Diary of a Combatant- The Diary of the Revolution that Made Che Guevara a Legend

304 Pages·2013·7.07 MB·English

by  Guevara Ernesto

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: [phone] www.cbsd.com
Canada: Publishers Group Canada
Tel: [phone] E-mail: [email protected]
Australia and New Zealand: Palgrave Macmillan
Tel: [phone] E-mail: [email protected]
UK and Europe: Turnaround Publisher Services
Tel: [phone] 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.
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.