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Susie Bright's avatar

I’m sure others have written dissertations on this, but there is an intriguing segue, theoretically and on the ground, between attentat and Guerilla warfare.

I first became aware of the power of guerilla warfare in northern Africa during the battle of Algiers in the 1950s. The movie, Battle of Algiers, tells it all in cinema.

The strategy of guerilla warfare was codified in the 1960s by Che Guevara in his book by the same name. It is a classic that is only surpassed in military strategy book sales by Sun Tzu’s “Art of War!”

I learned all this when I licensed Che Guevara’s backlist from his widow, to produce in audiobooks. I was floored by the perennial readership for “Guerilla Warfare.” It is read by the right and the left. Guevara wrote it as an instructional guide, and indeed, it has the tone of a Chess Master manual.

The difference between attentat and the guerilla approach is that the guerilla operates as a cell, a small unit, to take on a national target. —As opposed to a single person or cell that takes on one villain. They are not hoping to “inspire the masses” - it’s more of a vanguard mentality: “we know what to do and we’re going to get it done ourselves.” And, internationally, guerilla warfare was honed in the colonial struggle against imperialism; it has a different character than domestic labor and capital struggles.

Both theories are similar in the sense that they believe that a very small group of people can have an effect much greater than their numbers.

Perhaps some of you will tell me more!

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Kim Anno's avatar

Fantastic idea fourth reich of dreams lecture in my class in fall on this work of yours?

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