In the months following the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959, the new government led by Fidel Castro began to carry out a series of revolutionary measures. The dictatorship’s repressive apparatus was dismantled. Racial discrimination was declared illegal. Rents and utility rates were lowered. An agrarian reform law confiscated all landholdings above 1,000 acres, providing land to hundreds of thousands of peasants.
As these popular measures were implemented, the new Cuban government faced growing opposition from Washington and US corporations with holdings in Cuba. A growing polarization also developed within Cuba itself.
One of the earliest campaigns was centered on the threat of “communist infiltration” of the new government. The most prominent targets were Ernesto Che Guevara and Raúl Castro. Argentine-born Guevara was singled out because he had not been born in Cuba, although a special government decree on February 9, 1959, had awarded him Cuban citizenship as a result of his outstanding contributions during the revolutionary war.
When Che Guevara was appointed to head the newly created Department of Industry, which was attached to the National Institute of Agrarian Reforrn (INRA), a series of attacks appeared in the right-wing daily newspaper El Diario de la Marina. Fidel Castro took this up on 28 September, 1959, as part of a television program called “Economic Commentaries”:
We know from abundant experience who will stay through difficult times. We know from abundant experience who will fight to the death and who will jump ship. We know how far each person will go. And we have the right to know which comrades can always be counted on to defend this revolution—those of us you would first have to destroy, down to the last person, before you could destroy the revolution. Listen well! You would first have to kill us, down to the last person.
Above all, it’s good to know who the irresponsible individuals are who have criminally dedicated themselves to the task of diminishing the authority of the revolution in order to lay the groundwork for struggles here inside the country. Such struggles can have only an incredibly tragic outcome for the nation. These individuals have clearly either ignored or forgotten those who defend this revolution—those who do so not out of personal interest or ambition but for ideals they cherish, genuinely cherish, and cherish more each day. That’s why these individuals cannot lead the country to anything but the worst of disasters, to the benefit of our eternal enemies.
This divisionist campaign—that is, this campaign of trying to sow divisions—who is it aimed at? Without doubt the target is that fighter we Cubans have the most to thank, that fighter who has performed the greatest deeds. Because if there is one comrade who can genuinely be called a hero, it is comrade Guevara.
And I don’t say this because of the great things he has done, which are well known to everyone. How in each extremely difficult situation we never had to search for a volunteer, because he would always step forward first. How he showed extraordinary bravery. He was a comrade who never pursued personal objectives. From the first to the last day of the war, he was always ready to die, to sacrifice his life for the cause—this comrade who always had to carry medication for asthma, a vaporizer. And to think he led an offensive through swamps. When we objectively assess the feats that have been carried out, it is clear this is a comrade whose stature will never be undercut by a dirty trick of this sort—one directed not against him alone, but against all the other comrades, against all those who are pillars of the revolution.
It is a systematic campaign, not an isolated one. With what aim? To lower the standing of those like comrade Guevara who, when the country is under attack, are given the task of defending an area or region and have to be killed before it can be taken.
Comrade Guevara is someone who can be given any mission, any post, any assignment with the certainty that he won’t hesitate for a second. He is the kind of person this country needs, the kind we need in difficult times. And it is in difficult times that people show what they are made of. It is not always so in comfortable times, and certainly not by slinging slander, infamy, and mud about comrades who deserve the respect of all Cubans because they have done only good for the country…
Just as the agrarian reform won the support and understanding of the people, we also wanted to promote popular support for industrialization. There can be no question that the process of agrarian reform was understood by the people. So we thought we should also set up a Department of Industry to talk with the peasants, to help lead them forward, to promote the idea of increasing savings to help buy goods needed for industrialization. And also to go to the unions and promote the idea of savings.
We sent Ernesto Guevara to the Department of Industry. Why? Simply because of his abilities. During the war—and since the days of the war this has been something I’ve been thinking about—the comrade who took charge of establishing the Rebel Army’s initial industries was comrade Guevara. And out of this emerged, as you will recall, a series of industries, our primitive factories in the Sierra Maestra where we made implements of war, where we were able to manufacture land mines, shoes, a number of different things, in our small industry there.
And we said that if under those conditions, lacking nearly everything, without even a lathe to make parts—because obtaining a lathe required a tremendous effort; if we could do that under those conditions, we said, imagine what we could do in peacetime…
On November 26, 1959, Che Guevara was appointed president of Cuba’s National Bank, replacing Felipe Pazos, an opponent of the course of the revolutionary government. Among the key challenges facing Guevara in this new position were stopping the flight of capital and the exodus of Cuba’s hard currency reserves; stabilizing the purchasing power of the country’s currency; and asserting control over the country’s private banks, which had not yet been nationalized.
The appointment of Guevara intensified the propaganda campaign against him both in Cuba and internationally. An example was a July 1960 article in the US News & World Report entitled “The ‘Red Dictator’ Back of Castro”:
Look behind Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl for the real “Red Dictator” of Cuba. Ernesto [Che] Guevara is the “brains” of Castro’s Cuban government. Guevara is not Cuban, but Argentine; not an emotional Latin by temperament, but a cool, calculating Communist.
To Guevara, Castro’s Cuba is only a stepping stone to a Red conquest of all Latin America.
Guevara, not Fidel or Raúl Castro, is at the controls in this fast-moving period when vast US investments are being seized. It is Guevara—described as an agent of international Communism—who must find the means to finance the economy of Cuba. Guevara, among other things, is president of the National Bank of Cuba. His hand is on every bank account, corporate and private, in the island. His are the decisions that determine the direction and the use of Cuban resources.
To Guevara, Cuba is only an incident in what he and his Communist aides regard as their real mission. This mission, according to those who work closely with Guevara, is to develop Cuba as a base for a Communist takeover of much of Latin America. What is taking place in Cuba is regarded as only a warm-up operation.
Fidel Castro dealt with this type of attack in a speech he gave to a meeting of the National Federation of Sugar Workers on 15 December, 1959:
When it is time to make sacrifices, the first things to be sacrificed here will be luxury items. It is luxurious and nonessential goods that must be sacrificed. I know how the poorest peasants live, how sugar workers live, how the workers of this country live. They don’t go around wearing French perfume. They don’t go around wearing silk and lace. They don’t smoke American cigarettes. And they don’t spend money on luxury items. I know what poor families consume. We have statistics that show that. So when the time comes to cut back—well, that’s why we have Che in the National Bank.
Who began to worry when Che was named president of the National Bank? It certainly wasn’t the peasants, the sugar workers, or the poor. Those who were upset began to wage campaigns against Che. They began to slander him, to distort his ideas, to call into question the extraordinary merits he possesses, to make him into a bogeyman. But after making him a bogeyman, it turned out the people didn’t see him that way. He was a bogeyman only to those who originated the campaign. When we named Che to the bank a great fear arose; they frightened themselves with the same bogeyman they themselves had created.
Some people went to the bank the other day to withdraw paper—paper! They went to take out “paper” because money is money only when there’s an economy behind it, when there are monetary reserves, and those are the measures we are taking, defending those reserves. And to be sure, if there’s no economy, if there are no reserves, the money is just so much paper…
If they withdraw paper from the bank, we’ll print new paper. That doesn’t mean anything… If they begin counterrevolutionary maneuvers like taking money out of the bank, then we will simply issue orders to have new money printed up. And if that happens, not a single sugar worker is going to lose a centavo. For it is certain that not a single sugar worker has a bank account. No one is going to be fooled into thinking this fear affects the people. If those who are so upset had a little more common sense they’d be sleeping peacefully. We aren’t going to touch those pieces of paper. On the contrary, to defend our economy, to defend our reserves, we are guaranteeing the value of those pieces of paper. Che was sent to the bank precisely to strengthen our effort to defend our economy and to defend our reserves…
Just so nobody makes any mistake about this, Che was not sent to the bank to play the fool. Just as in the past we sent him to Las Villas to prevent the enemy troops from reaching Oriente province, we sent him to the National Bank to prevent our foreign exchange from escaping, and to make sure the reserves we have in foreign exchange are to be invested correctly.
Campaign of speculation and intrigue continues
On March 14, 1965, Che Guevara returned to Cuba following a three-month trip representing the Cuban government at the United Nations and in a number of African countries. Immediately upon his return he dropped from public view. In April he left Cuba to enter a new “field of battle,” as he wrote.
Traveling in complete secrecy, Guevara’s initial destination was the Congo, the African country later known as Zaire. The Congo had been the scene of a civil war after winning independence from Belgium in 1960. Its first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was arrested by US-backed forces in December 1960 and subsequently murdered. When Moise Tshombe, who was directly involved in the murder, became head of state in 1964, this conflict developed into full-scale revolt by Lumumba’s followers. Belgian troops and European mercenaries—with the aid of the United States—supported Tshombe’s forces, slaughtering thousands of Congolese in the process.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in December 1964, Guevara referred to “the painful case of the Congo, unique in the history of the modern world, which shows how, with absolute impunity, with the most insolent cynicism, the rights of the peoples can be flouted… All free men of the world must be prepared to avenge the crime of the Congo.” With 100 Cuban volunteer fighters, Guevara went to the Congo after he left Cuba in April 1965. There they assisted and helped train opponents of Tshombe’s regime, staying several months into that year.
From the time Che dropped out of sight, speculation on his whereabouts began to appear in media around the world. In response to insistent questioning, Castro told a group of foreign journalists:
The only thing I can tell you about Commander Guevara is that he will always be where he is most useful to the revolution. Relations between the two of us are the very best; they’re like the days we first met—even better. I believe his tour of Africa was very successful. He was also in China as part of our delegation. He is versatile, with an extraordinary understanding of things. He is one of the most complete leaders.
Nevertheless, rumors spread outside of Cuba—some of them deliberately provocative. The military dictatorship in the Dominican Republic claimed publicly that Guevara had been killed in the uprising that began there on April 24, 1965. Another rumor alleged that Guevara had defected to the United States and sold Cuban secrets for $10 million. In response to this slander campaign, Fidel Castro made the following comments on June 16, 1965, marking the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT):
Now that I have mentioned Commander Ernesto Guevara, who so deserves that applause, you will have to listen to the confused rumblings of the imperialists. They say comrade Ernesto Guevara has not appeared in public, that he didn’t show up on May Day, that he was nowhere to be seen the week cane cutting began. They are puzzled. Some say he is here, some there; or that there has been a fight, or perhaps problems. Yes, they really are puzzled. We are going to reply to them: What business is it of yours? We are under no obligation to keep you informed or to give you any information. If you are puzzled, you can just keep on being puzzled. If you are concerned, you can just keep on being concerned. If you are nervous, take a tranquilizer or a sedative.
Our people, on the other hand, are not concerned. They know their revolution and they know their people. Comrade Guevara hasn’t been seen at a public event? Well, then comrade Guevara must have some reason for not appearing at a public event. There is no news about him? He never was someone who sought publicity. Comrade Guevara has always been allergic—allergic!—to publicity. They say he is in poor health. That’s what they would like to see. The imperialists would love to see him in poor health.
When there is concern over Commander Guevara it is a sign of respect and esteem for him.
When will the people know where Commander Guevara is? When Commander Guevara wants it known. Will you find out? Yes, you will find out. What do we know? Nothing! What do we think? We think Commander Guevara always has and always will carry out revolutionary tasks.
I don’t understand this ignorance on the part of the imperialists. Why don’t they take a photograph with their U-2s? Why don’t they go find him and photograph him? The fact is that it is much harder to photograph a man, no matter how big he is, than a missile.
Well, they can put their electronic brains to work on trying to solve this problem. We, for our part, will remain calm and content. Here no one is puzzled, no one. People don’t even ask. Later they may ask. If so, an answer will be given. That’s all there is to it.
After leaving the Congo in late 1965, Guevara went to Tanzania and then to Eastern Europe. In December 1965, he returned secretly to Cuba. Upon his return, Castro assisted him in beginning preparations for the guerrilla expedition to Bolivia. Guevara selected a group of Cuban volunteers who were veterans of Cuba’s revolutionary war and of the recent mission in the Congo. A training camp was set up in a remote mountainous area of Pinar del Río province in western Cuba.
In late October, Guevara—in disguise—left Cuba, traveling by way of Europe and arriving in Bolivia on November 4, 1966. He proceeded to set up a guerrilla base in southeastern Bolivia, near the border with Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay. Of the 50 guerrillas who eventually took part in the campaign, 17 were Cubans, including several members of the Central Committee. The first several months of the Bolivian campaign were devoted to organizing and consolidating the guerrilla unit. In March 1967 the first combat engagement occurred between the guerrillas and the Bolivian army. At the time, Guevara’s presence in Bolivia was still not known publicly, and the speculation and rumors about his whereabouts continued. Reports abounded of his presence everywhere: some had him in Peru, Colombia, Guatemala—even as far away as Vietnam.
Before leaving Cuba for Bolivia, Guevara had written a message to the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (known as the Tricontinental), which had been formed following a January 1966 conference in Havana. The theme of Guevara’s “Message to the Tricontinental” was the need for solidarity with the Vietnamese liberation struggle, under the watchword of “create two, three, many Vietnams.” That theme was to figure prominently in the conference of the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) that took place in Havana in late July and early August 1967 and elected Guevara as its honorary chairman.
Guevara’s message was released publicly on April 16, 1967. It was published in a special inaugural edition of Tricontinental magazine, which accompanied it with a series of photographs of Guevara in disguise before leaving Cuba. Its publication created a worldwide sensation and was reported prominently by the world’s major news media.
On April 19, 1967, Fidel Castro commented on the publication of Guevara’s article during a speech commemorating the sixth anniversary of the defeat of the US-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs.
For the revolutionary movement around the world, for those who confront imperialism in Asia, in Africa, and in Latin America, the message of Commander Ernesto Guevara has been a dramatic event. We are not going to speak of ourselves, the Cubans. No one here ever believed the intrigues, ridiculous lies, and inventions of the imperialists. Here we all know one another, and we know the truth because we’ve either heard it or guessed it.
The imperialists tried to sow confusion and lies throughout the world. They claimed to have located Che in a number of places, to have killed him at least a dozen times. For the imperialists, above all, this document must have been traumatic. Che’s “resurrection,” his presence, must have been deeply disheartening and upsetting. This Che, with and without a beard, with a beard that might be new and might be old—you can’t tell—and with that beret that seems to symbolize something, perhaps a sort of “Red Beret.” This Che must have produced deep concern among the US imperialists.
This Che, in a magnificent state of health, with incomparable enthusiasm, and with more experience than ever in guerrilla armed struggle—this Che must be a source of concern for the imperialists, because he is a source of inspiration for revolutionaries.
Where is Che? the imperialists wonder. Organizing a liberation movement? Fighting in one of the liberation fronts? What the imperialists would give to know the answer to that! But even if they find out, it would do no more than simply satisfy their curiosity. Because if they really want to protect the health of their “Green Berets,” they had better make sure the “Green Berets” never meet up with Che.
For those who sow intrigue and slanders, for those who try to benefit from and take advantage of Che’s absence to hurl all kinds of slander against the revolution—for them too it must have been quite a lesson, this presence of Che. And they—but why waste time on them? They’ve already been given their punishment. It’s the punishment of history, because it’s history that takes care of settling accounts with charlatans, slanderers, and those who take part in intrigues.
That’s why the perversity of the slanderers is sad, but of no real concern. History will once again take care of these matters. That is the punishment of the intriguers and slanderers who have played the imperialists’ game in every way possible in regard to this new stage, begun two years ago by comrade Ernesto Guevara.
Not everything is known, of course. But once again we leave it to history. We all received this document with immense happiness. None of us has the slightest doubt that time—whether it be days, weeks, months, or years—will inevitably bring fresh news of Che.