Che Guevara

Biography

Its youth

Ernesto Guevara of Serna is born the June 14th 1928 with Rosario, Argentine, of Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia of Serna, both of Basque ascent , Irish and Spanish E. Many elements state however that its official birth date was moved back one month to avoid a scandal, because too near to the marriage. His/her parents are of aristocratic line but live like a family of Middle-class, with leaning for left-wing ideas not autoritarists, being opposed in particular to Perón and Hitler. Aunt d' Ernesto, who raised her mother with the untimely death their parents, is Communiste.

Elder of 5 children, he lives initially with Córdoba, the second city of the country. As of the three years age, he learns the play from failures near his father and starts to take part in tournaments as of 12 years. His/her mother teaches French to him whom he will usually speak. Ernesto Guevara of Serna is quickly made know for its radical opinions even at an age however early. He admires Francisco Pizarro and would like to be one of his soldiers.

All its life, it undergoes violent crises of Asthme, which overpower it as of childhood. He faces this disease and works in order to become an accomplished athlete. In spite of the opposition of his father, he becomes player of Rugby. He gains the nickname of “ are to fuse ”, (a contraction of be furibundo (“furibond”) and of the family name of his/her mother, “Serna”) because of his style of aggressive play. During its adolescence, it makes profitable the periods forced rest of its asthma attacks to study the Poésie and the Littérature, since Pablo Neruda while passing by Jack London, Emilio Salgari and Jules Verne, until tests on the Sexualité of Sigmund Freud or of the treaties on the social Philosophie of Bertrand Russell. He writes poems (sometimes parodic) throughout his life as that is current at the Latin-American ones of its education. He also develops a great interest for the Photographie.

In 1948, he undertakes studies of Médecine to Buenos Aires. It plays then some month San Isidro Club, team of Rugby of first the division, that it must leave because of his father who finds this level of dangerous play for asthmatic, and plays then in teams of less level. During this period, he thinks of marrying with a girl of the Argentinian high society and of being established, but he cannot conclude this project because of the opposition of the family of the latter, his own personality already considered to be anticonformist, and of his growing desire of voyages and discoveries.

First Latin-American voyage

In 1951, his/her old friend of Extreme left Alberto Granado, biochemist, suggests to him taking one sabbatical year. In this way, they can concretize the voyage about which they speak for a long time, crossing the South America on an old motor bike Norton 500 cm ³ called “the vigorous one” ( be the poderosa in Spanish) under often precarious conditions (sleeping often voluntarily in the cell of a police station), with for objective spending a few weeks like volunteers in the Léproserie of San Pablo on the edges of the the Amazon to the Peru. Guevara reports this epopee in are Diarios of motocicleta: Noted viaje por América Latina . The tour which lasts 9 months and will carry out Guevara until Miami the fact initially of arriving at the Chile where they must give up breathless Poderosa and where they visit the giant mines of Chuquicamata and discover the living conditions of the minors. They cross then the Andes cordillera, meet Doctor Hugo Pesce, specialist in the Lèpre and founder of the Peruvian Socialist party which will influence much the ideals of Guevara, then after having brought their assistance in the leper-house of San Pablo, they descend the Amazon in the canoe until in Colombia in full time from Violencia and separate with the Venezuela from where Guevara flies away then for the United States on an aircraft of goods. It returns to Buenos Aires on July 31st, 1952 to finish its studies of medicine.

Through its own observations of the poverty and impotence of the masses, and influenced by its Marxist readings, he concludes that the only remedy for the social inequalities of the Latin America is the Révolution by the weapons. It is led by it to regard the Latin America not a whole of nations distinct but as an economic and cultural entity requiring a “continental strategy from release”. This design bolivarienne of a plain Latin America and without border sharing a culture Métis ( be mestizo ) is a topic which will return in an important way in its later revolutionary activities. Of return in Argentinian, it as soon as possible finishes its studies in order to continue its tour in South America and receives its diploma on June 12th, 1953.

Second Latin-American voyage and Guatemala

July 7th, 1953, he undertakes a long tour through the Bolivia, the Peru, the Ecuador, the Panama, the Costa Rica, the Nicaragua, the Honduras, El El Salvador then the Guatemala.

In Bolivia, it takes part in the summer 1953 with the populist social revolution of the MNR, then is detached some with indignation, estimating that this social revolution remains sullied with racial inequalities.

It arrives at the end of December 1953 at the Guatemala, where the president of left Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, directs a government Populiste which, through a Land reform and other initiatives, tries to eliminate a system from Latifundia dominated by the the United States. In a letter with his/her aunt Beatriz, Ernesto Guevara explains its motivation to be established in this country: “In Guatemala, I will improve and achieve all that is necessary to become a true revolutionist. ”.

Shortly after its arrival with Guatemala Ciudad, Guevara meets Hilda Gadea Acosta, an economist Peruvian who lives and works in Guatemala, on the councils of a friend who is common for them. Gadea, which he will marry later, has of many political contacts as a member of the American revolutionary popular Alliance (APRA) socialist, directed by Víctor Raúl Haya of Torre. It presents Guevara to many high level persons in charge of the Arbenz government, but also allows him to join again the contact with a group of exiled cuban which it already met in Costa Rica, members of the Mouvement of July 26th of Fidel Castro. Guevara joint these “moncadistas” in the sale of religious objects related to the Christ black of Esquipulas, and is also assistant of two specialists Venezuelans in the Malaria to the local hospital. The attempts at Ernesto Guevara to obtain a boarding school are hardly profitable and its financial position becomes very precarious, which leads it to sell certain jewels of Hilda.

It is for this period that it obtains its famous nickname of “ Che ”, because of its intensive use of the Argentinian interjection “ che ”, which roughly means “He”, “my pal” or “guy” such as French employee familiarly. Argentina, the Uruguay, and the south of Brazil form the only geographical area (Rioplatense) where this expression is used.

The political situation changes radically starting from May 15th, 1954, when a delivery of weapons and light artillery Škoda arrives of the Czechoslovakia Communiste at Puerto Barrios bound for the Arbenz government, on board the Swedish boat Alfhem. The quantity of weapons is then estimated at: 2000 tons by the CIA and only 2 tons by Jon Lee Anderson. Ernesto Guevara briefly goes to the El Salvador to renew its Visa, and goes back to Guatemala a few days before the attempt at Coup d'etat of Carlos Castillo Armas supported by the CIA which suspects president Arbenz of being communist. The anti-Arbenz forces which come from the Honduras do not succeed in stopping the transshipment of the weapons. After a pause to gather, the column of Castillo Armas takes again the initiative, helped of an American air support. Guevara is in a hurry to fight for Arbenz and initially joined a Milice created by Communist youths. Frustrated by the inaction of this group, it returns to medicine. Whereas the Coup d'etat is on the way to succeed, it becomes again voluntary with the combat but in vain: Arbenz finds refuge in the Mexican embassy and requires of its partisans to leave the country. After the arrest of Hilda, it is put under the protection of the Argentinian consulate where it remains until it receives a Sauf-conduit a few weeks later. At this time, it declines a free flight for Argentina which the embassy proposes to him, preferring to move towards the Mexico.

The inversion of the democratically elected mode of Arbenz by a coup d'etat supported by the CIA (Opération PBSUCCESS) reinforces the sight that Ernesto Guevara had the United States as a power imperialist which would be opposed implacably to any government which would try to correct the endemic socio-economic inequalities in South America and the others Pays in the process of development. It becomes definitively convinced that the Socialisme reaches through the combat and defended by an armed population is the only means of rectifying such a condition.

Mexico

Che Guevara arrives at Mexico City at the beginning of September 1954. It finds shortly after Ñico López and others exiled cuban which it knew a few years earlier in Guatemala. López in June 1955 presents it to Raúl Castro. A few weeks later, Fidel Castro arrives at Mexico City after being amnestied of a custodial sentence with Cuba. July 8th, 1955, Raúl presents Guevara to his/her older brother. After a one night conversation whole, Che becomes convinced that Fidel is the leading revolutionist inspired whom he seeks and he immediately joined the Mouvement of July 26th which tries to reverse the government of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Initially indicated as doctor of the group, Che takes part in military training with the other members of the movement, at the end of which it is indicated by their instructor the colonel Alberto Bayo like the best recruit.

Meanwhile, Hilda Gadea arrived at Mexico City and takes again its connection with Guevara. During the summer 1955 it informs it that it is pregnant, and he asks him the marriage immediately. Their daughter, Hilda Beatríz, are born on February 15th, 1956.

Guerilla and cuban Revolution

A disastrous arrival

It then forms part of the 82 men (one of the four not-Cubans of forwarding) who leave with Castro in November 1956 for Cuba, on a small yacht called Granma . They are attacked just after their unloading by the army of Batista which had wind of forwarding. The exact figure is not known but it is certain that not more than one score of men survive forwarding, the others either being killed with the combat, or carried out summarily.

Che writes later that during this confrontation it had to give up its bag of medical equipment to collect a case of ammunition given up by one of his companions in escape. Later, he remembers that this moment will have been the mark of its transition from doctor to combatant.

Sierra Maestra, a difficult beginning

The surviving rebels gather and flee in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra to launch a Guérilla against the mode of Batista. There, they are supported by peasants local ( guajiros or montunos ) which suffers initially from the mode of Batista, and then of the political Répression launched against the guerilla and his partisans real or supposed who affect them directly. Che Guevara acts as doctor and combatant, in spite of many asthma attacks due to the climate. Che stresses the importance to be made accept by the population by providing care in the insolated villages or in teaching reading and writing the new recruits in the middle of the jungle.

Their forces (out of weapons and recruits) increase with the logistical support of the urban part of the movement of July 26th (not Communist, the cuban partido socialista popular helps Castro only as from the moment when they are certain of his victory, semi-1958) and of the the United States (which see as a Castro a good alternative to the corrupted mode of Batista and to which Castro dissimulated his communist objectives). The existence of two parts in the movement will be very important in the future and will create many tensions. The urban leaders most important were Frank País, Vilma Espín, Celia Sánchez, Faustino Pérez, Carlos Franqui, Haydee Santa María, Armando Hart, Rene Ramos Latour (Daniel), mainly democrats and anticommunists.

Guevara is shown very strict vis-a-vis the acts of indiscipline, treason and the crimes, not only for its own troop but also towards the enemy soldiers and the peasants who live the zone. This part of its personality is highlighted on February 17th, 1957, when the guerillas discover that one among them, Eutimio Guerra, is a traitor who had given the localization of the group, which had made it possible the regular army to bombard their position on the peak of Caracas and then of the embusquer on the heights of Espinosas, putting the rebels at the edge of the rout. During its arrest, it is in possession of weapons and a safe conduct delivered by the enemy. Eutimio requires death. Fidel Castro thus decided that he is shot for treason, but without indicating which was to carry out it. In front of the general indecision which followed, it was Che which it carried out summarily, showing a coldness and a hardness vis-a-vis the crimes in period of war which made it famous. Another version of the execution indicates that Castro designates the Universo guerilla to carry out it; Universo and Che brings the traitor to the variation not to kill it in front of the men and Che carries out it on the way at a time only it judges convenient. Between 1957 and 1958, one estimates that 15 marked people of treason or espionage are carried out on order of Guevara, of which one among it owe its family and only because it expressed its opposition to the revolution according to a pilot guerilla, exiled since with Miami. On the contrary, Guevara appears tolerant vis-a-vis the involuntary errors of its own troops and vis-a-vis the enemy prisoners. Many times it intervene with Fidel Castro to avoid executions. It looks after itself the enemy soldiers and formally prohibits the Torture or the execution of the prisoners, whom it protects with same strength that it has to punish the traitors.

During the first months of 1957 the small group of guerillas is maintained in a precarious way, with a rare support of the local population. It is continued by a network of peasant-spies ( chivatos ), by the troops of the government and must moreover fight against the infiltrations and improve the military discipline. There are a succession of small combat and skirmishes with few losses on both sides.

At the end of February appears in the NewYork Times, the newspaper more read of the United States, an interview of Fidel Castro realized by Herbert Matthews in the Maestra Sierra. The impact is enormous and starts to generate a great sympathy towards the guerillas in the national and international public opinion. April 28th it is a press conference at the top of the Pico Turquino, the highest mountain of Cuba, for CBS. At the end of May, the manpower of the guerillas increases, reaching 128 well armed and trained combatants. May 28th occurs a first action of width, the attack of the barracks of El Uvero where die 6 guerillas and 14 soldiers with a great quantity of wounded on the two sides. After the combat, Fidel Castro makes the decision to leave the load of wounded in Che Guevara not to slow down the principal group in front of the continuation of the governmental troops. Guevara deals then with wounded of the two camps and manages an agreement on the honor with the doctor of the barracks in order to on the spot leave the most serious casualties to the condition which they are imprisoned in a sizeable way, pact that the governmental army will have respected.

Che and four men (Joel Iglesias, Alejandro Oñate (“Cantinflas”), “Vilo” and a guide) must then hide, protect and look after seven guerillas wounded during fifty days. In this amount of time, Guevara not only all will have looked after them and protected, but moreover will have maintained the discipline of the group, recruited nine other guerillas, obtained the decisive support of the manager of a great rural property of the area and bench a system of provisioning and communication with Santiago of Cuba. When it joined the remainder of the troops on July 17th, Che is with the head of an autonomous group of 26 men. The rebels then hold a small territory in the west of Pico Turquino with 200 disciplined men and a moral good. Fidel Castro then decides to form a second column of 75 men, whom it will call then fourth column to mislead the enemy on the quantity of his troops. It promotes Che Guevara with the rank of Capitaine, then five days after Commander this column indicates. Before that only Fidel Castro had the rank of commander. As from this moment, the guerillas must call it “ Ordering Che Guevara ”.

Ordering fourth column

The column then contains four groups directed by Juan Almeida, Ramiro Valdés, Ciro Redondo and Lalo Sardiñas as second in command. Shortly after comes Camilo Cienfuegos to replace Sardinas which accidentally killed one of its men by threatening it, whose execution was voted by the guerillas with a narrow majority, but which was saved and degraded by Guevara. A narrow friendship is born between Cienfuegos and Che.

Guevara is distinguished while integrating in its troops from many guajiros (country of the island) and Cuban Negroes, who then constitute the category of the most marginalized population of the country, at one time when the Racisme and the Racial segregation are still widespread including in the proper rows of the movement of July 26th (in 1958, the access to the central park of Santa Clara was interdict with the people with the black skin).

He baptizes the new recruits which integrate its column “ descamisados ” (without shirts), taking again the expression that Eva Perón used for asresser with the Argentinian workers, also pejoratively called “ cabecitas will negras ” (black heads). One of these recruits, Enrique Acevedo, a fifteen year old teenager that Guevara names chief of the disciplinary commission of the column, later wrote its impressions of the time in a newspaper:

“All treat it with large respect. It is hard, dry, sometimes ironic with some. Its manners are soft. When it gives an order it is seen that it really orders. It is achieved in the action. ”

The fourth column succeeds, thanks to some victories (Bueycito, El Hombrito), to take control of the zone of El Hombrito to establish a permanent base there. Its members build there a hospital of countryside, a bakery, a shoe manufacture and an arms manufacture in order to have an infrastructure of support. Che launches the newspaper El Cubano Libre .

One of the functions of the column of Che is to detect and eliminate the spies and infiltrated like maintaining the order in the area, carrying out the gangsters who benefit from the situation to assassinate, plunder and violate, while being often made pass for guerillas. The strict discipline in the column makes that many guerillas ask for their transfer on other columns, although at the same time the behavior right and levelling of Guevara, the formation which it grants to its men, since the elimination of illiteracy until the complete political literature, makes a strongly interdependent group of it.

The troops of the government directed by Ángel Sánchez Mosquera follow a policy of Guerre salts in the area. November 29th, 1957 they attack the guerillas causing two dead, among them Ciro Redondo. Che is wounded (with the foot) just as Cantinflas and five other combatants. The base is completely destroyed and the column is repositioned in a place called the mesa to build a news of it. It creates the clandestine radio Radio Rebelde in February 1958. Radio Rebelde then disseminates information for the cuban population but is also used as bond between the various columns distributed on the island. Radio rebelde exists always today in Cuba.

At the beginning of 1958, Fidel Castro became the man more solicited by the international press and from tens of journalists of the whole world come to the Maestra Sierra to interview it. On its side Che Guevara became, for the press which defends Batista, the central figure of the guerilla. Evelio Lafferte, a lieutenant of the cuban army makes captive, and which then passed guerilla in the column of Che, remembers:

“propaganda against him (Guevara) was massive; it was said that it was a hired killer, a pathological criminal…, a mercenary who lent his services to international Communism… That they used terrorist methods, that they socialized the women who left their children then… They said that the soldiers made captive by the guerillas were attached to a tree and were made open the belly with the bayonet. ”

In February, the army raid 23 militants of the movement of July 26th and shoots them on the first buttresses of the Maestra Sierra, to simulate a victory against the guerilla. This event is a scandal for the government of Batista. The 16, the guerilla castrist attack the barracks of Pino del Agua with losses on the two sides. Shortly after arrives the Argentinian journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti of tendency peronist, which is one of the founders of the cuban news agency Prensa Latina and the organizer with Salta (Argentinian) in 1963 of the first attempt at guerilla of Che Guevara out of Cuba.

Che enters in conflict with the leaders of the urban part of the movement of July 26th. Those regard it as a Marxist extremist with too much influence on Fidel Castro, and considers them to him right , with a timid design of the fight and a too obliging provision towards the United States. Convinced Soviétophile, it writes in 1957 with his/her friend Rene Ramos Latour: “I belong, from my ideological formation, in those which believe that the solution of the problems of this world is behind what one calls the Iron curtain”. He affirmed also readily admiror of late the Stalin: “That which did not read the fourteen volumes of the writings of Stalin cannot be regarded as completely communist. ”

The offensive of Batista and the creation of the eighth column

February 27th, 1958, Fidel Castro amplifies the operations of guerilla by creating three new columns directed by Juan Almeida, her brother Raúl Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos, which becomes commanders. Almeida must act in the Eastern zone of the Sierra Maestra, Raúl Castro must open a second face and settle in the Sierra Crystal, in the north of Santiago of Cuba. In April Camilo Cienfuegos is indicated military chief of the zone between the towns of Bayamo, Manzanillo and Las Tunas, whereas Castro establishes his general headquarter with Plata.

May 3rd takes place a key meeting of the movement of July 26th when Fidel Castro and the guerilla of the Sierra take the command on the more moderate urban part. Che Guevara, which had a big role in this reorganization, writes an article in 1964 on these facts:

Most important is that and two designs analyzed were judged which clashed since the beginning of the war. The design of the guerilla left triumphing over the confrontation, consolidating the prestige and the authority of Fidel… It appeared only one leading capacity, that of the Sierra, and concretely only one leader, a commander-in-chief, Fidel Castro.

At this time, the army of Batista, under the orders of the general Eulogio Cantillo prepares an offensive. Fidel Castro then asks Che Guevara to leave the fourth column and to deal with the military academy of Undermined del Frío for the drive of the recruits. Che receives the order of gladly badly liking but organizes this rear-guard feverishly, building even a landing strip close of Plata. Camilo Cienfuegos writes to him at that time: Che, my brother of heart: I received your note, I see that Fidel put to you with the head of the military academy, I am happy because in this manner we will have in the future of the soldiers of the first quality, when they said to me that you came " us to make gift of your présence" , that did not rain me much, you played a main role in this field; if we need you in this insurrectionary stage, Cuba will still more need you when the war finishes, therefore the giant with good made take care of you. I would like much to be always at your sides, you were my boss for a long time and you will be it always. Thanks to you I have opportunity of being now more useful, I will make the inexpressible one not to dishonor you. Your eternal pal. Camilo.

In Minas del Frío it shared the life of Zoila Rodríguez García, one will guajira which lived in the Maestra Sierra and which collaborated actively with the guerilla like all his family. In a posterior testimony, Zoila tells the kind of relation which they had: It appeared in me a very large and very beautiful love, I compromised with him, not only like fighting but also like woman. One day, he asked me to bring a book of his backpack to him; he had gilded letters and I asked to him whether they were of gold. The question rained to him, he laughs and answered me: “It is a book on Communism”. That gave me sorrow to require of him what " wanted to say; Communism " , because I had never heard this mot.

May 6th begins the offensive of the army which counts: 10000 men, of which conscript two thirds of . The plan was to dislodge with Bombardement S solid masses with the Napalm and the explosive the guerillas who counted 280 men and some women, for then encircling them in an increasingly narrow bow net. During the first weeks the governmental forces are almost at the point to demolish the guerilla, who undergoes great losses and the disorganization of his dies, whereas the feeling of defeat and the desertions increase. On its side, Che Guevara organizes a new column (the “eighth” and baptized Ciro Redondo in homage to one of its lieutenants died to the combat the previous year) with the recruits of the school of Mined LED frio. When on June 26th, Raúl Castro sequestration of his own initiative 49 American, Che criticizes his control like “a dangerous extremism”.

However the governmental troops are unable to capture the guerillas who hide permanently and take again the offensive. July 20th, they obtain their first great victory with Jigüe and the same day the majority of the forces of the opposition recognizes Fidel Castro as commander-in-chief. The 28, the column of Che besieges the troops of the government in Las Vegas, which flee then, giving up their station. The 30 dies in the combat Rene Ramos Latour, main adversary of Che within the movement, this last writing nevertheless in its newspaper: Deep ideological divergences separated me from Rene Ramos and we were enemy policies, but it knew to die by achieving its duty, in first line, and it died thus because it felt an interior impulse that I denied to him, and that at this hour I must rectify.

August 7th, 1958, the army begins its withdrawal in mass of the Maestra Sierra. The weakness of Batista is done obvious and Fidel Castro then decides to extend the war to the remainder of the island. Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos must go towards north to divide Cuba into two and to attack the strategic city of Santa Clara, key for the road towards Havana.

Maquis of Escambray, battles of Santa Clara and seizure of power

August 31st, 1958 the columns of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos leave to foot towards the west Cuba. They spend six weeks to arrive in the zone of the Escambray, in the province of Mow Villas, in the center of the island, crossing 600 km of marshy zone, continued by the planes and the patrols of the government.

Guevara installs its camping on a relief inaccessible culminating to 630m. It creates a new military academy to accommodate the new recruits, as well as an hydroelectric station, a hospital of countryside, workshops and a newspaper El Miliciano .

In the zone act of other forces of guerilla, like “Segundo Frente Nacional del Escambray” directed by Spanish Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, “Directorio Revolucionario”, “Partido Socialista Popular” (communist) as well as the local forces of the movement of July 26th directed by Enrique Oltuski. In general these forces quarrel and the unification is impossible. At this time, Che meets Aleida March, militant active of the movement of July 26th anticommunist, which becomes his wife and with which he has four children.

The Batista November 3rd carries out elections in order to attenuate the generalized opposition and to build an electoral exit which would isolate the guerilla. Those and the groups of the opposition require the Boycott elections which have only one weak participation, délégitimant the elected candidate, Andrés Rivero Agüero.

In Las Villas Che Guevara finishes to give form to the eighth column, placing at the stations - keys of the right-hand men, the majority originating in modest milieus. There are the men of its escort, Juan Alberto Castellanos, Hermes Peña, Carlos Coello (“Tuma”), Leonardo Tamayo (“Urbano”) and Harry Villegas (“Pombo”). There are also soldiers who belong to his most intimate circle, like Joel Iglesias, Roberto Rodríguez (“el Vaquerito”), Juan Vitalio Acuna (“Vilo”), Orlando Pantoja (“Olo”), Eliseo Reyes, Manuel Hernández Osorio, Jesús Suárez Gayol (“el Rubio”), Orlando Borrego. Many of these men compose celebrates it Commando Suicide directed by “El Vaquerito”, including/understanding only volunteers and responsible for the most difficult missions.

At the end of November, the troops of the government tackle the position of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. The engagements last one week, at the end of which the army of Batista is withdrawn in disorder and with many losses as men and material. The guerillas counter-attack, according to a strategy of insulation of the garrisons of the government, dynamiting the railway roads and bridges. The following days the governmental regiments capitulate one by one: Fomento, Guayos, Cabaiguán (where Che fractures the elbow), Placetas, Sancti Spíritus.

Then the column of Cienfuegos will take Yaguajay, in an important battle which lasts from December 21st to 31st, while Guevara seizes Remedios and the port Caibarién the 26 and the barracks Camajuaní the next day, where the troops of the government flee without fighting. The way is then free to attack Santa Clara, fourth town of Cuba and ultimate bastion of the government before Havana. Batista strengthens the city and sends: 2000 soldiers and an armoured train under the orders of the most qualified officer at his disposal, colonel Joaquín Casillas. On the whole, the governmental troops have: 3500 soldiers to fight 350 guerillas. December 28th begins the attack which was bloody (Santa Clara is bombarded by the aviation of Batista) and lasts three days in all the city. During the engagements dies one of the men emblématiques of the eighth column Roberto Rodríguez, “el Vaquerito” . Guevara established that the priority target of the battle is the armoured train, which was taken the 29 at the evening. This feat of arms is a decisive victory which involves the fall of Batista directly. Learning the news and that its generals negotiate a peace separated with the leaders, the dictator makes the decision to flee in Dominican Republic a few hours, accompanied afterwards by its family, of some civils servant, with among them president Andrés Rivero Agüero and his brother who was mayor of Havana.

The rebellious forces triumphing in all the island undertake to shoot the war criminal after summary judgments. To Santa Clara Che gives the order to shoot inter alia the chief of the police force, Cornelio Rojas. Colonel Joaquín Casillas, which had been condemned in 1948 for the assassination of a trade unionist Jesús Menéndez and then left in freedom, is held and dies in turbid circumstances. The official version indicates that Casillas was killed whereas it tried to escape, but it is as possible as it was carried out on order of Che.

The country is then paralyzed by a General strike required by Fidel Castro. According to its orders, the columns of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos with the head of their guerillas (known as Barbudos) move then towards Havana to occupy the barracks of Columbia and the Forteresse of Cabaña January 2nd and 3rd.

Revolutionary government

January 2nd, Che Guevara is named by Fidel Castro ordering and “supreme Procureur” of the prison of the fortress of Cabaña. During the 5 months at this station it decides arrests and supervises the judgments which last often only one day and sign the executions from 156 to 550 people according to the sources. The defendants are for the majority of official mode of Batista: police officers, politicians or influential people shown to have contributed to the repression to which the mode had been delivered in particular in 1958 Juste before his fall, of the members of the “office of the repression of the communist activities” which had resorts to removal, torture and the assassination, or of the marked soldiers of War crime, but also of the political dissidents. Only the soldiers and police officers are condemned to death, the civilians being led in front of another court.

According to a prosecutor who worked with Guevara for these charges, the procedures were illegal because “the facts were judged without any consideration for the general legal principles”, “the elements presented by the investigatory officer were regarded as irrefutable evidence”, “there were members of victims' families of the preceding mode among sworn” and “Che Guevara was also president of the Court of Appeal”. Contrary the media, same American, stress that each defendant is entitled to an equitable defense, a lawyer and witnesses, and that the lawsuits are public. Despite everything the chaplain of the prison affirms that tens of innocent were carried out. These executions worry much the democratic S in Cuba and in the world. Fidel Castro visits some in the United States asks for a suspension of the executions then. Che is not agreement with measurement, pretexting that “the brake of middle-class conventions on the Human rights had been the reason of the fall of the mode of Arbenz in Guatemala” and that “the judgments followed a judgment which allowed defense and carried the signature of the persons in charge, unlike the assassinations of the Latin-American dictatorships which had not raised any protests on behalf of the press or the government of the United States, whereas they took place after terrible tortures, in anonymity, and often without one finding the corpses”. The degree of implication of Guevara which implemented the quarter of these executions is always discussed.

February 7th, 1959 the new government proclaims Che Guevara “citizen cuban of birth” in recognition of its role in the triumph of the revolutionary forces. The May 22nd 1959 the divorce with Hilda Gadea (with which it separated before even its departure for Cuba) is pronounced, which enables him to regularize its situation with Aleida March, cuban of the movement of July 26th, which it met in the province of Mow Villas in 1958 and that it marries on June 2nd of the same year.

Fidel Castro modifies the Constitution country to allow a foreigner being itself particularly illustrated lasting the guerilla and having received the rank of Commander of being able to be member of the government. This modification relates to only Argentinian Guevara.

October 7th, Che Guevara assisted of its second Nathanael Benoit, becomes one of the leaders of the national institute of the land reform. He becomes also president of the national bank of Cuba on November 26th. This last station was a little ironic, because Che condemns the money and dreams of its abolition. The signature on the banknotes will carry besides only its nickname “Che”.

As of this year 1959, it helps to organize revolutionary forwardings with Panama and in Dominican Republic, forwardings which will fail all.

At that time its taste for the failures reappears. It takes part in the majority of the tournaments taking place in Cuba while promoting this play.

He visits Tokyo in June 1959 to evaluate the radical land reform carried out by the United States after the Second world war. He notes on this occasion that the cuban land reform offers more private properties and a better rate of compensation than the reform having taken place to Japan. In spite of these remarks, Cuba sees the majority of its nationalized activities and individual freedoms restricted. Many democrats are imprisoned. The mode becomes increasingly authoritative, partly to apply its communist reforms, but also in reaction to the American pressures and of an invasion which seems inevitable with the cuban government. After having negotiated a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in 1960, Che Guevara represents Cuba in many delegations near country of the Communist bloc or the Mouvement of non-aligned the in Africa and Asia following the imposition of commercial restrictions. These restrictions are transformed into a Embargo of the United States against Cuba into 1962 which is always in application in 2007.

In 1960 Guevara belongs to first aid to the victims of the Explosion of Coubre, a ship filled with weapons bound for the cuban government. This aid operation becomes even more dangerous when a second explosion makes more than one hundred of deaths. The causes of the double explosion never will be clearly established. The cuban government will show the the CIA and William Alexander Morgan, a former rival of Che in the fight against Batista and suspected of being an American agent. The exiled cuban ones (anticastrists) will also advance the theory which sabotage was organized by Soviet opponents with Guevara. It is with the service commemorative of the victims that the famous photograph of Alberto Korda of Che will be taken.

Guevara is the instigator of the cuban system of camps of forced labor (called “camps of work corrective”) in 1960-1961, and created the first of those in Guanahacabibes in order to “rehabilitate” the persons in charge of the state enterprises which were guilty various distorsions with “revolutionary ethics”.

Minister of Industry and theorist

Guevara becomes on February 23rd, 1961 Minister of Industry. It is harnessed to transform the agrarian capitalist saving in Cuba into industrial socialist economy. It is one of the active participants in the many economic reforms and social installations by the government. Che then becomes famous in the world for its attacks ignited on the foreign politics of the United States in Africa, in Asia (Guerre of Vietnam) but especially in Latin America.

For this period, it lays down the cuban policy and its own opinion in many speeches, articles, letters and tests. In its book the War of guerilla (1961), it promotes the republication in other countries of the cuban revolution, recommending to begin the rebellion with small groups ( Foco ) guerillas of peasants without need for large organizations to attack the government. Its strategy is then to generate a revolutionary feeling in the population by increasing the scale of the guerilla by stages, before launching a armed Insurrection. However this model of “revolution to cuban” in Bolivia and elsewhere will be a failure because, according to some, of its lack of popular support. This strategy is regarded today as ineffective. It had functioned in Cuba because the population wanted to get rid of Batista and because the foundations of a revolution had already been thrown by others such as Frank País (assassinated by the police force of Batista in 1958). All which the cuban population had needed at the time of the revolution was before guard to inspire them.

Its test socialism and the man in Cuba (1965) advances the need for a “new man” ( hombre nuevo ) in conjunction with the socialist state. I.e. more than he recommends a personal revolution and morals in addition to one simple economic revolution. The contribution of one activity at the company by a human being, in addition to its remunerated activity, is transformed into an exemplary value, source of solidarity. For Che the ideal communist company is not possible without the people not evolving/moving in this “new man” and the socialist State is according to him only one first need, a scale intended to be climbed then abandoned in a company the equal ones without governments nor States. Any company which functions only on the material reward, that it is a socialist economy Soviet or capitalist would be thus dedicated to the failure.

As official of the government and always so conscious of the value of the example, Che Guevara gets busy to show what must be this “new man”. It regularly spends its weekends and evenings to voluntary work, that it is in the textile factories, on the ports or with the harvest of the cane with sugar. He thinks that makes it possible to keep a direct contact between the people and his leaders and also that such a sacrifice and such an implication on behalf of the people are necessary to reach Communism through a socialist company.

Che Guevara will be also known for its personal austerity, its simple standard of living and its practices, although alive in the private districts of the capital. He hates any favoritism related to the row (as was already the case at the time of the guerilla). For example when he becomes member of the government, he refuses a pay rise, preferring to keep his pay of “ordering” (Major) army. This austerity also appears by a contempt of the richnesses which it shows of many times, an outstanding example being at the time of a dinner with official Communists in the USSR, where when the meal is been used in porcelain as value, Che points out sarcastically to its hosts “Is in this way that the Prolétariat in Russia saw? ” Some see Che Guevara like models it at the same time austere and “glamor” of this “new man”.

Guevara does not take part in the defense of Cuba at the time of the Débarquement of Bay of the Pigs in 1961. It is placed at the defense of another part of the island and is then wounded accidentally by its own weapon.

He plays a key part in the Crise of the missiles of Cuba by negotiating in 1962 with Moscow with Raúl Castro near the Russians the establishment of nuclear ballistic missiles on the island. Che Guevara thinks whereas the installation of Soviet missiles can protect Cuba from any American military attack. In an interview with the British newspaper the Daily Worker a few weeks after the end of the crisis, it will declare while fulminating against the Soviet retreat, with half while joking, that if the missiles had been under cuban control, they would have used them.

He is confronted with many difficulties in his tasks of reform. The cuban economy is often antiquated and décousue, therefore not very inclined with a rationalization of the means of production. Moreover, made Guevara of the fight against the Bureaucracy incipient one from its priorities. The material sent by the Soviet block is often of bad quality or obsolete. It is at this time that Guevara starts to include/understand reality behind the official discourses and to lose the faith towards the Soviet and Stalinist model which animated it from Guatemala, to develop its own ideology of Communism.

In addition to these problems, and following the American embargo and the entry of Cuba in the Comecon, massive industrialization is abandoned. The island remains an agricultural supplier, but this time for the Eastern bloc.

Disappearance of Cuba

In December 1964 Che Guevara travels to New York as chief of the cuban delegation to UNO where he makes a speech ignited against the American foreign politics , takes part in a tele emission and meets personalities as different as the senator Eugene McCarthy, companions of Malcolm X or the Rockefeller. December 17th, it begins a 3 months international round during which it visits the China, the Egypt, the Algérie, the Ghana, the Guinea, the Mali, the Bénin, the République of Congo and the Tanzania, with stages in Ireland, Paris and Prague. With Pyongyang, he declares that the North Korea is a “model whose Cuba should be inspired”. With Algiers, on February 24th, it makes its last speech on the front of the international scene where it declares: “There are no borders in this fight to the death. We cannot remain indifferent vis-a-vis what occurs in any part of the world. The victory of any country against the imperialism is our victory, just like the defeat of some country that it either is our defeat. ”

It astonishes its audience then by proclaiming “the socialist countries have the moral duty to stop their tacit complicity with the countries of the west exploiteurs. However, as well Guevara as Castro are in favor of a “linked anti-impérialiste face” and on several occasions try to reconcile the Soviet Union and China.

Pressed by the international speculation and the rumors as for the destiny of Che, Fidel Castro declares on June 16th, 1965 that the people will be informed in connection with Che when itself decides it. October 3rd, Castro reveals a not dated letter, written by Guevara to his attention, in which it reaffirms his solidarity with the cuban revolution but declares his intention to leave to fight abroad for the revolution. He also announces his resignation of all his stations to the government, the party and in the army. He also gives up the cuban citizenship which was given to him. Castro will reveal shortly after that it knew where Guevara was but that it would not say it, adding that his/her former comrade in arms was in good health.

In spite of the insurances of Castro, the destiny of Che Guevara remains a mystery and a secrecy kept well for the two years to come.

Congo

During their meeting during the night from March 14th to 15th 1965, Guevara and Castro agreed so that Che personally carries out the first cuban military action in sub-Saharan Africa. Sources mention that Guevara would have convinced Castro to support it in his effort while other sources maintain that it is Castro who would have convinced Guevara to undertake this mission, arguing that the countries of Latin America concerned were not yet under the conditions wanted to establish there focos (“hearths”) of guerilla. Castro himself will affirm that the last version was the good one.

According to Ahmed Ben Bella, which was president of Algérie at the time and had discussed much with Guevara, “the situation in Africa seemed to have an enormous revolutionary potential, which brought Che to the conclusion which Africa was the weak link of the imperialism. It is in Africa that it decided to dedicate its efforts. ”

The cuban operation is planned to help the Marxist movement Simba pro Patrice Lumumba (whose assassination in 1961 Guevara had made indignant) in Congo-Kinshasa (old Congo Belgian, future Zaire and current Democratic republic of Congo). Guevara, its second Victor Dreke and 12 Cubans arrive at Congo on April 24th, 1965. A quota of approximately 100 Afro-Cubain S joined them shortly after. The arrival of Che is held secret even for the members of the guerilla Congolese.

They collaborate one moment with the leader Laurent-Desired Kabila, with whom they organize the maquis of Hewa Bora. Kabila helps the partisans of Lumumba then to carry out a revolt which is eliminated in November from the same year by the Congolese army. Guevara regards soon Kabila as unimportant and written: “Nothing leads me to think that he is the providential man”.

Although Che has 37 years and any traditional military formation (it had been reformed Argentinian Military service because of its asthma, thing of which it was proud because of its opposition to the government Perón), the weather already was the cuban experiment of the guerilla and his decisive walk on Santa Clara. South-African Mercenaire S such as Mike Hoare and of exiled cuban opposed to the mode castrist work with the Congolese regular army to fight against Guevara. They succeed in intercepting its communications, tighten ambushes against the rebels with each time they try an attack and cut its lines of provisioning. Although Guevara tries to dissimulate its presence in Congo, the US government is informed of its localization and its activities. Indeed, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts all its transmissions thanks to the equipment of USNS Valdez , ship of listening of the Indian Ocean.

The goal of Che is to export the cuban revolution by training the Simba combatants with the communist ideology and the strategies of the combat of guerilla. But the incompetence, the intransigence, the internal competitions of the Congolese rebels are quoted in his newspaper of Congo like the primary reasons of the failure of the revolt. Instead of making sure the support of the local populations, the Congolese combatants plunder sometimes villages and kill out of the civilians. The single command does not exist and the local leaders compete between them to obtain money and material which they employ for their personal profit. Certain persons in charge of the guerilla are even assassinated by rivals. Lastly, the inexperienced troops believe more in the Sorcellerie than in reserve training of the Cubans, which will involve demolished on defeat.

After seven months of frustration, patient of the Dysentery and suffering of the asthma, overflowed by the troops of Mobutu, Guevara leaves Congo with the cuban survivors (six members of its column died on 200). They must give up a good part of the Congolese combatants for lack of place in the boats which recross the Lac Tanganyika. At one moment, Che estimates to have to remain alone to fight until the end like example for the revolution. He is dissuaded from it by his special companions and two emissary envoys by Castro. A few weeks later, when he writes the foreword of his newspaper of Congo, he begins it with the words: “This is the history of a failure”.

Clandestinity

Because Castro made public the “letter of good-bye” of Che in which it cut any bond with Cuba to dedicate itself to his revolutionary activities elsewhere in the world (whereas it should have been revealed only in the case of its death), this one feels that he will not be able to return to Cuba for reasons morals. It spends the 6 following months in clandestinity to Dar are Salam and Prague where it compiles its memories on Congo and the manuscripts of two books, one of philosophy and one of economy. He visits also several countries of Western Europe with an aim of testing a news distorts identity and documents (passport, etc) created for him for this purpose by the DGI, the Cubains special services, for his future voyage in South America.

For this period, Castro continues to ask for his return to Cuba. Guevara authorizes to it but provided that its presence in Cuba remains secret and that its stay serf to organize a new revolution some share in South America. In order to avoid any risk of escape, it is even disguised and without their knowledge that he will visit his children.

Che hesitates much to begin a guerilla in Argentina, his native land, but is dissuaded from it by Fidel Castro who thinks that the Argentinian army is much more effective than Bolivian.

In 1966 and 1967 the localization of Che is always held secret. Representatives of the movement of independence of the Mozambique say to have met Guevara at the end of 1966 or at the beginning of 1967 with Dar Es Salaam, where they would have rejected his offer of assistance to their revolution. In a speech in May 1967, the Minister for the Defense of Cuba announces that Guevara “serves the revolution some share in South America”.

Bolivia

Guerilla

In 1966 the Bolivia is controlled by a military dictatorship directed by the general Rene Barrientos, who had reversed in a coup d'etat the president elected Víctor Paz Estenssoro and put fine at the revolution of 1952.

At the request of Castro, a ground is bought in the jungle of the isolated region and mountainous of Ñancahuazú by the Bolivian Communist party to be used as camp of drive. This camp is located in an geographical area very far away from the requests for Guevara which is inclined nevertheless in order not to waste time. It arrives there on November 7th, 1966, day when starts its Journal of Bolivia . Previously, it is disguised as a priest that it went to meet Juan Perón exiled with Madrid in order to try to obtain without success the assistance of the Argentinian peronists in the guerilla Bolivian.

The group of 47 guerillas is composed in majority of Bolivian but also of sixteen Cubans of the entourage very close to Guevara and some Peruvians and Argentinian. The group takes the name of ELN ( Ejército de Liberación Nacional : army of national release) with groups of support in urban environment.

Little will be accomplished to create a true army of guerilla. Guevara thought of having the assistance of the local dissidents. However, the local Communist party is turned more towards Moscow than Havana and does not help it in spite of its promises. Moreover, the inflexibility of Che which refuses to rather leave the control of the guerilla with the Bolivian PC than to make a compromise does not help to conclude an agreement with the general secretary Mario Monje who comes to meet them clandestinely. This tendency existed already at the time of the cuban countryside but had been limited by the diplomacy of Castro. The principal liaison officer to La Paz, Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider known as “Tania”, the single woman of the group, is old a member of the Stasi, so considered as an agent of the KGB. The latter would have unconsciously or not helped the Soviet interests by putting the Bolivian authorities on the track of Guevara. March 9th, 1967 of the soldiers on leave and an active civilian to fish guerillas (the meeting is peaceful) and the 11 meet, two deserters of the ELN are captured, which alerts the Bolivian government which asks then for the assistance of the the United States and of the adjoining countries. On indications of the deserters, the camping is discovered, as shortly after of many hiding places which contain documents, vivres and photographs which are used for the identification of Che by the CIA. The guerillas must give up their camping to escape a surrounding from the Bolivian army and to take in their rows of the members of the section of urban support including/understanding Tania, the French Régis Debray and Argentinian Ciro Bustos.

March 23rd, the forces of Guevara gain first skirmishes against the regular army much less tested in a difficult and mountainous ground. But, the guerillas do not lay out more than one constant radio operator contact with Havana because both transmitting provided are defective (on this point and much of others, the inorganization and the lack of preparation made that certain historians suspectent even a sabotage). The single bond of the guerillas with the world is nothing any more but one vulgar radio operator receiver. In spite of the violent nature of the conflict, Guevara gives medical care to all the wounded Bolivian soldiers and slackens all the prisoners.

Che divides its forces on April 17th, in order to extract from the zone Régis Debray and Ciro Bustos which do not support any more the living conditions of the guerilla and so that they can transmit messages to Cuba and the Argentinian Communists”

The ELN is hard struck on April 20th when Régis Debray and Ciro Bustos is captured. Both are tortured by the governmental forces and deliver key information of which the confirmation of the presence of Che in Bolivia. The evidence of an agreement of Debray with the CIA (information against stop of tortures and promise of a lenient sorrow) was discovered.

Guevara thinks of having only business with the army Bolivian, badly trained and badly equipped. However, when the US government learns its localization, the CIA and the Special Forces (including a battalion of United States Army Rangers based not far from the zone of guerilla), are sent to train and support the soldiers boliviens^,. In May, the army stops the peasants suspected of helping the guerillas and before removed the drugs against the asthma of all the hospitals of the area. The 31, the column of Vilo Acuña which included Tania is taken in a ambush whereas it crosses a river and all are killed except one, Restituto Cabrera, which succeeds in escaping but is captured and carried out summarily on September 4th. Their body is initially exposed like clandestinely buried trophies then.

The last contact of the urban part of the ELN is stopped on September 15th, whereas the last member of the cuban secret services was inexplicably recalled to the country by his chief, Manuel Pineiro, pro-Soviet and opponent with Che Guevara. Contrary to what it had passed to Congo, no attempt is made by Cuba to go to help or help Guevara and its men. Isolated, the column of Che is physically with end, any more drinking water does not have and must sometimes carry its chief who suffers from terrible asthma attacks. Despite everything, Guevara always has the same will and always pushes its men ahead, as at the time of the passage of a chasm that the others judge impossible, but that it crosses in spite of its state:

Idiotic

“, it has there nothing impossible in this life, all is possible, impossibilities it is the man who does them and it is the man who must exceed them! ”

The group sees its retirement cut towards the Río Grande, which obliges it to go up in the mountains towards the small village of Higuera where the avant-garde is taken in ambush and loses three men on September 26th. The 17 survivors escape once more and on October 7th start to go down again towards Río Grande.

Capture and execution

The Bolivian Special forces are informed of the place of the camping of the guerilla by an adviser. More: 1800 soldiers arrived at the village of Higuera. October 8th, 1967, the camping is encircled in the ravine of Quebrada del Yuro and Guevara orders to divide the group into two, sending the patients behind and remaining with the remainder of the guerillas to retain the Bolivian troops.

After three hours of combat, it is captured with Simeón Cuba Sarabia. It goes after being wounded with the legs and that its rifle was destroyed by a ball. According to the Bolivian soldiers present, he would have shouted: “Do not draw, I am Che Guevara and I have more value for you living than died” or “It is better that you do not kill me, I am Che”. The group of guerillas is dispersed. Three men died and another seriously wounded, the others are captured or killed by the army the following days. Five finally manage to reach the Chilean border and then are protected and evacuated by the Socialist senator Salvador Allende after having lost one their companions seriously wounded by the Bolivian army which they had then had to complete. According to Harry Villegas (“Pombo”), one of the survivors, if Guevara had chosen to flee with them, it would have survived.

When it is taken along and that it sees Bolivian soldiers who were also wounded in the confrontation, Guevara proposes to look after them, but its offer is refused by the responsible officer. The two prisoners are taken along in a school given up in the village close to Higuera. The bodies of the other guerillas are stored there and Juan Pablo Chang captured the following day, is held there in the middle of the corpses. October 9th in the morning, the government of Bolivia announces the death of Che Guevara the day before in engagements. At the same moment arrives with Higuera colonel Joaquín Zenteno Anaya and the agent of the CIA Felix Rodríguez. Shortly after midday, president Barrientos gives the order to carry out the guerillas. Even if he forever justified his decision, of the collaborators think that he did not want a lawsuit public which would have drawn the international attention nondesired to Bolivia as that was the case at the time of the Debray lawsuit. He did not want either that Che is condemned to a custodial sentence and that he can be slackened, like Castro in his time. There exist doubts and many versions on the degree of influence of the CIA and the United States in this decision. President Barrientos sees the ambassador of the United States the execution day before of Che but of other sources show that on the contrary the CIA would have made pressure so that Guevara is shot. What is certain it is that the CIA was on the spot at the time of died of Che.

In the same way several versions exist on which gave the order to carry out Guevara. According to certain sources, it is the Rodríguez agent which receives the order to carry out Guevara by radio of Zenteno and on the spot transmits them to the official Cubans present. According to other testimonys of which that of the pentagon, it is the captain Gary Prado Salmon, chief of the Bolivian rangers which decided to carry out Che, or according to other biographers, his superior, colonel Zenteno which gave him the order of it, on instruction of Barrientos. Rodriguez tells that it received the order to maintain Guevara alive to question it when the CIA learns the capture. A helicopter and a plane were chartered to be able to bring it to the Panamá but colonel Joaquin Zentena, ordering the Bolivian forces said that it had of another choice to only obey his superiors.

Rodríguez gives the instructions for the execution to Mario Teràn, a sergeant of the Bolivian army, in order not to disfigure it and that the inflicted wounds with Guevara seem to have been with the combat. According to the versions, Teràn had been indicated to kill Guevara by the chance of one pulling to the Courte straw because a quarrel on which would have this “privilege” had taken place in the troop, or on direct order of colonel Zenteno. In the account of Rodriguez, it is him which announces its execution with Che Guevara. This last entrusts a message for his wife to him, the two men kiss then Rodriguez leaves the school. This version is disputed by the chief of the Bolivian special forces, the captain Gary Prado, who underlines on the contrary that Rodriguez had had one exchange with Guevara: Rodriguez had threatened Che which in answer had spit to him to the face by showing it to be a traitor. Meanwhile of many people could come to return visit in Guevara, whose teacher of the village which brings to him to eat and brings a reply of Che during her last discussion with him:

“Why with your physics, your intelligence, your family and your responsibilities you are you put in a similar situation?

- For my ideals” Its body and those of the other dead guerillas are taken along by the Bolivian army with the assistance of American officers and agents of the CIA in the helicopter to Vallegrande, where they are exposed for the media of the whole world in the local hospital. Hundreds of people, soldiers, civilians and curious come to see the body. The nuns of the hospital and the women of the city note her resemblance to the representations of Jesus and cut wicks of its hair to keep them in talisman. The photographs which are taken of Che to the open eyes give rise to legends such as San Ernesto of Higuera and El Cristo de Vallegrande . A religious worship of Che related to Catholicism appeared with the beginning of the year 1990. After its amputation of the hands by an army medical officer in order to authenticate the body and to keep a proof of its death, Bolivian officers transfer the skins in a secret held place. After its execution, the Bolivian soldiers and Felix Rodríguez share the possessions of Che, including two watches (including one Rolex which had been given to Che by one of his/her companions dying) and the newspaper of Guevara in Bolivia which disappears during years. Today some of its business, including its flashlight, are exposed to the head office of the CIA.

October 15th, Castro recognizes the death of Guevara and proclaims three days of mourning national. Its death is perceived at the time like a severe blow carried to the South American revolution and the Tiers-monde.

In 1997, the remainders of Guevara and several guerillas are exhumed and identified by analysis DNA, then returned to Cuba. It is buried with six of his comrades in arms of Bolivia in a mausoleum located in the town of Santa Clara after funeral of National hero.

Personality

The majority of the biographies show that the personality of Che Guevara much more complex and is contrasted that the portrait of romantic revolutionist of its partisans or that the sanguinary image of monster of its detractors.

Specimen and arrogant

Che was obsessed by the fact of showing the example in any point for itself and its men. Not only while being also exceeded physically as it did it while fighting constantly against its asthma in the jungles of different the guerillas (and by smoking the famous Havana), but by assigning itself the most dangerous missions (its group of guerilla in Cuba was baptized “group committed suicide” (commando commits suicide), the hardest work and the most severe discipline. It rejected the privileges, even more the pain-killers, which could have supported it with respect to its men, and continued in the same way when he became minister.

“One starts like that, with small privileges, and then one is accustomed and one justifies increasingly large privileges, until the leader transforms into one assisted insensitive with the needs for the others”.

The fact of being able to incarnate this example made him develop a certain impatience towards the least endowed or the least justified, which could have passed for arrogance if it had not spent as much time even in the middle of the sierra to learn how to read and write with guerillas often Analphabète S.

Pitiless and human, idealistic and extremist

Che Guevara was the follower of extreme solutions in the defense of its ideas and not only in theory. Always in the name of the example, it took on him the summary execution members of the guerilla condemned for treason by the guerillas. Fidel Castro entrusted the command of the revolutionary tribunal to him of Cabana charged to judge the persons in charge of the mode with Batista because it knew that Guevara would not show any leniency, the sentence of those condemned for exactions or tortures was almost always death. Castro even rented “his quality of excessive aggressiveness”. For Che, its control was dictated by the world revolution which was a true fight to the death against the imperialism, and it was justified some officially.

“We shot, we shoot and we will continue to shoot as long as that will be necessary. Our fight is a fight to the death. ” the December 11th 1964, in front of the General meeting of the United Nations.

It was ready to sacrifice itself for a better world, as it required it its men, and Fidel Castro the réprimanda several times during the guerilla cuban because of the risks which it took. On the other hand, Che Guevara showed Humanisme towards the enemy soldiers captive or wounded with the combat, and looked after them like its own men, since the beginnings of the cuban revolution until its execution day before in Bolivia where even captive and wounded, he proposed his services of doctor to his geôliers.

Communist and free electron

Although enthusiastic Marxist, Che Guevara defended the characteristic of his ideas and their application against Fidel and Raúl Castro what was worth many arguments. He was against alignment with the Soviet block, against the bureaucracy incipient in Cuba (but for centralization), against the wasting, the exploitation of the third world and the privileges (see the thought of Che Guevara). He employed a tone and a speech frank and direct but stripped of any diplomacy and political calculation. This attracted many partisans to him but created also many enemies to him. So Cuba the political skill of Fidel Castro made it possible to catch up with this character trait, it was one of the causes of its failures in Congo and in Bolivia.

Agitator

Lastly, the Che often punctuated humorous and provocative remarks its declarations or conversations including official. Thus, as a Minister of Industry, it finished one of its letters (addressed to a psychiatrist having published a medical check specialized twice more specimens than there were doctors in Cuba, whereas paper missed cruelly) by the sentence:

“the review is well, intolerable pulling. Believe me, because the insane ones always say the truth. ”

The thought of Che Guevara

The revolution

Che Guevara regarded the Armed struggle and the Révolution Socialiste as the only means of improving the living conditions of the poor of Latin America, exploited by the United States of America according to him. Its revolutionary point of view followed those of Marx and Lénine, which he had studied exhaustively. The revolution in Latin America passed for him by the creation of “hearths” of guerilla ( focos ) in a country where existed “objective conditions” for a revolution. These focos makes it possible to meet the “subjective conditions” for a general rising of the population. He thought that there was a close link between the guerilla, the peasants and the land reform. This position differed from the Soviet thought and approached the ideas Maoists. He greeted besides the beginning of the Cultural revolution, which was going to make, shortly after his execution, between 500.000 and 20 million deaths.

If he admires since his voyages and his readings the Soviet model and Stalin, he starts to severely criticize them as of his passage to the cuban government, and develops his own communist economic theory, for him more modern and more adapted to the needs for the Tiers-monde. Its last speeches were criticisms violent against the exploitation of the third world by the communist blocs and capitalist who was contrary to the official dogma.

However, this ideal vision makes sometimes place with the Realpolitik, and the end justifies for him the means, like had formulated it Nicolas Machiavel. With a person who complained with him in Cuba that one of his/her friends had been carried out because it distributed leaflets anticommunists, Guevara answered: Listen, the revolutions are ugly but necessary, and part of the revolutionary process is the injustice with the service of future the justice.

The new man

The revolution was according to him to be also achieved at the individual level by the creation of a “new man”. The individual of the revolutionary company must seek a moral reward (solidarity and Community property) and nonmaterial. For him, only the moral reward gives access happiness, the material reward being the prerogative of capitalism. To seek the material reward as it was the case in Soviet Union would see the failure of the communist revolution. Voluntary work for the community in addition to that carried out to provide for its needs was an example of the actions which this new man was to undertake. It also made it possible to the leaders to remain in contact with realities of the population.

Panamericanism and universalism

According to Che Guevara, the borders of Latin America were artificial and represented a brake to fight against the American imperialism.

“we believe, and since this voyage even more firmly than front, than the division of the Latin America in nationalities dubious and illusory is completely factitious. We are only one métissée race, which from Mexico to the Magellan Strait present of the notable ethnographic similarities. ”

For him, the revolution was world, it was a total fight against the imperialism. In this context, the world solidarity was the most important element for a better world.

“Especially, be always able to feel with deepest of your heart any injustice made against no matter whom, where that it is in the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionist. ”

Heritage

The worship of Che

Whereas photographs of the body of Guevara were diffused in the whole world and the discussed circumstances of its death, its legend started to extend. Demonstrations against its execution, of the articles, the homages, the songs and the poems were written on its life and its death.

The specialists in the Latin America advising the State Department of the United States recognized the importance of the end “of the revolutionist more glamor and having the reputation to have known the most victories”, noting that Guevara would become for the Communists and other currents of left “the revolutionary model which met a heroic death”. But the reactions on the consequences of died of Che followed typically lines partisanes, the American State Department had finally concluded that its death would be a relief for the governments of Latin America which feared risings in their own countries.

These predictions were founded when Guevara became a powerful symbol of rebellion and revolution during the demonstrations total coeds of May 68. Activists of left admired connect it indifference of Guevara to the rewards and glory and approved its justification of violence like need to establish the socialist ideal. The slogan “Che is alive! ” (“Che lives! ”) started to appear on the walls of all the western block, whereas Jean-Paul Sartre, a personality and theorist of the movement, encouraged his adulation by describing Guevara like “the most complete human being of our time”.

In spite of the controversies, the statute of popular Che as icon continued throughout the world and the times, bringing to speak about a “worship of total Che”. A photograph of Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda became one of the most famous images of the 20th century. Transformed into monochromic graph, the portrait was reproduced on all kinds of supports like tee-shirts, posters, coffee cups or caps, a rather ironic manner to make broad profits starting from the symbol of the anticapitalism.

The image of Che Guevara is to be compared with a total fashion, losing often much its ideological and political connotation, and the worship of Che was sometimes relativized like a simple “adolescent revolutionary romanticism”.

The author Christopher Hitchens, one to support cuban revolution in the years 1960, summarized the heritage of Guevara as follows: “The historical statute of icon of Che was assured because it failed. Its history is a history of defeat and insulation, and this is why it is so tempting. He would have lived, and the myth of Che would have died for a long time”

Impact in Latin America

In the years 1990, the failure of the reforms Néolibéral be in Latin America intensified the opposition to the Consensus of Washington, bringing the resurgence of many political opinions of Che Guevara such as the Panaméricanisme, the support of popular fronts in the area, the Nationalization of key industries and the centralization of the government.

With the Nicaragua, the Sandiniste S guevarists were re-elected in 2006 after 16 years with the capacity, their supporters wearing tee-shirts of Guevara. The president Bolivia N, Evo Morales paid homage of many times to Guevara and installed a portrait of Argentinian made sheets of local Coca in his presidential continuation.

In 2006, the president of the Venezuela Hugo Chávez, which is known to make its speeches with a tee-shirt of Che, accompanied Fidel Castro for a visit by the birthplace of Guevara de Córdoba, accompanied by a crowd of thousands of people proclaiming of the Guevaristes slogans. The girl of Guevara, Aleida wrote a book of discussions with Chávez where he explained his plans for “the Latin America news”.

Guevara remains one of the inspirations of the socio-economic structure of the FARC-EP, the Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia, and the Zapatist Armée with national release in Mexico.

Heritage in Cuba

In Cuba, the death of Guevara precipitated the abandonment of the guerilla like instrument of foreign politics, accelerating a bringing together with the Soviet Union, and the rehandling of the government according to Soviet criteria. When cuban troops turned over to Africa in the years 1970, it was within the framework of a military forwarding with large scales, and the support of the revolutionary movements in Latin America and in the Caribbean became logistic and organisational. Cuba also gave up the plans of economic Guevara of diversification and industrialization which was impracticable within the framework of the Comecon.

Since 1965, the Yugoslav newspaper communist Borba observed many abandoned factories or ever finished in Cuba, heritage of the plan of industrialization missed.

The cuban state continued to cultivate the Culte of personality of Che, inaugurating many statues and works of art in its honor on all the territory, decorating the schools, the work places, the public buildings, producing posters and tickets with its image. The natives begin each day of school with the song “ ¡ Pioneros por el Comunismo, Seremos como el Che! ” (“Pioneers of Communism, we will be like Che! ”). The mausoleum of Che Guevara in Santa Clara became a site of almost religious significance for much of Cubans.

The president of the Communist revolutionary league, Olivier Besancenot considers that the thought of Che Guevara “is an inexhaustible source of inspiration”, that he was a humanistic Marxist opposed to the summary executions and the Terrorisme, not an icon but a fallible man, who nevertheless united his words and his acts. He criticizes some however elitism and a sacrificial vision of the militancy.

Controversies

Certain historians, but also the opponents of Ernesto Guevara, among which one finds the majority of the Cubans in exile, of the militants Anticommuniste S, as well as refugees of other communist countries, regard it as a killer and a terrorist, a “fanatic torturer”. They think that Che Guevara was “personally responsible” for the execution of hundreds of people in the cuban prisons, especially when it ordered the Forteresse of Cabaña. In 2005, Carlos Santana having raised a tee-shirt of the “Che” to the ceremony of the Academy Awards, the musician of jazz of cuban origin Paquito D' Rivera wrote an open letter to him fustigating it for its support for the “Butcher of Cabaña”, because his/her own cousin had been shot there. According to Will rivet, his/her relative was imprisoned because of his Christian faith and attended the executions of a great number of other Christians in this prison.

For the historian Jean Ortiz, these detractors (mainly Jacobo Machover) do not make work of historian because their step rests only on testimonys of opponents who do not have historical sources. According to him, it is about a political company aiming to criminaliser Che and through him those which preach a change of company. It also reproaches them for taking out of its context the period of the fall of the dictatorship of Batista where courts answered at the request of justice of the people. Jean Ortiz affirms that they are criminals who were carried out and whom this purification was limited than that of the release in France.

The legitimacy of the revolutionary judgments and executions carried out by the cuban government are always prone of an intense debate between sympathizers of the cuban revolution and its opponents.

For Samuel Farber, of cuban origin, the cuban system of camps of work (an administrative and nonlegal imprisonment) set up by Guevara is used today to imprison the opponents with the mode castrist but also those considered as “deviating” socially by the mode from their beliefs nun or their sexual orientation.

Its detractors assert that it would never have had its diploma of medicine.

Although the greatest opposition to the methods of Guevara comes from right, of the anarchistic groups and Libertarianistes regard Guevara as authoritative, Stalinist and person in charge of the creation of a bureaucratic and totalitarian mode. Its detractors as theorized as the revolutions inspired by Che have in fact reinforced the Latin-American repression and military dictatorships during many years. For Jacobo Machover, cuban journalist in exile, Che far from representing an original Marxism in his cuban version, depicts it like the Marxist of most orthodoxe faithful to the line impelled by the Comintern.

Che was also criticized by Marxists, in general on two points. First of all, it would have underestimated the role of paid in the cities (at the end of its life it seemed disconnected, for example, of the strikes of mass in Bolivia). Secondly, he was criticized for voluntarism: the idea that the revolutionary will, and not the analysis of the material conditions and the consciences, constituted the key component in a revolutionary process.

Family

Ernesto Guevara Maria twice and had six children of three different women:

It Marie with the communist economist Peruvian Hildea Galdea (1925-1974) on August 18th, 1955. They have a child, Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea (1956-1995), which is born in Mexico whereas Guevara takes part in the guerilla cuban.

They divorce and a month after, on June 9th, 1959, Guevara remarie with Aleida March (1936) which it met in 1958, before the battle of Santa Clara. They have together four children, Aleida Guevara March (1960), Camilo Guevara March (1962), baptized in the honor of his/her friend deceased Camilo Cienfuegos, Celia Guevara March (1963), to which Guevara gives the first name of his/her mother, and Ernesto Guevara March (1965).

Guevara also has a child, Omar Pérez (1964), resulting from a extra-marital relation with Lidia Rosa López. Although this wire was never recognized by Che Guevara, it is him which chooses its first name.

Nicknames and pseudonyms

“Che” is an exclamation (translatable by “man”) particularly employed in Argentina, more precisely by those of the Western margin of Rio of Plata, the “porteños”: che vení aca , which means “you, come here”, che, your “eh, you”) and who, by extension, is employed in Central America and in Cuba to indicate the Argentinian ones. This nickname will indicate nothing any more but only “Che Guevara” during time, this last punctuating all its sentences by “che”. Another assumption, less probable, would come from its particular accent. He would have pronounced the “S” like, which would have been worth to him the nickname of “Che” by derision.
the code name of Ernesto Guevara at the time of its passage in Congo was Tatú. This word means the figure three in Swahili, language local. It was called Tatú Muganga because he was doctor. Indeed, Muganga means “that which relieves of the evil” in Swahili.
code names of Ernesto Guevara at the time of its passage in Bolivia were Ramón then Fernando (after the arrest of Régis Debray).
During its voyage with Granado, its nickname is Fuser coming from “ Fu ribundo” (“coléreux”) and from “ Ser Na” (“Guevara of Serna”).

Works

Che Guevara was a prolific author who wrote his newspaper or of the notes for his works almost daily, even in the middle of the operations of guerilla.

: Source used for the drafting of the article

Translated into French

total Justice , Thousand and One Nights, 04/2007, ISBN 2755500166
Passages of the revolutionary war: Congo , Métailié, 2000, ISBN 2864243571
Newspaper of Bolivia (1968), the Discovery 1995, ISBN 2707124826
socialism and the man , Aden, ISBN 2930402229
military Texts , the Discovery, Paris, 1974, ASIN B0000DY0GC
Memories of the war revolutionary (1963), Maspero, Paris, 1974, ASIN B0000DL9T1
the war of guerilla (1960), Maspero, Paris, 1968, ASIN B0000DVIYV pdf
political Texts , Maspero, Paris, 1968 ASIN B0000DWF5M
Voyage to motor cycle , editions Thousand and One Nights (2001), ISBN 2842055810

In Spanish

Diccionario Filosófico (1946-1957) , partially published
Index literario (1946-1957) , new
the angustia (1951), tale published by Página/12, 1992
'' Machu Picchu: enigma of will piedra in América '', 1953
Aquí goes a soldado of América . Barcelona: Plaza there Janés Editores, S.A., 2000. ISBN 84-01-01327-5, Letters with its family compiled by her father.
Apuntes críticos with the economía política , Habana, 2006
the duda , tale written in Congo.
will piedra It , short tale, probably written at the time where his/her mother died.
Obras Supplemented , 1997. Contains news.
Otra vez , the newspaper of its second voyage in Latin America 1953-1956, published in 2000.
Diario of a combatiente , new.
Poema left by Ernesto Guevara has his Aleida wife. It will be published at the request of that Ci only after its death.
'' Diario del Che in Bolivia '', 1968, bond pdf in Spanish.
'' Cuadernos de Praga '' Ecrit during its clandestine stay with Pragues in 1966, bond pdf in Spanish.
'' Obras Escogidas '' a selection of work of Guevara, including its most important speeches, bond pdf in Spanish.
'' Pasajes of Guerra Revolucionaria: Congo '' complete Journal of the guerilla in Congo, bond pdf in Spanish.
'' Pensamiento there acción '' a selection of writings, including El socialismo there el hombre nuevo , bond pdf in Spanish.
'' Guerilla Warfare '', edition of 1961, bond pdf in Spanish.

Translated into English

Che Guevara: Writings radical one Guerilla Warfare, Politics and Revolution , Filiquarian Publishing LLC, paperback, ISBN 1-59986-999-3.
Che Guevara Reader: Writings one Guerilla Warfare, Politics and History , Ocean Near, paperback
Che Guevara Speaks , Pathfinder, paperback
Che Guevara Talks to Young People , Pathfinder, paperback
Che: Selected Works off Ernesto Guevara , Cambridge, MY: MIT Near, 1969. ISBN 0-262-52016-8
The Great Debate one Political Economy , New York: 2006, Ocean Near, ISBN-10: 1876175540, ISBN-13: 978-1876175542
Episodes off the Cuban Revolutionary War 1956-1958 . New York: Pathfinder, 1996. ISBN 0-87348-824-5
Our America and Theirs , Ocean Close (WITH), paperback, ISBN 1-876175-81-8.
Coil-Portrait: Che Guevara , Ocean Near, 320pp, paperback, 2005
The African Dream: The Diaries off the Revolutionary War in the Congo , Grove Near, paperback.
The Diary off Che Guevara , Amereon Ltd.

Che Guevara in the popular culture

Songs

Many songs pay homage or speak about Che Guevara:

famous the Hasta siempre of Carlos Puebla which was taken again by many interpreters of which the Buena Vista Social Club or Nathalie Cardone.
the Death of Che of Bernard Lavilliers.
Zamba del Che (1969), song of Rubén Ortiz, for Victor Jara interpreted with Quilapayún.
El aparecido , of Victor Jara.
If el poeta eras tú , song of Pablo Milanés.
América you hablo of Ernesto (new), Canción del Elegido , Fusil countered Fusil (1977) and Hombre (1987) of Silvio Rodríguez.
Nada más! of Atahualpa Yupanqui.
Soldadito cubano of Nicolás Guillén on a music of Paco Ibáñez.
Panic grass In Strait of David Bowie, 1973. The album Lodger (1973) made appear in its small pocket a famous photograph of dead Che surrounded by its executors.
" Indian Girl" by The Rolling Stones in the album Emotional Rescue, 1980.
the Tsars , of the group Indo-China.
Murguita LED On , of Bersuit Vergarabat.
Ordering , of the Picardy Fatal in the mechanical album Grapefruit (2007).

Films

Avoided Alan Parker, 1996. As opposed to what known as the film, Che Guevara never met Eva Perón.
Fidel and Che of David Attwood, 2002,1. 47 min. With Víctor Huggo Martin, Gael García Bernal, Patricia Velasquez, Cecilia Suárez, Maurice Counts and Enrique Arce.
Notebooks of voyage of Walter Rooms, 2004,2. 06 min. Film inspired directly by the book On the road with Che Guevara , notebook of voyage and the only book written by Alberto Granado, travelling companion of Che in their voyage of youth in the countries the Latin America.

Anecdotes

Andy Warhol created in 1962 Che Guevara , an assembly of coloured images taking again an adaptation of the artist Jim Fitzpatrick of the photograph of Alberto Korda.
the small pocket of the individual " Bombtrack" (1994) of the group Rage Against the Machine is a graphic portrait of Che based on the famous photograph of Korda. Its book Guerilla Warfare appears on the small pocket of the album Evil Empire.
Guerilla War (1987) a play of arcade of SNK, left originally to Japan under the title Che Guevara .

Appendices

Catalog of films

El Che of Maurice Dugowson, 1997,83 min. Documentary history
Che Guevara: hasta Victoria siempre of Ferruccio Valerion, 2005,55 min. Documentary with images of files
documentary produced and realized in Cuba by Pierre Richard in 1987.
Ernesto Che Guevara of Richard Dindo, 1994. Based on the newspaper of Bolivia of the guerilla.

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