Foco

The foco theory of revolution by way of guerrilla warfare, also known as focalism (Spanish: foquismo [foˈkizmo]), was formulated by French intellectual and government official Régis Debray, whose main source of inspiration was Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's experiences surrounding his rebel army's victory in the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Its central principle is that vanguardism by cadres of small, fast-moving paramilitary groups can provide a focus (in Spanish, foco) for popular discontent against a sitting regime, and thereby lead a general insurrection. Although the original approach was to mobilize and launch attacks from rural areas, many foco ideas were adapted into urban guerrilla warfare movements by the late 1960s.

Background

Like other theorists of his era (such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Amílcar Cabral), Che Guevara believed that people living in countries still ruled by colonial powers, or living in countries subject to newer forms of economic exploitation, could best defeat colonial powers by taking up arms. Like other theoreticians, Guevara also believed in fostering armed resistance not by concentrating one's forces in urban centers, but rather through accumulation of strength in mountainous and rural regions where the enemy had less presence.