Ernesto "
Che"
Guevara (Spanish pronunciation:
[ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa];
[7] June 14,
[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as
el Che or simply
Che, was an
Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author,
intellectual,
guerrilla leader,
diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the
Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous
countercultural symbol of
rebellion and global insignia
within popular culture.
[8]
As a young
medical student, Guevara traveled throughout
Latin America and was radically transformed by the endemic
poverty and
alienation he witnessed.
[9] His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region's ingrained
economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of
capitalism,
monopolism,
neocolonialism, and
imperialism, with the only remedy being
world revolution.
[10] This belief prompted his involvement in
Guatemala's social reforms under President
Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual
CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met
Raúl and
Fidel Castro, joined their
26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht,
Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban
dictator Fulgencio Batista.
[11] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the
insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.
[12]
Following the
Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and
firing squads for those convicted as
war criminals during the revolutionary
tribunals,
[13] instituting
agrarian land reformas minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide
literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for
Cuba’s armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban
socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the
Bay of Pigs Invasion[14] and bringing the
Sovietnuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis.
[15] Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal
manual on
guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling
memoir about his
youthful motorcycle journey across South America. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in
Congo-Kinshasa and later in
Bolivia, where he was captured by
CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.
[16]
Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination
in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for
class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a "new man" driven by moral rather than material incentives; he has evolved into a quintessential icon of various
leftist-inspired movements.
Time magazine named him one of the
100 most influential people of the 20th century,
[17] while an
Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled
Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was cited by the
Maryland Institute College of Art as "the most famous photograph in the world".
[18]
Contents
[
hide]
1 Early life
1.1 Intellectual and literary interests
1.2 Motorcycle journey
[/list]
2 Guatemala, Árbenz and United Fruit
3 Mexico City and preparation
4 Cuban Revolution
4.1 Invasion, warfare and Santa Clara
4.2 La Cabaña, land reform, and literacy
4.3 The "New Man", Bay of Pigs and missile crisis
[/list]
5 International diplomacy
5.1 Algiers, the Soviets and China
[/list]
6 Congo
7 Bolivia
7.1 Capture and execution
7.2 Post-execution, remains and memorial
[/list]
8 Legacy
9 Timeline
10 Archival media
10.1 Video footage
10.2 Audio recording
[/list]
11 List of works
12 See also
13 Notes
14 References
15 External links
[/list]
Early life

A teenage Ernesto (left) with his parents and siblings, c. 1944. Seated beside him, from left to right: Celia (mother), Celia (sister), Roberto, Juan Martín, Ernesto (father) and Ana María.
Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928
[1] in
Rosario,
Argentina, the eldest of five children in an
Argentine family of
Spanish,
Basque and
Irish descent.
[19] In lieu of his parents' surnames, his legal name (Ernesto Guevara) will sometimes appear with de la Serna, or Lynch accompanying it. In reference to Che's "restless" nature, his father declared "the first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the
Irish rebels."
[20] Very early on in life Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an "affinity for the poor".
[21] Growing up in a family with
leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy.
[22] His father, a staunch supporter of
Republicans from the
Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.
[23]
Though suffering crippling bouts of acute
asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, football, golf, and shooting; while also becoming an "untiring" cyclist.
[24][25] He was an avid
rugby union player,
[26] and played at
fly-halffor
Club Universitario de Buenos Aires.
[27] His rugby playing earned him the nickname "Fuser"—a contraction of
El Furibundo (raging) and his mother's surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.
[28]
Intellectual and literary interests

22-year-old Guevara in 1951.
Guevara learned
chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by age 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he was passionate about poetry, especially that of
Pablo Neruda,
John Keats,
Antonio Machado,
Federico García Lorca,
Gabriela Mistral,
César Vallejo, and
Walt Whitman.
[29] He could also recite
Rudyard Kipling's
"If—" and
José Hernández's
"Martín Fierro" from memory.
[29] The Guevara home contained more than 3,000 books, which allowed Guevara to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, with interests including
Karl Marx,
William Faulkner,
André Gide,
Emilio Salgari and
Jules Verne.
[30] Additionally, he enjoyed the works of
Jawaharlal Nehru,
Franz Kafka,
Albert Camus,
Vladimir Lenin, and
Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as
Anatole France,
Friedrich Engels,
H. G. Wells, and
Robert Frost.
[31]
As he grew older, he developed an interest in the Latin American writers
Horacio Quiroga,
Ciro Alegría,
Jorge Icaza,
Rubén Darío, and
Miguel Asturias.
[31] Many of these authors' ideas he cataloged in his own handwritten notebooks of concepts, definitions, and philosophies of influential intellectuals. These included composing analytical sketches of
Buddha and
Aristotle, along with examining
Bertrand Russell on love and patriotism,
Jack London on society, and
Nietzsche on the idea of death.
Sigmund Freud's ideas fascinated him as he quoted him on a variety of topics from
dreams and
libido to
narcissism and the
oedipus complex.
[31] His favorite subjects in school included
philosophy,
mathematics,
engineering,
political science,
sociology,
history and
archaeology.
[32][33]
Years later, a February 13, 1958, declassified CIA 'biographical and personality report' would make note of Guevara’s wide range of academic interests and intellect, describing him as "quite well read" while adding that "Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino."
[34]
Motorcycle journey
Main articles:
The Motorcycle Diaries (book) and
The Motorcycle Diaries (film)
In 1948, Guevara en