Tricontinental Guerrilla Revolt!: A question of time?
(Here I revel in the common irony of a book written by the anti-capitalist and revolutionary extraordinare, Che Guevara, being marketed as a collector's item and being sold profitably at Amazon.com. Does anything mean anything?)
The book I'm reading right now, borrowed from my sister's amazing collection, is called Guerrilla Warfare written by Ernesto Che Guevara in 1960, introduced by Marc Becker. It's a very stimulating read; so far, I haven't been able to put it down. In my last year of undergrad I took a class on Latin American politics so the general history is familiar to me but there is a paradox noted in the book that I find extremely fascinating. It makes my eye twinkle because of its utter im/possibility. Castro and Guevara as leaders of the Cuban revolution and hopeful leaders of the World Revolution said that armed revolution is the last option - the final measure after all peaceful means have been exhausted. But this, ultimately, is a matter of interpretation. Exalted by by "I'm a revolutionary" card-carrying young radicals everywhere, countless Socialist movements around the world, Che Guevara is the iconic symbol to the world's poor that change will come only if we do it ourselves.
Guevara's foco theory...
(1) hit & run tactics such as violent offensives and retreat back to geographically difficult terrain;
(2) the belief that a spontaneous attack against professionally trained military is possible and necessary for success of the revolution;
(3) the idea that peasants are not 'a sack of potatoes' as Marx put it in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, but a vital organ of the revolution itself;
(4) the conviction that there are no "economic" preconditions to revolution
...articulated the guerrilla warfare path to social, political and economic growth in Latin America and the Tricontinental.
The "Tricontinental", by the way, was a term used interchangably at the time with the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAAL) .
Today the Tricontinental has some of the same problems it did when Che was agitating in the 1950s and 1960s. The path to economic development still remains an open and contested question - and the 'great globalization debate' has only made it more vague. Is this really the time for re-orientation of Third World approaches to international trade, including unprecedented openness to foreign capital and all its social and political requirements? Or is it all a mirage - the clever generalization of particular interests?
When can we say that all peaceful means have been exhausted? When can people be told that it is time to revolt? After how many WTO roundtables, after how many IMF programs on poverty-reduction, after how many land redistribution programs sponsored by government, after how much science on the spread of infectious diseases and how much politics on the price of the cure?
My intention isn't to say we need a violent uprising but I must admit that I'm torn on this question - I'm feeling in between Dr. King and Malcom X; Gandhi and Fanon. Half of me acknowledges that violence is for the incompetent and the other half of me recognizes that competence is the biggest lie of all. Many of us in the midst of revolution would have our Holy Book in one hand and an AK-47 in the other, espousing peace and war in the same breath. The point is that violence elicits response and violence changes things immediately.
So here is the hypothetical scenario - provided that the Tricontinental were organized enough on one issue particular to the people living there - such as agricultural exports, for example, would there ever be consensus on when all peaceful means have been exhausted? On when to do it?
During the Cold War it was easier to discern when peaceful means were exhausted because of the stalemate between East and West. It was always no war no peace. But as it is supposed to seem now, there is no such bi-polar stalemate as there are only competing interests in a global market. So what does this mean for revolution?
It's widely noted that Guevara's foco theory has been discredited. But the thing about revolution, if Guevara was right, is that it is spontaneous. So perhaps the fact that he's been "discredited" doesn't matter at all. Perhaps the question of Third World revolution, his dying wish, is only a question of time?
And now I will go to my bed for a fitful sleep anticipating the dream and nightmare that is guerrilla warfare.
posted by Helenism at 2:34 a.m.
5 Comments:
Che was great at marketing himself and was undoubtedly a brave man, but he was also a murderous thug and a fool.
He was responsible for thousands of summary executions in Cuba, and his stint at the head of that nations Economy was so awful that the Russians complained about him.
His whole foco idea should be severely questioned given how suspicious Bolivian peasants were the ones who ratted him out.
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hey boli-nica:
I don't know if I would call Che a fool; unless dreamers are fools. Che was a dreamer first and last. Dreamers like most people sometimes do foolish things. I guess I feel defensive because he tried and failed but perhaps he started many successful things such as increased union memberships? who knows.
But at least in Che's case it was with some humanitarian goal in mind. However, one of my favourite sayings is: "...humanitarians are hypocrites..." since we're all self-interested. I like his basic idea of incorporating peasants into struggle unlike Marx's 'sack of potatoes' analogy. (I wonder if he ever met Paulo Freire and what they thought of each other.)
About the 'summary executions' - was this the Cuban elite under Batista's former rule? Who were these people? I did not hear about this.
About his stint in Cuba's economy - lol! Castro put him as manager of the national bank...it's unbelievable. These things still happen in African countries...its cronyism not meritocracy. And after all Castro knew who could trust him. But can you really blame Che for failing? He was a (quasi-)doctor not a banker!
In any case, you're right about his failure in Bolivia. He was arrogant and did not see how ethnic groups had their own form of organization/uprising and was unable to mobilize the peasants. Some were recruited to the Bolivian army and went willingly just because they did not like Che and his 'revolution'. Anyway when all is said and done he did give us a lot to think about at the very least.
wheweeeee that was a long one! thanks for posting, you're making me think!
Some of the information on Che's activities comes from some intensely anti-Castro blogs - but underneath the hysteria you can dig through and find some real information.
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A Cuban gentleman named Pierre San Martin was also among those jailed by the gallant Che. A few years ago he recalled the horrors in an El Nuevo Herald article.
"Thirty-two of us were crammed into a cell," he recalls. "Sixteen of us would stand while the other sixteen tried to sleep on the cold filthy floor. We took shifts that way. Actually, we considered ourselves lucky. After all, we were alive. Dozens were led from the cells to the firing squad daily. The volleys kept us awake. We felt that any one of those minutes would be our last.
"One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging open startled us awake and Che's guards shoved a new prisoner into our cell. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. We could only gape. He was a boy, couldn't have been much older than 12, maybe 14.
"'What did you do?' We asked horrified. 'I tried to defend my papa,' gasped the bloodied boy. 'I tried to keep these Communist sons of b**tches form murdering him! But they sent him to the firing squad.'"
Soon Che's goons came back, the rusty steel door opened and they yanked the valiant boy out of the cell. "We all rushed to the cell's window that faced the execution pit," recalls Mr. San Martin. "We simply couldn't believe they'd murder him! Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched execution yard with his hands on his waist and barking orders � the gallant Che Guevara.
"Here Che was, finally in his element. In battle he was a sad joke, a bumbler of epic proportions [for details see "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant"], but up against disarmed and bloodied boys he was a snarling tiger.
"'Kneel Down!' Che barked at the boy.
"'ASSASSINS!' We screamed from our window. 'MURDERERS!! HOW CAN YOU MURDER A LITTLE BOY!'
"'I said, KNEEL DOWN!' Che barked again.
"The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. 'If you're going to kill me,' he yelled. 'you'll have to do it while I'm standing! MEN die standing!'
"COWARDS! MURDERERS! Sons of B**TCHES!" The men yelled desperately from their cells. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" HOW CAN ...?!"
"And then we saw Che unholstering his pistol. It didn't seem possible. But Che raised his pistol, put the barrel to the back of the boy's neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy.
"We erupted. We were enraged, hysterical, banging on the bars.'MURDERERS! ASSASSINS!' His murder finished, Che finally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! emptied his clip in our direction. Several of us were wounded by his shots."
To a man (and boy) Che's murder victims went down in a blaze of defiance and glory. So let's recall Che's own plea when the wheels of justice finally turned and he was cornered in Bolivia. "Don't Shoot!" he whimpered. "I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"
Alvaro Vargas Llosa's essay on Che
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1535
Paul Berman also wrote an interesting piece
http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/
Another essay that appeared in The Guardian:
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/6300.html
Che was an inspiring leader but also a harsh and unbending taskmaster, who meted out stern punishment. On his orders, several peasants were executed for disloyalty, as were local bandits who preyed on the poor. Others, often no more than boys, underwent mock executions. 'We blindfolded them,' he wrote later, 'and subjected them to the anguish of a simulated firing squad.'
In his trenchant short study, Che Guevara, the British historian Andrew Sinclair concludes that, during the guerrilla war, Che 'discovered a cold ruthlessness in his nature. Spilling blood was necessary for the cause. Within two years, he would order the death of several hundred Batista partisans at La Cabana, one of the mass killings of the Cuban Revolution.' .
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From the Motorcycle Diaries Themselves:
"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
From orders to his guards:
"Always interrogate your prisoners at night," "A man is easier to cow at night, his mental resistance is always lower."
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In January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information: “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain.... His belongings were now mine.” Later he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to leave whenever the rebels moved on. While he wondered whether this particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death,” he had no qualms about ordering the death of Echevarría, a brother of one of his comrades, because of unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.” At other times he would simulate executions without carrying them out, as a method of psychological torture.
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Jaime Costa Vázquez, a former commander in the revolutionary army known as “El Catalán,” who maintains that many of the executions attributed to Ramiro Valdés, a future interior minister of Cuba, were Guevara’s direct responsibility, because Valdés was under his orders in the mountains. “If in doubt, kill him” were Che’s instructions. On the eve of victory, according to Costa, Che ordered the execution of a couple dozen people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column had gone as part of a final assault on the island. Some of them were shot in a hotel, as Marcelo Fernándes-Zayas, another former revolutionary who later became a journalist, has written—adding that among those executed, known as casquitos, were peasants who had joined the army simply to escape unemployment.
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José Vilasuso, a lawyer and a professor at Universidad Interamericana de Bayamón in Puerto Rico, who belonged to the body in charge of the summary judicial process at La Cabaña, told me recently that
Che was in charge of the Comisión Depuradora. The process followed the law of the Sierra: there was a military court and Che’s guidelines to us were that we should act with conviction, meaning that they were all murderers and the revolutionary way to proceed was to be implacable. My direct superior was Miguel Duque Estrada. My duty was to legalize the files before they were sent on to the Ministry. Executions took place from Monday to Friday, in the middle of the night, just after the sentence was given and automatically confirmed by the appellate body. On the most gruesome night I remember, seven men were executed.
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Javier Arzuaga, the Basque chaplain who gave comfort to those sentenced to die and personally witnessed dozens of executions, spoke to me recently from his home in Puerto Rico. A former Catholic priest, now seventy-five, who describes himself as “closer to Leonardo Boff and Liberation Theology than to the former Cardinal Ratzinger,” he recalls that
there were about eight hundred prisoners in a space fit for no more than three hundred: former Batista military and police personnel, some journalists, a few businessmen and merchants. The revolutionary tribunal was made of militiamen. Che Guevara presided over the appellate court. He never overturned a sentence. I would visit those on death row at the galera de la muerte. A rumor went around that I hypnotized prisoners because many remained calm, so Che ordered that I be present at the executions. After I left in May, they executed many more, but I personally witnessed fifty-five executions. There was an American, Herman Marks, apparently a former convict. We called him “the butcher” because he enjoyed giving the order to shoot. I pleaded many times with Che on behalf of prisoners. I remember especially the case of Ariel Lima, a young boy. Che did not budge. Nor did Fidel, whom I visited. I became so traumatized that at the end of May 1959 I was ordered to leave the parish of Casa Blanca, where La Cabaña was located and where I had held Mass for three years. I went to Mexico for treatment. The day I left, Che told me we had both tried to bring one another to each other’s side and had failed. His last words were: “When we take our masks off, we will be enemies.”
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How many people were killed at La Cabaña? Pedro Corzo offers a figure of some two hundred, similar to that given by Armando Lago, a retired economics professor who has compiled a list of 179 names as part of an eight-year study on executions in Cuba. Vilasuso told me that four hundred people were executed between January and the end of June in 1959 (at which point Che ceased to be in charge of La Cabaña). Secret cables sent by the American Embassy in Havana to the State Department in Washington spoke of “over 500.” According to Jorge Castañeda, one of Guevara’s biographers, a Basque Catholic sympathetic to the revolution, the late Father Iñaki de Aspiazú, spoke of seven hundred victims.
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CHE ON CONCENTRATION CAMPS
“Counterrevolutionary” is the term that was applied to anyone who departed from dogma. It was the communist synonym for “heretic.” Concentration camps were one form in which dogmatic power was employed to suppress dissent. In the beginning, the revolution mobilized volunteers to build schools and to work in ports, plantations, and factories—all exquisite photo-ops for Che the stevedore, Che the cane-cutter, Che the clothmaker. It was not long before volunteer work became a little less voluntary: the first forced labor camp, Guanahacabibes, was set up in western Cuba at the end of 1960. This is how Che explained the function performed by this method of confinement: “[We] only send to Guanahacabibes those doubtful cases where we are not sure people should go to jail ... people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals, to a lesser or greater degree.... It is hard labor, not brute labor, rather the working conditions there are hard.”
This camp was the precursor to the eventual systematic confinement, starting in 1965 in the province of Camagüey, of dissidents, homosexuals, AIDS victims, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Afro-Cuban priests, and other such scum, under the banner of Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción, or Military Units to Help Production. Herded into buses and trucks, the “unfit” would be transported at gunpoint into concentration camps organized on the Guanahacabibes mold. Some would never return; others would be raped, beaten, or mutilated; and most would be traumatized for life, as Néstor Almendros’s wrenching documentary Improper Conduct showed the world a couple of decades ago.
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. In April 1967,“Message to the Tricontinental” His actual will: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.
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