Just Finished Reading: Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara

Originally published in 1961 this extended essay encapsulates Guevara’s experiences during the Cuban revolution. In it he gives advice on just about every aspect of fighting a guerrilla jungle war you could possibly imagine. The essay is, however, fairly short on detail and more interested in getting a prospective guerrilla force into the right frame of mind for an expected long and bloody conflict against a much better armed , though hopefully less motivated, force. In addition to the original essay the book contained a further shorter essay Guerrilla Warfare: A method (written in 1963) and Message to the Tricontinental (written in 1967) which outlined a Marxist interpretation of the world’s political and revolutionary status at that time.

All in all this was a fairly interesting historical text. Although I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as the only book you worked from if you were setting up a revolutionary movement in the hills it does make an effort to explain the ‘why’ of revolution and not simply the ‘how’. It was actually quite weird reading Che’s words and then seeing them played out daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. I couldn’t help thinking to myself that the ‘insurgents’ might well have read this very book and adapted Guevara’s ideas from the jungle to the desert & the city street. Certainly if you want to start some kind of understanding of modern guerrilla warfare this is not a bad place to start. Whilst it’s not exactly a page turner, nor is it a ‘Revolutions for Dummies’, it is a moderately absorbing piece of history written by a cultural icon.