Biography of Che Guevara [Che Guevara] | Latin American Revolutionary, he was one of the main architects of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution (1959).

(Rosario, Argentina, 1928 - Higueras, Bolivia, 1967) Latin American Revolutionary. Along with Fidel Castro, whose movement was joined in 1956, he was one of the main architects of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution (1959). He then held positions of great relevance in the new regime, but, dissatisfied with the failure of the firms and true to its purpose of extending the revolution to other countries in Latin America, in 1966 resumed its activity guerrilla in Bolivia, where it would be captured and executed a year later.

Ernesto Che Guevara

So given their lives in the struggle against imperialism and dictatorship, Che Guevara became the maximum revolutionary myth of the twentieth century. It was immediately an icon of the youth of the may 68, and his figure has been as a timeless symbol of ideals of freedom and justice that, like the heroes of yesteryear, judged more valuable than life itself. Still in our days is displayed often in confrontational actions, that his profile based on the famous Alberto Korda photograph.

Biography

Ernesto Che Guevara was born in a wealthy family from Argentina, where he studied medicine. His left-wing militancy led him to participate in opposition to Perón; Since 1953 he traveled for Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Guatemala, discovering poverty dominant among the masses of Latin America and the omnipresence of American imperialism in the region, and participating in multiple movements protestors, experiences that definitely leaned you to Marxist ideology.

In 1955 Ernesto Che Guevara met in Mexico to Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who prepared a revolutionary expedition to Cuba. Guevara befriended the Castro, joined the group as a physician and landed with them in Cuba in 1956. Installed the guerrillas in Sierra Maestra, Guevara became Castro's lieutenant and commanded one of the two columns that emerged from the eastern mountains to the West to conquer the island. He participated in the decisive battle for the taking of Santa Clara (1958) and finally entered Havana in 1959, putting an end to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Che with Fidel Castro

The triumph of the revolution, carried out with few means, was facilitated by the untenable situation of the country in those years. Despite recording the highest per capita income in Latin America, wealth was concentrated in the few hands; This very strong social imbalance was repeated in the marked contrasts between the countryside and the city. At the political level, corruption, patronage mechanisms and the ineffectiveness had pointed to the absolute limits under the despotic and authoritarian regime of Fulgencio Batista; his Government managed to match against the most disparate sectors of opinion and interest. Cuban economy extremely dependent upon the presence of the United States, was based on tourism in urban areas and Agriculture of capitalist character which a large farm, determining proletariat had generated in the revolutionary process.

From the revolution to the policy

The new revolutionary regime granted Guevara Cuban nationality and appointed him Chief of the militia and director of the Institute of agrarian reform (1959), then President of the National Bank and economy Minister (1960), and, finally, Minister for industry (1961). In those years, Guevara represented Cuba in various international fora, which frontally denounced American imperialism. On a trip around the world met with Nasser, Nehru and Sukarno and Tito (1959); on another trip met various Soviet leaders and the Chinese Chu En-Lai and MaoTse-Tung.

In the task of building in Cuba of a new society, and especially in the field of Economics, Che Guevara was one of the most tireless contributors of Fidel Castro. In the economic debate that took place at the beginning of the new regime, he opted for an original, creative and not bureaucratic or institutional interpretation of Marxist principles. Looking for a way to the real independence of Cuba, strove for the industrialization of the country, linking to the help of the Soviet Union, once failed the attempted invasion of the island by the United States and clarified the Socialist character of the Cuban Revolution (1961).

Fragment of a discourse of Guevara at the UN
(New York, 11 December 1964)

Concern of professional revolutionary, however, made him leave Cuba in secret in 1965 and March to the Congo, where they fought in support of the revolutionary movement in March, convinced that only the armed insurrectional action was effective against imperialism.

In Bolivia

Relieved of their positions in the Cuban State, Che Guevara returned to Latin America in 1966 to launch a revolution who hoped that it would be of continental scope: assessing the strategic position of Bolivia, chose that country as a center of operations for installing a guerrilla that could radiate its influence to Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Paraguay. In front of a small group tried to put into practice their theory, according to which was not necessary to wait for the social conditions to produce a popular uprising, but that could be the very armed action which will create conditions that will trigger a revolutionary movement; such ideas were collected in his book guerrilla warfare (1960).

Che, revolutionary myth

However, his action not caught in the Bolivian masses. From the very beginning his group, known as the National Liberation Army and composed of Cuban veterans of Sierra Maestra and some Bolivian Communists, met with the lack of support from the peasants, non full-motion. Without any popular support, the rural world, and without support in big cities by the rejection of the Communist political organizations the possibilities of success dwindled drastically.

Isolated in a jungle region where suffered the exacerbation of her asthmatic condition, Ernesto Guevara was betrayed by local peasants and fell into an ambush by the Bolivian army in the region of Valle Grande, where he was wounded and captured on October 8, 1967. Given that Che had become a symbol for young people around the world, the Bolivian military, advised by the CIA, wanted to destroy the revolutionary myth, killing him then expose his corpse, photographed with him and bury him in secret. In 1997 the remains of Che Guevara were located, exhumed and moved to Cuba, where they were buried with full honors by the regime of Fidel Castro.

The image of Ernesto Che Guevara remains incomplete if not are considered, along with the revolutionary, its facets ideologue and theoretician of the guerrillas, the armed fight in small groups as the only way revolutionary of possible political activity in underdeveloped countries. Their ideas are exposed in texts such as the famous message to the Tricontinental (1967) and the aforementioned book guerrilla warfare (1960).

Although he wrote a lot, most of his work remains unpublished. They integrate the manuscripts, letters, speeches, proclamations, and above all, articles published in Green olive, the organ of the Cuban armed forces, in which Che held the rank of Commander. The most remembered are those in which evokes the Cuban Revolution (1959,a revolution that beginsand following) and the economic policy (against the bureaucracy, 1963 and following). Journal that Ernesto Guevara had been writing all his life, was published posthumously the part relating to the Bolivian guerrilla: Diary of Che in Bolivia (1968).

This latest book, which chronicles his fight guerrilla in Bolivia until immediately prior to his capture, is the most impressive testimony of his personality. Che describes the daily life of the guerrillas inside, in its daily appearance; the thousand practical difficulties, weaknesses, errors and disputes between companions and his precarious state of health give rise to a nothing idealized picture. But it is above all almost distanced from this newspaper style, even in the most difficult moments, which reveals the human side of Che in the last period of his life: in his mood reigned a great calm and deep serenity, due to the intimate conviction of the just enough of their ideals and reasoned acceptance of the risk of dying in the fight.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas