This takes us back to the grievance theory. Unfortunately, grievances are part of the human condition: they always exist, however perfect the society. Furthermore, there is no way to measure the intensity with which grievances are felt. Even if a "grievance scale" did exist, it is by no means certain that a revolutionary war is more likely to break out in a country replete with grievances. Guerrilla war succeeded in Cuba but failed in other Latin American countries despite the fact that Cubans had less objective reason to feel aggrieved than many other Latin Americans. The guerrilla victories in Yugoslavia and Albania (and in many other countries) had nothing whatsoever to do with modernization; rapid social change was not the issue in China in 1940, or in Vietnam in 1950. A democratic, or semidemocratic regime unwilling to satisfy popular aspirations, indeed gradually loses legitimacy. A totalitarian regime, on the other hand, can afford to disregard popular aspirations without fearing that it will be "morally isolated," or that the moderates and intellectuals will desert it. If revolutionary war has usually failed in democratic societies this does not mean that the grievances are insubstantial. It simply shows that some societies are less violent than others.120 History has demonstrated that guerrilla war stands a better chance of success against foreign domination than against one's own kind — nationalism is, by and large, the single most potent motive force. But nationalism per se, pure and unalloyed, is an abstraction; in· the real world it appears only in combination with other political and social concepts, and programs. It is in this context that the infusion of radical — not Marxist — ideas takes place.
*On some occasions Soviet support was apparently given to urban terrorist groups in Western countries. Such assistance was not, however, given openly but through various intermediaries such as the Cubans.
9
A Summing Up
Guerrilla wars have been fought throughout history by small peoples against invading or occupying armies, by regular soldiers operating in the enemy's rear, by peasants rising against big landowners, by bandits both "social" and asocial. They were infrequent in the eighteenth century, when strict rules for the conduct of warfare were generally observed. Guerrilla methods were used in the southern theater in the American War of Independence and in the Napoleonic age by partisans in countries occupied by the French (Spain, southern Italy, Tyrol, Russia). With the emergence of mass armies in the nineteenth century, guerrilla warfare again declined but it lingered on in the wake of major wars (the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the Boer War) and in the campaigns of national liberation movements (Italy, Poland, Ireland, Macedonia). Furthermore, guerrilla tactics played an important role in nineteenth-century colonial wars of which the campaigns of the French against Abd el-Kader and the Russians against Shamyl were the most noteworthy. In all these instances the guerrillas failed to achieve their aims except when acting in cooperation with regular armies. The imperial powers, as yet unfettered by moral scruples about the inadmissibility of imposing their rule on lesser breeds, were not deflected from their policies by pinpricks: the Russians did not withdraw from Poland, the Caucasus or Central Asia, the French did not give up North Africa, the British did not surrender India, and if the Italians attained their independence, it was not as the result of a protracted guerrilla campaign. There was not one case of outright guerrilla victory, but in some instances guerrilla campaigns indirectly contributed to eventual political success. Thus, the military outcome of the Cuban insurrection in the late nineteenth century was inconclusive, but by fighting a protracted war the rebels helped to trigger off U.S. intervention which led to the expulsion of the Spanish. The tough struggle of the Boers after their regular armies had collapsed hastened the British decision to grant South Africa a large measure of independence. In Latin America guerrilla war continued to be the prevailing form of military conflict in the absence of strong regular armies.
The First World War saw mass armies pitted against each other; the few instances of guerrilla war (Arabia, East Africa) occurred in minor theaters of war and were certainly not ideologically motivated. The Mexican, the Russian and the Chinese civil wars of the twentieth century saw a good deal of partisan warfare but mainly because neither side was strong enough to mobilize, train and equip a big regular army. Guerrilla war in these circumstances was not so much the war of the weak against the strong, but of the weak against the weak. Revolutionary movements had not yet opted for the guerrilla approach; before the Second World War the prospects for the anticolonial struggle were as yet unpromising. The Soviet Communists established a large regular army as quickly as they could after the revolution; twenty years later the Chinese Communists tried to do the same, though in their case the guerrilla phase was to last much longer.
With the Second World War there came the great upsurge in the fortunes of guerrilla warfare. Hitler's predicament resembled Napoleon's insofar as his forces were dispersed all over Europe and his lines of communication and routes of supply overextended and vulnerable. Like Napoleon before, the Germans had insufficient forces to impose full control on all the occupied territories or even to destroy partisan concentrations. On the other hand, the military importance of the Second World War partisan forces was not very great and did not decisively influence the course of the war. Their main impact was political inasmuch as they resulted in the emergence of Communist governments (Yugoslavia, Albania) or caused protracted civil wars (Greece, Philippines). The European colonial powers, gravely weakened as a result of the war, lacked the financial and military resources and the political will to retain their overseas possessions against the rising tide of independence movements. Public opinion in the metropolitan countries which had once regarded the possession of colonies as a source of pride was no longer willing to shoulder the military and financial burden; imperialism became morally reprehensible. This turn in Western public opinion was of decisive importance for the success of Asian and African national liberation movements. In the Far East and some African countries the leadership of the independence movements was taken over by Communist or pro-Communist forces. Their superior organization and an ideology which corresponded to the cultural level and the emotional needs of the population made them better equipped to act as agents of modernization than their political rivals. Nevertheless, the wars of liberation in Asia and Africa were fought without exception under the nationalist rather than the Communist banner; even in the countries of Latin America, which had been independent for almost a hundred and fifty years, the guerrilla campaigns of the 1960s had strong patriotic undertones.
Guerrilla warfare has not only been practiced since time immemorial, its doctrine too is by no means of recent date. The many illustrations provided in these pages show that the notion that the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare was invented in China in the 1930s is altogether erroneous.1 Guerrilla techniques were exhaustively described by de Jeney, Decker and other eighteenth and nineteenth-century authors. The experience gained during the Napoleonic wars provided more systematic and more detailed analyses and prescriptions. Le Miere de Corvey and in particular the Italian and Polish military writers of the 1830s and 1840s were fully aware of the political aspects of guerrilla warfare. Their writings cover almost all the problems that were to preoccupy twentieth-century guerrilla authors — the importance of bases and sanctuaries, the questions as to whether the war would be short or protracted, whether it should be "pure" guerrilla war or be conducted in coordination with regular forces, whether guerrilla units should be gradually transformed into a regular army. Even the relationship between the guerrilla forces and the political movement supporting it was discussed in the writings of Carlo Bianco and Mazzini. These precursors fell into oblivion; Mao and Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Guevara and Debray were not in the least aware of the fact that their ideas had been expounded before and even tried, albeit not very successfully. The twentieth-century guerrilla theorist discovered his strategy quite independently, based on his own experience, instinct, and, of course, native traditions of gu
errilla war of which there were more than enough in both Asia and Latin America. As Eric Hobsbawm has noted, there is nothing in the purely military pages of Mao, Giap or Che Guevara which a traditional guerrillero or band leader would regard as other than simple common sense.2 If so, the novelty of twentieth-century guerrilla warfare would seem to be not so much military as political. The author of a valuable recent study has maintained that revolutionary guerrilla war evolved out of Marxist-Leninist modes of political behavior and organizational principles on one hand, and out of the exigencies of anti-Western revolt in predominantly agrarian societies on the other.3 In the light of the historical evidence this thesis is tenable only subject to far-reaching reservations. The character of guerrilla warfare, needless to say, has changed greatly over the ages, partly through technological developments, partly as a result of changing social and political conditions. But it cannot be maintained that before the 1930s guerrilla wars were apolitical and parochial.4 Too much importance has been attributed to Leninist doctrine in the guerrilla context, too little to the nationalist-populist component in the motivation and the ideology of these movements. (Populism is used in this context not in the nineteenth-century meaning of the term but as rural and urban opposition to class differentiations and the capitalist form of modernization.) Many twentieth-century guerrilla wars from Pancho Villa to the Mau Mau and IRA, from IZL, Fatah to EOKA owe little to Marxist-Leninism. Neither the Algerians in 1954 nor the Cubans in 1958 were influenced by this doctrine and even Chinese and Vietnam guerrilla warfare evolved more in opposition to classical Marxism than in accordance with its basic tenets. The impact of Marxism-Leninism among contemporary guerrilla movements has been strongest with regard to the role of the political party in mobilizing the masses, the function of propaganda in the struggle, and the emphasis placed, generally speaking, on organization. But political propaganda and organization were not altogether unknown in previous ages. More women have participated in modern guerrilla movements than in the past, but this again is by no means an unprecedented development.5
These new developments in the character of guerrilla movements should not be belittled but nor should their ideology be regarded as the master key to their understanding. Communist guerrilla movements have failed, non-Communist groups have succeeded. The importance of guerrilla movements was underrated for a long time; more recently the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and the general tendency has been to exaggerate their historical role.
Attempts to explain the causes of guerrilla warfare and of guerrilla success have certainly enriched the political language, but they have not greatly contributed to a clarification of the issues involved. "Revolutionary warfare," defined as "partisan warfare plus political propaganda" is an unfortunate formulation which has nevertheless gained wide currency. "Subversive warfare," "internal war," "low intensity warfare," "modern unconventional warfare," "people's war," "subversive insurgency," "guerrilla insurgency," "irregular warfare" — these and many other terms have been used without adding precision or helping our understanding of the phenomenon.6 There is a wide range of theories to choose from; some take as their starting point the questionable assumption that insurgency is "deviant social behavior" — as if acceptance of foreign occupation or domestic tyrants is the norm, and the decision to oppose them a deviation. Nor is it permissible without qualification to regard political and social harmony as the norm and conflict and violence the unfortunate exception to the rale, to be explained by excessive aggression or ambition, or by deprivation, absolute or relative. The very asking of the question "Why do men rebel?" implies a great many assumptions about both human nature and the perfectibility of society. Quantitative techniques have been of little help in understanding the guerrilla phenomenon, partly because some of the essential ingredients involved cannot be measured, partly because the differences between guerrilla movements are such that even measurable factors become meaningless when added or multiplied. A formula encompassing both Mao and Castro (let alone Pancho Villa, the IRA and Mau Mau) will be of no help as an analytical tool. A comparison between China and Vietnam, or between Angola and Mozambique, or even between the IRA and the Basques may be of value and interest. Moving further afield in time or space, generalizations can be made only with the greatest of caution; for the guerrilla phenomenon presents endless variety. Some were Communist inspired, others were not; some were led by young men, some by old; some of the leaders had military experience, others lacked it entirely; in some movements the personality of the leader was of decisive importance, in others there was a collective leadership; some wars lasted for a long time, others were short; some bands were small, others big; some guerrilla movements transformed themselves into regular armies, others degenerated into banditry; some benefitted from external circumstances (such as difficulty of terrain, or the presence of dissatisfied national minorities), others on the contrary derived no advantage at all from such conditions. Some won and some lost. The possibilities are endless; so are the theories, hypotheses and concepts, monocausal and multicausal, to explain guerrilla warfare, ranging from those stressing socioeconomic conditions to others putting the emphasis on political-psychological factors. The theory that has certainly gained widest currency is the grievance-frustration concept, which has been accepted, in various forms, by liberals and Marxists alike. Men and women will not rebel, risking their lives and property, without good reason — the occupation of their country by foreign armies, economic crisis, a tyrannical political regime, great poverty, or great social discrepancy between rich and poor. The concept seems plausible enough; it can indeed be taken for granted that if people had no grievances and felt no frustration, they would engage in the pursuit of happiness. But the nature of grievances and of frustration is not at all an easy problem.* It has been argued that, if governments only fulfilled popular aspirations, they would not lose legitimacy and there would be no violent opposition and even the intellectuals would happily sing their praises. Unfortunately, the principle of virtue rewarded applies no more to politics than to private life. The state, however well-meaning, may face difficulties through no fault of its own and, as a result of this, its inhabitants will have to suffer. The resources of a government may be limited, it may have to establish priorities, thus discriminating against some people. Nor is there any reason to assume that a state or a social system can be more perfect than the individuals constituting it. It has been argued that the most traditional and the most modern societies are relatively immune to upheaval whereas those in between suffer from instability. As far as rich countries are concerned this is merely stating the obvious; the rural population in these countries is usually small and would-be guerrillas would not be welcomed with enthusiasm in the American corn belt, or among British, French, German or Danish farmers. It would be equally difficult to launch a guerrilla movement in a country in which the bulk of the population suffered from acute starvation and endemic disease, since there might not be enough men and women able to march and to fight. In actual fact, there has been a great deal of guerrilla warfare in very poor countries such as the Congo, Sudan, Oman and Eritrea.
An extremely unequal distribution of wealth and an acute economic crisis have frequently aggravated political unrest, but it so happens that neither factor was decisive in the major guerrilla wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Agrarian grievances have played a paramount role in Mexico and the Philippines but elsewhere guerrilla war took place in countries with enough land for all (Africa) or in predominantly urban societies (Venezuela, Uruguay). Guerrilla warfare has occurred in countries with low population density and high density alike, in societies with high social mobility and low mobility with a high rate of literacy and a low rate.
Frequently the break up of traditional societies and the process of modernization has been considered the main agent: social change results in insecurity and the loss of identity, attempts at reform weaken the government's political position. This has led observers to opposite conclusions.
On the one hand governments have been advised to go full steam ahead with social reform programs, on the other they have been counseled to slow down so as to reduce the impact of the negative political effects of social change. There is general agreement that socioeconomic improvement does not immediately result in increased popular support; these programs usually give tangible political results only after many years, even decades — except perhaps in the case of a radical redistribution of land. Demographic pressure, growing ecological disequilibrium and the weakening of social ties connecting hinterland and center have been mentioned as important factors conducive to insurgency and revolution. These processes are part of the general crisis in the Third World, but again there is no obvious connection between them and the spread of guerrilla warfare.
So after a great many detours and false scents, the student of guerrilla wars finds himself back at his starting point. If a government has the support of the people it will not be challenged and overthrown. Or, to put it more obscurely, social change will be peaceful if the ruling elites respond to the needs of repudiating the old institutions and relationships and creating new ones. If they fail to do so, it is argued, political violence becomes inevitable. Effective and virtuous governments have nothing to fear, corrupt and ineffective ones are doomed. But "corruption and "ineffectiveness" are by no means synonyms and in any case the relevance of this thesis to insurgency and guerrilla warfare is not at all obvious. The new institutions and relationships if established may be rejected by part of the population. There may be real but unsoluble grievances, such as the separatist demands of minorities, that would result in the crippling of society and the emergence of a nonviable state.
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