Che Guevara
In Guevara's private writings from this time (since released), he displays his growing criticism of the Soviet political economy, believing that the Soviets had "forgotten Marx". This led Guevara to denounce a range of Soviet practices including what he saw as their attempt to "air-brush the inherent violence of class struggle integral to the transition from capitalism to socialism", their "dangerous" policy of peaceful co-existence with the United States, their failure to push for a "change in consciousness" towards the idea of work, and their attempt to "liberalize" the socialist economy. Guevara wanted the complete elimination of money, interest, commodity production, the market economy, and "mercantile relationships": all conditions that the Soviets argued would only disappear when world communism was achieved. Disagreeing with this incrementalist approach, Guevara criticized the "Soviet Manual of Political Economy", correctly predicting that if USSR did not abolish the law of value (as Guevara desired), it would eventually return to capitalism.
Legacy of Che Guevara
British journalist Sean O’Hagan has described Che as "more (John) Lennon than (Vladimir) Lenin." Taking the opposite hypothesis, Mexican commentator and Che Biographer Jorge Castañeda Gutman has proclaimed that: "Che can be found just where he belongs in the niches reserved for cultural icons, for symbols of social uprisings that filter down deep into the soil of society." Castañeda has further stated that "Che still possesses an extraordinary relevance as a symbol of a time when people died heroically for what they believed in", adding that in his view "people don't do that anymore." The saying "Viva la revolucion!" has also become very popular and synonymous with Guevara. In North America, Western Europe and many regions outside Latin America, the image has been likened to a global brand, long since shedding its ideological or political connotations. Conversely, the obsession with Guevara has also been dismissed by critics as merely "adolescent revolutionary romanticism."