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‘March for the Alternative’ - 26th March - London

Che was abit of a dick in real life....didn't you know?

shush! he was amazing!

look at this smile! for someone who killed a lot of people, he looks so loveable!
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shush! he was amazing!

look at this smile! for someone who killed a lot of people, he looks so loveable!
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http://libcom.org/history/articles/1928-1967-ernesto-che-guevara

With the Castroite victory in 1959, Che, along with his Stalinist buddy Raul Castro, was put in charge of building up state control. He purged the army, carried out re-education classes within it, and was supreme prosecutor in the executions of Batista supporters, 550 being shot in the first few months.

He was seen as extremely ruthless by those who saw him at work. These killings against supporters of the old regime, some of whom had been implicated in torture and murder, was extended in 1960 to those in the working class movement who criticised the Castro regime.

The anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists had their press closed down and many militants were thrown in prison. Che was directly implicated in this. This was followed in 1962 with the banning of the Trotskyists and the imprisonment of their militants. Che said: "You cannot be for the revolution and be against the Cuban Communist Party". He repeated the old lies against the Trotskyists that they were agents of imperialism and provocateurs.

He helped set up a secret police, the C-2 and had a key role in creating the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, which were locally and regionally based bodies for spying on and controlling the mass of the population.

Lovely man.
 
thats one take on events, any of those accusations been proven or corroborated?

i don't know the facts, but he seemed to fight for democracy and civil rights afaik, he may have taken things way too far and he may well have been an arrogant, stubborn arsehole, but he still fought for the right side and that'll do me.

he may well have done terrible things, but maybe we shouldn't judge as we can't walk in his shoes, to lead a bloody rebellion, having to kill or be killed will change a man, the situation those people were in may have led them to carry out unjust acts, you could attribute it to some kind of temporary psychological trauma or maybe they were terrible people, we'll never know.
 
thats one take on events, any of those accusations been proven or corroborated?

i don't know the facts, but he seemed to fight for democracy and civil rights afaik, he may have taken things way too far and he may well have been an arrogant, stubborn arsehole, but he still fought for the right side and that'll do me.

he may well have done terrible things, but maybe we shouldn't judge as we can't walk in his shoes, to lead a bloody rebellion, having to kill or be killed will change a man, the situation those people were in may have led them to carry out unjust acts, you could attribute it to some kind of temporary psychological trauma or maybe they were terrible people, we'll never know.

Locking up left-wing dissidents is not exactly out of character for Leninists, is it?
 
joined the armchair army group. If I were in the UK, I'd definitely go. A huge march is certainly going to make a big statement in terms of mass opposition to the cuts, and help legitimise and encourage what people do locally, and any subsequent direct action against the cuts too. Bigger the better, even if it does turn into another conventional A to B march
 
Locking up left-wing dissidents is not exactly out of character for Leninists, is it?

I guess not.

If he did those things, then I agree with your views. He would have made some serious and unforgiveable errors of judgement.

I need more proof though.

What is your overall view of him?
 
joined the armchair army group. If I were in the UK, I'd definitely go. A huge march is certainly going to make a big statement in terms of mass opposition to the cuts, and help legitimise and encourage what people do locally, and any subsequent direct action against the cuts too. Bigger the better, even if it does turn into another conventional A to B march

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! waste of fucking time that.

my plan is a tent city outside the bank of england til we all get shot!
 
I guess not.

If he did those things, then I agree with your views. He would have made some serious and unforgiveable errors of judgement.

I need more proof though.

What is your overall view of him?

Well, sticking to what are incontrovertible facts.

He did run La Habana prison.
Human rights abuses (including summary executions) did take place there during that time.
Left-wing dissidents were arrested, and were sent there.

Draw your own conclusions. Mine are that he was a fairly orthodox 3rd International capital-c Communist, and that all of the above is fairly run-of-the-mill for such people.
 
The organised working class had no role in the Cuban revolution. Consequently, power never passed into the hands of the working class but to a new ruling bureaucracy. It was Stalinist in practise - nationalisations and a planned economy but without accountability to the working class, and repression of critics from the left who, whilst defending the gains made, called for a further revolution to put power into the hands of the Cuban working class. That isn't to dismiss the gains made for the working class in Cuba but neither does it make the Cuban bureaucracy a working class government and it certainly wasn't/isn't socialism. Guevara acknowledged himself that the 26th July Movement and the bureaucracy it created contained many bourgeois elements, yet condemned those calling for a genuine workers' government and/or a w/c revolution. He was a guerrilla, an elitist, who believed cadre could transform society in place of the working class, not that the role of cadre is to provide direction to the working class, engaged in class struggle or carrying through a revolution (which incidentally is where the usual and horrifically simple anarchist critique of vanguardism falls down, by assuming vangaurdism equals the former).

I don't know why some of the critics of Che focus on the killing and slaying and blood in an abstract sense - he killed people therefore must have been a monster. Which is liberal bollocks. Overthrowing a ruling class is inevitably going to involve a wee bit of blood-letting. It wasn't that he killed, or ordered others to kill. It was that he regarded many working class militants as no different to the defenders of Batista and capitalism, as the enemies of the Cuban revolution. His long-held position of placing his revolutionary elite in the role of the working class in practise. It was who he repressed and why he repressed them, not that repression took place.

The repressive, bureaucratic and unaccountable nature of the Cuban government - or regime, or new ruling class - was not a later degeneration, it was the inevitable result of the approach and analysis of the 26th July Movement.

I'm v hungover so this is a bit clumsily expressed but you get my points hopefully.

And I do own a very nice Che ashtray somebody got me from Cuba. It's ace.
 
The organised working class had no role in the Cuban revolution. Consequently, power never passed into the hands of the working class but to a new ruling bureaucracy. It was Stalinist in practise - nationalisations and a planned economy but without accountability to the working class, and repression of critics from the left who, whilst defending the gains made, called for a further revolution to put power into the hands of the Cuban working class. That isn't to dismiss the gains made for the working class in Cuba but neither does it make the Cuban bureaucracy a working class government and it certainly wasn't/isn't socialism. Guevara acknowledged himself that the 26th July Movement and the bureaucracy it created contained many bourgeois elements, yet condemned those calling for a genuine workers' government and/or a w/c revolution. He was a guerrilla, an elitist, who believed cadre could transform society in place of the working class, not that the role of cadre is to provide direction to the working class, engaged in class struggle or carrying through a revolution (which incidentally is where the usual and horrifically simple anarchist critique of vanguardism falls down, by assuming vangaurdism equals the former).

I don't know why some of the critics of Che focus on the killing and slaying and blood in an abstract sense - he killed people therefore must have been a monster. Which is liberal bollocks. Overthrowing a ruling class is inevitably going to involve a wee bit of blood-letting. It wasn't that he killed, or ordered others to kill. It was that he regarded many working class militants as no different to the defenders of Batista and capitalism, as the enemies of the Cuban revolution. His long-held position of placing his revolutionary elite in the role of the working class in practise. It was who he repressed and why he repressed them, not that repression took place.

The repressive, bureaucratic and unaccountable nature of the Cuban government - or regime, or new ruling class - was not a later degeneration, it was the inevitable result of the approach and analysis of the 26th July Movement.

I'm v hungover so this is a bit clumsily expressed but you get my points hopefully.

And I do own a very nice Che ashtray somebody got me from Cuba. It's ace.

Yet you still have the ashtray.
 
I wouldn't actually bother if it was just me, because it is shit and expensive, but shared house innit. Included in the rent.

When I split up with Mrs. S☼I #1 I moved into a studio flat at the top of a 3 story house next to a park, and the rent was £100 a week which included gas, leccy and council tax. Was taking home £250 a week. Brilliant deal. And I was fucking laid off 6 weeks later.
 
cracking post PT :cool:

i learnt a lot from it including two words (cadre and vanguardism - actually i'd learnt vanguardism before, but then forgot it, i'll forget both again i expect, don't think i'll be finding many conversations to squeeze them into :( )

so to summarise, che was going in the right direction, but his mentality towards the w/c was fundamentally flawed, in thinking them not capable enough to help themselves and the country, which was possibly a large part of the failure of cuba as a decent left wing system. along with the castro's having the same mindset.

for fellow dumbasses:
Vanguardism is a strategy whereby an organization attempts to place itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology.

Cadre principally refers to committed people within an organization that form, or have the capacity to form, the backbone of that organization

in conclusion i prefer mark steel's version of history mixed in with a bit of PT's (if u wanna be all gloomy about our hero)

anyhoo, enough about che, these protest shenanigans... anyone wanna pitch up some tents with me in the middle of a busy london street? can you get underlay for tents? :D hehehe, we could get a chant going of underlay underlay arriba arriba and try and channel the spirit of che! :D
 
Yep. Sometimes I drink coca-cola too.

My point is you purposely bought an ashtray with the image of a twat on it(and you know he has locked up lots of working class militants). I buy coca-cola etc as well. But I don't go out my way to buy ashtrays with joe stalin or hitler on them, you get my point. And yes I did just say hitler =p
 
cracking post PT :cool:

i learnt a lot from it including two words (cadre and vanguardism - actually i'd learnt vanguardism before, but then forgot it, i'll forget both again i expect, don't think i'll be finding many conversations to squeeze them into :( )

so to summarise, che was going in the right direction, but his mentality towards the w/c was fundamentally flawed, in thinking them not capable enough to help themselves and the country, which was possibly a large part of the failure of cuba as a decent left wing system. along with the castro's having the same mindset.

for fellow dumbasses:
Vanguardism is a strategy whereby an organization attempts to place itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology.

Cadre principally refers to committed people within an organization that form, or have the capacity to form, the backbone of that organization

in conclusion i prefer mark steel's version of history mixed in with a bit of PT's (if u wanna be all gloomy about our hero)

anyhoo, enough about che, these protest shenanigans... anyone wanna pitch up some tents with me in the middle of a busy london street? can you get underlay for tents? :D hehehe, we could get a chant going of underlay underlay arriba arriba and try and channel the spirit of che! :D

Are you still gonna be waving his flag after all the shit you have heard about your 'hero'?
 
My point is you purposely bought an ashtray with the image of a twat on it(and you know he hass locked up lots of working class militants). I buy coca-cola etc as well. But I don't go out my way to buy ashtrays with joe stalin or hitler on them, you get my point. And yes I did just say hitler =p

I didn't. You may have missed it when I said it was a present. I've never been to Cuba, although I would like to. If I ever do, I'm sure I'll buy some Che tat.

My view of Che is a bit more nuanced than twat/not-twat to be honest. I'd have hoped to have got that across already.

I would defo buy a genuine Nazi ashtray though. It is, after all, an ashtray, not a declaration of support and solidarity.
 
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