La Guerra de Guerrillas [Inscribed to His American Publisher]

[RADICAL & PROLETARIAN LITERATURE] GUEVARA, Ernesto "Che"

Published by Departamento de Instrucción del MINFAR [1960], Havana, 1960

About this Item

First printing. Warmly inscribed to the American economist and author Leo Huberman, who was responsible for introducing the work to a North American audience: "A Leo Huberman, exponente del verdado pensamiento del pueblo Americano, esto que quiere ser un cantico guerrero a este lado del Río Bravo, con un revolucionario saludo de / Che," [To Leo Huberman, exponent of the true thought of the American people, this that would wish to be a war chant this side of the Rio Bravo, with revolutionary greeting.]; dated Habana, April 6, 1960. Small octavo; staple-bound pictorial paper wrappers; 187,(5)pp. Text illustrations. Mild edgewear and some gentle rubbing at bound edge, still Very Good or better. Terrific association copy of the true first edition of Che's classic treatise on people's war, later published in English by Huberman's own Monthly Review Press (1961). Though unquestionably the work with which Guevara is most associated, it is the hardest of his books to obtain in the first printing. It was issued, presumably simultaneously, in two formats - a 12mo edition measuring 15cm in height and with a price of 50cts on the rear wrapper; and, as here, in octavo, measuring 20cm and with the wrapper unpriced. We have been unable to determine priority, but would conjecture that the two issues reflect separate intent: a people's edition, for slipping into a jacket pocket; and a more expensively-produced edition for libraries. Of the two, the octavo edition is somewhat scarcer in institutional collections, with about twenty examples noted in OCLC. Guevara's signature is not, strictly speaking, rare; however, inscriptions with personal content are truly scarce, and signed or inscribed copies of the present title are almost never seen. A copy inscribed to Argentinian dictator Juan Perón was offered by Sotheby's in 2016; a copy with Che's ownership signature appeared at Bonham's in 2014, but no further signed or inscribed copies appear in the auction record. Our copy is inscribed to Leo Huberman (1903-1968), Che's American publisher and a key figure of the American left during the Great Depression and into the decade of the Fifties. Huberman founded the important independent Marxist journal The Monthly Review in 1949, and it was as its editor that Huberman became closely involved with the revolution in Cuba - as well as, more directly, with Guevara himself. Along with his co-editor, economist Paul Sweezy, Huberman spent three weeks in Cuba in the months following the revolution, much of that time in the company of Guevara, who appears to have been among the authors' principal informants. Out of that visit came the book Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution (Monthly Review Press: 1960), a sympathetic account and one of the earliest for an American audience. Guevara is mentioned frequently in the book, always in glowing terms - as, for example: ". as we can testify from personal observation, Che Guevara, President of the National Bank, has as brilliant, quick, and receptive a mind as is likely to be found in anyone occupying a comparable position in the government of any country in the world." (p.92). It must have been during this visit that Huberman secured American publishing rights to Guerrilla Warfare, and clearly this is when the present copy was inscribed to him, an inscription that is truly effusive by Che standards, giving every indication that Guevara held Huberman in mutually high respect. PROVENANCE: From the collection of a direct Huberman descendant, 2025.

Seller Inventory # 86348

Bibliographic Details

• Title: La Guerra de Guerrillas [Inscribed to His American Publisher]
• Publisher: Departamento de Instrucción del MINFAR [1960], Havana
• Publication Date: 1960
• Edition: First Edition.
• Signed: Signed
• Seller catalogs:
  • Cuba & Caribbean
  • Communism
  • Radical & Proletarian Literature