Che Guevara

Dr. Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928{{ref|bdate}} – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or el Che, was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. Guevara was a member of Fidel Castro's "26th of July Movement" that seized power in Cuba in 1959. After serving in various important posts in the new government, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 with the hope of fomenting revolutions in other countries, first in the Congo-Kinshasa (currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and later in Bolivia, where he was captured in a CIA-organized military operation. It is believed by some that the CIA wished to keep Guevara alive for interrogation, but after his capture in the Yuro ravine, he died at the hands of the Bolivian Army in La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9 1967. Testimony by various individuals who were participants in, or witnesses to, events during his final hours indicates that the Bolivian government summarily executed him in order to avoid a public trial and the complications that might arise if he were incarcerated on Bolivian soil. After his death, Guevara became a hero of Third World communist revolutionary movements, as a theorist and tactician of asymmetric warfare. He also became a popular icon for revolution and left-wing political ideals in western culture and throughout much of the world.

Revolutionary government

After Castro's troops entered the capital of Havana on January 2, 1959, a new socialist government was established. Shortly thereafter, Guevara was declared "a Cuban citizen by birth" and divorced his Peruvian wife, Hilda Gadea, with whom he had one daughter. Later he married a member of Castro's army, Aleida March. The couple would have four children together.

Related Topics:
Havana - January 2 - 1959 - Peruvian

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Che Guevara became as prominent in the new government as he had been in the revolutionary army. In 1959, he was appointed commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison. During his six months tenure in this post (January 2 through June 12, 1959{{ref|cabdates}}), he oversaw the trials and executions of many former Batista regime officials, including members of the BRAC{{ref|BRAC}} secret police. Some sources say 156 people were executed, others estimate as many as 500.

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Later, Guevara became an official at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform{{ref|INRA}}, President of the National Bank of Cuba{{ref|BNC}}, and Minister of Industries{{ref|MININD}}. In this capacity, Guevara faced the challenge of transforming Cuba's capitalist agrarian economy into a socialist industrial economy. After negotiating a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in 1960, Guevara represented Cuba on many commercial missions and delegations to Soviet-aligned nations in Africa and Asia after the United States imposed an embargo on the nation.

Related Topics:
Capitalist - Socialist - Soviet Union - 1960 - Africa - Asia - United States - Embargo

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Guevara helped guide the Castro regime on its socialist, proto-Communist, path. An active participant in the economic and social reforms implemented by Castro's government, he became known in the West for his fiery attacks on US foreign policy in Africa, Asia, and especially Latin America.

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During this period, he defined Cuba's policies and his own views in many speeches, articles, letters, and essays. His highly influential manual on guerrilla strategy and tactics (English translation, Guerrilla Warfare, (1961)) advocated peasant-based revolutionary movements in the developing countries. El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (1965), published in English as Man and Socialism in Cubain 1967, is an examination of Cuba's new brand of Socialism and Communist ideology. The ideal Communist society is not possible unless the people first evolve into a 'new man' (el Hombre Nuevo). For this a socialist state would first be necessary, a ladder to be ascended and then cast away in a society of equals without states or governments.

Related Topics:
Guerrilla Warfare - 1961 - 1965 - 1967

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Prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Guevara was part of a Cuban delegation to Moscow in early 1962 with Raúl Castro where he endorsed the planned placement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Guevara believed that the installation of Soviet missiles would protect Cuba from any direct military action against it by the United States. Jon Lee Anderson reports that after the crisis Guevara told Sam Russell, a British correspondent for the socialist newspaper Daily Worker, that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them.{{ref|cohetes}}

Related Topics:
Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962 - Raúl Castro

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The ideas presented in Guevara's book, Guerrilla Warfare, were seen for a time as the definitive philosophy for fighting irregular wars. Guevara believed that a small group (foco) of guerrillas, by violently targeting the government, could actively foment revolutionary sentiment among the general populace, so that it was not necessary to build broad organisations and advance the revolutionary struggle in measured steps before launching an armed insurrection. However, the failure of his "Cuban Style" revolution in Bolivia was thought to have been due to his lack of grassroots support there, and hence this strategy is now thought by some to be ineffective. It worked in Cuba because the people already wanted to get rid of Batista. All they needed was a vanguard to inspire them.

Related Topics:
Irregular - Foco - Bolivia - Grassroots - Vanguard

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As a government official, Guevara served as an example of the "New Man" (el Hombre Nuevo). He regularly devoted his weekends and evenings to volunteer labour, be it working at shipyards, in textile factories or cutting sugarcane. He believed such sacrifice and dedication on the part of the people was necessary to achieve true Communism through the Socialist society. Guevara was also known for his austerity, simple lifestyle and habits. For example, upon becoming a member of the government, he refused an increase in pay, opting to continue drawing the (considerably) lower salary he received as a Comandante (Major), in the Rebel Army. This austerity also manifested itself as a general dislike of luxury. Once, on a trip to Russia, Guevara was dining with high-ranking officials from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when the group's food was served to them on expensive china. To the Russians, Guevara caustically remarked, "Is this how the proletariat lives in Russia?"

Related Topics:
Communism - Major

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