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An Historical Critique of the Emergence and Evolution of Ernesto Che Guevara's Foco Theory*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Matt D. Childs
Matt D. Childs
Affiliation:
doctoral student at theUniversity of Texasat Austin.
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Abstract

This article provides an analysis of Ernesto Che Guevara's theory of guerrilla warfare, the foco. The numerous changes to the original foco thesis, as presented in Guerrilla Warfare (1960), are examined in detail covering two dozen articles, speeches, essays, interviews and books authored by Guevara, Castro and Debray while stressing their relation to national and international politics. The author argues that there was an apparent discourse between Cuban politics and the numerous changes in Guevara's writings. Juxtaposing changes to the foco theory from 1960 to 1967, to Cuban historical events, reflects the political expedience of the 1960s and the primary interests of the fidelistas, specifically Guevara.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , October 1995 , pp. 593 - 624
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Halperin taught at the University of Havana and served as an economic advisor in Cuba between 1962 and 1968 where he worked closely with many high officials of the regime, including Ernesto Che Guevara. The quote is taken from an early publication of his memoirs which appeared as ‘Return to Havana: Portrait of a Loyalist’, in Cuban Studies/Estudios Cubanos, vol. 23 (1993), pp. 187–93.

2 Ibid., p. 188. Halperin is certainly not the first to make this observation. The historiography of the Cuban Revolution as commented on by Suárez, Andrés, ‘The Cuban Revolution: The Road to Power’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 7, no. 3 (Fall, 1972), pp. 5–29Google Scholar, notes the paucity of material on the llano's contribution to the Batista struggle. Fidel Castro himself later acknowledged the sierra biass in 1968: ‘[A]lmost all attention, almost all recognition, almost all the admiration and almost all the history of the Revolution has centred on the guerrilla movement in the mountains. And this fact tended to play down the role of those who fought in the clandestine movement, and the extraordinary herosim of young persons who died fighting under very difficult conditions.’ Quoted in González, Edward, Cuba Under Castro: The Limits of Charisma (Boston, 1974), pp. 91–2Google Scholar. Three works, among others, which adequately address the role of the llano in the revolutionary war are Bonachea, Ramón L. and Martín, Marta San, The Cuba Insurrection, 1952–1959 (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1974)Google Scholar; Thomas, Hugh, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; and useful documents on llano activities can be found in the work by one-time regime supporter Franqui, Carlos, Diario de la Revolución Cubana (Paris, 1976)Google Scholar.

3 For example see Guevara, Ernesto Che, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, trans., Ortiz, Victoria (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

4 Throughout this essay Che will be written without the accent which numerous authors place over the e. I have chosen not to use the accent because Che himself never employed it nor did Fidel Castro in their correspondence, whether it was linguistically correct or not. Ernesto Guevara officially became El Che ‘on 9 January 1959 [when] the council of ministers made Che Guevara a Cuban citizen, and at that time, he legalised Che as part of his name’. Taken from the introduction by John Gerassi to Guevara, Ernesto Che, Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara (New York, 1968), p. 14Google Scholar. Guevara actually became an official citizen of Cuba on 9 February 1959. See ‘Che Guevara, 1959–1967: Cronología’, Universidad de la Habana (Julio-Die, 1967), pp. 270–6.

5 The foco theory will be elaborated and analysed later. In brief, the ‘foco’ refers to a small guerrilla band located in the mountains, while the ‘foco theory’, or ‘foquisimo’, refers to the primacy given to the rural armed struggle centralised in the sierra with emphasis on subjective conditions. The terminology may be confusing since the ‘foco theory’ and the ‘foco’ itself have distinct connotations. Throughout this essay the ‘foco theory’ will refer to the guerrilla warfare literature authored by Guevara, Debray, and Castro. The ‘foco’ will represent the insurrectionary force.

6 Castañeda, Jorge G., Utopian Unarmed: The Latin America Left after the Cold War (New York, 1993), p. 329Google Scholar. For lengthy reviews of Utopia Unarmed see essays by Baloyra, Enrique A., Gorriti, Gustavo, and Maingot, Anthony P. all in the journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, vol. 36, no. 1 (Spring, 1994), pp. 150–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dunkerley, James, ‘Beyond Utopia: The State of the Left in Latin America’, New-Left Review, no. 206 (07–08, 1994), pp. 27–43Google Scholar.

7 Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed, p. 329, fn. 2.

8 The article, which Castañeda was not aware of or did not recognise, is actually well known and will be analysed later; Guevara, Ernesto Che, ‘Guerra de Guerrillas: Un Método’, Cuba Socialista (09, 1963), pp. 1–17Google Scholar. Perhaps even more surprising, Régis Debray, who surely studied the article, was thanked by Castañeda in the preface for reading the manuscript. Castañeda is by no means the first not to take account of the important changes in Guevara's guerrilla thought, and hence the need for such analysis. The well known spokesman for the American ‘new-left’, I. F. Stone, who knew Guevara personally, made the same comment in an obituary/homage article which appeared in New Statesman (20 October 1967) and reprinted as a ‘Prefatory Note’ to the 1968 Vintage edition of Guerrilla Warfare. Equabal Ahmad was also unaware of the change when he criticised Debray's Revolution in the Revolution? claiming there is ‘no discussion of Che Guevara's contention that guerrilla insurgency cannot succeed against a government which is able to maintain some legitimacy through the pretense of democracy’. Ahmad, Eqabal, ‘Radical But Wrong’, in Huberman, Leo and Sweezy, Paul M. (eds.), Régis Debray and the Latin American Revolution (New York, 1968), p. 73Google Scholar.

9 ‘Once the revolution had won power at home, Cuba had to attempt to make the world safe for its revolution. … Cuban leaders [sought] to make a world safe for revolution in order to promote and safeguard their values, advance their interests, achieve their ambitions and enhance their influence.’ Domínguez, Jorge I., To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cuba's Foreign Policy (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989), pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

10 ‘Fidelista movements in Latin America not only offered the means by which Cuba could overcome its hemispheric isolation, but also provided Castro either with the means for maintaining and revitalising Soviet interests in Cuba as a revolutionary base, or with a negotiable issue with which he could bargain for major Soviet concessions.’ González, Edward, ‘Relationship with the Soviet Union’, in Mesa-Lago, Carmelo (ed.), Revolutionary Change in Cuba (Pittsburgh, 1970), p. 87Google Scholar.

11 Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed, pp. 51–90.

12 For a discussion of the left in Latin America following the Cuban Revolution, see the following: Gott, Richard, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America (Garden City, New York, 1972)Google Scholar; the well detailed ‘case studies’ of guerrilla movements in seven Latin American countries from the 1960s to the mid 1980s in Guevara, Che, Guerrilla Warfare, introduction and case studies by Loveman, Brian and Davies, Thomas M. Jr (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1985)Google Scholar; Wickham-Crowley, Timothy P., Guerrillas & Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes Since 1956 (Princeton, 1992)Google Scholar; Wright, Thomas C., Latin America in the Eera of the Cuban Revolution (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; and in particular, Ratliff, William E., Castroism and Communism in Latin America, 1959–1976: The Varieties of the Marxist–Leninist Experience (Stanford, 1976)Google Scholar.

13 Despite Castro's commitment to the armed struggle, in 1964 Cuba hosted the Conference of Latin American Communist Parties, giving high priority to various guerrilla movements and agreeing with the Soviet Union on the unfavourability of revolutionary conditions in other countries. Cuban tolerance for several Latin American communist parties unwilling to adopt the armed struggle served to strengthen relations with the Soviet Union. See Ratliff, Castroism and Communism, passim, and Appendix A, pp. 195–9.

14 Borge, Tomás, Carlos, el Almanecer ya no es una Tentación (Managua, 1989), p. 27Google Scholar. See also his work La Paciente Impaciente (Managua, 1989); the autobiographical work by Cabezas, Omar, La Montaña es Algo Más Que un Enorme Estepa Verde (Managua, 1982)Google Scholar; and Cardenal, Ernesto, En Cuba (México, 1977)Google Scholar all provide insight into the importance of the Cuban Revolution from high ranking Sandinistas. Also, works by Nolan, David, FSLN: Ideology of the Sandinista and the Nicaraguan Revoluiton (Miami, 1984)Google Scholar; and Hodges, Donald, Intellectual Foundations of the Nicaraguan Revolution (Austin, 1986)Google Scholar are both essential.

15 Quoted in Kinzer, Stephen, The Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (New York, 1991), p. 62Google Scholar. While the importance of the Cuban Revolution to the Sandinistas was immense in providing a model and a theory, one author exaggerates when he describes Che Guevara as ‘the single most important icon for revolutionary Nicaraguans’. The author apparently has forgotten the name of the Nicaraguan revolutionaries – Sandinistas! Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas & Revolution in Latin America, p. 227.

16 The emergence of this division during the 1970s is clearly detailed in Nolan's work. The persistence of the division and the obstacles they currently present is tightly analysed by Pérez, Andrés, ‘The FSLN After the Debacle: The Struggle for the Definition of Sandinismo’, Journal of Interamerican Studies andWorld Affairs, vol. 34, no. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 111–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Loveman, Brian and Davies, Thomas P. Jr, ‘Preface’ to Guevara, Che, Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1985), p. ixGoogle Scholar.

18 Cleaver, Eldridge, Soul on Fire (Waco, Texas, 1978), p. 108Google Scholar. He further commented that there ‘was much excitement over the possibilities of building of units, surrounded by acres of revolutionary camps and personnel, all working rigorously’. He also added, to emphasise its perceived importance at the time, ‘I do not mean to be sarcastic; but in retrospect the grand design seems pretty ridiculous’.

19 A two volume edition entitled Obras Completas, 1957–1967 (Havana, 1970) contains almost all of Guevara's important works on guerrilla warfare. Most of Guevara's writings have been translated into English. The best source for reliability in translation, completeness, and introduction is Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, edited by Bonachea, Rolando E. and Valdés, Nelson P. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969)Google Scholar. Several works not found in the Bonachea and Valdés edition are in Gerassi's Venceremos!. Che's book length works such as Guerra de Guerrillas, Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria, and Diario del Che en Bolivia have all been translated into English and gone through numerous editions. Debray's important essays are found in Régis Debray, Strategy for Revolution, edited with an introduction by Blackburn, Robin (New York, 1971)Google Scholar. His well known lengthy essay has been published in book form, Revolution in the Revolution?, with an introduction by Huberman, Leo and Sweezy, Paul M, (New York, 1967)Google Scholar. Debray's, writings following his release from prison such as the Chilean Revolution: Conversations with Allende (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; Che's Guerrilla War (Harmondsworth, 1975); and Critique of Arms (New York, 1977) will not be examined in detail. Only those works by Fidel Castro which clearly deal with guerrilla warfare such as the Second Declaration of Havana will be addressed. The political context is covered in the following: Draper, Theodore, Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York, 1965)Google Scholar; Domínguez, Jorge I., Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1978)Google Scholar; González, Cuba Under Castro; Peréz-Stable, Marifeli, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course and Legacy (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Suárez, Andrés, Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 1959–1966 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967)Google Scholar; and Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom.

20 For analysis of Guevara's writings see the introductions by Loveman and Davies, Guerrilla Warfare; Bonachea and Valdés, Che; Gott, Guerrilla Movements; Gerassi, Venceremos!; Hodges, Donald, The Legacy of Che Guevara: A Documentary Study (London, 1975), pp. 11–75Google Scholar; Lowy, Michael, The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics and Revolutionary Warfare (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Liss, Sheldon B., Marxist Thought in Latin America (Berkeley, 1984), pp. 256–65Google Scholar; and Delgado, Carlos Jesús, ‘La concepción de la guerra revolucionaria de guerrillas de Ernesto Che Guevara’, Casa de las Américas, no. 163 (07–08, 1987), pp. 25–36Google Scholar. Debray's works are analysed admirably by Ramm, Harmut, Marxism of Régis Debray: Between Lenin and Guevara (Lawrence, Kansas, 1978)Google Scholar. In addition, see the introduction by Blackburn to Strategy for Revolution and the collection of essays by prominent members of the Latin American Left in Huberman and Sweezy (eds.), Régis Debray and the Latin American Revolution.

21 Domínguez, To Make a World Safe for Revolution, pp. 124–5.

22 Bonachea and Valdés, ‘Introduction’, p. 28. I am confident that Bonachea and Valdés are aware that Castro authored the Second Declaration of Havana. Their point, and mine as well, is that their writings are so similar that they can be treated as by one author, or coauthors. Davies and Loveman make the same assumption: ‘Guevara's primary message was that the duty of revolutionaries is to make revolution’, p. 14; as does Lowy: ‘Che's famous slogan: The duty of a revolutionary is to make revolution’, p. 21.

23 Hodges, Legacy of Che Guevara, pp. 31–3.

24 Ratliff, Castroism and Communism, pp. 103–11.

25 For example, see the sources listed in fn. 2.

26 Guevara, Reminiscences, p. 243.

27 Domínguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution, p. 127.

28 Gonzalez, Cuba Under Castro, p. 86.

29 Ibid.

30 See Castro's ‘General Strike Proclamation’, reprinted in Fidel Castro, Revolutionary Struggle, 1947–1958: Selected Works of Fidel Castro, vol. I, edited and with an introduction by Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdés (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 348–50.

31 Castro's writings in the Bonachea and Valdés edition and Franqui's Diario de la Revolución Cubana give evidence of Castro's daily awareness of llano activities.

32 The speech appeared in El Mundo, 20 Jan. 1959, pp. 1–8. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Honoring the Labor Movement’, p. 195.

33 Speech delivered to the Sociedad de Nuestro Tiempo on 27 Jan. 1959. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Social Ideas of the Rebel Army’, pp. 196–204.

34 Ibid., p. 198.

35 Pérez-Stable, Cuban Revolution, p. 70.

36 Ibid., p. 62.

37 The interviews were conducted on 18 April 1959 and 28 April 1959 and appear in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘A New Old Che Guevara Interview’, pp. 368–76; and ‘Interview by Telemundo Television’, pp. 378–83.

38 Ramm, Marxism of Régis Debray, p. 35.

39 Pérez-Stable, Cuban Revolution, p. 71.

40 González, Cuba Under Castro, p. 97, fn. 33.

41 Ibid., pp. 98–9.

42 Guevara, Che, Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1985)Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., p. 45.

44 Marx warned against such attempts: ‘Their activities consist precisely of trying to anticipate the revolutionary process, to carry it on to a crisis artificially, and to impose a revolution without the conditions for a revolution being present. For them, the only condition for revolution is sufficient organization of their conspiracy.’ Quoted in Ratliff, Castroism and Communism, p. 179.

45 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, pp. 157–8.

46 At Alegría de Pío Castro's forces were reduced from 82 to the mythical figure of 12 only days following the Granma landing. During December 1956 and January 1957 País was Castro's lifeline in the Sierra Maestra.

47 Ibid., p. 48.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., p. 80.

50 Ibid., p. 81.

51 Ibid., p. 132.

52 Fidel and Che criticised allegiance to Marxian orthodoxy only to demand strict following of their own formulation. ‘It appears as though slavish obedience to old doctrine was replaced by equally inflexible awe for a new one, whose superiority may have lain in its psychological immediacy and temporal proximity, rather than its political efficiency.’ Wickham-Crowley, Timothy P., ‘A Sociological Analysis of Latin American Guerrilla Movements, 1956–1970’, unpubl. PhD diss., Cornell University, 1981, p. 68Google Scholar.

53 Unsurprisingly, these categories correspond to Guevara's primary roles in the Cuban government. Che became president of the National Bank in 1959 and quickly surrounded himself with veterans of the sierra. From 1962 to 1965, Che challenged many of the ‘old Communists’ during the ‘Great Debate’, justifying his unorthodox Marxism by quoting the early writings of Marx. And from 1965 onward, Che made several trips throughout the world where he personally sought to ‘export’ the Cuban Revolution.

54 Speech delivered on the television programme ‘Universidad Popular’, 20 March 1960 and printed the following day in Revolución, pp. 1–8. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Political Sovereignty and Economic Independence’, pp. 213–29.

55 Speech delivered to the Havana assembly of workers on 18 June 1960 and printed in Obra Revolucionario, 1960, no. II. Reprinted in Venceremos!, as ‘On Sacrifice and Dedication’, pp. 92–108.

56 Hodges, Legacy of Che Guevara, p. 28.

57 Ibid.

58 Speech delivered to the First Congress of Latin American Youth on 28 July 1960 and printed in Obra Revolutionario, 25 August 1960, pp. 13–20. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Development of a Marxist Revolution’, pp. 246–56.

59 González, Cuba Under Castro, pp. 123–4.

60 Pérez-Stable, Cuban Revolution, p. 80.

61 On 16 October 1959 Alexandr Alexeev visited Cuba to arrange Mikoyan's visit. ‘Alexeev reports that he was “stunned” when Castro quoted Marx and Lenin at their October 16 meeting “because at that time we could not even imagine that he knew Marxist theory”. Few Soviets knew much about Cuba; most were sceptical of the revolutionaries’ credentials because so many of them were ‘bourgeois liberals.”’ Guevara told Alexeev that ‘the only way to achieve Cuba's full independence was to build a socialist society’. Domínguez, To Make A World Safe for Revolution, pp. 20–3. Also see González, Cuba Under Castro, p. 146 for insightful comments on Fidel's Marxist credentials, or, more aptly, lack thereof.

62 Guevara, ‘Development of a Marxist Revolution’, p. 247.

63 Guevara, of course, did not dismiss the necessity for reading Marx or revolutionary theory, which he often did on his own campaigns in addition to other genre. However, if these theories were not put into practice in the revolutionary laboratory they would only remain ideas of bourgeois abstraction.

64 Guevara, Ernesto Che, ‘Notas para el Estudio de la Idelogía de la Revolución Cubana’, Verde Olivo, 8 10 1960, pp. 10–14Google Scholar. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuba Revolution’, pp. 48–56.

65 Ibid., p. 48.

66 Ibid., p. 49.

67 Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Interview with Laura Berquist (#1)’, pp. 384–7.

68 Verde Olivo, 9 April 1961, pp. 22–9. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, pp. 57–70.

69 Ibid., p. 62.

70 Ibid., p. 63.

71 See Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice, pp. 84–99 for Escalante's challenge to the Guevara line.

72 OAS actions followed Castro's 2 December 1961 claim that he was a Marxist–Leninist. Domínguez, To Make A World Dafe for Revolution, p. 27.

73 Guevara repeated and confirmed most of the ideas of the Second Declaration of Havana in a speech given in May 1962. He recommended that Cuba seek allies among their ‘respective peoples’, calling for Cuba to encourage and support armed struggle as part of ‘Cuba's own strategy of defense’. Guevara, Ernesto Che, Obras Completas, 1957–1967, vol. II, ‘La influencia de la Revolución Cubana en la América Latina’ (Havana, 1970), pp. 469–92Google Scholar.

74 Quoted in González, Cuba Under Castro, p. 93.

75 Ibid., p. 93, fn. 24.

76 The discussion of the March 1962 ‘Escalante Affair’ is taken from the following: Domínguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution, pp. 210–14; González, Cuba Under Castro, pp. 100–4; Pérez-Stable, Cuban Revolution, pp. 98–101; and Suárez, Castroism and Communism, pp. 146–53.

77 Pérez-Stable, Cuban Revolution, p. 101.

78 González, Cuba Under Castro, pp. 100–1.

79 Castro accused Escalante of not organising a party, but a ‘straight jacket’, a ‘yoke’, a ‘counterrevolutionary monstrosity’, for promoting ‘sectarianism’, and for attempting to make the ORI ‘a machine for personal aims’. Suárez, Castroism and Communism, p. 152. Guevara echoed Castro's denunciation of Escalante in a speech the following month: ‘There had appeared throughout the country, as a baneful vice that it was necessary for us to eliminate completely, aloofness from the masses, dogmatism, sectarianism. Because of them, we were threatened by bureaucratism.’ Quoted in Lowy, Marxism of Che Guevara, p. 18, fn. 9.

80 Domínguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution, p. 211.

81 Guevara, ‘La Influencia de la Revolución Cubana en la América Latina’, pp. 469–92.

82 Hodges, Legacy of Che Guevara, p. 23.

83 The article entitled ‘Tactics and Strategy of the Latin American Revolution’, according to the Cuban government, was written during the missile crisis of October 1962, yet remained unpubished until after Guevara's death. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, pp. 77–88.

84 Ibid., p. 79.

85 Guevara, Ernesto Che, ‘Prológo’, El Partido Marxista-Leninista (Havana, 1963)Google Scholar. Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘The Role of a Marxist-Leninist Party’, pp. 102–11.

86 Ibid., pp. 106–7.

87 Crain, David, ‘The Course of the Cuban Heresy: The Rise and Decline of Castroism's Challenge to the Soviet Line in the Latin American Marxist Revolutionary Movement, 1963–1970’, unpubl. PhD diss., Indiana University, 1971, p. 296Google Scholar; and Wickham-Crowley, ‘Sociological Analysis of Latin American Guerrilla Movements’, pp. 21–3. Universo Sánchez and Crescencio Pérez are the notable members of the July 26 Movement who could be considered proletarian.

88 Bonachea and Valdés, ‘Introduction’, Che, p. 16. The editors refer to Guevara's unorthodox Marxian formulation as ‘guerrilla communism’.

89 The lessons of the ‘Escalante Affair’ were reinforced in March 1964 when former PSP member Marcos Rodríguez was arrested and sentenced to death for having revealed to Batista's police force the whereabouts of the surviving students from the Revolutionary Directorate who launched the attack on the Presidential Palace on 13 March 1957. González, Cuba under Castro, p. 103.

90 Guevara, ‘Role of Marxist-Leninist Party’, p. 105.

91 For an examination of the ‘Great Debate’ and the various individuals involved see Silverman, Bertram (ed.), Man and Socialism in Cuba: The Great Debate (New York, 1971)Google Scholar.

92 Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Guerrilla Warfare: A Method’, pp. 89–103.

93 Ibid., p. 93.

94 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, p. 48.

95 Guevara, ‘Guerrilla Warfare: A Method’, p. 95.

96 In a CBS interview in December 1964 Guevara stated: ‘In America, the road to the liberation of the peoples, which will be the road to socialism, will be opened by armed struggle in nearly all countries.’ Quoted in Lowy, Marxism of Che Guevara, p. 86.

97 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, p. 132.

98 Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘People's War, People's Army’, pp. 149–54.

99 According to Ramm, in ‘Vietnam the guerrillas were local tactical forces, not mobile and strategic. Giap contrasted guerrilla warfare with mobile warfare; the later follows the former.’ Marxism of Régis Debray, p. 208, fn. 37.

100 Ibid., pp. 83–4.

101 Ibid., p. 1.

102 Blackburn, Robin, ‘Introduction’ to Debray, Régis, Strategy for Revolution (New York, 1971), p. 7Google Scholar.

103 Ramm, perhaps, states this point too strongly: ‘Guevara's acquaintance with Leninist thought was scanty, … the burden of the theoretical struggle passed to the brilliant, young, French intellectual, Régis Debray.’ Marxism of Régis Debray, p. viii. Ramm's overall thesis is that Debray ‘Leninized Guevara’.

104 The first was a lengthy essay published in January 1965, ‘Castroism: The Long March in Latin America’, and the second was published in March of the same year ‘Problems of Revolutionary Strategy in Latin America’. Both essays are reprinted in Régis Debray, Strategy for Revolution.

105 Debray, ‘Castroism: The Long March in Latin America’, p. 53.

106 Ramm, Marxism of Regis Debray, p. 29.

107 Debray, Reǵis, Revolution in the Revolution!: Armed Struggle and Political Struggle in Latin America (New York, 1967)Google Scholar. Following Che's death many blamed Debray for severely distorting the foco theory. These claims are unfounded for several reasons: first, ‘Debray had a number of long conversations with Castro and members of Castro's inner circle who made available to him numerous unpublished documents, including military correspondence’; second, according to Roberto Fernández Retamar, editor of Casa de la Américas, ‘no one else had access to such a wealth of materials for historical research’; and third, the very fact that it was published by Casa de las Américas and the first printing entailed more than 200,000 copies for a mass audience indicates Debray's work had the backing of the Cuban government. Ramm, Marxism of Régis Debray, p. 61; and the introduction by Huberman and Sweezy to Revolution in the Revolution, p. 7.

108 Debray, Revolution in the Revolution?, p. 106.

109 Ibid., p. 69.

110 Ibid., p. 116.

111 The speech is reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Revolution and Under-development’, pp. 350–9.

112 Ibid., p. 350.

113 See Guevara's speech given in 1963 on ‘Solidarity with Vietnam’ for earlier remarks on the same topic. Reprinted in Gerassi, Venceremos!, pp. 286–91.

114 Guevara, ‘Revolution and Underdevelopment’, p. 353.

115 See his UN speech reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Colonialism is Doomed’, PP. 334–49.

116 Domínguez, To Make A World Safe for Revolution, p. 270.

117 Che ‘was the absent inspiration of the conference. He was elected the honorary president of the organization. OLAS in fact was so closely identified with him, that it was difficult for it to survive his death.’ Gott, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, p. 35.

118 Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Letter to Fidel Castro’, p. 423.

119 Future detailed investigations of Guevara's trip to the Congo could more concretely illuminate why Che left Cuba, his return to Latin America and selection of Bolivia, his mistrust of allies he did not know well in advance, and the strategy he employed in Bolivia.

120 Reprinted in Bonachea and Valdés, Che, ‘Message to the Tricontinental’, pp. 170–82.

121 Ibid., p. 182.

122 Ibid., pp. 172–3.

123 Ibid.

124 According to Domínguez's Bargaining Rule: ‘Support for revolution could be used for bargaining. Cuba would suspend its ongoing support for revolutionary movements … in return for a suspension of hostilities against Cuba and other benefits.’ Domínguez, To Make a World Safe for Revolution, p. 120. Once Cuba gave up ‘exporting revolution’ they rapidly became integrated into hemispheric politics.

125 Debray, Régis, Prison Writings, ‘Time and Politics’ (New York, 1973), p. 130Google Scholar.

126 Debray, Régis, The Chilean Revolution: Conversations with Allende (New York, 1971)Google Scholar.

127 Loveman and Davies, ‘Nicaragua’, pp. 383–4.