Civil Guerrilla Resistance: Changing the Field of Struggle

S. Rouzbeh – Is it wise, in the face of a government that has prepared a large part of its capacity to control the streets and suppress gatherings, to repeat one fixed form of struggle?

And if the government changes its methods of repression as time and circumstances change, why should the people’s resistance and struggle always remain in the same field and follow the same method?

Eight months have passed since 18 and 19 Dey 1404; those were days that once again showed how far the Islamic Republic is prepared to go to maintain control of the streets. Amnesty International has described 8 and 9 January 2026 as the bloodiest period in its several decades of research into Iran, reporting mass killings, widespread arrests and a heavy deployment of armed forces.

But what happened was not a war between two evenly matched forces. On one side stood a large part of the ordinary population; on the other, a government armed to the teeth, with an intelligence network, a command structure and decades of experience in repression. The lesson of those days is not to question the people’s courage; the question is whether we should repeat the same field and the same method of struggle every time, and pay the same price?

In recent months, some people have at times spoken of armed struggle. But armed struggle is not simply a matter of having weapons; it requires organisation, training, command, communications, support and resources. Entering such a confrontation in a scattered and unprepared way, against a government that has the advantage in this very field and acts without conscience and with brutality, may destroy society’s human resources before the repressive apparatus is worn down—and may also enable the government to portray public protest as an ‘armed insurrection’.

Between surrender and taking up arms lies a vast field called civil resistance. To explain one of its forms, I use the term ‘civil guerrilla resistance’. This is not an established academic term; it is a suggestion for describing resistance that is non-violent, dispersed, flexible and adapted to circumstances.

Here, ‘guerrilla’ does not mean war or weapons. Only a few features of the classical concept are borrowed. Why did I use this term? Because this method of struggle involves initiative, dispersal, changing form, and avoiding entrapment in a pattern that the government can predict and contain in advance.

A civil guerrilla can be a student, teacher, worker, pensioner, artist, shopkeeper, mother or anyone else. Membership of an organisation is not required, nor is a command from above.

A civil guerrilla is an individual; civil guerrilla resistance is a method.

Small-scale examples in Iran itself show why the government is not afraid only of mass demonstrations. In Esfand 1401, five teenage girls in Ekbatan danced for a few moments, and security forces turned to local CCTV footage to identify them. The importance of the incident lay not only in the dancing itself, but in its potential to spread. When others repeated the same act, the government was no longer facing five people, but a pattern that anyone could reproduce.

Chaharshanbe Suri is a clearer example of how difficult it is to control a dispersed movement. Unlike a gathering that takes shape in one square at a set time, Chaharshanbe Suri is celebrated in numerous neighbourhoods, alleys and streets, almost simultaneously. Before Chaharshanbe Suri in Esfand 1404, Ahmad-Reza Radan called on government supporters not to let themselves ‘feel tired’ and not to ‘leave the field empty’, describing that night as ‘decisive’. At the same time, reports emerged of a widespread security-force presence and confrontations at various locations. This shows one fact: geographical dispersal forces the control apparatus to spread its personnel and resources across numerous locations and keep them on alert for longer.

These remarks indicate the extent to which the forces are worn down, and this very feature distinguishes dispersed resistance from a centralised call to action. A call announced in advance also gives the government the time and place; it can move forces, close routes and prepare for a specific scenario. But a spontaneous response on the underground, at a university, in a market, in a neighbourhood or during a social occasion does not necessarily have a fixed time or location. The government can monitor these spaces, but it cannot determine in advance the timing of every social response.

This matters even more in a society where economic, political and social discontent has been building up. Rising prices, fuel issues, the pressures of making ends meet and so on, or a social incident, can turn something that would normally be an everyday problem into a spark for protest. Such a spark cannot be ordered from abroad. People in each city, neighbourhood and profession know their own circumstances better, and they create many forms of protest themselves.

For example, other instances we remember include forming queues outside bakeries. Queues at petrol stations, switching on car lights, coordinated honking and collective movement, burning a picture of Khamenei in private and circulating it on social media—all wear down and exhaust the government and leave it terrified. These acts of ingenuity are devised by the people themselves.

Experiences abroad also underline the importance of this same flexibility. In Chile, when a planned strike by copper workers faced a military siege of the mines and the risk of bloodshed, the form of protest changed and more decentralised, lower-risk actions spread. A few years later, the same society made use of the 1988 referendum in different circumstances.

In Serbia, too, the Otpor movement did not rely solely on large gatherings; it combined humour, street theatre, symbols, posters and creative actions with a decentralised network across different cities. The lesson of these experiences is not imitation, but adaptation.

Living resistance has no fixed tactics or methods.

But dispersal should not be confused with aimlessness. Small, spontaneous actions can keep discontent alive, prevent repression from becoming normalised and preserve society’s human resources; but if an opportunity arises for a broad national movement, these same dispersed currents must be able to connect with one another.

This situation can be compared to water. If the river’s main course is blocked, the water finds its way through other gaps. No stream is a river on its own; but as long as the source has not dried up, the flow continues, and at the right time scattered streams can once again become a great river.

So today’s task is not necessarily to repeat 18 and 19 Dey; it is to preserve the source: to preserve the people’s strength, keep discontent alive, encourage initiative from below and change methods in line with circumstances, until the ground is ready for a broader movement and until Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, taking account of the situation and circumstances, issues an instruction as leader of the transitional period. He has even said that the next call might come from inside Iran, with his presence there.

If the government changes its methods of control and repression every day, why should the people’s resistance be confined to a single, fixed tactic?