Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate

Not Che Guevara — traced to a 2004 polemic Humberto Fontova b. 1954 · Cuban-American author and polemicist
Disputed In copyright

Wikiquote lists this under Disputed and traces it to Humberto Fontova’s 2004 article “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler.” In that article the lines are what Lewis Carroll “would have heard” from Guevara in 1959. No work by Guevara has been found that contains them. Only the phrase “cold killing machine” is his, from his 1967 Message to the Tricontinental ↗.

Last verified 2 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate” Not Che Guevara. The words trace to Humberto Fontova’s 2004 article “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler” (per Wikiquote, Disputed). Only the phrase “cold killing machine” is Guevara’s own, from his 1967 Message to the Tricontinental. — Quotle.info · Verbatim: “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredon (The Wall)!”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Che Guevara. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Humberto Fontova). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Humberto Fontova — Cuban-American author, columnist & polemicist. Theme: "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the words actually appear

Appears in
“Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler”
Author
Humberto Fontova (opinion article)
Date
2004. The copy we read is headed “Monday, Feb. 23, 2004”, and Wikiquote cites a Mensnewsdaily.com printing dated 2 March 2004.
Wikiquote status
Listed under “Disputed”

If only Carroll had lived a bit longer. If only he’d visited Cuba in 1959 […] “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary,” Carroll would have heard from the chief executioner, named Ernesto “Che” Guevara. “These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredon (The Wall)!” Fontova, 2004

From the copy of Fontova’s article hosted at sfponline.org. The article opens with the Queen’s line from Alice in Wonderland, “Sentence first – verdict afterwards,” and puts the words in Guevara’s mouth inside an imagined visit by Lewis Carroll. The article gives no source for them. The popular version stops at “pure hate” and drops the last sentence about the paredón.

Wikiquote: Che Guevara, Disputed section

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote lists the full wording under Disputed ↗. Its note: the quote appears in Teo A. Babún and Víctor Andrés Triay, The Cuban Revolution: Years of Promise (2005), p. 57, which cites Humberto Fontova’s “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler” (Mensnewsdaily.com, 2 March 2004). The note adds that “Fontova explicitly states that the quote is fictitious.”
  • In the copy of Fontova’s article we read ↗, the lines are introduced as what Lewis Carroll “would have heard from the chief executioner” had he visited Cuba in 1959. The article cites no speech, document or witness for them. We did not find the word “fictitious” in this copy, so that statement rests on Wikiquote’s note.
  • The one genuine piece is from Guevara’s Message to the Tricontinental ↗ (first published in Havana, April 16, 1967). The English translation reads: “Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy … transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine.”
  • Quote Investigator has not investigated this line. A search of its site for “Guevara” ↗ returns “Nothing Found.”
In copyright

The complete wording appears in Humberto Fontova’s 2004 opinion article, a modern work still under copyright. It is not a public-domain historical text. The short genuine phrase from Guevara’s 1967 Message to the Tricontinental is a separate work, and this page makes no claim about the rights in its English translation.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How a polemic became a “Che quote”

The line circulates on quote sites and memes as Guevara’s own confession. The trail runs back to a 2004 opinion piece, with one real phrase stitched in.

Che Guevara Disputed

No speech, letter, diary or book by Guevara containing it has been identified. Wikiquote files it under Disputed ↗ and traces it, through a 2005 book, to Humberto Fontova’s 2004 article.

Che Guevara (genuine, but different words) Real phrase

Guevara did write that hatred transforms a fighter “into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine” in his 1967 Message to the Tricontinental ↗. That passage says nothing about judicial proof, “bourgeois detail” or firing squads.

Quote sites and social media Trimmed

Fontova’s text ↗ ends with “We must create the pedagogy of the paredon (The Wall)!” The version usually shared stops at “pure hate,” and it drops the article’s framing, in which the lines are what Lewis Carroll “would have heard.”

The words trace to Humberto Fontova’s 2004 article “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler,” per Wikiquote ↗. Only “cold killing machine” is Guevara’s own phrase, from his 1967 Message to the Tricontinental.

Context

Why it sticks

The quote is believable because it is bolted onto a real record. Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison ↗ from 2 January to 12 June 1959. There he reviewed the appeals of people convicted by revolutionary tribunals, some of whom were sentenced to death by firing squad. Guevara’s 1967 writing about hatred and a “cold killing machine” is also genuine.

The firing-squad passage puts that history into a tidy first-person confession that Guevara never wrote, as far as anyone has shown. A real record does not make an invented quote real. To criticize Guevara accurately, quote the documented sources, such as the Tricontinental message, rather than this line.

A real record does not make an invented quote real.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Justice Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Che Guevara (Disputed)en.wikiquote.org

Lists this quote as Disputed and traces it via Babún & Triay (2005) to Fontova (2004).
Message to the Tricontinental (1967)marxists.org

Guevara’s genuine text with the “cold killing machine” passage.
Fontova, “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler” (copy)sfponline.org

A Word-file copy of the 2004 article where the full wording appears, framed as what Carroll “would have heard.”
Humberto Fontovaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the author of the 2004 article.
Che Guevaraen.wikipedia.org

Biography, including his 1959 command of La Cabaña Fortress prison.

The author

About Humberto Fontova

Humberto Fontova

b. 1954, Havana · Cuban-American author, columnist & polemicist

Humberto Fontova is a Cuban-American author and conservative political commentator. He was born in Havana in 1954, and his family went into exile in New Orleans in 1961. He has written prolifically against Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, including the 2007 book Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. His 2004 article “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler” is the source Wikiquote gives for this quote.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest source identified (per Wikiquote)

Humberto Fontova, “Che Guevara: Assassin and Bumbler,” 2004 (Mensnewsdaily.com printing of 2 March 2004, as cited by Wikiquote); quoted in Teo A. Babún and Víctor Andrés Triay, The Cuban Revolution: Years of Promise (2005), 57. Not found in the works of Che Guevara.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/to-send-men-to-the-firing-squad-judicial-proof-is/

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