Who is in a better position than Fidel Castro to write about Che Guevara—the man and the revolutionary? Theirs was a historic partnership that transformed the face of Latin America and had a huge and lasting impact throughout the world. This selection of writings, interviews, and speeches by Fidel, is therefore as close to the classic political biography of Che that can—and ever will—be published.
The campaign to divide the ideas and personalities of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro has never really ceased, and has been reinforced in several recent biographies of the Argentine revolutionary. Indeed, every effort has been made to separate Che from the dramatic and audacious project of the Cuban revolution.
Understanding the Cuban Revolution in its own context and recognizing its unique characteristics—putting aside any fixed schemes—is the challenge facing all those who seek to analyze Cuba today. And understanding the extraordinary bond between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara is also essential to this task. In this respect, this memoir reveals as much about the author as it does about the subject and the relationship between the two individuals.
When interviewed in 1987, around the time of the 20th anniversary of Che’s death in Bolivia, Fidel acknowledged that there were “still many chapters of [this] history to be written. What is missing is someone to write them, because those who can write them don’t have the time to do so.”
In that interview Fidel revealed the great sense of loss he felt with Che’s death. Ten years later, this sentiment was expressed with even greater intensity on the return to Cuba in 1997 of the remains of Che and the other guerrilla fighters killed in Bolivia (see Chapter Ten of this book). Looking at the small casket, Fidel wondered: “How can [Che] fit beneath a memorial stone? How can he fit into this square? How can he fit into our beloved, but small, island? Only in the world that he dreamed of, which he lived and fought for, is there enough space for him.”
“A combatant may die, but not their ideas,” Fidel observed. “Now he is… everywhere, wherever there is a just cause to defend. Those who wanted to kill him, to make him disappear, were not able to understand that he would leave an indelible footprint in history and that his luminous prophet’s gaze would transform him into a symbol for all the earth’s poor in their millions upon millions.” This book, above all, helps to recover the revolutionary content of Che’s ideas and example, beyond the iconic image on the posters and t-shirts.
Since the first edition of this book more than a decade ago, a major publishing project was initiated by the Che Guevara Studies Center of Havana, Cuba, and Ocean Press. The goal of the project is to publish the works of Ernesto Che Guevara—Che in his own words. The project will consist of almost 20 titles, including Che Guevara’s classic works as well as thematic anthologies, along with unpublished manuscripts and much unpublished material. It is an unprecedented publishing and political endeavor. Fidel’s memoir of Che, in this new expanded edition, is the natural complement to the works of Che Guevara. Neither can be fully understood without the other.
David Deutschmann, April 2006