slightly different from the original, as in several places, my deficient French forced me to look for the word I knew, rather than the one I really intended. The letter is addressed to Compañero Muteba and was confidential.)
General considerations: Given that my experience of the Congo is limited to a month and a half, I cannot venture many opinions. I believe that we face one main danger: US imperialism.
It is not necessary to analyze why the North Americans are a specific danger. The Congolese revolution is in a stage of regrouping its forces, after the most recent defeats it has suffered. If the Yankees have learned lessons from other revolutions, now is the moment they would choose to strike hard and, first of all, take measures such as a neutralization of the lake; that is, to do everything necessary to close our main supply route. On the other hand, world events such as the struggle in Vietnam and the recent intervention at Santo Domingo are tying their hands somewhat. Time is therefore an essential factor for the consolidation and development of the revolution, which can be achieved only through heavy blows against the enemy. Passivity is the beginning of defeat.
But our own lack of organization hinders us from mobilizing all our forces and attacking those of the enemy. This can be seen in a number of interconnected aspects.
1. There is shortage of cadres with no unified central command with real power over all the fronts, which would confer what is known in military terms as a unity of doctrine (I refer specifically to this area, not to the Congo in general).
2. The general shortage of cadres with sufficient level of education and absolute loyalty to the revolutionary cause results in a proliferation of local chiefs, each with his own authority and both tactical and strategic freedom of action.
3. The dispersal of our heavy weapons through an egalitarian distribution that leaves the command without reserves—quite apart from the poor way these weapons are used.
4. There is a lack of discipline in the military units, which have been infected by the prevailing localism and have had no prior training.
5. The commanders are incapable of coordinating the movements of units beyond a certain size.
6. There is a general lack of the minimum training necessary to handle firearms, a lack all the more serious in the case of weapons requiring special combat preparation.
All this produces an inability to carry out substantial tactical operations, and therefore strategic paralysis. These are problems that every revolution has to face, and there is no cause for alarm; it is only necessary to take systematic measures to rectify them.
Cuban involvement: Our black population suffered the worst exploitation and discrimination in Cuba. Their involvement in the struggle was very important, especially the peasants in Oriente [province], most of whom were illiterate.
As a result, there were very few blacks among our main military figures or properly trained middle cadres. When we were asked to send black [Afro-] Cubans by preference, we looked to the best elements in the army who had some combat experience. As we see it, our contingent has a very good fighting spirit and precise knowledge of tactics on the ground, but has little academic preparation.
The foregoing is by way of an introduction to our proposals for action. Given the characteristics of the soldiers, our involvement should mainly be in combat and tasks related to the direct struggle.
We could do this in two ways:
1. We could split our contingent among the various units at the front as instructors in the handling of weapons and as combatants with Congolese forces.
2. Create mixed combat units, initially under Cuban command, that would carry out clearly defined tactical missions and expand their radius of operations through the development and training of Congolese command cadres. (Given the small size of our force, there should be no more than two of these units.) A central training base would be maintained, with Cuban instructors insofar as they were needed.
We favor the second proposal, for both military and political reasons: military, because it would guarantee leadership in accordance with our concept of guerrilla struggle (which we think is correct); political, because our successes would dispel the atmosphere that surrounds foreign troops who have different religious, cultural and other ideas, and would enable us to control our own forces better. A greater degree of dispersal could lead to conflicts due to the lack of understanding of Congolese reality that our command believes is being acquired.
We could perform (necessary) complementary work, such as plans for training units, help in the training of a General Staff (and understanding of the services and, above all, of the weapons are weak areas), the organization of public health or military sanitation, or any other task we might be assigned.
Our assessment of the military situation: There is persistent talk of the capture of Albertville. But we think that, at the present moment, there is a higher task facing our forces for the following reasons:
1. We have not been able to dislodge the enemy from enclaves within our natural defense system (these mountains).
2. We don’t have sufficient experience for such a large-scale initiative that would require the mobilization of units of at least battalion strength and their synchronization through an operational high command.
3. We don’t have enough military equipment for an action of this scale.
Albertville should fall as the result of gradual, tenacious action on our part—perhaps it would be more appropriate to speak of its being abandoned by the enemy. First, we must completely deflate the enemy’s fighting morale (which is relatively high at present), by means of systematic attacks on their lines of supply and reinforcements; then annihilate, or force the withdrawal, of the enemy forces from Kabimba, Front de Force, Lulimba, etc., combining the above tactics with frontal assaults where the relationship of forces is more favorable, clandestine action on all the roads leading to Albertville, frequent sabotage operations and ambushes and paralysis of the economy; then, finally the seizure of Albertville.
For reasons that I will develop in another report, the results of our reconnaissance lead me to think that Katenga would be the best place to start operations.
The reasons I can give today are the following.
1. Its garrison is relatively small.
2. We think we can ambush reinforcements as their supply line runs parallel to the mountains.
3. If Katenga were to fall and remain in our hands, this would isolate Lulimba, as the gateway to Kasongo.
Following this letter, I sent the reconnaissance report on Katenga, the analysis of the situation and a recommendation to attack. At that time it was relatively easy to attack Katenga because the total inactivity of our forces meant that the enemy’s vigilance in the area was practically nonexistent.
1. For Che, a characteristic of the guerrilla nucleus is that it must guarantee that revolutionary political power remains intact, being “relatively safe but not outside the war, not giving directions from some other country or from distant places. It should be within its own country, fighting.” Che stressed this in his 1961 article, “Cuba: Historical exception or vanguard in the anticolonial struggle?” in Che Guevara Reader (Ocean Press). This became one of his major criticisms of the Congolese leadership.
2. Prime Minister of the People’s
