Che Guevara – Part II

The official Cuban policy today is hardly to create a “new man” but to surviveamidst 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 developmentthrough moral incentives. In 1965, Che declared in Algiers: “There are no frontiers in this struggle todeath. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of what occurs in any part of the world. A victory for anycountry against imperialism is our victory, just as any country’s defeat is a defeat for all. The practiceof proletarian internationalism is not only a duty for the people who struggle for a better future, it is alsoan inescapable necessity.” In October 1966, he opened a new guerrilla front in Bolivia. He died trying to create “two, three, many Vietnam” (1967). Hisinternationalism 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 beextended to wield our weapons, and other men be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccatochant of the machine gun and new battle cries of war and victory.” Guevara failed to extend the revolutionto other countries and set South and Central America ablaze. This later signaled a shift in Cubanforeign policy. However, even if these are no longer the days of the Second Declaration of La Havana orOLAS, the Cuban government has had a remarkable internationalist policy, for example sendingtroops in Angola and other African countries (playing a crucial role in the defeat of Apartheid). It has alsosent 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 ofconsumption goods and their poor quality. People famously complained that they couldn’t understandhow a country that eradicated illetracy and infant mortality produced such dreadful tooth paste !However, the achievements of the Cuban revolution remain impressive. Figures from the 2003 UnitedNations Report on Human Development show that in spite of siege economy and war conditions, Cubahas achieved first world health and education standards in a third world country. There is one medicaldoctor for 170 people, in the rest of Latin America, the proportion is of one doctor for 613 people. Cubaspends per inhabitant twice as much on health care and education than the rest of Latin America. Inthose 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 orless. In Cuba less than two percent do. Its infant mortality and literacy rates are outstripping those ofthe US, and its class sizes are a third smaller thanin Britain. To compare it with its neighbour, Haiti, where half the population is unable to read andinfant mortality is over ten times higher. Those facts are crucial for the ideological battle because theyshow that socialism can be possible.
Horia Nasra