It took me 9 months to read this book, it is 800 pages long. If there is one thing that cannot be denied about this book is that it is extremely well researched. The guy interviewed literally hundreds of people and went painstakingly through all available archives (including Russian and CIA's ones). The outcome is probably more or less as complete biography about Che as we will ever have (or need). The book is quite objective and while it is clear that the author likes Che, it steers away from an unfettered adoration that is present in so much work about Che.
The resulting image of Che remains, even after all bad things are taken into account, that of a positive historical figure. While Fidel's struggle was about power rather than personal convictions, Che was an everlasting idealist. True, he was naive, he never doubted in Fidel and he killed people. However, he did so because he saw himself as an inevitable force of history. Rather than retire in Cuba, where he could have lived a comfortable life of a revolutionary hero, he went on and fought on, first in Congo in Africa and then in Bolivia, where he was killed. And while in Cuba, he lived a manic frugal life, thinking it is a duty of revolutionaries to live an exemplary anti-capitalist life. He was also incredibly creative, authoring several books on economy, from which it is clear that he was critical of the Soviet system and had a deep understanding of Marxism. His main theoretical weakness was near fatal attraction to the armed struggle - armed struggle was elevated to literary epic proportions and was in Che's view crucial for development of the "New Man". Most fascinatingly, excerpts from his letters and poems show an incredible mastering of language - he would have been a writer if not a revolutionary.
The story goes that when his executioner came to do his job, he invited him: "Go on, you're only going to kill a man." [and not an idea]. Essential reading for both moonbats and wingbats alike...
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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