Childhood, adolescence, youth

Che Guevara's family. From left to right: Ernesto Guevara, mother Celia, sister Celia, brother Roberto, father Ernesto holding his son Juan Martin and sister Anna Maria

Che Guevara at the age of one (1929)

In addition to Ernesto, whose childhood name was Tete (translated as “pig”), the family had four more children: Celia (became an architect), Roberto (lawyer), Anna Maria (architect), Juan Martin (designer). All children received higher education.

At the age of two, on May 2, 1930, Tete experienced his first attack of bronchial asthma - this disease haunted him for the rest of his life. To restore the baby’s health, the family moved to the province of Cordoba, as an area with a healthier mountain climate. Having sold the estate, the family purchased “Villa Nidia” in the town of Alta Gracia, at an altitude of two thousand meters above sea level. The father began to work as a construction contractor, and the mother began to look after the sick Tete. For the first two years, Che was unable to attend school and was home-schooled as he suffered from daily asthma attacks. After this, he attended, intermittently (due to health reasons), high school in Alta Gracia. At the age of thirteen, Ernesto entered the state-owned Dean Funes College in Cordoba, from which he graduated in 1945, then enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires. Father Don Ernesto Guevara Lynch said in February 1969:

Hobbies

In 1964, talking with a correspondent for the Cuban newspaper El Mundo, Guevara said that he first became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, being passionate about chess when the Cuban chess player Capablanca came to Buenos Aires. In the house of Che's parents there was a library of several thousand books. From the age of four, Guevara, like his parents, became passionate about reading, which continued until the end of his life. In his youth, the future revolutionary had an extensive reading circle: Salgari, Jules Verne, Dumas, Hugo, Jack London, later Cervantes, Anatole France, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Engels, Lenin, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Karl Marx, Freud. He read popular social novels by Latin American authors at that time - Ciro Alegria from Peru, Jorge Icaza from Ecuador, Jose Eustasio Rivera from Colombia, which described the life of Indians and workers on plantations, works by Argentine authors - Jose Hernandez, Sarmiento and others.

Che Guevara (first from right) with fellow rugby players, 1947

Young Ernesto read the original in French (knowing this language from childhood) and interpreted Sartre’s philosophical works “L’imagination”, “Situations I” and “Situations II”, “L’Être et le Nèant”, “Baudlaire”, "Qu'est-ce que la litèrature?", "L'imagie." He loved poetry and even composed poems himself. He read Baudelaire, Verlaine, Garcia Lorca, Antonio Machado, Pablo Neruda, and the works of the contemporary Spanish Republican poet Leon Felipe. In his backpack, in addition to the Bolivian Diary, a notebook with his favorite poems was posthumously discovered. Subsequently, a two-volume and a nine-volume collected works of Che Guevara were published in Cuba. Tete was strong in the exact sciences, such as mathematics, however, he chose the profession of a doctor. He played football at the local Atalaya sports club, playing in the reserve team (he could not play in the main team because he needed an inhaler from time to time due to asthma). He was also involved in rugby, equestrianism, golf and gliding, with a special passion for cycling (in the caption on one of his photographs given to his bride Chinchina, he called himself “the king of the pedal”). .

Ernesto in Mar del Plata (Argentina), 1943

In 1950, already a student, Ernesto was hired as a sailor on an oil cargo ship from Argentina, visiting Trinidad and British Guiana. Afterwards, he traveled on a moped, which was provided to him by Mikron for advertising purposes, with partial coverage of travel expenses. In an advertisement from the Argentine magazine El Grafico on May 5, 1950, Che wrote:

February 23, 1950. Seniors, representatives of the Mikron moped company. I am sending you a Mikron moped for testing. On it I traveled four thousand kilometers through twelve provinces of Argentina. The moped functioned flawlessly throughout the entire trip, and I did not find the slightest malfunction in it. I hope to get it back in the same condition. Signed: "Ernesto Guevara Serna"

Che's youthful love was Chinchina (translated as "rattle"), the daughter of one of the richest landowners of Cordoba. According to the testimony of her sister and others, Che loved her and wanted to marry her. He appeared at parties in shabby clothes and shaggy, which was a contrast with the scions of wealthy families who sought her hand, and with the typical appearance of Argentine young men of that time. Their relationship was hindered by Che's desire to devote his life to treating lepers in South America, like Albert Schweitzer, whose authority he bowed to.

In difficult years

Ernesto Guevara in 1945

Travel to South America

Ernesto Che Guevara in 1951

Nothing delayed us any longer in Argentina, and we headed to Chile - the first foreign country on our way. Having passed the province of Mendoza, where Che's ancestors once lived and where we visited several haciendas, watching how horses were tamed and how our gauchos lived, we turned south, away from the Andean peaks, impassable for our stunted two-wheeled Rocinante. We had to suffer a lot. The motorcycle kept breaking down and required repair. We didn't so much ride on it as we dragged it on ourselves.

Staying overnight in the forest or in the field, they earned money for food by doing odd jobs: washing dishes in restaurants, treating peasants or acting as veterinarians, repairing radios, working as loaders, porters or sailors. We exchanged experiences with colleagues, visiting leper colonies, where we had the opportunity to take a break from the road. Guevara and Granandos were not afraid of infection, and felt sympathy for lepers, wanting to devote their lives to their treatment. On February 18, 1952, they arrived in Temuco, Chile. Local newspaper Diario Austral published an article entitled: “Two Argentine leprosy experts travel around South America by motorcycle.” Granandos' motorcycle finally broke down near Santiago, after which they moved to the port of Valparaiso (where they intended to visit the leper colony of Easter Island, however, they learned that they would have to wait six months for the ship, and abandoned the idea) and then on foot, hitchhiking or “hares” on ships or trains. We walked on foot to the Chuquicamata copper mine, which belonged to the American company Braden Copper Mining Company, after spending the night in the barracks of the mine guards. In Peru, travelers became acquainted with the life of the Quechua and Aymara Indians, who by that time were exploited by landowners and stifled hunger with coca leaves. In the city of Cusco, Ernesto spent several hours reading books about the Inca Empire in the local library. We spent several days at the ruins of the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru. Having settled down on the sacrificial platform of the ancient temple, they began to drink mate and fantasize. Granandos recalled a dialogue with Ernesto:

From Machu Picchu we went to the mountain village of Huambo, stopping on the way at the leper colony of the Peruvian communist doctor Hugo Pesce. He warmly greeted the travelers, introducing them to the methods of treating leprosy known to him, and wrote a letter of recommendation to a large leper colony near the city of San Pablo, Loreto province in Peru. From the village of Pucallpa on the Ucayali River, boarding a ship, the travelers set off to the port of Iquitos on the banks of the Amazon. They were delayed in Iquitos due to Ernesto's asthma, which forced him to go to the hospital for some time. Arriving at the leper colony in San Pablo, Granados and Guevara received a warm welcome and were invited to treat patients in the center's laboratory. The patients, trying to thank the travelers for their friendly attitude towards them, built them a raft, calling it “Mambo Tango”, on which they could sail to the next point on the route - the Colombian port of Leticia on the Amazon.

Second trip to Latin America

The path that Che Guevara traveled, 1953-1956.

Ernesto traveled to Venezuela via the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, on a train called the “milk convoy” (a train that stopped at all the stops where farmers loaded cans of milk). On April 9, 1952, the 179th revolution took place in Bolivia, in which miners and peasants participated. The Nationalist Revolutionary Movement party, led by President Paz Estenssoro, which came to power, nationalized the tin mines (paying compensation to foreign owners), organized a militia of miners and peasants, and implemented agrarian reform. In Bolivia, Che visited the mountain villages of the Indians, mining villages, met with members of the government, and even worked in the department of information and culture, as well as in the department for the implementation of agrarian reform. I visited the ruins of the Indian sanctuaries of Tiwanaku, which are located near Lake Titicaca, taking many pictures of the “Gate of the Sun” temple, where the Indians of the ancient civilization worshiped the sun god Viracocha.

Guatemala

Life in Mexico City

On September 21, 1954, they arrived in Mexico City. There they settled in the apartment of Puerto Rican Juan Juarbe, a leader of the Nationalist Party, which advocated the independence of Puerto Rico and was outlawed because of the shooting they committed in the US Congress. Peruvian Lucio (Luis) de la Puente lived in the same apartment, who subsequently, on October 23, 1965, was shot dead in a battle with anti-guerrilla “rangers” in one of the mountainous regions of Peru. Che and Patoho, having no stable means of livelihood, made a living by taking photographs in parks. Che recalled this time like this:

We were both broke...Patojo didn't have a penny, I only had a few pesos. I bought a camera and we smuggled pictures into the parks. One Mexican, the owner of a small darkroom, helped us print the cards. We got to know Mexico City by walking the length and breadth of it, trying to sell our unimportant photographs to clients. How much did we have to convince and persuade that the child we photographed had a very cute appearance and that, really, it was worth paying a peso for such beauty. We subsisted on this craft for several months. Little by little our affairs were getting better...

Having written the article “I saw the overthrow of Arbenz,” Che, however, failed to get a job as a journalist. At this time, Ilda Gadea arrived from Guatemala and they got married. Che began selling books from the Fondo de Culture Economy publishing house and got a job as a night watchman at a book exhibition, continuing to read books. At the city hospital, he was accepted through a competition to work in the allergy department. He lectured on medicine at the National University, began to study scientific work(in particular, experiments on cats) at the Institute of Cardiology and the laboratory of a French hospital. On February 15, 1956, Ilda gave birth to a daughter, who was named Ildita in honor of her mother. In an interview with a correspondent for the Mexican magazine Siempre in September 1959, Che stated:

Raul Roa, a Cuban publicist and Batista opponent who later became foreign minister in socialist Cuba, recalled his Mexican meeting with Guevara:

I met Che one night at the house of his compatriot Ricardo Rojo. He had just arrived from Guatemala, where he first took part in the revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement. He was still acutely upset by the defeat. Che seemed and was young. His image is imprinted in my memory: a clear mind, ascetic pallor, asthmatic breathing, a prominent forehead, thick hair, decisive judgments, an energetic chin, calm movements, a sensitive, penetrating gaze, a sharp thought, speaks calmly, laughs loudly... He has just begun work in the allergy department of the Institute of Cardiology. We talked about Argentina, Guatemala and Cuba, looking at their problems through the prism of Latin America. Even then, Che rose above the narrow horizon of Creole nationalism and reasoned from the position of a continental revolutionary. This Argentine doctor, unlike many emigrants who were concerned only about the fate of their own country, thought not so much about Argentina as about Latin America as a whole, trying to find its “weakest link.”

Preparing an expedition to Cuba

At the end of June 1955, two Cubans came for a consultation to the Mexico City city hospital, to the doctor on duty, Ernesto Guevara, one of whom was Nyiko Lopez, Che’s acquaintance from Guatemala. He told Che that the Cuban revolutionaries who attacked the Moncada barracks had been released from the convict prison on Pinos Island under an amnesty, and began to gather in Mexico City and prepare an expedition to Cuba. A few days later, an acquaintance with Raul Castro followed, in whom Che found a like-minded person, later saying about him: “It seems to me that this one is not like the others. At least he speaks better than others, and besides, he thinks.". At this time, Fidel, while in the United States, collected money for the expedition among emigrants from Cuba. Speaking in New York at a rally against Batista, Fidel said: “I can tell you with full responsibility that in 1956 we will gain freedom or become martyrs.”.

The meeting between Fidel and Che took place on July 9, 1955 in the house of Maria Antonia Gonzalez, at 49 Emparan Street, where a safe house for Fidel’s supporters was organized. At the meeting they discussed the details of the upcoming military operations in Oriente. Fidel claimed that Che at that time “had more mature revolutionary ideas than me. In ideological and theoretical terms, he was more developed. Compared to me, he was a more advanced revolutionary.". By the morning, Che, whom Fidel had impressed, in his words, as an “exceptional person,” was enlisted as a doctor in the detachment of the future expedition. Some time later, another military coup took place in Argentina, and Peron was overthrown. The emigrants who opposed Peron were invited to return to Buenos Aires, which Rojo and other Argentines living in Mexico City took advantage of. Che refused to do the same because he was fascinated by the upcoming expedition to Cuba. Mexican Arsacio Vanegas Arroyo owned a small printing house and knew Maria Antonia Gonzalez. His printing house printed documents from the July 26 Movement, which was headed by Fidel. In addition, Arsacio was involved in the physical training of the participants in the upcoming expedition to Cuba, being an athlete-wrestler: long hikes over rough terrain, judo, and an athletics gym was hired. Arsacio recalled: “In addition, the guys listened to lectures on geography, history, the political situation and other topics. Sometimes I myself stayed to listen to these lectures. The guys also went to the cinema to watch films about the war.”.

Spanish Army Colonel Alberto Bayo, a veteran of the war against Franco and author of the manual “150 Questions for a Partisan,” was involved in the military training of the group. Initially asking for a fee of 100 thousand Mexican pesos (or 8 thousand US dollars), then he reduced it by half. However, believing in the capabilities of his students, he not only did not take payment, but also sold his furniture factory, transferring the proceeds to Fidel's group. The colonel purchased the Santa Rosa hacienda, 35 km from the capital, for 26 thousand US dollars from Erasmo Rivera, a former partisan Pancho Villa, as a new base for training the detachment. Che, while undergoing training with the group, taught how to make bandages, treat fractures, give injections, receiving more than a hundred injections in one of the classes - one or several from each of the group members.

Working with him at Rancho Santa Rosa, I learned what kind of person he was - always the most diligent, always filled with the highest sense of responsibility, ready to help each of us... I met him when he stopped my bleeding after a tooth extraction . At that time I could barely read. And he says to me: “I will teach you to read and understand what you read...” One day we were walking down the street, he suddenly went into a bookstore and with the little money he had, he bought me two books - “Reporting with a Loop on neck" and "Young Guard". Carlos Bermudez

After our arrest, we were taken to the Miguel Schultz prison, a place where emigrants were imprisoned. There I saw Che. Wearing a cheap transparent nylon raincoat and an old hat, he looked like garden scarecrow. And I, wanting to make him laugh, told him what an impression he made... When we were taken out of prison for interrogation, he was the only one handcuffed. I was indignant and told the representative of the prosecutor’s office that Guevara was not a criminal to handcuff him and that in Mexico even criminals don’t handcuff them. He returned to prison without handcuffs. Maria Antonia

Former President Lázaro Cárdenas, his former minister of the sea Heriberto Jara, labor leader Lombarde Toledano, artists Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, as well as cultural figures and scientists interceded on behalf of the prisoners. A month later, Mexican authorities released Fidel Castro and the rest of the prisoners, with the exception of Ernesto Guevara and Cuban Calixto Garcia, who were accused of entering the country illegally. After leaving prison, Fidel Castro continued preparations for the expedition to Cuba, collecting money, buying weapons and organizing secret appearances. The training of fighters continued in small groups in various places across the country. The yacht Granma was purchased from the Swedish ethnographer Werner Green for 12 thousand dollars. Che feared that Fidel's efforts to rescue him from prison would delay the sailing, but Fidel told him: “I will not abandon you!” Mexican police also arrested Che's wife, but after some time Ilda and Che were released. Che spent 57 days in prison. The police continued to monitor and broke into safe houses. The press wrote about Fidel's preparations for sailing to Cuba. Frank Pais brought 8 thousand dollars from Santiago and was ready to start an uprising in the city. Due to the increasing frequency of raids and the possibility of a provocateur handing over the group, yacht and transmitter to the Cuban embassy in Mexico for $15,000, preparations were accelerated. Fidel gave the order to isolate the alleged provocateur and concentrate in the port of Tuxpan in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Granma was moored. A telegram “The book is sold out” was sent to Frank Pais as an agreed signal to prepare the uprising at the appointed time. Che ran into Ilda’s house with a medical bag, kissed her sleeping daughter and wrote Farewell letter parents.

Departure on the Granma

At 2 o'clock in the morning on November 25, 1956, in Tuxpan, the detachment landed on the Granma. The police received a "mordida" (bribe) and were absent from the pier. Che, Calixto Garcia and three other revolutionaries traveled to Tuxpan by passing car, which had to wait a long time, for 180 pesos. Halfway there, the driver refused to go further. They managed to persuade him to take him to Rosa Rica, where they changed to another car and reached their destination. In Tuxpan they were met by Juan Manuel Marquez and taken to the river bank where the Granma was moored. 82 people with weapons and equipment boarded an overcrowded yacht, which was designed for 8-12 people. At that time there was a storm at sea and it was raining, the Granma, with its lights extinguished, set course for Cuba. Che recalled that “out of 82 people, only two or three sailors and four or five passengers did not suffer from seasickness.” The ship leaked, as it later turned out, due to an open tap in the lavatory, however, trying to eliminate the draft of the ship when the pump was not working, they managed to throw canned food overboard.

You need to have a rich imagination to imagine how such a small vessel could accommodate 82 people with weapons and equipment. The yacht was packed to capacity. People were literally sitting on top of each other. There were only so many products left. In the first days, everyone was given half a can of condensed milk, but it soon ran out. On the fourth day everyone received a piece of cheese and sausage, and on the fifth there were only rotten oranges left. Calixto Garcia

Cuban Revolution

First days

The Granma arrived on the shores of Cuba only on December 2, 1956, in the Las Coloradas area of ​​Oriente province, and immediately ran aground. A boat was launched into the water, but it sank. A group of 82 people waded to the shore, shoulder-deep in water; We managed to bring weapons and a small amount of food onto land. Boats and planes of units subordinate to Batista rushed to the landing site, which Raul Castro later compared to a “shipwreck,” and Fidel Castro’s group came under fire. The group made their way for a long time along the swampy coast, which was made up of mangroves. On the night of December 5, the revolutionaries walked through a sugar cane plantation, and in the morning they made a halt on the territory of the central (a sugar factory along with a plantation) in the area of ​​Alegría de Pio (Holy Joy). Che, being the detachment's doctor, bandaged his comrades, since their legs were worn out from a difficult hike in uncomfortable shoes, making the last bandage to the detachment's fighter, Humberto Lamote. In the middle of the day, enemy planes appeared in the sky. Under enemy fire in the battle, half of the detachment's fighters were killed and approximately 20 people were captured. The next day, the survivors gathered in a hut near the Sierra Maestra.

Fidel said: “The enemy defeated us, but failed to destroy us. We will fight and win this war.". Guajiro - the peasants of Cuba friendly received the members of the detachment and sheltered them in their homes.

Somewhere in the forest, during the long nights (at sunset our inaction began) we made daring plans. They dreamed of battles, major operations, and victory. It was happy hour. Together with everyone else, I enjoyed, for the first time in my life, cigars, which I learned to smoke to ward off annoying mosquitoes. Since then, the aroma of Cuban tobacco has become ingrained in me. And my head was spinning, either from the strong “Havana”, or from the audacity of our plans - one more desperate than the other. Ernesto Che Guevara

Sierra Maestra

Ernesto Che Guevara on a mule in the Sierra Maestra mountains.

Cuban communist writer Pablo de la Torriente Brau wrote that back in the 19th century, fighters for Cuban independence found a convenient shelter in the Sierra Maestra mountains. “Woe to him who lifts the sword to these heights. A rebel with a rifle, hiding behind an indestructible cliff, can fight here against ten. A machine gunner holed up in a gorge will hold back the onslaught of thousands of soldiers. Let those who go to war on these peaks not count on airplanes! The caves will shelter the rebels." Fidel and the members of the Granma expedition, as well as Che, were not familiar with this area. On January 22, 1957, at Arroyo de Infierno (Hell's Creek), the detachment defeated a detachment of casquitos (Batista's soldiers) of Sánchez Mosquera. Five casquitos were killed, and the detachment suffered no casualties. On January 28, Che wrote a letter to Ilda, which arrived through a trusted person in Santiago.

Dear old woman! I am writing to you these flaming Martian lines from the Cuban manigua. I'm alive and thirsty for blood. It looks like I really am a soldier (at least I’m dirty and ragged), because I’m writing on a camp plate, with a gun on my shoulder and a new acquisition in my lips - a cigar. The matter turned out to be not easy. You already know that after seven days of sailing on the Granma, where it was impossible to even breathe, through the fault of the navigator we found ourselves in stinking thickets, and our misfortunes continued until we were attacked in the already famous Alegria de Pio and were not scattered in different sides, like doves. There I was wounded in the neck, and I remained alive only thanks to my feline luck, for a machine-gun bullet hit the box of ammunition that I was carrying on my chest, and from there it ricocheted into my neck. I wandered around the mountains for several days, considering myself dangerously wounded; in addition to the wound in my neck, I also had severe chest pain. Of the guys you know, only Jimmy Hirtzel died, he surrendered and was killed. I, along with your acquaintances Almeida and Ramirito, spent seven days of terrible hunger and thirst, until we left the encirclement and, with the help of the peasants, joined Fidel (they say, although this has not yet been confirmed, that poor Nyiko also died). We had to work hard to reorganize into a detachment and arm ourselves. After which we attacked an army post, we killed and wounded several soldiers, and captured others. The dead remained at the battle site. Some time later, we captured three more soldiers and disarmed them. If you add to this that we had no losses and that we are at home in the mountains, then it will become clear to you how demoralized the soldiers are; they will never be able to surround us. Naturally, the fight has not yet been won, there are still many battles to be fought, but the arrow of the scale is already tilting in our direction, and this advantage will increase every day. Now, speaking about you, I would like to know whether you are still in the same house where I am writing to you, and how you live there, especially “the very delicate petal love"? Hug her and kiss her as hard as her bones allow. I was in such a hurry that I left photographs of you and your daughter at Pancho’s house. Send them to me. You can write to me at my uncle's address and the name Patokho. The letters may be a little delayed, but I think they will arrive.

The peasant Eutimio Guerra, who helped the detachment, was captured by the authorities and promised them to kill Fidel. However, his plans did not come true and he was shot. In February, Che suffered an attack of malaria, and then another attack of asthma. During one of the skirmishes, the peasant Crespo, putting Che on his back, carried him out from under enemy fire, since Che could not move on his own. Che was left in a farmer's house with an accompanying soldier, and was able to overcome one of the crossings, holding onto tree trunks and leaning on the butt of a gun, in ten days, with the help of adrenaline, which the farmer managed to get. In the Sierra Maestra mountains, Che, who suffered from asthma, periodically rested in peasant huts so as not to delay the movement of the column. He was often seen with a book or notepad in his hands.

Squad member Rafael Chao claimed that Che did not yell at anyone and did not make fun of anyone, but often used strong words in conversation and was very harsh “when necessary.” “I have never known a less selfish person. If he had only one boniato tuber, he was ready to give it to his comrades".

Throughout the war, Che kept a diary, which served as the basis for his famous book, Episodes of the Revolutionary War. Over time, the detachment managed to establish contact with the July 26 Movement organization in Santiago and Havana. The detachment's location in the mountains was visited by activists and leaders of the underground: Frank Pais, Armando Hart, Vilma Espin, Aide Santa Maria, Celia Sanchez, and supplies for the detachment were established. In order to refute Batista’s reports about the defeat of the “robbers” - “forajidos”, Fidel Castro sent Faustino Perez to Havana with instructions to deliver a foreign journalist. On February 17, 1957, Herbert Matthews, a correspondent for the New York Times, arrived at the detachment’s location. He met with Fidel, and a week later he published a report with photographs of Fidel and the soldiers of the detachment. In this report he wrote: “It appears that General Batista has no reason to hope to suppress Castro’s rebellion. He can only count on the fact that one of the columns of soldiers will accidentally come across the young leader and his headquarters and destroy them, but this is unlikely to happen ... ".

Battle of Uvero

Main article: Battle of Uvero

In May 1957, the arrival of the ship Corinthia from the USA (Miami) with reinforcements led by Calixto Sanchez was planned. To divert attention from their landing, Fidel gave the order to storm the barracks in the village of Uvero, 15 km from Santiago. Additionally, this opened up the possibility of exiting the Sierra Maestra to the valley of the province of Oriente. Che took part in the battle for Uvero, and described it in Episodes of the Revolutionary War. On May 27, 1957, headquarters was assembled, where Fidel announced the upcoming battle. Having started the hike in the evening, we walked about 16 kilometers overnight along a winding mountain road, spending about eight hours on the way, often stopping for precaution, especially in dangerous areas. The guide was Caldero, who was well versed in the area of ​​the Uvero barracks and the approaches to it. The wooden barracks was located on the seashore and was guarded by posts. It was decided to surround her in the dark on three sides. The group of Jorge Sotus and Guillermo Garcia attacked a post on the coastal road from Peladero. Almeida was tasked with eliminating the post opposite the height. Fidel positioned himself in the area of ​​the heights, and Raul's platoon attacked the barracks from the front. Che was assigned a direction between them. Camilo Cienfuegos and Ameijeiras lost their direction in the darkness. The task of the attack was made easier by the presence of bushes, but the enemy noticed the attackers and opened fire. Crescencio Perez's platoon did not participate in the assault, guarding the road to Chivirico to block the approach of enemy reinforcements. During the attack, it was forbidden to shoot into residential areas where women and children were present. The wounded casquitos provided first aid, leaving two of their seriously wounded in the care of the enemy garrison doctor. Having loaded a truck with equipment and medicine, we set off for the mountains. Che indicated that two hours and forty-five minutes passed from the first shot to the capture of the barracks. The attackers lost 15 people killed and wounded, and the enemy lost 19 people wounded and 14 killed. The victory strengthened the morale of the detachment. Subsequently, other small enemy garrisons at the foot of the Sierra Maestra were destroyed.

The landing from the Corinthia ended unsuccessfully: according to official reports, all the revolutionaries who landed from this ship were killed or captured. Batista decided to forcibly evacuate local peasants from the slopes of the Sierra Maestra in order to deprive the revolutionaries of the support of the population, but many Guajiros resisted the evacuation, assisted Fidel’s detachment, and joined their ranks.

Further struggle

Relations with local peasants did not always go smoothly: on the radio and in church services Anti-communist propaganda was carried out. Peasant Iniria Gutierrez recalled that before joining the unit she had heard only “terrible things” about communism, and was surprised by the direction political views Che. In a feuilleton published in January 1958 in the first issue of the rebel newspaper “El Cubano Libre” signed “Sniper”, Che wrote on this subject: “Communists are all those who take up arms, because they are tired of poverty, no matter how This has never happened to this country.” To suppress robbery and anarchy to improve relations with local population A discipline commission was created in the detachment, endowed with the powers of a military tribunal. The pseudo-revolutionary gang of the Chinese Chang was liquidated. Che noted: “At that difficult time, it was necessary to suppress with a firm hand any violation of revolutionary discipline and not allow anarchy to develop in the liberated areas.” Executions were also carried out in cases of desertion from the detachment. Medical assistance was provided to the prisoners; Che strictly ensured that they were not offended. As a rule, they were released.

It is hereby declared that every person who provides information that may contribute to the success of the operation against the rebel groups under the command of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Crescencio Perez, Guillermo Gonzalez or other leaders will be rewarded according to the importance of the information he communicates; in this case, the reward in any case will be at least 5 thousand pesos. The amount of remuneration can range from 5 thousand to 100 thousand pesos; the highest sum of 100 thousand pesos will be paid for the head of Fidel Castro himself. Note: The name of the person reporting the information will forever remain confidential.

Raul Castro with Ernesto Che Guevara in the Sierra del Cristal mountains south of Havana. 1958

Fearing police persecution, Batista's opponents swelled the ranks of the rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Pockets of uprising arose in the Escambray mountains, the Sierra del Cristal and in the Baracoa region under the leadership of the Revolutionary Directorate, the 26th of July Movement and individual communists. In October, in Miami, politicians from the bourgeois camp established the Liberation Council, proclaiming Felipe Pazos interim president. They issued a manifesto to the people. Fidel rejected the Miami Pact, considering it pro-American. In a letter to Fidel, Che wrote: “Once again, congratulations on your application. I told you that your merit will always be that you have proven the possibility of an armed struggle that enjoys the support of the people. Now you are embarking on an even more remarkable path, which will lead to power as a result of the armed struggle of the masses.".

By the end of 1957, rebel troops dominated the Sierra Maestra, but did not descend into the valleys. Food items such as beans, corn and rice were purchased from local farmers. Medicines were delivered by underground workers from the city. Meat was confiscated from large livestock owners and those who were accused of treason, and part of the confiscated meat was transferred to local peasants. Che organized sanitary stations, field hospitals, workshops for repairing weapons, making handicraft shoes, duffel bags, uniforms, and cigarettes. The newspaper El Cubano Libre, which took its name from the newspaper of the fighters for Cuban independence in the 19th century, began to reproduce on the hectograph. Broadcasts from a small radio station began to go on air. Close connections with the local population made it possible to learn about the appearance of casquitos and enemy spies.

Government propaganda called for national unity and harmony as strike and insurrection movements spread in Cuba's cities. In March 1958, the US government announced an arms embargo on Batista's forces, although armament and refueling of government aircraft at the Guantanamo Bay base continued for some time. At the end of 1958, according to the constitution (statute) announced by Batista, presidential elections were to be held. In the Sierra Maestra, no one spoke openly about communism or socialism, and the reforms openly proposed by Fidel, such as the liquidation of latifundia, the nationalization of transport, electric companies and other important enterprises, were of a moderate nature and were not denied even by pro-American politicians.

Che Guevara as a statesman

Che Guevara in Moscow in 1964.

Che Guevara believed that he could count on unlimited economic assistance from “brotherly” countries. Che, as a minister of the revolutionary government, learned a lesson from conflicts with fraternal countries of the socialist camp. Negotiating support, economic and military cooperation, and discussing international policy with Chinese and Soviet leaders, he came to an unexpected conclusion and had the courage to speak out publicly in his famous Algerian speech. It was a real indictment against the non-internationalist policies of the so-called socialist countries. He reproached them for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of exchange of goods similar to those dictated by imperialism on the world market, as well as for refusing unconditional support, including military support, and for refusing the struggle for national liberation, in particular in the Congo and Vietnam. Che knew well the famous Engels equation: the less developed the economy, the greater the role of violence in the formation of a new formation. If in the early 1950s he jokingly signed his letters “Stalin II,” then after the victory of the revolution he was forced to prove: “There are no conditions for the establishment of the Stalinist system in Cuba.”

Che Guevara would later say: “After the revolution, it is not the revolutionaries who do the work. It is done by technocrats and bureaucrats. And they are counter-revolutionaries."

Juanita, who knew Guevara closely, the sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, who later left for the United States, wrote about him in the biographical book “Fidel and Raul, my brothers. Secret History":

Neither the trial nor the investigation mattered to him. He immediately started shooting because he was a man without a heart

In her opinion, the appearance of Guevara in Cuba - "the worst thing that could happen to her" But we should not forget that Juanita went to the United States and collaborated with the CIA.

Che Guevara's last letter to his parents

Dear old people! I again feel the ribs of Rocinante in my heels, again, dressed in armor, I set off on my way. About ten years ago I wrote you another farewell letter. As far as I remember, then I regretted that I was not a better soldier and good doctor; the second doesn’t interest me anymore, but I didn’t turn out to be such a bad soldier. Basically nothing has changed since then, except that I have become much more conscious, my Marxism has taken root in me and has been purified. I believe that armed struggle is the only way out for peoples fighting for their liberation, and I am consistent in my views. Many people would call me an adventurer, and that's true. But I’m just a special kind of adventurer, the kind that risks their own skin to prove that they’re right. Maybe I'll try this one last time. I am not looking for such an end, but it is possible if we logically proceed from the calculation of possibilities. And if that happens, please accept my last hug. I loved you deeply, but I didn’t know how to express my love. I am too direct in my actions and I think that sometimes I was misunderstood. Besides, it was not easy to understand me, but this time, trust me. So, the determination that I have cultivated with the passion of an artist will force frail legs and tired lungs to act. I will achieve my goal. Sometimes remember this modest condottiere of the 20th century. Kiss Celia, Roberto, Juan Martin and Pototin, Beatriz, everyone. Your prodigal and incorrigible son Ernesto hugs you tightly.

Rebel

Congo

In April 1965, Guevara arrived in the Republic of the Congo, where fighting continued at that time. He had great hopes for the Congo; he believed that the vast territory of this country, covered with jungle, would provide excellent opportunities for organizing guerrilla warfare. A total of more than 100 Cuban volunteers took part in the operation. However, from the very beginning, the operation in the Congo was plagued by failures. Relations with the local rebels were quite difficult, and Guevara had no faith in their leadership. In the first battle on June 29, the Cuban and rebel forces were defeated. Later, Guevara came to the conclusion that it was impossible to win the war with such allies, but still continued the operation. The final blow to Guevara's Congolese expedition was dealt in October, when Joseph Kasavubu came to power in the Congo and put forward initiatives to resolve the conflict. Following Kasavubu's statements, Tanzania, which served as a rear base for the Cubans, stopped supporting them. Guevara had no choice but to stop the operation. He returned to Tanzania and, while at the Cuban embassy, ​​prepared a diary of the Congo operation, beginning with the words “This is a story of failure.”

Bolivia

Rumors about Guevara's whereabouts did not stop in 1967. Representatives of the Mozambican independence movement FRELIMO reported a meeting with Che in Dar es Salaam during which they refused assistance offered to him in their revolutionary project. The rumors that Guevara led partisans in Bolivia turned out to be true. By order of Fidel Castro, the Bolivian communists specifically purchased land to create bases where partisans were trained under the leadership of Guevara. Hyde Tamara Bunke Bieder (also known by her nickname "Tanya"), a former Stasi agent who, according to some information, also worked for the KGB, was introduced into Guevara's circle as an agent in La Paz. Rene Barrientos, frightened by news of guerrillas in his country, turned to the CIA for help. It was decided to use CIA forces specially trained for anti-guerrilla operations against Guevara.

Guevara's partisan detachment numbered about 50 people and acted as the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (Spanish. Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia ). It was well equipped and carried out several successful operations against regular troops in the difficult mountainous terrain of the Kamiri region. However, in September the Bolivian army was able to eliminate two groups of guerrillas, killing one of the leaders. Despite the brutal nature of the conflict, Guevara provided medical care to all wounded Bolivian soldiers who were captured by the guerrillas, and later freed them. During his last battle in Quebrada del Yuro, Guevara was wounded, a bullet hit his rifle, which disabled the weapon, and he fired all the cartridges from the pistol. When he was captured, unarmed and wounded, and escorted to a school that served CIA soldiers as a temporary prison for guerrillas, he saw several wounded Bolivian soldiers there. Guevara offered to provide them with medical assistance, but was refused by the Bolivian officer. Che himself received only an aspirin tablet.

Captivity and execution

The hunt for Guevara in Bolivia was led by Felix Rodriguez, an agent

A CIA agent who took part in the operation to capture and eliminate Ernesto Che Guevara spoke about the execution of the legendary revolutionary. According to him, the Comandante was a fanatical criminal who deserved to die: “Most people do not know the real Che Guevara, who wrote that he was tormented by a thirst for blood, Che Guevara, who killed thousands of people, trampling all laws.”

Former intelligence officer Felix Rodriguez now lives in Miami. He took part in the largest anti-communist operations in Latin America, including assistance to the military regime of Argentina. In his home, on the wall hangs a bloody Vietnamese flag, a medal for distinguished service, a photo of him in the White House talking to Bush Sr. Rodriguez does not hide the fact that he is proud of his service, and recalls the events of past years with pleasure.

He considers the special operation carried out by CIA agents in October 1967 in Bolivia and resulting in the death of Che Guevara a blessing for the Cuban people, to whom, according to Rodriguez, the famous rebel brought only suffering. Let us recall that that autumn the revolutionary detachment was defeated by government troops, and the commandant himself was captured. Rodriguez says he could have ordered the soldiers to take Che Guevara to Panama as he wanted The White house, but the Bolivian government demanded to shoot him and hide this fact in order to later declare: Che Guevara was killed in battle.

Rodriguez kept many things in memory of the events in Higuera. This is a notebook with the commandant’s codes, and photographs of a dead revolutionary, and tobacco from his last pipe. The collection also contains photographs. The executioners cut them off to preserve fingerprints in case Fidel Castro refused to acknowledge the death of his comrade. But perhaps the most important exhibit is a photograph showing the arrested Che Guevara and Rodriguez interrogating him next to the soldiers. The CIA agent says that the interrogation took place in an almost friendly atmosphere, because the prisoner did not believe that he would be executed without trial. He himself agreed to pose for the photographer and even laughed in response to the banal: “Comandante, the bird is about to fly out.” Che Guevara was shot an hour after the photo was taken.

Fatal for the commandant, the encrypted radiogram received by Rodriguez from the Bolivian high command sounded: “500-600,” where 500 meant “Che Guevara” and 600 meant “dead.” When he told the Argentine that there would be no trial, the famous revolutionary turned pale and said: “It would be better for me to die in battle.”

Exist different versions why Rodriguez ordered the immediate executioner to aim better. Some say that the soldier was drunk, others say that he was nervous, realizing who he was killing. The special agent himself says that everything should have looked as if Guevara was killed in battle. This is what the Bolivian government wanted.

After the death of the commander, disputes broke out between the soldiers about who would take his legendary pipe. Rodriguez says that he had the pipe, but he gave it to the person who shot Che Guevara so that he would “remember his feat.” He also added that, recalling the events of that autumn, he regrets only one thing - he should have kept the pipe.

Ernesto Guevara de La Serna Lynch (May 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), better known as Che Guevara or simply Che. A man of amazing destiny. Biography of Che Guevara - heroism and tragedy

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1928Ernesto Guevara was born in Rosario (Argentina). He was the eldest of five children in a Basque and Irish family. In short, Che Guevara’s blood was initially an explosive mixture. In addition, mother and father adhered to leftist views. His father, a staunch Republican supporter civil war in Spain, often hosted many war veterans at his home. Subsequently, characterizing his son, his father said: “the blood of Irish rebels flowed in my son’s veins!”

Guevara family. Ernesto is on the left.

Guevara's house contained more than 3,000 books and, among others, William Faulkner, Andre Gide, Jules Verne, Franz Kafka, Anatole France, H. G. Wells, works by Jawaharlal Nehru, Camus, Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels .

His favorite subjects at school were philosophy, mathematics, political science and sociology.

In 1948, Guevara entered the university in Buenos Aires, the medical department.

But in 1951, 22-year-old Guevara took a year off and decided to travel around South America (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador) on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado.

During the trip, Guevara wrote notes that were later published by the New York Times as "The Motorcycle Diaries" and became a bestseller. In 2004, a film of the same name was made based on Che Guevara's diary.

By the end of the trip, Guevara came up with the idea of ​​uniting the peoples of Latin America into the country of “Latino”. Subsequently, this idea became the core of his revolutionary activities.

Upon returning to Argentina, Guevara completed his studies and received his Doctor of Medicine degree, and in June 1953 he became officially known as "Doctor Ernesto Guevara".

However, during a trip to Latin America, he decided to devote himself not to medicine, but to politics and armed struggle. Having seen enough of poverty and misery, Che Guevara firmly decided to “help these people.”

In 1955 in In Mexico he marries Peruvian Marxist Ilda Gadeaand struck up friendships with revolutionary-minded Cuban emigrants.

Ernesto Guevara and Ilda Gadea.

In the summer of 1955, Che Guevara met Raul Castro, who subsequently introduced him to his older brother Fidel Castro, the leader of a revolutionary group whose goal was to overthrow the Batista dictatorship in Cuba.

Mexico. Fidel Castro and Guevara's room.

Initially, Che Guevara planned to become a medic in Castro's battle group. However, during military exercises with members of the movement, he was called “the best guerrilla.” After this, Guevara decided to exchange the suitcase with medicines for a machine gun.

The first step in Castro's revolutionary plan was to attack Cuba from Mexico.Eighty-two revolutionaries agreed to land in Cuba. Second on the list is Ernesto Guevara.

The Castro brothers buy an old yacht for 12 thousand dollars. She is called “Granma” (Old Lady).

The group departed for Cuba on November 25, 1956. Seven days later, under fire from government troops, the guerrillas land on Los Colorados beach. In this battle, Fidel loses half of his squad. Many were killed, some were shot in captivity.

Those who survived go to the Sierra Maestra mountains. Now this is the main base of the partisans.

Che Guevara at a partisan base.

An underground radio station begins operating in the mountains. The voice of Ernesto Guevara is constantly heard from the speakers. The fighters call him “Comandante Che” for the interjection che, characteristic of Argentines, borrowed by Guevara from the Guarani Indians, which translates as “friend, buddy.”

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the Sierra Maestro mountains.

In 1958, Che met Cuban revolutionary Aleida March.

In February, the revolutionary government declared Guevara a "Cuban citizen by birth" in recognition of his role in defeating the dictatorship.

At the end of January 1959 Che Guevara's wife Hilda Gadea comes to Cuba. Guevara told her that he loved another woman and they agreed to divorce.

June 12, 1959 FidelCastro sends Guevara on a three-month tour of 14 countries in Africa and Asia. This allowed Castro to briefly distance himself from Che and his radical Marxism.

Che Guevara in India.

Che spent 12 days in Japan (July 15-27), he took part in negotiations aimed at expanding economic relations with this country.

During the visit, Guevara secretly visited the city of Hiroshima, where the US military blew up atomic bomb. Guevara was shocked after visiting a hospital where atomic bomb survivors were treated.

September 1959. Upon returning to Cuba, Castro appointed Guevara head of the industrialization department, and on October 7, 1959, president of the National Bank of Cuba.

Even as a minister, Guevara works several hours a week in factories and farms.

March 4, 1960 In the port of Havana, the French cargo ship La Coubre with ammunition on board explodes while unloading.

At the time of the explosion, Che Guevara was at a meeting in the building of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA). Hearing the explosion, he drove to the scene and spent several hours pulling wounded workers and sailors from the wreckage.

Cuban authorities said the explosion was a sabotage.

The exact casualties from the explosions remain unclear. According to some reports, at least 75 people were killed and about 200 were injured.

It was at a memorial service for the victims of the explosion that photographer Alberto Korda took the most famous photograph of Che Guevara.

March 1960.

Simone de Beauvoir, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Che Guevara. Cuba, March 1960. Guevara speaks fluent French.

November 1960. Guevara meets Mao Zedong in China at an official ceremony at the government palace.

On October 30, 1960, a Cuban government mission headed by Ernesto Guevara arrived in Moscow.

October 1962. Guevara played a key role in bringing Soviet nuclear ballistic missiles to Cuba. This fact became the cause of the missile crisis in October 1962. The world was on the brink of nuclear war.

A US patrol aircraft escorts a Soviet cargo ship during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Guevara almost took Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to remove missiles from Cuba as a betrayal. On November 5, Che Guevara told Anastas Mikoyan that the USSR, with its “erroneous” step, in his opinion, “destroyed Cuba.”Maoist China did not fail to extract propaganda dividends from what was happening. Employees of the Chinese Embassy in Havana staged “walks among the masses”, during which they accused the USSR of opportunism. After these events, Guevara became more skeptical about Soviet Union and leans towards Maoism.

In December 1964 Che Guevara went to New York as head of the Cuban delegation. There he spoke at the United Nations. In his impassioned speech, Guevara criticized the failure of the United Nations to confront the "brutal policies of apartheid" in South Africa and condemned the policies of the United States towards its black population.

He later learned that there had been two unsuccessful attempts on his life by Cuban exiles. So Cuban Molly Gonzalez tried to break through the cordon with hunting knife. Another attempt on Guevara's life was Guillermo Novo. A man was arrested near the United Nations headquarters with a bazooka.

Guevara subsequently commented on both incidents: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

December 17, 1964. Guevara went to Paris. It was the start of a three-month tour that took him to China, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland and Czechoslovakia.

February 24, 1965 atIn Algeria, at an economic seminar on Afro-Asian solidarity, Guevara gave a fiery speech. This was his last public appearance on the international stage. In his speech, Guevara criticized the international policy of the USSR and called for the creation of an international communist bloc.

He also ardently supported the struggle of the communists of North Vietnam and called on the peoples of other developing countries take up arms and rise up to fight imperialism, as the Vietnamese did.

March 14, 1964 Guevara returns to Cuba and realizes that Fidel's attitude towards him has changed. The Castros are increasingly wary of Guevara's popularity and consider him a potential threat to his policies. What worries Fidel Castro more is that Guevara has become a radical Maoist. This does not suit Fidel, because... Cuba's economy is increasingly dependent on the Soviet Union.

From the first days Cuban Revolution Guevara was considered by many to be a supporter of the Maoist strategy for the development of Latin America and adhered to a plan for the rapid industrialization of Cuba, which repeated the Chinese "Great Leap Forward".

In 1965 Guevara falls out public life and then disappears completely. His whereabouts have long been a great mystery. Che Guevara's departure from the political arena and his subsequent disappearance was explained by the failure of the Cuban industrialization plan, of which he was the author, and serious disagreements with the pragmatic Castro in relation to both economics and ideology.

Under pressure from the international community regarding Guevara's fate, Castro said that he would tell where Che Guevara was whenever he wanted. However, the pressure on Castro continues unabated and on October 3 he will release an undated letter allegedly written to him by Guevara several months ago. In it, Guevara reaffirmed his solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. In addition, he resigned from all his government and party positions, and also renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.

Guevara's movements are kept secret for the next two years.

1965 37-year-old Guevara goes to the Congo and takes part in the guerrilla war. Guevara's goal is to export the revolution. Guevara believes that Africa is the weak link of imperialism and therefore has enormous revolutionary potential. Upon learning of the plan for the war in the Congo, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, with whom Che was friends, called it “unreasonable” and doomed to failure. But despite this warning, Guevara led an operation to support the Congolese Marxists.

Guevara and 12 of his Cuban friends arrived in the Congo on April 24, 1965. Soon after, about a hundred more Afro-Cubans joined the unit.

For some time, the detachment collaborated with the local guerrilla leader Laurent Désiré Kabila.

Laurent Desiree Kabila. 1964

However, disappointed in the discipline of Kabila’s troops, Guevara called him “a man for an hour” and left the Congo...

In his diary, he cited the incompetence of local leaders as the main reason for the failure of the uprising.

1966 Guevara lived illegally in Prague for six months. He was treated in a sanatorium for malaria, which he contracted in the Congo. During this time, he wrote Congolese memoirs, summarizing the entire experience of military operations and outlined plans for two more books on philosophy and economics.

Then he made himself new false documents in the name of Adolfo Mena Gonzalez and left for South America.

October 3, 1966. Bolivia, La Paz. In the sixties it was the only metropolis in Bolivia. It was easy to get lost in its tangled quarters.

On October 3, 1966, Mexican businessman Adolfo Mena Gonzalez arrived here. A man of indeterminate age, wearing glasses, with large bald patches, he did not stand out in any way among the traders who flew in daily from Sao Paulo. A suite was booked for the businessman at the Copacabana Hotel. It was Ernesto Che Guevara. Authentic photographs document how Che changes his appearance from start to finish. He came here illegally to start his last war. Here he slept in comfort for the last time in his life, on a bed with a sheet and a blanket.

Che Guevara took a selfie using a mirror in his hotel room.

On the morning of November 4, 1966 and Guevara arrived at the Copacabana Hotel in a Toyota jeep that belonged to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolivia.

Che was traveling to the Rio Grande River area. There, on an abandoned ranch, a base was already ready for him. The ranch belonged to Che Guevara's close friend, whom he called by her Russian name Tanya.

Tanya acquired a ranch in Bolivia, which became a partisan base, on Guevara’s instructions. Her real name was Tamara Bunke, but Ernesto kept it a secret. Tanya was a Cuban intelligence agent in Bolivia, a Stasi agent, and at the same time the mistress of the current President of Bolivia.

Guevara met Tamara in East Berlin, where he came as Cuba's ambassador on special assignments. Tamara Bunke is an ideal candidate to constantly accompany such a guest. She speaks five languages, is incredibly charming and open. Guevara is delighted with his translator. Tamara Bunke arrived in Bolivia in November 1964 under the name of Laura Gutierrez, an ethnographer from Argentina.

Guevara decided to call his partisan group the “National Liberation Army.” On New Year's Eve 1966, Tanya and Secretary General Communist Party of Bolivia Mario Monje.

Monje and Guevara.

Soon Monkhe left the camp, but Tanya remained. Now the guerrilla group consisted of 16 Cubans, 26 Bolivians, Peruvians and Argentines. With a total of 47 militants, Tanya was the only woman in the squad.

1967 From time to time, reports appear in the world press that Guevara is waging a guerrilla war in Bolivia. On May 1 in Havana, the acting Minister of the Armed Forces, Major Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara had "raised the banner of revolution somewhere in Latin America."

June July . Guevara's detachment wages continuous battles with detachments of the Bolivian regular army. Many of his comrades died. About 2,000 government soldiers were mobilized to fight the partisans.

Government soldiers are moving towards the partisan area.

August 1, 1967 at Two CIA agents arrived in La Paz. Cuban-American Gustavo Villoldo and Felix Rodriguez. Their task is to organize the hunt for Che Guevara.

Major Robert Shelton arrived from the United States to train Bolivian soldiers.

August 14, 1967. The army captured one of the rebel camps, where, among other things, the soldiers found many photographs of partisans carelessly left behind by Tamara Bunke.

One of the photographs of those who fell into the hands of Bolivian soldiers. In the photo are fighters from Guevara's squad: Urbano, Miguel Marcos, Chang (El Chino), Pacho and Coco.

August 20, 1967. The military learned that Guevara was in Bolivia after they captured the French socialist writer Regis Debreu, nicknamed Danton, in the conflict zone. Shortly before this, Debreu arrived to record an interview with the partisan leader and decided to remain in the detachment. He was transported to the jungle by Bolivian communists. After a month of partisan life, Debra could not stand it. And he asked Guevara to let him go. Together with Debre, the artist Ciro Roberto Bustos, nicknamed Carlos, decided to leave.Guevara made the decision to let his people go. It was almost suicide. After all, Che knew that if Debra fell into the hands of the soldiers, he would not withstand even the first interrogation. And yet, for some reason, Guevara allows them to leave.

Soon Debra and Bustos fell into the clutches of the Bolivian security service. Under torture, Debray and Bustos told everything they knew about Guevara's squad.

Debra and Bustos after their arrest.

The head of the special operation to capture Debre and Bustos, Gary Prado, later recalled: “When we caught Regis Debre, it was from him that we learned that the detachment was led by Che Guevara. From the deserters whom we caught in previous months, we knew that there were foreigners and Cubans in the detachment, but the deserters knew nothing about Che. Now we have received confirmation that the detachment is commanded by Guevara.”
In fairness, it should be noted that it is not only Bolivians who are interrogated in Debre prison. American interrogation experts are squeezing testimony out of him. Even Colombian President Barrientos is present during the interrogations. He then allows the prisoner to have a press conference at which Debray described the plight of the detachment.

According to Debray, the guerrillas suffer from malnutrition, lack of water and lack of shoes. Among other things, there are only 6 blankets in a detachment of 22 people... Debray also said that Guevara and other fighters' arms and legs were swelling and covered with ulcers. But despite the unit's plight, Debray said Guevara was optimistic about the future of Latin America and noted that Guevara "resigned to die. And that he believes his death will be a renaissance of sorts. That Guevara perceives death “as a new rebirth” and “a ritual of renewal of the revolution.”

Unlike Debray, Prado squeezed much more information out of the second prisoner. After all, he had in his hands Ciro Bustos, a professional artist. At the request of the military, he painted portraits of all the partisans. In the end, both Debray and Bustos received sentences of 30 years in prison, but were released after 3 years.

Having received Debre's interrogation materials, Washington transferred fifteen instructors to Bolivia from Vietnam. They began to train Captain Prado's soldiers in anti-guerrilla warfare tactics. The CIA also sent agents to the combat area.

31st August 67 . Che always counted on the help of local peasants. They will provide food and hide it from the soldiers on occasion. More than anyone else, Che trusted Onorato Rojas, the most reliable supplier of provisions. Sometimes Guevara, remembering his medical practice, examined his children.

One day, in the village where Onorato lived, a man named Mario Vargas Salinas, captain of the Bolivian special forces, appeared. He offered Rojas three thousand dollars for information about Che's detachment. Roxas agreed. And he said that one of these days the detachment was going to cross the Rio Grande.

Two years after Onorato's betrayal, Rojas was shot in the face in the street. The killer was never found.

August 3, 1967. Realizing that they were being hunted, Guevara divided his forces into two groups. One was commanded by himself, the other by Juan Acuña Nunez or “Joaquin.” The groups dispersed, never to meet again.

August 31, 1967. Juan Nunez's group was the first to be ambushed. Tamara Bunke was also in this group. When the guerrillas began to ford the river, the commander of a detachment of government troops, Captain Mario Vargas, gave the order to shoot.

Mario Vargas Salinas, a retired general, recalls: “The capture of Che Guevara was our task, but it was a surprise for us that the detachment was divided, and Guevara was not in the group, but was led by a Cuban army officer, Joaquin. The group began to wade across the river, without even making sure that everything around was clear. When the partisans reached the middle of the river, the soldiers opened fire and destroyed the group in five minutes. One of the bodies was carried downstream. It was a woman. We had no idea that there was a woman in the group. We didn't know about it."

The commander of the capture group was clearly lying in his memories. Tamara Bunke's corpse was pulled out of the river a few days later. The photo shows that Tamara not only has her hair cut, but both breasts have been cut out...

Che outlived “Agent Tanya” by exactly forty days. He never believed in her death.

Ernesto Che Guevara, from the Bolivian Diary: “September 7. Radio “La Cruz del Sur” announces that the body of Tanya the partisan has been found on the banks of the Rio Grande, the message does not seem truthful. And on September 8, the radio reported that President Barrientos was present at the burial of the remains of the partisan Tanya, who was buried in a Christian manner.”

President Barrientos (center, wearing a tie).

President Barrientos himself personally flew in to identify the body. He was not interested in Che Guevara, but in an unknown partisan. The president knew the dead woman as Laura Gutierrez, Guevara called her Tamara Bunke, and his associates called her Tanya. Three years before her death, she moved to Bolivia and began preparing for guerrilla warfare. In order to get legalized, she found the most reliable way- became the president's mistress...

October 7, 1967. A month after Tanya died breaking out of encirclement, Guevara made a similar attempt. At that time he had seventeen people left. This detachment was finished on October 8th.

The rebels were surrounded in the gorge of the Yura River (Yuro). The capture operation was commanded by the same captain Gary Prado. Four partisans were killed on the spot. The rest tried to break through the encirclement. Only four succeeded.

Guevara, was wounded in the leg and captured, along with two comrades.

When they opened aimed fire at Guevara, he shouted: “Don’t shoot. I'm Che Guevara. I’m worth more alive than dead.” For a long time the soldiers could not believe that this hungry ragamuffin had fought against them.

Che Guevara was interrogated and taken to a school in a mountain village called La Higuera. Che Guevara and his wounded comrades Chino and Willy were locked in the school. Chino was dying, the soldiers finished him off. The last civilian who spoke to Che was a schoolteacher named Julia Cortes. Captain Prado ordered her to take food to Guevara.

The school where Che Guevara was shot.

The next day, the commander of the Eighth Division, Colonel (later General) Joaquin Centeno Anaya, CIA agent Felix Rodriguez and the head of military intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Andres Selic Sean, arrived in the village by helicopter. They had in their hands an order from President Barrientos, which contained only two numbers - 500 and 600. They meant “Gevara” to be “shot.”

On October 9, 1967 at 13.30 the order was carried out. The sentence was carried out by Sergeant Mario Teran. Che Guevara was executed in a school in La Higuera on the personal orders of the President of Bolivia.

Sergeant Mario Teran. The man who shot Che Guevara.

A year and a half later, on April 27, 1969, Bolivian President Barrientos died in a plane crash in the Bolivian Sierra. It was sabotage, but the perpetrators remained unfound. Barrientos was first on the death list among those responsible for the death of Che Guevara.

The commander of the operation to defeat Che Guevara's detachment is Captain Gary Prado.

ACCORDING TO Gary Prado: “We went pursue the rest of the partisans andWe returned to La Higuera already in the afternoon. When we got to the village, we found that Che had already been shot. Non-commissioned officer Mario Teran killed the Comandante with the first shot, but the soldiers were ordered to fire several more shots at Che's dead body. They were going to put it on display for journalists. It was necessary to present the matter as if Che Guevara had died in battle.

Photo of Che Guevara immediately after the execution. The photo was recently released to the public. For a long time it was kept in a private archive.

Andres Selic in the center, in uniform. Celebrating the successful completion of the operation. Four years later, Andres Selic, who beat Che Guevara before his death, was himself tortured to death by torture in a prison cell. He was accused of terrorism, of preparing an assassination attempt on the next Bolivian dictator, General Banzer. This was the fifth death. And five years later, Joaquin Centeno, the same colonel who commanded the execution, was shot dead in Paris.

But Mario Teran, who shot Guevara, is still alive to this day. But what he got was probably worse than death. Misfortunes haunt him to this day. Soon after the execution he went crazy. In 1969, Mario Teran tried to commit suicide. He jumped from the window of a high-rise building in the city of Santa Cruz, but survived. After that, he was kept in a closed mental hospital for several years. When Teran came out of there, he became blind.

After Guevara was shot, CIA agent Rodriguez took away several of the Comandante's personal belongings, including Che Guevara's watch, which he continued to wear many years later and loved to show to journalists. Today, some of these things, including Che Guevara's flashlight, can be seen on display at the CIA.

Che Guevara shortly before his execution. CIA agent Felix Rodriguez is on the left.

Rodriguez managed to take out many photographs and documents, including Guevara’s locks.

October 10, 1967. IN The military tied Guevara's body to the skids of the helicopter on which Centeno Anaya arrived and transported him to the town of Vallegrande. It was there, in the laundry room of a local hospital, that photographs of Che Guevara lying like Christ were taken.

The famous photo was taken by photographer Freddy Alberto. Che's body was placed on the table for washing clothes. This was the only privilege given to the commandant. The bodies of the remaining partisans were dumped on the floor.

Bolivian Freddy Alborta took a series of last photographs of the fiery revolutionary in October 1967. The photographs were taken after the Comandante's death. Photographs of Guevara's body, stretched out on a table in the laundry room of a hospital in one of the remote Bolivian villages, made the rounds of newspapers around the world and made the photographer famous. . But despite the stunning fame of these photographs, Alborta himself received only $75 for them.

Posthumous photographs of Che Guevara.

Thus ended Che Guevara's attempt to stir up a Marxist rebellion in Bolivia. Guevara was captured and killed several times in the chest. The photograph shows several officers standing around the killed revolutionary, pointing out bullet wounds. On the other he lies tied to a stretcher...

At night, on the orders of the Bolivian Interior Minister (and part-time CIA agent) Antonio Arguedas, the hands of Che's corpse were cut off and preserved in formaldehyde.

The minister was going to send the hands to Washington as proof of Che's death. But then I changed my mind. And he sent them to Cuba, along with a photocopy of Ernesto's diary.

On February 24, 2000, a grenade exploded in the hands of Antonio Arguedas. For some reason he carried her home. This is the official version of the death of the former minister and CIA agent. Investigators could not find anything to suggest it was a homicide.

On October 15, 1967, Castro admitted that Guevara was dead and declared three days of mourning throughout the island.

October 11, 1967. After a military doctor amputated Che Guevara's arms, his body and the bodies of his comrades (Chino and Chang) were handed over to several Bolivian officers. They loaded the corpses into a truck and took them away in an unknown direction. All the bodies were secretly dumped into a trench at the nearby Valle Grande airport.

Since then, the location of Guevara's burial site has remained a state secret in Bolivia. Few knew the secret of the unknown grave. Moreover, they all remained stubbornly silent for thirty years, dying one after another.

The long silence was finally broken in November 1995. Former Bolivian officer and now General Mario Vargas Salinas said that he took part in a secret burial on the night of October 11, 1967. According to him, the Comandante and his comrades were buried in a hole dug by a bulldozer at the edge of the landing strip.

Following the revelations of Vargas Salinas, Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada personally initiated the creation of a commission to search for the bodies. After several weeks of excavations at the airport, the remains of several guerrillas were found, but not of Guevara.

Cleaning the bones of Che Guevara.

However, the commission continued the search. On Castro's orders, a group of Cuban forensic experts and historians arrived to help them. On July 1, 1997, they scanned the ground with ground penetrating radar and discovered several “anomalies.” This is how Bolivian and Cuban experts found the burial site.

We found a mass grave. All the bodies were thrown into the pit at the same time,” one of the Argentine experts, Alejandro Inchauregu, commented on the find. - Moreover, three bodies were lying on top of each other. One skeleton had no arms.

In addition to the missing hands, another detail strengthened the researchers' belief that the remains belonged to Che Guevara: there were traces of plaster in the pocket of the jacket that the skeleton was wearing without hands. It was known that on the same evening that Guevara's arms were amputated, his death mask was also removed. So traces of gypsum could be remnants of this process.

Archaeologists are unearthing the remains of Che Guevara.

October 17, 1997. The remains of Che Guevara and six of his comrades were transported to Havana and then buried with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara (Cuba).

1998 The bullet-riddled body of partisan Laura Gutierrez Bauer, better known as “Tanya,” was found in a burial place near the city of Valle Grande.

Guevara remains Cuba's beloved national hero. His image adorns the 3 peso bill.

In Guevara's homeland in Argentina, a 12-meter bronze statue of the Comandante was erected in 2008.

Guevara is considered a saint by many Bolivian peasants under the name "San Ernesto".

His face has become the most replicated image in the world. It is printed on T-shirts, hats, posters and swimsuits. Ironically, he made a huge contribution to the consumer culture that he despised immensely.

Especially for the site “Secrets of the World”. When using the material, an active link to the site required.

Ernesto Che Guevara has been dead for more than 40 years. His great contemporaries, such as Charles de Gaulle and Mao Zedong, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, took pride of place in textbooks 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 Lynch or in Spanish Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Linch.

To understand the unusual popularity of Che Guevara, you need to 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. A 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 translated means “little pig”* - this is a diminutive of Ernesto.
Later he received the nickname Hog:

“And of course Ernesto continued to play rugby with the Granado brothers. His friend Barral spoke of Guevara as the most gambling player on the team, although he still constantly 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 Ernesto a dislike for personal hygiene." (Paco Ignacio Taibo)

3. For the first two school years, Che Guevara could not attend school and studied at home because he suffered from daily asthma attacks. Ernesto Che Guevara suffered his first attack of bronchial asthma at the age of two, and the disease haunted him for the rest of his life.
4. Ernesto entered Dean-Funes State College only at 30 and all because of the aforementioned asthma at the age of 14.
5. Che Guevara was born in Argentina, and became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, when Cuban chess player Capablanca came to Buenos Aires. Ernesto was very passionate about chess.
6. Starting at the age of 4, Guevara became passionate about reading; fortunately, in the house of Che’s parents there was a library of several thousand books.
7. Ernesto Che Guevara loved poetry very much and even composed poems himself.
8. Che was strong in the exact sciences, especially in mathematics, but chose the profession of a doctor.
9. In his youth, Che Guevara was fond of football (like most boys in Argentina), rugby, horse riding, golf, gliding and loved to travel by bicycle.
10. The name of Che Guevara appeared in newspapers 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 devote 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 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: washing dishes in restaurants, treating peasants or acting as veterinarians, repaired radios, worked as loaders, porters or sailors.
14. When Che and Alberto reached Brazil, Colombia, they were arrested for looking suspicious and tired. But the police chief, being a soccer fan familiar with Argentina's soccer success, released them after learning where they were from in exchange for a promise to coach the local soccer team. The team won the regional championship, and the fans bought them plane tickets to the capital of Colombia, Bogota.
15. In Colombia, Guevara and Granandos were again behind bars, but they were released on a promise to immediately leave Colombia.
16. Ernesto Che Guevara, not wanting to serve in the army, used an ice bath to cause an asthma attack and was declared unfit for military service. military service. As you can see, not only in our country they don’t want to serve in the army :)
17. Che was very interested in ancient cultures, read a lot about them and often visited the ruins of Indians of ancient civilizations.
18. Coming from a bourgeois family, he, having a doctor’s diploma in hand, sought to work in the most backward areas, even for free, to treat ordinary people.
19. Ernesto at one time came to the conclusion that in order to be a successful and rich doctor it is not necessary to be a privileged specialist, but it is necessary to serve the ruling classes and invent useless medicines for imaginary patients. But Che believed that he had an obligation to devote himself to improving the living conditions of the broad masses.
20. On June 17, 1954, armed groups of Armas from Honduras invaded 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 battlefield 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 ridicule, but often used strong words in conversation, and was very harsh, “when necessary.”
24. On June 5, 1957, Fidel Castro allocated a column led by Che Guevara consisting of 75 fighters. Che was awarded the rank of commandante (major). It should be noted that during the revolution in Cuba in 1956-1959, the commandant was the highest rank among the rebels, who deliberately did not assign each other a higher military rank. The most famous comandantes are Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos.
25. Being a Marxist, Ernesto Che Guevara reproached “brotherly” socialist countries(USSR and China) in imposing on the poorest countries conditions of exchange of goods similar to those dictated by imperialism on the world market.
26. Che Guevara in the early 1950s jokingly signed his 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: “used up two, five left,” meaning that he, like a cat, had seven lives.
28. Ernesto Che Guevara was shot by Bolivian army sergeant Mario Teran, who drew the short straw in a dispute between soldiers over the honor of killing Che. The sergeant was ordered to shoot carefully in order to simulate death in battle. This was done to avoid accusations that Che was executed without trial.
29. After Che’s death, many residents of Latin America began to consider him a saint and addressed him as “San Ernesto de La Higuera.”
30. Che traditionally, in front of everyone monetary reforms, is depicted on the front side of the three Cuban pesos bill.

31. The world-famous two-color full-face portrait of Che Guevara 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. The Jose Marti star is visible on Che's beret, hallmark Comandante, received from Fidel Castro in July 1957 along with this title.

32. 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.

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

* Many thanks to Alexander, the author of the project about Che Guevara, for pointing out the inaccuracies in the text. I deliberately left the original text for the story crossed out as a warning 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 pins, mugs, and baseball caps by clicking on the banner below. High quality and inexpensive, I recommend!

Ernesto Che Guevara ( full name Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, Spanish. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna; June 14, 1928, Argentina - October 9, 1967, Bolivia) - Latin American revolutionary, commander of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. In addition to the Latin American continent, it also operated in the Republic of the Congo. Che received his nickname from the Cuban rebels for the interjection che, characteristic of Argentines, borrowed from the Guarani Indians, which conveys, depending on intonation and context, different feelings.

Everything about him was wrong. Instead of the aristocratic sonorous name of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - a short, almost faceless pseudonym of Che, which doesn’t even have much meaning. Just an interjection - well, hey. Argentines repeat it every other word. But here you go - it caught on, was remembered, and became known to the world. Instead of a smart outfit and pomaded hair, there is a rumpled jacket, worn-out shoes, disheveled hair. A native Argentine, he couldn’t tell a tango from a waltz. And yet, it was he, and not one of his dapper peers, who captivated the heart of Chinchina, the daughter of one of the richest landowners in Cordoba. So he came to parties at her house - shaggy, in shabby clothes, terrifying the snobby guests. And he was still the best for her. For now, of course. In the end, the prose of life took its toll: Chinchina wanted a calm, secure, comfortable life - a normal life, in a word. But Ernesto was just not fit for a normal life. Then, in his youth, he was possessed by a dream - to save the world. At any cost. That's probably the secret. That is why a pampered, sickly boy from a well-born family turned out to be a revolutionary. But in his mother’s family - the last viceroy of Peru, his father’s brother - an admiral - was the Argentine ambassador to Cuba when his nephew was a partisan there. His father, also Ernesto, said: “The blood of Irish rebels, Spanish conquerors and Argentine patriots flowed in my son’s veins”...

If I lose, it will not mean that it was impossible to win. Many failed in their efforts to reach the summit of Everest, and in the end Everest was defeated.

Che Guevara

Go ahead. Revolutionary. In the popular imagination, he is a gloomy, laconic subject, alien to the joys of life. And he lived greedily, with pleasure: he read avidly, loved painting, painted with watercolors himself, was fond of chess (even after making a revolution, he continued to participate in amateur chess tournaments, and jokingly warned his wife: “I’m going on a date”), played football and rugby , was involved in gliding, raced rafts in the Amazon, and loved cycling. Even in newspapers, Guevara’s name appeared for the first time not in connection with revolutionary events, but when he made a four-thousand-kilometer tour on a moped, traveling all over South America. Then, together with a friend, Alberto Granados, Ernesto traveled on a decrepit motorcycle. When the driven motorcycle gave up the ghost, the young people continued on foot. About the adventures in Colombia, Granados recalled: “We arrived in Leticia not only exhausted to the limit, but also without a centavo in our pocket. Our unpresentable appearance aroused natural suspicions among the police, and we soon found ourselves behind bars. We were rescued by the glory of Argentine football. When the chief of police , a passionate fan, learned that we were Argentinians, he offered us freedom in exchange for agreeing to become coaches of a local football team that would participate in the regional championship. And when our team won, grateful leather ball fanatics bought us plane tickets, which safely delivered us to Bogota."

But in order. Painful. On May 2, 1930 (Tete - that was Ernesto's name in childhood - he was only two years old) he had his first asthma attack. Doctors advised a change of climate - the family, having sold their plantation, moved to Cordoba. The disease did not let go of Ernesto all his life. He couldn’t even go to school for the first two years - his mother had to teach him at home. By the way, Ernesto was lucky with his mother. Celia de la Ser na y de la Llosa was an extraordinary woman: she spoke several languages, became one of the first feminists in the country and perhaps the first car enthusiast among Argentine women, and was incredibly well-read. The house had a huge library, the boy became addicted to reading. He adored poetry and retained this passion until his death - in a backpack found in Bolivia after the death of Che, along with the “Bolivian Diary” there was a notebook with his favorite poems.

A man who could not sit still all his life. Since childhood. At the age of eleven, Tete, together with younger brother ran away from home. They were found only a few days later, eight hundred (!) kilometers from Rosario. In his youth, already as a medical student, Guevara enlisted on a cargo ship: his family needed money. Then - by his own choice - he interned at a leper colony. One day, fate brought Guevara and Granados to Peru, to the ruins of the ancient Indian city of Machu Picchu, where the last Inca emperor fought the Spanish conquistadors. Alberto said to Che: “You know, old man, let’s stay here. I’ll marry an Indian woman from a noble Incan family, proclaim myself emperor and become the ruler of Peru, and I’ll appoint you prime minister, and together we will carry out a social revolution.” Che replied: “You’re crazy, you can’t make a revolution without shooting!”

After graduating from university and receiving a diploma as a surgeon, Ernesto Guevara did not even think about settling down. It would be possible to start a measured life - the profession of a doctor in Argentina has always been a profitable business - but he... leaves his homeland. And he finds himself in Guatemala at the most dramatic moment for this country. As a result of the first free elections, a moderate reformist government came to power in the republic. In June 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower organized a military intervention against Guatemala. It was then that Guevara’s thought was confirmed: a revolution cannot be made without shooting. Of all the recipes for getting rid of social inequality, Ernesto chooses Marxism, but not rational-dogmatic, but romantically idealized.

After Guatemala, Ernesto ended up in Mexico City, working as a bookseller, street photographer, and doctor. And then his life changed dramatically - he met the Castro brothers. After the unsuccessful assault on the Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, the Castros emigrated to Mexico. Here they developed a plan to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. At a training camp near Mexico City, Ernesto studied military affairs. The police arrested the future rebel. The only document found on Che turned out to be a certificate of attendance at courses... in the Russian language, which ended up in his pocket.