Page:On Guerrilla Warfare (United States Marine Corps translation).djvu/26

Introduction food, recruits, and information. The pattern of the process is conspiratorial, clandestine, methodical, and progressive. Military operations will be sporadic.

In the next phase, direct action assumes an ever-increasing importance. Acts of sabotage and terrorism multiply; collaborationists and "reactionary elements" are liquidated. Attacks are made on vulnerable military and police outposts; weak columns are ambushed. The primary purpose of these operations is to procure arms, ammunition, and other essential material, particularly medical supplies and radios. As the growing guerrilla force becomes better equipped and its capabilities improve, political agents proceed with indoctrination of the inhabitants of peripheral districts soon to be absorbed into the expanding "liberated" area.

One of the primary objectives during the first phases is to persuade as many people as possible to commit themselves to the movement, so that it gradually acquires the quality of "mass." Local "home guards" or militia are formed. The militia is not primarily designed to be a mobile fighting force; it is a "back-up" for the better-trained and better-equipped guerrillas. The home guards form an indoctrinated and partially trained reserve. They function as vigilantes. They collect information, force merchants to make "voluntary" contributions, kidnap particularly obnoxious local landlords, and liquidate informers and collaborators. Their function is to protect the revolution.

Following Phase I (organization, consolidation, and preservation) and Phase II (progressive expansion) comes Phase III: decision, or destruction of the enemy. It is dur-