Abstract
In 2006, Ché Guevara’s long-anticipated critical notes on the political economy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were published in Havana.1 Written outside Cuba between 1965 and 1966 and arguably his most important contribution to socialist theory, these notes were kept under lock and key for 40 years.2 It is easy to understand why Che’s analysis was considered too polemical or controversial for publication until recent years. Applying a Marxist analysis to the USSR Manual of Political Economy, 3 Che concluded that the “hybrid” economic management system — socialism with capitalist elements — was creating the conditions for the return of capitalism.
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Notes
Helen Yaffe, Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, has detailed analysis of the administrative mechanisms as well as the promotion of education and training, science and technology, and consciousness and psychology within MININD under Ché’s directorship.
Guevara, “On the Concept of Value,” in Bertram Silverman, (ed.) Man and Socialism in Cuba: The Great Debate, New York: Atheneum, 1971, p. 234.
Manual, cited by Guevara, “On the Budgetary Finance System,” in Silverman, Man and Socialism, p. 142.
Guevara, “The Meaning of Socialist Planning,” in Silverman, Man and Socialism, p. 109.
Guevara, “Man and Socialism in Cuba,” in Silverman, Man and Socialism, p. 346.
Marie Lavigne, The SocialistEconomies of the Soviet Union and Europe, London: Martin Robertson & Co., 1975, pp. 113–4.
Roy D. Laird, CollectiveFarming in Russia: A Political Study ofthe SovietKolkhozy, Kansas: University of Kansas Publications, 1958, p. 121, footnote 16.
In 1965 there were 36,300 kolkhoz farms averaging 6,100 hectares compared to 11,700 sovkhoz farms averaging 24,600 hectares.
An important question in contemporary Cuba where since autumn 2010 self-employed people have been permitted to employ other workers who are neither family members nor cohabitants.
Guevara, “Reuniones Bimestrales,” December 1964, in El Che en la Revolución Cubana: Ministerio de Industrias, Vol. 6, Havana: Ministerio de Azucar, 1966, p. 579.
Guevara, “Reuniones Bimestrales,” December 1963, p. 413.
Juan Valdes Gravalosa, interview, February 22, 2006.
Consolidated Enterprises consisted of a set of production units in the same sector grouped under one central management. It was one of the measures Che took to cope with the lack of administrators.
Nuestra Industria, Havana: Ministerio de Industrias, Year 3: No. 1 (January 1963).
Manual Para Administradores de Fabricas, June 10, 1964, La Habana: Ministerio de Industrias, 2nd ed., 1988, section 5, subject 10, p. 1.
Manual Para Administradores, section 10, subject 1, pp. 1–3.
Guevara, Reuniones Bimestrales, March 1962, p. 176.
Arturo Guzmán Pascual, “La Acción del Comandante Ernesto Che en la Campo Industrial,” Revista Bimestre Cubana 8 (1998): 29.
Orlando Borrego Diaz, Che: El Camino del Fuego, Havana: Imagen Contemporanea, 2001, p. 164.
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© 2013 Helen Yaffe
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Yaffe, H. (2013). Ché Guevara: Cooperatives and the Political Economy of Socialist Transition. In: Harnecker, C.P. (eds) Cooperatives and Socialism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137277756_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137277756_6
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