Che's criticism of USSR

[Hiero]

Why did che criticise the USSR i have assumed it was the break with Stalinism, and what was Fidels reaction.

[Kurai Tsuki]

Che critisized the USSR in part for not giving enough help to new and developing socialist countries. He also said that the US and the USSR were both imperialist countries.

<edit> Fidel was already kind of distancing himself from Che when he critisized the USSR, and that criticism likely played a big part in him leaving Cuba.

[Subversive Pessimist]

Guevara saw the politicians alienated them from the masses. They lived in rich houses, had expensive cars etc. and became reformists, rather then radicals.

They went against everything Guevara and communists stands for.

Instead of advocating cooperating and sharing (communism), they tried to implement a system based on greed, competition, and monopoly (capitalism).

Fidel was an anti-communist, before and after the revolution. The M-26 movement was created by anti-communists, and they received weapons from the United States (because they were stealing weapons from Guantanamo).

[Kurai Tsuki]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2004, 01:09 PM
Fidel was an anti-communist, before and after the revolution. The M-26 movement was created by anti-communists, and they received weapons from the United States (because they were stealing weapons from Guantanamo).
Can you give a source for that? The books I about Che discribed the M26 movement as being funded by donations from Cuban refugees and then later by taking weapons from Batista&#39;s overcome forces, as Che&#39;s guerilla warfare methods discribed.

[Subversive Pessimist]

Can you give a source for that? The books I about Che discribed the M26 movement as being funded by donations from Cuban refugees and then later by taking weapons from Batista&#39;s overcome forces, as Che&#39;s guerilla warfare methods discribed.


The article also talked about a plan to create an exil government (for the batista??), but Che thought it was bourgeousie and became furious.

It&#39;s in Danish, very detailed, and fairly objective (it is a site written by communists, talks about revolution and class struggle, etc.):

http://www.solidaritet.dk/soli97-2/1997-2-4.htm


It talks about everything from Che&#39;s enormous self disiplin, cold blodded murder, his theories, ideas, Bay of pigs, etc.

[Kurai Tsuki]

This may sound cynical, but I only trust a few internet sources for information. I meant a book source.

[Subversive Pessimist]

I think the article is based on a book written by Jon Lee Anderson.

[CubanFox]

Originally posted by Kurai [email protected] 21 2004, 03:05 AM
Che critisized the USSR in part for not giving enough help to new and developing socialist countries. He also said that the US and the USSR were both imperialist countries.

<edit> Fidel was already kind of distancing himself from Che when he critisized the USSR, and that criticism likely played a big part in him leaving Cuba.
Curious that he said that, from what I can gather, the USSR leapt right into any new socialism, they sure as hell didn&#39;t seem reluctant to give the Mozambicans, Angolansn Vietnamese or Cubans (hey, they even gave Fidel nukes&#33; ;)) as many guns and advisors as they could fit onto the next Antonov leaving Moscow&#33;

What prompted that statement from Che?

[ShootCoward]

I think another point about the Soviet Union that Che was critical of, which was touched on above, was their economic system. Lenin&#39;s writings had become dogmatic for the USSR, and Che found some errors in this (in his opinion).
He read some book outlining the Soviet economic system (sorry but right now I&#39;m not too sure exactly what it was, I&#39;m open to correction&#33;) and pointed out what he considered to be it&#39;s errors.
He made out notes on this and gave them to....I think...Orlando Borrego as a gift when he left for Bolivia.
These notes would have been considered almost like blasphemy in the Soviet Union because of the criticisms of Lenin.
But although Che made these observations, or whatever you want to call them, he still retained his deep respect and love for Lenin (as far as I know).

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 02:08 AM
Curious that he said that, from what I can gather, the USSR leapt right into any new socialism, they sure as hell didn&#39;t seem reluctant to give the Mozambicans, Angolansn Vietnamese or Cubans (hey, they even gave Fidel nukes&#33; ;)) as many guns and advisors as they could fit onto the next Antonov leaving Moscow&#33;

What prompted that statement from Che?
Che&#39;s point was that unequal relations of trade are a major part of the exploitation of less-developed countries by imperialism. The exports of the "Third World" are underpriced on the world market; the manufactured goods of the "First World" are overpriced.

The USSR benefited from this exploitive situation to the degree that it traded with "Third World" countries at world market prices. COMECON - which did not run at world market prices - cut across this to some extent.

I think one of the speeches where Che talked about this was "The Philosophy of Plunder must cease."

Fidel also was publicly critical of the USSR on some of the same points around the same time, although maybe somewhat less harsh in tone than Che. Even years later, he made a speech strongly criticizing the USSR and China for putting their squabbles ahead of the need to aid Vietnam, and challenging them to a competition to see who could do the most to aid Vietnam.

(The USSR never sent its best antiaircraft missiles to Vietnam - though it sold them to Egypt - and Cuba even offered to send troops there, and was turned down. Cuban bulldozer operators did work on the Ho Chi Minh trail.)

One excellent book on the history of Soviet-Cuban relations, as well as Cuban foreign policy generally, is "Conflicting Missions" by Piero Glijeises.

Che was also critical of Soviet economic policy, as "ShootCoward" says - see his article "Planning and Consciousness in the Transition to Socialism" for example - but it was excessive reliance on market-like mechanisms he criticized, not Leninism. And I don&#39;t think he ever described the USSR as imperialist, contrary to what Kurai Tsuki says.

[Hiero]

So che was anti revisionist.

[Severian]

Since "revisionist" is basically a name-calling term without definite political content, saying someone was "anti-revisionist" really doesn&#39;t mean anything definite.

[Salvador Allende]

That makes total sense actually, Che&#39;s hero was Koba and since the USSR broke with Socialism and became Social-Imperialist it is clear Che was anti-revisionism.

Oh and Severian, a revisionist is a person who supports revisions to Marxism that help the bourgeois or hurt the proletariat and go against the prinicples of Marxism while pretending to still be Marxist for their own personal gain.

[Saint-Just]

Mao&#39;s essay, &#39;On Khruschev&#39;s Phoney Communism&#39; describes the reasons why Mao thought the USSR was no longer a communist country. Che agreed with Mao on this. Mao said that the USSR was regressing back towards capitalism and he said the political system in the USSR was becoming a dictatorship.

[chebol]

A key element to understanding Che&#39;s "break" with The USSR was on the issue of the economy, and on the incentives for continuing the revolutionary changes needed to construct socialism. The most thorough criticism Che made of the existing Soviet system was a critique of the Soviet Manual on Political Economy, a particuarly dry piece (even for economics ;-p). Ocean Press is due (overdue- if anyone knows David Deutschmann, give him a shove from me) to publish not only that work, but also &#39;the great debate on political economy&#39;, including Che Guevara, Ernst Mandel and Charles Bettelheim, which took place in Cuba in 1963 (&#39;64?).

A major philosophical point (which has direct ramifications in the material unfolding of revolutions) was that of material vs moral incentives for socialism. Che argued that the Soviet model was far too materialist in it&#39;s outlook, and, as a result, would return to capitalism, possibly within as little as 50 years, unless that changed. Socialism is impossible to create simply by tweaking (or even overhauling) the systems of distribution, unless alienation is defeated at the same time.

Fidel was not as openly critical of the USSR because of the (unfortunate) dependence Cuba had on it at the time, but he was nevertheless critical, and allowed Che to vent his spleen.This was important for Cuba, as it needed (and apparently still needs) to be differentiated, in the eyes of the world, from the USSR.

Because of the rapid pace of the revolution, Che&#39;s criticisms, adventures and death, some have surmised that Fidel remained &#39;quiet&#39; because he disagreed with Che, and then had him &#39;dome away with&#39;. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As to the issue of Lenin- well any dogmatisation (especially of someone like Lenin), misses the point- that the writing and theory must arise out of an historical epoch, and are therefore somewhat constrained by them, (ie. they can easily be taken out of context), but, as severian said, it was their reliance on market forces over social(ist) necessity that he was most critical of.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Salvador [email protected] 1 2004, 10:00 PM
Oh and Severian, a revisionist is a person who supports revisions to Marxism that help the bourgeois or hurt the proletariat and go against the prinicples of Marxism while pretending to still be Marxist for their own personal gain.
Heh. That describes Stalinists perfectly. Since the people who holler "revisionist" are revising Marxism more than anyone, I stand by my statement that it is a meaningless name-calling term.

The policies Che was criticizing go back to Stalin&#39;s time, and were followed by Mao as well. Maoism was current in Che&#39;s time and he did not align with it any more than with Khrushev&#39;s USSR. He was willing to work with Maoists in, for example, Bolivia...but he also worked with people from the the pro-Soviet Bolivian CP.

In this as in other things Che was basically following the same policy as other leaders of the Cuban revolution, who regarded the Sino-Soviet conflict as a pointless squabble,

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 09:02 AM
A key element to understanding Che&#39;s "break" with The USSR was on the issue of the economy, and on the incentives for continuing the revolutionary changes needed to construct socialism. The most thorough criticism Che made of the existing Soviet system was a critique of the Soviet Manual on Political Economy, a particuarly dry piece (even for economics ;-p). Ocean Press is due (overdue- if anyone knows David Deutschmann, give him a shove from me) to publish not only that work, but also &#39;the great debate on political economy&#39;, including Che Guevara, Ernst Mandel and Charles Bettelheim, which took place in Cuba in 1963 (&#39;64?).

A major philosophical point (which has direct ramifications in the material unfolding of revolutions) was that of material vs moral incentives for socialism. Che argued that the Soviet model was far too materialist in it&#39;s outlook, and, as a result, would return to capitalism, possibly within as little as 50 years, unless that changed. Socialism is impossible to create simply by tweaking (or even overhauling) the systems of distribution, unless alienation is defeated at the same time.

Fidel was not as openly critical of the USSR because of the (unfortunate) dependence Cuba had on it at the time, but he was nevertheless critical, and allowed Che to vent his spleen.This was important for Cuba, as it needed (and apparently still needs) to be differentiated, in the eyes of the world, from the USSR.

Because of the rapid pace of the revolution, Che&#39;s criticisms, adventures and death, some have surmised that Fidel remained &#39;quiet&#39; because he disagreed with Che, and then had him &#39;dome away with&#39;. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As to the issue of Lenin- well any dogmatisation (especially of someone like Lenin), misses the point- that the writing and theory must arise out of an historical epoch, and are therefore somewhat constrained by them, (ie. they can easily be taken out of context), but, as severian said, it was their reliance on market forces over social(ist) necessity that he was most critical of.
Good post. Some of Che&#39;s writings on this subject are available now, in a major collection called "Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution" for example or in New International magazine for example. There&#39;s a book on this debate by a Cuban economist named Carlos Tablada, it&#39;s called "Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism" or in Spanish "El Pensamiento Economico de Che Guevara".

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 04:16 PM
Maoism was current in Che&#39;s time and he did not align with it any more than with Khrushev&#39;s USSR. He was willing to work with Maoists in, for example, Bolivia...but he also worked with people from the the pro-Soviet Bolivian CP.

In this as in other things Che was basically following the same policy as other leaders of the Cuban revolution, who regarded the Sino-Soviet conflict as a pointless squabble,
Che disagreed with the Soviet&#39;s policy of peaceful co-existence, he called it appeasement. Whilst doing this he was preaching Maoist thought on Geurrilla warfare, and, in hte early 60s both Che and Mao were talking about opposing the U.S. and entering into military conflict with the U.S. if they could have had the support of the USSR. Both Che and Mao stayed close to the USSR, however I do not think it is true that Che did not take any particular side in the Sino-Soviet conflict. I do not think that Che or Mao disagreed with the Soviets to a great extent since the Soviets extended aid to China and Cuba, and to armed struggles in Latin America. The disagreement was mainly one on economic management and their stance towards the U.S.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Chairman [email protected] 3 2004, 04:13 AM
Che disagreed with the Soviet&#39;s policy of peaceful co-existence, he called it appeasement.
Then what would he have said about the Nixon-Mao pact? We don&#39;t know, but we know what Castro said, and we know that China&#39;s failure to aid Vietnam was even worse than the USSR&#39;s.


Whilst doing this he was preaching Maoist thought on Geurrilla warfare, and, in hte early 60s both Che and Mao were talking about opposing the U.S. and entering into military conflict with the U.S. if they could have had the support of the USSR.

The difference is, that Che actually did it.

Or did you mean direct warfare between Cuba and the US? I&#39;m fairly sure that Che never proposed any such thing, regardless of Soviet policy.


Both Che and Mao stayed close to the USSR, however I do not think it is true that Che did not take any particular side in the Sino-Soviet conflict.

Well, if he took a side, you should be able to show me some statement to that effect.

[Wiesty]

this i belive took place just before his death,
che said/criticized something about or to the Soviets, Then the soviets were all pissed at che, so che and fidel had a meeting, che said he was discrased etc. and that he would leave cuba to go recruit, revolutionize in the mountains of bolivia

which is where he was killed

[Severian]

That&#39;s a myth. As stated earlier in this thread, Fidel during this period expressed many of the same crititicsms of the USSR. There is no evidence of any conflict between Che and Fidel, nor that Che&#39;s criticisms of the USSR had anything to do with his decision to leave Cuba.

Link to an old post debunking this myth - which originally traces back to a CIA disinformation campaign - in detail. (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1227&st=40&#entry438017)

[Wiesty]

castro didnt kick him out
che resigned

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2004, 03:44 PM
Or did you mean direct warfare between Cuba and the US? I&#39;m fairly sure that Che never proposed any such thing, regardless of Soviet policy.



Well, if he took a side, you should be able to show me some statement to that effect.
I recently saw The Fog of War which is a documentary about the life of Robert S. McNamara. In it he says that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Che and Castro took the position that the missiles should not be removed and that were the U.S. to attack Cuba, which was the alternative to the Cubans and Soviets backing down, then they would launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. and sacrifice Cuba.

Also, China gave more help to Che in Congo than the USSR did. It says this in Jon Lee Anderson&#39;s biography of Che Guevara.

By the way, are you a Trotskyist? I thought you were a Marxist and that you were against Leninism.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Chairman [email protected] 4 2004, 02:36 PM
I recently saw The Fog of War which is a documentary about the life of Robert S. McNamara. In it he says that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Che and Castro took the position that the missiles should not be removed and that were the U.S. to attack Cuba, which was the alternative to the Cubans and Soviets backing down, then they would launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. and sacrifice Cuba.
McNamara is probably not accurately stating the Cuban government&#39;s position. It&#39;s true that they opposed withdrawing the missiles - particularly that Khrushev made a deal without consulting them. It&#39;s false that they advocated starting a war. I may dig up a link on this later, with Castro objecting to Khrushev misrepresenting his statements along these lines.



Also, China gave more help to Che in Congo than the USSR did. It says this in Jon Lee Anderson&#39;s biography of Che Guevara.

That&#39;s probably accurate. One can probably find other cases where China sent more aid, as well as examples where the USSR gave more. Neither indicates a fundamental political difference between the two.



By the way, are you a Trotskyist? I thought you were a Marxist and that you were against Leninism

The former&#39;s closer than the latter...but I simply consider myself a communist. I&#39;m certainly not against Leninism, and in most cases where there was a real disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky, I would tend to agree with Lenin.