Indeed, Che Guevara, while alive, was a rare find among men – a man with deep conviction, who impelled by this conviction, sought to change the material world around him. I dare say the view we of the modern age have of Che is of the ragged, bearded, soldier with rifle in hand in the wilds of Bolivia or of the charismatic Comandante commanding rebel soldiers in Cuba. In other words, we look at Che through the military perspective. After all, he did describe himself as a “soldier of fortune of the twentieth century.” But there was another side to the man that is often overlooked, the side of theorist. If we can see past the OD Green military uniform and beret we will discover that Che was an intensely intelligent man, full of intellectual life. As Fidel Castro summed up, “But when we remember Che, we do not think fundamentally of his military virtues. No… He stood out as an unsurpassed person of action, but Che was not only that – he was also a person of visionary intelligence and broad culture, a profound thinker… If we looked through the windows of his offices, he had the lights on all hours of the night, studying, or rather, working or studying. For he was a student of all problems; he was a tireless reader. His thirst for learning was practically insatiable and the hours he stole from sleep he devoted to study.” Che was indeed a man of ideas and idealism. These ideas, no doubt influenced by his experiences in the Cuban Revolutionary War, were later formulated into a theory, what is known today as foco theory. In its simplest forms, foco is the theory of the small cadre of men picking up arms against the state, thus seeing themselves as the vanguard, while its influence ripples through the rest of society, urging others to do likewise. Of course, there are other complexities involved but this is the foundation. Che, in his desire to prove his theory that his theory was not just an aberration, was killed in Bolivia by state forces. In his quest to repeat the Cuban Revolutionary experience, he foolishly threw himself into a battle that could not be won; there was no other recourse but defeat, for himself and for those unfortunate enough to follow. Due to his misinterpretations of Marxism, or rather reinvention of Marxism, the world was robbed of such brilliance, such exuberance that the world could have benefited from, far exceeding his short 39 years. Below I will outline some fundamental flaws of the foco theory.
1) Focalism in theory does not depend on nor make the Proletariat the main driving impulse of revolution. Instead it substitutes the Proletariat with the Guerrilla and Peasant.
2) Pre-conditions, such as self-awareness and consciousness of the Proletariat, for example, are not necessary as the Guerrilla, who makes himself the main actor in this theory, can manufacture them by his own actions. The Guerrilla is to attack first, all conditions will naturally follow.
3) The Cuban Revolutionary model, the main basis of foco theory, failed to take into account distinct conditions in each specific country, thus failing miserably to export or replicate itself elsewhere.
4) Guerrilla wars have taken the lives of otherwise good comrades who could have contributed so much more to the Communist cause. Their lives and ideas were eradicated in various efforts to impart this faulty Marxism.
5) Few foco wars have been fully successful in history; indeed there have been more failures in comparison to its minute successes. Foco wars have led to more misery for the Proletariat than good, usually unleashing the wrath of the state and repression against friend and foe alike. A good example is the Dirty War of Argentina which claimed thousands of lives and coincidentally, was triggered by focalism.
6) Not being based on the Proletariat, foco theory, when successful, has always resulted in one party, military or one man dictatorships.
7) Che’s naïve dependence on the peasant and neglect of the Proletariat proved to be his undoing along with foco theory.
8) The minority cannot win the battle for the majority.
9) Focalism tends to turn the Proletariat against the guerrilla’s cause. The very people Che chose to liberate turned against him and his guerrillas by coordinating with the Bolivian Army and even going as far as to form armed detachments to hunt down Che and his people.
10) In this age of industrialization and capitalist super powers, the foco cannot go toe to toe and bullet by bullet against well trained, superbly armed and massive armies of the state. In this sense, the foco is easily crushed, as proven by prior examples.
11) Che, the idealized revolutionary and image of romantic adventurer for many, has left us, apart from his image, an all too human legacy by showing us, through his foco theory, the dangers of straying far from the original blueprint originated by Marx and Engels. Let us look past the romance and heed the material lessons.
