# Guerrilla Warfare - Author: [Ernesto Che Guevara](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara.md) - Quotes: 23 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare ## Quotes > We consider that the Cuban Revolution contributed three fundamental lessons to the conduct of revolutionary movements in America. They are: (1) Popular forces can win a war against the army. (2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. (3) In underdeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/we-consider-that.md) > Assaults and terrorism in indiscriminate form should not be employed. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/assaults-and-terrorism.md) > War is always a struggle in which each contender tries to annihilate the other. Besides using force, they will have recourse to all possible tricks and stratagems in order to achieve the goal. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/war-is-always.md) > The education of the guerrilla fighter is important from the very beginning of the struggle. This should explain to them the social purpose of the fight and their duties, clarify their understanding, and give them lessons in morale that serve to forge their characters. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-education-of-the.md) > From the very beginning of the struggle he has the intention of destroying an unjust order and therefore an intention, more or less hidden, to replace the old with something new. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/from-the-very.md) > "Know yourself and your adversary and you will be able to fight a hundred battles without a single disaster." This Chinese aphorism is as valuable for guerrilla warfare as a biblical psalm. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/know-yourself-and.md) > A fundamental part of guerrilla tactics is the treatment accorded the people of the zone. Even the treatment accorded the enemy is important; the norm to be followed should be an absolute inflexibility at the time of attack, an absolute inflexibility toward all the despicable elements that resort to informing and assassination, and clemency as absolute as possible toward the enemy soldiers who go into the fight performing or believing that they perform a military duty. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/a-fundamental-part.md) > Striking like a tornado, destroying all, giving no quarter unless the tactical circumstances call for it, judging those who must be judged, sowing panic among the enemy combatants, he nevertheless treats defenseless prisoners benevolently and shows respect for the dead. A wounded enemy should be treated with care and respect unless his former life has made him liable to a death penalty, in which case he will be treated in accordance with his deserts. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/striking-like-a-tornado.md) > The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-guerrilla-fighter-needs.md) > The guerrilla fighter, as a person conscious of a role in the vanguard of the people, must have a moral conduct that shows him to be a true priest of the reform to which he aspires. To the stoicism imposed by the difficult conditions of warfare should be added an austerity born of rigid self-control that will prevent a single excess, a single slip, whatever the circumstances. The guerrilla soldier should be an ascetic. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-guerrilla-fighter-as.md) > Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted. p. 14 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/where-a-government.md) > It is a good policy, so long as there are no considerable bases of operations and invulnerable places, to take no prisoners. Survivors ought to be set free. The wounded should be cared for with all possible resources at the time of the action. Conduct toward the civil population ought to be regulated by a large respect for all the rules and traditions of the people of the zone, in order to demonstrate effectively, with deeds, the moral superiority of the guerrilla fighter over the oppressing soldier. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/it-is-a-good.md) > Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/why-does-the.md) > Reading should be encouraged at all times, with an effort to promote books that are worthwhile and that enlarge the recruit's facility to encounter the world of letters and great national problems [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/reading-should-be-encouraged.md) > Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/guerrilla-warfare-is-used.md) > The part that the woman can play in the development of a revolutionary process is of extraordinary importance. It is well to emphasize this, since in all our countries, with their colonial mentality, there is a certain underestimation of the woman which becomes a real discrimination against her. The woman is capable of performing the most difficult tasks, of fighting beside the men; and despite current belief, she does not create conflicts of a sexual type in the troops. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-part-that.md) > The best age for a guerrilla fighter varies between 25 and 35 years, a stage in which the life of most persons has assumed definite shape. Whoever sets out at that age, abandoning his home, his children, and his entire world must have thought well of his responsibility and reached a firm decision not to retreat a step. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-best-age.md) > The peasant must always be helped technically, economically, morally, and culturally. The guerrilla fighter will be a sort of guiding angel who has fallen into the zone, helping the poor always. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-peasant-must.md) > Acts of sabotage are very important. It is necessary to distinguish clearly between sabotage, a revolutionary and highly effective method of warfare, and terrorism, a measure that is generally ineffective and in-discriminate in its results, since it often makes victims of innocent people and destroys a large number of lives that would be valuable to the revolution. Terrorism should be considered a valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing forces well known for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression, or other quality that makes his elimination useful. But the killing of persons of small importance is never advisable, since it brings on an increase of reprisals, including deaths. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/acts-of-sabotage.md) > The guerrilla fighter, who is general of himself, need not die in every battle. He is ready to give his life, but the positive quality of this guerrilla warfare is precisely that each one of the guerrilla fighters is ready to die, not to defend an ideal, but rather to convert it into reality. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/the-guerrilla-fighter.md) > Favorable conditions for establishing a permanent camp in guerrilla warfare are inverse to the degree of productive development of a place... because everything that is favorable to human life, communications, urban and semi-urban concentrations of large numbers of people, land easily worked by machine, all these place the guerrilla fighter in a disadvantageous situation. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/favorable-conditions-for.md) > When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/when-the-forces.md) > Camilo (Cienfuegos) was the subject of a thousand anecdotes; he created them naturally wherever he went. To his ease of manner, always appreciated by the people, he added a personality that naturally and almost unconsciously put the stamp of Camilo on everything connected with him. Few men have succeeded in leaving on every action such a distinctive personal mark. As Fidel has said, he did not have culture from books; he had the natural intelligence of the people, who had chosen him out of thousands for a privileged position on account of the audacity of his blows, his tenacity, his intelligence, and unequalled devotion. Camilo practiced loyalty like a religion. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernesto-che-guevara/guerrilla-warfare/camilo-cienfuegos-was.md)