Che Guevara, like all revolutionaries, indeed all people, had both his strong and his weak points. Undoubtedly his strong points were his unwavering commitment internationalism and world revolution. However I would also argue that his biggest mistake was his particular theory and application of guerrilla warfare.
He erred primarily in this when he attempted to export the model that brought the Cuban revolution to power to the rest of the world, in other words, to try and make it into a general application.
Marxists have always conceived the guerrilla war, which is by its nature the style of warfare of the peasantry, as an auxiliary of the workers struggle. This position was first articulated by Marx during his analysis of the German revolution of 1848. He argued that the revolution could only succeed if the movement of the workers in the towns could draw behind it the peasant masses.
This position is not only relevant to the most advanced of the capitalist countries. This is perhaps best illustrated by the Russian Revolution, where the industrial working class represented no more than 10% of the total population. Despite this fact The Bolsheviks always argued that the working class had to place itself at the head of the nation and lead the peasants and other oppressed layers behind them. This model would play out to success as the proletariat commanded the leading role in the Russian revolution, drawing behind itself the multi-millioned mass of poor peasants - the natural ally of the proletariat.
It has always been central to revolutionary Marxist thought that the only class able to lead a successful revolution to overthrow capitalism is the working-class. No reference or hint at the possibility that the peasantry can bring about a socialist revolution can be found in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg or others. The reason for that is the extreme heterogeneity of the peasantry as a class. It is divided into many layers, from the landless labourers (who are really rural proletarians) to the more well off who employ other peasants as wage labourers. They do not have a common interest and therefore cannot play an independent role in society. One has to look no further than Mao who came to power at the head of a massive peasant army, only to fail to implement socialism in China, instead opting for a re-packaging of Menshevist stagism (new democracy then socialism then communism) and only expropriated the capitalists when it became political apt for him to do so.
Guerrilla war can only act as a useful auxiliary to the worker's movement, and this was precisely Lenin's position during the revolutionary upsurge in 1905. While Lenin insisted that armed struggle must be part of the revolutionary mass movement, he specified the conditions in which it was permissible:
- the sentiments of the masses be taken into account;
- the conditions of the working class movement in the given locality be reckoned with
- care be taken that the forces of the proletariat should not be frittered away.
He also took the time to make it clear that far from being a revolutionary cure-all, the guerrilla war was only one of many possible methods of struggle, and he thought it only permissible "at a time when the mass movement has actually reached the point of an uprising".
The danger of degeneration inherent in such activity becomes clear the moment the guerrilla groups are isolated from the mass movement (take for example the FARC-EP in Colombia or the Shinning Path in Peru, both of which seem to care little for the mass amount of damage they cause to the very people they claim to be fighting for).
In the period 1905-06, the revolutionary movement did include an element of guerrilla warfare. However, the fighting squads were always closely linked to the wider workers' organizations. Partisan groups were used for the purpose of defence against pogromists and the Black Hundred (proto-fascists) gangs. They also helped to protect meetings against police raids, where the presence of armed workers' detachments was frequently an important factor in preventing violence.
The primary motive behind the guerrilla detachments was to act as auxiliaries to the mass movement (that is, in the course of the revolutionary upswing), in this sense they played a useful and progressive role. But, as we have already discussed, wherever and whenever the guerrillas were separated from the mass revolutionary movement, they had a tendency towards degeneration, allowing all kinds of shady and criminal elements to infiltrate them, at times becoming almost indistinguishable from groups of bandits. With this tendency in mind, Lenin very much so saw ascounter-productive any move to prolong their existence.
Che wrote a number of articles and books on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare. The experience of the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatamala by a CIA backed coup had made a lasting impression on him. He concluded that the ruling-class, the bourgeoisie, could only be overthrown by an armed insurrection, and history has proved his assumption to be quite correct. All history has shown that no ruling-class has ever surrendered its power and privileges before a mass rally of pacifist activists. Revolutionary Marxists are almost always not pacifists. The masses must be prepared to fight and to use whatever force is necessary to disarm their oppressors. To paraphrase Marx, force is the midwife of history.
In one of his more well-known books, Guerrilla Warfare, he attempts, as was stated before, to take the Cuban model of revolution international. In this model a small group (called a foco) of revolutionaries carries out an armed insurrection. The main problem with the focalism concept is that it relied on the notion of being able to create popular support for the guerrillas on the fly. This flies in the face of past revolutionary experience where the armed struggle only came into being during such a time when popular support for such action already existed. The theory postulates that there is no need to wait for the "objective conditions" of a popular uprising to engage the last stage of the revolutionary struggle (i.e. armed struggle). In other words, a small group of revolutionaries was considered to be enough to jumpstart a revolution since this group could begin the revolutionary struggle while at the same time developing the conditions necessary for popular support for the revolution. Guevara also stated that the guerrillas were to be supported by conventional armed forces:
"It is well established that guerrilla warfare constitutes one of the phases of war; this phase can not, on its own, lead to victory."
However, still the Foco was meant to be the spark that would set the revolution off. The development of a mass movement within the peasants and workers, and the use of standard forces would all come later, after the foco has established a revolutionary struggle.
This is ultimately why his theory failed when put into practice, and it is a failure that has been tragically, and bloodily shown time and time again, beginning with his own failure in the Congo, and his own demise in Bolivia. The reason for the success of the Cuban Revolution is that it took the imperialists by surprise, they had not planned for the possibility that the guerrillas would succeed in overthrowing Batista.
The imperialists made a mistake, it is as simple as that. After the success of the Cuban revolution they learned from their first hand experience. After the revolution the imperialists would no longer be taken by surprise, they studied intensely theory of guerrilla warfare, including the writings of Che Guevara and others such Mao Zedong. And when Che tried reached out and tried again, they were ready for him, and he was crushed. As soon as the first guerrilla group was created, as there was no preexisting popular support, the imperialists intervened and were able to easily obliterate it. The preparation and anticipation of the imperialists did not give the guerrillas time to establish a base, and this the true flaw of requiring the popular support for the movement to be created during the heat of the battle. Should the foco's have waited until such a time that the situation was ripe for revolution, rather than trying to force it, it is likely that they would not have been so easy to defeat. This is what happened in every case, from the Congo to Bolivia. It sealed the fate of Che and his comrades - and many others who attempted his theories later own later on.
It was truly one of the greatest tragedies in the history revolutionary movements, that an entire generation of courageous young men and women in Latin America, Africa and Asia were lost as a result of a futile attempt to copy a tactic that had succeeded only because of a peculiar set of circumstances which could not be artificially transplanted to other counties with different conditions. In other countries, from Argentina, to Uruguay, to Mexico and Venezuela attempts were made to mechanically imitate the methodology of the Cubans, all of which led to bloody defeats.
In every case where the attempt was made to emulate these tactics they ended in bloody failure and savage reaction. The ultimate cost was that the greater revolutionary movement lost thousands of young cadres who could have played an important role in developing a mass revolutionary movement based in the factories and villages (which could have precipitated a successful uprising). This is the most heavy blow to the legacy of Che Guevara. As I said at the beginning it is the negative side of his legacy, the part that is seized upon by ultra-leftists who are incapable of understanding the real positive legacy of this great revolutionary and only repeat his mistakes. This is the worst injustice that can be done to his memory
In Solidarity
8 comments:
I have to take issue with some of your assertions. To begin with, you seem over essentialize Guevara's method into foquismo. While this may have been his most controversial tenet, his tactics and strategy were much more comprehensive. You also say that Che thought that armed insurrection was the only means of achieving change when he in fact said that it was to be used only when all other methods had proved futile.
You claim "The reason for the success of the Cuban Revolution is that it took the imperialists by surprise," but you neglect to mention that there was a large mass movement in Cuban, particularly in urban areas which contributed to the fall of Batista and the success of Castro's army. Certainly it did take America by surprise and they learned their lesson after that.
I think Che failed to understand the uniqueness of the Cuban situation and failed to export it unadapted, but it was more complicated that that. What about Nicaragua? His method or rather the method of guerrilla warfare worked there.
I could go on and on but maybe I will write a counter post, excerpting my critical book review of Guerrilla Warfare.
A counter-post would be a great idea.
It was always my interpretation that the foco was the central concept to his strategy.
Yes there was a mass movement in Cuba, in fact it was a general strike that eventually was the death knell to the Batista regime, but this only came after the guerrilla's, lead by Che, victory in Santa Clara.
In Cuba, the situation became reversed from what Lenin advised, because rather than the guerrillas playing an auxiliary role to the mass movement, it was the mass movement that played an auxiliary role to the guerrillas.
Yes it did succeed in Nicaragua, and I'll admit I forgot all about the FSLN, but if we take a look at other examples, the Congo, Venezuela, Argentina, El Salvador and Uruguay we can see that Che's model failed to be exported to other countries with other conditions. Almost none of these groups had political or civilian counter-parts, such as political parties, and in fact most of them only turned into parties after the failure of the guerrilla war, if they survived.
Further, if we look at groups like the FARC-EP, which claim to use Che's tactics, while they still exist, they have never succeeded in destroying the capitalists, and have even become the poster child for the degeneration Lenin warned of.
In my view the EZLN, rather than Che should serve as the model for an ideal post-modern revolutionary guerrilla group.
Also, don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to say that Guerrilla warfare was bad, only that Che's particular theory and practice of it was incorrect.
Foquismo is commonly identified as central to Guevarism, which in many ways it is. But as I argue it is not the only thing that can be gleaned from his writings. Foquismo is kinda of silly in that it posit that a revolutionary movement can create the conditions for revolution, but that there must be a necessary minimum already in place. So it sort of contradicts itself.
El Salvador was kinda doomed from the beginning as by the time that the FMLN formed, the FSLN had already taken power. Once "America's backyard" was threatened that the forces of imperialism really cracked down and threw tons of support at stopping that same thing from happening in El Salvador.
The Congo was already in the midst of a post-colonial civil war and I think that Castro was a little too eager to gain a foot hold on the continent.
As for the other examples you cite, I am not sure what attempted revolutions you are referring to. In Uruguay and Argentina, the only movements that I am aware of were urban guerrilla groups which were not adherents to Guevara's theories.
I agree with you and have argued in my academic work that attempts to translate but not transform the Cuban model in other countries is, as they say a bit problematic.
The FARC is a whole 'nother can of worms, about which I know little. When I found out that they masquerade as communists, I was dumbfounded at the absurdity of the idea.
I don't feel as though Che's model is particularly applicable in today's world... just yet. But is tactics are and that is what I take away from his writings. The ELZN and direct action groups such as APPO provide a much better model in my opinion on how to wage a revolutionary struggle.
I completly agree that there are other things that can be taken from his writings. I for one consider his most important contributions to be his unshakable internationalism and his anti-bureaucratism.
As for the urban guerilla groups, some would argue that they are indeed tactical descendants of Che, but this may be a point worth discussing.
I also agree that focalism has some self-contradictory aspects, some that fly right in the face of the experience of successful revolutionary groups. I think this is one of the key aspects of it that lead to its failure.
As for the FARC-EP, I tragically have personal experience with their tactics, so from own point of view they can go fuck themselves.
Yikes!
Comrade, the Cuban Revolution was completed with a general strike that brought down the dictatorship. You should really research the contributions of Che before simply repeating the oversimplified version of them as put forward by the bourgeoisie and "leftists" of competing trends.
Che saw the foco as a motor to set things in motion, but was very clear in the fact that guerrilla warfare could not bring down a capitalist government. He argued for the involvement of popular movements, sabotage and warfare in the cities, and regular warfare by a large people's army and general strikes to secure the victory.
Tommy, I think you have found yourself wondering into this debate a little late.
I for one have already said that it was a general strike that brought down the Batista regime (read the second comment) and I made mention of it in another previous, recent post on Che titled "Who was Che" from May 20th.
As for Che's contributions to the Cuban rev, again see my already mentioned post from the 20th.
The goal here was not to do an in depth history of the Cuban rev or Che's part in it (there are plenty of well written books on the subject) but rather a critique of his attempts to mechanically transpose the tactics he witnessed and used in Cuba onto other, alien settings, something which I think both the Red Son and I will concede was misguided and resulted in failure.
As for when you say "Che saw the foco as a motor to set things in motion, but was very clear in the fact that guerrilla warfare could not bring down a capitalist government. He argued for the involvement of popular movements, sabotage and warfare in the cities, and regular warfare by a large people's army and general strikes to secure the victory." Again this is ground that has already been covered, by the Red Son and I in these comments, in the original post and in the other mentioned post on Che.
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