'(vidak) 🌱 on Nostr: this lesson came to my mind today. i spoke about this with some others. i remember ...

this lesson came to my mind today. i spoke about this with some others.

i remember the story about fidel sending che to once again climb the sierra maestra mountain range with the sick and the wounded after successfully taking control of oriente province of cuba.

at this point fidel would go west, with the rest of the army.

*

in soderberg’s first movie on che, the lesson is delivered like this: a journalist asks che, after the revolution, a trick question:

“did you feel like you were being demoted or pushed out of fidel’s inner circle? surely you disagreed with this decision.”

che responds very simply:

“no. a revolutionary goes where they are needed.”

a clichéd pop stoicism would agree with che on the grounds that there were things he could, and conversely, not control, and that having a will in accordance with the greater group accords with the nature of a healthy revolutionary organisation.

but i think it means more than this.

further, the meaning behind che’s servitude in following his orders faithfully and dutifully for the collective good of the (ultimately successful) cuban revolution is also deeper than just ‘one should do what is best for everybody’.

i feel this story from the cuban revolution means the following:

have humility. no task for the party is beneath you, and when you are asked to return to an undertaking that seems lower than your station, you must have no resentment or antipathy towards what is required of you.

the result will good. it is not that you are being tested, it is that you are showing you can be trusted, and that your fidelty to the party and the revolution is indeed unbreakable.