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Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution
Guevara wrote 'Notes for the Study of the Ideology
of the Cuban Revolution' for the October 8, 1960, issue of Verde
Olivo, the magazine of Cuba's armed forces.
This is a unique revolution which some people maintain contradicts
one of the most orthodox premises of the revolutionary movement,
expressed by Lenin: "Without a revolutionary theory there
is no revolutionary movement." It would be suitable to
say that revolutionary theory, as the expression of a social
truth, surpasses any declaration of it; that is to say, even
if the theory is not known, the revolution can succeed if historical
reality is interpreted correctly and if the forces involved
are utilised correctly. Every revolution always incorporates
elements of very different tendencies which, nevertheless, coincide
in action and in the revolution's most immediate objectives.
 It
is clear that if the leaders have an adequate theoretical knowledge
prior to the action, they can avoid trial and error whenever
the adopted theory corresponds to the reality.
The principal actors of this revolution had no coherent theoretical
criteria; but it cannot be said that they were ignorant of the
various concepts of history, society, economics, and revolution
which are being discussed in the world today.
Profound knowledge of reality, a close relationship with the
people, the firmness of the liberator's objective, and the practical
revolutionary experience gave to those leaders the chance to
form a more complete theoretical concept.
The foregoing should be considered an introduction to the explanation
of this curious phenomenon that has intrigued the entire world:
the Cuban Revolution. It is a deed worthy of study in contemporary
world history: the how and the why of a group of men who, shattered
by an army enormously superior in technique and equipment, managed
first to survive, soon became strong, later became stronger
than the enemy in the battle zones, still later moved into new
zones of combat, and finally defeated that enemy on the battlefield
even though their troops were still very inferior in number.
Naturally we, who often do not show the requisite concern for
theory, will not run the risk of expounding the truth of the
Cuban Revolution as though we were its masters. We will simply
try to give the bases from which one can interpret this truth.
In fact, the Cuban Revolution must be separated into two absolutely
distinct stages: that of the armed action up to January 1, 1959,
and the political, economic and social transformations since
then.
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Even these two stages deserve further subdivisions; however,
we will not take them from the viewpoint of historical exposition,
but from the viewpoint of the evolution of the revolutionary
thought of its leaders through their contact with the people.
Incidentally, here one must introduce a general attitude toward
one of the most controversial terms of the modern world: Marxism.
When asked whether or not we are Marxists, our position is the
same as that of a physicist or a biologist when asked if he
is a "Newtonian," or if he is a "Pasteurian".
There are truths so evident, so much a part of people's knowledge,
that it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be "Marxist'
with the same naturalness with which one is "Newtonian"
in physics, or "Pasteurian" in biology, considering
that if facts determine new concepts, these new concepts will
never divest themselves of that portion of truth possessed by
the older concepts they have outdated. Such is the case, for
example, of Einsteinian relativity or of Planck's "quantum"
theory with respect to the discoveries of Newton; they take
nothing at all away from the greatness of the learned Englishman.
Thanks to Newton, physics was able to advance until it had achieved
new concepts of space. The learned Englishman provided the necessary
stepping-stone for them.
The advances in social and political science, as in other fields,
belong to a long historical process whose links are connecting,
adding up, moulding and constantly perfecting themselves. In
the origin of peoples, there exists a Chinese, Arab or Hindu
mathematics; today, mathematics has no frontiers. In the course
of history there was a Greek Pythagoras, an Italian Galileo,
an English Newton, a German Gauss, a Russian Lobachevsky, an
Einstein, etc. Thus in the field of social and political sciences,
from Democritus to Marx, a long series of thinkers added their
original investigations and accumulated a body of experience
and of doctrines.
The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative
change in the history of social thought. He interprets history,
understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition
to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation),
he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only
be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the
slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into
the architect of his own destiny. At that moment Marx puts himself
in a position where he becomes the necessary target of all who
have a special interest in maintaining the old-similar to Democritus
before him, whose work was burned by Plato and his disciples,
the ideologues of Athenian slave aristocracy. Beginning with
the revolutionary Marx, a political group with concrete ideas
establishes itself. Basing itself on the giants, Marx and Engels,
and developing through successive steps with personalities like
Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and the new Soviet and Chinese rulers,
it establishes a body of doctrine and, let us say, examples
to follow.
The Cuban Revolution takes up Marx at the point where he himself
left science to shoulder his revolutionary rifle. And it takes
him up at that point, not in a revisionist spirit, of struggling
against that which follows Marx, of reviving 'pure' Marx, but
simply because up to that point Marx, the scientist, placed
himself outside of the history he studied and predicted. From
then on Marx, the revolutionary, could fight within history.
We, practical revolutionaries, initiating our own struggle,
simply fulfil laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist. We are simply
adjusting ourselves to the predictions of the scientific Marx
as we travel this road of rebellion, struggling against the
old structure of power, supporting ourselves in the people for
the destruction of this structure, and having the happiness
of this people as the basis of our struggle. That is to say,
and it is well to emphasise this once again: The laws of Marxism
are present in the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently
of what its leaders profess or fully know of those laws from
a theoretical point of view . . .
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Each of those brief historical moments in the guerrilla warfare
framed distinct social concepts and distinct appreciations of
the Cuban reality; they outlined the thought of the military
leaders of the revolution — those who in time would also
take their position as political leaders.
Before the landing of the Granma, a mentality predominated that,
to some degree, might be called "subjectivist": blind
confidence in a rapid popular explosion, enthusiasm and faith
in the power to liquidate the Batista regime by a swift, armed
uprising combined with spontaneous revolutionary strikes, and
the subsequent fall of the dictator. . . .
After the landing comes the defeat, the almost total destruction
of the forces, and their regrouping and integration as guerrillas.
Characteristic of those few survivors, imbued with the spirit
of struggle, was the understanding that to count upon spontaneous
outbursts throughout the island was a falsehood, an illusion.
They understood also that the fight would have to be a long
one and that it would need vast campesino participation. At
this point, the campesinos entered the guerrilla war for the
first time.
Two events — hardly important in terms of the number of
combatants, but of great psychological value — were unleashed.
First, antagonism that the city people, who comprised the central
guerrilla group, felt towards the campesinos was erased. The
campesinos, in turn, distrusted the group and, above all, feared
barbarous reprisals of the government.
Two things demonstrated themselves at this stage, both very
important for the interrelated factors: To the campesinos, the
bestialities of the army and all the persecution would not be
sufficient to put an end to the guerrilla war, even though the
army was certainly capable of liquidating the campesinos' homes,
crops, and families. To take refuge with those in hiding was
a good solution. In turn, the guerrilla fighters learned the
necessity, each time more pointed, of winning the campesino
masses. . . .
[Following the failure of Batista's major assault on the Rebel
Army,] the war shows a new characteristic: The correlation of
forces turns toward the revolution. Within a month and a half,
two small columns, one of eighty and the other of a hundred
forty men, constantly surrounded and harassed by an army that
mobilised thousands of soldiers, crossed the plains of Camagüey,
arrived at Las Villas, and began the job of cutting the island
in two.
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It may seem strange, incomprehensible, and even incredible that
two columns of such small size — without communications,
without mobility, without the most elementary arms of modern
warfare — could fight against well-trained, and above
all, well-armed troops.
Basic [to the victory] is the characteristic of each group:
the fewer comforts the guerrilla fighter has, the more he is
initiated into the rigors of nature, the more he feels himself
at home; his morale is higher, his sense of security greater.
At the same time, he has learned to risk his life in every circumstance
that might arise, to trust it to luck, like a tossed coin; and
in general, as a final result of this kind of combat, it matters
little to the individual guerrilla whether or not he survives.
 The
enemy soldier in the Cuban example, which we are now considering,
is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets
the last crumbs left to him in a long line of profiteers that
begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend
his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the
degree that they are important to him. His salary and pension
are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never
worth his life; if the price of maintaining them will cost it,
he is better off giving them up, that is to say, withdrawing
from the face of guerrilla danger. From these two concepts and
these two morals springs the difference which would cause the
crisis of December 31, 1958 . . . *
Here ends the insurrection. But the men who arrive in Havana
after two years of arduous struggle in the mountains and plains
of Oriente, in the plains of Camagüey, and in the mountains,
plains, and cities of Las Villas, are not the same men, ideologically,
who landed on the beaches of Las Coloradas, or who took part
in the first phase of the struggle. Their distrust of the campesino
has been converted into affection and respect for his virtues;
their total ignorance of life in the country has been converted
into a knowledge of the needs of our guajiros; their flirtations
with statistics and with theory have been fixed by the cement
which is practice.
With the banner of Agrarian Reform, the execution of which begins
in the Sierra Maestra, these men confront imperialism. They
know that the Agrarian Reform is the basis upon which the new
Cuba must build itself. They know also that the Agrarian Reform
will give land to all the dispossessed, but that it will dispossess
its unjust possessors; and they know that the greatest of the
unjust possessors are also influential men in the State Department
or in the government of the United States of America. But they
have learned to conquer difficulties with bravery, with audacity
and, above all, with the support of the people; and they have
now seen the future of liberation that awaits us on the other
side of our sufferings.
*The day Batista was overthrown.
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