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Che Guevara
Guerrillero Heroico Che Guevara at the La Coubre memorial service Taken by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960.
Born	Ernesto Guevara June 14, 1928[1] Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
Died	October 9, 1967 (aged 39) (execution) La Higuera, Vallegrande, Bolivia
Place of burial	Che Guevara Mausoleum Santa Clara, Cuba
Occupation	Physician, author, government official
Organization	26th of July Movement, United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution,[2] National Liberation Army (Bolivia)
Religion	None (Marxist humanist)[3][4][5]
Spouse(s)	Hilda Gadea (1955–1959) Aleida March (1959–1967, his death)
Children	Hilda (1956–1995), Aleida (b. 1960), Camilo (b. 1962), Celia (b. 1963), Ernesto (b. 1965)
Parents	Ernesto Guevara Lynch[6] Celia de la Serna[6]
Signature

Ernesto «Che» Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa];^[7] June 14,^[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.^[8]

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.^[9] His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara’s political ideology.^[9] Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.^[10] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.^[11]

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals,^[12] instituting agrarian land reform as minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion^[13] and bringing the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.^[14] Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World’s underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedy being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.^[15][16] Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.^[17]

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a «new man» driven by moral rather than material incentives, he has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist-inspired movements. Time magazine magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century,^[18] while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as «the most famous photograph in the world».^[19]

Early life

Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928^[1] in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in an Argentine family of Basque and Irish descent.^[20][21] In lieu of his parents’ surnames, his legal name (Ernesto Guevara) will sometimes appear with de la Serna, or Lynch accompanying it. In reference to Che’s «restless» nature, his father declared «the first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels.»^[22] Very early on in life Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an «affinity for the poor».^[23] Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy.^[24] His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.^[25]

Though suffering crippling bouts of acute asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, football, golf, and shooting; while also becoming an «untiring» cyclist.^[26][27] He was an avid rugby union player,^[28] and played at fly-half for Club Universitario de Buenos Aires.^[29] His rugby playing earned him the nickname «Fuser»—a contraction of El Furibundo (raging) and his mother’s surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.^[30]

Intellectual and literary interests

File:CheG1951.jpg

Guevara learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by age 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he was passionate about poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda, John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, and Walt Whitman.^[31] He could also recite Rudyard Kipling’s «If—» and José Hernández’s Martín Fierro from memory.^[31] The Guevara home contained more than 3,000 books, which allowed Guevara to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, with interests including Karl Marx, William Faulkner, André Gide, Emilio Salgari and Jules Verne.^[32] Additionally, he enjoyed the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Vladimir Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as Anatole France, Friedrich Engels, H. G. Wells, and Robert Frost.^[33]

As he grew older, he developed an interest in the Latin American writers Horacio Quiroga, Ciro Alegría, Jorge Icaza, Rubén Darío, and Miguel Asturias.^[33] Many of these authors’ ideas he cataloged in his own handwritten notebooks of concepts, definitions, and philosophies of influential intellectuals. These included composing analytical sketches of Buddha and Aristotle, along with examining Bertrand Russell on love and patriotism, Jack London on society, and Nietzsche on the idea of death. Sigmund Freud‘s ideas fascinated him as he quoted him on a variety of topics from dreams and libido to narcissism and the oedipus complex.^[33] His favorite subjects in school included philosophy, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology, history and archaeology.^[34][35]

Years later, a February 13, 1958, declassified CIA ‘biographical and personality report’ would make note of Guevara’s wide range of academic interests and intellect, describing him as «quite well read» while adding that «Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino.»^[36]

Motorcycle journey

Main articles: The Motorcycle Diaries (book) and The Motorcycle Diaries (film)

In 1948, Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. His «hunger to explore the world»^[37] led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that would fundamentally change the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition in 1950 was a 4,500 kilometer (2,800 mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of northern Argentina on a bicycle on which he installed a small engine.^[38] This was followed in 1951 by a nine-month, 8,000-kilometer (5,000 mi) continental motorcycle trek through most of South America. For the latter, he took a year off from studies to embark with his friend Alberto Granado, with the final goal of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru, on the banks of the Amazon River.

In Chile, Guevara found himself enraged by the working conditions of the miners in Anaconda‘s Chuquicamata copper mine; and moved by his overnight encounter in the Atacama Desert with a persecuted communist couple who did not even own a blanket, describing them as «the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation».^[40] Additionally, on the way to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, he was struck by the crushing poverty of the remote rural areas, where peasant farmers worked small plots of land owned by wealthy landlords.^[41] Later on his journey, Guevara was especially impressed by the camaraderie among those living in a leper colony, stating «The highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people.»^[41] Guevara used notes taken during this trip to write an account entitled The Motorcycle Diaries, which later became a The New York Times best-seller,^[42] and was adapted into a 2004 award-winning film of the same name.

In total, the journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and the United States (Miami, Florida for 20 days),^[43] before returning home to Buenos Aires. By trip’s end, he came to view Latin America not as collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy. His conception of a borderless, united Hispanic America sharing a common Latino heritage was a theme that prominently recurred during his later revolutionary activities. Upon returning to Argentina, he completed his studies and received his medical degree in June 1953, making him officially «Dr. Ernesto Guevara».^[44][45]

Guevara later remarked that through his travels of Latin America, he came in «close contact with poverty, hunger and disease» along with the «inability to treat a child because of lack of money» and «stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment» that leads a father to «accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident». It was these experiences which Guevara cites as convincing him that in order to «help these people», he needed to leave the realm of medicine, and consider the political arena of armed struggle.^[9]

Guatemala, Árbenz and United Fruit

On July 7, 1953, Guevara set out again, this time to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. On December 10, 1953, before leaving for Guatemala, Guevara sent an update to his Aunt Beatriz from San José, Costa Rica. In the letter Guevara speaks of traversing through the «dominions» of the United Fruit Company, which convinced him «how terrible» the «Capitalist octopuses» were.^[47] This affirmed indignation carried the «head hunting tone» that he adopted in order to frighten his more Conservative relatives, and ends with Guevara swearing on an image of the then recently deceased Joseph Stalin, not to rest until these «octopuses have been vanquished».^[48] Later that month, Guevara arrived in Guatemala where President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán headed a democratically elected government that, through land reform and other initiatives, was attempting to end the latifundia system. To accomplish this, President Árbenz had enacted a major land reform program, where all uncultivated portions of large land holdings were to be expropriated and redistributed to landless peasants. The biggest land owner, and one most affected by the reforms, was the United Fruit Company, from which the Árbenz government had already taken more than 225,000 acres (910 km²) of uncultivated land.^[49] Pleased with the road the nation was heading down, he decided to settle down in Guatemala so as to «perfect himself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary.»^[50]

In Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was well-connected politically as a member of the left-leaning Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, American Popular Revolutionary Alliance). She introduced Guevara to a number of high-level officials in the Arbenz government. Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro through the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. During this period he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine diminutive interjection che, a vocative casual speech filler used to call attention or ascertain comprehension, similarly to both «bro» or the Canadian phrase «eh«.^[51]

Guevara’s attempts to obtain a medical internship were unsuccessful and his economic situation was often precarious. On May 15, 1954, a shipment of Škoda infantry and light artillery weapons was sent from Communist Czechoslovakia for the Arbenz Government and arrived in Puerto Barrios.^[52] As a result, the US CIA sponsored an army which invaded the country and installed the right-wing dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas.^[50] Guevara was eager to fight on behalf of Arbenz and joined an armed militia organized by the Communist Youth for that purpose, but frustrated with the group’s inaction, he soon returned to medical duties. Following the coup, he again volunteered to fight, but soon after, Arbenz took refuge in the Mexican Embassy and told his foreign supporters to leave the country. Guevara’s repeated calls to resist were noted by supporters of the coup, and he was marked for murder.^[53] After Hilda Gadea was arrested, Guevara sought protection inside the Argentine consulate, where he remained until he received a safe-conduct pass some weeks later and made his way to Mexico.^[54] He married Gadea in Mexico in September 1955.^[55]

The overthrow of the Arbenz regime cemented Guevara’s view of the United States as an imperialist power that would oppose and attempt to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. In speaking about the coup Guevara stated:

«The last Latin American revolutionary democracy – that of Jacobo Arbenz – failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the US. Its visible head was the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company.»^[53]

Guevara’s conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions was thus strengthened.^[56] Gadea wrote later, «It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this.»^[57]

Mexico City and preparation

Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital. In addition he gave lectures on medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and worked as a news photographer for Latina News Agency.^[58] His first wife Hilda notes in her memoir My Life with Che, that for a while, Guevara considered going to work as a doctor in Africa and that he continued to be deeply troubled by the poverty around him.^[59] In one instance, Hilda describes Guevara’s obsession with an elderly washerwoman whom he was treating, remarking that he saw her as «representative of the most forgotten and exploited class». Hilda later found a poem that Che had dedicated to the old woman, containing «a promise to fight for a better world, for a better life for all the poor and exploited.»^[59]

During this time he renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During a long conversation with Fidel on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban’s cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of the July 26 Movement.^[60] Despite their «contrasting personalities», from this point on Che and Fidel began to foster what dual biographer Simon Reid-Henry deems a «revolutionary friendship that would change the world», as a result of their coinciding commitment to anti-imperialism.^[61]

By this point in Guevara’s life, he deemed that US-controlled conglomerates installed and supported repressive regimes around the world. In this vein, he considered Batista a «US puppet whose strings needed cutting».^[62] Although he planned to be the group’s combat medic, Guevara participated in the military training with the members of the Movement. The key portion of training involved learning hit and run tactics of guerrilla warfare. Guevara and the others underwent arduous 15-hour marches over mountains, across rivers, and through the dense undergrowth, learning and perfecting the procedures of ambush and quick retreat. From the start Guevara was Alberto Bayo’s «prize student» among those in training, scoring the highest on all of the tests given.^[63] At the end of the course, he was called «the best guerrilla of them all» by their instructor, General Bayo.^[64]

Cuban Revolution

Invasion, warfare and Santa Clara

The first step in Castro’s revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the Granma, an old, leaky cabin cruiser. They set out for Cuba on November 25, 1956. Attacked by Batista’s military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards.^[65] Guevara wrote that it was during this bloody confrontation that he laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, proving to be a symbolic moment in Che’s life.

Only a small band of revolutionaries survived to re-group as a bedraggled fighting force deep in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they received support from the urban guerrilla network of Frank País, the 26th of July Movement, and local campesinos. With the group withdrawn to the Sierra, the world wondered whether Castro was alive or dead until early 1957 when the interview by Herbert Matthews appeared in The New York Times. The article presented a lasting, almost mythical image for Castro and the guerrillas. Guevara was not present for the interview, but in the coming months he began to realize the importance of the media in their struggle. Meanwhile, as supplies and morale diminished, and with an allergy to mosquito bites which resulted in agonizing walnut-sized cysts on his body,^[66] Guevara considered these «the most painful days of the war».^[67]

During Guevara’s time living hidden among the poor subsistence farmers of the Sierra Maestra mountains, he discovered that there were no schools, no electricity, minimal access to healthcare, and more than 40 percent of the adults were illiterate.^[68] As the war continued, Guevara became an integral part of the rebel army and «convinced Castro with competence, diplomacy and patience».^[11] Guevara set up factories to make grenades, built ovens to bake bread, taught new recruits about tactics, and organized schools to teach illiterate campesinos to read and write.^[11] Moreover, Guevara established health clinics, workshops to teach military tactics, and a newspaper to disseminate information.^[69] The man who three years later would be dubbed by Time Magazine: «Castro’s brain», at this point was promoted by Fidel Castro to Comandante (commander) of a second army column.^[11]

As second in command, Guevara was a harsh disciplinarian who sometimes shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send squads to track those seeking to go AWOL.^[70] As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness.^[71] During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the sometimes summary execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies.^[72] In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel’s position for attack by the Cuban air force.^[73] Such information also allowed Batista’s army to burn the homes of rebel-friendly peasants.^[73] Upon Guerra’s request that they «end his life quickly»,^[73] Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing «The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe].»^[74] His scientific notations and matter-of-fact description, suggested to one biographer a «remarkable detachment to violence» by that point in the war.^[74] Later, Guevara published a literary account of the incident entitled «Death of a Traitor», where he transfigured Eutimio’s betrayal and pre-execution request that the revolution «take care of his children», into a «revolutionary parable about redemption through sacrifice».^[74]

Although he maintained a demanding and harsh disposition, Guevara also viewed his role of commander as one of a teacher, entertaining his men during breaks between engagements with readings from the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Cervantes, and Spanish lyric poets.^[75] Together with this role, and inspired by José Martí’s principle of «literacy without borders», Guevara further ensured that his rebel fighters made daily time to teach the uneducated campesinos with whom they lived and fought to read and write, in what Guevara termed the «battle against ignorance».^[68] Tomás Alba, who fought under Guevara’s command, later stated that «Che was loved, in spite of being stern and demanding. We would (have) given our life for him.»^[76]

His commanding officer Fidel Castro has described Guevara as intelligent, daring, and an exemplary leader who «had great moral authority over his troops».^[77] Castro further remarked that Guevara took too many risks, even having a «tendency toward foolhardiness».^[78] Guevara’s teenage lieutenant, Joel Iglesias, recounts such actions in his diary, noting that Guevara’s behavior in combat even brought admiration from the enemy. On one occasion Iglesias recounts the time he had been wounded in battle, stating «Che ran out to me, defying the bullets, threw me over his shoulder, and got me out of there. The guards didn’t dare fire at him … later they told me he made a great impression on them when they saw him run out with his pistol stuck in his belt, ignoring the danger, they didn’t dare shoot.»^[79]

Guevara was instrumental in creating the clandestine radio station Radio Rebelde (Rebel Radio) in February 1958, which broadcast news to the Cuban people with statements by the 26th of July movement, and provided radiotelephone communication between the growing number of rebel columns across the island. Guevara had apparently been inspired to create the station by observing the effectiveness of CIA supplied radio in Guatemala in ousting the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.^[80]

To quell the rebellion, Cuban government troops began executing rebel prisoners on the spot, and regularly rounded up, tortured, and shot civilians as a tactic of intimidation.^[81] By March 1958, the continued atrocities carried out by Batista’s forces led the United States to announce it would stop selling arms to the Cuban government.^[69] Then in late July 1958, Guevara played a critical role in the Battle of Las Mercedes by using his column to halt a force of 1,500 men called up by Batista’s General Cantillo in a plan to encircle and destroy Castro’s forces. Years later, Major Larry Bockman of the United States Marine Corps would analyze and describe Che’s tactical appreciation of this battle as «brilliant».^[82] During this time Guevara also became an «expert» at leading hit-and-run tactics against Batista’s army, and then fading back into the countryside before the army could counterattack.^[83]

As the war extended, Guevara led a new column of fighters dispatched westward for the final push towards Havana. Travelling by foot, Guevara embarked on a difficult 7-week march only travelling at night to avoid ambush, and often not eating for several days.^[84] In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara’s task was to cut the island in half by taking Las Villas province. In a matter of days he executed a series of «brilliant tactical victories» that gave him control of all but the province’s capital city of Santa Clara.^[84] Guevara then directed his «suicide squad» in the attack on Santa Clara, that became the final decisive military victory of the revolution.^[85][86] In the six weeks leading up to the Battle of Santa Clara there were times when his men were completely surrounded, outgunned, and overrun. Che’s eventual victory despite being outnumbered 10:1, remains in the view of some observers a «remarkable tour de force in modern warfare».^[87]

Radio Rebelde broadcast the first reports that Guevara’s column had taken Santa Clara on New Year’s Eve 1958. This contradicted reports by the heavily controlled national news media, which had at one stage reported Guevara’s death during the fighting. At 3 am on January 1, 1959, upon learning that his generals were negotiating a separate peace with Guevara, Fulgencio Batista boarded a plane in Havana and fled for the Dominican Republic, along with an amassed «fortune of more than $300,000,000 through graft and payoffs».^[88] The following day on January 2, Guevara entered Havana to take final control of the capital.^[89] Fidel Castro took 6 more days to arrive, as he stopped to rally support in several large cities on his way to rolling victoriously into Havana on January 8, 1959. The final death toll from the two years of revolutionary fighting was 2,000 people.^[90]

In mid-January 1959, Guevara went to live at a summer villa in Tarara to recover from a violent asthma attack.^[91] While there he started the Tarara Group, a group that debated and formed the new plans for Cuba’s social, political, and economic development.^[92] In addition, Che began to write his book Guerrilla Warfare while resting at Tarara.^[92] In February, the revolutionary government proclaimed Guevara «a Cuban citizen by birth» in recognition of his role in the triumph.^[93] When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce,^[94] which was finalized on May 22.^[95] On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida.^[96] In total, Guevara would ultimately have five children from his two marriages.^[97]

La Cabaña, land reform, and literacy

The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials who had been responsible for the worst of the repression.^[98] During the rebellion against Batista’s dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel Castro, introduced into the territories under its control the 19th century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra (Law of the Sierra).^[99] This law included the death penalty for serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959, the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to those it considered war criminals, captured and tried after the revolution. According to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, this latter extension was supported by the majority of the population, and followed the same procedure as those in the Nuremberg Trials held by the Allies after World War II.^[100]

To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959).^[101] Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting «revolutionary justice» against those considered to be traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals.^[102] Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process.^[12] The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen.^[103] On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing squad.^[104] Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, has argued that the death penalty was justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands, as happened twenty years earlier in the anti-Machado rebellion.^[105] Biographers note that in January 1959, the Cuban public was in a «lynching mood»,^[106] and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process.^[12] Moreover, a January 22, 1959, Universal Newsreel broadcast in the US and narrated by Ed Herlihy, featured Fidel Castro asking an estimated one million Cubans whether they approved of the executions, and was met with a roaring «¡Si!» (yes).^[107] With thousands of Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista’s collaborators,^[108][109] and many of the war criminals sentenced to death accused of torture and physical atrocities,^[12] the newly empowered government carried out executions, punctuated by cries from the crowds of «¡paredón!» ([to the] wall!),^[98] which biographer Jorge Castañeda describes as «without respect for due process».^[110]

Although there are varying accounts, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara’s jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 105 (see reference).^[112] Conflicting views exist of Guevara’s attitude towards the executions at La Cabaña. Some exiled opposition biographers report that he relished the rituals of the firing squad, and organized them with gusto, while others relate that Guevara pardoned as many prisoners as he could.^[110] What is acknowledged by all sides is that Guevara had become a «hardened» man, who had no qualms about the death penalty or summary and collective trials. If the only way to «defend the revolution was to execute its enemies, he would not be swayed by humanitarian or political arguments».^[110] This is further confirmed by a February 5, 1959, letter to Luis Paredes López in Buenos Aires where Guevara states unequivocally «The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people.»^[113]

Along with ensuring «revolutionary justice», the other key early platform of Guevara’s was establishing agrarian land reform. Almost immediately after the success of the revolution on January 27, 1959, Guevara made one of his most significant speeches where he talked about «the social ideas of the rebel army». During this speech, he declared that the main concern of the new Cuban government was «the social justice that land redistribution brings about».^[114] A few months later on May 17, 1959, the Agrarian Reform Law crafted by Guevara went into effect, limiting the size of all farms to 1,000 acres (4.0 km²). Any holdings over these limits were expropriated by the government and either redistributed to peasants in 67-acre (270,000 m²) parcels or held as state run communes.^[115] The law also stipulated that sugar plantations could not be owned by foreigners.^[116]

On June 12, 1959, Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of 14 mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong.^[117] Sending Guevara away from Havana allowed Castro to appear to be distancing himself from Guevara and his Marxist sympathies, which troubled both the United States and some of Castro’s July 26 Movement members.^[118] While in Jakarta, Guevara visited Indonesian president Sukarno to discuss the recent revolution in Indonesia and to establish trade relations between their two nations. Both men quickly bonded, as Sukarno was attracted to Guevara’s energy and his relaxed informal approach; moreover they shared revolutionary leftist aspirations against western imperialism.^[119] Guevara next spent 12 days in Japan (July 15–27), participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba’s trade relations with that nation. During the visit, he refused to visit and lay a wreath at Japan’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier commemorating soldiers lost during World War II, remarking that the Japanese «imperialists» had «killed millions of Asians».^[120] In its place, Guevara stated that he would instead visit Hiroshima, where the American military had detonated an atom-bomb 14 years earlier.^[120] Despite his denunciation of Imperial Japan, Guevara also considered President Truman a «macabre clown» for the bombings,^[121] and after visiting Hiroshima and its Peace Memorial Museum, he sent back a postcard to Cuba stating «In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima.»^[122]

Upon Guevara’s return to Cuba in September 1959, it was evident that Castro now had more political power. The government had begun land seizures included in the agrarian reform law, but was hedging on compensation offers to landowners, instead offering low interest «bonds», a step which put the US on alert. At this point the affected wealthy cattlemen of Camagüey mounted a campaign against the land redistributions, and enlisted the newly disaffected rebel leader Huber Matos, who along with the anti-Communist wing of the 26th of July Movement, joined them in denouncing the «Communist encroachment».^[123] During this time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was offering assistance to the «Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean» which was training in the Dominican Republic. This multi-national force, composed mostly of Spaniards and Cubans, but also of Croatians, Germans, Greeks, and right-wing mercenaries, was plotting to topple Castro’s new regime.^[123]

Such threats were heightened when, on March 4, 1960, two massive explosions ripped through the French freighter La Coubre, which was carrying Belgian munitions from the port of Antwerp, and was docked in Havana Harbor. The blasts killed at least 76 people and injured several hundred, with Guevara personally providing first aid to some of the victims. Cuban leader Fidel Castro immediately accused the CIA of «an act of terrorism» and held a state funeral the following day for the victims of the blast.^[124] It was at the memorial service that Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Guevara, now known as Guerrillero Heroico.^[125]

These perceived threats prompted Castro to further eliminate «counter-revolutionaries«, and to utilize Guevara to drastically increase the speed of land reform. To implement this plan, a new government agency, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), was established to administer the new Agrarian Reform law. INRA quickly became the most important governing body in the nation, with Guevara serving as its head in his capacity as minister of industries.^[116] Under Guevara’s command, INRA established its own 100,000 person militia, used first to help the government seize control of the expropriated land and supervise its distribution, and later to set up cooperative farms. The land confiscated included 480,000 acres (1,900 km²) owned by US corporations.^[116] Months later, as retaliation, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower sharply reduced US imports of Cuban sugar (Cuba’s main cash crop), thus leading Guevara on July 10, 1960, to address over 100,000 workers in front of the Presidential Palace at a rally called to denounce US «economic aggression».^[126] Time magazine reporters who met with Guevara around this time, described him as «guid(ing) Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and a perceptive sense of humor.»^[11]

Along with land reform, one of the primary areas that Guevara stressed needed national improvement was in the area of literacy. Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60–76%, with educational access in rural areas and a lack of instructors the main determining factors.^[127] As a result, the Cuban government at Guevara’s behest dubbed 1961 the «year of education», and mobilized over 100,000 volunteers into «literacy brigades», who were then sent out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominately illiterate guajiros (peasants) to read and write.^[68][127] Unlike many of Guevara’s later economic initiatives, this campaign was «a remarkable success».^[127] By the completion of the Cuban Literacy Campaign, 707,212 adults had been taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.^[127]

Accompanying literacy, Guevara was also concerned with establishing universal access to higher education. To accomplish this, the new regime introduced affirmative action to the universities.^[129] While announcing this new commitment, Guevara told the gathered faculty and students at the University of Las Villas that the days when education was «a privilege of the white middle class» had ended. «The University» he said, «must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant.» If it did not, he warned, the people would break down its doors «and paint the University the colors they like.»^[129]

Marxist ideological influence

«The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.»

— Che Guevara, Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban, October 1960 ^[130]

When enacting and advocating Cuban policy, Guevara cited the political philosopher Karl Marx as his ideological inspiration. In defending his political stance, Guevara confidently remarked that «There are truths so evident, so much a part of people’s knowledge, that it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be Marxist with the same naturalness with which one is «Newtonian» in physics, or «Pasteurian» in biology.»^[130] According to Guevara, the «practical revolutionaries» of the Cuban Revolution had the goal of «simply fulfill(ing) laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist.»^[130] Using Marx’s predictions and system of dialectical materialism, Guevara professed that «The laws of Marxism are present in the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently of what its leaders profess or fully know of those laws from a theoretical point of view.»^[130]

The «New Man», Bay of Pigs and missile crisis

«Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.»

— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba^[131]

At this stage, Guevara acquired the additional position of Finance Minister, as well as President of the National Bank. These appointments, combined with his existing position as Minister of Industries, placed Guevara at the zenith of his power, as the «virtual czar» of the Cuban economy.^[126] As a consequence of his position at the head of the central bank, it was now Guevara’s duty to sign the Cuban currency, which per custom would bear his signature. Instead of using his full name, he signed the bills solely «Che«.^[132] It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in the Cuban financial sector, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about.^[132] Guevara’s long time friend Ricardo Rojo later remarked that «the day he signed Che on the bills, (he) literally knocked the props from under the widespread belief that money was sacred.»^[133]

In an effort to eliminate social inequalities, Guevara and Cuba’s new leadership had moved to swiftly transform the political and economic base of the country through nationalizing factories, banks, and businesses, while attempting to ensure affordable housing, healthcare, and employment for all Cubans.^[135] However, in order for a genuine transformation of consciousness to take root, Guevara believed that such structural changes would have to be accompanied by a conversion in people’s social relations and values. Believing that the attitudes in Cuba towards race, women, individualism, and manual labor were the product of the island’s outdated past, Guevara urged all individuals to view each other as equals and take on the values of what he termed «el Hombre Nuevo» (the New Man).^[135] Guevara hoped his «new man» would ultimately be «selfless and cooperative, obedient and hard working, gender-blind, incorruptible, non-materialistic, and anti-imperialist.»^[135] To accomplish this, Guevara emphasized the tenets of Marxism-Leninism, and wanted to use the state to emphasize qualities such as egalitarianism and self-sacrifice, at the same time as «unity, equality, and freedom» became the new maxims.^[135] Guevara’s first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for wealth condensation and economic inequality, was to see a nation-wide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a «contest among wolves» where «one can only win at the cost of others» and thus desired to see the creation of a «new man and woman».^[136] Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not «worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction» if it ends up encouraging «greed and individual ambition at the expense of collective spirit».^[137] A primary goal of Guevara’s thus became to reform «individual consciousness» and values to produce better workers and citizens.^[137] In his view, Cuba’s «new man» would be able to overcome the «egotism» and «selfishness» that he loathed and discerned was uniquely characteristic of individuals in capitalist societies.^[137] To promote this concept of a «new man», the government also created a series of party-dominated institutions and mechanisms on all levels of society, which included organizations such as labor groups, youth leagues, women’s groups, community centers, and houses of culture to promote state-sponsored art, music, and literature. In congruence with this, all educational, mass media, and artistic community based facilities were nationalized and utilized to instill the government’s official socialist ideology.^[135] In describing this new method of «development», Guevara stated:

«There is a great difference between free-enterprise development and revolutionary development. In one of them, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, the friends of the government, the best wheeler-dealers. In the other, wealth is the people’s patrimony.»^[138]

A further integral part of fostering a sense of «unity between the individual and the mass», Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara «led by example», working «endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane» on his day off.^[139] He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run.^[137] Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara’s new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut.^[137] Guevara unapologetically defended his personal philosophy towards motivation and work, stating:

«This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, or how many times a year someone can go to the beach, or how many ornaments from abroad one might be able to buy with his current salary. What really matters is that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility.»^[140]

In the face of a loss of commercial connections with Western states, Guevara tried to replace them with closer commercial relationships with Eastern Bloc states, visiting a number of Marxist states and signing trade agreements with them. At the end of 1960 he visited Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Hungary and East Germany and signed, for instance, a trade agreement in East Berlin on December 17, 1960.^[141] Such agreements helped Cuba’s economy to a certain degree but also had the disadvantage of a growing economic dependency on the Eastern Bloc. It was also in East Germany where Guevara met Tamara Bunke (later known as «Tania»), who was assigned as his interpreter, and who would years later join him and be killed with him in Bolivia.

Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara’s economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful.^[142] Guevara’s program of «moral incentives» for workers caused a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism.^[143] Decades later, the director of Radio Martí Ernesto Betancourt, an early ally turned Castro-critic and Che’s former deputy, would accuse Guevara of being «ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.»^[144] In reference to the collective failings of Guevara’s vision, reporter I.F. Stone who interviewed Guevara twice during this time, remarked that he was «Galahad not Robespierre«, while opining that «in a sense he was, like some early saint, taking refuge in the desert. Only there could the purity of the faith be safeguarded from the unregenerate revisionism of human nature.»^[145]

On April 17, 1961, 1,400 US-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Guevara did not play a key role in the fighting, as one day before the invasion a warship carrying Marines faked an invasion off the West Coast of Pinar del Río and drew forces commanded by Guevara to that region. However, historians give him a share of credit for the victory as he was director of instruction for Cuba’s armed forces at the time.^[13] Author Tad Szulc in his explanation of the Cuban victory, assigns Guevara partial credit, stating: «The revolutionaries won because Che Guevara, as the head of the Instruction Department of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in charge of the militia training program, had done so well in preparing 200,000 men and women for war.»^[13] It was also during this deployment that he suffered a bullet grazing to the cheek when his pistol fell out of its holster and accidentally discharged.^[146]

In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note of «gratitude» to US President John F. Kennedy through Richard N. Goodwin, a young secretary of the White House. It read «Thanks for Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now it’s stronger than ever.»^[147][148] In response to US Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon presenting the Alliance for Progress for ratification by the meeting, Guevara antagonistically attacked the United States claim of being a «democracy», stating that such a system was not compatible with «financial oligarchy, discrimination against blacks, and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan».^[149] Guevara continued, speaking out against the «persecution» that in his view «drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, and sent the Rosenbergs to their deaths against the protests of a shocked world.»^[149] Guevara ended his remarks by insinuating that the United States was not interested in real reforms, sardonically quipping that «US experts never talk about agrarian reform; they prefer a safe subject, like a better water supply. In short they seem to prepare the revolution of the toilets.»^[33]

Guevara, who was practically the architect of the Soviet-Cuban relationship,^[150] then played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.^[151] A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off.^[152] While expounding on the incident later, Guevara reiterated that the cause of socialist liberation against global «imperialist aggression» would ultimately have been worth the possibility of «millions of atomic war victims».^[153] The missile crisis further convinced Guevara that the world’s two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) used Cuba as a pawn in their own global strategies. Afterward he denounced the Soviets almost as frequently as he denounced the Americans.^[154]

International diplomacy

By December 1964, Che Guevara had emerged as a «revolutionary statesman of world stature» and thus traveled to New York City as head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the United Nations.^[133] During his impassioned address, he criticized the United Nations’ inability to confront the «brutal policy of apartheid» in South Africa, asking «Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?»^[155] Guevara then denounced the United States policy towards their black population, stating:

«Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men—how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?»^[155]

An indignant Guevara ended his speech by reciting the Second Declaration of Havana, decreeing Latin America a «family of 200 million brothers who suffer the same miseries».^[155] This «epic», Guevara declared, would be written by the «hungry Indian masses, peasants without land, exploited workers, and progressive masses». To Guevara the conflict was a struggle of masses and ideas, which would be carried forth by those «mistreated and scorned by imperialism» who were previously considered «a weak and submissive flock». With this «flock», Guevara now asserted, «Yankee monopoly capitalism» now terrifyingly saw their «gravediggers».^[155] It would be during this «hour of vindication», Guevara pronounced, that the «anonymous mass» would begin to write its own history «with its own blood» and reclaim those «rights that were laughed at by one and all for 500 years». Guevara ended his remarks to the General Assembly by hypothesizing that this «wave of anger” would «sweep the lands of Latin America» and that the labor masses who «turn the wheel of history» were now, for the first time, «awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected».^[155]

Guevara later learned that there were two failed attempts on his life by Cuban exiles during his stop at the UN complex.^[156] The first from Molly Gonzales who tried to break through barricades upon his arrival with a seven-inch hunting knife, and later during his address by Guillermo Novo with a timer-initiated bazooka that was fired off target from a boat in the East River at the United Nations Headquarters.^[156] Afterwards Guevara commented on both incidents, stating that «it is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun», while adding with a languid wave of his cigar that the explosion had «given the whole thing more flavor».^[156]

While in New York Guevara also appeared on the CBS Sunday news program Face the Nation and met with a range of people, from US Senator Eugene McCarthy^[157] to associates of Malcolm X. The latter expressed his admiration, declaring Guevara «one of the most revolutionary men in this country right now» while reading a statement from him to a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom.^[158]

On December 17 Guevara left for Paris, France, and from there embarked on a three-month world tour that included vists to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, the United Arab Republic, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland and Prague. While in Ireland Guevara embraced his own Irish heritage, celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day in Limerick city.^[159] He wrote to his father on this visit, humorously stating «I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors. When they found out, the television [station] came to ask me about the Lynch genealogy, but in case they were horse thieves or something like that, I didn’t say much.»^[160]

During this voyage he wrote a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of a Uruguayan weekly, which was later retitled Socialism and Man in Cuba.^[136] Outlined in the treatise was Guevara’s summons for the creation of a new consciousness, a new status of work, and a new role of the individual. He also laid out the reasoning behind his anti-capitalist sentiments, stating:

«The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller—whether or not it is true—about the possibilities of success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.»^[136]

Guevara ended the essay by declaring that «the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love» and beckoning on all revolutionaries to «strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into acts that serve as examples», thus becoming «a moving force».^[136] The genesis for Guevara’s assertions relied on the fact that he believed the example of the Cuban Revolution was «something spiritual that would transcend all borders».^[33]

Algiers, the Soviets and China

In Algiers, Algeria on February 24, 1965, Guevara made what turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage when he delivered a speech at an economic seminar on Afro-Asian solidarity.^[161] He specified the moral duty of the socialist countries, accusing them of tacit complicity with the exploiting Western countries. He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries must implement in order to accomplish the defeat of imperialism.^[162] Having criticized the Soviet Union (the primary financial backer of Cuba) in such a public manner, he returned to Cuba on March 14 to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raúl Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport.

As revealed in his last public speech in Algiers, Guevara had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the US in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create «many Vietnams».^[163] Che’s denunciations of the Soviets made him popular among intellectuals and artists of the Western European left who had lost faith in the Soviet Union, while his condemnation of imperialism inspired young radical students in the United States, who were impatient for societal change and for whom the idea of revolution was inspiring.^[164]

Moreover, the coincidence of Guevara’s views with those expounded by the Chinese Communist leadership under Mao Zedong was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation’s economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union. Since the early days of the Cuban revolution, Guevara had been considered by many an advocate of Maoist strategy in Latin America and the originator of a plan for the rapid industrialization of Cuba that was frequently compared to China’s «Great Leap Forward«. Castro became weary of Guevara’s opposition to Soviet conditions and recommendations: measures that Castro saw as necessary, but which Guevara described as corrupt and «pre-monopolist».^[165]

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».^[166] 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.^[166] It was Guevara’s desire to see 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.^[166] Disagreeing with this incrementalist approach, Guevara criticized the Soviet Manual of Political Economy, correctly predicting that since the Soviets were not willing to abolish the law of value (as Guevara desired), they would eventually return to capitalism.^[166]

Two weeks after his Algiers speech, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara’s pro-Chinese Communist stance on the Sino-Soviet split, and to serious differences between Guevara and the pragmatic Castro regarding Cuba’s economic development and ideological line. Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara’s fate, Castro stated on June 16, 1965 that the people would be informed when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Still, rumors spread both inside and outside Cuba. On October 3, 1965, Castro publicly revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier; in it, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the government and party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.^[167]

Congo

In early 1965 Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo. According to Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, Guevara thought that Africa was imperialism’s weak link and therefore had enormous revolutionary potential.^[168] Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had fraternal relations with Che dating back to his 1959 visit, saw Guevara’s plans to fight in the Congo as «unwise» and warned that he would become a «Tarzan» figure, doomed to failure.^[169] Despite the warning, Guevara traveled to the Congo using the alias Ramón Benítez.^[170] Guevara led the Cuban operation in support of the Marxist Simba movement, which had emerged from the ongoing Congo crisis. Guevara, his second-in-command Victor Dreke, and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in the Congo on April 24, 1965 and a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterward.^[171][172] They collaborated for a time with guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had previously helped supporters of the overthrown Patrice Lumumba lead an unsuccessful revolt months earlier. As an admirer of the late Lumumba, Guevara declared that his «murder should be a lesson for all of us».^[173] Guevara, with limited knowledge of Swahili and the local languages, was assigned a teenage interpreter, Freddy Ilanga. Over the course of seven months Ilanga grew to «admire the hard-working Guevara», who «showed the same respect to black people as he did to whites».^[174] However, Guevara soon became disillusioned with the poor discipline of Kabila’s troops and later dismissed him, stating «nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour».^[175]

As an additional obstacle, white South African mercenaries, led by Mike Hoare in concert with Cuban exiles and the CIA, worked with the Congo National Army to thwart Guevara’s movements from his base camp which was located in the mountains near the village of Fizi on Lake Tanganyika in southeast Congo. They were able to monitor his communications and so pre-empted his attacks and interdicted his supply lines. Despite the fact that Guevara sought to conceal his presence in the Congo, the US government was aware of his location and activities. The National Security Agency was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing transmissions via equipment aboard the USNS Private Jose F. Valdez (T-AG-169), a floating listening post that continuously cruised the Indian Ocean off Dar es Salaam for that purpose.^[176]

Guevara’s aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti-Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary book, he cites the incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces as key reasons for the revolt’s failure.^[177] Later that year on November 20, 1965, in ill health with dysentery, suffering from acute asthma and disheartened after seven months of frustration and inactivity, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors, six members of his 12-man column having died. At one point Guevara considered sending the wounded back to Cuba and fighting in Congo alone until his death, as a revolutionary example. After being urged by his comrades and pressed by two emissaries sent by Castro, at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave Africa. During that day and night, Guevara’s forces quietly took down their basecamp, burned their huts, and destroyed or threw weapons into Lake Tanganyika that they could not take with them, before crossing the border into Tanzania during the night and traveling overland to Dar es Salaam. In speaking about his experience in the Congo months later, Guevara concluded that he left rather than fight to the death because: «The human element failed. There is no will to fight. The leaders are corrupt. In a word… there was nothing to do.»^[178] Guevara also declared that «we can’t liberate by ourselves a country that does not want to fight.»^[179] A few weeks later, when writing the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture, he began: «This is the history of a failure.»^[180]

Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had made public Guevara’s «farewell letter»—a letter intended to only be revealed in the case of his death—wherein he severed all ties in order to devote himself to revolution throughout the world.^[181] As a result, Guevara spent the next six months living clandestinely in Dar es Salaam and Prague.^[182] During this time he compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience and wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy and the other on economics. He then visited several Western European countries to test his new false identity papers, created by Cuban Intelligence for his later travels to South America. As Guevara prepared for Bolivia, he secretly traveled back to Cuba to visit Castro, as well as to see his wife and to write a last letter to his five children to be read upon his death, which ended with him instructing them:

«Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.»^[183]

Bolivia

In late 1966, Guevara’s location was still not public knowledge, although representatives of Mozambique’s independence movement, the FRELIMO, reported that they met with Guevara in late 1966 in Dar es Salaam regarding his offer to aid in their revolutionary project, an offer which they ultimately rejected.^[184] In a speech at the 1967 International Workers’ Day rally in Havana, the acting minister of the armed forces, Major Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara was «serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America».

Before he departed for Bolivia, Guevara altered his appearance by shaving off his beard and part of the top of his head as well as dyeing the rest of his hair grey so he would be unrecognizable as Che Guevara.^[185] On November 3, 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz on a flight from Montevideo under the false name Adolfo Mena González, posing as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States.^[186]

Guevara’s first base camp was located in the montane dry forest in the remote Ñancahuazú region. Training at the camp in the Ñancahuazú valley proved to be hazardous, and little was accomplished in way of building a guerrilla army. The Argentine-born East German operative Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known by her nom de guerre «Tania», had been installed as Che’s primary agent in La Paz.^[187][188]

Guevara’s guerrilla force, numbering about 50^[189] and operating as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia; «National Liberation Army of Bolivia«), was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against Bolivian army regulars in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region during the early months of 1967. As a result of Guevara’s units’ winning several skirmishes against Bolivian troops in the spring and summer of 1967, the Bolivian government began to overestimate the true size of the guerrilla force.^[190] But in August 1967, the Bolivian Army managed to eliminate two guerrilla groups in a violent battle, reportedly killing one of the leaders.

Researchers hypothesize that Guevara’s plan for fomenting a revolution in Bolivia failed for an array of reasons:

• He had expected to deal only with the Bolivian military, who were poorly trained and equipped, and was unaware that the US government had sent a team of the CIA’s Special Activities Division commandos and other operatives into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The Bolivian Army would also be trained, advised, and supplied by US Army Special Forces including a recently organized elite battalion of Rangers trained in jungle warfare that set up camp in La Esperanza, a small settlement close to the location of Guevara’s guerrillas.^[191]
• Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents that he did not receive, nor did he receive support from Bolivia’s Communist Party under the leadership of Mario Monje, which was oriented toward Moscow rather than Havana. In Guevara’s own diary captured after his death, he wrote about the Communist Party of Bolivia, which he characterized as «distrustful, disloyal and stupid».^[192]
• He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. The two shortwave transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty; thus the guerrillas were unable to communicate and be resupplied, leaving them isolated and stranded.

In addition, Guevara’s known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had previously surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo.^[193] This tendency had existed in Cuba, but had been kept in check by the timely interventions and guidance of Fidel Castro.^[194]

The end result was that Guevara was unable to attract inhabitants of the local area to join his militia during the eleven months he attempted recruitment. Near the end of the venture Guevara wrote in his diary that «the peasants do not give us any help, and they are turning into informers.»^[195]

Capture and execution

Félix Rodríguez, a Cuban exile turned CIA Special Activities Division operative, advised Bolivian troops during the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia.^[197] In addition the 2007 documentary My Enemy’s Enemy, directed by Kevin Macdonald, alleges that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, aka «The Butcher of Lyon», advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara’s eventual capture.^[198]

On October 7, 1967, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara’s guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine.^[199] On October 8, they encircled the area with 1,800 soldiers, and Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with Simeón Cuba Sarabia. Che biographer Jon Lee Anderson reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca’s account: that a twice-wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, shouted, «Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead.»^[200]

Guevara was tied up and taken to a dilapidated mud schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera on the evening of October 8. For the next half day, Guevara refused to be interrogated by Bolivian officers and would only speak quietly to Bolivian soldiers. One of those Bolivian soldiers, a helicopter pilot named Jaime Nino de Guzman, describes Che as looking «dreadful». According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that «Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke.» De Guzman states that he «took pity» and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, and that Guevara then smiled and thanked him.^[201] Later on the night of October 8, Guevara—despite having his hands tied—kicked a Bolivian officer, Espinosa, into the wall after the officer entered the schoolhouse and tried to snatch Guevara’s pipe from his mouth as a souvenir while he was still smoking it.^[202] In another instance of defiance, Guevara literally spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche who attempted to question Guevara a few hours before his execution.^[202]

The following morning on October 9, Guevara asked to see the maestra (school teacher) of the village, 22-year-old Julia Cortez. Cortez would later state that she found Guevara to be an «agreeable looking man with a soft and ironic glance» and that during their conversation she found herself «unable to look him in the eye» because his «gaze was unbearable, piercing, and so tranquil».^[202] During their short conversation, Guevara pointed out to Cortez the poor condition of the schoolhouse, stating that it was «anti-pedagogical» to expect campesino students to be educated there, while «government officials drive Mercedes cars», and declaring «that’s what we are fighting against.»^[202]

Later that morning on October 9, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed to the unit holding Guevara by Félix Rodríguez despite the US government’s desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation.^[203] The executioner who volunteered to kill Guevara was Mario Terán, an alcoholic 31-year-old sergeant in the Bolivian army who had personally requested to shoot Guevara because three of his friends from B Company, all with the same first name of «Mario», had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara’s band of guerrillas.^[12] To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story that the Bolivian government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army.^[204] Gary Prado, the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara, said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara were so there would be no possibility for Guevara to escape from prison, and also so there would be no drama in regard to a public trial where adverse publicity might happen.^[205]

About 30 minutes before Guevara was executed, Félix Rodríguez attempted to question him about the whereabouts of other guerrilla fighters who were currently at large, but Guevara continued to remain silent. Rodríguez, assisted by a few Bolivian soldiers, helped Guevara to his feet and took him outside the hut to parade him before other Bolivian soldiers where he posed with Guevara for a photo opportunity where one soldier took a photograph of Rodríguez and other soldiers standing alongside Guevara. After taking him back inside, Rodríguez then privately told Guevara that he was going to be executed. Guevara then responded by asking Rodríguez if he was an American of Mexican or Puerto Rican origin, having noted that Rodríguez did not speak Bolivian Spanish. Rodríguez replied that he was originally from Cuba but that he had emigrated to the US and was currently a member of the CIA. Guevara’s only reply was a loud «ha!» and he refused to speak any more to Rodríguez, who left the hut.

A little later, a few minutes before Guevera was executed, he was asked by one of the Bolivian soldiers guarding him if he was thinking about his own immortality. «No,» he replied, «I’m thinking about the immortality of the revolution.»^[206] A few minutes later, Sergeant Terán entered the hut and immediately ordered the other soldiers out. Alone with Terán, Che Guevara then stood up and spoke to his executioner which were his last words: «I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot. Do it. Shoot me, you coward! You are only going to kill a man!»^[207] As Guevara was speaking, Terán hesitated, then opened fire with his M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, hitting him in the arms and legs. For a few seconds, Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Terán then fired several times again, wounding him fatally in the chest. Che Guevara was pronounced dead at 1:10 pm local time according to Rodríguez.^[207] In all, Guevara was shot nine times by Terán. This included five times in his legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, once in the chest, and finally in the throat.^[202]

Months earlier, during his last public declaration to the Tricontinental Conference,^[163] Guevara wrote his own epitaph, stating «Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons.»^[208]

Post-execution and memorial

File:FreddyAlbertoChe.jpg

After his execution, Guevara’s body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to nearby Vallegrande, where photographs were taken of him lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta.^[209] Several witnesses were called to confirm his identity, key amongst them the British journalist Richard Gott, the only witness to have met Guevara when he was alive.

Put on public show as hundreds of local residents filed past the body, Guevara’s corpse was considered by many to represent a «Christ-like» visage, with some even surreptitiously clipping locks of his hair as divine relics.^[210] Such comparisons were further extended when English art critic John Berger, two weeks later upon seeing the post-mortem photographs, observed that they resembled two famous paintings: Rembrandt‘s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Andrea Mantegna‘s Lamentation over the Dead Christ.^[211] There were also four correspondents present when Guevara’s body arrived in Vallegrande, including Bjorn Kumm of the Swedish Aftonbladet, who described the scene in a November 11, 1967 exclusive for The New Republic.^[212]

A declassified memorandum dated October 11, 1967 to United States President Lyndon B. Johnson from his National Security Advisor Walt Whitman Rostow, called the decision to kill Guevara «stupid» but «understandable from a Bolivian standpoint».^[213] After the execution Rodríguez took several of Guevara’s personal items—including a Rolex GMT Master wristwatch^[214] that he continued to wear many years later—often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years. After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara’s body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were preserved in formaldehyde to be sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. (His fingerprints were on file with the Argentine police.) They were later sent to Cuba.

On October 15 Fidel Castro publicly acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba.^[215] On October 18 Castro addressed a crowd of one million mourners in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución and spoke about Guevara’s character as a revolutionary.^[216] Fidel Castro closed his impassioned eulogy thus:

«If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che’s spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!»^[217]

Also removed when Guevara was captured were his 30,000-word, hand-written diary, a collection of his personal poetry, and a short story he had authored about a young Communist guerrilla who learns to overcome his fears.^[218] His diary documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia,^[219] with the first entry on November 7, 1966, shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last dated October 7, 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely because of discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara’s decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall unsuccessful venture. It also records the rift between Guevara and the Communist Party of Bolivia that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally expected, and shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, partly because the guerrilla group had learned Quechua, unaware that the local language was actually a Tupí–Guaraní language.^[220] As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.^[221] The Bolivian diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world.^[222] There are at least four additional diaries in existence—those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias «Braulio»), Harry Villegas Tamayo («Pombo»), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez («Rolando»)^[187] and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez («Benigno»)^[223]—each of which reveals additional aspects of the events.

French intellectual Régis Debray, who was captured in April 1967 while with Guevara in Bolivia, gave an interview from prison in August 1968, in which he enlarged on the circumstances of Guevara’s capture. Debray, who had lived with Guevara’s band of guerrillas for a short time, said that in his view they were «victims of the forest» and thus «eaten by the jungle».^[224] Debray described a destitute situation where Guevara’s men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men. Debray recounts that Guevara and the others had been suffering an «illness» which caused their hands and feet to swell into «mounds of flesh» to the point where you could not discern the fingers on their hands.^[224] Debray described Guevara as «optimistic about the future of Latin America» despite the futile situation, and remarked that Guevara was «resigned to die in the knowledge that his death would be a sort of renaissance», noting that Guevara perceived death «as a promise of rebirth» and «ritual of renewal».^[224]

To a certain extent, this belief by Guevara of a metaphorical resurrection came true. While pictures of the dead Guevara were being circulated and the circumstances of his death were being debated, Che’s legend began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his «assassination» occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, and poems were written about his life and death.^[225] Rallies in support of Guevara were held from «Mexico to Santiago, Algiers to Angola, and Cairo to Calcutta.»^[226] The population of Budapest and Prague lit candles to honor Guevara’s passing; and the picture of a smiling Che appeared in London and Paris.^[227] When a few months later riots broke out in Berlin, France, and Chicago, and the unrest spread to the American college campuses, young men and women wore Che Guevara T-shirts and carried his pictures during their protest marches. In the view of military historian Erik Durschmied, «In those heady months of 1968, Che Guevara was not dead. He was very much alive.»^[228]

Retrieval of remains

Main article: Che Guevara Mausoleum

In late 1995, the retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of the biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara’s body was located near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which would last more than a year. In July 1997 a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man with amputated hands (like Guevara). Bolivian government officials with the Ministry of Interior later identified the body as Guevara when the excavated teeth «perfectly matched» a plaster mold of Che’s teeth made in Cuba prior to his Congolese expedition. The «clincher» then arrived when Argentine forensic anthropologist Alejandro Inchaurregui inspected the inside hidden pocket of a blue jacket dug up next to the handless cadaver and found a small bag of pipe tobacco. Nino de Guzman, the Bolivian helicopter pilot who had given Che a small bag of tobacco, later remarked that he «had serious doubts» at first and «thought the Cubans would just find any old bones and call it Che»; but «after hearing about the tobacco pouch, I have no doubts.»^[201] On October 17, 1997, Guevara’s remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution.^[229]

In July 2008, the Bolivian government of Evo Morales unveiled Guevara’s formerly-sealed diaries composed in two frayed notebooks, along with a logbook and several black-and-white photographs. At this event Bolivia’s vice-minister of culture, Pablo Groux, expressed that there were plans to publish photographs of every handwritten page later in the year.^[230] Meanwhile, in August 2009 anthropologists working for Bolivia’s Justice Ministry discovered and unearthed the bodies of five of Guevara’s fellow guerrillas near the Bolivian town of Teoponte.^[231]

Legacy

Main articles: Legacy of Che Guevara and Che Guevara in popular culture

«The discovery of Che’s remains metonymically activated a series of interlinked associations—rebel, martyr, rogue figure from a picaresque adventure, savior, renegade, extremist—in which there was no fixed divide among them. The current court of opinion places Che on a continuum that teeters between viewing him as a misguided rebel, a coruscatingly brilliant guerrilla philosopher, a poet-warrior jousting at windmills, a brazen warrior who threw down the gauntlet to the bourgeoisie, the object of fervent paeans to his sainthood, or a mass murderer clothed in the guise of an avenging angel whose every action is imbricated in violence—the archetypal Fanatical Terrorist.»

— Dr. Peter McLaren, author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution^[232]

Over forty-five years after his execution, Guevara’s life and legacy still remains a contentious issue. The contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of unending duality, one who was «able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill,» while prophesying that «the most important revolutionary ambition was to see man liberated from his alienation.»^[233][234] Guevara’s paradoxical standing is further complicated by his array of seemingly diametrically opposed qualities. A secular humanist and sympathetic practitioner of medicine who didn’t hesitate to shoot his enemies, a celebrated internationalist leader who advocated violence to enforce a utopian philosophy of the collective good, an idealistic intellectual who loved literature but refused to allow reactionary dissent, an anti-imperialist Marxist insurgent who was radically willing to forge a poverty-less new world on the apocalyptic ashes of the old one, and finally, an outspoken anti-capitalist whose image has been expropriated and commoditized; Che’s history continues to be rewritten and re-imagined.^[235]

An array of notable individuals have lauded Guevara as a hero;^[236] for example, Nelson Mandela referred to him as «an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom»,^[196] while Jean-Paul Sartre described him as «not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age».^[237] Others who have expressed their admiration include authors Graham Greene, who remarked that Guevara «represented the idea of gallantry, chivalry, and adventure»,^[238] and Susan Sontag, who supposed that «[Che’s] goal was nothing less than the cause of humanity itself.»^[239] In the black community, philosopher Frantz Fanon professed Guevara to be «the world symbol of the possibilities of one man»,^[240] while Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael eulogized that «Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us.»^[241] Praise has been reflected throughout the political spectrum, with the libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard extolling Guevara as a «heroic figure», lamenting after his death that «more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, [Che] was the living embodiment of the principle of revolution»,^[242] while journalist Christopher Hitchens commented that «[Che’s] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do—fought and died for his beliefs.»^[243] Sociologist Michael Löwy contends that the many facets of Guevara’s life (i.e. doctor and economist, revolutionary and banker, military theoretician and ambassador, deep thinker and political agitator) illuminated the rise of the «Che myth», allowing him to be invariably crystallized in his many metanarrative roles as a «Red Robin Hood, Don Quixote of communism, new Garibaldi, Marxist Saint Just, Cid Campeador of the Wretched of the Earth, Sir Galahad of the beggars… and Bolshevik devil who haunts the dreams of the rich, (while) kindling braziers of subversion all over the world.»^[233]

Conversely, Jacobo Machover, an exiled opposition author, dismisses the hero-worshipping and portrays him as a ruthless executioner.^[244] Exiled former Cuban prisoners have echoed similar sentiments, including Armando Valladares, who declares Guevara «a man full of hatred» who executed dozens without trial,^[245] and Carlos Alberto Montaner, who alleges Guevara possessed «a Robespierre mentality» where cruelty against the revolution’s enemies was a virtue.^[246] Alvaro Vargas Llosa of The Independent Institute has hypothesized that Guevara’s contemporary followers «delude themselves by clinging to a myth», describing Guevara as «Marxist Puritan» who employed his rigid power to suppress dissent, while also operating as a «cold-blooded killing machine».^[144] Llosa has also accused Guevara’s «fanatical disposition» as being the linchpin of the «Sovietization» of the Cuban revolution, speculating that he possessed a «total subordination of reality to blind ideological orthodoxy».^[144] Moreover, detractors have attempted to demonstrate that Che-inspired revolutions in much of Latin America had the practical result of reinforcing brutal militarism and internecine conflict for many years.^[144] Hoover Institution research fellow William Ratliff places Guevara as a creation of his historical environment, referring to him as a «fearless» and «head-strong Messiah-like figure», who was the product of a martyr-enamored Latin culture which «inclined people to seek out and follow paternalistic miracle workers.»^[247] Ratliff speculates that the economic conditions in the region suited Guevara’s commitment to «bring justice to the downtrodden by crushing centuries-old tyrannies»; describing Latin America as being plagued by what Moisés Naím referred to as the «legendary malignancies» of inequality, poverty, dysfunctional politics and malfunctioning institutions.^[247] In his own assessment of Guevara, British historian Hugh Thomas opines that Guevara was a «brave, sincere and determined man who was also obstinate, narrow, and dogmatic.»^[248] At the end of his life, according to Thomas, «he seems to have become convinced of the virtues of violence for its own sake», while «his influence over Castro for good or evil» grew after his death, as Fidel took up many of his views. In Thomas’ assessment, «As in the case of Martí, or Lawrence of Arabia, failure has brightened, not dimmed the legend.»^[248]

Meanwhile, Guevara remains a national hero in Cuba, where his image adorns the $3 Cuban peso and school children begin each morning by pledging «We will be like Che.»^[249] In his homeland of Argentina, where high schools bear his name,^[250] numerous Che museums dot the country, which in 2008 unveiled a 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of him in the city of his birth, Rosario.^[251] Additionally, Guevara has been sanctified by some Bolivian campesinos^[252] as «Saint Ernesto«, to whom they pray for assistance.^[253] In stark contrast, Guevara remains a hated figure amongst many in the Cuban exile and Cuban-American community of the United States, who view him with animosity as «the butcher of La Cabaña».^[254] Despite this polarized status, a high-contrast monochrome graphic of Che’s face, created in 1968 by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, has become one of the world’s most universally merchandized and objectified images,^[255][256] found on an endless array of items, including T-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, and bikinis,^[257] ironically contributing to the consumer culture Guevara despised. Yet, he still remains a transcendent figure both in specifically political contexts^[258] and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion.^[259]

Archival media

Video footage

• Guevara addressing the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1964, (6:21), public domain footage uploaded by the UN, video clip
• Guevara interviewed in 1964 on a visit to Dublin, Ireland, (2:53), English translation, from RTÉ Libraries and Archives, video clip
• Guevara reciting a poem, (0:58), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara showing support for Fidel Castro, (0:22), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking about labor, (0:28), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking about the Bay of Pigs, (0:17), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking against imperialism, (1:20), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara interviewed in Paris and speaking French in 1964, (4:47), English subtitles, interviewed by Jean Dumur, video clip

Audio recording

• Guevara interviewed on ABC’s Issues and Answers, (23:53), English translation, narrated by Lisa Howard, March 24, 1964, audio clip

List of English works

Main article: Bibliography of Che Guevara

Originally written in Spanish by Ernesto «Che» Guevara, later translated into English

See also

• Che Guevara (photo)
• Che Guevara in popular culture
• Legacy of Che Guevara
• Ñancahuazú Guerrilla

References

Further reading

External links

«Che» redirects here. For other uses, see Che (disambiguation).

Che Guevara
Guerrillero Heroico Che Guevara at the La Coubre memorial service Taken by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960.
Born	Ernesto Guevara June 14, 1928[1] Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
Died	October 9, 1967 (aged 39) (execution) La Higuera, Vallegrande, Bolivia
Place of burial	Che Guevara Mausoleum Santa Clara, Cuba
Occupation	Physician, author, government official
Organization	26th of July Movement, United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution,[2] National Liberation Army (Bolivia)
Religion	None (Marxist humanist)[3][4][5]
Spouse(s)	Hilda Gadea (1955–1959) Aleida March (1959–1967, his death)
Children	Hilda (1956–1995), Aleida (b. 1960), Camilo (b. 1962), Celia (b. 1963), Ernesto (b. 1965)
Parents	Ernesto Guevara Lynch[6] Celia de la Serna[6]
Signature

Ernesto «Che» Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa];^[7] June 14,^[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.^[8]

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.^[9] His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara’s political ideology.^[9] Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.^[10] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.^[11]

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals,^[12] instituting agrarian land reform as minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion^[13] and bringing the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.^[14] Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World’s underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedy being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.^[15][16] Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.^[17]

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a «new man» driven by moral rather than material incentives, he has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist-inspired movements. Time magazine magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century,^[18] while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as «the most famous photograph in the world».^[19]

Early life

Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928^[1] in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in an Argentine family of Basque and Irish descent.^[20][21] In lieu of his parents’ surnames, his legal name (Ernesto Guevara) will sometimes appear with de la Serna, or Lynch accompanying it. In reference to Che’s «restless» nature, his father declared «the first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels.»^[22] Very early on in life Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an «affinity for the poor».^[23] Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy.^[24] His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.^[25]

Though suffering crippling bouts of acute asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, football, golf, and shooting; while also becoming an «untiring» cyclist.^[26][27] He was an avid rugby union player,^[28] and played at fly-half for Club Universitario de Buenos Aires.^[29] His rugby playing earned him the nickname «Fuser»—a contraction of El Furibundo (raging) and his mother’s surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.^[30]

Intellectual and literary interests

File:CheG1951.jpg

Guevara learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by age 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he was passionate about poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda, John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, and Walt Whitman.^[31] He could also recite Rudyard Kipling’s «If—» and José Hernández’s Martín Fierro from memory.^[31] The Guevara home contained more than 3,000 books, which allowed Guevara to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, with interests including Karl Marx, William Faulkner, André Gide, Emilio Salgari and Jules Verne.^[32] Additionally, he enjoyed the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Vladimir Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as Anatole France, Friedrich Engels, H. G. Wells, and Robert Frost.^[33]

As he grew older, he developed an interest in the Latin American writers Horacio Quiroga, Ciro Alegría, Jorge Icaza, Rubén Darío, and Miguel Asturias.^[33] Many of these authors’ ideas he cataloged in his own handwritten notebooks of concepts, definitions, and philosophies of influential intellectuals. These included composing analytical sketches of Buddha and Aristotle, along with examining Bertrand Russell on love and patriotism, Jack London on society, and Nietzsche on the idea of death. Sigmund Freud‘s ideas fascinated him as he quoted him on a variety of topics from dreams and libido to narcissism and the oedipus complex.^[33] His favorite subjects in school included philosophy, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology, history and archaeology.^[34][35]

Years later, a February 13, 1958, declassified CIA ‘biographical and personality report’ would make note of Guevara’s wide range of academic interests and intellect, describing him as «quite well read» while adding that «Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino.»^[36]

Motorcycle journey

Main articles: The Motorcycle Diaries (book) and The Motorcycle Diaries (film)

In 1948, Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. His «hunger to explore the world»^[37] led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that would fundamentally change the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition in 1950 was a 4,500 kilometer (2,800 mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of northern Argentina on a bicycle on which he installed a small engine.^[38] This was followed in 1951 by a nine-month, 8,000-kilometer (5,000 mi) continental motorcycle trek through most of South America. For the latter, he took a year off from studies to embark with his friend Alberto Granado, with the final goal of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru, on the banks of the Amazon River.

In Chile, Guevara found himself enraged by the working conditions of the miners in Anaconda‘s Chuquicamata copper mine; and moved by his overnight encounter in the Atacama Desert with a persecuted communist couple who did not even own a blanket, describing them as «the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation».^[40] Additionally, on the way to Machu Picchu high in the Andes, he was struck by the crushing poverty of the remote rural areas, where peasant farmers worked small plots of land owned by wealthy landlords.^[41] Later on his journey, Guevara was especially impressed by the camaraderie among those living in a leper colony, stating «The highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people.»^[41] Guevara used notes taken during this trip to write an account entitled The Motorcycle Diaries, which later became a The New York Times best-seller,^[42] and was adapted into a 2004 award-winning film of the same name.

In total, the journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and the United States (Miami, Florida for 20 days),^[43] before returning home to Buenos Aires. By trip’s end, he came to view Latin America not as collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy. His conception of a borderless, united Hispanic America sharing a common Latino heritage was a theme that prominently recurred during his later revolutionary activities. Upon returning to Argentina, he completed his studies and received his medical degree in June 1953, making him officially «Dr. Ernesto Guevara».^[44][45]

Guevara later remarked that through his travels of Latin America, he came in «close contact with poverty, hunger and disease» along with the «inability to treat a child because of lack of money» and «stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment» that leads a father to «accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident». It was these experiences which Guevara cites as convincing him that in order to «help these people», he needed to leave the realm of medicine, and consider the political arena of armed struggle.^[9]

Guatemala, Árbenz and United Fruit

On July 7, 1953, Guevara set out again, this time to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. On December 10, 1953, before leaving for Guatemala, Guevara sent an update to his Aunt Beatriz from San José, Costa Rica. In the letter Guevara speaks of traversing through the «dominions» of the United Fruit Company, which convinced him «how terrible» the «Capitalist octopuses» were.^[47] This affirmed indignation carried the «head hunting tone» that he adopted in order to frighten his more Conservative relatives, and ends with Guevara swearing on an image of the then recently deceased Joseph Stalin, not to rest until these «octopuses have been vanquished».^[48] Later that month, Guevara arrived in Guatemala where President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán headed a democratically elected government that, through land reform and other initiatives, was attempting to end the latifundia system. To accomplish this, President Árbenz had enacted a major land reform program, where all uncultivated portions of large land holdings were to be expropriated and redistributed to landless peasants. The biggest land owner, and one most affected by the reforms, was the United Fruit Company, from which the Árbenz government had already taken more than 225,000 acres (910 km²) of uncultivated land.^[49] Pleased with the road the nation was heading down, he decided to settle down in Guatemala so as to «perfect himself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary.»^[50]

In Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was well-connected politically as a member of the left-leaning Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, American Popular Revolutionary Alliance). She introduced Guevara to a number of high-level officials in the Arbenz government. Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro through the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. During this period he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine diminutive interjection che, a vocative casual speech filler used to call attention or ascertain comprehension, similarly to both «bro» or the Canadian phrase «eh«.^[51]

Guevara’s attempts to obtain a medical internship were unsuccessful and his economic situation was often precarious. On May 15, 1954, a shipment of Škoda infantry and light artillery weapons was sent from Communist Czechoslovakia for the Arbenz Government and arrived in Puerto Barrios.^[52] As a result, the US CIA sponsored an army which invaded the country and installed the right-wing dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas.^[50] Guevara was eager to fight on behalf of Arbenz and joined an armed militia organized by the Communist Youth for that purpose, but frustrated with the group’s inaction, he soon returned to medical duties. Following the coup, he again volunteered to fight, but soon after, Arbenz took refuge in the Mexican Embassy and told his foreign supporters to leave the country. Guevara’s repeated calls to resist were noted by supporters of the coup, and he was marked for murder.^[53] After Hilda Gadea was arrested, Guevara sought protection inside the Argentine consulate, where he remained until he received a safe-conduct pass some weeks later and made his way to Mexico.^[54] He married Gadea in Mexico in September 1955.^[55]

The overthrow of the Arbenz regime cemented Guevara’s view of the United States as an imperialist power that would oppose and attempt to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. In speaking about the coup Guevara stated:

«The last Latin American revolutionary democracy – that of Jacobo Arbenz – failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the US. Its visible head was the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company.»^[53]

Guevara’s conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions was thus strengthened.^[56] Gadea wrote later, «It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this.»^[57]

Mexico City and preparation

Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital. In addition he gave lectures on medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and worked as a news photographer for Latina News Agency.^[58] His first wife Hilda notes in her memoir My Life with Che, that for a while, Guevara considered going to work as a doctor in Africa and that he continued to be deeply troubled by the poverty around him.^[59] In one instance, Hilda describes Guevara’s obsession with an elderly washerwoman whom he was treating, remarking that he saw her as «representative of the most forgotten and exploited class». Hilda later found a poem that Che had dedicated to the old woman, containing «a promise to fight for a better world, for a better life for all the poor and exploited.»^[59]

During this time he renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During a long conversation with Fidel on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban’s cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of the July 26 Movement.^[60] Despite their «contrasting personalities», from this point on Che and Fidel began to foster what dual biographer Simon Reid-Henry deems a «revolutionary friendship that would change the world», as a result of their coinciding commitment to anti-imperialism.^[61]

By this point in Guevara’s life, he deemed that US-controlled conglomerates installed and supported repressive regimes around the world. In this vein, he considered Batista a «US puppet whose strings needed cutting».^[62] Although he planned to be the group’s combat medic, Guevara participated in the military training with the members of the Movement. The key portion of training involved learning hit and run tactics of guerrilla warfare. Guevara and the others underwent arduous 15-hour marches over mountains, across rivers, and through the dense undergrowth, learning and perfecting the procedures of ambush and quick retreat. From the start Guevara was Alberto Bayo’s «prize student» among those in training, scoring the highest on all of the tests given.^[63] At the end of the course, he was called «the best guerrilla of them all» by their instructor, General Bayo.^[64]

Cuban Revolution

Invasion, warfare and Santa Clara

The first step in Castro’s revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the Granma, an old, leaky cabin cruiser. They set out for Cuba on November 25, 1956. Attacked by Batista’s military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards.^[65] Guevara wrote that it was during this bloody confrontation that he laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, proving to be a symbolic moment in Che’s life.

Only a small band of revolutionaries survived to re-group as a bedraggled fighting force deep in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they received support from the urban guerrilla network of Frank País, the 26th of July Movement, and local campesinos. With the group withdrawn to the Sierra, the world wondered whether Castro was alive or dead until early 1957 when the interview by Herbert Matthews appeared in The New York Times. The article presented a lasting, almost mythical image for Castro and the guerrillas. Guevara was not present for the interview, but in the coming months he began to realize the importance of the media in their struggle. Meanwhile, as supplies and morale diminished, and with an allergy to mosquito bites which resulted in agonizing walnut-sized cysts on his body,^[66] Guevara considered these «the most painful days of the war».^[67]

During Guevara’s time living hidden among the poor subsistence farmers of the Sierra Maestra mountains, he discovered that there were no schools, no electricity, minimal access to healthcare, and more than 40 percent of the adults were illiterate.^[68] As the war continued, Guevara became an integral part of the rebel army and «convinced Castro with competence, diplomacy and patience».^[11] Guevara set up factories to make grenades, built ovens to bake bread, taught new recruits about tactics, and organized schools to teach illiterate campesinos to read and write.^[11] Moreover, Guevara established health clinics, workshops to teach military tactics, and a newspaper to disseminate information.^[69] The man who three years later would be dubbed by Time Magazine: «Castro’s brain», at this point was promoted by Fidel Castro to Comandante (commander) of a second army column.^[11]

As second in command, Guevara was a harsh disciplinarian who sometimes shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send squads to track those seeking to go AWOL.^[70] As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness.^[71] During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the sometimes summary execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies.^[72] In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel’s position for attack by the Cuban air force.^[73] Such information also allowed Batista’s army to burn the homes of rebel-friendly peasants.^[73] Upon Guerra’s request that they «end his life quickly»,^[73] Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing «The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe].»^[74] His scientific notations and matter-of-fact description, suggested to one biographer a «remarkable detachment to violence» by that point in the war.^[74] Later, Guevara published a literary account of the incident entitled «Death of a Traitor», where he transfigured Eutimio’s betrayal and pre-execution request that the revolution «take care of his children», into a «revolutionary parable about redemption through sacrifice».^[74]

Although he maintained a demanding and harsh disposition, Guevara also viewed his role of commander as one of a teacher, entertaining his men during breaks between engagements with readings from the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Cervantes, and Spanish lyric poets.^[75] Together with this role, and inspired by José Martí’s principle of «literacy without borders», Guevara further ensured that his rebel fighters made daily time to teach the uneducated campesinos with whom they lived and fought to read and write, in what Guevara termed the «battle against ignorance».^[68] Tomás Alba, who fought under Guevara’s command, later stated that «Che was loved, in spite of being stern and demanding. We would (have) given our life for him.»^[76]

His commanding officer Fidel Castro has described Guevara as intelligent, daring, and an exemplary leader who «had great moral authority over his troops».^[77] Castro further remarked that Guevara took too many risks, even having a «tendency toward foolhardiness».^[78] Guevara’s teenage lieutenant, Joel Iglesias, recounts such actions in his diary, noting that Guevara’s behavior in combat even brought admiration from the enemy. On one occasion Iglesias recounts the time he had been wounded in battle, stating «Che ran out to me, defying the bullets, threw me over his shoulder, and got me out of there. The guards didn’t dare fire at him … later they told me he made a great impression on them when they saw him run out with his pistol stuck in his belt, ignoring the danger, they didn’t dare shoot.»^[79]

Guevara was instrumental in creating the clandestine radio station Radio Rebelde (Rebel Radio) in February 1958, which broadcast news to the Cuban people with statements by the 26th of July movement, and provided radiotelephone communication between the growing number of rebel columns across the island. Guevara had apparently been inspired to create the station by observing the effectiveness of CIA supplied radio in Guatemala in ousting the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.^[80]

To quell the rebellion, Cuban government troops began executing rebel prisoners on the spot, and regularly rounded up, tortured, and shot civilians as a tactic of intimidation.^[81] By March 1958, the continued atrocities carried out by Batista’s forces led the United States to announce it would stop selling arms to the Cuban government.^[69] Then in late July 1958, Guevara played a critical role in the Battle of Las Mercedes by using his column to halt a force of 1,500 men called up by Batista’s General Cantillo in a plan to encircle and destroy Castro’s forces. Years later, Major Larry Bockman of the United States Marine Corps would analyze and describe Che’s tactical appreciation of this battle as «brilliant».^[82] During this time Guevara also became an «expert» at leading hit-and-run tactics against Batista’s army, and then fading back into the countryside before the army could counterattack.^[83]

As the war extended, Guevara led a new column of fighters dispatched westward for the final push towards Havana. Travelling by foot, Guevara embarked on a difficult 7-week march only travelling at night to avoid ambush, and often not eating for several days.^[84] In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara’s task was to cut the island in half by taking Las Villas province. In a matter of days he executed a series of «brilliant tactical victories» that gave him control of all but the province’s capital city of Santa Clara.^[84] Guevara then directed his «suicide squad» in the attack on Santa Clara, that became the final decisive military victory of the revolution.^[85][86] In the six weeks leading up to the Battle of Santa Clara there were times when his men were completely surrounded, outgunned, and overrun. Che’s eventual victory despite being outnumbered 10:1, remains in the view of some observers a «remarkable tour de force in modern warfare».^[87]

Radio Rebelde broadcast the first reports that Guevara’s column had taken Santa Clara on New Year’s Eve 1958. This contradicted reports by the heavily controlled national news media, which had at one stage reported Guevara’s death during the fighting. At 3 am on January 1, 1959, upon learning that his generals were negotiating a separate peace with Guevara, Fulgencio Batista boarded a plane in Havana and fled for the Dominican Republic, along with an amassed «fortune of more than $300,000,000 through graft and payoffs».^[88] The following day on January 2, Guevara entered Havana to take final control of the capital.^[89] Fidel Castro took 6 more days to arrive, as he stopped to rally support in several large cities on his way to rolling victoriously into Havana on January 8, 1959. The final death toll from the two years of revolutionary fighting was 2,000 people.^[90]

In mid-January 1959, Guevara went to live at a summer villa in Tarara to recover from a violent asthma attack.^[91] While there he started the Tarara Group, a group that debated and formed the new plans for Cuba’s social, political, and economic development.^[92] In addition, Che began to write his book Guerrilla Warfare while resting at Tarara.^[92] In February, the revolutionary government proclaimed Guevara «a Cuban citizen by birth» in recognition of his role in the triumph.^[93] When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce,^[94] which was finalized on May 22.^[95] On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida.^[96] In total, Guevara would ultimately have five children from his two marriages.^[97]

La Cabaña, land reform, and literacy

The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials who had been responsible for the worst of the repression.^[98] During the rebellion against Batista’s dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel Castro, introduced into the territories under its control the 19th century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra (Law of the Sierra).^[99] This law included the death penalty for serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959, the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to those it considered war criminals, captured and tried after the revolution. According to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, this latter extension was supported by the majority of the population, and followed the same procedure as those in the Nuremberg Trials held by the Allies after World War II.^[100]

To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959).^[101] Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting «revolutionary justice» against those considered to be traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals.^[102] Serving in the post as commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process.^[12] The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen.^[103] On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing squad.^[104] Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, has argued that the death penalty was justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands, as happened twenty years earlier in the anti-Machado rebellion.^[105] Biographers note that in January 1959, the Cuban public was in a «lynching mood»,^[106] and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process.^[12] Moreover, a January 22, 1959, Universal Newsreel broadcast in the US and narrated by Ed Herlihy, featured Fidel Castro asking an estimated one million Cubans whether they approved of the executions, and was met with a roaring «¡Si!» (yes).^[107] With thousands of Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista’s collaborators,^[108][109] and many of the war criminals sentenced to death accused of torture and physical atrocities,^[12] the newly empowered government carried out executions, punctuated by cries from the crowds of «¡paredón!» ([to the] wall!),^[98] which biographer Jorge Castañeda describes as «without respect for due process».^[110]

Although there are varying accounts, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara’s jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 105 (see reference).^[112] Conflicting views exist of Guevara’s attitude towards the executions at La Cabaña. Some exiled opposition biographers report that he relished the rituals of the firing squad, and organized them with gusto, while others relate that Guevara pardoned as many prisoners as he could.^[110] What is acknowledged by all sides is that Guevara had become a «hardened» man, who had no qualms about the death penalty or summary and collective trials. If the only way to «defend the revolution was to execute its enemies, he would not be swayed by humanitarian or political arguments».^[110] This is further confirmed by a February 5, 1959, letter to Luis Paredes López in Buenos Aires where Guevara states unequivocally «The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people.»^[113]

Along with ensuring «revolutionary justice», the other key early platform of Guevara’s was establishing agrarian land reform. Almost immediately after the success of the revolution on January 27, 1959, Guevara made one of his most significant speeches where he talked about «the social ideas of the rebel army». During this speech, he declared that the main concern of the new Cuban government was «the social justice that land redistribution brings about».^[114] A few months later on May 17, 1959, the Agrarian Reform Law crafted by Guevara went into effect, limiting the size of all farms to 1,000 acres (4.0 km²). Any holdings over these limits were expropriated by the government and either redistributed to peasants in 67-acre (270,000 m²) parcels or held as state run communes.^[115] The law also stipulated that sugar plantations could not be owned by foreigners.^[116]

On June 12, 1959, Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of 14 mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong.^[117] Sending Guevara away from Havana allowed Castro to appear to be distancing himself from Guevara and his Marxist sympathies, which troubled both the United States and some of Castro’s July 26 Movement members.^[118] While in Jakarta, Guevara visited Indonesian president Sukarno to discuss the recent revolution in Indonesia and to establish trade relations between their two nations. Both men quickly bonded, as Sukarno was attracted to Guevara’s energy and his relaxed informal approach; moreover they shared revolutionary leftist aspirations against western imperialism.^[119] Guevara next spent 12 days in Japan (July 15–27), participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba’s trade relations with that nation. During the visit, he refused to visit and lay a wreath at Japan’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier commemorating soldiers lost during World War II, remarking that the Japanese «imperialists» had «killed millions of Asians».^[120] In its place, Guevara stated that he would instead visit Hiroshima, where the American military had detonated an atom-bomb 14 years earlier.^[120] Despite his denunciation of Imperial Japan, Guevara also considered President Truman a «macabre clown» for the bombings,^[121] and after visiting Hiroshima and its Peace Memorial Museum, he sent back a postcard to Cuba stating «In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima.»^[122]

Upon Guevara’s return to Cuba in September 1959, it was evident that Castro now had more political power. The government had begun land seizures included in the agrarian reform law, but was hedging on compensation offers to landowners, instead offering low interest «bonds», a step which put the US on alert. At this point the affected wealthy cattlemen of Camagüey mounted a campaign against the land redistributions, and enlisted the newly disaffected rebel leader Huber Matos, who along with the anti-Communist wing of the 26th of July Movement, joined them in denouncing the «Communist encroachment».^[123] During this time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was offering assistance to the «Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean» which was training in the Dominican Republic. This multi-national force, composed mostly of Spaniards and Cubans, but also of Croatians, Germans, Greeks, and right-wing mercenaries, was plotting to topple Castro’s new regime.^[123]

Such threats were heightened when, on March 4, 1960, two massive explosions ripped through the French freighter La Coubre, which was carrying Belgian munitions from the port of Antwerp, and was docked in Havana Harbor. The blasts killed at least 76 people and injured several hundred, with Guevara personally providing first aid to some of the victims. Cuban leader Fidel Castro immediately accused the CIA of «an act of terrorism» and held a state funeral the following day for the victims of the blast.^[124] It was at the memorial service that Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Guevara, now known as Guerrillero Heroico.^[125]

These perceived threats prompted Castro to further eliminate «counter-revolutionaries«, and to utilize Guevara to drastically increase the speed of land reform. To implement this plan, a new government agency, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), was established to administer the new Agrarian Reform law. INRA quickly became the most important governing body in the nation, with Guevara serving as its head in his capacity as minister of industries.^[116] Under Guevara’s command, INRA established its own 100,000 person militia, used first to help the government seize control of the expropriated land and supervise its distribution, and later to set up cooperative farms. The land confiscated included 480,000 acres (1,900 km²) owned by US corporations.^[116] Months later, as retaliation, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower sharply reduced US imports of Cuban sugar (Cuba’s main cash crop), thus leading Guevara on July 10, 1960, to address over 100,000 workers in front of the Presidential Palace at a rally called to denounce US «economic aggression».^[126] Time magazine reporters who met with Guevara around this time, described him as «guid(ing) Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and a perceptive sense of humor.»^[11]

Along with land reform, one of the primary areas that Guevara stressed needed national improvement was in the area of literacy. Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60–76%, with educational access in rural areas and a lack of instructors the main determining factors.^[127] As a result, the Cuban government at Guevara’s behest dubbed 1961 the «year of education», and mobilized over 100,000 volunteers into «literacy brigades», who were then sent out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominately illiterate guajiros (peasants) to read and write.^[68][127] Unlike many of Guevara’s later economic initiatives, this campaign was «a remarkable success».^[127] By the completion of the Cuban Literacy Campaign, 707,212 adults had been taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.^[127]

Accompanying literacy, Guevara was also concerned with establishing universal access to higher education. To accomplish this, the new regime introduced affirmative action to the universities.^[129] While announcing this new commitment, Guevara told the gathered faculty and students at the University of Las Villas that the days when education was «a privilege of the white middle class» had ended. «The University» he said, «must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant.» If it did not, he warned, the people would break down its doors «and paint the University the colors they like.»^[129]

Marxist ideological influence

«The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.»

— Che Guevara, Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban, October 1960 ^[130]

When enacting and advocating Cuban policy, Guevara cited the political philosopher Karl Marx as his ideological inspiration. In defending his political stance, Guevara confidently remarked that «There are truths so evident, so much a part of people’s knowledge, that it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be Marxist with the same naturalness with which one is «Newtonian» in physics, or «Pasteurian» in biology.»^[130] According to Guevara, the «practical revolutionaries» of the Cuban Revolution had the goal of «simply fulfill(ing) laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist.»^[130] Using Marx’s predictions and system of dialectical materialism, Guevara professed that «The laws of Marxism are present in the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently of what its leaders profess or fully know of those laws from a theoretical point of view.»^[130]

The «New Man», Bay of Pigs and missile crisis

«Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.»

— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba^[131]

At this stage, Guevara acquired the additional position of Finance Minister, as well as President of the National Bank. These appointments, combined with his existing position as Minister of Industries, placed Guevara at the zenith of his power, as the «virtual czar» of the Cuban economy.^[126] As a consequence of his position at the head of the central bank, it was now Guevara’s duty to sign the Cuban currency, which per custom would bear his signature. Instead of using his full name, he signed the bills solely «Che«.^[132] It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in the Cuban financial sector, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about.^[132] Guevara’s long time friend Ricardo Rojo later remarked that «the day he signed Che on the bills, (he) literally knocked the props from under the widespread belief that money was sacred.»^[133]

In an effort to eliminate social inequalities, Guevara and Cuba’s new leadership had moved to swiftly transform the political and economic base of the country through nationalizing factories, banks, and businesses, while attempting to ensure affordable housing, healthcare, and employment for all Cubans.^[135] However, in order for a genuine transformation of consciousness to take root, Guevara believed that such structural changes would have to be accompanied by a conversion in people’s social relations and values. Believing that the attitudes in Cuba towards race, women, individualism, and manual labor were the product of the island’s outdated past, Guevara urged all individuals to view each other as equals and take on the values of what he termed «el Hombre Nuevo» (the New Man).^[135] Guevara hoped his «new man» would ultimately be «selfless and cooperative, obedient and hard working, gender-blind, incorruptible, non-materialistic, and anti-imperialist.»^[135] To accomplish this, Guevara emphasized the tenets of Marxism-Leninism, and wanted to use the state to emphasize qualities such as egalitarianism and self-sacrifice, at the same time as «unity, equality, and freedom» became the new maxims.^[135] Guevara’s first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for wealth condensation and economic inequality, was to see a nation-wide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a «contest among wolves» where «one can only win at the cost of others» and thus desired to see the creation of a «new man and woman».^[136] Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not «worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction» if it ends up encouraging «greed and individual ambition at the expense of collective spirit».^[137] A primary goal of Guevara’s thus became to reform «individual consciousness» and values to produce better workers and citizens.^[137] In his view, Cuba’s «new man» would be able to overcome the «egotism» and «selfishness» that he loathed and discerned was uniquely characteristic of individuals in capitalist societies.^[137] To promote this concept of a «new man», the government also created a series of party-dominated institutions and mechanisms on all levels of society, which included organizations such as labor groups, youth leagues, women’s groups, community centers, and houses of culture to promote state-sponsored art, music, and literature. In congruence with this, all educational, mass media, and artistic community based facilities were nationalized and utilized to instill the government’s official socialist ideology.^[135] In describing this new method of «development», Guevara stated:

«There is a great difference between free-enterprise development and revolutionary development. In one of them, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, the friends of the government, the best wheeler-dealers. In the other, wealth is the people’s patrimony.»^[138]

A further integral part of fostering a sense of «unity between the individual and the mass», Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara «led by example», working «endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane» on his day off.^[139] He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run.^[137] Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara’s new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut.^[137] Guevara unapologetically defended his personal philosophy towards motivation and work, stating:

«This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, or how many times a year someone can go to the beach, or how many ornaments from abroad one might be able to buy with his current salary. What really matters is that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility.»^[140]

In the face of a loss of commercial connections with Western states, Guevara tried to replace them with closer commercial relationships with Eastern Bloc states, visiting a number of Marxist states and signing trade agreements with them. At the end of 1960 he visited Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Hungary and East Germany and signed, for instance, a trade agreement in East Berlin on December 17, 1960.^[141] Such agreements helped Cuba’s economy to a certain degree but also had the disadvantage of a growing economic dependency on the Eastern Bloc. It was also in East Germany where Guevara met Tamara Bunke (later known as «Tania»), who was assigned as his interpreter, and who would years later join him and be killed with him in Bolivia.

Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara’s economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful.^[142] Guevara’s program of «moral incentives» for workers caused a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism.^[143] Decades later, the director of Radio Martí Ernesto Betancourt, an early ally turned Castro-critic and Che’s former deputy, would accuse Guevara of being «ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.»^[144] In reference to the collective failings of Guevara’s vision, reporter I.F. Stone who interviewed Guevara twice during this time, remarked that he was «Galahad not Robespierre«, while opining that «in a sense he was, like some early saint, taking refuge in the desert. Only there could the purity of the faith be safeguarded from the unregenerate revisionism of human nature.»^[145]

On April 17, 1961, 1,400 US-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Guevara did not play a key role in the fighting, as one day before the invasion a warship carrying Marines faked an invasion off the West Coast of Pinar del Río and drew forces commanded by Guevara to that region. However, historians give him a share of credit for the victory as he was director of instruction for Cuba’s armed forces at the time.^[13] Author Tad Szulc in his explanation of the Cuban victory, assigns Guevara partial credit, stating: «The revolutionaries won because Che Guevara, as the head of the Instruction Department of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in charge of the militia training program, had done so well in preparing 200,000 men and women for war.»^[13] It was also during this deployment that he suffered a bullet grazing to the cheek when his pistol fell out of its holster and accidentally discharged.^[146]

In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note of «gratitude» to US President John F. Kennedy through Richard N. Goodwin, a young secretary of the White House. It read «Thanks for Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now it’s stronger than ever.»^[147][148] In response to US Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon presenting the Alliance for Progress for ratification by the meeting, Guevara antagonistically attacked the United States claim of being a «democracy», stating that such a system was not compatible with «financial oligarchy, discrimination against blacks, and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan».^[149] Guevara continued, speaking out against the «persecution» that in his view «drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, and sent the Rosenbergs to their deaths against the protests of a shocked world.»^[149] Guevara ended his remarks by insinuating that the United States was not interested in real reforms, sardonically quipping that «US experts never talk about agrarian reform; they prefer a safe subject, like a better water supply. In short they seem to prepare the revolution of the toilets.»^[33]

Guevara, who was practically the architect of the Soviet-Cuban relationship,^[150] then played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.^[151] A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off.^[152] While expounding on the incident later, Guevara reiterated that the cause of socialist liberation against global «imperialist aggression» would ultimately have been worth the possibility of «millions of atomic war victims».^[153] The missile crisis further convinced Guevara that the world’s two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) used Cuba as a pawn in their own global strategies. Afterward he denounced the Soviets almost as frequently as he denounced the Americans.^[154]

International diplomacy

By December 1964, Che Guevara had emerged as a «revolutionary statesman of world stature» and thus traveled to New York City as head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the United Nations.^[133] During his impassioned address, he criticized the United Nations’ inability to confront the «brutal policy of apartheid» in South Africa, asking «Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?»^[155] Guevara then denounced the United States policy towards their black population, stating:

«Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men—how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?»^[155]

An indignant Guevara ended his speech by reciting the Second Declaration of Havana, decreeing Latin America a «family of 200 million brothers who suffer the same miseries».^[155] This «epic», Guevara declared, would be written by the «hungry Indian masses, peasants without land, exploited workers, and progressive masses». To Guevara the conflict was a struggle of masses and ideas, which would be carried forth by those «mistreated and scorned by imperialism» who were previously considered «a weak and submissive flock». With this «flock», Guevara now asserted, «Yankee monopoly capitalism» now terrifyingly saw their «gravediggers».^[155] It would be during this «hour of vindication», Guevara pronounced, that the «anonymous mass» would begin to write its own history «with its own blood» and reclaim those «rights that were laughed at by one and all for 500 years». Guevara ended his remarks to the General Assembly by hypothesizing that this «wave of anger” would «sweep the lands of Latin America» and that the labor masses who «turn the wheel of history» were now, for the first time, «awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected».^[155]

Guevara later learned that there were two failed attempts on his life by Cuban exiles during his stop at the UN complex.^[156] The first from Molly Gonzales who tried to break through barricades upon his arrival with a seven-inch hunting knife, and later during his address by Guillermo Novo with a timer-initiated bazooka that was fired off target from a boat in the East River at the United Nations Headquarters.^[156] Afterwards Guevara commented on both incidents, stating that «it is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun», while adding with a languid wave of his cigar that the explosion had «given the whole thing more flavor».^[156]

While in New York Guevara also appeared on the CBS Sunday news program Face the Nation and met with a range of people, from US Senator Eugene McCarthy^[157] to associates of Malcolm X. The latter expressed his admiration, declaring Guevara «one of the most revolutionary men in this country right now» while reading a statement from him to a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom.^[158]

On December 17 Guevara left for Paris, France, and from there embarked on a three-month world tour that included vists to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, the United Arab Republic, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland and Prague. While in Ireland Guevara embraced his own Irish heritage, celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day in Limerick city.^[159] He wrote to his father on this visit, humorously stating «I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors. When they found out, the television [station] came to ask me about the Lynch genealogy, but in case they were horse thieves or something like that, I didn’t say much.»^[160]

During this voyage he wrote a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of a Uruguayan weekly, which was later retitled Socialism and Man in Cuba.^[136] Outlined in the treatise was Guevara’s summons for the creation of a new consciousness, a new status of work, and a new role of the individual. He also laid out the reasoning behind his anti-capitalist sentiments, stating:

«The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller—whether or not it is true—about the possibilities of success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.»^[136]

Guevara ended the essay by declaring that «the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love» and beckoning on all revolutionaries to «strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into acts that serve as examples», thus becoming «a moving force».^[136] The genesis for Guevara’s assertions relied on the fact that he believed the example of the Cuban Revolution was «something spiritual that would transcend all borders».^[33]

Algiers, the Soviets and China

In Algiers, Algeria on February 24, 1965, Guevara made what turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage when he delivered a speech at an economic seminar on Afro-Asian solidarity.^[161] He specified the moral duty of the socialist countries, accusing them of tacit complicity with the exploiting Western countries. He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries must implement in order to accomplish the defeat of imperialism.^[162] Having criticized the Soviet Union (the primary financial backer of Cuba) in such a public manner, he returned to Cuba on March 14 to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raúl Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport.

As revealed in his last public speech in Algiers, Guevara had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the US in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create «many Vietnams».^[163] Che’s denunciations of the Soviets made him popular among intellectuals and artists of the Western European left who had lost faith in the Soviet Union, while his condemnation of imperialism inspired young radical students in the United States, who were impatient for societal change and for whom the idea of revolution was inspiring.^[164]

Moreover, the coincidence of Guevara’s views with those expounded by the Chinese Communist leadership under Mao Zedong was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation’s economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union. Since the early days of the Cuban revolution, Guevara had been considered by many an advocate of Maoist strategy in Latin America and the originator of a plan for the rapid industrialization of Cuba that was frequently compared to China’s «Great Leap Forward«. Castro became weary of Guevara’s opposition to Soviet conditions and recommendations: measures that Castro saw as necessary, but which Guevara described as corrupt and «pre-monopolist».^[165]

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».^[166] 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.^[166] It was Guevara’s desire to see 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.^[166] Disagreeing with this incrementalist approach, Guevara criticized the Soviet Manual of Political Economy, correctly predicting that since the Soviets were not willing to abolish the law of value (as Guevara desired), they would eventually return to capitalism.^[166]

Two weeks after his Algiers speech, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara’s pro-Chinese Communist stance on the Sino-Soviet split, and to serious differences between Guevara and the pragmatic Castro regarding Cuba’s economic development and ideological line. Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara’s fate, Castro stated on June 16, 1965 that the people would be informed when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Still, rumors spread both inside and outside Cuba. On October 3, 1965, Castro publicly revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier; in it, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the government and party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.^[167]

Congo

In early 1965 Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo. According to Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, Guevara thought that Africa was imperialism’s weak link and therefore had enormous revolutionary potential.^[168] Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had fraternal relations with Che dating back to his 1959 visit, saw Guevara’s plans to fight in the Congo as «unwise» and warned that he would become a «Tarzan» figure, doomed to failure.^[169] Despite the warning, Guevara traveled to the Congo using the alias Ramón Benítez.^[170] Guevara led the Cuban operation in support of the Marxist Simba movement, which had emerged from the ongoing Congo crisis. Guevara, his second-in-command Victor Dreke, and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in the Congo on April 24, 1965 and a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterward.^[171][172] They collaborated for a time with guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had previously helped supporters of the overthrown Patrice Lumumba lead an unsuccessful revolt months earlier. As an admirer of the late Lumumba, Guevara declared that his «murder should be a lesson for all of us».^[173] Guevara, with limited knowledge of Swahili and the local languages, was assigned a teenage interpreter, Freddy Ilanga. Over the course of seven months Ilanga grew to «admire the hard-working Guevara», who «showed the same respect to black people as he did to whites».^[174] However, Guevara soon became disillusioned with the poor discipline of Kabila’s troops and later dismissed him, stating «nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour».^[175]

As an additional obstacle, white South African mercenaries, led by Mike Hoare in concert with Cuban exiles and the CIA, worked with the Congo National Army to thwart Guevara’s movements from his base camp which was located in the mountains near the village of Fizi on Lake Tanganyika in southeast Congo. They were able to monitor his communications and so pre-empted his attacks and interdicted his supply lines. Despite the fact that Guevara sought to conceal his presence in the Congo, the US government was aware of his location and activities. The National Security Agency was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing transmissions via equipment aboard the USNS Private Jose F. Valdez (T-AG-169), a floating listening post that continuously cruised the Indian Ocean off Dar es Salaam for that purpose.^[176]

Guevara’s aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti-Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary book, he cites the incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces as key reasons for the revolt’s failure.^[177] Later that year on November 20, 1965, in ill health with dysentery, suffering from acute asthma and disheartened after seven months of frustration and inactivity, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors, six members of his 12-man column having died. At one point Guevara considered sending the wounded back to Cuba and fighting in Congo alone until his death, as a revolutionary example. After being urged by his comrades and pressed by two emissaries sent by Castro, at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave Africa. During that day and night, Guevara’s forces quietly took down their basecamp, burned their huts, and destroyed or threw weapons into Lake Tanganyika that they could not take with them, before crossing the border into Tanzania during the night and traveling overland to Dar es Salaam. In speaking about his experience in the Congo months later, Guevara concluded that he left rather than fight to the death because: «The human element failed. There is no will to fight. The leaders are corrupt. In a word… there was nothing to do.»^[178] Guevara also declared that «we can’t liberate by ourselves a country that does not want to fight.»^[179] A few weeks later, when writing the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture, he began: «This is the history of a failure.»^[180]

Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had made public Guevara’s «farewell letter»—a letter intended to only be revealed in the case of his death—wherein he severed all ties in order to devote himself to revolution throughout the world.^[181] As a result, Guevara spent the next six months living clandestinely in Dar es Salaam and Prague.^[182] During this time he compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience and wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy and the other on economics. He then visited several Western European countries to test his new false identity papers, created by Cuban Intelligence for his later travels to South America. As Guevara prepared for Bolivia, he secretly traveled back to Cuba to visit Castro, as well as to see his wife and to write a last letter to his five children to be read upon his death, which ended with him instructing them:

«Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.»^[183]

Bolivia

In late 1966, Guevara’s location was still not public knowledge, although representatives of Mozambique’s independence movement, the FRELIMO, reported that they met with Guevara in late 1966 in Dar es Salaam regarding his offer to aid in their revolutionary project, an offer which they ultimately rejected.^[184] In a speech at the 1967 International Workers’ Day rally in Havana, the acting minister of the armed forces, Major Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara was «serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America».

Before he departed for Bolivia, Guevara altered his appearance by shaving off his beard and part of the top of his head as well as dyeing the rest of his hair grey so he would be unrecognizable as Che Guevara.^[185] On November 3, 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz on a flight from Montevideo under the false name Adolfo Mena González, posing as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States.^[186]

Guevara’s first base camp was located in the montane dry forest in the remote Ñancahuazú region. Training at the camp in the Ñancahuazú valley proved to be hazardous, and little was accomplished in way of building a guerrilla army. The Argentine-born East German operative Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known by her nom de guerre «Tania», had been installed as Che’s primary agent in La Paz.^[187][188]

Guevara’s guerrilla force, numbering about 50^[189] and operating as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia; «National Liberation Army of Bolivia«), was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against Bolivian army regulars in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region during the early months of 1967. As a result of Guevara’s units’ winning several skirmishes against Bolivian troops in the spring and summer of 1967, the Bolivian government began to overestimate the true size of the guerrilla force.^[190] But in August 1967, the Bolivian Army managed to eliminate two guerrilla groups in a violent battle, reportedly killing one of the leaders.

Researchers hypothesize that Guevara’s plan for fomenting a revolution in Bolivia failed for an array of reasons:

• He had expected to deal only with the Bolivian military, who were poorly trained and equipped, and was unaware that the US government had sent a team of the CIA’s Special Activities Division commandos and other operatives into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The Bolivian Army would also be trained, advised, and supplied by US Army Special Forces including a recently organized elite battalion of Rangers trained in jungle warfare that set up camp in La Esperanza, a small settlement close to the location of Guevara’s guerrillas.^[191]
• Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents that he did not receive, nor did he receive support from Bolivia’s Communist Party under the leadership of Mario Monje, which was oriented toward Moscow rather than Havana. In Guevara’s own diary captured after his death, he wrote about the Communist Party of Bolivia, which he characterized as «distrustful, disloyal and stupid».^[192]
• He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. The two shortwave transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty; thus the guerrillas were unable to communicate and be resupplied, leaving them isolated and stranded.

In addition, Guevara’s known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had previously surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo.^[193] This tendency had existed in Cuba, but had been kept in check by the timely interventions and guidance of Fidel Castro.^[194]

The end result was that Guevara was unable to attract inhabitants of the local area to join his militia during the eleven months he attempted recruitment. Near the end of the venture Guevara wrote in his diary that «the peasants do not give us any help, and they are turning into informers.»^[195]

Capture and execution

Félix Rodríguez, a Cuban exile turned CIA Special Activities Division operative, advised Bolivian troops during the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia.^[197] In addition the 2007 documentary My Enemy’s Enemy, directed by Kevin Macdonald, alleges that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, aka «The Butcher of Lyon», advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara’s eventual capture.^[198]

On October 7, 1967, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara’s guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine.^[199] On October 8, they encircled the area with 1,800 soldiers, and Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with Simeón Cuba Sarabia. Che biographer Jon Lee Anderson reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca’s account: that a twice-wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, shouted, «Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead.»^[200]

Guevara was tied up and taken to a dilapidated mud schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera on the evening of October 8. For the next half day, Guevara refused to be interrogated by Bolivian officers and would only speak quietly to Bolivian soldiers. One of those Bolivian soldiers, a helicopter pilot named Jaime Nino de Guzman, describes Che as looking «dreadful». According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that «Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke.» De Guzman states that he «took pity» and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, and that Guevara then smiled and thanked him.^[201] Later on the night of October 8, Guevara—despite having his hands tied—kicked a Bolivian officer, Espinosa, into the wall after the officer entered the schoolhouse and tried to snatch Guevara’s pipe from his mouth as a souvenir while he was still smoking it.^[202] In another instance of defiance, Guevara literally spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche who attempted to question Guevara a few hours before his execution.^[202]

The following morning on October 9, Guevara asked to see the maestra (school teacher) of the village, 22-year-old Julia Cortez. Cortez would later state that she found Guevara to be an «agreeable looking man with a soft and ironic glance» and that during their conversation she found herself «unable to look him in the eye» because his «gaze was unbearable, piercing, and so tranquil».^[202] During their short conversation, Guevara pointed out to Cortez the poor condition of the schoolhouse, stating that it was «anti-pedagogical» to expect campesino students to be educated there, while «government officials drive Mercedes cars», and declaring «that’s what we are fighting against.»^[202]

Later that morning on October 9, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed to the unit holding Guevara by Félix Rodríguez despite the US government’s desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation.^[203] The executioner who volunteered to kill Guevara was Mario Terán, an alcoholic 31-year-old sergeant in the Bolivian army who had personally requested to shoot Guevara because three of his friends from B Company, all with the same first name of «Mario», had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara’s band of guerrillas.^[12] To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story that the Bolivian government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army.^[204] Gary Prado, the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara, said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara were so there would be no possibility for Guevara to escape from prison, and also so there would be no drama in regard to a public trial where adverse publicity might happen.^[205]

About 30 minutes before Guevara was executed, Félix Rodríguez attempted to question him about the whereabouts of other guerrilla fighters who were currently at large, but Guevara continued to remain silent. Rodríguez, assisted by a few Bolivian soldiers, helped Guevara to his feet and took him outside the hut to parade him before other Bolivian soldiers where he posed with Guevara for a photo opportunity where one soldier took a photograph of Rodríguez and other soldiers standing alongside Guevara. After taking him back inside, Rodríguez then privately told Guevara that he was going to be executed. Guevara then responded by asking Rodríguez if he was an American of Mexican or Puerto Rican origin, having noted that Rodríguez did not speak Bolivian Spanish. Rodríguez replied that he was originally from Cuba but that he had emigrated to the US and was currently a member of the CIA. Guevara’s only reply was a loud «ha!» and he refused to speak any more to Rodríguez, who left the hut.

A little later, a few minutes before Guevera was executed, he was asked by one of the Bolivian soldiers guarding him if he was thinking about his own immortality. «No,» he replied, «I’m thinking about the immortality of the revolution.»^[206] A few minutes later, Sergeant Terán entered the hut and immediately ordered the other soldiers out. Alone with Terán, Che Guevara then stood up and spoke to his executioner which were his last words: «I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot. Do it. Shoot me, you coward! You are only going to kill a man!»^[207] As Guevara was speaking, Terán hesitated, then opened fire with his M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, hitting him in the arms and legs. For a few seconds, Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Terán then fired several times again, wounding him fatally in the chest. Che Guevara was pronounced dead at 1:10 pm local time according to Rodríguez.^[207] In all, Guevara was shot nine times by Terán. This included five times in his legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, once in the chest, and finally in the throat.^[202]

Months earlier, during his last public declaration to the Tricontinental Conference,^[163] Guevara wrote his own epitaph, stating «Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons.»^[208]

Post-execution and memorial

File:FreddyAlbertoChe.jpg

After his execution, Guevara’s body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to nearby Vallegrande, where photographs were taken of him lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta.^[209] Several witnesses were called to confirm his identity, key amongst them the British journalist Richard Gott, the only witness to have met Guevara when he was alive.

Put on public show as hundreds of local residents filed past the body, Guevara’s corpse was considered by many to represent a «Christ-like» visage, with some even surreptitiously clipping locks of his hair as divine relics.^[210] Such comparisons were further extended when English art critic John Berger, two weeks later upon seeing the post-mortem photographs, observed that they resembled two famous paintings: Rembrandt‘s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Andrea Mantegna‘s Lamentation over the Dead Christ.^[211] There were also four correspondents present when Guevara’s body arrived in Vallegrande, including Bjorn Kumm of the Swedish Aftonbladet, who described the scene in a November 11, 1967 exclusive for The New Republic.^[212]

A declassified memorandum dated October 11, 1967 to United States President Lyndon B. Johnson from his National Security Advisor Walt Whitman Rostow, called the decision to kill Guevara «stupid» but «understandable from a Bolivian standpoint».^[213] After the execution Rodríguez took several of Guevara’s personal items—including a Rolex GMT Master wristwatch^[214] that he continued to wear many years later—often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years. After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara’s body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were preserved in formaldehyde to be sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. (His fingerprints were on file with the Argentine police.) They were later sent to Cuba.

On October 15 Fidel Castro publicly acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba.^[215] On October 18 Castro addressed a crowd of one million mourners in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución and spoke about Guevara’s character as a revolutionary.^[216] Fidel Castro closed his impassioned eulogy thus:

«If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che’s spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!»^[217]

Also removed when Guevara was captured were his 30,000-word, hand-written diary, a collection of his personal poetry, and a short story he had authored about a young Communist guerrilla who learns to overcome his fears.^[218] His diary documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia,^[219] with the first entry on November 7, 1966, shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last dated October 7, 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely because of discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara’s decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall unsuccessful venture. It also records the rift between Guevara and the Communist Party of Bolivia that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally expected, and shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, partly because the guerrilla group had learned Quechua, unaware that the local language was actually a Tupí–Guaraní language.^[220] As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.^[221] The Bolivian diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world.^[222] There are at least four additional diaries in existence—those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias «Braulio»), Harry Villegas Tamayo («Pombo»), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez («Rolando»)^[187] and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez («Benigno»)^[223]—each of which reveals additional aspects of the events.

French intellectual Régis Debray, who was captured in April 1967 while with Guevara in Bolivia, gave an interview from prison in August 1968, in which he enlarged on the circumstances of Guevara’s capture. Debray, who had lived with Guevara’s band of guerrillas for a short time, said that in his view they were «victims of the forest» and thus «eaten by the jungle».^[224] Debray described a destitute situation where Guevara’s men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men. Debray recounts that Guevara and the others had been suffering an «illness» which caused their hands and feet to swell into «mounds of flesh» to the point where you could not discern the fingers on their hands.^[224] Debray described Guevara as «optimistic about the future of Latin America» despite the futile situation, and remarked that Guevara was «resigned to die in the knowledge that his death would be a sort of renaissance», noting that Guevara perceived death «as a promise of rebirth» and «ritual of renewal».^[224]

To a certain extent, this belief by Guevara of a metaphorical resurrection came true. While pictures of the dead Guevara were being circulated and the circumstances of his death were being debated, Che’s legend began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his «assassination» occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, and poems were written about his life and death.^[225] Rallies in support of Guevara were held from «Mexico to Santiago, Algiers to Angola, and Cairo to Calcutta.»^[226] The population of Budapest and Prague lit candles to honor Guevara’s passing; and the picture of a smiling Che appeared in London and Paris.^[227] When a few months later riots broke out in Berlin, France, and Chicago, and the unrest spread to the American college campuses, young men and women wore Che Guevara T-shirts and carried his pictures during their protest marches. In the view of military historian Erik Durschmied, «In those heady months of 1968, Che Guevara was not dead. He was very much alive.»^[228]

Retrieval of remains

Main article: Che Guevara Mausoleum

In late 1995, the retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of the biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara’s body was located near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which would last more than a year. In July 1997 a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man with amputated hands (like Guevara). Bolivian government officials with the Ministry of Interior later identified the body as Guevara when the excavated teeth «perfectly matched» a plaster mold of Che’s teeth made in Cuba prior to his Congolese expedition. The «clincher» then arrived when Argentine forensic anthropologist Alejandro Inchaurregui inspected the inside hidden pocket of a blue jacket dug up next to the handless cadaver and found a small bag of pipe tobacco. Nino de Guzman, the Bolivian helicopter pilot who had given Che a small bag of tobacco, later remarked that he «had serious doubts» at first and «thought the Cubans would just find any old bones and call it Che»; but «after hearing about the tobacco pouch, I have no doubts.»^[201] On October 17, 1997, Guevara’s remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution.^[229]

In July 2008, the Bolivian government of Evo Morales unveiled Guevara’s formerly-sealed diaries composed in two frayed notebooks, along with a logbook and several black-and-white photographs. At this event Bolivia’s vice-minister of culture, Pablo Groux, expressed that there were plans to publish photographs of every handwritten page later in the year.^[230] Meanwhile, in August 2009 anthropologists working for Bolivia’s Justice Ministry discovered and unearthed the bodies of five of Guevara’s fellow guerrillas near the Bolivian town of Teoponte.^[231]

Legacy

Main articles: Legacy of Che Guevara and Che Guevara in popular culture

«The discovery of Che’s remains metonymically activated a series of interlinked associations—rebel, martyr, rogue figure from a picaresque adventure, savior, renegade, extremist—in which there was no fixed divide among them. The current court of opinion places Che on a continuum that teeters between viewing him as a misguided rebel, a coruscatingly brilliant guerrilla philosopher, a poet-warrior jousting at windmills, a brazen warrior who threw down the gauntlet to the bourgeoisie, the object of fervent paeans to his sainthood, or a mass murderer clothed in the guise of an avenging angel whose every action is imbricated in violence—the archetypal Fanatical Terrorist.»

— Dr. Peter McLaren, author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution^[232]

Over forty-five years after his execution, Guevara’s life and legacy still remains a contentious issue. The contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of unending duality, one who was «able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill,» while prophesying that «the most important revolutionary ambition was to see man liberated from his alienation.»^[233][234] Guevara’s paradoxical standing is further complicated by his array of seemingly diametrically opposed qualities. A secular humanist and sympathetic practitioner of medicine who didn’t hesitate to shoot his enemies, a celebrated internationalist leader who advocated violence to enforce a utopian philosophy of the collective good, an idealistic intellectual who loved literature but refused to allow reactionary dissent, an anti-imperialist Marxist insurgent who was radically willing to forge a poverty-less new world on the apocalyptic ashes of the old one, and finally, an outspoken anti-capitalist whose image has been expropriated and commoditized; Che’s history continues to be rewritten and re-imagined.^[235]

An array of notable individuals have lauded Guevara as a hero;^[236] for example, Nelson Mandela referred to him as «an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom»,^[196] while Jean-Paul Sartre described him as «not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age».^[237] Others who have expressed their admiration include authors Graham Greene, who remarked that Guevara «represented the idea of gallantry, chivalry, and adventure»,^[238] and Susan Sontag, who supposed that «[Che’s] goal was nothing less than the cause of humanity itself.»^[239] In the black community, philosopher Frantz Fanon professed Guevara to be «the world symbol of the possibilities of one man»,^[240] while Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael eulogized that «Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us.»^[241] Praise has been reflected throughout the political spectrum, with the libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard extolling Guevara as a «heroic figure», lamenting after his death that «more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, [Che] was the living embodiment of the principle of revolution»,^[242] while journalist Christopher Hitchens commented that «[Che’s] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do—fought and died for his beliefs.»^[243] Sociologist Michael Löwy contends that the many facets of Guevara’s life (i.e. doctor and economist, revolutionary and banker, military theoretician and ambassador, deep thinker and political agitator) illuminated the rise of the «Che myth», allowing him to be invariably crystallized in his many metanarrative roles as a «Red Robin Hood, Don Quixote of communism, new Garibaldi, Marxist Saint Just, Cid Campeador of the Wretched of the Earth, Sir Galahad of the beggars… and Bolshevik devil who haunts the dreams of the rich, (while) kindling braziers of subversion all over the world.»^[233]

Conversely, Jacobo Machover, an exiled opposition author, dismisses the hero-worshipping and portrays him as a ruthless executioner.^[244] Exiled former Cuban prisoners have echoed similar sentiments, including Armando Valladares, who declares Guevara «a man full of hatred» who executed dozens without trial,^[245] and Carlos Alberto Montaner, who alleges Guevara possessed «a Robespierre mentality» where cruelty against the revolution’s enemies was a virtue.^[246] Alvaro Vargas Llosa of The Independent Institute has hypothesized that Guevara’s contemporary followers «delude themselves by clinging to a myth», describing Guevara as «Marxist Puritan» who employed his rigid power to suppress dissent, while also operating as a «cold-blooded killing machine».^[144] Llosa has also accused Guevara’s «fanatical disposition» as being the linchpin of the «Sovietization» of the Cuban revolution, speculating that he possessed a «total subordination of reality to blind ideological orthodoxy».^[144] Moreover, detractors have attempted to demonstrate that Che-inspired revolutions in much of Latin America had the practical result of reinforcing brutal militarism and internecine conflict for many years.^[144] Hoover Institution research fellow William Ratliff places Guevara as a creation of his historical environment, referring to him as a «fearless» and «head-strong Messiah-like figure», who was the product of a martyr-enamored Latin culture which «inclined people to seek out and follow paternalistic miracle workers.»^[247] Ratliff speculates that the economic conditions in the region suited Guevara’s commitment to «bring justice to the downtrodden by crushing centuries-old tyrannies»; describing Latin America as being plagued by what Moisés Naím referred to as the «legendary malignancies» of inequality, poverty, dysfunctional politics and malfunctioning institutions.^[247] In his own assessment of Guevara, British historian Hugh Thomas opines that Guevara was a «brave, sincere and determined man who was also obstinate, narrow, and dogmatic.»^[248] At the end of his life, according to Thomas, «he seems to have become convinced of the virtues of violence for its own sake», while «his influence over Castro for good or evil» grew after his death, as Fidel took up many of his views. In Thomas’ assessment, «As in the case of Martí, or Lawrence of Arabia, failure has brightened, not dimmed the legend.»^[248]

Meanwhile, Guevara remains a national hero in Cuba, where his image adorns the $3 Cuban peso and school children begin each morning by pledging «We will be like Che.»^[249] In his homeland of Argentina, where high schools bear his name,^[250] numerous Che museums dot the country, which in 2008 unveiled a 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of him in the city of his birth, Rosario.^[251] Additionally, Guevara has been sanctified by some Bolivian campesinos^[252] as «Saint Ernesto«, to whom they pray for assistance.^[253] In stark contrast, Guevara remains a hated figure amongst many in the Cuban exile and Cuban-American community of the United States, who view him with animosity as «the butcher of La Cabaña».^[254] Despite this polarized status, a high-contrast monochrome graphic of Che’s face, created in 1968 by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, has become one of the world’s most universally merchandized and objectified images,^[255][256] found on an endless array of items, including T-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, and bikinis,^[257] ironically contributing to the consumer culture Guevara despised. Yet, he still remains a transcendent figure both in specifically political contexts^[258] and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion.^[259]

Archival media

Video footage

• Guevara addressing the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1964, (6:21), public domain footage uploaded by the UN, video clip
• Guevara interviewed in 1964 on a visit to Dublin, Ireland, (2:53), English translation, from RTÉ Libraries and Archives, video clip
• Guevara reciting a poem, (0:58), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara showing support for Fidel Castro, (0:22), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking about labor, (0:28), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking about the Bay of Pigs, (0:17), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking against imperialism, (1:20), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara interviewed in Paris and speaking French in 1964, (4:47), English subtitles, interviewed by Jean Dumur, video clip

Audio recording

• Guevara interviewed on ABC’s Issues and Answers, (23:53), English translation, narrated by Lisa Howard, March 24, 1964, audio clip

List of English works

Main article: Bibliography of Che Guevara

Originally written in Spanish by Ernesto «Che» Guevara, later translated into English

See also

• Che Guevara (photo)
• Che Guevara in popular culture
• Legacy of Che Guevara
• Ñancahuazú Guerrilla

References

Further reading

External links

Че Гевара, Эрнесто

Эрнесто Че Гевара Ernesto Guevara de la Serna
1-й Министр промышленности Кубы
23 февраля 1961 — 1 апреля 1965
Предшественник:	Должность учреждена
Преемник:	Артуро Гусман[1]
Президент Национального Банка Кубы
26 ноября 1959 — 23 февраля 1961
Партия:	Коммунистическая партия Кубы
Образование:	Университет Буэнос-Айреса
Профессия:	Врач-хирург и дерматолог[2]
Вероисповедание:	Атеист
Рождение:	14 июня 1928 Росарио
Смерть:	9 октября 1967 (39 лет) Ла-Игера
Похоронен:	Тайно захоронен на взлётно-посадочной полосе аэропорта Валье-Гранде[3], в 1997 году перезахоронен в Мавзолее Че Гевары
Отец:	Эрнесто Гевара Линч
Мать:	Селия де ла Серна
Супруга:	1) Ильда Гадеа (1955—1959) 2) Алейда Марч (с 1959)
Дети:	сыновья: Камило и Эрнесто дочери: Ильда, Алейда и Селия
Эрнесто Че Гевара на Викискладе
Эрнесто Че Гевара на Родоводе

Эрне́сто Че Гева́ра (исп. Ernesto Che Guevara [ˈtʃe ɡeˈβaɾa], полное имя — Эрнесто Рафаэль Гевара Линч де ла Серна, исп. Ernesto Rafael Guevara Lynch de la Serna; 14 июня 1928, Росарио, Аргентина — 9 октября 1967, Ла-Игера, Боливия) — латиноамериканский революционер, команданте Кубинской революции 1959 года и кубинский государственный деятель. Кроме латиноамериканского континента действовал также в Республике Конго. Прозвище Че получил от кубинских повстанцев за характерное для аргентинцев междометие che, позаимствованное у индейцев гуарани, которое передаёт, в зависимости от интонации и контекста, различные чувства^[4]. Чаще всего переводится как «друг, приятель».

Биография

Детство, отрочество, юность

Эрнесто Гевара родился 14 июня 1928 года в аргентинском городе Росарио, в семье архитектора ирландского происхождения Эрнесто Гевара Линч (1900—1987). По матери — доньи Селии де ла Серна ла Льоса (1908—1965) Че Гевара имел испанские корни. Вопреки распространенному мнению, последний вице-король Перу не был ему родственником^[5]. Селия унаследовала плантацию иерба-матэ (парагвайский чай) в провинции Мисионес. Улучшив положение рабочих — в частности, начав выплачивать им зарплату деньгами, — отец Че вызвал недовольство окрестных плантаторов, и семья была вынуждена переселиться в Росарио, в то время — второй по размеру город Аргентины, открыв там фабрику по переработке чая иерба-матэ. В этом городе родился Че. Из-за мирового экономического кризиса семья через некоторое время вернулась в Мисионес на плантацию.^[4]

Помимо Эрнесто, которого в детстве звали Тэтэ (в переводе «поросёнок»), в семье было ещё четверо детей: Селия (стала архитектором), Роберто (адвокат), Анна-Мария (архитектор), Хуан Мартин (проектировщик). Все дети получили высшее образование.^[4]

В возрасте двух лет, 2 мая 1930 года^[6] Тэтэ пережил первый приступ бронхиальной астмы — эта болезнь преследовала его до конца жизни. Для восстановления здоровья малыша семья переселилась в провинцию Кордова, как местность с более здоровым горным климатом. Продав поместье, семья приобрела «Виллу Нидию» в местечке Альта-Грасия, на высоте двух тысяч метров над уровнем моря. Отец стал работать строительным подрядчиком, а мать — присматривать за больным Тэтэ. Первые два года Че не мог посещать школу и учился на дому, поскольку страдал ежедневными приступами астмы^[5]. После этого он прошёл с перерывами (из-за состояния здоровья) обучение в средней школе в Альта-Грасии. В тринадцатилетнем возрасте, Эрнесто поступил в принадлежащий государству колледж имени Деан-Фунеса ^[7] в Кордове, который он закончил в 1945 году, поступив затем на медицинский факультет университета Буэнос-Айреса^[4]. Отец дон Эрнесто Гевара Линч в феврале 1969 года рассказывал:

Увлечения

В 1964 году, беседуя с корреспондентом кубинской газеты «Эль Мундо», Гевара рассказал, что он впервые заинтересовался Кубой в возрасте 11 лет, будучи увлечённым шахматами, когда в Буэнос-Айрес приехал кубинский шахматист Капабланка^[4]. В доме родителей Че находилась библиотека из нескольких тысяч книг. Начиная с четырёхлетнего возраста Гевара, как и его родители, страстно увлёкся чтением, что продолжалось до конца его жизни.^[4] В юношестве у будущего революционера был обширный круг чтения: Сальгари, Жюль Верн, Дюма, Гюго, Джек Лондон, позже — Сервантес, Анатоль Франс, Толстой, Достоевский, Горький, Энгельс, Ленин, Кропоткин, Бакунин, Карл Маркс, Фрейд^[4][5]. Он прочёл популярные в то время социальные романы латиноамериканских авторов — Сиро Алегрии из Перу, Хорхе Икасы из Эквадора, Хосе Эустасио Риверы из Колумбии, где описывалась жизнь индейцев и рабочих на плантациях, произведения аргентинских авторов — Хосе Эрнандеса, Сармьенто и других^[4].

Молодой Эрнесто читал в подлиннике на французском языке (зная этот язык с детства) и занимался толкованием философских работ Сартра «L’imagination», «Situations I» и «Situations II», «L’Être et le Nèant», «Baudlaire», «Qu’est-ce que la litèrature?», «L’imagie».^[5] Он любил поэзию и даже сам сочинял стихи. Зачитывался Бодлером, Верленом, Гарсиа Лоркой, Антонио Мачадо, Пабло Неруда, произведениями современного ему испанского поэта-республиканца Леона Фелипе. В его рюкзаке, помимо «Боливийского дневника», посмертно была обнаружена тетрадь с его любимыми стихами. Впоследствии на Кубе были изданы двухтомное ^[8] и девятитомное ^[9] собрания сочинений Че Гевары.^[10] Тэтэ был силён в точных науках, таких как математика, однако, выбрал профессию врача. Занимался футболом в местном спортивном клубе «Аталайя», играя в запасной команде (не мог играть в основном составе, поскольку из-за астмы ему время от времени требовался ингалятор). Также он занимался регби, конным спортом, увлекался гольфом и планеризмом, имея особую страсть к велосипедным путешествиям (в подписи на одной из своих фотографий, подаренних невесте Чинчине, он назвал себя «королём педали»).^[4].

В 1950 году, будучи уже студентом, Эрнесто нанялся матросом на нефтеналивное грузовое судно из Аргентины, побывав на Тринидад и в Британской Гвиане. После он совершил путешествие на мопеде, который был предоставлен ему фирмой «Микрон» в целях рекламы, с частичным покрытием расходов на путешествие. В объявлении из аргентинского журнала «Эль Графико» от 5 мая 1950 года Че писал:^[4]

23 февраля 1950 года. Сеньоры, представители фирмы мопедов «Микрон». Посылаю Вам на проверку мопед «Микрон». На нём я совершил путешествие в четыре тысячи километров по двенадцати провинциям Аргентины. Мопед на протяжении всего путешествия функционировал безупречно, и я не обнаружил в нём малейшей неисправности. Надеюсь получить его обратно в таком же состоянии. Подписано: «Эрнесто Гевара Серна»

Юношеской любовью Че была Чинчина(в переводе «погремушка»), дочь одного из самых богатых помещиков Кордовы. Согласно свидетельству её сестры и других людей, Че любил её и хотел на ней жениться. Он являлся на званые вечера в потрёпанной одежде и лохматый, что являло собой контраст с отпрысками богатых семейств, добивавшихся её руки, и с типичным обликом аргентинских молодых людей того времени. Их отношениям помешало желание Че посвятить свою жизнь лечению прокажённых южноамериканцев, подобно Альберту Швейцеру, перед авторитетом которого он преклонялся.^[4]

В трудные годы

Гражданская война в Испании вызвала значительный общественный резонанс в Аргентине. Родители Гевары оказывали содействие Комитету помощи республиканской Испании, и приходились соседями и друзьями заместителя премьер-министра Негрина в правительстве Испании до поражения Республики Хуана Гонсалеса Агиляра, который эмигрировал в Аргентину и поселился в Альта-Грасии. Дети учились в одной школе, а затем в колледже в Кордове. Селия — мать Че — отвозила их ежедневно на машине в колледж. Видный республиканский генерал Хурадо, гостивший у Гонсалесов, бывал в доме семьи Гевара и рассказывал о событиях войны и действиях франкистов и немецких нацистов, что, по мнению отца, оказывало влияние на политические взгляды Че^[4].

Во время Второй мировой войны президент Аргентины Хуан Перон поддерживал дипломатические отношения со странами «оси»; родители Че являлись одними из активных противников его режима. В частности, Селию арестовывали за её участие в одной из антиперонистских демонстраций в Кордове. Помимо неё в боевой организации против диктатуры Перона участвовал и её супруг; в доме фабриковались бомбы для демонстраций. Значительное воодушевление в среде республиканцев вызвали вести о победе СССР в Сталинградской битве^[4].

Путешествие по Южной Америке

Вместе с доктором биохимии Альберто Гранадосом (дружеское прозвище — Миаль), в течение восьми месяцев с февраля 1952 по август 1952 гг. Эрнесто Гевара совершил путешествие по странам Латинской Америки, побывав в Чили, Перу, Колумбии и Венесуэле^[4]. Гранадос был старше Че на шесть лет. Он был родом из местечка Эрнандо, что на юге провинции Кордовы, окончил фармацевтический факультет университета, увлёкся проблемой лечения проказы и, проучившись в университете ещё три года, стал доктором биохимии. Начиная с 1945 г. работал в лепрозории в 180 км от Кордовы. В 1941 г. познакомился с Эрнесто Геварой, которому было тогда 13 лет, через своего брата Томаса — одноклассника Эрнесто по колледжу Деан-Фунес. Он стал часто посещать дом родителей Че, и пользовался их богатой библиотекой. Их сдружила любовь к чтению и споры о прочитанном. Гранадос вместе с братьями совершали длительные горные прогулки и строили шалаши на открытом воздухе в окрестностях Кордовы, и Эрнесто (родители считали, что это поможет его борьбе с астмой) часто присоединялся к ним.^[4]

Семья Гевары проживала в Буэнос-Айресе, где Эрнесто учился на медицинском факультете. В институте по изучению аллергии он стажировался под руководством аргентинского учёного доктора Писани. В то время семья Гевары испытывали трудности с деньгами, и Эрнесто вынужден был подрабатывать библиотекарем. Приезжая на каникулы в Кордову, он навещал Альберто Гранадоса в лепрозории, помогал ему в опытах по исследованию новых методик лечения прокажённых. В один из его приездов, в сентябре 1951 года, Гранандос по совету своего брата Томаса предложил ему стать напарником в путешествии по Южной Америке. Гранадос намеревался посетить лепрозории в различных странах континента, ознакомиться с их работой и, возможно, написать об этом книгу. Эрнесто с воодушевлением принял это предложение, попросив подождать до момента, когда он сдаст очередные экзамены, поскольку обучался на последнем курсе медицинского факультета. Родители Эрнесто не возражали, при условии, что он возвратится не позже чем через год к сдаче выпускных экзаменов.^[4]

29 декабря 1951 года, нагрузив сильно изношенный мотоцикл Гранадоса полезными предметами, палаткой, одеялами, и захватив фотоаппарат и автоматический пистолет, они отправились в путь. Заехали попрощаться с Чинчиной, которая дала Эрнесто 15 долларов и попросила привезти кружевное платье. Эрнесто подарил ей собачку, назвав её «Камбэк» — «Вернись». Попрощались также и с родителями Эрнесто. Гранандос вспоминал:^[4]

Останавливаясь на ночлег в лесу или в поле, они зарабатывали средства на питание случайными подработками: мыли в ресторанах посуду, лечили крестьян или выступали в роли ветеринаров, чинили радиоприёмники, работали грузчиками, носильщиками или матросами. Обменивались опытом с коллегами, посещая лепрозории, где имели возможность отдохнуть от дороги. Гевара и Гранандос не боялись заражения, и испытывали участие к прокажённым, желая посвятить жизнь их лечению. 18 февраля 1952 года они прибыли в Темуко в Чили. Местная газета «Диарио Аустраль» опубликовала статью, озаглавленную: «Два аргентинских эксперта-лепролога путешествуют по Южной Америке на мотоцикле». Мотоцикл Гранандоса окончательно сломался недалеко от Сантьяго, после чего двигались до порта Вальпараисо (где намеревались посетить лепрозорий острова Пасхи, однако, узнали, что парохода пришлось бы ждать полгода, и отказались от затеи) и далее пешком, на попутках или «зайцами» на пароходах или поездах. Добрались пешком до медного рудника Чукикаматы, который принадлежал американской компании «Браден коппер майнинг компани», проведя ночь в казарме охранников рудника.^[4] В Перу путешественники познакомились с жизнью индейцев кечуа и аймара, к тому времени эксплуатируемых помещиками и заглушавших голод листьями коки. В городе Куско, Эрнесто по нескольку часов зачитывался в местной библиотеке книгами об империи инков.^[4] Несколько дней провели на развалинах древнего города инков Мачу-Пикчу в Перу. Расположившись на площадке для жертвоприношений старинного храма, стали пить матэ и фантазировать. Гранандос вспоминал диалог с Эрнесто:^[4]

Из Мачу-Пикчу отправились в горное селение Уамбо, заехав по дороге в лепрозорий перуанского доктора-коммуниста Уго Песче. Он тепло встретил путешественников, познакомив их с известными ему методами лечения проказы, и написал рекомендательное письмо в крупный лепрозорий близ города Сан-Пабло провинции Лорето в Перу. Из селения Пукальпа на реке Укаяли, устроившись на судно, путешественники отправились до порта Икитоса на берегах Амазонки. В Икитосе они задержались из-за астмы Эрнесто, которая заставила его на некоторое время слечь в госпиталь. Добравшись до лепрозория в Сан-Пабло, Гранадос и Гевара получили сердечный приём, и были приглашены к лечению больных в лаборатории центра. Больные, пытаясь отблагодарить путешественников за дружеское к ним отношение, построили им плот, назвав его «Мамбо-Танго» на котором они могли бы доплыть до следующей точки маршрута — колумбийского порта Летисия на Амазонке.^[4]

21 июня 1952 года, уложив вещи на плот, Гевара со своим товарищем поплыли вниз по Амазонке по направлению к Летисии. Много фотографировали и вели дневники. По неосторожности они проехали мимо Летисии, из-за чего пришлось приобретать лодку и возвращаться уже с бразильской территории. Имея подозрительный и усталый вид, оба товарища попали за решётку. По утверждению Гранадоса, начальник полиции, будучи футбольным болельщиком, знакомым с успехами в футболе Аргентины, освободил путешественников, узнав, откуда они родом, в обмен на обещание тренировать местную футбольную команду. Команда выиграла районный чемпионат, и болельщики купили им билеты на самолёт до столицы Колумбии — Боготы.^[4] В Колумбии в то время действовала «виоленсия» президента Лауреано Гомеса, которая заключалась в силовом подавлении беспорядков со стороны крестьян. Гевара и Гранандос попали за решетку, однако, под обещание немедленно покинуть Колумбию, их отпустили. Получив от знакомых студентов деньги на дорогу, отправились на автобусе в город Кукту, рядом с Венесуэлой, а затем по международному мосту перешли границу до города Сан-Кристобаль в Венесуэле. 14 июля 1952 г. добрались до Каракаса.

Гранандос остался работать в Венесуэле в лепрозории Каракаса (который предложил месячное жалованье в восемьсот американских долларов), где он познакомился со своей будущей женой — Хулией. Че требовалось в одиночку добраться до Буэнос-Айреса. Случайно встретив дальнего родственника — торговца лошадьми, он в конце июля отправился сопровождать на самолёте партию лошадей из Каракаса в Майами, а оттуда ему предстояло вернуться порожним рейсом через Маракаибо в Буэнос-Айрес. Однако, в Майами Че задержался на месяц. Он успел купить Чинчине обещанное кружевное платье, но в Майами жил почти без денег, проводя время в местной библиотеке. В августе 1952 года Че вернулся в Буэнос-Айрес, где приступил к подготовке к экзаменам, и дипломной работе по проблемам аллергии. В марте 1953 года Гевара получил диплом доктора-хирурга в области дерматологии. Не желая служить в армии, при помощи ледяной ванны вызвал приступ астмы и был признан непригодным для военной службы. Имея диплом о медицинском образовании, он решил направиться в венесуэльский лепрозорий в Каракасе к Гранандосу, однако в дальнейшем судьба свела их только в 1960-е гг. на Кубе.^[4]

Второе путешествие по странам Латинской Америки

Эрнесто отправился в Венесуэлу через столицу Боливии — Ла-Пас, поездом, который назывался «молочный конвой» (поезд, который останавливался на всех полустанках, и где фермеры грузили бидоны с молоком). 9 апреля 1952 года в Боливии произошла 179-я по счёту революция, в которой участвовали шахтёры и крестьяне. Пришедшая к власти партия «Националистическое революционное движение», во главе с президентом Пас Эстенсоро, национализировала оловянные рудники (выплатив иностранным владельцам компенсацию), организовала милицию из шахтёров и крестьян, осуществила аграрную реформу. В Боливии Че бывал в горных селениях индейцев, посёлках шахтёров, встречался с членами правительства, и даже работал в управлении информации и культуры, а также, в ведомстве по осуществлению аграрной реформы. Посетил развалины индейских святилищ Тиауанаку, которые расположены вблизи озера Титикака, сделав множество снимков храма «Ворота солнца», где индейцы древней цивилизации поклонялись богу солнца Виракоче^[4].

В Ла-Пасе (Боливия) Эрнесто познакомился с адвокатом Рикардо Рохо, который уговаривал его уехать в Гватемалу, однако он согласился быть попутчиком только до Колумбии, поскольку всё ещё имел намерение ехать в лепрозорий Каракаса, где его ждал Миаль (Гранадо). Рохо полетел самолётом в столицу Перу — Лиму, а Эрнесто на автобусе с попутчиком — студентом из Аргентины Карлосом Феррером объехали озеро Титикака, и прибыли в перуанский город Куско, где Эрнесто уже бывал во время предыдущего путешествия в 1952 году. После остановки пограничниками (у них отобрали брошюры и книги о революции в Боливии) они прибыли в Лиму, где встретились с Рохо.^[4] Поскольку задерживаться в Лиме было опасно из-за политической обстановки в стране в годы правления генерала Одриа, путешественники — Рохо, Феррер и Эрнесто, поехали на автобусе по побережью Тихого океана к Эквадору, достигнув границы этой страны 26 сентября 1953 года. В Гуаякиле они обратились за визой в представительство Колумбии, однако, консул потребовал наличия у них авиабилетов до Боготы (Колумбия), посчитав небезопасным путешествие иностранцев на автобусе из-за только что произошедшего в Колумбии военного переворота (генерал Рохас Пинилья сверг правителя Лауреано Гомеса). Не имея средств на поездку на самолёте, путешественники обратились к местному деятелю социалистической партии с рекомендательным письмом, которое у них было от Сальвадора Альенде, и достали через него бесплатные билеты для студентов на пароход «Юнайтед фрут компани» из Гуаякиля в Панаму^[4].

Гватемала

Под влиянием Рохо, а также сообщений в прессе о предстоящем вторжении США против Арбенса, Эрнесто отправляется в Гватемалу. Правительство Арбенса провело через парламент Гватемалы закон, согласно которому рабочим «Юнайтед фрут компани» была вдвое увеличена заработная плата. Было экспроприировано 554 тыс. гектаров земли помещиков, и в том числе 160 тыс. гектаров «Юнайтед фрут». Из Гуякиля Эрнесто послал Миалю открытку: «Малыш! Еду в Гватемалу. Потом тебе напишу», после чего связь между ними на время прервалась. В Панаме Гевара и Феррер задержались, поскольку у них закончились деньги, Рохо продолжил свой путь в Гватемалу. Гевара продал свои книги и напечатал в местном журнале ряд репортажей о Мачу-Пикчу и других исторических достопримечательностях Перу. В Сан-Хосе (Коста-Рика) отправились попутным грузовиком, который перевернулся из-за тропического ливня, после чего Эрнесто некоторое время с трудом владел левой рукой из-за ушиба^[4]. Сан-Хосе путешественники достигли в начале декабря. Там Эрнесто познакомился с лидером венесуэльской партии «Демократическое действие» и будущим президентом Венесуэлы Ромуло Бетанкуром, с которым они резко разошлись во взглядах, писателем Хуаном Бошем из Доминиканской республики, будущим президентом этой страны, а также с кубинцами — противниками Батисты^[4].

В конце 1953 года Гевара с друзьями из Аргентины отправились из Сан-Хосе в Сан-Сальвадор на автобусе, затем на попутных машинах 24 декабря достигли города Гватемала, расположенного на высоте 1800 метров над уровнем моря, столицы одноимённой республики. Имея рекомендательные письма к деятелям Гватемалы и письмо из Лимы к революционерке Ильде Гадеа, Эрнесто нашёл Ильду в пансионате «Сервантес», где поселился сам. Общие взгляды и интересы сблизили будущих супругов. Впоследствии Ильда Гадеа вспоминала о впечатлении, которое произвёл на неё Гевара:

Доктор Эрнесто Гевара поразил меня с первых же бесед своим умом, серьёзностью, своими взглядами и знанием марксизма… Выходец из буржуазной семьи, он, имея на руках диплом врача, мог легко сделать карьеру у себя на родине, как это и делают в наших странах все специалисты, получившие высшее образование. Между тем он стремился работать в самых отсталых районах, даже бесплатно, чтобы лечить простых людей. Но больше всего вызвало моё восхищение его отношение к медицине. Он с негодованием говорил, исходя из виденного в своих путешествиях по разным странам Южной Америки, об антисанитарных условиях и нищете, в которых живут наши народы. Я хорошо помню, что мы обсуждали в связи с этим роман Арчибальда Кронина «Цитадель» и другие книги, в которых затрагивается тема долга врача по отношению к трудящимся. Ссылаясь на эти книги, Эрнесто приходил к выводу, что врач в наших странах не должен быть привилегированным специалистом, он не должен обслуживать господствующие классы, изобретать бесполезные лекарства для воображаемых больных. Разумеется, поступая так, можно заручиться солидными доходами и добиться успеха в жизни, но к этому ли следует стремиться молодым сознательным специалистам наших стран. Доктор Гевара считал, что врач обязан посвятить себя улучшению условий жизни широких масс. А это неминуемо приведет его к осуждению правительственных систем, господствующих в наших странах, эксплуатируемых олигархиями, где всё усиливалось вмешательство империализма янки.[4] Ильда Гадеа

В Гватемале Эрнесто встретился с эмигрантами из Кубы — сторонниками Фиделя Кастро, среди которых были Антонио Лопес Фернандес (Ньико), Марио Далмау, Дарио Лопас — будущие участники похода на яхте Гранма^[4]. Желая поехать в качестве врача в индейские общины в отдалённый район Гватемалы — джунгли Петена, Эрнесто получил отказ от министерства здравоохранения, которое требовало сначала пройти процедуру подтверждения диплома врача в течение года. Случайные заработки, заметки в газеты и торговля вразнос книгами (которые он, по замечанию Ильды, больше читал, чем продавал), позволяли ему заработать средства на существование. Путешествуя по Гватемале с котомкой за плечами, он изучал культуру древних индейцев майя. Сотрудничал с молодежной организацией «Патриотическая молодежь труда» Гватемальской партии труда^[4].

17 июня 1954 года произошло вторжение вооруженных групп Армаса из Гондураса на территорию Гватемалы, начались расстрелы сторонников правительства Арбенса и бомбардировки столицы и других городов Гватемалы. Эрнесто, по словам Ильды, просил, чтобы его отправили в район боёв, и призывал к созданию ополчения. Он входил в группы противовоздушной обороны города во время бомбёжек, помогал в перевозке оружия. Марио Дальмау утверждал, что «Вместе с членами организации Патриотическая молодежь труда, он несёт караульную службу среди пожаров и разрывов бомб, подвергая себя смертельной опасности». Эрнесто Гевара попал в список «опасных коммунистов», подлежащих ликвидации после свержения Арбенса. Посол Аргентины предупредил его в пансионе «Сервантес» об опасности и предложил воспользоваться убежищем в посольстве, в котором он укрылся вместе с рядом других сторонников Арбенса, после чего, при помощи посла, покинул страну и выехал на поезде в Мехико с попутчиком Патохо (Хулио Роберто Касерес Валье)^[4].

Жизнь в Мехико

21 сентября 1954 года они прибыли в Мехико. Там поселились на квартире пуэрториканца Хуана Хуарбэ — деятеля Националистической партии, которая выступала за независимость Пуэрто-Рико и была вне закона из-за учинённой ими стрельбы в конгрессе США. На этой же квартире проживал перуанец Лючо (Луис) де ла Пуэнте, который впоследствии, 23 октября 1965 года, был застрелен в бою с антипартизанскими «рейнджерами» в одном из горных районов Перу^[4]. Че и Патохо, не имея стабильных средств к существованию, промышляли снимками в парках. Че вспоминал это время так:^[4]

Написав статью «Я видел свержение Арбенса», Че, однако, не сумел устроиться журналистом. В это время из Гватемалы приехала Ильда Гадеа, и они поженились. Че стал торговать книгами издательства «Фондо де культура экономика», устроился ночным сторожем на книжную выставку, продолжая читать книги. В городской больнице его приняли по конкурсу на работу в аллергическое отделение. Он читал лекции по медицине в Национальном университете, стал заниматься научной работой (в частности, опытами на кошках) в Институте кардиологии и лаборатории французской больницы.^[4] 15 февраля 1956 года Ильда родила дочь, которую назвали в честь матери Ильдитой. В интервью с корреспондентом мексиканского журнала «Сьемпре», в сентябре 1959 года, Че утверждал:

Рауль Роа, кубинский публицист и противник Батисты, впоследствии ставший министром иностранных дел в социалистической Кубе, вспоминал о своей мексиканской встрече с Геварой:^[4]

Я познакомился с Че однажды ночью, в доме его соотечественника Рикардо Рохо. Он только что прибыл из Гватемалы, где впервые принимал участие в революционном и антиимпериалистическом движении. Он ещё остро переживал поражение. Че казался и был молодым. Его образ запечатлелся в моей памяти: ясный ум, аскетическая бледность, астматическое дыхание, выпуклый лоб, густая шевелюра, решительные суждения, энергичный подбородок, спокойные движения, чуткий, проницательный взгляд, острая мысль, говорит спокойно, смеется звонко… Он только что приступил к работе в аллергическом отделении Института кардиологии. Мы говорили об Аргентине, Гватемале и Кубе, рассматривали их проблемы сквозь призму Латинской Америки. Уже тогда Че возвышался над узким горизонтом креольских национализмов и рассуждал с позиций континентального революционера. Этот аргентинский врач в отличие от многих эмигрантов, обеспокоенных судьбами лишь своей страны, думал не столько об Аргентине, сколько о Латинской Америке в целом, стараясь нащупать её самое «слабое звено».

Подготовка экспедиции на Кубу

Участь революционера-авангардиста возвышенна и печальна… Эрнесто Че Гевара

В конце июня 1955 года в городскую больницу Мехико, к дежурному врачу — Эрнесто Геваре, пришли на консультацию два кубинца, одним из которых оказался Ньико Лопес, знакомый Че по Гватемале. Он рассказал Че, что кубинские революционеры, нападавшие на казармы «Монкада», были выпущены из каторжной тюрьмы на острове Пинос по амнистии, и начали съезжаться в Мехико и готовить экспедицию на Кубу. Через несколько дней последовало знакомство с Раулем Кастро, в котором Че нашёл единомышленника, сказав впоследствии о нём: «Мне кажется, что этот не похож на других. По крайней мере, говорит лучше других, кроме того, он думает». В это время Фидель, находясь в США, собирал среди эмигрантов с Кубы деньги на экспедицию. Выступив в Нью-Йорке на митинге против Батисты, Фидель заявил: «Могу сообщить вам со всей ответственностью, что в 1956 году мы обретем свободу или станем мучениками».^[4]

Встреча Фиделя и Че произошла 9 июля 1955 года в доме у Марии-Антонии Гонсалес, на улице Эмпаран, 49, где была организована конспиративная квартира сторонников Фиделя. На встрече обсуждали подробности предстоящих боевых действий в Ориенте. Фидель утверждал, что Че на тот момент «имел более зрелые по сравнению со мной революционные идеи. В идеологическом, теоретическом плане он был более развитым. По сравнению со мной он был более передовым революционером». К утру Че, на которого Фидель произвёл, по его словам, впечатление «исключительного человека», был зачислен врачом в отряд будущей экспедиции^[4]. Спустя некоторое время, в Аргентине произошёл очередной военный переворот, и был свергнут Перон. Эмигрантам — противникам Перона было предложено вернуться в Буэнос-Айрес, чем воспользовались Рохо и другие проживавшие в Мехико аргентинцы. Че отказался сделать то же самое, поскольку был увлечён предстоящей экспедицией на Кубу.^[4] Мексиканец Арсасио Ванегас Арройо владел небольшой типографией и был знаком с Марией-Антонией Гонсалес. В его типографии печатали документы «Движения 26 июля», которое возглавлял Фидель. Кроме этого, Арсасио занимался физической подготовкой участников предстоящей экспедиции на Кубу, будучи спортсменом-борцом: продолжительными пешими походами по пересеченной местности, дзю-до, был нанят легкоатлетический зал. Арсасио вспоминал: «Кроме того, ребята слушали лекции по географии, истории, о политическом положении и на другие темы. Иногда я сам оставался послушать эти лекции. Ребята также ходили в кино смотреть фильмы о войне».^[4]

Полковник испанской армии Альберто Байо, ветеран войны с франкистами и автор пособия «150 вопросов партизану», занимался военной подготовкой группы. Поначалу запросив плату в размере 100 тысяч мексиканских песо (или 8 тыс. американских долларов), затем уменьшил её вдвое. Однако, поверив в возможности своих учеников, он не только не взял плату, но и продал свою мебельную фабрику, передав вырученные деньги группе Фиделя. Полковник приобрёл за 26 тысяч долларов США гасиенду «Санта-Роса» в 35 км от столицы, у Эрасмо Риверы, бывшего партизана Панчо Вильи, в качестве новой базы для подготовки отряда. Че, проходя тренировки с группой, учил делать перевязки, лечить переломы, делать инъекции, получив более ста уколов на одном из занятий — по одному или нескольку от каждого из членов группы.

Занимаясь вместе с ним на ранчо «Санта-Роса», я узнал, какой это был человек — всегда самый усердный, всегда преисполненный самым высоким чувством ответственности, готовый помочь каждому из нас… Я познакомился с ним, когда он останавливал мне кровотечение после удаления зуба. В то время я еле-еле умел читать. А он мне говорит: «Я буду учить тебя читать и разбираться в прочитанном…» Однажды мы шли по улице, он вдруг зашёл в книжный магазин и на те небольшие деньги, которые были у него, купил мне две книги — «Репортаж с петлей на шее» и «Молодую гвардию».[4] Карлос Бермудес

22 июня 1956 года мексиканская полиция арестовала Фиделя Кастро на одной из улиц Мехико. Затем была устроена засада на квартире Марии-Антонии, где задерживали всех входящих. На ранчо «Санта-Роса» полиция захватила Че и некоторых товарищей. Об аресте кубинских заговорщиков и участии в этом деле полковника Байо сообщалось в печати. Впоследствии выяснилось, что аресты производились по наводке Венерио, который проник в ряды заговорщиков. 26 июня мексиканская газета «Эксельсиор» опубликовала список арестованных, включая имя Эрнесто Гевары Серны, который был охарактеризован как «международный коммунистический агитатор» с упоминанием его роли в Гватемале при президенте Арбенсе.^[4]

После ареста нас повезли в тюрьму „Мигель Шульц“ — место заключения эмигрантов. Там я увидела Че. В дешевом прозрачном нейлоновом плаще и старой шляпе он смахивал на огородное пугало. И я, желая рассмешить его, сказала ему, какое он производит впечатление… Когда нас вывели из тюрьмы на допрос, ему единственному надели наручники. Я возмутилась и заявила представителю прокуратуры, что Гевара не преступник, чтобы надевать ему наручники и что в Мексике даже преступникам их не надевают. В тюрьму он возвращался уже без наручников.[4] Мария-Антония

За заключённых ходатайствовали бывший президент Ласаро Карденас, его бывший морской министр Эриберто Хара, рабочий лидер Ломбарде Толедано, художники Альфаро Сикейрос и Диего Ривера, а также деятели культуры и учёные. Через месяц мексиканские власти освободили Фиделя Кастро и остальных заключённых, за исключением Эрнесто Гевары и кубинца Каликсто Гарсии, которых обвинили в нелегальном въезде в страну.^[4] Выйдя из тюрьмы, Фидель Кастро продолжил подготовку к экспедиции на Кубу, собирая деньги, покупая оружие и организовывая конспиративные явки. Подготовка бойцов продолжилась мелкими группами в различных местах страны.^[4] У шведского этнографа Вернера Грина была приобретена яхта «Гранма» за 12 тысяч долларов. Че опасался, что заботы Фиделя по его вызволению из тюрьмы задержат отплытие, однако Фидель ему сказал: «Я тебя не брошу!». Мексиканская полиция арестовала и жену Че, однако через некоторое время Ильда и Че были выпущены на свободу. Че просидел в тюрьме 57 дней. Полицейские продолжали следить, врывались на конспиративные квартиры. Пресса писала о подготовке Фиделем отплытия на Кубу.^[4] Франк Паис привёз из Сантьяго 8 тысяч долларов и был готов поднять в городе восстание.^[4] Из-за участившихся облав и возможности выдачи группы, яхты и передатчика кубинскому посольству в Мехико провокатором за 15 тысяч долларов, приготовления были ускорены. Фидель отдал приказ изолировать предполагаемого провокатора и сосредоточиться в порту Туспана в Мексиканском заливе, где у причала стояла «Гранма». Франку Паису была отправлена телеграмма «Книга распродана» в качестве условленного сигнала о подготовке восстания в назначенный срок.^[4] Че с медицинским саквояжем забежал домой к Ильде, поцеловал спящую дочь и написал прощальное письмо родителям.^[4]

Отплытие на «Гранме»

В 2 часа утра 25 ноября 1956 года в Туспане отряд совершил посадку на «Гранму». Полиция получила «мордиду» (взятку) и отсутствовала на пристани. Че, Каликсто Гарсия и трое других революционеров добирались в Туспан на попутном автомобиле, которого пришлось долго ждать, за 180 песо. На полпути водитель отказался ехать дальше. Его удалось уговорить довезти до Роса-Рика, где они пересели на другую машину и добрались до места назначения. В Туспане их встретил Хуан Мануэль Маркес и отвёл к речному берегу, где стояла «Гранма».^[4] 82 человека с оружием и снаряжением погрузились на переполненную яхту, которая была рассчитана на 8-12 человек. На море в это время был шторм и шёл дождь, «Гранма» с погашенными огнями легла курсом на Кубу.^[4] Че вспоминал, что «из 82 человек только два или три матроса да четыре или пять пассажиров не страдали от морской болезни». Судно дало течь, как потом выяснилось, из-за открытого крана в уборной, однако, пытаясь ликвидировать осадку судна при неработающем насосе для откачки, успели побросать за борт консервы^[4].

Нужно иметь богатое воображение, чтобы представить себе, как могли на такой маленькой посудине разместиться 82 человека с оружием и снаряжением. Яхта была набита до отказа. Люди сидели буквально друг на друге. Продуктов взяли в обрез. В первые дни каждому выдавалось полбанки сгущенного молока, но вскоре оно кончилось. На четвёртый день каждый получил по кусочку сыра и колбасы, а на пятый остались лишь одни гнилые апельсины.[4] Каликсто Гарсия

На «Гранме» Че страдал от астмы, но, по утверждению Роберто Роке Нуньеса, подбадривал других и шутил. Капитаном судна был назначен Ладислао Ондино Пино, штурманом — Роберто Роке Нуньес. Последний побывал за бортом судна, упав с крыши капитанской рубки — в течение нескольких часов его искали и извлекали из воды. Яхта часто сбивалась с курса.^[4] Время прибытия группы в селение Никеро вблизи Сантьяго было рассчитано на 30 ноября. В этот день, в 5:40 утра сторонники Франка Паиса захватили правительственные учреждения и вышли на улицы, но не смогли удержать ситуацию под контролем.^[4]

Кубинская революция

Первые дни

«Гранма» прибыла к берегам Кубы только 2 декабря 1956 года в районе Лас Колорадас провинции Ориенте, тут же сев на мель. На воду была спущена шлюпка, но она затонула. Группа из 82 человек до берега добиралась вброд, по плечи в воде; на сушу удалось вынести оружие и небольшое количество еды. На место высадки, которое Рауль Кастро впоследствии сравнивал с «кораблекрушением», устремились катера и самолеты подчиненных Батисте подразделений, и группа Фиделя Кастро попала под обстрел. Группа продолжительное время пробиралась по заболоченному побережью, представляющему собой мангровые заросли. В ночь на 5 декабря революционеры шли по плантации сахарного тростника, к утру сделав привал на территории сентраля (сахарный завод вместе с плантацией) в местности Алегрия-де-Пио (Святая радость). Че, будучи врачом отряда, перевязывал товарищей, поскольку у них были стерты ноги от трудного похода в неудобной обуви, сделав последнюю перевязку бойцу отряда Умберто Ламоте. В середине дня в небе появились самолеты противника. Под огнем неприятеля в бою погибли половина бойцов отряда и приблизительно 20 человек попали в плен. На следующий день оставшиеся в живых собрались в хижине недалеко от Сьерра-Маэстры.^[4]

Фидель сказал: «Враг нанес нам поражение, но не сумел нас уничтожить. Мы будем сражаться и выиграем эту войну». Гуахиро — крестьяне Кубы дружелюбно принимали участников отряда и укрывали их в своих домах.

Где-нибудь в лесу, долгими ночами (с заходом солнца начиналось наше бездействие) строили мы дерзкие планы. Мечтали о сражениях, крупных операциях, о победе. Это были счастливые часы. Вместе со всеми я наслаждался впервые в моей жизни сигарами, которые научился курить, чтобы отгонять назойливых комаров. С тех пор въелся в меня аромат кубинского табака. И кружилась голова, то ли от крепкой „гаваны“, то ли от дерзости наших планов — один отчаяннее другого.[4] Эрнесто Че Гевара

Сьерра-Маэстра

Кубинский писатель-коммунист Пабло де ла Торрьенте Брау писал, что ещё в XIX веке, в горах Сьерра-Маэстра борцы за независимость Кубы находили удобное укрытие. «Горе тому, кто поднимает меч на эти вершины. Повстанец с винтовкой, укрывшись за несокрушимым утесом, может сражаться здесь против десятерых. Пулеметчик, засевший в ущелье, сдержит натиск тысячи солдат. Пусть не рассчитывают на самолеты те, кто пойдет войной на эти вершины! Пещеры укроют повстанцев.». Фидель и участники экспедиции на Гранме, а также Че, не были знакомы с этой местностью.^[4] 22 января 1957 года при Арройо-де-Инфьерно (Адский ручей) отряд нанёс поражение отряду каскитос (солдаты Батисты) Санчеса Москера. Пять каскитос были убиты, отряд не понес потерь.^[4] 28 января Че написал письмо Ильде, которое дошло через доверенного человека в Сантьяго.^[4]

Дорогая старуха! Пишу тебе эти пылающие мартианские [11] строки из кубинской манигуа[12]. Я жив и жажду крови. Похоже на то, что я действительно солдат (по крайней мере, я грязный и оборванный), ибо пишу на походной тарелке, с ружьём на плече и новым приобретением в губах — сигарой. Дело оказалось не лёгким. Ты уже знаешь, что после семи дней плавания на «Гранме», где нельзя было даже дыхнуть, мы по вине штурмана оказались в вонючих зарослях, и продолжались наши несчастья до тех пор, пока на нас не напали в уже знаменитой Алегрия-де-Пио и не развеяли в разные стороны, подобно голубям. Там меня ранило в шею, и остался я жив только благодаря моему кошачьему счастью, ибо пулемётная пуля попала в ящик с патронами, который я таскал на груди, и оттуда рикошетом — в шею. Я бродил несколько дней по горам, считая себя опасно раненным, кроме раны в шее, у меня ещё сильно болела грудь. Из тебе знакомых ребят погиб только Джимми Хиртцель, он сдался в плен, и его убили. Я же вместе со знакомыми тебе Альмейдой и Рамирито провёл семь дней страшной голодухи и жажды, пока мы не вышли из окружения и при помощи крестьян не присоединились к Фиделю (говорят, хотя это ещё не подтверждено, что погиб и бедный Ньико). Нам пришлось немало потрудиться, чтобы вновь организоваться в отряд, вооружиться. После чего мы напали на армейский пост, несколько солдат мы убили и ранили, других взяли в плен. Убитые остались на месте боя. Некоторое время спустя мы захватили ещё трёх солдат и разоружили их. Если к этому добавить, что у нас не было потерь и что в горах мы как у себя дома, то тебе будет ясно, насколько деморализованы солдаты, им никогда не удастся нас окружить. Естественно, борьба ещё не выиграна, ещё предстоит немало сражений, но стрелка весов уже клонится в нашу сторону, и этот перевес будет с каждым днём увеличиваться. Теперь, говоря о вас, хотел бы знать, находишься ли ты все в том же доме, куда я тебе пишу, и как вы там живете, в особенности «самый нежный лепесток любви»? Обними её и поцелуй с такой силой, насколько позволяют её косточки. Я так спешил, что оставил в доме у Панчо твои и дочки фотографии. Пришли мне их. Можешь писать мне на адрес дяди и на имя Патохо. Письма могут немного задержаться, но, я думаю, дойдут.

Помогавший отряду крестьянин Эутимио Герра был захвачен властями, и пообещал им убить Фиделя. Однако, его планы не осуществились, и он был расстрелян^[4]. В феврале Че свалил приступ малярии, и затем новый приступ астмы. Во время одной из стычек крестьянин Креспо, взвалив Че себе на спину, вынес его из-под неприятельского огня, поскольку Че не мог передвигаться самостоятельно. Че был оставлен в доме фермера с сопровождающим бойцом, и смог преодолеть один из переходов, держась за стволы деревьев и опираясь на приклад ружья, за десять дней, при помощи адреналина, который фермер сумел раздобыть^[4]. В горах Сьерра-Маэстра Че, страдавший от астмы, периодически отлеживался в крестьянских хижинах, чтобы не задерживать движение колонны. Его часто видели с книгой или с блокнотом в руках.^[4]

Я помню, у него было много книг. Он много читал. Он не терял ни минуты. Часто он жертвовал сном, чтобы почитать или сделать запись в дневнике. Если он вставал с зарей, он принимался за чтение. Часто он читал ночью при свете костра. У него было очень хорошее зрение.[4] Марсиаль Ороско, капитан

Меня направляют в Сантьяго, и он просит привезти ему две книги. Одна из них — „Всеобщая песнь“ Пабло Неруды, а другая — поэтический сборник Мигеля Эрнандеса. Он очень любил стихи.[4] Каликсто Моралес

Я не понимаю, как он мог ходить, болезнь его то и дело душила. Однако он шел по горам с вещевым мешком за спиной, с оружием, с полным снаряжением, как самый выносливый боец. Воля у него, конечно, была железная, но еще большей была преданность идеалам — вот что придавало ему силы.[4] Антонио, капитан

Бедный Че! Я видела, как он страдает от астмы, и только вздыхала, когда начинался приступ. Он умолкал. дышал тихонечко, чтобы еще больше не растревожить болезнь. Некоторые во время приступа впадают в истерику, кашляют, раскрывают рот. Че старался сдержать приступ, успокоить астму. Он забивался в угол, садился на табурет или на камень и отдыхал.» В таких случаях она спешила приготовить ему теплое питьё.[4] Понсиана Перес, крестьянка

Участник отряда Рафаэль Чао утверждал, что Че ни на кого не кричал, и не допускал издевок, но часто употреблял в разговоре крепкие слова, и бывал очень резок, «когда нужно». «Я не знал менее эгоистичного человека. Если у него бывал всего один клубень бониато,^[13] он готов был отдать его товарищам».^[4]

На протяжении войны Че вёл дневник, который послужил основой для его известной книги «Эпизоды революционной войны».^[4] Со временем отряду удалось установить связь с организацией «Движение 26 июля» в Сантьяго и Гаване. Место расположение отряда в горах посещали активисты и руководители подполья: Франк Паис, Армандо Харт, Вильма Эспин, Аиде Санта-Мария, Селия Санчес, было налажено снабжение отряда.^[4] С целью опровергнуть сообщения Батисты о разгроме «разбойников» — «форахидос», Фидель Кастро отправил в Гавану Фаустино Переса, с поручением доставить иностранного журналиста. В расположение отряда 17 февраля 1957 года прибыл Герберт Мэтьюз, корреспондент газеты «Нью-Йорк Таймс». Он встретился с Фиделем, и через неделю опубликовал репортаж с фотографиями Фиделя и бойцов отряда. В этом репортаже он писал: «Судя по всему, у генерала Батисты нет оснований надеяться подавить восстание Кастро. Он может рассчитывать только на то, что одна из колонн солдат невзначай набредет на юного вождя и его штаб и уничтожит их, но это вряд ли случится…».^[4]

13 марта 1957 года в Гаване студенческая организация «Революционный директорат 13 марта» подняла неудачное восстание, пытаясь захватить радиостанцию, университет и президентский дворец. Большинство восставших погибли в бою с армией и полицией^[4]. В середине марта Франк Паис отправил в отряд Кастро подкрепление из 50 добровольцев под командованием подпольщика Хорхе Сотуса из Сантьяго, который принимал участие в восстании 30 ноября. Их привёз на грузовиках Уберто Матос — хозяин рисовой плантации. Сотус и Матос были антикоммунистами, и впоследствии были осуждены ревтрибуналом на длительное тюремное заключение (Сотус сбежал в США и погиб от разорвавшейся мины при подготовке диверсии против коммунистической Кубы). Пополнение состояло из горожан, которые не были привычны к длительным перемещениям по горной местности. Было принято решение приступить к их тренировкам. К отряду барбудос («бородачи», отпустившие бороду из-за походной жизни и отсутствия бритв) Фиделя присоединялись добровольцы различных политических взглядов, а средства, медикаменты и оружие доставляли зарубежные кубинские эмигранты.^[4]

Бой при Уверо

Основная статья: Бой при Уверо

В мае 1957 года планировалось прибытие из США (Майами) судна «Коринтия» с подкреплением во главе с Каликсто Санчесом. Чтобы отвлечь внимание от их высадки, Фидель отдал приказ штурмовать казарму в селении Уверо, в 15 км от Сантьяго. Дополнительно это открывало возможность выхода из Сьерра-Маэстры в долину провинции Ориенте. Че принимал участие в бою за Уверо, и описал его в «Эпизодах революционной войны». 27 мая 1957 г. был собран штаб, где Фидель объявил о предстоящем бое. Начав поход вечером, за ночь прошли около 16 километров по горной извилистой дороге, затратив на путь около восьми часов, часто останавливаясь ради предосторожности, особенно в опасных районах. Проводником был Кальдеро, который хорошо ориентировался в районе казармы Уверо и подходах к нему. Деревянная казарма располагалась на берегу моря, её охраняли посты. Было решено окружить её в темноте с трех сторон. Группа Хорхе Сотуса и Гильермо Гарсии атаковала пост на прибрежной дороге из Пеладеро. Альмейде поручили ликвидировать пост напротив высоты. Фидель расположился в районе высоты, а взвод Рауля атаковал казармы с фронта. Че было отведено направление между ними. Камило Сьенфуэгос и Амейхейрас в темноте потеряли направление. Задачу нападения облегчало наличие кустарника, однако противник заметил наступавших и открыл огонь. Взвод Крессенсио Переса не участвовал в штурме, охраняя дорогу на Чивирико, чтобы блокировать подход подкреплений противника. Во время нападения было запрещено стрелять в жилые помещения, где находились женщины и дети. Раненым каскитос оказывали первую помощь, оставили двух своих тяжелораненых на попечение врача гарнизона противника. Нагрузив грузовик со снаряжением и медикаментами, отправились в горы. Че указывал, что от первого выстрела до захвата казармы прошло два часа сорок пять минут. Наступающие потеряли убитыми и ранеными 15 человек, а противник — 19 человек ранеными и 14 убитыми. Победа укрепила боевой дух отряда. Впоследствии были уничтожены другие мелкие гарнизоны противника у подножья Сьерра-Маэстры.^[4]

Высадка с «Коринтии» закончилась неудачно: согласно официальным сообщениям, были убиты или захвачены в плен все революционеры, высадившиеся с этого судна. Батиста принял решение принудительно эвакуировать со склонов Сьерра-Маэстры местных крестьян, чтобы лишить революционеров поддержки населения, однако многие гуахиро сопротивлялись эвакуации, оказывали помощь отряду Фиделя, и вступали в их ряды.^[4]

Дальнейшая борьба

Взаимоотношения с местными крестьянами не всегда происходили гладко: по радио и в церковных службах производилась пропаганда антикоммунизма. Крестьянка Инирия Гутьеррес вспоминала, что до вступления в отряд она слышала о коммунизме только «ужасные вещи», и была удивлена направленностью политических взглядов Че. В фельетоне, вышедшем в январе 1958 года в первом номере повстанческой газеты «Эль Кубано либре» за подписью «Снайпер», Че на этот счет писал: «Коммунистами являются все те, кто берется за оружие, ибо они устали от нищеты, в какой бы это стране ни происходило.»^[4] Для подавления грабежей и анархии для улучшения взаимоотношений с местным населением в отряде была создана комиссия по соблюдению дисциплины, наделенная полномочиями военного трибунала. Была ликвидирована псевдореволюционная банда китайца Чанга. Че отмечал: «В то трудное время нужно было твердой рукой пресекать всякое нарушение революционной дисциплины и не позволять развиваться анархии в освобожденных районах». Производились расстрелы также и по фактам дезертирства из отряда. В отношении пленных оказывалась медицинская помощь, Че строго следил, чтобы их не обижали. Как правило, их отпускали на свободу.^[4]

5 июня 1957 года Фидель Кастро выделил колонну под руководством Че в составе 75 бойцов (в целях конспирации она была названа четвёртой колонной). Че было присвоено звание майора. Бойцы были разбиты на три взвода, которыми командовали Лало Сардиньяс, Сиро Редондо (впоследствии погиб, и его именем была названа восьмая колонна) и Рамиро Вальдес (стал министром внутренних дел и членом Политбюро ЦК Коммунистической партии Кубы).^[4] В июле представители буржуазной оппозиции Батисте Фелипе Пасос и Рауль Чибас прибыли на Сьерра-Маэстру. Фидель подписал манифест об образовании Революционного гражданского фронта, в требования которого входили замена Батисты выборным президентом и аграрная реформа, которая подразумевала раздел пустующих земель. Че считал этих деятелей «тесно связанными с северными владыками».^[4] 30 июля в Сантьяго был убит полицией Франк Паис и его брат Хосуэ. Забастовка протеста в Сантьяго была подавлена властями. 5 сентября в городе Съенфуэгосе произошло восстание моряков военно-морской базы под руководством офицеров, выступавших за свержение Батисты. Восстание закончилось поражением и расстрелом пленных правительственными войсками. В ходе подавления восстания погибло свыше 600 человек^[4]. В провинции Ориенте появились объявления властей:^[4]

Настоящим объявляется, что каждый человек, сообщивший сведения, которые могут способствовать успеху операции против мятежных групп под командованием Фиделя Кастро, Рауля Кастро, Крессенсио Переса, Гильермо Гонсалеса или других вожаков, будет вознагражден в зависимости от важности сообщенных им сведений; при этом вознаграждение в любом случае составит не менее 5 тысяч песо. Размер вознаграждения может колебаться от 5 тысяч до 100 тысяч песо; наивысшая сумма в 100 тысяч песо будет заплачена за голову самого Фиделя Кастро. Примечание: имя сообщившего сведения навсегда останется в тайне.

Опасаясь преследования полиции, противники Батисты пополняли ряды повстанцев в горах Сьерра-Маэстры. Возникли очаги восстания в горах Эскамбрая, Сьерра-дель-Кристаль и в районе Баракоа под руководством Революционного директората, «Движения 26 июля» и отдельных коммунистов.^[4] В октябре в Майами политические деятели из буржуазного лагеря учредили Совет освобождения, провозгласив Фелипе Пасоса временным президентом. Ими был выпущен манифест к народу. Фидель отверг «майамский пакт», считая его проамериканским. В письме к Фиделю Че писал: «Еще раз поздравляю тебя с твоим заявлением. Я тебе говорил, что твоей заслугой всегда будет то, что ты доказал возможность вооруженной борьбы, пользующейся поддержкой народа. Теперь ты вступаешь на еще более замечательный путь, который приведет к власти в результате вооруженной борьбы масс».^[4]

К концу 1957 года повстанческие войска господствовали на Сьерра-Маэстре, не спускаясь, однако, в долины. Продукты питания, такие как фасоль, кукурузу и рис, покупали у местных крестьян. Медикаменты доставлялись подпольщиками из города. Мясо конфисковывалось у крупных скотопромышленников и тех кто был обвинен в предательстве, часть конфискованного передавалась местным крестьянам. Че организовывал санитарные пункты, полевые госпитали, мастерские для починки оружия, изготовления кустарной обуви, вещмешков, обмундирования, сигарет. На гектографе стала размножаться газета «Эль Кубано либре», которая получила свое название от газеты борцов за независимость Кубы в XIX в. В эфир стали выходить передачи небольшой радиостанции. Тесная связь с местным населением позволяла узнавать о появлении каскитос и лазутчиков противника.^[4]

Правительственная пропаганда призывала к национальному единству и согласию, поскольку в городах Кубы ширилось забастовочное и повстанческое движение. В марте 1958 года правительство США заявило об эмбарго на доставку оружия силам Батисты, хотя вооружение и заправка самолетов правительственных войск на базе Гуантанамо ещё некоторое время продолжались. В конце 1958 г., согласно конституции (статуту), объявленной Батистой, должны были состояться президентские выборы. В Сьерра-Маэстре никто не говорил открытым текстом о коммунизме или социализме, а открыто предлагавшиеся Фиделем реформы, как то ликвидация латифундий, национализация транспорта, электрических компаний и других важных предприятий носили умеренный и не отрицавшийся даже проамериканскими политическими деятелями характер.^[4]

Че Гевара как государственный деятель

Че Гевара полагал, что может рассчитывать на неограниченную экономическую помощь «братских» стран. Че, будучи министром революционного правительства, извлёк урок из конфликтов с братскими странами социалистического лагеря. Ведя переговоры об оказании поддержки, экономическом и военном сотрудничестве, обсуждая международную политику с китайскими и советскими руководителями, он пришёл к неожиданному выводу и имел мужество высказаться публично в своём знаменитом алжирском выступлении. Это была настоящая обвинительная речь против неинтернационалистической политики так называемых социалистических стран. Он упрекал их в навязывании беднейшим странам условий товарообмена, подобных тем, какие диктует империализм на мировом рынке, а также в отказе от безусловной поддержки, военной в том числе, в отказе от борьбы за национальное освобождение, в частности, в Конго и во Вьетнаме. Че прекрасно знал знаменитое уравнение Энгельса: чем менее развита экономика, тем больше роль насилия в становлении новой формации. Если в начале 1950-х он шутливо подписывается под письмами «Сталин II», то после победы революции вынужден доказывать: «На Кубе нет условий для становления сталинской системы»^[14].

Позже Че Гевара скажет: «После революции работу делают не революционеры. Ее делают технократы и бюрократы. А они — контрреволюционеры»^[14].

Близко знавшая Гевару, сестра Фиделя и Рауля Кастро Хуанита, впоследствии уехавшая в США, написала о нём в биографической книге «Фидель и Рауль, мои братья. Тайная история»:

Для него не имели значения ни суд, ни следствие. Он сразу начинал расстреливать, потому что был человеком без сердца

По её мнению появление Гевары на Кубе — «худшее, что могло с ней произойти»^[15] Но при этом не следует забывать, что Хуанита уехала в США и сотрудничала с ЦРУ.

Последнее письмо Че Гевары родителям

1 апреля 1965 года, перед отправкой на «континентальную герилью», Че Гевара написал письма своим родителям, детям и Фиделю Кастро. Письмо родителям (в переводе Лаврецкого):

Дорогие старики! Я вновь чувствую своими пятками ребра Росинанта, снова, облачившись в доспехи, я пускаюсь в путь. Около десяти лет тому назад я написал Вам другое прощальное письмо. Насколько помню, тогда я сожалел, что не являюсь более хорошим солдатом и хорошим врачом; второе уже меня не интересует, солдат же из меня получился не столь уж плохой. В основном ничего не изменилось с тех пор, если не считать, что я стал значительно более сознательным, мой марксизм укоренился во мне и очистился. Считаю, что вооруженная борьба — единственный выход для народов, борющихся за свое освобождение, и я последователен в своих взглядах. Многие назовут меня искателем приключений, и это так. Но только я искатель приключений особого рода, из той породы, что рискуют своей шкурой, дабы доказать свою правоту. Может быть, я попытаюсь сделать это в последний раз. Я не ищу такого конца, но он возможен, если логически исходить из расчета возможностей. И если так случится, примите мое последнее объятие. Я любил Вас крепко, только не умел выразить свою любовь. Я слишком прямолинеен в своих действиях и думаю, что иногда меня не понимали. К тому же было нелегко меня понять, но на этот раз — верьте мне. Итак, решимость, которую я совершенствовал с увлечением артиста, заставит действовать хилые ноги и уставшие лёгкие. Я добьюсь своего. Вспоминайте иногда этого скромного кондотьера XX века. Поцелуйте Селию, Роберто, Хуана-Мартина и Пототина, Беатрис, всех. Крепко обнимает Вас Ваш блудный и неисправимый сын Эрнесто.[4][5]

Повстанец

Конго

В апреле 1965 года Гевара прибыл в Республику Конго, где в это время продолжались боевые действия. С Конго у него были связаны большие надежды, он полагал, что огромная территория этой страны, покрытая джунглями, даст прекрасные возможности организации партизанской войны. В операции участвовали в общей сложности более 100 кубинцев-добровольцев. Однако с самого начала операцию в Конго преследовали неудачи. Отношения с местными повстанцами были достаточно сложными, и у Гевары не было веры в их руководство. В первом бою 29 июня силы кубинцев и повстанцев потерпели поражение. В дальнейшем Гевара пришёл к выводу, что выиграть войну с такими союзниками невозможно, но всё же продолжал операцию. Финальный удар по конголезской экспедиции Гевары был нанесён в октябре, когда к власти в Конго пришёл Жозеф Касавубу, выдвинувший инициативы по урегулированию конфликта. После заявлений Касавубу Танзания, служившая тыловой базой для кубинцев, прекратила их поддерживать. Геваре не оставалось ничего, кроме как прекратить операцию. Он вернулся в Танзанию и, находясь в кубинском посольстве, подготовил дневник операции в Конго, начинавшийся словами «Это история провала»^[16].

Боливия

Слухи о местонахождении Гевары не прекращались в 1966—1967 годах. Представители мозамбикского движения за независимость ФРЕЛИМО сообщали о встрече с Че в Дар-эс-Саламе во время которой они отказались от предложенной им помощи в их революционном проекте. Правдой оказались слухи о том, что Гевара возглавлял партизан в Боливии. По приказу Фиделя Кастро боливийскими коммунистами специально была куплена земля для создания баз, где под руководством Гевары проходили подготовку партизаны. В окружение Гевары в качестве агента в Ла-Пасе была введена Хайд Тамара Бунке Бидер (известная также по прозвищу «Таня»), в прошлом агент Штази, которая, по некоторым сведениям, работала также на КГБ. Рене Барьентос, напуганный известиями о партизанах в своей стране, обратился за помощью к ЦРУ. Против Гевары было решено задействовать специально обученные для антипартизанских действий силы ЦРУ.

Партизанский отряд Гевары насчитывал около 50 человек и действовал как Армия национального освобождения Боливии (исп. Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia). Он был хорошо оснащён и провёл несколько успешных операций против регулярных войск в сложной гористой местности региона Камири. Однако, в сентябре боливийская армия смогла ликвидировать две группы партизан, убив одного из лидеров. Несмотря на жестокую природу конфликта, Гевара оказывал медицинскую помощь всем раненым боливийским солдатам, которые попадали в плен к партизанам, а позже освобождал их. Во время своего последнего боя в Куебрада-дель-Юро Гевара был ранен, в его винтовку попала пуля, которая вывела оружие из строя, и он расстрелял все патроны из пистолета. Когда его, безоружного и раненого, захватили в плен и привели под конвоем к школе, которая служила солдатам ЦРУ в качестве временной тюрьмы для партизан, он увидел там несколько раненых боливийских солдат. Гевара предложил оказать им медицинскую помощь, на что получил отказ от боливийского офицера. Сам Че получил только таблетку аспирина.

Плен и казнь

Охоту на Гевару в Боливии возглавил Феликс Родригес, агент ЦРУ. Информатор сообщил Боливийским Специальным войскам о местонахождении партизанского отряда Гевары, и 8 октября 1967 года стоянка отряда была окружена, а сам Гевара был взят в плен в ущелье Куэбрада-дель-Юро. Со слов некоторых солдат, которые присутствовали при этом, когда они приблизились к Геваре во время перестрелки, он якобы крикнул: «Не стреляйте! Я — Че Гевара и стою для вас больше живым, чем мёртвым». Родригес, услышав о захвате Гевары, сразу же сообщил об этом в штаб-квартиру ЦРУ в Лэнгли, штат Вирджиния.

Получив информацию о захвате Гевары, Барриентос немедленно дал приказ о его казни. Гевару привезли в полуразрушенное здание школы возле деревни Ла Игуера, где его продержали всю ночь. На следующий день он был расстрелян. В роли палача выступил сержант боливийской армии Марио Теран, который вытащил короткую соломинку в споре между солдатами за право убить Гевару. Чтобы поддержать официальную версию о смерти Гевары и инсценировать, что он погиб во время боя, а не был казнён без суда и следствия,Феликс Родригес приказал Терану стрелять осторожно по ногам Гевары, при этом лицо должно было оставаться неповреждённым для последующей идентификации. Че Гевара имел возможность сказать несколько последних слов перед смертью; он якобы сказал своему палачу: «Я знаю, ты здесь, чтобы убить меня. Стреляй, трус, ты просто убьешь человека». Тело казненного Гевары было привязано к полозьям вертолёта и доставлено в соседнее село Валлегранде, где его выставили напоказ прессе.

После казни Родригес присвоил некоторые личные вещи Гевары, включая его часы «Ролекс», и в течение последующих лет с гордостью хвастался этими «трофеями» перед журналистами. В настоящее время некоторые из этих вещей выставлены для обозрения в штаб-квартире ЦРУ.

После того, как военный хирург ампутировал руки Гевары, офицеры боливийской армии вывезли тело в неизвестном направлении и отказались сообщить, где оно было захоронено. 15 октября Фидель Кастро сообщил общественности о смерти Гевары. Смерть Гевары была признана тяжёлым ударом для социалистического революционного движения в Латинской Америке и во всем мире. Местные жители начали считать Гевара святым и обращались к нему «San Ernesto de La Higuera», прося о милостях.

В 1997 году останки обезглавленого тела были эксгумированы из-под взлетной полосы около Валлегранде, идентифицированы как принадлежащие Геваре и возвращены на Кубу. 17 октября 1997 года останки Гевары вместе с прочими шестерых других его товарищей, убитых во время партизанской кампании в Боливии, были перезахоронены с воинскими почестями в специально построенном мавзолее в городе Санта-Клара, где он выиграл решающую для кубинской революции битву.

Геваризм

Фокизм

Символическая память о Че Геваре

8 октября на Кубе отмечают день Героического Партизана, таким образом вспоминая команданте Гевару и его подвиги.

Изображение на банкнотах

• Че традиционно, при всех денежных реформах, изображается на лицевой стороне купюры достоинством три кубинских песо.

Образ Че в искусстве

Портрет работы Фицпатрика

Знаменитый во всём мире двухцветный портрет Че Гевары анфас, стал символом романтического революционного движения, но в настоящий момент, по мнению некоторых, он в значительной мере утратил смысловую нагрузку и превратился в китч, который используется в самых далёких от революции контекстах. Он создан ирландским художником Джимом Фицпатриком с фотографии 1960 года, сделанной кубинским фотографом Альберто Корда. На берете Че видна звёздочка Хосе Марти, отличительный признак команданте, полученная от Фиделя Кастро в июле 1957 года вместе с этим званием.

Альберто Корда не сделал свою фотографию общественным достоянием и даже подавал в суд за использование портрета в рекламе водки.

Образ Че в литературе и поэзии

Образ Че вдохновновлял не только революционные группы, подобные Чёрным пантерам и «Фракции Красной Армии» (РАФ), но и целый ряд литераторов. Хулио Кортасар написал рассказ «Воссоединение», в котором от первого лица повествуется о высадке партизан на некоем острове. Хотя все персонажи рассказа носят вымышленные имена, в некоторых из них угадываются реальные деятели кубинской революции, в частности, братья Кастро. В рассказчике, от лица которого ведётся повествование, легко узнаваем Че Гевара. Цитата из дневников команданте вынесена в эпиграф рассказа.

Дух Че Гевары появляется в романе Виктора Пелевина «Generation „П“», где он диктует главному герою текст, озаглавленный «Идентиализм как высшая стадия дуализма» (название явно пародирует заголовок работы Ленина «Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма»). В тексте, в частности, говорится: «Сейчас слова Будды доступны всем, а спасение находит немногих. Это, без сомнения, связано с новой культурной ситуацией, которую древние тексты всех религий называли грядущим „тёмным веком“. Соратники! Этот темный век уже наступил. И связано это прежде всего с той ролью, которую в жизни человека стали играть так называемые визуально-психические генераторы, или объекты второго рода». Знаменитейшая песня Hasta Siempre Comandante («Команданте навсегда»), вопреки распространённому мнению, была написана Карлосом Пуэблой до смерти Че Гевары, в 1965 году(сам Карлос Пуэбло дал к песне эпиграф «Первый текст был написан, когда Фидель зачитал письмо Че») . Наиболее известна её версия в исполнении Натали Кардон. Эта песня затем многократно перепевалась и модифицировалась.

Не обошли вниманием Че Гевару и советские литераторы. К примеру, поэт Дмитрий Павличко, ныне считающийся классиком украинской литературы, написал цикл стихотворений о Кубинской революции. Одно из них начинается так:

Широко известны также поэма Евгения Долматовского «Руки Гевары», «Кубинский цикл» Евгения Евтушенко. Также у группы «Песняры» есть песня Баллада о Че Геваре.

Че Геваре посвящены следующие строчки Ярослава Смелякова:

Фильмы о Че

• Дореволюционному этапу жизни Че Гевары посвящена биографическая картина «Дневники мотоциклиста» (исп. Diarios de motocicleta). Во время титров в конце фильма появляется сын Че Гевары, исполняющий песню на акустической гитаре.
• «Че!» (англ. Che!) (1969) режиссёр Ричард Фляйшнер, в роли Эрнесто Гевары — Омар Шариф
• «Че» (исп. Che) (2005) режиссёр Джош Эванс, в роли Эрнесто Гевары — Эдуардо Норьега
• «Че» (исп. Che) (2008) режиссёр Стивен Содерберг, в роли Эрнесто Гевары — Бенисио дель Торо (фильм о революционной борьбе на Кубе и о революционной борьбе в Боливии)

Сочинения

• Che Guevara E. Obras. 1957—1967. T. I—II. La Habana: Casa de las Americas, 1970. — (Colleccion nuestra America)
• Che Guevara E. Escritos y discursos. T. 1-9. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977.
• Че Гевара Э. Статьи, выступления, письма. М.: Культурная Революция, 2006. ISBN 5-902764-06-8.
• Че Гевара Э. «Эпизоды революционной войны» М.: Военное издательство Министерства обороны СССР, 1974.
• Че Гевара Э. Дневник мотоциклиста. Перевод с испанского В. В. Симонова. СПб.: RedFish; Амфора, 2005. ISBN 5-483-00121-4.
• Че Гевара Э. Дневник мотоциклиста. Перевод с испанского А. Ведюшкина. Черданцево (Свердловская обл.): ИП «Клепиков М. В.», 2005. ISBN 5-91007-001-0.
• Че Гевара Э. Боливийский дневник
• Че Гевара Э.Партизанская война
• Че Гевара Э. ПАРТИЗАНСКАЯ ВОЙНА КАК МЕТОД
• Че Гевара Э. «Послание народам мира, отправленное на Конференцию трех континентов»
• Че Гевара Э. Куба и «План Кеннеди»
• Че Гевара Э. Экономические воззрения Эрнесто Че Гевары
• Че Гевара Э. Речь на Второй афро-азиатской экономической конференции
• Че Гевара Э. «Камень (Рассказ)»
• Че Гевара Э. «Письмо Че Гевары — Фиделю Кастро. Гавана, 1 апреля 1965 г.»
• Че Гевара Э. Письмо Армандо Харту Давалосу
• Че Гевара Э. Университетская реформа и революция

Примечания

Библиография

• Джон Ли Андерсон. «Че Гевара. Важна только Революция», Серия «Главные герои», Амфора, 2009 г. ISBN 978-5-367-01010-7
• Гавриков Ю. М. Последний романтик революции. М., 2004.
• Гросс Х.-Э., Вольф К.-П. Че: «Мои мечты не знают границ». М.: Прогресс, 1984.
• Кормье Ж., Гевара Гадеа И., Гранадо Хименес А. Че Гевара. Ростов н/Д.: Феникс, 1997.
• Кормье Ж., Лапер Ж. Че Гевара. Спутник революции. М.: Астрель, АСТ, 2001. ISBN 5-17-008457-9
• Лаврецкий И. Р. Эрнесто Че Гевара. М.: Издательство ЦК ВЛКСМ «Молодая гвардия», 1972. («Жизнь замечательных людей»). Переиздания: 1973, 1978.
• Лаврецкий И. Р. Эрнесто Че Гевара. М.: Издательство «ТЕРРА», 2002.
• Поссе А., Пражские тетради // Иностранная литература, № 4, 2003.
• Тайбо II П. И. Гевара по прозвищу Че. М.: Эксмо, 2004.
• Оцифрованные книги о Че
• Александр Тарасов. «44 года войны ЦРУ против Че Гевары»
• Александр Тарасов. «Живые моськи лают на мёртвого льва: Че Гевара глазами „Ома“»
• Александр Тарасов. Русские дети Че Гевары и Джерри Рубина
• Олег Ясинский «Че принимает поздравления от Эво»
• Кива Майданик «Революционер»
• Даниэль Бенсаид. «Эрнесто Че Гевара: жизнь и деятельность, отразившие великие надежды уходящего столетия»
• Зинин М. Поражение на берегах Танганьики.
• Марк Васильев Че Гевара как революционный теоретик

Ссылки

• Статьи на странице памяти Эрнесто Че Гевары
• Эрнесто Рафаэль Гевара Линч де ла Серна
• Сайт, посвященный Че Геваре
• Песни о Че Геваре
• Фотографии Эрнесто Че Гевары
• (исп.) Che, Guía y Ejemplo Большая коллекция фотографий, писем, видео, биографические данные Че Гевары, а также песни, посвящённые Че.

Я хату покинул, Пошел воевать, Чтоб землю в Гренаде Крестьянам отдать.

М.А.Светлов

Эрнесто Рафаэль «Че» Гевара Линч де ла Серна — аргентинский пламенный революционер. Боролся за права угнетённых и местами победил, доставил неиллюзорный баттхёрт проклятым буржуинам и удачно сфотографировался.

Имя[править]

«Че» — аргентинское междометие, используемое для обращения внимания других в начале реплики, урезаннaя форма от глагола «escuCHE» (послушайте), то есть аналог нашего «слышь», повторявшееся Эрнесто при каждом обращении. За эту привычку кубинцы и прозвали своего команданте «Че». Кроме того, словом «че» в испаноговорящем мире называют всех, родившихся в Аргентине. Знатоки утверждают, что свое «че» аргентинцы позаимствовали у индейцев гуарани — на их языке оно означает «мое».
Но в устах жителей пампасов «че», аки «хо-хо» в устах Эллочки-людоедки, выражает, в зависимости от интонаций и контекста, целую гамму «страстей человеческих».
После свержения Батисты Гевара, став директором Национального банка Кубы, на банкнотах нового выпуска поставил подпись «Че», чем заставил срать кирпичами контрреволюционеров.

Эрнесто Рафаэль Гевара Линч де ла Серна — полное имя Че (это, в свою очередь, погоняло). Такие длинные имена среди испанцев и латиносов бывают только у людей с голубой кровью. Че Гевара из обедневшего дворянского рода (см. биографию), что символизирует.

Биография[править]

Родился в семье c аристократическими (частично ирландскими, чем, видимо, объясняется склонность зажигать) корнями. Отец, Эрнесто Рафаэль Гевара Линч — архитектор. По материнской линии Че был потомком последнего вице-короля Перу, то есть мать, Селия де ля Серна, тоже принадлежала к аристократическому роду. Ей по наследству перепала плантация матэ. Некоторые считают её одной из основательниц феминистского движения в Аргентине.

В детстве много проёбывал школу, потому что родился астматиком, первые два года учился только на дому. Поступил в 1948 году на медицинский факультет Университета Буэнос-Айреса, который закончил 11 апреля 1953 года. После этого поработал ассистентом в клинике, которая специализировалась на аллергических заболеваниях (в частности, астме).

Пару раз объехал всю Латинскую Америку, участвуя в стычках всевозможных повстанцев во имя великой справедливости, съёбывая от ответных действий диктаторов, перебиваясь случайными заработками и помогая больным в лепрозориях (когда устроился). Во время второй поездки нелёгкая забросила его в компанию кубинских революционеров во главе с Фиделем Кастро. Благодаря особенностям ландшафта, невероятной удаче и хорошей тактике, кучка повстанцев выгнала злобного диктатора Батисту на мороз и установила на Кубе мир и процветание, после полувека планомерного уничтожения кубинской промышленности большим соседом.

Оставив Фиделя ненадолго порулить одного, Че отправился в Конго, насаждать Мировую Революцию. Однако, в этот раз оказалось, что для построения социализма необходимо сперва слезть с пальмы. Задолбавшись стаскивать бабуинов с растительности, Че решил «экспортировать революцию» в рiдную Латинскую Америку. Увы, в процессе создания базы партизан в Боливии произошел переворот. Че оказался с кучкой задротов и откровенных быдланов в окружении сразу боливийских неверных ментов, вояк и инструкторов-янки. Вокруг папуасы, про испанский язык не слышавшие, нихуя лекарств, боеприпасов и всех прочих партизанских ништяков. Явки в городах провалены провокаторами. В общем, палево. Несмотря на героизм в попытках отбиться, из нескольких десятков выжили только трое. Геваре не повезло — ранен, попал в плен, и расстрелян примерно по тем же соображениям, что и Николай с семейством в ипатьевском подвальчике: ново-само-провозглашенному президенту не уперлись разборки с толпами последователей Кастро и Че по поводу пленного, если оставить его в живых. Впрочем, надо отдать кубинцам должное — почти всех офицеров, участвовавших в уничтожении отряда Че, довольно оперативно отправили вслед за команданте.

Да, еще Че был пейсателем, наваяв в промежутках между боями довольно доставляющую книжыцу: «Партизанская война» Пособие для юного революционера. Учит, как имея пять человек и два ржавых калашникова в наличии, устроить нехилый геморрой властям, а то и вообще выгнать их на мороз.

Ещё написал книгу «Дневник мотоциклиста» об одном из своих путешествий, ЧСХ, частично на мотоцикле, а по большей части автостопом. Вполне годный путеводитель по латинской Америке получился, надо сказать.

Наши дни[править]

Казалось бы, Че, спустя 30 лет после смерти, не должен больше пугать своих идеологических противников… Оказалось: ничего подобного! Только сейчас стало ясно, как продолжают ненавидеть Че его враги, как боятся его до сих пор. Боливийский генералитет выступил с заявлением, в котором церемонии памяти Че были названы «шоу, отмеченным недостатком патриотизма». Срочно была создана ассоциация ветеранов, воевавших с Че Геварой.

Товарищ Тарасов

Свобода слова у вас, в России, это, как я вижу, свобода для любого идиота показывать всем, что он – идиот.

Антонио Нубаррон Тремендо

Образ Че в наше время культивируется коммунистами, говнарями, хиппанами, нацболами и прочими борцами за все хорошее и против всего плохого. При этом мало кто на самом деле имеет представление о том, что за человек был Че, какие идеи он исповедовал и против кого воевал. Главное — не дурацкие знания, а футболка с портретом и революционный дух, я гарантирую это! А вместо многомесячных неравных боёв за Идею и бескорыстной помощи окружающим можно приобщиться аватаркой в форуме и значком.

Сам образ давно превратился в бестелесный симулякр, умело используемый проклятыми буржуинами для впаривания пепси и сникерсов молодому поколению. Деятели постмодернизма пламенного революционера дичайше котируют и невозбранно пихают куда ни попадя.

Суммируя вышесказанное: образ Че Гевары превратился в глобальный медиавирус уже не одно десятилетие назад и, по сути, безвкусный китч. Наличествуют все признаки медиавируса, включая бесплатную раскрутку хомячками (в большинстве случаев школьниками). Очень доставляющий пример:

— Ты хоть знаешь, кто это такой? — Ну… вроде антиглобалист какой-то… или нет? — Так, понятно. А как его полностью звали? — Че Гевара! — Это только фамилия! А имя как? — Не знаю…

Интервью с лоли, невозбранно нацепившей значок с сабжем на футболку

Интересные факты[править]

• С раннего детства Че болел астмой, поэтому, в отличие от того же дедушки Ленина, говорил с трудом, и ораторским искусством не обладал.
• Последними словами Че Гевары пришедшему его расстрелять сержанту Марио Террану были: «Стреляй, трус, ты всего лишь убьёшь человека» [1]. И другие версии, любовно прожёвываемые, высираемые, снова прожёвываемые и т. д. (цикл бесконечен) всякими доморощенными историками. К. О. гарантирует, что последние слова Че слышали только боливийские солдаты. Собственно говоря, по свидетельству боливийского солдата, который его расстрелял, последние слова Че Гевары были немного прозаичней: «¡Póngase sereno y apunte bien! ¡Va a matar a un hombre!» (Успокойтесь и цельтесь хорошо! Вы сейчас убьёте человека!). Команданте он такой Команданте.
• После расстрела Че воскрес и улетел на небо в голубом вертолёте ([2]).
• Дух Че Гевары в романе «Generation „П“» пейсателя Пелевина срывает покровы с побудительных мотивов человеческой деятельности.
• Пресловутая каноничная фотография представляет собой лютую выкадровку снимка, сделанного на говнозеркалку дальномерку расовым кубинским репортером А. Корда. И это многое объясняет в особенностях работы фоторепортеров. Но понятное дело, что всем похуй
• Существует миф о «проклятье Че Гевары»: все или почти все, кто участвовал в его ликвидации, плохо кончили. Мифотворцев однако не смущает, что большинство из них погибли по вполне рациональным причинам — были невозбранно выпилены всяческими леваками в порядке возмездия. Однако есть и действительно интересное совпадение. У участника операции ЦРУ в Боливии кубинского контрреволюционера Феликса Родригеса ВНЕЗАПНО началась тяжёлая астма (что немудрено во влажном тропическом климате Боливии — НЕмудрено??? Половина Боливии лежит на равнине на высоте 3500 м, и там совсем не тропический и невлажный климат — там холодно, сухо, солнечно и ветрено. Хотя, конечно, отсутствия проклятия это не отменяет)).
• В местечке Ля Игерра, где его расстреляли, Че является местночтимым святым «San Ernesto de La Higuera».

• Люто, бешено ненавидим фошистами, либерастами и кубинской эмиграцией. Является предметом правого троллинга. На сайтах, созданных кубинскими контрреволюционными эмигрантами можно невозбранно ознакомиться с весьма инфернальными вариантами его биографии. Также доставляет его биография из «Ч0рной книги коммунизма»
• По непроверенным данным, предсказывал крушение Совка
• Эпос Эдуарда Успенского о ЧЕбурашке и крокодиле ГЕне был навеян!^[2]
• Че Геваре посвящена доставляющая песня Юза Алешковского.
• «Песняры» доставляют не меньше
• Про Че также есть с десяток доставляющих песен на испанском, среди них: Hasta Siempre Comandante, Zamba al Che, America, Te Habla Ernesto и одноименная Che Guevara.
• Написал подробную и толковую книгу про партизанскую борьбу. Всем готовящимся к борьбе с (вписать название неугодного режима, страны, организации) читать
• Дальним предком матери Че был Хулио Педро Гомес — гондольер из Гондураса генерал Хосе де ла Серна-э-Инохоса, вице-король Перу. Хотя испаноязычная педровикия утверждает, что это не так, так как вице-король Хосе де ля Серна и Мартинес де Инохоса не оставил отпрысков. Вообще. По крайней мере, официально зарегистрированных. «Мало ли в Бразилии Педров!» Мать Че и вице-король Перу — просто однофамильцы.
• Мыться не любил похлеще некоторых компьютерных задротов, за что получил прозвище «Боров»:

И, конечно, Эрнесто продолжал играть в регби с братьями Гранадо. Его друг Барраль отзывался о Геваре как о самом азартном игроке в команде, хотя он все также постоянно носил с собой на игры ингалятор. Именно тогда он заработал грубое прозвище, которым, впрочем, очень гордился: — Меня называли Боровом. — Потому что вы были жирным? — Нет, потому что я был грязным. Страх перед холодной водой, которая иногда вызывала приступы астмы, породил у Эрнесто неприязнь к личной гигиене.

Пако Игнасио Тайбо

• Ещё не став всенародным символом, он уже начал работать в рекламе, откатав на выделенном для теста живучести дырчике турне в четыре тысячи километров.
• Чтобы было чего похавать, Эрнесто подрабатывал библиотекарем, мыл в ресторанах посуду, лечил крестьян и прочих сельскохозяйственных животных, чинил радиоприёмники, работал грузчиком, носильщиком и матросом, торговал фотографиями и писал статьи в газеты. А ты готов к труду, %username%?
• Устроил с комрадом Гранандосом релаксационный пикничок с матэ и философскими разговорами на площадке жертвоприношений инкского храма в Мачу-Пикчу.
• Был арестован злыми бразильскими копами за усталый вид и выпущен под обещание натренировать местную футбольную команду. Команда под руководством астматичного врача таки выиграла, epic win.
• Че Гевара откосил от армии.
• Эрнесто в свое время пришел к выводу, что для того, чтобы быть успешным и богатым врачом не обязательно быть нормальным специалистом, а необходимо обслуживать господствующие классы и изобретать бесполезные лекарства для воображаемых больных, чем ныне и занимаются современные эскулапы.
• Че ни на кого не кричал и не допускал издевок, но часто употреблял в разговоре хуй крепкие слова и бывал очень резок при необходимости.
• Будучи тру-марксистом, Че упрекал Совок и Кетай в империализме.
• Разочаровавшись в первом после вывоза с Острова Свободы хрущёвского ежа (который должен был быть запущенным в пиндосские штаны), подошёл к советской делегации, достал из кобуры ствол, протянул его советскому переводчику и предложил самовыпилиться.
• Че Гевара в начале 1950-х шутливо подписывается под письмами «Сталин II».
• Че при всех денежных реформах изображается на лицевой стороне купюры достоинством в три кубинских песо.
• Че знал что опытный муганга всегда помнит о последствиях плохой давы.
• Че Геваре отрубили руки, «чтобы кубинский товарищ поменьше раздвигал буржуям ягодицы».
• Поговаривают, что Че записал было музыкальный альбом совместно с самим Ленноном, там же, в Боливии. Увы реализирован он никогда не был, а оба героя были выпилены злостными ЦРУ-шниками[3]

Галерея[править]

См. также[править]

• Куба
• Cuba77
• Игорь Растеряев он же Че Гевара

Примечания[править]

Последняя битва человечества
Основы	Античеловечество • Великий Архитектор Вселенной • Добро • Зло • Absence of Value and Meaning • Притча про доллар и евро • Новая нормальность • Атака мирового правительства
Добрые люди	Дональд Трамп • Марин Ле Пен • Илон Маск • Царь Соломон • Мудрец • Мудрый рав • Че Гевара • Анатолий Вассерман • Женечка • Говард Лавкрафт • Егор Холмогоров • Павел Дуров • Стив Джобс • Эдвард Сноуден • Владимир Атомное Солнышко • Green Lives Matter
Добрые явления	Табу • Антисексуал • Уменьшение потребления • Не Толерантен • Волк-гомофоб • Закрой глаза и думай об Англии • Гетеросексуализм • Язык ненависти • И это пройдёт • Крах проекта глобализации • Шейминг • Гетеронормативность • Мисгендеринг • Обвинение жертвы • Православие • Гудение • Гомофобия • Асексуал • Атомная бомба • Император • Постмодернизм • Сексизм • Гендерная критика • Кузькина мать
Злые люди	Князь мира сего • Масонская пирамида • Первый змей • Аннунаки • Прогрессисты • Апостолы античеловечества • Гендерквир • Антихрист • Демон • Снежинки • Гомосексуалист • Лесбиянка • Дьявол • Барак Обама • Вампиры • Дмитрий Хомак • Ричард Докинз • Михаил Горбачёв • Грета Тунберг • Роман Беккер • Инцел • Куколд • Кассильдо Амецельиз • Великий Обманщик • Низшие
Злые явления	Swift • ЛГБТ • Материализм • Сексуальное просвещение • Радужный флаг • РПЦ/Адельфопоэзис • Глобализация • Гей-пропаганда в российских школах • Опарашивание • Экспроприация радуги • Моральный релятивизм • Культ успеха • Культ удовольствия • Ползучая оккупация • Смертные грехи • Работа на развал • Многовекторность • Капитализм • Этот мир • Отдел токсичности и здоровья • Инфантилизация • Коллапс России • Гендерные исследования • Гей-технология • Электронный паспорт • Изменение климата • Загрязнение воздуха • Дискриминация мужчин • Общество потребления • Радикальный феминизм • Секс • Снос порядка • Гендер • Инклюзивность • Развод • Небинарный гендер • Бодипозитив • Фастфуд • Трансгуманизм • Троллинг верующих • Алкоголизм • Канселинг • Травля Гарри Поттера • Гомосексуализм в сериалах • Репорт • Нытье • Повестка SJW • Любовь (заболевание) • Влюбленность • Третий гендер • Скурвился • BDSM • Copyright • Friend Zone • Политкорректность • Радиация • Сатанизм • Холокост • Ювенальная юстиция • Гей-парад • Гомосексуалист-надомник • Ночной клуб • Проститутка • Секс-туризм • Анальный секс • Все мужчины думают только о сексе • Гибель цивилизации • Позитивная дискриминация • Политкорректный реткон • Деградация системы образования • Культурная апроприация • Пустое Будущее • Активное согласие • Адаптация от Netflix • Расизм против белых • Срамной уд • Virtue signalling • Грех • Цифровой аутизм • Политика идентичности
Столкновения	Мировое правительство против России • Чумной барак • Запрет пропаганды гомосексуализма в России • Дана сила вредить • Изгнание из рая • Илон Маск против Твиттера • SJW это фашисты • Искажение левой идеи активистами SJW • Ересь папы римского Франциска • Потреблядство • Мягкая сила • Клоунский мир • Частотная Революция • Культурный марксизм • Система против Антисистемы • Илон Маск приобрёл Твиттер • Запрет Рождества на Западе • Борьба со злом • Антихрист и ядерная война • Вторжение гомосексуализма в массовую культуру • Глобальные постановки

Che Guevara
Guerrillero Heroico Picture taken by Alberto Korda on 5 March 1960, at the La Coubre memorial service
Minister of Industries of Cuba
In office 11 February 1961 – 1 April 1965
Prime Minister	Fidel Castro
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Joel Domenech Benítez
President of the National Bank of Cuba
In office 26 November 1959 – 23 February 1961
Preceded by	Felipe Pazos
Succeeded by	Raúl Cepero Bonilla
Personal details
Born	Ernesto Guevara 14 June 1928[1] Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
Died	9 October 1967 (aged 39) La Higuera, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Cause of death	Execution by shooting
Resting place	Che Guevara Mausoleum, Santa Clara, Cuba
Citizenship	Argentina Cuba
Political party	26th of July Movement (1955–1962) United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (1962–1965)
Spouse(s)	Hilda Gadea ​ ​ (m. 1955; div. 1959)​ Aleida March ​ (m. 1959)​
Children	5, including Aleida
Alma mater	University of Buenos Aires
Occupation	Guerrilla physician diplomat author
Known for	Guevarism
Signature
Nicknames	Che Fuser
Military service
Allegiance	Republic of Cuba[2]
Branch/service	Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces National Liberation Army of Bolivia
Years of service	1955–1967
Unit	26th of July Movement
Commands	Commanding officer of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces
Battles/wars	Cuban Revolution Attack on El Uvero Operation Verano Battle of Las Mercedes Battle of Santa Clara Bay of Pigs Invasion Cuban Missile Crisis Congo Crisis Bolivian Campaign

Ernesto «Che« Guevara (Spanish: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa];^[3] 14 June 1928^[4] – 9 October 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.^[5]

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.^[6][7] His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara’s political ideology.^[6] Later in Mexico City, Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.^[8] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.^[9]

After the Cuban Revolution, Guevara played key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals,^[10] instituting agrarian land reform as Minister of Industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both President of the National Bank and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion,^[11] and bringing Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba, which preceded the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.^[12] Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal guerrilla warfare manual, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World’s underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedies being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.^[13][14] Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment continental revolutions across both Africa and South America,^[15] first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.^[16]

Guevara remains a controversial historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a «new man» driven by moral rather than material incentives,^[17] Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various left-wing movements. In contrast, his critics on the political right accuse him of promoting authoritarianism and endorsing violence against his political opponents. Despite disagreements on his legacy, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century,^[18] while an Alberto Korda photograph of him, titled Guerrillero Heroico, was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as «the most famous photograph in the world».^[19]

Early life

Ernesto Guevara was born to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna y Llosa, on 14 June 1928,^[4] in Rosario, Argentina. Although the legal name on his birth certificate was «Ernesto Guevara», his name sometimes appears with «de la Serna» and/or «Lynch» accompanying it.^[20] He was the eldest of five children in an upper-class Argentine family of pre-independence immigrant Spanish (Basque, Cantabrian), and Irish ancestry.^[21][22][23] Two of Guevara’s notable 18th century ancestors included Luis María Peralta, a prominent Spanish landowner in colonial California, and Patrick Lynch, who emigrated from Ireland to the Río de la Plata Governorate.^[24][25] Referring to Che’s «restless» nature, his father declared «the first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels».^[26]

Early on in life, Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an «affinity for the poor».^[27] Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy.^[28] His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, would host veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.^[29] As a young man, he briefly contemplated a career selling insecticides, and set up a laboratory in his family’s garage to experiment with effective mixtures of talc and gamexane under the brand name Vendaval, but was forced to abandon his efforts after suffering a severe asthmatic reaction to the chemicals.^[30]

Despite numerous bouts of acute asthma that were to affect him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, football, golf, and shooting, while also becoming an «untiring» cyclist.^[31][32] He was an avid rugby union player,^[33] and played at fly-half for Club Universitario de Buenos Aires.^[34] His rugby playing earned him the nickname «Fuser»—a contraction of El Furibundo (furious) and his mother’s surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.^[35]

Intellectual and literary interests

Guevara learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by the age of 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he studied poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda, John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, and Walt Whitman.^[36] He could also recite Rudyard Kipling’s If— and José Hernández’s Martín Fierro by heart.^[36] The Guevara home contained more than 3,000 books, which allowed Guevara to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, with interests including Karl Marx, William Faulkner, André Gide, Emilio Salgari, and Jules Verne.^[37] Additionally, he enjoyed the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Vladimir Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as Anatole France, Friedrich Engels, H. G. Wells, and Robert Frost.^[38]

As he grew older, he developed an interest in the Latin American writers Horacio Quiroga, Ciro Alegría, Jorge Icaza, Rubén Darío, and Miguel Asturias.^[38] Many of these authors’ ideas he cataloged in his own handwritten notebooks of concepts, definitions, and philosophies of influential intellectuals. These included composing analytical sketches of Buddha and Aristotle, along with examining Bertrand Russell on love and patriotism, Jack London on society, and Nietzsche on the idea of death. Sigmund Freud’s ideas fascinated him as he quoted him on a variety of topics from dreams and libido to narcissism and the Oedipus complex.^[38] His favorite subjects in school included philosophy, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology, history, and archaeology.^[39][40] A CIA «biographical and personality report», dated 13 February 1958 and declassified decades later, made note of Guevara’s range of academic interests and intellect – describing him as «quite well read», while adding that «Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino».^[41]

Motorcycle journey

In 1948, Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. His «hunger to explore the world»^[43] led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that fundamentally changed the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition, in 1950, was a 4,500-kilometer (2,800 mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of northern Argentina on a bicycle on which he had installed a small engine.^[44] Guevara then spent six months working as a nurse at sea on Argentina’s merchant marine freighters and oil tankers.^[45] His second expedition, in 1951, was a nine-month, 8,000-kilometer (5,000 mi) continental motorcycle trek through part of South America. For the latter, he took a year off from his studies to embark with his friend, Alberto Granado, with the final goal of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru, on the banks of the Amazon River.^[46]

In Chile, Guevara was angered by the working conditions of the miners at Anaconda’s Chuquicamata copper mine, moved by his overnight encounter in the Atacama Desert with a persecuted communist couple who did not even own a blanket, describing them as «the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation».^[47] On the way to Machu Picchu he was stunned by the crushing poverty of the remote rural areas, where peasant farmers worked small plots of land owned by wealthy landlords.^[48] Later on his journey, Guevara was especially impressed by the camaraderie among the people living in a leper colony, stating, «The highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people.»^[48] Guevara used notes taken during this trip to write an account (not published until 1995), titled The Motorcycle Diaries, which later became a New York Times best seller,^[49] and was adapted into a 2004 film of the same name.

The journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and Miami, Florida, for 20 days,^[51] before returning home to Buenos Aires. By the end of the trip, he came to view Latin America not as a collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy. His conception of a borderless, united Hispanic America sharing a common Latino heritage was a theme that recurred prominently during his later revolutionary activities. Upon returning to Argentina, he completed his studies and received his medical degree in June 1953.^[52][53]

Guevara later remarked that, through his travels in Latin America, he came in «close contact with poverty, hunger and disease» along with the «inability to treat a child because of lack of money» and «stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment» that leads a father to «accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident». Guevara cited these experiences as convincing him that to «help these people», he needed to leave the realm of medicine and consider the political arena of armed struggle.^[6]

Early political activity

Activism in Guatemala

Ernesto Guevara spent just over nine months in Guatemala. On 7 July 1953, Guevara set out again, this time to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. On 10 December 1953, before leaving for Guatemala, Guevara sent an update to his aunt Beatriz from San José, Costa Rica. In the letter Guevara speaks of traversing the dominion of the United Fruit Company, a journey which convinced him that the company’s capitalist system was disadvantageous to the average citizen.^[54] He adopted an aggressive tone to frighten his more conservative relatives, and the letter ends with Guevara swearing on an image of the then-recently deceased Joseph Stalin, not to rest until these «octopuses have been vanquished».^[55] Later that month, Guevara arrived in Guatemala, where President Jacobo Árbenz headed a democratically elected government that, through land reform and other initiatives, was attempting to end the latifundia agricultural system. To accomplish this, President Árbenz had enacted a major land reform program, where all uncultivated portions of large land holdings were to be appropriated and redistributed to landless peasants. The largest land owner, and the one most affected by the reforms, was the United Fruit Company, from which the Árbenz government had already taken more than 225,000 acres (91,000 ha) of uncultivated land.^[56] Pleased with the direction in which the nation was heading, Guevara decided to make his home in Guatemala to «perfect himself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary.»^[57]

In Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was politically well-connected as a member of the left-leaning, Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA). She introduced Guevara to a number of high-level officials in the Árbenz government. Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro through the 26 July 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. During this period, he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine filler expression che (a multi-purpose discourse marker, like the syllable «eh» in Canadian English).^[58] During his time in Guatemala, Guevara was hosted by other Central American exiles, one of whom, Helena Leiva de Holst, provided him with food and lodging,^[59] discussed her travels to study Marxism in Russia and China,^[60] and to whom Guevara dedicated a poem, «Invitación al camino».^[61]

In May 1954, a ship carrying infantry and light artillery weapons was dispatched by communist Czechoslovakia for the Árbenz government and arrived in Puerto Barrios.^[62] As a result, the United States government—which since 1953 had been tasked by President Eisenhower to remove Árbenz from power in the multifaceted CIA operation code-named PBSuccess—responded by saturating Guatemala with anti-Árbenz propaganda through radio and air-dropped leaflets, and began bombing raids using unmarked airplanes.^[63] The United States also sponsored an armed force of several hundred anti-Árbenz Guatemalan refugees and mercenaries headed by Carlos Castillo Armas to help remove the Árbenz government. On 27 June, Árbenz chose to resign.^[64] This allowed Armas and his CIA-assisted forces to march into Guatemala City and establish a military junta, which elected Armas as president on 7 July.^[65] The Armas regime then consolidated power by rounding up and executing suspected communists,^[66] while crushing the previously flourishing labor unions^[67] and reversing the previous agrarian reforms.^[68]

Guevara was eager to fight on behalf of Árbenz, and joined an armed militia organized by the communist youth for that purpose. However, frustrated with that group’s inaction, Guevara soon returned to medical duties. Following the coup, he again volunteered to fight, but soon after, Árbenz took refuge in the Mexican embassy and told his foreign supporters to leave the country. Guevara’s repeated calls to resist were noted by supporters of the coup, and he was marked for murder.^[69] After Gadea was arrested, Guevara sought protection inside the Argentine consulate, where he remained until he received a safe-conduct pass some weeks later and made his way to Mexico.^[70]

The overthrow of the Árbenz regime and establishment of the right-wing Armas dictatorship cemented Guevara’s view of the United States as an imperialist power that opposed and attempted to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries.^[57] In speaking about the coup, Guevara stated:

The last Latin American revolutionary democracy – that of Jacobo Árbenz – failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the United States. Its visible head was the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company.^[69]

Guevara’s conviction strengthened that Marxism, achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace, was the only way to rectify such conditions.^[71] Gadea wrote later, «It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this.»^[72]

Exile in Mexico

Guevara arrived in Mexico City on 21 September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the General Hospital and at the Hospital Infantil de Mexico.^[73][74] In addition he gave lectures on medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in the National Autonomous University of Mexico and worked as a news photographer for Latina News Agency.^[75][76] His first wife Hilda notes in her memoir My Life with Che, that for a while, Guevara considered going to work as a doctor in Africa and that he continued to be deeply troubled by the poverty around him.^[77] In one instance, Hilda describes Guevara’s obsession with an elderly washerwoman whom he was treating, remarking that he saw her as «representative of the most forgotten and exploited class». Hilda later found a poem that Che had dedicated to the old woman, containing «a promise to fight for a better world, for a better life for all the poor and exploited».^[77]

During this time he renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro, who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During a long conversation with Fidel on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban’s cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of 26 July Movement.^[78] Despite their «contrasting personalities», from this point on Che and Fidel began to foster what dual biographer Simon Reid-Henry deemed a «revolutionary friendship that would change the world», as a result of their coinciding commitment to anti-imperialism.^[79]

By this point in Guevara’s life, he deemed that U.S.-controlled conglomerates installed and supported repressive regimes around the world. In this vein, he considered Batista a «U.S. puppet whose strings needed cutting».^[80] Although he planned to be the group’s combat medic, Guevara participated in the military training with the members of the Movement. The key portion of training involved learning hit and run tactics of guerrilla warfare. Guevara and the others underwent arduous 15-hour marches over mountains, across rivers, and through the dense undergrowth, learning and perfecting the procedures of ambush and quick retreat. From the start Guevara was instructor Alberto Bayo’s «prize student» among those in training, scoring the highest on all of the tests given.^[81] At the end of the course, he was called «the best guerrilla of them all» by General Bayo.^[82]

Guevara then married Gadea in Mexico in September 1955, before embarking on his plan to assist in the liberation of Cuba.^[83]

Cuban Revolution

Granma invasion

The first step in Castro’s revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the Granma, an old, leaky cabin cruiser. They set out for Cuba on 25 November 1956. Attacked by Batista’s military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards.^[84] During this initial bloody confrontation Guevara laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, proving to be a symbolic moment in Che’s life.^[85]

Only a small band of revolutionaries survived to re-group as a bedraggled fighting force deep in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they received support from the urban guerrilla network of Frank País, 26 July Movement, and local campesinos. With the group withdrawn to the Sierra, the world wondered whether Castro was alive or dead until early 1957 when an interview by Herbert Matthews appeared in The New York Times. The article presented a lasting, almost mythical image for Castro and the guerrillas. Guevara was not present for the interview, but in the coming months he began to realize the importance of the media in their struggle. Meanwhile, as supplies and morale diminished, and with an allergy to mosquito bites which resulted in agonizing walnut-sized cysts on his body,^[86] Guevara considered these «the most painful days of the war».^[87]

During Guevara’s time living hidden among the poor subsistence farmers of the Sierra Maestra mountains, he discovered that there were no schools, no electricity, minimal access to healthcare, and more than 40 percent of the adults were illiterate.^[88] As the war continued, Guevara became an integral part of the rebel army and «convinced Castro with competence, diplomacy and patience».^[9] Guevara set up factories to make grenades, built ovens to bake bread, and organized schools to teach illiterate campesinos to read and write.^[9] Moreover, Guevara established health clinics, workshops to teach military tactics, and a newspaper to disseminate information.^[89] The man whom Time dubbed three years later «Castro’s brain» at this point was promoted by Fidel Castro to Comandante (commander) of a second army column.^[9]

Role as commander

As second-in-command, Guevara was a harsh disciplinarian who sometimes shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send squads to track those seeking to abandon their duties.^[90] As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness.^[91] During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the summary executions of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters, or spies.^[92] In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution, of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant who had acted as a guide for the Castrist guerrillas, but admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebels’ position for attack by the Cuban air force.^[93] Such information also allowed Batista’s army to burn the homes of peasants sympathetic to the revolution.^[93] Upon Guerra’s request that they «end his life quickly»,^[93] Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing «The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe].»^[94] His scientific notations and matter-of-fact description, suggested to one biographer a «remarkable detachment to violence» by that point in the war.^[94] Later, Guevara published a literary account of the incident, titled «Death of a Traitor», where he transfigured Eutimio’s betrayal and pre-execution request that the revolution «take care of his children», into a «revolutionary parable about redemption through sacrifice».^[94]

Although he maintained a demanding and harsh disposition, Guevara also viewed his role of commander as one of a teacher, entertaining his men during breaks between engagements with readings from the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Miguel de Cervantes, and Spanish lyric poets.^[95] Together with this role, and inspired by José Martí’s principle of «literacy without borders», Guevara further ensured that his rebel fighters made daily time to teach the uneducated campesinos with whom they lived and fought to read and write, in what Guevara termed the «battle against ignorance».^[88] Tomás Alba, who fought under Guevara’s command, later stated that «Che was loved, in spite of being stern and demanding. We would (have) given our life for him.»^[96]

His commanding officer, Fidel Castro, described Guevara as intelligent, daring, and an exemplary leader who «had great moral authority over his troops».^[97] Castro further remarked that Guevara took too many risks, even having a «tendency toward foolhardiness».^[98] Guevara’s teenage lieutenant, Joel Iglesias, recounts such actions in his diary, noting that Guevara’s behavior in combat even brought admiration from the enemy. On one occasion Iglesias recounts the time he had been wounded in battle, stating «Che ran out to me, defying the bullets, threw me over his shoulder, and got me out of there. The guards didn’t dare fire at him … later they told me he made a great impression on them when they saw him run out with his pistol stuck in his belt, ignoring the danger, they didn’t dare shoot.»^[99]

Guevara was instrumental in creating the clandestine radio station Radio Rebelde (Rebel Radio) in February 1958, which broadcast news to the Cuban people with statements by 26 July movement, and provided radiotelephone communication between the growing number of rebel columns across the island. Guevara had apparently been inspired to create the station by observing the effectiveness of CIA supplied radio in Guatemala in ousting the government of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán.^[100]

To quell the rebellion, Cuban government troops began executing rebel prisoners on the spot, and regularly rounded up, tortured, and shot civilians as a tactic of intimidation.^[101] By March 1958, the continued atrocities carried out by Batista’s forces led the United States to stop selling arms to the Cuban government.^[89] Then in late July 1958, Guevara played a critical role in the Battle of Las Mercedes by using his column to halt a force of 1,500 men called up by Batista’s General Cantillo in a plan to encircle and destroy Castro’s forces. Years later, Major Larry Bockman of the United States Marine Corps analyzed and described Che’s tactical appreciation of this battle as «brilliant».^[102] During this time Guevara also became an «expert» at leading hit-and-run tactics against Batista’s army, and then fading back into the countryside before the army could counterattack.^[103]

Final offensive

As the war extended, Guevara led a new column of fighters dispatched westward for the final push towards Havana. Travelling by foot, Guevara embarked on a difficult 7-week march, only travelling at night to avoid an ambush and often not eating for several days.^[104] In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara’s task was to cut the island in half by taking Las Villas province. In a matter of days he executed a series of «brilliant tactical victories» that gave him control of all but the province’s capital city of Santa Clara.^[104] Guevara then directed his «suicide squad» in the attack on Santa Clara, which became the final decisive military victory of the revolution.^[105][106] In the six weeks leading up to the battle, there were times when his men were completely surrounded, outgunned, and overrun. Che’s eventual victory despite being outnumbered 10:1 remains in the view of some observers a «remarkable tour de force in modern warfare».^[107]

Radio Rebelde broadcast the first reports that Guevara’s column had taken Santa Clara on New Year’s Eve 1958. This contradicted reports by the heavily controlled national news media, which had at one stage reported Guevara’s death during the fighting. At 3 am on 1 January 1959, upon learning that his generals were negotiating a separate peace with Guevara, Fulgencio Batista boarded a plane in Havana and fled for the Dominican Republic, along with an amassed «fortune of more than $300,000,000 through graft and payoffs».^[108] The following day on 2 January, Guevara entered Havana to take final control of the capital.^[109] Fidel Castro took six more days to arrive, as he stopped to rally support in several large cities on his way to rolling victoriously into Havana on 8 January 1959. The final death toll from the two years of revolutionary fighting was 2,000 people.^[110]

Political career in Cuba

Revolutionary tribunals

In mid-January 1959, Guevara went to live at a summer villa in Tarará to recover from a violent asthma attack.^[111] While there he started the Tarara Group, a group that debated and formed the new plans for Cuba’s social, political, and economic development.^[112] In addition, Che began to write his book Guerrilla Warfare while resting at Tarara.^[112] In February, the revolutionary government proclaimed Guevara «a Cuban citizen by birth» in recognition of his role in the triumph.^[113] When Hilda Gadea arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce,^[114] which was finalized on 22 May.^[115]

The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials who had perpetrated the worst of the repression.^[116] During the rebellion against Batista’s dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel Castro, introduced into the territories under its control the 19th-century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra (Law of the Sierra).^[117] This law included the death penalty for serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959 the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to those it considered war criminals, captured and tried after the revolution. According to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, this latter extension was supported by the majority of the population, and followed the same procedure as those in the Nuremberg trials held by the Allies after World War II.^[118]

To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (2 January through 12 June 1959).^[119] Guevara was charged by the new government with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting «revolutionary justice» against those regarded as traitors, chivatos (informants) or war criminals.^[120] As commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process.^[10] The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen.^[121] On some occasions the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing-squad.^[122] Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, has argued that the death penalty was justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands, as had happened twenty years earlier in the anti-Machado rebellion.^[123] Biographers note that in January 1959 the Cuban public was in a «lynching mood»,^[124] and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process.^[10] Moreover, a 22 January 1959, Universal Newsreel broadcast in the United States and narrated by Ed Herlihy featured Fidel Castro asking an estimated one million Cubans whether they approved of the executions, and being met with a roaring «¡Sí!» (yes).^[125] With between 1,000^[126] and 20,000 Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista’s collaborators,^{[127][128][129][130]} and many of the accused war criminals sentenced to death accused of torture and physical atrocities,^[10] the newly empowered government carried out executions, punctuated by cries from the crowds of «¡al paredón!» ([to the] wall!),^[116] which biographer Jorge Castañeda describes as «without respect for due process».^[131]

Although accounts vary, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara’s jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 105.^[133] Conflicting views exist of Guevara’s attitude towards the executions at La Cabaña. Some exiled opposition biographers report that he relished the rituals of the firing squad, and organized them with gusto, while others relate that Guevara pardoned as many prisoners as he could.^[131] All sides acknowledge that Guevara had become a «hardened» man who had no qualms about the death penalty or about summary and collective trials. If the only way to «defend the revolution was to execute its enemies, he would not be swayed by humanitarian or political arguments».^[131] In a 5 February 1959 letter to Luis Paredes López in Buenos Aires, Guevara states unequivocally: «The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people.»^[134]

Along with ensuring «revolutionary justice», the other key early platform of Guevara was establishing agrarian land reform. Almost immediately after the success of the revolution, on 27 January 1959, Guevara made one of his most significant speeches where he talked about «the social ideas of the rebel army». During this speech he declared that the main concern of the new Cuban government was «the social justice that land redistribution brings about».^[135] A few months later, 17 May 1959, the agrarian reform law, crafted by Guevara, went into effect, limiting the size of all farms to 1,000 acres (400 ha). Any holdings over these limits were expropriated by the government and either redistributed to peasants in 67-acre (270,000 m²) parcels or held as state-run communes.^[136] The law also stipulated that foreigners could not own Cuban sugar-plantations.^[137]

On 2 June 1959, he married Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of 26 July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida.^[138] A civil ceremony was held at La Cabaña military fortress.^[139] In total, Guevara would have five children from his two marriages.^[140]

Early political office

On 12 June 1959, Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, and Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong.^[141] Sending Guevara away from Havana allowed Castro to appear to distance himself from Guevara and his Marxist sympathies, which troubled both the United States and some of the members of Castro’s 26 July Movement.^[142] While in Jakarta, Guevara visited Indonesian president Sukarno to discuss the recent revolution of 1945–1949 in Indonesia and to establish trade relations between their two countries. The two men quickly bonded, as Sukarno was attracted to Guevara’s energy and his relaxed informal approach; moreover they shared revolutionary leftist aspirations against Western imperialism.^[143] Guevara next spent 12 days in Japan (15–27 July), participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba’s trade relations with that country. During the visit he refused to visit and lay a wreath at Japan’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier commemorating soldiers lost during World War II, remarking that the Japanese «imperialists» had «killed millions of Asians».^[144] Instead, Guevara stated that he would visit Hiroshima, where the American military had detonated an atomic bomb 14 years earlier.^[144] Despite his denunciation of Imperial Japan, Guevara considered President Truman a «macabre clown» for the bombings,^[145] and after visiting Hiroshima and its Peace Memorial Museum he sent back a postcard to Cuba stating, «In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima.»^[146]

Upon Guevara’s return to Cuba in September 1959, it became evident that Castro now had more political power. The government had begun land seizures in accordance with the agrarian reform law, but was hedging on compensation offers to landowners, instead offering low-interest «bonds», a step which put the United States on alert. At this point the affected wealthy cattlemen of Camagüey mounted a campaign against the land redistributions and enlisted the newly disaffected rebel leader Huber Matos, who along with the anti-communist wing of the 26 July Movement, joined them in denouncing «communist encroachment».^[147] During this time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was offering assistance to the «Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean» which was training in the Dominican Republic. This multi-national force, composed mostly of Spaniards and Cubans, but also of Croatians, Germans, Greeks, and right-wing mercenaries, was plotting to topple Castro’s new regime.^[147]

At this stage, Guevara acquired the additional position of Minister of Finance, as well as President of the National Bank.^[148] These appointments, combined with his existing position as Minister of Industries, placed Guevara at the zenith of his power, as the «virtual czar» of the Cuban economy.^[149] As a consequence of his position at the head of the central bank, it became Guevara’s duty to sign the Cuban currency, which per custom bore his signature. Instead of using his full name, he signed the bills solely «Che«.^[150] It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in the Cuban financial sector, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about.^[150] Guevara’s long time friend Ricardo Rojo later remarked that «the day he signed Che on the bills, (he) literally knocked the props from under the widespread belief that money was sacred.»^[151]

International threats were heightened when, on 4 March 1960, two massive explosions ripped through the French freighter La Coubre, which was carrying Belgian munitions from the port of Antwerp, and was docked in Havana Harbor. The blasts killed at least 76 people and injured several hundred, with Guevara personally providing first aid to some of the victims. Fidel Castro immediately accused the CIA of «an act of terrorism» and held a state funeral the following day for the victims of the blast.^[152] At the memorial service Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Guevara, now known as Guerrillero Heroico.^[153]

Perceived threats prompted Castro to eliminate more «counter-revolutionaries» and to utilize Guevara to drastically increase the speed of land reform. To implement this plan, a new government agency, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), was established by the Cuban government to administer the new agrarian reform law. INRA quickly became the most important governing body in the nation, with Guevara serving as its head in his capacity as minister of industries.^{[137][need quotation to verify]} Under Guevara’s command, INRA established its own 100,000-person militia, used first to help the government seize control of the expropriated land and supervise its distribution, and later to set up cooperative farms. The land confiscated included 480,000 acres (190,000 ha) owned by United States corporations.^[137] Months later, in retaliation, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sharply reduced United States imports of Cuban sugar (Cuba’s main cash crop), which led Guevara on 10 July 1960 to address over 100,000 workers in front of the Presidential Palace at a rally to denounce the «economic aggression» of the United States.^[149] Time Magazine reporters who met with Guevara around this time described him as «guid(ing) Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and a perceptive sense of humor.»^[9]

Along with land reform, Guevara stressed the need for national improvement in literacy. Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60 and 76%, with educational access in rural areas and a lack of instructors the main determining factors.^[155] As a result, the Cuban government at Guevara’s behest dubbed 1961 the «year of education» and mobilized over 100,000 volunteers into «literacy brigades», who were then sent out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate guajiros (peasants) to read and write.^[88][155] Unlike many of Guevara’s later economic initiatives, this campaign was «a remarkable success». By the completion of the Cuban literacy campaign, 707,212 adults had been taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.^[155]

Accompanying literacy, Guevara was also concerned with establishing universal access to higher education. To accomplish this the new regime introduced affirmative action to the universities. While announcing this new commitment, Guevara told the gathered faculty and students at the University of Las Villas that the days when education was «a privilege of the white middle class» had ended. «The University» he said, «must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant.» If it did not, he warned, the people were going to break down its doors «and paint the University the colors they like.»^[156]

Economic reforms and the «New Man»

In September 1960, when Guevara was asked about Cuba’s ideology at the First Latin American Congress, he replied, «If I were asked whether our revolution is Communist, I would define it as Marxist. Our revolution has discovered by its methods the paths that Marx pointed out.»^[157] Consequently, when enacting and advocating Cuban policy, Guevara cited the political philosopher Karl Marx as his ideological inspiration. In defending his political stance, Guevara confidently remarked, «There are truths so evident, so much a part of people’s knowledge, that it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be Marxist with the same naturalness with which one is ‘Newtonian’ in physics, or ‘Pasteurian’ in biology.»^[158] According to Guevara, the «practical revolutionaries» of the Cuban Revolution had the goal of «simply fulfill(ing) laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist.»^[158] Using Marx’s predictions and system of dialectical materialism, Guevara professed that «The laws of Marxism are present in the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently of what its leaders profess or fully know of those laws from a theoretical point of view.»^[158]

The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.

— Che Guevara, Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban, October 1960 ^[158]

Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.

— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba^[159]

In an effort to eliminate social inequalities, Guevara and Cuba’s new leadership had moved to swiftly transform the political and economic base of the country through nationalizing factories, banks, and businesses, while attempting to ensure affordable housing, healthcare, and employment for all Cubans.^[161] In order for a genuine transformation of consciousness to take root, it was believed that such structural changes had to be accompanied by a conversion in people’s social relations and values. Believing that the attitudes in Cuba towards race, women, individualism, and manual labor were the product of the island’s outdated past, all individuals were urged to view each other as equals and take on the values of what Guevara termed «el Hombre Nuevo» (the New Man).^[161] Guevara hoped his «new man» to be ultimately «selfless and cooperative, obedient and hard working, gender-blind, incorruptible, non-materialistic, and anti-imperialist».^[161] To accomplish this, Guevara emphasized the tenets of Marxism–Leninism, and wanted to use the state to emphasize qualities such as egalitarianism and self-sacrifice, at the same time as «unity, equality, and freedom» became the new maxims.^[161] Guevara’s first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for wealth condensation and economic inequality, was to see a nationwide elimination of material incentives in favor of moral ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a «contest among wolves» where «one can only win at the cost of others» and thus desired to see the creation of a «new man and woman».^[162] Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not «worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction» if it ends up encouraging «greed and individual ambition at the expense of collective spirit».^[163] A primary goal of Guevara’s thus became to reform «individual consciousness» and values to produce better workers and citizens.^[163] In his view, Cuba’s «new man» would be able to overcome the «egotism» and «selfishness» that he loathed and discerned was uniquely characteristic of individuals in capitalist societies.^[163] To promote this concept of a «new man», the government also created a series of party-dominated institutions and mechanisms on all levels of society, which included organizations such as labor groups, youth leagues, women’s groups, community centers, and houses of culture to promote state-sponsored art, music, and literature. In congruence with this, all educational, mass media, and artistic community based facilities were nationalized and utilized to instill the government’s official socialist ideology.^[161] In describing this new method of «development», Guevara stated:

There is a great difference between free-enterprise development and revolutionary development. In one of them, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, the friends of the government, the best wheeler-dealers. In the other, wealth is the people’s patrimony.^[164]

A further integral part of fostering a sense of «unity between the individual and the mass», Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara «led by example», working «endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane» on his day off.^[165] He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run.^[163] Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara’s new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut.^[163] Guevara unapologetically defended his personal philosophy towards motivation and work, stating:

This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, or how many times a year someone can go to the beach, or how many ornaments from abroad one might be able to buy with his current salary. What really matters is that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility.^[166]

In the face of a loss of commercial connections with Western states, Guevara tried to replace them with closer commercial relationships with Eastern Bloc states, visiting a number of Marxist states and signing trade agreements with them. At the end of 1960 he visited Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Hungary, and East Germany and signed, for instance, a trade agreement in East Berlin on 17 December 1960.^[167] Such agreements helped Cuba’s economy to a certain degree but also had the disadvantage of a growing economic dependency on the Eastern Bloc. It was also in East Germany where Guevara met Tamara Bunke (later known as «Tania»), who was assigned as his interpreter, and who joined him years later, and was killed with him in Bolivia.

According to Douglas Kellner, his programs were unsuccessful,^[168] and accompanied a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism.^[169] In a meeting with French economist René Dumont, Guevara blamed the inadequacy of the agrarian reform law enacted by the Cuban government in 1959, which turned large plantations into farm cooperatives or split up land amongst peasants.^[170] In Guevara’s opinion, this situation continued to promote a «heightened sense of individual ownership» in which workers could not see the positive social benefits of their labor, leading them to instead seek individual material gain as before.^[171] Decades later, Che’s former deputy Ernesto Betancourt, subsequently the director of the US government-funded Radio Martí and an early ally turned Castro-critic, accused Guevara of being «ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.»^[172]

Bay of Pigs Invasion and Missile Crisis

On 17 April 1961, 1,400 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Guevara did not play a key role in the fighting, as one day before the invasion a warship carrying Marines faked an invasion off the West Coast of Pinar del Río and drew forces commanded by Guevara to that region. However, historians give him a share of credit for the victory as he was director of instruction for Cuba’s armed forces at the time.^[11] Author Tad Szulc in his explanation of the Cuban victory, assigns Guevara partial credit, stating: «The revolutionaries won because Che Guevara, as the head of the Instruction Department of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in charge of the militia training program, had done so well in preparing 200,000 men and women for war.»^[11] It was also during this deployment that he suffered a bullet grazing to the cheek when his pistol fell out of its holster and accidentally discharged.^[173]

In August 1961, during an economic conference of the Organization of American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note of «gratitude» to United States President John F. Kennedy through Richard N. Goodwin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. It read «Thanks for Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now it’s stronger than ever.»^[174] In response to United States Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon presenting the Alliance for Progress for ratification by the meeting, Guevara antagonistically attacked the United States’ claim of being a «democracy», stating that such a system was not compatible with «financial oligarchy, discrimination against blacks, and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan».^[175] Guevara continued, speaking out against the «persecution» that in his view «drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, and sent the Rosenbergs to their deaths against the protests of a shocked world.»^[175] Guevara ended his remarks by insinuating that the United States was not interested in real reforms, sardonically quipping that «U.S. experts never talk about agrarian reform; they prefer a safe subject, like a better water supply. In short, they seem to prepare the revolution of the toilets.»^[176] Nevertheless, Goodwin stated in his memo to President Kennedy following the meeting that Guevara viewed him as someone of the «newer generation»^[177] and that Guevara, whom Goodwin alleged sent a message to him the day after the meeting through one of the meeting’s Argentine participants whom he described as «Darretta,»^[177] also viewed the conversation which the two had as «quite profitable.»^[177]

Guevara, who was practically the architect of the Cuban–Soviet relationship,^[178] played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.^[179] After the Soviets proposed planting nuclear missiles in Cuba it was Che Guevara himself who traveled to the Soviet Union on August 30, 1962 to sign off on the final agreement.^[180] Guevara argued with Khruschev that the missile deal should be made public but Khruschev insisted on secrecy, and swore the Soviet Union’s support if the Americans discovered the missiles. By the time Guevara arrived in Cuba the United States had already discovered the Soviet troops in Cuba via U-2 spy planes.^[181]

A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off.^[182] While expounding on the incident later, Guevara reiterated that the cause of socialist liberation against global «imperialist aggression» would ultimately have been worth the possibility of «millions of atomic war victims».^[183] The missile crisis further convinced Guevara that the world’s two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) used Cuba as a pawn in their own global strategies. Afterward, he denounced the Soviets almost as frequently as he denounced the Americans.^[184]

Great Debate

The era in Cuban history retroactively named the «Great Debate» by historians was defined by public debate about the future of Cuban economic policy that took place from 1962 to 1965. The debate began after Cuba fell into an economic crisis in 1962 after years of internal economic complications, United States sanctions, and the flight of professionals from Cuba. In 1962 Fidel Castro invited Marxist economists around the world to debate two main propositions. One proposition proposed by Che Guevara was that Cuba could bypass any capitalist then «socialist» transition period and immediately become an industrialized «communist» society if «subjective conditions» like public consciousness and vanguard action are perfected. The other proposition held by the Popular Socialist Party was that Cuba required a transitionary period as a mixed economy in which Cuba’s sugar economy was maximized for profit before a «communist» society could be established.^{[185][186][187]}

Guevara elaborated in this period that moral incentives should exist as the main motivator to increase workers’ production. All profits created by enterprises were to be given to the state budget, and the state budget would cover losses. Institutions that developed socialist consciousness were regarded as the most important element in maintaining a path to socialism rather than materially incentivized increases in production. Implementation of the profit-motive was regarded as a path towards capitalism and was one of the flaws of the Eastern bloc economies.^[188] The economy would also rely on mass mobilizations and centralized planning as a method for developing the economy.^[189] The main ideal that compromised the consciousness that would develop socialism was the praise of the «new man», a citizen that was only motivated by human solidarity and self-sacrifice.^[190]

In 1966 the Cuban economy was reorganized on moral lines. Cuban propaganda stressed voluntarism and ideological motivations to increase productions. Material incentives were not given to workers who were more productive than others.^[191] Cuban intellectuals were expected to participate actively in creating a positive national ethos and ignore any desire to create «art for art’s sake».^[192] In 1968 all non-agricultural private businesses were nationalized, central planning was done more on an ad-hoc basis and the entire Cuban economy was directed at producing a 10 million ton sugar harvest. These developments were generally inspired by the resolutions brought about by the Great Debate years earlier.^[193] The focus on sugar would eventually render all other facets of the Cuban economy underdeveloped and would be the ultimate legacy of the offensive.^[191]

International diplomacy

United Nations delegation

In December 1964, Che Guevara had emerged as a «revolutionary statesman of world stature» and thus traveled to New York City as head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the United Nations.^[151] On 11 December 1964, during Guevara’s hour-long, impassioned address at the UN, he criticized the United Nations’ inability to confront the «brutal policy of apartheid» in South Africa, asking «Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?».^[194] Guevara then denounced the United States policy towards their black population, stating:

Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men—how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?^[194]

An indignant Guevara ended his speech by reciting the Second Declaration of Havana, decreeing Latin America a «family of 200 million brothers who suffer the same miseries».^[194] This «epic», Guevara declared, would be written by the «hungry Indian masses, peasants without land, exploited workers, and progressive masses». To Guevara the conflict was a struggle of masses and ideas, which would be carried forth by those «mistreated and scorned by imperialism» who were previously considered «a weak and submissive flock». With this «flock», Guevara now asserted, «Yankee monopoly capitalism» now terrifyingly saw their «gravediggers».^[194] It would be during this «hour of vindication», Guevara pronounced, that the «anonymous mass» would begin to write its own history «with its own blood» and reclaim those «rights that were laughed at by one and all for 500 years». Guevara closed his remarks to the General Assembly by hypothesizing that this «wave of anger» would «sweep the lands of Latin America» and that the labor masses who «turn the wheel of history» were now, for the first time, «awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected».^[194]

Guevara later learned there had been two failed attempts on his life by Cuban exiles during his stop at the UN complex.^[195] The first from Molly Gonzales, who tried to break through barricades upon his arrival with a seven-inch hunting knife, and later during his address by Guillermo Novo, who fired a timer-initiated bazooka from a boat in the East River at the United Nations Headquarters, but missed and was off target. Afterwards Guevara commented on both incidents, stating that «it is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun», while adding with a languid wave of his cigar that the explosion had «given the whole thing more flavor».^[195]

While in New York, Guevara appeared on the CBS Sunday news program Face the Nation,^[196] and met with a wide range of people, from United States Senator Eugene McCarthy^[197] to associates of Malcolm X. The latter expressed his admiration, declaring Guevara «one of the most revolutionary men in this country right now» while reading a statement from him to a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom.^[198]

World travel

On 17 December, Guevara left New York for Paris, France, and from there embarked on a three-month world tour that included visits to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, the United Arab Republic, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville, and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland and Prague. While in Ireland, Guevara embraced his own Irish heritage, celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day in Limerick.^[199] He wrote to his father on this visit, humorously stating «I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors. When they found out, the television [station] came to ask me about the Lynch genealogy, but in case they were horse thieves or something like that, I didn’t say much.»^[200]

During Guevara’s time in Algeria he was interviewed by Spanish poet Juan Goytisolo inside the Cuban embassy. During the interview Guevara noticed a book by openly gay Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera that was sitting on the table next to him. When he noticed it he threw the book against the wall and yelled «how dare you have in our embassy a book by this foul faggot?».^{[201][202][203]} This moment has been marked as a turn in Juan Goytisolo’s personal identity as it influenced him to slowly come out of the closet as gay and begin to sympathize with the LGBT citizens of Cuba.^[204] This moment has also been marked for its significance in the Cuban government’s slow and ultimately final ousting of Virgilio Piñera from official literary discourse in Cuba. Piñera had originally been regarded as an important dramatist of the Cuban Revolution but had later become slowly condemned and finally arrested.^[203]

During this voyage, he wrote a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of a Uruguayan weekly, which was later retitled Socialism and Man in Cuba.^[162] Outlined in the treatise was Guevara’s summons for the creation of a new consciousness, a new status of work, and a new role of the individual. He also laid out the reasoning behind his anti-capitalist sentiments, stating:

The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller—whether or not it is true—about the possibilities of success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.^[162]

Guevara ended the essay by declaring that «the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love» and beckoning on all revolutionaries to «strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into acts that serve as examples», thus becoming «a moving force».^[162] The genesis for Guevara’s assertions relied on the fact that he believed the example of the Cuban Revolution was «something spiritual that would transcend all borders».^[38]

Visit to Algeria and political turn

In Algiers, Algeria, on 24 February 1965, Guevara made what turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage when he delivered a speech at an economic seminar on Afro-Asian solidarity.^[205][206] He specified the moral duty of the socialist countries, accusing them of tacit complicity with the exploiting Western countries. He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries must implement in order to accomplish the defeat of imperialism.^[207] Having criticized the Soviet Union (the primary financial backer of Cuba) in such a public manner, he returned to Cuba on 14 March to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raúl Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós, and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport.

As revealed in his last public speech in Algiers, Guevara had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the U.S. in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create «many Vietnams».^[208] Che’s denunciations of the Soviets made him popular among intellectuals and artists of the Western European left who had lost faith in the Soviet Union, while his condemnation of imperialism and call to revolution inspired young radical students in the United States, who were impatient for societal change.^[209]

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».^[210] 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.^[210] Disagreeing with this incrementalist approach, Guevara criticized the Soviet Manual of Political Economy, correctly predicting that if the Soviet Union did not abolish the law of value (as Guevara desired), it would eventually return to capitalism.^[210]

Two weeks after his Algiers speech and his return to Cuba, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether.^[211] His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the failure of the Cuban industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industries, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials who disapproved of Guevara’s pro-Chinese communist stance on the Sino-Soviet split, and to serious differences between Guevara and the pragmatic Castro regarding Cuba’s economic development and ideological line.^[212] Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara’s fate, Castro stated on 16 June 1965, that the people would be informed when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Still, rumors spread both inside and outside Cuba concerning the missing Guevara’s whereabouts.

There are various rumors from retired Cuban officials who were around the Castro brothers that the Castro brothers and Guevara had a staunch disagreement after Guevara’s Algiers speech. Intelligence files from the East German embassy in Cuba detail various heated exchanges between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara after Guevara’s return from Africa. Whether Castro disagreed with Guevara’s criticisms of the Soviet Union or just found them unproductive to express on the world stage remains unclear.^[213]

On 3 October 1965, Castro publicly revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara around seven months earlier which was later titled Che Guevara’s «farewell letter». In the letter, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the Cuban government and communist party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.^[214]

Congo Crisis

Military involvement

In early 1965, Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing conflict in the Congo. According to Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, Guevara thought that Africa was imperialism’s weak link and so had enormous revolutionary potential.^[216] Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had fraternal relations with Che since his 1959 visit, saw Guevara’s plan to fight in Congo as «unwise» and warned that he would become a «Tarzan» figure, doomed to failure.^[217] Despite the warning, Guevara traveled to Congo using the alias Ramón Benítez.^[218] He led the Cuban operation in support of the Marxist Simba movement, which had emerged from the ongoing Congo conflict. Guevara, his second-in-command Víctor Dreke, and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in Congo on 24 April 1965, and a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterward.^[219][220] For a time, they collaborated with guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had helped supporters of the overthrown prime minister Patrice Lumumba to lead an unsuccessful revolt months earlier. As an admirer of the late Lumumba, Guevara declared that his «murder should be a lesson for all of us».^[221] Guevara, with limited knowledge of Swahili and the local languages, was assigned a teenage interpreter, Freddy Ilanga. Over the course of seven months, Ilanga grew to «admire the hard-working Guevara», who «showed the same respect to black people as he did to whites».^[222] Guevara soon became disillusioned with the poor discipline of Kabila’s troops and later dismissed him, stating «nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour».^[223]

As an additional obstacle, white mercenary troops of the Congo National Army, led by Mike Hoare and supported by anti-Castro Cuban pilots and the CIA, thwarted Guevara’s movements from his base camp in the mountains near the village of Fizi on Lake Tanganyika in southeast Congo. They were able to monitor his communications and so pre-empted his attacks and interdicted his supply lines. Although Guevara tried to conceal his presence in Congo, the United States government knew his location and activities. The National Security Agency was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing transmissions via equipment aboard the USNS Private Jose F. Valdez, a floating listening post that continuously cruised the Indian Ocean off Dar es Salaam for that purpose.^[224]

Guevara’s aim was to export the revolution by instructing local anti-Mobutu Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary book, he cites a combination of incompetence, intransigence, and infighting among the Congolese rebels as key reasons for the revolt’s failure.^[225] Later that year, on 20 November 1965, suffering from dysentery and acute asthma, and disheartened after seven months of defeats and inactivity, Guevara left Congo with the six Cuban survivors of his 12-man column. Guevara stated that he had planned to send the wounded back to Cuba and fight in the Congo alone until his death, as a revolutionary example. But after being urged by his comrades, and two Cuban emissaries personally sent by Castro, at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave Africa. During that day and night, Guevara’s forces quietly took down their base camp, burned their huts, and destroyed or threw weapons into Lake Tanganyika that they could not take with them, before crossing the border by boat into Tanzania at night and traveling by land to Dar es Salaam. In speaking about his experience in Congo months later, Guevara concluded that he left rather than fight to the death because: «The human element failed. There is no will to fight. The [rebel] leaders are corrupt. In a word … there was nothing to do.»^[226] Guevara also declared that «we can not liberate, all by ourselves, a country that does not want to fight.»^[227] A few weeks later, he wrote the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture, that began: «This is the story of a failure.»^[228]

Flight from the Congo

Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had already made public Guevara’s «farewell letter»—a letter intended to only be revealed in the case of his death—wherein he severed all ties in order to devote himself to revolution throughout the world.^[229] As a result, Guevara spent the next six months living clandestinely at the Cuban embassy in Dar es Salaam and later at a Cuban safehouse in Ládví near Prague.^[230] While in Europe, Guevara made a secret visit to former Argentine president Juan Perón who lived in exile in Francoist Spain where he confided in Perón about his new plan to formulate a communist revolution to bring all of Latin America under socialist control. Perón warned Guevara that his plans for implementing a communist revolution throughout Latin America, starting with Bolivia, would be suicidal and futile, but Guevara’s mind was already made up. Later, Perón remarked that Guevara was «an immature utopian… but one of us. I am happy for it to be so because he is giving the Yankees a real headache.»^[231]

During this time abroad, Guevara compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience and wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy and the other on economics. As Guevara prepared for Bolivia, he secretly traveled back to Cuba on 21 July 1966 to visit Castro, as well as to see his wife and to write a last letter to his five children to be read upon his death, which ended with him instructing them:

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.^[232]

Bolivian insurgency

Departure to Bolivia

In late 1966, Guevara’s location was still not public knowledge, although representatives of Mozambique’s independence movement, the FRELIMO, reported that they met with Guevara in Dar es Salaam regarding his offer to aid in their revolutionary project, an offer which they ultimately rejected.^[233] In a speech at the 1967 International Workers’ Day rally in Havana, the acting minister of the armed forces, Major Juan Almeida Bosque, announced that Guevara was «serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America».^{[citation needed]}. In his book Opération Condor published in 2020, French journalist Pablo Daniel Magee reconstitutes the first incursion of Che Guevara in Bolivia on 3 October 1966, based on top-secret documents kept in the UNESCO protected Archives of Terror, in Paraguay.

Before he departed for Bolivia, Guevara altered his appearance by shaving off his beard and much of his hair, also dying it grey so that he was unrecognizable as Che Guevara.^[234] On 3 November 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in La Paz on a flight from Montevideo, under the false name Adolfo Mena González, posing as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States.^[235]

Three days after his arrival in Bolivia, Guevara left La Paz for the rural south east region of the country to form his guerrilla army. Guevara’s first base camp was located in the montane dry forest in the remote Ñancahuazú region. Training at the camp in the Ñancahuazú valley proved to be hazardous, and little was accomplished in way of building a guerrilla army. The Argentine-born East German operative Tamara Bunke, better known by her nom de guerre «Tania», had been installed as Che’s primary agent in La Paz.^[236][237]

Ñancahuazú Guerrilla

Guevara’s guerrilla force, numbering about 50 men^[238] and operating as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia, «National Liberation Army of Bolivia»), was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against Bolivian army regulars in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region during the early months of 1967. As a result of Guevara’s units winning several skirmishes against Bolivian troops in the spring and summer of 1967, the Bolivian government began to overestimate the true size of the guerrilla force.^[239]

Researchers hypothesize that Guevara’s plan for fomenting a revolution in Bolivia failed for an array of reasons:

• Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents that he did not receive, nor did he receive support from Bolivia’s Communist Party under the leadership of Mario Monje, which was oriented toward Moscow rather than Havana. In Guevara’s own diary captured after his death, he wrote about the Communist Party of Bolivia, which he characterized as «distrustful, disloyal and stupid».^[240]
• He had expected to deal only with the Bolivian military, who were poorly trained and equipped, and was unaware that the United States government had sent a team of the CIA’s Special Activities Division commandos and other operatives into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The Bolivian Army was also trained, advised, and supplied by U.S. Army Special Forces, including an elite battalion of U.S. Rangers trained in jungle warfare that set up camp in La Esperanza, a small settlement close to the location of Guevara’s guerrillas.^[241]
• He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. The two shortwave radio transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty. Thus, the guerrillas were unable to communicate and be resupplied, leaving them isolated and stranded.

In addition, Guevara’s known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had previously surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local rebel leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo.^[242] This tendency had existed in Cuba, but had been kept in check by the timely interventions and guidance of Fidel Castro.^[243]

The result was that Guevara was unable to attract inhabitants of the local area to join his militia during the eleven months he attempted recruitment. Many of the inhabitants willingly informed the Bolivian authorities and military about the guerrillas and their movements in the area. Near the end of the Bolivian venture, Guevara wrote in his diary: «Talking to these peasants is like talking to statues. They do not give us any help. Worse still, many of them are turning into informants.»^[244]

Félix Rodríguez, a Cuban exile turned CIA Special Activities Division operative, advised Bolivian troops during the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia.^[245] In addition, the 2007 documentary My Enemy’s Enemy alleges that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara’s eventual capture.^[246]

Capture

On 7 October 1967, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara’s guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine.^[247] On the morning of 8 October, they encircled the area with two companies numbering 180 soldiers and advanced into the ravine triggering a battle where Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with Simeon Cuba Sarabia.^[248] Che’s biographer Jon Lee Anderson reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca’s account: that as the Bolivian Rangers approached, a twice-wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, threw up his arms in surrender and shouted to the soldiers: «Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead.»^[249]

Guevara was tied up and taken to a dilapidated mud schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera on the evening of 8 October. For the next half-day, Guevara refused to be interrogated by Bolivian officers and only spoke quietly to Bolivian soldiers. One of those Bolivian soldiers, a helicopter pilot named Jaime Nino de Guzman, describes Che as looking «dreadful». According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that «Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke.» De Guzman states that he «took pity» and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, and that Guevara then smiled and thanked him.^[251] Later on the night of 8 October, Guevara—despite having his hands tied—kicked a Bolivian army officer, named Captain Espinosa, against a wall after the officer entered the schoolhouse and tried to snatch Guevara’s pipe from his mouth as a souvenir while he was still smoking it.^[252] In another instance of defiance, Guevara spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Horacio Ugarteche, who attempted to question Guevara a few hours before his execution.^[252]

The following morning on 9 October, Guevara asked to see the school teacher of the village, a 22-year-old woman named Julia Cortez. She later stated that she found Guevara to be an «agreeable looking man with a soft and ironic glance» and that during their conversation she found herself «unable to look him in the eye» because his «gaze was unbearable, piercing, and so tranquil».^[252] During their short conversation, Guevara pointed out to Cortez the poor condition of the schoolhouse, stating that it was «anti-pedagogical» to expect campesino students to be educated there, while «government officials drive Mercedes cars»; Guevara said «that’s what we are fighting against».^[252]

Execution

Later that morning on 9 October, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed to the unit holding Guevara by Félix Rodríguez reportedly despite the United States government’s desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation.^[253] The executioner who volunteered to kill Guevara was Mario Terán, a 27-year-old sergeant in the Bolivian army who while half-drunk requested to shoot Guevara because three of his friends from B Company, all with the same first name of «Mario», had been killed in a firefight several days earlier with Guevara’s band of guerrillas.^[10] To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story that the Bolivian government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán not to shoot Guevara in the head, but to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army.^[254] Gary Prado, the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara, said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara were so there could be no possibility for Guevara to escape from prison, and also so there could be no drama of a public trial where adverse publicity might happen.^[255]

About 30 minutes before Guevara was killed, Félix Rodríguez attempted to question him about the whereabouts of other guerrilla fighters who were currently at large, but Guevara continued to remain silent. Rodríguez, assisted by a few Bolivian soldiers, helped Guevara to his feet and took him outside the hut to parade him before other Bolivian soldiers where he posed with Guevara for a photo opportunity where one soldier took a photograph of Rodríguez and other soldiers standing alongside Guevara. Afterwards, Rodríguez told Guevara that he was going to be executed. A little later, Guevara was asked by one of the Bolivian soldiers guarding him if he was thinking about his own immortality. «No» he replied, «I’m thinking about the immortality of the revolution».^[256] A few minutes later, Sergeant Terán entered the hut to shoot him, whereupon Guevara reportedly stood up and spoke to Terán what were his last words: «I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!» Terán hesitated, then pointed his self-loading M2 carbine^[257] at Guevara and opened fire, hitting him in the arms and legs.^[258] Then, as Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out, Terán fired another burst, fatally wounding him in the chest. Guevara was pronounced dead at 1:10 pm local time according to Rodríguez.^[258] In all, Guevara was shot nine times by Terán. This included five times in his legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, and once in the chest and throat.^[252]

Months earlier, during his last public declaration to the Tricontinental Conference,^[208] Guevara had written his own epitaph, stating: «Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons.»^[259]

Aftermath

After his execution, Guevara’s body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to nearby Vallegrande, where photographs were taken of him lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta.^[260] Several witnesses were called to confirm his identity, key amongst them the British journalist Richard Gott, the only witness to have met Guevara when he was alive. Put on display, as hundreds of local residents filed past the body, Guevara’s corpse was considered by many to represent a «Christ-like» visage, with some even surreptitiously clipping locks of his hair as divine relics.^[261] Such comparisons were further extended when English art critic John Berger, two weeks later upon seeing the post-mortem photographs, observed that they resembled two famous paintings: Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Andrea Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ.^[262] There were also four correspondents present when Guevara’s body arrived in Vallegrande, including Björn Kumm of the Swedish Aftonbladet, who described the scene in an 11 November 1967, exclusive for The New Republic.^[263]

A declassified memorandum dated 11 October 1967 to United States President Lyndon B. Johnson from his National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, called the decision to kill Guevara «stupid» but «understandable from a Bolivian standpoint».^[264] After the execution, Rodríguez took several of Guevara’s personal items, including a watch which he continued to wear many years later, often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years.^[265] Today, some of these belongings, including his flashlight, are on display at the CIA.^[266] After a military doctor dismembered his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara’s body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. They were later sent to Cuba.^[267]

On 15 October in Havana, Fidel Castro publicly acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba.^[268] On 18 October, Castro addressed a crowd of one million mourners in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución and spoke about Guevara’s character as a revolutionary.^[269] Fidel Castro closed his impassioned eulogy thus:

If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che’s spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!^[270]

Also removed when Guevara was captured were his 30,000-word, hand-written diary, a collection of his personal poetry, and a short story he had authored about a young communist guerrilla who learns to overcome his fears.^[271] His diary documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia,^[272] with the first entry on 7 November 1966, shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last dated 7 October 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely because of discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara’s decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall unsuccessful venture. It also records the rift between Guevara and the Communist Party of Bolivia that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally expected, and shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, partly because the guerrilla group had learned Quechua, unaware that the local language was actually a Tupi–Guarani language.^[273] As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He endured ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.^[274] The Bolivian diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world.^[275] There are at least four additional diaries in existence—those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias «Braulio»), Harry Villegas Tamayo («Pombo»), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez («Rolando»)^[236] and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez («Benigno»)^[276]—each of which reveals additional aspects of the events.

French intellectual Régis Debray, who was captured in April 1967 while with Guevara in Bolivia, gave an interview from prison in August 1968, in which he enlarged on the circumstances of Guevara’s capture. Debray, who had lived with Guevara’s band of guerrillas for a short time, said that in his view they were «victims of the forest» and thus «eaten by the jungle».^[277] Debray described a destitute situation where Guevara’s men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men. Debray recounts that Guevara and the others had been suffering an «illness» which caused their hands and feet to swell into «mounds of flesh» to the point where you could not discern the fingers on their hands. Debray described Guevara as «optimistic about the future of Latin America» despite the futile situation, and remarked that Guevara was «resigned to die in the knowledge that his death would be a sort of renaissance», noting that Guevara perceived death «as a promise of rebirth» and «ritual of renewal».^[277]

Legacy

Political left

Radical left wing activists responded to Guevara’s apparent indifference to rewards and glory, and concurred with Guevara’s sanctioning of violence as a necessity to instill socialist ideals.^[278] Even in the United States, the government which Guevara so vigorously denounced, students began to emulate his style of dress, donning military fatigues, berets, and growing their hair and beards to show that they too were opponents of U.S. foreign policy.^[279] For instance, the Black Panthers began to style themselves «Che-type» while adopting his trademark black beret, while Arab guerrillas began to name combat operations in his honor.^[280] Addressing the wide-ranging flexibility of his legacy, Trisha Ziff, director of the 2008 documentary Chevolution, has remarked that «Che Guevara’s significance in modern times is less about the man and his specific history, and more about the ideals of creating a better society.»^[281] In a similar vein, the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman has suggested Guevara’s enduring appeal might be because «to those who will never follow in his footsteps, submerged as they are in a world of cynicism, self-interest and frantic consumption, nothing could be more vicariously gratifying than Che’s disdain for material comfort and everyday desires.»^[282]

To a certain extent, the belief of Guevara’s of a metaphorical resurrection after death came true. After pictures of the dead Guevara began being circulated and the circumstances of his death were being debated, Che’s legend began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his «assassination» occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, and poems were written about his life and death.^[283] Rallies in support of Guevara were held from «Mexico to Santiago, Algiers to Angola, and Cairo to Calcutta».^[284] The population of Budapest and Prague lit candles to honor Guevara’s passing; and the picture of a smiling Che appeared in London and Paris.^[285] When a few months later riots broke out in Berlin, France, and Chicago, and the unrest spread to the American college campuses, young men and women wore Che Guevara T-shirts and carried his pictures during their protest marches. In the view of military historian Erik Durschmied: «In those heady months of 1968, Che Guevara was not dead. He was very much alive.»^[286]

Retrieval of remains

In late 1995, the retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara’s corpse lay near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which lasted more than a year. In July 1997 a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man without hands (as Guevara would have been). Bolivian government officials with the Ministry of Interior later identified the body as Guevara when the excavated teeth «perfectly matched» a plaster mold of Che’s teeth made in Cuba prior to his Congolese expedition. The «clincher» then arrived when Argentine forensic anthropologist Alejandro Inchaurregui inspected the inside hidden pocket of a blue jacket dug up next to the handless cadaver and found a small bag of pipe tobacco. Nino de Guzman, the Bolivian helicopter pilot who had given Che a small bag of tobacco, later remarked that he «had serious doubts» at first and «thought the Cubans would just find any old bones and call it Che»; but «after hearing about the tobacco pouch, I have no doubts.»^[251] On 17 October 1997, Guevara’s remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution.^[287]

In July 2008, the Bolivian government of Evo Morales unveiled Guevara’s formerly-sealed diaries composed in two frayed notebooks, along with a logbook and several black-and-white photographs. At this event Bolivia’s vice-minister of culture, Pablo Groux, expressed that there were plans to publish photographs of every handwritten page later in the year.^[288] Meanwhile, in August 2009 anthropologists working for Bolivia’s Justice Ministry discovered and unearthed the bodies of five of Guevara’s fellow guerrillas near the Bolivian town of Teoponte.^[289]

The discovery of Che’s remains metonymically activated a series of interlinked associations—rebel, martyr, rogue figure from a picaresque adventure, savior, renegade, extremist—in which there was no fixed divide among them. The current court of opinion places Che on a continuum that teeters between viewing him as a misguided rebel, a coruscatingly brilliant guerrilla philosopher, a poet-warrior jousting at windmills, a brazen warrior who threw down the gauntlet to the bourgeoisie, the object of fervent paeans to his sainthood, or a mass murderer clothed in the guise of an avenging angel whose every action is imbricated in violence—the archetypal Fanatical Terrorist.

— Dr. Peter McLaren, author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution^[290]

Biographical debate

Guevara’s life and legacy remain contentious. The perceived contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of duality, one who was «able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill», while prophesying that «the most important revolutionary ambition was to see man liberated from his alienation».^[291][292] Guevara’s paradoxical standing is further complicated by his array of seemingly diametrically opposed qualities. A secular humanist and sympathetic practitioner of medicine who did not hesitate to shoot his enemies, a celebrated internationalist leader who advocated violence to enforce a utopian philosophy of the collective good, an idealistic intellectual who loved literature but refused to allow dissent, an anti-imperialist Marxist insurgent who was radically willing to forge a poverty-less new world on the apocalyptic ashes of the old one, and finally, an outspoken anti-capitalist whose image has been commoditized. Che’s history continues to be rewritten and re-imagined.^[293][294] Moreover, sociologist Michael Löwy contends that the many facets of Guevara’s life (i.e. doctor and economist, revolutionary and banker, military theoretician and ambassador, deep thinker and political agitator) illuminated the rise of the «Che myth», allowing him to be invariably crystallized in his many metanarrative roles as a «Red Robin Hood, Don Quixote of communism, new Garibaldi, Marxist Saint Just, Cid Campeador of the Wretched of the Earth, Sir Galahad of the beggars … and Bolshevik devil who haunts the dreams of the rich, kindling braziers of subversion all over the world».^[291]

As such, various notable individuals have lauded Guevara; for example, Nelson Mandela referred to him as «an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom»,^[250] while Jean-Paul Sartre described him as «not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age».^[295] Others who have expressed their admiration include authors Graham Greene, who remarked that Guevara «represented the idea of gallantry, chivalry, and adventure»,^[296] and Susan Sontag, who supposed that «[Che’s] goal was nothing less than the cause of humanity itself.»^[297] In the Pan-African community philosopher Frantz Fanon professed Guevara to be «the world symbol of the possibilities of one man»,^[298] while Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael eulogized that «Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us.»^[299] Praise has been reflected throughout the political spectrum, with libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard extolling Guevara as a «heroic figure» who «more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, was the living embodiment of the principle of revolution»,^[300] while journalist Christopher Hitchens reminisced that «[Che’s] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do—fought and died for his beliefs.»^[301]

Conversely, Jacobo Machover, an exiled opposition author, dismisses all praise of Guevara and portrays him as a callous executioner.^[302] Exiled former Cuban prisoners have expressed similar opinions, among them Armando Valladares, who declared Guevara «a man full of hatred» who executed dozens without trial,^[303] and Carlos Alberto Montaner, who asserted that Guevara possessed «a Robespierre mentality», wherein cruelty against the revolution’s enemies was a virtue.^[304] Álvaro Vargas Llosa of the Independent Institute has hypothesized that Guevara’s contemporary followers «delude themselves by clinging to a myth», describing Guevara as a «Marxist Puritan» who employed his rigid power to suppress dissent, while also operating as a «cold-blooded killing machine».^[172] Llosa also accuses Guevara’s «fanatical disposition» as being the linchpin of the «Sovietization» of the Cuban revolution, speculating that he possessed a «total subordination of reality to blind ideological orthodoxy».^[172] On a macro-level, Hoover Institution research fellow William Ratliff regards Guevara more as a creation of his historical environment, referring to him as a «fearless» and «head-strong Messiah-like figure», who was the product of a martyr-enamored Latin American culture which «inclined people to seek out and follow paternalistic miracle workers».^[305] Ratliff further speculates that the economic conditions in the region suited Guevara’s commitment to «bring justice to the downtrodden by crushing centuries-old tyrannies»; describing Latin America as being plagued by what Moisés Naím referred to as the «legendary malignancies» of inequality, poverty, dysfunctional politics and malfunctioning institutions.^[305]

In a mixed assessment, British historian Hugh Thomas opined that Guevara was a «brave, sincere and determined man who was also obstinate, narrow, and dogmatic».^[306] At the end of his life, according to Thomas, «he seems to have become convinced of the virtues of violence for its own sake», while «his influence over Castro for good or evil» grew after his death, as Fidel took up many of his views.^[306] Similarly, the Cuban-American sociologist Samuel Farber lauds Che Guevara as «an honest and committed revolutionary», but also criticizes the fact that «he never embraced socialism in its most democratic essence».^[307] Nevertheless, Guevara remains a national hero in Cuba, where his image adorns the 3 peso banknote and school children begin each morning by pledging «We will be like Che.»^[308][309] In his homeland of Argentina, where high schools bear his name,^[310] numerous Che museums dot the country and in 2008 a 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of him was unveiled in the city of his birth, Rosario.^[311] Guevara has been sanctified by some Bolivian campesinos^[312] as «Saint Ernesto», who pray to him for assistance.^[313] In contrast, Guevara remains a hated figure amongst many in the Cuban exile and Cuban American community of the United States, who view him as «the butcher of La Cabaña».^[314] Despite this polarized status, a high-contrast monochrome graphic of Che’s face, created in 1968 by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, became a universally merchandized and objectified image,^[315][316] found on an endless array of items, including T-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, and bikinis,^[317] contributing to the consumer culture Guevara despised. Yet, he still remains a transcendent figure both in specifically political contexts^[318] and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion.^[301]

International honors

Guevara received several honors of state during his life.

• 1960: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Lion^[319]
• 1961: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross^[320]

Archival media

Video footage

• Guevara addressing the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 1964, (6:21), public domain footage uploaded by the UN, video clip
• Guevara interviewed by Face the Nation on 13 December 1964, (29:11), from CBS, video clip
• Guevara interviewed in 1964 on a visit to Dublin, Ireland, (2:53), English translation, from RTÉ Libraries and Archives, video clip
• Guevara interviewed in Paris and speaking French in 1964, (4:47), English subtitles, interviewed by Jean Dumur, video clip
• Guevara reciting a poem, (0:58), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara showing support for Fidel Castro, (0:22), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking about labor, (0:28), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking about the Bay of Pigs, (0:17), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara speaking against imperialism, (1:20), English subtitles, from El Che: Investigating a Legend – Kultur Video 2001, video clip
• Guevara visiting Algeria in 1963 and giving a speech in French, from the Algerian Cinema Archive, video clip

Audio recording

• Guevara interviewed on ABC’s Issues and Answers, (22:27), English translation, narrated by Lisa Howard, 24 March 1964, audio clip

List of English-language works

See also

References

Referenced works

External links