty-six. His influence on the African political elites was not lasting; their main interest was not in the cultural aspects of the African revolution; they were preoccupied with economic and administrative problems, or with simply bolstering their own positions. What Fanon had written on the evils of bureaucracy and one-party, one-leader dictatorships was not of the slightest use to them.70
Cabral
Passing on to the writings of Amilcar Cabral, one descends from the rarified heights of existentialism to the well-trodden paths of Marxism-Leninism, from a Dostoyevskian novel to sober and unexciting political-socioeconomic analysis. Cabral, who hailed from the Cap Verde islands, was assassinated in Conakry in 1972 by political rivals. Like many other guerrilla leaders in the Portuguese colonies, he was of mixed mulatto rather than of pure Negro origin and, like Mondlane, the head of Frelimo, he married a white woman. He studied agriculture in Lisbon, became a Leninist, and for several years worked as an adviser to the Portuguese government in Africa. Cabral agreed with Fanon about the necessity of an armed struggle. Although he wrote from time to time about the liberating role of violence without which there could be no national liberation, he never engaged in the fetishization of violence. From time to time, he even submitted offers to the Portuguese authorities to negotiate a settlement. Like Fanon, he stressed the importance of the participation of African women in the struggle for liberation, and agreed with Guevara's thesis that there was no need to wait for a revolutionary situation, one could create it.71 In contrast to Fanon's emphasis on psychological and cultural issues, however, he was far more interested in economic development. While Fanon hardly ever mentioned the role of the political party in the struggle, this was a central issue for Cabral, whose assessment of the forces likely to support the armed struggle also differed greatly from that of Fanon.
To begin with Cabral and his comrades of PAIGC faced great difficulties in winning over the peasants. The slogan "the land to him who works it" could not be applied to Guinea-Bissau, as he admitted, because there the land did belong to the peasants; neither were there big land holdings — the land was village property. Without concentrations of foreign settlers (Cabral wrote), it was not at all easy t
o prove to the peasant that he was being exploited, as Fanon had argued.72 Extreme suffering alone did not produce the prise de conscience needed for the national liberation struggle.
Cabral's view on the role of the petty bourgeoisie in the armed struggle is of considerable interest; he admitted that in Guinea-Bissau, as in other parts of Africa, it played a leading role in the struggle. Yet, economically, it was without a power base and hence could not seize political power. The historical dilemma facing it was in Cabral's words either to betray the revolution or to commit suicide as a class.73 This assumption was not however shared by a close and very sympathetic observer of the Guinean scene, who, on the contrary, reached the conclusion that the lower middle class was the natural holder of power in tropical Africa because it was the only class possessing knowledge, know-how and organization.74
The political party which Cabral founded was organized according to the Leninist principles of "democratic centralism," and though its statutes provided for "collective leadership," all important decisions were taken by Cabral himself. He acted not only as head of the Central Committee, and as commander in chief, but also as secretary for political and foreign affairs. While expressing strong support for the Soviet Union, he tried not to become implicated in the Soviet conflicts with Cuba and China. The Chinese initially supported PAIGC but later grew markedly cooler in view of Cabral's "opportunism" vis-à-vis Moscow.
Cabral had no military experience when he launched the guerrilla war but he devoted more time and energy to providing guidelines for the armed struggle than most other African guerrilla leaders. PAIGC enjoyed several important advantages in its fight. The army facing it represented the weakest of all European colonial powers; when the insurrection broke out there were altogether one thousand Portuguese soldiers in Guinea-Bissau. (The total number of inhabitants was about half a million.) Furthermore, PAIGC had a permanent base in neighboring Conakry for the training of its cadres and for supplies. (There was no such base to support guerrilla warfare in the Cap Verde islands and no armed struggle took place there.) Early on in the campaign, almost one-half of Guinea-Bissau passed into the hands of the PAIGC. Admittedly, this was the less important part; the Portuguese had never really controlled the whole country, and Cabral noted that "we had established guerrilla bases even before the guerrilla struggle began." Within a year or two after the start of the war, Cabral's forces organized semiregular units and popular militias, and soon a Northern and Southern front came into being.75 The Portuguese forces were too few in number to engage in systematic on-the-ground attacks against rebel bases, and their air force insufficiently strong to inflict decisive damage on the rebels. The greatest obstacle with which PAIGC had to contend in the early phase of the struggle was the tribal structure of the population. There was no lack of enthusiasm to join the struggle, but guerrilla chieftains tended to act independently; there were, in Cabral's words, "isolationist tendencies.' The command decided to carry out a major purge and at a later stage it became official policy to appoint a member of one tribal group as commander of another.76 Furthermore, PAIGC had to contend with rival groups supported by Senegal. PAIGC carefully avoided criticizing religious beliefs and superstitions and did not ban the use of fetishes and amulets (Mezinhas), on the assumption that the guerrillas would soon learn that a "trench was the best amulet" (Cabral). It should be noted in passing that the religious issue was of considerable importance to most African liberation movements. Replying to European left-wing criticism, an Algerian writer stressed that in a colonial country, where the dominant religion was persecuted, rejection of Islam was a sign of snobbery on the part of a Western-assimilated, intellectual elite, who were not only detached from the people but neutralized and corrupted by the ideology of the oppressor.77 The journal of the FLN frequently noted that, of all the Islamic peoples, the Algerians were perhaps the most attached to their faith.78 But a distinction must be drawn between the Algerian rebels, most of whom were devout Muslims quite irrespective of whether Islam was "persecuted" or not, and the Marxist-Leninists, who tolerated religion for tactical reasons, hoping that sooner or later it would disappear.
Cabral's realistic approach can also be gauged from his attitude towards nationalism and Panafricanism. He was on close terms with other African revolutionary leaders, but unlike Fanon, or Nkrumah in his last years, he did not think that African unity was an aim attainable in the forseeable future. He was perhaps the most intelligent, certainly the most sober, of the African guerrilla leaders; comparisons with Guevara, therefore, seem a little far-fetched. Marxism-Leninism was the great formative influence in his youth, but when in later years he referred to the overriding importance of the "historical reality" of each people, the fact that social and national liberation were not for export, the necessity of conducting policy and warfare according to widely varying local and national conditions, these assessments reflected the maturing of a mind not given to slavish imitation of foreign models. Cabral paid his respects both to the Kremlin and the pope; but as the years passed, the specifically African elements in his thought reasserted themselves to a certain extent. Like all intellectuals in backward countries, he was a socialist, but not of the democratic-socialist variety. His socialism was largely synonymous with nationalism, anti-imperialism, and national liberation, an ideology very different from the European socialist tradition and impossible to define within the language of that tradition.
Fatah Doctrine
Many guerrilla wars took place in the Middle East and North Africa in the postwar period — from Algeria to Kurdistan, from southern Sudan to Dhofar in southern Arabia. But only the Palestinians in their struggle against the state of Israel developed a more or less coherent strategic doctrine. Its military models were highly eclectic in character; there were innumerable references to the lessons of China, Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria and other wars, even when these were of little relevance to Arab-Israeli conflict.79 In their choice of tactics, the Palestinians were more innovative: the Cubans apart, they were the first to hijack planes on a large scale; they dispatched letterbombs; they attacked Israeli nationals abroad and non-Israeli Jews. Their operations were launched from bases outside Israel and some were undertaken by foreigners rather than Arab nationals (the Lod airport massacre for instance). But these innovations would not be discussed on the theoretical level. On the contrary, the leading Palestinian organizations dissociated themselves from operations which made for bad publicity. They would be attributed to some new ad hoc organization, of which no one had heard before, and which would evanesce as suddenly as it appeared. Fatah doctrine adopted guerrilla warfare as the most suitable approach for the destruction of Israel; it was skeptical of the Arab governments' adherence to conventional warfare. The Palestinians did not trust the Arab governments on the assumption that even if they were to decide to go to war and succeed in defeating the Israelis, this would not result in the destruction of Israeli society — the ultimate aim of the Palestinians. Furthermore, the conflict had to be Palestinianized for psychological reasons: having tasted the bitterness of defeat, the shame ought to be wiped out by the Palestinians themselves. Echoing Fanon, the spokesmen of Fatah argued that violence has a therapeutic effect, inculcating courage, purifying the individual, and forging a nation.80 For a variety of reasons the Palestinians wanted to emulate the Cuban example. The wars in China and Vietnam, unlike the Palestinian struggle, had been sponsored by Communist parties; furthermore, Mao had uttered doubts as to whether a protracted war was at all possible in small countries. Conditions in Algeria had been different, where a great majority of the Arab inhabitants supported the FLN against a minority of French settlers. Moreover, unlike Algeria, most of Israel was a plain and thus unfavorable guerrilla territory. Again unlike Algeria, the insurrection had to be prepared for from outside the borders of the state.81
Palestinian Arab doctrine frequently referred to the formation of a "revolutionary vanguard," to a "revolutionary explosion," to various stages in the struggle for liberation, but
these phrases were simply copied from other guerrilla movements. Less vague were the explanations about the aims: there would be a long series of small battles, the Israeli enemy would be worn down, the army would constantly have to deploy strong forces against the fedayeen. The financial burden would become intolerable, foreign investment would cease, immigration would be discouraged, and there would be growing political polarization within Israel. The rise in casualties would create a climate of confusion and fear, the "grievance community" would widen, and eventually the Israelis would realize that unless they successfully resisted Zionism, they would be crushed by it.82
The critics of the Palestinians have argued that theirs was neither a war of national liberation nor a guerrilla war. It was not a war of national liberation because the Palestinians did not want to liberate the inhabitants of Israel, but to replace them: it was, in other words, a conflict between two peoples for the same territory. The Palestinians counterclaimed that the Israelis are neither a nation nor a people. The Jews were to be thrown into the sea according to an earlier Palestinian guerrilla doctrine; after 1968 this slogan was no longer used. The aim was not physical destruction but merely the return of the Arab refugees and the establishment of a democratic, secular state. The slogan of the "democratic state," however, created further ideological difficulties: the guerrilla organizations had to insist at the same time on the Arab character of the future democratic state, intending it to be an inalienable part of the wider Arab homeland. Because the Palestinian movements failed to establish bases inside Israel, the guerrilla nature of their operations was open to dispute. If agents who were not Arabs were enlisted to hijack airplances that were not Israeli, this was certainly not a "people's war" in any meaningful way. The spokesmen of the Palestinians would answer that all that counted was the political effect, namely to publicize the Palestinian cause all over the world.
Guerrilla Warfare Page 49