Che Guevara: As you know, my meeting with Frondizi was held in rather abnormal conditions. In cases of personal meetings, I let the head of state or host officials of the nation that has received our officials issue their account of the meeting. The meeting with President Frondizi was held behind closed doors, and I believe that President Frondizi is the one who is authorized, in this case, to make a statement and say what we talked about. He has already done so; he issued statements today referring in a laudatory, positive way to Cuba and especially to the people’s self-determination—which is vital to us, because we do not expect the other Latin American peoples to defend our social system, but we do want them to defend our right to have the social system we choose, which is what President Frondizi has done.
In addition, I had another meeting, with another head of state, President Haedo. It was very cordial and took place in Uruguay; there is not any secret about it. President Haedo loves jokes, and we were in a jovial mood, swapping jokes and drinking mate, which is an old habit I haven’t lost and which I rediscovered in Uruguay. It was really a very pleasant meeting, held just after the president met with Mr. Dillon, so the priority was the United States first and Cuba second.
Moderator: Compañero Gregorio Ortega.
Journalist: With our questions, commander, we have asked you to expand on the summary you gave of the Punta del Este conference. We do not know if we have left anything out. Would you like to make a statement summing up the results of the Punta del Este conference for Latin America—and for the Cuban people, of course?
Che Guevara: I think that, what with my summary and your questions, everything important has already been said, though some explanation of the final vote, the voting in the commission, may be lacking. I do not remember what its name was, but it was the main commission of the conference, to which the papers of the four working commissions were brought. They were divided into chapters.
When we abstained from voting on the first declaration, which was called the Declaration to the Peoples of the Americas—we did not vote against it, we abstained, and I have already read you some paragraphs of that declaration—we explained why we were abstaining. Then we also abstained on the Punta del Este accord, and then also on the attached resolutions, which were about socioeconomic development, economic integration (we voted for the section on economic integration), basic export products (on which we abstained), the Annual Assessment of Socioeconomic Progress (which we voted for), and Public Opinion and the Alliance for Progress (which we voted against). This last is the title to which the original US paper was reduced. Though whittled down, it was still encumbered with a range of matters that were useless for an economic conference and bearing a considerable load of poison for the peoples of Latin America, in the form of subsidies and the regimentation of culture.
At first, there was a reference to a “common market of culture,” as if it were a great conquest of Latin America; that phrase was used to describe Point Five. The refutations were so harsh—and not only ours, but several other countries, as well—that this phrase was left out.
The only thing we voted for was the Annual Assessment of Socioeconomic Progress, because Cuba can check its progress in that assessment every year, and the results of the challenge can be seen. So we will be there every year, showing what we have done and reminding the others that the document was signed and that a pledge was made to the peoples. That was the only thing we voted for. We abstained on all the others except the point on “Public Opinion and the Alliance for Progress,” which we voted against.
I think that the main results of the conference are clear: what the United States proposed, what it got and what it did not get—and what it did not get is much more important than what it got. Then there was what Cuba proposed (I think it got nearly everything) and the phenomenon of the rise of other Latin American countries to an important plane in the political balance of forces of the Americas. This is particularly true of Brazil, whose decisions (perhaps for the first time in many years, or even for the first time in the history of “Pan-Americanism”) now have to be taken into consideration in Washington and on Wall Street and cannot be ignored.
So those are the final results of this episode in the struggle between the Latin American peoples and imperialism, the ministerial CIES conference at Punta del Este. It is a struggle that has not been decided in favor of anybody, but this episode may well have been a battle that Cuba—or, rather, the progressive forces in Latin America—won. It should be repeated in the struggles of Latin American countries at the ministerial level, in their struggles against imperialist aggression, against economic aggression and to guide the Latin American peoples. It should also be repeated in the daily reaffirmation of our aspirations to have the rest of Latin America share our future, with a fairer social system.
All this is to say that time will tell what the real results of the conference have been. It was a battle that may be just the first in a series of battles that imperialism will lose, or it may not be so important. It was held only a short time ago, and too short a time especially for those of us who participated, and who, therefore, have a rather distorted view of its problems—to be able to make an objective assessment.
But, yes, I believe the final results have been positive.
Letter (1961)
Letter to Mr. Robert Starkie
Havana
June 12, 1961
Year of Education
Mr. Robert Starkie
Rocamora Bros., Ltd.
35 Wingold
Toronto 19, Ontario, Canada
Dear Sir,
This is in response to your letter of May 19, which I received a few days ago.
Two aspects of your offer are of interest to us. You offer to install factories for producing insecticides: for veterinary use; for use in agriculture, especially for fruit; fungicides; and fumigators for land and for stored products. We are interested in installing all of those factories in Cuba, but, in our country, the exploitation of human beings by others has been ended and there are no possibilities for establishing new privately owned factories, so we cannot accept the establishment of factories that are dependent on a foreign company.
If you are interested in selling us machinery with a long-term contract for supplying the raw materials that we cannot obtain here and with a payment formula that is acceptable to the country—which lacks convertible currency right now—we would be very interested in holding discussions in this regard.
Sincerely,
Commander Ernesto Che Guevara
1962
Articles
This essay was written between October and November 1962 in Cuba, but was not published until after Che Guevara’s death, when it was published in Verde Olivo, October 6, 1968.
Tactics and Strategy for the Latin American Revolution
Tactics show us how to use armed forces in combat and strategy teaches us how to use combat encounters in order to obtain the war’s objective.
— Karl von Clausewitz
I begin this work with a quotation from Clausewitz, the military author who fought against Napoleon and who theorized so brilliantly about war; Lenin loved to quote him because of the clarity of his thinking, in spite of the fact that he was, of course, a bourgeois analyst.
Tactics and strategy are the two main elements in the art of war, but war and politics are intimately related by a common denominator: the effort to reach a specific goal, whether it be annihilation of the adversary in armed conflict or the taking of political power.
But analysis of the essential tactics and strategies that rule political or military struggles cannot be reduced to a schematic formula.
The richness of each one of these concepts can be measured only by combining practice with the analysis of the complex activities that they imply.
There are no unalterable tactical and strategic objectives. Sometimes tactical objectives attain strategic importance, and other times strategic objectives become merely tactical elemen
ts. The thorough study of the relative importance of each element permits the full utilization, by the revolutionary forces, of all of the facts and circumstances leading up to the great and final strategic objective: the taking of power.
Power is the sine qua non strategic objective of the revolutionary forces, and everything must be subordinated to this basic endeavor.
But the taking of power, in this world polarized by two forces of extreme disparity and absolute incompatibility of interests, cannot be limited to the boundaries of a single geographic or social unit. The seizure of power is a worldwide objective of the revolutionary forces. To conquer the future is the strategic element of revolution; freezing the present is the counterstrategy motivating the forces of world reaction today, for they are on the defensive.
In this worldwide struggle, position is very important. At times it is decisive. Cuba, for example, is a vanguard outpost overlooking the extremely broad stretches of the economically distorted world of Latin America. Cuba’s example is a beacon, a guiding light for all the peoples of the Americas. The Cuban outpost is of great strategic value to the major contenders who at this moment dispute their hegemony of the world: imperialism and socialism.
Its value would be different if it had been located in another geographic or social setting. Its value was different prior to the revolution when it merely constituted a tactical element for the imperialist world. Its value has increased, not only because it is an open door to the Americas but because, added to the strength of its strategic, military and tactical position, is the power of its moral influence. “Moral missiles” are such a devastatingly effective weapon that they have become the most important element in determining Cuba’s value. That is why, to analyze each element in the political struggle, one cannot extract it from its particular set of circumstances. All the antecedents serve to reaffirm a line or position consistent with its great strategic objectives.
Relating this discussion to the Americas, one must ask the necessary question: What are the tactical elements that must be used to achieve the major objective of taking power in this part of the world? Is it possible or not, given the present conditions in our continent, to achieve it (socialist power, that is) by peaceful means? We emphatically answer that, in the great majority of cases, it is not possible. The most that could be achieved would be the formal takeover of the bourgeois superstructure of power, and the transition to socialism by that government; having achieved formal power under the established bourgeois legal system there would still be a very violent struggle against all who attempt in one way or another to check its progress toward new social structures.
This is one of the most debated and most important topics, and possibly, it is a topic on which our revolution most disagrees with other revolutionary movements of Latin America. We must clearly state our position and try to analyze its rationale.
Today, Latin America is a volcano. Although not in a state of eruption it is shocked by subterranean vibrations announcing the volcano’s coming. There are visible and audible signs everywhere. The Second Declaration of Havana1 is the concrete expression of those subterranean movements. It strives to achieve an awareness of its objective, that is, an awareness of the necessity and even the certainty of revolutionary change. This volcano in the Americas is not divorced from the revolutionary movements appearing in the contemporary world in this crucial moment of confrontation between two opposing forces and conceptualizations of history.
We could refer to our homeland with the following words from the Second Declaration of Havana:
What is the history of Cuba if it is not the history of Latin America? And what is the history of Latin America if it is not the history of Asia, Africa and Oceania? And what is the history of all of these peoples if it is not the history of the most merciless and cruel exploitation by imperialism throughout the modern world?
The Americas, like Africa, Asia and Oceania, are part of a single whole where economic forces have been distorted by imperialism. But not all the continents present similar characteristics; the forms of economic exploitation—imperialist, colonialist or neocolonialist—employed by the European bourgeois forces have had to cope not only with the liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Oceania, but also with the penetration of US imperialist capital. This has created different correlations of forces in different areas, and has permitted the peaceful transition toward national independent or neocolonialist bourgeois systems.
But in the Americas such systems have not developed. Latin America is the parade ground of US imperialism, and there are no economic forces in the world capable of supporting the struggle that national bourgeoisies have waged against imperialism elsewhere; and these forces, relatively much weaker than in other regions, back down and compromise with imperialism.
The frightened bourgeoisie is faced with a terrible choice: submission to foreign capital or destruction by domestic popular forces. The Cuban revolution has accentuated this dilemma; the polarization created by its example means the only alternative that remains is to sell out. When this takes place, when the pact is sanctified, domestic reactionary forces ally themselves with the most powerful international reactionary forces, and the peaceful development of social revolutions is prevented.
Pointing out the present situation, the Second Declaration of Havana states:
In many Latin American countries revolution is inevitable. This fact is not determined by the will of any person. It is determined by the appalling conditions of exploitation under which the Latin American people live, the development of a revolutionary consciousness in the masses, the worldwide crisis of imperialism and the universal liberation movements of the subjugated nations.
Today’s unrest is an unmistakable symptom of rebellion. The insides of the continent are stirring after having witnessed four centuries of slavery, semislavery and feudal exploitation of human beings by others; from the indigenous peoples and slaves brought from Africa to the national groups that arose later—whites, blacks, mulattoes, mestizos and Indians—who today share pain, humiliation and the Yankee yoke, and share hope for a better tomorrow.
We can conclude, therefore, that when faced with the decision to bring about more socially just systems in the Americas, we must think fundamentally in terms of armed struggle. There exists, nevertheless, some possibility of peaceful transition; this is pointed out in the studies of classical Marxist authors and it is sanctioned in the declaration of the parties. Yet under the current conditions in Latin America, every minute that goes by makes a peaceful commitment more difficult. The latest events in Cuba are an example of the cohesion that exists between the bourgeois governments and the imperialist aggressor on the fundamental aspects of the conflict.
Remember this point we have continually emphasized: Peaceful transition is not the achievement of formal power by elections or through public opinion without direct combat, but rather it is the establishment of socialist power, with all its attributes, without the use of armed struggle. It is reasonable, therefore, that all the progressive forces do not have to initiate the road of armed revolution but must use—until the very last moment—every possibility of legal struggle within the bourgeois conditions.
With regard to the form the revolutionary movements must adopt after seizing power, a number of very interesting questions of interpretation arise that reflect the times. The Declaration of the 81 Communist Parties states:
Our epoch, the main feature of which is the transition from capitalism to socialism, as initiated by the great October [1917] socialist revolution in Russia, is the epoch of the struggle between two diametrically opposed social systems; it is the epoch of socialist revolutions and national liberation revolutions; it is the epoch of the collapse of imperialism and the liquidation of the colonial system; it is the epoch of the constant advance of more and more peoples on the socialist road; it is the epoch of the triumph of socialism and universal communism.
The main feature of our epoch is the
fact that the international socialist system is becoming the decisive factor in the development of human society.
It is stated, therefore, that although the people’s struggle for liberation is very important, that which characterizes the present time is the transition from capitalism to socialism.
There are countries from all the exploited continents whose social systems have reached different levels of development, but almost all of them have strong social divisions with feudal characteristics and a heavy dependence on foreign capital. It would be logical to think that in the struggle for liberation, following the natural process of development, countries could obtain national democratic governments in which the bourgeoisie more or less predominates. This has occurred in many cases. Nevertheless, those peoples who have had to use force to achieve independence have made greater advances in the path of social reforms and many of them are building socialism. Cuba and Algeria are the most recent examples of the effects of armed struggle on the development of social transformation. If we conclude that the possibility of the peaceful road is almost nonexistent in the Americas, we can point out that it is very probable that the outcome of victorious revolutions in this area of the world will produce regimes of a socialist structure.
Rivers of blood will flow before this is achieved. Algeria’s wounds have not yet healed; Vietnam continues to bleed; Angola struggles bravely and alone for its independence; Venezuela, whose patriots identify with the Cuban cause, has recently demonstrated its lofty and heart-felt solidarity with our revolution; Guatemala is waging a difficult, almost underground struggle. All of these are good examples.
The blood of the people is our most sacred treasure, but it must be shed in order to save more blood in the future.
Other continents have achieved liberation from colonialism and have established more or less strong bourgeois regimes. This has been accomplished without, or almost without, violence but we must realize that following the logic of events up to this moment, this constantly developing national bourgeoisie will at a given moment find itself in contradiction with other sectors of the population. When the yoke of the oppressor country is removed, this national bourgeoisie is no longer a revolutionary force and transforms itself into an exploiting class, renewing the cycle of social struggle. It may or may not advance on a peaceful road, but irrevocably two great forces will confront each other: the exploiters and the exploited.