My mouth narrates what my eyes have seen…1
Recalling a verse by the Argentine writer Sabato, with the pleasure he always got from his constant companion, poetry, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna began his first journey as a determined adventurer in January 1950. He set out to discover the northern part of his native Argentina, the reality of which he had only so far caught a brief glimpse.
From the moment he decided to explore Latin America, Che regarded this as an extremely important obligation. Sadly, only a few of the pages of the diary he kept of this trip around Argentina have been preserved, but what we have shows a young man’s inner world full of dreams and philosophical ponderings, in a never-ending search for truth. This search would lead him, throughout his life, to try to feel the pulse of the people of Latin America.
The thousands of miles he traversed through arid lands, both beautiful and not so beautiful, opened his eyes to a reality he encountered everywhere: the backwardness in which the vast majority of the peoples of Latin America were mired, condemned to poverty and helplessness.
Barely a year after his initial exploratory trip, Che embarked on an experience that made a lasting impression on him. In that brief period of time, his social awareness had sharpened as he questioned everything he encountered. He signed on as a nurse on ships that took him to Caribbean countries and as a health officer in the port area of Buenos Aires—events he never documented but which fed his inquiring mind and led him to undertake further adventures.
His next travels were far more extensive and adventurous, covering a large part of Latin America. On that journey, he was not alone but accompanied by his friend Alberto Granado, who shared his goals and dreams. They set out on an unreliable old motorcycle that had to be abandoned in Chile.
Ernesto’s life-long habit of writing down everything he experienced shows the lasting effect that trip had on him as a young man. Unconsciously, he developed a distinctive style in the accounts of his travels as he was driven to explore unknown lands, experiences that changed him more than he could have imagined.
His travels through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela led him to delve into truths that he had sensed but never corroborated. He acknowledges his limitations as a writer, but his diaries clearly convey his search and show how objective and remarkably perceptive he was.
From Chile on, his constant theme was injustice: first, in the issue of health care, about which he already knew something, and then in regard to the miners, especially a family of communist miners he met, with whom he felt “more brotherhood than ever before.” Faced with so much injustice, he noted the need for fundamental change. Given governments’ failure to act and the merciless exploitation to which the poor were subjected, in his first political commentary he expressed the need to shake off the “uncomfortable Yankee friend” in order to achieve sovereign and independent nationhood.
His comments about Peru were even more significant, because there he encountered a problem of which he had previously been unaware: that of the continent’s indigenous peoples. At Machu-Picchu, he was struck by the conquistadors’ barbarism in contrast to the incredible richness of the destroyed indigenous culture. There at Machu-Picchu he first appreciated the immensity and vastness of indigenous culture and architecture, which stimulated a desire to learn more about the conquest that had cruelly subjugated the peoples of a continent in the interests of feudal Spain.
On his birthday in June 1952, six months after he set out on his trip with Alberto Granado on the motorbike, in his account entitled “Saint Guevara’s Day” (an ironic invocation of Peronism) he examined the many ways in which he was beginning to get a sense of the united Latin America that Bolívar had sought.
Caracas, the “city of the eternal spring,” marked the end of his long journey, and there he was exposed to another issue about which he had been very ignorant—the position of blacks in a white society, another aspect of the racist and deforming impact of colonialism.
Che concludes The Motorcycle Diaries with what he calls “A note in the margin.” Here he attempts to synthesize his experiences, saying he is not trying to prove any particular thesis, but simply describing what he felt was exerting an ever greater spiritual force on the self-confessed and ironic “eclectic dissembler of doctrine and psychoanalyst of dogma,” as he refers to himself, a man who had taken a path that would lead him to fight to transform the world.
He had yet to identify all the elements of his vision of revolution—the role of the popular masses, the question of the seizure of power, his humanism and, above all, his Latin Americanism. But he had already developed certain convictions that meant he was ready to throw himself into the struggle alongside the masses of people, even if it meant sacrificing his life.
Some time would pass and many events would take place in Ernesto’s life before he would write similar phrases with the same sentiment. He had to take a second look at Latin America. In Otra vez [Once Again]2—the title he gave his diary of that second journey—he develops the same themes.
In July 1953, after completing his medical studies, Ernesto set out with Calica Ferrer, another old friend, heading first to Bolivia to learn about the revolutionary process that the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) had initiated in 1952. He was interested in the Bolivian experience because, apart from the Peronist movement in his own country—about which he was somewhat skeptical—he had not witnessed any actual revolution and was curious to see how the masses participated in the process.
The Bolivian revolution did not particularly inspire him, as he clearly recognized the political and ideological weakness of the leaders of the movement and foresaw a process of attrition when the goals they had set themselves initially were not achieved; but he did observe the potential strength of the people, especially the super-exploited Bolivian miners.
Naturally, the US government’s attempts to crush the Bolivian revolution, immersed as it was in the Cold War, did not escape the notice of the young Ernesto Guevara. This US pressure would eventually lead Bolivians to a dead end where they were forced to abandon their nationalist project.
Ernesto decided to move on. In Ecuador, he discussed his experiences in Bolivia with a group of friends, who invited him to go to Central America with them to learn about the Guatemalan revolutionary process. Under President Jacobo Árbenz, Guatemala was generating great hope among the most advanced Latin American intellectuals and political leaders.
It was in those circumstances that he wrote a letter to his family including a revealing comment: “In Guatemala, I shall improve myself and achieve what I lack to be a true revolutionary.” He knew enough about Central America before arriving in Guatemala to understand what US penetration in the region meant and to conclude that the only possible solution was a revolution that challenged the feudal bourgeoisie and foreign capital in order to achieve real justice for the people. Understanding this reality, he saw that the much-touted Pan-Americanism was a false substitute for real Latin American unity, and the only thing it had achieved was an overwhelming disparity between rich and poor, and the economic and political subjugation of the weak countries of the South. History had already tragically underlined this truth with US interference in the Panama Canal, the assassination of Augusto Sandino in Nicaragua, and the United Fruit Company’s pitiless exploitation of workers in Central America—all of which were carried out in the name of Pan-American “unity.”
Ernesto saw that Pan-Americanism and imperialism went hand in hand, and that Pan-Americanism—wittingly or unwittingly—acted as the tool of imperialism, which meant the accumulation and export of capital, monopoly concentration and the exploitation of countries producing raw materials. When its interests so required, imperialism made demands that either indirectly or directly forced Latin American nations to adopt US-style democracy.
For this reason Guatemala proved to be a turning point in Ernesto Guevara’s intellectual and ideological evolution as an “aspiring revolutionary.” Recognizing the conceptual and programmatic limitations of the Guatemalan process, he nevertheless considered it an authentic revolution, one worth risking his life for.
This was an enriching period of his life, in which his experiences stimulated the need to study more, especially philosophy, which he had earlier tackled enthusiastically.
Guatemala was a revolutionary school for him, but also a source of frustration when the revolution was defeated in June 1954. “The crushing of another Latin American dream” was how he referred to the shameful plot between the US State Department, the CIA and the puppet governments of Central America against the Guatemalan government, which was simply attempting to transform its feudal economy through a moderate agrarian reform law, but whose real “crime” was to seize land that the United Fruit Company considered to be its property.
Such policies of a legitimate, popularly elected government were enough for the CIA to launch an international campaign portraying Guatemala as a nation ruled by “international communism” and which, therefore, provided a clear threat to peace and security in the hemisphere. Less than a year after the agrarian reform was implemented, the CIA prepared to isolate Guatemala diplomatically, promoted internal subversion, created artificial conflicts with Guatemala’s neighbors and trained a shock force of mercenaries ready to invade the country from Honduras.
Events in Guatemala served to strengthen Ernesto’s anti-imperialism, evident in remarks in his letters and travel diary about the role the United States had played in overthrowing the Árbenz administration. He also consciously affirmed that revolution was the only way to achieve “the rule of justice in Latin America” and that the unity of the region was absolutely necessary. He also reiterated that he saw himself as belonging to Latin America, and not just to the country of his birth, Argentina.
In Guatemala, he made contact with a group of exiled Cuban revolutionaries, including some of those who had participated in the July 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks to challenge the Batista dictatorship. For the first time, Ernesto learned about the goals of the July 26 Movement and its leader, Fidel Castro, who was then in prison in Cuba for having led the attack in Santiago de Cuba.
Later, in Mexico, Ernesto encountered the Cubans again and met Fidel, who had been amnestied and released from prison, arriving in Mexico in June 1955. Ernesto’s diary includes the entry: “One political event is meeting Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary, an intelligent young fellow who is very sure of himself and extraordinarily audacious; I think we hit it off well.”3
From that moment Ernesto Guevara—now known as “Che,” a nickname the Cubans bestowed upon him—became irrevocably linked with the Cuban revolution in what was to be one of the most enriching periods of his life. This meeting enabled him to achieve what he had dreamed of from a young age.
While in Mexico, he analyzed the factors leading to the overthrow of the Guatemalan revolution. He also examined how his experiences had served to broaden and sharpen his political awareness, helping him map out his future, which he now saw as entwined with that of humanity. This was a definitive moment in the development of his humanist thinking.
He outlined in greater depth the reasons why he saw that Latin Americanism and imperialism were in eternal conflict. His analysis was now reinforced by his more profound study of Marxism—especially Karl Marx’s political economy. He considered these studies absolutely necessary for understanding Latin America’s ills and how the continent would solve these problems through socialism, even though he was not yet entirely clear about what that meant.
After taking part in Cuba’s liberation, he expected to go on to fulfill a commitment he had already expressed in a letter to his mother in April 1954, when he remarked, “the Americas will be the theater of my adventures in a way that is much more significant than I would have believed.”4
In Cuba, he would have the unique experience of being part of a people’s vanguard that wagered everything on winning their country’s independence through the means he considered fundamental: armed struggle. Che summed up his ideas in the midst of the Cuban revolution in an interview with his compatriot Jorge Ricardo Masetti: “I am here [in Cuba] simply because I believe that the only way to rid the Americas of dictators is to overthrow them—helping to bring about their fall by whatever means necessary—the more direct the better.” When asked if his participation in the internal affairs of a country that was not his own could be seen as meddling, he added, “First of all, I consider my country to be not only Argentina but the entire Americas. My country’s history is as glorious as that of [José] Martí, and it is in his land precisely that I abide by his doctrine.”5
A new period in Che’s life now began. Participating in the revolutionary struggle in Cuba would be the first step in his aspiration to build a new Latin America. In the revolutionary struggle in Cuba, he not only tested himself as a combatant but he also discovered how a revolutionary process could bring about basic structural change in society.
Cuba, for Che, represented a new step in the development of the continent-wide Latin American peoples’ struggle to achieve their definitive liberation. The awakening of Latin America that followed the triumph of the Cuban revolution on January 1, 1959, reinforced his views on what other Latin American peoples needed to do.
As a leader of the Cuban revolution he assumed a wide range of complex tasks, and he rapidly came to be regarded as an exemplary revolutionary and Marxist. He was particularly effective in combining theory and practice, creatively enriching the latter and making a significant contribution to the economic and political elements of the socialist transition in Cuba.
In spite of his heavy workload in Cuba, Che never stopped trying to unite and strengthen the revolutionary movements elsewhere in Latin America. He recognized the similarities of the struggles, their common objectives and their common enemy. At one stage, he called together a large number of Latin American revolutionaries who wanted to learn directly from the experience of a successful revolution and who needed links that would strengthen their struggles for their countries’ sovereignty. He spent long hours discussing tactics and strategy and the main principles for achieving victory. His speeches, interviews and papers from 1959 onwards reveal his deep reflection on a wide range of topics. He analyzed key economic, political and social questions, with a particular focus on the unity of the three underdeveloped continents of the world (Asia, Africa and Latin America) in what would become his Third World thesis.
After his 1959 tour of the member countries of the Bandung Pact, the predecessor of the Movement of Nonaligned Countries, he wrote: “Cuba has been invited to send representatives to the new conference of Afro-Asian peoples. They will show the august meeting of their Afro-Asian brothers the truths and the pain of Latin America. Their participation is no coincidence; it is the result of the historic convergence of all the oppressed peoples in this hour of liberation. They will go on to say that it is true that Cuba exists and that Fidel Castro is a man, a popular hero, not a mythological abstraction… From my new perspective of the balcony, when asked if we are allies from across the ocean, I have to respond to those hundreds of thousands of Africans and Asians who are marching toward freedom in these nuclear times: Yes, more than ever, I am one more brother from this part of the world that awaits with infinite eagerness the moment when we can consolidate the bloc that will destroy the anachronistic presence of colonial control once and for all.”6
Cuba’s ongoing example convinced him that it was absolutely necessary for Latin America to obtain political cohesion in order to defend itself in the international arena, and developed his thoughts on how the continent could achieve full liberation. He focused his attention on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which, he pointed out in an interview with Argentine radio, “If it is [to be considered] an element of liberation for Latin America, I believe this should have already been demonstrated. Until now, I have not been aware of any such demonstration. The IMF performs an entirely different function: precisely that of ensuring that capital based outside of Latin America controls all of Latin America.”7
Drawing on his guerrilla experience in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains and the broad scope of the Cuban revolution, he began to envisage a project of change for Latin America that included profound social and economic reforms starting with an agrarian reform, which he considered should be the first measure taken by any revolutionary Latin American government. Close coordination would be necessary between any true people’s army—the unquestionable vanguard in the struggle for full liberation—and the popular masses. Together, they would obtain real independence by confronting the imperialist forces and the false democracies that held power at the time.
In 1961, to counter the Cuban revolution’s undeniable achievements and example, US President Kennedy proposed a program called the Alliance for Progress, which was to provide Latin American countries with funds for promoting their development. Although that program appeared to represent a change in hemispheric relations, it proved to be nothing but a sanitized expression of the historical economic and political hegemony of the United States in the region.
After the failure of the April 1961 Bay of Pigs mercenary attack on Cuba, the United States increasingly focused on Latin America, making foreign aid conditional on the adoption of certain internal measures in each country that would guarantee its subordination to the interests of its northern neighbor. A peace policy for Latin America was implemented that ensured stability to avoid any repetition of the Cuban revolution.
Cuba remained a thorn in Washington’s side—not because it violated any hemispheric agreements, but because it had managed to solve the problems that were unsolved in many other Latin American countries. This was the challenge the United States confronted, Cuba’s example proving to be more dangerous than any form of military action.
Ernesto Che Guevara was the head of the Cuban delegation to the Punta del Este, Uruguay, conference held in 1961 to discuss the Alliance for Progress. He took part in exhausting work sessions and, in his interventions, he not only explained Cuba’s position but exposed the real intentions of the United States, pointing out the real path to development for Latin America.
Against all the hostility Cuba faced at the conference, Che offered support for constructive joint action so the participants in the Punta del Este conference could lay the foundation for a truly progressive plan that would benefit the majority of Latin Americans. Che highlighted the political nature of the conference and its economic dimension, and outlined the necessary parameters for any policy that sought to achieve real economic integration, stating that the real threat was posed by the international monopolies’ determination to control all trade through the free trade associations.
He proposed practical measures such as a development program and the coordination of technical and financial assistance from all industrialized countries, in order to safeguard the interests of the weaker countries, and he urged that all acts of economic aggression by any members against others be outlawed. He also suggested measures to protect Latin American businesses against monopoly competition, to reduce US tariffs on the region’s products and to provide direct investments with no political strings attached.
Cuba’s arguments were ignored, however, and the conference resolutions focused on US economic policy with no consideration given to the requirements of Latin America’s interests.
Che also took up many other issues at the Punta del Este conference. For example, he proposed changes needed in the structure of the relationships of production in order to achieve real progress. For Che, there were only two possible alternatives: the freeing of trade and the implementation of an independent economic policy combined with an independent foreign policy; or engagement in an open struggle to challenge the foreign monopolies directly.
Che insisted that the main effect of imperialist penetration in Latin America had been devastating, characterized by absolute economic backwardness, and the real cause of underdevelopment and of neocolonial dependence. The local oligarchies had failed miserably and had only exacerbated the gap between the wealthy minority and the impoverished mass of the people.
Che was absolutely convinced that the only real alternative at that historical moment of the early 1960s was to confront the enemy through armed struggle. In “Tactics and Strategy for the Latin American Revolution” and “The Cuban Revolution’s Influence in Latin America” (both included in this anthology) he challenged the roots of all Latin America’s social problems and warned that, in a world economically distorted by imperialism, the only solution was a political-military struggle, with the masses’ true vanguard employing correct global strategies and tactics that would lead to their political triumph and victory for Latin America.8
Waging this necessary war, as Martí had postulated, meant taking advantage of the historical context in which it was possible to weaken imperialism’s economic bases, destroy the reactionary oligarchies and to polarize the struggle. Paraphrasing Fidel’s 1960 speech at the United Nations, Che argued “the only way to put an end to the philosophy of war was to cease the philosophy of plunder.”9
Che’s concept of radical social transformation was not limited to Cuba and the interests of the Cuban revolution. His perspective was a Third World one, which had as its ultimate goal the attainment of the full emancipation of all humankind.
Latin American unity was at the heart of Che’s strategy as the only way to achieve first national independence and then the definitive liberation of the entire continent. He considered Latin America to be both the most advanced and the most contradictory part of the Third World.
Before taking part in the armed struggle in the Congo and Bolivia, Che explained his strategy, underlining the inevitable nature of the revolution and expressing his determination to take initiatives that would exacerbate social contradictions so as to pave the way for the people’s participation in the revolution. This had nothing to do with voluntarism and sectarianism because, as he stressed, in the last analysis, the popular masses were the agents of change.
Based on his experience in Cuba, where the revolutionary forces always kept the main enemy (the Batista dictatorship) in sight, he noted that the success of the struggle depended on correct organization, headed by the revolutionary vanguard. He also identified the primary and secondary contradictions existing in the national and international arenas and what needed to be done to lead the process to its final goal: the seizure of power and the transition to socialism.
To guide this process a political-military organization was required, working in a coordinated way with all other revolutionary forces. This strategy was somewhat in contrast to that of the Latin American communist parties, which had tended to separate themselves from the specific realities of Latin America and to focus on promoting a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Che himself would suffer from the sectarian attitude of the general secretary of the Bolivian Communist Party.
Unquestionably, his “Message to the Tricontinental,”10 which summed up his international revolutionary strategy (published when he was already immersed in the struggle in Bolivia), was the most important expression of his Third World thesis. He argued that because imperialism was a world system, the only way revolutionary forces could succeed would be by fighting it on a global scale, eliminating its bases of support and achieving full popular participation.
To Latin America, that forgotten part of the world, he assigned the important task of creating a second or third Vietnam as the only way to solve its problems. He believed it would be a long struggle, the strategic end of which would be the destruction of imperialism.
In that process, in addition to recognizing the prevailing realities in Latin America, it was absolutely necessary to eliminate the division of the world into two large spheres of influence, capitalist and socialist. With courage and acuity, he argued that the socialist countries had a role to play in this strategy and should be ready to make sacrifices in order to contribute to the development of the dependent countries. He warned that they could not remain neutral—either in economic or armed conflicts—because, whatever the outcome, defeat or victory would belong to all. This warning clearly implied that the existing socialist countries had to engage fully with the Third World if they were truly pledged to the world revolutionary struggle.
Che’s views on this were clearly presented in his speech at the Afro-Asian summit held in Algiers in February 1965: “There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death, nor can we remain indifferent to what is going on in any part of the world. The victory of any country over any other nation is a defeat for all. The exercise of proletarian internationalism is not only the duty of the peoples who are fighting to obtain a better future, it is also a need that cannot be ignored. If the United States or any other imperialist enemy acts as an aggressor against the underdeveloped peoples and the socialist countries, a basic logic determines the need for an alliance between the underdeveloped peoples and the socialist countries. Even if there weren’t any other unifying factors, their common enemy would constitute one.”11
From Che’s point of view, this was the starting point of the alliance between the underdeveloped peoples, who were fighting to free themselves from imperialism, and the socialist countries, which were aware that the United States would intervene in any revolutionary process that might emerge—as was, in fact, happening frequently in those years.
With the upsurge in revolutionary movements in Latin America, authoritarian systems were put in place with the full backing of the United States, and societies were militarized or turned into de facto military regimes. This political-military policy was justified by the Cold War “national security” doctrine, directed against the spread of communism in Latin America and elsewhere. The US covert action program against President Árbenz in Guatemala became a model for intervention in other countries. In 1959, the US response to the Cuban revolution was to intensify that strategy and adopt an even more aggressive stance.
As a young man, Che had discovered in Latin America an ideal laboratory for his personal and ideological growth—from his observations of the 1952 Bolivian revolutionary movement, Árbenz’s Guatemala and Fidel’s Cuba, to his final efforts in Bolivia in 1967. His theory about armed struggle represented a break with the prevailing strategy of the Latin American left at the time, dominated by the communist parties that essentially saw a peaceful transition to socialism—something that Che did not exclude, but only where a strong popular movement existed.
Che threw himself into the task of creating and developing a guerrilla nucleus in Bolivia that could control an important part of the territory and become a training ground for guerrilla struggles in other Latin American countries. He felt that his presence—participating in the fighting and proposing guerrilla warfare as a specific political alternative to the status quo—would help to give a Latin American projection to the struggle.
There were significant early victories in Bolivia, in spite of the many detractors—some of whom were based in socialist countries—who denounced the Bolivian campaign and openly condemned Che’s guerrilla warfare strategy.
In his famous diary written in Bolivia, Che describes how he saw the struggle as not just “a rebellion against the oligarchies [but also] against revolutionary dogma,” both of which he thought were key factors hindering any real approach to revolution and which had to be opposed, no matter what some theoretical purists might argue.
Much has and could be said about the heroic actions of Che and his compañeros in Bolivia, but as a young man he summed up the essentially humanistic and ethical dimension of his thinking when he wrote: “Really, I think I have managed to understand it [Latin America], and I feel myself a Latin American with a character different from that of any other people on the face of the earth.”12
Che viewed Latin America’s future—once it had swept away everything holding back its definitive liberation—as “a revolutionary anthem resounding in history and destined to become eternal on the lips of Latin America’s combatants.” His motivation was his astute analysis of the economic, political and social situation that had prevailed for centuries in Latin America.
He knew US imperialism would resort to brute force to prevent any revolutionary movement from developing, but he also pointed out that the historical moment was propitious and that, if the moment was not seized, the political cost would be enormous.
After more than a decade of neoliberalism, many people throughout the world today are seeking a new world order, one that is more rational and just. For Latin America, this is a pressing issue. The path is extremely difficult and dangerous, but it is not impossible if our struggles are focused on what unites us.
Even though today’s world is not the same as Che’s, and solutions might take different forms, Che’s legacy endures as a living historical memory, reminding us that our accumulated history of rebellion, with its many political expressions, is the only way if we are truly determined to achieve a more just and sovereign Latin America.
María del Carmen Ariet García
Research Coordinator
Che Guevara Studies Center
Havana, Cuba
1. Ernesto Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries. Notes on a Latin America Journey (Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press), 2003.
2. Ernesto Che Guevara, Latin America Diaries (Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press), 2011.
3. Ernesto Che Guevara, Latin America Diaries, p. 126.
4. Ernesto Che Guevara, Latin America Diaries, p. 84.
5. Interview with Jorge Ricardo Masetti in Ernesto Che Guevara, Self-Portrait: A Photographic and Literary Memoir (Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press), 2004.
6. Ernesto Che Guevara, “América desde el balcón afroasiático” [Latin America from the Afro-Asian Perspective] is included in this anthology.
7. Interview with Radio Rivadivia, November 3, 1959, in Ernesto Che Guevara, Self-Portrait, p. 172.
8. Ernesto Che Guevara, Che Guevara Reader (Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press) 2003, pp. 294-304.
9. See Che Guevara’s speech to the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, March 1964, in Che Guevara Reader, pp. 305-24.
10. Che Guevara Reader, pp. 350-62.
11. Che Guevara’s speech at the Afro-Asian summit is in Che Guevara Reader, pp. 340-49.
12. Ernesto Che Guevara, Self-Portrait, p. 97.