Institute for the Study of Revolutionary Warfare

“In the military sense of the term what after all is a street? A street is a defile in the city. A defile is a narrow pass through which troops can only move by narrowing their front, and therefore making themselves a good target for the enemy. A street is a defile the sides of which are constituted by the houses in the street.

A city is a huge maze of passes or glens formed by streets and lanes. Every difficulty that exists for the operation of regular troops in mountains is multiplied a hundredfold in a city.”

—James Connolly, “Street Fighting.”

General. Riots can cause tremendous damage to capitalist power, and can raise the fighting spirit of poor and working people. Riots can politicize individuals, empower them, and alter their understanding of what is possible in the realm of resistance. More than any other aspect of revolutionary warfare, riots involve the largest numbers of people. Continue reading “The Riot Manual”

To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely on that turning point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point.

General. Careful and detailed planning is a prerequisite for successful insurgencies. Continue reading “Planning Insurgent Actions”

Definition. Intelligence is information of value to a mission; the goal of intelligence operations is to collect such information. The focused collection of information, the transformation of that information into intelligence, the analysis of that intelligence and its dissemination to the correct people at the correct time is an art, the function of which is to facilitate understanding of the operational environment. Continue reading “Intelligence Operations”

Logistical Requirements. Logistical requirements of the clandestine organization are rudimentary and simple when compared to a conventional force of similar size. These requirements, in general, consist of—

1. Living necessities, such as housing, food, clothing, shoes, shelter, and medical equipment.
2. Basic equipment for the conduct of insurgent operations. Major categories are—fuel, lighters, glass bottles, crowbars, rocks, bricks, paint, glue, etc.
3. Equipment for producing and circulating insurgent media—computers, printers, ink, paper, wheat-paste, etc.
4. Secure transportation to enable operatives to accomplish their objectives and remain undetected.
5. A basic medical system to care for the sick and wounded.
6. A legal support base, including fund raising efforts and relationships with lawyers.

Continue reading “Logistics”

General. Any struggle or movement that poses a serious threat to capitalism and the established order will come under attack by the state. It will face police surveillance, infiltration, disinformation campaigns, cooptation, criminalization, incarceration, and even assassinations. While outright state violence is easy to recognize, surveillance and cooptation are less obvious and much more effective forms of state repression. Because of this, modern counterinsurgency theorists understand and emphasize the centrality of getting into the organizational and decision-making structures of those who oppose them, in order to surveil, disrupt, coopt and redirect those organizations and struggles from the inside. The best security and defense against this counterinsurgency strategy isn’t necessarily more secrecy and isolation, but militants who are educated and empowered to question operational decisions and leadership. More than anything else, operational security lies in the critical thinking skills of the individuals and units that make up the revolutionary organization. Continue reading “Principles of Security”

General. “Auxiliary” is a term used to denote people engaged a variety of activities which help the revolutionary insurgents. The term applies to those who are not full-blown insurgents, but who knowingly and willingly participate in the insurgency by engaging in activities such as—political mobilization, recruitment, media, intelligence (including surveillance), logistics, psychological warfare, evasion and escape. Auxiliary forces, therefore, are extensive networks of local sympathizers within the larger revolutionary movement who actively support the insurgency. The auxiliary wing of the insurgency includes the occasional supporter as well as the hard-core leadership of the resistance movement. Auxiliaries may be organized in groups or operate as individuals. There is considerable overlap between auxiliary and insurgent roles in the early stages of an insurgency; as the struggle intensifies, the distinction between the two roles becomes more defined. Continue reading “Auxiliary Forces”

The “enemy” is only a relevant category in the context of a material conflict between opposing forces, that is, in relation to the dynamics of a particular structure, in a particular space, at a particular time. These concrete dynamics should dictate how, where, and when we fight. Continue reading “The Need for Strategic Analysis”

The Wind of Revolution: Popular Will as the Key to Strategy

The will to revolt seems to express a newly awakened consciousness, not of “causes” but of potentiality. It is a spreading awareness of the possibilities of human existence, an entirely new attitude toward life, that the conditions of life that had seemed immutable can, after all, be changed. Limitations that were formerly accepted all at once become intolerable. The hint of imminent change suggests opportunities that had not been glimpsed until now. The will to act is born. Continue reading “War of the Flea, by Robert Taber”