Within the Cuban revolutionary tradition, from 1959 to the present day, Che Guevara is undoubtedly the hero I sympathize with most. I have always admired the remarkable consistency between what he thinks, what he says, and what he does. In this regard, there is much debate about whether Che tended to glorify violence as a method—or, rather, as a means. And that is precisely the distinction I want to emphasize. For Guevara, violence was not an end in itself, but a means that, ultimately, often proves unavoidable in the pursuit of national liberation. It is an instrument of class struggle and a revolutionary’s duty.
In this respect, he embraced the political logic of Antonio Maceo, another classic Cuban hero who fought in the anti-colonial wars against Spain in the nineteenth century: “Freedom is won at the edge of a machete; it is not something one asks for. Begging for rights is the mark of cowards incapable of exercising them.” Another statement by Maceo is also worth recalling. Coincidentally, he was born on June 14, just like Che: “Whoever attempts to seize Cuba will gather the dust of its soil, drenched in blood, unless they perish in the struggle.”
Whether one agrees with these ideas or understands them or not, the fact remains that Che remained true to them until the very end fifty-nine years ago. Moreover, Guevara’s essence did not lie in the bullets he fired or ordered others to fire in pursuit of an ideal, whether good or bad. It lay in the society he dreamed of: a joyful society—where work would acquire a playful dimension—driven by solidarity, a collective commitment to collective well-being, and free of imbalances between those who lead and those who are led. Indeed, the former were expected to make greater sacrifices and meet more demanding standards.
I believe the best analysis of Che’s legacy comes from Dariel Alarcón. He died outside Cuba ten years ago and accompanied the Argentine-Cuban guerrilla on his military campaigns in the Congo and Bolivia. Alarcón, nicknamed Benigno, eventually became disillusioned with the Cuban Revolution and left the country. Precisely for that reason, I believe his assessment of Che in his autobiography, Memorias de un soldado (Memoirs of a Soldier), published by Tusquets in 1996–1997, is particularly valuable. Alarcón no longer had any commitment to or responsibility for the Cuban revolutionary process. From an editorial standpoint, I would say that Tusquets was looking for material that would cast Havana in a negative light. And, indeed, Benigno ventures to identify Che’s “blemishes,” such as his blunt and overbearing personality, which sometimes led him to humiliate or verbally attack people without giving the offended party an opportunity to defend themselves. The veteran guerrilla also devoted considerable attention to Che’s tactical mistakes in military affairs.
But the overall impression left by his account is a positive one, even if we accept every flaw he points out as true. There is also something valuable in the willingness to acknowledge both the good and the less admirable aspects of great historical figures, rather than portraying them as flawless beings who never made mistakes. For example, Benigno describes instances in which Che showed a preference for certain subordinates. But this is a natural human tendency: we develop preferences and different degrees of affinity with different people.
Here are the passages from Memorias de un soldado that have always made the deepest impression on me when it comes to Che.
Whenever someone was in pain or had been wounded in combat, Che would immediately go to help and assist them, regardless of whether he was doing so under fire. He did this many times. We also saw how fair-minded he was: whenever there was a loaf of bread, it had to be divided into absolutely equal portions, without giving anyone even a crumb more than anyone else. We liked that very much, and the myth was gradually built on things like these. Moreover, in combat, Che fought with great composure. He directed the fighting but remained one of us, right there alongside everyone else. He never behaved like other commanders who organized everything and then stayed behind at a peasant’s house, eating well while the guerrillas went off to fight. This contrast was very clear: Che went into combat, whereas, for example, Commander Lalito Sardiñas would stay in a house, eating a whole roast pig and sleeping with a peasant woman. Naturally, we despised Lalito Sardiñas and our esteem for Che grew; that was how the myth took shape. And because Che managed to win important battles, we often held him up as an example. We set aside his harshness and praised his frankness, his clean way of conducting himself, his absolute sense of fairness, and his feeling that we were all equal, whether when it came to food or anything else. It also mattered that he was a man with a solid political and cultural education: he spoke very well about various aspects of the world that we knew nothing about.
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I acknowledge Che’s mistakes, his flaws, and his harshness toward himself and others, but I also acknowledge his human worth, which, to me, was immense. Some people tell me he was an extremist, but the thing is, he was an extremist with himself. There are others who are extremists with other people but not with themselves, and Che was not like that. If there is one thing I admire about Che Guevara, something I have come to understand despite all his flaws, it is that he was extraordinarily honest and always wanted to live by his own sacrifices, through his own sweat. That is how I knew him, and that is how I saw him die. I believe the best thing a man can be in life is honest, although being honest is very difficult. And I truly remember many things about Che with love. He taught me many things, such as the fact that, before passing judgment on someone, you must first get to know them. He told me: “Never get into the habit of judging someone based on what one person tells you. Get into the habit of listening to both sides, reflecting, and drawing your own conclusions. Talk things over with yourself, because your own conclusions may be wrong.” He taught me a great deal, and I have put those lessons into practice.
Perhaps Benigno, given his humble background and limited intellectual sophistication, never realized it, but above all, Che taught him to think dialectically.
Source for the cover image, generated with ChatGPT.