Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla

＂The accusation of ’violence’ or ’terrorism’ no longer has the negative meaning it used to have. It has acquired new clothing; a new color. It does not divide, it does not discredit; on the contrary, it represents a center of attraction. Today, to be ’violent’ or a ’terrorist’ is a quality that ennobles any honorable person, because it is an act worthy of a revolutionary engaged in armed struggle against the shameful military dictatorship and its atrocities.＂

Carlos Marighella (1911-1969) was a Marxist-Leninist writer, politician, and guerrilla militant, the face of resistance against the Brazilian military dictatorship. Originally circulated in 1969 as Minimanual do Guerrilheiro Urbano, Marighella’s Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla is both a modus operandi and a practical guide for asymmetric warfare. From the beginning, it has been photocopied and translated and mimeographed and otherwise freely distributed as a strategic resource-including, in the 1980s, by the CIA, which produced it as training material for various counterrevolutionary forces. It has also been banned in multiple countries, of course, including the United States.

While many of the specific tactics that Marighella describes may have outlived their usefulness, the urgency and unflinching directness of this fascinating text render it perpetually relevant to both historical study and contemporary resistance movements.