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Title: Myths and Legends — Che Guevara Author: Anarchist Federation Date: 1998 Language: en Topics: critique, Cuba, Ernesto Che Guevara, history, Organise! Source: Retrieved on May 14, 2010 from http://flag.blackened.net/af/org/issue47/che.html Notes: from Organise!, Issue 47, Winter 1997/1998
In the second of our series we look at the life and ideas of Ernesto Che
Guevara. Che has been in the news a lot lately, with his remains being
dug up in Bolivia and reburied in Cuba, the publication of hitherto
unknown photos of his Bolivian campaign and two new biographies. The
heroic cult that has developed around him has taken on new life. Whilst
his image — on T-shirts, posters, and beer labels — continues to make
money for capitalists, there seems to be a revival among the young in
the idea of Che as idealistic hero and fighter for freedom. This hero
cult seems to have infected many young radicals, some of whom regard
themselves as anarchists.
The truth may be unpalatable to many. After all, the Che cult is still
used to obscure the real nature of Castro’s Cuba, one of the final
bastions of Stalinism. As jaded Stalinists and fellow-travelling
Trotskyists celebrate Che’s anniversary we take a look at the real man
behind the legend.
Born in Argentina to a Cuban aristocratic family who had fallen on hard
times but who still had much wealth, Guevara had a comfortable
upbringing. When Juan and Eva Peron started on their rise to power,
using populism and appeals to workers and peasants to install a regime
that had many fascist characteristics (1944–1952) Guevara was still a
youth. At this period he seemed remarkably disinterested in politics and
failed to offer any opinions for or against the Peron regime.
Events in Guatemala were to change this. Arbenz, a leftist army officer,
was elected as President. In 1952 he nationalised the property of the
United Fruit Company, a major US company which owned much land and had
great economic and political influence. He also began to nationalise the
land of the local big ranchers and farmers. Guevara was caught up in
enthusiasm for this experiment in ‘socialism’ which infected middle
class Latin American youth. Just before a trip to Guatemala he wrote: “I
have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I
won’t rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.”
Guevara was in Guatemala when a US backed invasion force smashed the
Arbenz regime. He was able to flee to Mexico. Here he joined up with the
Cubans around Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. In November 1956, Che
and 80 other members of the July 26 Movement (J26M) founded by Fidel had
landed in Cuba to carry on a guerrilla campaign against the US backed
dictator Batista. Here Che proved to be the most authoritarian and
brutal of the guerrilla leaders. In fact Che went about turning
volunteer bands of guerrillas into a classic Army, with strict
discipline and hierarchy. As he himself wrote: “Due to the lack of
discipline among the new men...it was necessary to establish a rigid
discipline, organise a high command and set up a Staff.” He demanded the
death penalty for “informers, insubordinates, malingerers and
deserters.” He himself personally carried out executions. Indeed the
first execution carried out against an informer by the Castroists was
undertaken by Che. He wrote: “I ended the problem giving him a shot with
a.32 pistol in the right side of the brain.” On another occasion he
planned on shooting a group of guerrillas who had gone on hunger strike
because of bad food. Fidel intervened to stop him. Another guerrilla who
dared to question Che was ordered into battle without a weapon!
Apart from the drive towards militarisation in the guerrilla groups, Che
also had another important duty. He acted as the main spreader of
Stalinism within J26M. He secretly worked towards an alliance with the
Popular Socialist Party (the Cuban Communist Party). Up to then there
were very few Stalinists within J26M and other anti-Batista groups like
the Directorate and the anarchists were staunchly anti-Stalinist. The
communists were highly unpopular among the anti-Batista forces. They had
been junior partners of the regime and had openly condemned Castro’s
previous attacks on Batista in 1953. They belatedly joined the guerrilla
war.
With the Castroite victory in 1959, Che, along with his Stalinist buddy
Raul Castro, was put in charge of building up state control. He purged
the army, carried out re-education classes within it, and was supreme
prosecutor in the executions of Batista supporters, 550 being shot in
the first few months. He was seen as extremely ruthless by those who saw
him at work. These killings against supporters of the old regime, some
of whom had been implicated in torture and murder, was extended in 1960
to those in the working class movement who criticised the Castro regime.
The anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists had their press closed down and
many militants were thrown in prison. Che was directly implicated in
this. This was followed in 1962 with the banning of the Trotskyists and
the imprisonment of their militants. Che said: “You cannot be for the
revolution and be against the Cuban Communist Party.” He repeated the
old lies against the Trots that they were agents of imperialism and
provocateurs. He helped set up a secret police, the C-2 and had a key
role in creating the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, which
were locally and regionally based bodies for spying on and controlling
the mass of the population.
Che was the main link, indeed the architect, of the increasingly closer
relation between Cuba and the Soviet Union. The nuclear missile deal
which almost resulted in a nuclear war in 1962 was engineered at the
Cuban end by Che. When the Russians backed down in the face of US
threats, Che was furious and said that if he had been in charge of the
missiles, he would have fired them off!
By 1963, Che had realised that Russian Stalinism was a shambles after a
visit to Russia where he saw the conditions of the majority of the
people, this after “Soviet-style planning” in the Cuban economy had been
pushed through by him. Instead of coming to some libertarian critique of
Stalinism, he embraced Chinese Stalinism. He denounced the Soviet
Union’s policy of peaceful co-existence, which acknowledged that Latin
America was the USA’s backyard, and gave little or no support to any
movement against American control. Fidel was now obsessed with saving
the Cuban economy, himself arguing for appeasement. Against this Che
talked about spreading armed struggle through Latin America, if
necessary using nuclear war to help this come about!
It was on this basis that Che left Cuba never to return. He went to the
Congo, where he worked with the Congolese Liberation Army, supported by
the Chinese Stalinists. This was a shambles of a campaign, and Che ended
up isolated with many of his band dead. Despite this, Che still believed
in guerrilla struggle waged by a tiny armed minority. His final, fatal,
campaign was in Bolivia.
This also was a fiasco. Basing himself once more on old Castroist
strategies, he failed to relate to the industrial working class. The
Bolivian working class, and especially the tin miners, had a recent
record of militancy and class consciousness. The peasants, on the other
hand, among whom Che hoped to create an armed insurrection, had been
demobilised by the land reforms of 1952. So, Che was unable to relate to
either workers or peasants. The local Communist Party failed to support
him. Robbed of support, Che was surrounded in the Andean foothills,
captured and executed.
Yes, Che was very brave physically. Yes, he was single-mindedly devoted
to what he saw as the revolution and socialism. Yes, he refused the
privilege and luxury granted to other leaders of Castroist Cuba, taking
an average wage and working hard in his various government jobs. But
many militarists, fascists and religious fanatics share these
characteristics of bravery and self-sacrifice. Che’s good looks and
‘martyr’s’ death turned him into an icon, an icon duly exploited by all
those wanting to turn a fast buck selling ‘revolutionary’ chic.
But good looks and bravery camouflage what Che really was. A ruthless
authoritarian and Stalinist, who expressed admiration for the Peronista
authoritarian nationalists, Che acted as a willing tool of the Soviet
bloc in spreading their influence. Even when he fell out with the USSR
about the possibility of guerrilla war in Latin America, he still
remained a convinced Stalinist with admiration for China and North
Korea. He had no disagreements with the Soviets about what sort of
society he wanted — a bureaucratic authoritarian state-capitalist set up
with contempt for the masses.
Che may look like the archetypal romantic revolutionary. In reality he
was a tool of the Stalinist power blocs and a partisan of nuclear war.
His attitudes and actions reveal him to be no friend of the working
masses, whether they be workers or peasants.