Disbanded upon the conclusion of the war, in early 1969 the Party's Politburo decided to quietly raise a new militia force ostensibly to help defend the border villages located in South Lebanon.

Prior to the war, the Popular Guards initially received covert support from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the USSR, Syria, Iraq, Libya and from well-connected left-wing sympathizers in Jordan, and some Eastern Bloc Countries, such as East Germany.

Furthermore, the LCP started sending its militiamen to training camps in Jordan under the control of the Palestinian Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Jordanian Communist Party (JCP).

Organized into infantry, signals, artillery, medical and Military Police 'branches', the LCP militia was first headed by the Greek Orthodox George Hawi (whose nom de guerre was Abu Anis), but in 1979 PG command was passed on to Elias Atallah, a Maronite.

Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of June 1982, the LCP/PG went underground, participating actively in the formation of the Lebanese National Resistance Front (LNRF) guerrilla alliance in September that year and later joining the LNSF in July 1983.

When the War of the Camps broke out on April–May 1985 at West Beirut, it saw the LCP/PG participating – albeit reluctantly – in a military coalition that gathered the Druze PSP/PLA, and the Shia Muslim Amal Movement, backed by Syria,[6] the Lebanese Army,[7] and anti-Arafat dissident Palestinian guerrilla factions against an alliance of PLO refugee camp militias, the Nasserite Al-Mourabitoun and Sixth of February Movement militias, the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (OCAL), and the Kurdish Democratic Party – Lebanon (KDP-L).

Civilian or surplus military Parkas, OG US M-1965 field jackets and Iraqi copies of the Pakistani Army olive-brown woollen pullover were worn in cold weather.