Mao and Guevara: Insurgent Strategy and Tactics

How did communist revolutionaries think an insurgency should be fought?

In the late afternoon of November 3, 1966, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara stepped off a plane in La Paz, Bolivia. Disguised as a plain-looking, balding Uruguayan economist, his intentions were less academic than his ironically fashioned persona. Che had arrived to begin the first phase of Communist revolution and overthrow the Bolivian government. Having been successful in Cuba, the situation in Bolivia would not prove as fruitful and, unfortunately for him, his arrival beckoned the final chapter of his life. Within eleven months, he would be dead, executed in the mountains at the hands of the Bolivian army.[1] Guevara’s enemies were exultant, not only because he was dead, but also because his death indicated that his theories of revolution were wrong. His admirers were dejected but found solace in the fact that his calculated execution at the hands of US trained Bolivian rangers was evidence that his theories had merit.[2] A martyr for ideas of communist revolution, insurgency and guerilla warfare, Che’s spirit lived on in several insurgencies: the FLMN in El Salvador and the FLSN in Nicaragua, to name a few.[3] Yet he has also been survived, more importantly and concretely, by his book Guerilla Warfare, published in 1960. It is in this text that he outlines how a communist revolutionary insurgency should be fought.

            Theories of guerilla warfare invariably reflect the experiences of their author and are specific to a certain point in time and particular circumstances. Three decades before Guevara, another communist revolutionary was fighting his own, larger insurgency, thousands of miles away in China. This revolutionary was, of course, Mao Zedong. Perhaps the most influential theorist of insurgency in the twentieth century, Mao’s On Guerilla Warfare and On Protracted War, written in 1937 and 1938 respectively, laid the groundwork for those who wished to emulate insurgency against Western states post-1945. It provided insurgent war with a ‘scientific schemata’.[4] Guevara was aware of the Chinese revolutionary—he discusses the Chinese example within the first pages of Guerilla Warfare. Similarly, both communist leaders are held in high regard by insurgents past and present for their success. Crucially, each embalmed their fruitful application of insurgency in their respective seminal texts. But how did these two communist revolutionaries manage to be victorious? Do the unique contexts of their specific situations’ present rifts for a generalized communist revolutionary strategy? Or is there continuity—a common path towards how a communist revolutionary insurgency should be successfully fought?

In analysing the writings of Mao and Guevara, it becomes clear that communist revolutionaries saw guerilla warfare as the primary instrument for revolutionary conflict. Yet while Mao and Che agree on this at a tactical level, their theories and strategies on protracted war differ in one significant way. While they both place primacy on popular support, rural political mobilization, the eventual use and implementation of regular forces, and the phases of revolution, they diverge on the conditions for revolution to be successful. Much of this disparity is due to the differing contexts—time as well as space—that they found themselves in. Through in-depth comparison of Mao’s On Guerilla Warfare and On Protracted War, and Guevara’s Guerilla Warfare, a clearer assessment of what a communist insurgency entails will be elucidated.

            It is first important to define the terms used so far. According to Shy and Collier, ‘revolutionary war’ refers to the “seizure of political power by the use of armed force.”[5] This, they admit, is a simple definition—the term has a several other connotations. It also implies that the seizure of power is done by a popular movement, that this overthrow entails a lengthy period of conflict, and that power is seized in order to fulfil a ‘well-advertised’ political program. Likewise, it denotes a degree of consciousness about the goals and objectives of the revolution—that it is known a ‘revolutionary’ war is being fought.[6]

            There is persistent confusion, moreover, between revolutionary war, guerilla warfare, and insurgency, and they are often used interchangeably. This is understandable given the diverse tactics used by armed groups, but it obscures concrete definitions. Guerilla warfare is often used in revolutionary war; hit and run tactics, concealment among the populace or in hills, deserts and forests, and avoiding costly pitched battles are all means with which to carry out a revolutionary war because the revolutionary side is often inferior to the government’s army. Guerilla tactics, however, are not the only means to carry out a revolutionary war. Guerilla operations, in turn, may not have any revolutionary aim or objective.[7] Guerillas may be fighting for a variety of reasons—what defines ‘guerilla’ is the use of asymmetric tactics as part of an irregular army that often lacks professionalism. This can also be said of insurgents, defined as a nun-ruling group in struggle with the ruling authorities, in which the non-ruling group consciously uses political resources (propaganda, demonstrations, organizational expertise) and violence to “destroy, reformulate or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics.”[8] Due to the variety of political reasons insurgents might be fighting, they take up various forms, from anarchist to preservationist, reformist to commercialist. Insurgency is inherently framed by politics and defined in terms of government (ruling vs non-ruling). It is for this reason that Mao and Guevara are labelled guerillas, insurgents and revolutionaries, all at once. They not only use violence to seize power (revolution), but also propaganda and demonstrations in order to reformulate the basis of legitimacy in their nations (insurgency). In order to carry this out, they employ guerilla warfare. Communism binds their revolutionary fervour and political aims.

            While Mao and Guevara do not define insurgency or revolution per say, both divide guerilla warfare into two categories. To Guevara, the first category concerns “a struggle complementing great regular armies such as was the case of the Ukrainian fighters in the Soviet Union…”[9] The second, however, is one in which an oppressed armed group engages in a struggle against a constituted power (colonial or not). In doing this, the guerillas establish themselves as the only base, building themselves up in rural areas with an economic aim “toward ownership of land.”[10] For Mao, the distinction between the two forms of guerilla warfare lie in political character and national sentiment. Like his own anti-Japanese efforts in China, and those of the Reds in the Russian Revolution,

All these struggles have been carried on in the interest of the whole people or the greater part of them; all had a broad basis in the national manpower and all have been in accord with the laws of historical development. They have existed and will continue to exist, flourish, and develop as long as they are not contrary to national policy.”[11]

On the other hand, the other form of guerilla warfare—one that oppresses the masses and is contrary to the true interests of the people—is counter to ‘historical development’ and easily destroyed. Apparent here is the awareness of both communist revolutionaries to distinguish their form of guerilla warfare from other types, due guerilla warfare’s changeable character. Guevara’s distinction on popular support, however, is engaged with some pages later, where he discusses ‘bandit gangs’ which were contrary to guerilla efforts because they lacked widespread approval.[12] Central to both revolutionaries concepts of guerilla warfare, however, is popular support.

Similarities Toward Continuity         

Most insurgent leaders understand they risk destruction by confronting government forces in an orthodox, conventional engagement. Instead, insurgents opt to erode the strength of the government through guerilla warfare, not only to increase the human and material cost of government engagement, but also to demonstrate the government’s failure to retain effective control of the state and to provide security for its people. Because the government holds an inherently advantageous position in controlling the state apparatus through control of the police and the army, the inferior insurgent relies on the strategic role of popular support.[13] Mao and Guevara were explicit on this necessity.

For Mao, “the richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of the people.”[14] Using a metaphor likening the guerilla to a fish, he explains that the guerilla swims amongst the people like a fish swims in the sea. Without the support of the people, the guerilla “cannot survive”—he becomes a fish out of water and will subsequently die.[15] Guevara concludes similarly but bluntly: “The guerilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition.”[16]

In order to achieve support, Mao and Guevara outline the importance of treating civilians with respect. Mao gives three rules and eight remarks to guide his own forces. Some are practical: “replace the door when you leave the house,” “return what you borrow,” and “do not steal from the people.” Others, conversely, are abstract: “be honest in your transactions,” and “be neither selfish nor unjust.”[17] Once again, Guevara rather straightforwardly states that behaviour towards the people, “ought to be regulated by a large respect for all the rules and traditions of the people of the zone.”[18] In addition to treating civilians this way, both revolutionaries stressed handling prisoners with compassion—a humanistic attribute that would supposedly give them the moral high ground with the populace and induce enemy defections.[19]

Of course, treating the populace with respect only gets you so far. While passive support—that which does not impede the guerilla but also does no harm—is a valuable commodity, in order to win active enlistment to the cause, both Mao and Guevara explicate ways to encourage political mobilization. Indoctrination through propaganda, schools, spoken word and radio take up the forefront of Guevara’s approach. Starting from a small ‘nucleus’ in an inaccessible rural area, Guevara explains that as the initial guerilla carries out attacks on the government, people slowly begin to join as they hear, interact and learn from the guerillas carrying out the revolutionary cause. It is referenced by Guevara as “dressing the guerillas in palm trees.” Eventually, as the nucleus becomes bigger, it functions as a ‘small government’, providing food, housing, schools, laws, courts and arms.[20] It is of utmost importance that this ‘free zone’ to promulgate propaganda through newspapers, bulletins, pamphlets and proclamations which are distributed within and outside of the zone. The most effective propaganda, moreover, is from within:

Priority will be given to the diffusion of ideas among the natives of the zone, offering explanations of the theoretical significance of insurrection…In this zone there will also be peasant periodicals, the general organ of all the guerilla forces, and bulletins and proclamations…There will also be the radio.[21]

Words over the radio, Guevara continues, have the capacity to explain, teach and incense both enemies and loyal guerillas. Spoken word increases the feverishness of war, and it should be regarded with extraordinary importance.[22]

            For Mao, continuous and uninterrupted revolutions were necessary to create a new China. Such revolution would continue to be facilitated by the political mobilization of the Chinese peasantry. In order to reduce the length of the war and bring closer its eventual victorious conclusion, moreover, propaganda and indoctrination played a large role.[23] In On Protracted War, Mao lays out the steps towards mobilization. Firstly, the priority was explaining to the army and civilians about the political aims of the war—every person had to see why the war must be fought on an intimate, personal level. Secondly, there had to be a clear, well-advertised political programme for people to follow (falling in line with O’Neill’s earlier definition). The Ten-Point Programme for Resisting Japan and the Programme of armed resistance and National Reconstruction became such mobilization events. Pen-ultimately, the mobilization would need to be carried out by word of mouth, leaflets, bulletins, newspapers, books and pamphlets, plays and films, schools and through the Communist party. Once all this had happened, the final step was to replication: “we must link the political mobilization for the war with developments in the war and with the life of the soldiers and the people, and make it a continuous movement.”[24] Similarly to Guevara, Mao needed popular support to fight his insurgency. In order to get them on side, he and Guevara implemented political mobilization campaigns amongst the poor, rural populations. While Mao stresses the primacy of the political goal, however, Guevara is less frank, maintaining that guerilla action and the repressive government will force the population to switch sides.

Although the Communist revolutionary principles of Marxism emphasize the importance of the urban proletariat’s uprising, both Mao and Guevara made clear that the rural peasant population is the main agent of revolution. As Guevara states, “The peasant must always be helped technically, economically, morally and culturally.”[25] Mao makes the peasant the forefront of guerilla operations too: “Besides employing trained armies to carry on mobile warfare, we must organize great numbers of guerrilla units among the peasants.”[26] This phenomenon seems to be a complete contradiction of Marxist principles—what David Mitrany terms a ‘double paradox’. In both China and Cuba the revolution not only began but also succeeded on the backs of the peasantry, when ultimately it should have been due to the urban proletariat.[27] This was chiefly the result of Communist pragmatism.

In 1930s China, after a decade of largely urban efforts, Mao’s Chinese Communist party had been forced into the countryside by a formidable coalition of foreign and domestic enemies. The reason the CCP survived was because it found the key to peasant control and support: agrarian reform and a host of other subordinate policies designed to mobilise and improve agrarian production.[28] In an overwhelmingly rural population which was parochial and conservative in outlook and attitude, Mao recognized the original Marxist-Leninist approach was inappropriate.[29] The Communists party not only sought to win over the peasants by applying palatable aspects of Marxist-Leninist doctrine to agrarian reform, but also framed the revolution in nationalistic terms against the foreign imperialism of Japan and feudal remnants of the past. The Communists declared that continued imperial feudalism was inevitable without Marxian socialism. The party became the defender of nationalism, as well as a party of peasants. Whereas in 1926, only five percent of the CCP membership were peasants, by 1930 the overwhelming majority of members were peasants, Mao included.[30]

This appeal to peasants can be seen distinctly in Guevara’s work: “The banner of the fight throughout this period will be agrarian reform.”[31] In Cuba there was a distinct divide between the rural guerilla sierra population and the urban llano. Guevara capitalized on the peasantry as the most oppressed class in Cuba, and even deemphasized the plight of the urban proletariat: “No matter how hard the living conditions of the urban workers are, the rural population lives under even more horrible conditions of oppression and exploitation,” Guevara wrote.[32]  Only after continuous attacks had sufficiently diminished the ranks of establishment forces, the working class and urban masses could join the revolution and participate in a decisive battle, as well as the eventual redistribution of wealth.

Ultimately, the reliance on the peasantry by both communist revolutionaries centred on pragmatism. The guerilla, as Mao and Guevara note, needs rural areas to conduct operations away from the centres of power in the state. Yet such use of rural areas and support of the peasantry is only worthwhile when the peasantry has been significantly agitated or alienated by the government. Guevara found this out the hard way in Bolivia, where the peasantry were not as receptive as in Cuba, largely due to their differing socio-economic and cultural circumstances.[33]

As has been mentioned above, at the time of writing, Mao’s major concern was the removal of a foreign invader: Japan. Moreover, China’s government was contested between the CCP and the Kuomintang.[34] Guevara, on the other hand, with an active and repressive Batista administration to target, aimed his sights at the removal of the current system of governance. Hence when Mao lists his seven steps necessary for victory in On Guerilla Warfare, two of them (5.‘Recovering national strength’ and 7.‘Regaining lost territories’) are only applicable to the situation at hand. This disparity in context leads to a different, but not conflicting, interpretations on the validity of guerilla cooperation with regular armed forces. In his first chapter, Mao explicitly writes that guerilla activities cannot be separated from the regular forces:

It is one aspect of the entire war, which, although alone incapable of producing the decision, attacks the enemy in every quarter, diminishes the extent of area under his control, increases our national strength, and assists our regular armies. It is one of the strategic instruments used to inflict defeat on our enemy.[35]

Put simply, Mao sees regular forces as a vital element in the insurgent campaign, stating further that any attempt to rely solely on irregular forces exaggerates the importance of guerilla hostilities.[36] Guerilla warfare and tactics are used to begin revolution, but eventually morph into orthodox forces, operating in conjunction with conventional, organized forces. The result of such collaboration will be victory.

As has been previously discussed, Guevara regards cooperation with regular forces as a separate form of guerilla warfare altogether. Indeed, since the Cuban revolution did not involve regular forces until the end of the war, his book does not explicitly discuss their collaboration. Paradoxically, however, two pages later he pays homage to Mao: “Guerilla warfare is a phase that does not afford itself opportunities to arrive at complete victory… Triumph will always be the product of a regular army, even though its origins are in a guerilla army.” Guerilla warfare, he explains, is one of the initial phases of warfare, developing continuously until its growth in numbers forces it to acquire the characteristics of a regular army. At this point, it will be fully prepared to deal the decisive blow to the enemy. Here, similar to Mao, guerilla forces amass into a regular army when the time comes to confront the final areas of enemy defense. Once the guerillas have grown in respectable mass, they separate across the countryside in ‘columns’, penetrating enemy territory like when a beehive releases a queen to swarm another region of the country. When these columns begin to face regions solidly defended by the enemy, they must join, forming a compact fighting front, and reaching a ‘war of positions.’ It is at this point they form a regular army.

            It becomes apparent here that the style of Mao and Guevara differ significantly. While Mao is methodical with his work, Guevara jumps hectically from subject to subject in Guerilla Warfare, never systematically laying down his thoughts in a coherent plan. This is evidenced further in their approaches to the phases of war. Mao clearly lays out organized guerilla warfare into three phases: strategic defensive (trading space for time), stalemate and guerilla warfare, and strategic offensive, or mobile guerilla operations. Here we can see a continuum from Clausewitz and his chapter Defense in his sixth book.[37]

In the 1986 edition of Makers of Modern Strategy, John Shy and Thomas Collier begin their discussion of “Revolutionary War” by noting that the 1941 edition lacked a chapter on the subject. Due to the “crumbling of European empires under colonial and domestic assault” and the hasty appearance of weaker successor states after the Second World War, a new dimension of military theory became more applicable, whereas before there was no such systematic discussion of revolutionary theory.[38] While the decline of imperial powers, decolonialization and the rise of nationalism are admittedly the primary movers of revolution after World War II, they do not encapsulate the full picture, and indeed do not capture the revolution of Mao. The supranational philosophy of communism proved a critical aspect of insurgent wars even before WWII, because it provided new motivations for peoples seeking government reform. Communism provided new strategical ends; the means changed as well. The advent of portable and effective weapons, and the proliferation of communications, media, and propaganda dramatically increased the political and military firepower of groups wishing to overthrow governments. These factors, along with the growing disinclination among the public to accept casualties, made the phenomena of revolutionary and guerilla warfare more frequent, certainly when compared with the Peninsula campaign of the Napoleonic Wars.[39] It is for this reason that Mao’s war appears to be new, but as John Nagl argues, are actually just an adaptation of Clausewitz’s “remarkable trinity” and ‘The People in Arms’.[40] As Strachan explains, far from being a conventional thinker, Clausewitz was, for a time, also an insurgent when Prussia was subservient to France from 1807 to 1812.[41]  Mao grasped Clausewitz’s dictums on strategic defense, the people, trading space for time and the offensive in its full extent. Although it is not clear whether he read Clausewitz, he quotes him. Moreover, as Miyata and Nicholson contend, Mao comprehends that war is not only a ‘continuation of politics’, but more importantly that his specific political conditions were the genesis of war—the basis for the unfavorable relationship of forces he faced. Recognizing this, Mao sought to alter the political conditions in China by leveraging its demographic and geographic advantages to jell his strategic defensive into a war-winning platform, representing a continuation of Clausewitzian theory.[42]

            Having never referenced Clausewitz in his work, Guevara agrees on the general concept of phased war, but he does not specify levels, or lay out a clear method of advancing from one to the next in Guerilla Warfare. Instead, he lays out a rather convoluted amalgamation of events that stem from an initial guerilla group that gradually grows in size and mass through political moblisation of the rural peasantry. Only in his article, Guerilla Warfare—A Method, written in 1963, does Guevara emphasise an almost identical three-stage plan. The first, like Mao, centres around the strategic defensive stage, where the small guerilla force ‘nibbles’ at the enemy force and then runs: “It is not sheltered to make a passive defense within a small circumference, but rather its defense consists of the limited attacks it can successfully strike.” Next, a state of equilibrium is reached in which action takes place on both sides. Finally, the last stage is of offense—the repressed army overruns the oppressor, leading to large-scale decisive battles, the capture of cities, and the complete and total annihilation of the enemy.[43]

Break in the Continuity: Foco

The only principal distinction between Mao and Guevara is the latter’s bold belief that guerilla action itself could kick-start revolution, short cutting the first phase of revolution. He asserts on the first page of Guerilla Warfare that, “It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them.”[44] While he admits that certain grievances must exist for ultimate victory (class consciousness, oppression and discontent), they do not prevent, and are not necessary to begin, guerilla action. Instead, as Jose Moreno summarizes, three preconditions must be present:

1.     A lack of legitimacy by the incumbent elite to govern the country

2.     Existence of tensions that cannot be redressed by regular channels

3.     All legal avenues to change the situation are perceived as closed[45]

This theory of insurrectionary ‘nucleus’, as it has also been translated into, was picked up and further expanded by Regis Debray, a French philosopher who associated with Guevara. Debray’s central idea was that the foco (the initial cohesive group of guerillas) would remain separate from the people in the early stages, concentrating instead on offensive military activity. The central idea is that this group, as the vanguard of the people, provides a focus for popular discontent against a sitting regime through such action. As Debray argues, if the guerilla simply restricts itself to protecting civilians or passive self-defense, it ceases to be a vanguard of the people as a whole. Moreover, it deprives itself a national perspective. Only by going on the counter-attack can it catalyse the people’s energy, transforming “the foco into a pole of attraction for the whole country.”[46] Debray, however, admits that the guerilla force will then be able to create a liberated base area, and so proceed with the various stages of classic guerilla campaign. It would appear, however, that the emphasis on initial primacy of autonomous military actions not involved or linked with the larger populace at large, or any organisation within the populace, is fraught with dangers. As Mao clearly elucidates, a successful guerilla force cannot assume that popular discontent will lead to mass support—the popular base must be there for all the stages of the guerilla struggle and their primacy is essential. Without this popular base, the guerillas would face constant “pursuit, encirclement and annihilation.”[47] The catalyst for insurgent action must come from an understanding of the people first, as well as grassroots indoctrination towards the end political goal.

Mao does not specifically list conditions for revolution, but states instead that revolutionary, insurgent wars are “the inevitable clash between oppressor and oppressed when the latter reaches the limits of their endurance.”[48] Significantly, and in contrast to Guevara, Mao assumes that before guerilla action can only begin when the populace is already aware of their oppression—they must be ready and willing to fight the enemy of their own accord.

Conclusions

This essay begins with Che’s death, and it is fitting that it ends with it as well. Elemental to the discussion of how communist revolutionaries believed an insurgency should be fought is mobilizing the rural populace. Yet the largest discrepancy between the Mao and Guevara is the conditions necessary to create a successful revolt. While Castro and Guevara’s men certainly had popular support, managed to set up a durable base area, and progressively advanced out of this base to take over Cuba, the relatively small size of their initial guerilla forces (some 80 men), points to the glaring fact that Batista’s government was so corrupt that it essentially fell apart of its own accord.[49] In any other country besides one in Latin America, Ellis claims, Guevara’s forces would have been eliminated with “contemptuous ease.”[50] In Bolivia, moreover, the previous success of Cuba was tested and failed.

One issue worth mentioning briefly here is the large degree of confusion that occurs in the scholarship when relating Mao to Guevara and visa versa—an issue that this essay has attempted to clear. Throughout the research, contradictions in Guevara’s thoughts, misquotations, and incorrect citations plague the secondary-source academia. Perhaps due to the variety of translations, it became increasingly difficult to place Guevara in an analytical light without being pulled one way or another with quotes and summaries that only obfuscated his ideas. Instead, much of this essay revolves around the primary reading, with brief references to these secondary sources.

Ultimately, the leading figures in communist revolution are bound by their situations, but continuity is evident. Writing after Mao, Guevara appears to lean heavily on the methods outlined by the preeminent communist leader. The most significant difference between the two is based in the reinterpretation of foco theory, which is only made significant because of Regis Debray’s interpretation. Yet Mao and Guevara agree on important aspects of how an insurgency should be fought. Firstly, population support is essential. Secondly, political mobilization is necessary, and should be conducted through the rural peasantry. Thirdly, guerilla warfare is not the only means of protracted war—the guerillas eventually morph into a regular armed insurgency. Finally, there are three stages to the communist revolutionary war: strategic defense, stalemate, and strategic offensive. Although there are many other similarities in their work, at both a tactical and strategic level, these are the clearest methods towards victory for the communist revolution.

In the end, both revolutionaries contribute to the understanding of international security today. Mao’s theories are still regularly read by insurgents today, although Guevara’s theories have yet to bear fruit as successful as Cuba. Although application of his theory was unsuccessful when used by the FMLN and FSLN, this is not to say his Guerilla Warfare is completely irrelevant.[51] Instead, it simply pinpoints the faultiness in where diverged from Mao: the concept of focoism. Despite this flaw, students, academics and policymakers would be wise to read both authors. It is by comparing them that relevant conclusions are drawn on how communist insurgents fought in the past, and how they might fight in the future.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

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[1] Gordon H. McCormick, “Che Guevara: The Legacy of a Revolutionary Man.” World Policy Journal 14, no. 4 (1997): 63.

[2] Jose A. Moreno, “Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare: Doctrine, Practice and Evaluation.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 12, no. 2 (1970): 114–115.

[3] Matt Childs, “An Historical Critique of the Emergence and Evolution of Ernesto Che Guevara’s Foco Theory,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Oct. 1995): 597-598.

[4] Franklin Mark Osanka, Modern Guerilla Warfare: Fighting Communist Guerilla Movements, 1941-1961. New York: Free Press, 1966: 132.

[5] John Shy and Peter Thomas Collier, “Revolutionary War,” in Peter Paret, Craig, Gordon A., Gilbert, Felix, and Craig, Gordon A. A., eds. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986: 815-16.

[6] Ibid., 817.

[7] Ibid., 817.

[8] Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare. Washington: Potomac Books, Inc., 2005: 15.

[9] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, London: Penguin, 1975: 16.

[10] Ibid., 17.

[11] Mao, ZeDong, On Guerilla Warfare, 1938, in Mao ZeDong and Che Guevara. Guerilla Warfare. London: Cassell, 1969.

[12] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, London: Penguin, 1975: 17.

[13] Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare. Washington: Potomac Books, Inc., 2005: 93.

[14] Mao ZeDong. On Protracted War. Paragraph 114.

[15] Mao ZeDong, On Guerrilla Warfare, Marixists’ Archive, Chapter 6.

[16] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 15.

[17] Mao ZeDong, On Guerrilla Warfare, Chapter 6.

[18] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 29.

[19] Ibid., 29.

[20] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 82-83.

[21] Ibid., 110.

[22] Ibid., 111.

[23] Wen-hui Tsai, “Mass Mobilization Campaigns in Mao’s China.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 6, no. 1 (1999): 23-25.

[24] Mao ZeDong, Protracted War, Marxists’ Archives, Paragraph 67.

[25] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 82-83.

[26] Mao ZeDong. On Protracted War. Paragraph 67-68.

[27] David Mitrany, “Communism and the Peasants.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 276 (1951): 99.

[28] Mary C. Wright, “The Chinese Peasant and Communism.” Pacific Affairs 24, no. 3 (1951): 258-260.

[29] Ian F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their Opponents since 1750. New York: Routledge, 2014: 70-72.

[30] Wright, “The Chinese Peasant and Communism.” 259.

[31] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 45.

[32] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare – A Method, “Guerilla Reader” Walter, Laqueur, ed., Philadelphia: Temple University Press, (1977): 204.

[33] Moreno, “Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare: Doctrine, Practice and Evaluation.” 132-133.

[34] Osanka, Modern Guerilla Warfare: Fighting Communist Guerilla Movements, 1941-1961. 130.

[35] Mao ZeDong, On Guerrilla Warfare, Chapter 1.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Hahlweg, Werner, “Clausewitz and guerrilla warfare,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 9:2-3, (1986): 127

[38] Shy and Collier, “Revolutionary War,” 815-16.

[39] John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009: 24-25.

[40] Ibid., 26.

[41] Hew.Strachan, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2017: 58-59.

[42] Francis Miyata and John Nicholson. “Clausewitzian Principles of Maoist Insurgency.” Small Wars Journal, 2020.

[43] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare – A Method, “Guerilla Reader” Walter, Laqueur, ed., Philadelphia: Temple University Press, (1977): 209-210.

[44] Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 13.

[45] Moreno, “Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare: Doctrine, Practice and Evaluation.” 115.

[46] Régis Debray, Revolution in the Revolution?: Armed Struggle in Latin America.

Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980: 45.

[47] John Ellis, A Short History of Guerilla Warfare. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976: 187-88.

[48] Mao ZeDong, On Guerrilla Warfare, Chapter 1.

[49] Ellis, A Short History of Guerilla Warfare. 186-187.

[50] Ibid., 187.

[51] Childs, “An Historical Critique of the Emergence and Evolution of Ernesto Che Guevara’s Foco Theory,” 597-598.