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“I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.”
― Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna (June 14th, 1928 – October 9th, 1967) touted as the reason why the Cuban Revolution succeeded. Described as “iconoclastic, a dreamer, and prone to go his own way” (McCormick & Berger, 2019), Che is one of the most recognizable figures in revolutionary history. Before he was known to the world as a great initiator of change, Guevara went to the University of Buenos Aires and became a doctor. In 1953, Guevara set out on a trip around Latin America, where he made his way to Guatemala, “on the eve of the overthrow of the reformist President Jacobo Arbenz” (McCormick & Berger, 2019). This trip marks the start of his political presence and radicalization, and once he meets Fidel Castro, he adopts the Argentinian nickname “Che” and begins to use his talents in the Cuban Revolution (Guevara 2
La Guerra de Guerrillas
After the Cuban Revolution, Guevara writes Guerilla Warfare, in which he breaks down the six principles of conduct for warfare: the essence of warfare, guerilla strategy, guerrilla tactics, warfare on favorable ground, warfare on unfavorable ground, and suburban warfare (Guevara, 1961, p.47). These principles are the root of Guevara’s guerilla foco theory, which essentially states that as long as the movement has the hearts and minds of the people behind the movement, it is unnecessary to wait for the perfect conditions to make the revolution happen.
For Guevara’s first principle of guerrilla warfare, he writes three fundamental lessons essential to warfare. The first being that popular forces can win a war against the army, the second says that “it is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them,” and the third states that “in underdeveloped America, the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting” (Guevara, 1961, p. 47). He places great emphasis on the fact that in guerrilla warfare, the guerrilla fighter is wholly dependent on the people. The guerrilla fighter’s primary goal is to be a “social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery” (Guevara, 1960, p.50).
Guerrilla warfare is an all or nothing affair, and battles should not be engaged in without the fullest intention of winning. Guevara states that the true essence of the guerrilla fighter is his readiness to die. The guerrilla fighter does not have to come close to death in every battle that he engages in, but rather that if he should face death, he faces it not with intentions to “defend an ideal” but to “convert it into reality” (Guevara, 1960, p. 54).
In his section on guerrilla strategy, Guevara describes strategy as “the analysis of the objectives to be achieved in the light of a total military situation and the overall ways of reaching these objectives” (Guevara, 1961, p. 54). Guerrilla fighters have to consider many factors: they must consider their numbers and capabilities, how they will mobilize, the support they have behind them, and armaments. Attacks must be continuous in order to ensure that the enemy does not become too comfortable. The formation of columns becomes of the utmost importance when the guerrilla reaches the appropriate amount of both arms and men; Guevara compares the act of column formation to that of a colony of bees, where the hive “at any given moment releases a new queen, who goes to another region with a part of the swarm” (Guevara, 1961, p. 57). The deployment of new columns allows for the infiltration of other territories while the head of the guerrilla stays in a less dangerous area.
Guevara describes guerilla tactics as the “practical methods of achieving the grand strategic objectives” (Guevara, 1961, p.58). Tactics complement strategies while allowing for more variety and flexibility, allowing the band to respond to any potential action made by the enemy. Mobilization is one of the many tactics employed by the guerrilla and should cover large land areas in a short amount of time. The ability to swiftly mobilize at night is just as crucial because the guerrilla must keep its numbers high. Another tactic used by the foco is flexibility. Guevara states that the guerrilla fighter must have “the ability to adapt himself to all circumstances…against the rigidity of the classical methods of fighting, the guerrilla fighter invents his own tactic at every minute of the fight and constantly surprises the enemy” (Guevara, 1961, p. 61).
The guerrilla relies on acts of sabotage and the treatment of the people as a tactic as well. When dealing with people who live in a warzone, the guerrilla fighter must not take any prisoners; they must free any survivors and care for the wounded in the surrounding area; and they must treat civilians with respect, always being mindful of the local culture and traditions. All of these tactics give the guerrilla fighter the means to be an efficient actor in war.
Guerilla warfare theory says a revolutionary situation can occur on favorable ground, unfavorable ground, or suburban landscapes. When warfare takes place on favorable ground, the warzone is typically on land that is difficult to reach. Features like deserts, forests with dense vegetation, and steep mountains are considered the best conditions for the foco. The guerrilla must maintain its adaptability, fighting aggressively and consistently once it knows that its survival will remain intact. On a favorable landscape, the guerrilla can better establish camp and access resources like livestock and communication. If it is well established, the guerrilla can even take the time to set up manufacturing for ammunition and shoes. (Guevara, 1961, p.65-69).
Warfare on unfavorable ground typically takes place on land that does not provide the guerrilla with adequate coverage. The lack of mountain ranges and forests combined with increased roadways makes for a less than ideal warfare setting. Despite this geographic disadvantage, guerrilla fighters must maintain the same level of hypervigilance, adaptability, and mobility as before, but must now increase the quantity of warfare that it engages in. When battles occur in more open areas, the combatants must increase the frequency of attacks, ensuring that most attacks occur at night and only last for a short time.
Guevara’s sixth principle of guerrilla warfare explains what guerrilla strategy and tactics should look like should fighting occur near the suburbs. He writes that discipline and sabotage are two essential qualities of suburban warfare; the guerrilla cannot be overly dependent on the surrounding area. According to Guevara, “The function of the guerrilla band will not be to carry out independent actions but to coordinate its activities with overall strategic plans in such a way as to support the action of larger groups situated in another area” (Guevara, 1961, p.76).
Guevara’s theory of guerilla warfare was born out of his own experiences in the Cuban Revolution, but the theory, unfortunately, fell short when applied to the Bolivian Revolution. Both revolutions can serve as case studies on guerrilla theory’s effectiveness regarding revolutionary situations and outcomes.
Che and Cuba
The onset of the Cuban Revolution
The armed victory of the Cuban people over the Batista dictatorship shifted the world’s perception of revolutionary movements by showing how the masses have the ability to free themselves utilizing Guerrilla warfare. (Guevara, 1961).” The Cuban Revolution cannot be discussed without speaking about the charismatic leaders that lead the revolution: Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. However, it would be a mistake to attribute the revolution’s success to just these two, rather than the several critical elements, including the support of the masses, that allowed this revolution to succeed.
In 1950, Fidel Castro worked for a small law firm in Havana, defending the poor and politically oppressed. Castro had aligned himself with the Orthodox Party, which was in opposition to Cuba’s leader at the time, Fulgencio Batista. The Orthodox Party, led by Eduardo Chibas, believed that the Batista Administration had abandoned the 1940 Progressive Constitution (Prevost, 2007). Batista no longer held up the constitution, which guaranteed labor rights and allowed for corruption from the U.S. to run rampant. After a canceled election in 1952 in which Castro was projected to run against Batista, Castro charged the dictator of violating the constitution. The case was rejected and birthed a revolutionary leader. (Prevost, 2007, p.19).
During this time, Guevara experienced his own political scandal, witnessed abuses of power, and the overall influence that the United States (U.S.) had over Latin American politics. In Guatemala, Guevara witnessed the overthrow of an elected progressive government and realized, like many other Latin Americans, that the country’s weak and poor state put itself in a position to have unstable and corruptible elections. “Guevara concluded, and emphasized to Castro, that a revolution could not be secure until the armed forces were purged of conservative, corrupt, and unreliable officers and soldiers and brought firmly under revolutionary control” (Defronzo,1994, 217).
The Cuban Revolution
To understand the Foco Theory by way of guerrilla warfare documented in Guevara’s warfare manual Guerrilla Warfare (1961), it is essential first to understand the genesis from which this theory is derived. The Cuban Revolution sets the stage for and influences the nature of guerilla warfare tactics and revolutions throughout the world.
On July 26, 1953, Castro, along with 165 men and women, carried out an armed attack on the Moncada army barracks. The attack intended to spark a divide throughout Cuba. The attack failed, resulting in the deaths of half of Castro’s combatants; Castro and his brother Raul were jailed. The attack dated July 26th influenced the name of the revolutionary movement. While on trial for the failed attack, Castro gave a historic speech on the mistreatment and political corruption of the Batista dictatorship. It called for social and economic liberties, motivated and influenced by the people of the July 26th Movement. This speech is famously known as the “History Will Absolve Me” speech. “It became the rallying cry of the July 26th movement” (Prevost, 2007, p.20). Batista granted general amnesty to Castro and his brother, which prompted the two to travel to Mexico and organize the 26th of July Movement for their next attack. It is here that Guevara, a young doctor at the time, joins the revolutionary movement.
On December 26th, 1956, 82 members of the 26th of July Movement set sail from Mexico to the Oriente Province. Simultaneously, Santiago’s insurrection was led by key organizer and guerilla leader, Frank Pais. The attacks failed, with only 12 members surviving. However, it proved to be beneficial in the efforts of remaining members to retreat into the Sierra Maestra mountains. It is here that Guevara and other revolutionaries are exposed to one of three fundamental lessons in conducting guerrilla warfare. “In underdeveloped America, the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting” (Guevara, 1961, p.47). The 26th of July Movement knew that because the government had surveillance and a stronghold over the city, that the countryside served as a ground in which they could have the advantage. “From the mountain stronghold La Plata, the revolutionaries built a base camp that included a primitive radio transmitter and went about the task of organizing a movement against Batista. The movement reached out to the local peasantry promising land reform, education, and democracy. Literacy classes were conducted for the local population” (Prevost, 2007, p.20). A prerequisite to conducting guerilla warfare, according to Guevara, is to earn the hearts and the minds of the masses. “The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition” (Guevara, 1961, p.59). The 26th of July movement worked with the rural community to provide them with amenities that the government failed to give; in turn, they gained their trust, support, and allegiance. Each day, the small insurgent army grew, recruiting countryside peasants who knew the land made it difficult for local army outposts of Cuba. “Most attacks were successful, and the needed additional weaponry was stolen from the army” (Prevost, 2007, p.20). The 26th of July movement grew more recognition, including an article in the New York Times which noted Castro as a modern-day Robin Hood.
Guerilla armies may have various ideologies that they fight for, but according to Guevara, the economic goal is always the same: aspiration towards land. “The guerilla fighter is above all an agrarian revolutionary” (Guevara, 1961, p.59). The land serves as both the motivation and tactical ground for the guerrilla revolutionaries of the Cuban Revolution. While the guerrilla band’s overall goal is to obtain land, Guevara advises that an excessive territory increase should be avoided. Rather, as seen in the introduction of this section, Guevara’s new columns or colony of bees allows for a part of the original hive to move to another region. New columns will seek out to penetrate other or new enemy territories.
Guerrilla Warfare Tactics
To the Cuban public and outside nations, it became clear that the 26th of July movement was a force, making conditions for successful rebellion where there originally were none. This is the second of three fundamental lessons in conducting guerilla warfare “It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolutionary situations exist; the insurrection can create them” (Guevara, 1961, p.50). The guerrilla band should not be seen as inferior to the state and their professional armies. While they may have less firepower, they are still supported by the majority and have the best understanding of the land in which they fight. Because of the minimal number of firearms, the guerrilla armies of Cuba utilized sabotage: “paralyze entire armies, to suspend the industrial life of a zone, leaving the inhabitants of a city without factories, without light, without water, without communications of any kind” (Guevara, 1961, p.59). By doing so and utilizing continuous ‘hit & run’ tactics, the 26th of July movement was able to break the morale and support of the Batista army.
Guerrilla warfare should be considered only an embryo or prelude, a beginning phase that does not have enough opportunities to gain complete victory; a guerrilla army can have steady growth and acquire all the characteristics of a regular army. The 26th of July movement had an established alliance with the Revolutionary Democratic Civic Front, with the goal of taking down Batista. This alliance and the weakening of the Cuban army ruined U.S.-backed government support. The U.S. in 1958 then placed an arms embargo on Cuba. The revolutionary outcome raised Fidel to the position of Prime Minister in 1959. “…agricultural reform limited the size of most farm holdings to under 1,000 acres. This measure destroyed the largest holdings, including U.S.-owned sugar properties, several of which exceeded 400,000 acres. Land was distributed to thousands of rural workers, and the government moved to improve conditions on the large farms it now controlled” (Prevost, 2007, p.22). The support for the revolution and its new policies included: a Rent Reduction Act, a literacy campaign, building new schools, and extending access to health care; these reforms only increased the revolution’s popularity.
Che and the Bolivian Case
Leading up to the Bolivian National Revolution, the country’s land distribution and ownership were among the most unjust in Latin America (Klein, 2015). In 1950, most of the population worked in the agricultural sector, kept powerless and poor because of the exploitative techniques of the latifundia, i.e., large estates. The situation declined even more due to the nation’s falling mining production. After numerous coups and overthrows over the next decade, Che Guevara, after strategizing with Fidel Castro, entered the country on November 7th, 1966 (Rodriguez, 2018).
Staying true to his own manual, Che was encamped in the Bolivian countryside with a modest contingent of soldiers imported from Cuba. The rebel group began meeting with locals deemed sympathetic to the cause; those disheartened with the system’s inequality and the seemingly endless turmoil and regime changes plagued the country over many decades. Winning the hearts and minds of the peasantry in Bolivia proved to be an uphill battle. The newly elected President, Rene Barrientos, was involved in an earlier military coup and served as co-president until he was elected by the people in 1966. To the rebels’ disadvantage, Bolivia’s peasantry already thought very highly of Barrientos. This is primarily because he implemented land reforms, rural education, and welfare programs (Klein, 2011, p. 222). The new president was not loved by everyone, but he was not an outsider like Che. The reality that the rebels would be hard-pressed to win the hearts and minds of the people in Bolivia, an essential tenet of Guerilla Foco Theory, will set the tone for the remainder of Che Guevara’s time in the country.
On December 1st, 1966, Che insisted that he be the rebel forces leader in Bolivia in an introductory meeting with Mario Monge, the Bolivian Communist party leader. Monje accurately predicted that Bolivians would have trouble warming to an outsider advocating for a communist system (Guevara, 1969, p. 59). Soon after, in early spring, the incumbent Bolivian government was alerted to the rebel presence. Due to a careless rebel reconnaissance mission, suspicious activity was reported to the Bolivian army and later confirmed by an interrogation conducted by local police (Salmón, 1990, p. 55; Salmón, 1990, p. 67). Per Foco Theory, rebel forces should recruit to a certain troop level before they challenge an incumbent regime’s army (Guevara, 2002). Because the rebel presence was detected so early, this became nearly impossible. In deviation from his own field manual, Che chose to engage in combat with the Bolivian military, confident that not all conditions need to be met to engage in a successful revolution (Salmón, 1990, p. 80; Guevara, 2002).
An American Response
By 1967, The Bolivian government received close to 3 million USD annually from the U.S. Government (Morales, 2010, p. 166). Up until this time, the United States had been distracted by the War in Vietnam. By April of ‘67, it was clear that the Bolivian army, led by General Ovando, was struggling with the rebel insurgency. In response, the United States deployed Green Berets and several CIA operatives to train counter insurgency and intelligence gathering techniques (US Army, 1967; Kornbluh).
Diminishing Prospects
The prospect of a successful revolution in Bolivia was quickly deteriorating. Locals continued to report rebel movements to the Bolivian government; in theory, providing replenishment to rebel ranks in the form of manpower and logistical support, the Bolivian peasantry often worked against the revolutionary cause, opting instead to support their elected leader’s government (Guevara, 2002; Salmón, 1990, p. 32). The Cuban success could not be replicated in Bolivia. Even though Che’s own Guerilla Warfare manual lauded the advantages afforded to revolutionary encampments based in inhospitable terrain, it was these same conditions that turned against Che in the Bolivian case (Guevara, 2002). Droves of insects consistently terrorized rebel camps. Moreover, since the rebels could not rely on local support for food because their movements were likely to be reported, what little vegetation could be foraged in the region was often nutritionally inadequate (Guevara, 1969, p. 59; Salmón, 1990, p. 32).
Conclusion
The Cuban Revolution shocked the world; governments stood in awe of the power that guerilla warfare can command. That said, the conditions for a foco movement were expressed in exemplary fashion in the Cuba case by having unstable and unfair elections, support of the masses, and the hindering of state resources.
The situation was not ideal for Bolivia’s revolutionary situation: the people had just fairly elected a new president when Che arrived; they were not interested in a revolution (Rodriquez, 2018). The extreme terrain that Guerilla Warfare describes was present in Bolivia, but it in fact, ended up being too extreme for the poorly equipped outfit. Che’s theory states that not all conditions are necessary to incite a revolution; this did not prove to be true (Guevara, 2002). Guevara wanted to use Bolivia as a macrocosm for revolution in Latin America (DeFronzo, 2011). He dreamed that the entire country would be the remote terrain as illustrated in his manual; with it, rebel forces could begin insurrections across the continent. The dream died with the man. There were many flaws with his strategy in Bolivia, but the gravest was that his outsider-rebels did not have the support of the people; thus, a revolutionary outcome was not achieved, for Bolivia or elsewhere.
“They washed, dressed and arranged him following instructions from the forensic physician. . .. We had to prove his identity and show the world that we had defeated . . . Che” (Castañeda, 2009).
Works Cited
Castañeda, Jorge G. Compañero: the life and death of Che Guevara. Vintage, 2009.
