In the modern world, there are few figures that can compete with Ernesto Che Guevara in worldwide popularity. It has become a symbol of the Revolution, a symbol of the fight against any lie and injustice. And here is the paradox - Che Guevara, who was an example of selflessness and selflessness, now brings huge incomes to dealers who make money on his image. Souvenirs with portraits of the Comandante, T-shirts, baseball caps, bags, restaurants named after him. Che is fashionable and stylish, and even pop music figures consider it their duty to beat his rebellious image.
Iron character
The real, live Ernesto Che Guevara would certainly have treated this with his inherent irony. During his lifetime, he did not care about ranks, regalia and popularity - his main task was to help the disadvantaged and powerless.
Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 in the Argentine city of Rosario, in the family of an architect with Irish roots Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna la Llosa, which had Spanish roots.
Little Tete had four brothers and sisters, and his parents did everything to raise them into worthy people. Ernesto himself and all his brothers and sisters received higher education.
The father of the future revolutionary sympathized with the left forces, and talked a lot with the Spanish Republicans living in Argentina, who left their homeland after the defeat in the civil war with the Francoists. Ernesto heard the conversations of Spanish émigrés with his father, and his future political views began to take shape even then.
Not everyone knows, but the fiery revolutionary Che Guevara all his life suffered from a serious chronic ailment - bronchial asthma, which is why he always had to have an inhaler with him.
But Ernesto had a strong character since childhood - despite his illness, he played football, rugby, equestrian sports and other sports. Che Guevara also loved to read in his youth, fortunately, his parents had an extensive library. Ernesto began with adventures, then reading became more and more serious - the classics of world literature, the works of philosophers and politicians, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kropotkin, Bakunin.
Che Guevara was very fond of chess, and it was thanks to them that he became interested in Cuba - when Ernesto was 11 years old, when the ex-world champion Cuban came to Argentina Jose Raul Capablanca.
Ernesto Che Guevara fishing. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Student traveler
In his youth, Ernesto Guevara did not think about a career as a revolutionary, although he firmly knew that he wanted to help people. In 1946 he entered the medical faculty of the National University of Buenos Aires.
Ernesto not only studied, but also traveled, seeking to learn more about the world. In 1950, he traveled to Trinidad and British Guiana as a sailor on an oil tanker.
Ernesto Guevara's views were greatly influenced by two trips to Latin America in 1952 and 1954. Poverty and complete powerlessness of the common people against the background of the wealth of the elite - that's what caught the eye of the young doctor. Latin America bore the unofficial title of the "backyard of the United States," where the country's intelligence services helped establish military dictatorships that protected the interests of large American corporations.
During the second trip, a young doctor (graduated in 1953) Ernesto Guevara in Guatemala joins supporters President Jacobo Arbenz, who pursued a policy independent of the United States, nationalizing the lands of the American agricultural company United Fruit Company. However, Arbenz was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the US CIA.
Nevertheless, Guevara's activities in Guatemala were appreciated by both friends and enemies - he was included in the list of "dangerous communists of Guatemala to be liquidated."
The revolution is calling
Ernesto Guevara left for Mexico, where he worked as a doctor at the Institute of Cardiology for two years. In Mexico, he met with Fidel Castro, preparing a revolutionary action in Cuba.
Fidel later admitted that the Argentinean Guevara made a strong impression on him. If Castro himself by that time did not take a clear political position, then Guevara was a convinced Marxist who knew how to defend his views in the most difficult discussion.
Ernesto Guevara joined the Castro group preparing for the landing in Cuba, having finally decided on his future - he preferred the dangers of revolutionary struggle to a calm career as a doctor.
Despite the preparations, the landing of revolutionaries in Cuba in December 1956 turned into a real nightmare. The yacht "Granma" turned out to be a fragile little boat, but the rebels simply did not have the money for something more serious. In addition, it turned out that out of 82 members of the group, only a few people are not susceptible to seasickness. And, finally, at the landing site, the detachment was awaited by the 35,000-strong group of troops of the Cuban dictator Batista, which had tanks, coast guard ships and aviation.
As a result, in the first battles, half of the group died, and more than twenty people were captured. Only a small group, including Ernesto Guevara, broke through to the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, which became a shelter for the revolutionaries.
Nevertheless, it was with this group that the Cuban Revolution began, which ended in victory in January 1959.
In Cuba. Photo: AiF / Pavel Prokopov
Che
From June 1957, Ernesto Guevara became the commander of one of the formations of the revolutionary army, into which more and more Cubans joined - the fourth column.
The soldiers noted that the commander Guevara always knew how to correctly influence the soldiers in difficult moments, being sometimes cruel in words, but never humiliating his subordinates.
The revolutionary soldiers were amazed - suffering from bouts of illness, Che Guevara marched along with the others, as a doctor assisted the wounded, and shared his last meal with the hungry.
The nickname "Che" Ernesto Guevara was given in Cuba for the habit of using this word in speech. According to one version, Guevara used “che” in conversation as an analogue of the Russian “hear”. According to the other, the reference "che" in Argentine slang meant "friend" - this is how the commander Guevara addressed the sentries during his rounds of posts.
One way or another, Ernesto Guevara went down in history as the commandant of Che Guevara.
Continuation of the struggle
After the victory of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara became President of the National Bank of Cuba, and then Minister of Industry of the Island of Liberty. The idea that Che Guevara was illiterate and played the role of a "wedding general" in these positions is deeply mistaken - smart and educated Che showed himself to be a competent professional who thoroughly delved into the intricacies of the task entrusted to him.
The problem was rather in internal feelings - if Castro and his associates, having achieved victory in Cuba, saw the task in the state building of their homeland, then the Argentinean Che Guevara sought to continue the revolutionary struggle in other parts of the globe.
In April 1965, Che Guevara, by that time a well-known and popular Cuban politician all over the world, left all his posts, wrote a farewell letter, and left for Africa, where he became involved in the revolutionary struggle in the Congo. However, due to disagreements with local revolutionaries and an unfavorable situation, he soon went to Bolivia, where in 1966, at the head of a detachment, he began a guerrilla struggle against the local pro-American regime.
Fearless Che did not take into account two things - unlike Cuba, the local population in Bolivia at that time did not support the revolutionaries. In addition, the Bolivian authorities, frightened by the appearance of Che Guevara in their area, requested assistance from the United States.
A real hunt began on Che. Special detachments of almost all of the then dictatorial regimes of Latin America were sent to Bolivia. The CIA special agents were actively searching for the place of shelter of the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (under this name the detachment of Che Guevara operated).
The death of the commandant
In August-September 1967, the partisans suffered serious losses. Che, however, under these conditions remained himself - despite the attacks of asthma, he encouraged his comrades and provided medical assistance to them and to the captured soldiers of the Bolivian army, whom he later freed.
In early October, the informant Shiro Bustosa gave the government troops a parking space for Che Guevara's detachment. On October 8, 1967, special forces surrounded and attacked the camp in the Yuro gorge. In a bloody battle, Che was wounded, his rifle was broken by a bullet, but the commandos managed to capture him only when the pistol ran out of cartridges.
The wounded Che Guevara was taken to the building of the village school in the town of La Higuera. Approaching the building, the revolutionary drew attention to the wounded soldiers of the Bolivian army, and offered to help them as a doctor, but was refused.
On the night of October 8-9, Che Guevara was kept in the school building, and the authorities feverishly decided what to do with the revolutionary. It is still unclear where the execution order came from - it was officially signed head of the military government Rene Ortunho, however, he himself maintained all his life that in fact he did not make such a decision. The Bolivian authorities were in talks with the US CIA headquarters in Langley, and perhaps the command to shoot was given by the top leadership of the United States.
The soldiers chose the direct executor among themselves with the help of a straw, which he pulled out Sergeant Mario Teran.
When Teran entered the room where Che Guevara was, he already knew about his fate. Calmly standing in front of the executioner, Che Guevara briefly threw Teran, whose hands, according to eyewitnesses, were shaking:
Shoot, coward, you kill the man!
A shot rang out, ending the life of the revolutionary.
Forever alive
Che Guevara's hands were amputated as material evidence of his murder. The body was put on public display for residents and the press in the village of Vallegrand.
And then something happened that the executioners obviously did not expect. Bolivian peasants, who were so wary of Che, looking at the body of a defeated revolutionary who sacrificed his life in the struggle for a better life for them, saw in him a resemblance to the crucified Christ.
After a short period of time, the deceased Che became a saint for the local residents, to whom they turn with prayers, asking for help. The leftist movement in Bolivia has received a tangible boost. Bolivia's National Liberation Army continued its struggle after Che's death until 1978, when its members switched to political activities in a legal position. The struggle started by Che will continue, and in 2005 he will win the elections in Bolivia leader of the "Movement to Socialism" party Evo Morales.
The body of Che Guevara was secretly buried, and only in 1997, the participant in the execution of the revolutionary, General Mario Vargas Salinas, said that the remains were under the runway of the airfield in Vallegrand.
In October 1997, the remains of Che and his comrades were transported to Cuba and solemnly buried in a mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, where Che's detachment won one of the largest victories during the Cuban Revolution.
Defeated in battle, Che defeated death, becoming the eternal symbol of the Revolution. In the most difficult days, the Comandante himself did not doubt the victory of his cause: ““ My defeat will not mean that it was impossible to win. Many were defeated trying to reach the summit of Everest, and in the end Everest was defeated. "
Ernesto Guevara was born in the city of Rosario (Argentina). This event in the Basque and Irish family took place on June 14, 1928. Ernesto was the first of five children. His parents have always supported the Republican Party side in the Spanish Civil War. Veterans of the resistance army have repeatedly visited their house. This could not but affect young Ernesto. His father repeatedly said that the son was of the flesh and blood of the Irish rebels.
It is interesting to note that all of the family members loved to read. There were about 3,000 books on the shelves. Among them are books by Franz Kafka, Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jules Verne, William Faulkner and many others.
Youth
In 1948, the future national hero of Argentina successfully passed the medical examinations at the National University of Buenos Aires. Literally two years later, he took out an academic leave for a grand trip to Latin America with his friend Alberto Granado. On a motorcycle, the two comrades traveled half of the mainland and saw with their own eyes the main attractions, got acquainted with the amazing nature and various peoples of the large continent. He wrote down his thoughts and impressions in a diary. Later, these notes appeared on the front pages of the New York Times under the loud headline "Motorcycle Diaries."
Back in Argentina, 22-year-old Ernesto sat down at his desk again - this time to complete his studies and, finally, to receive a well-deserved doctorate. He achieved his goal in 1953. But with all his thoughts and feelings, he was directed to another world - the world of justice and freedom, directly opposite to flourishing poverty and lawlessness.
Revolutionary activity
At the end of 1953, Ernesto Guevara moved to Guatemala, where he actively participated in the political and public life of the country. From there, under the threat of arrest, he was forced to flee to Mexico. There he met his future wife, Ilde Gadea, who introduced him to the circle of revolutionary-minded immigrants from the Island of Freedom.
In the summer of 1955, he had a fateful meeting with Raul Castro, who soon introduced him to his brother, Fidel Castro. The latter invited Guevara to join the Cuban revolutionary group to fight the dictatorial regime of Batista. The Argentine agreed without any doubts, because the success of the Cuban uprising is the first step towards victory in the continental revolution. And this was his main dream and goal in life.
Victory
The road to victory was hard. Some were killed during the fighting, others were arrested and shot. However, Fidel Castro was supported by a large part of the country's population. As a result, in the summer of 1958, Batista's army was finally defeated.
Guevara was awarded the highest military rank - commandant. He became an honorary citizen of Cuba and the second person after Fidel Castro. But the honors did not change him. He led a modest life, resisted all sorts of excesses and luxury. But most importantly, he continued to wage his just struggle for equal rights, the eradication of poverty and a new social society throughout the South American continent.
Other biography options
- In a short biography of Ernesto Che Guevara, one cannot but mention the appearance of the word "Che" in his name. The fact is that the “commandante” often used the interjection “che”, which literally translated as “friend”.
- In 1962, the world was on the brink of a nuclear war, largely thanks to the efforts of Guevara. It was he who participated in attracting nuclear missiles to Cuba.
- In 1967, Che Guevara was captured and subsequently shot in La Ichera.
STORIES
About Che Guevara
The name of Ernesto Che Guevara is already so "promoted", so much is said about him that is true and not very much, the accents are shifted and the image is worn out, a picture is made and put into circulation, and I think it is not worth retelling and sucking everything once again. We will limit ourselves only to the fact that we will give a few quotes and documentary statements.
"75 years ago, on June 14, 1928, in the Argentine city of Rosario, a man was born who is sometimes called" the last revolutionary of the 20th century "- Ernesto Guevara Lynch de la Serna. Nicknamed" Che "(" friend "," comrade "), a young doctor Guevara received it after he met in Mexico with Fidel Castro, who was preparing a detachment for the landing in Cuba. Since then and to this day Ernesto Guevara is known precisely as Che Guevara. "
"The fight against the thoroughly rotten and corrupt ruling regimes became the work of Che Guevara's entire life, and he gave himself up to this fight without a trace. The uncompromising attitude with which Che Guevara waged this fight did not always find understanding even among his closest associates."
"My defeat will not mean that it was impossible to win. Many were defeated trying to reach the summit of Everest, and in the end Everest was defeated."
"With his indefatigable energy, thirst for struggle, Che Guevara won truly boundless respect not only from friends, but also from many enemies. Captain of the Bolivian army Harry Prado, who commanded the operation to destroy Che Guevara's detachment, sincerely admired the courage of his opponent, his confidence in the rightness of his cause."
"In 1967, he went on his last trip to Bolivia, from which he never returned. Yes, probably no one was expecting him except his family. He was too uncomfortable and unpredictable."
"... I again feel the ribs of Rocinante with my heels, again, donning armor, I set off. Many will call me an adventurer, and this is so. But only I am an adventurer of a special kind, of the breed that risk their skin, to prove my point. Maybe I'm trying to do this one last time. I'm not looking for that end, but it's possible ... And if it does, take my last hug. "
"Revolutionary romanticism had nothing to do with reality, and ultimately served the commandant a disservice. After all, it was the Bolivian peasants, whose support he hoped so much, gave the government troops the location of his detachment. But, even being captured, Che Guevara did not say about not a single bad word to their failed comrades-in-arms. "
Che's posthumous popularity was ensured by a single photograph taken by Alberto Corda on March 5, 1960, when Guevara attended a memorial service in memory of the Belgian sailors who died during the attack on Cuba by the rebels. The photograph gained worldwide fame in 1968 when it became a symbol of student unrest in Paris. Since then, the image of a bearded man in a beret with a revolutionary gaze has become an indispensable attribute of "rebellious" youth.
Ernesto Che Guevara (Ernesto Che Guevara) - full name Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario (Argentina). At the age of two, Ernesto suffered a severe form of bronchial asthma (and this disease haunted him all his life), and the family moved to Cordoba to restore his health.
In 1950, Guevara was hired as a sailor on an oil tanker from Argentina, visited the island of Trinidad and British Guiana.
In 1952, Ernesto went on a motorcycle trip to South America with his brother Granado. They visited Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.
In 1953 he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Buenos Aires, received a medical degree.
From 1953 to 1954, Guevara made his second long trip to Latin America. He visited Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador. In Guatemala, he took part in the defense of the government of President Arbenz, after whose defeat he settled in Mexico, where he worked as a doctor. During this period of his life, Ernesto Guevara received his nickname "Che" for the typical Argentinean Spanish interjection Che, which he abused in oral speech.
In November 1966 he arrived in Bolivia to organize a partisan movement.
The partisan detachment he created on October 8, 1967 was surrounded and defeated by government forces. Ernesto Che Guevara was.
On October 11, 1967, his body and the bodies of six of his associates were secretly buried near the airport in Vallegrand. In July 1995, the location of Guevara's grave was discovered. And in July 1997, the remains of the commandant were returned to Cuba, in October 1997, the remains of Che Guevara were reburied in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara in Cuba.
In 2000, Time magazine included Che Guevara in the lists of 20 Heroes and Icons and One Hundred Most Important Persons of the 20th Century.
The Comandante is depicted on all three Cuban peso bills.
The world famous two-color portrait of Che Guevara full face has become a symbol of the romantic revolutionary movement. The portrait was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick from a 1960 photograph taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Corda. On Che's beret, you can see the star Jose Marti, the hallmark of the Comandante, received from Fidel Castro in July 1957 along with this title.
On October 8, Cuba celebrates the Day of the Heroic Partisan in memory of Ernest Che Guevara.
Che Guevara was married twice, he has five children. In 1955, he married the Peruvian revolutionary Ilda Gadea, who gave birth to a daughter to Guevara. In 1959, his marriage to Ilda broke up, and the revolutionary married Aleida March, whom he met in the partisan detachment. They had four children with Aleida.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Ernesto Che Guevara or simply Che is one of the most famous revolutionaries of the 20th century, who has become a symbol of the struggle for freedom for many people.
Some facts of his biography remain classified to this day, however, what is known for sure about him is enough to appreciate the brightness and originality of Che Guevara's Commander.
How to become a commandant
Ernesto Guevara was born in 1928 in Argentina. His parents tried to give him a comprehensive education, and their library consisted of several thousand books.
Ernesto spoke fluent French, was fond of the works of Hugo, Tolstoy, Kropotkin, Sartre. Despite his penchant for the exact sciences, Ernesto chose the profession of a doctor and entered the Faculty of Medicine.
During his studies and after her, Guevara traveled a lot. On one of these trips, he even wrote a book "Diary of a Motorcyclist", where he described in detail his seven-month trip to Latin America.
However, the revolutionary movement carried away Ernesto only on the next journey, which a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires undertook in 1953.
Once in Guatemala, Che Guevara met Cubans who fled from the political regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
By the way, Ernesto Guevara took the nickname Che himself, trying to emphasize his Argentine origin (che is a popular address in Argentina).
Ernesto Guevara was forced to flee Guatemala to Mexico, where he initially sold books and worked as a watchman, and then got a job as a doctor in a Mexico City hospital.
It was to him that two Cubans came for a consultation, one of whom turned out to be an old acquaintance of Ernesto. They said that a group of rebels is gathering in Mexico City, wanting to overthrow Batista.
Fascinated by this idea, Che Guevara met Raul Castro a few days later and became an active participant in the preparation of the Cuban revolution.
Long live the revolution
A year later, a small yacht, on which there were 82 people, departed from the port of Tuspan - the detachment of Fidel Castro. Ernesto Guevara was enrolled in this detachment as a doctor.
The landing in Cuba did not go as planned, and the revolutionaries were forced to wade ashore, saving weapons and medicines.
The expedition was by no means a secret, and a group of emaciated people was attacked by Batista's 35,000-strong army, supported by tanks, warships and fighters. Nevertheless, almost half of the detachment managed to hide in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
These mountains were the base of Castro's detachment for almost two years: from there they conducted sorties, new rebels came there, the local population actively supported the revolutionaries.
It would seem that the revolution, initially doomed to defeat, ended in a spectacular victory after two years of struggle: on January 2, 1959, the partisans occupied Havana without firing a single shot.
After the victory
Under the new government, Che showed himself to be a fairly successful diplomatic and political figure, but already in 1965 he renounced Cuban citizenship and went to the Congo, where he took an active part in the rebel struggle against the current government.
However, the uprising ended in failure, and the commandant secretly went to Bolivia. There, for 11 months, he successfully waged a guerrilla war against the regular government troops, which were supported by the CIA, which announced a hunt for the legendary revolutionary.
Luck changed Che on October 8, 1967, when the remnants of his detachment were defeated, and he himself was captured. The very next day, an order was received to "destroy Senor Guevara", which was immediately carried out.
Che Guevara's body was found in a mass grave in Bolivia only in 1997. Now his remains, along with the ashes of six of his comrades, rest in the mausoleum of Santa Clara, where Ernesto won one of the most important battles for Cuba.
Despite the fact that only one revolution ended with success, in which Ernesto Che Guevara took part, he remained in the memory of people a symbol of the tireless struggle for freedom and equality, a rude, cruel and fanatical, but at the same time an amazingly noble man, completely and completely devoted to the revolutionary ideals.
