PART I

REVIILII TIIINARY WARFARE

ANII CDUITERINSIIRGENCY
 dic. reawn Jc g of •"e u, literatures - of revolution and counterrevolution. Somewhat
. _ __ , , _ _
- - 11y,- h
1romca i 0" vever • since he never published a fully flesued-out stuay of 1t, 1t
. . .
.,vas tlhe e1-g11,.,•-,,,. •• Afgerian Revolution, wh1ch began m 1954, the year of
,_.,._,._ _
,. t. 1-n Jndochina, that provided the source of the pnnc1ples :n1d
.1.

France,s deL;...a
_ •

. _ , • .
the arguments to which he would return., .
agam and aga.rr1 m analyzing revo-
. . .
-
lut1on and 1- ts a..t.1.- ,.,,.c.ermath -and the strategies and logic ofcounterrevo lution. It 1s
,.. •
no com - c1-dence that eve-nr1 arride -
in this section reters to .t\1gena.i\s a young
• • . • _ _
A}unad was an eyevvirness to the Algerian Revolutrnn, an mttmare ot
£

ma
m.en,b ers of-1ts 'e• � ,,. dership· It is unclear whether he ever met Franz Fanon dur-
m
Ls 110d, bu·i they knew of each other, and Fanon v,as an abiding m-
. . .
- g tiuS p e.-
m
flu ence on hi::;. •·hough' !'.hmad even worked on the reproduct10_n o: the Af-
, _

- . luu·on, thar is' he helped to research the scrrpt for ,11that remams
1. �- ..

genan Re�,o .
• •

, _ . . . s
r
+ of.Algiers. ,
the classic - rnov<e ·• on " revolm1o n.· Gillo Pontecorvo · 1966 The Ba.tie
_
A--, '/\hmad relates in a lecture on tl1e film printed for the first rime in this
book, u: ,,,_; ..,,..:,. a classic at Least in part because -its narratrve
· . rem<',J,J,., - and drama com-
unicate the principles of revolutio nary strategy so clearly.
Ill The first and most critical of rhese principles is the primacy of p olitics in

1 -
revo_unonary ,.,·
daI-" • e - The political
1ar cask is to drain the enemy of legit � imacv ,
consrru ct parallel coun erms tlons ot a -differ n , more hu­
_ _ . _ _
and begin to : �� � �
mane, and more just society that trans:rer leg1tunacy to �� revolution and an­
- -
nc1pate •;:he trans�er :u of pow-er· It _is onlv; then that the military phase of guer--
rilfa. war can begin h'1 ean1est, reliant wnolly on popular support, both �ecause
this will help offi;et dramatic military in1balances and because the goal ,s to ef­
c a popu]=
r.ect o• tra"<' " JJ..-' 1'ormation of society. (Genenl Maxwell Taylor told Presi,-
denr Lyndon Johns on in 1964 that the mmtary rule of thumb m ant1gu errilla
'r . .. ,

op eranon - , 1- 5 ,., "o outnun1ber � guerrillas bv at least ten to one. Ahnud reports
- .o ·a e fi\Tllre was more like twenty-three to one.) . . Ahmaddevel-
. •
that m ..-5er1 tli v
Al rr

ops this th,em",., .._. ;n� the first an:ide in this section, his famous, popularly writ-

ten and widely distributed "Revolutionary Wa...fare: How to Tell When the
Re�ek F!aveWou."The enemy rnust, in his classic prescription, be outadmin­
istered before he is outfought, morilly isolated, drained of legitimacy, "that
crucial and ubiquitous factor in politics that invests power with authority" (le-
-- 0 , one of bis key analyn·cal and political conce ts) . 2 W1',ile
a1n._"11acy will rec"' .__... = · p
Mn -d ia is certainly not the first theorist of revolution to emphasize the pri-
macy of politics, bis discin.ctive concribution. is to giv� detail �d cl_ari ry •to the
p rocess Ot' the ....,., '""""'ns+er " ofleoitim o· acy and to illustrate its workings m an enor-
mous range of conte:x"t'S .

4 B E N G E l S O O R f A I D C I R ll l l Q
 Hm,v, then, to -cell ·when the rebels have won? At what point does the
moral isolacion of the existing regllne become irreversible? This.is precisely
the question on which Ahrr>_ad's analyses of the revolutionary movements he
addresses in this section \'\rill turn. He ident'£ies the gap berween i;ounterin­
surgency strategists (frorn Colonel Bigeard and General Massu in Algeria to
lJS Vietnam specialists) and theorists and practitioners of revolutionary v;a:r­
fare: the former understand guerrilla ,varfare as technical and military prob­
a
lem; the latter, as a moral and political one. This gap between revolutio11 and
counterrevolution, between the "coercive military capabilities of the rulers
-and the detennined resistance ofthe ruled:'3 he argues, contains both the pos­
sibility of revolurionaries' outadministering the enemy and the logic of coun­
terinsurgency, a logic of military escalation, even genocide, His 1965 frame­
-work, stark in its conceptualization, anticipates the subsequent course of rhe
VietwunWar and challenges its still-dominant contemporary interpretation in
US culture as a series of blunders and mistakes, with no underlying logic.
1, \.hmad's connna,--id pf the process of revolution in botli Algeria andViet­
nam allows him to critique both revolutionary and counterrevolutionary the­
orists. In "Radical hnt Wrong;' despite disclaimers concerning bis lack of
knowledge about Latin America, he provides one of the earliest and still most
dear-sighted and damning critiques of Regis D-ebray's foco theory; the theo­
retical backdrop for Ernesto "Che" Gue'.'<lra 's disasa:ous final guerrilla opera­
tion in Bolivia.4 According to the faco theory, revolution can be detcnated
when an apparently unassailable power is revealed to be vuh1erable through a
surprise, carefi.tlly targeted attack by an armed mobile guerrilla serving as the
single spark it takes to start a prairie fire.Ahrr.ad argues that Debray. in com­
pletely denigrating the primacy of the politiccl and inverting the revolution­
ary process, putting first military action by a small band of guerrillas who are
to rernain.., in the ir..itial stages, aloof and wary of the native population, reduce5:
revolution to a set of tactics born of despair, Missing is rhe crucial condition
for revolution: that the existing government has lost its legitimacy, its moral
right, not simply its coercive capacity to rule. Reducing tlie p opulation to
"spectators who will join the 'Wll�g side" together witl� conceiving revo­
lution as a militasy not a politicai challenge reveals unexpected affinities be­
tween Debray and US theorists (and pr.ctitioners) of counterrevolution.The
remarkable coincidence of Debray's theory at almost every point with the
Vie\vs of che coum:crinsurgency ex:perts,Ahmad implies, v.ras exactly why Che
was such an eas-y urget for the Bolivian Special Forces, trained by those very

IN TRSDUCTION TO PART 1 s
 ng them out, and by a collective
lo mats over there" selli
of"politicians and dip their making.
ment that is not of
will to defy a settle Vietnamese regime has no le-
s are clear. Th e South
In Vie tnam, the sign estern power can hope for p op­
nm ent ba ck�d by a W
gitimacy, and no gover e capitalized on the
rt in a cou ntr y where the Cornrnunists hav
ular sup p o
dence and unity, and where the pro­
restoring indepen
n ationalist appeal of d the musical-chair g enerals.4
este rn l ea de rs ha ve been Bao-Dai, Di e m, an
W 1960 (not counting the earlier re­
ns b egan as ear ly as
The massacre of civilia d by reputable scholars and
Diem regime), as atteste
pressive measures of the Samuel T.Williaros; see Us.
m r ch ie f US m ilitary adviser (Lt. Gen.
even a for e . The intel­
rld Rep ort, N ov e mber 9, 1964). It has since escalated
Wo
News and ed.And NorthVietnam is sub­
tua ls and mod era tes have deserted or defect
lec Vietnamese allies have lost the
s.America and its South
jected to daily bombing the support of theVietnamese
ause they could not win
revolutionary war bec al.
moral isolatio n is tot
people, and now their at of communism, and I
re of the appeals and thre
As an Asian, I am awa i . But I do not believe
likely to prevent its expans on
would support policies efore I am neither pan­
wave of the :future, and ther
that communism is the a uniq ue case--culturally, his­
believe that Vietnam is
icke d nor paralyzed. I States will no t rep eat its Viet­
ical ly, and po liti call y. I hope that the United
tor domino theory, and I am
. I do not subscribe to the
nam blunder s else where a test cas e . Vietnam is the only
ans who call Vietnam
anguished by Americ nt for indep endence was
y i n the wo rld wh ere the nationalist moveme
countr and heroic decades. In new
ts during its most crucial
led by the Communis weak, the legitimacy and pop­
tional loyalties are still
countries where institu roes and martyrs . Unfortu­
rives from its nationalist he
ularity of a regime de n of Vi etnam, its Gandhi, was
rld, the George Washingt
o
nately for th e free wo ciates (including General
:rrun uni st nati on ali st. Ho Chi Minh and his asso
a Co comidered the founding fa­
fame) are unders tandably
Giap ofDien Bien Phu sm to expect an absentee aris­
m. It was m orbid optimi
thers of m odernVietna lifetime to the liberation of his
der who had devoted a
tocrat to supplant·a lea e organic ties with the
a leader ship and cadr whos
es
country and to defeat independence. It is not fair
ted by the bitter struggle for
peasants were cemen peratioIL He had no choice.
ving the Vietnamese to des
to blame Diem for dri ons were a power apparatus to
es, his only possible weap
Given his circumstanc rities, and widespre ad terror.
im ent the p o pul atio n, all-out support of mino
reg gram itself.
tions_9f a program but the pro
These were not aberra

ARFARE
22 REVDLUTIDNARY W
 Vi etnam is also the only countr y in which the U�ted States. gave sub�
sta ntial support to a colonial power in a war of independence. Tb½ c ould no t
have endeared America to the Vietnamese pe ople. Th en in the "Southern
zone" America: replaced France and supported the ex-French puppet Bao­
Dai; next it put up Diem as "the de mocratic alternative to [the]Viet cong" and
also fail e d to honor its pledge to hold elections for the unification of the
country. To mostVietnaxnese, the present war therefore is a continuation of the
struggle for independence. I know how Asians feel about Am erica's acti on.
They call it neo colonialism; some think it is imperialism. I know this is ver y
wrong because Americans are naturally sympath etic to peoples' struggl e s for
freedom and justice, and they would like to help if they could. I prefer the
term "maternalism" for American p o licy in countries like Vietnaxn, because it
reminds me o(the stor y of an ele phant who, as she strolled benignly in the
jungle, stepped on a mother partridge and killed her. When she noticed the
orphaned siblings, t e ars filled the kind elephant's eyes. "Ah, I, too, have mater­

nal instincts," she said , turning to the orphans, and sat on them.
[1965]

HDW TD TELL WHEN REBELS HAVE WDN 23

 highest levels of the Saigon government (including its secret services); that the
"VC (or "Viet Cong;' short for Vietnam Cong San, or Vietnamese Commu­
nist, the name by which the US and the South Vietnames�- government
referred to the NLF] infrastructure" remained impenetrable; and that both
conditions are predicated upon the complicity of the majority of the govern­
ment's civilian and defense employees. The « disclosure" may have been meant
to prepare the public for more repression and purges by the Saigon regime.
But its significance is clear: its foreign trustees know that the regime, isolated
from the people, is also hollow and eroding fi:orn within.
Even Sir Robert is reported to have returned gloomy :from his recent mis­
sion to "Macedonia," as he unblushingly calls Vietnam. ("Come with me to
Macedonia,"he invites his readers in the preface to No Exit From Vietnam, fanc­
ying his relationship to Mr. Nixon as the modern equivalent of the expert­
advisers to Roman emperors.) The Phoenix (Phung Hoang) program has an
actual score of zero: not one ranking member of the NLF is known to have
been killed or captured, although this notorious "counterterror" program is
believed to have terrorized, tortured, and killed several thousand ''suspects."No
important defector has been received by the Chieu Hai (OpenArrns) program
In effect, it is the only decent refugee rese.ttlement program in Vietnam, for
refugees with official connections generally get registered as defectors to get
favorable treatment. Even the French had done better than that inVietnam and
more so in Algeria.Yet in both places they had the wisdom and decency to ne­
gotiate withdrawal.
Such being the realities ofVietnamization, the US government, intent on
winning, could only mechanize the war. Gis are being replaced ·by airplanes,
electronic devices, helicopter gunships, long-range artillery, a variety of an­
tipersonnel weapons, massive defoliation, crop destruction, and depopula­
tion. 15 The details of these daily crimes and the extent of the damage th ey do
are not and may never be completely known, especially since the US govern­
ment remains the primary source of information on these matters.A reading
of the highly censored hearings (1969-1970) of Senator [Stuart] Symington's
[Democrat, Missouri, 1953-1971] Foreign Relations Subcommittee on
United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad gives a picture
of the devastation caused by bombings in Indochina which are being carr ied
out fromAmerican sanctuaries in Thailand, Okinawa, the Pacific Fleet, Guam,
and Vietnam itself. By early r970, there were some 3.5 million B-52 bomb
craters scarring the landscape ofVietnam alone, the breeders and repositories

44 REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE
 �ow. of germs and diseases. Occasionally, bombing statistics released by au­
thorities- and "authoritative sources" give a glimpse of its lTI�o-nitude. The
"mission" of bo:!-Tlbings is not only to interdict supplies but also to destroy
"personnel" (i.e., people) as [Defense Secretary Melvin] Laird admitted early
in August, even in the case ofCambodia.16The bombing oflndocbina has ex­
ceeded several times the total tonnage dropped in all of World War IL A,, the
New York Times editorially commenced, "the headlines gradually faded, but
the air-war did not"; nor did the chemical war, nor helicopter hunting, nor
the gruesome :;inti.personnel weapons which maim so .indiscriminately and
leave so maily disabled to care for.
If the population is to the guerrillas what water is to fish, the ultimate
weapon of degenerate but powerful incumbents is to drain the water. That
is the course that Mr. Johnson embarked on; Mr. Nixon is continuing the
technological-attritive approach more skillfully and perhaps more consciously
than did liis predecessor. The poli cy may not be genocidal in intent; its goal
appears to be attriti�n. And depending on how technically the word" geno­
cide" is interpreted, it ma y not be in effect if it succeeds, but it will at least
yield to the U_S the beaten and sunken remainder of a on�e proud and brave
people-.:-a sort of twentieth-century Indian reservation in the heart ofAsia.
In counterinsurgency, then, democratic "pluralism" is experienced by the
taigeted population in its Corrupt, morally inverted form. In the "field," the
different styles blend. The guerrillas and the masses exper ience all four: they
are swept and bombed conventional style; punished and tortured style-para;
quartered and controlled pacification style; and, finally, face the prospects of a
"long-haul, low-cost" technological extermination. In the le.xi.con of coun­
terrevolutionaries, these wars are limited only in their consequences for the
intervening power. For the people and country under assault, they are total.
The attitudes and assumptions which are shared by all believers in coun­
terinsurgency may be summarized as follows:
I.There is a negative view ofrevolutionary warfare as a threat. Roger Hils­
rnan (a well-known liberal scholar, associate ofPresident Kennedy, and past di­
rector ofintelligence and research at the State Department) recalls that Presi­
dent Kennedy "let us all know of his interest in the subject and started us
thinking about it. From the beginning of his administration the President was
convinced that the techniques of'revolutionary warfare' constituted a special
kind of threat!' 17 In an address to the National War College, Vice-President
Humphrey spoke of this "bold, new form of aggression which could rank with

COUNTERINSURGENCY 45
 cation in the heyday of
e m e mories ofpacifi
oke d th colonizer s of
er re R ev ol utionnaire inv e x a m p les an d w
o rks of the
Gu ue ntly cited [1784-r849], Marshal
- The y freq obert] Bugeaud
colonialism [T h o m a s R
s docttine o n the·
o rt h Afr ic a-General 3 4] , an d G alia ni. The latt er'
N [1854-1 9
ert] Lyautey offo:ier-administrateur and
[Lo uis Bub t atY a u th or ity, the role of
d rniJi e emulated.
32
civilian an ethods wer
identity of ed; th ei r m exploits
r-ed uc at eu r w as extoll th e Indian s
and o ther colonial
0_ffi cie nces w it h
the exp erie meri c ans have to le arn
In the US, tio n . " It is ironic that we A an.
t he source ofin
spi ra
ti eth centurY
:' wrote Roger Hilsm
pr ov id e h tw e n
in t e ular warfare, in
lesson again erican ex
periences in ir reg
this rni]itatY c e o f A m successful
ding bis audi
e n
em ory of
"one of the most
After remin s th e m
fi g htin g;' he i
nvo ke
' d uring the
US colonization o f the
" In dia n h i st o ry;
gns in details and to d
raw some
rrilla campai give some gory
counter-gue g o es o n to
"bands- o religious
f
. Mr- f!ilsman e "extremists " and
pbiJ.ippines efe a tin g th
al lesson s" fr
om d ccup ation. The lessons in­
"fundament en u gh to resist foreign o the "fabu­
as demon strated by
o
o we re vile er cenaries
fana tics" w h of n ati v e m de rship role for
maxrrnum use c onstabular y"; (b) lea
clude: (a) m ed P h ili pp in e ,
" of the "fa we put a ttainedAmerican
lous explo its up [ of native recruit s]
" over each g ro emism is "advisory
Affiericans- d l ea d e r" (the official euph
eterm in e nighttime at­
ffi ce r -- a bold and d fi g hti n g " tacti cs of surprise and
o India n Mr. Hils­
do ption of " apons to fight him'.'"
role "); (c) a o p t t h e same we
solution is to
ad
cessful" Phili
ppine ca mp aign was "the
ta ck s-"the that t h e "s u c
er fought by a white
ot m ention to population) ev
man does n (in pr op o rti on
onial w ar Fili pinos ."34
bloodiest col th e li ves of 300, 000
and calls
c ost acy of politics
sia; it es the prim
power i n A w hi c h str ess
terinsurgency
ir rhetoric, sts treat coun
Despite the a l, th e lib eral-reformi
their go and technical so­
peaceful rev
olution
e p rob le m su bject to manager ial
ati v his­
an administr ong the less sop
tiall y as nom eno n is that, am
e ss en of thi s ph e
be­
gar symptom eri al "innovations"
lutions.A vul er in sur g en c y experts, manag and
unt appellation of p latoons
nd-rat e co e size and
ticated, se co an g s in th
improvements. Periodic
e
h. Even ch innovations and
com e a fetis vi ew e d as e aucratic
teams are enti ally un
changed, artificial bur
pacification iatio ns of ess rs " a sense of
e abbrev on) give the "pacifie
changes in th APT, AP C , an d so an­
D, RF, PSDF, or Bunker has
ti ns (R pro gres s. 35 Ambassad
cr ea o
ate with
h ich they e qu to be called CD
motion, w usl y O C O and USOM) is now
vi o 6
t coRDS
(pre pment Plan).'
nounc ed th a D fe ns e an d Local Develo
ommunit y e
and LDP (C

ARfAR!
DHARY W
0 R!VDLUT\
 Even Sir Robert Thompson, who evirn;;es a keen understanding of some
of the
aspects of revolutiqnary warfare, has a fundamentally bureaucratic_ view
problem. ','The bias of this book," he says in the introduction of his highly ac­
clain1-ed first work, "is heavily weighted on the administrative and other aspects
ofan insurgency."37 The promise is kepL Be offers a detailed and technically
impeccable critique of the weaknesses and failings· of counterinsurgency in
Vietnam-cabinet-style government is lacking, the country is divided into too
many provinces, hamlets are too small to be viable administrative units, the
army has become larger than the police, security forces are fragmented, and
strategic hamlets are not carefully planned ahd executed. Sir Robert's criticism
is correct, but it is irrelevant, f9r no amount ofbureaucratic vrisdom could win
the war in Vietnam. The relevant analysis would be concerned with the actual
or potential legitimacy of the local as well as national authority represented by
the Saigon regime and with an honest appraisal of the causes and character of
the linkages between the revolutionary movement and theVietnamese masses.
But the pos�re of counterinsurgency as well as the colonial and bureaucratic
mentality precludes objectivity as well as the full pe rception of reality on these
questions.
As noted earlier, revolutionary warfare demands the development of new
styles and institutions before �the attainment of power. In order to elicit vol­
untary and maximum participation by the people under conditions of ex­
treme stress, the revolutionary leaders and cadres must form organic ties with
them. Revolutionary style and :institutions are most successful when they are
qualitatively different from the existing ones and, at the same time, appeal to
the deepest and most natural yearnings of the masses. Revolutionary behav­
ior therefore defies conventional styles and expectations. In revolutions, life
begins to manifest itself in forms which are incomprehensible to bureaucrats
­ and social engineers.Wolin and Schaar's analysis of the "educational bureau- .
­ cracy" applies admirably to the counterinsurgency experts: "'The bureaucratic
d search for 'understanding' does not begin in wonder, but in the reduction of
c ihe world to the ordinary and manageable. In order t o deal with the world in
c the cognitive mode, the world must first be approached as an exercise in
of 'problem-solving'." Finding the solution implies devis ing the right tech­
­ niques, hence "reality is parsed into an ensemble of discrete though related
D parts, and each part is assigned to the expert specially assigned to deal vVith
that part'.' 38

CDUNTERINSURG!NCY 55
�
'1!
,1,1

EqbalAhmad helped research the script and was present during thefilming oJT
Battle of Algiers. What follows is an edited transcript of a lecture about the mat··
of the film that he gave to an undergraduate class at Hampshire College in fall

The Battle ofAlgiers is the first film I know of that in a concentrated fashio,.
emphasizes a primary characteristic of revolutionary warfare, the fundameO�
tal characteristic of revolutionary warfare: to be successful, the revolutionanf'
movement must outadminister the enemy before it starts to outfight it
. nfl
Battle ofAlgiers gives you that insight from both sides, Algerian and Fren,
The film closely follows the actual battle, but the emphasis is not on violeno
it is on organization. Early in the film., we see the French commissioner ofpQ)
lice working hand in glove with the colon/settler underground organization.<'.
He aids the French settler underground in blowing up two Arab hous es in tht
Casbah. In that incident, 157 Algerians died. Until that day, there had not b,
large-scale revolutionary violence in Algiers.
W hen the historical battle ofAlgiers began, the real war was in the co
tryside, not in the city. The revolutionaries were using Algiers as their he
quarters, as a source of supply, as the place from which to organize. Ali
Pointe, one of the chief characters in the film, is an example of this effort
organize. He is the quintessential lumpenproletarian: he is unemployed; he
from the ghetto; he has a criminal record; he is a vagabond; he participat� '·
:
the numbers racket; he earns money by gambling; he is connected to the
bling/prostitution network in the Casbah. While in jail for petty theft and
hitting a French boy who had taunted him in the street as he tried to es
arrest, he begins his conversion to the cause of the revolution. When
French blow up the Casbah, he is in a hurry: he wants revenge--immediat1
Ali is shown leading an angry mob, calling for blood in response to the bo
ing. In a critical early moment in the film, he goes to see the resistance co
mander, Colonel Mohanuned Jafar, and has an argument with Jafar; sa:
"We must strike back." Jafar answers, "No,Ali, not yet; we are not.ready_:
must fi r st organize the Casbah before we engage in violence. We must di
up the numbers racket, the gambling racket, the prostitution; we must i
tute discipline; we must offer services to people:' Ali then walks through
Casbah, telling the residents, "We must stop the gambling, stop the pros ·
tion." The kids beat up an old drunk, and Ali shoots the man who con1
gambling and prostitution, after apparently having warned him twice to
band his network.

86 REVDLUTIDNARY WARFARE
 cal moment in the fi]m is the marriage scene, presided over
ing oJT A second criti
ilitan t. It signifies that French rule is over inside the Casbah, that
he mat·· , an FLN m
ution has outadministered the French. Colonial law stipulated that
fall h revol
"',
t r.aaes must be registered with the French goVernment. Yet this marriage
.mar i v ned by a French-appointed qadi [Muslim religious judge], and it
ed fashio,. 'qiotperfon
with the French; it is performed instead by the revolution and
fundameO� 15·not reQJ.stered
�-
the revolution. The French have been cut out of the process.
v

olutionanf' i;:eaistered w ith

ght it " InVietnam, where they fought before Algeria and lost, the French had the
. nfl
at a certain point, "We are still here, but we're finished."
d Fren, , • ht to recoo-n-i7:e
J!lSl
r in the French resident general's office wrote a memoran-
a i::,--

violeno tical office

,�· ':li
ner ofpQ) du� to Paris in 1944 or 1945, after French rule was reestablished in Vietnam,
anization.<'. _ inav• "We are the formal authority, but we are making laws in a void, we are
Sl)
us es in tht kgislating in a vacuum." The parallel administration of the revolution had
d not b, dken over, had superimposed itself on the administration of colonial France
i�Vietnam-This is what you see happening in The Battle ofAlgiers. This is why
the co .Mohammed Jafar says, "We are not ready to retaliate because we must orga­
.
heir he riiz.e .the people, we must outadminister the enemy, so that the enemy is cut
ze. Ali ._{)ut,- even when it thinks it is formally ruling."
s effort i'>, With Colonel Mathieu, the French leader, we get the view from the
oyed; he French side. He is coming from Vietnam; he is a veteran of Indochina; he
ticipat� '·
: · '...�ows revolutionary warfare better than the colons. He says, "You cannot
o the fight this enemy unless you lick the political organization; you can kill them,
eft and · �ut unless you lick the political organization, they are going to win." Math-
to es ,
· ::- ��u-·ma...'lces charts of how the revolutionary organization iS structured to iden­
When tify the key organizers.The film shows how the French deconstructed the 1ev­
mediat1 '). - ;··p1udonary organization-using torture--knovring that you could not lick
he bo the. revolution without getting to the politics of it. W hat makes this movie so
nce co \<-Ji�cant is that it shows analytically a very fundamental reality of revolution.
ar; sa: -•Y:s-)"oll-must o utadminister before you can outfight the enemy.
.ready_:
must di
must i ..General Strike
rough
e pros · '·: :;�l�w .more· points about revolutionary warfare with reference to the film.
o con1 /,first, the general strike and its context.John F. Kennedy, who was then a US
ce to i�\,;I!ijf�awr
�
and who Wanted France to settle Algeria, called for a debate on Alge­
at the UN. All the Africans, all the Arabs, and all the other Third World
,_

THE MAKING Df THE BATTL.E UF ALGIERS 87

 "

6.Ahmad, "Revolutionary Warfare and Counterinsurgency," p. r71 passim.

7. Throughout the war and even into the present, the United States ·maintained the
fiction of twoVietnams and insisted that "NorthVietnam" was violating the Geneva ac­
cords of 1954 rather than the United States.
8. Quoted in Ahmad, "Revolutionary Warfare and Counterinsurgency," p.r46.
9. Quoted in ibid., p. 198.
IO. See, e.g., Susan Jeffords; The Remasculinizati(_m ofAmerican: Gen�er and the Viet­
nam War (Bloomington: University ofindiana Press, 1989); H. Bruce Franklin, Vietnam
and Other American Fantasies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2000).
rr. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New
York:Times Books, 1995).
12. "Yasser Arafat's Nightmare," interview in A1ERJP Reports, November/Decem-
ber 1983, pp. 18-23.Available in the EqbalAhmadArchives.
13. Ibid., p. 20.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 21.
16. Ibid., p. 22.
17. See his "Comments on Skocpol," Theory and Society II (1982): 293-309, for an
earlier version, written Soon after the revolution, of the analysis he develops (and revises)
here. See also "Special Issue on the Iranian Revolution," Rate and Class 21, no. 1 (Sum­
mer 1979). Both are available in the EqbalAhrnad Archives.
18. "Algeria's Unending Tragedy," Dawn, September 23, 1997, available in the Eqbal
Ahmad Archives.

I. REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE
L
n
I. [See Eric Hobsbawm, "Goliath and the Guerrilla," Nation,July 19, 1965.-Eds.] a
n
2. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a military invasion of the Dominican Re­
public on April 28, 1965, attributing a local revolt to reinstate ousted democratically A

elected president Juan Bosch to a Cuba-initiated Communist conspiracy. pe

3. Carlos Gaicia, Magsaysay's vice president, assumed the presidency upon lib
Magsaysay's death in 1957 and '\Vas thereafter elected to office, which he held until r96r.
4. B a o -D ai was the last emperor ofViet Nam; he served the French and the Japa­ 3.
nese and, after abdicating in 1945, was recalled from the Riviera to serve the French
again in 1949. Diem was installed by the United States in 1954 and overthrown in a US-
supported coup in 1963 following brutal repression of Buddhists. The "musical-chair 193

568 INTRODUCTION TD PART 1

"

generals" were a series of

generals installed and
tween 1963 and 1965 follo overthrown in US-
wing Diem's ouster. backed coups be­

2. RADICAL BUT
WRONG

I.Regis Debray, Revolution

in the Revolution? (New
r967), p. 21. York: Monthly Revie
w Press,
2. Regis Debr<!,y, "Le
Castrisme: La Lolli:,crue M
Temps Modernes,January arche de l'Am
r965. The sentence quot erique Larine," Les
sion of the article: "Latin ed does not appear in the
America: The Long Mar English ver­
October r965. See also ch," New Left Review,
his second article, Written September­
America," New Left Review in r965: "Marxist Strat
; September-O ctobe egy in Latin
r 1967.
J. Robin Blackburn and
PerryAnderson, "The
Review 20, no. 3 Quiy- Marxism of Regis Debr
August 1968): 64. ay," Monthly
4. Note that ·che Gueva
ra pointed out at least
setting: (1) Castro.'s perso five distinctive features
nality; (2) the United ofthe Cuban
fathoi:r: the genuinely Stat�s did not intervene, havin
_ far-reaching aspects ofthe g failed to
had lost legitimacy almost Cuban Revolu tion; (3)
completely, so that even Batist a's regime
lution and many landlords the bourgeoisie suppo
were neutral; (4) the rted the revo­
sively proletarianized by majority of the peasants
the expansion of large, were pwgres­
emergence of a class of mechanized capitalist
disaffected middle peasa farms ; (5) the
"Che" Guevara, "Cuba nts in the Sierra Maestr
-Exception or Vanguar a. See Ernesto
ings of Che Guevara, d," in Vencerem s:The
ed.Joh n Gerassi (New ? Speeches and Writ­
York, 1968), ppi132-r34
5. This refers to the or .
ganizing and disciplin
Liberation, which, with ary principles of the Chine
slight variations, were se Anny of
names; liberation movem also adopted by the
Algerian and Viet­
ents. They are: The Three
and production. The Three Tasks of the A;my---figh
Main Rules of Disdp line-o ting, politics,
needle or piece of thread bey orders, do not
from the m asses, turn in take a single
captured articles. The
Attention--speak politel
y, pay fairly for your _ Eight Points of
pensate for damages, do purchase, retur n borro
not hit or swear at people wed things, com­
liberties with women, do , do not damage crops,
not mistreat prisoners. do not take

3. COUNTERINSU
RG ENCY

r. Webster's Collegiate Dictio

nary, 5th ed. (Sprin
1939). Webster's Third New gfield, Mass.: G. and C.
International Diction ary Merriam,
(r961) gives a similar
definition:"a con-

3. COUNTERI
NSURGENCY
569