All about Che Guevara. Che's last day. How the legendary revolutionary died. Revolutionary movement in Cuba

Ernesto Che Guevara has been dead for over 40 years. His great contemporaries, such as Charles de Gaulle and Mao Zedong, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, took their places of honor in the textbooks of world history, and Che is still an idol... Why?

Who is Che Guevara?

Che Guevara - Latin American revolutionary, commander of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Full name Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Linch or in Spanish Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Linch.

To understand the unusual popularity of Che Guevara, one must delve into the biography of this Latin American revolutionary, popular for so many years. I tried to collect the most interesting and unusual facts from the life of Che Guevara.

1. The distant ancestor of Che's mother was General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, Viceroy of Peru.
2. Ernesto Che Guevara's childhood name was Tete, which means "pig" * is a diminutive of Ernesto.
He later received the nickname Borov:

“And of course Ernesto continued to play rugby with the Granado brothers. His friend Barral spoke of Guevara as the most gambler on the team, although he still always carried an inhaler with him to games.
It was then that he earned a rude nickname, which, however, he was very proud of:
“- 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)

3. For the first two years of school, Che Guevara could not attend school and studied at home, as he suffered from daily asthma attacks. The first attack of bronchial asthma happened to Ernesto Che Guevara at the age of two, and this disease haunted him until the end of his life.
4. Ernesto entered Dean Funes State College only at 30 and all because of the aforementioned asthma at 14 years old.
5. 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.
6. Starting from the age of 4, Guevara became passionately interested in reading, since there was a library of several thousand books in the house of Che's parents.
7. Ernesto Che Guevara was very fond of poetry and even composed poetry himself.
8. Che was strong in the exact sciences, especially in mathematics, but chose the profession of a doctor.
9. Che Guevara was fond of football in his youth (however, like most boys in Argentina), rugby, horseback riding, golf, gliding and loved to travel by bicycle.
10. In the newspapers, the name of Che Guevara appeared for the first time not in connection with revolutionary events, but when he made a tour of four thousand kilometers on a moped, traveling all over South America.
11. Che Guevara wanted to dedicate his life to treating lepers in South America, like Albert Schweitzer, whose authority he bowed to.
12. In the 40s, Ernesto even worked as a librarian.
13. On his first second trip to South America, Che Guevara and the doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granados (do you remember that Che wanted to devote his life to treating lepers?) earned money for food by doing odd jobs: they washed dishes in restaurants, treated peasants, or acted as veterinarians, repaired radios, worked as loaders, porters or sailors.
14. 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.
15. In Colombia, Guevara and Granandos again went to jail, but they were released with a promise to leave Colombia immediately.
16. 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. As you can see, they don’t want to serve in the army, not only in our country :)
17. Che was very interested in ancient cultures, read a lot about them and often visited the ruins of the Indians of ancient civilizations.
18. Being from a bourgeois family, he, having a medical degree in his hands, sought to work in the most backward areas, even for free, in order to treat ordinary people.
19. Ernesto once came to the conclusion that in order to be a successful and rich doctor, it is not necessary to be a privileged specialist, but to serve the ruling classes and invent useless medicines for imaginary patients. But Che believed that he was obliged to devote himself to improving the living conditions of the broad masses.
20. On June 17, 1954, the armed groups of Armas from Honduras invaded the territory of Guatemala, the executions of supporters of the Arbenz government and the bombing of the capital and other cities of Guatemala began. Ernesto Che Guevara asked to be sent to the fighting area and called for the creation of a militia.
21. “Compared to me, he was a more advanced revolutionary,” recalls Fidel Castro.
22. Che Guevara learned to smoke cigars in Cuba to ward off annoying mosquitoes.

23. Che did not shout at anyone, and did not allow mockery, but often used strong words in conversation, and was very sharp, "when necessary."
24. On June 5, 1957, Fidel Castro singled out a convoy led by Che Guevara consisting of 75 fighters. Che was awarded the rank of commandant (major). It should be noted that during the revolution in Cuba in 1956-1959, the commander was the highest rank among the rebels, who deliberately did not assign each other a higher military rank. The most famous commandantes are Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos.
25. As a Marxist, Ernesto Che Guevara reproached the "fraternal" socialist countries (USSR and China) for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of trade similar to those dictated by imperialism in the world market.
26. Che Guevara in the early 1950s jokingly signs the letters "Stalin II".
27. During his life, Che, leading partisan detachments, was wounded in battle 2 times. Che wrote to his parents after the second wound: “he used up two, five remained,” meaning that he, like a cat, had seven lives.
28. Ernesto Che Guevara was shot by Bolivian army sergeant Mario Teran, who pulled out a short straw in a dispute between soldiers for the honor of killing Che. The sergeant was ordered to fire carefully in order to simulate death in battle. This was done to avoid the accusation that Che was executed without trial or investigation.
29. After the death of Che, many Latin Americans began to consider him a saint and addressed him as “San Ernesto de La Higuera”.
30. Che is traditionally, with all monetary reforms, depicted on the front side of a banknote in denominations of three Cuban pesos.

31. The world-famous two-color portrait of Che Guevara full face, 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.

32. The famous song "Hasta Siempre Comandante" ("Commandante forever"), contrary to popular belief, was written by Carlos Puebla before the death of Che Guevara, and not after.

33. According to legend, Fidel Castro, having gathered his associates, asked them a simple question: “Is there at least one economist among you? On hearing "communist" instead of "economist", Che was the first to raise his hand. And then it was too late to retreat.

* Many thanks for pointing out the inaccuracies in the text to Alexander, the author of the project about Che Guevara. I deliberately left the original text for the story crossed out as an edification that open sources do not always indicate the correct facts and they need to be verified.

You can buy T-shirts with Che Guevara, as well as badges, mugs, baseball caps by clicking on the banner below. High quality and affordable, I recommend!

Graffiti by Che Guevara.© Photo wikipedia.org

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. However, he himself was not ideal.

Rosbalt Like collected 20 facts about a man who lived a fantastic life, but would never have believed that his image would become one of the most replicated and commercially successful images of a real person.

1. Che's full name is Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, and Che is a nickname. And he wasn't born on June 14th.

Photo wikimedia.org

He used the nickname to emphasize his Argentine origin. The interjection che is a common usage in Argentina. As for the date of birth, his parents specifically wrote the date a month later on the birth certificate, otherwise it would have become known that the boy was conceived before the engagement, and Che's father and mother did not want relatives to know about it.

2. The distant ancestor of Che's mother was General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, Viceroy of Peru.

Photo wikimedia.org

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. He himself said that he was called Borov. And not because he was fat, but because he was dirty. Fear of cold water, which sometimes caused asthma attacks, gave rise to Ernesto's dislike for personal hygiene.

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. In the newspapers, the name of Che Guevara appeared for the first time not in connection with the revolutionary events, but when he made a tour of four thousand kilometers on a moped, traveling all over South America.

A feature film "The Diary of a Motorcyclist" was shot about this trip.

Photo wikimedia.org. In 1960, Che Guevara met in Cuba with his idols - the writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Young Ernesto read in the original in French (knowing this language from childhood) and was engaged in the interpretation of Sartre's philosophical works "Lʼimagination", "Situations I" and "Situations II", "L"Être et le Nèant", "Baudlaire", "Quʼest -ce que la litèrature?", "Lʼimagie". He loved poetry and even composed poetry himself.

7. Che Guevara "hooked" from the army.

Photo wikimedia.org

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 keep midges away.

Photo flickr.com

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.

After supporters of Castro came to power, Che became the commandant of the La Cabaña fortress-prison in Havana and the head of the appeals tribunal, which did not issue a single acquittal. According to some reports, he personally executed about 2,000 people, for which he received the nickname "The Butcher of La Cabaña." In general, after Castro's supporters came to power in Cuba, more than eight thousand people were shot, many without trial or investigation.

10. Accidentally was appointed Minister of Economy.

Photo wikimedia.org

From November 1959 to 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? On hearing "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.

Che Guevara with Ilde Gadea during their honeymoon. Photo wikimedia.org

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 severely 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, they are seriously declared saints and are called San Ernesto de La Higuera.

Photo wikimedia.org

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. Che generally rarely sat still for a long time.

Photo wikimedia.org

This map shows the countries (in red) where Ernesto visited. The states in green are where he participated in the revolution.

15. The original of the famous portrait of Che actually looks like this:

Photo wikimedia.org

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. A 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.

16. How the famous Che print appeared.

Photo wikimedia.org

The world-famous two-tone portrait of Che Guevara was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick from a photograph of Korda. On Che's beret you can see 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.

17. Che's grave was found only in July 1995.

The original burial place of Che Guevara and 6 partisans. Photo wikimedia.org

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 he was reburied in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara in Cuba.

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."

In the photo taringa.net, Che, along with another person on this list - John Lennon.

20. The famous song "Hasta Siempre Comandante" ("Commandante Forever"), contrary to popular belief, was written by Carlos Puebla before Che Guevara's death, not after.

The paradox of Che Guevara's legacy is that people wearing T-shirts with his image, as a rule, do not know that he advocated the complete subordination of the interests of the individual to the state, accused the USSR of imperialism, his hands were up to the elbows in blood, and his death was relieved met even in the leadership of Cuba. However, it has become a symbol of the struggle for freedom and change in society.

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 contributed to the establishment of 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 June 14, 1928 in the town of Rosario, Argentina, in a liberal middle-class family. He was the first of five children in the family. As a child, he suffered from asthma, which troubled him all his life. In 1947, Guevara began to prepare for the exams for a bachelor's degree in medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. He spends his entire vacation riding motorcycles with his friend Alberto Granado, who runs a dispensary at the San Francisco leper colony in Argentina. On trips undertaken in 1951 and 1952, Guevara travels first through Argentina, where he meets lepers in Cordoba, then travels to Chile and north through Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, on to Miami in the United States, where he was returned to his homeland by immigration US authorities. While in Peru, Guevara works at the San Pablo Leper Hospital, his encounters with lepers, the poor and the underprivileged have a significant impact on the development of his political convictions. Guevara understands that true equality can only be achieved through socialism. These road musings by Guevara would later be described in his book The Motorcycle Diaries.

1952 - Che Guevara participates in riots against the Argentine President Juan Peron. In March 1953, Guevara received his medical degree. He travels to Bolivia and then to Guatemala, which is run by the reformist administration of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. While in Guatemala, Guevara meets his first wife, Hilda, the daughter of an exiled Peruvian Marxist. The couple would later divorce. The Guatemalan Government was overthrown by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which supported a coup d'état in June 1954. The CIA has compiled lists of people to be 'eliminated', imprisoned or deported from the country after the coup. Therefore, after helping to resist the coup d'état, Guevara flees to Mexico City, where he works in the Hospital and teaches at the Medical Department of the National University. Guevara appreciated the role of the CIA in the downfall of the Guzmán government, which strengthened his belief in the need for armed resistance against the opponents of socialism. In 1955, in Mexico, he meets a Cuban revolutionary who was in self-exile after a prison term following a failed attempt to overthrow the Batista regime on July 26, 1953.

In 1956 in Mexico, Castro forms the Revolutionary Movement "July 26th". Che Guevara joins the group as an orderly and learns guerrilla warfare with them. A group of 82 revolutionaries arrives on the coast of Cuba in the Province of Oriente (Oriente - in the east of the island) and on December 2 launches an attack against the Batista regime. The attack results in the death and capture of most of the revolutionaries. The 12 surviving guerrillas, including Castro, his brother Raul and Guevara, retreat to the Sierra Maestra mountains in the south of the island. From there, they organize continuous successful guerrilla attacks on Batista's government troops, receiving broad all-round support from local peasants and growing in numbers to about 3,000 soldiers. Faced with a choice between being a physician and having to kill people, Guevara writes: “I was faced with the dilemma of devoting myself to medicine and my duty as a revolutionary soldier. I had two backpacks, one full of medical supplies and one full of ammunition, two backpacks weighed too much for me to carry at the same time. I took the ammo pack and left the medical pack.” Guevara becomes a first lieutenant under Castro and expresses himself as a resourceful and ruthless tactician, deeply interested in increasing the welfare of the troops.

In 1957, Che Guevara became the commander of one of the five largest partisan columns. In 1958, the United States provides Batista with $1 million in military aid. The US has become the dominant economic power in Cuba, viewing Cuba as an international playground. In November, Guevara leads a guerrilla attack in the Province of Oriente against government forces. On December 28, Guevara's column captures a strategic point in the province - the capital in the center of Cuba. The road to Havana is now open. In 1959, Batista cowardly flees the country for the new year. Guevara enters Havana on 2 January. A new interim government was formed and recognized by the US on January 7, the same day that Castro enters the capital with his troops. Fidel Castro takes office as Prime Minister on February 16. Guevara obtains Cuban citizenship and marries his second wife, Aleida, and then leaves on a trip to Africa, Asia and Yugoslavia. Guevara and Aleida met during the rebellion. In the future, they will have four children.

The new revolutionary government arrests supporters of the Batista regime. As commander of the Fortress in Havana, Guevara is in charge of the courts - more than 500 civilian and military representatives of the former government were intrigued. Che is also involved in the reorganization of the national army. On October 7, Guevara was appointed director of the Cuban Industrialization Program run by the National Agrarian Reform Institute (an agency set up to manage land reforms and the confiscation of US firms' property and farmland). He remains in this position only until November 26, when he was appointed President of the National Bank of Cuba. Guevara is a supporter of rapid industrialization and centralization of the economy, and is at odds with other members of the government who are interested in more development of the agricultural sector. He also argues that Cuba must turn to a forgotten political ally of the USSR. Relations between the United States and Cuba are deteriorating sharply after the land reforms, which have infringed on American industrial, commercial and agricultural interests in Cuba. In the meantime, Castro often promises to hold general elections and bring back democracy, but refuses to set a firm timeline for the restoration of the electoral process. In February 1960, Castro signs a trade agreement with the Soviet Union. Cuba buys Soviet oil in exchange for sugar exports and a $100 million loan from the USSR. The United States, meanwhile, is curtailing purchases of Cuban sugar in March and cutting off oil supplies. CIA-coordinated covert operations are being prepared that include the formation of a paramilitary group of Cuban exiles to invade the island and overthrow Castro.

In May, Cuba and the Soviet Union establish diplomatic relations. Further confiscation of US property properties leads the US to impose an economic embargo that banned the export of food and medicine to Cuba. And the Soviet Union became Cuba's main political supporter and trading partner. In 1961, the United States officially terminates diplomatic relations with Cuba and intensifies attempts to destabilize the Castro government. During the first two weeks of April, there were several terrorist attacks with explosive devices in Havana, as well as bombing raids by an unidentified aircraft. On April 17, 1300 Cuban exiles, supported by the CIA, attempted to invade Cuba in the southern coastal region called the Bay of Pigs. After three days of fighting they were defeated by Castro's forces. Subsequently, approximately 20,000 Cubans were arrested and charged with counter-revolutionary activities. From October 1960 to February 1961, Guevara visited communist countries, including Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and China, leading a commercial delegation seeking loans and new trade agreements. On February 23, 1961, he was appointed Minister of Industry in the Cuban Government, in whose position he continued to defend the centralization of the economy. In July, he publicly criticizes Castro for overfunding the military. Guevara believes that the money is better directed to industrial production. In 1964, Guevara's tensions in the Cuban government for economic policy continued to deepen. And "Che" himself is more and more determined to carry the revolution to other parts of Latin America and Africa. Guevara begins to travel widely and frequently, meeting with guerrilla and revolutionary groups and their supporters throughout the world, forming the Solidarity Organization of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In March, he represents Cuba at a UN conference. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Guevara denounces Western imperialism, choosing the Congo in Africa as an example of his position.

Soon Che Guevara announces to Castro that he is leaving all official posts and renounces Cuban citizenship. He is sent with a group of Cuban volunteers to start a rebellion in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The rebellion, which was not supported by the locals, fails. In 1966, Guevara returned to Cuba. After he travels to Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia, where he becomes the leader of a communist guerrilla movement trying to overthrow the country's military government. On October 8, Guevara was wounded in the leg and captured near the town of "Vallegrande", in the mountains of central Bolivia, and was soon executed with four shots in the chest. Then he was 39 years old. After the execution, Guevara's hands were removed so that his identity could not be confirmed by fingerprints. On October 11, 1966, his body and the bodies of six other of his comrades were secretly buried near the airport in "Vallegrande". Only in 1995 - in July, a Bolivian general discovered the location of Guevara's grave. And in July 1997, the remains of Guevara's body were dug up and returned to Cuba. On October 17, the remains are reburied in a purpose-built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, site of his decisive victory against Batista's forces in late 1958.

In 2000, Times magazine named Guevara one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. The legacy of Guevara's life remains a powerful force to this day. Images of "Che" are found throughout Cuba and schoolchildren start each day with the words: 'Seremos como el Che' - We will be like "Che".

You can see the LARGE PHOTO Gallery dedicated to the life of Che Guevara on the site page - , as well as learn more about the History of Cuba on the site page -

See you in CUBE!