Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc James Small wrote in part: >At 05:35 PM 7/16/03 -0600, Greg J. Lorenzo wrote: > >>Then there's Lenin, Tito, Castro, Guevara..... >> > >Lenin was no guerilla leader. Why don't YOU read some history? He wasn't >even a decent military commander; Trotsky was the commander of the Red >Army who won the Russian Civil War. > You're quite correct Lenin was a revolutionary. However, this still doesn't make Collins "arguably the most brilliant guerilla leader of the 20th century" any less ridiculous. Brilliant guerilla leaders are successful leaders. Collins was murdered by his own compatriots, hardly a successful conclusion to any profession. Uncle Ho considered himself both a revolutionary and a guerilla leader, Giap was in command of the Viet Minh, VC and NVA.This fact that does not make Ho any less brilliant a guerilla leader. > >The others fought against divided and inconclusive governments which were >more concerned with running away with their accumulated loot than in >fighting. > By their vary nature all governments are divided, inconclusive and tend to spend someone else's loot. I don't think the war weary British government after 1915 were any exception to this. >Collins managed to wage war on the English and their lackies, to >obtain the hearts and minds of his countryman, and all of this without >resorting to the sort of force against those striving to remain neutral as >displayed so viciously by the likes of Mao, Ho, and Guevara. > Sorry, still doesn't make Collins a more arguably "brilliant guerilla" than Mao, Uncle Ho, Tito, Fidel and Che (of Leica fame). >All modern concepts of guerilla warfare flow from the Big Man, from >organization of cells (studied and adopted by the Soviets in their >insurgency school attended later by Ho and Mao) to penetration of the >existing government and the logistics of rebellion. > Sorry, all modern concepts of guerilla warfare flow from the 19th century struggle waged by a small number of Portuguese and Spaniards against Imperial France and a desire to overthrow the existing order. I suspect that Collins arguable brilliance emanates from the same rare cookbook's you were quoting from last week in the fascinating British Isles "hard cooked" versus "hard boiled" egg exchange. I suggest that you never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes you time and annoys the pig. Regards, Greg > > - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html