Lessons from a Communist

By Paul Gessing

The recent release of the film “The Motorcycle Diaries,” a portrayal of Ché Guevara’s pre-revolutionary years as an Argentine youth and his experiences touring South America on a motorbike, got me to thinking about how this communist revolutionary succeeded in living his ideals, yet failed in his ultimate mission, that of creating a worldwide communist revolution. Regardless of political ideology, Ché is a man worth studying. The French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, dubbed Ché “the most complete human being of our age” and Ché’s legacy lingers far beyond the distant gaze portrayed on so many t-shirts and posters.

Ché and his life’s work – spurred on by the injustices he saw in his trek around South America including the mistreatment of indigenous peoples, lepers, and political dissidents, shows that the will of one man can indeed have a difference through disciplined direct action. Although the movie ends before his revolutionary life began, the full story of Guevara’s life can be found in John Lee Anderson’s 1998 book, Ché Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. Having read this book, I can honestly say that understanding Ernesto “Ché” Guevara not only had a deep impact upon my thinking, but provides useful lessons for anyone interested in organized political change.

Ideologically-speaking, it is indeed strange that I became a libertarian after reading the life story of a communist revolutionary. While some people become libertarian after reading Atlas Shrugged or an economics text by Milton Friedman or Murray Rothbard, I came to understand the failings of the political movement Ché made his life’s work and that the basic problem of communism is its defiance of human nature.

Libertarians are often accused of holding utopian ideas about human nature, but socialists and communists – at least those who hold consistent beliefs – suffer from true utopian frustration because their ideology relies on molding human nature to fit the communist ideal. Ché’s biggest problem in creating the communist revolution he so desired was that he, unlike many of his colleagues in the revolutionary movements throughout Cuba, Africa, and Bolivia, lived an ascetic life dedicated to the ideals of equality. But getting others to go against their own self-interested nature to give themselves completely for the good of “society,” was not so easy.

Ché Guevara’s communist philosophy is (and was) simply impossible to achieve without some degree of coercion, so eventually Guevera and the leaders of the communist movement were forced to purge those who were weaker or less willing to carry through with the revolution. No one knows how many wavering communists Ché killed in order to retain the coherence of his movement, but he would have made some of the harshest American cold warriors proud had he been killing communists for the their reasons rather than his.

Libertarianism, on the other hand, is favorably aligned with the competitive, self-interested nature of human beings. Libertarians believe that humans basically desire freedom, material goods, and status within society. As long as individuals do not harm others in their pursuit of such things, one man’s pursuit of “success” tends to be beneficial to others in a libertarian society. After all, it was Adam Smith who said, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.”

Although Guevara’s movement ultimately foundered, there is clearly something to be learned from from his willingness to act directly in an effort to solve political and social problems. In his Notes on the Study of Man and Socialism in Cuba, Ché wrote “The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual, each of the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralyzed that insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction.” Clearly, all members of society have a responsibility to act when the government is abusing its power. Whether the subject is an unnecessary and immoral war, privacy violations in the form of the Patriot Act, the war on drugs, or the newly created national ID card, Americans must be awakened to the need for political change.

In the interest of forming political movements, Ché’s words from his article, On Revolutionary Medicine are useful for those struggling to form a coherent movement. He wrote, “then I realized a fundamental thing: For one to be a revolutionary doctor or to be a revolutionary at all, there must first be a revolution. Isolated individual endeavour, for all its purity of ideals, is of no use, and the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone, solitarily, in some corner of America, fighting against adverse governments and social conditions which prevent progress.” The relative importance of ideology and political viability are common problems for many third parties. Although Ché ultimately did not heed his own words – thus leading to purges within his own movement – his words ring true. Having an organized opposition is more important than ideological unity.

Mostly, however, we can all learn from Ché that personal commitment combined with charisma are powerful components in the creation of a political movement, but an understanding of human nature and the flaws inherent in ideologies is needed or the movement will go astray. After all, it does not take long before a movement that relies on occasional purges of its own members is exposed as undesirable and faces widespread opposition. Ultimately, Ché was unsuccessful in spreading the communist revolution, in part due to opposition from the CIA, but mostly because his own movement lost support as its members were purged and supporters came to realize the limitations of the communist ideology.

Though Castro’s Cuba lives on – more a legacy of failed US intervention than of any great communist success – Ché’s revolutionary dream is in tatters. It would have been nice to have such a charismatic figure fighting on the side of liberty and human freedom. Libertarians – and anyone interested in building sustainable political movements – should study Ché Guevera to both learn about building a political movement and to understand the inevitable shortcomings of an ideology that directly contradicts human nature.

Paul Gessing is a Senior Editor of the Free Liberal and sits on the Board of Directors of the Center for Liberty and Community.