Ernesto Che Guevara - full name Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario (Argentina). At the age of two, Ernesto suffered a severe form of bronchial asthma (and this disease haunted him all his life), and the family moved to Cordoba to restore his health.
In 1950, Guevara was hired as a sailor on an oil cargo ship from Argentina, visited the island of Trinidad and British Guiana.
In 1952, Ernesto went on a motorcycle tour of South America with his brother Granado. They visited Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.
In 1953 he graduated from the Medical Faculty of the National University of Buenos Aires, received a medical degree.
From 1953 to 1954, Guevara made his second long journey through Latin America. He visited Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador. In Guatemala, he took part in the defense of the government of President Árbenz, after whose defeat he settled in Mexico, where he worked as a doctor. During this period of his life, Ernesto Guevara received his nickname "Che" for the Che interjection characteristic of the Argentinean Spanish, which he abused in oral speech.
In November 1966, he arrived in Bolivia to organize a partisan movement.
The partisan detachment he created on October 8, 1967 was surrounded and defeated by government troops. Ernesto Che Guevara was .
On October 11, 1967, his body and the bodies of six other associates were secretly buried near the airport in Vallegrande. In July 1995, the location of Guevara's grave was discovered. And in July 1997, the remains of the Comandante were returned to Cuba, in October 1997, the remains of Che Guevara were reburied in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara in Cuba.
In 2000, Time magazine included Che Guevara in the lists of "20 Heroes and Icons" and "One Hundred Most Important Persons of the 20th Century."
The image of the Comandante is on all banknotes in denominations of three Cuban pesos.
The world-famous two-tone portrait of Che Guevara from the front has become a symbol of the romantic revolutionary movement. The portrait was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick from a 1960 photograph taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda. Che's beret shows the asterisk José Marti, the hallmark of the Comandante, received from Fidel Castro in July 1957 along with this title.
October 8 in Cuba in memory of Ernest Che Guevara celebrate Heroic Guerrilla Day.
Che Guevara has been married twice and has five children. In 1955, he married the Peruvian revolutionary Ilda Gadea, who gave birth to Guevara's daughter. In 1959, his marriage to Ilda broke up, and the revolutionary married Aleida March, whom he met in a partisan detachment. With Aleida, they had four children.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
There are few figures in the modern world who can compete with Ernesto Che Guevara in worldwide popularity. It has become a symbol of the Revolution, a symbol of the struggle against any lie and injustice. And here is the paradox - Che Guevara, who was an example of selflessness and selflessness, now brings huge incomes to businessmen who earn on his image. Souvenirs with portraits of the Comandante, T-shirts, baseball caps, bags, restaurants named after him. Che is fashionable and stylish, and even pop music figures consider it their duty to beat his rebellious image.
Iron character
The real, living Ernesto Che Guevara would certainly have reacted to this with his usual irony. During his lifetime, he did not care about ranks, regalia and popularity - he considered his main task to be to help the destitute and powerless.
Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 in the Argentine city of Rosario, in the family of an architect with Irish roots. Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna la Llosa with Spanish roots.
Little Tete had four brothers and sisters, and his parents did everything to raise them as worthy people. Ernesto himself and all his brothers and sisters received higher education.
The father of the future revolutionary sympathized with the left forces, and talked a lot with the Spaniards-Republicans living in Argentina, who left their homeland after the defeat in the civil war with the Francoists. Ernesto heard the conversations of Spanish emigrants with his father, and his future political views began to take shape even then.
Not everyone knows, but the fiery revolutionary Che Guevara suffered all his life from a serious chronic illness - bronchial asthma, because of which he was always forced to carry an inhaler with him.
But Ernesto was distinguished by his strong character from childhood - despite his illness, he played football, rugby, equestrian sports and other sports. And Che Guevara in his youth loved to read, fortunately, his parents had an extensive library. Ernesto started with adventures, then reading became more and more serious - classics of world literature, works of philosophers and politicians, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kropotkin, Bakunin.
Che Guevara was very fond of chess, and it was thanks to them that he became interested in Cuba - when Ernesto was 11 years old, when the Cuban ex-world champion came to Argentina Jose Raul Capablanca.
Ernesto Che Guevara fishing. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Student - traveler
In his youth, Ernesto Guevara did not think about a career as a revolutionary, although he knew for sure that he wanted to help people. In 1946 he entered the medical faculty of the National University of Buenos Aires.
Ernesto not only studied, but also traveled, seeking to learn more about the world. In 1950, as a sailor on an oil tanker, he visited Trinidad and British Guiana.
A great influence on the views of Ernesto Guevara had two trips to Latin America, made in 1952 and 1954. Poverty and complete lack of rights of the common people against the backdrop of the wealth of the elite - that's what caught the eye of the young doctor. Latin America bore the unofficial title of "the backyard of the United States", where the country's intelligence agencies helped establish military dictatorships that protected the interests of large American corporations.
During the second trip, a young doctor (he received his diploma in 1953) Ernesto Guevara in Guatemala joins the supporters President Jacobo Arbenz, who pursued a policy independent of the United States, nationalizing the lands of the American agricultural company United Fruit Company. However, Árbenz was overthrown in a coup organized by the US CIA.
Nevertheless, Guevara's activities in Guatemala were appreciated by both friends and enemies - he was included in the list of "dangerous communists of Guatemala to be eliminated."
The revolution is calling
Ernesto Guevara left for Mexico, where he worked as a doctor at the Institute of Cardiology for two years. In Mexico, he met Fidel Castro who prepared a revolutionary uprising in Cuba.
Later, Fidel admitted that the Argentine Guevara made a strong impression on him. If Castro himself did not take a clear political position by that time, then Guevara was a convinced Marxist who knew how to defend his views in the most difficult discussion.
Ernesto Guevara joined the Castro group, which was preparing for a landing in Cuba, having finally decided on his future - he preferred the dangers of revolutionary struggle to a calm career as a doctor.
Despite preparations, the landing of the revolutionaries in Cuba in December 1956 turned into a real nightmare. The yacht "Granma" turned out to be a fragile little boat, but the rebels simply did not have money for something more serious. In addition, it turned out that of the 82 members of the group, only a few people were not prone to seasickness. And finally, at the landing site, the detachment was waiting for the 35,000-strong group of troops of the Cuban dictator Batista, who had tanks, coast guard ships and aircraft.
As a result, half of the group died in the first battles, and more than twenty people were captured. To the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, which became a shelter for the revolutionaries, only a small group broke through, which included Ernesto Guevara.
Nevertheless, it was with this group that the Cuban Revolution began, ending in victory in January 1959.
In Cuba. Photo: AiF / Pavel Prokopov
Che
From June 1957, Ernesto Guevara became the commander of one of the formations of the revolutionary army, into which more and more Cubans poured - the fourth column.
The fighters noted that Commander Guevara always knew how to properly influence the soldiers in difficult times, being sometimes cruel in words, but never humiliated his subordinates.
The revolutionary soldiers were amazed - suffering from bouts of illness, Che Guevara made marches along with the rest, as a doctor treated the wounded, and shared the last meal with the hungry.
The nickname "Che" Ernesto Guevara was given in Cuba for the habit of using this word in speech. According to one version, Guevara used “che” in conversation as an analogue of the Russian “hey”. According to another, the appeal "che" in Argentinean slang meant "buddy" - this is how Commander Guevara addressed sentries during a round of posts.
One way or another, but Ernesto Guevara went down in history as Che Guevara's commandant.
Continuation of the struggle
After the victory of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara became the President of the National Bank of Cuba, and then the Minister of Industry of the Island of Liberty. The idea that Che Guevara was illiterate and played the role of a "wedding general" in these positions is deeply erroneous - the smart and educated Che showed himself as a competent professional who thoroughly delved into the intricacies of the assigned work.
The problem was rather in internal feelings - if Castro and his associates, having achieved victory in Cuba, saw the task in the state building of their homeland, then the Argentinean Che Guevara sought to continue the revolutionary struggle in other parts of the globe.
In April 1965, Che Guevara, by that time a well-known and world-famous Cuban politician, leaves all his posts, writes a farewell letter, and leaves for Africa, where he joins the revolutionary struggle in the Congo. However, due to disagreements with local revolutionaries and an unfavorable situation, he soon went to Bolivia, where in 1966, at the head of a detachment, he began a partisan struggle against the local pro-American regime.
The fearless Che did not take into account two things - unlike Cuba, the local population in Bolivia at that time did not support the revolutionaries. In addition, the Bolivian authorities, frightened by the appearance of Che Guevara in their area, asked for help from the United States.
Che began a real hunt. Almost all of the then dictatorial regimes in Latin America were drawn into Bolivia by special detachments. CIA special agents were actively searching for the place of hiding of the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (under this name the Che Guevara detachment operated).
The death of the Comandante
In August-September 1967, the partisans suffered serious losses. Che, however, even under these conditions remained himself - despite the asthma attacks, he encouraged his comrades and provided medical assistance to both them and the captured soldiers of the Bolivian army, whom he then released.
At the beginning of October, the informant Ciro Bustosa handed over to the government troops the campsite of the Che Guevara detachment. On October 8, 1967, special forces surrounded and attacked a camp in the Yuro Gorge area. In a bloody battle, Che was wounded, his rifle was smashed by a bullet, but the special forces managed to capture him only when the cartridges in the pistol ran out.
The wounded Che Guevara was taken to the building of the village school in the town of La Higuera. Approaching the building, the revolutionary drew attention to the wounded soldiers of the Bolivian army, and offered to help them as a doctor, but was refused.
On the night of October 8-9, Che Guevara was kept in the school building, and the authorities were feverishly deciding what to do with the revolutionary. It is still unclear where the execution order came from - it was officially signed head of the military government René Ortunho However, he himself claimed all his life that he had not actually made such a decision. The Bolivian authorities were negotiating with the US CIA headquarters in Langley, and it is possible that the command to shoot was given by the top leadership of the United States.
The soldiers chose the direct executor among themselves with the help of a straw, which he pulled out Sergeant Mario Teran.
When Teran entered the room where Che Guevara was, he already knew about his fate. Calmly standing in front of the executioner, Che Guevara briefly threw Terana, who, according to eyewitnesses, had trembling hands:
Shoot, coward, you'll kill the man!
A shot rang out that ended the life of a revolutionary.
Forever alive
Che Guevara's hands were amputated as material evidence of his murder. The body was put on public display by residents and the press in the village of Vallegrande.
And then something happened that the executioners clearly did not expect. The Bolivian peasants, who were so wary of Che, looking at the body of a defeated revolutionary who sacrificed his life in the struggle for a better life for them, saw in him a resemblance to the crucified Christ.
After a short period of time, the deceased Che became a saint for the locals, to whom they turn with prayers, asking for help. The leftist movement in Bolivia received a tangible boost. The National Liberation Army of Bolivia continued to fight after the death of Che until 1978, when its members switched to political activity in a legal position. The struggle begun by Che will continue, and in 2005 he will win the elections in Bolivia leader of the Movement for Socialism party Evo Morales.
The body of Che Guevara was secretly buried, and only in 1997, General Mario Vargas Salinas, a participant in the execution of the revolutionary, said that the remains were under the runway of the airfield in Vallegrande.
In October 1997, the remains of Che and his comrades were transported to Cuba and solemnly buried in a mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, where Che's detachment won one of the biggest victories of the Cuban Revolution.
Defeated in battle, Che defeated death, becoming the eternal symbol of the Revolution. The Comandante himself, in the most difficult days, did not doubt the victory of his cause: ““ My defeat will not mean that it was impossible to win. Many have failed trying to reach the summit of Everest, and in the end Everest was defeated.”
Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1927 in one of the largest cities. The famous prefix "Che" began to be used much later. With her help, while living in Cuba, the revolutionary emphasized his own Argentine origin. "Che" is a reference to an interjection. In Ernesto's homeland, it is a popular address.
Childhood and interests
Guevara's father was an architect, his mother was a girl from a family of planters. The family moved several times. The future Comandante Che Guevara graduated from college in Cordoba, and received his higher education in Buenos Aires. The young man decided to become a doctor. He was a surgeon and dermatologist by profession.
Already an early biography of Ernesto Che Guevara shows how extraordinary his personality was. The young man was interested not only in medicine, but also in numerous humanities. The circle of his reading consisted of the works of the most famous writers: Verne, Hugo, Dumas, Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy. The socialist views of the revolutionary were shaped by the works of Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Lenin and other left theorists.
A little-known fact that distinguished the biography of Ernesto Che Guevara was that he knew French very well. In addition, he loved poetry, knew by heart the works of Verlaine, Baudelaire, Lorca. In Bolivia, where the revolutionary died, he carried a notebook with his favorite poems in his backpack.
On the roads of America
Guevara's first solo trip outside of Argentina dates back to 1950, when he worked on a cargo ship and visited British Guiana and Trinidad. The Argentine loved bicycles and mopeds. The next voyage covered Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. In the future, the partisan biography of Ernesto Che Guevara will be full of many such expeditions. In his early youth, he traveled to neighboring countries to get to know the world better and gain fresh impressions.
Guevara's partner on one of his travels was Alberto Granado, doctor of biochemistry. Together with him, the Argentine doctor visited the leper colonies of Latin American countries. The couple also visited the ruins of several ancient Indian cities (the revolutionary was always keenly interested in the history of the indigenous population of the New World). When Ernesto traveled to Colombia, a civil war broke out there. By chance, he even visited Florida. A few years later, Che, as a symbol of the "export of revolutions," would become one of the main opponents of the White House administration.
In Guatemala
In 1953, the future leader Ernesto Che Guevara, in between two major trips to Latin America, defended his thesis on the study of allergies. Becoming a surgeon, the young man decided to move to Venezuela and work there in a leper colony. However, on the way to Caracas, one of the familiar fellow travelers persuaded Guevara to go to Guatemala.
The traveler ended up in the Central American Republic on the eve of the invasion of the Nicaraguan army there, organized by the CIA. The cities of Guatemala were bombed, and the socialist President Jacobo Arbenz relinquished power. The new head of state, Castillo Armas, was pro-American and began repressions against left-wingers who lived in the country.
In Guatemala, the biography of Ernesto Che Guevara was for the first time directly connected with the war. The Argentine helped the defenders of the overthrown regime to transport weapons, participated in extinguishing fires during air raids. When the socialists suffered a final defeat, Guevara's name was included in the lists of people who were awaiting repression. Ernesto managed to take refuge in the embassy of his native Argentina, where he found himself under diplomatic protection. From there, in September 1954, he moved to Mexico City.
Acquaintance with Cuban revolutionaries
In the Mexican capital, Guevara tried to get a job as a journalist. He wrote a test article about the Guatemalan events, but the matter did not go further. For several months, the Argentine worked as a photographer. Then he was a watchman in the building of a book publishing house. In the summer of 1955, Ernesto Che Guevara, whose personal life was illuminated by a joyful event, got married. In Mexico City, his fiancee Ilda Gadea came to him from her homeland. Casual earnings hardly helped the emigrant. Finally, Ernesto got a job at the city hospital, where he began working in the allergy department.
In June 1955, two young men came to the doctor Guevara for an appointment. These were Cuban revolutionaries who were trying to overthrow the dictator Batista on their native island. Two years earlier, opponents of the old regime attacked the barracks of Moncada, after which they were tried and put behind bars. The day before, an amnesty was declared, and the revolutionaries began to flock to Mexico City. During his ordeals in Latin America, Ernesto met many socialist Cubans. One of his old friends came to his reception, offering to participate in the upcoming military expedition to the Caribbean island.
A few days later, the Argentine met for the first time. Even then, the doctor firmly decided to give his consent to participate in the raid. In July 1955, Raul's older brother arrived in Mexico from the United States. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara became the protagonists of the impending revolution. Their first meeting took place in one of the safe houses of the Cubans. The next day, Guevara became a member of the expedition as a doctor. Recalling that period, Fidel Castro later admitted that Che understood the theoretical and ideological issues of the revolution much better than his Cuban comrades.
guerrilla war
Preparing to sail to Cuba, members of the July 26 Movement (as the organization led by Fidel Castro was called) faced many difficulties. A provocateur penetrated the ranks of the revolutionaries and informed the authorities about the suspicious activities of foreigners. In the summer of 1956, the Mexican police staged a raid, after which the conspirators, including Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, were arrested. Well-known public and cultural figures began to intercede for opponents of the Batista regime. As a result, the revolutionaries were released. Guevara spent more than the rest of his comrades under arrest (57 days), since he was charged with illegally crossing the border.
Finally, the expeditionary force left Mexico and went by ship to Cuba. The sailing took place on November 25, 1956. Ahead was many months of guerrilla warfare. The arrival of Castro supporters on the island was overshadowed by a shipwreck. The detachment, consisting of 82 men, ended up in the mangroves. He was attacked by government aircraft. Half of the expedition was killed under shelling, another two dozen people were captured. Finally, the revolutionaries took refuge in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. The provincial peasants supported the partisans, gave them shelter and food. Caves and difficult passes became other safe shelters.
At the beginning of the new year 1957, Batista's opponents won their first victory, killing five government soldiers. Soon some members of the detachment came down with malaria. Among them was Ernesto Che Guevara. Guerrilla warfare made us accustomed to mortal danger. Every day, the fighters faced another fatal threat. Che struggled with an insidious disease, lying down in the huts of peasants. Comrades often saw him sitting with a notebook or another book. Guevara's diary later formed the basis of his own memoirs of the guerrilla war, published after the victory of the revolution.
By the end of 1957, the rebels were already in control of the Sierra Maestra mountains. New volunteers poured into the detachment from among local residents who were dissatisfied with the Batista regime. Then Fidel made Ernesto a major (comandante). Che Guevara began to command a separate column, consisting of 75 people. The underground workers enjoyed support abroad. American journalists penetrated into the mountains to them, releasing reports in the USA about the July 26 Movement.
Comandante not only led the fighting, but also conducted propaganda activities. Ernesto Che Guevara became editor-in-chief of the Free Cuba newspaper. Its first issues were written by hand, then the rebels managed to get a hectograph.
Victory over Batista
In the spring of 1958, a new stage of guerrilla warfare began. Castro's supporters began to leave the mountains and operate in the valleys. In the summer, a stable connection was established with the Cuban communists in the cities where strikes began to arise. Che Guevara's detachment was responsible for the offensive in the province of Las Villas. Having traveled a distance of 600 kilometers, in October this army reached the Escambray mountain range and opened a new front. For Batista, the situation was getting worse - the US authorities refused to supply him with weapons.
In Las Villas, where the power of the rebels was finally established, a law was published on the implementation of an agrarian reform - the elimination of the estates of the landlords. The policy of breaking down the old patriarchal customs in the countryside attracted more and more peasants into the ranks of the revolutionaries. The initiator of the popular reform was Ernesto Che Guevara. He spent years of his life behind the theoretical works of the socialists, and now he honed his oratorical skills, convincing ordinary Cubans of the correctness of the path offered by the members of the July 26 Movement.
The last and decisive battles were the battle for Santa Clara. It began on December 28 and ended with the victory of the rebels on January 1, 1959. A few hours after the surrender of the garrison, Batista left Cuba and spent the rest of his life in forced exile. The battles for Santa Clara were led directly by Che Guevara. On January 2, his troops entered Havana, where a triumphant population awaited the revolutionaries.
New life
After the defeat of Batista, newspapers around the world asked who is Che Guevara, what made this rebel leader famous and what is his political future? In February 1959, the government of Fidel Castro declared him a citizen of Cuba. Then Guevara began to use the famous prefix "Che" in his signatures, with which he went down in history.
Under the new government, yesterday's rebel served as president of the National Bank (1959 - 1961) and minister of industry (1961 - 1965). In the first summer after the victory of the revolution, he held an entire world tour as an official, during which he visited Egypt, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Burma, Japan, Morocco, Spain and Yugoslavia. In the same June 1959, the Comandante married for the second time. Aleida March, a member of the July 26 Movement, became his wife. The children of Ernesto Che Guevara (Aleida, Camilo, Celia, Ernesto) were born in marriage with this woman (except for the eldest daughter Ilda).
State activity
In the spring of 1961, the American leadership, which finally quarreled with Castro, began to carry out an operation in Liberty Island, an enemy landing force landed. Until the end of the operation, Che Guevara led troops in one of the provinces of Cuba. The American plan failed and the socialist power in Havana remained.
In autumn, Che Guevara visited the GDR, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. In the Soviet Union, his delegation signed agreements on the supply of Cuban sugar. Moscow also promised financial and technical assistance to the Island of Freedom. Ernesto Che Guevara, interesting facts about which could make up a separate book, participated in a festive parade dedicated to the next anniversary of the October Revolution. The Cuban guest stood on the podium of the mausoleum next to Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. In the future, Guevara visited the Soviet Union several more times.
As a minister, Che seriously revised his attitude towards the governments of the socialist countries. He was dissatisfied with the fact that the large communist states (primarily the USSR and China) established their own strict conditions for the exchange of goods with subsidized small partners, such as Cuba.
In 1965, during a visit to Algeria, Guevara made a famous speech in which he criticized Moscow and Beijing for their enslaving attitude towards fraternal countries. This episode showed once again who Che Guevara is, what he became famous for and what reputation this revolutionary had. He did not compromise his own principles, even if he had to go into conflict with the allies. Another reason for the Comandante's dissatisfaction was the unwillingness of the socialist camp to actively intervene in new regional revolutions.
Expedition to Africa
In the spring of 1965, Che Guevara ended up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This Central African country was going through a political crisis, and partisans were operating in its jungle, advocating the establishment of socialism in their homeland. Comandante arrived in the Congo along with another hundred Cubans. He helped organize the underground, shared with them his own experience gained during the war with Batista.
Although Che Guevara put all his strength into a new adventure, new failures awaited him at every step. The rebels suffered several defeats, and relations between the Cubans and the leader of the African comrades, Kabila, did not work out from the very beginning. After several months of bloodshed, the Congo authorities, opposed by the socialists, made some compromises and settled the conflict. Another blow to the rebels was Tanzania's refusal to provide them with rear bases. In November 1965, Che Guevara left the Congo without having achieved the goals set for the revolution.
Future plans
Staying in Africa cost Che another illness of malaria. In addition, asthma attacks, from which he suffered from early childhood, worsened. The first half of 1966, the commandant secretly spent in Czechoslovakia, where he was treated in one of the sanatoriums of Czechoslovakia. Resting from the war, the Latin American continued to work on planning new revolutions around the world. His statement about the need to create "many Vietnams", where at that time there was a conflict between the two main world political systems, gained wide popularity.
In the summer of 1966, the Comandante returned to Cuba and led the preparations for a guerrilla campaign in Bolivia. As it turned out, this war was his last. In March 1967, Barrientos was horrified to learn about the action in his country of partisans abandoned in the jungle from socialist Cuba.
To get rid of the "red threat", the politician turned to Washington for help. In the White House, it was decided to use special CIA units against the Che detachment. Soon, over the provincial villages in the vicinity of which the partisans were operating, leaflets scattered from the air began to appear with a message about a large reward for the murder of a Cuban revolutionary.
Doom
In total, Che Guevara spent 11 months in Bolivia. All this time he kept records, which, after his death, were published as a separate book. Gradually, the Bolivian authorities began to push the rebels. Two detachments were destroyed, after which the commandant remained almost completely isolated. On October 8, 1967, he, along with several comrades, was surrounded. Two rebels were killed. Many were injured, including Ernesto Che Guevara. How the revolutionary died became known thanks to the recollections of several eyewitnesses.
Guevara, along with his comrades, was sent under escort to the village of La Higuera, where a place was found for the prisoners in a small adobe building, which was a local school. The underground workers were captured by a Bolivian detachment, which had completed training the day before, organized by military advisers sent by the CIA. Che refused to answer the questions of the officers, spoke only to the soldiers and from time to time asked for a smoke.
On the morning of October 9, an order came to the village from the Bolivian capital to execute the Cuban revolutionary. On the same day he was shot. The body was transported to a nearby town, where Guevara's corpse was put on display for local residents and journalists. The hands of the body were amputated in order to officially confirm the death of the rebel with the help of prints. The remains were buried in a secret mass grave.
The burial was discovered in 1997 thanks to the efforts of American journalists. At the same time, the remains of Che and several of his comrades were transferred to Cuba. There they were interred with honors. The mausoleum where Ernesto Che Guevara is buried is located in Santa Clara, the city in which the Comandante won his main victory in 1959.
The name of Ernesto Che Guevara is for many a symbol of the struggle for the rights of an oppressed and enslaved people. However, the romanticized image of a rebel has little in common with reality. The real "Che" is a fanatical and ruthless soldier of the revolution.
Leader
Ernesto from childhood stood out for his curiosity and leadership qualities. The director of the school where the future revolutionary studied noted his indefatigable desire to be a leader. And “Tete” (Che Guevara’s childhood nickname) had fun drinking ink, eating chalk, exploring abandoned mines and playing bullfights with a ram. Ernesto himself admitted that he was called a "boar" - not at all because of fatness, but because he was always dirty.
Alberto Lynch, an economics professor from Argentina, in his book "My Cousin Che" cited the story of his aunt, who told him that in his childhood, "Tete" took pleasure in mocking animals. “Death is not so bad,” the teenager made a discovery for himself.
Carlos Figueroa, a friend of Che Guevara's youth, recalled an incident when, during dinner, Ernesto forced a maid to lie down on the table in order to have sex with her. When the joys ended, Che Guevara continued to eat with a straight face.
Revolutionary
Che Guevara received his first revolutionary experience during a trip to the countries of Central America. When in 1954 the Americans initiated a coup d'état in Guatemala, he immediately rushed to the aid of the people's government of Árbenz. Together with patriotic youth, under the whistle of bullets and explosions of shells, "Che" carried out guard duty for days on end.
However, once on the list of "dangerous communists", the aspiring revolutionary was forced to leave Guatemala and go to Mexico. There, in 1955, he met Fidel Castro. The meeting became fateful: from now on, he intends to devote himself to the cause of the revolution.
There is a legend about this. When Fidel Castro gathered his supporters and asked if there was an economist among them, Che Guevara was the first to raise his hand. It turns out that instead of the word "economist" he heard "communist". The error was immediately cleared up, but it was too late to retreat.
Executioner
A red thread through the letters, poems and memoirs of Che Guevara runs "bloodlust". And only the fire of the Cuban revolution could quench it. Comandante, in his desire to destroy the enemies, was very illegible: an official, a peasant, and a teenager could fall from his hand. In a letter to his father after the execution of the village guide, he wrote: "At that moment it was revealed to me that I really love to kill."
After Fidel Castro came to power, "Che" became the main initiator of repression. In the town of Santiago de Cuba, on January 12, 1959, he staged a demonstrative execution of 72 policemen, showing that this would be the case with everyone who served the old regime. By order of the commandant, over eight thousand people were executed without trial and investigation in the fortress-prison of La Cabaña, he himself personally supervised 700 executions.
Another legendary revolutionary, Camilo Cienfuegos, recalled that after the capture of Santa Clara by Che Guevara's subordinates, every street in the city was littered with corpses. The Black Book of Communism cites frightening figures: in the first year of the revolution alone, Che firing squads executed more than 14,000 people.
Dictator
As soon as the active phase of the Cuban Revolution was completed, Che Guevara organized the work of the secret police. "Enemies" of free Cuba were found everywhere, and then taken to the ambulance station. After torture, people were usually shot, and any reason other than the real one was entered on the death certificate. The number of victims of the secret police is not known until now.
In 1960, on the Guanaacabibes peninsula, Che Guevara decided to establish a labor camp. Everyone who had even the slightest suspicion of criticizing the communist regime was sent there. There was a place for believers, homosexuals and fans of rock and roll.
This camp served as the beginning of UMAP - a camp system reminiscent of Stalin's Gulag. UMAP became a concentration point for all unreliable Cubans, who were forced to do absolutely wild things, for example, cut grass with their teeth, or sit up to their necks in shit all day.
Communist
The Stalinist principles of building communism served as an ideal for Che Guevara. “I swore before the portrait of Comrade Stalin, who died and mourned by me, that I would not have rest until I saw how the capitalist octopus was destroyed,” he wrote in his diary.
In 1960, as an envoy of the Island of Freedom, Che Guevara made a tour of the countries of the socialist camp, visiting the USSR. Two years later, during a second visit to the Soviet Union, already as Minister of Industry of Cuba, he agreed on cooperation between the two countries in the field of armaments.
Despite friendly relations with the Soviet leadership, Che Guevara later made critical remarks about him. In particular, he accused the authorities of the USSR "of imposing on the poorest countries conditions of trade similar to those dictated by imperialism in the world market."
"African"
In April 1965, the Comandante decided to join the Congo rebels. In a short time, a detachment of 150 people was formed from dark-skinned Cubans, which was thrown into battle from the ship to the ball. Already in the first battle, four Cubans fell. But the main problem for "Che" was the Congolese themselves - out of 160 partisans, 60 deserted before the start of the operation, and many did not fire a single shot.
It didn't get any easier after that. The position of the Cuban instructors was complicated by the fact that local leaders were on the run, and the peasants were becoming more and more hostile to them every day. On November 1, 1965, Che Guevara was ordered to leave the Congo and return to Cuba. He summed up the Congolese epic: "Winning is a significant source of positive experience, but the same is true of defeat."
Victim
The next country where Che Guevara was going to export the revolution was Bolivia, but the partisan detachment he created was surrounded and defeated by government troops. "Che" himself was taken prisoner. Soon an order came from La Paz to liquidate "Señor Guevara". The CIA agent Felix Rodriguez announced the order to the prisoner, while adding: "Commandante, I'm sorry."
Che Guevara was shot by the sergeant of the Bolivian army, Mario Teran, who wished to take revenge on the revolutionary for the death of three of his comrades in battles with the rebels. First, Teran shot at the legs and arms, and only then mortally wounded the commander in the chest. According to the official version, Che Guevara was killed in battle.
"Saint"
Cuban propaganda did everything to elevate Che Guevara to national heroes after death. And apparently overdone it. Some Latin Americans began to revere "Che" as a saint, turning to him in prayers "San Ernesto de La Higuera". The memories of the Bolivians who saw the murdered revolutionary also played a role in this. Not a single dead person was so similar to Christ as “Che,” they said.
The popularity of Che Guevara has not faded over the years. In his homeland in the Argentine city of Rosario, a 4-meter bronze statue was installed in 2008, and many museums named after him have been opened throughout the country. The Cuban authorities decided to immortalize the revolutionary by depicting him on local pesos, and the schools of Liberty Island will not start classes without the song "We will be like Che."
15.06.2016
The main face of the revolutionary movement around the world - Ernesto Che Guevara - would have turned 88 on June 14, 2016.
The Argentinean Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, who was trained as a doctor and became one of the main actors in the Cuban revolution, remains a symbol of the pursuit of ideals to this day.
Many today do not even know all the subtleties of what ideas Che Guevara was the bearer of. However, it is his face that flaunts on street graffiti, it is young people who wear T-shirts with his print. But doesn't this mean that the Comandante has become a symbol of the young, irresistible and romantic?
We have collected 15 facts and super-famous and rare photos about Che.
1. Che's full name is Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, and Che is a nickname.
The nickname Che used to emphasize his Argentine origin. The interjection che is a common address in Argentina.
2. The distant ancestor of Che's mother was General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, Viceroy of Peru.
The Che Guevara family. From left to right: Ernesto Guevara, mother Celia, sister Celia, brother Roberto, father Ernesto with son Juan Martin and sister Anna Maria.
3. Che did not like to wash.
Ernesto's childhood name was Tete, which means "pig". He was always dirty as a pig.
They called me Borov.
- Because you were fat?
No, because I was dirty.
Fear of cold water, which sometimes caused asthma attacks, gave rise to Ernesto's dislike for personal hygiene. (Paco Ignacio Taibo).
4. Che Guevara was born in Argentina, and became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, when the Cuban chess player Capablanca arrived in Buenos Aires. Ernesto was very passionate about chess.
5. The name of Che Guevara appeared in the newspapers for the first time not in connection with the revolutionary events, but when he made a tour of four thousand kilometers on a moped, having traveled all over South America.
When Che and Alberto got to Brazil Colombia they were arrested for looking suspicious and tired. But the police chief, being a football fan familiar with Argentina's football success, released them after learning where they were from in exchange for a promise to coach the local football team. The team won the regional championship, and the fans bought them plane tickets to the Colombian capital, Bogotá.
A feature film "The Diary of a Motorcyclist" was shot about this trip.
6. Che loved to read and was fond of Sartre all his life.
Young Ernesto read in the original French (knowing this language since childhood) and interpreting Sartre's philosophical works L'imagination, Situations I and Situations II, L'Être et le Nèant, Baudlaire, "Qu'est-ce que la literature?", "L'imagie". He loved poetry and even composed poetry himself.
In the photo: In 1960, Che Guevara met in Cuba with his idols - the writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.
7. Che Guevara fell out of the army
Ernesto Che Guevara, not wanting to serve in the army, caused an asthma attack with an ice bath and was declared unfit for military service.
8. Che Guevara learned to smoke cigars in Cuba to ward off annoying mosquitoes.
Besides, it was cool. Although he was not allowed to smoke much, all because of the same asthma.
9. Che Guevara, in the early 1950s, sometimes signed his letters "Stalin II."
The sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, Juanita, who knew Guevara closely and later left for the United States, wrote about him in her biographical book: “Neither the trial nor the investigation mattered to him. He immediately began to shoot, because he was a man without a heart.
10. Accidentally was appointed Minister of Economy.
In November 1959 - February 1961, Ernesto Che Guevara was president of the National Bank of Cuba. In February 1961, Ernesto was appointed Minister of Industry and head of the Central Planning Council of Cuba. This picture is a famous photograph of Che at the Cuban Ministry of Industry, 1963.
According to legend, Fidel Castro, having gathered his associates, asked them a simple question: “Is there at least one economist among you? “When he heard “communist” instead of “economist”, Che was the first to raise his hand. And then it was too late to retreat.
11. Che Guevara was married twice, he has five children.
In 1955, he married the Peruvian revolutionary Ilda Gadea, who gave birth to Guevara's daughter. In 1959, his marriage to Ilda broke up, and the revolutionary married Aleida March (pictured), whom he met in a partisan detachment. With Aleida, they had four children.
12. Che criticized the USSR.
In 1963, Ernesto Che Guevara visited the USSR and spoke at a banquet in the Kremlin. His speech was harsh: “Really, Nikita Sergeevich, do all Soviet people eat the way we do today? In the USSR, the bosses get more and more, the leaders have no obligations to the masses. There is a blasphemous defamation of the merits and personality of Stalin. The Khrushchev-Brezhnev group is mired in bureaucracy and nomenklatura Marxism, hypocrites about the US base in Guantanamo, even agrees with the American occupation of this Cuban region.
Later in 1964 in Moscow, he delivered an accusatory speech against the non-internationalist policies of the socialist countries. He reproached them for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of trade similar to those dictated by imperialism in the world market, as well as for refusing unconditional support, including military support, for renouncing the struggle for national liberation.
13. In some countries of Latin America, after the death of Che, in all seriousness they consider him a saint and call him San Ernesto de La Higuera.
In November 1966, Che Guevara arrived in Bolivia to organize a partisan movement. The partisan detachment he created on October 8, 1967 was surrounded and defeated by government troops. Ernesto Che Guevara was wounded, captured and killed the next day.
Many say that no dead person looked more like Christ than Che in the world-famous photo of him lying on a table at school, surrounded by the Bolivian military.
14. The source of the famous portrait of Che actually looks like this:
On March 5, 1960, Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Ernesto Che Guevara. Initially, the photo was a profile of a random person, but the author later removed unnecessary elements. The photo titled "Heroic Partisan" (Guerrillero Historico) hung on the wall in Korda's apartment for several years until he gave it to an Italian publisher he knew. He published a picture immediately after the death of Che Guevara, and the story of the enormous success of this image began, which allowed many of its participants to earn good money. Ironically, Korda is perhaps the only one to whom this photo did not bring material benefits.
15. How the famous portrait of Che appeared
The world-famous two-tone portrait of Che Guevara was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick from a photograph of Korda. Che's beret shows the star Jose Marti, the hallmark of the commandant (major, there was no higher rank in the revolutionary army), received from Fidel Castro in July 1957 along with this title.
Fitzpatrick attached Korda's photograph to the windowpane and traced the outline of the image onto paper. From the resulting "negative" with the help of a special copier and black ink, he printed a poster on red paper and then distributed free of charge almost all copies of his work, which soon became as famous as its black and white original.
15. Warhol made money on Che did not make a single move.
“Che was killed twice: first, by Sergeant Teran’s machine-gun fire, then by millions of his portraits,” the French philosopher Régis Debre once said.
This is once again confirmed by the story about the artist Andy Warhol. He managed to cash in on the Heroic Partisan (above) without even lifting a finger. His companion Gerard Malanga created a work based on a poster by Jim Fitzpatrick in the style of Warhol and passed off the work as a drawing of the latter. But Gerard's scam was revealed, a prison was waiting for him. The situation was saved by Warhol - he agreed to recognize the fake as his work, provided that he would get all the proceeds from the sale.
16. Che traditionally, with all monetary reforms, is depicted on the front side of a banknote in denominations of three Cuban pesos.
17. Che's grave was found only in July 1995.
Nearly 30 years after the assassination, the location of Guevara's grave in Bolivia was discovered. And in July 1997, the remains of the Comandante were returned to Cuba, in October 1997, the remains of Che Guevara were reburied in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara in Cuba (pictured).
18. Che Guevara never said his most famous quote.
Be realistic - demand the impossible! - This slogan of the Paris May 1968 is attributed to Che Guevara erroneously. It was actually shouted out at the University Paris III New Sorbonne by Jean Duvigno and Michel Leris (François Dosse, History of Structuralism: The sign sets, 1967-present, p. 113).
19. In 2000, Time magazine included Che Guevara in the lists of "20 Heroes and Icons" and "One Hundred Most Important Persons of the 20th Century."
20. The famous song "Hasta Siempre Comandante" ("Comandante forever"), contrary to popular belief, was written by Carlos Puebla before the death of Che Guevara, and not after.
Finally, I would like to say that in any country in the world, probably, there is a Che. People of completely different political and aesthetic views consider him theirs, without even thinking how much his internal motivations, his thoughts and actions, his temperament and ethical attitudes are alien to them, and sometimes even hostile.
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