06.04.1995

Shock exposé: Che Guevara human!

The bourgeois press has been amusing itself with articles and comments about Che Guevara, the great Argentinian-born revolutionary communist, who was murdered by counter-insurgency forces in Bolivia in 1967.

The sudden interest has been sparked off by the publication of The Motorcycle Diaries, which chronicle the life of the young Che as he motorcycled around South America with his close friend, Alberto Granado.

Shock! Horror! Che drank red wine and used to get drunk sometimes. He even had sex. The great revolutionary, it would seem, was a mere mortal. Tear down your dog-eared Che posters now!

The bourgeois press imagines it can kill off Che’s inspiring revolutionary example by these ‘scandalous revelations’. The knock-out blow seems to be the disclosure that Che - wait for it, comrades - was not ‘politically correct’. The young Che, they cretinously accuse, was “a bit of a racist”, because he pointed out that centuries of slavery and oppression in Brazil had made the black population ‘lazy’, that it was reduced to a state of impotence and despair, believing any sort of political protest to be futile.

While the cynics sneer, the diaries only enhance our admiration for Che Guevara, who is revealed to be a deeply humane and compassionate person.

Danny Hammill