revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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to fight" and returned to Cuba . 31 Fidel began to place less emphasis on
exporting revolution and began concentrating on stabilizing the Cuban
economy . While Fidel supported Che in his later venture in Bolivia in
1966, it was lukewarm support . With the "Guevaraists" having lost the
political struggle in Cuba, guerrillas in Latin America basically had to go
for themselves .
Revolutionaries in Latin America turned toward the cities
and relied on their own resources .
As the struggle between the revolutionary communists and the
bourgoise
communists took place in Cuba, the question of the
right of Afro-Americans
to self-determination became one of international intrigue . Robert
Williams, then chairman in exile of the RAM, began . to receive pressure from
the revisionists . Williams met with Che right before Che's dissappearance
in Cuba .
It was around this time that chairman of the Communist Party in
Havana called him into his office and declared, 'Williams, we
want you to know that the Revolution doesn't support Black
Nationalism . We believe in integration, in white and black
workers struggling together to change capitalism into socialism
.
Only in this way can there be an end to discrimination . Black
Nationalism is just another form of racism . Cuba has solved
her race problem, but if we went along with your ideas about
Black, self-determination in the United States, it wouldn't
be long before somebody would start demanding that our Oriente
Province should become a separate Black state as well as we
are not going to let that happen . 32
Che told Williams that he supported Afro-Americans rights to use armed selfdefense
and was in opposition to the Cuban Communist Party's official
31 Ibid ., p . 159 .
32 Robert Carl Cohen, Black Crusader (Secaucus, New Jersey : Lyle Stuart,
Inc ., 1972) . pp . 289-290 . Also, Kalamu Ya Salaam, "Robert Williams : Crusader
for Internation Solidarity," The Black Collegian , Vol . 8, No . 3,
(January/February 1978), p . 56 .