The Death of Che Guevara by Jay Cantor Read Free Book Online Page A

other, having lost the common term, the common hero, the common language that he is forthem. There is no life in Cuba outside the Revolution, outside of his voice.
    Thus the anxiety when he shuts up. In the first year of the Revolution, when we still had to make gestures to the national bourgeoisie, and to the North Americans, we made Judge Urrutia the President. He was an old courageous man, a judge under Batista who had voted freedom for the captured men of the
Granma
. But he would not go along with the First Agrarian Reform Law, mild though it was. He accused Communists—myself among them—of subverting the government, misleading Fidel. (For Fidel had made shadows, allowed the national bourgeoisie to believe what it liked about him.) Fidel resigned. The Cabinet tried to meet in his absence; but nothing could be done without him. Urrutia telephoned Castro and his call was refused. Castro was silent. The Cabinet met again to deal with this crisis; but again they could not agree, they could not calculate his silence, they could not improvise an action. The ministers left the Presidential Palace. Rumors spread. Fidel was silent, neither confirming nor denying. The sugar workers, a union we controlled, called for Urrutia’s resignation, that Fidel might be returned to them. The people waited. Was the Revolution at an end? Would Fidel, indefatigable rebel, take arms against the government? That night Fidel spoke on television. He enumerated Urrutia’s faults, his mistaken appointments, his too-large house, his too-large salary. “Personally,” Fidel said, “I neither have nor want anything. Disinterest is a garment I wear everywhere.” What did he need money for if he trusted the people to provide for him? Urrutia was making up the idea of a Communist plot to provoke aggression from the United States. Urrutia planned to flee Cuba, return after the invasion, and run the country for the North Americans. Urrutia made it impossible for him to work, made him impotent, defenseless, exhausted by Urrutia’s hysterical anti-Communist declarations that caused international embarrassment and conflict with the good people in the United States.
Urrutia made him silent
That was what was intolerable. Cuba had found its hero, its epic, this man who spoke in rhythmic cadenced sentences of audacious plans, of future gaiety, of sublime and necessary cruelty, and this gray-haired old man had shut him up, denied them Fidel’s voice. Crowds gathered around the Presidential Palace demanding the judge’s life. Urrutia fled out the back door. We placed him under house arrest, then let him flee ignominiously to Venezuela. From that time on we ruled Cuba.
    I have seen him use his silence as a military tactic too. He would have us wait in ambush, in terrain that we controlled, and watch, watch as the soldiers entered our territory, strung out in a line across a field of tall grass, watch as their bold steps became more hesitant. They had known they were entering our zone, they had steeled themselves for the battle, they had taken the step,the leap, to face the danger, the firing, their death;
why hadn’t the firing begun?
they couldn’t believe they were safe; how much longer before it began; how much longer would they have to wait? it is terrible to feel in yourself a longing for an attack to begin, a longing for the sight of friends falling around you, perhaps for your own death; so divided, it is difficult to hold your resolve, to hold yourself ready; the line bunched near the front (we always shot the man on point first, so that soon no man would be willing to enter our zone first); you could see the sweat on their faces, under their arms, the terror in their eyes. The silence demoralized them. Then we killed them.
JUNE 16
    Notes for statement on Vietnam
    We cannot remain silent towards Vietnam. We cannot treat the struggles of the Vietnamese people as if they were theater, a show we are audience at, a spectacle, a tragedy to provoke our