Did Che's ideology change?

[Bitter Ashes]

The more I look into Che the more I'm taking a shine to him. I do believe he made some bad calls in his early days as a revolutionary and if I'm totaly honest, I think I would have respected him more if he'd kept to his calling as a doctor (Yes, I know that we probably would have never heard of him then and it's a sad thing that fighters are always more famous than healers). But anyway, as I look more at how Che developed over the years, I seem to see that he becomes more and more libertarian.

Could it be that Che went from Marxist-Lenninist roots, towards Anarchism? He was certainly very distrustful of rulers, famously quoting that “Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!” as well as critising Stalin to his face about living in luxury while the workers were in poverty. You don't need to carry a card to be an anarchist, so was he one?

Maybe I'm taking things out of context, but what do you think?

[Kassad]

So being critical of a Marxist-Leninist leader and acknowleding some of the repercussions of revolutionary leadershup makes someone an anarchist? I don't think you'll find many besides yourself who could classify Che Guevara as an anarchist by any means.

[Wanted Man]

critising Stalin to his face about living in luxury while the workers were in poverty.

They never met. :confused:

Many people are distrustful of rulers and don't like people who live opulent lifestyles. Are they all anarchists?

[Kassad]

They never met. :confused:

Many people are distrustful of rulers and don't like people who live opulent lifestyles. Are they all anarchists?

He might have been referring to Mao, since I'm pretty confident Guevara never met Stalin. However, I've never seen any quote suggesting the criticism the original poster mentioned, but I could have missed it at some point.

[Wanted Man]

I think Che's criticism was of Krushchev and co.

[Bitter Ashes]

They never met. :confused:

Many people are distrustful of rulers and don't like people who live opulent lifestyles. Are they all anarchists?
Yeah. I just checked. Certainly not Stalin, but I do definatly remember seeing a quote somewhere which was along the lines of "Does the Russian proletariant really eat off the finest bone china and silverware?" while he was bieng served a gourmet meal by the Russian leaders.

As for Kruschev, I thought the issue there was that he felt that they'd been let down by the USSR putting national intrests before that of international socialism during the Cuban missile crisis.

He also went from country to country to help other socialist groups, when I'm sure that Castro would have loved him to put Cuba's intrests first. At the very least all this seems to suggest that Che didnt believe in "socialism in one country".

As for anarchism, well I dont know, hence why I'm asking.

[red cat]

Che became critical of the Soviet regime and tilted more towards the Chinese bloc. As far as I recall, in 1963 he made a correction in "guerilla warfare" which included even "democratically elected" regimes as class enemies. This was somewhat contrary to the peaceful coexistence line brought forward by the Soviet revisionist clique. Che also stated that the Soviet Union was cooperating with USA to exploit the world.

Some Maoists think that the Soviet bloc had somehow assisted in Che's capture.

[red cat]

Che was from the beginning leaning toward Mao though thought Lenin was a genius.


Which Maoist thinks otherwise ? :)

[khad]

China helped kill Cuban soldiers fighting against South African imperialism. Che was many things, but infallible he was not.

If Che had his way, Cuba would have gone up in a nuclear fireball just to prove a point, to make a defiant stand against America. He demanded that the missiles be launched.

With Che you got a lot of revolutionary discipline and romantic idealism, but not a lot of political maturity.

[Palingenisis]

Ive actually seen Trotskyites having public meetings praising Che. Somehow he gets to count as a romantic "good guy" and not an "evil" "Stalinist". In reality though he was seems to have been filled with petty-bourgious romantic notions...But than so are Trots so the fact that they seem to like him so much shouldnt come as a surprise.

[khad]

Hey khad, So you think also same of Fidel who ordered a premptive strike against the US in anticipation of military invasion?
But he showed the maturity to compromise with Khrushchev when it came down to it. Che remained irate and bitter, and he narcissistically he got himself killed when he had much work to do in Cuba. His failure served as a powerful example against internationalism.

Furthermore, Fidel was on the right side against South Africa.

[Glenn Beck]

Could it be that Che went from Marxist-Lenninist roots, towards Anarchism?

No, not really. Che was an early "anti-revisionist".

[F9]

The more I look into Che the more I'm taking a shine to him. I do believe he made some bad calls in his early days as a revolutionary and if I'm totaly honest, I think I would have respected him more if he'd kept to his calling as a doctor (Yes, I know that we probably would have never heard of him then and it's a sad thing that fighters are always more famous than healers). But anyway, as I look more at how Che developed over the years, I seem to see that he becomes more and more libertarian.

Could it be that Che went from Marxist-Lenninist roots, towards Anarchism? He was certainly very distrustful of rulers, famously quoting that “Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!” as well as critising Stalin to his face about living in luxury while the workers were in poverty. You don't need to carry a card to be an anarchist, so was he one?

Maybe I'm taking things out of context, but what do you think?

He indeed changed ideologies during the years, and i dont believe it was just one change.He indeed started with the common praise of CCCP, Stalin etc, something which along the years lead to criticizing harshly and put in distance himself ideologically from Stalinism etc.He had a big admiration towards Mao for years, and the way he organized the state, products etc, though again after the years, and based on his writting he indeed was moving to a more "libertarian" and anti-authoritarian approach of communism, but no i wouldnt say he was or never became an Anarchist, i dont know if he would get to that at some time, but surely during his life he wasnt one.
I would pretty much agree that during his last moments he was pretty close to Trotskyism than anything else.

Wanted Man:
I havent met Stalin either, that dont means i dont know what was happening back then.;) Obviously it was harder to know at that time, and really i havent read him making such comment on Stalin, but still it wouldnt be much of a surprise if he did(for me at least).

[Glenn Beck]

So, apparently in Che's ideology, there is no failure in dying in international armed struggle to liberate the poor and the working class.

There is failure in failure, though. And that's what the campaign in Bolivia was.

[khad]

The two quarrelling powers: China and the Soviet Union.

The isolation: they both sent arms to the Viet Cong, but no combat units.

Che, in 1964 correctly predicted the "dangerous equilibrium between the two quarrelling powers? " when both China and the Soviet union ended up cutting their aid to Vietnam for it's association with the other.
Bullshit. The USSR continued to give massive aid to the NVA and turned it into a first-rate fighting force that crushed the ARVN like a rotten grape. Those Mig-21s and long 130s didn't just spring up out of the ground. China then turned on Vietnam by invading it to spite the USSR and to defend Pol Pot.

The Soviet threat of a response was one important factor that prevented China from throwing more weight behind the invasion.

Che couldn't read geopolitics worth fucking shit.

[Wanted Man]

Wanted Man:
I havent met Stalin either, that dont means i dont know what was happening back then.;) Obviously it was harder to know at that time, and really i havent read him making such comment on Stalin, but still it wouldnt be much of a surprise if he did(for me at least).

Yeah, but Ranma was saying that Che made this comment about Stalin "to his face". Which is rather difficult when you've never met. How could they have met, anyway? Che was only born in 1928, when Stalin was already in power, so he was very young for most of the Stalin era. When Stalin died, Che was in Latin America, noticing what the "capitalist octopuses" of United Fruit were doing to the continent, and he swore "before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin" that he would do everything in his power to annihilate them.

[F9]

Yeah, but Ranma was saying that Che made this comment about Stalin "to his face". Which is rather difficult when you've never met.

I didnt take that as it was meaning exactly that, i thought it meant just he said it about him, i took it as a phrase meaning talking about him.
So you are correct on this, obviously.

[Bitter Ashes]

I didnt take that as it was meaning exactly that, i thought it meant just he said it about him, i took it as a phrase meaning talking about him.
So you are correct on this, obviously.
Yup. I screwed up lol. I'm still wondering who it was that Che challenged at dinner though about the silverware though.

[khad]

khad, Russia cut aid to the VC, particularly of heavy military equipment they requested.
First off, the VC is different from the NVA. The VC, ie NLF, ceased to be an effective military force after the disaster that was Tet.

Heavy equipment? I'm sure that was huge detriment to the war effort when the Soviet-supplied 130mm had about twice the range of any towed artillery piece in theater and the uparmored T-55s were all but immune to the light anti-tank weapons the South Vietnamese had. They had plenty of equipment and firepower to go around, and this became MORE and not LESS apparent towards the end of the war. They may not have gotten the latest and greatest, but what they did get was more than adequate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid_to_Vietnam


In the late 1970s, Vietnam relied on offshore oil exploration with the assistance of West German, Italian, and Canadian companies ended in 1981, but resumed subsequently with Soviet technical assistance. Aid from China, reportedly close to US$300 million in 1977 and 1978, dropped to zero in 1979, and Vietnamese recovery in coal production was profoundly affected by the accompanying loss of ethnic Chinese workers. In 1979 Japan suspended its Official Development Assistance funds (a mixture of grants and low-interest loans amounting to US$135 million) and made renewal contingent upon Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia. Loss of other Western aid in hard currencies crippled Vietnam's ability to continue importing needed modern machinery and technology from its West European trading partners. Following Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia, only Sweden continued to provide any significant amount of economic help. Some multilateral assistance, such as that for development of the Mekong River, was made available by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, however. Western and multilateral assistance, therefore, did not stop entirely, although the yearly average of about US$100 million through 1986 provided only a fraction of the country's hard-currency needs. In 1986 Vietnam's current account deficit with major industrial countries was some US$221 million. The conflicts with Cambodia and China in 1978 and 1979 proved particularly costly in terms of continuing economic ties with Western and neighboring Asian countries. As a result, Hanoi was forced to rely even more heavily on Soviet-bloc assistance.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid_to_Vietnam#cite_note-cs-1)
The Soviet Union and other members of Comecon increased their aid commitments as their own planning became more closely coordinated with Vietnam's following Hanoi's entry into Comecon in June 1978. Soviet economic aid in 1978, estimated at between US$0.7 and 1.0 billion, was already higher than Western assistance. By 1982 it had increased to more than US$1 billion annually, close to US$3 million per day, and it remained at this level through the mid-1980s. The Soviet Union and other Comecon countries provided aid in all categories—project assistance, technical training, price subsidies, loans, and trade credits. Soviet publications emphasized the importance of project assistance to Vietnam's economic recovery, but about 75 percent of the value of aid disbursed during the Third Five-Year Plan was used to finance Vietnam's bilateral trade deficit with the Soviet Union, which averaged about US$896 million a year. Trade subsidies in the form of reduced prices for Soviet oil also declined sharply in the early 1980s as the Soviet Union brought Vietnam into the Comecon oil-pricing system based on world market values.What do ya know, the USSR provided far more aid than China ever did, and it even subsidized Vietnam's trade deficit.