Lo político y lo retórico: un análisis de la retórica guevariana entre 1959 y 1967

Abstract

Since his death in October of 1967, the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Guevara de la Serna has been the focus of countless articles, essays and academic investigations. As a result, the ability to contribute to an already extensive understanding of Guevara’s life requires the implementation of unique and original perspectives. Therefore, this work seeks to analyze the rhetoric employed by Guevara between 1959 and 1967, placing a greater emphasis on discourse than on action, thus elevating an underappreciated element of Guevara’s revolutionary strategy. In its most elementary conception, this analysis employs the scholarship of Omar Swartz as a theoretical foundation, underscoring the isocratic tendencies of Guevara and demonstrating their prevalence throughout Marxist ideology. ☐ Moreover, this investigation seeks to organize Guevara’s rhetoric according to two distinct and separate planes; it demonstrates that Guevara’s political intuition depended upon his rhetorical dexterity, his capacity to target separate audiences in opposing fashions. In essence, Guevara’s strategy seeks to divide his rhetoric between populist and intellectual formulations, targeting emotion and reason respectively. In doing so, Guevara follows the model set forward by Lloyd Bitzer, modeling rhetorical responses according to their rhetorical situations. While Guevara’s populist rhetoric serves to instigate the coalescence of revolutionary fervor, his intellectual argumentation operates as a convincing force within moderate factions. ☐ Each of these formulations enjoyed varying levels of success. By comparing the efficacy of Guevara’s rhetoric in both Cuba and Bolivia, this analysis also argues that the political and social conditions of each country created the disparities seen in each of Guevara’s endeavors. While Guevara enjoyed the support of both the vanguard and the peasantry in Cuba, his rhetoric failed to reach similar factions during the Bolivian campaign, due, in part, to the mythical image that grew from his Cuban experience.