Che Guevara | Symbol of Revolution

“I would rather die standing up than live life on my knees.”

-          Che Guevara, 1958

“Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara, and I am worth more to you alive than dead.”

— Che Guevara, at his capture in 1967

“Why did you leave,” he asked.

The man on the ground, his face downcast, said nothing.

He kicked the man.

“Why did you abandon the cause that you pledged to uphold. Why did you betray your brothers and sisters?”

He took the man’s downcast face and raised it to meet his own. Their eyes locked.

“I do not want what you are creating,” said the man. “I cannot stop what you are doing. I can only stop my part in it.”

“What we are doing is for your own welfare, for everyone’s betterment. For their equality. If you deny your role in making this a reality, you are an enemy to those that will benefit.”

The man stared at him.

“You told us that there are no liberators. That liberators do not exist. That the people liberate themselves. What you are creating is not liberation. And if you believed what you told us, you would not care if I stayed or left.”

He smiled at the man, proud that his words were remembered. He raised the gun to the man’s head.

“You have sought liberation. And you shall have it.”

He pulled the trigger.

Early Life

Ernesto Guevara de las Serna was born on June 14, 1928, in Argentina into a wealthy, middle-class family. Due to their prominent position, he was able to attend top schools and had access to over 3,000 books from their in-home library. It’s recorded that it was his family who first introduced him to socialist views via discussions and reflections on the state of Latin America. During his time in school, he suffered from asthma but was still recorded as being an excellent athlete in addition to be a top student.

After graduating he went on to attend medical school in Buenos Aires University though it is disputed if he completed his medical training, with some sources stating that he did so in 1953. During his time in school, he traveled throughout South and Central America. For six months he worked as a nurse on ships encountering many different people from different backgrounds. After this, he spent nine months traveling 5,000 miles across South America witnessing the corruption and poverty that plagued the different regions he visited. Examples of what stood out to him include the terrible working conditions in both the fields and mines and the apparent impossibility for anyone in the affected class to gain an advantage in life. During this time, he traveled to Peru, Venezuela, Panama, and many other countries eventually ending up in Miami, Florida before returning home. His travels and treatment of the sick during this time ignited the idea of a unified, borderless Latin state that was bounded by a common language and equality.

It was during these travels, having witnessed the poverty, pain, and anguish that he decided the best help he could be to the people was not in medicine, but in violent revolution.

United Fruit and Arbenz

After completing medical school, Guevara followed what he described to his family as the territory of the United Fruit Company, an American corporation most notably known for the Chiquita Banana brand. Armed with his views and experiences that in his mind showed the exploitation of Latin America by capitalist aggressors, he decried their corruption and eventually ended up in Guatemala, attracted by Jacobo Arbenz and his social revolution. Arbenz had already reclaimed over 200,000 acres from United Fruit and redistributed them to the peasantry. This, and other reforms being enacted convinced Guevara that he needed to stay and “perfect himself in becoming a true revolutionary”. During this time he was able to connect with government officials, local economists, and was provided food and lodging by members of the ruling political class.

In 1954, as the social revolution in Guatemala continued to grow, global communist nations started to supply weapons and resources to further the changes in the region. With tensions rising and more lands being seized, the CIA – possibly at the behest of United Fruit – intervened to overthrow the Arbenz regime. To do this, the CIA launched a political campaign and trained rebels with the intent to violently overthrow the established, communist government. Seeing propaganda take root and enemy forces advance on him, Arbenz resigned and fled the country. During this time Guevara tried to rally communist forces to push back the invaders and retain the reforms instituted by Arbenz, but was ignored and labeled as an enemy of the new state. Guevara stayed in hiding until he was granted safe passage, and left Guatemala now identifying as a full communist.

His time working and learning under the Arbenz regime, watching it rise, fall, and a new regime installed as a result of covert operations from a capitalist nation only further convinced him of the need for a global revolution.

Cuba

After leaving Guatemala, Guevara went to Mexico where he met the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul. Both men were political exiles from Cuba who were planning a violent overthrow of the Fulgencio Batista government. For obvious reasons, this sparked Guevara’s interest and he immediately fell in with them and their plans. Called the 26th of July Movement, the plan was to land a small force into Cuba and begin destabilizing the government through guerilla actions. Initially intending to be the group’s medic, he decided to go through combat and survival training. This included endurance marches, land navigation, weapons training, and guerilla combat strategy and tactics. It was during this time that he adopted the moniker of Che.

The group landed a force of 81 men and was almost completely wiped out by the Bastia regime, which had been alerted prior to the landing. Che was wounded, and after regrouping the survivors the now much smaller group found shelter with the farmers in the region. The small band slowly gained strength during this time, building systems by which they could resupply themselves via raids on Batista’s forces to get weapons, medical supplies, and other resources. The group also garnered new recruits and won the hearts and minds of the region, promising a new future in Cuba with their support. This did not always resonate with the locals, with many dismissing the group or refusing to assist them in their coup. This was met with harsh consequences, including the murder and burning of farms. Che is described as being a harsh trainer, executing and pursuing any who decided to leave his growing revolutionary army. He was also one of Fidel’s most trusted aides, and advised him heavily during this time as they plotted to fully overthrow the current government.

Now resupplied and inundated with new recruits, the 26th of July Movement began their advance across Cuba. In the Battle of Las Mercedes, the Batista government landed an amphibious force to crush Castro’s forces but were surrounded and pinned down until finally surrendering to Castro. Che worked with Castro in this battle to cut off any way of resupply to the opposing force and as a result, was able to starve them out after 10 days. The advance continued west toward Havana. The group reached Santa Clara in December of 1958, winning a decisive victory that all but cleared the way their objective. They took control of the Cuban government in January of 1959 and immediately began taking revenge and enacting reforms.

Che’s influence in the new, Communist Cuba cannot be overstated. Many of his long-standing views were put into practice over the course of the first year, and he held many prominent positions in the new government that included commanding the La Cabana Fortress prison, President of the Central Bank of Cuba, and Minister of Industries.

As the commander of the prison, Che was responsible for the execution of hundreds of prisoners. Officially these were considered enemies of the state or members of the previous government, but accounts vary. Che took an active role in these executions, with some who witnessed him taking pleasure in acts that echoed his writings at times such as, “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.” Castro knew of Che’s views regarding what should happen to those who pushed against the required revolution and as a result, had confidence that he would do what was needed to purge the prison population and scare all those who would fight back. The executions continued day and night as the Castro’s crushed any semblance of rebellion to their new regime.

In 1960, Che was appointed to the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, which was established to administer the land grabs occurring under the communist government. This, and other violent policies across Cuba, sparked the United States to cut the import of Cuban goods – mostly sugar – as they started to monitor the situation more closely.

As he managed the public affairs of the government, he wrote several books on warfare and communist thought. His views on the need for applying Marxist thought can be summarized by his quote:

“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. At that moment Marx puts himself in a position where he becomes the necessary target of all who have a special interest in maintaining the old-similar to Democritus before him, whose work was burned by Plato and his disciples, the ideologues of Athenian slave aristocracy. Beginning with the revolutionary Marx, a political group with concrete ideas establishes itself. Basing itself on the giants, Marx and Engels, and developing through successive steps with personalities like Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and the new Soviet and Chinese rulers, it establishes a body of doctrine and, let us say, examples to follow.”

In 1961, after months of monitoring the situation in Cuba, the CIA organized and executed the Bay of Pigs invasion. The attempted coup was a catastrophic failure and prompted Che to send a letter of thanks to the US government stating, “before the invasion, the revolution was shaky, and now it was stronger than ever.” The Bay of Pigs incident pushed for a stronger alliance between the Soviet Union and Cuba, which prompted the Soviets to send missiles to Cuba in what would be called the Cuban Missile crisis. This was averted by a blockade of American Warships that deterred the soviet vessels from reaching Cuba and the removal of missiles already in-country. In an interview after the incident, Che remarked on his feelings of betrayal by the Soviet Government and his now growing disillusionment with the Castro’s and their power, seeing it as a corruption of communist thought and application. In addition to his dissatisfaction, he made it clear that if the missiles had been under Cuban control during the crises, they would have “fired them off”.

Che traveled aboard and delivered speeches speaking to the power of Marxism while still working in the Cuban government. In 1964, he dropped out of public life and vanished completely. Seven months after his departure Fidel Castro revealed a “farewell letter” written by Che that outlined his disillusionment with the Cuban application of Marxism, and his desire to push for revolution elsewhere.

Congo, Bolivia, and Death

Che remerged in the Congo years later, attracted by what he called a “weak link in the imperialist chain”. He worked to export the revolution by training local fighters in Marxist thought for the purposes of overthrowing the current government. This failed, partly due to none of the fighters he was training openly asking for his assistance and there being as Che perceived, “a will to fight”. While in the Congo he began corresponding with Juan Peron in Spain, who was planning a communist revolution of Latin America, beginning with Bolivia. Che aligned himself with Juan but before going to Bolivia, took a quick trip back to Cuba to see Castro and his family a final time.  

He arrived in Bolivia in 1966, having shaved his head and beard to alter his appearance, and began working with his National Liberation Army of Bolivia and had some early successes. Like his time in the Congo, he found that his assistance and help were neither requested nor desired by the locals. His commission to uproot the current government had little support, and his supply chain that was supposed to come from Cuba never materialized. In addition, the CIA had sent highly-trained operatives to work with the Bolivian government to put down the revolution.

With the help of the locals, Bolivian officials hunted down and captured Che Guevara, executing him via firing squad on October 9, 1967.

The Character and the Man

The image of Che Guevara has become an iconic symbol of revolution and resistance. Taken in 1960 at a memorial service in Cuba by Alberto Korda, it has been morphed into many variations, most of which still retain the original message. This, in combination with his writings that were released long after his death, has memorialized him in a way that goes beyond the achievement and reality of who he was and what drove him to be the man he became. We will discuss this in detail during our discussion next week and as always, strongly encourage you, our audience, to send any questions you may have about this historical figure.

Based on his writings, Che existed as a living dichotomy who fundamentally, passionately believed in his cause and his method, that both would remedy the injustice he saw in Latin America and punish those who inflicted it. Throughout his life, his thought and application thereof contrasted quotes like, “The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love” and “kill them all”. Unlike most communists in power – some of whom we have covered on this podcast – Che seemed to pursue Marxism and its application in this purest form, believing that the perfect end he sought was justified by the atrocity and brutal tactics he wielded. Though his effect on world history was almost non-existent and overshadowed by those who succeeded him, it is impossible to ignore the symbol he has become to those who believe in his ideology and way of life.