Q. What do Marxists think about Guerrillaism?

A. It is not in the tradition of Marxism to support a movement of peasant war separate and apart from the movement of the working class, which is decisive. The efforts and work of Marxists should be largely concentrated in the cities and among the proletariat. Always of course, under all conditions, the struggle of other oppressed classes must be supported by Marxists.

Guerrillaism as Lenin has explained is the method of the lumpen proletariat and of the peasants. While it is somewhat understandable for the guerrilla movements to develop in countries where there is virtually no proletariat, there can be no justification whatsoever for urban guerrillaism! In most countries in the world today the proletariat makes up the vast majority of the population. India for example has more industry than her former colonial master Britain. Peasant wars even if victorious can only lead to the victory of Bourgeois Bonapartism (Dictatorship) or Proletarian Bonapartism (Stalinism). They can never result in the victory of a socialist revolution in the classical form which requires a conscious movement by the proletariat. Urban guerrillaism tries to replace the movement of the proletariat by students, lumpens and even some de-classed workers and is absolutely against all the teachings of Marxism. Invariably it has ended in disaster. That has been the experience in Latin America and in other continents.

The task of Marxists is not merely to overthrow the capitalist regime, but to prepare the way for the socialist future of mankind. The destruction of capitalism and landlordism in the colonial countries is an immense step forward which raises the level of all mankind. But precisely because of the helplessness of the peasantry as a class to rise to the future Socialist tasks, it nevertheless can only succeed in raising new obstacles in its path. The victory of the peasant war, given the relationship of forces in the world and the crisis of capitalism and imperialism in the underdeveloped countries can result in a form of deformed workers' state (Stalinism). It cannot result in the conscious control by the workers and peasants of industry, agriculture and the state.

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