Two Strategies

Continued from the June 2002 issue.

Soon as the people get convinced of this, and recognize that the oppressive power violates its own laws, their resistance will be more and more resolute, and make the conditions of the struggle provoked by the conduct of the authorities mature. 15

The peculiar dialectic of the objective and subjective factors, and the special role of the latter are the product of Latin-American conditions, which are in many aspects different from the condition of revolutionary Russia in 1917, and determine the general course of the revolution

Russia, despite its backwardness and dependence on foreign capital, was an imperialist great power, the fifth industrial power of the world. It had a small, but concentrated and well organized working class, with strong, revolutionary-minded party organizations in the great plants and in the army, which consisted mainly of peasants. It took part in a World War, which made the ruling classes arm the mass of the peasants, who lived under the feudal and capitalist oppression, and were hungry for land. This on the one hand made the revolutionizing of the peasantry easy, on the other it prevented the imperialists, who were engaged with each other, from turning against the revolution with all of their forces. Because an important part of the army – which was fed up with the war – went over to the side of the revolution, the Russian revolution could rely on – beside the hard-hitting squads of the workers' militia – a regular armed corps from the beginning. Despite the overwhelming weight of the peasant population, it could spread from the towns, from the centers of the proletariat, toward the countryside, and the guerrilla war, although it was highly important, played only a role of secondary importance. As regards Latin America, in these societies the peasantry, as in pre-revolutionary Russia, also was the overwhelming majority of the population, which lived under the double yoke of feudal and capitalist relations. But here many essential social and historical factors of the Russian October Revolution were less developed or lacking. It was as a consequence of this that the bulk of the revolutionary masses – as in Russia – must to be constituted by the peasantry, but the organization and course of the revolutionary movement necessarily assumes other forms.

The indispensable condition of every genuine revolution is "that the popular forces smash, and then eliminate the army." 16 However, against a regular army only another regular army can win, and originally the Latin American revolution has no such army, it has to organize it from the peasants. The peasants are distrustful, they fear, and their worries are justified: the oppressing power is relentless. Although only the revolution can lead them out of misery, they will not join it until they are convinced that the armed revolutionaries are able to defeat the mercenaries of the state power, and distribute the land to the poor. Hence the struggle begins as a guerrilla fight: small, resolute groups establish centers – bases – in peasant environment, as far as possible in such areas that can be approached only with difficulties. They fall on the enemy from there; they attack and then disappear. "The guerrilla movement, which is the defensive movement of the people at a given moment, carries in itself, and is obliged to develop in itself the attacking capacity. This capacity will determine the character of the guerrilla, as the catalyst of popular forces." 17 As Mao – who was the classic of the theory of the struggle with small military forces against big forces, and a master of its practice – argued already in 1936, the guerrilla through his attacking capacity, requiring extraordinary mobility, can transform his strategic disadvantage to an operative and tactical superiority, compensating in such way for the numerical and technical superiority of the enemy. It must be added too that the numerical proportions do not depend on the number of the fighting parts. "...The guerrilla war," says Guevara, "is the fight of the masses, the fight of the people: the guerrilla as the armed core is the fighting vanguard of the people, its great force has its roots in the mass of the population. We must not think of the guerrilla movement as numerically smaller than the regular army, against which it fights, even if its fire power is really less." 18 The numerical superiority can be compensated by the support of the population, the technical one by the special tactics. "The regular armies, organized and armed for conventional war, which maintain with their force the power of the exploiting classes, are totally helpless, if they must confront the irregular struggle of the peasants and the natural soil of the peasantry, they cost with the loss of ten people for each killed revolutionary fighter, and they are demoralized quickly, when they must confront an invisible enemy, who does not give them opportunity to use their academic tactics and their blustering militancy, displayed so much in the cities in order to frighten the workers and students." 19

The prestige which the revolutionary movement acquires with its small, local victories, creates the conditions for joining the peasants to the movement, and with the course of time for the necessary shift to the conventional war. For the guerrilla warfare "in itself cannot lead to victory," it must be developed and widened "until the continuously increasing guerilla army does not assume the character of a regular army. At this moment it will be ready to deal decisive blows on the enemy, and gain the victory. The latter is always achieved by a regular army, even if this had originally been a guerrilla army." 20

The armed struggle – writes Guevara – "is a hard choice", the guerrilla war is a slow, protracted process, in which the greatest troubles are not caused so much by the army of the enemy, but rather by the climate, the absence of water, food and medicine, the persuasion of the peasants, the political struggle for the joining of the masses. The difficulties are multiplied by the intervention of the USA (in Venezuela, for the sake of oil, in other countries for other valuable natural resources, and everywhere for maintaining the anti-popular state power). The terror of the dictatorships paralyze the civil population, and the infamous propaganda incites the backward masses against their own interests (as occurred in Bolivia, where incensed demonstrators strung up on a lamp-post the head of the anti-USA government, Major Villaroel, who proclaimed the nationalization of the tin-mines, and promised the fulfillment of popular demands). 21 The USA and the "national" dictatorships learned from the Cuban lesson, hence "however hard was the two years of the Cuban liberation war with its incessant struggles, dangers, and uncertainties, those battles that the future holds for the people in the other parts of Latin America will be immeasurably harder." 22 A cruel repression can be expected after every revolutionary demonstration. "And yet there is no other alternative, either death or victory, in such moments, when the death is a most realistic idea, and the victory is only a myth, which lives only in the dreams of the revolutionaries." 23

It is hardly necessary to explain, why Guevara stresses with a special emphasis the moral and ideological firmness. It doesn't make a difference, what the result of the struggles of today will be. With regard to the final result, it doesn't matter, if this or that revolutionary movement suffers a transitional defeat. What is decisive is the determination, the maturing every day of the consciousness of the necessity of revolutionary change, the certainty of its possibility "…to dispense death mercilessly to the oppressor, and to welcome the death with revolutionary honor – this is what matters." "...This type of struggle gives us a chance become revolutionaries, which is the highest rank in the human species." 24 (He, who is worth of this rank I cannot tolerate moral laziness, neither after the gaining of state power. In May 1962 Guevara, in a lecture to the staff of the Cuban state security organs, condemned indignantly the infringing of revolutionary morality on the part these organs, the applying of methods alien to the population, the abuse of positions of power. "Do not forget that counter-revolutionary is all that infringes on the revolutionary morality. He who fights against the revolution is a counter-revolutionary, but that gentleman who, abusing his influence, acquires a house, then acquires two cars... and finally has all that the people lack, is a counter-revolutionary too... He who uses his contacts for his personal advantage or for the advantage of his friends is a counter-revolutionary, a counter-revolutionary whom you have to prosecute, to prosecute and eliminate. Opportunism is enemy of the revolution, and flourishes everywhere, where there is no popular control... All of those who, speaking about the revolution, infringe on the revolutionary morality, are not just potential traitors of the revolution, what is more, they also are the worst slanderers of it, because people see them, and know what they do... If we progress on this way,… we waste the most sacred value which is at the revolution's disposal, the faith the people in the revolution... And if this faith is betrayed or weakened, it is not an easy thing to regain it." 25

Because "the main area of armed struggle is the countryside," the Latin-American revolution – although most of its organizers and leaders come from the towns – doesn't spread from the towns towards the peasant districts, as the October Revolution did, but like the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, encircles and liberates the stirring towns from the country." 26

This was the way to victory in Cuba too. But the victory "cannot consolidate itself in one, isolated country." It is a historical necessity that "the banner of rebellion, which must be raised in every country, where oppression increases to an unbearable level" becomes a continental banner. "As the starting of the struggle at some point of a country is destined to develop the struggle in all of its environment, the beginning of the revolutionary war contributes to the unfolding of the new conditions in the neighboring countries." 27 Thus all national revolution in Latin America is a part of the continental revolution. But the continental revolution is also only a component of a still more comprehensive strategic plan, which the national strategy of the revolutions in the peripheries, namely the encirclement of the towns from the countryside, generalizes to a global, worldwide strategy, to the encirclement of imperialist countries from the peripheries. "The future holds for us, for the peoples of the world, exploited and condemned to backwardness, the task of the elimination of the supplying bases of imperialism, the task of liberation of those countries from where imperialism is siphoning capital, raw materials, cheap exports and workers, and to where it exports, as means of its domination, capital, arms, and goods of all sorts, plunging us into absolute dependence." "To deprive imperialism of its economic base is to weaken it in its heart, in its innermost essence... with this we break its force, and help to establish the peace, the universal peace, the peace of the whole Earth." 28

Through what sort of tactics might the encirclement be realized?

The revolutionary centers, led by the necessary political and military competence "make necessary new Yankee reinforcements... the Yankees, from a given moment, will be forced to send more and more troops, to ensure the relative stability of such a power, whose national puppets-army is dispersed in the struggle with the guerrillas. This is the way of Vietnam, the way which the peoples have to follow." The task of Latin America will be to create two or three Vietnams, "to create the world's second and third Vietnam." 29

Has Guevara's famous – according to many opinions notorious – tactical demand, the slogan of "create two, three, many Vietnams" any reality at all? Is not it an adventurousness, a romantic madness, a mindless risk?

These tactics "tear out the enemy from his environment, in order to force it to fight at such places, where its way of life is the opposite of the dominant social reality." We must not underestimate the enemy: the North American soldier disposes over powerful means, over a horrifying technical capacity. But he lacks the moral motivation, that factor which is present to the highest degree in the Vietnamese soldier. To defeat the North American soldier "we must undermine his morality. And the way to do this is to deal defeats on him, and cause sufferings to him over again." This sort of tactics – the one applied by Vietnam against the Yankee invaders, and the Algerian National Liberation Front against French colonialists – "is coupled with the immeasurable sacrifices of the peoples," but these are "perhaps less painful than those which we should bear if we permanently eluded the struggle, striving for such a scenario, in the course of which others pull our chestnut out of the fire." "However paradoxical it may sound, the revolution, the struggle of peoples is one form of the defense of peace." 30 Of course we must avoid all superfluous sacrifices, but we have no right to dream about "the reaching of freedom without struggle." "We are pushed into this struggle, the only course open to us is to prepare this struggle, and determine us for it." 31 And what are the consequences? "Whether imperialism will lose one of its strongholds after the other or, as it threatened us with recently, launches in a brutish way a nuclear attack, which burns the world at a nuclear stake? We cannot answer this question. We state only one thing: we must progress on the path of liberation" even if this requires great sacrifices, because the blood which is shed today "saves for us more blood in the future". 32 "Marti said: "He who begins a war where it can be avoided, is a sinner, but he who fails to begin the unavoidable war is a sinner too." 33

The ideas of Che Guevara, and his activity attempting to realize them, was put under a concentrated fire by the whole propaganda-machine of the official "peace camp". This was not without its reason: the great revolutionary debates with all of his lines and deeds the Khruschevian strategy of "peaceful coexistence" and "peaceful transition", even if he refrains in most cases from the open debate. We summarize the charges brought against him, and the comparison of the main elements of the two different strategies on the basis of an article of Raul Roa, another eminent Cuban revolutionary. 34

The peoples can win their liberty – writes Roa – only if they – exploiting the contradictions among their enemies – establish new centers of struggle, and "while they force imperialism to fragment its forces, they gather into a front as unified as possible against it." But the necessary unity has been lacking for a good while, "this made possible the Yankee escalation in Vietnam, the continuation of the so-called 'limited war' against the South-East Asian people without punishment, and all sorts of provocation in Africa and Latin America." Alleging the danger of nuclear war, some people stick the label of "adventurer" and "warmonger" on those "who proclaim that we must set the revolutionary violence against imperialist violence." We are also aware of the nuclear danger, and we do not underestimate at all the effects of weapons of mass destruction, but we are also fully aware of the fact that the use of these arms depends on the nature of imperialism, and not on the wishes of the revolutionaries. "It makes no sense to declare that war is no longer unavoidable, when the Yankee air force poured every day its deadly arsenal on Vietnam and Laos, the marine corps and the green berets take part in the oppression of the Latin American patriots, and the pro-imperialist government of Israel, in the defense of well-known interests, attacks perfidiously the Arab peoples." The disguising of the nature of imperialism "makes easy the way for aggression, demobilizes the peoples ideologically, disarms their revolutionary consciousness." Such a curious situation has arisen, in which the consciousness of the yet struggling peoples, and the consciousness of those peoples who are already liberated from the alien yoke, and who even are constructing socialism, are developing unevenly. For the still struggling people it is clear "that against imperialist aggression – as long as this hateful exploiting system survives – they may not have any other purpose than the elimination of imperialism." But this obvious objective in the liberated countries is recognized "in many cases only in the text of the official 'declarations'." "What practical sense has it, if they declare that war is not inevitable, that the relations of forces are decisively changed in favor of peace and socialism, that imperialism cannot prevent the liberation of peoples?" – asks Roa, hinting of the mentioned official "declarations." "Are there statements contributing to the mobilization of peoples; are they warning them of the aggressive nature of imperialism, did they perhaps protect Vietnam, Cuba and the Dominican Republic – to mention only a few countries – from the brutish strikes of the Yankees? And what can we say about that "principle," in the name of which they urge competition with capitalism, namely that we must defeat capitalism with its own weapons, arms, taking over these weapons, and together with them some "values" from this infamous system. As if the high productivity, achieved in the advanced capitalist countries, this result originated from the excessive exploitation of their own workers and of workers in other countries, could provide an incentive for the people of socialism. As if we could abstract from the fact that moral decay is an essential part of this mode of production, and of the "standards of life" which they wish to catch up with, or as if it could be the goal of development, that the liberated countries live comfortably, in coexistence with imperialism, while this latter plunders other peoples!" Revolutionary consciousness is not an original, given power in the peoples, and in their vanguards: this consciousness is formed by the struggle, by the education, by the fight for social transformation, but it can disappear too, "if the essential principles of the struggle are not held lively, if the strategic objective of the world revolution is lost sight of ."

An European journalist is indignant at Guevara's "catastrophic vision" – continues Roa – at the slogan of "two or three Vietnams," charges are leveled against Guevara that this strategy is a petty-bourgeois, anarchist, adventurous one. Perhaps the labelers do not notice that Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Algeria, Congo, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Guinea- Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and other countries are the scenes of imperialist aggression? They say that in a nuclear war there is no winner and loser, so we must avoid a nuclear war. Of course, "it would be absurd to doubt the devastating power of thermonuclear weapons, but it is still more absurd to draw the conclusion from this that war is no longer avoidable – for the breaking of a war is never determined by the existence of this or that system of weapons." On the other hand, they say only about the thermonuclear war that it is not avoidable; they do not say that about other kinds of war. Apparently they do not want to acknowledge that the devastation, which is caused by "conventional" wars during the years, are no less than those which would be caused by a thermonuclear blow in a few moments. Or perhaps the practice of "scorched earth" by the imperialists in Vietnam is more humane? Is the effect of napalm, scattered on the civilian population, on the croplands, on the forests, on the cities, the accumulating effect of the artillery fire, during five or ten years of "limited" war, less devastating than a nuclear war. "It seems that the 'advantage' of the conventional war is that there is more time to die." Roa's final conclusion is the following: imperialism can be stopped only by force, and by no means by politics aiming at its appeasement. "It is impossible to delay the struggle of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America until the conditions are 'matured,' or 'peaceful competition' proves the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist one." The conditions have been mature for a long time, and the ideological and material disarmament of the masses can lead only to the annihilation of the revolutionary forces.

After Roa's article, we will now quote Fidel Castro to illustrate how the failure of Guevara's Bolivian undertaking was evaluated by the adherents of the two opposing revolutionary strategies.

"The pseudo-revolutionaries, opportunists, and charlatans of all kind, who call themselves 'Marxists,' 'communists', or any such, did not blush to qualify Che as a misguided person, an adventurer, or, more indulgently, an idealist, whose death is the swan song of the Latin American armed revolutionary struggle" – says Castro in his introduction to Guevara's Bolivian diary. "'If Che, the experienced guerrilla fighter, the greatest representative of these ideas, had died in the struggle, and his movement had not liberated Bolivia, then this proved that how large was his mistake' – say these people. How many of these rascals were glad of the death of Che, and did not even blush from the thought that their standpoint and argumentation is completely the same as the opinion of the most reactionary oligarchs, and imperialism.

Footnotes will be included with the complete article.

This article will continue in the next issue of Northstar Compass.

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