Arturo Frondizi and the dilemma of Argentine governance, 1955-1974

Arturo Frondizi (1908-1995) was the civilian President of Argentina from 1958 to 1962. March 29 is the anniversary of Frondizi's overthrow by the military.

Cloumnist Mariano Caucino used the opportunity to praise Frondizi in El golpe contra Frondizi y una oportunidad perdida Infobae 29.03.2016. This is intriguing because he highlights the admiration that current President Mauricio Macri has expressed for Frondizi. Which makes me curious about the ways that Frondizi's image is being used in the present-day context. The politics of history is always intriguing.

Arthur Frondizi on the cover of Time (Mar. 30, 1962 edition)

Juan Perón's government was overthrown in 1955 by a military coup that billed itself as the "Revolución Libertadora." They established a military government that was briefly headed by General Eduardo Lonardi and then by General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu. (Aramburu was later kidnapped and assassinated by urban guerrillas from the pro-Peronist Montoneros group in 1971.)

In 1958, the military government transferred power to an elected civilian government headed by Frondizi. Frondizi was a member of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and in 1946 was elected to Congress as a national deputy for the UCR, which despite its name had become the main political vehicle of the Argentine oligarchy which was intensely anti-Perón. Frondizi was the vice-presidential candidate in 1951 in which Ricardo Balbín was the unsuccessful presidential candidate. In the twists and turns that make politics and history so fascinating, both Frondizi and Balbín would make practical alliances with Juan Perón.

The UCR was very supportive of the 1955 coup. As were the Socialist Party and the Soviet-line Communist Party, which makes for a whole other story. In the excellent theatrical film Eva Perón (1996), Frondizi is shown taking part in the coup planning. That would be this one, BTW, whose screenplay was written by Argentine political theorist José Pablo Feinmann:

Felipe Pigna writes in his biographical article Arturo Frondizi El Historiador (n/d; accessed 03/30/2016):

Tras el bombardeo por la aviación naval de la Plaza de Mayo producido el 16 de junio de 1955, Frondizi fue detenido por la policía peronista por sospechárselo co-responsable de la conspiración. La quema de las iglesias provocada por grupos de peronistas la misma noche del 16, pareció ser el límite y la señal de largada del golpe cívico-militar en ciernes del que el radicalismo era una de las piezas clave. Frente al peligro, el gobierno peronista resolvió liberalizar el uso de los medios de comunicación que estaban monopólicamente bajo su control. En estas especiales circunstancias, Frondizi se dirigió por primera vez por radio al pueblo argentino el 27 de julio de 1955.

El 16 de septiembre de 1955 un golpe de estado, conocido como la Revolución Libertadora, derrocó a Perón, y el radicalismo, junto con otras fuerzas políticas como el socialismo democrático, se sumó al gobierno a través de una junta consultiva.

[After the bombardment of the Plaza de Mayo by naval planes which occurred the 16th of June, 1955, Frondizi was detained by the Peronist police under suspicion that he shared responsibility for the conspiracy. The burning of churches by groups of Peronists the same night of the 16th, it appeared to be the end and the signal for the start of the civil-military coup in the making of which radicalism [the UCR] was one of the key pieces. Facing the danger, the Peronist government resolved to liberalize the use of the communications media that had been under its [the government's] control. In these special circumstances, Frondizi spoke to the Argentine people for the first time by radio on the 27th of July of 1955.

On September 16, 1955, a coup d'état, known as the Revolución Libertadora, overthrew Perón. And radicalism [the UCR], together with other political forces like democratic socialism [the Socialist Party] joined the government via a consultative junta.]

The burning of churches was not some fit of secularism. Peronism had and has to this day a clear Catholic component. The current Pope was even affiliated with a Peronist group in the 1970s, albeit a rightwing one. (Peronism is complicated!)

But the Catholic hierarchy in Argentina has also had a deeply reactionary side. And reactionary Church officials also supported the coup. As the newspaper La Prensa reported at the time on the bombardment of the Plaza (Perón y el bombardeo del 16 de junio de 1955 El Historiador, quoting La Prensa 17.06.1955):

Era la primera capital de Sudamérica en ser bombardeada por sus propias fuerzas armadas. Los aviones atacantes, punta de lanza de un alzamiento en varios puntos del país, llevaban en sus colas una “V” y una cruz que señalaban “Cristo Vence”.

[It was the first capital of South America to be bombarded by its own armed forces. The attacking planes, the tip of the spear of a rebellion in various places in the country, bore on the tails a "V" and cross which was marked "Cristo Vence."]

Cristo Vence, "Christ victorious, was the slogan of the reactionary Catholics. Horacio Verbitsky's four-volume history of the Argentine Catholic Church is titled Cristo vence.

The Time magazine cover from the time of Frondizi's own overthrow as President shows Juan Perón looming in the background. It's an appropriate image for the dilemma of governance in Argentina from 1955 to 1974. Peronism was the most popular political movement in Argentina. But Peronism was banned from formally participating in elections or even operating and organizing openly. The Revolución Libertadora even tried to suppress the tango and the milongas, the popular dance clubs that were central to the tango scence, because the oligarchy associated tango with (in their eyes) dangerous low-class Peronist populism.

But the Peronist movement remained active. And Perón backed Frondizi in the 1958 election, in an agreement negotiated by his close collaborator Rogelio Frigerio, which included a development program amenable to the Peronists. His willingness to cooperate with Perón led to a split in the UCR, with Frondizi's faction becoming the Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente (UCRI). The other faction, the UCR del Pueblo (UCRP), was led by Ricardo Balbín.

Frondizi's Minister of Finance from 1958-1960 was Aldo Ferrer, one of Argentina's most distinguished economists who passed away earlier this month.. (The department was actually called the Ministry of "Economía y Hacienda" [Economy and Budget]). Javier Lewkowicz wrote in an obituary article on him (Faro para la heterodoxia económica Página/12 09.03.2016):

Ayer falleció el economista Aldo Ferrer. Vivió 88 años durante los cuales ocupó diversos cargos en la función pública, escribió libros célebres de la economía argentina, contribuyó a crear la escuela de pensamiento económico latinoamericana del estructuralismo, formó discípulos y se brindó a compañeros y amigos a quienes transmitió hasta sus últimos días su pasión y compromiso de lucha por una Argentina soberana. La comunidad política y académica manifestó su pesar por la enorme pérdida para el pensamiento nacional.

[The economist Aldo Ferrer died yesterday. He lived 88 years during which he occupied various posts in public service, wrote celebrated books about the Argentine economy, contributed to creating the Latin American school of economic thought of structuralism, won disciples and made himself available to comrades and friends to whom he transmitted his passion until his last days and commitment to fight for a sovereign Argentina. The political and academic community expressed its pain for the enormous loss for the national thought.]

Frondizi initially promoted a developmental policy to promote Argentine national energy and guard Argentine national sovereignty. In a 1954 book, Petróleo y Política, he had criticized the behavior of the extractive industries and advocated putting the control of Argentina's oil and gas resources under the control of the state-owned YPF company (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales).

But Frondizi was only able to pursue his preferred developmental policy for a year or so. Under increasing pressure from the oligarcy, the military and the Church hierarchy, he defaulted to the kind of policies generally acceptable to the IMF and the United States. In a program identified with with economist Álvaro Alsogaray, who, in Felipe Pigna's words "con su famosa frase 'hay que pasar el invierno' orientó la política económica a promover las exportaciones, limitar el proceso de industrialización y liberalizar las restricciones impuestas a las importaciones disminuyendo considerablemente la capacidad expansiva de la industria nacional" ("with his famous phrase, 'you have to get through the winter" oriented economic policy to promote exports, limit the process of industrialization and liberalize the tariff restrictions on imports, considerable diminishing the capacity of national industry to expand").

If Mauricio Macri identifies with Frondizi's presidential policies, it's surely this version rather than the initial national-development orientation of Frondizi's government.

By the 1960 election, Perón was no longer backing Frondizi. And although Frondizi strove to maintain good relations with Washington, he was also reluctant initially to cut off relations with Castro's new regime in Cuba. When the always-US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) met in Argentina in early 1961, Frondizi invited Ché Guevara to come to Argentina and confer with him soon afterwards. Even though he eventually gave in to US pressure to break relations with Cuba, his early support for Cuban sovereignty in the face of American pressure made the military even more suspicious of him. When Peronists did very well in elections in Buenos Aires province in early 1962 after Frondizi's government had loosened restrictions on their electoral participation, the military moved to oust Frondizi in March, no longer confident he would sufficiently protect the oligarchy and conform to military demands.

This was the continuing dilemma of the oligarchy and the military during this period until Perón's return to Argentina in 1974. They couldn't rule effectively without allowing the Peronists to fully participate in elections. And they were too afraid of Peronism to allow it.

In the New York Times' not-very-adequate obituary for Frondizi (Arturo Frondizi, Argentine Chief In Time of Austerity, Dies at 86 04/19/1995), Robert McG. Thomas, Jr.wrote:

Taking office at a time of economic distress, he again put pragmatism first, this time above his own political popularity, imposing a series of austerity measures to curb inflation and attract foreign investment, primarily to the country's ailing oil industry.

His measures, including a currency devaluation, would eventually be credited with laying the groundwork for an economic resurgence, but the immediate effect was to put a serious burden on the poor and middle classes.

The result was an almost constant series of strikes, demonstrations and clashes with the police, requiring the intervention of the military.

His undoing, however, was not his economic measures, but keeping a political promise to lift the ban on Peronist candidates and parties.

When the Peronists won a series of congressional elections in early 1962, the military, which had also become alarmed after learning that Dr. Frondizi had met secretly with Che Guevara, an emissary of the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, withdrew its support, forcing Dr. Frondizi's resignation that March.

Impoverishing large numbers of people, giving up your country's chances for sovereign economic development, reduction of the standard of living of "the poor and middle classes," aka, the large majority, for the Times in 1995, that was a sign of "put[ing] pragmatism first." Awesome.

Pope Francis Tuesday

The Pope has been visiting Cuba over the weekend. That visit called to mind this song by Kate Campbell that references an earlier papal visit to the island.

Rosa's Coronas 11/30/2014

Joshua McElwee reports on Pope Francis' major speech in La Habana at the Plaza de la Revolución in Under image of Che Guevara, Francis says Christian service 'never ideological' National Catholic Reporter 09/20/2015

This combination of images of two of the most famous Argentines is surely more jarring for an American audience than for Argentines. When I visited the Presidential Palace Casa Rosada) in Buenos Aires in 2012, the entry hall had two portraits prominently displayed together: Che Guevara and the Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered by a death squad while presiding over Mass in a hospital. Pope Francis formally declared Romero a martyr this year and he's on the road to sainthood. I doubt any Pope will canonize Ernesto Guevara. Although there was and maybe still is a folk shrine to "St. Che" near the place in Bolivia where he was assassinated in 1967. I think a few miraculous cures have been reported there. Go figure.

The staunchly anti-Communist and theologically conservative Pope Juan Paul II also celebrated mass in Plaza de la Revolución on his visit to Cuba in 1998.

This was also an interesting part of the Pope's message: "At the end of the Mass, the pope appealed to Colombia's government and Marxist FARC guerrillas to ensure that nearly three years of peace talks in Cuba are successful in order to end their 'long night' of war." (Pope meets Fidel Castro, warns against ideology on Cuba trip Buenos Aires Herald 09/20/2015) Cuba has hosted peace talks to end that long-running conflict.

Darío Pignotti notes in Página/12 (Cuba se viste de blanco y amarillo por el Papa 19.09.2015) that the chatter in Cuba he heard before Francis' arrival included many mentions of the "Argentine Pope." (Pignotti goes a bit Tommy Friedman in this piece and reports on an interview with a taxi driver.)

How much of the Pontiff's worldview is actually consistent with that of a government like Cuba's?

Eric Bugyis in a post which,so far as I can tell, is supportive of Pope Francis, argues that there is a great deal of philosophical/ideological agreement It Is Marxism! Commonweal 09/22/2015:

In Bolivia, Francis called for "the just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor" saying that this is "about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right." Linking the fruits of labor to rights in this way suggests the "labor theory of value" that one finds in Thomas Aquinas and in the social encyclicals beginning with Rerum Novarum, but it is also the theory of value that one finds in Marx. It is the theory that says that those who work to produce goods and services, through agriculture or manufacture, ought to have a share in the ownership of those goods. It is a rejection of the wage slavery whereby workers are shackled by policies that seek to interrupt the worker's relationship with the fruits of his or her labor by turning this labor into a commodity itself. The price of this commodity, then, must be weighed against the expected profits to be gained through the sale of commodities owed by stockholders. On this account, it should be made clear, the stockholder owns both the workers (now often more honestly referred to as "human resources") and the commodities that these workers produce and profit to the extent that the stockholder (and the market) values the former less than the latter. Thus, when Francis talks about a "formal market" in which people are "exploited like slaves," what else could he be talking about but the alienation of workers from the means of production? And when he calls for governments to promote "the strengthening, improvement, coordination and expansion of forms of popular economy and communitarian production," what could he be referring to other than supporting the formation of unions (another thing endorsed by the social encyclicals) and empowering local commerce by limiting the monopolistic practices of transnational corporations? All of which, I assume, Mr. Langone would rightly identify as "Marxism." [my emphasis]

Now, I'm hardly allergic to Marxist perspectives, as any of my numerous posts about the Frankfurt School thinkers can illustrate. And I'm definitely in sympathy with the perspectives of the Pope described here.

But this just gets some history wrong. No St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/25-1274) did not invent the "labor theory of value." Marx' version built on those of the distinctly modern philosophers and political economists Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823). Marx also made a clear distinction between chattel slavery, where the workers actually are owned, and wage labor, which Marxists also call wage slavery, in which it is not the case that "the stockholder owns ... the workers," as Bugyis puts it.

A great undergraduate professor of mine, the late Howard Bavender, was my adviser on this now long-ago paper ("Just War Concept and American Churches in the American Antiwar Movement" 1974). As I was trying to sort through the relationship of Catholic theology to dissenting movements, he stressed that while the Church took strong positions on issues of social justice and the just war that at times were in accord with left political positions, the Church had never abandoned its criticism of Marxism on matters where it contradicted the Church's view of the nature of humanity.

In fact, what I wrote where I took his advice on that wasn't bad:

The Roman Catholic Church, in the United States and around the world, had been staunchly opposed to "atheistic Communism" before and after World War II. The American hierarchy continued to speak strongly against Communism even during the wartime alliance with Soviet Russia. Many Roman Catholic churchmen really believed that the United States was threatened by Communism, but they were also interested in acquiring American aid in their world-wide battle with Communist governments, particularly in Eastern Europe where the Soviet Urion attempted to break the political power of the church. ...

However, around the time of Pope John XXIII's ascendancy, Catholic attitudes toward international relations began to change. Pope John issued his encyclical Pacem in Terris, which many Catholics took to be "a clear call for total pacifism in a nuclear age." [1970 quote from Francine du Plessix Gray] Pope John stated in that famous document, as quoted above, that war was unacceptable in the nuclear era. The support of the Catholic Church for such projects as the Cold War against Communism was clearly decreasing, although the Church has never abandoned its opposition to those elements of Communism which challenge the Christian conception of man. This notable decrease in support nevertheless was to be an element in the future Catholic opposition to Vietnam policies in the United States.

It's also important to remember that when the Church has criticized capitalism or aspects of it, that also comes from centuries of theoretical development that has some of its roots in pre-capitalist concepts and economic arrangements, i.e., European feudalism. "Corporate state" arrangements like those in Mussolini's Italy or the Austrian Standestaat of Engelbert Dollfuß and Kurt von Schuschnigg were forms of government with which the Catholic Church of that time were generally comfortable.

The Catholic Church is a worldwide institution that has congregations within the entire spectrum of contemporary forms of government: secular ones and ones with established religions (Christian and otherwise); military and civilian; democracies and dictatorships, and varying degrees of both. The Catholic Church doesn't take the position of American neocons that they shouldn't even have formal conversations with governments they finding displeasing. On the contrary, they are interested in negotiating the best possible arrangements for the Church and its members even in countries hostile to the Catholic Church.

Eduardo Valdés, the Argentine Ambassador to the Vatican, notes that Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of La Habana, has played a key role in the current process of rapprochement between the US and Cuba which the Holy See has helped to mediate. (Premonición Página/12 19.09.2015)

The Catholic News Service provides this description of Fidel Castro's view of Christianity as expressed in a 1985 book of interviews with Fidel in which he positioned himself as supportive of the views of liberation theology: Cathy Lynn Grossman, Christ, Marx and Che: Fidel Castro offers pope his religious views National Catholic Reporter 09/21/2015. Pope Francis has views more friendly to liberation theology than his two immediate predecessors. John Paul II was a bitter opponent of it. Benedict XVI was known before and during his Papacy as generally reactionary on theological and political issues. However, both of them also took positions based on Catholic social teaching (feudal roots and all) that challenged politically conservative positions. They also took pacifist positions at odds with the normal power politics on which the world runs far too much.

Vatican Radio reports on the meeting between Francis and Fidel in Pope Francis meets former Cuban president Fidel Castro 09/20/2015:

Pope Francis gave Castro several books, including one by Italian priest Alessandro Pronzato and another by Spanish Jesuit Segundo Llorentea. The Holy Father also gave him a book and two CDs of his homilies, as well as his two encyclical letters, Lumen Fidei and Laudato si'.

In return, Castro gave Pope Francis an interview book entitled, "Fidel and Religion," written in 1985 by Brazilian priest Frei Betto. The dedication reads: "For Pope Francis, on occasion of his visit to Cuba, with the admiration and respect of the Cuban people."

The head of the Vatican Press Office, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "familiar and informal," and the two men spoke about "protecting the environment and the great problems of the contemporary world."

Father Lombardi compared the private encounter to that which took place with Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, saying Fidel Castro asked Pope Benedict many questions, while Sunday's meeting with Pope Francis was "more of a conversation."

Emphasizing some of the differences between the Church and the Cuban regime, Martín Granovsky reports (Ortega, el cardenal de las negociaciones secretas Página/12 19.09.2015):

¿Piensa el cardenal Ortega que el proceso de normalización ya es irreversible? Está en camino a serlo, pero según él “Obama y Raúl tienen enemigos y hay que protegerlos a ambos porque los dos saben que antes de irse todavía tienen mucho que hacer”. Cuando habla de los retos a Raúl, Ortega describe el peso de lo que él llama “ideología”, o sea el resabio del modelo soviético y de la rigidez. Para el cardenal el efecto se nota aún en sectores del Partido Comunista Cubano, en los medios controlados por él, en la TV, la radio y la prensa escrita.

Contó un ejemplo. El periodista Amaury Pérez lo entrevistó para la tele cubana y en vez de la media hora habitual le dio una hora. Era el primer reportaje televisivo en 60 años. El director de TV se opuso. Quería revisar y cortar partes. “La entrevista se pasa sin tocar una coma”, le dijeron a Ortega que fue la frase de Castro. El diálogo se puede ver haciendo click en http://bit.ly/1JCqhe7.

[Does Cardinal think that the process of normalization is now irreversible? It's on the way to being so, according to him: "Obama and Raúl {Castro} have enemies, and we have to protect both of them because the two know that before they leave {the political scene}, there is still a lot to do." When he speaks of Raúl's challenges, Ortega describes the weight of what he calls "ideology," that is, the bad taste of the Soviet model and the rigidity. For the cardinal, the effect can be observed even in sectors of the Cuban Communist Party, in the media controlled by them, in TV, radio and the written press.

He gave an example. The journalist Amaury Pérez interviewed him for Cuban television and gave him an hour instead of the usual half hour. It was the first television report {featuring Ortega?} in 60 years. The TV director opposed it. He wanted to edit it and cut parts. "The interview will air with touching a comma," Ortega was told was the phrase {Raúl} Castro used.]

It's reasonable to assume that when Francis spoke about the problem of "ideology" in Cuba, his meaning was the same or similar to that in which Cardinal Ortega is using it.

In the TV interview referenced, Ortega recounts a conversation he had with Pope Benedict XVI, in which Benedict said that the Church is not in the world to change governments. It's in the world to spread the Gospel. Ortega says it in a context that makes it clear he agrees with that perspective. And he also says that is the perspective of Pope Francis.

Granovsky continues to report on Church-related consequence of the long-standing embargo:

El desafío para la Iglesia es ganar feligreses, sobre todo entre la juventud, y conseguir fondos propios para ayuda humanitaria. Por el bloqueo la Iglesia no puede recibir dólares porque los aportes de afuera son interferidos en algún punto de su curso por Estados Unidos. Ocurrió con fondos regalados por Los Caballeros de Colón, por la Isla de Malta y por grupos irlandeses. Llegaron a Cuba tras operaciones clandestinas e incluso algún obispo debió recorrer el mundo con 200 mil dólares ocultos en una valija. En La Habana no hubo problemas.

[The challenge for the Church is to win parishioners, above all among youth, and obtain its own funds for humanitarian support. Because of the {US} blockade, the Church is not able to receive dollars because donations from outside are intercepted at some point in their course from the United States. That has occurred with funds donated by the Knights of Columbus, from the island of Malta and from Irish groups. They arrived in Cuba after {via} clandestine operations, including one bishop who has said to have traversed the world with $200,000 hidden in a valise. In Havana, he had no problems.]

Meanwhile, columnist George Will prior to the Pope's arrival in the US is griping about the Jesuit Francis defending science on the topic of climate change. (Anthony Annett, On Fact-Free Flamboyance: George Will vs. Pope Francis Commonweal 09/21/2015) Awesome.

Ernesto Guevara and la Patria Grande: Arbenz and Guevara’s politicization

This is the third of four posts discussing Pacho O’Donnell’s Che: El argentino que quiso cambiar el mundo (Che: The Argentine Who Wanted to Change the World)(2003). All references are to the Sudamericana edition of 2012. All translations from the Spanish are mine unless otherwise indicated.

Ernesto, who hadn’t yet acquired his nickname of “Che” went to Guatemala in late December 1953. That visit and the deep impression that the CIA-instigated coup against the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (1913-1971) were decisive moments in Guevara’s political outlook. It was also the immediate prelude to his decision to join Fidel Castro’s guerrilla band in Cuba despite his severe allergy problem, which he concealed from the Cubans before departing on the mission for fear they would reject him on that basis.

Ernesto actually had a plan to go to Ecuador instead of Guatemala, but those plans fell through. O’Donnell pauses to speculate whether his life might have been radically different if his trip to Guatemala had been postponed. (p. 97)

Arbenz became President of Guatemala in March 1951. He was a reformist social democrat. His government undertook a serious agrarian reform, which included compensated expropriation of property from the powerful United Fruit Company.
Guevara wrote to his aunt from Costa Rica in December 1953 (p. 98):

Tuve la opertrunidad de atravesar los dominions de la United Fruit y me convencí una vez más de lo terribles que son estos pulpos capitalistas. He jurado ante un retrato del viejo y llorado camarada Stalin que no descansaré hasta ver su aniquilación. En Guatemala me perfecionaré y conseguiré lo que necesito para ser un auténtico revolucionario.

[I had the opportunity to traverse the dominions of United Fruit and it convinced me yet again of how terrible these capitalist octopuses are. I swore in front of a portrait of the old and lamented comrade Stalin that I would not rest before seeing their destruction. In Guatemala I will perfect and obtain what I need to be an authentic revolutionary.]

That passage is intriguing for several reasons. Joseph Stalin had died earlier that year, and the official repudiation of “Stalinism” by the Soviet-line Communist Parties had not yet occurred. It’s not clear whether he was being partly satirical in his reference to swearing an oath to the decreased Stalin as though he were some Catholic saint. It pretty obviously did indicate that he was taking a radical and anti-capitalist view of the world by that time of his life, at age 25.

But it’s worth noting here that Guevara also saw hope and constructive change in the agrarian reforms of Arbenz. And that he saw in Arbenz’ attempts to defend his government from regime change efforts by United Fruit and the CIA as having the potential for real popular mobilization for a revolutionary, anti-imperialist cause that acted within the framework of liberal democracy.

Codenamed Operation Success, the regime change effort against Arbenz worked almost by chance. The National Security Archive document, CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents (Edited by Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh; National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 4; n/d, accessed 07/19/2015) provides a striking summary of this ugly adventure in a summary of what the briefing calls “Document 5”:

A narrative history of the CIA's role in planning, organizing and executing the coup that toppled Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán on June 27, 1954. Cullather, now a diplomatic historian at the University of Indiana, worked on contract for one year with the CIA, where he was given access to thousands of agency records and secret operational files in order to produce this overview. The result is a surprisingly critical study of the agency's first covert operation in Latin America. Beginning with a review of the political, economic and social forces that led to Arbenz's presidency in 1951, the document is an intimate account of how cold war concerns convinced President Eisenhower to order the removal of the democratically-elected leader by force. It also provides countless new details of a covert mission plagued by disastrous military planning and failed security measures: according to Cullather, "Operation Success" barely succeeded. The CIA scrambled to convince the White House that it was an unqualified and all but bloodless victory, however. After Arbenz resigned, Eisenhower called the Director of Central Intelligence, Allan W. Dulles, and his senior covert planners into a formal briefing of the operation. Cullather's account now reveals that the agency lied to the president, telling him that only one of the rebels it had backed was killed. "Incredible," said the president. And it was. At least four dozen were dead, according to the CIA's own records. Thus did the Guatemala coup enter agency lore as an "unblemished triumph," Cullather explains, and become the model for future CIA activities in Latin America.

In Guatemala, of course, "Operation Success" had a deadly aftermath. After a small insurgency developed in the wake of the coup, Guatemala's military leaders developed and refined, with U.S. assistance, a massive counterinsurgency campaign that left tens of thousands massacred, maimed or missing. [my emphasis]

“Document 5” itself can be found at Operation Success: The United States and Guatemala 1952-1954 (1994).

The precarious but ultimately successful coup attempt worked in spite of the bumbling actions of the CIA coup plotters, as John Prados relates in Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (2006). Coming after the fortuitous success of the Iranian coup of 1953, whose significant negative repercussions the United States is still dealing with until this day, the success of the regime change operation in Guatemala encouraged further recklessness on the CIA’s part. Prados writes (p. 122):

In retrospect, and with more of the true record now open to view, it seems perplexing that the Central Intelligence Agency, and indeed secret warriors in many places, for decades held out Iran and Guatemala as models of successful covert action. The inner stories reveal that both Projects Ajax [against Iran] and Success [against Guatemala] skirted with failure. At some point in each case the CIA came close to canceling the operation. The projects may be said to have succeeded despite themselves, not marched forward according to meticulous plans. Gaps in CIA knowledge of local conditions, unrealistic expectations, fixation on a certain worldview, the personal weaknesses of CIA allies, the competing interests of groups working with the secret warriors, the physical properties of weapons and equipment, and the limitations of tradecraft all number among the reasons why success hovered at the edge of failure. The deep secrecy in which CIA held the stories of the covert actions served to disguise this characteristic and to hinder, even long afterward, careful evaluation of the strategy. [my emphasis]

O’Donnell records that it was in Guatemala that Guevara experienced his first aerial bombardments, made in support of the rebel army of Col. Carlos Castillo-Armas, who was working hand-in-hand with the CIA on the coup. (p. 108) The CIA opened a file on Dr. Ernesto Guevara during this time.

Guevara’s experiences in Guatemala were a decisive turning point in his political development, but not only because of what happened to the Arbenz government. It was there that he met several men who were veterans of Fidel Castro’s early attempts to mount an armed resistance against the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Antionio “Ňico” López was especially impressive for him, and they became friends in Guatemala.

But the coup against Arbenz deeply impressed him, as did the failure in that case of the kind of peaceful reforms using democratic means that the US made a pretense of supporting in its foreign policy. Instead, the US was willing to topple a democratically elected government, acting largely on behalf of the United Fruit Company. Although, as Prados explains, United Fruit kept its distance from Operation Success, but it had actively backed earlier coup efforts against Arbenz.

O’Donnell (p. 109):

Pero lo importante fue que, a pesar de su ineficacia e impotencia para oponerse a la ominosa agresión a un gobierno democrático y popular, en el joven argentino había estallado un sentimiento hasta entonces desconocido por él mismo, una tumultuosa ansia de pelear por lo que él consideraba justo, una voluntad de defender sus convicciones con los puños o con las armas, abandonando su talentosa dialéctica verbal. Una violencia impensable en aquel niño de quien su niñera Rosarito nos contó que regañaba a sus amigos por cazar pajaritos con gomeras, a quien ninguno de éstos, ricos o pobres, recuerda tomándose a golpes durante su infancia y juventud.

Guatemala dejará una imborrable secuela en el futuro Che: la convicción de que la violencia es indispensable para imponer cambios sociales profundos. El futuro fusilador de La Cabaña razonaría varios años antes: «Durante el gobierno de Arbenz no hubo asesinatos ni nada que se le parezca. Debería de haber habido unos cuanto fusilamientos al comienzo, pero eso es otra cosa; si se hubieran producido esos fusilamientos el gobierno hubiera conservado la posibilidad de devolver los golpes».

[But the important thing is, despite its inefficiency and impotence in opposing the ominous aggression against a democratic and popular government, it had instilled in the young Argentine a sentiment that he had not previously known within himself, a tumultuous eagerness to fight for what he considered just, a will to defend his convictions with his fists or with guns, abandoning his talented verbal dialectic. A violence unthinkable in that boy of whom his nanny Rosarita told us how he scolded his friends for hunting little birds with slingshots, of whom none of them, rich or poor, remembers him resorting to fighting during his infancy and youth.

Guatemala would have an indelible sequel in the future Che: the conviction that violence is indispensable to impose profound social change. The future executioner by firing squad of La Cabaña several years later would rationalize: “During the government of Arbenz there were no killings or anything that resembled them. There should have been some executions by firing squad at the beginning, but that’s another issue. If such executions had taken place, the government would have preserved the possibility of returning the blows.”]

The reference there is to Guevara’s role, central to polemics against him, of acting as the final arbiter of executions of members of the Batista government who were judged to have been especially criminal in their actions on behalf of that regime.

**********

Part 1: Che the Argentine
Part 2: Che Guevera and Peronism
Part 3: Arbenz and Guevara’s politicization
Part 4: Two, three, many Vietnams

Ernesto Guevara and la Patria Grande (2 of 4): Che Guevera and Peronism

This is the second of four posts discussing Pacho O’Donnell’s Che: El argentino que quiso cambiar el mundo (Che: The Argentine Who Wanted to Change the World)(2003). All references are to the Sudamericana edition of 2012. All translations from the Spanish are mine unless otherwise indicated.

One Argentine political factor, whose influence on Che O’Donnell’s book emphasizes, is the most important political movement in Argentina during most of his life, Peronism.

During Juan Perón’s first Presidency (1946-1955), the young Ernesto was critical of Perón’s government, influenced in significant part by his mother’s traditional-left perspective. Peronism was and is a complicated movement. Despite the strong pro-labor and social justice emphasis of Juan and Eva Perón, the left parties in Argentina, both the Socialists and the Communists, joined the oligarchy consolidated around the UCR (Unión Cívica Radical) in opposing Perón’s government. And in supporting the self-described Revolución Libertadora that overthrew Perón in 1955. This “revolution” was actually a coup that by any reasonable standards was far more authoritarian and repressive than Perón’s first Presidency.

Juan Perón with “Evita” (Eva Perón) 1950

Ernesto took a position of critical opposition to Perón prior to 1955. But he recognized the fundamentally reactionary nature of the Revolución Libertadora. O’Donnell quotes from a letter of Ernesto’s to his mother just after the coup, in which he writes of the change, “Yo sé que tus amigos erstarán muy contentos, … pero sé también que para el pueblo argentine eso no significa una mejoría.” (“I know you and your friends will be very content, ... but I also know that for the people of Argentina this does not represent an improvement. “) (p.53) He also wrote to her, “La caída de Perón me amargó profundamente, no por él, sino por lo que significa para toda América.” (“The fall of Perón upsets me, not for his sake, but because of what it means for all of [Latin] America.”) (p. 318)

Although his party was outlawed for the better part of the following two decades, Perón remained the dominant figure in Argentine politics and worked incessantly from exile to legalize the Peronist party and return himself to the Presidency of Argentina, which he eventually achieved in 1973, the year before his death.

Often described as Machiavellian, Perón was a revolutionary pragmatist. He was not a Marxist and always expressed a kind of “third way” position between liberal capitalism of the American and European type, on the one hand, and Communism, on the other. And this had certain similarities with the position of the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations that took shape in the 1950s and 1960s. As well as with the position of China, which also began in the late 1950s to take a position navigating between the US and the Soviet Union which eventually made possible the famous agreement with Nixon and Kissinger.

So it no surprise that Perón the master politician had connections with Guevara, who found himself in a position critical of the Soviet-line Communist Parties in Latin America and advocated a distinct perspective toward organizing revolution in the developing world. One of Perón’s key loyalist leaders, John William Cooke, was very much an admirer of the Cuban Revolution who lived in exile in Castro’s Cuba. O’Donnell writes that it was Cooke who convinced Che (p. 318):

... que ningún proyecto era viable sin el apoyo del general Perón, quien contaba con al idolatría de los sectores populares y de la mayoría de los poderosos dirigentes gremiales de su país, además de ser la indiscutida cabeza del partido political más numeroso.

[... that no project was viable without the support of General Perón, who could count on the idolatry of the popular sectors and on the majority of the powerful union leaders of his country, as well as being the indisputable head of the most numerous political party.]

O’Donnell cites the report of Julio Gallego Soto, another close collaborator of Perón’s, who claims that he saw Che in April 1964, when he was still part of the Cuban government, in Perón’s residence in Madrid. He was there to offer Perón millions of dollars from a Cuban “liberation fund.” Soto denied that he proceeded to administer the funds, but O’Donnell cites other indications that he may have done so. In any case, O’Donnell thinks that Perón’s contact with Guevara influenced his political rhetoric going forward. In any case, Perón both before and after this point considered political violence as a potential tool in his political arsenal. He eventually encouraged the Peronist guerrilla group known as the Monteneros, an alliance that proved both effective in assisting his return to power and deeply problematic for both him and them. O’Donnell also cites the former CIA officer Philip Agee as saying the CIA considered that there was an alliance between Perón and the Cubans.

O’Donnell also cites one of Perón’s secretaries, Enrique Pavón Pereyra, as saying that Guevara in 1966 had requested in person Perón’s support in his guerrilla project in Bolivia. According to Pavón, Perón didn’t support his plan. Not because he opposed the use of guerrilla warfare but because he thought the plan was unrealistic. Including because the dense jungle in the region Che was planning to operate would be particularly hard on his asthma. “Don’t commit suicide,” Perón told Pavón he had advised Guevara. Pavón saw Guevara there on this occasion, but was only present for the first part of his conversation with Gen. Perón. Perón told Pavón after the meeting, “Poor Guevara, they are going to leave him on his own.” Presumably referring to his judgment that Cuba would provide Guevara only limited support in Bolivia. Which turned out to be the case.

**********

Part 1: Che the Argentine
Part 2: Che Guevera and Peronism
Part 3: Arbenz and Guevara’s politicization
Part 4: Two, three, many Vietnams

Ernesto Guevara and la Patria Grande (1 of 4): Che the Argentine

This is the first of four posts discussing Pacho O’Donnell’s Che: El argentino que quiso cambiar el mundo (Che: The Argentine Who Wanted to Change the World)(2003). All references are to the Sudamericana edition of 2012. All translations from the Spanish are mine unless otherwise indicated.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a man who became a myth. A myth in the sense of the eclectic French philosopher Georges Sorel concept, an inspiring framework for understand the common political life of a given nation. But El Che became far more than a national myth, he became a myth of internationalism, of international solidarity in the fight for freedom, of Latin American solidarity in the pursuit of the unity of what advocates of Latin American unity like the Argentine writer Manuel Ugarte called la Patria Grande, the great homeland of a united Latin America.

His enemies, of course, view him in a much darker light, the embodiment of evil in the form of international Communism, an exporter of revolution in the most literal sense.

Pacho O’Donnell’s Che: El argentino que quiso cambiar el mundo (2003) focuses fairly strictly on the life of Ernesto Guevara de Serna (1928- 1967), which he sections into five periods: his early life prior to going to Cuba; the guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra that brought Fidel Castro’s government to power; his time as an official in Cuba where he became world-famous as an advocate of anti-imperialist resistance against the United States; his period as a guerrilla leader in the Congo in support of Laurent Kabila’s resistance movement; and, the final leg of his life’s journey as a guerrilla leader in Bolivia, where he met his end, executed after being captured.

O’Donnell’s style is a readable combination of careful original research and good historical story-telling. His biography is interspersed with brief texts from interviews with various people involved in Che’s life that O’Donnell interviewed.

The main story of Ernesto Guevara’s life are well known, though O’Donnell’s research and filtering of secondary sources provides important clarifications. Including on key points of discussion such as Régis Debray’s role in Guevara’s capture in Bolivia.

Che the Argentine

O’Donnell deals briefly with Che’s private life in a mostly cursory fashion during and after his Sierra Maestra period. The most attention to it comes in his life as an Argentine young man, medical student, doctor, traveler and adventurer. A central theme in O’Donnell’s biography is Che’s Argentine identity and how it shaped his vision of a pan-Latin American revolutionary movement.

Ernesto Guevara in 1951 at age 22 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The predominant image of Che was set by his posthumous celebration by Cuba and, of course, by the demonizing of that image on the part of the United States and the oligarchs of Latin America. O’Donnell writes (pp. 503-4):

Esa insólita apatía de La Habana está en relación inversa con el entusiasmo que post mórtem demostrará el gobierno cubano en la explotación politica de un Che al que eleva a la categoría de mito, al que los biógrafos oficiales denominan «Guerrillero Heroico», con mayúsculas, con un propósito en apariencia exaltatorio pero que oculta la dimensión de pensador y teórico de Guevara, que es donde se registran sus conflictos con el partido y con el gobierno de la isla. Una consecuencia colateral de esa «apropiación» del Che es que su memoria queda cubanizada, lo que también reflejan la mayoría de sus biografos, que dedican a la etapa cubana las mayores y mejores investigaciones y las páginas más numerosas. No debería olvidarse que la de Cuba fue una de las tres campañas guerrilleras del Che, sin duda la mas exitosa y también la más estimulante en su producción teórica, pero que su actividad como combatiente y como funcionario en la isla ocupan poco más de ocho años de los treinta y nueve que vivió.

Fidel tuvo la suficiente astucia para hacerse de los restos del Che, recuperados en 1997, aprovechando que la Argentina, quizá como rémora de sus gobiernos dictatoriales anticomunistas y del predominio en lo económico y social de los sectores conservadores y liberales, no tuvo reflejos para reclamarlos para sí a pesar de que el Che nació y murió argentino, renunciando a la nacionalidad cubana en su carta de despedida. Por su parte también a Bolivia le asisten derechos «de propiedad» por cuanto fue en su suelo donde murió luchando por su libertad económica y politica, y por la justicia social para sus humildes.

[The incredible apathy of Havana is in inverse relation with the enthusiasm that the Cuban government demonstrated post mortem in the political exploitation of a Che who was elevated into the category of myth, who was denominated as “Heroic Guerrilla” in caps, with an apparent exalting intent but which obscured the dimension of Guevara as a thinker and theorist, which is where his conflicts with the Party and with the government of the island. A collateral consequence of the “appropriation” of Che is that his memory remains Cubanized, a view also reflected by the majority of his biographers, who dedicate the Cuban stage the best and most numerous investigations and the most numerous pages. It should not be forgotten that the Cuban campaign was one of one of the three guerrilla campaigns of Che’s, undoubtedly the most successful and also the most stimulating for his theoretical production. But that his activity as a combatant and as a functionary in the island occupied little more than eight years of the 39 he lived.

Fidel was sufficiently astute to claim Che’s remains, recuperated in 1997, taking advantage of the fact that Argentina, perhaps [because Che’s image was seen] as an obstacle to its dictatorial, anti-Communist governments and to the economic and social predominance of the conservative and liberal sectors, didn’t have the reflexes to reclaim them. Even though Che was born and died Argentine, renouncing his Cuban nationality in his farewell letter. For its part, Bolivia also assisted him with “property” rights since it was in their soil where he died fighting for their economic and political freedom, and for social justice for its poor.]

One can certainly argue that the Cubanization of Guevara’s image is valid in terms of his actual public role. His role as a guerrilla fighter in Cuba, as a senior Cuban official, and as a spokesman for the Cuban Revolution are primarily what made him world famous.

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, 1961 (Photo by Alberto Kordo; source: Wikimedia Commons)

O’Donnell makes it clear in a more recent article that he does not adhere to the argument “que el Che fue enviado a morir y traicionado por Fidel Castro,” (“that el Che was sent {to Bolivia} to die, betrayed by Fidel Castro.”) There, he was specifically addressing an argument made by a Cuban-American biographer of Guevera, Alberto Müller. (Pacho O’Donnell, Para denostar al Che Página/12 21.mayo.2015)

But for his own biography, his Argentine identity was obviously central. His nickname of “Che” comes from a common introjection used in Argentina. And his famous call for “two, three, many Vietnams” to break the imperialist power of the United States was fundamentally based on his view that Argentina and the Latin American Patria Grande had to free themselves from that power.

His Argentine identity and perspective was just as central to his personal life as was his lifelong struggle with asthma, something else that scarcely belongs to his Heroic Guerrilla image. But it was a central fact in his own life and career, and presumably played a significant part in his own personality, including his sympathy for the weak and suffering. His asthma played an important role in the events leading to his death. As O’Donnell recounts, the Bolivian army had asthma medication removed from all the hospitals in the area where his guerrilla band was operating, even though it caused great hardship for the Bolivians in those areas that needed the medication. Their determination to deprive Guevara of access to it overrode any public health consideration.

O’Donnell scarcely ignores Guevara’s experiences in Cuba, central as they were to his life. It was an intense several years. Guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra, eventually winning against dictator Fulgencio Batista’s much larger forces. He became a major leader in Castro’s government. One of his grimmer assignments was to pass final judgment on former Batista officials who had been found guilty in revolutionary courts of serious crimes. He signed off on dozens of executions in that role. O’Connell notes that Fidel may well have seen some advantage in having a non-Cuban playing that role in case there was a major backlash against the executions.

Guevara became a leading spokesman for the Cuban Revolution on the world stage. O’Donnell explains that in moments of relatively lesser tensions with the United States, Fidel Castro had Che keep a lower profile. When he wanted to turn up the heat against the US, he would send Che out to make anti-American speeches. He also played a major role in international relations with friendly countries.

He also called on Guevara to spearhead the defense against the Bay of Pigs invasion. He had shown his talents as a military leader in the Sierra Maestra. He was also a major player on the Cuban side of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

He also served in several high government posts: Minister of Industries, Finance Minister and President of the National Bank. O’Donnell discusses one of Guevara’s more famous notions, the idea that Cuban workers should be motivated by non-material incentives, i.e., revolutionary and patriotic fervor, rather than material incentives, i.e., better pay. This did not appear to be cynical on his part. He had a definite ascetic streak himself. But it proved to be unrealistic and the Cuban government soon moved away from that practice.

Part 1: Che the Argentine
Part 2: Che Guevera and Peronism
Part 3: Arbenz and Guevara’s politicization
Part 4: Two, three, many Vietnams

Now this is different

The Ché brand still sells

Vondo Sreeharsha reports for The Miami Herald, Forum on Guevara just part of U.S. rebranding: A U.S.-sponsored discussion of the branding of Ernesto "Che' Guevara signaled a new approach to Latin America.

The U.S. charm offensive in Latin America took a small but provocative step forward on Friday when the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires sponsored two readings of a new book that explains the enduring iconic power of Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

U.S. taxpayers funded the discussion at the Buenos Aires 35th International Book Fair of the Argentine revolutionary who dedicated his life to armed struggle against capitalism and imperialism. For one day at least, photos of Guevara shared space with the Stars and Stripes. Dozens attended, including local grade school students.

Mara Tekach, the embassy spokeswoman, said that the United States was simply promoting free expression.

Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image, by journalist Michael Casey, is one of the first books on a rarely discussed aspect of Guevara - his branding and why it has endured for more than four decades.

Ché Guevara is a perfect example of how an historical figure can become a symbol for people that may be distictly different that what he himself was in life. Killed by the Bolivian army in 1967 while organizing a guerrilla war against the Bolivian regime, he is honored today by Evo Morales, the elected President of the government of Bolivia, who has no interest in establishing a Cuban-style Communist regime.

Tags: che guevara

More on Che Guevara

Robert Scheer took the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara's death a month or so ago to write on The Martyring of Che Guevara TruthDig.com 10/09/07. Scheer noted that Guevara's power as an icon seems to have had more influence than his actual practical attempts at revolutionary missionizing:

It also turned out that killing Che was a big mistake, as his message was spread more effectively by his execution than by his guerrilla activities, which were, after he left Cuba, quite pathetic. This is the case in Latin America, where political leaders he helped inspire are faring better than those coddled by the CIA. Daniel Ortega, whom the CIA worked so doggedly to overthrow, is the elected president of Nicaragua. Almost all of Latin America’s leaders are leftists, some more moderate than Che (as in Brazil), and others as fiery as the guerrilla (in Venezuela), but all determinedly independent of yanqui control. Fortunately, they differ from Che in preferring the ballot to the gun. But all recognize that poverty remains the region’s No. 1 problem and that the free-market model imposed by the United States hardly contains all the answers. Recall that the U.S. break with the Cuban revolution came before Castro’s turn toward the Soviets, and that it was over his nationalization of American-owned business assets in Cuba ranging from Mafia-run casinos to the electric power grid.

He describes Guevara's theory of revolution as follows:

... he was either an Argentine Trotskyite or an anarchist, but Che was not a Communist in what we think of as the heavily entrenched, bureaucratized Cuban mold. Che was restless in post-revolutionary Cuba because his anarchist temperament caused him to bristle at the emerging bureaucracy. He was, like Trotsky in his dispute with Stalin, skeptical that the kind of socialism that truly served the poor could survive in just one country; hence, he died attempting to internationalize the struggle.

A Troskyist? An anarchist? I'm not sure where Scheer got that notion, although chances are he's better informed on the subject than I. But unless we understand those terms to simply mean "some leftwinger who isn't a communist" or something like that, I'm not sure they apply to Guevara. I mean, if we're actually using the words to mean something, Trotskyist is something very different than anarchist. So that's kind of a broad range of option that Scheer gives.

Che Guevara's view of revolution in the "Third World" was thought to be very close to that expounded by ther French writer Régis Debray, Revolution in the Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political Struggle in Latin America. The writer Juan Bosch (1909-2001), who served as the elected president of the Dominican Republic in 1963, wrote about Debray's book when it first appeared, in "An Anti-Communist Manifesto" New York Review of Books 10/26/1967 (behind subscription); the article was a translation of a Spanish original.

Che Guevara an anti-Communist? Bosch assumed that the view expressed by Debray was also that of Fidel Castro and therefore operative policy of the Cuban leadership at the time. He wrote of Revolution in the Revolution?:

It consists of two elements. First, this book charges that all of the Communist parties in Latin America lack the courage to think about a seizure of power. At the same time, Revolution in the Revolution? is a weapon in Fidel Castro's struggle to bring about a union of communism and nationalism in Latin America.

Debray's main accusation against Communist parties in Latin America raises others which may be even more serious, because they are based on moral judgments rather than those of tactical capacity. In view of the inclination of Latin American youth to value moral considerations above all others, these charges could have serious consequences for present-day Communist parties in Latin America. The most important of these charges is that, because they need to maintain a political position which will allow them to deal with the middle classes and the oligarchies in their countries, the Communist parties are sabotaging guerrilla movements.

This is probably a reasonable description of Guevara's view, that the orthodox Communist parties were more an obstacle to meaningful social revolution than a support. Whether that was Castro's view, even when Bosch assumed in 1967, is another question. Certainly a few years later, Castro was supportive of Salvador Allende's peaceful road to socialism - though that can't be said to have been an unqualified success, either, thanks to Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon.

Bosch argued that, in practice, the Guevara/Debray perspective was short-sighted, perhaps deceptive. Because even in the Cuban experience, while the Cuban Communist Party had a limited role in Castro's armed struggle, it played a critical role in building the revolutionary state afterwards:

There is, however, one question which Debray does not take into account. Fidel Castro was able to seize power without the help of the Cuban Communist Party, but could he have done all he did without its collaboration? Could Fidel Castro have gained total control of the life of the country so rapidly had he continued to rely on groups of people from different social classes, led by young middle- and lower-middle-class revolutionaries who were without any well-defined ideology or any party discipline—as was true of the 26th of July Movement? The answer would seem to be No. The existence of a Cuban Communist Party, with its rigidly disciplined cadres and followers, was without a doubt a factor of prime importance, not in the seizure of power, but in the transition from the type of revolution that Castro had preached to the type of revolution that he finally installed.

... Cuba needed newspaper and magazine editors, television and radio writers, schoolteachers, engineers, agronomists, doctors, civil servants at all levels, administrators and accountants in any number of industries, banks, and commercial establishments, labor leaders, and military men to bring it into the socialist sphere. Could all of this have been supplied by some 800 or 1000 guerrilla fighters? Undoubtedly not. On the other hand, the Cuban Communist Party had on its rolls thousands of men and women working at many different jobs all over the country. Those men and women were able to hold various positions in the government and in the life of the country, which allowed the guerrilla fighters from the Sierra Maestra to devote their time to organizing the army, the police, the militia, and to specialized functions in the military and police sectors. If we were to follow Cuba's example literally, we would conclude that although the Communist party is not necessary in the seizure of power, it becomes indispensable to continue the revolution once power has been seized.

Debray himself later re-evaluated his "Guevarist" theory of guerrilla warfare and revolution. He eventually joined the French Socialist Party and became an advisor on foreign affairs to Socialist President François Mitterrand.

For a present-day glimpse of Debray's views, see his article Socialism: A Life-Cycle New Left Review July-Aug 2007.

Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly for 11 - 17 October 2007 provides a reminder about Guevara's diplomatic activities in Comandante against convention:

Shortly before Ernesto Che Guevara's disappearance from public life in 1966, and on his way to Algeria, he stopped in Cairo, where he was warmly received by former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser. During his memorable visit to Egypt, Che attended a number of formal and informal meetings with Egyptian politicians and intellectuals. Popularly known as the "Enemy of Convention", he exchanged ideas with the leading artists and intelligentsia of the day such as Faten Hamama, Ahmed Bahaaeddin, Louis Awad and Ihsan Abdel-Quddous.

Tags: che guevara, juan bosch, régis debray, robert scheer

40th anniversary of Che Guevara's death

A Christ-like image of Che Guevara adorns this memorial at La Higuera, Bolivia, where he was killed

For whatever reasons, 40 years after his death, Ernesto "Che" Guevara remains a well-known image and a symbol of non-conformity and rebellion even for many young people born long after his death and who know next to nothing about Communism. (And probably don't even know Che was a Communist.)

I've included quite a few links to articles below. If you're really into Che nostalgia, or you're curious as to what Che nostalgia might sound like, you may want to start with this song by Carlos Puebla, or just click here:


"El Che" became perhaps the ultimate romantic image of the guerrilla. There are many ways to romanticize war, and Guevara's image represents one of them. He is probably more significant and certainly better known as a symbol than as an historical figure, though he was important in the real history of Cuba and Latin America in the more concrete sense, as well.

One illustration of that is the way in which Evo Morales, the current democratically elected president of Bolivia, the country in which Guevara was killed (executed, assassinated), commemorates that event (Guevaristas apuntan al capitalismo La Razón 09.10.2007):

Al recordar los 40 años del asesinato del guerrillero argentino Ernesto Che Guevara, el presidente Evo Morales se declaró "guevarista" y convocó a los países de América Latina a una lucha pacífica hasta derrotar al imperialismo, en un acto lleno de simbolismos en La Higuera.

"La lucha heroica del Che y de muchos revolucionarios cubanos, argentinos, latinoamericanos, seguirá hasta cambiar modelos económicos. Hasta acabar con el capitalismo salvaje, inhumano", sentenció, ante un millar de personas que se reunieron en el lugar donde hace cuatro décadas el Che fuera asesinado por el suboficial Mario Terán.

Su discurso antiimperialista fue secundado por los otros oradores, entre ellos Leonardo Tamayo Núñez, alias Urbano, sobreviviente de la guerrilla, y por el millar de personas que ayer se congregaron en el lugar.

No obstante su condición de capitán general de las Fuerzas Armadas, Morales no asistió a los actos que esta institución realizó en reconocimiento a los ex combatientes contra la guerrilla.

"Estoy segurísimo que habrá algunos comentarios de repudio, resistencia de mi presencia, pero no tengo por qué ocultar, somos guevaristas, humanistas, revolucionarios", sentenció.

[To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Argentine guerrilla fighter Ernest Che Guevara, President Evo Morales declared himself a "Guevarist" and called on the countries of Latin America to wage a peaceful struggle to defeat imperialism, in an act full of symbolism at La Higuera.

Che's heroic strugge and that of many Cuban, Argentine and Latin American revolutionaries will continue until economic models have changed. Until we are rid of wild, inhuman capitalism," he declared before a thousand people who assembled in the place where four decades ago Che was assassinated by the junior official Mario Terán.

His anti-imperialist discourse was seconded by other speakers, among them Leonardo Tamayo Núñez, alias Urbano, a survivor of the guerrilla [Guevara], and by the thousand people who gathered yesterday in that spot.

In spite of his position as the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Morales did not assist in the actions that institution took in recognition of the former combatants againt the guerrilla.

"I am very sure that their will be some commentaries against me, and resistance to my presence, but I don't have to hide, we're Guevarists, humanists, revolutionaries," he declared.

Guevara, born in Argentina in 1928, earned a medical degree in 1953 from the University of Buenos Aires. The following year, he joined up with a group of Fidel Castro's revolutionaries in exile in Mexico. He went to Cuba and fought with them there. When Castro took power, Guevara became one of the most prominent leaders of the revoloutionary government, serving as Miniter of Industry from 1961-65. He and Raúl Castro are credited with convincing Fidel to align his government more closely with the Soviet Union.

Those marketing to baby boomers find Che's image can come in handy

Guevara's departure from Cuba to be an intenerant revolutionary leader, a kind of Johnny Appleseed of guerrilla warfare, has never been entirely clarified. Guevara spent some time in Africa, in the Congon, unsuccessfully attempting to organize a revolutionary movement there. Then in 1966-7, he took his talents to Bolivia, where he fought until being captured by the Bolivian army 40 years ago today. He was shot to death after capture with no formalities of trial.

Although Cuba then and since celebrated El Che's role as a revolutionary missionary, there has always been the consideration that he may have left Cuba out of some political dissatisfaction with the course of the Cuban revolution. There was arguably a difference in Guevara's theory of revolution with that favored by Castro and the Cuban revolutionary "establishment".

Guevara was famous for his call for "two, three, many Vietnams", reflecting his hope and strategy that revolutions in various parts of what then was commonly called the Third World would destroy the power of American imperialism. While Guevara understood "imperialism" in a Marxist-Leninist sense, it's well for Americans to recall that in Latin America, imperialism of the gunboat diplomacy variety has been very much more associated with their historical relationship to the United States than most of us find it convenient to recognize.

Guevara's approach to organizing revolution in the underdeveloped world was known as the foco (or locofoco) theory. He believed that conditions in much of Latin America were such that if a band of guerrillas (the "foco") would begin an armed struggle in the rural areas against an oppressive government, that the inspiration and appeal of the armed struggle would rapidly attract followers and a much large movement would grow up around it. This approach was notable among other things for assuming in large part that the local Communist parties would have to be bypassed in building the initial armed movement.

Iconic 1960 photograph of Guevara by Alberto Korda

There is an argument to be made that there was a separate "Castroist" emphasis, which viewed the armed struggle in such situations as a part of a larger strategic whole, of which building the broader political organization simultaneously was a crucial part. This assumed a more important part for the existing Communist parties structures.

It's worth noting in this context that despite the gnashing of teeth on the part of Cold War and anti-Castro partisans in the the United States, the Cuban government did not indiscriminately promote revolution (or attempt to "export revolution" in the conventional Cold War term) in all of Latin America. It focused its efforts in that regard on countries that did not recognize the Cuban revolutionary government. Mexico, for example, always maintained decent relations with Cuba. And Cuba in turn refrained from anything more than general rhetorical solidarity with Mexican revolutionaries.

While it could be argued that the "foco" approach enjoyed some success in the 1970s in Nicaragua and El Salvador, for the most part the approach failed. Of course, the playing field wasn't static. In the early 1960s, the growing rivalry between the Soviet Union and China involved the two powers competing to show that they were the more devout chamption of national liberation in the Third World, including in support of guerrilla movements of a leftist nature. The shock of the Cuban revolution and the broader effort to counter Communist-backed national-liberation movements and insurgencies led the United States and other countries to develop counter-measures of various kinds to combat such movements.

While the Iraq War in particular today is a reminder of how non-viable colonial-type wars are in today's world, it certainly is not the case that all or most guerrilla movements succeed. On the contrary, most of them die out or (more commonly) or defeated. Crushed is probably the better term. Having large numbers of hated foreign troops that were seen by much of the population as a hostile colonial presence was a major factor in Vietnam and now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guevara's revolutionary movements in the Congo and Bolivia did not have that particular factor as a stimulus or inspiration for the population to support the guerrillas.

Why then is Guevara still seen as some kind of symbol of political liberation today, even in Bolivia? Part of the reason is surely that his image fits well with a model of the flamboyant revolutionary in the mold of Emiliano Zapato or Pancho Villa that is a more popular symbol in Latin America than in the United States. Another is that the United States is resented in Latin America more than most Americans would like to recognize, and with more real-world justification than most of us would like to admit. And Guevara successfully positioned himself as an opponent feared by the United States, though his actual revolutionary mission work didn't come close to producing his "two, three, many Vietnams".

Che, looking more than a little like Lenin here, attempting to organize revolution in the Congo

Guevara also had a sense for idealistic rhetoric. He seemed to actually believe in the concept of the Hombre Nuevo, the New Man. (His admirers would likely insist that he included women in that goal, though to what degree that's so, I don't know.) The Hombre Nuevo would be upright and honest and devoted to revolutionary solidarity with los pobres de la tierra (the poor of the world).

While I'm not fond of cynical conservative platitudes about the immutability of "human nature", because much of what goes by that name is very much a product of social dynamics, I'm also not thrilled with notion that a more just world requires anything so drastic as New Man, or a New Human Being, in more gender-neutral terms. A social order that provides increased opportunities for those who have too few and which successfully restrains the more destructive aspects of "human nature" doesn't require a new phase of biological evolution or the rewiring of the human brain. Adapting the software to achieve better results would do the job. And that is hard enough in itself.

Not surprisingly, Guevara's adopted country Cuba is commemorating the anniversary:

Reflexiones del Presidente Fidel Castro: El Che Granma International 10/08/07 (English version)

Destacan ejemplo del Che en proceso cubano Granma International 10/08/07

Preside Raúl Castro acto homenaje al Che Guevara Granma International 10/08/07 (English version)

Cuba rinde homenaje al ‘Che’ Guevara La Opinión 08.10.2007

There are a lot of articles on Guevera right now:

Aniversario del Che de Jorge Casteñeda El País 09.10.2007 ("Jorge Castañeda fue secretario de Relaciones Exteriores de México y es profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Nueva York.Publicó La vida en rojo: una biografía del Che Guevara, en 1997.")

El Che histórico, místico y comercial conviven en Bolivia El País 08.10.2007

El símbolo que también sirve al comercio La Razón (Bolívia) 08.10.2007. That article contains links to 19 others in the same paper.

Qué bueno que viniste de Ricardo Catalapiedra El País 07.10.2007

"El Che no es un icono pegado a la pared" (interview with Che's daughter Aleida Guevara) de Jaume Bauzà 08.06.2007

US Government documents on Che Guevara's death from the National Security Archive

Che Guevara in Bolivia by Major Donald R. Selvage, USMC 04/01/1985

CheGuevara.com.ar (Argentina) has links to various articles in Spanish

Fundación Che Guevara, Bolivia (Spanish)

Audio from Cadena SER (Spain):
'La Ventana': En torno a la figura del 'Che' Guevara accessed 09.10.2007

"Hasta siempre comandante", de Carlos Puebla (song)

This is a picture gallery from the Süddeutsche Zeitung: Revolutionär mit Kultstatus: Che Guevara

Tags: che guevara, small wars