In November 1964, leaders of Latin American communist parties met in Havana at Soviet instigation, mostly to be corralled by the Kremlin into backing its positions vis-a-vis China. Cuban leaders, however, also came under considerable pressure to limit subversion to selected areas and to coordinate their efforts with local communist parties, which were facing dissention in their ranks because of Cuban meddling in their countries, including collaboration with splinter and even noncommunist groups. The local parties, not Castro, henceforth were to decide the major revolutionary issues within their borders, especially whether violent or nonviolent means were to be pursued. Castro finally consented to restrict Cuban efforts at insurgency in Latin America to three countries—Venezuela, Guatemala, and Colombia—and also to stop aiding and abetting splinter communist groups. In return, the representatives from the other countries agreed that their parties would be more energetic in generating support for the Cuban regime. For example, they agreed to work for the restoration of diplomatic and trade relations between Cuba and the rest of the hemisphere, to expose "CIA-sponsored" subversion of the Cuban regime, and to propagandize the achievements of Castro's government. (Castro had once bitterly complained that the only communist party in the world to demonstrate solidarity after Cuba's humiliation in the 1962 missile crisis was the Venezuelan party, which blew up oil pipelines.)
It was a short honeymoon. Havana soon became restive under these restrictions and, according to the CIA, began "chipping away at the edges" of the agreement during 1965. Then, at the Tri-Continental Conference in Havana in 1966, Castro shook free of it completely and issued a resounding call for continental subversion through guerrilla warfare. Bolivia had long figured significantly in Cuban revolutionary calculations but at first mainly as a supporting area for action in adjacent countries. Soon, however, it emerged in Havana's planning as both the ignition point and the command post of a South American revolution as well as a training center for continental guerrilla activity. Geography played a prominent role in its selection. Besides the rugged topography of the steep, deeply cut mountain slopes that drop precipitately to midcontinental plains, the nation borders Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Paraguay, where new insurrections could be kindled. Many observers believe further that the guerrilla camp's proximity to Argentina made the Bolivian location especially attractive to Guevara because he wanted particularly to see the revolution spread there. Furthermore, Havana believed the Barrientos regime, with its flimsy armed forces and its internal tensions, would be unable to cope with the insurgency.
At this point, Mario Monje again entered the scene in a major way. He attended the 1966 Tri-Continental Conference in Havana, where he appears to have been informed, more than consulted, by Castro of his country's role in Cuba's great push for a continental conflagration. For the next year, he argued with Cuban authorities about what he had and had not promised Castro he would do for Guevara when the latter arrived in South America. In fact, after the whole rebellion ended disastrously, Monje claimed he never even knew it was being planned for Bolivia until the Cubans had already gone a long way toward starting it there. Castro, he maintained, had simply asked him to help Guevara set up an insurrection in Argentina. Regis Debray, who was deeply involved in making the Bolivian arrangements, concurs that originally Bolivia was simply to support revolutionary focos in Peru and Argentina. In the summer of 1966, however, Havana concluded that conditions favored Bolivia itself as the foco. Monje's central committee, however, had very little intention of being involved in an armed rebellion in their own country and absolutely no intention of being involved in one run by Cubans. Meanwhile, Guevara's advance team, ensconced in Bolivia by July 1966, was pressing Monje to supply the 20 men they said he had promised them, whereas he claimed he had only promised four. Furthermore, he said they were for an insurrection in Argentina, not Bolivia.
Monje's party obviously held him responsible in large measure for the fact that Cubans were preparing a war in Bolivia, which the party awoke to with a shock during the summer of 1966. Monje's colleagues in the party felt that he should have known Havana's intentions from the start, if indeed he had not. In addition, although he denied it, they suspected Monje may have made careless promises in Havana about the number of men he could provide for the insurgency, regardless of where he thought it would be. Whatever he said, he now found himself torn, his central committee pulling one way and Guevara's advance men another. Finally, after wrangling with the Cubans in Bolivia, Monje flew again to Havana in late November or early December. There, according to a four-and-a-half-page explanation of his conduct that he sent to his central committee, Castro agreed that the revolution should be led by Bolivians; work it out with Guevara, he said. Healthy skepticism is certainly advised here, but we have only Monje's account.
Following his meeting with Castro, Monje's central committee gave him two alternatives: Bring Guevara under party control or give up your post. With that mandate, Monje had an extremely lively meeting with Guevara on New Year's Eve. Guevara described Monje's arrival as "cordial but tense. . . . The question: Why are you here? was in the air." That was soon answered: Monje wanted overall leadership of the movement—political leadership, he called it—with Guevara in a subordinate role as military commander. Not only did the proposal serve Bolivian nationalism, something alive and well even in the Communist Party, but, as Monje later explicitly stated, it also served orthodox communist theory, which held that political leadership could not be subordinate to military leadership, a key point of contention, of course, between the Cubans and Moscow-line communists. Guevara answered clearly and immediately: Monje's proposal was out of the question. As Guevara told it, Monje then put a challenge to Guevara's Bolivian volunteers: They could stay with the guerrilla band or support the party. All chose to remain. The next day, Monje told Guevara that he would resign from the party leadership. Then "he left," said Guevara, "looking as though he were being led to the gallows."
Who Was Henderson?
