The Political Theory of Che Guevara

by Llorente, Renzo Tramer

  69. “La necesidad de este libro,” found in Guevara, Apuntes críticos, 31. Two of the letters containing Engels’s arguments are Frederick Engels to W. Borgius, January 25, 1894, in Marx and Engels Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 2004), 50:264–67; and Frederick Engels to Conrad Schmidt, October 27, 1890, in Marx and Engels Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 2001), 49:59–63.

  70. “Memoria Anual 1961–1962,” found in Guevara, El Che en la Revolución cubana, 6:676. This text is undated but appears to have been written in 1962.

  71. For one passage in which Guevara does insist that what is decisive is the workers’ level of enthusiasm, and a passage that also evokes the notion of “permanent revolution,” see “A los ganadores de la emulación de alfabetización,” found in ibid., 3:500.

  72. “A los compañeros argentinos,” found in ibid., 4:218; see also Guevara’s “The Meaning of Socialist Planning,” found in Silverman, Man and Socialism, 101.

  73. “Graduación del curso de administradores,” found in Guevara, El Che en la Revolución cubana, 3:559.

  74. “Clausura del Consejo de la CTC,” found in ibid., 4:131.

  75. “Reunión bimestral, julio 11 de 1964,” found in ibid., 6:491; see also “Acto homenaje a Camilo,” in ibid., 5:260.

  76. Guevara’s “Meaning of Socialist Planning,” found in Silverman, Man and Socialism, 109. More generally, “The miscroscopic [sic] correlations he [Charles Bettelheim] attempts to establish between the level of development of the productive forces and legal property relations in every region or situation are impossible” (ibid., 104).

  77. Ernest Mandel’s “Mercantile Categories in the Period of Transition,” in Silverman, Man and Socialism, 90; emphasis in the original.

  78. “Reunión bimestral, enero 20 de 1962,” found in Guevara, El Che en la Revolución cubana, 6:148.

  79. “Technology and Society,” found in Guevara, Che: Selected Works, 302.

  80. Trotsky’s Results and Prospects, found in “Permanent Revolution,” 99.

  81. Mandel, “El debate económico,” 315. The passage cited in the previous note also serves to illustrate Guevara’s rejection of a mechanistic Marxism.

  82. The words quoted are from González, Che Guevara, 149.

  83. “Interview with Libération,” found in Ernesto Che Guevara, Che Guevara Speaks (New York: Pathfinder Press, 2000), 140.

  84. For brief discussion of some parties’ rejection of revolutionary initiatives, see Anderson, Revolutionary, 596 and 678–79.

  85. Martínez Heredia, “El Che Guevara,” 256–57.

  86. Pedro Vuskovic and Belarmino Elgueta, Che Guevara en el presente de la América Latina (Havana: Ediciones Casa de las Américas, 1987), 36.

  87. “Fragmento de la entrevista concedida al periódico El-Taliah (La Vanguardia) de El Cairo, abril de 1965,” found in Guevara, Apuntes críticos, 427.

  88. Valdés Paz, “Todo es según el color,” 115.

  89. See, for example, “Inauguración fábrica de bujías,” found in Guevara, El Che en la Revolución cubana, 5:155; “Fidel’s trip to New York,” found in Guevara, Che Guevara Speaks, 23; “The OAS Conference at Punta del Este,” found in Guevara, Che Guevara Reader, 253; “At the United Nations,” found in ibid., 337; Borrego, Recuerdos, 113; and the interview with Ulises Estrada Lescaille found in Barrio and Jenkins, The Che Handbook, 344.

  90. Taibo, Ernesto, 358. “Superfluous” is Taibo’s word.

  91. Vitale, Martí, 191.

  92. Guevara, Apuntes filosóficos, 300–1.

  93. Besancenot and Löwy, Che Guevara, 61.

  94. See Ulises Estrada’s brief remarks in the interview with him found in Barrio and Jenkins, Che Handbook, 344.

  95. “Conferencia televisada,” found in Guevara, El Che en la Revolución cubana, 3:45.

  96. “Clausura de la Asamblea de Producción de la Gran Habana,” found in ibid., 3:447.

  97. Besancenot and Löwy, Che Guevara, 72.

  98. Löwy’s prologue to Pericás, Che, 9–10; and Löwy, Marxism, xxvi–xxvii.

  99. See, for example, Monereo, Con su propia cabeza, 116; Farber, Politics, xviii, 84, and 117. See also Juan Valdés Paz’s “Notas para un epílogo,” the epilogue to that book, 124.

  100. “On Economic Planning in Cuba,” found in Guevara, Venceremos!, 222.

  101. Besancenot and Löwy, Che Guevara, 76–77.

  102. See, for example, “On Economic Planning,” found in Guevara, Venceremos!, 224.

  103. Castro, “In Tribute,” 26.

  104. Randall, Che, 17.

  105. For the story of Guevara’s continuing education in mathematics, see Héctor Hernández Pardo, “¿ . . . Cuándo empezamos?,” in Testimonios sobre el Che, ed. Marta Rojas (Havana: Editorial Pablo de la Torriente and Ediciones Aurelia, 2006).

  Bibliography

  Works by Ernesto Che Guevara

  Guevara, Ernesto Che. Apuntes críticos a la economía política. Edited by María del Carmen Ariet García. Melbourne: Ocean Sur, 2006.

  ———. Apuntes filosóficos. Edited by María del Carmen Ariet García. Mexico City: Ocean Sur, 2012.

  ———. The Bolivian Diary. Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press, 2006.

  ———. Carta a Miguel A. Quevedo, Director de la Revista Bohemia, 23 de mayo de 1959. In Che desde la memoria, edited by Víctor Casaus, 210. Havana, Melbourne, and New York: Centro de Estudios Che Guevara and Ocean Press, 2004.

  ———. Che Guevara Reader. Edited by David Deutschmann. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003.

  ———. Che Guevara Speaks. New York: Pathfinder Press, 2000.

  ———. Che Guevara Talks to Young People. Edited by Mary-Alice Waters. New York: Pathfinder Press, 2000.

  ———. Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara. Edited by Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdés. Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press, 1969.

  ———. “Conferencia ofrecida por el Comandante Guevara a los estudiantes de la carrera de Economía de la Universidad de Oriente.” Utopías, Nuestra Bandera 184, no. 1 (2000): 153-81.

  ———. Congo Diary: Episodes of the Revolutionary War in the Congo. North Melbourne, Au.: Ocean Press, 2011.

  ———. “Cuba and the U.S.” Interview by Leo Huberman. Monthly Review 13, no. 5 (1961). http://monthlyreview.org/1961/09/01/cuba-and-the-u-s/.

  ———. “Cuba Will Continue to Call Things by Their Right Names. Reply to General Assembly Debate, December 11, 1964.” In To Speak the Truth: Why Washington’s “Cold War” against Cuba Doesn’t End, Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, 145–58. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992.

  ———. El Che en la Revolución cubana. 7 volumes. Havana: Editorial Ministerio del Azúcar, 1966.

  ———. Escritos y discursos. 9 volumes. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977.

  ———. Guerrilla Warfare. Translated by J. P. Morray. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.

  ———. “An Interview with ‘Che’ Guevara, Cuban Minister of Industries, 14 September 1961.” Interview by Maurice Zeitlin. In Cuba: An American Tragedy, edited by Robert Scheer and Maurice Zeitlin, 337–46. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1964.

  ———. Interview with Face the Nation. CBS Television Network. December 13, 1964. Transcript available online at https://guevaristas.org/2016/07/15/interview-of-che-guevara-on-cbs-face-the-nation-transcriptvideo/.

  ———. “La conferencia de prensa del nueve de agosto en el Playa Hotel.” In Para dar vuelta el mate: 1961, Ernesto Che Guevara en Uruguay, 1:319–59. Edited by Asdrúbal Pereira Cabrera. Havana: Editora Política, 2012.

  ———. “‘Pueblo de Bolivia; Pueblos de América’: Una primera proclama inconclusa del Che.” In El Che en Bolivia: Documentos y testimonios; los otros diarios, 2:188–89, edited by Carlos Soria Galvarro Terán. La Paz: La Razón, 2005.


  ———. “Qué es un ‘guerrillero.’” In Obras 1957–1967, 1:153–56. Havana: Casa de Las Américas, 1970.

  ———. Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara. Edited by John Gerassi. London: Panther Books Ltd., 1969.

  Other Works Cited

  Acosta Hechavarría, Roberto. “An Interview with Roberto Acosta Hechavarría.” By Tano Nariño. Translated by Gary Tennant and John Sullivan. In “The Hidden Pearl of the Caribbean,” Revolutionary History 7, no. 3 (2000): 243–51.

  Ainsworth, Kelly. “Ernesto (Che) Guevara de la Serna.” In Biographical Dictionary of Marxism, edited by Robert A. Gorman, 124–26. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986.

  Almeida, Juan, et al. Che siempre. Donostia (San Sebastián), Sp.: Tercera Prensa-Hirugarren Prentsa, S.L., 1997.

  Alonso, Aurelio. “El pensamiento revolucionario es invariablemente crítico.” Interview with Pedro de La Hoz. In Como el primer día, edited by Pedro de La Hoz, 21–27. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2008.

  Álvarez Batista, Gerónimo. Che: Una nueva batalla. Havana: Editorial Pablo de la Torriente, 1994.

  Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. London: Bantam Books, 1997.

  Arboleya Cervera, Jesús. El otro terrorismo: Medio siglo de política de los Estados Unidos hacia Cuba. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2009.

  Arcos Bergnes, Ángel. Evocando al Che. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007.

  Ariet García, María del Carmen. El pensamiento político de Ernesto Che Guevara. Mexico City: Ocean Sur, 2010.

  Arneson, Richard J. “Is Work Special? Justice and the Distribution of Employment.” American Political Science Review 84, no. 4 (1990): 1127–47.

  Arrosagaray, Enrique. Rodolfo Walsh en Cuba: Agencia Prensa Latina, militancia, ron y criptografía. Buenos Aires: Catálogos, 2004.

  Báez, Luis. Más esperanza que fe: Revelaciones de Roberto Fernández Retamar. Havana: Casa Editora Abril, 2006.

  ———. “No te puedes separar de Fidel.” Interview by Pedro de La Hoz. In Como el primer día, edited by Pedro de La Hoz, 43–50. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2008.

  Barker, Ronald. “Internationalism.” In Dictionary of Theories, edited by Jennifer Bothamley, 282–83. London, Detroit, and Washington, DC: Gale Research International Ltd., 1993.

  Barrio, Hilda, and Gareth Jenkins. The Che Handbook. London: MQ Publications, Ltd., 2003.

  Benn, Stanley I. “Egalitarianism and the Equal Consideration of Interests.” In Equality (Nomos IX), edited by J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, 61–78. New York: Atherton Press, 1967.

  Besancenot, Oliver, and Michael Löwy. Che Guevara: His Revolutionary Legacy. Translated by James Membrez. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009.

  Black, George. The Good Neighbor: How the United States Wrote the History of Central America and the Caribbean. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.

  Bolender, Keith. Voices from the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism against Cuba. London and New York: Pluto Press, 2010.

  Borrego, Orlando. “Álvaro Vargas Llosa Jr.: Un vástago al descubierto.” Rebelión, November 21, 2005. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=23017.

  ———. Che: El camino del fuego. 2nd ed. Havana: Imagen Contemporánea, 2011.

  ———. Che: Recuerdos en ráfaga. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2004.

  ———. Preface to Guevara, El Che en la Revolución cubana, vol. 1. Havana: Editorial Ministerio del Azúcar, 1966.

  Bottomore, T. B. Introduction to Karl Marx: Early Writings, translated and edited by T. B. Bottomore, vii–xix. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

  Bottomore, Tom, ed. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. 2nd ed. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 1991.

  Bullock Alan. “Guevara de la Serna, Ernesto (Che).” In Twentieth-Century Culture: A Biographical Companion, edited by Alan Bullock and R. B. Woodings, 293–94. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1983.

  Bychkova, N., R. Lavrov, and V. Lubisheva, eds. Communist Morality. Moscow: Progress Publishers, n.d.

  Carens, Joseph H. Equality, Moral Incentives, and the Market: An Essay in Utopian Politico-Economic Theory. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.

  Castañeda, Jorge G. Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara. Translated by Marina Castañeda. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

  Castro, Fidel. “Discurso pronunciado como conclusión de las reuniones con los intelectuales cubanos, Biblioteca Nacional ‘José Martí.’” In Habla Fidel: 25 discursos en la Revolución, edited by Pedro Álvarez Tabío, 195–229. Havana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 2008.

  ———. “Discurso pronunciado por el Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, primer ministro del Gobierno Revolucionario y primer secretario del PCC, en el Acto Clausura.” In Tricontinental/1966, 149–61. Havana: Secretaría General de la O.S.P.A.A.A.L., 1966.

  ———. “In Tribute to Che.” In Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, by Ernesto Che Guevara, translated by Victoria Ortiz, 15–27. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1969.

  ———. “Las ideas del Che son de una vigencia absolua y total.” In El pensamiento económico de Ernesto Che Guevara, by Carlos Tablada, 77–103. Panama City: Ruth Casa Editorial, 2005.

  Cohen, G. A. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

  Cushion, Stephen. A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class Shaped the Guerrillas’ Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2016.

  Del Río, Eugenio. “Influencia de Che Guevara en la Europa occidental de los años setenta.” In Disentir, resistir: Entre dos épocas, 21–31. Madrid: Talasa Ediciones, S.L., 2001.

  Deutscher, Isaac. “On Socialist Man.” In Marxism in Our Time, edited by Tamara Deutscher, 227–54. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1971.

  Díaz, Elena, and Delia Luisa López. “Ernesto Che Guevara: Aspectos de su pensamiento ético.” In Pensar al Che, 2:135–96, edited by Alfredo Prieto González. Havana: Editorial José Martí, 1989.

  Draper, Hal. The “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” from Marx to Lenin. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987.

  Elster, Jon. Making Sense of Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

  Engels, Frederick. Anti-Dühring. In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 25:5–309. New York: International Publishers, 1987.

  ———. Frederick Engels to Conrad Schmidt, October 27, 1890. In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 49:57–65. New York: International Publishers, 2001.

  ———. Frederick Engels to W. Borgius, January 25, 1894. In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 50:264–67. New York: International Publishers, 2004.

  ———. “Introduction to Karl Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital.” In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 27:194–201. New York: International Publishers, 1990.

  ———. “Karl Marx’s Funeral.” In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 24:467–71. New York: International Publishers, 1989.

  ———. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 26:357–98. New York: International Publishers, 1990.

  ———. “Principles of Communism.” In Marx and Engels Collected Works, 6:341–57. New York: International Publishers, 1976.

  Escalante Font, Fabián. Operación exterminio: 50 años de agresiones contra Cuba. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2010.

  Farber, Samuel. The Politics of Che Guevara: Theory and Practice. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016.

  Fernández Buey, Francisco. “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, ayer y hoy.” Introduction to Escritos revolucionarios, by Ernesto Che Guevara, edited by Francisco Fernández Buey, 7–22. Madrid: Libros de la Catarata, 1999.

  Fernández Retamar, Roberto. Cuba defendida. Buenos Aires: Nuestra América Editorial, 2004.

  —
——. Entrevisto. Havana: Ediciones Unión, 1982.

  Fornet, Ambrosio. “La década prodigiosa: Un testimonio personal.” In Narrar la nación: Ensayos en blanco y negro, 353–63. Havana: Letras Cubanas, 2011.

  Fromm, Erich, ed. Socialist Humanism. London: Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 1967.

  Galeano, Eduardo. “El Che Guevara: Cuba como vitrina o catapulta.” In Nosotros decimos no: Crónicas (1963/1988), 53–63. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores, S.A., 1989.

  Galeano, Eduardo, and Tomás Borge. “Eduardo y Tomás, robles de raíz milenaria.”

  Gálvez Rodríguez, William. Che en Cuba: El guerrillero. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007.

  ———. El guerrillero heroico: Che en Bolivia. Arrigorriaga, Spain: Status Ediciones, S.L.: 2003.

  ———. “Um exemplo superior.” Interview by Viriato Teles. In A utopia segundo Che Guevara, by Viriato Teles, 157–69. Porto: Campo das Letras, 2005.

  Geras, Norman. Marx and Human Nature. London: Verso, 1983.

  González, Mike. Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution. London and Sydney: Bookmarks, 2004.

  Guerra, Sergio, and Alejo Maldonado. Historia de la Revolución cubana. Tafalla, Sp.: Txalaparta, 2009.

  Habel, Janette. “Guevara: La ética en el combate político.” El Viejo Topo 110 (1997): 14–23.

  Halperin, Maurice. The Taming of Fidel Castro. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1981.

  Hernández Pardo, Héctor. “¿ . . . Cúando empezamos?” In Testimonios sobre el Che, edited by Marta Rojas, 173–79. Havana: Editorial Pablo de la Torriente and Ediciones Aurelia, 2006.

  Hernández, Rafael, Marta Gloria Morales, Omar Everleny Pérez, Manuel Pérez Paredes, and Manuel Yepe. “1968: Una mirada retrospectiva.” In Último jueves: Los debates de Temas, 4:91–109. Havana: Ediciones ICAIC and Revista Temas, 2010.