Diary of a Combatant Read online

  CHE GUEVARA PUBLISHING PROJECT

  THE DIARIES:

  The Motorcycle Diaries (1952)

  Latin America Diaries (1953–55)

  Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1956–58)

  Diary of a Combatant (1956–58)

  Congo Diary (1965)

  The Bolivian Diary (1966–67)

  Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara

  ALSO AVAILABLE:

  Che Guevara Reader

  Global Justice: Liberation and Socialism

  Guerrilla Warfare

  Marx & Engels: A Biographical Introduction

  Our America and Theirs

  Self-Portrait: A Photographic and Literary Memoir

  The Awakening of Latin America

  From the Sierra Maestra

  to Santa Clara,

  Cuba 1956-58

  ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA

  EDITED BY MARÍA DEL CARMEN ARIET

  Cover design: Runa Kamijo

  Copyright © 2013 Ocean Press

  Copyright © 2013 Aleida March and the Che Guevara Studies Center, Havana

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-9870779-8-1 (e-book)

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2011943989

  First edition 2013

  Published in Spanish as Diario de un combatiente 978-1-921438-12-7 (paper)

  PUBLISHED BY OCEAN PRESS

  PO Box 1015, North Melbourne, Vic 3051, Australia

  E-mail: [email protected]

  OCEAN PRESS TRADE DISTRIBUTORS

  United States: Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

  Tel: 1-800-283-3572 www.cbsd.com

  Canada: Publishers Group Canada

  Tel: 1-800-663 5714 E-mail: [email protected]

  Australia and New Zealand: Palgrave Macmillan

  Tel: 1-300-135 113 E-mail: [email protected]

  UK and Europe: Turnaround Publisher Services

  Tel: (44) 020-8829 3000 E-mail: [email protected]

  Cuba and Latin America: Ocean Sur

  E-mail: [email protected]

  CONTENTS

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  CHRONOLOGY OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

  MAP

  EDITOR’S PREFACE

  FOREWORD: CHE AND THE CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR: THE SIERRA AND THE LLANO

  by Armando Hart

  DIARY OF A COMBATANT

  1956

  December 1956

  1957

  January 1957

  February 1957

  March 1957

  April 1957

  May 1957

  June 1957

  July 1957

  August 1957

  1958

  April 1958

  May 1958

  June 1958

  July 1958

  August 1958

  September 1958

  October 1958

  November 1958

  December 1958

  APPENDICES:

  Documents from the Sierra Maestra

  Documents from the campaign in Las Villas

  GLOSSARY

  REMINISCENCES OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

  The classic account of the guerrilla struggle in Cuba

  Ernesto Che Guevara

  The dramatic art and acute perception of Che Guevara’s early diaries blossom in this highly readable and entertaining account of the guerrilla movement against the Batista dictatorship that led to the 1959 Cuban revolution.

  This new, thoroughly revised edition reveals how this revolutionary war transformed not just a nation struggling against appalling poverty and oppression but Che himself, who begins as troop doctor and ends as a guerrilla commander, who will become a world-famous revolutionary.

  ISBN 978-1-920888-33-6 (paper)

  ISBN 978-1-921700-82-8 (e-book)

  Also published in Spanish as Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria

  ISBN 978-1-920888-36-7

  Publisher’s note

  The editors and translators have done their utmost to clarify and correct this diary—using footnotes where necessary or appropriate. But the reader should keep in mind that Che wrote this diary for his own use, never intending it for publication, and hence he did not always explain or identify references to people, places or events. The reader may therefore find some references confusing or ambiguous. It should also be remembered that Che first arrived in Cuba on the Granma and was encountering for the first time idiosyncratic aspects of Cuban culture and language.

  Che used this diary as the basis for the articles he wrote for Verde Olivo and other publications, articles which subsequently were published as Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. The publishers therefore suggest the reader consult that book for a more coherent and comprehensive description of events and individuals referred to by Che in this diary.

  Fidel Castro’s recent memoir in two volumes1 is also an especially valuable reference for this period of the revolutionary war in Cuba. His books include some particularly useful maps of the various battles.

  The publishers therefore urge the reader to regard this book as a primary source for this crucial period of Cuban history.

  1. Fidel Castro, La Victoria Estratégica. Por Todos los caminos de la Sierra (Mexico: Ocean Sur), 2011, and La Contraofensiva Estratégica (Mexico: Ocean Sur), 2011.

  ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  One of Time magazine’s “icons of the century,” Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928. He made several trips around Latin America during and immediately after his studies at medical school in Buenos Aires, including his 1951–52 journey with Alberto Granado, on the unreliable Norton motorbike described in his early journal The Motorcycle Diaries.

  He was already becoming involved in political activity and living in Guatemala when, in 1954, the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz was overthrown in a CIA-organized military operation. Ernesto escaped to Mexico, profoundly radicalized. Following up on a contact made in Guatemala, Guevara sought out the group of exiled Cuban revolutionaries in Mexico City. In July 1955, he met Fidel Castro and immediately enlisted in the guerrilla expedition to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Cubans nicknamed him “Che,” a popular form of address in Argentina.

  On November 25, 1956, Guevara set sail for Cuba aboard the cabin cruiser Granma as the doctor to the guerrilla group that began the revolutionary armed struggle in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains. Within several months, he was appointed by Fidel Castro as the first Rebel Army commander, though he continued ministering medically to wounded guerrilla fighters and captured soldiers from Batista’s army. In September 1958, Guevara played a decisive role in the military defeat of Batista after he and Camilo Cienfuegos led separate guerrilla columns westward from the Sierra Maestra.

  After Batista fled on January 1, 1959, Guevara became a key leader of the new revolutionary government, first as head of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform; then as president of the National Bank. In February 1961 he became minister of industry. He was also a central leader of the political organization that in 1965 became the Communist Party of Cuba. Apart from these responsibilities, Guevara represented the Cuban revolutionary government around the world, heading numerous delegations and speaking at the United Nations and other international forums in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the socialist bloc countries.
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br />   He earned a reputation as a passionate and articulate spokesperson for Third World peoples, most famously at the 1961 conference at Punta del Este in Uruguay, where he denounced US President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. As had been his intention since joining the Cuban revolutionary movement, Guevara left Cuba in April 1965, initially to lead a Cuban organized guerrilla mission to support the revolutionary struggle in the Congo, Africa.

  He returned to Cuba secretly in December 1965 to prepare another Cuban-organized guerrilla force for Bolivia. Arriving in Bolivia in November 1966, Guevara’s plan was to challenge that country’s military dictatorship and eventually to instigate a revolutionary movement that would extend throughout the continent of Latin America.

  The journal he kept during the Bolivian campaign became known as The Bolivian Diary. Che was wounded and captured by US-trained and run Bolivian counterinsurgency troops on October 8, 1967. The following day he was executed and his body hidden.

  Che Guevara’s remains were finally discovered in 1997 and returned to Cuba. A memorial was built at Santa Clara in central Cuba, where he had won a major military battle during the revolutionary war.

  Chronology of the Cuban Revolutionary War

  July 26, 1953 Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful armed attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba, launching the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the Batista regime. A simultaneous assault takes place against the army barracks in Bayamo.

  December 1953 Ernesto Guevara meets a group of Cuban survivors of the Moncada attack in San José, Costa Rica.

  December 24, 1953 Ernesto Guevara arrives in Guatemala, then under the popularly elected government of Jacobo Árbenz.

  January–June 1954 While in Guatemala, he studies Marxism and becomes involved in political activities, meeting exiled Cuban revolutionaries.

  August 1954 Mercenary troops backed by the CIA enter Guatemala City and begin massacring Árbenz supporters.

  September 21, 1954 Ernesto Guevara arrives in Mexico City after fleeing Guatemala. He gets a job at the Central Hospital.

  July 1955 Ernesto Guevara meets Fidel Castro soon after the latter arrives in exile in Mexico City after his release from prison in Cuba. He immediately agrees to join the planned guerrilla expedition to Cuba. The Cubans nickname him “Che,” an Argentine term of greeting.

  June 24, 1956 Che is arrested as part of a roundup by Mexican police of exiled Cuban revolutionaries.

  November 25, 1956 Eighty-two combatants, including Che Guevara as troop doctor, sail for Cuba from Tuxpan, Mexico, aboard the small cabin cruiser Granma, led by Fidel Castro.

  November 30, 1956 Frank País organizes an uprising in Santiago de Cuba intended to coincide with the arrival of the Granma expedition, which has unfortunately been delayed. A wave of repression follows in Oriente province.

  December 2, 1956 The Granma reaches Cuba at Las Coloradas beach in Oriente province, but the rebels are surprised by Batista’s troops at Alegría de Pío and become dispersed.

  December 21, 1956 Che’s group (led by Juan Almeida) reunites with Fidel Castro and his group, and they move deeper into the Sierra Maestra mountains.

  January 17, 1957 The Rebel Army with some new peasant recruits successfully takes an army outpost in the battle of La Plata.

  January 22, 1957 A significant victory over Batista’s forces is scored at Arroyo del Infierno.

  February 17, 1957 New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews interviews Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra. The same day, the first meeting is held between the urban underground (llano) and the guerrillas (sierra) of the July 26 Movement since the start of the revolutionary war.

  March 13, 1957 A group of students from the Revolutionary Directorate attack the presidential palace and seize a major Havana radio station. Student leader José Antonio Echeverría is killed in this attack.

  April 20, 1957 Following a betrayal, four key leaders of the Revolutionary Directorate are assassinated in an apartment at 7 Humboldt Street in Havana.

  April 23, 1957 Fidel is interviewed by US journalist Robert Taber and the interview is screened on CBS television the following month.

  May 23, 1957 An expedition organized by the Authentic Party on the Corynthia lands in northern Oriente province. Almost all the combatants are captured or killed.

  May 27–28, 1957 The battle of El Uvero takes place, in which Che Guevara stands out among the combatants.

  July 12, 1957 The Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra is released, calling for a broad political front against General Batista and support for the Rebel Army. It is signed by the Fidel Castro, Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos.

  July 22, 1957 Che Guevara is selected to lead the newly established second column (designated “Column Four”) of the Rebel Army and is promoted to the rank of commander.

  July 30, 1957 Frank País, the young leader of the July 26 Movement’s urban underground in Santiago de Cuba, is killed.

  August 20, 1957 Fidel leads Column One (José Martí) in defeating Batista’s forces in the battle of Palma Mocha.

  September 5, 1957 Anti-Batista forces in the Cienfuegos naval base organize an uprising with the support of the local July 26 Movement. They are brutally suppressed.

  September 17, 1957 Che’s forces ambush army troops at Pino del Agua.

  October 1957 The rebels establish a permanent supply base at El Hombrito in the Sierra Maestra.

  October 12, 1957 Batista launches a brutal campaign to destroy the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra.

  October 15, 1957 The Authentic Party and most of the main opposition parties sign the Miami Pact, creating the Cuban Liberation Junta. This pact is repudiated by Fidel Castro on behalf of the July 26 Movement on December 14, 1957.

  November–December, 1957 The rebels commence a “winter offensive” against Batista’s army.

  February 16-17, 1958 The Rebel Army wins a significant victory against Batista in the second battle of Pino del Agua.

  March 1, 1958 Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida lead columns that open up second and third fronts in Oriente province.

  April 9, 1958 A national general strike takes place but is defeated.

  May 3, 1958 The national leaders of the two wings of the July 26 Movement (the sierra and the llano) meet in Mompié to assess the April strike. The leadership is decisively transferred from Havana to the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra, under the direct command of Fidel Castro.

  May 25, 1958 Batista launches a military offensive against the Rebel Army, but this fails after two and a half months of intensive fighting.

  July 11–21, 1958 A decisive defeat is inflicted on Batista’s army in the battle of El Jigüe, significantly expanding the rebels’ operational zone in the Sierra Maestra.

  July 20, 1958 The Caracas Pact, a unity agreement between opposition political currents, is announced on Radio Rebelde. This establishes a new Civic Revolutionary Front.

  August 31, 1958 Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos lead invasion columns west from the Sierra Maestra toward central Cuba, opening new battle fronts in Las Villas province.

  November 15, 1958 Fidel leaves the Sierra Maestra to direct the Rebel Army’s final offensive in Santiago de Cuba. By the end of the month, Batista’s elite troops are defeated at the battle of Guisa.

  December 1, 1958 The Pact of Pedrero is signed by Che Guevara on behalf of the July 26 Movement and Rolando Cubela for the Revolutionary Directorate.

  December 12, 1958 A unity agreement is reached between the July 26 Movement and the Second Front of the Escambray.

  December 28, 1958 Che Guevara’s Column Eight initiates the battle of Santa Clara and succeeds in taking control of the city within a few days.

  January 1, 1959 Batista flees Cuba. Fidel enters Santiago de Cuba as the military regime collapses. Santa Clara falls to the Rebel Army.

  January 2, 1959 Fidel Castro calls for a general strike and the country is paralyzed. The Rebel Army columns led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos reach Havana.

  Ja
nuary 8, 1959 Fidel Castro arrives in Havana having marched west from Santiago de Cuba.

  February 9, 1959 Che Guevara is declared a Cuban citizen.

  Editor’s Preface

  The project to publish the works of Che Guevara has been one of the most important contributions developed by the Che Guevara Studies Center toward its objective of researching, studying and disseminating the theoretical and practical legacy Che left during his brief but fruitful life in his chosen vocation as a revolutionary.

  This diary, of which only fragments have been published until now, represents a typical example of Che’s writing. From a very young age, he always felt a need to record his personal experiences immediately and directly in diaries, some of which record his travels and others, like the one published here, his experiences as a revolutionary. Apart from their literary value, these diaries are of great historical importance not just because they reflect the role he played as an individual, but also because they present a synthesis of his thinking during key moments of the armed struggle in Cuba, from the Granma landing on December 2, 1956, until the revolutionary victory of January 1, 1959.

  This Diary of a Combatant, the title Che himself chose, brings to the reader his first lived experiences in Cuba, our country’s culture, identity and political reality. Even when he initially presents a subjective and one-sided appreciation, due to the fact Cuba was still unfamiliar to him, the way he records events and profiles various individuals are faithful testimony of his respect for, and dedication to, the commitment he had made to contribute to the liberation of the Cuban people.

  These pages were written in a compact, straightforward and sometimes ironical style, but at the same time with precision and, above all, strict respect for historical truth. One might agree or disagree with some of his comments or assertions, which become clearer and deeper as he better understands Cuba’s reality. His analytical vision becomes more complex and more committed to the cause he defends. Even in such personal and intimate writings, his status as a foreigner is not evident save in a few instances because he generally avoids making comparisons. Moreover his attitude was reciprocated by the Cuban combatants, for example on the occasion when he lost his way in the countryside, and how, upon finally reaching the camp, he describes how he felt when he was “greeted with great affection” and “a spontaneous round of applause.”