Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Professor Haynes
History 6
February 23, 2009
second-half of the 20th century, Che Guevara burst into the international limelight in 1956
as an integral member of the hard core of revolutionaries – the foco – invading Cuba to
overthrow the Batista regime. And it was during this formative stint in Cuba that Che, a
Marxist advocate for worldwide struggle against imperialism, expounded the first
manifestation of his theory of guerrilla warfare, one that would be amended over the
years, reducing the qualifications for revolutionary struggle while preserving the
fundamental tenets of his theory. Central to Che’s theory was his belief in the foco – that
a “small band of men, the armed vanguard” could, when certain base conditions existed,
induce the subjective conditions for revolution, and thus foment an uprising and achieve
social justice (Guevara, 55). Though he later placed less emphasis on the necessity of
these core conditions for revolution, a revision that has generated much criticism of his
theory and arguably precipitated his demise, Guevara was resolute in his conviction that a
their movement and sow the seeds of revolution among the populace. Although
Guevara’s theory perhaps romanticized the critical importance of the foco to the
organization – not necessarily a political party – central to the revolution that would
spread the political message and unify popular support. By analyzing the revolutionary
movements that occurred in the 1960s and 70s in Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Bolivia,
parts of Guevara’s foco theory are validated – namely, his faith in the ability of a foco to
create the subjective conditions for revolution and instigate the masses through political
effort – while others are discredited – his conviction that the foco alone can overcome a
Before examining the foco theory through the lens of the aforementioned
revolutionary struggles, the principles of Guevara’s theory must first be delineated. While
much of Guevara’s seminal Guerrilla Warfare and other writings reiterate tenets of
guerrilla warfare established in Mao Tse-tung’s On Guerrilla Warfare and other texts, he
did offer several unique thoughts on the matter. First, he asserted that when “forces of
clearly the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals within the framework of civil
separate political organization, could create the subjective conditions for war through
propaganda and appeal efforts aimed towards the peasantry (Guevara, 51). In the words
of Che, “as a product of the interaction between the guerrilla fighter and his people, a
characteristics of the movement and gives it a national scope” (Guevara, 74). This
conjecture was a break from previous guerrilla texts in that it rejected the necessity of a
vanguard party that would propagate the ideology of the revolutionaries and engender
between 30 and 50 men of similar social background as the peasantry – as the “vanguard
of a popular army” and the “political and military center of [a] revolution” that endeavors
to “minimalize, neutralize, and exterminate the ability of the government to curb and
the small-scale actions of the foco into a mass uprising (Moreno, 116-119). Later, Che
expanded the scope of his belief in the ability of the foco to foster revolution, stating that
“[obliging] the dictatorship to resort to violence, thereby unmasking its true nature as the
dictatorship of the reactionary social classes” (Guevara, 154). Once the government has
been pushed to violence, “the development of the struggle will bring about the general
strategy”, and “as vanguard of the people…[the foco will] create the necessary political
conditions for the establishment of a revolutionary power based on the masses’ support”
(Guevara, 157,159). Lastly, Che emphasized the international nature of the struggle
imperialism” and achieve the “liberation of all people” (Guevara, 172). Implicit in this
declaration is the belief that the revolutionaries need not be citizens of the country in
which they are fighting, and that international revolutionaries can galvanize the national
foco theory – substantiates the notion that a hard core of guerrillas can, through
politicization of the peasantry, induce the subjective conditions for revolution to uproot
an oppressive government. Cuba in the 1950s was ripe for revolution, exhibiting many of
the requisite objective conditions: the majority of its economy relied on a single crop –
interests through political strong-arming; and tensions arose from the strong US influence
in Cuba, particularly due to the corruption that characterized the US-Cuban relationship
(Skidmore, 300-5). After a botched landing in Cuba that decimated the majority of the
26th of July Movement’s forces, the remaining revolutionaries – about twenty guerrillas,
including Fidel and Raúl Castro, and Che Guevara – fled to the Sierra Maestra
mountains, where they rebuilt their troops and began fostering the subjective conditions
for war in Cuba, mainly through politicization efforts that legitimized the guerrillas and
weakened the Batista government (Skidmore, 306). Following two months of relative
inactivity, the guerrillas – who recognized that the erosion of Batista’s foreign support
was critical to toppling his regime – achieved their first major success at propagandizing
their movement with the help of Herbert Matthews, a journalist for the New York Times
who wrote a series of articles on the rebels that gave them “international status overnight”
and put Batista “on the defensive in world public opinion” (Skidmore, 307). This
publicity brought the rebels new recruits: 58 men, mainly of middle-class origin, who had
(Skidmore, 307). Aside from seeking international support, guerrillas in the mountains
“took a strong interest in [the] people’s fate because they needed peasant support to
survive in the mountains” (Skidmore, 307). Months of political work among the
peasantry eventually bore fruits: “peasants and landowners began to recognize rebel
forces as the government of the region by paying taxes to and obtaining protection from
movement and precipitated new fronts against the Batista government – student
dissatisfaction” and “[gave] credit to the foco as the only credible challenge to the forces
of the government” (Moreno, 124-5). As guerrilla warfare intensified from 1957 to 1958,
Batista was pushed to adopt increasingly repressive tactics, such as torture and execution,
actions that produced “new rebel adherents” (Skidmore, 308). Further civil unrest
developed, prompting Cuban bishops to appeal for a “government of national unity”, and
moreover, the United States, whose support of Batista was crucial to his rule, began
withdrawing their interests from Cuba, beginning with an arms embargo placed on the
Batista government (Skidmore, 309). As the revolution continued through 1958 and into
1959, the foco reinforced their position at the forefront of the movement and solidified
their role as vanguard of the movement: the rebels made it clear that the llano leaders –
political leaders in the cities – would not “impose their will upon the [revolutionaries]”,
and by January 1959, “everybody accepted [the foco’s] leadership” (Moreno, 128). This
sequestration of popular support assured Castro’s succession to power when Batista fled
the country on New Year’s Day, 1959 because the foco had “[remained] the key political
An application of Che’s foco theory to Cuba vindicates his assertion that the foco
can develop the subjective conditions for revolution. Upon establishing camp in the
Sierra Maestra mountains, guerrilla soldiers faced a Cuba that objectively satisfied the
conditions for revolution – due largely to the corruption of the Batista regime – yet was
not on the brink of disaster. The aforementioned actions of the guerrillas – which align
extensively with the guerrilla tactics outlined in Che’s Guerrilla Warfare – had
“[accelerated] and spread the process of social disintegration of the old structure to the
whole system…[and] made people aware of such a situation” (Moreno, 129). Moreover,
“when the masses decided to act, they followed the lead of those who had been
effectively active…the leaders of the foco were now to become the leaders of a mass
struggle” (Moreno, 129). To put it another way, the actions of the foco had indeed created
the subjective conditions for revolution, and instigated an uprising in which they were the
primary player.
In the Nicaraguan case, once more is Che’s conviction that a foco can induce the
success of the FSLN was due largely to political workings that developed as a result of
FSLN activities, and the support of external nations, and thus, the notion that the foco
will resultantly win the induced uprising of its own accord cannot be maintained without
the Caribbean-type dictatorship described by Che Guevara as the ideal target of the
guerrilla foco”; furthermore, Nicaragua’s economy relied heavily on the export of a small
discontent among rural peoples (Loveman, 345-7). In July 1961, the FSLN – the foco in
Nicaragua – was founded following an “upsurge of anti-Somoza activity” since 1959 that
entailed, among other conflicts, violent clashes between the repressive National Guard
and student organizations (Loveman, 350). Rooted in the tradition of the Nicaraguan war
hero Augusto Sandino, the FSLN set out on a course of revolution that would last nearly
20 years. The FSLN propagandized and recruited for their cause through student
movements such as the FER, which disseminated the social ideals of the revolution
through protest and by “organizing study circles, which were then organized into teams,
teams that later became cells of the Frente Sandinista” (Cabezas, 32). Additionally, the
FSLN “worked to incorporate local peasants and workers into a network of sympathizers
and intelligence gatherers” (Loveman, 353). Oftentimes, this entailed personal contact
between peasants and FSLN guerrillas, centered on principles such as land reform and
class struggle. In the words of Cabezas, “we invited [the peasants] to struggle and to fight
for agrarian reform” (211). This political work was accompanied by small-scale guerrilla
operations and several major successes for the FSLN, such as the capture of Somoza’s
brother-in-law in 1974 in an attack that earned massive publicity for the movement. As
the FSLN continued spreading their message and organizing resistance to Somoza’s
government, they “[created] a heroic, even mythic, image of the valiant muchachos who,
against impossible odds, continued to fight the Somoza dictatorship” that garnered
increasing peasant support (Loveman, 354). Nevertheless, the brutal repression of the
Somoza regime, which failed to deter the foco, hacked away at the leadership of the
movement – “most FSLN leaders of the 1960’s were dead, in prison, or in exile” by 1970
– and at times brought the FSLN to the brink of extermination (Loveman, 354).
Though the FSLN had followed Che’s school of guerrilla warfare to create
subjective conditions for revolution and had succeeded in establishing a large rural
support base, their efforts came to fruition largely due to a combination of political
opposition, social discontent induced by non-FSLN sources, and foreign support (or lack
the late 1970s” (Loveman, 357). Furthermore, a massive earthquake in Managua in 1972
that left the city crippled and devastated exacerbated tensions between Nicaraguans and
the government because Somoza and his cronies ruthlessly exploited the situation to
make ludicrous profits. The FSLN capitalized on the public’s growing dissatisfaction: “in
the period 1970-74 with greater political organization work among the masses, and with a
great leaps forward in the accumulation of political, organizational, material, and military
force” (Loveman, 359). As encounters increased between the FSLN and the National
Guard, Somoza’s forces became increasingly brutal and repressive, “[creating] more and
more enemies of the dynasty and a growing tide of unfavorable publicity in the US”
(Loveman, 360). The country was finally pushed to insurrection following Somoza’s
throughout the country and throughout organizations, leading to a general strike that
paralyzed the country for a month (Loveman, 362). Soon, the country was in the grips of
a civil war led by the FSLN that lasted until July 1979, when revolutionary forces finally
ousted Somoza. Veritably, the FSLN had succeeded in creating a revolution and
uprooting an unjust government using the foco theory; however, their success cannot be
external help, which contradicts Che’s belief that the foco alone is sufficient to overthrow
a dictatorship. First, throughout the period of struggle, Somoza faced opposition from
groups, such as the FER, Christian groups (MCR), and many others. In fact, “the
bourgeois opposition itself opened up the crisis of the Somoza regime and actually led the
first phase of the revolution. It was only at the end of the process, with the help of
Somoza’s intransigence, that the FSLN captured the leadership of the struggle”
(Loveman, 357). Additionally, the political work of the FSLN, far from relying strictly on
popular appeals made by the foco, “required the incorporation of entrepreneurs, clerics,
workers, and…political elites” (Loveman, 366). Loveman and Davies go one step further,
charging that the FSLN would have failed even with political aid from outside sources
had the FSLN not received “extensive assistance from…Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama,
Mexico, and Cuba” (366). Lastly, the increasing disapproval from the US for Somoza,
particularly over his human rights abuses, ultimately led to the withdrawal of US political
support for the Somoza regime, which allowed the masses to unite in rebellion against the
National Guard. While these events were crucial to the FSLN’s ultimate success, they are
unaccounted for in Che’s theory, and thus cast doubt not on the ability of the foco to
create conditions, but rather on its ability to succeed of its own volition without external
support.
Though the Vietnam War was guided by General Vo Nguyen Giap’s application of
guerrilla forces to generate support for revolution among the masses, and to unite them
for revolution against a common foe. Vietnam possessed the objective conditions for war
in that there was substantial hatred for Diem’s repressive tactics and rigged elections;
furthermore, the agrarian policy set up by French colonialists created tensions between
landowners and peasants, who desired land reform. Originating in South Vietnam, the
revolutionary movement was spearheaded by the National Liberation Front, “the symbol
of Vietnamese national aspirations and the vehicle for mobilizing support”, and for the
intents and purposes of this analysis, the Vietnamese incarnation of a foco (Duiker, 143).
Notably, the NLF and the entire revolutionary movement was backed by the DRV, the
government and political organization of North Vietnam; this external support from a
political organization, though a break from Che’s theory and the aforementioned cases,
does not exclude Vietnam from an application of Che’s theory wholly. Much like the
FSLN in Nicaragua, the NLF utilized personal contact between members and the
populace to pull on nationalist aspirations and gain sympathy and support for the
movement: as Truong Nhu Tang described, “I would make my approaches gently, talking
over current happenings with my friends and associates, sounding out their political
leanings and the intensity of their convictions” (85). Throughout the war in Vietnam, the
agrarian reform – was crucial to mobilizing mass support and creating the subjective
conditions for revolution (Harrison, 147). The NLF additionally pursued small-scale
zeal among the rural populace in South Vietnam, but as the war dragged on, NLF fighting
relied more heavily on North Vietnamese forces to “take over the brunt of heavy
of war materials and supplies from China and Russia to combat their enemies, and
coupled with the withdrawal of US forces and tactical support from South Vietnam, this
assistance allowed the NLF to overrun RVN in 1975 (Sorley, 382). Once again, the fact
that the revolutionary forces in Vietnam succeeded due to external support – from North
Vietnam, China, Russia, Cambodia, and Laos – and the withdrawal of US interests in the
conflict offers strong evidence negating Che’s assertion that the foco alone can lead a
guerrilla movement to victory. Similarly, the external political influence of the DRV on
the NLF again detracts from Che’s theory because it was critical to the development of
ties with the aforementioned countries. Nevertheless, the war testifies to the ability of a
motivate the populace to take up arms and struggle for freedom: the actions of the NLF in
and land reform changed the war from a conflict between small cadres of hard core
opponents of Diem to one in which “275,000 [South Vietnamese] were killed in action”
(Sorley, 383). The massive amount of military casualties alone evidences the support for
the revolution that the ideological indoctrinations of the NLF instilled in the peasantry,
and affirms that the military can indeed bring the people around to revolution by creating
Finally, by applying Che’s theory to the Bolivian case, where Che was caught and
executed in 1967, the expansion of his theory – namely, that subjective conditions could
disproved, and moreover, through the failure of the foco in this case, Che’s original
assessment, that objective conditions for revolution must be met before subjective
conditions can be induced, is reaffirmed. To begin, though Bolivia in the 1950s exhibited
in landownership, and an “archaic, manorial social system” that exploited the Indian
improvements from the MNR, “destruction of the Bolivian latifundia system” and a
functional party system that held regular elections created a population that generally
favored the Bolivian government (Loveman, 316, 318). Thus, because agrarian reform
and political discontent were not viable ideals to gain popular support, Che’s foco had
“no hope of creating the necessary subjective conditions among the peasantry”
(Loveman, 322). The foco further damaged their chances of inciting a revolution by
precipitating an irreparable rift with the PCB, eliminating a large portion of their potential
support base in Bolivia and severing their political resources. This break occurred, in
part, because the internationality of the foco – 21 of the 50 guerrillas were not Bolivian –
troubled the PCB, who wanted Bolivian leaders to head the revolution; their
internationality further attributed to their failure because they suffered from a “woeful
lack of knowledge of the Bolivian geography”, a terrain that was already barely
compatible with the desirable terrain described in Che’s theory (Loveman, 319-20). The
foco’s unfamiliarity with the Bolivian countryside accelerated their ultimate demise by
causing a separation of the their forces, one of which led by the Cuban, Joaquín, was
wiped out in August, 1967 by Bolivian forces, thus destroying the majority of the foco
and yielding the “seizure of all their supplies of food, medicine, and munitions”
(Loveman, 323). A little over one month later, the Bolivian army, having recently
increased the military prowess of their army with the addition of 600 US trained Bolivian
Rangers, captured Che and the remainder of the foco, marking its end and the end of any
“significant guerrilla activity in Bolivia” (Loveman, 325). The failure of Che and his foco
at least seemingly viable, political outlets exist and that international revolutionaries can
foment a national rebellion, while upholds the validity of Che’s belief that prerequisite
objective conditions must exist for a foco to achieve its aims, for clearly, his efforts
individuals to create and win revolution, and though Che later amended his theories to
conditions for rebellion, particular concepts of his theory withstood the trials of history.
However, when comparing the central tenet of Che’s theory – that of the foco – to its
counterpart in Mao’s theory, the foco parallels, at least in part, the role political parties
play in other schools of guerrilla warfare. In that regard, it becomes necessary to ask: if a
foco is to espouse political ideology, and is to unite a population towards one common
goal, and is to control governmental power once that goal has been achieved, what real
differences – other than the resolve to fight – exist between a foco and a political party?
And furthermore, if the foco resembles a political party in functionality, how much of a
break does Che’s theory of guerrilla warfare represent from that of Mao?
Works Cited
Cabezas, Omar. Fire from the Mountain. New York: Crown, 1985.
Duiker, William J. Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam. New
Elliott, David. The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta,
Guevara, Ernesto Che, Brian Loveman, and Thomas Davies. Guerrilla Warfare. Danbury:
Moreno, Jose. "Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare: Doctrine, Practice and Evaluation."
Comparative Studies in Society and History. 2nd ed. Vol. 12. London: Cambridge
Skidmore, Thomas E., and Peter H. Smith. Modern Latin America. London: Oxford UP,
Incorporated, 2004.
Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and the Final Tragedy of
Tang, Troung Nhu. A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its