6. The leadership of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century guerrilla movements was usually in the hands of men of the people (Mina, the Empecinado, Andreas Hofer, Zapata, the Boer leaders, the IMRO). In backward countries they were traditionally led by tribal chiefs or religious dignitaries. More recently they have become, by and large, the preserve of young intellectuals or semi-intellectuals; this refers particularly to Latin America and Africa with only a very few exceptions (Fabio Vasquez, Samora Machel).
The social origin of the twentieth-century guerrilla elite in Latin America and also in Asia and the more backward European countries is usually middle class, especially the administrative stratum (the "lower mandarins") which has no independent means of its own. Equally frustrated by their own limited prospects and the real or imaginary plight of their country, they have opted for revolutionary violence, the transformation of an old-fashioned, ineffective autocracy into a more modern, more effective and by necessity also more despotic regime. To seize power, the civilian intelligentsia transforms itself into the military leadership. A formula of this kind does not apply to every single guerrilla movement, even less to all of its leaders; nor does it do justice to the idealistic motivation of leading guerrilla cadres. But in historical perspective this has been the political function of radical guerrilla movements. Students were hardly represented in the classical guerrilla movements, more recently their share has been very prominent indeed, and the greater their role, the more radical the character of the guerrilla movement; this is shown for instance by a comparison between Fatah and PFLP, between the Angolan FLNA and the MPLA. Military men have occasionally appeared as prominent guerrilla leaders: Denis Davydov, Yon Sosa and Turcio Lima in Guatemala, the young Prestes and later on Carlos Lamarca in Brazil, Grivas, Kaukji Mihailovic, the Wamphoa graduates among the Chinese Communists. Some guerrilla leaders had limited military experience, for example the Vendeans and Spanish guerrillas who fought Napoleon, the Yugoslav Communists who participated In the Spanish Civil War, Nasution, the Algerians who fought in the French army. But the most important guerrilla leaders of our time, including Mao, Tito, Giap, Castro, Guevara, as well as the foremost theoreticians among them, were self-made men in the military field. Most guerrilla leaders were in their late twenties or early thirties when they launched their campaigns, old enough to impose their authority, uniting the experience of age and the activity of youth, and capable of withstanding the exertions of guerrilla warfare. Some, however, were already in their forties (Tito, Mao), and some even older (Grivas, a few of the Boer generals, Chu Teh, Marighela). Few manual workers have joined guerrilla movements (Korea and Malaya were significant exceptions) and even fewer emerged as guerrilla leaders. Guerrilla leaders, certainly the more successful among them, have always been strict disciplinarians. What Gibbon wrote about Skanderbeg applies to most of them: "His manners were popular but his discipline was severe and every superfluous vice was banished from his camp."
7· Social composition: Attention has been drawn to the fact that peasants traditionally constituted the most important mass basis of guerrilla movements, but conditions varied considerably from country to country even in the nineteenth century and there have been further changes since. The Chouans and the Spanish guerrilla units fighting the French came almost exclusively from rural areas, and the same applied, of course, to the Boer commandos and the Zapatistas. On the other hand there was not a single peasant among Garibaldi's "Thousand." IMRO was initially overwhelmingly a rural movement, whereas the IRA derived most of its support from the cities; IZL and the Stern Gang (in contrast to Hagana) were almost exclusively city-based. Smugglers, poachers, bandits and various déclassé elements played a significant part in certain nineteenth-century guerrilla movements (southern Italy) and also in Latin America and the Far East. Usually the smaller the guerrilla army, the larger the middle-class element. This applies above all to the Cuban revolution and the various urban guerrilla groups such as the Tupamaros. Women have participated in almost all guerrilla movements. They have been most prominent in the small urban guerrilla groups (West Germany, the U.S.) and in Korea (more than a quarter of their total force). Available data are insufficient to establish whether the occupation of insurgents reflects the occupational pattern of the population as a whole. This may have been the case in some countries (Philippines, Algeria) but not in others (Latin America). A poll taken by the French during the first Vietnam war showed that almost fifty percent of their prisoners were classified as "petty bourgeois," and in African guerrilla movements, too, the urban petty bourgeoisie was apparently represented far above their share in the population. The small urban guerrilla movements are preponderantly constituted of students, or recent students, the IRA being the one major exception.
8. The motives that have induced men and women to join guerrilla bands are manifold. Historically, patriotism has been the single most important factor — the occupation of the homeland by foreigners, the resentment directed against the colonial power — often accompanied by personal grievances (humiliation, material deprivation, brutalities committed by the occupying forces). Secessionist guerrilla movements have based their appeal on the discrimination against and the persecution of ethnic or religious minorities. Guerrilla movements fighting domestic contenders stress obvious political or social grievances such as the struggle against tyranny, unequal distribution of income, government inefficiency, corruption and "betrayal," and, generally speaking, the "antipopular character of the ruling clique." Land hunger, high interest rates (Philippines), the encroachment by the haciendados on Indian land (Mexico) have been important factors in predominantly agrarian societies. On top of these causes there has been a multiplicity of personal reasons ranging from a developed social conscience to boredom, the thirst for adventure and the romanticism of guerrilla life to personal ambition — the expectation of bettering oneself socially or of reaching a position of power and influence. The dynamic character of guerrilla movements has always exerted a powerful attraction of young idealists — the prospect of activity, of responsibility for one's fellows, of fighting with equally enthusiastic comrades for the national and social liberation of the homeland. As Maguire wrote seventy years ago and Denis Davydov well before him, a partisan must be a kind of military Byron, his enterprise requires a romantic imagination. What induces guerrillas to stay on is above all ésprit de corps, loyalty to his commander and fellow soldiers. The feeling of togetherness and team spirit seems to be more important than ideological indoctrination. Guerrilla warfare usually opens larger vistas to personal initiative and daring than regular warfare; it has been said that slavish imitation produces good military tailors but not guerrilla leaders. But the motives are by no means all idealistic; guerrilla war is an excellent outlet for personal aggression, it provides opportunities for settling accounts with one's enemies, and conveys a great sense of power to those hitherto powerless. While sadism has never been official guerrilla policy, there has always been more deliberate cruelty inflicted in guerrilla wars than in the fighting of regular army units, subject to stricter discipline. This is true for the partisan wars of the Napoleonic period and also for many subsequent guerrilla wars. The gentlemanly guerrilla war has been a rare exception (the Boer War); on the other hand there were many guerrilla wars in which sadism was established practice (IMRO, IRA, Arab and African guerrillas). The cause legitimizes both the fulfillment of personal ambition and the infliction of cruelty which in other circumstances would be considered inhuman. As Le Mière de Corvey noted more than a hundred and fifty years ago, there can be no guerrilla warfare without hate and fanaticism. There is a tendency not just to employ violence but to glorify it; in this respect there are parallels between modern guerrilla movements and Fascism. Guerrilla warfare and, a fortiori, urban terror implant a pattern of dictatorial practices and brutality that perpetuates itself. Graduates of the school of violent action do not turn into practitioners of democracy and apostles of humanism after victory.
9. Organiza
tion, propaganda and terror have always been essential parts of guerrilla warfare, but their importance has greatly increased over the years and the techniques have been refined. Organization implies the existence of a political party or movement or at least a noncombatant fringe, semilegal or underground, providing assistance to the guerrillas — money, intelligence and special services. In some instances the guerrilla movement has been more or less identical with the party (Cuba, Uruguay, Algeria); elsewhere it has acted as the armed instrument of the party. Wherever guerrillas had no such connection with a political party (EOKA, the Stern Gang, many African and Latin American guerrilla movements) they could at least rely on a periphery of sympathizers, which, albeit unorganized, provided support. In most recent guerrilla wars political propaganda has been of equal or greater importance than military operations (Cuba was the most striking example). Elsewhere propaganda has played a subordinate role; this is especially true for guerrilla wars waged by secessionist movements. These had the support of their own people anyway; but no amount of propaganda would have persuaded the Turks of the justice of the Macedonian or the EOKA cause, nor would have made Ulstermen join the IRA, or persuaded the Iraqis to make common cause with the Kurds. But even secessionist guerrillas want to influence world public opinion. Public opinion is a more effective weapon than fighting against the governments of small countries dependent on the goodwill of others. Urban guerrillas will get far more publicity than rural, because there are more newspapermen and cine cameras in towns. Some countries are more in the limelight than others. An unexploded hand grenade found in an Israeli backyard will be reported, major operations resulting in dozens killed in Burma, Thailand or the Philippines may not be reported. Hence the endeavor of urban terrorists to concentrate on eye-catching operations.
Propaganda is of particular importance in civil wars when the majority of the population, as is often the case, takes a neutral, passive attitude in the struggle between incumbents and insurgents. The apathy of the majority usually favors the guerrillas more than their enemies. No guerrilla movement has obtained its objectives solely through propaganda; equally none has succeeded by terrorism alone.
Terror is used as a deliberate strategy to demoralize the government by disrupting its control, to demonstrate one's own strength and to frighten collaborators. More Greeks were killed by EOKA than British soldiers, more Arabs than Jews in the Arab rebellion of 1936-1939, more Africans than white people by the Mau Mau. The terrorist element has been more pronounced in some guerrilla movements than in others; in "urban guerrillaism" it is the predominant mode of the armed struggle, in China and Cuba it was used more sparingly than in Vietnam, Algeria or in Greece. While few guerrilla movements have been opposed in principle to terror, some, for strategic reasons, have only seldom applied it because they thought it tactically ineffective or because they feared that it would antagonize large sections of the population. It is impossible to generalize about the efficacy of terror as a weapon; it has succeeded in some conditions and failed in others. It was used with considerable effect in Vietnam and Algeria; elsewhere, notably in Greece and in various Latin American countries, it had the opposite effect. Much depends on the selection of targets, how easy it is to intimidate political opponents, whether it is just a question of "liquidating" a few enemies, or whether the political power of the incumbents is widely diffused. Guerrilla war has been defined by insurgents and counterinsurgents alike as the struggle for the support of the majority of the people. No guerrilla movement can possibly survive and expand against an overwhelmingly hostile population. But in the light of historical experience the measure of active popular support required by a guerrilla movement need not be exaggerated.
10. The techniques and organizational forms of guerrilla warfare have varied enormously from country to country according to terrain, size and density of population, political constellation, etc. Thus, quite obviously, guerrilla units in small countries have normally been small whereas in big countries they have been large. In some countries guerrilla units gradually transformed themselves into regular army regiments and divisions (Greece) and yet failed, in others they won the war though they never outgrew the guerrilla stage (Cuba) or despite the fact that militarily they were beaten (Algeria). In some guerrilla movements the personality of the leader has been of decisive importance. One need recall only Shamyl and Abd el-Kader in the nineteenth century; the same goes for more recent guerrilla wars (Tito, Castro, Grivas). On other occasions personalities have been of little consequence; the fact that the French captured some of the leaders of the Algerian rebellion did not decisively influence the subsequent course of the war. The leaders of the Vietnam Communists were expendable, Mao probably was not.
There are, by definition, no Blitzkrieg victories in guerrilla war, yet some campaigns succeeded within a relatively short period (two years) whereas others continued, on and oft, for decades. Some involved a great deal of fighting, resulting in great losses, others were, on the whole, unbloody (Cuba, Africa). There has been a tendency to explain the defeats of guerrilla movements by referring to their strategic errors. Thus the Greek Communists have been blamed for their premature decision to adopt regular army tactics, and the Huks for not carrying the war to the cities. But this does not explain why other guerrillas succeeded, despite the fact that they made even graver mistakes. Success or failure of a guerrilla movement depends not only on its own courage, wisdom and determination but equally on objective conditions and, last but not least, on the tenacity and aptitude of the enemy. Castro won because he faced Batista and similarly the Algerians were dealing with the Fourth Republic, a regime in a state of advanced disintegration. The Greek partisans and the Huks, on the other hand, had the misfortune to encounter determined opponents in the persons of Papagos and Magsaysay. But beyond all these factors, subjective and objective, there is still the element of accident which cannot possibly be accounted for, which defies measurement and prediction. Objective conditions help or hamper guerrilla movements, they make success or failure more likely. Given a certain historical process such as decolonization, the victory of a guerrilla movement, however ineffectual, is almost a foregone conclusion. But decolonization has been concluded and the old rule no longer applies as the guerrillas confront native incumbents, nor is it true with regard to separatist movements. Guerrillas have succeeded even when "objective" conditions were adverse and they have been defeated even when everything pointed to their victory. The presence of a great leader is a historical accident: without Tito the Yugoslav partisans would probably not have taken to the mountains; but for Castro the invasion of Cuba would not have taken place. The same applies, of course, to the antiguerrilla camp. Under a more forceful, more farsighted and more gifted leader than Chiang Kai-chek, the KMT might have won the war; Mao was perfectly aware of this possibility. Other accidents can be decisive for the outcome of a guerrilla war, for instance the presence of a government spy high up in the guerrilla command. During the early period of insurgency the accidental death of a leader or his arrest could be a fatal setback. Thus, the Huks never recovered from the arrest in Manila, by accident, of most of the members of the Communist party leadership. On the other hand a small, isolated guerrilla movement may achieve a breakthrough early on in its struggle owing to sheer good fortune rather than superior strategy. On at least two occasions the fortunes of the Chinese Communists were decisively affected by sudden changes in the international political constellation. The political orientation of more than a few guerrilla movements has certainly been a matter of accident; it was not from historical necessity that the Ovambo (SWAPO) should turn to the Soviet Union, whereas the Herero and Mbanderu should study Chairman Mao's Little Red Book.
11. Urban terrorism in various forms has existed throughout history; during the past decade it has become more frequent than rural guerrilla warfare. Some modern guerrilla movements were predominantly city-based; for instance, the IRA, EOKA, 1ZL and the Stern Gang, others were part urban (Algeria). Neither the ni
neteenth-century anarchists nor the Russian pre-revolutionary terrorists regarded themselves as guerrillas; their assassinations were largely symbolic acts of "punishment" meted out to individual members of the forces of oppression — they were not usually part of an overall strategy. Whereas guerrilla operations are mainly directed against the armed forces of the enemy and the security services, as well as installations of strategic importance, modern urban terror is less discriminate in the choice of its targets. Operations such as bank robberies, hijackings, kidnappings, and, of course, assassinations are expected to create a general climate of insecurity. Such actions are always carried out by small groups of people; an urban guerrilla group cannot grow beyond a certain limit because the risk of detection increases with the growth in numbers. A successful urban guerrilla war is possible only if the strength of the establishment has deteriorated to the point where armed bands can move about in the city. Such a state of affairs has occurred only on very rare occasions and it has never lasted for any length of time, leading within a few days either to the victory of the insurgents or the incumbents. The normal use of "urban guerrilla" is a euphemism for urban terrorism which has a negative public relations image. Thus the Tupamaros always advised their members to dissociate themselves from "traditional terrorism" and only a few fringe groups (Marighela, Baader-Meinhof) openly advocated terror. Urban terrorism can undermine a weak government, or even act as the catalyst of a general insurgency but it is not an instrument for the seizure of power. Urban terrorists cannot normally establish "liberated zones"; their operations may catch headlines but they cannot conduct mass propaganda nor build up a political organization. Despite the fact that modern society has become more vulnerable than in the past to attacks and disruptions of this kind, urban terrorism is politically ineffective, except when carried out in the framework of the overall strategy of a political movement, usually sectarian or separatist in character, with an already existing mass basis.
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