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Vol. 81/No. 34 September 18, 2017
(feature article)
Che Guevara: A ‘man of ideas and action combined’
Che believed in man. And if we don’t believe in man, if we think that
man is an incorrigible little animal, capable of advancing only if you
feed him grass or tempt him with a carrot or whip him with a stick —
anybody who believes this, anybody convinced of this will never be a
revolutionary, never be a socialist, never be a communist.
— Fidel Castro
Havana, October 1987
Below is an excerpt from Socialist Workers Party leader Mary-Alice
Waters’ preface to Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition
to Socialism by Carlos Tablada. Copyright
© 1989 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY MARY-ALICE WATERS
The questions that Ernesto Che Guevara, acting as part of the central
leadership of the Cuban revolution, sought to help the vanguard of the
working class answer more than three decades ago remain the most
pressing of our epoch. Guevara charted a course to rid the world of the
capitalist system, with all its horrors, and open the way for working
men and women to begin a transition toward a more just and human
socialist society, transforming themselves in the process. That course
determined his every deed as a conscious political person.
Like the young founders of the modern communist movement, Che deeply
believed, and acted on his conviction, that “revolution is necessary
…not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other
way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution
succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fit to
found society anew.” …
After Fidel Castro — the historic leader of the Cuban revolutionary
forces from 1953 to today — Ernesto Che Guevara was the best-known
leader of the revolution during its early years, when “we were used to
making the impossible possible,” as Castro said in paying tribute to
Guevara in October 1987.
Guevara was Argentine by birth. Having graduated from medical school in
Buenos Aires in 1953, he met Fidel Castro in Mexico in July 1955 and
immediately agreed to join the July 26 Movement and to sign on to the
expeditionary force Castro was organizing to launch a revolutionary war
against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Guevara — soon
nicknamed “Che” (a popular form of address in Argentina) by his Cuban
comrades — was initially recruited as troop doctor, but he rapidly
proved himself to be an outstanding combat leader and educator. In 1957
he became the first combatant promoted by Fidel to command a separate
column of the Rebel Army. Guevara led the December 1958 campaign that
culminated in the capture of the city of Santa Clara in central Cuba,
effectively sealing the fate of the Batista dictatorship.
But Guevara’s most important contributions to the Cuban revolution were
not military. In paying tribute to Che in October 1967, a few days after
his death, Castro called attention to this fact, saying:
Che was an extraordinarily able military leader. But when we remember
Che, when we think of Che, we do not think fundamentally of his military
virtues. No! Warfare is a means and not an end. Warfare is a tool of
revolutionaries. The important thing is the revolution. The important
thing is the revolutionary cause, revolutionary ideas, revolutionary
objectives, revolutionary sentiments, revolutionary virtues!
And it is in that field, in the field of ideas, in the field of
sentiments, in the field of revolutionary virtues, in the field of
intelligence, that — apart from his military virtues — we feel the
tremendous loss that his death means to the revolutionary movement. …
Che was not only an unsurpassed man of action — he was a man of
visionary intelligence and broad culture, a profound thinker. That is,
in his person the man of ideas and the man of action were combined.
During the opening years of the revolution, Guevara took on some of the
most challenging, and heaviest, responsibilities. He helped draft the
1959 agrarian reform law, the measure that, in Castro’s words, more than
any other single act, “defined the Cuban Revolution.” Che headed the
department of industrialization established by INRA, the National
Institute of Agrarian Reform. He was president of the National Bank
during the tumultuous year 1960, before the end of which virtually all
foreign and domestic-owned banks and major industries were nationalized,
and the economic foundations were laid for socialized production and
planning. He became minister of industry in 1961, assuming
responsibility for reorganizing on new working-class foundations some 70
percent of industry in Cuba, while maintaining production as former
owners and most management personnel, both foreign and Cuban, left the
country. He represented the revolutionary government of Cuba on trips to
dozens of countries, and spoke with a memorable and clarion communist
voice at important international forums and conferences, from the United
Nations General Assembly to the Organization of American States. He
worked with revolutionists from around the world who were drawn to the
example of the Cuban revolution and sought guidance in learning and
applying the lessons of that struggle in their own countries. He helped
bring about the revolutionary regroupment within Cuba that led in 1965
to the formation of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Amid all this intense practical work helping lay the foundations of a
new society, Guevara also organized time to write a prodigious number of
articles and letters. He made hundreds of speeches, many of which were
published in Cuba and translated and distributed by supporters of the
revolution around the world. He gave countless interviews.
In April 1965 Che left Cuba to lead a mission of internationalist Cuban
fighters aiding the anti-imperialist struggle in the Congo. His
longer-term aim was to return to Latin America to help advance
revolutionary struggles that were building from Tierra del Fuego to the
Río Bravo. Resigning his leadership posts and responsibilities in the
Cuban government, party, and armed forces in order to take on these new
revolutionary duties, Guevara left behind a rich written legacy of his
political and theoretical contributions to the economics and politics of
the transition to socialism.
Related articles:
‘In footsteps of Che’ Cuba brigade kicks off Oct. 1
‘We can say our revolution is so great and humane’
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