Che guevara on economics and politics in the transition to socialism

por Carlos Tablada

Ernesto che guevara was a central leader of the communist vanguard of the cuban revolution politically forged by fidel castro. it's essential for working people to win state power, che writes. "then there's the second stage, maybe more difficult than the first"—the transition from dog-eat-dog capitalism to socialism. that includes moving from work as a compulsory condition of survival, to voluntary social labor through which we express our common humanity. in the footsteps of marx and lenin, che's efforts to lay the economic foundations of this historic transformation were hammered out in revolutionary struggle. they chart a road for working people everywhere to join in the fight for a socialist world. and, above all, to transform ourselves in the process. carlos tablada was given the special prize of cuba's casa de las américas for this book in 1987. his work with pathfinder on this new edition has produced the most accessible presentation of che's views on these questions. also available in spanish (isbn:9781604881257), french (isbn:9780873488853), greek (isbn:9786185130008) “if a reader is looking for a recipe for building socialism, they should not look to this book. … there is nowhere they should look to find such a recipe since such blueprints cannot exist. but if a reader is looking for ideas to consider for building socialism today, this is a rich source for thoughts about many different dimensions of the process to reflect on.” —al campbell, editor, international journal of cuban studies