The Absurdity Of Socialist Leaders: Ernesto's Will To Power

The "left" has far more folk heroes than any other movement and many of those folk heroes achieve the status of what I would call "socialist leaders". Lets define "socialist leaders" before we go any further. To be a socialist leader one can't merely lead a social movement, or influence other socialist thinkers. One needs to take power and reshape the socialist movement, leaving your mark on it for generations to come. These figures have been revered by the left for decades, yet they are cast from a contradiction that can't be resolved.

These figures combine the goals of a socialism; liberation and equality, with the goals of what one might call "the will to power"; accumulation of control, repression against revolutionary social movements, aligning themselves with the status quo in order to stay in power. These figures are illustrative of the contradiction between state power and revolutionary ends. These figures continue to be celebrated as liberators when in reality, their positive legacy is that of reimposing domination. If the left is ever going to learn from it's myriad mistakes then it must develop a radical critique of these sacred cows. Thus a new series on this blog will be systematically dredging up the legacy of these figures and showing the utter bankruptcy of "socialist leaders". The first installment in our series will be dealing with one Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Che is certainly one of the most recognizable socialist leaders. Merchandise with his face on it moves money around the world. He is seen as a liberator of Cuba and one of the most important revolutionaries of the last hundred years. His real legacy is that of an aspiring strong man who helped Castro turn the real Cuban revolution into a state-capitalist regime. The real Guevara is a grave digger of revolution.

Ernesto, or "Che", came from a middle class family of temporarily embarrassed aristocrats. He was radicalized when in the early 50s Arbenz was elected in Nicaragua and nationalized the productive empire of the US backed United Fruit Company. During the same decade the Cuban working class rose up against the U.S. backed dictator Batista. They staged massive street demonstrations and terror attacks were carried out against the regime. Part of the Che legend is that it was he, the Castro brothers, and their guerilla unit who overthrew Batista, but this is a rewriting of history. The guerilla war (which was largely impotent until Batista fled the country) had little to do with the mass popular movement that forced Batista to give up power. As a guerilla leader, Che himself wrote in his journal about his iron fisted approach, using the death penalty as a punishment for those who did not fallow his orders closely enough.

By making a deal with one of Batista's underlings the Castro band was able to take power and declare their victory in Havana. Soon the Communist Party would take power absolutely. The agenda for the new Cuban regime was not a revolutionary program, in fact their most revolutionary acts were to carry out reforms drawn up by Batista in his more liberal years. Like all of the other communist states, including the Soviet Union that Cuba had aligned itself with, it's focus was to construct a nation-state with a foothold in the capitalist economy. Likewise the revolutionary movement had to come to end.

Trotskyists and Anarchists were repressed and shut down, Che being a main architect in this activity. In the state capitalist regime where production was developed through state extraction and investment of surplus value produced by workers Che was a main bureaucrat. During the Cuban missile crises when the United States and the Soviet Union (with Cuba as it's satellite) were playing hot and fast with the threat of a nuclear apocalypse in order to mobilize their respective subjects and underlings, Che had trouble maintaining his cool. While neither side in the cold war actually wanted to go to war (this would undermine the point of the cold war as essentially a source of bravado for both sides), Che had other ideas. He wanted to use the nukes against the United States, killing millions of innocent people, and had to be talked down by Castro of all people.

Che taking the side of China in the split between it and the Soviet Union lead him to leave Cuba and take part in revolutionary adventures elsewhere in Latin America. He was then captured and executed, getting an honorable funeral in Cuba. From the beginning Che's idea of "socialism" was essentially state control of the capitalist system, as evidenced by his radicalization at the hands of the nationalizer Arbenz. Likewise his aspirations for power clearly outstripped his aspirations for real social change as evidenced by his murderous, authoritarian role as an army official. This is a common theme with "socialist leaders".

These people are more attracted to being leaders than they are to socialism. Thus the construction of a new exploitative regime, state-capitalism, suits their political careers perfectly. Even if Che eventually left Cuba, he played a major role in eliminating revolutionaries, flexing the state's power, and administrating state capitalism. The contradiction of someone like Che is the contradiction between social revolution and state power. The state is a constrictive institution, organized to enforce the power of an elite and maintain the status quote. It always stands against a social revolution looking to overturn the status quo and create a relatively democratic and egalitarian society. The figures we should celebrate are those who did not seek power for themselves, but helped organize the masses of people to take power collectively and transform society. This, simply, is not Ernesto's legacy.

Bibliography:
Che Guevara: Why Anarchists Should View Him Critically, van der Walt & Organize!
Cuba: 50 Years of Fidelismo, Solfed
State-Capitalism: The Wages System Under New Management, Buick & Crump