IN DEFENSE OF GUERRILLA WARFARE
Trolls online have accused me of being both a “Marxist-Leninist” and a “vanguardist” because I defend the strategy of guerrilla warfare. Apparently it is Marxist and vanguardist to advocate strategies that work.
To be clear, I don’t advocate a strategy of exclusive guerrilla warfare. That is, I’m an insurrectionist at heart. But, I recognize that where insurrections occur, they can be carried further if a wide variety of other strategies are undertaken at the same time, like sabotage campaigns, worker strikes, and armed attacks against the enemy’s symbols of power.
For some reason, in modern times, Marxist-Leninists have cornered the market on guerrilla warfare. As a consequence, when most people think of guerrilla fighters, they imagine Marxist-Leninists with rank and hierarchy. They imagine that Fidel Castro represents every guerrilla, but that’s simply not the case.
Spartacus led the largest slave revolt in history and de-stabilized the Roman Empire, mostly relying on guerrilla strategies. American colonists revolted, using the guerrilla tactics they learned from Native Americans. The Lakota defeated the U.S. in 3 consecutive engagements using guerrilla warfare– something the Marxists of the Viet Cong couldn’t even do. So, if you have to be a Marxist-Leninist to fight in a way that works, Tecumseh, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo never got the memo.
Why is it that Marxist-Leninists cornered the market on guerrilla warfare? Clearly, they’re better at having fun than we are.
And that takes us to the vanguardist argument. As that argument goes, being a guerrilla requires certain skills that everyone doesn’t have, and it requires firearms that everyone doesn’t own. So, those who participate in guerrilla warfare, the argument goes, become a power elite, a group of hot-shots with more prestige than others.
While I think that may be true is some places, it certainly isn’t true in the U.S. There are 200 million firearms in the United States. We’ve got guns coming out of our ears. So, if you don’t own one, it’s because you don’t want one. There are basketball shoes that cost more than most guns, so by this argument, basketball players are vanguardists too.
As for special skills, I think there are more complicated skill sets for making and throwing molotov cocktails. You need to know the mixture of gas to styrofoam, know how to score the bottle so it breaks, and know how to throw it effectively to hit a target. I should think folks who played baseball have a distinct advantage to hit something their aiming at. So those who throw molotovs are vanguardists too, right?
Look, a rifle is a tool. So is a molotov cocktail. Rifles are inexpensive, available, and fairly easy to use. The fact is, we’re so steeped in pacifism that we latch on to any argument for not picking up a rifle. Those who scream vanguardism are attempting to be pacifists without the pacifism, preventing recourse to one of many strategies that can contribute to our liberation.
It makes no rational sense to propose fighting an enemy who has rifles while you go without them. It makes no sense to not at least explore the possibility of using firearms. As someone proficient with firearms, I would suggest that every anarchist should learn how to shoot. Then, if you decide not to pick up a rifle, it’s because you made that choice, not because the choice was made for you. There’s empowerment in increasing your skill sets.
Imagine if folks pulled into Ferguson with truckload of rifles and the know-how to quickly teach rebels how to be reasonably effective with them. It’s no more vanguardist than pulling up with a truck full of molotovs.
If we don’t avail ourselves to the opportunity to develop firearms proficiencies, and we hurl the words “Marxist” and “vanguardist” at those who do, we potentially relegate ourselves to preventable failure after preventable failure, sitting next to the pacifists, waiting for the real Marxist vanguardists to come along and do what we can’t.
And then we’re stuck with their stupid program.
This is anarchist prisoner Sean Swain from inside the American torture complex. If you’re listening, you ARE the resistance…
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