SOURCE: "Che Guevara," in The New Left: Six Critical Essays, edited by Maurice Cranston, The Bodley Head, 1970, pp. 17-48.

Born in New Zealand, Minogue is an educator and critic who writes and lectures on issues related to political science. In the following excerpt, he articulates the principal tenets of Guevara's "concrete and practical" Marxism.

Che was a Marxist in both his actions and his theories. His fame in his respect is such as to place him alongside Bernstein, Kautsky, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Tito, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse-tung. Most of these leaders combined action with theory, but the theory is mostly subordinate to the action. Such was the case with Che.

What did his Marxism amount to? Here we need to observe the way in which Marxism itself has developed in the first century of its existence. Marxism in the nineteenth century claimed its following because it...