revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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Indians in Uruguay . The Tupamaros thought the fundamental principle of
organization is a revolutionary act in itself, that being prepared,
equipped and violating bourgeois legality generated revolutionary awareness,
organization and conditions . The Tupamaros analyzed, if there is
no adequately prepared group, revolutionary situations are wasted and not
taken advantage of .
They argued that armed struggle and direct action
itself prepares the people and builds the mass movement . According to the
Tupamaros :
A revolutionary movement must be prepared itself for the armed
struggle at any stage, even when conditions for the armed struggle
don't exist . . . for at least two reasons . Because an
armed leftist movement may be attacked by repression at any
phase of its development and it must be prepared to defend its
very existence . 11
The Tupamaros militant who is underground and involved in political
work in either a union or a mass movement, must try to organize a group
within the union to support the activity of the armed group . His role
is to educate the union members about the armed struggle and if possible
make the union more radical . The Tupamaros feel the armed group must be
part of a political organization of the masses at every stage of the
struggle . They believe :
Every vanguard movement, in order to maintain its very nature at
the culminating point of the struggle, must participate in that
struggle and must know how to guide popular violence against
oppression in such a way that it suffers the least possible
losses . 12
In some countries, guerrillas combined rural warfare with urban guerrilla
struggle . One country in which this took place was Nicaragua . The
best case of the use of rural/urban guerrilla warfare is the
Sandinista
11 Carol Nunez, The Tupamaros (New York : New York Times Change Press,
1970), p . 26 .
12 1bid ., p . 28 .