 Guevara 's aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti @-@ Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare . In his Congo Diary book , he cites the incompetence , intransigence and infighting among the Congolese rebels as key reasons for the revolt 's failure . Later that year on November 20 , 1965 , suffering from dysentery and acute asthma , and disheartened after seven months of frustration and inactivity , Guevara left Congo with the six Cuban survivors of his 12 @-@ man column . Guevara had planned to send the wounded back to Cuba and fight in Congo alone until his death , as a revolutionary example . But after being urged by his comrades , and two emissaries sent by Castro , at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave Africa . During that day and night , Guevara 's forces quietly took down their base camp , burned their huts , and destroyed or threw weapons into Lake Tanganyika that they could not take with them , before crossing the border into Tanzania at night and traveling by land to Dar es Salaam . In speaking about his experience in Congo months later , Guevara concluded that he left rather than fight to the death because : " The human element failed . There is no will to fight . The leaders are corrupt . In a word ... there was nothing to do . " Guevara also declared that " we can 't liberate by ourselves a country that does not want to fight . " A few weeks later , he wrote the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture , that began : " This is the history of a failure . " 
