Explore The Guerrilla War Strategy A La Che Guevara

Che Guevara. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Ernesto Rafael Guevara or Che Guevara is famous for successfully leading guerrilla warfare in the Cuban revolution. The revolution was a martyr for other guerrilla movements in Latin America. So what about Che's guerrilla war strategy?

Che Guevara was a revolutionary fighter, doctor, and guerrilla leader. He was born on this day, June 14, 92 years ago or in 1928.

He became radicalized after traveling throughout Latin America and witnessing first-hand the hunger, poverty and disease that people there suffer. Finally he decided to take the military route in his struggle against the Batista regime.

Che did indeed succeed in opening the gates of revolution in Latin America by overthrowing the Batista regime in Cuba. The success of the revolution in Cuba which Che replicated in Bolivia unfortunately failed. In October 1967, Che ran aground and was executed by the country's military.

Apart from being a guerrilla leader, Che was a person who liked to read and put his thoughts and experiences into writing. One of Che's books, La Guerra de Guerrillas (1961) tells of his experiences in building and leading guerrilla movements.

Guerrilla war

In his book, Che explains about guerrilla warfare in the context of 20th century Latin America. He touched on the armed victory of the Cuban people over the Batitsta regime, martyred the revolutionary movement in Latin America. In real terms the people's movement demonstrated its capacity to free itself through guerrilla struggle against the government that oppressed it.

Che emphasized that guerrilla warfare was actually a people's war. Guerrillas are representatives of the people. Therefore the strength of the guerrillas was fully supported by the strength of the masses and the peasants. Without them, the guerrillas are nothing.

Guerrilla warfare, Che said, is the basis of the struggle which has many characteristics, different aspects although the essence is the same: liberation. "It is clear that war is governed by a certain set of scientific laws, and anyone who opposes it will suffer defeat in that war," Che said in his book (1961).

Guerrilla warfare is governed by all of these laws. Basically, the social and geographical conditions in each country determine the specific features and forms of guerrilla warfare. Then what are the laws?

Strategy

First is we have to determine who are the fighters in guerrilla warfare. On the one hand there are groups of oppressors and their agents such as professional soldiers, while on the other hand there is the population of the nation or region that is involved.

For Che, the guerrillas as an armed movement were the vanguard of the general struggle and their greatest strength was rooted in the mass movement. Guerrilla warfare begins to work when it has majority support. "Even if we have a small number of weapons, we (can) defend ourselves against the oppressors," he wrote.

Then after analyzing the style, form of struggle and understanding its mass basis, we can only proceed to the next law, namely what the guerrilla struggle is for. We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrillas are social reformers, who take up arms in response to the angry protests of the people against their oppressors, and who struggle to change the social system that shackles their brothers and sisters in poverty and humiliation.

Furthermore, if we study guerrilla warfare tactics, Che said we will see that guerrilla fighters must have knowledge of the area of operation, hiding places and routes as well as routes to escape and to carry out blitzkrieg. In addition, they also need to know how broad the people's support is. This indicated that guerrilla fighters would carry out their actions in hilly and sparsely populated areas.

The basic principle of guerrilla warfare according to Che is that no fighting, armed conflict or skirmishes will be held unless we are sure of victory. "That means 'underground movement' capability, deception, or surprise is a fundamental element of guerrilla warfare," Che said.