Fertile ground or revisionist history?

"Fertile Ground" is a book published by Pathfinder, the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party.

The SWP used to be very critical of the guerrilla struggle launched by Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1966-67, and similar efforts in other Latin American nations. The theory and practice of Guevara is sometimes called "focoism", since one of its distinguishing features is the idea that a small guerrilla nucleus (foco) can create the conditions necessary for a successful revolution, even if such conditions are initially lacking. In other words, focoism is based on a misreading of the Cuban revolution. It's probably connected to the general, pseudo-Maoistic voluntarism characteristic of Che Guevara's thought in general. During the 1980's and 1990's, however, the SWP became more and more uncritically pro-Cuban, and "Fertile Ground" is an attempt to square the circle, by claiming that Guevara's adventure in Bolivia wasn't really focoist, after all. I can't say that this revisionist history is very convincing, although I admit that the book is interesting for other reasons.

The bulk of the book is an interview with Rodolfo Saldana, an indigenous Bolivian Communist militant who left the Bolivian Communist Party and instead became a founding member of the ELN, Che Guevara's guerrilla front. For a while, he was in charge of ELN's urban support network. He managed to escape to Cuba after the capture and murder of Guevara in 1967, only to return for a second attempt to launch a guerrilla war in Bolivia. That attempt, too, ultimately failed.

Saldana claims that the mineworkers at Bolivia's main tin mine, Siglo XX, voted overwhelmingly to support Che's guerrillas and even recruited a number of volunteers. This precipitated the Noche de San Juan massacre, during which Bolivian troops attacked the miners and their union hall to restore "order". According to Saldana and the publishers, this was the fertile ground, together with the fact that Bolivia has always been a seedbed of labour radicalism and nationalist populism.

The argument is unconvincing. There were indeed mass struggles in Bolivia during this period, eventually culminating in a revolutionary situation in 1970-71, but it was concentrated in the cities and minefields, and led by the labour unions, leftist parties and nationalist military officers. In other words, "business as usual" as far as Latin America is concerned. It's difficult to see what role a rural guerrilla foco could possibly have played in all this. And since Saldana's mission was to recruit a few mineworkers *away from* the union-centred struggles, it's painfully obvious that the ELN's strategy was at bottom just as focoist as the critics have charged. It wasn't the ELN, after all, which toppled the Bolivian military dictatorship. Indeed, they seem to have pretty much ceased to exist during the crucial months of 1970-71!

Frankly, it's unclear whether the SWP really believes in the contents of their own book, or whether they simply want to capitalize on Che Guevara's status as a revolutionary icon. Nevertheless, "Fertile ground" can be of some interest to students of Bolivian and Cuban history, and for those interested in Che Guevara's life in particular.