Create two, three... many
Vietnams, that is the watchword!
In April 1965 Guevara left Cuba to lend his leadership abilities as guerrilla commander to revolutionary struggles in other parts of the world - from the Congo to Bolivia. He left the following message 20 International Viewpoint #294
"It is the hour of the furnace, and the light is all that can be seen."
- José Martí What is the role that we, the exploited of the world, must play?
The people of three continents are watching and learning a lesson for themselves in Vietnam. Since the imperialists are using the threat of war to blackmail humanity, the correct response is not to fear war. Attack hard and without letup at every point of confrontation. That must be the general tactic of the peoples.
But in those places where this miserable peace that we endure has not been broken, what shall our task be?
To liberate ourselves at any price. The world panorama is one of great complexity. The task of winning liberation still lies ahead, even for some countries of old Europe, sufficiently developed to experience all the contradictions of capitalism, but so weak that they can no longer follow the course of imperialism or embark on that road. In those countries the contradiction will become explosive in the coming years. But their problems, and hence their solutions, are different from those facing our dependent and economically backward peoples
The fundamental field of imperialist exploitation covers the three backward continents - Latin America, Asia and
Africa. Each country has its own characteristics, but the continent, as a whole, have their own as well. In Latin America...
Latin America constitutes a more or less homogeneous whole, and in almost its entire territory US monopoly capital holds absolute primacy. The puppet - or in the best of cases - weak and timid governments are unable to resist the orders of the Yankee master. The United States has reached virtually the pinnacle of its political and economic domination. There is little room left for it to advance: any changes in the situation could turn into a step backward from its primacy. Its policy is to maintain its conquests. The course of action is reduced at the present time to the brutal use of force to prevent liberation movements of any kind
Behind the slogan "We will not permit another Cuba" hides the possibility of away with - such as the one against the taggssion they can get Dominican Republic' or, before that, the massacre in Panama and the clear warning change in the established order endangers their interests. This policy enjoys almost absolute impunity. The Organisation of
American States (OAS) is a convenient mask, no matter how discredited it is. The
United Nation's ineffectiveness borders on the ridiculous or the tragic. The armies of all the countries of Latin America are ready to intervene to crush their own people. What has been formed, in fact, is the International of Crime and Betrayal.
On the other hand, the indigenous bourgeoisies have lost all capacity to oppose imperialism - if they ever had any
- and are only dragged along behind it like a caboose. There are no other alternatives.
Either a socialist revolution or a caricature of revolution. [...]
In Latin America, the struggle is going on arms in hand in Guatemala, Colombia,
Venezuela and Bolivia, and the first outbreaks are already beginning in Brazil.
Other centres of resistance have appeared and been extinguished. But almost all the countries of the continent are ripe for a struggle of the kind that, to be triumphant, cannot settle for anything less than the establishment of a government of a socialist nature. [...]
...and world-wide
We must definitely keep in mind that imperialism is a world system, the final stage of capitalism, and that it must be beaten in a great world-wide confrontation. The strategic objective of that struggle must be the destruction of imperialism.
The contribution that falls to us, the exploited and backward of the world, is to eliminate the foundations sustaining imperialism: our oppressed nations, from which capital, raw materials, and cheap labour (both workers and technicians) are extracted, and to which new capital (tools of domination) arms, and all kinds of goods are exported, sinking us into absolute dependence. The fundamental element of that strategic objective, then, will be the real liberation of the peoples, a liberation that will be the result of armed struggle in the majority of cases, and that, in Latin America, will almost unfailingly turn into a socialist revolution.
In focusing on the destruction of imperialism, it is necessary to identify its head, which is none other than the United States of North America.
We must carry out a task of a general he enemy out of his environment, comselling him to fight in places where his iving habits clash with existing condiions. The adversary must not be underesimated: the US soldier has technical unty and is backed by means of such belt and is backed hu that Yankee troops are ready to intervene anywhere in Latin America where a
magnitude as to make him formidable. What he lacks essentially is the ideological motivation which his most hated rivals of today - the Vietnamese soldiers - have to the highest degree. We will be able to triumph over this army only to the extent that we succeed in undermining its morale. And this is done by inflicting defeats on it and causing it repeated sufferings. Suffering and sacrifice
But this brief outline for victories entails immense suffering by the peoples -sacrifices that must be demanded starting right now, in the light of day, and that will perhaps be less painful than those they would have to endure if we constantly avoided battle in an effort to get others to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for us.
Clearly, the last country to free itself will very probably do so without an armed struggle, and its people will be spared the suffering of a long war as cruel as imperialist war are. But it may be impossible to avoid this struggle or its effects in a conflict of world-wide character, and the suffering may be as much or greater. We cannot predict the future, but we must never give way to the cowardly temptation to be the standard-bearers of a people who yearn for freedom but renounce the struggle that goes with it, and who wait as if expecting it to come as the crumbs of victory. It is absolutely correct to avoid any needless sacrifice. That is why it is important to be clear on the real possibilities that dependent Latin America has to free itself in a peaceful way. For us the answer to this question is clear: now may or may not be the right moment to start the struggle, but we can have no illusions, nor do we have a right to believe, that freedom can be won without a fight. And the battles will not be mere street fights with stones against tear gas, nor peaceful general strikes. Nor will it be the struggle of an infuriated people that destroys the repressive apparatus of the ruling oligarchies in two or three days. It will be a long, bloody struggle in which the front will be in guerrilla refuges in the cities, ir the homes of the combatants (were un repression will go seeking easy victims among their families), among the mas sacred peasant population, in the towns o - cities destroyed by the enemy's bombs.
It cannot be remedied other than by pre naring for it and deciding to undertake it.
I...] And let us develop genuin: e proletarian internationalism, with inter - national proletarian armies. Let the flag g under which we fight be the sacred causi e of the liberation of humanity, so that to dir e under the colours of Vietnam, Venezuela 1,
Guatemala, Laos, Guinea, Colombia
Bolivia, Brazil - to mention only thi current scenes of armed struggle - will bi e eaually glorious and desirable for a Lati American, and Asian, an African and ever
Every drop of blood spilled in a land under whose flag one was not born is experience gathered by the survivor to be applied later in the struggle for liberation of one's own country. And every people that liberates itself is a step in the battle for the liberation of one's own people.
It is time to moderate our disputes and place everything at the service of the struggle. The Sino-Soviet split
That big controversies are agitating the world that is struggling for freedom, all of us know.' We cannot hide it. That these controversies have acquired a character and a sharpness that make dialogue and reconciliation appear extremely difficult, if not impossible, we know that too. To seek ways to initiate a dialogue avoided by those in dispute is a useless task.
But the enemy is there, it strikes day after day and threatens new blows, and these blows will unite us today, tomorrow, or the next day. Whoever understands this first and prepares this necessary unity will win the peoples' gratitude. In view of the virulence and intransigence with which each side argues its case, we, the dispossessed, cannot agree with either way these differences are expressed, even when we agree with some of the positions of one or the other side, or when we agree more with the positions of one or the other side. In this time of struggle, the way in which the current difference have been aired is a weakness. But given the situation, it is an illusion to think that the matter can be resolved through words. History will either sweep away these disputes or pass its final judgement on them. In our world in struggle, everything related to disputes around tactics and methods of action for the attainment of limited objectives must be analysed with the respect due to the opinions of the others. As for the great strategic objective
- the total destruction of imperialism by means of struggle - on that we must be intransigent.
A long, cruel war Let us sum up as follows our aspira ism by means of eliminating its stronges tions for victory. Destruction Of liporar bulwark: the imperialist domination of the Destruction of imperial - t
United States of North America. To take a S a tactical line the gradual liberation of ou one hy ene or in groups, invol ving the enemy in a difficult struggle outside his terrain, destroying his bases of support, that is, his dependent territories. territories.
This means a long war And, we repeat once again, a cruel war. Let no-one deceive himself when he sets out to begin, and let no-one hesitate to begin out of fear of the results it can bring upon his own people. It is almost the only hope for victory. We cannot evade the call of the hour.
1 Vietnam teaches us this with its permanent
1 lesson in heroism, its tragic daily lesson of • dilv lesson of che struggle and death in order to gain the final victory. Over there, the soldiers of imperialism encounter the discomforts of those who, accustomed to the standard of living that the United States boasts, have to confront a hostile land; the insecurity of those who cannot move without feeling that they are stepping on enemy territory; death for those who go outside fortified compounds; the permanent hostility of the entire population. All this is provoking repercussions inside the United States. It is leading to the appearance of a factor that was attenuated by imperialism at full strength: the class struggle inside its own territory. How close and bright would the future appear if two, three, many Vietnams flowered on the face of the globe, with their quota of death and their immense tragedies, with their daily heroism, with their repeated blows against imperialism, forcing it to disperse its forces under the lash of the growing hatred of the peoples of the world! And if we were all capable of uniting in order to give our blows greater solidity and certainty, so that the aid of all kinds to the peoples in struggle was even more effective - how great the future would be, and how near. Forward to victory
If we, on a small point on the map of the world, fulfil our duty and place at the disposal of the struggle whatever little we are able to give - our lives, our sacrifice -it can happen that one of these days we will draw our last breath on a bit of earth not our own, yet already ours, watered with our blood Let it be known that we have measured the scope of our acts and that we consider ourselves no more than a part of the great army of the proletariat. But we feel proud at having learned from the Cuban revolution and from its great main leader the great lesson to be drawn from its position in this part of the world: "Of what difference are the dangers to a man or a people, or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the destiny of humanity?"
Our every action is a battle cry against peoples against the great enemy of the
America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear, if another hand reaches out to take up out dis, all men come forward to join in our funeral maches out to take up our arms, and other dirge with the rattling of machine guns and with new cries of battle and victory. *
This undated message was addressed to the "Tricontinental" Organisation of Solidarity with the established after a January 1966 conference in Havana. It Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL).
was published on 16 April 1967 in a special inaugural edition of Tricontinental magazine. Extracts chosen by Penny Duggan. © Pathfinder/Pacific and Asia, 1987
1. In April 1965 tens of thousands of US troops invaded Notes the Dominican Republic to crush a popular uprising
2. Reference to the Sino-soviet split a European
- imperialism and a call for the unity of the
che