Che Guevara who was born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Ernesto Guevara de la Serna) on June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina. A South American guerrilla war hero and strategist, Guevara is one of the most popular figures in the Cuban socialist revolution.
When he left Cuba he intended to try to stir up rebellions in South America and Africa. He also served in the government of Cuba after it was taken over by the Communists. In 1967, Che Guevara was captured by the Bolivian military.
After his execution, he was regarded as a martyred legendary hero by leftist generations around the world and his image became an icon of leftist extremism and anti-imperialism.
The early life of Che Guevara:
Guevara was the eldest of five children in a middle-class family of Spanish-Irish descent and left-wing ideology. Despite suffering from asthma, he completed his medical studies in 1953 and excelled as a sportsman and scholar. He spent many of his vacations traveling to Latin America.
During his travels, he was deeply moved by the suffering of the people in the poverty-stricken regions of South America. His observations on all these matters eventually inspired him to socialist thinking and contributed greatly to revolutionary decision-making.
He thought that the only solution to this inequality was violent revolution. Che Guevara felt the need for a cultural and economic change as a strategy for the liberation of all the poor people of Latin America.
Specifically, in December 1951, he embarked on a long nine-month journey after leaving medical school with his friend Alberto Granado. This worldview made a huge change in him. They started the journey on a motorcycle called “the Powerful” (a movie about Che Guevara's biography called The Motorcycle Diaries was made in 2004).
They traveled through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela to Argentina. During this long journey, Che Guevara wrote a journal, which was published long after his death in 2003, called The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey.
In 1953, Guevara moved to Guatemala, where the country was led by a progressive ruler named Jacobo Arbenz. who was trying to bring about a social revolution in Guatemala. (That's when Guevara earned his nickname (Che).) In 1954, the Árbenz government was overthrown in a coup supported by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This event influenced Guevara.
He was persuaded that the United States would always oppose progressive left-wing governments and therefore needed to build a consensus against them as quickly as possible. His belief became the main basis of his plan to establish socialism through world revolution. Guevara became a dedicated Marxist in Guatemala from that time onward.
The Cuban Revolution
Che Guevara moved from Guatemala to Mexico, where he met two Cuban brothers, Fidel and Raul Castro. They were preparing to overthrow the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista at that time. Guevara joined Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement.
This was when the Castro brothers arrived in Cuba's Oriente province on December 2, 1956, with an army of 81 men (including Guevara). At this time Batista's army tracked them down and almost wiped them out. Only a few fortunately survived, including the wounded Guevara, and with great difficulty reached the Sierra Maestra.
Here they became the nucleus of a full guerilla army. The rebels slowly gained strength, with weapons and support seized from Batista's forces adding new dimensions to their rebellion. Che Guevara (Che Guevara) first became the doctor of the guerrilla force.
But he also trained in the use of weapons and became one of Castro's most trusted allies. Indeed, the complex character Guevara, although trained as a doctor, later became one of Castro's comrades-in-arms. He overthrew Batista's government during the Passages de la Guerra revolution.
After Castro's victorious army entered Havana on January 8, 1959, Guevara was in charge of La Caba prison for several months. There he oversaw the execution of those considered enemies of the revolution. At this time, Che Guevara (Che Guevara) obtained Cuban citizenship. He became a prominent figure in the newly established Marxist government and represented Cuba on many trade missions.
He opposed all forms of imperialism and became well known in the West for his stance against US foreign policy. He was elected head of the Industrial Department of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform. He was elected president of the National Bank of Cuba and signed his currency "Che" to show his hatred of capitalism. He also served as Cuba's Minister of Industry.
In the early 1960s, he presented his own views and policies on Cuba through many speeches and writings. He predicted three key principles derived from the experience of the Cuban Revolution. These are:- 1) Guerrilla forces are capable of defeating the army; 2) All the conditions for a revolution need not be the place to start a revolution, because the revolution itself can bring them; and 3) underdeveloped Latin American rural societies amenable to armed conflict.
Guevara articulated a new socialist civic vision. He who showed that it is better to work for the welfare of the society than for personal gain, embodied this idea through his hard work. He often slept in his office and spent the day working in the sugarcane fields to support the voluntary labor program he organized.
He became increasingly frustrated as Cuba became a close ally of the Soviet Union, and he was betrayed by the Soviets during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when they removed their missiles from the island without consulting the Cuban leadership.
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