Congo Diary. Ernesto Che Guevara

      

       CHE GUEVARA PUBLISHING PROJECT

       THE DIARIES:

      The Motorcycle Diaries (1952)

      Latin America Diaries (1953-55)

      Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1956-58)

      Diary of a Combatant (1956-58)

      Congo Diary (1965)

      The Bolivian Diary (1966-67)

       ALSO AVAILABLE:

      Che Guevara Reader

      Global Justice: Liberation and Socialism

      Self-Portrait: A Photographic and Literary Memoir

      Marx & Engels: A Biographical Introduction

      The Great Debate on Political Economy and Revolution

      The Awakening of Latin America

      Our America and Theirs

      Copyright © 2011 Che Guevara Studies Center and Aleida March

      Copyright photographs © 2011 Che Guevara Studies Center and Aleida March

      Copyright © 2011 Ocean Press

      Copyright © 2011 Aleida Guevara

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

      ISBN 978-0-9872283-5-2 (e-book)

      Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2011922100

      First edition published in 2012

      Published in Spanish as Pasajes de la Guerra revolucionaria: Congo ISBN 978-1-920888-79-4

       PUBLISHED BY OCEAN PRESS

      PO Box 1015, North Melbourne, VIC 3051, Australia

      E-mail: [email protected]

       OCEAN PRESS TRADE DISTRIBUTORS

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      Canada: Publishers Group Canada

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      UK and Europe: Turnaround Publisher Services

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      Cuba and Latin America: Ocean Sur

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www.oceanbooks.com.au[email protected]

      CONTENTS

Maps

Editors’ Note

Che Guevara in the Congo

       by Gabriel García Marquez

Foreword

       by Aleida Guevara March

       CONGO DIARY

Preface: An Initial Warning

First Act

Second Act

First Impressions

The First Month

A Hope Dies

A Defeat

The Shooting Star

       Winds from the West, Breezes from the East

       Breaking Loose

       Scattering Seeds

       Attempting “Pursuit”

       The Patient Grows Worse

       Taking the Pulse

       The Beginning of the End

       A Battle against Time

       Various Escapes

       Disaster

       The Whirlwind

       A Stab in the Back

       The Eastern Front Sinks into a Coma

       The Collapse

       Epilogue

       Appendices:

       Glossary: Clarification of Swahili Names and Terms

       List of the Cuban Combatants in the Congo

Africa

       Congo

EDITORS’ NOTE

      In a letter to his mother, written from Mexico in October of 1956, the young Ernesto Guevara declared that he had decided “to deal with the main things first, to pit myself against the order of things, shield on my arm, the whole fantasy, and then, if the windmills don’t break open my head, I’ll write.” These lines announce the definitive consummation of a change in the young Argentine and point to the future course of his life in which action and reflection, understanding the world and transforming it, would be united in perfect harmony.

      Che’s famous Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary