|
To
commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the death of Ernesto 'Che'
Guevara in 2007, and the eightieth anniversary of his birth in 2008,
author Richard L. Harris, a professor of global studies at California
State University, persuaded his publisher to issue a new edition of
“Death of a Revolutionary – Che Guevara's Last Mission” (W.W. Norton
& Company, New York, 2007, 315 pages, $20 in Canada).
This is
an updated version of the 1970 book of the same title, with a new
epilogue. The work is a fitting
tribute to the Argentina-born physician and Marxist who played a central
role in the Cuban Revolution and whose ideas and militant example are
celebrated today more widely than ever.
“Death
of a Revolutionary” does not attempt to compete in depth or breadth with
the best biography on the subject, Jon Lee Anderson's “Che Guevara: A
Revolutionary Life” (Grove Press, New York, 1997). But Harris does deliver a lucid,
sympathetic and compelling chronicle of Che's life -- from youthful
motorcycle diarist, to hardened guerrilla fighter, to principled
revolutionary politician.
The
strength of the new book is its scrupulously detailed account of Che's
last mission, its tragic finale in the rugged hills and ravines of
south-eastern Bolivia, and its sad aftermath. That includes the clandestine delivery of Che's last
guerrilla diary to Fidel Castro, the discovery of the long-missing
skeletal remains of Che and of some of his fallen comrades, and their
repatriation to Cuba in 1997.
The
value of the book's exploration of the failure of guerrilla warfare as a
strategy is augmented by poignant revelations about the perfidious role
of Stalinism in the form of the Bolivian Communist Party and its mentor
regime in Moscow. It is clear
that Che's passionate humanism and avid voluntarism led him to erroneously
extrapolate from the very exceptional circumstances of the Cuban rebels'
triumph in 1959. But treachery
cruelly sealed his fate.
Harris
enumerates five ways in which Bolivian CP leaders, including Mario Monje
and Jorge Kolle, betrayed Che and his troop. They gave Havana false information about the political
situation in Bolivia and their willingness to launch a guerrilla
operation there; they actively prevented members of the CP, who had been
trained in Cuba, from going to join Che's force; they promised Che
support that they never gave; they prevented their own party militants
from providing support to Che and his comrades; and they provided the
Bolivian authorities and the CIA with important information about Che and
this guerrilla force.
Harris
also describes how Moscow worked tirelessly in an effort to discredit and
isolate Che, who the Stalinist top brass saw as a threat to their policy
of 'peaceful co-existence' with imperialism and their class collaboration
with a number of bourgeois regimes in Latin America, and beyond. By the author's account, Bolivia's
Maoist CP and Juan Lechin's Revolutionary Party of the Nationalist Left
of the time do not come off much better.
A
definite weakness of the book is the bourgeois sensibility it brings to
certain historical and strategic issues.
Harris' repeated reference to the Stalinist leaders as “orthodox
communists” begs the question:
What then were Lenin and Trotsky, from whose revolutionary
internationalist policies Stalin and his henchmen decisively broke?
The fact
is that Che was reviving the 'communist orthodoxy' of Lenin and Trotsky
when he explained the impossibility of socialism in one country, and when
he strove to build a global anti-imperialist united front. Che was motivated by his concept of
Permanent Revolution when he left Cuba determined to contribute to the
creation of “two, three, many Vietnams”, the first attempt being in
central Africa.
The
author's distance from the Marxist method is apparent in other respects
too. In the first chapter he
states his presumption that most of his readers are “untouched personally
by political oppression, economic exploitation, and social
injustice”. Although the weight
and proportion of these conditions is much greater in the underdeveloped,
neo-colonial world, the failure to recognize these features, and the
attendant class struggle, inside the imperialist countries robs one of an
integrated analysis of capitalism, along with the key to defeating it,
which can be completed only on a world scale by an insurgent global
working class.
Such a
theoretical deficit tends to reduce Harris' view to one of moral
indignation. A related problem is
evident in chapter 17 where he argues that popular insurrection is on the
agenda in Latin America and elsewhere only as long as elites “continue to
postpone badly needed social and economic reforms”. One is tempted to ask whether the
growing gap between the rich and poor countries, and between rich and
poor within most countries, is merely the product of a misunderstanding,
rather than due to the fundamentally exploitative nature of the
capitalist mode of production; and if the former, why has this
misunderstanding so tenaciously evaded correction?
Likewise,
in the Epilogue, the author suggests that the income re-distributive
policies of a number of left-populist regimes in Latin America today will
be sufficient to win and secure lasting social justice.
Where we
can agree, however, is that “Che is (still) a symbol of opposition to
imperialism”, and that “Che's vision of a socialist future”, of “a new socialist
man”, of “a united, free, and socialist Latin America” will continue to
inspire today's and future generations of fighters to demand more than
mere redistribution of the crumbs.
It will lead them to press for the expropriation of foreign and
domestic capital, under workers' control, towards the establishment of a
democratically planned economy that puts human needs first.
The
great value of “Death of a Revolutionary – Che Guevara's Last Mission”,
not ironically, is that it powerfully demonstrates that Che lives!
In this
anniversary year it's a good book to read, and even better to discuss.
|