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Artwork from the Museum of Che's Command in Havana.
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Che today: Che is everywhere in Cuba, and his cult of personality is second only to that of José Martí. Loe the Cuban national poet, he is the ultimate martyr — the man that died for the cause. He is therefore a hero, a patriot, and a romantic revolutionary. Because Che was also an intellectual and theoretician, he also serves as an inspiration for students in general and specifically medical students. He is the Cuban renaissance man: romantic revolutionary and brilliant thinker. His image adorns public buildings, billboards, and money, he has a large section of the Museum of the Revolution in Havana devoted to him, and has his own museum in Havana, at El Morro, and in Santa Clara, where his body is buried. Most interestingly about Che is that his image and words, in particular his "Hasta la victoria siempre — Toward victory always" — are commercialized more than any other Cuban icon. Che appears on t-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, and postcards in the tourist stores, and tourists spend a lot of money on these Che artifacts.
A Brief Biography: Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1928. He attended the school of medicine at the University of Buenos Aires and graduated as a doctor in 1953. During his studies Che managed to tour most of South America on a motorcycle with a friend, after which he wrote his Motorcycle Diaries . After graduation Che went to Guatemala to help the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, with the progressive national health programs he was implementing. This all came to a dramatic end, however, in June, 1954, when a group of reactionary rebels, aided and equipped by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, invaded Guatemala from Honduras and forced the progressive government into exile. Che, bitterly disillusioned with the United States, fled to Mexico, where soon thereafter he met Fidel and Raúl Castro. Che quickly signed on to Fidel's plan to launch a revolution in Cuba, which Che saw as nothing more than a colony of U.S. imperialism. Che, by this time a devout communist, embarked on the Granma with Fidel and 80 other men and landed in Cuba on December 2, 1956. Guevara played an integral role in the revolutionary struggle, commanding his own column that eventually captured the important city of Santa Clara in December, 1958, a victory that forced the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista to flee the country. Che entered Havana at the head of the victorious troops on January 2, 1959.
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A 3 peso coin featuring Che and the slogan "Homeland or Death." |
After the victory, Che was instrumental in pushing Fidel Castro to adopt policies and programs that were in line with communist doctrine, such as the confiscation of all U.S. owned properties in 1960-1961. Guevara served as Minister of Industry and Economy in the first years of the Revolutionary Government, and he was an unofficial ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1960 - 1962, helping to establish the trade and military alliance with the communist superpower. In the 1960s Che continued to write, publishing Episodes of the Revolutionary War [his testimony of the Revolution], Guerrilla Warfare [his theoretical work on warfare], and Socialism and the New Man , a book that postulates that man would be willing to work for the benefit of society as opposed to the benefit of himself. Che fiercely supported the role of Cuba in the Cold War, and personally led revolutionary troops in Africa [the Congo] and in South America [Bolivia], where he was killed in October, 1967, after being taken prisoner by the U.S. trained Bolivian Army Rangers.