Che Guevara
From Philosopedia
Che Guevara (14 June 1928 - 9 October 1967)
Ernesto Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a leftist-leaning family of Basque and Irish descent. As a boy he excelled as an athlete but suffered from asthma. As a rugby player, according to biographer Jon Lee Anderson, he was called Fuser - el furibundo (raging) + de la serna (mother's surname). Schoolmates also called him Chancho (pig) because he wore a "weekly shirt" and rarely bathed.
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About
Joseph Hart's Che: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of a Revolutionary (2004) tells of Guevara's passion for poetry, especially that of Neruda, Keats, Machado, Lorca, Mistral, Vallejo, and Whitman. He could also recite Kipling's "If" and Hernández's "Martín Fierro" from memory. In the family's 3,000-plus book library, he could read Marx, Faulkner, Gide, Salgari, and Verne. He also read Nehru, Kafka, Camus, Lenin, and Sartre; as well as, notes Jon Lee Anderson in Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1997), France, Engels, Wells, and Frost.
Anderson also describes Guevara's interest in Jack London (on society), Nietzsche (on death), Freud (on dreams, the libido, narcissism, the oedipus complex), and Bertrand Russell (on love and patriotism).
As a young medical student, Che (as he usually is called) traveled throughout Latin America and lamented the region's inequalities and poverty. He met Fidel Castro and joined his 26th of July Movement, later being among the
Works originally written in Spanish by Guevara, later translated into English
- Colonialism is Doomed 1964
- Colonialism is Doomed 1964
- The Diary of Che Guevara: The Secret Papers of a Revolutionary 1969
- Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings 1980
- Che Guevara, Cuba, and the Road to Socialism 1991
- To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's "Cold War" Against Cuba Doesn't End 1993
- The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara 1994
- A New Society: Reflections for Today's World 1996
- Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1956–58 1996
- The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America 1996
- Che Guevara Talks to Young People 2000
- The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo 2001
- Back on the Road: A Journey Through Latin America 2002
- Che Guevara on Global Justice 2002
- The Che Guevara Reader 2003
- Self Portrait Che Guevara 2004
- Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War: Authorized Edition 2005
- Che Guevara: Radical Writings on Guerrilla Warfare, Politics and Revolution 2006
- Guerrilla Warfare: Authorized Edition 2006
- Our America And Theirs: Kennedy And The Alliance For Progress 2006
- The Great Debate on Political Economy 2006
- Marx & Engels: An Introduction 2007
- The Argentine 2008
- Critical Notes on Political Economy: A Revolutionary Humanist Approach to Marxist Economics 2008
Books About
(See his diaries, ed. by R. Scheer (1968) and by D. James (1968); his speeches and writings, ed. by J. Gerassi (1968) and D. Deutschmann (1987); biography by J. L. Anderson (1997); D. James, Che Guevara (1969); M. Ebon, Che: The Making of a Legend (1969); L. J. González and G. A. Sánchez Salazar, The Great Rebel (tr. 1969); R. Harris, Death of a Revolutionary (1970); L. Sauvage, Che Guevara: The Failure of a Revolutionary (1974).
Death
He was executed in a schoolhouse in La Higuera, Bolivia, He had been captured by the Bolivian 2nd Ranger Battalion, which was specifically trained by United States Army Special Forces to catch him.
According to the Biography Project,
- In November 1966, he leads a group of guerrillas through southeastern Bolivia, hoping to inspire the peasants and workers into a revolutionary movement that would spread all throughout Latin America, sparking off "twenty new Vietnams". Dispirited by casualties, illness and depression, the ragged group is cornered by a Bolivian battalion (which had been trained by US Special Forces in anti-guerrilla warfare) in a gorge on October 8. Two jets and a helicopter provide air support. Che is taken to the nearby town of La Higuera.
- He refuses all attempts at interrogation by CIA and Bolivian officials. The Bolivian president, General Rene Barrientos, orders the execution of Guevara as soon as possible.
- 9 October 1967. After a few false starts and Che's telling them to get it over with, six or more shots are fired into Guevara's torso. One version of his reported last words were: "I knew you were going to shoot me; I should never have been taken alive. Tell Fidel that this failure does not mean the end of the revolution, that it will triumph elsewhere. Tell Aleida to forget this, remarry and be happy, and keep the children studying. Ask the soldiers to aim well." Others have claimed his last words to have been: "Shoot, coward! You are going to kill a man."
- After his death, a death mask was made and his hands were cut off to ensure identification. His body was buried in a secret grave. Guevara was 39 years old.
- In June of 1997, a team of Cuban and Argentinean scientists recovered the skeleton, missing both hands, of Guevara in the town of Vallegrande, Bolivia. The bones have since been "repatriated" to Cuba.
(See Declassified CIA Documents about Che's death.
