In practice Chinese policy was conducted on pragmatic lines: the competition with the Soviet Union for influence in the Third World no doubt played a greater role than did ideological considerations. The Chinese have supported certain guerrilla movements because, in the main, their rivals were assisted by the Russians; the political orientation of the factions was by no means the deciding factor. Thus the Chinese supported ZANU against ZAPU, UNITA and GRAE against MPLA, SWANU against ANC. In the ideological exchanges between Peking and Moscow, the question of revolution and the armed struggle in Africa, Asia and Latin America has been one of the central issues. The Chinese argued that these were the most vulnerable areas under imperialist rule and "the storm centers of the revolution."97 They accused the Soviets of revisionism, pusillanimity, defeatism and capitulationism, of trying to demoralize the revolutionary movements. But in the final analysis, the policies pursued by the Soviet Union and China vis-à-vis national liberation struggles and guerrilla wars were not that dissimilar, whatever the doctrinal differences.
Counterinsurgency and the Interpretation of Guerrilla Warfare
The spread of guerrilla warfare after 1945, and the many setbacks suffered by Western armies and local government forces against the insurgents, caused much heartsearching among political leaders and military commanders; it also precipitated the emergence of new doctrines of counterguerrilla warfare. In the present context these doctrines are of interest only insofar as they attempt to explain the essence of revolutionary warfare. Since some proponents of these new theories were apparently unfamiliar with previous guerrilla wars and of the history of revolutionary movements, they tended to assume that the phenomenon was of recent date. It was designated "subversive warfare" or "revolutionary warfare," whereas counterinsurgency was termed "modern warfare."98 In the words of one author, "Mao Tse-tung was the first to treat guerrilla battlecraft as a proper subject of military science and nobody has made a greater contribution to the guerrilla strategy than he. . . ."99 At the very least Mao was said to have been the first to pull together into a single operational theory the disparate ideas and data previously available, and to have abstracted a set of principles.100 Such false assumptions about historical origins may well appear of little practical consequence, but this is not so; for Mao, after all, was a "Marxist" and hence the conclusion that the study of Marxism would provide the key to modern, revolutionary, subversive, guerrilla warfare. The works of Marx, Engels and Lenin were subjected to minute examination, all their sayings about war and civil war were collected and analyzed, as though their writings have relevance to what happened in Indochina, Algeria, Cyprus, Kenya, Latin America and the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s. French generals and colonels were particularly attracted by Mao's thoughts on total war and its political function and they became almost as enthusiastic as the young Chinese Communists waving the Little Red Book at the time of the cultural revolution.101 A strong philosophical-theological element in French thought developed in the 1950s; this was reflected, for instance, in General Nemo's aside on guerrilla warfare: "There is no true war but religious war." The new doctrine became a new orthodoxy and was accepted by the Ecole de Guerre in 1956; the Algerian war was waged according to the lessons learnt in Southeast Asia.102 The proponents of the doctrine of "modern warfare" were among the first to realize that in the age of the bomb, nuclear war was out of the question, conventional war unlikely, but there were good prospects for revolutionary wars. They noted, again correctly, that the French army (and Western armies in general) were quite unprepared to counter such wars from a military-technical point of view and, even more so, in view of their lack of psychological preparation and political sophistication. As they saw it, the third world war already had begun. There was one enemy from Hanoi to Algiers — international Communism.103 True, in some instances the enemy was merely the unconscious tool of Communism but this hardly mattered in practice. The guerre revolutionnaire could be effectively combatted only if, at an early stage, strong measures were taken against subversion, for otherwise it would lead inevitably to guerrilla warfare. This meant, in practical terms, turning the rebels' organizational weapons and propaganda against them — to combat fire with fire.104 Some theorists of guerre révolutionnaire saw the main problem as the indoctrination of the masses, the conquest of hearts and minds; whereas others, such as Trinquier and Godard, thought that the FLN had succeeded through terror and coercion, and that (Western) propaganda could only succeed once the physical threat was removed. Yet other proponents of this school chose to emphasize the very real grievances underlying the Algerian revolution.105
Policies such as those proposed by these theorists could not possibly be carried out within the framework of a democratic society — hence the great frustration they felt. They were sure that they could win the war, but only on condition that they were given a free hand. Politically some of them tended towards right-wing Catholicism, others to "national Communism." While Communism was the enemy from which they wanted to save France, they held the highest admiration for their foes and the greatest contempt for liberal democracy with its self-deception about the nature of the danger facing it, its irresolution and cowardice. One of the leading advocates of revolutionary warfare told an American correspondent that he was a "Communist without doctrine," and Trinquier stated that if he was forced to choose between Communism and international capitalism, he would opt for the former.106 Ten years later France partly opted out of NATO, ideological-military fashions in Paris changed, and the defense of Christian (or Western) civilization against international Communism in North Africa gave way to close military and political collaboration with yesterday's enemies.
The impact of Maoism on the French generals was by no means unique; perhaps even more dramatic was the influence on the young Portuguese officers fighting in Africa of Frelimo and Cabral's theories. From Frelimo they learned the principles of conspiracy, from Cabral the theory about the "progressive role" of the petty bourgeoisie in the social struggle. Since they too were of petty bourgeois origin this doctrine suited well their social position and their political aspirations. Thus the counterinsurgents of 1973 turned into the "revolutionaries" of 1974, a modern edition of the story of Saulus-Paulus.
American thinking on guerrilla warfare was influenced by the approach of modern political science, mostly behaviorist in character; there was, as one critic noted, a tendency to concentrate on techniques of manipulation and control and administrative measures.107 There was also the same trend as among the French to see in guerrilla warfare more than meets the eye; the military philosophy of Mao Tse-tung "is much more than it at first seems to be" wrote one author, and another noted that "modern guerrilla movements are armed with elaborate psycho-political weapons."108 Compared with Pancho Villa or with Zapata these observations were no doubt of a certain validity; in China, Vietnam and elsewhere, guerrilla warfare was not just a localized insurrection or old-fashioned banditry but part of an overall political strategy. But this had been the case, mutatis mutandis, in other guerrilla wars in ages past. The key to Mao's success and to that of the Vietminh lay not in the elaborate character of their psycho-political weapons but on the contrary in its simplicity. The failure of Communist guerrilla movements in some countries and the success of non-Communist insurgents in others ought to have been sufficient proof that "Marxism was not the solution to the riddle. The real explanation is, of course, that the former colonial powers no longer had the strength to hold on to their possessions and, at the same time, classless intellectuals had managed to establish themselves as the vanguard of the masses in the underdeveloped countries. "Since in a backward country all classes of the population with the exception of a thin oligarchic stratum and a few merchants, feel cheated and exploited by foreigners, it is fatally easy to work up a head of steam behind any nationalist movement that promises to end this state of affairs."109 These national revolutionaries may turn to any radical ideology combining socialist and nationalist elements; they cannot possibly em
brace liberalism and democratic rule. Democracy has flowered only in the presence of certain historical conditions which in most Third World countries do not exist and which elsewhere too have progressively weakened.
Some of the writings of American counterinsurgency experts contain much that is of interest and deals with the technique of guerrilla warfare, conspiracy, the preparation of armed insurgency, the motives of guerrilla fighters, the role of propaganda, and other aspects. But for a realistic explanation of the wider political context one looks in vain — not because the military or bureaucratic mind is incapable of understanding the ideological subtleties of highly sophisticated guerrilla movements; there is nothing subtle about them. It is not that these writings are necessarily too prejudiced: on the contrary, there is quite often a tendency to lean over backwards and give the enemy the benefit of all possible doubt. Thus the Field Manual of the U.S. Army on the motives of guerrillas: "Resistance begins to form when dissatisfaction occurs among strongly motivated individuals who cannot further their cause by peaceful and legal means."110 As if there was no dissatisfaction in every known society, and people unable or unwilling to further their cause by peaceful means. A strong modern dictatorship, whether Communist, Fascist or any other variety, has nothing to fear from these dissatisfied, highly motivated individuals, however deep and justified their grievances. Dissatisfaction there is always, but resistance only has any chance of success against a liberal-democratic regime, or an old-fashioned, ineffectual authoritarian system.
British authors on the subject have been inclined to take an empirical attitude towards guerrilla warfare; while stressing the need for social and political reform, they have reservations about the French and American concepts of psychological warfare. As Julian Paget noted, the cause of the guerrilla has to be simple, inspiring and convincing.111 If French writers such as Trinquier thought that the support of the population was the conditio sine qua non of victory, was it not true that EOKA killed more Greeks than British, and that the same applied, as regards their local populations, to the Malayan guerrillas, the Vietcong, the Fatah, the Mau Mau and others? The great importance of an effective intelligence system and of territorial defense was noted by these authors; the French authorities had not been aware that the Algerian nationalists had established a combat organization in Cairo in 1954 and, as a result, were taken by surprise by the armed insurrection. There was no territorial defense in either Malaya or Algeria; North Africa, an area four times bigger than France, was soldiered by fifty thousand French soldiers, and as a result the French lost Aurès and Kabylia at the very beginning of the rising.112 McCuen detected three main phases in an urban insurgency: organization, civil disorder, and terrorism. The French author Hogard discerned five stages in guerrilla warfare, with agitators fomenting resentment in the first stage to a general offensive in the last. Brigadier Kitson noted that in most guerrilla wars there was an incubation period of several years; it lasted four years in Cyprus, the Philippines and Kenya, three years in Malaya. It was during this period (of the mobilization of the masses) that the movement was most vulnerable.113 But in Algeria the incubation period lasted only for eight months, and in Cuba there was no incubation period at all. Robert Thompson, who acquired much experience in revolutionary warfare in Malaya and Vietnam, also pointed to three stages: subversion leading to insurgency, guerrilla warfare, and lastly the takeover. He saw the most vital feature of guerrilla war in organization; he held little sympathy for the view that it was a spontaneous uprising of the people, directed against a repressive, inefficient and corrupt government. The main weakness of the West, Thompson wrote, lay in the attitude of the intellectual community which never gave its own government the benefit of the doubt, even though a Communist regime might prove far more repressive. A similar point was made by the French author Jean Baechler: in a pluralistic political system there was inevitably a party in favor of a negotiated peace. The prime strategy of the insurgents was to try to turn this party into the majority. If the insurgents held out militarily long enough for war weariness to set in, they would win the war.114 According to Thompson, the aim of revolutionary war, in contrast to guerrilla war, is political. It might perhaps be more correct to say that in a Communist-led guerrilla movement political and military strategy are more closely connected. For the aim of any war is political even if this is not clearly stated or perceived. Revolutionary war, as Thompson defined it, provides a technique for a small ruthless minority, with neither a good cause nor genuine popular support, to overthrow a government.115 When the organization was good and the cause weak, the strategy of a protracted war was called for. Thus it was essential to assess at the outbreak of any guerrilla war (i.e., during the second phase of revolutionary war) whether its organization or its cause was the vital factor. If organization were the vital factor, the revolutionary movement could not be defeated by political or social reforms but only by superior organization. Thompson's formula (given here in the briefest detail) is one of the more interesting contributions to the understanding of guerrilla warfare. But it still left a great many questions open, inevitably, perhaps, because reality is always richer and more complicated than any forinula, however ingenious. Every movement, revolutionary or not, has a cause, and whether this is "good" or "bad," "strong" or "weak" depends upon a great many factors that defy measurement. It depends above all on the correlation of force — not just military force — in a given country. A gifted leader (or a demagogue) can work up enthusiasm for an almost nonexistent cause. It depends, needless to say, on the political culture of the country. In the early phase of most guerrilla wars, accident is perhaps more important than any other single factor. It is doubtful whether the Chinese Communists would have won if Mao had indeed been killed in the late 1930s, as the Soviet press announced at the time. It is almost certain that the Yugoslav partisans would not have lasted beyond winter 1941 but for Tito, and the Cubans were the first to admit that without Castro the invasion of Cuba would have failed.
Counterinsurgency theorists all agree that guerrilla warfare is cheap, and the fight against it very costly indeed. The budget of the Algerian FLN was about thirty to forty million dollars a year, whereas the French spent a sum of this magnitude in less than two weeks. The cost of killing a single rebel in Malaya was more than two hundred thousand dollars. Writers on counterinsurgency have pointed to the great importance of outside support in guerrilla war, of supply lines and sanctuaries. They noted that guerrilla wars have started almost unnoticed in some countries (Vietnam), and with a big bang in others (Cuba, Algeria). They drew attention to the fact that the size of basic units varied from country to country according to geographical and other conditions; in Cyprus the basic unit consisted of five to eight men, elsewhere it was much larger. The investigations into the origins of guerrilla movements usually raised more questions than were answered. Many writers on the subject have stressed the close connection between guerrilla war and agrarian unrest. J. L. S. Girling maintained that Chinese Communism was based on peasant support, but he also noted that the Chinese (and the Vietnamese) leaders later turned against peasants; in any case, he attributed rural poverty more to overpopulation than feudal abuse.116 David Galula observed that the slogan "land to the tiller" was unlikely to be very effective in northern China where seventy-six percent of the land was in the hands of the owners, and twenty-two percent more in the hands of part-owners; the redistribution of land, on the other hand, could have been a factor of greater importance.117 The land grievances on which the propaganda of the Mau Mau leaders focused had been relatively minor. Land tenure was not an issue at all in GuineaBissau. These and other illustrations show that the connection between agrarian unrest and guerrilla warfare is more tenuous than some observers have claimed.
It has been asserted that nationalism alone could not explain the fact that Algerian farmers were ready to risk their lives: they summoned up such resolution only when they felt morally alienated from their rulers.118 But the great-grandfathers of the A
lgerian guerrillas had fought for many years under Abd el-Kader without any sense of moral alienation. Liberal observers usually pointed to the link between guerrilla war, social change, and the satisfaction of popular aspirations. This theory has been formulated most succinctly by Eqbal Ahmad:
Organized violence of the type used in revolutionary warfare is discouraged, rarely breaks out, and so far has not succeeded in a single country where the government made a genuine and timely effort to satisfy the grievances of the people. ... A regime unwilling to satisfy popular aspirations begins to lose legitimacy. This results in the moral isolation of the incumbents, the desertion of intellectuals and moderates. . . . Popular support for the guerrilla is predicated upon the moral alienation of the masses from the existing government. Conditions of guerrilla warfare are inherent in a situation of rapid social change. The outbreak normally results mainly from the failure of a ruling elite to respond to the challenge of modernization.119
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