The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire power.
Che GuevaraRead
It is important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people. The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It draws its great force from the mass of the people themselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Guerrilla warfare relies on the support and participation of the general populace to succeed.
Che Guevara highlights the essence of guerrilla warfare as a movement rooted in the collective will and strength of the people. Rather than being a conventional battlefield strategy, it represents a grassroots uprising where the guerrilla fighters act as the spearhead, rallying the masses around a common cause to challenge oppressors and fight for liberation.
Themes
Guerrilla WarfarePeopleWar Of The MassesResistanceRevolution
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, one might quote Guevara to emphasize community-driven movements.
More from Che Guevara
All quotes →Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?
Che GuevaraRead
It is a revolution that came to power with its own army and on the ruins of the army of oppression.
Che GuevaraRead
The final hour of colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of Africa, Asia and Latin America rise to meet a new life and demand their unrestricted right to self-determination.
Che GuevaraRead
We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it, to his home, to his centers of entertainment: a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his moral fiber shall begin to decline, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to disappear.
Che GuevaraRead
This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.
Che GuevaraRead
Similar quotes
Women are so much a part of war, even if they tend to see another side of it. To say they don't understand war is ridiculous.
Margaret MacmillanRead
Air power may either end war or end civilization.
Winston ChurchillRead
Smell that? You smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Robert DuvallRead
War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.
Albert PikeRead
Sometimes, in the trenches, you get the sense of something, ancient. One trench we held, it had skulls in the side, embedded, like mushrooms. It was actually easier to believe they were men from Marlborough's army, than to think they'd been alive a year ago. It was as if all the other wars had distilled themselves into this war, and that made it something you almost can't challenge. It's like a very deep voice, saying; 'Run along, little man, be glad you've survived
Pat BarkerRead
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Wilfred OwenRead