BY DANNY FAIRFAX
Che Guevara? He's that pop star, isn't he?
All right, so not many people would really confuse Ernesto "Che" Guevara for a pop star, but there are lots of people who don't know more about him than his iconic image, which nowadays seems to adorn just about everything imaginable. It's about time that changed: because Che's contribution to the world goes far beyond that.
A popular billboard in Cuba (where the billboards bear revolutionary slogans rather than ads) has a picture of Che with the words "Your example lives on; your ideas endure".
That's a good place to start, as it is these two aspects of his character which are most relevant for today: the extraordinary example of his sacrifice for the cause of the revolution, and his theoretical contribution to the world Marxist movement.
Che was no adventurer, as some have liked to portray him, but rather a committed, incredibly hard-working socialist revolutionary. He fought, and died, for the ideal of socialism: that society should be based on cooperation and democracy, rather than competition and greed, and that the people themselves should rule, rather than the bosses, the generals and their henchmen.
What probably marked Che most was his internationalism, his global perspective. Most people know him for his role in fighting for the Cuban revolution — but he was Argentine.
A doctor by training, Che could have had a wealthy future in his home country, but gave it up to travel Latin America and experience the suffering and struggle of its people.
In 1956, he found himself in Mexico, enlisting in a small group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro who were going back to their native Cuba to foment revolution.
During the Cuban revolutionary war, Che became a top commander of the Rebel Army, leading the final assault up the island towards the capital, Havana.
After the Rebel Army entered the city in triumph on January 1, 1959 and established a revolutionary government, Che found himself again with immense responsibilities, including as the minister responsible for the country's radical land reform, as the chief of the national bank and then as minister for foreign affairs.
But Cuba's victory was not enough for Che, because he knew that the Cuban triumph would only be temporary without successes in other countries.
So he left Cuba and his official posts, and went to help guerrilla struggles in the Congo and then in Bolivia, where he met his tragic end in 1967 at the hands of CIA stooges.
Che was definitely a "globaliser of resistance", in the most practical sense.
With absolutely no illusions that capitalism could deliver a just world, Che was firmly committed to the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin. He also bestowed upon Marxism a valuable theoretical legacy — although for this he is less widely known than for his role in the guerrilla struggle.
Of most value are his ideas on internationalism, anti-Stalinism and socialist humanism.
Che acted as an internationalist, but he also thought as one. In his writings, he argues that socialism cannot be built in Cuba alone, or in any single country, that the island needed support from revolutions in other countries, and that it was vital for the people of these countries themselves to be liberated.
With a particular focus on the countries of the Third World, which he called the "weak limbs" of the world imperialist system, Che continually pressed home the urgent need for revolution in everything he wrote, including the famous message to "create two, three, many Vietnams".
This is particularly pertinent today, given the grave social and ecological crisis which capitalism has given to the 21st century. The need for socialist revolution, not just in one country, but all over the world, has surely never been more urgent.
Che was also stridently anti-Stalinist. This was a thorny issue in Cuba, given its situation. Blockaded economically by the US and the rest of the capitalist world, Cuba turned to the "socialist camp", the Stalinist countries of the Soviet Bloc.
While these countries supplied revolutionary Cuba with much-needed material aid, without which it would probably not have survived, this came with significant baggage and strings attached. Cuba began to suffer from some of the same bureaucratic distortions which plagued these countries.
Che wrote prodigiously, and fought relentlessly, against this creeping bureaucratism in the party and the state institutions. A campaign which started in 1986 to rid the country's system of corrupt and opportunistic elements was dubbed by Fidel Castro a "return to Che", so closely was Guevara associated with the anti-bureaucratic struggle.
While Stalinism has since been overthrown in Eastern Europe, the threat of bureaucratism is ever-present in any country building socialism, and even in many movements for socialism, and Che's writings are a priceless asset in the battle against this.
Che also did much to imbue revolutionary socialism with a strong humanism. In a famous speech, "Socialism and Man", he espoused his belief in the inferiority of material incentives in a socialist society and instead said that socialism should rely on "moral incentives", especially cooperation and popular participation.
Revolutions are about much, much more than just a change of government, he argued, but should aim to remake, on a new, more humane and more advanced level, the whole complex of human relationships, and remove those based on greed, exploitation and fear.
He stressed the importance of the victory against alienation, stating "The pipe dream that socialism can be achieved with the help of the dull instruments left to us by capitalism can lead into a blind alley ... To build communism it is necessary, simultaneous with the new material foundations, to build the new man."
While Che's life was abruptly terminated in 1967, nothing will kill his legacy, which has already inspired millions of people and will inspire millions more. Che's life is an inspiration to anyone struggling against the injustice of capitalism, and his ideas are essential to guide this struggle.