Che quote: "If you tremble with indignation..."

[ReD_ReBeL]

"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." -Che

Is this suggesting that theres no point in taking up arms in struggle, if the government has been elected by popular vote? this baffles me that quote didnt sound very communistic.

[Big Boss]

It sounds to me that the guerrilla struggle has to be used as a last resort. I could be wrong. :(

[NovelGentry]

His point is quite simply that guerrilla struggle will not work on any promotional level if the people feel the government has not in some way violated anything they claim to "owe" them, whether that be constitutional legality or democracy.

When a government has abandoned any appearance of constitutional legality, guerrilla struggle becomes a realistic and possible movement within the people. This is based on his recognition in the book that guerilla struggle is not so much the end to the means of the end, but that it is merely to be established for resistance to build up a more traditional army which would then be a means.

I'm under the impression this was written to be inclusive of places with a far more dense population than Cuba at the time. Although their "army" did grow to much larger proportions over time, it never achieved what one might consider enough growth to formulate a real army, at least not one which would in essence be equivalent in force to a trained, government equipped, and possibly equal or more populated army.

[SiliconRain]

Hey all,

This quote:

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

is one of my favourite Che quotes and is often quoted all over the place. I cannot, however, find where it came from (that is, where and when he said it), in what context it was said or even what language he said it in.

If he said it in english, fair enough, but if anyone has the original phrase pre-translation, I'd be much interested to hear it.

Thanks mucho.

[Alleline]

He said that in a letter to a certain María Rosario Guevara from Morrocco who inquired whether he and she were related:

I don't think you and I are very closely related, but if you are capable of trembling of indignation each time that an injustice is commited in the world, we are comrades, and that is more important.

You can find that letter in the Che Guevara reader (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1876175699/qid=1135603505/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8227266-9643319?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) published by Ocean Press.