From Algiers to Congo

Che Guevara’s 1965 speech in Algiers presented a demanding idea of solidarity between socialist countries and poorer nations. In the months that followed, he left his public roles in Cuba and traveled to Africa to support a guerrilla campaign in the Congo. The movement from diplomatic argument to armed intervention is the focus of this short documentary. The two episodes illuminate different sides of Guevara’s internationalism. In Algiers he criticized unequal economic relationships; in the Congo he attempted to help build a revolutionary struggle under conditions shaped by local politics and a wider international conflict. The outcome exposed the gap between a global theory and the practical requirements of an effective alliance. His later death in Bolivia can make every earlier choice appear like a step toward an inevitable ending. This account resists that shortcut by concentrating on what Guevara sought in 1965 and why the African mission developed as it did. Sources and further reading: At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria, 24 February 1965 https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/02/24.htm Havana’s Policy in Africa, 1959–76: New Evidence from Cuban Archives https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/CWIHP_Bulletin_8-9.pdf Foreign Relations of the United States, Congo, 1960–1968 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v23