Was Che Guevara more Socialist than Communist?

It was a theory that socialism could only be established by, if you like, a benevolent dictatorship. Guevara was in this tradition. But, as Marx had already pointed out to his fellow 19th century revolutionaries, it was a flawed theory. Socialism by its very nature required popular participation; the working cl could not be liberated from above by some self-appointed enlightened minority but only by its own actions.