Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla Warfare: An Instruction Manual that Provides Little Success

From July 26, 1953 to January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro led an uprising against the incumbent Cuban president, Flugencio Batista. This insurrection, known as the Cuban Revolution, was successful in the overthrow of the Batista government and implemented a socialist state under Castro’s rule. By 1961, Fidel Castro became the undisputed leader of Cuba with strong popular and military support. Although Castro was the figurehead for revolution in Cuba, his brother Raúl and friend Ernesto “Che” Guevara were instrumental in helping the revolution to succeed. Guevara, an Argentine native, was passionate about guerrilla movements and social revolution.

Throughout his life, he traveled around Latin America and pursued his passion of being a transnational revolutionary. His biggest success was in Cuba, however, his ideas and tactics were transcended into many other movements around the continent with the publication of his 1960 book, Guerrilla Warfare. Here, Guevara illustrates the situations, tactics and skills that are most effective for social revolution to occur. In his book, he delves into innate detail regarding the strategy, tactics and favorable environment for guerrilla warfare. Although he outlines the necessary conditions for a triumphant revolution, Guevara’s book was not useful for sparking any other successful insurgencies throughout Latin America because it downplays the significance of the urban resistance and popular support as important factors to consider within a successful social revolution.

Guerrilla warfare played a critical role in the Cuban Revolution, but the mobilization of peasants in rural terrain was not entirely responsible for the...

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... We offer an outline, not a bible,” (Guevara, 1961). Therefore, it can be inferred that his writing deals only with the experiences and conditions that were created in context with the Cuban revolution. Many rebels in other Latin American countries however, took his handbook on guerrilla warfare to be a strict guide. Guevara’s tactics and strategies have not led to a successful revolution in any country aside from Cuba. Although he gives helpful guidelines, the guerrilla fight is not the only factor in a successful rebellion. The lack of popular support and unclear urban resistance patterns in countries like Venezuela and Guatemala led to less than ideal conditions for guerrilla warfare. The fact that Guevara glazes over the importance of these two circumstances in the rebel movement makes his book unsuccessful in spawning revolution throughout Latin America.