A message to the Global South? Che Guevara’s view on the NEP and the law of value

Abstract

This paper reveals the theoretical framework and practical experience of Ernesto Guevara, investigating how he got involved in the specific task of building socialism in Cuba. Guevara studied Marxist literature extensively, and the changes experienced by socialist bloc countries in the 1960s. He elaborated the Budgetary Finance System which was opposed to the auto-financing defended by Carlos Rafael Rodrígues. This opposition was embodied in the Great Economic Debate. A crucial point of the discussion was the view on planning and the law of value. For Guevara, the latter could not be used to build socialism, whilst centralised planning was the ‘defining category’ of socialism. Explaining the context and the main measures of the New Economic Policy (NEP) applied in Soviet Russia in 1920s, this paper investigates Guevara’s critical view on it, based on his methodological approach to Das Kapital. Guevara revealed a link between the NEP and market experiments of the 1960s, forecasting a return to capitalism in the USSR. Guevara’s radical political economy is crucial for understanding his legacy holistically and may be considered a message to the countries and social movements of the Global South in their struggle for socialism, warning them away from distortion of Marxism.

Keywords:

• Che Guevara
• the law of value
• the New Economic Policy
• Global South
• planning
• market

Acknowledgements

I express my profound gratitude to the participants of the 15th WAPE Forum held on 18–19 December 2021 at Shanghai International Studies University, China, especially to Professor Al Campbell who inspired me to develop this paper. I am grateful to Anastasia Arabadzhyan, the anonymous referees and the editors of this special issue for their suggestions, which helped to significantly improve this article. I also thank Andrey Iserov, who guided me in the right moment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This journal became the main periodical of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAL). The first conference of OSPAAL took place in Havana in January 1966, and Guevara did not take part in it as he stayed in Tanzania. He later wrote the quoted piece for a special supplement, which was going to be edited after the conference. The supplement soon was converted into a journal (Guevara 2007b, 21).

2 See, for instance, Anderson (1997), Gavrikov (2004), Lavretsky (1973, 1984) and Taibo (1997).

3 Among the research studying Guevara’s political economy ideas, see Löwy (2007), Pericás (2014) and Tablada (1987). One of the most holistic and detailed works on Guevara’s practices as a minister of industries is Yaffe (2007).

4 For example, Guevara was mentioned by several researchers during a conference entitled ‘New Economic Policy and Socialists Practices in the 21st Century’ that was held in Russia on 6–7 November 2021 and was dedicated to the centennial of this policy. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhvq1aub7-Q&t=11919s

5 The revolutionary movement itself was heterogeneous. The protagonists of the revolution (the 26^th of July Movement, the Revolutionary Directorate of 13 March and the former Communist Party, titled by that time the Popular Socialist Party) first started to merge in 1961 forming the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations. In 1962 they transformed into the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba. Finally, the new Communist Party of Cuba was constituted only in 1965.

6 A detailed analysis of these practices introduced in the Ministry of Industries was conducted by Yaffe (2007, 227–269).

7 See, for instance, Drabkina (1990, 163); Rogachyov (2010, 209) and Yumatova (2010, 5).

8 A vivid example of this tendency in Cuba – which is undergoing a very contradictory process of actualisation of its economic model – is, for instance, the work of the ex-Minister of the Economy Rodríguez (2021a, 2021b).

9 See, for example, López García (2015).

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Notes on contributors

Alexandra Arabadzhyan

Alexandra Arabadzhyan received her master’s degree in history from the Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is a researcher at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the RAS and a PhD Candidate at the Institute of World History of RAS, researching the economic history of Cuba and Ernesto Guevara’s legacy. Her latest publications are ‘The History of the Transformation of Cuban Socialism in the Context of Contemporary Reforms: A Political Economy Perspective’ (Modern and Contemporary History, 2022), and ‘Del Estado capitalista dependiente al Estado socialista en Latinoamérica. Apuntes teóricos a partir del caso cubano’ (in La cuestión del estado en el pensamiento social crítico latinoamericano, UNAULA, Medellin, 2021).