U.S. imperialism cultivates abysmal military morale. Revolutionary guerrilla armies cultivate great morale.
To see what a military with good morale looks like, study a revolutionary guerrilla army. By necessity, they properly balance severe discipline of rule-breakers with a dynamic of warmth and companionship. As Che Guevara describes in Guerrilla Warfare, this can correspond with successful efforts to reduce the morale of the enemy's military: "It is possible to paralyze entire armies, to suspend the industrial life of a zone, leaving the inhabitants of a city without factories, without light, without water, without communications of any kind, without being able to risk travel by highway except at certain hours. If all this is achieved, the morale of the enemy falls, the morale of his combatant units weakens, and the fruit ripens for plucking at a precise moment."
But the morale of the rebels can't depend on such victories. It has to come from within, not from events outside of it. Which is what the Viet Minh's fighters showed how to do. The Viet Minh achieved superior morale to the U.S. military, and consequently won the war, through:
-Organizing into three-person cells. A minimal number for a guerrilla band that's coincidentally now more practical than ever, due to how advancements in military surveillance technologies have necessitated smaller, more easily concealable groups of insurgents. But all on its own, this approach serves as a way to maintain unity. A member of these cells said "The purpose is . . . to give constant assistance to each other. . . . It usually unites three best friends."
-Holding the leaders of cadres responsible for indoctrinating their subordinates, and directing their actions. This responsibility also naturally entails punishing any actions which aren't sanctioned by democratic centralism. Che says the base version of what these teachers need to impart on their pupils is "elementary notions about the history of the country, explained with a clear sense of the economic facts that motivate each of the historic acts; accounts of the national heroes and their manner of reacting when confronted with certain injustices; and afterwards an analysis of the national situation or of the situation in the zone."
-An effort to make sure that the party's organizational model and ideology define the army at every level. There was no room for ideological factionalism, any more than there was room for actions which weren't done with the approval that democratic centralism provides. Everyone shared the same goals, and the teachers made sure there was no confusion about what those goals were.
-Giving anyone of any rank the right to criticize battle plans. This is the "democratic" in democratic centralism; you can't do what the cadre doesn't collectively agree you should do, but you can try to persuade the cadre to your opinion if you think their approach is wrong. This way, where arguments must pass a test of popular approval before getting converted to actions, bad ideas have less chance of being put into practice.
-A series of shared philosophical principles that give everyone determination. In Vietnam, a major part of this was nationalism. But a U.S. insurgency that attempts to replicate this aspect of their philosophy would take on the baggage of the colonial contradiction, and therefore come into conflict with the colonized nations. How an insurgency here would avoid this pitfall is by treating these nations as the vanguard of the broader effort to liberate the proletariat. And to incorporate the universally applicable aspects of the Viet Minh's warfare philosophy. Such as a desire to maintain dignity in the face of extreme challenges, and a fatalistic attitude that detaches one from worry upon taking on a challenge.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
