New Addition to Insurgent Studies

We here at STL are extremely proud to announce the addition of Counterinsurgency Warfare - Theory and Practice by David Galula. This is THE primer on Counterinsurgency Warfare at War Colleges worthy of the name.  It took me a long time to find this PDF file and I hope every thinking Revolutionary will add it to their list of required reading.  You can find it linked under our Survival and Insurgent Studies.  Please feel free to download and distribute as you see fit.   More is coming!

The insurgent is not restricted to the choice of a single cause. Unless he has found an over-all cause, like anti-colonialism, which is sufficient in itself because it combines all the political, social, economic, racial, religious, and cultural causes described above, he has much to gain by selecting an assortment of causes especially tailored for the various groups in the society that he is seeking to attract.

Let us suppose that the revolutionary movement is tentatively made up,
as it was in China, of the Communist Party (“vanguard of the revolution,
party of the workers and the poor farmers”) and its allies (medium and rich
peasants, artisans, plus the “national bourgeoisie” and the capitalists who
suffer from “bureaucratic capitalism” and from the economic encroachments
of the imperialists). The insurgent has to appeal to the whole, and a cause
is necessary for that. Since it is easier to unite “against” than “for,” particularly when the components are so varied, the general cause will most
probably be a negative one, something like “throw the rascals out” (the rascals in this case: Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang reactionaries; the
feudal warlords; “bureaucratic capitalism”; the compradores, “running dogs
of imperialism”; and the landlords).

In addition, the insurgent must appeal to each component of the movement, and in this aspect, the various causes will probably contain a constructive element: for the proletariat, a Marxist society; for the poor farmers, land; for the medium farmers, fair taxes; for the rich farmers, just, reasonable, and lasting settlement; for the national bourgeoisie, defense of the national interests, order, fair taxes, development of trade and industry, protection against imperialist competition.

Nothing obliges the insurgent to stick to the same cause if another one
looks more profitable. Thus, in China, the Communists initially took the
classic Marxist stand in favor of the workers (1921–25). Then they actively
espoused the national cause of the Kuomintang, for the unification of China
against the warlords (1925–27). After the Kuomintang—Communist split,
they largely dropped the workers in favor of the poor peasants, advocating
land reform by radical means (1928–34). Then Japanese aggression became
the central issue in China, and the Communists advocated a patriotic united
front against Japan (1927–45), adopting meanwhile a moderate agrarian
policy: Land redistribution would be ended, but instead, the Communists
would impose strict control of rents and interest rates. After the Japanese surrender, they finally reverted to land reform with the temperate proviso that landlords themselves would be entitled to a share of land (1945–49).

What the Communists actually did after their victory, between 1950 and
1952, was to carry out their land reform “through violent struggles” in order to conduct a class war among the rural population and thereby definitely to commit the activists on their side, if only because these activists had shared in the crimes. Once this was achieved, the Party buried land reform for good and started collectivizing the land.
Thus, if idealism and a sense of ethics weigh in favor of a consistent
stand, tactics pull toward opportunism.

The coming insurgency in the occupied territory of the North America will be unlike any insurgency seen before. All the factors are there; racial, economic, social, political. The unique composition of the Great Satan, that of a multiracial Empire ruled by racial and philosophical enemies, cries out for a revolutionary solution.

This is why it is important to understand the strategy and tactics of your enemy. Thinking revolutionaries will study the same thing the enemy is studying, and keep up on, as much as possible, what the enemy is reading. From this new strategy and tactics will be developed and from this, a new political and social order.

As one prolific poster at OD likes to say, think of it as "Mind Weaponization" :)