The Political Theory of Che Guevara
Page 11
In responding to this question, let me begin by noting that I think Guevara was right to embrace Lenin’s theorization of imperialism just as he was right, in my opinion, to complement this analysis of the causes and mechanics of imperialism with the insights and conceptual tools of dependency theory (which also still retains much of its explanatory power). We can also endorse, I believe, much of what Guevara says in connection with what he calls the “labor aristocracy of imperialism,” even if Guevara by no means produced a systematic analysis of this phenomenon. The role that the imperialist countries’ working classes play in the maintenance and success of imperialism poses an important problem, and Guevara’s sketchy remarks on this issue certainly seem to point to some important truths. Moreover, we have no reason not to endorse Guevara’s view that the principal agent of imperialism is the United States, whether in Latin America or in the rest of the world. Indeed, Guevara’s conviction that the United States is the great enemy of anti-imperialist forces seems to me even less open to question than his perspective on the nature of imperialism as a socioeconomic phenomenon. To be sure, this view may not be as widely accepted as it was, say, during the era of the Vietnam War, when, for example, distinguished British philosopher Bertrand Russell, hardly a radical leftist, could write, “In every part of the world the source of war and of suffering lies at the door of US imperialism.”84 But Guevara’s view is, I submit, no less valid today, within the “unipolar” world that emerged after the collapse of the socialist governments in Soviet Bloc countries from 1989 to 1991. Finally, we can also endorse Guevara’s thesis to the effect that we ought to forge a common, international front against imperialism if we are to have any hope of eliminating this evil—and thereby creating the conditions for socialism and communism—once and for all. It is disheartening to realize, in this connection, that solidarity of this sort may not have increased much since Guevara’s day, despite the dramatic advances in communication technologies and transportation noted above, developments that undoubtedly facilitate an international unification of movements and struggles. But here, too, Guevara’s reflections may help us in understanding our challenges insofar as, for example, the existence of the “labor aristocracy of imperialism” still represents one of the major impediments to achieving the necessary solidarity and international cooperation.
In short, I think that we can still subscribe to most elements of Guevara’s interpretation of the nature of imperialism, including his insistence on its barbaric character85 and the need to combat imperialism. But this still leaves the question of how to combat it. That is to say, there remains the question of Guevara’s ardent defense of armed struggle—by which he means guerrilla warfare—as a vehicle for national liberation and the principal route to defeating imperialism. Assuming one agrees with most of the other propositions just enumerated, how should one evaluate today Guevara’s belief in, and defense of, armed struggle as the principal method for bringing about anti-imperialist revolution (which, in the case of Latin America, could be dubbed “armed Latin Americanism,” to use Guevara biographer Paco Ignacio Taibo II’s apt phrase86)?
I think that it is fair to say that there is, at present, little justification for armed struggle in the form of guerrilla warfare as a method of combatting contemporary imperialism. But we should note at once that the rationale for this conclusion can in fact be found in Guevara’s own defense of armed struggle. Consider Guevara’s perspective on the political conditions necessary for initiating a guerrilla insurgency, as stated in the first chapter of Guerrilla Warfare: “Where a government has come to power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, it is impossible to produce the guerrilla outbreak, since the possibilities of civic struggle have not yet been exhausted.”87 While imperialist domination, along with structures of oppression and exploitation, continue to characterize, to one degree or another, nearly all of the nations of Latin America today, the fact is that the nations that suffer from these ills have democratically elected governments and hence “the possibilities of civic struggle have not yet been exhausted.” In other words, it is not at present the case that, as Guevara puts it in the same chapter of Guerrilla Warfare, “it is impossible to keep the struggle for social demands within the framework of civic dispute”88; to the contrary, there are channels for such struggle, and far more openings for popular participation in the political process, than in the past. Thus, while the most general political conditions that justify, in Guevara’s view, recourse to guerrilla warfare or armed struggle—again, when Guevara discusses armed struggle, he means guerrilla warfare—arguably did exist in many Latin American countries in the 1960s (and even as sober an observer as K. S. Karol would remark in 1961 “that Latin American states cannot break out of their cages by peaceful means”89), and may reappear in the future, they do not exist in the region today. It should not surprise us, therefore, that Guevara’s viewpoint enjoyed such prestige and inspired so many Latin American radicals to take up arms in the 1960s and 1970s while their contemporary counterparts are for the time being pursuing their goals “within the framework of civic dispute.”
It is worth noting three other considerations, in addition to Guevara’s theses on the very general political conditions that must be satisfied for guerrilla warfare to be viable, that suggest that armed struggle has little to recommend it today. First of all, there has been significant land reform throughout Latin America since Guevara’s death. While the scale of this land reform has been woefully insufficient from a Marxist perspective and would undoubtedly be insufficient for Guevara, it has surely assuaged the “masses’ great hunger for land,” which, according to Guevara, motivates the peasants to support a guerrilla insurgency.90 (The guerrilla fighter, Guevara writes, “is, fundamentally and above all else, an agrarian revolutionary.”91) Second, there are considerations of feasibility: the extraordinary technological sophistication and sheer military might of contemporary imperialist powers, and preeminently the United States, significantly diminish the prospects for successful armed struggle. Finally, decades of ineffective armed struggles resulting in countless casualties, along with the increased incidence of terrorism of one sort or another, have generated a fairly widespread revulsion toward political violence among the peoples of Latin America, and no doubt even among those who would most benefit from a revolution. In light of this experience, more or less peaceful forms of radical opposition appear much more attractive and much more promising.
In short, the early 1960s seem to represent a historical juncture that was uniquely propitious for anticapitalist and anti-imperialist armed struggle, and Guevara plainly sensed as much, as Manuel Monereo has rightly emphasized. The emergence of national liberation movements in numerous places and the increasing currency of socialist ideas around the world (despite the disrepute of Soviet-style socialism), on the one hand, and the realization that US imperialism was not invincible (the defeat of US–backed mercenaries at the Bay of Pigs and the successful radicalization of the Cuban Revolution’s having shown as much), on the other, gave rise to what Monereo calls a “crisis of domination.” At the same time, the very real crisis of “actually existing socialism” might, were it to coincide with a recovery of US imperialism, foreclose the possibilities for change at any moment.92 In short, “what is called the correlation of forces” was “increasingly moving toward the socialist side,” as Guevara remarks in January 1962,93 but there was also no time to lose. This perception on Guevara’s part, together with his desire to return to guerrilla activity before becoming too old to do so, would explain the obvious sense of urgency or haste in Guevara that Monereo and others have noted.94
It is important to point out, in any event, that in rejecting Guevara’s notion of armed struggle we by no means commit ourselves to a categorical rejection of violence in the fight for socialism. On the contrary, even assuming that armed struggle is unjustified in the contemporary fight against imperial
ism, we can still endorse Guevara’s view that some violence is inevitable in the pursuit of socialism, however revolutionary forces manage to come to power, whether it be through armed struggle or by peaceful means such as elections. A government that is carrying out a revolution and embarking on the transition to socialism will, Guevara maintains, have to apply a not insignificant measure of coercion, force, and violence in responding to the opposition—much of it brutally violent (physical attacks, sabotage, bombings, etc.)—emanating from the bourgeoisie and other counterrevolutionary forces. Guevara emphasizes this very point in his 1961 essay “Cuba: Historical Exception or Vanguard in the Anticolonial Struggle?”:
If a popular movement takes over the government of a country by winning a wide popular vote and resolves as a consequence to initiate the great social transformations which make up the triumphant program, would it not immediately come into conflict with the reactionary classes of that country? Has the army not always been the repressive instrument of that class? If so, it is logical to suppose that this army will side with its class and enter the conflict against the newly constituted government. . . . What appears difficult to believe is that the armed forces would accept profound social reforms with good grace and peacefully resign themselves to their liquidation as a caste.95
We shall return to the question of violence, including both the measures that will provoke counterrevolutionary violence and those needed to eradicate it, in the next chapter, when we consider Guevara’s conception of revolution. The important point for our present purposes is that the contrast or opposition between armed struggle and the peaceful conquest of power turns out to be largely illusory, a false dichotomy, once we realize that any regime committed to building socialism will, regardless of how it came to power, inevitably be forced to employ a considerable amount of violence against the opposition supported by imperialism, at least if it wishes to have any chance of success. As Guevara says in his May 25, 1962, remarks to Argentinean comrades, “in the last analysis, on taking power it is then necessary to take up arms,” and this is presumably also what Guevara has in mind when he declares, in his February 1965 Algiers speech, that with the conquest of political power it will be necessary “to get rid of the oppressor classes” (in the original Guevara uses the word “liquidate” [liquidar]).96 So, while contemporary anti-imperialist strategy should renounce armed struggle in the form of guerrilla warfare, this does not entail a total renunciation of violence. Nor does it amount to a rejection of an essential component of Guevara’s political thought, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary. As I have already pointed out, Guevara expressly states that guerrilla warfare is only justified when certain conditions have been satisfied; when it is not the case that they have been satisfied, one should not pursue guerrilla warfare. It is worth noting in this connection that in his essay “Guerrilla Warfare: A Method,” Guevara himself cites with approval José Marti’s aphorism, “He who wages war in a country when he can avoid it is a criminal, just as he who fails to promote war which cannot be avoided is a criminal.”97 Furthermore, Guevara emphasizes, in the essay just cited, that guerrilla warfare, being “a method of struggle,” is but “a means to an end”—namely, “the conquest of political power.”98 If one can achieve the same end without guerrilla warfare, or guerrilla warfare would render achievement of this end more difficult, revolutionaries have no reason to initiate a guerilla foco. It is perfectly reasonable to claim, therefore, as does Armando Hart, one of the historic leaders of the Cuban Revolution and a friend of Guevara, that “the essence of his [Guevara’s] thought is increasingly valid,” even if “the kinds of action chosen by Che for the realization of this ideal [of emancipation] are, obviously, very different from those that we must adopt today.”99 In sum, the method that Guevara favors as a means of promoting human emancipation was conditioned by the historical and sociopolitical circumstances of his era, and the theory of guerrilla warfare that he espoused would not justify guerrilla warfare in Latin America—his primary area of concern—today.
4
Socialism, Communism, and Revolution
Jamaican writer Andrew Salkey once observed that Ernesto Che Guevara is “the universal symbol of the modern revolution.”1 Salkey’s observation certainly seems indisputable, but it seems no less indisputable that Guevara owes this status in large measure to his commitment—in both theory and practice—to guerrilla warfare. In fact, Guevara is not so much the symbol of modern revolution as, to use Francisco Fernández Buey’s apt description, “the figure of the communist guerrilla par excellence.”2 But to limit Guevara’s revolutionary thought to his conception and vigorous advocacy of guerilla warfare, discussed in the preceding chapter, or to assume that this is the most significant dimension of what we might call his philosophy of revolution, is a mistake.3 As Fernández Buey’s formulation reminds us, Guevara was a communist, and he thought, spoke, and wrote a great deal about a variety of topics related to socialism and communism. The purpose of the present chapter is to elucidate Guevara’s views on some of these topics, including the pace of postrevolutionary socioeconomic transformation, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the challenges posed by the counterrevolution.
Socialism and Communism
While Guevara occasionally offers general characterizations of socialism and communism, as when he defines the former as “a social system based on equal distribution of society’s wealth,”4 he never furnishes a systematic account of these concepts, and his views on socialism and communism scarcely differ from those of Marx, Engels, and Lenin in many respects. At the same time, Guevara’s writings, talks, and speeches emphasize certain aspects of these thinkers’ ideas more than others, and these emphases lend a distinctive cast to his vision of socialism and communism. One example of this aspect of Guevara’s thought is found in his tendency to underscore, time and again, that one necessary condition for the existence of socialism is the “abolition of man’s exploitation of man.” Guevara uses some variation of this formulation on countless occasions in his works,5 and while he sometimes actually defines socialism in this manner,6 his considered view seems to be that the elimination of the exploitation of one human by another is one component of socialism. This conclusion or interpretation suggests itself for two reasons. First of all, Guevara also refers to other measures or achievements in characterizing socialism, such as the nationalization of the means of production, a very substantial increase in the production of goods required to satisfy the needs of the population, or a state that represents the working class.7 Second, Guevara often claims that the revolution was putting an end to, or had indeed already eliminated, the “exploitation of man by man” in Cuba,8 yet he did not believe, as we have already seen, that socialism had been established in Cuba. Rather, he assumes that his years as an active participant in the Cuban Revolution coincide with a transitional period during which Cuba has begun to undertake the task of “building socialism.” In short, if Cuba had already put an end to the exploitation of one human by another but had not yet achieved socialism, then it would make little sense for Guevara to define socialism in terms of an end to humans’ exploitation of one another.
Guevara’s abundant references to the need to eliminate the exploitation of one human by another, quite noteworthy in themselves, also point to what is perhaps the most distinctive feature of his conception of socialism and communism, and one that I already anticipated in previous chapters: his insistence on the moral dimension of socialist/communist transformation. As noted earlier, Guevara once stated in an interview that “economic socialism without a communist morality” did not interest him, and this theme—that moral progress should have no less importance for socialism and communism than advances in productivity—is one that Guevara emphasizes repeatedly, from the time that he began publicly identifying himself as a socialist/communist until his final, unpublished theoretical manuscripts. Thus, in a televised lecture on April 30, 1961—barely two weeks after Fidel Castro had publicl
y declared that Cuba had undertaken a socialist revolution—Guevara stated that socialism “is the result of economic factors and factors of conscience,” while in his fragmentary notes on the political economy of socialism, dating from 1965 to 1966, Guevara stresses that we should conceive of communism as consisting in a certain level of economic development, coupled with a certain level of development of consciousness, within a framework in which society has socialized the means of production.9 As we have already seen, “consciousness” should generally be construed in moral terms, and preeminently in terms of a radical egalitarianism wedded to a quite substantially heightened sense of social duty; and it is for this reason that we should think of Guevara’s conception of socialism/communism as resting on an unusually strong moral component (or, if one prefers, an unusually explicit moral component). Indeed, Guevara tends to conceive of the difference between socialism and communism—which Marxists have, especially since Lenin, generally envisaged as a difference between lower and higher, or immediate and more advanced, forms of a communistically oriented postcapitalist society—largely in terms of phases of moral development. For Guevara claims not only that without the “factor of consciousness” it is not possible to reach communism but also that under communism the only operative incentive to perform work or otherwise contribute to society will be one of a moral nature.10 This will be the case not only because the development of the productive forces will make it possible to satisfy the needs of all (as a result of which material incentives will prove quite superfluous) but also because of an advanced moral development. It is precisely this conception of communism that informs Guevara’s casual observation, during a 1964 meeting with colleagues from the Ministry of Industries, to the effect that society will be able to dispense with controls on people’s behavior at work under communism.11 This would, incidentally, include the desire to exploit others: To eliminate “man’s exploitation of man” by rendering such exploitation structurally impossible, as occurs with the transition to socialism, is not the same thing as eliminating altogether the desire to treat others in an exploitative manner.