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6/22/2025, 3:40:46 PM
>>63878473
There's an argument it never worked, not even in Cuba. Or more precisely, what actually went down in Cuba was more complicated and Guevarism or "foquismo" (from "foco" like a "focal point") was formulated after they won -- more on this in a second -- and they sort of re-wrote the history of it in a misleading way to suit Cuba's situation in the 1960s.
It sounds kind of like Maoism if you squint at it. There's a small guerrilla band that grows as it engages in battle, but Maoism was about building up a peasant army in revolutionary base areas, while foquismo is really just about the guerrilla band because (as the theory goes) the Latin American countryside was more developed than in China which made the peasants lazy, but once the military struggle turns favorable then that creates a catalyst and the people will just go with it. So this theory really encourages a "voluntarist" attitude with its courage, asceticism, and self-sacrifice.
These are important qualities for partisans everywhere, and it's not like these groups can't act as a catalyst, but it wasn't like there was just 300 guerrillas vs. 10,000 of Batista's troops. They weren't even the only guerrillas. There was another group called the DR-13-M (one of its military leaders fought alongside Che and became a CIA asset later, look up Rolando Cubela Secades). There was a big student movement in the cities, and the situation in the countryside which was dotted with sugar plantations and angry machete-wielding peasants was already explosive. The foco theory ignores these "objective" conditions for strength of will.
And actually, the argument goes, foco theory re-wrote that history in the 1960s, and the reason is because Cuba was isolated and under threat from the U.S., and they wanted to inject Che and partisans and inspire imitators in other countries. While they wanted to win, at the least they could tie the U.S. down chasing rabbits in Bolivia to take the pressure off Cuba.
There's an argument it never worked, not even in Cuba. Or more precisely, what actually went down in Cuba was more complicated and Guevarism or "foquismo" (from "foco" like a "focal point") was formulated after they won -- more on this in a second -- and they sort of re-wrote the history of it in a misleading way to suit Cuba's situation in the 1960s.
It sounds kind of like Maoism if you squint at it. There's a small guerrilla band that grows as it engages in battle, but Maoism was about building up a peasant army in revolutionary base areas, while foquismo is really just about the guerrilla band because (as the theory goes) the Latin American countryside was more developed than in China which made the peasants lazy, but once the military struggle turns favorable then that creates a catalyst and the people will just go with it. So this theory really encourages a "voluntarist" attitude with its courage, asceticism, and self-sacrifice.
These are important qualities for partisans everywhere, and it's not like these groups can't act as a catalyst, but it wasn't like there was just 300 guerrillas vs. 10,000 of Batista's troops. They weren't even the only guerrillas. There was another group called the DR-13-M (one of its military leaders fought alongside Che and became a CIA asset later, look up Rolando Cubela Secades). There was a big student movement in the cities, and the situation in the countryside which was dotted with sugar plantations and angry machete-wielding peasants was already explosive. The foco theory ignores these "objective" conditions for strength of will.
And actually, the argument goes, foco theory re-wrote that history in the 1960s, and the reason is because Cuba was isolated and under threat from the U.S., and they wanted to inject Che and partisans and inspire imitators in other countries. While they wanted to win, at the least they could tie the U.S. down chasing rabbits in Bolivia to take the pressure off Cuba.
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