Why Did Castro Use Guerrilla Warfare
With reference to one specific example, assess the reasons for the use of guerrilla warfare, and its effectiveness.
“The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.” Castro concluded during his interview with Frank Mankiewicz and Kirby Jones in 1976. Fighting for liberation against Batista’s totalitarian and military-backed regime, Castro ultimately defeated the despot on January 1st, 1959. Why did Castro use guerrilla warfare with a group of only 82 men, against a formidable force of over 37,000? How effective was this tactic? Although some might suggest that Castro used guerrilla warfare to maintain anonymity, it is argued that fighting Batista’s foreboding army using orthodox tactics would have been a prelude for failure. In order to drastically alter the
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He deposed of a man who was consistently backed by the national army. Ultimately, Castro won a war against an entity embellished with weapons and superior technology with only 82 men. In order to do this successfully, he utilised guerrilla warfare tactics as they best suited his resource. Fighting a war against an enemy far greater with orthodox and predictable methods would be an irrefutable disaster. Instead, small scaled yet mobile attacks on troops when they least expected proved to be an effective method of confrontation. Phase 1 of the guerrilla warfare principles emphasise on the importance of popular support, which Castro strongly related to. Additionally, the warfare encouraged troops to fight on land that is not only readily available, but an area rebels have cohesive knowledge on. Guerrilla warfare has proved to be successful method of initiating liberty on numerous occasions. It worked for Tito in Yugoslavia, the Viet Cong in Vietnam and certainly for Fidel Castro in Cuba. The country was free after four centuries of neocolonialism, and ‘Cuba Libre’ was finally
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