In 1966-67, he led a nucleus of revolutionaries from Bolivia, Cuba, and Peru who fought to overthrow the military dictatorship in Bolivia. In the process, they sought to forge a Latin America-wide movement of workers and peasants that could lead the battle for land reform and against U.S. imperialist domination of the continent and advance the struggle for socialism. Guevara was wounded and captured on Oct. 8, 1967. He was shot the next day by the Bolivian military, after consultation with Washington.

As part of the commemoration of this anniversary in Cuba, dozens of articles, speeches, and interviews by those who worked with Che are being published, dealing with the Cuban revolution, its impact in world politics, and the actions of its leadership. Many of Guevara's collaborators and family members have spoken at conferences and other meetings, bringing Che to life for a new generation and explaining the importance of his rich political legacy today. These materials contain many valuable firsthand accounts and information, some of which are being written down and published for the first time. They are part of the broader discussion taking place in Cuba today on how to advance the revolution.

The Militant is reprinting a selection of these contributions as a weekly feature, under the banner "Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution."

The following interview with Orlando Borrego appeared in issue no. 10, 1997, of the international edition of the Cuban magazine Bohemia, under the title "Dream and Prophecy." Borrego worked closely with Ernesto Che Guevara in Cuba's Ministry of Industry, which Guevara headed in the early 1960s, and is the former head of the Sugar Ministry. The translation and footnotes are by the Militant.

Although he has obtained a doctorate in economics, Orlando Borrego will always be, in spirit, the grumpy accountant who Ernesto Che Guevara once asked to work with him. Before giving a green light to the interview, he rapidly scans the questions, with avowed distrust and a careful eye. Fortunately, he eventually bestows his trust and speaks freely.

He was 21 years old when Che put him at the head of the Military Economic Junta of the La Cabaña fortress, after this Havana outpost fell into the hands of the Rebel Army. Later he was one of the first men who the mythic Argentine took with him to the Department of Industrialization of the Agrarian Reform Institute. He spent six years very close to Che, starting from when he joined Che's guerrilla column in the Escambray in 1958.

"I always say these were the equivalent of 10 or 12 years, because this was very intense, hard work, with days extending to two or three in the morning," says the present consultant to the Ministry of Transportation and the hotel chain Horizontes.

Later he was first vice-chairman and then minister of the sugar industry. But even in this last stage he continued working under Che. "He was my boss; I consulted with him about everything." And I suspect he has never stopped doing it.

From such a close relationship, Borrego retains experiences, very personal memories, and documents, some unpublished, in which, for example, Che anticipated the debacle European socialism would undergo 25 years later.

Q: In your opinion, what characteristics of Che's were most in harmony with his work as minister of industry?

A: Che lacked experience as a statesman in that period, but he had various things in his favor. He was a man endowed with a very developed intelligence, and an extremely broad education. He was also aided by his inclination toward industrial activity. In the Sierra Maestra, as soon as he received the command of a guerrilla column, he organized a series of production activities: bakeries, shoe factories, weapons repair shops... When he arrived at La Cabaña he did the same.

He also had iron discipline, dedication, exceptional will- power, a very original method of engaging others to participate in work, extraordinary interest in the development of the country, and knowledge acquired in the Sierra Maestra about Cuba, its history, and even its economy.

Q: Che is remembered above all as a guerrilla leader. What in your opinion weighs most in history: Che's military ideas or the economic concepts he developed and applied?

A: Perhaps the loss of Che is felt more keenly in his capacity as a revolutionary thinker than as a guerrilla. In that period he was making contributions to the ideas of socialism, with extraordinary value for the present and the future. It seems, however, that not many people in the world see things that way. Despite the great influence that Che exercises among the peoples, all of his ideas, as a whole, are still little known. Everyone takes Che in their own manner. Some see him as a guerrilla, others as a legendary figure, others value his capacity for sacrifice, his humanism, or the ethics of his life.

Q: What principles and characteristics of the economy under socialism did Che put the most trust in?

A: The central point in his vision of a socialist society was the development of the individual, the creation of a new man. That is the essence of everything he sought. Che was opposed to seeing socialist society as simply a question of production to satisfy the material needs of the individual. He used to say that this is what capitalism does, at the cost of exploitation. It is a tendency toward consumerism and nothing more. Che stressed as the central goal of a socialist society the creation of a new man - a man of solidarity, ethics, culture, and with the highest values that a human being could have; a patriot, sensitive toward any human being in the world. He liked to repeat Martí's idea: "Every true man must feel on his own cheek every blow dealt against the cheek of another."

The development of the productive forces under socialism must be indissolubly linked to the formation and training of the human being. Che set no time period to achieve this objective, but he was convinced of it. If these two lines of approach are not developed in a parallel way until they join up together; if emphasis is given to consumerism and material production and the individual is forgotten, then it is possible to attain a very high level of production and a deformed, selfish individual, similar to the one in capitalist societies.

Q: Because of the emphasis he puts on humanism, some theoreticians-including on the left-classify Che's ideas as utopian, and some even say that they were an expression of a petty-bourgeois philosophy. What do you think?

A: Many people insulted Che, and not only in the capitalist world. In the Soviet Union and other socialist countries they also called him an idealist, revisionist, Proudhonian, etc. In contemporary bourgeois literature the same thing happens, but this literature has a conception of what a successful man is that has nothing to do with Che or Fidel. They are called idealists, romantics; and are given no credit for the influence they have had in the social transformations of the 20th century.

There is no revolutionary without dreams. If there were, he would lack inspiration to fight. But in my judgment, there is nothing idealistic or utopian in Che. I worked with him and saw him develop these ideas not only in a theoretical form, but in practice.

Che's effort to develop consciousness in our country has had tangible results. Many people in other countries ask me whether something of the new man exists in Cuba, and I personally am convinced there is. That is the way we can stand up today. The revolution has withstood the Special Period(1) and all that came with the collapse of the socialist camp, together with the blockade, because there is a consciousness and a people that have known how to uphold revolutionary ideas, and meet the challenges required by the historic moment. And among the Cuban people, the attitude of our young people has extraordinary weight. They are an essential pillar of the revolution.

Q: Nevertheless, man under socialism has not developed a consciousness as owner of the means of production, something fundamental to this system. There has even been talk of a certain alienation of the worker toward his condition as owner, and that property is state-owned, and not social.

A: That is an old polemic, one that concerns a crucial aspect of socialism. But I would not speak of alienation. Che did not set time limits for the development of consciousness in socialism. For him it was a long process in which there could be advances and retreats. I am reminded of him very much with the Special Period. People who advanced in the development of consciousness have flagged in the face of shortages, they have retreated, and some have even betrayed. Fortunately, they have been a minority.

The question of acquiring real consciousness of social property - and above all that this property be highly productive and efficient - is a very complex one. We should keep working at it, above all, at putting it into practice.

In addition to applying intelligent methods to educate the individual, a great deal needs to be done in the field of management techniques and incentives. Che never rejected material incentives, but he emphasized moral ones, so the individual would increasingly acquire more consciousness of social property to make it more effective. Eventually the moment will be reached when the individual produces out of his social duty toward work.

Q: Was Che's departure for the Congo and later Bolivia an expression of confidence in the fate of the Cuban revolution? Do you believe he would have taken another decision if he knew what Cuba would confront in the 1990s?

A: In my opinion he would not have changed his decision. As Fidel has explained, from the time he was in Mexico, Che had expected to continue the struggle in Latin America, and specifically in Argentina, after the Cuban revolution triumphed. But I also think he departed confident that the revolution was in an advanced process of consolidation. I can state with certainty that Che was confident that if Cuba applied its own viewpoint and had a leader such as Fidel, there was no cause for concern about the stability and leadership of our revolution.

Q: Did he have confidence, then, that socialism was irreversible?

A: In the case of Cuba, yes.

Q: But did he believe in the irreversibility of socialism in general? In other words, would Che have been surprised by the fall of the Berlin Wall?

A: He believed that society on a world scale would go forward toward socialism. For him this was the solution to the problems of humanity. Nevertheless, Che did not believe that the socialist model of the Soviet Union and the other countries of Eastern Europe was viable or correct. After he became familiar with the conceptions of how the economy was being directed in these countries, he expressed great reservations, and predicted, 25 years in advance, that this model was heading back toward capitalism.

Q: Reservations about which tendencies?

A: He did not accept the view developed with the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union.(2) Che felt that Lenin was forced to make concessions and apply the NEP owing to the complex and difficult political and economic situation of the country at that time. But Lenin died almost immediately, and his successors did not make a correction in time. Che felt that introducing capitalist categories in socialist countries threw them off course, with all the consequences this brought for the formation of the new man and for society as a whole, including its effects on the system's superstructure. They did not promote the search for economic mechanisms appropriate to socialism, and arrived at a dead end, which would produce a return to capitalism. That was Che's assessment.

Q: Where did he say this?

A: In a still-unpublished manuscript he sent me attached to a letter, at the end of 1965, after the campaign in the Congo ended. In that analysis Che stated the following:

"The changes produced by the New Economic Policy, the NEP, have penetrated so deeply into the life of the Soviet Union that they have left their mark on this entire stage, and the results are discouraging. The capitalist superstructure has influenced, in a sharper and sharper way, the relations of production, and the conflicts provoked by the hybrid that the NEP was, are being resolved today in favor of the superstructure. There is a regression toward capitalism."

Q: Even so, other experiences accept a larger role for the market in the socialist economy. How would Che view what is happening in Cuba, for example?

A: The current moment is very different from the one we are analyzing in relation to the polemic on models of economic management in socialism. How do I picture Che? I picture him studying and obtaining a deeper theoretical understanding, doing a careful analysis of the phenomenon of globalization and all these backward ideas of neoliberalism. I picture him trying to give a practical solution to the extraordinary shortages and difficulties we have in Cuba, while avoiding concessions of principle in the management of the economy that could bring disastrous consequences to our revolutionary process, as happened in the former Soviet Union.

There are concepts in Che's body of ideas that can and must be applied at the present time, and others that should be adapted to current conditions, which are very different than those existing then. And I believe Fidel is doing this: making indispensable changes to survive, because it would be absurd not to make them, but with no concessions of principle that would lead us toward reversing the progress we've obtained and the values we've achieved in developing a higher form of society.

Q: In light of everything that has happened in recent years, does history have any debt to Che?

A: If not a debt, then a certain commitment, a commitment that implies concrete actions by all sensible and honest persons in the world to appropriate the most valuable parts of his historical legacy. In turning himself into a model of the new man owing to his ideas and exceptional qualities, Che represented an essential point in the progress of humanity, in the search for a higher form of life for human beings.

Q: And does Che have any debt to history?

A: Che would have to respond to this. But if I am asked, I believe that Che was a man who was never satisfied, who always considered his contributions to be small. His plans and ideas were so ambitious and creative that I imagine he would feel a debt to history. Perhaps what would pain him most would be to not have continued in other countries the job he began in Cuba and left as an extraordinary heritage. He would feel it his debt, perhaps, not having seen the development of a new man on a broader scale, on a world scale, or at least, in Latin America. That was his dream.

1 "Special Period" is the term used in Cuba to describe the economic crisis triggered by the collapse in long- standing trade relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries at the start of the 1990s.

2 The New Economic Policy was adopted by the Russian Communist Party in March 1921, following the economic devastation caused by World War I and the subsequent civil war. Aimed at reviving an economy in which industrial production had fallen to less than 20 percent of prewar levels, the measure allowed a limited return to free trade and the operation of foreign concessions alongside the nationalized sectors of the economy.  
 
 
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