The Duty to Resist: Total Resistance (Part I)

The last line of defense is you.

This is Part I of our deep dive into the cold war era book, Total Resistance. We launched this series with an introduction to light a fire: to show how ordinary people can become the front line when the state collapses, and systems fail. But before we talk tactics, we need to talk purpose. This chapter lays the groundwork—the why behind the fight. If you haven’t read the intro yet, don’t worry. Start here. Because resistance doesn’t start with action. It starts with belief.

Total Resistance: Why We Must Learn to Fight Back Now

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. When Does Resistance Start?
   Recognizing the quiet onset of occupation, collapse, and repression.

2. Civilian Resistance: A Forgotten Doctrine
   How Hans von Dach and the Swiss military redefined defense as the people’s responsibility.

3. Resistance Roles for Every Person
   Operators, medics, messengers, builders—resistance is a web, not a gun.

4. Modern Parallels: From WWII to Now
   From the French Maquis to Rojava, real resistance has always begun with ordinary people.

5. From Citizen to Combatant (In Mindset, Not Just Arms)
   How to begin thinking, seeing, and acting like someone ready to protect what matters.

6. Tactical Takeaway
   Your first practical steps: map your world, gather your circle, sharpen your skills.

I. When Does Resistance Start?

It never feels like the beginning of a war.

There’s no trumpet, no line in the sand. Just a tightening. A narrowing. Fewer choices. More cameras. Another friend fired for speaking out. Another law passed in the name of “safety.” Another article disappears. Another person disappears.

And still, no one says the word.

You wake up one morning and there’s a drone circling above your neighborhood. Not a military one—just a “public safety” model. It’s collecting data. It’s always collecting data. There’s a new checkpoint on the highway. “Routine screening,” they say. The store is out of rice again. Your neighbor just lost their house. The river near the factory runs slick with a chemical sheen, and no one answers your emails.

There’s no official declaration. Just a sense that the walls are getting closer.

This is how it begins.

Not with a bang—but with the normalization of violation.
With silence. With a shrug. With the phrase, “What can you do?”

By the time the trucks roll in, the soldiers are already here—in plainclothes, in briefcases, in budgets. By the time the news tells you to be afraid, you’ve already learned to comply.

And when you ask, “Where’s the resistance?”
You might have to answer: It’s you.

Because if you’re waiting for the flag to fall, for the sirens to start, for the dystopia to wear a different face—you’ll be too late.

Resistance doesn’t begin with a gun.
It begins with a decision: I will not let this pass.

So this is where we start. Not with a revolution. Not with a firefight.
But with a shift in perception.
With the understanding that we’re not “preparing” for collapse or occupation—we’re already living in the early stages of it.

The time to resist is not after the enemy is in control.

The time to resist is now—before the doors are locked, before the records are purged, before the last breath of freedom becomes a whisper too faint to recall.

II. Civilian Resistance: A Forgotten Doctrine

We’ve been taught to believe resistance is something professional. That it belongs to soldiers, special forces, militias, or revolutionaries in far-off lands. That if things ever got bad enough here, the military—or maybe the Constitution—would save us.

But history tells a different story.

In the real world, when states fall or surrender, the people are all that remains. And if they’re not ready, they are erased. Assimilated. Silenced. Broken.

Hans von Dach understood this.

A Swiss military officer, writing during the Cold War, he looked around at Europe—still bearing the scars of Nazi occupation—and knew that neutrality would not save his country if the tanks came. He knew what happened when armies fell and governments collapsed. He knew that a civilian population, caught off guard and unprepared, would be little more than cattle to the slaughter.

So he wrote Total Resistance—a manual not for generals, but for teachers, farmers, mechanics, and students. A book that said, in essence:

“You must prepare to defend yourselves. Because no one else will.”

Switzerland adopted this doctrine not as a political statement, but as a matter of survival. It wasn’t about ideology—it was about sovereignty, about what it means to remain free when surrounded by power hungry empires.

They trained civilians in sabotage, radio operation, intelligence gathering, and guerrilla tactics. They designed public infrastructure—bridges, tunnels, supply depots—with demolition in mind, just in case they needed to make the land ungovernable to an invader.

This wasn’t glorification of war. It was recognition of reality.

Because empires don’t care about treaties. Fascists don’t care about laws. Invaders don’t ask for consent. And collapse doesn’t negotiate.

What von Dach proposed was simple:

If the military falls, the people must continue the fight.
If the state collapses, the people must endure.
The resistance cannot be dependent on the state—it must be woven into the population itself.

We’ve forgotten this lesson. Or rather, we’ve been made to forget it.

In consumer culture, we’re trained to outsource everything: our food, our security, our knowledge, our resistance. We’re taught to call 911, wait for elections, trust the experts, keep our heads down.

But what happens when the institutions crack? When the police serve power instead of people? When the military pledges loyalty to industry over nation? When the courts are rigged, the media is silent, and the only help coming is a drone overhead?

Then you remember.
Then you see clearly: you are the resistance.
You, and the people around you. That’s all there ever was. That’s all there ever will be.

Von Dach wasn’t a radical. He was a military man. A tactician. But his message was radical because it gave responsibility—and power—back to the people.

And that’s the core of this doctrine: every person, in every town, must prepare not just to survive—but to resist.

Not later. Not when the flag changes or the power goes out.
Now.

III. Resistance Roles for Every Person

Let’s break the fantasy right now: resistance is not about rifles in the woods.
It’s not about cinematic shootouts or noble last stands.
It’s about logistics. Intelligence. Persistence. Community.

In Total Resistance, Hans von Dach was crystal clear:

“Every person can contribute to the defense of their country. And every contribution matters.”

This was not wartime propaganda. It was sober strategy. Because even the most elite guerrilla fighters die without support—without food, medicine, shelter, information, morale. And even the most powerful state struggles to crush a resistance where everyone is involved.

The Resistance Web

Von Dach mapped out a civilian-centered resistance, and today, we can take that further—adapting it to the world we live in now: one of failing infrastructure, digital surveillance, militarized police, and creeping ecological collapse.

Here are the core roles in a modern resistance ecosystem:

Operators

These are the people conducting direct action—sabotage, disruption, ambush, scouting. They are disciplined, anonymous, and trained.
But they are only the tip of the spear.

Supporters

They build the machine behind the movement.

• Logistics: transportation, safe houses, food storage.

• Medical: street medics, herbalists, trauma triage.

• Supply: sourcing gear, printing zines, repurposing technology.
  Without these roles, the fighters fail.

Communicators

These are the propagandists, poets, and whisper networks.

• Secure communications.

• Leaflets, memes, zines, songs.

• Counter-narratives. Morale. Symbols.
  They speak the truth when the enemy speaks lies.
  They keep the fire burning in people’s hearts.

Builders

This is the heart of dual power—building what comes next.

• Alternative food systems.

• Community councils.

• Mutual aid networks.

• Water purification, off-grid energy, decentralized education.
  They are not just surviving collapse—they are creating the new world inside the shell of the old.

Elders, Women, Youth

Von Dach emphasized this again and again: resistance is not only for able-bodied men.

• Elders provide wisdom, legitimacy, memory.

• Women have always run undergrounds, networks, and intelligence.

• Youth are scouts, couriers, observers—they see what adults miss.
  Everyone has a role. Everyone is needed.

The Real Battlefield Is Psychological

The enemy wants you to believe you’re alone. Powerless. Irrelevant.
But when everyone plays a part, resistance becomes untraceable, unpredictable, and undefeatable.

You don’t need permission to take up a role. You don’t need a uniform or a command structure.

You need a purpose, a skill, and a place in the web.

The most dangerous thing to an occupying power isn’t an armed militia—it’s a people who refuse to disappear.

IV. Modern Parallels: From WWII to Now

Hans von Dach didn’t invent resistance.
He just systematized it.
He distilled what had already been practiced by people around the world—ordinary civilians who refused to let power go unchallenged.

If you need proof that resistance works, you don’t have to look far.
You just have to look at what terrified empires most:
Not armies. Not protests. But people who wouldn't give up.

The French Resistance

When the Nazis occupied France, the army fell quickly. The government collaborated. The people were left alone.

And yet…

Farmers sabotaged rail lines.
Clergy sheltered hunted souls.
Housewives carried coded messages in loaves of bread.
Teenagers scouted patrols and vanished into forests.
Writers printed forbidden newsletters in underground cellars.

It wasn’t one organization. It was a movement web. Local, scattered, resilient.
And when the Allies finally landed, those same “insignificant” civilians crippled German supply chains and cleared the way to liberation.

The Filipino Guerrillas

When the U.S. surrendered the Philippines to the Japanese in WWII, tens of thousands of troops were stranded or killed.

But not all.

One of them—Colonel Wendell Fertig—vanished into the jungle. There, with farmers, villagers, defectors, and visionaries, he built a network of over 30,000 guerrilla fighters who:

• Gathered intelligence.

• Disrupted Japanese movements.

• Created liberated zones where the people ruled themselves.

Their power didn’t come from their weapons—it came from their connection to the people and the land. Fertig later endorsed Total Resistance because it reflected the exact structure that had allowed his insurgency to survive.

The Zapatistas

In Chiapas, Mexico, Indigenous communities—descendants of those colonized centuries ago—declared “¡Ya basta!” (Enough is enough) in 1994.

But their revolution was never just guns. It was:

• Collective land ownership.

• Community councils.

• Free schools and clinics.

• Women in command.

They created parallel governance, rooted in autonomy and care, while defending their lands from state and corporate extraction.

The Kurdish Freedom Movement (Rojava)

Right now, in the shattered terrain of northern Syria, the Kurdish-led Rojava movement has built a decentralized, feminist, ecological society while surrounded by ISIS, Turkish attacks, and geopolitical betrayal.

Every person is trained.
Every village governs itself.
Militias and cooperatives work side by side.
And their motto? "Resistance is life."

Rojava isn’t a utopia—it’s a war-torn, fragile, breathing blueprint of what Total Resistance can look like when practiced as life, not just defense.

Standing Rock and Beyond

And don’t think this only happens “elsewhere.”

In 2016, the Lakota and their allies at Standing Rock faced down corporate power with bodies, songs, medics, scouts, winter camps, and barricades.

They created a living, breathing camp of resistance—a miniature society of mutual aid, spiritual power, and tactical discipline. They trained medics. Held security perimeters. Fed each other. Prayed. Sang. Resisted.

They didn’t “win” in the traditional sense. But they inspired a generation, and showed what it looks like to say:

“You will not pass without consequence.”

The Lesson Across All These Struggles

In every case:

• The people were underestimated.

• The empire was overconfident.

• The resistance was diverse, decentralized, rooted, and driven by purpose.

That’s what Total Resistance is about. Not fantasy. Not militarism.
Memory. And readiness.

These stories are not relics. They’re instructions. They’re warnings. They’re maps for the road ahead.

And now the question becomes:
Will we learn from them before it’s our turn?

V. From Citizen to Combatant (In Mindset, Not Just Arms)

Let’s make it clear: you won’t get a warning.

There will be no official memo announcing the moment your government stops serving you. No breaking news that says, “From now on, the system is your enemy.” You’ll just notice things. A slow erosion. Then a rush.

One day your town’s water is brown, and the company says it’s safe.
One day your neighbor vanishes after a protest.
One day you realize your job doesn’t pay enough to live, and the rent keeps rising.
One day, someone knocks at your door, and it’s not to help.

By the time you see it clearly, it’s already here.

So if you're waiting to be conscripted into resistance, you’ve misunderstood the nature of the war. There are no uniforms. No ranks. Only roles—and decisions.

The First Battlefield Is Internal

Before you fight the system, you have to divorce yourself from it mentally.
You have to recognize that this culture of obedience, dependence, and passivity is a trap.

We’ve been trained from birth to be manageable:

• To rely on centralized systems for food, power, safety.

• To follow rules written by the very people who exploit us.

• To fear disruption more than we fear domination.

To resist, you must begin to see the world like a guerrilla:

• Learn to observe, not just look.

• Learn to question, not just consume.

• Learn to move quietly. To plan. To read the currents beneath the surface.

• Learn when to speak—and when to disappear.

Begin with What You Already Have

You don’t need a weapon to become a combatant.

You need:

• Situational awareness: Where are the exits? The cameras? The blind spots?

• Discipline: Can you keep secrets? Can you keep your cool?

• Commitment: Will you be there when it counts—not when it’s easy, but when it’s necessary?

This transformation doesn’t happen in a day. It happens in layers—as you wake up, as you train, as you let go of illusions and accept that resistance is no longer a luxury—it’s a lifestyle.

From Subject to Actor

You are not a statistic. Not a voter. Not a cog. Not a passive bystander in the story of collapse.

You are a node in the resistance web. You are a potential courier, medic, scout, teacher, builder, saboteur, organizer, protector.

And when enough people wake up to that truth, the world shifts.

That’s what frightens the empire. Not revolutionaries. Not radicals.
But the moment ordinary people remember they were never truly powerless.

VI. Tactical Takeaway

All of this—the history, the theory, the examples—it isn’t just for inspiration.
It’s preparation.

Because if you’ve read this far, something in you already knows: we don’t have time for passive understanding. We need active readiness.

So here’s where you begin.

Start With Observation

Your first job as a resister is to see clearly.

• Walk your neighborhood like a scout.
  Where are the cameras? Which roads bottleneck? Who controls the food, the power, the land?

• Start a field journal.
  Make notes. Draw maps. Track changes. Think like someone who might one day need to move undetected—or help someone else do so.

Build Your First Circle

You don’t need a “movement.”
You need 2–3 people you trust with your life.

• Start small. Meet regularly.
  Study Total Resistance. Talk about scenarios. Assign roles. Build trust.

• Keep it off social media. Keep it quiet.
  The first rule of resistance is discretion.

Choose a Skill to Develop

Pick one skill you don’t have—but know you’ll need.

• First aid.

• Lockpicking.

• Secure communication.

• Food preservation.

• Navigation without GPS.

• Camouflage and fieldcraft.

• Urban evasion.

Then start practicing. Not someday—this week.

Study Past Movements

Choose one historical resistance to study deeply.

• The French Maquis.

• The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

• The Zapatistas.

• Rojava.

• Standing Rock.

Ask:

• What made them effective?

• What did they lack?

• What can you apply today?

Reflect

Ask yourself—honestly:

• What would I protect when the system fails?

• Who would I turn to?

• What do I already know?

• What am I willing to risk?

Write it down. Burn the page if you must. But face the truth.

Collapse isn’t coming. It’s here. Resistance isn’t optional. It’s necessary.

This is your first training module. Not theoretical—tactical. And we’re just getting started.

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🔜 Next up: Part II – Forming Resistance Cells
You’ll learn how to structure small, secure groups for mutual defense and action—based on real-world insurgency models and adapted for the digital age.