In 1971 Fidel Castro made a visit to Chile, his first trip to another Latin American country in more than a decade. He went at the invitation of then President Salvador Allende. The following speech was given in the community of San Miguel in the capital city of Santiago de Chile, which had erected a statue of Che Guevara. Allende was overthrown in September 1973 by a US-backed military coup.
A few days ago, when I visited the statue of José Martí, I said I would come a few days later to visit the statue of Che and meet with the residents of this community.
Today you have honored me with the title “Illustrious Son” of this community, and I thank you for it.
My task here is to give you my impressions and memories, to present some of the characteristics of Che’s personality and life.
When I came here and placed flowers in front of the monument, many thoughts went through my mind. First, the memory of one who was a comrade in struggle and a brother of our people and our fighters; the impact of seeing, transformed into bronze, a person I once had the privilege of knowing, at whose side I once had the privilege of fighting.
This is the first time I’ve seen a monument to someone I’ve known in life. Usually, when statues are created by artists in memory of people who distinguished themselves for their feats and accomplishments in the struggle for humanity, they symbolize individuals who lived a long time ago, hundreds and even thousands of years ago. Possibly only in very special circumstances does one have the chance to see a statue of someone one has known, because usually history sees fit to erect these monuments after the passage of many years. But in this case the revolutionary proletarian community of San Miguel wanted to erect a monument to Che. And so, in October 1970, three years after his death, this monument was unveiled.
I met Che in Mexico in 1955. An Argentine by birth, he was Latin American in spirit and in heart. He had just come from Guatemala.
About Che, as about all revolutionaries, many tales have been invented. They try to present him as a conspirator, a shadowy subversive dedicated to devising plots and revolutions. As a young man, like so many other young students, as a graduate of his country’s university, like so many other graduates—in his case, as a doctor—Che, who had a special curiosity and interest in things related to Latin America, a special interest in study and knowledge, a special desire to see all our nations, made a tour of several countries. He had nothing more than his degree.
At times on foot, at times on motorcycle, he went from country to country. In fact, when we were in Chuquicamata [in northern Chile] we were shown the place he had stopped for a day on the first trip he made outside his country. He had no money. He wasn’t a tourist. He went to see the work centers, the hospitals, the historical sites. He crossed the Andes, took a boat or a raft, and went as far as a leper hospital in the Amazon, where he worked for a time as a doctor.
He continued his journey. He arrived in Guatemala after passing through—if I remember correctly—Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. And he arrived in Guatemala when a progressive government headed by Jacobo Árbenz was in power. An agrarian reform was being carried out. Also there at the time were some survivors of the 1953 attack on the Moncada garrison. They established a friendship with Che. He was working there—if I remember correctly—as a doctor.
As one who was interested in the Guatemalan process, a studious man who thirsted after knowledge with an inquiring spirit, a revolutionary vocation and disposition, and a clear intelligence, he had of course read the books and theories of Karl Marx, Engels, and Lenin. And although he wasn’t a member of any party, Che was already a Marxist in his thinking.
But it was his lot to live through a bitter experience. While he was in Guatemala the imperialists intervened with an invasion led by the CIA—that is, the CIA organized the invasion of that country from neighboring territory, with arms, planes, and all kinds of equipment. It was something similar to what they later tried to do at Playa Girón [the Bay of Pigs]. But in Guatemala, they attacked without any risk. Using their planes and then advancing on the ground, they overthrew the revolutionary government.
The Cubans and other Latin Americans who were there and who had supported the government, who had carried out simple tasks of a practical nature—not even political tasks—had to leave the country. They went to Mexico.
In 1955, the first Moncada combatants who had just come out of prison had to leave Cuba. One of the first comrades subjected to persistent harassment and persecution was Raúl [Castro], who left for Mexico. I arrived a few weeks later. Raúl had already made contact with other comrades who had not been in prison, and he had also met Che. A few days after my arrival in Mexico I met Che in a house where some Cubans were staying on Emparan Street, if I remember the name correctly—but I can’t remember the number of the house now.
Che wasn’t Che then. He was Ernesto Guevara. It was because of the Argentine custom of calling people “che” that the Cubans began calling him Che. That was how he got that name, a name he later made famous, a name he turned into a symbol.
That’s how we met. As he himself related in one of his writings, he joined the Cuban movement immediately, after a few hours of discussion.
Because of his state of mind when he left Guatemala, because of the extremely bitter experience he’d lived through there—that cowardly aggression against the country, the interruption of a process that had awakened the hopes of the people—because of his revolutionary vocation, his spirit of struggle, we can say that it did not take hours, but that in a matter of minutes Che decided to join the small group of Cubans who were working on organizing a new phase of the struggle in our country.
We spent a little over a year in Mexico, working under difficult conditions, with very few resources. But that really doesn’t matter, that’s what was to be expected of the struggle, as with all struggles. Then at last, on November 25, 1956, we left for Cuba.
Our movement had launched a slogan against the skeptics, against those who doubted the possibility of continuing the struggle, against those who disputed our position that in this situation there was no other solution—we had declared that in 1956 we would be either free or martyrs. That declaration was simply a reaffirmation to the Cuban nation of our determination to struggle, of our confidence that the struggle would be renewed without delay.
It is true that many people—not the people in our organization, for they understood perfectly the meaning of that slogan—did not understand why we made that promise to return to Cuba practically on a fixed date. It was because of the state of mind of many people in our country who, because of the frustrations, because of the tricks by the traditional politicians, had become somewhat skeptical. Moreover, there were many people representing vested interests who were engaged in political maneuvering, making great efforts to obtain political agreements with the Batista dictatorship and to extinguish the people’s faith in revolutionary struggle.
That’s why we were forced to launch that slogan, right or wrong. We aren’t going to discuss it now; it may serve as material for theoretical research. People don’t always go strictly by a diagram. People don’t make history at their own whim or to their own liking. People may contribute to the making of history, but history also makes people. So, for better or worse, the slogan was launched. And for better or worse, we were determined to carry it out.
Special circumstances could and did arise, and there were very serious complications on the eve of our departure. But we had always had a small number of arms hidden, and we said that if we can’t all go, some of us will, no matter what. So 82 fighters left aboard a small cabin cruiser called Granma. We sailed 2,400 kilometers and arrived at the coast of Cuba on December 2, 1956. Two or three days from now our country will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of that landing, which marked the birth of our small army. December 2 is now our Armed Forces Day.
That’s the way the struggle began. I don’t propose to give you an entire history—far from it. I simply want to provide you with a clear understanding of the circumstances in which this contingent began the struggle.
And what was Che? Che was the doctor of our contingent. He wasn’t the commissar. He didn’t yet have any troops under his command. He was simply the doctor.
Because of his seriousness, his intelligence, and his character, Che had once been assigned leader of a group of Cubans in a house in Mexico. One day a small, disagreeable incident took place. There were about 20 or 30 Cubans there in all, and some of them—it must have been two or three, but sometimes two or three are enough to create a disagreeable situation—challenged Che’s leadership because he was an Argentine and not a Cuban.
We of course criticized an attitude that ignored human value; that ingratitude toward someone who, although not born in our land, was ready to shed his blood for it. And I remember the incident hurt me a great deal. I think it hurt him as well.
He was, in addition, a person without any desire to exercise authority. He did not have the slightest ambition, he was not self-centered in any way. He was instead a person who became inhibited if anyone contradicted him.
When he came to our country, he came—I repeat—as our troop doctor, on the general staff. The interesting thing is how Che became a soldier, how he distinguished himself, and what his characteristics were.
A few examples: on December 5, because of tactical errors, our small detachment was the victim of a surprise attack and was completely dispersed. After overcoming tremendous difficulties, a small number of men regrouped in the midst of an encirclement and heavy pursuit. There were three groups: one with Raúl, another group that included Che, who wasn’t yet in charge of a group—comrade Almeida was in this group too—and the group with me. Almeida’s group rejoined mine first, and Raúl’s did so a few days later. We continued the struggle.
Our first battle took place January 17, 1957, we had 17 men. At the beginning, of all the weapons we had brought with us, we were able to round up only seven. December 5 was what we might call the baptism by fire for Che and many other comrades. But the first small battle we won was on January 17.
By the second battle Che had already begun to distinguish himself, to show he was Che. In a confrontation with forces that were pursuing us, he showed his personal bravery. In a practically individual battle with an enemy soldier, in the midst of general combat, he shot the adversary and crawled forward under a hail of bullets to take his weapon. He carried out that brave, outstanding, and special deed on his own initiative, and it earned him the admiration of all.
Barely six or seven days later, at the end of January, we suffered the consequences of a betrayal. Our small contingent had grown to some 30 men, five or six of whom were peasants who had asked for and received permission to go visit their families—discipline still wasn’t very strong in that small group. They left their weapons there, with the detachment. One day at dawn, a squadron of fighter planes and bombers attacked with a very heavy barrage at the exact spot where the detachment was located—at least that’s how we viewed it at the time. We had already had some experience along that line, but this was the hardest we had ever been hit.
I’m going into this because when the combatants were trying to get away from the spot where the fire was concentrated—we were going up a hillside—at that moment we remembered the weapons that belonged to the five or six peasants who were visiting their homes. Those weapons had to be retrieved and I called for volunteers. Immediately, without thinking or hesitating for an instant, Che was the first to say, “I’ll go.” He and another comrade went quickly to the place being bombed, got the weapons, hid them in a safe place, and then rejoined the rest of our forces.
Different episodes took place. Che was still the doctor; he didn’t command any troops. But in May of that year, on May 28, something else happened. Our column already had some 100 men, if I remember correctly, and a group of Cuban revolutionaries from another political organization had landed in the northern part of the province. We remembered our own landing and the difficult moments we had gone through; we wanted to help that group by carrying out a support action. So we started for the coast, where an enemy infantry company held positions with fortifications and trenches.
Basing ourselves on the information we had received, we scheduled the attack for dawn and organized it very quickly. But when we were about to start combat at dawn the situation became complicated; it turned out our information was not very accurate. The enemy positions were not where we thought they were, and the situation became complicated. However, we had to go ahead.
Our small units—platoons and squads—were scattered in a circle whose perimeter was at least a kilometer and a half long. We could not retreat. We had no choice but to attack.
At the time of that battle, Che was a part of the general staff. He already had some responsibilities. We had to carry out two or three actions. We had to ask Almeida’s platoon to advance to the front quickly to get as close as possible to certain enemy positions. The advance was very risky and cost us a number of casualties.
We also had to have a group move toward the west. And while we were sizing up the situation and analyzing the necessity of that action, Che immediately volunteered. He asked for a group of men and an automatic rifle, and said he would march to the west. We gave him a group of men and the automatic rifle, which virtually belonged to the general staff, and he quickly began the advance toward that position.
That was the third time we needed a volunteer when Che had immediately stepped forward. In any difficult situation he would act at once, and that’s what he did then.
That battle was a hard-fought one. It lasted three hours and almost 30 percent of the forces on both sides were killed or wounded. It had been motivated by the desire to help those who had landed in the north. Despite our efforts, however, they had been surrounded, captured, and killed—every last one of them. When we occupied the enemy camp, after three hours of fighting, there was a large number of wounded—enemy wounded and our own men. Che was the doctor who attended quickly to both our wounded and those of the enemy. That was always the practice and the rule throughout our struggle.
Later, logically, the battle gave rise to a concentration of enemy forces, a huge manhunt directed against us. And we had to solve the problem of our many wounded. After we took care of the enemy wounded—we left them there at the scene of the battle so that, as we withdrew, they could be picked up by their own side—Che as the doctor stayed behind in an isolated place with our wounded. He took care of them in a difficult situation in which sizable enemy forces in the area were trying to corner us.
The column marched through difficult, rugged terrain. We broke through the encirclement. But Che stayed behind with the wounded, with only a very few men. He stayed with them for several weeks until the wounded had recovered. The small group was then able to rejoin the main column, which had been reinforced by the weapons we had captured during the battle.
So the first time we organized a new column—the second column—we gave command of that column to Che. And we made him commander, the second commander of our forces. With his small new column, he began to operate in a specific area, in positions not far from where the first column was based.
That was how Che became a soldier and was named commander of a small column. And, of course, he continued to display the same character, the same attitude, to such an extent that it can be said we had to watch out for him.
What do I mean by watching out for him? Well, his aggressiveness and audacity led him to plan very daring operations. And when he entered combat during the following stage, which lasted several months—a stage where his small group still lacked sufficient forces and experience in the region they were operating in—he displayed great tenacity and perseverance as a soldier. Sometimes he insisted on fighting with the enemy for a position. And there he would stay and fight for hours, even days.
We could say that, in a way, he even violated the rules—that is, the ideal norms, the most perfect methods—of combat, risking his life in battle because of that character, tenacity, and spirit of his. He would obstinately refuse to surrender a position even though his little column was very small and the advancing enemy forces very numerous, even when there wasn’t much sense in defending that particular position. That was his character, his perseverance, his combative spirit.
Logically, therefore, we had to lay down certain rules and guidelines for him to follow.
What was it that we admired in him, that impressed us? What was that characteristic that gave the precise measure of Che’s spirit and soul? It was his moral qualities, his altruism, his absolute selflessness. He had met a group of Cubans; he became convinced of their cause; and from the very first moment he showed great selflessness and generosity. From the first moment, he was absolutely willing to give his life, regardless of whether it was in the first battle or the second or the third. Here we had a person born in a place thousands of kilometers from our country, a person some Cubans had even once objected to because he was giving them orders and hadn’t been born in Cuba, but for that country and for that cause, he was the first at every moment to volunteer for something dangerous, for a mission with great risks.
He was someone who had no personal ambitions whatsoever. There was nothing he wanted except to do his duty and to do it well. He sought to respond quickly in any situation, to immediately and unhesitatingly set an example of what he thought a revolutionary fighter should be.
How far Che was during those early days from imagining that one day, in this community, there would be a meeting such as this and that we would be standing in front of a monument honoring him!
Che did not fight for glory, for material possessions, or ambition. He never fought for fame. He was a person who right from the outset, from the very first battle, was ready to give his life; who could have been killed as just one more soldier. If he had died in the first battle, he would have left behind the memory of his person, the personality and characteristics we knew him by, and nothing more. The same if he had died in the second, third, fourth, or fifth battle. He could have died in any of those battles; many did.
Therefore, we can say that Che thought of nothing but duty and sacrifice, with the most absolute purity and with the most complete selflessness.
We can say that Che survived the battles in the Sierra Maestra because we followed the principle that whenever a person distinguished themselves as a leader, we would not expose them in minor battles but would save them for more important operations.
An offensive was launched against us in May 1958, when some 10,000 [soldiers of the Batista dictatorship] advanced against our forces—at the time we had at most 300 soldiers, including Che’s column and some other forces we had managed to get together. After a battle that lasted 70 consecutive days, our soldiers, who were already combat-tested veterans—in spite of being at a disadvantage with regard to weapons and numbers managed to smash the offensive, capture a sizable number of weapons, and organize different columns. When the battle began, we had 300 men; when it ended we had 805 armed men.
It was then that we organized two columns—one commanded by Camilo and the other by Che—equipped with the best weapons we had, and they carried out what we can call a veritable feat. Starting from the Sierra Maestra—Camilo with 90 men, Che with 140—they marched toward the west, toward Las Villas province, across more than 500 kilometers of flatlands, uninhabited in many places. The two columns left the Sierra Maestra around September. They advanced with the enemy close on their heels, many times fighting their way over difficult terrain, and carried out their mission of reaching the center of the island.
When, at the end of December, our forces were virtually in control of Oriente province, and the island was cut in two through Las Villas province, Che performed one of his last military feats in Cuba. He marched on the city of Santa Clara with 300 combatants, attacked an armored train stationed on the outskirts of the city, cut the tracks between the train and the main headquarters of the enemy, derailed the train, surrounded it, forced the troops inside to surrender, and captured all the weapons there. In short, he attacked the city of Santa Clara with only 300 men.
When the Batista regime finally collapsed on January 1 and there was an attempt to cheat the Cuban Revolution of its triumph, the columns of Camilo and Che were ordered to advance rapidly on Havana. They carried out their mission; on January 2 both columns were inside the capital of the republic. Victory was consolidated on that day, and a long road began.
Everybody’s life changed. Many tasks arose and many combatants had to take on administrative responsibilities. At the end of several months, Che was named minister of industry and began to carry out the work that occupied him for several years.
I have spoken of Che as a soldier but he was endowed with outstanding qualities in many areas. First of all, he was a person of extraordinary culture; he had one of the most penetrating minds I have known, one of the most generous spirits, one of the most revolutionary characters. His feelings—his concern for other people, his concern for the movement in Asia and Africa—extended to the whole world.
At the time the Algerians were fighting for their independence [from France, in a war from 1954 to 1962]. The poor and underdeveloped countries in other continents were also engaged in different struggles. He saw with complete clarity the need to establish contact with these worlds. He visited many countries on different missions, seeking closer relations and commercial trade, working hard to overcome the consequences of the economic blockade imposed on our country.
When the Bay of Pigs invasion took place, Che was in command of the forces of Pinar del Río province. When the attack began, in the south-central part of the island, we didn’t know at first where the direction of the main attack would be. Generally speaking, the most experienced leaders assumed command of specific military zones. And even though he was in charge of the Ministry of Industry, as soon as the mobilization against the attack began, Che was sent to Pinar del Río province. Similarly, when the October [Missile] Crisis occurred, in 1962—another moment of very grave danger—Che again assumed command of that military region.
Thus, a number of times and under different circumstances, we were obliged to confront certain grave dangers. And he continued to serve as a combatant, he assumed his responsibilities, he continued studying military science assiduously.
He was an extremely studious person who, in the hours in which he could manage to free himself from his intense work, sacrificed sleep and rest to study. Not only did he work interminable hours in the Ministry of Industry, but he also received visitors, wrote accounts of the war, and about his experiences in the countries he visited on one or another mission. He related his experiences in an interesting, simple, and clear style.
Many episodes of the revolutionary war have been preserved because Che wrote them down, because of his interest in making available for our people the experiences of their compatriots at various times.
Che was the originator of voluntary work in Cuba. He maintained close contact with the workplaces that were under the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry. He visited them, talked with the workers, analyzed the problems. Every Sunday, Che went to some workplace; sometimes to the docks to load freight with the dock workers; sometimes to the mines to work with the miners; sometimes to the cane fields to cut cane; sometimes he met with construction workers. He never kept a Sunday for himself.
What’s more, all this and his previous feats must be viewed in the light of his own health, for he suffered from certain allergy problems that produced severe attacks of asthma. With asthma, he fought during the whole campaign. With asthma, he worked day and night. With asthma, he wrote. With asthma, he traveled throughout the country and the world. With asthma, he went down into the mines, went to work in the fields, went everywhere without ever allowing himself a moment’s rest. When he wasn’t working at his responsibilities in the ministry, he was studying during hours stolen from sleep, or he was out doing voluntary work.
Che was a person with infinite confidence and faith in humanity. He was a living example. It was his style to be the example, to set the example. He was a person with a great spirit of self-sacrifice, with a truly spartan nature, capable of any kind of self-denial. His policy was to set the example.
We could say that his entire life was an example in every sphere. He was a person of absolute moral integrity, of unshakably firm principles, a complete revolutionary who looked toward the future, toward the humanity of the future, and who above all stressed human values, humanity’s moral values. And above all, he practiced selflessness, renunciation, self-denial.
None of the words I use about him involve the slightest exaggeration, the slightest overestimation. They simply describe the man we knew.
Here is his monument, here is his figure as the artist saw it. But it is impossible for a monument to capture the overall conception of the person. We have Che’s writings, his narratives, his speeches. Those who knew him have their own memory of Che. And we have seen how proudly the workers in many of our factories recall the day Che visited their workplaces, the places where Che did voluntary work.
Not very long ago, we visited a large textile plant whose machinery was being upgraded. We were accompanied by an illustrious foreign visitor. The workers there took us to a shop where they kept, almost like a family treasure, the looms on which Che had done voluntary work. The mines Che visited and the places where he worked and talked with the workers are other monuments to his memory, which our workers cherish with extraordinary affection.
But Che did not live for history; he did not live for honor or glory. Like every other true revolutionary, like every other thoroughgoing revolutionary, he knew what that extraordinary person, that great patriot José Martí—whom you have also honored here—meant when he said, “All the glory of the world fits into a kernel of corn.”
Revolutionaries do not struggle for honor or glory, or to occupy a place in history. Che occupied, occupies, and will always occupy a great place in history because that was not important to him, because he was ready to die from the first battle on, because he was always absolutely selfless. And so his life became an epic, his life became an example. We say to our people—and this has become a basic idea, a watchword—if we were to describe what we want our children to be like, we would want them to be like Che. There is no Cuban family, no Cuban parent, no Cuban child who doesn’t hold Che up as the model for their life.
If today’s world—this contemporary world that is writing a new history of humanity, that is trying to build a better, more humane society, that confronts very complex problems and difficult struggles—if today’s world is seeking an example, and if you consider the qualities this example requires, we who knew Che, we who had that great privilege, understand why our people and our country have chosen this model for our children. And we believe it is an extraordinarily worthy one.
How wonderful it would be if we were to succeed in making this model a reality in the generations to come so that in the future we would have generations like Che!
Future societies will be made of generations of people like Che! From generations of people like Che a better society, communism, will arise!
He left us his example. And as the final fruit of his clear mind, his spartan character, his heart of steel—steel for self-sacrifice, for suffering—of his noble, sensitive, and generous spirit of giving himself to a cause and struggling for others, sacrificing himself for others, of his intelligence, his heart, and his calm hand, he left us, finally, his diary, in which he narrated the epic of the last days of his life. And in his concise, straightforward, terse style, reflecting the last moments of his life, he wrote a true epic of literature, containing extraordinary merit in every sense.
That is why the youth of the world see Che as a symbol. And just as he identified with the cause of the Algerians, the Vietnamese, and the Latin Americans, so Che’s name and figure are viewed with tremendous respect, admiration, and affection on all continents. The name and figure of Che are emblazoned even there in the very heart of US society itself. Civil rights fighters, fighters against the war of aggression, fighters for peace, progressives, all citizens who struggle for any cause whatever within the United States itself, have taken up Che’s name and banner. He has therefore become a gigantic figure, and so he is. But nobody’s imagination, nobody’s fantasy, nobody’s self-interest created this. Never has a banner been raised on a more solid pedestal, never has an example been raised on firmer ground.
Che himself turned his figure into this symbol during his brief but intense life, his brief but creative life. This was not his aim; this was not what he sought. But because of his life, his selflessness, his nobility, his altruism, his heroism, he became what he is today. He became a banner, a model, a fighter. He became a guide. He became a monument to all that is noble, to the spirit of justice. Che is, in short, a model as a revolutionary, as a fighter, and as a communist for all the peoples of the world.