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Che Guevara Archive
Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution
Guevara wrote 'Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the
Cuban Revolution' for the October 8, 1960, issue of Verde Olivo,
the magazine of Cuba's armed forces.
This is a unique revolution which some people maintain contradicts
one of the most orthodox premises of the revolutionary movement, expressed
by Lenin: "Without a revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary
movement." It would be suitable to say that revolutionary theory,
as the expression of a social truth, surpasses any declaration of
it; that is to say, even if the theory is not known, the revolution
can succeed if historical reality is interpreted correctly and if
the forces involved are utilised correctly. Every revolution always
incorporates elements of very different tendencies which, nevertheless,
coincide in action and in the revolution's most immediate objectives.
 It
is clear that if the leaders have an adequate theoretical knowledge
prior to the action, they can avoid trial and error whenever the adopted
theory corresponds to the reality.
The principal actors of this revolution had no coherent theoretical
criteria; but it cannot be said that they were ignorant of the various
concepts of history, society, economics, and revolution which are
being discussed in the world today.
Profound knowledge of reality, a close relationship with the people,
the firmness of the liberator's objective, and the practical revolutionary
experience gave to those leaders the chance to form a more complete
theoretical concept.
The foregoing should be considered an introduction to the explanation
of this curious phenomenon that has intrigued the entire world: the
Cuban Revolution. It is a deed worthy of study in contemporary world
history: the how and the why of a group of men who, shattered by an
army enormously superior in technique and equipment, managed first
to survive, soon became strong, later became stronger than the enemy
in the battle zones, still later moved into new zones of combat, and
finally defeated that enemy on the battlefield even though their troops
were still very inferior in number.
Naturally we, who often do not show the requisite concern for theory,
will not run the risk of expounding the truth of the Cuban Revolution
as though we were its masters. We will simply try to give the bases
from which one can interpret this truth. In fact, the Cuban Revolution
must be separated into two absolutely distinct stages: that of the
armed action up to January 1, 1959, and the political, economic and
social transformations since then.
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Even these two stages deserve further subdivisions; however, we will
not take them from the viewpoint of historical exposition, but from
the viewpoint of the evolution of the revolutionary thought of its
leaders through their contact with the people. Incidentally, here
one must introduce a general attitude toward one of the most controversial
terms of the modern world: Marxism. When asked whether or not we are
Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist or a biologist
when asked if he is a "Newtonian," or if he is a "Pasteurian".
There are truths so evident, so much a part of people's knowledge,
that it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be "Marxist'
with the same naturalness with which one is "Newtonian"
in physics, or "Pasteurian" in biology, considering that
if facts determine new concepts, these new concepts will never divest
themselves of that portion of truth possessed by the older concepts
they have outdated. Such is the case, for example, of Einsteinian
relativity or of Planck's "quantum" theory with respect
to the discoveries of Newton; they take nothing at all away from the
greatness of the learned Englishman. Thanks to Newton, physics was
able to advance until it had achieved new concepts of space. The learned
Englishman provided the necessary stepping-stone for them.
The advances in social and political science, as in other fields,
belong to a long historical process whose links are connecting, adding
up, moulding and constantly perfecting themselves. In the origin of
peoples, there exists a Chinese, Arab or Hindu mathematics; today,
mathematics has no frontiers. In the course of history there was a
Greek Pythagoras, an Italian Galileo, an English Newton, a German
Gauss, a Russian Lobachevsky, an Einstein, etc. Thus in the field
of social and political sciences, from Democritus to Marx, a long
series of thinkers added their original investigations and accumulated
a body of experience and of doctrines.
The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change
in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands
its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it
(which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary
concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed.
Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts
himself into the architect of his own destiny. At that moment Marx
puts himself in a position where he becomes the necessary target of
all who have a special interest in maintaining the old-similar to
Democritus before him, whose work was burned by Plato and his disciples,
the ideologues of Athenian slave aristocracy. Beginning with the revolutionary
Marx, a political group with concrete ideas establishes itself. Basing
itself on the giants, Marx and Engels, and developing through successive
steps with personalities like Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and the
new Soviet and Chinese rulers, it establishes a body of doctrine and,
let us say, examples to follow.
The Cuban Revolution takes up Marx at the point where he himself left
science to shoulder his revolutionary rifle. And it takes him up at
that point, not in a revisionist spirit, of struggling against that
which follows Marx, of reviving 'pure' Marx, but simply because up
to that point Marx, the scientist, placed himself outside of the history
he studied and predicted. From then on Marx, the revolutionary, could
fight within history.
We, practical revolutionaries, initiating our own struggle, simply
fulfil laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist. We are simply adjusting
ourselves to the predictions of the scientific Marx as we travel this
road of rebellion, struggling against the old structure of power,
supporting ourselves in the people for the destruction of this structure,
and having the happiness of this people as the basis of our struggle.
That is to say, and it is well to emphasise this once again: The laws
of Marxism are present in the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently
of what its leaders profess or fully know of those laws from a theoretical
point of view . . .
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Each of those brief historical moments in the guerrilla warfare framed
distinct social concepts and distinct appreciations of the Cuban reality;
they outlined the thought of the military leaders of the revolution
— those who in time would also take their position as political
leaders.
Before the landing of the Granma, a mentality predominated that, to
some degree, might be called "subjectivist": blind confidence
in a rapid popular explosion, enthusiasm and faith in the power to
liquidate the Batista regime by a swift, armed uprising combined with
spontaneous revolutionary strikes, and the subsequent fall of the
dictator. . . .
After the landing comes the defeat, the almost total destruction of
the forces, and their regrouping and integration as guerrillas. Characteristic
of those few survivors, imbued with the spirit of struggle, was the
understanding that to count upon spontaneous outbursts throughout
the island was a falsehood, an illusion. They understood also that
the fight would have to be a long one and that it would need vast
campesino participation. At this point, the campesinos entered the
guerrilla war for the first time.
Two events — hardly important in terms of the number of combatants,
but of great psychological value — were unleashed. First, antagonism
that the city people, who comprised the central guerrilla group, felt
towards the campesinos was erased. The campesinos, in turn, distrusted
the group and, above all, feared barbarous reprisals of the government.
Two things demonstrated themselves at this stage, both very important
for the interrelated factors: To the campesinos, the bestialities
of the army and all the persecution would not be sufficient to put
an end to the guerrilla war, even though the army was certainly capable
of liquidating the campesinos' homes, crops, and families. To take
refuge with those in hiding was a good solution. In turn, the guerrilla
fighters learned the necessity, each time more pointed, of winning
the campesino masses. . . .
[Following the failure of Batista's major assault on the Rebel Army,]
the war shows a new characteristic: The correlation of forces turns
toward the revolution. Within a month and a half, two small columns,
one of eighty and the other of a hundred forty men, constantly surrounded
and harassed by an army that mobilised thousands of soldiers, crossed
the plains of Camagüey, arrived at Las Villas, and began the
job of cutting the island in two.
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It may seem strange, incomprehensible, and even incredible that two
columns of such small size — without communications, without
mobility, without the most elementary arms of modern warfare —
could fight against well-trained, and above all, well-armed troops.
Basic [to the victory] is the characteristic of each group: the fewer
comforts the guerrilla fighter has, the more he is initiated into
the rigors of nature, the more he feels himself at home; his morale
is higher, his sense of security greater. At the same time, he has
learned to risk his life in every circumstance that might arise, to
trust it to luck, like a tossed coin; and in general, as a final result
of this kind of combat, it matters little to the individual guerrilla
whether or not he survives.
 The
enemy soldier in the Cuban example, which we are now considering,
is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the
last crumbs left to him in a long line of profiteers that begins in
Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges,
but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are
important to him. His salary and pension are worth some suffering
and some dangers, but they are never worth his life; if the price
of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up,
that is to say, withdrawing from the face of guerrilla danger. From
these two concepts and these two morals springs the difference which
would cause the crisis of December 31, 1958 . . . *
Here ends the insurrection. But the men who arrive in Havana after
two years of arduous struggle in the mountains and plains of Oriente,
in the plains of Camagüey, and in the mountains, plains, and
cities of Las Villas, are not the same men, ideologically, who landed
on the beaches of Las Coloradas, or who took part in the first phase
of the struggle. Their distrust of the campesino has been converted
into affection and respect for his virtues; their total ignorance
of life in the country has been converted into a knowledge of the
needs of our guajiros; their flirtations with statistics and with
theory have been fixed by the cement which is practice.
With the banner of Agrarian Reform, the execution of which begins
in the Sierra Maestra, these men confront imperialism. They know that
the Agrarian Reform is the basis upon which the new Cuba must build
itself. They know also that the Agrarian Reform will give land to
all the dispossessed, but that it will dispossess its unjust possessors;
and they know that the greatest of the unjust possessors are also
influential men in the State Department or in the government of the
United States of America. But they have learned to conquer difficulties
with bravery, with audacity and, above all, with the support of the
people; and they have now seen the future of liberation that awaits
us on the other side of our sufferings.
*The day Batista was overthrown.
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