Here three famous essays by Ernesto “Che” Guevara—Guerrilla Warfare (1960), Guerrilla Warfare: A Method (1963), and Message to the Tricontinental (1967)—are reprinted, along with seven original case histories of national guerrilla movements in Spanish America from 1960 to 1984, written by Loveman and Davies for Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The collection is united by a preface, an introductory essay to Guevara’s writings, notes and index, and a postscript, “Guerrilla Warfare and the Crisis of the 1980s.” Guevara’s major essay includes its original table of contents (to the J. P. Morray translation), and each of the Loveman and Davies essays is preceded by a political chronology which constitutes a valuable tool for the reader. Guevara’s table of contents is not as useful because it retains the pagination of the previous volume, not of this one.
Those who teach courses on the Third World or on the history of Latin America since World War II should welcome this volume. It solves the problem of demonstrating the unique importance of Che as martyr-prophet to Latin American revolutionaries during the last quarter century. Aside from Che’s own compelling rhetoric, each of the case histories demonstrates his influence and the application of his analysis in very specific terms. Consider, for instance, his original caveat that guerrilla warfare could not be waged successfully until all possibilities of peaceful struggle appeared to have been exhausted (p. 48). Loveman and Davies argue that the counterinsurgency programs of the United States and the established regimes in Latin America, which arose in response to the challenge from Castro and Guevara, converted a number of formalistic democracies, which Che called “oligarchic dictatorships,” into militarist antipolitical regimes which indeed systematically eliminated peaceful (that is, political) methods of struggle. Thus, the process predicted by Che of “unmasking” oligarchic dictatorships advanced notably (p. 29).
This work might very well become an indispensable reference for the Latin Americanist who is often asked to give local talks on the Central American crisis and other problems of the region in the 1980s. It is written in a clear, straightforward manner which cuts through much of the emotional baggage usually associated with the topic. At the same time, it recognizes the intrinsic importance of that emotion: ‘Che’s Guerrilla Warfare thus reaffirms the value of human volition and commitment, the importance of individual will and action” (p. 5). The extensive literature on this subject is handled skillfully and with authority in the notes. One item that might be misleading is the suggestion that Khrushchev’s support for wars of liberation became public in 1961 in connection with Cuba (p. 19). Actually, Khrushchev had taken this position in speeches since at least 1956, in the era of Bandung.
