Guerrilla Warfare Authoritative, Revised, New Edition

Che Guevara’s classic text on revolutionary tactics and strategy.

Since Guerrilla Warfare was first published in 1961, it has joined the canon of classic military literature, consulted by revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries alike. In this book, Che Guevara outlines the lessons he learned as a guerrilla soldier in the Cuban revolution and explains how a small group of dedicated fighters grew in strength with the support of the Cuban people, overcoming the odds to vanquish the US-backed dictator’s army and overthrow the dictatorship.
 
Guerrilla Warfare is both an insightful account of one of the decisive revolutionary movements of the twentieth century and a timeless resource for freedom fighters the world over. This edition includes Che’s corrections and his suggestions for further revisions to the text—revisions his murder in 1967 prevented him from making.

ERNESTO GUEVARA DE LA SERNA was born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928. During his medical studies in Buenos Aires, he took a trip with his friend Alberto Granado on an old Norton motorcycle through all of Latin America, the basis for The Motorcycle Diaries. Living in Guatemala in 1954—then under the elected government of Jacobo Arbenz—he became involved in political activity there and was an eyewitness to the overthrow of that government in a CIA-organized military operation. Forced to leave Guatemala, Guevara went to Mexico City and linked up with exiled Cuban revolutionaries and met Fidel Castro in 1955. Guevara joined an expedition to Cuba that began in the Sierra Maestra mountains. He was originally the troop doctor and became Rebel Army commander in July 1957. Following the rebels’ victory on January 1, 1959, Guevara became a key leader of the new revolutionary government. In September 1959 he began serving as head of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform; in November 1959 he became president of the National Bank; and in February 1961 he became minister of industry. He was also a central leader of the political organization that in 1965 became the Communist Party of Cuba.