(ajf) The ›Minimanual do Guerrilheiro Urbano‹1 is considered the most influential handbook for underground fighters; it was written by Carlos Marighella (1911–1969), a Brazilian politician, writer, and guerrilla fighter against the country’s military dictatorship. The book offers detailed instructions on how to organize guerrilla operations in urban environments, including logistics (weapons, vehicles), sabotage tactics, kidnappings and attacks, propaganda, indoctrination, and much more.
Carlos Marighella was a key activist against Brazil’s military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. He founded the ›Ação Libertadora Nacional‹ (ALN – National Liberation Action), a communist guerrilla movement that fought against the repressive regime and attracted supporters from all sectors of Brazilian society. Marighella was killed in November 1969 in São Paulo during a heavy shootout with the police, after his location had been betrayed.The ›Minimanual do Guerrilheiro Urbano‹ had a profound influence not only on revolutionary movements in Brazil but worldwide – in particular on the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany. Many of the tactics and situations described by Marighella can be found, almost textbook-like, in RAF operations. For anyone who wants to understand this legendary German terrorist group, reading Marighella is essential.
The revolutionary text also conferred a kind of higher justification to the criminal impulses of Andreas Baader, because Marighella truly fought for a cause – against a brutal dictatorship2. Gudrun Ensslin, the intellectual head of the RAF, insisted that every member study Marighella’s manual and, with almost missionary zeal, demanded that its principles be applied word for word. One of its core principles: when in contact with the enemy – shoot first! As Marighella writes in the section ›Shooting: The Basis of Existence‹ (p. 20): “If he does not want to be killed himself, the urban guerrilla must shoot first, without missing his target.”
The Brazilian National Liberation Action (ALN) came to an end in the late 1970s with the defeat of the movement and the arrest, death, or flight of its members after massive persecution by the regime. The dictatorship itself ended only in 1985 with the election of Tancredo Neves, an opposition politician supported by a broad coalition of parties, unions, and civic groups.3
1. The original ›Mini-manual of the Urban Guerrilla‹ was written in Portuguese ↩︎
2. The Brazilian dictatorship was marked by severe human rights violations, including torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of political opponents. In the years following the dictatorship, efforts were made to address the crimes of the military regime and achieve reconciliation in society; a ›Truth Commission‹ was established only in 2014. ↩︎
3. Brazil’s democratization was a gradual process that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1979 the military regime passed an amnesty law allowing political prisoners and exiles to return. In 1984, free elections were held, and Tancredo Neves was elected – the first civilian president since 1964. ↩︎