Che Guevara Talks to Young People

by Ernesto Che Guevara

  Cienfuegos, Camilo (1932-1959) – A Granma expeditionary, he became a Rebel Army commander in 1958. From August to October 1958 he led a column westward from the Sierra Maestra en route to Pinar del Rio. He operated in northern Las Villas province until the end of the war, working in tandem with the column led by Che Guevara based in the southern part of the province. He was named head of the Rebel Army following the victory over Batista in January 1959. His small Cessna 310 was lost at sea in October 1959 while he was returning to Havana from a mission in Camagüey to combat a counter-revolutionary mutiny led by Huber Matos.

  Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs) – Launched in September 1960 on a block-by-block basis as a tool through which the Cuban people could exercise vigilance against counter-revolutionary activity. In subsequent years they have also served as a vehicle to organise participation at mass demonstrations and to take part in vaccination and other public health campaigns, civil defence, the fight against petty crime, and other civic tasks.

  Communist Party of Cuba – In 1961, the 26 July Revolutionary Movement initiated a process of fusion with the Popular Socialist Party and the Revolutionary Directorate – all three of which had experienced defections and a regroupment of forces as the revolution deepened. In 1961 the Integrated Revolutionary Organisations (ORI) was created. In 1963 the United Party of the Socialist Revolution (PURS) was formed from the ORI; and in October 1965 the Communist Party of Cuba was founded, with Fidel Castro first secretary of its Central Committee.

  Diario de la Marina – A reactionary Cuban daily founded in 1832, closely tied to Spanish colonialism and the Catholic church hierarchy. It became an organising centre for the counter-revolution and was closed by the revolutionary government 13 May 1960.

  Díaz Lanz, Pedro Luis (1926-2008) – Head of the Cuban air force January-June 1959, he fled to the United States 29 June 1959. He conducted an air raid on Havana 21 October 1959.

  Dorticós, Osvaldo (1919-1983) – Regional coordinator of the 26 July Movement in Cienfuegos and dean of the Cienfuegos law school, he was forced into exile in December 1958. In July 1959 he became president of Cuba, holding that position until 1976. He was a member of the Communist Party Central Committee and Political Bureau at the time of his death.

  Dulles, Allen (1893-1969) – Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, 1953-61, he oversaw Washington’s covert operations – including large-scale terrorist actions, assassinations, coups d’état and attempted coups – in Guatemala, Iran, the Congo, Cuba, and elsewhere. He resigned in the wake of the US government fiasco at the Bay of Pigs. Brother of John Foster Dulles.

  Dulles, John Foster (1888-1959) – US secretary of state 1953-59 in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had been a long-time attorney for and stockholder in the United Fruit Company (today United Brands).

  Fierro, Martin – The protagonist of an epic poem by late nineteenth century Argentine writer José Hernández that recounts the life of the gauchos (cowboys) of the Argentine pampas and protests the discrimination and exploitation to which they were subjected.

  Granma – The yacht that carried eighty-two revolutionary fighters commanded by Fidel Castro from Tuxpan, Mexico, to Cuba to initiate the revolutionary war against the US-backed regime of Fulgencio Batista. The expeditionaries landed in southeast Cuba on 2 December 1956. Granma has been the name of the daily newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1965.

  Guatemala coup, 1954 – Seeking to crush broadening political and social struggles in Guatemala accompanying a land reform initiated by the regime of Jacobo Arbenz that affected the substantial holdings of United Fruit and other US corporations, mercenary forces backed by Washington invaded the country in 1954. Arbenz refused to arm those ready to resist and resigned. A right-wing military dictatorship took over. Among those volunteering to fight the imperialist-organised attack was Ernesto Guevara, a young doctor who had been drawn to Guatemala by his support for the struggle unfolding there.

  Guillén, Nicolás (1902-1989) – Cuban poet and a member of the National Committee of the Popular Socialist Party before the revolution. Persecuted by the dictatorship, he lived in exile during the revolutionary war, returning to Cuba in 1959. He became president of the Union of Writers and Artists in 1961 and was a member of the Communist Party Central Committee at the time of his death.

  Hart, Armando (b. 1930) – Joined the Orthodox Youth in 1947 in Havana. He was a leader of the Revolutionary National Movement following Batista’s coup. In 1955 he became a founding member of the 26 July Movement and a leader of its urban underground. He was imprisoned briefly in 1957 and escaped. He served as national coordinator of the 26 July Movement from early 1957 to January 1958, when he was captured and imprisoned on the Isle of Pines until 1 January 1959. He served as minister of education 1959-65; Communist Party organisation secretary 1965-70; minister of culture 1976-97. He has been a member of the Communist Party Central Committee since 1965 and was a member of the Political Bureau 1965-86.

  Iglesias, Joel (b. 1941) – Born into a peasant family on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba, he joined the Rebel Army in 1957, serving in Columns 4 and 8 under Che Guevara; he was promoted to commander at the end of the revolutionary war. He became the first president of the Association of Rebel Youth, initiated by the Rebel Army Department of Instruction, in 1960, and general secretary of the UJC in 1962. He was a member of the Communist Party Central Committee 1965-75.

  INRA. See Agrarian Reform Law.

  26 July Revolutionary Movement – Founded June 1955 by Fidel Castro and other participants in the attack on the Moncada garrison in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes garrison in Bayamo, youth activists from the left wing of the Orthodox Party, and other revolutionary forces; it separated from the Orthodox Party in March 1956. During the revolutionary war it was composed of the Rebel Army in the mountains (Sierra) and the urban underground network (Llano), as well as revolutionists in exile. In May 1958 Fidel Castro became its general secretary. It published the newspaper Revolution, beginning in clandestinity.

  In 1961 the 26 July Revolutionary Movement initiated a process of fusion with the Popular Socialist Party and the 13 March Revolutionary Directorate that led in 1965 to the founding of the Communist Party of Cuba, with Fidel Castro elected as its first secretary.

  Lenin, V.I. (1870-1924) – Continuator in the imperialist epoch of the theoretical and practical work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, he was the central leader of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Founder of the Bolshevik Party. He was chair of the Council of People’s Commissars (Soviet government) 1917-24 and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

  Literacy Campaign – From late 1960 through 1961, the revolutionary government undertook a literacy drive to teach one million Cubans to read and write. Central to this effort was the mobilisation of 100,000 young people to go to the countryside, where they lived with peasants and workers whom they were teaching. As a result of this drive, Cuba virtually eliminated illiteracy. During the literacy campaign nine participants, both students and teachers, were murdered by counter-revolutionaries, organised, armed, and financed by Washington.

  Lumumba, Patrice (1925-1961) – Leader of the independence struggle in the Congo and its prime minister after independence from Belgium in June 1960. In September 1960, after requesting United Nations troops to counter attacks by Belgian-organised mercenaries, his government was overthrown in a US-backed coup. UN troops supposedly protecting Lumumba took no action as he was captured, jailed, and then murdered in January 1961 by Congolese forces collaborating with Washington. A US Senate investigating committee in 1975 concluded that CIA chief Allen Dulles ordered the assassination; moreover, there was a “reasonable inference” that the order originated with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

  Malcolm X (1925-1965) – One of the most outstanding proletarian revolutionists in US history. Born into a working-class family, he was imprisoned as a young man. While in pri
son, seeking a way to get back on his feet, he joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and, after his release in 1952, became a leader of that organisation. A supporter of the Cuban Revolution, as the NOI leader in Harlem he greeted Fidel Castro in September 1960 when Castro stayed there during a visit to New York to speak before the United Nations. Repelled by the discovery of corrupt and hypocritical political conduct in the top leadership of the Nation of Islam, he broke from the NOI in early 1964. He formed the Organisation of Afro-American Unity later that year open to all Blacks who sought to mount a united struggle against racist inequality and social injustice and to forge alliances with all those committed to the revolutionary internationalist goals he was advancing. During the last year of his life, he developed increasingly anti-capitalist and pro-socialist views. He was assassinated in New York City on 21 February 1965.

  Mao Zedong (1893-1976) – Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1935, he was the central leader of the Third Chinese Revolution and headed the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until his death.

  Mariátegui, José Carlos (1895-1930) – Peruvian writer who, under the impact of the Russian Revolution, was attracted to Marxism while living in Europe 1919-23. After his return to Peru he founded the magazine Amauta. In 1928 Mariátegui helped found the Socialist Party of Peru, which had ties to the Communist International but did not seek formal affiliation. Mariátegui became its general secretary. That same year he laid the groundwork for the establishment of the country’s first trade union federation, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers. In 1929 the Socialist Party’s delegation to the Communist International’s First Conference of Latin American Communist Parties held in Buenos Aires was sharply criticised by representatives of the Communist International and leaders of Communist Parties in Latin America for, among other things, not calling themselves Communist and placing themselves under the discipline of the Comintern. Mariátegui died before the issue was resolved. After his death the majority of the Socialist Party became the Communist Party of Peru. Mariátegui’s actions and writings, like those of his Cuban contemporary Julio Antonio Mella, have had an impact on the revolutionary movement in Latin America beyond the borders of his own country.

  Marti, José (1853-1895) – A noted revolutionary, poet, writer, speaker, and journalist, he is Cuba’s national hero. He founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892 to fight Spanish rule and oppose US designs on Cuba. He organised and planned the 1895 independence war and was killed in battle at Dos Rios in Oriente province. His revolutionary anti-imperialist programme is part of the internationalist traditions and political heritage of the Cuban Revolution.

  Marx, Karl (1818-1883) – Founder with Frederick Engels (1820-1895) of the modern communist workers movement; architect of its theoretical foundations.

  Matos, Huber (1918-2014) – A small landowner in Oriente province, he joined the Rebel Army in March 1958, becoming commander of Column 9 of the Third Front led by Juan Almeida. As military head of Camagüey province in October 1959, he was arrested for an attempted counter-revolutionary mutiny and was imprisoned until 1979. He moved to the United States, where he headed the counter-revolutionary Cuba Independent and Democratic.

  Medrano, Humberto (1916-2012) – Assistant director of Prensa Libre newspaper in Havana 1949-60. He opposed the revolutionary government’s measures and left Cuba via the Panamanian embassy in May 1960. For many years he worked for the US government’s Radio and TV Marti.

  Mella, Julio Antonio (1903-1929) – President of the Federation of University Students (FEU) and leader of the university reform movement in Cuba in 1923. He was a founding leader of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1925. Arrested by the police of the Machado dictatorship, he escaped to Mexico in 1926, where he organised against the dictatorship and joined in the international campaigns to defend Sacco and Vanzetti, Augusto César Sandino, and others. In 1927 he attended the Brussels congress of the Anti-Imperialist League, then travelled to Moscow. Hounded by Machado’s agents, he was assassinated on a Mexico City street in January 1929. Mella, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Ernesto Che Guevara are the three examples for Cuban youth today represented on the emblem of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) in Cuba.

  Mikoyan, Anastas (1895-1978) – Joined the Bolshevik Party in 1915. Prominent in the officialdom of the Soviet Communist Party under Stalin, he was first deputy premier of the Soviet government between 1955 and 1964 with responsibility for directing the country’s foreign trade.

  Miró Cardona, José (1902-1974) – A leader of the bourgeois opposition to Batista and president of the Cuban Bar Association, he was prime minister of Cuba, January-February 1959, replaced by Fidel Castro. In 1960 he left Cuba for the United States, where he served as president of the counter-revolutionary organisation known as the Revolutionary Democratic Front, and later of the Cuban Revolutionary Council in exile. He later moved to Puerto Rico.

  Moncada garrison – On 26 July 1953, some 160 combatants, overwhelmingly youth, under the command of Fidel Castro launched an insurrectionary attack on the Moncada army garrison in Santiago de Cuba together with a simultaneous one on the garrison in Bayamo, opening the revolutionary armed struggle against the Batista dictatorship. After the attack’s failure, Batista’s forces massacred more than fifty of the captured revolutionaries. Fidel Castro and twenty-seven others, including Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida, were tried and sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison. They were released on 15 May 1955, after a public defence campaign forced Batista’s regime to issue an amnesty.

  Organisation of American States (OAS) – Created in 1948 under the tutelage of the US government, this body, composed of most countries of the Americas, has been an instrument to advance Washington’s interests. At an OAS ministerial meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1961, Washington presented a plan for US “economic assistance” to Latin America called the Alliance for Progress. Cuba’s representative at that meeting, Ernesto Che Guevara, exposed the exploitative nature of this programme, and its purpose as a weapon to counter the appeal of the Cuban Revolution to millions throughout the Americas. In 1962 the OAS expelled Cuba, claiming it was promoting subversion throughout Latin America. The organisation soon endorsed the US economic measures to strangle Cuba and other acts of aggression against the revolution.

  ORI (Integrated Revolutionary Organisations). See Communist Party of Cuba.

  Pais, Frank (1934-1957) – Vice president of the Federation of University Students in Oriente, he was the central leader of Oriente Revolutionary Action, later renamed Revolutionary National Action, which fused with the Moncada veterans and other forces to form the 26 July Movement in 1955. He was the central leader of the 26 July Movement in Oriente province, national action coordinator of the 26 July Movement, and head of its urban militias. He was murdered by the dictatorship’s forces 30 July 1957.

  Pérez Jiménez, Marcos (1914-2001) – Chief of the V enezuelan army’s general staff, he led a military coup in 1948 that installed a three-man junta. He proclaimed himself president in 1952 and was ousted in 1958 by a popular uprising.

  Platt Amendment – Named after US Senator Orville Platt, the Platt Amendment was a provision imposed on the Cuban government that was established during the US military occupation following 1898. Under the terms of that amendment – incorporated in Cuba’s new constitution – Washington was given the “right” to intervene in Cuban affairs at any time and to establish military bases on Cuban soil. The Platt Amendment was eliminated from the Cuban constitution in the wake of the 1933-34 revolutionary upsurge there, but Washington maintained its naval base in Guantánamo, granted in virtual perpetuity during the US occupation, as well as other forms of political and economic domination such as the reciprocal trade treaty.

  Playa Girón. See Bay of Pigs.

  Popular Socialist Party (PSP) – Name taken in 1944 by the Communist Party of Cuba founded in 1925. The PSP actively opposed the 1952 Batista coup and dictatorship but rejected the political course of the Moncada assault and of
the 26 July Movement and Rebel Army in launching the revolutionary war in 1956-57. The PSP participated in the campaign to save the life of Fidel Castro and the other survivors of the Moncada attack and joined the nationwide amnesty effort that won their release from prison. The PSP collaborated with the Rebel Army, and in 1958 joined the armed insurrection to topple the Batista dictatorship. As the revolution deepened following the 1959 victory, the PSP, like the 26 July Movement and Revolutionary Directorate, went through a process of political differentiation. In mid-1961 the Integrated Revolutionary Organisations (ORI) was formed by a fusion of the three groups, initiating a process that led in 1965 to the founding of the Communist Party of Cuba.

  Prensa Libre – Capitalist newspaper published in Havana. An organising centre for the counter-revolution, it was closed by the revolutionary government 16 May 1960.

  Quevedo, Angel – A lieutenant in the Revolutionary Directorate military column during the anti-Batista struggle, he was promoted to commander in the Rebel Army in 1959. He was a student at the University of Havana that year and was president of the Commission for the Complete Reform of the University. He later became general secretary of the Federation of University Students.

  Quevedo, Miguel Angel (d. 1969) – Editor of the magazine Bohemia prior to fleeing to the United States 18 July 1960.

  Rebel Army – Began military operations against the Batista regime 2 December 1956, when the Granma landed in Oriente province. Its defeat of the Batista army forces in numerous decisive engagements, especially from July 1958 on, gave impetus to a revolutionary upsurge throughout Cuba and sealed the fate of the dictatorship. Rebel Army cadres became the backbone of the new revolutionary institutions that emerged, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, the militias, the police, the Association of Rebel Youth, and by October 1959, the large majority of government ministers.