made a very good impression on me.
On another day, we spoke with Soumialot. He is a different kind of man, much less politically mature and much older. He lacked the basic instinct to keep quiet or to speak very little, using vague phrases, so that he seemed to express great subtlety of thought but, however much he tried, he was unable to give the impression of a real popular leader. He explained what he has since made public: his involvement as defense minister in the Gbenyé government, how Gbenyé’s action took them by surprise, etc. He also clearly stated his opposition to Gbenyé and, above all, Kanza. I did not personally meet these last two, except for a quick handshake with Kanza when we happened to meet at an airport.
We talked at length with Kabila about what our government considered a strategic mistake on the part of some African friends: namely, that in the face of open aggression by the imperialist powers, they promoted the slogan: “The Congo problem is an African problem,” and acted accordingly. Our view was that the Congo problem was a worldwide problem, and Kabila agreed.4 On behalf of our government, I offered him some 30 instructors and whatever weapons we might have, and he was happy to accept these. He recommended that both should be delivered urgently, as did Soumialot in another conversation—the latter saying it would be a good idea if the instructors were black [ie, Afro-Cuban].
I decided to hear what the other Freedom Fighters had to say by having a friendly chat with them in separate meetings. But due to a mistake by embassy staff, there was a “tumultuous” meeting attended by 50 or more people, representing movements from 10 or more countries, each divided into two or more tendencies. I gave them a rousing speech and considered the requests nearly all of them made for financial assistance and training of personnel. I explained the cost of training someone in Cuba, the investment of money and time required, and the uncertainty that it would produce combatants who would be useful for the movement.
I described our experience in the Sierra Maestra, where we obtained roughly one soldier for every five recruits we trained, and only one good one for every five soldiers. I argued as forcefully as I could to the exasperated Freedom Fighters that most of the money invested in training would not be well spent and that a soldier, especially a revolutionary soldier, cannot be trained in an academy.5 Only in war does he become a soldier. He might receive a diploma from some college or other, but his real graduation—as is the case with any professional—takes place in the practice of his profession, in the way he reacts under enemy fire, to suffering, to defeat, to relentless pursuit, to adversity. You can never predict from what someone says, or from their previous history, how an individual will react when faced with the experience in fighting in a people’s war. I therefore suggested that training should take place not in our far-off Cuba but in the nearby Congo, where the struggle was not against some puppet like Tshombe but against US imperialism, which, in its neocolonial form, was threatening the newly acquired independence of almost every African people and helping to keep the colonies in subjection. I spoke to them of the fundamental importance which the struggle for the liberation of the Congo had in our eyes. A victory would be continental in its impact and consequences—and so would a defeat.
The reaction was worse than cool. Although most refrained from any kind of comment, some asked to speak and violently rebuked me for what I had said. They argued that their respective peoples, who had been abused and degraded by imperialism, would protest if any casualties were suffered not as a result of oppression in their own land, but from a war to liberate another country. I tried to show them that we were not talking about a struggle within fixed borders, but of a war against the common oppressor, present as much in Mozambique as in Malawi, Rhodesia6 or South Africa, the Congo or Angola. No one saw it this way.
The farewells were cool and polite, and we were left with the clear sense that Africa had a long way to go before it achieved real revolutionary maturity. But we had also had the pleasure of meeting people prepared to carry the struggle through to the end. From that moment, we set ourselves the task of selecting a group of black [Afro-] Cubans, volunteers of course, and sending them to reinforce the struggle in the Congo.
1. Che carried out a tour of Africa that lasted three months after participating in the XIX General Assembly of the United Nations. On December 17, 1964, he set out on a trip that took him to eight African countries: Algeria, Mali, Congo (Brazzaville), Guinea, Ghana, Dahomey (today Benin), Tanzania and Egypt, in addition to a very brief visit to China. During his travels throughout the continent, Che met with the principal leaders of those countries, as well as with leaders of liberation movements in the region, to establish closer links with the Cuban revolution and offer them aid in their struggles. He met with Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Sékou Touré, the presidents of Algeria, the United Arab Republic (Egypt) and Guinea, respectively; he also met the Angolans Agostinho Neto and Lucio Lara of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Samora Michel and Marcelino Dos Santos from Mozambique and the Congolese leader Laurent Désiré Kabila, among others.
His participation in the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity held in Algiers was of great importance. Cuba had been invited as an observer and sole representative from Latin America. In his speech Che analyzed that necessarily international dimension of the anti-imperialist struggle, concluding that proletarian internationalism “is not only a duty for the peoples struggling for a better future, it is also an inescapable necessity.” (See Che Guevara Reader, Ocean Press) In this confrontation with imperialism, Che argues it is necessary to forge an alliance between the two principal actors, the underdeveloped countries and the socialist countries, even when he admits that “these alliances cannot be made spontaneously, without discussions, without birth pangs, which sometimes can be painful.”
On this road to international unity and solidarity, Che criticizes the socialist countries, saying that, as the vanguard, they had a moral duty to commit to genuine solidarity with the peoples initiating their liberation struggles, instead of establishing economic, commercial and political relations with them that were, in some ways, tacitly complicit in imperialist exploitation. For Che, the nature of the new relationship between the socialist countries and the Third World would be the result of the necessary change in consciousness that should reflect the new socialist society, leading to “a new fraternal attitude toward humanity, both at an individual level, within the societies where socialism is being built or has been built, and on a world scale, with regard to all peoples suffering from imperialist oppression.” Che returned to Cuba on March 14, 1965.
2. Che uses this term in English.
3. A reference to the Supreme Council of the Congolese Revolution.
4. In Che’s analysis and denunciations of imperialist aggression against any attempt to achieve liberation by any people, anywhere in the world, he repeatedly referred to the Congo and its assassinated revolutionary leader, Patrice Lumumba, whom Che called a martyr of the world revolution. In Che’s eyes, the tragic events in the Congo were an example of the most brutal and extreme form of the penetration and development of neocolonialism, as well as telling proof of the barbarism and bestiality that imperialism is capable of in pursuing hegemonic control over peoples and their natural resources. In his speech to the XIX UN General Assembly, he denounced the role played by that international organization as an instrument used by imperialism to pursue its interests on the pretext of carrying out “humanitarian” missions.
“How can we forget,” Che asked, “the machinations and maneuvers that followed the occupation of [the Congo] by UN troops, under whose auspices the assassins of this great African patriot acted with impunity?” He also pointed out the convergence between reactionary Congolese sectors and countries such as the United States, Great Britain and Belgium, concluding, “All free people of the world must be prepared to avenge the crime of the Congo.”
5. Che’s concept of a revolutionary combatant is not limited to the military dimension, but rather views the
