Che Guevara

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If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.

Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna (14 June 1928 - 9 October 1967) Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader; usually referred to as "Che" Guevara. Though his birth certificate states June 14 as his date of birth some sources declare an earlier date as likely, with May 14th commonly cited.

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[edit] Sourced

The wave of anger, of demands for justice, of claims for rights trampled underfoot, which is beginning to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will swell with every passing day.

Once more I was able to convince myself how criminal the capitalistic octopuses are. On a picture of our old and bewailed comrade Stalin, I swore not to rest before these capitalistic octopuses are destroyed.
- Letter to his aunt Beatriz (1953); as quoted in Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1997) by Jon Lee Anderson ISBN 0802116000

I am neither a Christ nor a philanthropist. I am everything contrary to a Christ, and philanthropy seems worthless in comparison to what I believe in. I will fight with all the weapons within my reach rather than let myself be nailed to a cross or whatever.
- Letter to his mother (15 July 1956)

I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal. He gasped for a little while and was dead. Upon proceeding to remove his belongings I couldn't get off the watch tied by a chain to his belt, and then he told me in a steady voice farther away than fear: "Yank it off, boy, what does it matter." I did so and his possessions were now mine.
- Diary entry from Sierra Maestra on the shooting of fellow Eutimio Guerra which he suspected of passing on information (1957)

I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.
- Statement in Mexico (1958); as quoted in Kaplan AP World History 2005 (2004) edited by the Kaplan staff, p. 240

If it is an element of liberation for Latin America, I believe that it should have demonstrated that. Until now, I have not been aware of any such demonstration. The IMF performs an entirely different function: precisely that of ensuring that capital based outside of Latin America controls all of Latin America.
- Regarding the IMF, in an interview for Radio Rivadavia of Argentina (3 November 1959)

The interests of the IMF represent the big international interests that today seem to be established and concentrated in Wall Street.
- Regarding the IMF, in an interview for Radio Rivadavia of Argentina (3 November 1959)

In a revolution, one triumphs or dies...

And the wave of anger, of demands for justice, of claims for rights trampled underfoot, which is beginning to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will swell with every passing day. Speech at United Nations General assembly, 11 December, 1964. [1] (Y esa ola de estremecido rencor, de justicia reclamada, de derecho pisoteado, que se empieza a levantar por entre las tierras de Latinoamérica, esa ola ya no parará más. Esa ola irá creciendo cada día que pase.)
- often quoted as Esa ola irá creciendo cada día que pase, esa ola ya no parará mas. - This wave will swell with everyday that passes, this wave will no longer be stopped.

I have lived magnificent days.

In a revolution, one triumphs or dies (if it is a true revolution).
- Letter to Fidel Castro (1 April 1965)

Hasta la victoria siempre
- Until the everlasting victory.
  - Letter to Fidel Castro (1 April 1965)

He vivido días magníficos
- I have lived magnificent days.
  - Letter to Fidel Castro (1 April 1965)

The great lesson of the guerrillas' invincibility is taking hold among the masses of the dispossessed. The galvanization of the national spirit; the preparation for more difficult tasks, for resistance to more violent repression. Hate as a factor in the struggle, intransigent hatred for the enemy that takes one beyond the natural limitations of a human being and converts one into an effective, violent, selective, cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be like that; a people without hate cannot triumph over a brutal enemy.
- Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

Don't shoot, I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead.
- Variant translation: I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead.
- Words declared when he surrendered. These have sometimes mistakenly been reported as his last words. Summary of various accounts of Che Guevara's Death at George Washington University

I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man.
- Variants : I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.
  Know this now, you are killing a man.
- These reportedly, were his last words, to Sergeant Jaime Terán, who in different accounts had either volunteered to be his executioner, or been selected by lot. Because of the many different reports that have arisen, much confusion and uncertainty exists about his actual last words. His last words to Colonel Arnaldo Saucedo Parada, head of intelligence of the Eighth Division who delivered the official report on Che's final moments were reported as: "I knew you were going to shoot me; I should never have been taken alive. Tell Fidel that this failure does not mean the end of the revolution, that it will triumph elsewhere. Tell Aleida to forget this, remarry and be happy, and keep the children studying. Ask the soldiers to aim well." At one point early in the confusions surrounding his death General Ovando, Chief of Bolivian Armed Forces, declared that he had died in battle, and that just before he dying he had declared: "I am Che Guevara and I have failed."; these are sometimes accepted as his last words, though subsequent reports have generally discredited that initial account.
- Summary of various accounts of Che Guevara's Death at George Washington University

If there had been some executions, the government would have maintained the capacity to return the blows.
- Letter to his former girlfriend Tita Infante on lamenting the coup d'état against the socialist Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954; as quoted in "The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand" inThe New Republic (11 July 2005)

The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual...

[edit] Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

"Notes for the Study of Man and Socialism in Cuba" - A letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of a radical weekly published in Montevideo, Uruguay; also published in Verde Olivo, the magazine of the Cuban armed forces.

The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual, each of the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralysed that insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction.

The difficult thing for someone not living the experience of the revolution to understand is this close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, in which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, is interconnected with its leaders.
Some phenomena of this kind can be seen under capitalism, when politicians capable of mobilising popular opinion appear, but these phenomena are not really genuine social movements. (If they were, it would not be entirely correct to call them capitalist.) These movements only live as long as the persons who inspire them do, or until the harshness of capitalist society puts an end to the popular illusions which made them possible.

The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller — whether or not it is true — about the possibilities of success.
The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.

In moments of great peril it is easy to muster a powerful response to moral stimuli; but for them to retain their effect requires the development of a consciousness in which there is a new priority of values.

In any case the road to success is pictured as one beset with perils but which, it would seem, an individual with the proper qualities can overcome to attain the goal. The reward is seen in the distance; the way is lonely. Further on it is a route for wolves; one can succeed only at the cost of the failure of others.

Wealth is far from being within the reach of the masses simply through the process of appropriation.

In moments of great peril it is easy to muster a powerful response to moral stimuli; but for them to retain their effect requires the development of a consciousness in which there is a new priority of values. Society as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school.

Capitalism uses force but it also educates the people to its system. Direct propaganda is carried out by those entrusted with explaining the inevitability of class society, either through some theory of divine origin or through a mechanical theory of natural selection.
This lulls the masses since they see themselves as being oppressed by an evil against which it is impossible to struggle. Immediately following comes the hope of improvement — and in this, capitalism differed from the preceding caste systems, which offered no possibilities for advancement.

In our zeal as revolutionists we try to move ahead as fast as possible, clearing the way, but knowing we must draw our sustenance from the mass and that it can advance more rapidly only if we inspire it by our example...

The road is long and full of difficulties. At times we wander from the path and must turn back; at other times we go too fast and separate ourselves from the masses; on occasions we go too slow and feel the hot breath of those treading on our heels. In our zeal as revolutionists we try to move ahead as fast as possible, clearing the way, but knowing we must draw our sustenance from the mass and that it can advance more rapidly only if we inspire it by our example.

The change in consciousness will not take place automatically, just as it doesn't take place automatically in the economy. The alterations are slow and are not harmonious; there are periods of acceleration, pauses and even retrogressions.

For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art...

In the field of ideas not involving productive activities it is easier to distinguish the division between material and spiritual necessity. For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art. While he dies every day during the eight or more hours that he sells his labour, he comes to life afterwards in his spiritual activities.
But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness; it is as a solitary individual that he seeks communion with his environment.

Socialism is young and has made errors. Many times revolutionaries lack the knowledge and intellectual courage needed to meet the task of developing the new man with methods different from the conventional ones — and the conventional methods suffer from the influences of the society, which created them.

Let us not attempt, from the pontifical throne of realism-at-any-cost, to condemn all the art forms which have evolved since the first half of the nineteenth century for we would then fall into the Proudhonian mistake of returning to the past, of putting a straitjacket on the artistic expression of the man who is being born and is in the process of making himself.

We must not bring into being either docile servants of official thought or scholarship students who live at the expense of the state — practising "freedom."...

What are needed are the development of an ideological-cultural mechanism which permits both free inquiry and the uprooting of the weeds which multiply so easily in the fertile soil of state subsidies.

What we must create is the man of the twenty-first century, although this is still a subjective and not a realised aspiration. It is precisely this man of the next century who is one of the fundamental objectives of our work...

The great multitudes continue to develop; the new ideas continue to attain their proper force within society; the material possibilities for the full development of all members of society make the task much more fruitful. The present is a time for struggle; the future is ours.

Our task is to prevent the present generation, torn asunder by its conflicts, from becoming perverted and from perverting new generations. We must not bring into being either docile servants of official thought or scholarship students who live at the expense of the state — practising "freedom." Already there are revolutionaries coming who will sing the song of the new man in the true voice of the people. This is a process, which takes time.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality....
The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to call their fathers by name; wives, from whom they have to be separated as part of the general sacrifice of their lives to bring the revolution to its fulfilment; the circle of their friends is limited strictly to the number of fellow revolutionists. There is no life outside of the revolution.
In these circumstances one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.
- Excerpts from the two paragraphs above have sometimes been quoted in abbreviated form: At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.

Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties with the masses midway in the great task. There is also the danger of weaknesses. If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to the revolution means, that in return he should not have such worries as that his son lacks certain things, or that his children's shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of future corruption.
In our case we have maintained that our children should have or should go without those things that the children of the average man have or go without, and that our families should understand this and strive to uphold this standard. The revolution is made through man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit day by day.

We know that sacrifices lie before us and that we must pay a price for the heroic act of being a vanguard nation. We leaders know that we must pay a price for the right to say that we are at the head of a people, which is at the head of the Americas. Each and every one of us must pay his exact quota of sacrifice, conscious that he will get his reward in the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty, conscious that he will advance with all toward the image of the new man dimly visible on the horizon.

The basic clay of our work is the youth. We place our hope in them and prepare them to take the banner from our hands.

Hasta la victoria siempre!

[edit] Unsourced

In Spanish, with translations:

Hay que endurecerse sin perder jamás la ternura.
- One must endure without losing tenderness.

La revolución no se lleva en los labios para vivir de ella, se lleva en el corazón para morir por ella.
- The revolution lives on not in words to live for it, but in one's heart to die for it.

No se vive celebrando victorias, sino superando derrotas.
- Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.

El conocimiento nos hace responsables.
- Knowledge makes us accountable.

Arms cannot be regarded as merchandise in our world. They should be delivered to the peoples asking for them for use against the common enemy without any charge at all, and in quantities determined by the need and their availability.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!

If we still had them [nuclear misslies during the cuban missile crisis] we would have used them against the very heart of America including New York

I feel a repulsion for money. It's a fucking fetish

Each spilt drop of blood, in any country under whose flag one has not been born, is an experience passed on to those who survive, to be added later to the liberation struggle of his own country. And each nation liberated is a phase won in the battle for the liberation of one's own country.

Each time a country is freed, we say, it is a defeat for the world imperialist system, but we must agree that real liberation or breaking away from the imperialist system is not achieved by the mere act of proclaiming independence or winning an armed victory in a revolution. Freedom is achieved when imperialist economic domination over a people is brought to an end.

I am not interested in dry economic socialism. We are fighting against misery, but we are also fighting against alienation. One of the fundamental objectives of Marxism is to remove interest, the factor of individual interest, and gain, from people's psychological motivations. Marx was preoccupied both with economic factors and with their repercussions on the spirit. If communism isn't interested in this too, it may be a method of distributing goods, but it will never be a revolutionary way of life.

I was born in Argentina; this is no secret for anyone. I am Cuban as well as Argentinean and, if the highly illustrated lordships of Latin America may not feel offended, I feel such a patriotism for Latin America, for any country in Latin America, that in the moment it might be necessary, I would be ready to yield my life for the liberation of any Latin American nation, without asking anybody anything, without demanding anything, without exploiting anyone.

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.

Many will call me an adventurer — and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

Many will call me an adventurer — and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

No enemy, no forces should be underestimated — for there are no longer any isolated nations. As established by the second declaration in Havana, no nation in Latin America is weak, for it belongs to a family of 200 million brothers who all live in the same poverty and all have the same feelings. They all have the same enemy, they all dream of a better life and they count on the solidarity of all righteous people. This elegy of ours will be written by starving indians, by landless peasants, by exploited workers, by the progressive masses, by honest and brilliant intellectuals of which there are so many in Latin America.

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition.

The monopoly capitalists — even while employing purely empirical methods — weave around art a complicated web which converts it into a willing tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type of art in which the artist has to be educated. Rebels are subdued by its machinery and only rare talents may create their own work. The rest become shameless hacks or are crushed.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

The slogan "We will not allow another Cuba" hides the possibility of perpetrating aggressions without fear of reprisal, such as the one carried out against the Dominican Republic or before that the massacre in Panama — and the clear warning stating that Yankee troops are ready to intervene anywhere in America where the ruling regime may be altered, thus endangering their interests.

The socialist countries have the moral duty of liquidating their tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West.

There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

To die under the flag of Vietnam, of Venezuela, of Guatemala, of Laos, of Guinea, of Colombia, of Bolivia, of Brazil — to name only a few scenes of today's armed struggle — would be equally glorious and desirable for an American, an Asian, an African, even a European.

To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary... These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.

Under the discredited flag of the United Nations, dozens of countries under the military leadership of the United States participated in this war with the massive intervention of U.S. soldiers and the use, as cannon fodder, of the South Korean population that was enrolled.

We are doing everything possible to give labor this new status of social duty and to link it on the one side with the development of a technology which will create the conditions for greater freedom, and on the other side with voluntary work based on a Marxist appreciation of the fact that man truly reaches a full human condition when he produces without being driven by the physical need to sell his labor as a commodity. Man still needs to undergo a complete spiritual rebirth in his attitude towards his work, freed from the direct pressure of his social environment, though linked to it by his new habits. That will be communism.

We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote... the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.

We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centers of entertainment; a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move.

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

Words that do not match deeds are unimportant.

[edit] Imperialism

We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism — and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital — instruments of domination — arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.

While envisaging the destruction of imperialism, it is necessary to identify its head, which is no other than the United States of America.

Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people's unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear, that another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and that other men be ready to intone our funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns and new battle cries of war and victory.

As long as imperialism exists, it will, by definition, exert its domination over other countries. Today that domination is called neocolonialism.

We should like to see this Assembly (UN) shake itself out of complacency and move forward. We should like to see the committees begin their work and not stop at the first confrontation. Imperialism wishes to convert this meeting into a pointless oratorical tournament, instead of solving the grave problems of the world. We must prevent their doing so. This Assembly should not be remembered in the future only by the number 19, which identifies it. Our efforts are directed to prevent that.

Imperialism has been defeated in many partial battles. But it remains a considerable force in the world, and we cannot expect its final defeat save through effort and sacrifice on the part of all of us.

There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, for a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory; just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us.

[edit] Misattributed

Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado.
- I prefer to die standing, rather than live on my knees.
  - This statement actually originates with Emiliano Zapata.

Triste cosa es no tener amigos, pero más triste ha de ser no tener enemigos porque quién no tenga enemigos señal es de que no tiene talento que haga sombra, ni carácter que impresione, ni valor temido, ni honra de la que se murmure, ni bienes que se le codicien, ni cosa alguna que se le envidie.
- A sad thing it is to not have friends, but even sadder must it be not having any enemies; that a man should have no enemies is a sign that he has no talent to outshine others, nor character that inspires, nor valor that is feared, nor honor to be rumored, nor goods to be coveted, nor anything to be envied.
- This is actually from José Martí

[edit] Quotes about Guevara

He belongs more to the romantic tradition than the revolutionary one. To endure as a romantic icon, one must not just die young, but die hopelessly. Che fulfils both criteria. When one thinks of Che as a hero, it is more in terms of Byron than Marx.
- Christopher Hitchens as quoted in The Observer (11 July 2004)

Che was the most complete human being of our age.
- Jean-Paul Sartre as quoted in Che : Images of a Revolutionary (2000) by Fernando D Garcia and Oscar Sola