11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting piece of history, May 4, 2009
This review is from: The Bolivian Diary: Authorized Edition (Che Guevara Publishing Project) (Paperback)
Che customarily writes an entry every day in his diaries, even when nothing happened all day. He uses them later to write a memoir without all the boring day-to-day stuff. Of course he could not do that with his final diary. At first this appears to be a diary about nothing but a lot of marching, marching, marching. You can get more out of it by reading it as a companion to a biography, like Jon Lee Anderson's very detailed biography of Che. Then you'll know why their 10 day excursion took 48 days, and what happened to Joaquin's troops, or why Fidel couldn't send them reinforcements, and other questions that are not answered in the diary, because the diary is only a little slice of the bigger picture. Worth reading if you are interested in the revolution in a historical sense (whether or not you agree with Che politically).
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One for the Ages, August 6, 2010
This review is from: The Bolivian Diary: Authorized Edition (Che Guevara Publishing Project) (Paperback)
"Nevertheless, the late Che remains as one oversold, overrated, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist crackpot."
My wifes parents and grandparents lived in Cuba during the ulta-corrupt Batista period. Her grandfather was very prominent in Cuban politics. When Castro won the war and outsted Bastista, her grandfather was very upset. After all, as he said, he (my wifes grandfather) had "spent years paying off all the right people and just when his time had come, the Cuban Revolution thwarted his political ambitions".
The entire family then sought refuge in Miami where thousands of ex-Cubans live today.
I think that just about sums up why Che and many others decided it was time to knock off the current government.
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8 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Diary Of How Not To Start A Guerrilla War, March 4, 2009
This review is from: The Bolivian Diary: Authorized Edition (Che Guevara Publishing Project) (Paperback)
From 7 Nov 1966 to 7 Oct 1967 . . . It's a day by day account of aimlessly trekking back and forth across 180 square miles of Bolivian outback with a rag tag, ill supplied, ill equipped, undernourished band of uneducated, multinational "revolutionaries" from Cuba, Peru and Bolivia.
Che had thought that what had worked in Cuba 8 years earlier might work again in Bolivia. But it was a complete disaster, as were his previous expeditions in The Congo and in Guatemala. He was unable to recruit sufficient peasants from the countryside to effect a meaningful military challenge to Bolivia's troops.
What we read in the diary are pathetic, recurring accounts of food and water shortages, and about repeated geographic blunders of not knowing where they are, not being able to identify rivers. Constantly on the move, slashing trails, crossing rivers and marching till exhaustion to evade an ever menacing and ever larger number of Bolivian troops.
But Che is very headstrong and does not want to quit Bolivia as he had quit in The Congo before coming here, and quit in Guatemala [before Cuba]. This busybody, restless Argentinean guerrilla issues bold "Communiqués To The Bolivian People" . . . that he, [the ELN] "is the only responsible party for the armed struggle, which its people lead, and which will not stop short until final victory." But in reality, the Bolivian membership of his 40+ man guerilla force was the minority.
Che's ambitions included the eventual overthrow of all South American governments. A simultaneous guerrilla movement was seeded in Peru. But the rest of South America just wasn't ready to stomach another Marxist-Leninist ideology a la Cuban style. Still today, Cuba remains an economic basket case, a socialist, bankrupt police state where visitors can set their clock back 50 years!
Curiously, Fidel did not adequately support his dear friend Che when he was overpowered militarily and nearing a dead end at La Higuera. One of the reasons may be that Che had already taken on a larger than life iconic status in Cuba. In fact, immediately after the success of the Cuban revolution, Fidel had sent Che off on a lengthy world wide tour to get him off the island and consolidate his own, unfettered, dictatorial power. During his world tour, when Che had bad mouthed the Soviets and had cozied up to Chairman Mao, Fidel had to protect his Soviet life line and distance himself from Che.
Nevertheless, the late Che remains as one oversold, overrated, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist crackpot.
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