Che Guevara in the Congo

In fact, Kabila did not visit the front of the armed struggle and constantly showed up late or never to promised meetings with Che. It was apparently mostly Kabila's job to keep aid flowing to the front.
Nonetheless, of all the people he met in the Congo, Che found himself most impressed by Kabila and he said in January 1966: "The only man who has genuine qualities of a mass leader is, in my view, Kabila."(p. 244) At the same time, Che believed Kabila was not quite serious enough for a revolutionary, "he is young and it is possible he will change."(p. 244)
Che's opinion: fiasco
In Che's own opinion, the adventure he led in the Congo was a fiasco. This book is an unvarnished account of what he saw as flaws in the Congolese and Rwandan revolutionaries he met.
In fact, in the difficult terrain of the Congo, Che came to conclude that even "good" Cubans with prior experience in the Cuban Revolution were not good enough to serve in the Congo. He repeatedly said he'd rather have 6 or 8 "super-humans" to start with than hundreds or even thousands of troops who would end up getting sick, running in battle and shooting each other down.
Che's military strategy for revolution starts with the assumption that conditions for revolution are overripe and all that is needed is the stout example of heroic leaders--what he called "armed propaganda." The first group of 8 comrade revolutionaries is a "foco," and "focoism" is Che's theory; however, there is not much theory to this book. Most of it is simply an account of what Che experienced in military operations in the Congo. He gives us details of ambushes and base defenses including some of the gory details of injury and death, drinking bouts of various troops, tropical diseases, the food and the constant ideological struggle of revolutionaries required to continue with the armed struggle and not degenerate politically. It is perhaps this last existential strain that Che covers in the raw that continues to give Che some appeal to youth today. Even in bourgeois history there are heroes and Che encourages others to become one.

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