Author: Jan Wyka. Source: Twórczość, no. 7–8, 1970. Date of publication: 1970.

Partisan warfare in its many forms has belonged for years to the basic arsenal of revolutionary struggle — ever since humanity began to record its history. It opposes power that has been imposed, whether foreign or domestic, sufficiently armed and equipped for the overriding work of oppression and exploitation. It stands on the side of the oppressed. It is born of them. It is the expression of their revolt, their resistance, and their hope. Since the disproportion in arms, training, and supply between the rulers and the insurgents is enormous, a good partisan strategist strikes at the periphery of the governing centres — at the weakest positions — applying a considered tactic of harassment and sabotage, generally avoiding pitched battle. In historical perspective partisan warfare has suffered an immense number of defeats, and only isolated victories. Nevertheless it proves, in the final reckoning, to be on many occasions an indispensable strategy — the only available one — including in this summation the inevitable risk.

The campaign of the author of The Bolivian Diary, for many unfavourable reasons, ended tragically. It ended in defeat. Its leader — gravely wounded, and then murdered by Bolivian soldiers — became after his death a universal, outstanding figure, one might say a pre-eminent one. Young people in particular — revolutionary, rebellious, oppositional — carry the image of the Latin American hero alongside their banners, decorate their rallies and meeting rooms with his likeness, bear it high in their demonstrations. With his name on their lips they clash on barricades, on streets, in thickets, in jungles, on prairies, with their perfectly armed and uniformed oppressors.

Partisan warfare has a centuries-long tradition. The partisan fights on his own terrain, in his own environment, with the support of the local population. The Bolivian campaign of the author of this diary lacked the first and last of those conditions. If the local population had given active support to Guevara’s unit — if not in arms, then at least in food and information — the campaign’s ending might have been different. But the Bolivian peasant, an Indian who spoke only Quechua and was suspicious of whites who had exploited him for centuries, did not understand Guevara, did not see the connection between what Guevara was fighting for and his own daily needs and aspirations. Guevara was not able to make this connection clear, because there was no time, because the net was tightening, because the priority was marching and survival.

The Bolivian Diary is a great and tragic document. It is the record of a man who consciously goes to his death — who knows there is no way back, who sees the death of his comrades and goes on — because someone must go on, because someone must begin. In this consistency, this absolute faithfulness to a chosen path to the end, lies the greatness of the diary’s author. He conquered his own defeat — that is how the title of this review is to be understood.

source: kapuscinski.info