Did Che Guevara say this or is this quote misattributed? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by CyberGhost@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml

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[-] doccitrus@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I made a comment about this on another post that's now unlinkable because the post has been deleted.

I suspect the quote is not just misattributed, but maliciously so, given its sudden appearance with a purportedly anti-Zionist framing, thus associating anti-Zionism with 'extermination'.

While Che never said that, the speech mentioned in the image here is real (though not given at the date mentioned in the image), and it does address colonialism. It even mentions Palestine! You can find the full text of it online.

[-] carlesmu@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Other peoples are shedding their blood to win the rights we have. When we send our greetings from here, and from all the conferences and the places where they may be held, to the heroic peoples of Vietnam, Laos, so-called Portuguese Guinea, South Africa, or Palestine — to all exploited countries fighting for their emancipation — we must simultaneously extend our voice of friendship, our hand and our encouragement, to our fraternal peoples in Venezuela, Guatemala and Colombia, who today, arms in hand, are resolutely saying “No!” to the imperialist enemy.

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[-] Alunyanners@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 11 months ago

this feels more like what mao would say instead honestly than che "revolutionaries are guided by love" guevara.

[-] sovietsnake@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 11 months ago

Well... Mao is the one who wanted to reeducate the last emperor so I wouldn't say that exactly portrays Mao.

[-] Alunyanners@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 11 months ago

......despite saying "communism is the weapon used to crush the enemy" and how it's not really love, in contrast to che/castro?

[-] juchenecromancer@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 11 months ago

Communism is not love. It is a hammer we use to crush our balls. -Mao Zedong

[-] Leninismydad@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 11 months ago

Engels came to me in my dreams and told me cbt was the only way to free the proletariat.

[-] doccitrus@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I kinda see what you mean in that Mao is confrontational and that one of his innovations in dialectics is an emphasis on destruction in the resolution of contradictions (rather than just thinking of sublation almost as a form of incorporation, or perhaps of synthesis as primary/only way for dialectical contradictions to resolve).

But there are a lot of ways to defeat (or even 'crush') a collective enemy, including in violent conflict, far short of extermination! I don't think Mao's ideological combativeness or record as a military leader should (or can, really) be mistaken for the kind of raw bloodlust we can recognize in a call to 'exterminate'.