In this letter which he wrote to Carlos Quijano, the editor of the Uruguayan newspaper Marcha, Major Ernesto Guevara refutes with clarity and simplicity, the image of the individual living in the socialist state—insulted, beaten and reduced to mere nothingness—the image depicted and circulated by the imperialist press. Personal individuality, the new society, and the tasks of the community are the basic factors discussed by Guevara in MAN AND SOCIALISM IN CUBA. In the light of the fascinating Cuban Revolution, Guevara formed his personal opinions; as the Revolution took shape and gained strength, breaking the political tradition in which all events are associated with individual names, there appeared a new, well-defined character—the people: a people who do not act like a flock of sheep, but who influence, decide and command. “For those who do not live the experience of the revolution, the difficult thing to understand is that close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, where both are interrelated, and where the mass, as a whole composed of individuals, interrelates in turn with the leaders,” wrote Guevara. For the revolutionary Cuban people, work does not end with the construction of a new economic society. They are planning the development of the new man—communist man. “The true revolutionary,” Guevara points out, “is guided by strong feelings of love. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love for the peoples, and make it one and indivisible.”
Author
Ernesto "Che" Guevara, commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was a Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, since his death Guevara's stylized visage has become an ubiquitous countercultural symbol and global icon within popular culture. His belief in the necessity of world revolution to advance the interests of the poor prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their movement, and travelled to Cuba with the intention of overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista regime. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that topled the Cuban government. After serving in a number of key roles in the new government, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed. Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled "Guerrillero Heroico," was declared "the most famous photograph in the world" by the Maryland Institute of Art.
