TURNING CHE'S DEATH AGAINST CHE'S PROGRAM
By Pierre Frank
Many people throughout the world were deeply moved over the news of Che Guevara's death. The blow was a hard one; but the youth resolved afresh to conduct their battle against capitalism all the more vigorously. Demonstrations were widespread in tribute to the memory of Che and in token of the resolution to carry on his struggle.
But a body is a windfall for the vultures, and the world is not lacking in these. The spectacle of the Bolivian "gorillas" serving Washington could not be more edifying. Che's "journal" was found; for these "gorillas" it became an occasion to auction it off to the highest bidder. Perhaps there are still good souls who believe that it is the custom to shoot pillagers of the dead on the field of battle.
Vultures of the Barrientos type are perhaps not the worst. Their nature is known and they do not wrap themselves in the banner of socialism. There were others, brought up in the school of Stalinism, who did not wait until Che's body was cold before resorting to the most ignoble of political operations. On the very morrow of Che's death, the columns of Pravda and other Stalinist organs were opened to articles by Argentine and Chilean "Communists," partisans of "peaceful coexistence," directed against OLAS (Organization of Latin-American Solidarity] and the Cuban leadership.
These gentlemen, who, to persevere in the worst parliamentary cretinisn, never drew any lessons from the heavy defeats in Brazil, Indonesia, Greece and other places caused by their policy of seeking "peaceful and parliamentary roads" hastened to utilize the blow suffered by the guerrillas in Bolivia in order to attack the Castroist leadership and the revolutionary tendencies in Latin America and elsewhere.
In conjunction with this, they featured one of the secretaries of the pro-Moscow Bolivian Communist party, Jorge Kolle, in an interview which appeared in the Chilean Stalinist daily, El Siglo, and which was reprinted in L'Humanité and 1'Unita [see World Outlook December 8, page 1,012, for full text of Kolle's interview]. In addition, the leadership of the French Communist party sent a member of its Central Committee, J. Arnault, to Latin America. Arnault is a "specialist" in colonial questions, the author of a book, Du colonialisme au_socialisme [From Colonialism to Socialism], in which, in order to do battle with Trotsky, he commits a shameless falsification of the First Congress of the Communist International. *
To every gentleman his due. Let us begin then with Arnault. He presents hinself as an innocent. "European that I am, just arrived in Latin America, I did not understand..." "I did not know that, from 1952 to 1954, the Estenssoro government had carried out certain reforms..." "I couldn't say..." The journalistic trick is all the more repugnant as a device for passing off reactionary merchandise.
The upshot of his presentation is that the choice of Bolivia for guerrilla
* The First Congress of the Communist International, held in March 1919, adopted a "Manifesto to the Proletariat of the Entire World," which took as its axis the revolutionary struggle for proletarian power in Europe. The manifesto declared: "Colonial slaves of Africa and Asia, the hour of the proletarian dictatorship in Europe will sound for you as the hour of your deliverance." This manifesto, written by Trotsky, was adopted by the whole Congress, including, among others, Lenin, who gave the closing speech. In his book, Arnault does not speak about a "manifesto" for immediate action, but puts it as a matter of "theses" adopted under the influence of Trotsky which subordinated the struggle in the colonies to the victory of socialism in Europe. The door of the Communist International was barred to the Arnaults of those days.
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war is not comprehensible. Why? He went to Bolivia by way of Cuzco, Peru, and engaged in the following reflections: "Crossing the frontier between Peru and Bolivia, the change is obvious: the neatness of dress, the frequent appearance of shoes, the organization of the peasant habitat (in Peru the Indian villages are like pimples on the land), an air of Indian dignity gives one the feeling of having found a population better integrated in Bolivian society. In the streets of La Paz, the Indian does not seem to be at loose ends; he is at home." (Emphasis in the original.)
We have taken up elsewhere Paz Estenssoro's reforms, which Arnault did not know about. He still does not know that Estenssoro and Siles largely undid those reforms, preparing the ground for Barrientos. (Arnault does not even mention the name of Barrientos and alludes only once to "the intervention of the United States which facilitated the military coup-") But he did see that the peasants do not feel too frustrated.
He came in complete good faith and he found “a national feeling" in Bolivia which is -- listen to this! -- "as strong as the French nationalism at the beginning of the century that demanded its Alsacewee (That emphasis is not mine but his.
He also saw that "the young officers are generally from circles in modest circumstances; the army participates in work for the general good in the rural areas."
Hence, “in view of so many unfavorable elements, one wonders about the reasons for Che Guevara's choice." The article is entitled, "Why Did Che Guevara Come to Die in Bolivia?" ["Pourquoi Che Guevara est-il venu mourir en Bolivie?"] which tells a good deal about the feelings of this "special envoy" of 1'Humanite.
"The central question remains: why Bolivia?" he repeats toward the end of his article. This is not to be taken to mean that there might be other countries in Latin America where armed struggle is more indicated than in Bolivia. If he had put his question within that frame, we could discuss with him, even if we were in disagreement. But he poses this question in order to insinuate “another hypothesis" of a kind that only a disreputable person could suggest. It is necessary to quote him again: "Last January 2, speaking of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro compared him with the Phoenix, the bird that perpetually rises from its ashes. This Phoenix, why could it not have occurred to someone to place it somewhere -- and there, kill it? Che Guevara could have been the victim of a vast plot."
Plot organized by whom? For this operator, it is sufficient to make the insinuation. He has friends who will take care of the rest.
We note that J. Arnault does not once touch the question of the role of the pro-Moscow Bolivian Communist party. * On this point, it is Jorge Kolle who is given the floor. To hin, "the revolution must be an essentially national phenomenon: this is our principled position and it is no secret." He tells us besides that with regard to drawing "the lessons" of the Bolivian "experience" (he is answering a question on what is called "the negative outcome of the guerrilla action"), "None are more qualified or more entitled to do this than the Communist parties and their leaders."
The revolution -- a national affair? This is not the opinion of the counterrevolution, particularly the "green berets" of the Pentagon, who were on the side of the "gorillas" in Bolivia; one could say in command of them. The truth is that Kolle is aiming this at the Cubans above all; he is repeating in another way Arnault's line, according to which the guerrilla struggle was some-~ thing alien to Bolivia. Kolle demands for the Bolivian CP, as well as for the leaderships of all the Communist parties, the right of primogeniture -— they alone are qualified, authorized to decide what policy to follow. By what right?
What did the Bolivian CP do, then, with regard to the guerrillas? It "supported them with all the means at its disposal, without taking part in an organizational way," says Kolle. "And there was a nucleus of our members who, outside the party bodies, took part in the armed actions."
The Stalinist duplicity in this is towering. What did the support with all their means consist of? If the CP did not participate in an organized way, why did party members participate in armed actions outside the party bodies? The question
* The pro-Peking Communist party of Bolivia could not remain silent about the guerrillas. It took up their defense formally, but without doing anything effective. We cannot pass by the fact that Peking has remained silent on the polemic between Castro and the Communist party of Venezuela, on Guevara's message, on the OLAS conference; while a black exile from the United States, in Peking after having been in Cuba, is allowed to publish a bulletin filled with venomous and slanderous attacks against the Cuban leadership. Finally, it cannot be overlooked that Peking has not said a word about the death of Che Guevara.
could prove perplexing, if we did not know from other sources that the members of the party who participated in the armed actions, or who helped the guerrillas, did so without the knowledge of the party.
More precisely, the picture appears to have been as follows. The leadership of the Bolivian CP participated in the Tricontinental conference in Havana in January 1966, and voted for a resolution there in a way that satisfied the Cubans. But, when it came time to go into action, they proved to be turncoats like the leadership of the Venezuelan CP, and revealed their hostility to revolutionary means, among other things compelling members who favored the guerrillas to act without the kmowledge of their own party. It is probable that there were leaks. One can be almost certain that the partisans of the "democratic roads" did not take precautions in behalf of those who were preparing the revolutionary road.
We do not have the least intention of discussing the possible errors of the guerrillas -- whether they were isolated and why, etc. -- with people who are act~ ing as counterrevolutionaries. The errors are subject matter only for genuine defenders of the combatants.
Kolle not only says nothing about supporting those who are continuing the struggle -- there is not a word about this in his article -- but he advocates a policy of "strengthening of our forces" (what this means under the circumstances can be guessed), of making possible the “forming of a popular, anti-imperialist front," etc. All this verbiage does not hide abandonment of the guerrillas.
In addition, so that there will not be the least error, dotting the "i's" with regard to the "plot" conceived by Arnault, Kolle declares:
"It can be predicted that two tendencies will show up on a continental scale, one current parallel to the Communist movement, the other in opposition to it: on the one hand, development of armed guerrilla movements; on the other reactionary activity directed by the CIA, which will seek to create provocations and to ‘establish’ responsibility in order to decapitate the revolutionary movement."
Since, according to Kolle and his acolytes, only the leaderships of the Communist parties are qualified to determine what policy to follow, and since they never see the necessity of the road of armed struggle, the conclusion is sinple: the CIA will maneuver with guerril~ las in order to decapitate the revolutionary movement.
As can be seen, the Stalinists, like the Bourbons, have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Whoever upsets their policy of "peaceful coexistence," whoever dreams of struggling with revolutionary means, is either an agent of the CIA or a simpleton caught in its maneuvers.
Unfortunately for these gentlemen, the time when Stalin's lies passed for good coin is over. Day by day the struggle in Vietnam is unmasking the nature of the Kremlin's policies and those throughout the world who support them. The guerrilla struggle in Bolivia is not dead despite the blows it has just received. Guerrilla war is the necessary means of struggle in Bolivia at present.* The in-~ famous actions of the Kolles and Arnaults, far from finding an echo, will contribute to casting a more glaring light on the policy of "peaceful coexistence," a policy which has abandoned the guerrillas and which seeks to turn this betrayal to advantage in talking up the "democratic and parliamentary roads."
November 26, 1967
* We refer the reader to a report from La Paz, published in World Outlook November 10, page 901, which offers precise information on the situation in Bolivia, the inescapability of a guerrilla struggle, and the positions of the various political formations in Bolivia, particularly that of the pro-