Womack Says Guevara Failed as Revolutionary

"I think Che Guevara was one of the most striking world figures since World War II," John Womack Jr. '59, instructor in History, told about 100 people at a Che Guevara Memorial held by the Militant Labor Forum last night in their Boston Office.

Guevara claimed to be a Marxist and a Leninist Womack said. He didn't really seem to be either, because "he didn't believe in the working class or the party taking power."

Womack said that Guevara was a good tactician of guerilla warfare but he was not a very successful revolutionary. He explained that "They won in Cuba not the way he said they did, but because the Cuban middle class was the most corrupt ever, and just folded."

No one really knows if Guevara is dead, Womack said, and he added that it is remarkable that both the left and right had accepted the assertions of the Bolivian Government.

Womack also said that Guevara's kind of revolutionary hope may have been only an illusion. "I think they (the left) ought to recognize that all those things are over with. At least they could reconsider whether it is realistic to consider Lain America the ground for a revolution." Womack admitted after the speech that the audience may have been disappointed by what he had to say.