TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > History > Theory of Guerilla Warfare
- Guerilla: Spanish for 'little war'
- Until 20th century it was used to supplement the actions of regular armies.
Guerilla warfare according to Mao Tse-Tung
Organization Phase:
- Build up a structure of "cadres" to organize population support ('agit-prop' teams to develop popular awareness/use of "selective terror" against government officials, to eliminate landlords and others the population disliked, and to deter informers.
Guerilla Phase:
- Introduce guerilla attacks and ambushes (to acquire weapons and blow up infrastructure) make it difficult for governments to maintain a military presence (creation of "liberated areas")
- Mobile War (Third Phase)
- Amounted to civil war / force government forces to retreat to major cities until these were surrounded by a hostile countryside.
Facts about Guerilla Warfare
- Used where to engage in conventional warfare would mean defeat.
- Developed in rural societies where Marxist style revolution was not possible b/c of the lack of a proletariat.
- Guerrilla tactics are the "practical methods of achieving the strategic objectives" (Che Guevara) including mobility, self-sufficiency, sabotage.
- Must establish parallel structures of government
- Aim must be the changing of an unjust society/shouldn't be used until all peaceful methods of obtaining change have been exhausted (Che Guevara)
- Must have support of people. (Mao's metaphor of the guerilla fighter being the fish and the people the sea)
- Most movements have a middle class leadership.
Why has it been the most common form of warfare since 1945?
- Struggle of Asian and African people against colonial rule which meant conventional warfare was out of the question.
- The areas of decolonialisation were suited to its use.
- Outlawing of war (through UN)
- Development of nuclear weapons meant that guerilla warfare was used as a "war by proxy" btw the great powers.
- Advances in weaponry (more dangerous form of warfare)
- Suited with the politicization of the population
- The spreading of Marxism
- The development of the "Cold War"
- Established Gov. could rely on support of one of the super-powers
- USSR and China used it to pose as liberators in most colonial conflicts
- Development of the Mass Media prevents the government forces from using all methods at their disposal.
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