AN
IMPOSSIBLE VICTORY
"American advisers are said to be accompanying the Bolivian army's offensive against the guerrillas; and it seems that it will soon be ‘the same in other Latin-~ American countries.
"It is known that advice quickly broadens into practical work in this business and that the professors end up by substituting themselves for their pupils.
"How little one knows the guerrilla to think he can be defeated in this way. No one likes this kind of combat very much, but no matter what is done it can't be brought to an end through a military victory; because it is one of the thousand ways in which the will to live shows up. It will endure as long as men despair.
"The CIA will have spent its last dollar, American youth spilledits last drop of blood, the industry of the United States produced its last ton of steel, and the last guerrilla will be undefeated. Even if an attempt is made to settle matters with the atomic bomb, there will still be survivors setting up an ambush in some ruins and demanding, stone or club in hand, the right to exist." -- Robert Escarpit in the April 5 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde.
TWO VENEZUELAN GUERRILLAS. The caption accompanying the photograph in the Mexican magazine Sucesos, on which this drawing is based, gives the nicknames of the two as "Ho Chi Minh" and "El Turro." With their trusty rifles, a FAL [Fusil Autom4tico Liviano] and an R-15, at their sides, the two freedom fighters study a book dealing with the problems of the oil industry in Venezuela.
Sucesos' report on the establishment of firm guerrilla fronts in Venezuela made a sensation in Latin America. That the success was registered in face of resistance from the right-ring leadership of the Venezuelan Communist party greatly sharpened the longstanding dispute in that party over what line to take -- toward "peaceful coexistence" or toward resolute pursuit of a revolution under the socialist program. On this basic issue, Fidel Castro came out strongly March 13 for the line of "making the revolution."
TEXT OF VENEZUELAN
{Fidel Castro's March 13 speech, taking issue with the right-wing leadership of the Communist party of Venezuela on the question of armed struggle, continues to reverberate, particularly in Latin America. In issue No. 12 (Vol. 5), World Outlook provided the complete text of this important discourse. In the following issue, we reported the reaction of the Venezuelan Communist party leaders, quoting what was available in the press at the time.
{The complete text of their reply was published in the March 17 issue of El Nacional in Caracas and in the April 3 issue of the Mexico City El Dia, which has now reached us. Although we think that in this dispute Fidel Castro is correct on the basic issues involved, particularly in scoring the line of "peaceful coexistence" and emphasizing that Communists are above all fighters dedicated to making a socialist revolution, we also believe it is important to hear both sides and to study all the available documents in order to form an independent reasoned judgment on the issues involved. We have therefore decided to help in this by offering an English translation of the