Working my way at a leisurely pace through Sam Farber’s egregiously
wrongheaded “Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959”, I came across this
remarkable comparison between Joseph Stalin’s foreign policy and Che’s:
The second major source of Cuba’s foreign policy was the independent
Communist perspective of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who according to his
biographers was a self-described admirer of Stalin even after
Khrushchev’s revelation of the Russian leader’s crimes in 1956. Guevara
was an ally of the old Cuba Communists from 1957 to 1960, a decisive
period during which the key divisions about the kind of society that
would be built in Cuba were made. But after 1960, Guevara’s views and
practices began to differ from those of the USSR and the old Cuban
Communists on matters of domestic and foreign policy. The Soviet Union
and the old Cuban Communists were supporting the “right-wing Popular
Front approaches, which as I earlier indicated, were initially developed
in the mid-thirties by the Soviet Union and the Communist Parties
involving alliances with forces to their right including the
“progressive bourgeoisie.” Guevara’s approach was more similar, although
not identical, to the far more intransigent and aggressive policies that
Stalin adopted during other periods.
I really don’t want to make this article any longer than it has to be so
I will not take apart all the factual and analytical errors contained in
this excerpt but limit myself to Farber’s observation about Guevara
adopting a policy “more similar” to the “the far more intransigent and
aggressive policies that Stalin adopted during other periods.” They say
that very observant Muslims can be identified by the appearance of a
bruise-like marking on their forehead developed through a lifetime of
prayer. I sometimes worry that I will develop the same kind of mark
through slapping my forehead after reading another Farber howler. What
it god’s name is this professor emeritus talking about? Stalin’s
“aggressive” policies? If this is a reference to the “third period”,
then aggressive is hardly the operative term. Instead, imbecilic
ultraleftism might obtain. There was nothing “aggressive” about the
policy of lumping together National Socialism and “social fascism” (in
other words, the German Social Democracy).
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/was-che-guevara-a-stalinist/
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