From Michael Lowy piece on Che in 2/2003 issue of International
Viewpoint.
> ...An interesting example may be found in his conduct in regard to the
> Cuban Trotskyists, whose analyses he did not agree with at all (he
> criticized them harshly on more than one occasion). In 1961, in a
> discussion with the North American left-wing intellectual Maurice
> Zeitlin, Guevara denounced the destruction by the Cuban police of the
> printing plates for Trotsky's 'Permanent Revolution' as "an error" that
> "should not have been done". And a few years later, shortly before
> leaving Cuba in 1965, he managed to free the Cuban Trotskyist leader
> Roberto Acosta Hechevarria from prison, taking leave of him with a
> fraternal greeting: "Acosta, you can't kill ideas with blows." (11)
The clearest example is his reply, in a 1964 report to his comrades in the Ministry of Industry, to the charge of 'Trotskyism' levelled against him by some Soviets: "In this regard, I think that either we have the capacity to destroy contrary opinions with arguments or we should let them be expressed…. It is not possible to destroy opinions by force, because that blocks any free development of intelligence. There is much that is worthwhile in Trotsky's thinking, although it seems to me that his fundamental conceptions were wrong and his later action mistaken." (12) <URL: http://www.3bh.org.uk/IV/index.htm > -- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy