Revolutionary Study

A recoloring of the March 1972 cover of the Tricontinental Bulletin, OSPAAAL's multilingual organ of Third World solidarity, produced after Ho Chi Minh's death to commemorate his contribution to the global anti-imperialist cause.

This design is a recoloring of the March 1972 cover of the Tricontinental Bulletin. In 1966, militants from 82 countries in the Global South gathered in Havana for the first Tricontinental Conference. The delegates established the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL) amidst a high water mark of global armed struggle against Amerikan imperialism.

OSPAAAL provided material solidarity to national liberation movements, most notably in their multilingual Tricontinental Bulletin and abundance of cross-cultural production and design. The struggle against Amerikan imperialism in Vietnam was of special importance to OSPAAAL and the Bulletin. Regular updates on the Vietnamese resistance were reported in several printings and countless propaganda designs were produced in support of the struggle. Following the death of Ho Chi Minh in 1969, numerous designs were produced to commemorate his contributions to the global anti-imperialist cause.

Generations of designers and artists take inspiration from OSPAAAL's unique propaganda style, which unabashedly depicts the revolutionary struggle. Today's anti-imperialist activists can learn from their global networks of solidarity, lasting cultural production, and tangible support for anti-imperialism. Though we must also consider what it means to move beyond old programs. Che Guevara, who missed the first Tricontinental Conference to organize in the Congo, wrote to the delegates in 1967:

There is a sad reality: Vietnam — a nation representing the aspirations, the hopes of a whole world of forgotten peoples — is tragically alone. This nation must endure the furious attacks of U.S. technology, with practically no possibility of reprisals in the South and only some of defense in the North — but always alone. The solidarity of all progressive forces of the world towards the people of Vietnam today is similar to the bitter irony of the plebeians coaxing on the gladiators in the Roman arena. It is not a matter of wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate; one must accompany him to his death or to victory.

Che Guevara, Message to the Tricontinental, 1967

America, a forgotten continent in the last liberation struggles, is now beginning to make itself heard through the Tricontinental and, in the voice of the vanguard of its peoples, the Cuban Revolution, will today have a task of much greater relevance: creating a Second or a Third Vietnam of the world.

In a time of unchecked imperialist barbarity in Gaza, Congo, and Sudan, anti-imperialists must consider how to open new fronts against imperialism. Everywhere throwing sand into the gears, encumbering imperialist machinery according to the balance of forces. Anti-imperialists in the Global North have a dual purpose of being as cumbersome as possible at home and materially supporting, in every way possible, the anti-imperialist struggle abroad.