talk i gave on che guevara

Introduction on Che Guevara



Marx always, rightly, emphasised that ’the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class’ because, not only, is this a necessary precondition of political and, most importantly, economic transformation but it is only through the unity gained in the course of a revolutionary process that people, born and bred under the alienating rule of capital, twisted and tortured by poverty can throw off ’ the muck of ages’,that is, remove from their heads the heirarchical, sexist, racist, nationalist etc ideas promoted by this system. Without the active participation of the majority in the interests of the majority all the prejudices produced by their oppression remain and the result of the revolutionary process falls short of genuine socialism.



For a certain part of the 20th century, after the defeat of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism, Marx’s statement the the class must emancipate itself was compltely sidelined with many groups on the Left declaring that the ’buffer states’, i.e. the eastern european countries occupied by Stalinist forces and the end of the Second World War, were somehow ’workers states’.

To accept this was to accept that socialist revolution could be achieved without the active participation of the workers themselves.

Right across the world though workers struggles were deflected by stalinist leadership who followed the whims and dictates of the exploitative ’state capitalist’ regime in Moscow and so, where the workers themselves did not lead the struggle against imperialism (which was the basis of Trotsky’s theory of ’permanent revolution’, that is- the struggle for national liberation if conducted by the working class in the oppressed nation would spill over into a struggle for socialism) other forces occupied the vacuum. In many third world countries the struggle was led by members of the middle classes who resented the backwardness of their own states, despised imperialism and felt that the type of industrialisation followed by the USSR was something to be imitated.



This is the world, the context, that Che Guevara grew up and was active in.





Ernesto



Che was born Ernesto Guevara in Rosario, Argentina June 14th 1928 to a left leaning middle class family. He began medical studies in 1948 but by 1951 had decided to go on a round trip motorcycle journey through south america. The final goal of this tour with his friend, Alberto Granado, was to work in the San Pablo leper colony in Peru.

Noone is born a revolutionary it takes long process of questioning and development, changing circumstances transforms the ideas with which you face new circumstances which further develop those ideas and to this process Guevara was no exception. Che’s attitudes slowly became more and more radical after his encounters with miners, workers and peasants working and struggling wherever he arrived right across the continent. Che returned a very different young man, with a lot to consider, to complete his studies in 1953. Both Che and, his friend, Alberto were transformed in the course of the journey which brought them both to the conclusion that some sort of change was needed in south america, for Che this meant a series of continent wide radical social transformations and for Alberto, it meant embarking on a career as a doctor.



In Guatemala in 1954 the nationalisation of the american United Fruit Company brought a US backed overthrow of the left wing Arbenz government, which Che witnessed, and finally cemented once and for all Che’s view of the USA as an imperialist power whose influence in the south american region would always mean attempts to overthrow left leaning governments and movements and fund reactionary forces and the Right. Che escaped the coup through the Argentinian embassy and made his way to Mexico. While there Che was introduced to Fidel Castro in june 1955 through rebel Nico Lopez. Castro spoke to Che for hours and hours at their first meeting and convinced him to sign up for the ’26th of July’ movement.

It was from this group of rebels that he earned the nick name ’Che’ which was his most often used phrase as it’s the argentinian shorthand for ’pal’.

Just 82 of them set sail for Cuba in the little ship, the ’Granma’, and after some initial fighting with the government forces upon landing were left with only 22 rebels surviving.



Cuba



Batista’s regime in Cuba was well known for it’s absolute corruption, a haven for the mafia and organised crime. US backed Batista had first come to power in a coup in 1954 and had won an election two years later, followed once more by a coup. Batista converted Havana into a gambler’s and criminal’s paradise.

The rebels fought their way across the island and took power eventually in January 1959 with Castro’s army arriving victorious in Havana.

Guerilla warfare seemed vindicated. They seemed to have achieved the impossible, a small group of determined rebels had overthrown a government.

Che though in his economic writings after the seizure of power soon began to realise though that a ’spiritual’ transformation of the masses of people had not taken place and wrote continually about the fact that he believed that ’moral’ incentives were needed to encourage communal living and to develop a ’socialist’ culture. But it’s no accident that the Cuban revolutionaries inherited people with the ’old’ attitudes bacause the majority of people hadn’t particpated in the process of their own liberation and the complete transformation that this involves. Without that vital element the masses remain nothing but spectators to the establishment of regimes that claim to act in their name.

In 1964 he travelled to New York and the UN and on Dec 17th travelled to Paris then embarked on a 3 month tour of various countries including China. When he returned to Cuba he was dissatisfied with the ever increasing reliance on, and influence of, the Soviet Bloc and eventually dissappeared from Cuban public life.



Congo, Prague and Murder



The Congo had been a place of great suffering, a country were imperial powers had intervened to destroy a left wing government. Patrice Lumumba was elected prime minister but was overthrown in a coup by Mobutu. Orders from the Belgian government are now known to have been responsible for Lumumba’s death. When Che arrived in Congo the movement had been crushed. He supported the Marxist Simba group and worked with Kabila but soon realised the entire project was doomed to fail. The objective circumstances were against them, his philosophy of ’if you are a revolutionary, make a revolution’ was being dashed against the harsh realities of the world outside his victory against Batista in Cuba.

He left, disheartened, and went to Prague were he wrote down his Congo experiences and also wrote books on philosophy and economics.

Eventually Che made his way to Bolivia with a small group of about 50 guerillas, probably believeing that he could eventually move into Argentinian territory, but completely isolated and outgunned he was murdered. He had expected support from the Bolivian Communist Party but had soon realised they were ’stupid and disloyal’. With no way to connect with the growing strike movement of the working class in the cities he was easily captured by the Bolivian military which he had wrongly assumed were less capable but were in receipt of US and CIA advice.



The Role of Revolutionaries



If the emancipation of the working class has to to be at it’s own hand then what role do revolutionaries play in this process?

Working class consciousness is shaped by the class’s lack of power, is shaped by alienation, this in turn leads workers to accept, to a greater or lesser extent, the ruling ideas in society. As Marx remarked the ’ruling ideas of an age’ are the ideas of it’s ruling class. During periods of crisis and worker’s struggles sections of the class generalise beyond the immediate experience of that particular struggle but when struggles are defeated then those realisations are lost.

If revolutionaries can unite the forward section of the class in every struggle into one fighting party that can take the lead and guide the working class as a whole forward, making conscious the line of march and constantly bringing into question the system as a whole, then this party can argue contantly with the backward section of the class, argue against faith in the state and pass on the past lessons of the class’s victories and defeats. The party then acts as the ’memory’ of the class.

But that’s not all- Trotsky described how the working class lets off ’steam’ during a crisis but if that steam isn’t focused then it dissipates with no real effect, but if the steam is focused by a piston then it can pull a freight train. The steam is still the driving force, the piston gives it focus. The revolutionary party is the piston that guides working class action. The theories of this party are nothing other than the generalised experience of the class itself. The revolutionary party is that most militant section of the working class which leads and prepares for the seizure of power by the majority of the class.



Legacy



Che Guevara, despite the tragedy of his isolation from a mass workers movement, leaves us his inspirational will to fight, the will to carry on despite the odds, it’s that absolute determination that moves people across the world to this day.

From Bolivian miners marching with his image to the capital La Paz, to children in Palestine wearing Guevara t- shirts while throwing stones at Israeli tanks, its in these places that his image still means something, places were people fight on no matter what the odds.

But with a more organic view of the role of the revolutionary, as not only a ’tribune’ of the oppressed but as the best fighters of the class who encourage the fight back of the entire class,
for it is only when the majority of people act on their own behalf that we can both physically and mentally escape from the hold of Capital, then the victory of socialism is assured.

We can win this time and i’m sure that when we do Che would have whole heartedly approved of the fact that we eventually found the path to human freedom that he had searched so hard, and paid such a high price for.

The tragedy of Che Guevara was the tragedy of a whole century, with the terrible defeats suffered by the working class at the hands of Stalinism in the 20th Century the notion that the working class would emancipate itself was silenced by the victory parades of so called ’marxists’ across Eastern Europe. The Stalinists have fallen and so now the path is clear.