LAP Review:

Che Guevara:
The Economics of
Revolution
Reviewed by Dr. Jesús Pastor García Brigos, Institute of
Philosophy, Havana, Cuba.
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After 1959, Cuban Revolution faced the essential problem of building a new society. This is not
rhetoric. In overthrowing the Batista dictatorship, the Revolution sought to bring democracy to
Cuba; not to re-establish the previous system of liberal democracy, but create a new kind of
democracy. This new kind of effective popular democracy, real popular power, formed the basis for
initiating its own path to transcending decades of underdevelopment, in particular as a neo-colony
of the Unites States. This meant a real break of the old social relationships, at the same time, in a
contradictory process, the development of a system with new characteristics. Contradictions in this
historical process had to be resolved by Cuba under specific conditions; on the one hand the
economic warfare by United States and, on the other hand, the special relationship that was
established quickly with the Soviet union and the socialist countries, with all their positive and
negative influences.

From the strict economic standpoint, one very important problem could be identified, because of its
consequences for the general system of social relationships, and at the same time, the way its
resolution is influenced by the whole social system: how to increase productive capacity and labour
productivity in conditions of underdevelopment and socialist construction without relying on
capitalist mechanisms that would undermine the formation of new consciousness and social
relations integral to communist development.

Schematically summarised in these lines, this represented a huge challenge for the Cuban people. It
was a challenge from the practical perspectives, but – being consistent with Marx’s understanding
of the relationship between theory and practice – it was also a huge conceptual challenge. Firstly,
this is because of the absence of a theory of socialist development, a theory of socialist revolution –
an understandable absence for many reasons. And secondly, it is also because of the existence of a
lot of ‘clear’ and demonstrated ‘scientific truths’ about how to ‘construct socialism’.

Ernesto Guevara, ‘Ché’, put himself at the centre of this challenge, as perhaps no other
revolutionary did in his time. He invested all his efforts in solving daily practical problems of the
complex Cuban reality and to pushing forward in communist transformation, and at the same time
dedicating his mind to questioning that reality, rejecting all kind of preconceptions, and developing
a real ‘guide for action’ in socialist construction under Cuban conditions, under the conditions of
Third World countries, and, in general, making a genuinely fresh contribution to the theory of
communist transformation.
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Helen Yaffe’s book gives us invaluable material, analysing Ché’s ideas and contributions from his
practical experience as an actor in the Cuban Revolution, concerned with the problems of socialist
economic development under Cuban conditions, and specifically about the conception and
development of planning in such an underdeveloped country, besieged by the strongest capitalist
power, with little more than its relations with the socialist countries to support its very existence.

It begins with a foreword by Professor Lord Meghnad Desai entitled ‘Guevara the Political
Economist’. But I would like to underline political economist in Marx’s sense. That is, in the same
sense in which Marx planned to completely describe political economy of capitalism in six books
dedicated to capital, land rent, wage labour, state, international trade and the world market. Only
with such an approach is it possible to understand underdevelopment as a complex social status,
with its peculiar dynamics, and not simply an economic status with low productivity, low output,
insufficient accumulation, and so on.

Guevara’s heritage is an important contribution in precisely this direction and Helen Yaffe’s books
show very deeply the wealth of his ideas and his practice over the ten chapters. The analysis in
Chapter 3 on the Great Debate is very important; it describes a very rich polemic between Che
Guevara and prominent specialists and politicians such as Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, economist and
theorist of socialist development, with extensive work published about Cuba and a long history in
the leadership of the Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party). After 1959, Rafael Rodríguez
then had important responsibilities in the revolutionary process and was a member of the Politburo
of the Cuban Communist Party until his death. Others that Che Guevara exchanged ideas with
included Marcelo Fernández Font, Alberto Mora, and the Belgian Marxist, Ernst Mandel.

Without doubt the main contribution of the book is in showing the systemic metabolic approach of
Che Guevara, an approach necessary to solve: ‘The problem at the heart of socialist construction…
how to increase consciousness and productivity simultaneously’ (p262), in correspondence with the
essence of communist transformation: the challenge of developing a society in which ‘real wealth is
the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in
any way, labour time, but rather disposable time’ (Marx, Gründrisse, p708, Penguin Books, 1993).
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This becomes clear throughout Yaffe’s book, in chapter four on Education, Training and Salaries, in
chapter five on Administrative Control, Supervision and Investment, in chapter six on Collectivising
Production and Worker’s Participation, in chapter seven on Science and Technology, in chapter eight
on Consciousness and Psychology and in chapter nine on the Critique of the Soviet Manual of
Political economy.

The importance of this book is enhanced by the helpful ‘collaboration’ of a group of Che Guevara’s
comrades during the years in Cuba after 1959 that Helen Yaffe received. Remarkable is the
composition of this group, which includes comrades from the war against the Batista dictatorship,
such as Orlando Borrego (Ché’s deputy in the Ministry of Industries, among other roles) and Tirso
Saenz Sánchez, (a professional who broke with his class to play a very important role in the
development of Cuban industries in the difficult first years of the Revolution, and the development
of scientific research in Cuba, thanks to the political intelligence and human sensitivity of Ché
Guevara). Substantial fragments of interviews carried out by Helen Yaffe with these comrades are a
very important complement to her rigorous research and are reflected in the book’s notes (pp.290-
331) and the bibliography (pp.331-348).

The importance of this book is in its knowledge of Che Guevara, and in improving the theory of
socialist developmen, as a theory in construction and permanent enrichment given new
contemporary experiences accumulating in difficult conditions in the 21st century. The result is a
book that cannot be ignored, a book that should be translated into Spanish and other languages as
soon as possible. It is not perfect, as no human work can be; but everyone who reads it should feel
the duty of participating in the discussion and analysis that Helen Yaffe presents in this work, with
the same rigour and objectivity with which she has done so.