The Awakening of Latin America

by Ernesto Che Guevara

  The dilemma of our time, regarding how power should be seized, has not escaped the attention of Yankee imperialists. They also want a “peaceful transition.” They favor the liquidation of the old feudal structures still existing in Latin America and want to ally with the most advanced sectors of the national bourgeoisies, carrying out some monetary reforms, some reform in the land structure, and a moderate industrialization, preferably in consumer goods, with technology and raw materials imported from the United States.

  The perfected formula consists of allying the national bourgeoisie with foreign interests; together they create new industries in the country, setting up tariff advantages in these industries of such magnitude that they permit the total exclusion of competition from other imperialist countries. Profits obtained in this manner can be taken out of the country with protection afforded by the many loopholes in exchange regulations.

  Through this new and more intelligent system of exploitation, the “nationalist” country assumes the role of protecting US interests—setting up tariffs that allow extra profit, which the North Americans re-export to their country. Naturally, the sale price of articles, without competition, is fixed by the monopolies.

  All of this is reflected in the projects of the Alliance for Progress, which are nothing more than imperialist attempts to block the development of the revolutionary conditions of the people by sharing a small quantity of the profits with the native exploiting classes, thus making them into firm allies against the highly exploited classes. In other words, they suppress the internal contradictions of the capitalist system as much as possible.

  As we mentioned previously, there are no forces in America capable of intervening in this economic struggle, and therefore the game of imperialism is very simple. The only possibility left is the spontaneous development of the European Common Market, under German leadership, which could reach an economic strength sufficient to compete with Yankee capitalists in this region. But the development of contradictions and their violent resolution is so rapid and so explosive today that it appears that Latin America will much earlier become the battlefield of exploiters and exploited than the scene of an economic struggle between two imperialisms.

  It should be said that the plans of the Alliance for Progress will not materialize because objective conditions and the consciousness of the masses have matured too far for them to fall into such a naive trap.

  The decisive factor today is whether the imperialist-Creole-bourgeois front is consistent. During the recent OAS vote there were no discordant voices on fundamental problems and only a few governments tried to cover up their shame with legalistic formulas, without denouncing the aggressive tendency of these resolutions, which are contrary to law.

  The fact that Cuba had nuclear missiles served as a pretext for all to side with the United States; the Bay of Pigs did not produce any different response. They know very well that these are defensive weapons, they also know who the aggressor is.

  Even though they do not say so, the fact is that they all recognize the true danger posed by the Cuban revolution. The most submissive countries and consequently, the most cynical, talk about the threat of Cuban subversion, and they are right. The greatest threat of the Cuban revolution is its own example, its revolutionary ideas, the fact that the government has been able to increase the combativity of the people, led by a leader of world stature, to heights seldom equaled in history.

  Here is the electrifying example of a people prepared to suffer nuclear immolation so that its ashes may serve as a foundation for new societies. When an agreement was reached by which the nuclear missiles were removed, without asking our people, we were not relieved or thankful for the truce; instead we denounced the move in our own voice. We have demonstrated our firm stand, our own position, our decision to fight, even if alone, against all dangers and against the nuclear menace of Yankee imperialism.

  This causes other peoples to stir. They hear the call of the new voice emanating from Cuba, stronger than all fears, lies or prejudices, stronger than hunger and all the techniques used to try and destroy our people. It is stronger than the fear of any reprisal, the most barbarous punishment, the cruelest death, or the most bestial oppression of the exploiters. A new voice, clear and precise, has sounded in every corner of Our America.

  That has been our mission and we have fulfilled it, and we shall continue to fulfill it with all the decisiveness of our revolutionary convictions.

  We could ask: Is this the only road? Why not utilize the imperialist contradictions? Why not seek the backing of the bourgeois sectors that have been struck and humiliated by imperialism? Could we not find a less severe, less self-destructive formula than this Cuban position? Is it not possible to ensure Cuba’s survival through a combination of force and diplomatic maneuvers? We answer: When faced with brute force, use force and determination; when faced by those who want to destroy you, you can only reply with the will to fight to the very last person in order to defend yourselves.

  This formula is valid for all of Latin America in the face of those who want to remain in power, against the will of the people, at any cost. Fire and blood must be used until the last exploiter has been annihilated.

  How can the revolution be carried out in Latin America? Let us listen again to the Second Declaration of Havana:

  In our countries two circumstances are linked: underdeveloped industry and a feudal agrarian system. No matter how hard the living conditions of the urban workers are, the rural population lives under even worse conditions of oppression and exploitation. With few exceptions, the rural population also constitutes the absolute majority, sometimes more than 70 percent of the population in the Latin American countries.

  Not counting the landowners, who often live in the cities, this great mass earns its livelihood by working for miserable wages as peons on plantations. They till the soil under conditions of exploitation no different from those of the Middle Ages. These circumstances determine in Latin America that the poor rural population constitutes a tremendous potential revolutionary force.

  The armies in Latin America are set up and equipped for conventional warfare. They are the force through which the power of the exploiting classes is maintained. When they are confronted with the irregular warfare of peasants based on their home ground, they become absolutely powerless; they lose 10 men for every revolutionary fighter who falls. Demoralization among them mounts rapidly when they are beset by an invisible and invincible army that provides them with no opportunity to display their military academy tactics and their military fanfare, of which they boast so heavily, and which they use to repress the city workers and students.

  The initial struggle of the small fighting units is constantly nurtured by new forces; the mass movement begins to grow bold, bit by bit the old order breaks into a thousand pieces, and that is when the working class and the urban masses decide the battle.

  What is it that from the very beginning of the fight makes these units invincible, regardless of the numbers, strength and resources of their enemies? It is the people’s support, and they can count on ever-increasing mass support.

  The peasantry, however, is a class that because of the ignorance in which it has been kept and the isolation in which it lives, requires the revolutionary and political leadership of the working class and the revolutionary intellectuals. It cannot launch the struggle and achieve victory alone.

  In the present historical conditions of Latin America, the national bourgeoisie cannot lead the antifeudal and anti-imperialist struggle. Experience demonstrates that in our nations this class—even when its interests clash with those of Yankee imperialism—has been incapable of confronting imperialism, paralyzed by fear of social revolution and frightened by the clamor of the exploited masses.

  That is what the Second Declaration of Havana says and it can be viewed as an outline of revolution in Latin America. We cannot think of alliances that are not entirely led by the working class, we cannot think of collaboration with
a frightened and treacherous bourgeoisie that destroys the forces on which it based itself to attain power. The weapons must be in the hands of the people and all of Latin America must become a battlefield. The peasants have to fight for their land, the oppressor must be killed mercilessly in ambushes, and the revolutionary must fight and die with honor. This is what counts.

  This is the panorama of Latin America, a continent preparing to fight, and the sooner the people take up arms and bring their machetes down on the landowners, industrialists, bankers and all exploiters, as well as their main instrument, the oppressor army, the better.

  Whether guerrilla action should always be the tactic or whether it is feasible to institute other actions as the central axis of the struggle can be argued at length. Our opposition to using any other tactic in Latin America is based on two arguments:

  First: Accepting as truth the statement that the enemy will fight to stay in power, one must think in terms of the destruction of the oppressor army. In order to destroy it, a people’s army must be raised to oppose it directly. This army will not spring up spontaneously; it will have to arm itself with the weapons taken from the enemy’s arsenal, and this implies a very long and hard struggle in which the popular forces and their leaders will always be exposed to attack from superior forces, without adequate conditions for defense and maneuverability. On the other hand, a guerrilla nucleus established in favorable terrain guarantees the security and permanence of the revolutionary command and the urban contingents can be directed from this central command of the people’s army. They can carry out actions of incalculable importance.

  The eventual destruction of urban groups will not destroy the soul of the revolution; its leadership, from its rural bastion, will continue catalyzing the revolutionary spirit of the masses and organizing new forces for other battles.

  Second: The continental character of the struggle. Can we conceive of this new epoch in the emancipation of Latin America as the contest between two local forces struggling for power over a given territory? Obviously not. It will be a fight to the death between all the popular forces and all the repressive forces.

  The Yankees will intervene because of shared interests and because the struggle in Latin America is decisive. They will intervene with all of their resources and will also turn all available destructive weapons on the popular forces. They will not allow revolutionary power to consolidate itself, and if it succeeds in doing so, they will attack it again and again. They will not recognize defeat and will try to divide the revolutionary forces, introducing saboteurs of every kind. They will try to destroy the new state economically; in a word, they will try to annihilate it.

  Given this overall panorama of Latin America, we find it difficult to believe that victory can be achieved in one isolated country. The union of repressive forces must be countered with the unity of the popular forces. In every country where oppression reaches the limits of tolerance, the banner of rebellion must be raised, and this banner will, of historical necessity, be continental in character. The Andean cordillera is destined to be the Sierra Maestra of the Americas, as Fidel has said, and all the immense territories of this continent are destined to be the scene of a struggle to death against imperialist power.

  We cannot say when the struggle will take on these continental characteristics or how long it will last, but we can predict its coming, for it is the product of historical, political and economic circumstances. Its advance cannot be stopped.

  Faced with these continental tactics and strategy, some people offer limited formulas: minor election campaigns; an election victory here or there; two deputies, a senator, four mayors; a large popular demonstration broken up by gunfire; an election lost by fewer votes than the preceding one; one labor strike won, 10 strikes lost; one step forward, 10 steps back. And then, at any given moment, the rules of the game are changed and one has to start all over again.

  Why such formulas? Why such weakening of the people’s energies? There is only one reason: Among the progressive forces of some Latin American nations there exists a terrible confusion between tactical and strategic objectives. Small tactical positions have been interpreted as great strategic objectives. One must credit the reactionary forces with the success of having forced their class enemy to make minimal offensive positions their fundamental objective.

  When and where these grave errors occur, the people organize their legions year after year to achieve gains which cost them immense sacrifices and do not have the least value. There are, for example, parliaments, legal strikes, salary increases, bourgeois constitutions, the liberation of a popular figure... and worst of all, in order to gain these positions one must enter into the political games of the bourgeois state. In order to get permission to play this dangerous game one must show that one is a good child, that one is not dangerous, that one would never think of assaulting army garrisons or trains, destroying bridges, or bringing revolutionary justice to hired thugs or torturers, or going to the mountains. One cannot state resolutely the only and violent affirmation of Latin America: the final struggle for her redemption.

  Latin America offers a contradictory picture. There are progressive forces which are not up to the level of those they lead—the masses, who can rise to unknown heights and who boil with a desire to act, and leaders who frustrate those desires. The catastrophe is almost upon us and the people have no fear; they try to move toward the moment of sacrifice, which will mean the definitive achievement of redemption. The educated and prudent ones, on the other hand, put all available brakes on the movement of the masses, attempting to divert the irrepressible yearnings of the masses for the great strategic objectives: the taking of political power, the annihilation of the army and the destruction of the system of exploitation of human beings by others. The picture is contradictory but full of hope because the masses know that “the role of Job is not for the revolutionary,” so they prepare for battle.

  Will imperialism continue to lose one position after another or will it, in its bestiality and as it threatened not long ago, launch a nuclear attack and engulf the entire world in a nuclear holocaust? We cannot say. We do assert, however, that we must follow the road of liberation even though it may cost millions of nuclear war victims. In the struggle to death between two systems we cannot think of anything but the final victory of socialism or its relapse as a consequence of the nuclear victory of imperialist aggression.

  Cuba is on the brink of an invasion, threatened by the most powerful imperialist forces of the world, and as such, threatened with nuclear annihilation. From its trench, refusing to retreat, Cuba issues a call to arms to all of Latin America. This is a struggle that will not be decided in a few minutes or an hour of terrible battle. The end of the struggle will take years of bitter encounters causing atrocious suffering. The attack of the allied imperialist and bourgeois forces will time and again force the popular movements to the brink of destruction, but those movements will always come back strengthened by the support of the people until total liberation is achieved.

  From here, from its lonely vanguard trench, our people make their voices heard. This is not the song of a revolution heading for defeat; it is a revolutionary anthem destined to be sung eternally from the lips of Latin American fighters. It will be echoed by history.

  El Patojo

  Julio Roberto Cáceres Valle, known as “El Patojo” because he was very short in stature, was a Guatemalan who left Guatemala with Che and went with him to Mexico. Cáceres moved to Cuba after the triumph of the Cuban revolution and lived there until he joined the struggle to liberate his own country, a struggle in which he was killed in combat. This portrait of his friend was first published in Verde Olivo magazine on August 19, 1962, and later included in Che’s Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War.2

  A few days ago a cable brought the news of the death of some Guatemalan patriots, among them Julio Roberto Cáceres Valle.

  In this difficult profession of a revolutionary, in the midst of class wars th
at are convulsing the entire continent, death is a frequent accident. But the death of a friend, a compañero during difficult hours and someone who had shared dreams of better times, is always painful for the person who receives the news, and Julio Roberto was a great friend. He was short and frail; for that reason we called him El Patojo, Guatemalan slang meaning “Shorty” or “Kid.”

  El Patojo had witnessed the birth of our revolution while in Mexico and had volunteered to join us. Fidel, however, did not want to bring any more foreigners into that struggle for national liberation in which I had the honor to participate.

  A few days after the revolution triumphed, El Patojo sold his few belongings and, with only a small suitcase, turned up in Cuba. He worked in various branches of public administration, and he was the first head of personnel of the Department of Industrialization of INRA [National Institute of Agrarian Reform]. But he was never happy with his work. El Patojo was looking for something different; he was seeking the liberation of his own country. The revolution had changed him profoundly, as it had all of us. The bewildered young man who had left Guatemala without fully understanding the defeat had now become the fully conscious revolutionary.

  The first time we met we were on a train, fleeing Guatemala, a couple of months after the [1954] fall of Árbenz. We were going to Tapachula, from where we could reach Mexico City. El Patojo was several years younger than I, but we immediately formed a lasting friendship. Together we made the trip from Chiapas to Mexico City; together we faced the same problems—we were both penniless, defeated and forced to earn a living in an indifferent if not hostile environment. El Patojo had no money and I only a few pesos; I bought a camera and, together, we undertook the illegal job of taking pictures of people in the city parks. Our partner was a Mexican who had a small darkroom where we developed the film. We got to know all of Mexico City, walking from one end to another, delivering the atrocious photographs we had taken. We battled with all kinds of clients, trying to convince them that the little boy in the photo was really very cute and it was really a great bargain to pay a Mexican peso for such a marvel. This is how we ate for several months. Little by little the contingencies of revolutionary life separated us. I have already said that Fidel did not want to bring him to Cuba, not because of any shortcomings he might have had, but to avoid turning our army into a mosaic of nationalities.