A Meeting with Che Guevara

Great summary Sardar sahib! Viva Che! Viva Fidel! Viva La Revolucion!

Mr. Singh,
I've read two of your articles and must say you have that rare clarity of thought, conviction and spirit that dares to defy the blind majority that worships the naked capitalism and white European dominance of today's world. Well done, sir!

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great man he was

During my student days in early 70s in England Che Guevara, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, Gen. Giap were the names to look up to, while Nixon and Kissinger were imperialists. My friends and I would often attend meetings. We read on Colonialism, Marxism and Mao, and then vigorously debated among each other when we were not busy with girl friends and beer at the student union. There was an active group of socialists and marxists Indo-Pakistani sociologists, writers and artists outside the university. They at times invited us to their homes; we welcomed such invitations as that was our chance to get free Indian food. Often discussions would range from dialectical materialism to cultural revolution and land reforms in China and everything in between in Africa, Cuba and Latin America.

35 years later, while reading this article, I recall those times and discussions, and feel that almost all leaders were dreamers and idealists, obviously they were very smart and driven.

Their belief in

“A bloody revolution was necessary to throw out….�

was indeed the paradigm of these young leaders from Asia, Africa and Latin America. They hardly achieved their goals, and losses have been tragic. Much like losses of young dreamers and revolutionary like Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad who also had espoused violence based on “End justifies the means�.

This made me a firm believer that violence never succeeds, non-violence as a weapon is the most powerful weapon to achieve political goals.

"Writers of capitalism have said much and written numerous volumes about the failure of socialism in former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but little about the failure of capitalism for two thirds of humanity, the four billion people that live below the poverty line".
I salute the writer for presenting such a heart breaking assessment, in a few words. I was in tears when I read this article.
I am more than sure now that the failure of monopoly capitalism is a matter of time now. The "invincibility" of capitalism as a system is nearly over, and some foundations of its own demise have already been laid by the system itself.
However, having said that, it is worthwhile to say that socialism itself, need to evolve into a new democratic, equal opportunity system, that also has respect for human rights together with an in-built system for wealth generation, accountability and control. The corruption of socialism practised by the soviet union, was just an aftermath makeshift, confused reaction to the events of post world war 2 and collapse of nazism. No one actually gave a serious thought to what they were getting into.

Socialism has to learn from what was done post world war-2, in the interest of suffering and dying humanity.

Negative agenda always attracts attention and may be some sort of heriosm...

For a different and a far more decent point of view see the following:
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Let the left's tyrants die
This is no time to rehabilitate Che Guevara

Leave the left's tyrants in their graves

Che Guevara was sexy and idealistic. He was also a defender of Joseph Stalin and mass murder

by Johann Hari
(http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=441)

In the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, Castro and Che studied and discussed C. Wright Mills' The Power Elite which gave them a clear insight into the US power structure, maybe you all should do the same, otherwise when you talk of the US you're shooting in the dark, this includes the diehard Marxists as well....

an uncle of mine was from last batch of ICS exam and first batch of pakistani foreign service.he was also in algeria in the embassy of pakistan.later he became blind and i used to read the newspaper for him.he was a classfellow of famous historian Ganda Singh.He also told me that he saw Che Guevera and there was a very strange and inexplicable charm in im.something he thought was a very strong and supernatural charm and energy.

Dear Gajendra Singh...thank you for sharing your encounter with che and your ideas about guerrilla war. i went to cuba to visit che's museum. cubans have made a special statue of che...looks like statue of liberty...very impressive. they have also exhibited the letter that che wrote to fidel before he left cuba. i liked it so much i translated it in urdu.
last year i read mao and che's books about guerrilla war. they are impressive and insightful.what are your views about che's relationship with fidel? sincerely sohail