70th Anniversary of the Death of J.V. Stalin
March 5, 1953

Reflections on Stalin by Che Guevara

“Along the way, I had the opportunity to pass through the dominions of the United Fruit, convincing me once again of just how terrible these capitalist octopuses are. I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won’t rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated” (1953 letter to his Aunt Beatriz. See Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, 1997).

“In the so-called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of Papa Stalin and nobody can tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was considered very bad to read him, but that was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I will keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a series of things that are very good.”

“I think that Trotsky’s fundamental assumptions were erroneous and that his later actions were wrong, and even dark in his last years. The Trotskyites have contributed nothing to the revolutionary movement anywhere; and where they did most, which was in Peru, they ultimately failed because their methods are bad.” (“Comments on ‘Critical Notes on Political Economy'” by Che Guevara, Revolutionary Democracy Journal, 2007).

“In Cuba there is nothing published, if one excludes those tiresome Soviet books, which have the inconvenience that they don’t let you think; the party has already done it for you and you have to digest it. As a method, it is the most anti-Marxist, but, in addition, they are usually very bad. […]

“It would be necessary to publish the complete works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin [underlined by Che in the original] and other great Marxists. […] Here would come the major revisionists (if you want you can include Khrushchev), well analyzed and more in depth than the rest, and your friend Trotsky, who existed and apparently wrote something, should be there.” (Contracorriente, No. 9, Sept. 1997, Letter to Armando Hart).

(Colourized photos by Klimbim.)

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