The legacy of Che Guevara
Ernesto Che Guevara's political and theoretical contribution to the revival of revolutionary Marxism in Latin America-and not only in Latin
America-was the object of a systematic campaign of distortion and slander before being relegated to oblivion by nearly the whole of the international workers movement. The schematic and one-sided, indeed blatantly false interpretation of his work by some Latin American revolutionary currents and intellectuals, starting with Regis Debray's book, played a
During his lifetime, Guevara had already been the target of a campaign of disparagement, first and foremost by the Stalinist bureaucrats. In Cuba,
Anibal Escalante, leader-to take up the definition then used by Fidel
Castro-of a pro-Stalinist 'micro-faction' condemned first in 1962 and again in 1968, had concentrated his attacks on Guevara by presenting him as a Trotskyist who would have defended the idea of 'exporting revolution' and made 'attempts to impose the Cuban line on other Communist
. According to Raul Castro, Escalante, among others, had declared that 'the departure of Major Ernesto Guevara from Cuba was a positive event' for Guevara was 'one of the most resolute adversaries of the Soviet
At the time such an attack seemed to be directed against the Castroist leadership as a whole to the extent that Guevara had always declared his confidence in Fidel, and had never accepted that he played an autonomous role. Most of the accusations made against him were aimed at Fidel who had bluntly criticised certain Latin American Communist Parties (the
Venezuelan, for example) and who seemed to be generally opposed to the methods and orientation of the Soviet bureaucracy. But since 1968, with
Fidel's support of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, his uncritical attitude
ANTONIO MOSCATO negative role as well.
Parties' line'.
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6 International Marxist Review towards the 'Soviet camp' as well as to the turn operated in Latin America endorsing 'progressive' bourgeois governments (Peru, Panama, Argentina, Ecuador, etc), and even his attitude towards Allende in Chile, this judgement has been re-evaluated to a certain extent. In fact Guevara had represented a particular feeling within the Cuban revolutionary movement, one of the 'leading lights' of Castroism, even if, we repeat, he would have rejected such an appraisal. Fortunately, Cuba's attitude during the revolutionary struggle in Nicaragua and in the case of Grenada indicated that Guevara's fundamental internationalist orientation was shared by the other Cuban leaders, who were also conscious that, in the final analysis, the extension of the revolution in other Latin American countries represented the best defence of their revolution and of its acquisitions.
Internationalism is a recurring theme in Guevara's writings, speeches, interviews and conversations. One only needs to read or re-read what has been published in different languages and to keep in mind what the leaders of the Communist Parties (not to mention the social democratic leaders) were saying at the time to appreciate the contrast.
Shortly after the victory of the revolution, Guevara made numerous trips not simply to get aid or to negotiate supplies necessary to resist imperialist blockades. He followed world events with the greatest attention. He perceived the first signs of the resurgence of the Palestinian resistance; he saluted with enthusiasm the Algerian revolution; he met Yugoslavian leaders; he visited India, Japan and Indonesia. He wanted to know what was happening in other regions of the world in order to better understand the perspectives of the revolution in America. In his article 'America seen from an Afro-Asian balcony' (Autumn, 1959) he wrote: 'With the perspective from this balcony, I learn to understand better the events in which I have participated since the sublime moment of the Twelfth'. Alluding to the naive gesture of a man from a far away country who had stroked his beard thinking he was Fidel, and who had asked him, 'are you one of the members of the army of guerillas who led the struggle for the liberation of America?', Che concluded: 'I have to answer that, yes, to him and to hundreds of millions of Afro-Asiatics who, like him, march towards liberty in this new and uncertain atomic age, I also have to tell him that I am another brother among this multitude of brothers who, in this part of the world, wait with endless impatience for the consolidation of the bloc that will destroy once and for all the anachronistic presence of colonial domination'
At first the assertion of the unitary character of the revolutionary process on a world scale went hand in hand with a slightly naive confidence in the role of the USSR and the other "socialist countries' . Since 1962, the accent has been put on the direct link between the revolutionary struggles. The USSR had caused disappointment during the Cuban missiles crisis. The missiles had first been installed and then withdrawn without debate and without even informing the Cuban leaders who foresaw the USA's right of inspection on Cuban territory. What is more, the example of the
The legacy of Che Guevara 7 'socialist countries' seemed less and less shining, given the quality of the products delivered to Cuba, the conditions they imposed, the education they gave to young Cubans who went to their universities, military schools and their centers for political education.
Che's attention was then turned towards Vietnam. He grasped immediately the international importance of the Vietnamese struggle: 'In a far away region of the world they are in the process of fighting for our security', he wrote. "The support for their cause, before being a duty, is a necessity. We support the Vietnamese revolution not only out of proletarian internationalist duty, and the desire for justice that the revolution has inculcated in all of us. We do it also because this battle front is very important for the future of America'. Without knowing that his personal fate would be cut short a few years later by the efficiency of marine officers trained in Indochina, he concluded: "There, in Vietnam, they are in the process of training forces who tomorrow can put the brakes on our guerillas, those guerillas we consider as ours in the entire American territory'
In his Message to the Tricontinental, the approach becomes even more explicit. Guevara criticises the 'progressive world' whose solidarity with Vietnam reminded him of the passive encouragement of the Roman Plebeian to the gladiators who fought in the circus. Facing the internationale of murder and treason, the internationale of imperialism and its lackeys, it was not a question of 'wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate in death or in victory?. Tactic and strategy of revolution It is thus a vision of internationalism based on the understanding of the interaction of different world sectors. It is also marked by a strong moral inspiration which Guevara expressed by paraphrasing on several occasions (including in the farewell letter to his children) a passage by Jose Marti: 'You must especially be capable of caring from the bottom of your heart about any injustice committed against anyone anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality of the revolutionary.?
From the time of his first writings where he began to reflect upon the Cuban experience by polemicising against all those who excluded any possibility of an extension of the revolution in other countries, Guevara explains that 'the exceptional factors that gave the Cuban revolution particular characteristics' and that 'every revolution contains these kinds of exceptional factors. ' Immediately afterwards he added that 'it is not clearly established that revolutions alike obey certain laws from which societies cannot escape.'
In his polemic against Escalante and other dogmatic communists, he is aware that imperialism increased its vigilance and that new revolutionary struggles in America would come up against new problems, making them more difficult and more costly. But these struggles remain unavoidable.
Guevara stresses that: 'Revolutionaries cannot foresee all the tactical variables that come up during the course of the struggle for their programme of liberation. The real capacity of revolutionaries is measured by their skill in finding the appropriate revolutionary tactics for every change in their situation.' Belying those who accused him of ultra-leftism, he specifies: 'It would be an unpardonable error to underestimate what a revolutionary programme can win by a given electoral process.' But at the same time he warns against any electoralist backsliding: 'When we talk of conquering power by an electoral process, the question is always the same:
if a popular movement seizes the government by winning a large popular vote and decides to begin major social transformations which form a programme, does it not immediately find itself in conflict with the reactionary classes of the country? Has not the army always been the instrument of these classes? If so, it is logical to suppose that the army will be on the side of its class and will take part in the struggle against the new government which could be overthrown, and the former game will begin again,
This is not a sensational discovery. It is merely a restatement of the
ABC's of Marxism. But it is important to remember why this restatement was made. Opportunism and cynicism of Stalinist leaders had led to particularly disgusting forms of class collaboration in Latin America. In Cuba at the beginning of the 1940s the Communist Party had given cover to
Batista by sending two of its members into the government. It had not hesitated to condemn the 'adventurism' of the assault on the Moncada barracks which marked the beginning of the revolutionary struggle of Fidel
Castro and his companions. Again, in 1957 it criticised the July 26 Movement, saying that its 'terrorism' gave the dictatorship the pretext to commit further crimes. In Guevara's country of origin, Argentina, the Communist Party had proved its capacity to adapt to bourgeois governments and had characterised as 'fascist' the first Peron government, which had mobilised the masses of workers and adopted anti-imperialist measures,
The need to reaffirm the basic truths for revolutionaries was confirmed after Che's death. In 1970 the secretary of the Chilean Communist Party
Luis Corvalan stated that in Chile the armed forces were inspired by a principle collaborator at the time, Volodia Teitelbaum, followed his example and reaffirmed the CP's confidence in the army two days before
Pinochet's coup! Unfortunately, these old mystifications were taken up again in a resolution adopted in Havana in June 1975 by all the Latin
American Communist Parties, including the Cuban. The army was presented as an institution capable of transforming itself into 'an element
Guevara was far from drawing the conclusion that catastrophic outcomes were inevitable. While correctly estimating that the armed forces would not willingly accept social reforms and would not resign themselves
8 International Marxist Review ad aeternam. ' albeit partial and contradictory.
'professional spirit'
', and 'respect for the constitutional government'. His of progress and even of revolutionary potential'.
The legacy of Che Guevara 9 quietly to their own liquidation as a caste, he confirmed that 'the army could be beaten by the action of the armed people in defense of their government'
Some have criticised Guevara for having underestimated the patient work of organising within the army, not to transform it, but to prepare its disintegration, in other words, work going back to the Communist tradition of the 1920s. In fact Guevara did not exclude that the revolution may find the aid of military cells worthwhile, in supplying arms and joining the revolutionary struggle. But, he thought, there was a danger that some envisaged only a coup of one part of the army against another part. In this case, the caste structure of the army would remain intact. If another factor intervened—a major defeat which would break up the army and push one section to join spontaneously the popular forces-then the question of the arming of revolutionaries and of an independent military force would be posed anyway. Didn't Trotsky come to similar conclusions after the experience of 1905?
A very important aspect of Guevara's conceptions concern the national bourgeoisie. In his writings, he locates the national bourgeoisies as being, at least in theory, the chief allies of the pro-Soviet Communist Parties. The pro-Chinese CP's are characterised as having a similar orientation. Guevara, who was by nature opposed to any dogmatism and who had not belonged to any party before joining the rather eclectic July 26 Movement, based his ideas on a sober analysis of reality. He did not rule out that individual bourgeois or even sectors of the bourgeoisie could, within a certain context, support a revolutionary process, seeing it as the lesser evil. He points out without hesitation or embellishment that such a phenomenon actually happened in Cuba. But he reflects upon the reasons for the phenomenon. He is aware of certain ambiguities in Fidel's formulations during the first phase of the struggle and even in the practice of the guerillas. He describes for example how, under the impact of meeting the peasants, the guerillas went from an absolute respect for private property to the systematic adoption of expropriation of livestock and the decision to apply radical agrarian reform. He points out at the same time that the 'democratic' bourgeois of Latin America learned their own lessons from the Cuban experience and that in other countries, things would certainly not take place as in Cuba.
His conclusions are expressed most clearly in Message to the Tricontinental which in a certain sense represents his political testament: "The national bourgeoisies are no longer at all capable of opposing imperialism-if ever they were-and they now form its rearguard. There is no longer any other way: either socialist revolution or caricature of revolution'
Che's reflection on this question began in 1954 during his participation in the reformist experience of the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz. It developed further on the basis of an analysis of the powerlessness of the Venezuelan president Betancourt, prisoner of his ar-
10 International Marxist Review my and police. 'We do not claim to tell him what must be done', Guevara explains to the above-mentioned congress, 'but we remind him that Cuban revolution was saved because it did not hesitate to execute torturers of the dictatorship and to dissolve the army and all the bodies of repression'. Against bureaucratic tendencies Another aspect of Guevara's conceptions which differentiates him from Stalınism and brings him closer to revolutionary Marxism is his preoccupation with keeping Cuba from adopting the Soviet 'model'. His allusions on this subject are always prudent, but unambiguous. Here are some examples.
In July 1963, Guevara spoke to a conference on planning in Algeria. Among the errors that Cuban revolutionaries had committed, he indicated, was above all the tendency to 'copy in minute detail the planning techniques of a brother country' '. In a speech made in May 1963, he raises the problems of the revolution in Latin America, but he also deals with deformations in post-revolutionary Cuban society, with the danger of losing contact with the masses. He says: 'We have taken a road which was defined sectarian, but which is more stupid than sectarian: the road of separation from the masses, the road which combines necessary measures and absurd measures; the road of suppression not only of criticism from those who have the right to do it, that is, the people, but also of the critical vigilance of the Party apparatus, which has transformed itself into an executant by losing its functions of vigilance, of examination.'
He insists that the greatest responsibility is incumbent upon government officials, but he adds that those whom he addresses also have a responsibility: 'Why do I say to you that, you also have a responsibility? For example, the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, institutions forged in the fire of popular vigilance, which expressed the preoccupation of the people to defend its own revolution, have become suddenly an imposition, a reference point for opportunists. They have become an organisation hostile to the people.'
He stresses that, in this way, relations had weakened with the country which had been the source of recruitment for the guerilla army for two years. They had been abandoned and left in the hands of the CDRs. Many innocents had been arrested and a 'red terror' had been created to counteract a 'white terror that only existed in the minds of the unbalanced few'. The security forces had also risked being transformed into 'organisms hostile to the people'. Guevara no longer evades the problems of torture: the decision not to employ any 'to avoid the terrible things that happened in numerous countries while defending just principles' was to the credit of the Cuban revolution. But there were exceptions. The allusion to countries where terrible things happened' was absolutely clear and could not have pleased the Stalinists.
Guevara then explains that one must not consider counter-revolutionary
The legacy of Che Guevara I! only those who fight against the revolution, but also those who use their influence to obtain a house, cars, to violate the norms of rationing and finally those who have at their disposal what the people do not. He draws the conclusion that it was necessary to work to reconquer the confidence in the revolution and at the same time "to consider Cuba as part of America: here we have carried out an experiment which has historic value and which will be transferred on the continent, even if we did not want it.'
This speech was given in May 1962. For Guevara, it was already clear that the future of Cuba did not only depend on its own development. The • hypotheses that some have put forward on his 'disappearance' in 1965-66 were fantastic and irresponsible. But they reflect a real fact: Guevara forced himself to counteract the danger of bureaucratisation by example, discussion, the attempt to overcome the material and cultural backwardness. He had stated his own powerlessness. He did not want to become an oppositionist. He estimated that he had made his contribution to the Cuban revolution and that from the inside he could do no more. This is why he chose to offer his experience to the service of 'other sierras' break the isolation of Vietnam by developing 'authentic proletarian internationalism, with international proletarian armies whose flag of struggle is the sacred cause of the redemption of humanity' ', was the task which he considered useful to accomplish, rather than to pursue the debate on the economic problems, to which he had given great impulse and which represented uncontestably one of his greatest contributions to the development of revolutionary Marxist thought.
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