Che Guevara – Part II

The official Cuban policy today is hardly to create a “new man” but to survive amidst extremely difficult conditions.Guevara resigned of his official positions in 1965 and went to create new guerrilla fronts against imperialism.

A foreign policy of armed revolution goes hand in hand with a domestic policy of development through moral incentives. In 1965, Che declared in Algiers: “There are no frontiers in this struggle to death.

We cannot remain indifferent in the face of what occurs in any part of the world. A victory for any country against imperialism is our victory, just as any country’s defeat is a defeat for all. The practice of proletarian internationalism is not only a duty for the people who struggle for a better future, it is also an inescapable necessity.” In October 1966, he opened a new guerrilla front in Bolivia. He died trying to create “two, three, many Vietnam” (1967). His internationalism was remarkable. He concluded:”Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome,provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear, and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and other men be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato chant of the machine gun and new battle cries of war and victory.” Guevara failed to extend the revolution to other countries and set South and Central America ablaze.

This later signaled a shift in Cuban foreign policy. However, even if these are no longer the days of the Second Declaration of La Havana or OLAS, the Cuban government has had a remarkable internationalist policy, for example sending troops in Angola and other African countries (playing a crucial role in the defeat of Apartheid). It has also sent 50 000 doctors to work for free in 93 countries and give a free university education to over 1000third world students a year.Guevara was fully aware of the extreme difficulties of building socialism, in particular the scarcity of consumption goods and their poor quality. People famously complained that they couldn’t understand how a country that eradicated illiteracy and infant mortality produced such dreadful tooth paste! However, the achievements of the Cuban revolution remain impressive. Figures from the 2003 United Nations Report on Human Development show that in spite of siege economy and war conditions, Cuba has achieved first world health and education standards in a third world country.

There is one medical doctor for 170 people, in the rest of Latin America, the proportion is of one doctor for 613 people. Cuba spends per inhabitant twice as much on health care and education than the rest of Latin America. In those countries, the ten percent richest people earn 46 times what the poorest 10 percent earn. In Cuba,the proportion is five times. A quarter of Latin Americans have to survive on two dollars a day or less. In Cuba less than two percent do. Its infant mortality and literacy rates are outstripping those of the US, and its class sizes are a third smaller than in Britain. To compare it with its neighbour, Haiti, where half the population is unable to read and infant mortality is over ten times higher. Those facts are crucial for the ideological battle because they show that socialism can be possible.

You can read the first part of this article here: Che Guevara – Part I