Marx & Engels: A Biographical Introduction

Ernesto Che Guevara

dic 2024 · Seven Stories Press

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A biography of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by Che Guevara, revealing Che’s fervent interest in studying their lives and writing.

Che Guevara wrote this biographical introduction to Marx and Engels after his 1965 mission to Africa. He studied the writing of the German revolutionaries intensively, and in his travels he immersed himself in the classic works of Marxism. He sought to draw lessons and inspiration from Marx and Engels, and noted: “The Cuban Revolution takes up Marx at the point where he put aside science to pick up his revolutionary rifle.”

Many of Che’s comments about Marx might also refer to Che himself, such as his observation: “Such a humane man whose capacity for affection extended to all those suffering throughout the world, offering a message of committed struggle and indomitable optimism, has been distorted by history and turned into a stone idol.”

With his tremendous grasp of theory and his own practical experience, Che observes Marx’s evolution through his own view of radical change in Cuba, considering how it might apply to other countries after they achieve their definitive liberation from colonialism.

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ERNESTO GUEVARA DE LA SERNA was born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928. During his medical studies in Buenos Aires, he took a trip with his friend Alberto Granado on an old Norton motorcycle through all of Latin America, the basis for The Motorcycle Diaries. Living in Guatemala in 1954, he became involved in political activity there and was an eyewitness to the overthrow of the elected government in a CIA-organized military operation. Forced to leave Guatemala, Guevara went to Mexico City and linked up with exiled Cuban revolutionaries and met Fidel Castro in 1955. Guevara joined an expedition to Cuba that began in the Sierra Maestra mountains. He was originally the troop doctor and became Rebel Army commander in July 1957. Following the rebels’ victory in 1959, Guevara became a key leader of the new revolutionary government. He began serving as head of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform; in November 1959 he became president of the National Bank; and 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.