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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/15/the-amauta-mariategui-and-the-commander-che/">peoplesdispatch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The Amauta Mariátegui and the Commander Che</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">José Carlos Llerena - June 15, 2023<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_liwftkai0" alt="image.png" width="416" height="234"><br><p>June 14 marks the birth of two of the most important revolutionaries
and Marxist thinkers in Latin America: José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira
(1894-1930) and Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-1967). The Peruvian forefather
of Indo-American Socialism and the Argentine internationalist of the
Cuban Revolution may have not known each other personally, but they had a
special relationship, proving themselves necessary and essential to
each other.</p>
<p>The relationship between Mariátegui and Che Guevara is an ongoing
one. It is thanks to Mariátegui’s work we remember, in the way that we
do, the revolutionary Che Guevara. And thanks to Guevara we can have
more access to Mariategui’s legacy. This idea is based on a story told
by Argentine revolutionary comrade Vasco Orzacoa, one of the fighters of
the historic Cordobazo, during a meeting held to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of Che Guevara’s assassination in La Higuera, Bolivia by US
Imperialist agents [1].</p>
<p><i>How did Mariategui influence Che Guevara?</i> Orzacoa said that he
met Che Guevara’s sister in Spain when he was in exile. Comrade Vasco
told her he lived in the same Street where Guevara La Serna family home
was located, when the family moved from Rosario to Córdoba searching for
better weather for little Ernesto Guevara’s asthma. Then, she asked him
if he knew that the house next to the Guevara family house was Gustavo
Roca’s. Gustavo Roca was the son of lawyer Deodoro Roca, one of the
leaders of the University Reform movement, which began in Córdoba, and
author of the <i>Manifiesto Liminar</i> which was a fundamental guiding text for the landmark movement.</p>
<p>During the period of the dictatorship, most of the books in Deodoro
Roca’s library were safeguarded in this house. According to Che’s
sister, it is precisely in that library where the teenager Ernesto snuck
into to unleash his infinite capacity as an inveterate reader. He
skipped school to immerse himself into José Ingenieros and Aníbal Ponce
books, among others. This fact was confirmed by Orzacoa reading letters
written by the teenager Ernesto Guevara to a young female comrade of the
Argentine Communist Party.</p>
<p>Vasco Orzacoa highlights an important similarity between Ernesto
Guevara and Roca, both consciously chose to educate themselves from our
continent instead of following a eurocentric and colonial path. It is
important to note that, in the beginning of the 20th century, the path
of privileged young people was to travel to Paris and other European
cities. But Ernesto Guevara was different. He got on a motorcycle, named
“La Poderosa” (“The Powerful”), along with his accomplice in the
adventure, Alberto Granado, and embarked on a trip to see all the
diversity and richness of America. Today, we can say that the route they
traveled could be understood as a Qhapaq Ñan (the Incan road system)
route for revolutionaries.</p>
<p>As Che himself describes in his travel diary “Motorcycle Diaries”,
later made into a film, Ernesto and Alberto arrived in Peru with limited
resources to advance their bizarre journey and in this context they are
received by the Peruvian Doctor Hugo Pesce. The Marxist Doctor Pesce
provided them with shelter, food, and financial support. Pesce also took
the two young doctors, Guevara and Granado, to a hospital with leprosy
patients in Lima so they could volunteer their medical knowledge to
treat patients. The message of solidarity and internationalism is clear
in this episode.</p>
<p>This was also the moment where Hugo Pesce introduced José Carlos
Mariátegui to Ernesto Che Guevara. Pesce was a revolutionary friend,
comrade, and disciple of Mariátegui. He was one of the Peruvian
representatives, appointed by Mariátegui, in the Trade Union Conference
of Montevideo and the First Communist Conference in Buenos Aires, which
both took place in 1929.</p>
<p>As Alberto Flores Galindo says in his book “La Agonía de Mariátegui”
(“The Agony of Mariátegui”), in such meetings, the original and
authentic thinking developed by Mariátegui confronts and engages in
debate with the European mainstream orthodox Marxist approach. Hugo
Pesce was a sort of messenger of the thought accumulated by José Carlos
Mariátegui.</p>
<p>According to the correspondence between Che and his mother, during
his visit in Lima he had long conversations with Hugo Pesce in his
house. Guevara says these dialogues started at night and went until
dawn. Vasco Orzacoa asked himself, what were young Ernesto Che Guevara
and Mariátegui’s Comrade Hugo Pesce talking about so much? He believed,
and we agree, that it was likely about Mariátegui’s thinking, for in
those days of military dictatorship in Peru, even writing about the
Communist Party which Pesce belonged to, was forbidden. So, the Amauta
of Indo-American Socialism was present in the process of political
development of the Argentine revolutionary internationalist. Later on,
Mariátegui’s footprint can be identified in different works by Commander
Che Guevara.</p>
<img src="https://peoplesdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/che-amauta.jpeg" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="290">In the 2004 film ‘Motorcycle Diaries’, Che is depicted reading Mariátegui’s landmark book ‘Seven Essays’.
<p><i>How did Che Guevara revive Mariátegui?</i> Comrade Vasco Orzacoa
said that when he lived in Peru in the 80s, he found an old Mariátegui
book at a book fair. When he opened the book and started to read, on the
first page he discovered that it was published by the Ministry of
Industry of the Cuban Revolution. And, who was the Cuban Minister of
Industry during the year that text was published? Our Commander Che
Guevara.</p>
<p>In other words, the first massive publication of the emblematic work
of the father of Indo-American socialism took place in revolutionary
Cuba and from the ministry under the control of Che. The Cuban Amauta
Fernando Martínez Heredia confirmed this when he said that the
generation prior to the 1959 Revolution was already aware of
Mariátegui’s ideas and that Cuba was the first socialist country to
undertake the publication of the Seven Essays. He also emphasized the
demonization of the reflections of the Peruvian not only by the ruling
class but also by the “orthodox” communism of the moment:</p>
<p>“By the way, when you study the Cuban Revolution more, you will see
how a generation prior to the triumph of the Revolution began to be
influenced by Mariátegui, such as President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado,
who at the age of 17 published a short article…about Mariátegui, when he
was considered the devil. They assumed that it was a deviation from
Marxism, and the Peruvian Communist Party was congratulated by the
Communist International in 1934 for waging the fight against ‘the
Mariateguist deviation’ at the center of its ideological struggle. And
in 1937, 1938, the young Dorticós wrote a short article very much in
favor of Mariátegui. Later, especially in the first years after the
triumph of the revolution, Mariátegui had tremendous importance here and
[Cuba] was the first socialist country in which ‘Seven Interpretive
Essays on Peruvian Reality’ was published, this was done partially at
the end of 1959 and totally in 1961.”[2]</p>
<p>Returning to Orzacoa’s testimony, he recounted that there was
correspondence between Che and Dr. Hugo Pesce, already after the triumph
of the revolution, wherein Che asks the doctor to go to Cuba and to not
forget to bring the manuscript of the ‘Seven Essays’. This is how Che
revives the valuable contribution of the Father of Indo-American
Socialism.</p>
<p>Why do we say revives him? Let us not forget that Mariátegui and his
thesis of Indo-American socialism that put the spotlight on the
Indigenous as a revolutionary subject and challenged the current of
European orthodox communism and its satellites in our continent, was
banned (even demonized, in the words of Martínez Heredia) from the
Peruvian, Latin American and world communist environment. In times when
there was no wordpress, no alternative digital media and the communist
parties monopolized the printers and publishers that could publish this
quality of work, this meant that Mariátegui’s legacy was forgotten,
except in the files of Dr. Pesce. Let us not forget the event recounted
by Flores Galindo in “The Agony of Mariátegui” when Hugo Pesce, during
the First International Communist Conference in Buenos Aires in 1929,
gave a copy of the ‘Seven Essays’ to Codovilla – an Italian communist
representative of the Communist International in Latin America – to ease
out some tensions held in the debate with the Peruvian delegation.
Codovilla’s response minimized and undervalued the revolutionary
contribution of Mariátegui:</p>
<p>“Perhaps with a certain desire for conciliation and to break the
marginalization that began to arise in the conference, in one of the
interruptions of the meeting, Pesce approached Codovilla to give him
something that was a source of pride and affirmation of the Peruvian
delegates: a copy of the ‘Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian
Reality’. Codovilla, who at that time also by chance had Ricardo
Martínez de la Torre’s pamphlet on the labor movement in 1919, looking
at Pesce and with the intention of being heard by the other delegates,
said in his usual emphatic tone that the work of Mariátegui had very
little value and, on the contrary, the example to follow as the Marxist
book on Peru, was that pamphlet by Martínez de la Torre. This anecdote
was reported by Pesce and endorsed by Julio Portocarrero.”</p>
<p>For all this, and surely more, the coincidence of the birth of both
revolutionaries on June 14, each with their own processes, their marked
periods of political development in their youth (Juan Croniquer –
Mariátegui’s pseudonym in his journalistic youth – and the adventurer
Ernesto Guevara on his Poderosa), their contradictions, and above all,
their lucidity and love for Our America, is not just a date but it marks
a reciprocal relationship between comrades in struggle. Each one
revived the other, without imitation or copying, but as heroic creation.</p>
<p><em><b>José Carlos Llerena Robles</b> is a popular educator, member of the Peruvian organization La Junta</em>.</p>
<p>[1]<a href="https://lepondregatilloalaluna.blogspot.com/2017/10/homenaje-al-che-guevara-el-legado.html"> https://lepondregatilloalaluna.blogspot.com/2017/10/homenaje-al-che-guevara-el-legado.html</a></p>
<p>[2]<a href="https://medium.com/la-tiza/c%25C3%25B3mo-investigar-la-revoluci%25C3%25B3n-cubana-i-2d5a9c18ce7a"> https://medium.com/la-tiza/c%C3%B3mo-investigar-la-revoluci%C3%B3n-cubana-i-2d5a9c18ce7a</a></p>
<p>[3]<a href="https://www.marxists.org/espanol/floresgalindo/1980/desco00006.pdf"> https://www.marxists.org/espanol/floresgalindo/1980/desco00006.pdf</a></p>
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