CHE GUEVARA: The Failure of a Revolutionary

by Leo Sauvage ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 14, 1973

Che couldn't have died at a better time contends Sauvage, a French journalist -- it was timely for Castro whose Sierra Maestra comrade and former Minister of Industry had become politically intractable and increasingly critical of the Fidelists' pragmatic communism; timely for Che whose Guerra de Guerrilla is for partisan and enemy alike the handbook on guerrilla warfare, who has been canonized by revolutionists the world over yet was in reality -- Sauvage would have us believe -- ""the most doctrinaire, the most authoritarian, the most conventional of party men."" In a book full of conjecture, passion, some good sense and balance, Sauvage doesn't quite succeed in defrocking Che; nevertheless he has provocative notions about the circumstances surrounding Che's death (he's not entirely convinced it was Che's body at Vallegrande), the questionable and grisly business of the preserved hands and/or thumbs, the mystery of the Bolivian Diary (though he's not particularly plausible on why it was to the CIA's benefit to ""trick"" Castro into publishing it first) -- and only the most doctrinaire leftists will argue with his criticism of what was plainly a badly-conceived Bolivian plan. After all the hagiographies of Che we've been reading, Sauvage's book is a valuable step into the jungle we've so far not been able to chart because of all the trees.

Pub Date: Jan. 14, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION