In 1966 - 67, he led a nucleus of revolutionaries from Bolivia, Cuba, and Peru who fought to overthrow the military dictatorship in Bolivia. In the process, they sought to forge a Latin America-wide movement of workers and peasants that could lead the battle for land reform and against U.S. imperialist domination of the continent and advance the struggle for socialism. Guevara was wounded and captured on Oct. 8, 1967. He was shot the next day by the Bolivian military, after consultation with Washington.

As part of the commemoration of this anniversary in Cuba, dozens of articles, speeches, and interviews by those who worked with Che are being published, dealing with the Cuban revolution, its impact in world politics, and the actions of its leadership.

Many of Guevara's collaborators and family members have spoken at conferences and other meetings, bringing Che to life for a new generation and explaining the importance of his rich political legacy today. These materials contain many valuable firsthand accounts and information, some of which are being written down and published for the first time. They are part of the broader discussion taking place in Cuba today on how to advance the revolution.

The Militant is reprinting a selection of these contributions as a weekly feature, under the banner "Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution."

This week we reprint the first half of an interview with Manuel Piñeiro, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, that was featured in a special 30th anniversary issue of the Cuban magazine Tricontinental devoted to Ernesto Che Guevara. The rest of the interview will appear in this space next week. Translation, subheadings, and footnotes are by the Militant.

A tremendous downpour broke out right as the tape recorder began. Jokes were in the air. "You're going to take my virginity away," our subject warned us, alluding to the fact that though he has met with journalists before, this is the first time in 30 years he has agreed to be interviewed about Che Guevara.

He has received many requests from Cuban and foreign journalists. The reason is that Manuel Piñeiro, nicknamed Red Beard in the 1960s by friend and foe alike, is a key witness in reconstructing Che's entire internationalist course, from 1959 up to his murder in Bolivia in 1967.

During those years Piñeiro was no less than the head of the General Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of the Interior of Cuba, which among other responsibilities, was in charge of relations with revolutionary movements in the Third World. Insurgencies were then in full bloom. Among Che's multiple tasks within the leadership of the Cuban revolution were promoting anti-imperialist solidarity and preparing himself to fight in "other lands" - efforts he devoted himself to energetically. Piñeiro worked very closely with him in this.

Piñeiro earned the trust that got him this post in the Sierra Maestra primarily. He went there in May 1957 after making a request to the leadership of the July 26 Movement in Havana. Prior to that he had been one of the leaders of the Movement in his native province of Matanzas. From there he had to move to the capital, his cover blown due to his sabotage and propaganda activities. After organizing various arms shipments to the Sierra, he reached the eastern mountains.

There he joined Column no. 1 commanded by Fidel. In March 1958 he passed over to the column led by Raúl Castro, who founded the "Frank País" Second Eastern Front. There Piñeiro was made head of the Territorial Personnel and Inspection Directorate, the Intelligence Service, and the Rebel Police. He ended the war with the rank of commander. He participated in founding the Ministry of the Interior in 1961, and remained there until 1975. He served almost a decade as central leader of the Technical Vice Ministry; and later, as head of the General Directorate of National Liberation.

Beginning in 1975 he spent more than a decade and a half heading the Americas Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. He has been a member of that committee since its establishment on October 3, 1965. That was the very day in which Fidel made public Che's farewell letter.

Today, at 64 years of age, with his beard and hair turned gray, Piñeiro has not abandoned his preference - or custom - for working into the early hours of the morning. He does so whether in the Central Committee building, which he enters every day shortly after noon, or in the simple terrace of his home, where we are now meeting. The normal work environment of the "distinguished" individual is revealed: mounds of publications and documents on Latin America cover the furniture; at the foot of a plastic table is a lamp; there is a hammock and lush greenery in the small yard. But one also has to say that amid the intense activity as a revolutionary, he has reserved a place for family: his wife, Chilean Marxist writer Marta Harnecker; Camila, their daughter; and his eldest son Manuel, who is a lawyer.

Almost four hours of discussion have gone by and he is as fresh as when he started. He has fallen short in only one promise he made, to himself above all: to be brief. But he does not have to apologize for forgetting details; his memory is as sharp as ever.

He granted this interview after so many years not for himself, but as "my modest homage to Che Guevara."

Q: When and under what circumstances did you meet Che?

A: The first time I saw him was in passing, when our columns crossed after the battle of Pino del Agua (September 10, 1957). Through other combatants who had spoken of him with much respect and affection, I already knew he was a courageous and daring Argentine with a broad cultural background and solid political ideas.

Later I met him again in El Hombrito, another place in the Sierra Maestra, where his command post was located. It had an armory, bakery, and medical and dental services, in which he himself was the dentist, with a pair of pliers as his only instrument. Coincidentally it was the same date as today (June 10). I had a tremendous toothache, but when I went to find Che I heard shouts and moans, and I saw him working inside a peasant's mouth, pliers in hand, extracting a tooth. I told myself I'd never allow myself to fall into that man's hands. I don't believe I'll ever forget that image.

Q: Beyond that impact, what impression did you have of his personality?

A: He gave the impression of serenity, of a great deal of self-confidence, which inspired respect. At first he could seem serious or introverted, but once personal contact was established he became very communicative, with a sharp sense of humor, often laced with irony. I believe that some comrades, with a different psychology, different cultural backgrounds, and different personal traits did not understand his jokes, saying they were "Argentine," with a very biting edge. In reality, his jokes often had a certain critical tone, but they were always courteous and educational, never meant to give offense to any comrade, always appealing to their personal honor.

Q: After the triumph of the revolution, when did you meet him again?

A: On May Day 1959 he attended the march in Santiago de Cuba, capital of the former province of Oriente. At the time I was in charge there militarily, so I met him and we held a meeting in my office in the Moncada garrison. But my close ties with Che began in the second half of 1959.

Solidarity with revolutionary struggles
Q: Was that when you began to work together in activities connected with solidarity with revolutionary struggles in the Third World?

A: Yes. That year I transferred from Oriente to Havana, to join in founding the security and intelligence structures leading up to the creation, on June 6, 1961, of the Ministry of the Interior [MININT], which Comrade Ramiro Valdés headed. These incipient structures, and later the Technical Vice Ministry of MININT - which I was assigned to lead - were also responsible for attending to revolutionary and political leaders from other countries of the Third World, who came to learn from the experience of the Cuban revolution. Naturally, they wanted to talk to the revolution's principal leaders, above all Fidel and Che. Che made available the little time that he had, above all the nights, as he used to do with any peasant or rebel combatant in the Sierra who wanted to speak with him. The meetings with those leaders, the majority them from Latin America and the Caribbean, extended into the early morning, and sometimes to sunrise. They were held in safe houses, in Che's offices first in the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, and then the National Bank and the Ministry of Industry, and occasionally at his house.

Q: Did you participate in all of them?

A: Almost all. If not me, then some other comrade attending to the visitor.

Q: What do you remember most about those meetings?

A: Invariably they were "presided over" by a thermos of hot water, a sipping tube, maté, and a cigar in Che's mouth. I was always struck by his capacity to listen, his respect for the opinions of the person speaking, even when these did not coincide with his own views. This did not signify, however, that he didn't express his point of view, with very convincing arguments. Even without his visitor realizing it, Che could create a climate of relaxation, trust, and a fraternal spirit, which enabled both of them to speak in a direct and frank way.

Although he remained on top of the political situation and the emergence of revolutionary movements in the Third World, especially Latin America, Che would read all the material we had about the political, economic, and social conditions of the country in question prior to the meetings. It was inexcusable not to have a map laid out on the table, because as a man of detail, he liked to make inquiries analyzing the geography, the topography of the territory, the characteristics of the rural population, the forms of land ownership, social struggles and their antecedents, the movements of peasants, workers, and students, the political organizations, the intellectual world. He was extremely meticulous in seeking facts and figures on these topics.

In a pedagogical manner, free of schemas and dogmas, he would explain the Cuban revolutionary experience, and within it not just his own experience, but that of the other leaders, like Fidel and Raúl Castro, Juan Almeida, Camilo Cienfuegos. He did not fail to point out to the visitor that one must take advantage of the smallest opening that existed for legal activity, but without creating illusions, keeping fully in mind the indispensable need to accumulate the maximum amount of forces, and to prepare oneself militarily to confront the repression of the popular and revolutionary movement, to the degree that it became a dangerous challenge to the ruling system. Likewise, he would warn them of the probability of an aggressive reaction by imperialism to the advance of the revolutionary struggles. Sometimes he would also enter into philosophical and cultural matters.

Q: Could you mention some of the Latin American leaders who came to make contact with him?

A: It's impossible to mention them all, but among the many, I recall the Nicaraguans Carlos Fonseca, Tomás Borge, Rodolfo Romero, and the former officer in the Somocista Army, Somarriba, who headed an attempt at armed struggle in Nicaragua -which was eventually defeated and in which Cuban comrades Omelio Hernández and Marcelo Fernández died. I also recall the Guatemalans Turcios Lima, Yon Sosa, Rolando Ramírez, Pablo Monzanto, and Julio Cáceres (Patojo), a very dear friend of Che's. There were the Peruvians Luis de la Puente Uceda, Héctor Béjar, and Javier Heraud; the Peronists William Cooke and Alicia Eguren; the Colombians Fabio Vázquez (who would later head the National Liberation Army - ELN), the liberal guerrilla leader Franco, the La Rota brothers (founders of the Colombian Worker-Student Movement) and the general secretary of the CP in that country, Gilberto Vieira. There was also the secretary of the Uruguayan CP, Rodney Arismendi; the principal leaders of the Chilean Socialist and Communist parties, above all Salvador Allende, then a senator of the republic, and Jaime Barrios; the principal leaders of the Venezuelan CP, Fabricio Ojeda; and various Haitian and Dominican leaders.

In general, all the leaders of left-wing and Communist parties of the continent who passed through Havana, met with him. It should be recalled that Che participated in the Conference of Communist Parties of Latin America, held in Cuba in 1964.

Q: Can it be said that ever since the triumph of the revolution, Cuba's policy of solidarity with Latin America began to converge with Che's idea of becoming a part of the battle for liberation in other countries of Latin America?

A: Two things should not be forgotten. As far back as History Will Absolve Me [1954] Fidel has pointed to the Latin Americanist thrust of the revolution. He himself had participated in the Bogotazo, in activities of solidarity with the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico, for [Argentina's] sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, for the recovery of the Panama Canal, and there was the failed expedition of Cayo Confite to overthrow the Dominican dictator Leónidas Trujillo.(1) In Che, Fidel met someone who already had the same determination; he was marked by the experience of the defeat of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.(2) In that country Che met many revolutionary leaders of the continent, which strengthened his anti-imperialist and Latin Americanist feelings and convictions.

The other thing to recall is that before leaving for Cuba on the Granma, Che raised with Fidel that as soon as he could be freed of his responsibilities with the Cuban revolution, and whenever the time was most opportune, he wanted to be free to join the revolutionary struggle in another country of Latin America, preferably Argentina. He was always alert to any opportunity that presented some perspective for the development of revolutionary armed struggle, such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, or Colombia. He was always interested in the possibility of being accepted as a participant in the struggles of other countries.

For example, as early as 1959, Che sent a Cuban emissary with a note to the anti-Somoza Nicaraguan Somarriba, expressing his willingness to join the struggle as soon as the guerrilla column was able to create the conditions in that country. The effort failed, to Che's sorrow.

Q: How did Che conceive of the development and spread of the revolutionary struggle in Latin America?

A: His conception, rooted in the Cuban war of liberation, consisted in founding a mother column, composed of revolutionaries of various Latin American countries. Once the stage of survival was overcome, the combatants forged, the leadership cadres formed, then as this column developed and grew it would create the conditions for separating off other columns. In this way it would expand the battle to other countries of the continent; above all toward those that had united with imperialism to defeat the popular cause.

As the Cuban experience demonstrated, the original guerrilla nucleus, if it were well led, would be the little motor that through political and military action would set into motion the big motor of the masses. This was the basis of the continental and anti-imperialist conception of Che on revolutionary armed struggle. It is essentially a political and military conception based on the masses, in opposition to the interpretation that reduced things to the "guerrilla foco," a view that has been attributed to Che. He spoke of an insurrectional foco rooted in the masses, not a small group of armed men who act separate and apart from the popular movement and the people in general.

He also said that the guerrilla struggle could not develop in countries whose governments were the result of some form of elections, and where the possibilities of civic struggle had not been exhausted.

One basic idea of Che's should be stressed: all the conditions do not necessarily have to exist before the revolutionary struggle can begin; the struggle itself can create them as it develops.

Che is therefore not responsible for the oversimplifications of the Cuban experience and of his conceptions that were developed by various revolutionaries in Latin America, albeit with the best of intentions.

Q: Was Che's preference for Argentina at the root of the guerrilla effort commanded by his compatriot Jorge Ricardo Masetti in 1963? What was Che's role in that?

A: Che had known Masetti as a journalist in the Sierra Maestra. After January 1959 Masetti returned to Cuba; he carried out a few missions of support to the revolution in Algeria with the National Liberation Front (FLN). In addition he acquired some combat experience, attending military school in our country. Che then gave him the task of organizing a guerrilla column whose principal mission was to install itself in an area in Argentina along the border with Bolivia, specifically Salta, with the idea of Che himself joining as soon as a minimum of conditions was created, to use that as a base to lead the beginning of the armed struggle in Argentina. He paid special attention to the preparation of that detachment, named the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), which Masetti was to be part of together with other comrades, including the Cubans Hermes Peña (killed in action) and Alberto Castellanos, who fell prisoner and remained in Argentine jails for four years without their being able to discover his true nationality.

Q: When Masetti left for Salta he called himself "Segundo" [Number Two]. Was this an allusion to the fact that he was heading it only temporarily?

A: Yes, because Number One was Che. That's the significance of Masetti's pseudonym. Che wanted to be the initiator, but Fidel was able to persuade him to enter Argentina only after an advance group had created the conditions. In other words, Che would not be there during the most difficult and risky stage of any guerrilla movement, that of survival. During this stage the guerrilla unit depends fundamentally on its own forces.

This view has its precedent in the cadre policy Fidel developed in the Sierra Maestra. He always tried to preserve intermediate leaders who stood out as heads of columns. This policy was proven correct in our war. Fidel did not want to risk a cadre of Che's experience and continental stature during the first stage of the guerrilla struggle.

Q: Nevertheless, that effort had Cuba's solidarity.

A: It was necessary to establish a base of logistical support beforehand on the Bolivian side, and several Cuban cadres were designated for this: Abelardo Colomé Ibarra (Furry), today a corps general of the army, and José María Martínez Tamayo (Papi) who would die several years later in the Bolivian guerrilla movement. They went to Bolivia to provide assistance to Masetti and his group, with the aid of the Peredo brothers and Rodolfo Saldaña (members of the Bolivian CP), in coordination with a group of comrades we sent to La Paz. Simultaneously, on Che's request the married couple William Cooke and Alicia Eguren were responsible for support work in Argentina, even though they did not know the plans totally, nor the eventual participation of Che in that guerrilla movement.

It's also necessary to recognize here the cooperation given at that time by the leadership of the Algerian FLN.

Q: Masetti's insurgency was eventually discovered and almost all its members died or disappeared. What impact did this have on Che?

A: A deeply emotional and human impact. Comrades had been killed with whom he had been tied by many years of comradeship and struggle. As he said more than once, what upset him was the idea that while this was occurring he was here sitting in an office. When contact with Masetti was lost in April 1964, Che made all possible efforts to clarify the circumstances of those events, to learn if there were survivors, and in case they existed, to reorganize them. In those efforts he had the collaboration of William and Alicia. Since then, other Argentine friends have continued looking for the remains of Masetti and his comrades, trying to reconstruct the events, but up to now they have not been able to find indications of how that guerrilla effort ended and the circumstances of Masetti's death.

1. The Bogotazo was a popular uprising in Bogotá, Colombia in 1948. Castro was in Bogotá to help organize a Latin American student congress, and he participated in the uprising.

In 1947, an expedition was organized from Cuba to overthrow the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. It was aborted when the expeditionaries were dispersed by the Cuban army at Cayo Confite. Fidel Castro was a participant.

2. Seeking to crush political and social struggles in Guatemala accompanying a limited land reform initiated by the regime of Jacobo Arbenz, mercenary forces backed by the CIA invaded the country in 1954 to oust the government. Arbenz refused to arm the people and resigned, and a right- wing dictatorship took over. Among those volunteering to fight the imperialist-organized attack was Ernesto Guevara, who had been drawn to Guatemala by the upsurge in struggle there.

(To be continued next week.)  
 
 
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