Page:On Guerrilla Warfare (United States Marine Corps translation).djvu/32



—Mao Tse-tung, 1937

HE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between patriotic partisan resistance and revolutionary guerrilla movements is that the first usually lacks the ideological content that always distinguishes the second.

A resistance is characterized by the quality of spontaneity; it begins and then is organized. A revolutionary guerrilla movement is organized and then begins.

A resistance is rarely liquidated and terminates when the invader is ejected; a revolutionary movement terminates only when it has succeeded in displacing the incumbent government or is liquidated.

Historical experience suggests that there is very little hope of destroying a revolutionary guerrilla movement after it has survived the first phase and has acquired the sympathetic support of a significant segment of the population. The size of this "significant segment" will vary; a decisive figure might range from 15 to 25 per cent.

In addition to an appealing program and popular support, such factors as terrain; communications; the quality