THE AWAKENING OF LATIN AMERICA
CHE GUEVARA PUBLISHING PROJECT
THE DIARIES:
The Motorcycle Diaries (1952)
Latin America Diaries (1953–55)
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1956–58)
Diary of a Combatant (1956–58)
Congo Diary (1965)
The Bolivian Diary (1966–67)
Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara
ALSO AVAILABLE:
Che Guevara Reader
Global Justice: Liberation and Socialism
Self-Portrait: A Photographic and Literary Memoir
Marx & Engels: A Biographical Introduction
Guerrilla Warfare
Our America and Theirs
THE AWAKENING OF
LATIN AMERICA
A classic anthology of Che Guevara’s writings
on Latin America
Ernesto Che Guevara
Edited by María del Carmen Ariet García
Copyright © 2013 Che Guevara Studies Center and Aleida March
Copyright © 2013 Ocean Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Poetry translated by Manuel Talens and Sue Ashdown.
ISBN: 978-1-921700-91-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2011943982
First edition published in 2013
Published in Spanish as América Latina: Despertar de un Continente
PUBLISHED BY OCEAN PRESS
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[email protected] Contents
Ernesto Che Guevara: Biographical Note
Chronology of Ernesto Che Guevara
Editor’s Preface
Introduction
María del Carmen Ariet García
PART ONE
Discovering Latin America 1950–56
Introduction
Travels in Argentina (1950)
Excerpts from “The Bicycle Diaries”
First Trip through Latin America (1951–52)
Excerpts from “The Motorcycle Diaries”
A Second Look at Latin America (1953–56)
Excerpts from “Latin America Diaries”
Doctors and their Environment
The Role of the Doctor in Latin America
Reading Notes
Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España by Bernal Díaz del Castillo
La crónica del Perú by Pedro Cieza de León
La araucana by Alonso de Ercilla
Facundo (Civilización o barbarie) by Domingo F. Sarmiento
El Evangelio y el Syllabus y Un dualismo imposible by Dr. Lorenzo Montúfar
Martín Fierro by José Hernández
Obras escogidas by Enrique Gómez Carrillo
Martí: Raíz y ala del libertador de Cuba by Vicente Sáenz
Breve historia de México by José Vasconcelos
Trayectoria de Goethe by Alfonso Reyes
La rebelión de los colgados by Bruno Traven
Biografía del Caribe by Germán Arciniegas
Mamita Yunai by Carlos Luis Fallas
Canto General by Pablo Neruda
Guatemala: la democracia y el imperio by Juan José Arévalo
El hechicero by Carlos Solórzano
Journalism (1953–54)
“The View from the Banks of the Giant of Rivers”
“Machu-Picchu: An Enigma in Stone of the Americas”
“The Dilemma of Guatemala”
“The Workers of the United States: Friends or Enemies?”
Poems (unpublished)
To the Bolivian Miners
Who Cares?
Spain in America
A Tear for You
Invitation to the Road
Uaxactún... Sleeps
Selected Letters (1953–56)
Books Read in Adolescence
PART TWO
Latin America from Within (1956–65)
Introduction
1956–58
The Revolutionary War in Cuba
Articles
“How Cuban the World Seems to Us”
“Our Soul is Full of Compassion”
Interview
Interview by the Argentine Journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti
1959
Article
Latin America from the Afro-Asian Perspective
Speech
Speech to the College of Medicine, Havana
Interview
Interview for Radio Rivadavia, Argentina
Letter
1960
Articles
“Regional Disarmament and Other Acts of Submission”
“Don’t be Stupid, Buddy, and Other Warnings”
“Knee Bends, International Organizations and Genuflections”
“Caracero, the Argentine Vote and Other Rhinoceroses”
“Ydígoras, Somoza and Other Proofs of Friendship”
“The Marshall Plan, the Eisenhower Plan and Other Plans”
“Nixon, Eisenhower, Hagerty and Other Warnings”
“Accusations at the OAS and United Nations and Other Stabs”
“The ‘Court of Miracles’ and Other Devices used by the OAS”
“A Tiny Bit is a Big Enough Sample and Other Short Stories”
Speeches
Speech to the Latin American Youth Congress, Havana
In Support of the Declaration of Havana, Camagüey
Farewell to the International Volunteer Work Brigades
Selected Letters
1961
Article
Cuba: Historical Exception or Vanguard in the Anticolonial Struggle?
Speeches
“Economics Cannot be Separated from Politics.” First intervention at the CIES Conference, Punta del Este
“The Real Road to Development.” Second intervention at the CIES Conference, Punta del Este
Cuban Television interview about the Alliance for Progress and the CIES Conference in Punta del Este
Letter
1962
Articles
“Tactics and Strategy for the Latin American Revolution”
“El Patojo”
Speeches
The Cuban Revolution’s Influence in Latin America
Speech to the Argentines Living in Havana
1963
Article
“Guerrilla Warfare: A Method”
Letter
1964
Speech
Response to the Attacks against Cuba in the UN General Assembly, New York
Letter
Reading Lists (Cuba 1956–65)
PART THREE
The Americas United: Revolutionary Internationalism (1965–67)
Introduction
Congo
Diary. Excerpt from the epilogue
Message to the Tricontinental: “Create two, three... many Vietnams”
Bolivian Diary. Excerpts
Documents from Bolivia
Communiqué No. 1: To the Bolivian People (March 27, 1967)
Communiqué No. 2: To the Bolivian People (April 14, 1967)
Communiqué No. 3: To the Bolivian People (May 1967)
Communiqué No. 4: To the Bolivian People (June 1967)
Communiqué No. 5: To the Bolivian Miners (June 1967)
Instructions to Urban Cadres (January 22, 1967)
Reading Lists (1965–67)
Reading Plan for Bolivia
Index
ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA
Biographical Note
One of Time magazine’s “icons of the century,” Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928. He made several trips around Latin America during and immediately after his studies at medical school in Buenos Aires, including his 1951–52 journey with Alberto Granado, on the unreliable Norton motorbike described in his early journal The Motorcycle Diaries.
He was already becoming involved in political activity and living in Guatemala when, in 1954, the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz was overthrown in a CIA-organized military operation. Ernesto escaped to Mexico, profoundly radicalized.
Following up on a contact made in Guatemala, Guevara sought out the group of exiled Cuban revolutionaries in Mexico City. In July 1955, he met Fidel Castro and immediately enlisted in the guerrilla expedition to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Cubans nicknamed him “Che,” a popular form of address in Argentina.
On November 25, 1956, Guevara set sail for Cuba aboard the cabin cruiser Granma as the doctor to the guerrilla group that began the revolutionary armed struggle in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains. Within several months, he was appointed by Fidel Castro as the first Rebel Army commander, though he continued ministering medically to wounded guerrilla fighters and captured soldiers from Batista’s army.
In September 1958, Guevara played a decisive role in the military defeat of Batista after he and Camilo Cienfuegos led separate guerrilla columns westward from the Sierra Maestra.
After Batista fled on January 1, 1959, Guevara became a key leader of the new revolutionary government, first as head of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform; then as president of the National Bank. In February 1961 he became minister of industry. He was also a central leader of the political organization that in 1965 became the Communist Party of Cuba.
Apart from these responsibilities, Guevara represented the Cuban revolutionary government around the world, heading numerous delegations and speaking at the United Nations and other international forums in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the socialist bloc countries. He earned a reputation as a passionate and articulate spokesperson for Third World peoples, most famously at the 1961 conference at Punta del Este in Uruguay, where he denounced US President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress.
As had been his intention since joining the Cuban revolutionary movement, Guevara left Cuba in April 1965, initially to lead a Cuban-organized guerrilla mission to support the revolutionary struggle in the Congo, Africa. He returned to Cuba secretly in December 1965 to prepare another Cuban-organized guerrilla force for Bolivia. Arriving in Bolivia in November 1966, Guevara’s plan was to challenge that country’s military dictatorship and eventually to instigate a revolutionary movement that would extend throughout the continent of Latin America. The journal he kept during the Bolivian campaign became known as The Bolivian Diary. Che was wounded and captured by US-trained and run Bolivian counterinsurgency troops on October 8, 1967. The following day he was executed and his body hidden.
Che Guevara’s remains were finally discovered in 1997 and returned to Cuba. A memorial was built at Santa Clara in central Cuba, where he had won a major military battle during the revolutionary war.
Chronology of Ernesto Che Guevara
June 14, 1928 Ernesto Guevara is born in Rosario, Argentina, of parents Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna; he will be the eldest of five children.
January–July 1952 Ernesto Guevara travels around Latin America with his friend Alberto Granado.
March 10, 1952 General Fulgencio Batista carries out a coup d’état in Cuba.
July 6, 1953 After graduating as a doctor in March, Ernesto Guevara sets off again to travel through Latin America. He visits Bolivia, observing the aftermath of the 1952 revolution in that country.
July 26, 1953 Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful armed attack on the Moncada army garrison in Santiago de Cuba, launching the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the Batista regime.
December 1953 Ernesto Guevara meets a group of Cuban survivors of the Moncada attack in San José, Costa Rica.
December 24, 1953 Ernesto Guevara arrives in Guatemala, then under the popularly elected government of Jacobo Árbenz.
January–June 1954 While in Guatemala, he studies Marxism and becomes involved in political activities, meeting exiled Cuban revolutionaries.
August 1954 Mercenary troops backed by the CIA enter Guatemala City and begin massacring Árbenz supporters.
September 21, 1954 Ernesto Guevara arrives in Mexico City after fleeing Guatemala. He gets a job at the Central Hospital.
July 1955 Ernesto Guevara meets Fidel Castro soon after the latter arrives in exile in Mexico City after his release from prison in Cuba. He immediately agrees to join the planned guerrilla expedition to Cuba. The Cubans nickname him “Che,” an Argentine term of greeting.
June 24, 1956 Che is arrested as part of a roundup by Mexican police of exiled Cuban revolutionaries.
November 25, 1956 Eighty-two combatants, including Che Guevara as troop doctor, set sail for Cuba from Tuxpan, Mexico, aboard the small cabin cruiser Granma.
December 2, 1956 The Granma reaches Cuba at Las Coloradas beach in Oriente province, but the rebels are surprised by Batista’s troops at Alegría de Pío and dispersed.
December 21, 1956 Che’s group (led by Juan Almeida) reunites with Fidel Castro and his group, and they move deeper into the Sierra Maestra mountains.
February 17, 1957 New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews interviews Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra. The same day, the first meeting is held between the urban underground and the guerrillas of the July 26 Movement since the start of the revolutionary war.
March 13, 1957 A group of students from the Revolutionary Directorate attack the Presidential Palace and seize a major Havana radio station. Student leader José Antonio Echeverría is killed in this attack.
May 27–28, 1957 The battle of El Uvero takes place, in which Che Guevara stands out among the combatants.
July 12, 1957 The rebels issue the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra calling for a broad political front against General Batista and support for the Rebel Army.
July 21, 1957 Che Guevara is selected to lead the newly established second column (Column Four) of the Rebel Army and is promoted to the rank of commander.
August 31, 1958 Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos lead invasion columns west from the Sierra Maestra toward central Cuba, opening new battle fronts in Las Villas province.
November 15, 1958 Fidel leaves the Sierra Maestra to direct the Rebel Army’s final offensive in Santiago de Cuba. By the end of the month, Batista’s elite troops are defeated at the battle of Guisa.
December 28, 1958 Che Guevara’s Column Eight initiates the battle of Santa Clara and succeeds in taking control of the city within a few days.
January 1, 1959 Batista flees Cuba. Fidel enters Santiago de Cuba as the military regime collapses. Santa Clara falls to the Rebel Army.
January 2, 1959 Fidel Castro calls for a general strike and the country is paralyzed. The Rebel Army columns led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos reach Havana.
January 8, 1959 Fidel Castro arrives in Havana.
February 9, 1959 Che Guevara is declare
d a Cuban citizen.
June 12–September 8, 1959 Che Guevara travels through Europe, Africa, and Asia; he signs various commercial, technical, and cultural agreements on behalf of the revolutionary government.
October 7, 1959 Che Guevara is designated head of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA).
November 25, 1959 Che Guevara is appointed president of the National Bank of Cuba.
March 17, 1960 President Eisenhower approves a CIA plan to overthrow the revolutionary government and to train a Cuban exile army to invade Cuba.
October 21, 1960 Che Guevara leaves on an extended visit to the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, China and North Korea.
January 3, 1961 Washington breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.
February 23, 1961 The revolutionary government establishes the Ministry of Industry, headed by Che Guevara.
April 16, 1961 At a mass rally Fidel Castro proclaims the socialist character of the Cuban revolution.
April 17–19, 1961 One thousand five hundred Cuban-born mercenaries, organized and backed by the United States, invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs but are defeated within 72 hours. Che Guevara is sent to command troops in Pinar del Río province.
August 8, 1961 Che Guevara condemns US President Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress” in a fiery speech to the Organization of American States (OAS) Economic and Social Conference in Punta del Este, Uruguay, as head of Cuba’s delegation. Cuba is subsequently expelled from the OAS.
February 3, 1962 President Kennedy orders a total trade embargo against Cuba.
August 27–September 7, 1962 Che Guevara makes his second visit to the Soviet Union.
October 1962 An international crisis breaks out after US spy planes discover Soviet missile installations in Cuba. Cuba responds by mobilizing its population for defense. Che Guevara is assigned to lead forces in Pinar del Río province in preparation for an imminent US invasion.
July 3–17, 1963 Che Guevara visits Algeria, recently independent under the government of Ahmed Ben Bella.
March 1964 Che Guevara meets with Tamara Bunke (“Tania”) to discuss her mission to move to Bolivia in anticipation of a future guerrilla expedition.
March 25, 1964 Che Guevara addresses the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, Switzerland.