Weekly Summary

Approved for Release: 2023/03/28 C03154550

“Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla” was pub-
lished. Marighella, the Brazilian terrorist leader
who was killed in a police ambush in Sao Paulo
on 4 November last year, originally wrote the
“minimanual” last June but apparently had for-
mulated his ideas of the revolution in Brazil two
years prior when he made his break with the
Brazilian Communist Party. Although Tric0nti-
nen ml acknowledged that Marighella had written
his article with the specific case of Brazil in mind,
it claimed that the “minimanual” has a “special
importance” and that it “will become one of the
principal books of every man who, as a conse-
quence of the inevitable battle against the bour-
geoisie and imperialism, takes the road of armed
rebellion.”*
Marighella himself had explained his thesis in
an interview granted last September to a repre-
sentative of a French publication. “Under the
present conditions of dictatorship in this country
(i.e., Brazil),” he said, “propaganda and educa-
tional work is possible, a priori, only in the cities.
A number of mass movements, particularly those
organized by students, intellectuals, and certain
groups of militant unionists, have established a
climate politically favorable for a tougher strug-
gle, by which I mean armed actions. All the
antidemocratic measures taken by the govern-
ment...have created a climate of revolt....The city
contains all the objective and subjective condi-
tions necessary for a successful guerrilla war. But
out in the countryside the situation is markedly
less favorable. This means that the war in the
rural districts will have to come after the war in
the cities, which will play a distinctly tactical
role. Besides, the comrades who go out to fight in
the countryside will already have undergone their
baptism of fire in the urban struggle. The very
bravest of them will be sent out into the coun-
try.”
CUBA VERSUS THE LOCAL COMMUNISTS
Marighella, Fonseca Amador, and other rev-
olutionaries are unanimous in support of Castro’s
conviction that the local Communist parties have
failed to recognize the validity of armed struggle
and have been reluctant to put it into practice.
The footdragging and sometimes outright treach-
ery of the local Communist parties on this point
have long been a sensitive issue with Castro. He is
particularly bitter toward the Venezuelan Com-
munist Party, which he believes sabotaged the
guerrilla effort in the mid-1960s, and the Bolivian
Communist Party, which he largely blames for
Guevara’s downfall. Although his last major state-
ment on the subject was made almost two years
ago on the occasion of the publication of Gue-
vara’s diary in Havana, there is ample evidence
that his sentiments have not changed as a result of
the policy reappraisal. At the Moscow conference
of Communist parties in June 1969, for example,
the Cuban observer, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, ac-
curately reflected Fidel’s views when he chal-
lenged a portion of the proposed conference re-
solution that stated that “the Communist and
Workers Parties head the democratic forces and
maintain on high the banners on the anti-im-
perialist struggle, fight selflessly and courageously
for the demands of the masses and for the attain-
ment of revolutionary changes....” Rodriguez
acidly charged that “in our opinion, that image
does not correspond to reality with regard to
certain Communist parties in Latin America” and
then chastised parties that “underestimate the
dangers of imperialism” and “bourgeois reform-
ism.” Although Rodriguez’ criticism of the Latin
American Communist parties was rather mild
when compared to some of Castro’s bitter dia-
tribes, the forum in which Rodriguez delivered
the rebuke indicates clearly that the so-called
“thaw” in relations between the parties and
Special Report "'
7 - 8 May 1970
Approved for Release: 2023/03/28 C03154550
(b)(3)
(b)(l