Revolutionary dynamics: The inherent inefficiency of the underground

Abstract

A revolutionary organization engaged in an armed struggle is inherently inefficient, a price paid for the capacity to persist. Rebels, regardless of ideology, shape an ecosystem, the world of the illicit and covert underground, as they move to power. Thus they pay the penalty of secrecy, of optimism ‐ almost all armed struggles fail ‐ of other priorities and an agenda only partly related to the armed struggle. Essentially they rely on the will in time — to triumph over the state's assets and so their underground offers time and protection but not the values and means to direct an effective war as the struggle moves through the unconventional phases of low‐intensity warfare ‐ and after that, if the values of the underground are maintained, as usually they are, the rebel inefficiency becomes compounded in an orthodox conflict.