Congo Diary. Ernesto Che Guevara

I am not insinuating, not in the least, that you abandon or postpone your plans, nor I am letting myself be carried away by pessimistic considerations due to the difficulties that have arisen. On the contrary, the difficulties can be overcome, and more than ever we can count on having the experience, the conviction and the means to carry out those plans successfully. That is why I think we should make the best and most rational use of the knowledge, the resources and the facilities that we have at our disposal. Since first hatching your now old idea of further action in another setting, have you ever really had enough time to devote yourself entirely to this matter, to conceiving, organizing and executing your plans to the greatest possible extent? […]

       It is a huge advantage for you to be able to use what we have here, to have access to houses, isolated farms, mountains, cays and everything essential to organize and personally lead the project, devoting 100 percent of your time to this and drawing on the help of as many others as necessary, with only a very small number of people knowing your whereabouts. You know perfectly well that you can count on these facilities, that there is not the slightest possibility that you will encounter problems or interference for reasons of state or politics. The most difficult thing of all—the official disassociation—has already been done, not without paying a price in the form of slander, intrigues, etc. Is it right that we should not extract the maximum benefit from it? Has any revolutionary ever had such ideal conditions to fulfill their mission, and at a time when that mission acquires great importance for humanity, when the most crucial and decisive struggle for the victory of the peoples is breaking out? […]

       Why not do things well if we have every chance to do so? Why don’t we take the minimum time necessary, even while working at the greatest speed? Didn’t Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bolívar and Martí have to wait, sometimes for decades?

       Moreover in those times, there were no airplanes or radios or other things that today shrink distances and increase the yield of each hour of a human being’s life. We ourselves had to invest 18 months in Mexico before returning here to Cuba. I am not proposing that you wait decades or even years but only a few months, because I believe that in a matter of months, by working in the way I suggest, you can get underway in conditions incomparably more favorable than those we are trying to achieve at present.

       I know you will be 38 on the 14th [of June 1966]. Or maybe you think that a man starts to age from that point.

       I hope that these lines will not annoy or upset you. I know that if you analyze what I say seriously, your characteristic honesty will lead you to accept that I am right. But even if you come to a completely different decision, I won’t feel disappointed. I write to you with deep affection and the greatest and most sincere admiration for your brilliant and noble intelligence, your irreproachable conduct and your unyielding character of a whole-hearted revolutionary. And the fact that you might see things differently won’t change these feelings one iota nor affect our collaboration in any way.

      That same year Che returned to Cuba.³

      On the first anniversary of the victory of the Congolese revolution, I took part in the celebrations and had a chance to talk to some of the compañeros who had fought alongside Che. I also took the opportunity to discuss with them the publication of this book as I was concerned about what they might think of it. Che’s diary is highly critical and quite blunt in the hope that an analysis of the errors made in the Congo would ensure that they were not made again. He makes specific mention of several leaders, including Laurent Kabila, who later became a key leader of that country.⁴

      I was told that Che Guevara is remembered with respect and affection. Most of the Congolese leaders were young at the time but they recalled Che’s simplicity, his modesty and the respect he showed them by placing himself under their command. For this reason, they are aware that his advice has always been useful in the great task of unifying their country and ensuring that for the first time in many years the Congolese people benefit from their country’s wealth.

      So in conclusion, we can say that human beings don’t die when their life and example serve as a guide to many others, and those others succeed in continuing that work.

       Aleida Guevara March

      1. Aleida Guevara March is one of Che Guevara’s daughters. She is a pediatrician and has participated in various Cuban internationalist missions in Africa and Central America.

      2. Manuel Piñeiro Losada (Barbarroja or “Red Beard”) after the victory of the revolution held various posts in the Ministry of the Interior, from head of the National Intelligence Directorate to first vice-minister. He was also head of the Americas Department of the Central Committee from 1975 to 1992.

      3. Che returned to Cuba in 1966 and immediately began preparations for the guerrilla mission to Bolivia. He left Cuba for Bolivia in November of that year.

      4. Laurent Kabila was president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1997-2001) after overthrowing the dictatorship of Mobuto Sese Seko. He was succeeded by his son Joseph when he was assassinated in 2001.

       For Bahasa and his fallen compañeros, in search of the meaning of their sacrifice.

PREFACE: AN INITIAL WARNING

      This is the story of a failure. It descends into anecdotal detail, as one would expect in an account of episodes of a war, but this is modified by observations and a critical spirit as I believe that, were this account to have some merit, it would be to allow certain experiences to be drawn out that might be useful to other revolutionary movements. Victory is a great source of positive experiences, but so is defeat, especially in light of the extraordinary circumstances that surrounded these events: the protagonists and source of information were foreigners who went to risk their lives in an unknown land, where people spoke a different language, and where they were bound only by ties of proletarian internationalism, thereby initiating a new feature in modern wars of liberation.

      At the end of the narrative there is an epilogue that poses some questions about the struggle in Africa and, more generally, the national liberation struggle against the neocolonial type of imperialism, the most terrible form in which imperialism presents itself, given the disguises and subtleties that accompany it, and the long experience that the powers that practice it have had in that form of exploitation.

      These notes will be published long after they were dictated, and it may be that the author will no longer be able to take responsibility for what is said here. Time will have smoothed many rough edges and, should the publication of these notes be considered to have some importance, the editors may make any corrections they deem necessary (with appropriate footnotes) to clarify events or opinions in light of the time that will have passed.

      More accurately, this is the story of a decomposition. When we arrived on Congolese soil, the revolution had stalled; later, events took place that would mean its definitive retrogression, at least at that time and in that immense field of struggle that is the Congo. The aspect that interests us here is not the story of the decomposition of the Congolese revolution. Its causes and key features were too deep for me to have been able to capture them all from my particular vantage point; rather, it is the process of the collapse of our own fighting morale. The experience we initiated should not be ignored and the inauguration of the International Proletarian Army must not be allowed to die at the first failure. It is essential to analyze in depth the problems that arise and find a solution. A good instructor on the battlefield does more for the revolution than the teacher of considerable numbers of raw recruits in peacetime, but the characteristics of this instructor, the catalyst in the training of future revolutionary technical cadres, should be studied carefully.

      The idea that guided us was to ensure that men experienced in Cuba’s liberation struggle and the subsequent battles against reaction fought alongside men without experience. We aimed to bring about what we called the “Cubanization” of the Congolese. We will see, however,