Comandante Che: Guerrilla, Soldier, Commander and Strategist, 1956-1967 (review)

Paul Dosal tells readers that the four comprehensive biographies of Che Guevara that appeared on the 30th anniversary of his death preempted his desire to write the first scholarly biography of the Argentine medical doctor turned revolutionary. Instead, after reading "every speech, article, book, letter, and diary written by him" and "just about everything ever written about him as well," Dosal's biography became a study of Che's career as a soldier, commander, and strategist (p. xiii). This did not mean writing conventional military history but rather the story of a "real man who influenced the lives of millions . . . killed for a cause . . . advocated war to the death against imperialism, and . . . died for his principles" (p. xiv).

Comandante Che reflects years of richly detailed research; it attempts to address virtually every major controversy over Che's relationship with Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro, the Cuban Communist Party, various Latin American parties and guerrilla movements, and the Soviet and Chinese leaderships whose ideological disputes framed Guevara's commitment to global armed struggle against the United States, imperialism, and capitalism. The battles and skirmishes of the Cuban insurrection are also recounted, as are Che's engagement in Africa, the debates over political and military strategy and tactics in the Western Hemisphere, and the final episode in Bolivia leading to Guevara's capture and murder by U.S.-supported Bolivian troops.

Even for the experienced reader, there is still much to be learned by reading this account, although there is also much repetition and covering of old ground. Dosal expertly incorporates recent biographies and research on Guevara and the foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution during the cold war. It is clear that the Cubans had no more respect for the charters of the United Nations and the OAS than did U.S. cold warriors. Guevara's support for guerrilla warfare abroad violated the principles of international law, especially the principle of nonintervention, as flagrantly as did their imperialist adversaries.

Dosal concludes that the experience that weighed most heavily on Che was his decision not to fight to the death in the Congo: "[N]early two years later, when faced with a choice between leaving and dying [in Bolivia], Che chose the latter" (p. 245). Dosal perhaps stretches the evidence with this interpretation. Describing the evolution of "Guevarism" into a strategy of total war against imperialism (p. 216), Dosal also details the battles and skirmishes of Che's guerrilla campaigns. The war reportage is full of admiration for Guevara's idealism and bravery, and he recounts more or less successful ambushes, tactical retreats, and the rigors of daily life as a guerrilla, from the initial disaster at Alegría del Pio until Guevara's death in Bolivia.

Dosal also speculates on accusations that Fidel betrayed Guevara and whether the Soviets cut off assistance because they were concerned about American retaliation elsewhere (p. 298 ). The author suggests that if Cuban commandos had miraculously slipped into Bolivia to rescue Che, "it is quite likely that the Americans would have responded with a direct strike against Cuba, with the concurrence of most Latin American nations" (p. 299). This last bit strikes me as exaggerated, but stranger things have happened in U.S.-Latin American relations. Another account of Guevara's defeat in Bolivia (Henry Butterfield Ryan, 1998 , p. 158) argues that one of the U.S. government's principal achievements in Bolivia was to resist the temptation to send U.S. troops into the combat zone. If that was true, invading Cuba in 1967 (even had Guevara escaped) seems an unlikely response. In any case, Dosal concludes that the Bolivian army, not the CIA, defeated Guevara. And it essentially did sodespite poor tactics and bloody setbacks before the troops trained by American special forces were committed to combat. In Dosal's words, "instead of saying that Che lost in Bolivia, we might state the case positively: the Bolivian army defeated...