View source for Che Guevara

{{Short description|Argentine revolutionary (1928–1967)}}
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{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Che Guevara
| image               = Che Guevara - Guerrillero Heroico by Alberto Korda.jpg
| caption             = ''[[Guerrillero Heroico]]'', 1960
| office              = [[Industry minister|Minister of Industries]] of Cuba
| primeminister       = [[Fidel Castro]]
| president           = [[Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado]]
| term_start          = 11 February 1961
| term_end            = 1 April 1965
| predecessor         = ''Office established''
| successor           = Joel Domenech Benítez
| office2             = President of the [[National Bank of Cuba]]
| term_start2         = 26 November 1959
| term_end2           = 23 February 1961
| predecessor2        = [[Felipe Pazos]]
| successor2          = Raúl Cepero Bonilla
| birth_name          = Ernesto Guevara
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|df=y|1928|05|14}}{{efn|name=birthdate|}}
| birth_place         = [[Rosario]], Santa Fe, Argentina
| death_date          = {{Death date and age|df=y|1967|10|09|1928|05|14}}
| death_place         = [[La Higuera]], Santa Cruz, Bolivia
| death_manner        = [[Execution by shooting]]
| resting_place       = [[Che Guevara Mausoleum]], Santa Clara, Cuba
| alma_mater          = [[University of Buenos Aires]]
| citizenship         = {{hlist|Argentina|Cuba}}
| honorific_prefix    = ''[[Comrade]]''
| party               = [[M-26-7]] (1955–1962)<br>[[United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba|PURSC]] (1962–1965)
| occupation          = {{hlist|Author|diplomat|[[guerrilla]]|physician}}
| known_for           = [[Guevarism]]
| spouse              = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Hilda Gadea]]|1955|1959|reason=div}}
* {{marriage|[[Aleida March]]|1959}}
}}
| parents = {{ill|Ernesto Guevara Lynch|es|Ernesto Guevara Lynch}}<br>{{ill|Celia de la Serna|es|Celia de la Serna}}
| children            = 5, including [[Aleida Guevara|Aleida]]
| signature           = CheGuevaraSignature.svg
| signature_size      = 
| nickname            = {{hlist|''[[Che (interjection)|Che]]''|''Fuser''}}
| allegiance          = [[Republic of Cuba]]<ref>Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista de Cuba, a.k.a. PURSC.</ref>
| branch              = {{plainlist|
* [[Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces]] (FAR)
* [[National Liberation Army of Bolivia]]
}}
| serviceyears        = 1955–1967
| rank                = {{lang|es|Comandante}}
| unit                = [[26th of July Movement]]
| commands            = [[Commanding officer]], FAR
| battles             = {{tree list}}
*  [[Cuban Revolution]]
** [[Attack on El Uvero]]
** [[Operation Verano]]
*** [[Battle of Las Mercedes]]
** [[Battle of Santa Clara]]
* [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]]
* [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]
* [[Simba rebellion]]
**[[Operation South]]
* [[Ñancahuazú Guerrilla]]{{executed}}{{tree list/end}}
| module              = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=06 ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA.ogg|title=Che Guevara's voice|type=speech|description=Guevara speaking to the youth in Havana<br />Recorded 1962}}
}}
'''Ernesto''' "'''Che'''" '''Guevara'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|tʃ|eɪ|_|ɡ|eɪ|ˈ|v|ɑː|ɹ|ə}} ({{Pronunciation|Che Guevara.ogg|pronunciation}}), {{IPAc-en|ɡ|ə|-}};<ref>{{Cite MW|Guevara|access-date=2024-12-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite American Heritage Dictionary|Guevara, Ernesto|access-date=2024-12-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite Dictionary.com|Che Guevara|access-date=2024-12-08}}</ref> {{IPA|es-419|ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa|lang}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.forvo.com/word/che_guevara#es |title=How to pronounce Che Guevara |website=Forvo}}; Forvo features various sound clips of international Spanish speakers enunciating his name.</ref>}} (14 May 1928{{efn|name=birthdate|The date of birth recorded on [//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificate] was 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source (Julia Constenla, quoted by [[Jon Lee Anderson]]) asserts that he was actually born on 14 May of that year. Constenla alleges that she was told by Che's mother, Celia de la Serna, that she was already pregnant when she and Ernesto Guevara Lynch were married and that the date on the birth certificate of their son was forged to make it appear that he was born a month later than the actual date to avoid scandal. ({{harvnb|Anderson|1997|pp=3, 769}}.)}} – 9 October 1967) was an [[Argentines|Argentine]] [[Communist revolution|Marxist revolutionary]], physician, author, [[Guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] leader, diplomat, politician and [[Military theory|military theorist]]. A major figure of the [[Cuban Revolution]], his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous [[Counterculture of the 1960s|countercultural]] symbol of rebellion and global insignia [[Che Guevara in popular culture|in popular culture]].{{sfn|Casey|2009|p=128}}

As a young medical student, Guevara travelled throughout South America and was appalled by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.<ref name="RevMedicine">[http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1960/08/19.htm On Revolutionary Medicine] Speech by Che Guevara to the Cuban Militia on 19 August 1960. "Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous or making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people."</ref>{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=90–91}} His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President [[Jacobo Árbenz]], whose eventual [[1954 Guatemalan coup d'état|CIA-assisted overthrow]] at the behest of the [[United Fruit Company]] solidified Guevara's political ideology.<ref name="RevMedicine"/> Later in Mexico City, Guevara met [[Raúl Castro|Raúl]] and [[Fidel Castro]], joined their [[26th of July Movement]], and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht ''[[Landing of the Granma|Granma]]'' with the intention of overthrowing US-backed dictator [[Fulgencio Batista]].{{sfn|Beaubien|2009|loc=00:09–00:13}} Guevara soon rose to prominence among the [[insurgent]]s, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the two-year guerrilla campaign which deposed the Batista regime.{{sfn|Time|1960}}

After the Cuban Revolution, Guevara played key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and death sentences for those convicted as war criminals during the [[Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution#Tribunals and executions|revolutionary tribunals]],{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=267}} instituting [[Agrarian reforms in Cuba#First agrarian reform law under Che Guevara|agrarian land reform]] as [[Industry minister|minister of industries]], helping spearhead a successful [[Cuban literacy campaign|nationwide literacy campaign]], serving as both president of the [[National Bank of Cuba|National Bank]] 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]],{{sfn|Kellner|1989|pp=69–70}} and bringing Soviet [[Nuclear weapon|nuclear]]-armed [[ballistic missile]]s to Cuba, a decision which ultimately precipitated the 1962 [[Cuban Missile Crisis]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=526–530}} Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal [[Guerrilla Warfare (book)|guerrilla warfare manual]], along with a [[The Motorcycle Diaries (book)|best-selling memoir]] about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of [[Marxism–Leninism]] led him to posit that the [[Third World]]'s [[underdevelopment]] and [[Dependency theory|dependence]] was an intrinsic result of [[imperialism]], [[neocolonialism]], and [[state monopoly capitalism|monopoly capitalism]], with the only remedies being [[proletarian internationalism]] and [[world revolution]].<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1964/03/25.htm "On Development"] Speech delivered by Che Guevara at the plenary session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, Switzerland on 25 March 1964. "The inflow of capital from the developed countries is the prerequisite for the establishment of economic dependence. This inflow takes various forms: loans granted on onerous terms; investments that place a given country in the power of the investors; almost total technological subordination of the dependent country to the developed country; control of a country's foreign trade by the big international monopolies; and in extreme cases, the use of force as an economic weapon in support of the other forms of exploitation."</ref><ref name="AfroAsian1965">{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/02/24.htm |title=At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria - A speech by Che Guevara to the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers, Algeria |date=24 February 1965 |quote=The struggle against imperialism, for liberation from colonial or neocolonial shackles, which is being carried out by means of political weapons, arms, or a combination of the two, is not separate from the struggle against backwardness and poverty. Both are stages on the same road leading toward the creation of a new society of justice and plenty.&nbsp;... Ever since monopoly capital took over the world, it has kept the greater part of humanity in poverty, dividing all the profits among the group of the most powerful countries. The standard of living in those countries is based on the extreme poverty of our countries. To raise the living standards of the underdeveloped nations, therefore, we must fight against imperialism.&nbsp;... The practice of proletarian internationalism is not only a duty for the peoples struggling for a better future, it is also an inescapable necessity. |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref> Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment continental revolutions across both Africa and South America,<ref>Guevara was coordinating with African liberation movements in exile such as the [[MPLA]] in Angola and [[National Movement of the Revolution|MNR]] in Congo-Brazzaville, while stating that Africa represented one of "the more important fields of struggle against all forms of exploitation existing in the world". Guevara then envisioned crafting an alliance with African leaders such as Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, Sékou Touré in Guinea, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, and Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, to foster a global dimension to his ensuing continental revolution in Latin America. See {{harvnb|Anderson|1997|pp=576, 584}}.</ref> first unsuccessfully [[Simba rebellion|in Congo-Kinshasa]] and later [[Bolivian Campaign|in Bolivia]], where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and [[summarily executed]].<ref>[[#refRyan1998|Ryan 1998]], p. 4.</ref>

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of [[Bibliography of works on Che Guevara|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,<ref>Footnote for {{cite book |first=Che |last=Guevara |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/03/man-socialism.htm |title=Socialism and man in Cuba |date=1965 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |quote=Che argued that the full liberation of humankind is reached when work becomes a social duty carried out with complete satisfaction and sustained by a value system that contributes to the realization of conscious action in performing tasks. This could only be achieved by systematic education, acquired by passing through various stages in which collective action is increased. Che recognized that this to be difficult and time-consuming. In his desire to speed up this process, however, he developed methods of mobilizing people, bringing together their collective and individual interests. Among the most significant of these instruments were moral and material incentives, while deepening consciousness as a way of developing toward socialism. See Che's speeches: ''Homage to Emulation Prize Winners'' (1962) and ''A New Attitude to Work'' (1964).}}</ref> Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various [[leftist]] movements. In contrast, his critics on the [[political right]] accuse him of promoting authoritarianism and endorsing violence against his political opponents. Despite disagreements on [[Legacy of Che Guevara|his legacy]], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' named him one of the [[Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century|100 most influential people of the 20th century]],{{sfn|Dorfman|1999}} while an [[Alberto Korda]] photograph of him, titled {{lang|es|[[Guerrillero Heroico]]}}, was cited by the [[Maryland Institute College of Art]] as "the [[List of photographs considered the most important#1960s|most famous photograph]] in the world".<ref>Maryland Institute of Art, referenced at {{harvnb|BBC News|2001b}}</ref>

==Early life==
[[File:Chefamily.jpg|thumb|left|A teenage Ernesto (left) with his parents and siblings, {{circa|1944}}, seated beside him from left to right: Celia (mother), Celia (sister), Roberto, Juan Martín, Ernesto (father) and Ana María]]
{{Che Guevara series}}
Ernesto Guevara was born to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna y Llosa, on <!-- Note: Please do not change birth date without discussing on talk page first. -->14th May 1928,{{efn|name=birthdate|}} in [[Rosario, Santa Fe|Rosario]], [[Argentina]]. Although the legal name on his birth certificate was "Ernesto Guevara", his name sometimes appears with "de la Serna" or "Lynch" accompanying it.<ref>In Spanish a person may carry the surname of his or her father as well as that of his or her mother, albeit in that order. Some people carry both, others only that of their father. In Guevara's case, many people of Irish descent will add "Lynch" to emphasize his Irish relations. Others will add "de la Serna" to give respect to Guevara's mother.</ref> He was the eldest of five children in an upper-class [[Argentines|Argentine]] family of pre-independence immigrants that have [[Spanish Argentines|Spanish]], [[Basque Argentines|Basque]], and [[Irish Argentines|Irish]] ancestry.{{sfn|Guevara Lynch|2007|p=i|ps=: "The father of Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara Lynch was born in Argentina in 1900 of Irish and Basque origin."}}<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.euskalnet.net/laviana/gen_bascas/guevaraelche.html |title=''The Origins of Guevara's Name'' |access-date=10 June 2016 |archive-date=28 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160628182241/http://www.euskalnet.net/laviana/gen_bascas/guevaraelche.html |url-status=dead}}</ref>{{efn|Che's last name ''Guevara'' derives from the [[Castilian Spanish|Castilianized]] form of the [[Basque language|Basque]] ''[[Guevara, Spain|Gebara]]'', a [[habitational name]] from the province of [[Álava]], while his grandmother, Ana Lynch, was a descendant of [[Patrick Lynch (Argentina)|Patrick Lynch]], who emigrated from [[County Galway, Ireland|County Galway]], Ireland in the 1740s.}} Two of Guevara's notable 18th-century ancestors included [[Luis María Peralta]], a prominent Spanish landowner in [[History of California#Spanish colonial period (1769–1821)|colonial California]], and [[Patrick Lynch (Argentina)|Patrick Lynch]], who emigrated from [[Ireland]] to the [[Governorate of the Río de la Plata|Río de la Plata Governorate]].<ref>[https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8nv9ppp/entire_text/ Online Archive of California: Pinedo Family Papers] from the [[Santa Clara University]] Library, 2015</ref><ref>{{cite news |publisher=[[Mercury News]] |url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/11/23/zorro-to-the-rescue-at-dec-2-fundraiser-for-friends-of-peralta-hacienda-historical-park/ |title=Fundraiser for Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park |first=Angela |last=Woodall |work=[[Oakland Tribune]] |date=23 November 2010}}</ref> Referring 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 Rebellion of 1798|Irish rebels]]".<ref>[[#refLavretsky1976|Lavretsky 1976]].</ref> Che Guevara was fond of Ireland, and according to Irish actress [[Maureen O'Hara]], "Che would talk about Ireland and all the guerilla warfare that had taken place there. He knew every battle in Ireland and all of its history" and told her that everything he knew about Ireland he learned on his grandmother's knee.<ref>{{cite book |last1=O'Hara |first1=Maureen |last2=Nicoletti |first2=John |title='Tis Herself: An Autobiography |date=2005 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |page=209}}</ref>

Early on in life, Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an "affinity for the poor".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=23}} Growing up in a family with [[Left-wing politics|leftist]] leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130826054445/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,872604,00.html Argentina: Che's Red Mother] ''[[Time Magazine]]'', 14 July 1961.</ref> His father, a staunch supporter of [[Second Spanish Republic|Republicans]] from the [[Spanish Civil War]], would host veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=22–23}} As a young man, he briefly contemplated a career selling insecticides, and set up a laboratory in his family's garage to experiment with effective mixtures of [[talc]] and [[lindane|gammaxene]] under the brand name ''Vendaval'', but was forced to abandon his efforts after suffering a severe asthmatic reaction to the chemicals.<ref>{{cite book |last=Guevara Lynch |first=Ernesto |title=Young Che: Memories of Che Guevara by His Father |date=14 September 2011 |publisher=[[Vintage Books]]}}</ref>

Despite numerous bouts of acute [[asthma]] that were to affect him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, football, golf, and shooting, while also becoming an "untiring" cyclist.{{sfn|Sandison|1996|p=8}}{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=24}} He was an avid [[rugby union]] player.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/columnists/brendangallagher/2322711/Argentine-rugby-inspired-by-Che-Guevara.html |title=Argentine Rugby Inspired by Che Guevara |first=Brendan |last=Gallagher |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=5 October 2007}}</ref> Several sources say he first played for Estudiantes of Córdoba, then San Isidro Club (1947), Yporá Rugby Club (1948), and Atalaya Polo Club (1949),<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.clarin.com/deportes/che-guevara-jugaba-rugby-deporte-favorito_0_BysbcYn8L.html |title=Cuando el Che Guevara jugaba al rugby, su deporte favorito |language=es |trans-title=When Che Guevara played rugby, his favorite sport |last=Iglesias |first=Waldemar |date=18 December 2020 |website=Clarín |access-date=27 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.elgrafico.com.ar/articulo/1088/34220/el-diario-del-che-en-el-rugby |title=El diario del Che en el rugby |language=es |trans-title=Che's diary in rugby |last= |first= |date=26 July 2019 |website=El Gráfico |publisher=Atlántida |access-date=27 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.efdeportes.com/efd9/che2.htm |title=Ernesto Guevara y el deporte |language=es |trans-title=Ernesto Guevara and sport |last= |first= |date=March 1998 |website=EF Deportes |publisher= |access-date=27 June 2024}}</ref> although other sources claim he played for [[Club Universitario de Buenos Aires]] (CUBA),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cain |first1=Nick |last2=Growden |first2=Greg |chapter=21: Ten Peculiar Facts about Rugby |title=Rugby Union for Dummies |edition=2nd |publisher=[[John Wiley and Sons]] |isbn=978-0470035375 |page=293}}</ref> at [[Rugby union positions#Fly-half|fly-half]]. His rugby playing earned him the nickname "Fuser"—a contraction of {{lang|es|El Furibundo}} (furious) and his mother's surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=28}}

===Intellectual and literary interests===
Guevara learned [[chess]] from his father and began participating in local tournaments by the age of 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]].{{sfn|Hart|2004|p=98}} He could also recite [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[If—]]'' and [[José Hernández (writer)|José Hernández]]'s ''[[Martín Fierro]]'' by heart.{{sfn|Hart|2004|p=98}} 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]].{{sfn|Haney|2005|p=164}} 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]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=37–38}}

As he grew older, he developed an interest in the Latin American writers [[Horacio Quiroga]], [[Ciro Alegría]], [[Jorge Icaza]], [[Rubén Darío]], and [[Miguel Asturias]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=37–38}} 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 [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]] and [[Aristotle]], along with examining [[Bertrand Russell]] on [[love]] and [[patriotism]], [[Jack London]] on [[society]], and [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]] on the idea of [[death]]. [[Sigmund Freud]]'s ideas fascinated him as he quoted him on a variety of topics from [[Dream interpretation|dreams]] and [[libido]] to [[narcissism]] and the [[Oedipus complex]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=37–38}} His favorite subjects in school included [[philosophy]], [[mathematics]], [[engineering]], [[political science]], [[sociology]], [[history]], and [[archaeology]].{{sfn|Sandison|1996|p=10}}{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=26}} A [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] "biographical and personality report", dated 13 February 1958 and declassified decades later, made note of Guevara's range of academic interests and intellect – describing him as "quite well read", while adding that "Che is fairly intellectual for a [[Latino (demonym)|Latino]]".{{sfn|Ratner|1997|p=25}}

===Motorcycle journey===
{{Main|The Motorcycle Diaries (book)}}
[[File:CheOnRaft1952.jpg|thumb|alt=black and white photograph of two men on a raft, fitted with a large hut. The far bank of the river is visible in the far distance|Guevara (right) with [[Alberto Granado]] (left) in June 1952 on the [[Amazon River]] aboard their "Mambo-Tango" wooden raft, which was a gift from the [[Leprosy|lepers]] whom they had treated{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=89}}]]

In 1948, Guevara entered the [[University of Buenos Aires]] to study medicine. His "hunger to explore the world"{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=64}} led him to intersperse his collegiate pursuits with two long introspective journeys that fundamentally changed the way he viewed himself and the contemporary economic conditions in Latin America. The first expedition, in 1950, was a 4,500-kilometer (2,800&nbsp;mi) solo trip through the rural provinces of [[Argentine Northwest|northern Argentina]] on a bicycle on which he had installed a small engine.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=59–64}} Guevara then spent six months working as a nurse at sea on Argentina's [[Merchant navy|merchant marine]] freighters and oil tankers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harris |first=Richard Legé |author-link= |date=2011 |title=Che Guevara: A Biography |url= |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]], Greenwood |page=xxiv, 21 |isbn=978-0-313-35917-0}}</ref> His second expedition, in 1951, was a nine-month, 8,000-kilometer (5,000&nbsp;mi) continental motorcycle trek through part of South America. For the latter, he took a year off from his studies to embark with his friend, [[Alberto Granado]], with the final goal of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo [[leper colony]] in Peru, on the banks of the [[Amazon River]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=83}}

[[File:Che Guevara-Granado - Mapa 1er viaje - 1952.jpg|thumb|upright|left|A map of Guevara's 1952 trip with [[Alberto Granado]] (The red arrows correspond to air travel.)]]

In [[Chile]], Guevara was angered by the working conditions of the miners at [[Anaconda Copper|Anaconda]]'s [[Chuquicamata]] copper mine, moved by his overnight encounter in the [[Atacama Desert]] with a persecuted [[Communist Party of Chile|communist]] couple who did not even own a blanket, describing them as "the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation".{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=75–76}} On the way to [[Machu Picchu]] he was stunned by the crushing poverty of the remote rural areas, where peasant farmers worked small plots of land owned by wealthy landlords.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=27}} Later on his journey, Guevara was especially impressed by the camaraderie among the people living in a leper colony, stating, "The highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people."{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=27}} Guevara used notes taken during this trip to write an account (not published until 1995), titled ''[[The Motorcycle Diaries (book)|The Motorcycle Diaries]]'', which later became a [[The New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times'' best seller]],<ref>NYT bestseller list: [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/books/bestseller/0220bestpapernonfiction.html #38 Paperback Nonfiction on 2005-02-20], [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E5D6123DF934A35752C1A9629C8B63 #9 Nonfiction on 2004-10-07] and on more occasions.</ref> and was adapted into a 2004 [[The Motorcycle Diaries (film)|film of the same name]].

{{Quote box|quote=A motorcycle journey the length of South America awakened him to the injustice of US domination in the hemisphere, and to the suffering [[colonialism]] brought to its original inhabitants.|source=—[[George Galloway]], British politician, 2006<ref>[http://www.newstatesman.com/200606120036 A Very Modern Icon] by [[George Galloway]], ''[[New Statesman]]'', 12 June 2006</ref>|width=30%|align=right}}

The journey took Guevara through Argentina, Chile, Peru, [[Ecuador]], [[Colombia]], [[Venezuela]], [[Panama]], and [[Miami, Florida|Miami]], Florida, for 20 days,<ref>[http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2008/07/che-guevara-spe.html Che Guevara spent time in Miami] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130204225416/http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2008/07/che-guevara-spe.html|date=4 February 2013}} by Alfonso Chardy, ''[[The Miami Herald]]'' 8 July 2008</ref> before returning home to [[Buenos Aires]]. By the end of the trip, he came to view Latin America not as a collection of separate nations, but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberation strategy. His conception of a borderless, united [[Hispanic America]] sharing a common Latino heritage was a theme that recurred prominently during his later revolutionary activities. Upon returning to Argentina, he completed his studies and received his medical degree in June 1953.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=98}}<ref>A copy of Guevara's University transcripts showing conferral of his medical diploma can be found on p. 75 of ''Becoming Che: Guevara's Second and Final Trip through Latin America'', by Carlos 'Calica' Ferrer (Translated from the Spanish by Sarah L. Smith), Marea Editorial, 2006, {{ISBN|9871307071}}. Ferrer was a longtime childhood friend of Che, and when Guevara passed the last of his 12 exams in 1953, he gave Ferrer, who had been telling Guevara that he would never finish, a copy, showing that he had finally completed his studies.</ref>

Guevara later remarked that, through his travels in Latin America, he came in "close contact with poverty, hunger and disease" along with the "inability to treat a child because of lack of money" and "stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment" that leads a father to "accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident". Guevara cited these experiences as convincing him that to "help these people", he needed to leave the realm of medicine and consider the political arena of [[War|armed struggle]].<ref name="RevMedicine" />

==Early political activity==

===Activism in Guatemala===
{{Main|1954 Guatemalan coup d'état}}

Ernesto Guevara spent just over nine months in Guatemala. On 7 July 1953, Guevara set out again, this time to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, [[Costa Rica]], [[Nicaragua]], [[Honduras]], and [[El Salvador]]. On 10 December 1953, before leaving for Guatemala, Guevara sent an update to his aunt Beatriz from [[San José, Costa Rica]]. In the letter Guevara speaks of traversing the dominion of the [[United Fruit Company]], a journey which convinced him that the company's capitalist system was disadvantageous to the average citizen.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=126}} He adopted an aggressive tone to frighten his more conservative relatives, and the letter ends with Guevara swearing on an image of the then-recently deceased [[Joseph Stalin]], not to rest until these "octopuses have been vanquished".{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=31}} Later that month, Guevara arrived in Guatemala, where President [[Jacobo Árbenz]] headed a democratically elected government that, through [[land reform]] and other initiatives, was attempting to end the ''[[latifundia]]'' agricultural system. To accomplish this, President Árbenz had enacted a [[Decree 900|major land reform program]], where all uncultivated portions of large land holdings were to be [[nationalization|appropriated]] and redistributed to landless peasants. The largest land owner, and the one most affected by the reforms, was the United Fruit Company, from which the Árbenz government had already taken more than {{convert|225,000|acre|ha}} of uncultivated land.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=31}} Pleased with the direction in which the nation was heading, Guevara decided to make his home in Guatemala to "perfect himself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=31}}{{sfn|Guevara Lynch|2000|p=26}}

[[File:Che Guevara - 2do Viaje - 1953-55.png|thumb|upright|A map of Che Guevara's travels between 1953 and 1956, including his journey aboard the [[Granma (yacht)|''Granma'']]]]

In [[Guatemala City]], Guevara sought out [[Hilda Gadea|Hilda Gadea Acosta]], a Peruvian economist who was politically well-connected as a member of the left-leaning, [[American Popular Revolutionary Alliance|Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA)]]. She introduced Guevara to a number of high-level officials in the [[Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán#Presidency|Árbenz government]]. Guevara then established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to [[Fidel Castro]] through the 26 July 1953 [[attack on the Moncada Barracks]] in [[Santiago de Cuba]]. During this period, he acquired his famous nickname, due to his frequent use of the Argentine [[Filler (linguistics)|filler]] expression ''[[Che (interjection)|che]]'' (a multi-purpose [[discourse marker]], like the syllable "[[eh]]" in Canadian English).{{sfn|Ramonet|2007|p=172}} During his time in Guatemala, Guevara was hosted by other Central American exiles, one of whom, [[Helena Leiva de Holst]], provided him with food and lodging,<ref name="Anderson (2010)">{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Jon |title=Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life |date=2010 |publisher=Grove/Atlantic, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8021-9725-2 |page=139 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aCw19CUXpqkC&pg=PA139 |access-date=25 July 2015}}</ref> discussed her travels to study Marxism in Russia and China,<ref>"Anderson (2010)", p 126</ref> and to whom Guevara dedicated a poem, "Invitación al camino".<ref>{{cite news |title=Poetry of Che is presented with great success in Guatemala |url=http://www.cubaheadlines.com/2007/11/26/7281/poetry_of_che_is_presented_with_great_success_in_guatemala.html |publisher=Cuba Headlines |date=26 November 2007 |language=en}}</ref>

In May 1954, a ship carrying infantry and light artillery weapons was dispatched by communist [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] for the Árbenz government and arrived in [[Puerto Barrios]].{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=155–160}} As a result, the United States government—which since 1953 had been tasked by [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|President Eisenhower]] to remove Árbenz from power in the multifaceted CIA operation code-named [[1954 Guatemalan coup d'état#Operation PBSuccess|PBSuccess]]—responded by saturating Guatemala with anti-Árbenz propaganda through radio and air-dropped leaflets, and began bombing raids using unmarked airplanes.{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=161-163}} The United States also sponsored an armed force of several hundred anti-Árbenz Guatemalan refugees and mercenaries headed by [[Carlos Castillo Armas]] to help remove the Árbenz government. On 27 June, Árbenz chose to resign.{{sfn|Gleijeses|1991|pp=345–349}} This allowed Armas and his CIA-assisted forces to march into Guatemala City and establish a [[military junta]], which elected Armas as president on 7 July.{{sfn|Gleijeses|1991|pp=354–357}} The Armas regime then consolidated power by rounding up and executing suspected communists,{{sfn|Immerman|1982|pp=198–201}} while crushing the previously flourishing labor unions{{sfn|Cullather|2006|p=113}} and reversing the previous agrarian reforms.{{sfn|Gleijeses|1991|p=382}}

Guevara was eager to fight on behalf of Árbenz, and joined an armed [[militia]] organized by the communist youth for that purpose. However, frustrated with that group's inaction, Guevara soon returned to medical duties. Following the coup, he again volunteered to fight, but soon after, Árbenz took refuge in the Mexican embassy and told his foreign supporters to leave the country. Guevara's repeated calls to resist were noted by supporters of the coup, and he was marked for murder.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=32}} After Gadea was arrested, Guevara sought protection inside the [[List of diplomatic missions of Argentina|Argentine consulate]], where he remained until he received a safe-conduct pass some weeks later and made his way to [[Mexico]].{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=39}}

The overthrow of the Árbenz government and establishment of the right-wing Armas dictatorship cemented Guevara's view of the United States as an [[American imperialism|imperialist power]] that opposed and attempted to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=31}} In speaking about the coup, Guevara stated:

{{blockquote|The last Latin American revolutionary democracy – that of Jacobo Árbenz – failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the United States. Its visible head was the Secretary of State [[John Foster Dulles]], a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=32}}}}

Guevara's conviction strengthened that Marxism, achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace, was the only way to rectify such conditions.<ref>[http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch24x.html Che Guevara 1960–67 by Frank E. Smitha].</ref> Gadea wrote later, "It was Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism. By the time he left, he was sure of this."<ref>{{cite book |title=Che Guevara |url=https://archive.org/details/cheguevara00sinc |url-access=registration |first=Andrew |last=Sinclair |location=New York |publisher=[[Viking Press]] |year=1970 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cheguevara00sinc/page/12 12] |isbn=978-0-670-21391-7}}</ref>

===Exile in Mexico===
[[File:Hilda Gadea y Che Guevara - Luna de miel - Yucatán 1955.jpg|thumb|Guevara with his first wife [[Hilda Gadea]] at [[Chichen Itza]] during their honeymoon trip]]

Guevara arrived in Mexico City on 21 September 1954, and worked in the allergy section of the [[General Hospital of Mexico|General Hospital]] and at the Hospital Infantil de Mexico.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.proceso.com.mx/321955/documental-sobre-el-che-guevara-doctor-en-mexico |title=Documental sobre el Che Guevara, doctor en México |trans-title=Documentary about Che Guevara, doctor in Mexico |first=Rosario |last=Manzanos |work=[[Proceso (magazine)|Proceso]] |date=8 October 2012 |access-date=1 July 2016 |language=es}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://ww2.educarchile.cl/UserFiles/P0001/File/biografia%20de%20ernesto%20guevara.pdf |title=BIOGRAFIA DE ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA Fundación Che Guevara, FUNCHE |publisher=educarchile.cl |access-date=1 July 2016 |language=es |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817064607/http://ww2.educarchile.cl/UserFiles/P0001/File/biografia%20de%20ernesto%20guevara.pdf |archive-date=17 August 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In addition he gave lectures on medicine at the [[UNAM Faculty of Medicine|Faculty of Medicine]] in the [[National Autonomous University of Mexico]] and worked as a news photographer for ''[[Prensa Latina|Latina News Agency]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lagacetametropolitana.com/Contracolumna-Octubre-2012.php |title=FIDEL Y HANK: PASAJES DE LA REVOLUCIÓN |publisher=lagacetametropolitana.com |access-date=1 July 2016 |language=es |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170104015357/http://lagacetametropolitana.com/Contracolumna-Octubre-2012.php |archive-date=4 January 2017}}</ref>{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=33}} His first wife <!-- No mention of their marriage! -->Hilda notes in her memoir ''My Life with Che'', that for a while, Guevara considered going to work as a doctor in Africa and that he continued to be deeply troubled by the poverty around him.<ref name="RebelWife">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100902413.html |title=Rebel Wife, A Review of ''My Life With Che: The Making of a Revolutionary'' by Hilda Gadea |first=Tom |last=Gjelten |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=12 October 2008 }}</ref> In one instance, Hilda describes Guevara's obsession with an elderly washerwoman whom he was treating, remarking that he saw her as "representative of the most forgotten and exploited class". Hilda later found a poem that Che had dedicated to the old woman, containing "a promise to fight for a better world, for a better life for all the poor and exploited".<ref name="RebelWife" />

During this time he renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to [[Raúl Castro]], who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, [[Fidel Castro]], the revolutionary leader who had formed the [[26th of July Movement]] and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of [[Fulgencio Batista]]. During a long conversation with Fidel on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban's cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of 26 July Movement.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=55}} Despite their "contrasting personalities", from this point on Che and Fidel began to foster what dual biographer Simon Reid-Henry deemed a "revolutionary friendship that would change the world" as a result of their coinciding commitment to [[anti-imperialism]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/interactive/2009/jan/09/fidel-castro-che-guevara-biography |title=Fidel and Che: A Revolutionary Friendship |first=Simon |last=Reid-Henry |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=9 January 2009 }}</ref>

By this point in Guevara's life, he deemed that US-controlled [[Conglomerate (company)|conglomerates]] had installed and supported repressive regimes around the world. In this vein, he considered Batista a "[[Puppet state|U.S. puppet]] whose strings needed cutting".{{sfn|Sandison|1996|p=28}} Although he planned to be the group's [[combat medic]], Guevara participated in the military training with the members of the Movement. The key portion of training involved learning hit and run tactics of [[guerrilla warfare]]. Guevara and the others underwent arduous 15-hour marches over mountains, across rivers, and through the dense undergrowth, learning and perfecting the procedures of ambush and quick retreat. From the start Guevara was instructor [[Alberto Bayo]]'s "prize student" among those in training, scoring the highest on all of the tests given.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=37}} At the end of the course, he was named "the best guerrilla of them all" by General Bayo.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=194}}

Guevara then married Hilda in Mexico in September 1955, before embarking on his plan to assist in the liberation of Cuba.<ref name="Memoira">{{cite news |last=Snow |first=Anita |url=http://www.firstcoastnews.com/life/books/news-article.aspx?storyid=116566&catid=256 |title='My Life With Che' by Hilda Gadea |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121205083407/http://www.firstcoastnews.com/life/books/news-article.aspx?storyid=116566&catid=256 |archive-date=5 December 2012 |agency=[[Associated Press]] |work=[[WJXX-TV]] |date=16 August 2008 |access-date=23 February 2009}}</ref>

==Cuban Revolution==
{{Main|Cuban Revolution}}

===Granma invasion===
{{Further|Landing of the Granma|Battle of Alegría de Pío}}
[[File:Granma-route-mine-20.png|thumb|right|360px|Journey of the yacht "Granma", from Mexico to Cuba]]
[[File:Fidel Castro and his men in the Sierra Maestra.jpg|thumb|Granma survivors in the Sierra Maestra. [[Fidel Castro]] stands at center. Che Guevara stands second from left.]]
The first step in Castro's revolutionary plan was an assault on Cuba from Mexico via the ''[[Granma (yacht)|Granma]],'' an old, leaky [[cabin cruiser]]. They set out for Cuba on 25 November 1956. Attacked by Batista's military soon after landing, many of the 82 men were either killed in the attack or executed upon capture; only 22 found each other afterwards.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=213}} During this initial bloody confrontation, Guevara laid down his medical supplies and picked up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, proving to be a symbolic moment in Che's life.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=211}}

Only a small band of revolutionaries survived to re-group as a bedraggled fighting force deep in the [[Sierra Maestra]] mountains, where they received support from the [[Urban guerrilla warfare|urban guerrilla]] network of [[Frank País]], the [[26th of July Movement|26 July Movement]], and local campesinos. With the group withdrawn to the Sierra, the world wondered whether Castro was alive or dead until early 1957, when an interview by [[Herbert Matthews]] appeared in ''[[The New York Times]]''. The article presented a lasting, almost mythical image for Castro and the guerrillas. Guevara was not present for the interview, but in the coming months he began to realize the importance of the media in their struggle. Meanwhile, as supplies and morale diminished, and with an allergy to mosquito bites which resulted in agonizing walnut-sized [[cysts]] on his body,{{sfn|Sandison|1996|p=32}} Guevara considered these "the most painful days of the war".<ref>[[#refDePalma2006|DePalma 2006]], pp. 110–11.</ref>

During Guevara's time living hidden among the poor [[Subsistence agriculture|subsistence farmers]] of the Sierra Maestra mountains, he discovered that there were no schools, no electricity, minimal access to healthcare, and more than 40 percent of the adults were [[Literacy|illiterate]].<ref name = "LiteracyC" /> As the war continued, Guevara became an integral part of the rebel army and "convinced Castro with competence, diplomacy and patience".{{sfn|Time|1960}} Guevara set up factories to make grenades, built ovens to bake bread, and organized schools to teach illiterate campesinos to read and write.{{sfn|Time|1960}} Moreover, Guevara established health clinics, workshops to teach military tactics, and a newspaper to disseminate information.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=45}} The man whom ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' dubbed three years later "Castro's brain" at this point was promoted by [[Fidel Castro]] to ''Comandante'' (commander) of a second army column.{{sfn|Time|1960}}
===Role as commander===
{{anchor|Eutímio Guerra}}
As second-in-command, Guevara was a harsh disciplinarian who sometimes shot defectors. Deserters were punished as traitors, and Guevara was known to send squads to track those seeking to abandon their duties.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=269–270}} As a result, Guevara became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness.<ref>[[#refCastañeda1998|Castañeda 1998]], pp. 105, 119.</ref> During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the [[summary execution]]s of a number of men accused of being [[Informant|informers]], [[Desertion|deserters]], or [[Espionage|spies]].<ref name="execution-squads">{{harvnb|Anderson|1997|pp=237–238, 269–270, 277–278}}</ref> In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution, of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant who had acted as a guide for the Castrist guerrillas, but admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebels' position for attack by the Cuban air force.<ref name="Lutherpg97-99">[[#refLuther2001|Luther 2001]], pp. 97–99.</ref> Such information also allowed Batista's army to burn the homes of peasants sympathetic to the revolution.<ref name="Lutherpg97-99"/> Upon Guerra's request that they "end his life quickly",<ref name="Lutherpg97-99"/> Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing "The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe]."<ref name="Andersonpg237">{{harvnb|Anderson|1997|p=237}}</ref> His scientific notations and matter-of-fact description suggested to one biographer a "remarkable detachment to violence" by that point in the war.<ref name="Andersonpg237"/> Later, Guevara published a literary account of the incident, titled "Death of a Traitor", where he transfigured Eutimio's betrayal and pre-execution request that the revolution "take care of his children", into a "revolutionary [[parable]] about redemption through sacrifice".<ref name="Andersonpg237"/>

[[File:ChePipe.jpg|thumb|Guevara at his guerrilla base in the [[Escambray Mountains]]]]

Although he maintained a demanding and harsh disposition, Guevara also viewed his role of commander as one of a teacher, entertaining his men during breaks between engagements with readings from the likes of [[Robert Louis Stevenson]], [[Miguel de Cervantes]], and Spanish [[lyric poetry|lyric poets]].{{sfn|Sandison|1996|p=35}} Together with this role, and inspired by [[José Martí]]'s principle of "literacy without borders", Guevara further ensured that his rebel fighters made daily time to teach the uneducated campesinos with whom they lived and fought to read and write, in what Guevara termed the "battle against ignorance".<ref name = "LiteracyC" /> Tomás Alba, who fought under Guevara's command, later stated that "Che was loved, in spite of being stern and demanding. We would (have) given our life for him."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.ezilon.com/information/article_18610.shtml |title=Cuba Remembers Che Guevara 40 Years after his Fall |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080213092006/http://www.ezilon.com/information/article_18610.shtml |archive-date=13 February 2008 |first=Rosa Tania |last=Valdes |agency=[[Reuters]] |date=8 October 2007}}</ref>

His commanding officer, [[Fidel Castro]], described Guevara as intelligent, daring, and an exemplary leader who "had great moral authority over his troops".{{sfn|Ramonet|2007|p=177}} Castro further remarked that Guevara took too many risks, even having a "tendency toward foolhardiness".{{sfn|Ramonet|2007|p=193}} Guevara's teenage lieutenant, Joel Iglesias, recounts such actions in his diary, noting that Guevara's behavior in combat even brought admiration from the enemy. On one occasion Iglesias recounts the time he had been wounded in battle, stating "Che ran out to me, defying the bullets, threw me over his shoulder, and got me out of there. The guards didn't dare fire at him&nbsp;... later they told me he made a great impression on them when they saw him run out with his pistol stuck in his belt, ignoring the danger, they didn't dare shoot."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/companero.htm |title=Poster Boy of The Revolution |last=Landau |first=Saul |author-link=Saul Landau |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=19 October 1997 |page=X01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171119175217/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/companero.htm |archive-date=19 November 2017}}</ref>

Guevara was instrumental in creating the [[Pirate radio|clandestine radio station]] ''[[Radio Rebelde]]'' (Rebel Radio) in February 1958, which broadcast news to the Cuban people with statements by 26 July movement, and provided [[radiotelephone]] communication between the growing number of rebel columns across the island. Guevara had apparently been inspired to create the station by observing the effectiveness of [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] supplied radio in Guatemala in ousting the government of [[Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán]].<ref name="radio">{{cite web |url=http://www.pateplumaradio.com/central/cuba/rebel1.html |title=Revolution! Clandestine Radio and the Rise of Fidel Castro |first=Don |last=Moore |publisher=Patepluma Radio}}</ref>

To quell the rebellion, Cuban government troops began executing rebel prisoners on the spot, and regularly rounded up, tortured, and shot civilians as a tactic of intimidation.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=4}} By March 1958, the continued atrocities carried out by Batista's forces led the United States to stop selling arms to the Cuban government.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=45}} Then, in late July 1958, Guevara played a critical role in the [[Battle of Las Mercedes]] by using his column to halt a force of 1,500 men called up by Batista's General Cantillo in a plan to encircle and destroy Castro's forces. Years later, [[Major (United States)|Major]] Larry Bockman of the [[United States Marine Corps]] analyzed and described Che's tactical appreciation of this battle as "brilliant".<ref>[[#refBockman1984|Bockman 1984]].</ref> During this time Guevara also became an "expert" at leading hit-and-run tactics against Batista's army, and then fading back into the countryside before the army could counterattack.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=40}}

===Final offensive===
{{Main|Battle of Santa Clara}}
[[File:Che SClara.jpg|thumb|right|After the [[Battle of Santa Clara]], 1 January 1959]]

As the war extended, Guevara led a new column of fighters dispatched westward for the final push towards [[Havana]]. Travelling by foot, Guevara embarked on a difficult 7-week march, only travelling at night to avoid an ambush and often not eating for several days.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=47}} In the closing days of December 1958, Guevara's task was to cut the island in half by taking [[Las Villas (Cuba)|Las Villas]] province. In a matter of days he executed a series of "brilliant tactical victories" that gave him control of all but the province's capital city of [[Santa Clara, Cuba|Santa Clara]].{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=47}} Guevara then directed his "suicide squad" in the [[Battle of Santa Clara|attack on Santa Clara]], which became the final decisive military victory of the revolution.<ref>[[#refCastro1972|Castro 1972]], pp. 439–442.</ref>{{sfn|Dorschner|Fabricio|1980|pp=41–47, 81–87}} In the six weeks leading up to the battle, there were times when his men were completely surrounded, outgunned, and overrun. Che's eventual victory despite being outnumbered 10:1 remains in the view of some observers a "remarkable tour de force in modern warfare".{{sfn|Sandison|1996|p=39}}

Radio Rebelde broadcast the first reports that Guevara's column had [[Battle of Santa Clara|taken Santa Clara]] on New Year's Eve 1958. This contradicted reports by the heavily controlled national news media, which had at one stage reported Guevara's death during the fighting. At 3 am on 1 January 1959, upon learning that his generals were negotiating a separate peace with Guevara, [[Fulgencio Batista]] boarded a plane in Havana and fled for the [[Dominican Republic]], along with an amassed "fortune of more than $300,000,000 through graft and payoffs".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=48}} The following day on 2 January, Guevara entered [[Havana]] to finally take control of the capital.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=13}} Fidel Castro took six more days to arrive, as he stopped to rally support in several large cities on his way to rolling victoriously into Havana on 8 January 1959. The final death toll from the two years of revolutionary fighting was 2,000 people.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=51}}

==Political career in Cuba==
{{Further|Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution}}
===Revolutionary tribunals===
[[File:Manuel Urrutia2.jpg|thumb|(Right to left) rebel leader [[Camilo Cienfuegos]], Cuban President [[Manuel Urrutia Lleó]], and Guevara (January 1959)]]
The first major political crisis arose over what to do with the captured Batista officials who had perpetrated the worst of the repression.<ref name = "Skidmore273">[[#refSkidmore|Skidmore 2008]], pp. 273.</ref> During the rebellion against Batista's dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel Castro, introduced into the territories under its control the 19th-century penal law commonly known as the ''Ley de la Sierra'' (Law of the Sierra).<ref>[[#refTreto1991|Gómez Treto 1991]], p. 115. "The Penal Law of the War of Independence (July 28, 1896) was reinforced by Rule 1 of the Penal Regulations of the Rebel Army, approved in the Sierra Maestra February 21, 1958, and published in the army's official bulletin (Ley penal de Cuba en armas, 1959)" ([[#refTreto1991|Gómez Treto 1991]], p. 123).</ref> This law included the death penalty for serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the Batista regime or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959, the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to those it considered war criminals, captured and tried after the revolution. According to the [[Ministry of Justice (Cuba)|Cuban Ministry of Justice]], this latter extension was supported by the majority of the population, and followed the same procedure as those in the [[Nuremberg trials]] held by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] after World War II.<ref>[[#refTreto1991|Gómez Treto 1991]], pp. 115–116.</ref>

To implement a portion of this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the [[La Cabaña Fortress]] prison for a five-month tenure (2 January through 12 June 1959).{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=372, 425}} Guevara was charged by the new government with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against those regarded as traitors, {{lang|es|chivatos}} (informants) or [[war criminals]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=376}} As commander of La Cabaña, Guevara reviewed the appeals of those convicted during the revolutionary tribunal process.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=267}} The tribunals were conducted by 2–3 army officers, an assessor, and a respected local citizen.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=52}} On some occasions, the penalty delivered by the tribunal was death by firing-squad.<ref>[[#refNiess2007|Niess 2007]], p. 60.</ref> Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, has argued that the death penalty was justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands, as had happened twenty years earlier in the [[Gerardo Machado|anti-Machado]] rebellion.<ref>[[#refTreto1991|Gómez Treto 1991]], p. 116.</ref> Biographers note that in January 1959 the Cuban public was in a "lynching mood",{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=388}} and point to a survey at the time showing 93% public approval for the tribunal process.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=267}} 
[[File:Fusilamiento de Cornelio Rojas.jpg|thumb|Televised execution of Colonel Rojas, ordered by Che Guevara. (7 January 1959).]]
One of the first public executions ordered by Guevara was the execution of Colonel Rojas, which was broadcast on Cuban television. Colonel Rojas was the chief of police in Santa Clara, whose officers had held out against the rebels until the last moment of fighting during the [[Battle of Santa Clara]]. After his capture, Rojas' family received a letter of safe departure, inferring he'd be kept alive and released. Soon afterwards, Guevara ordered Rojas to be executed on 7 January 1959. When the footage was aired on television, Rojas' family was at first relieved to see him alive, but after realizing he was being placed in front of a firing squad, they began to scream as he was then shot. The footage was later broadcast around the world, becoming one of the first killings ever aired on television.<ref name= polvio>{{cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |date=2008 |title=Political Violence Belief, Behavior, and Legitimation
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oePGAAAAQBAJ&dq=san+juan+hill+massacre+raul+castro&pg=PA146 |location= |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |page=146 |isbn=978-0-230-61624-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Feldman |first=Andrew |date=2019 |title=Ernesto The Untold Story of Hemingway in Revolutionary Cuba |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fs2XDQAAQBAJ&dq=che+guevara+colonel+rojas+televised&pg=PA306 |location= |publisher=Melville House |page=306-307 |isbn=9781612196398 |access-date=}}</ref>

On 22 January 1959, a [[Universal Newsreel]] broadcast in the United States narrated by [[Ed Herlihy]] featured Fidel Castro asking an estimated one million Cubans whether they approved of the executions, and being met with a roaring "''¡Sí!''" (yes).<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=wUPqsh52QPc&vq=small Rally For Castro: One Million Roar "Si" To Cuba Executions] – Video Clip by [[Universal Newsreel|Universal-International News]], narrated by [[Ed Herlihy]], from 22 January 1959</ref> With between 1,000<ref>{{cite book |title=Exploring Revolution: Essays on Latin American Insurgency and Revolutionary Theory |last=Wickham-Crowley |first=Timothy P. |pages=63|year=1990 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |location=Armonk and London |isbn=978-0873327053 }}</ref> and 20,000 Cubans estimated to have been killed at the hands of Batista's collaborators,<ref>''Conflict, Order, and Peace in the Americas'', by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, 1978, p. 121. "The US-supported Batista regime killed 20,000 Cubans"</ref><ref name="WGuide">''The World Guide 1997/98: A View from the South'', by University of Texas, 1997, {{ISBN|1869847431}}, p. 209. "Batista engineered yet another coup, establishing a dictatorial regime, which was responsible for the death of 20,000 Cubans."</ref><ref name="FidelUntold3">''[[Fidel: The Untold Story]]''. (2001). Directed by Estela Bravo. [[First Run Features]]. (91 min). [https://www.youtube.com/embed/NW1Yh8D-xCg Viewable clip]. "An estimated 20,000 people were murdered by government forces during the Batista dictatorship."</ref><ref>[[#refNiess2007|Niess 2007]], p. 61.</ref> and many of the accused war criminals sentenced to death accused of [[torture]] and physical atrocities,{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=267}} the newly empowered government carried out executions, punctuated by cries from the crowds of ''"¡al paredón!"'' ([to the] wall!),<ref name = "Skidmore273" /> which biographer [[Jorge Castañeda Gutman|Jorge Castañeda]] describes as "without respect for [[due process]]".<ref name="Castañeda 1998 p 143-144" />

{{Quote box|quote=I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed "an innocent". Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castro Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere.|source=—[[Jon Lee Anderson]], author of ''Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life'', [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] forum<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/latin_america-july-dec97-guevara_11-20 The Legacy of Che Guevara] – a [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] online forum with author [[Jon Lee Anderson]], 20 November 1997</ref>|width=30%|align=right}}

Although accounts vary, it is estimated that several hundred people were executed nationwide during this time, with Guevara's jurisdictional death total at La Cabaña ranging from 55 to 105.<ref>Different sources cite differing numbers of executions attributable to Guevara, with some of the discrepancy resulting from the question of which deaths to attribute directly to Guevara and which to the regime as a whole. {{harvnb|Anderson|1997}} gives the number specifically at La Cabaña prison as 55 (p. 387.), while also stating that "several hundred people were officially tried and executed across Cuba" as a whole (p. 387). ([[#refCastañeda1998|Castañeda 1998]]) notes that historians differ on the total number killed, with different studies placing it as anywhere from 200 to 700 nationwide (p. 143), although he notes that "after a certain date most of the executions occurred outside of Che's jurisdiction" (p. 143). These numbers are supported by the opposition-based [[#refFreeSoc|''Free Society Project / Cuba Archive'']], which gives the figure as 144 executions ordered by Guevara across Cuba in three years (1957–1959) and 105 "victims" specifically at La Cabaña, which according to them were all "carried out without due process of law". Of further note, much of the discrepancy in the estimates between 55 versus 105 executed at La Cabaña revolves around whether to include instances where Guevara had denied an appeal and signed off on a death warrant, but where the sentence was carried out while he traveled overseas from 4 June to 8 September, or after he relinquished his command of the fortress on 12 June 1959.</ref> Conflicting views exist of Guevara's attitude towards the executions at La Cabaña. Some exiled opposition biographers report that he relished the rituals of the firing squad, and organized them with gusto, while others relate that Guevara pardoned as many prisoners as he could.<ref name="Castañeda 1998 p 143-144">[[#refCastañeda1998|Castañeda 1998]], pp. 143–144.</ref> All sides acknowledge that Guevara had become a "hardened" man who had no qualms about the death penalty or about summary and collective trials. If the only way to "defend the revolution was to execute its enemies, he would not be swayed by humanitarian or political arguments".<ref name="Castañeda 1998 p 143-144" /> In a 5 February 1959 letter to Luis Paredes López in [[Buenos Aires]], Guevara states unequivocally: "The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people."{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=375}}

===Early political office===
{{Further|Agrarian reforms in Cuba|Huber Matos affair|La Coubre explosion}}
In mid-January 1959, Guevara went to live at a summer villa in [[Tarará]] to recover from a violent asthma attack.<ref>Castañeda, pp. 145–146.</ref> While there he started the Tarará Group, a group that debated and formed the new plans for Cuba's social, political, and economic development.<ref name="Castañeda, p. 146">Castañeda, p. 146.</ref> In addition, Che began to write his book ''[[Guerrilla Warfare (book)|Guerrilla Warfare]]'' while resting at Tarara.<ref name="Castañeda, p. 146"/> In February, the revolutionary government proclaimed Guevara "a Cuban citizen by birth" in recognition of his role in the triumph.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=397}} When [[Hilda Gadea]] arrived in Cuba in late January, Guevara told her that he was involved with another woman, and the two agreed on a divorce,{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=400–401}} which was finalized on 22 May.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=424}}

On 27 January 1959, Guevara made one of his most significant speeches where he talked about "the social ideas of the rebel army". During this speech he declared that the main concern of the new Cuban government was "the social justice that land redistribution brings about".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=54}} A few months later, 17 May 1959, the [[Agrarian reforms in Cuba|agrarian reform law]], crafted by Guevara, went into effect, limiting the size of all farms to {{convert|1000|acre|ha}}. Any holdings over these limits were expropriated by the government and either redistributed to peasants in {{convert|67|acre|m2|adj=on}} parcels or held as state-run communes.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=57}} The law also stipulated that foreigners could not own Cuban sugar-plantations.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=58}}
[[File:KordaOfCheWalking.jpg|thumb| Guevara in 1960, walking through the streets of Havana with his second wife [[Aleida March]] (right)]]
On 2 June 1959, he married [[Aleida March]], a Cuban-born member of 26 July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara returned to the seaside village of Tarara in June for his honeymoon with Aleida.<ref>Castañeda, p. 159.</ref> A civil ceremony was held at La Cabaña military fortress.<ref>ABC News, Life and Death of Che Guevara.</ref> In total, Guevara would have five children from his two marriages.<ref>([[#refCastañeda1998|Castañeda 1998]], pp. 264–265).</ref>
[[File:Tito sa Ernestom Če Gevarom, 1959. godina.jpg|thumb|Che Guevara meeting [[Josip Broz Tito]], during Guevara's 1959 diplomatic travels.]]
[[File:Che Guevara in Gaza.jpg|thumb|Che Guevara visiting Gaza during his diplomatic tour. (1959)]]
On 12 June 1959, Castro sent Guevara out on a three-month tour of mostly [[Bandung Conference|Bandung Pact]] countries (Morocco, [[Republic of the Sudan (1956–1969)|Sudan]], Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, [[Indonesia]], Japan, [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]], and Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|pp=282–285}} Sending Guevara away from Havana allowed Castro to appear to distance himself from Guevara and his [[Marxism|Marxist]] sympathies, which troubled both the United States and some of the members of Castro's 26 July Movement.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=423}} While in [[Jakarta]], Guevara visited Indonesian president [[Sukarno]] to discuss the recent [[Indonesian National Revolution|revolution of 1945–1949 in Indonesia]] and to establish trade relations between their two countries. The two men quickly bonded, as Sukarno was attracted to Guevara's energy and his relaxed informal approach; moreover they shared revolutionary [[Left-wing politics|leftist]] aspirations against Western [[imperialism]].<ref name="Merdeka">{{cite web |url=http://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/soekarno-soal-cerutu-kuba-che-dan-castro.html |title=Soekarno soal cerutu Kuba, Che dan Castro |trans-title=Soekarno about Cuban cigars, Che and Castro |first=Ramadhian |last=Fadillah |date=13 June 2012 |language=id |publisher=Merdeka.com |access-date=15 June 2013}}</ref> Guevara next spent 12 days in Japan (15–27 July), participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba's trade relations with that country. During the visit he refused to visit and lay a wreath at Japan's [[Tomb of the Unknown Soldier]] commemorating soldiers lost during [[World War II]], remarking that the Japanese "imperialists" had "killed millions of Asians".{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=431}} Instead, Guevara stated that he would visit [[Hiroshima]], where the American military had [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|detonated]] an [[Little Boy|atomic bomb]] 14 years earlier.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=431}} Despite his denunciation of [[Empire of Japan|Imperial Japan]], Guevara considered [[Harry S. Truman|President Truman]] a "macabre clown" for the bombings,{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=300}} and after visiting Hiroshima and its [[Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum|Peace Memorial Museum]] he sent back a postcard to Cuba stating, "In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20080516a3.html |title=Che Guevara's Daughter Visits Bomb Memorial in Hiroshima |work=[[The Japan Times]] |date=16 May 2008}}</ref>

Upon Guevara's return to Cuba in September 1959, it became evident that Castro now had more political power. The government had begun land seizures in accordance with the agrarian reform law, but was hedging on compensation offers to landowners, instead offering low-interest "bonds", a step which put the United States on alert. At this point the affected wealthy cattlemen of [[Camagüey]] mounted a campaign against the land redistributions and enlisted the newly disaffected rebel leader [[Huber Matos]], who along with the [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] wing of the 26 July Movement, joined them in denouncing "communist encroachment".{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=435}} During this time Dominican dictator [[Rafael Trujillo]] was offering assistance to the "[[Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean]]" which was training in the Dominican Republic. This multi-national force, composed mostly of Spaniards and Cubans, but also of Croatians, Germans, Greeks, and right-wing mercenaries, was plotting to topple Castro's new regime.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=435}}

At this stage, Guevara acquired the additional position of Minister of Finance, as well as President of the [[Central Bank of Cuba|National Bank]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://banconacionaldecuba.com/ernesto-che-guevara/|title=Ernesto "Che" Guevara}}</ref> These appointments, combined with his existing position as Minister of Industries, placed Guevara at the zenith of his power, as the "virtual czar" of the Cuban economy.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=55}} As a consequence of his position at the head of the central bank, it became Guevara's duty to sign the Cuban currency, which per custom bore his signature. Instead of using his full name, he signed the bills solely "''Che''".<ref name="Crompton2009">[[#refCrompton2009|Crompton 2009]], p. 71.</ref> It was through this symbolic act, which horrified many in the Cuban financial sector, that Guevara signaled his distaste for money and the class distinctions it brought about.<ref name="Crompton2009"/> Guevara's long time friend Ricardo Rojo later remarked that "the day he signed ''Che'' on the bills, (he) literally knocked the props from under the widespread belief that money was sacred."{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=60}}

International threats were heightened when, on 4 March 1960, two massive explosions ripped through the French freighter {{lang|es|[[La Coubre explosion|La Coubre]]}}, which was carrying [[FN FAL|Belgian munitions]] from the port of [[Antwerp]], and was docked in [[Havana Harbor]]. The blasts killed at least 76 people and injured several hundred, with Guevara personally providing first aid to some of the victims. Fidel Castro immediately accused the CIA of "an act of terrorism" and held a state funeral the following day for the victims of the blast.{{sfn|Casey|2009|p=25}} At the memorial service [[Alberto Korda]] took the famous photograph of Guevara, now known as {{lang|es|[[Che Guevara (photo)|Guerrillero Heroico]]}}.{{sfn|Casey|2009|pp=25–50}}

Perceived threats prompted Castro to eliminate more "[[Counter-revolutionary|counter-revolutionaries]]" and to utilize Guevara to drastically increase the speed of [[land reform]]. To implement this plan, a new government agency, the [[Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria|National Institute of Agrarian Reform]] (INRA), was established by the Cuban government to administer the new agrarian reform law. INRA quickly became the most important governing body in the nation, with Guevara serving as its head in his capacity as minister of industries.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=58}}{{request quotation|date=June 2019}} Under Guevara's command, INRA established its own 100,000-person militia, used first to help the government seize control of the expropriated land and supervise its distribution, and later to set up cooperative farms. The land confiscated included {{convert|480000|acre|ha}} owned by United States corporations.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=58}} Months later, in retaliation, US President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] sharply reduced United States imports of [[Cuban sugar economy|Cuban sugar]] (Cuba's main cash crop), which led Guevara on 10 July 1960 to address over 100,000 workers in front of the [[Museum of the Revolution (Cuba)|Presidential Palace]] at a rally to denounce the "economic aggression" of the United States.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=55}} [[Time (magazine)|''Time Magazine'']] reporters who met with Guevara around this time described him as "guid(ing) Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and a perceptive sense of humor".{{sfn|Time|1960}}

{{Quote box|quote=Guevara was like a father to me&nbsp;... he educated me. He taught me to think. He taught me the most beautiful thing which is to be human.|source=—Urbano <small>(a.k.a. Leonardo Tamayo)</small>,<br />fought with Guevara in Cuba and Bolivia<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7034953.stm Latin America's New Look at Che] by Daniel Schweimler, ''[[BBC News]]'', 9 October 2007.</ref>|width=30%|align=left}}

Along with land reform, Guevara stressed the need for national improvement in [[literacy]]. Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60 and 76%, with educational access in rural areas and a lack of instructors the main determining factors.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=61}} As a result, the Cuban government at Guevara's behest dubbed 1961 the "year of education" and mobilized over 100,000 volunteers into "literacy brigades", who were then sent out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate ''guajiros'' (peasants) to read and write.<ref name = "LiteracyC">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/latin-lessons-what-can-we-learn-from-the-worldrsquos-most-ambitious-literacy-campaign-2124433.html |title=Latin lessons: What can we Learn from the World's most Ambitious Literacy Campaign? |work=[[The Independent]] |date=7 November 2010}}</ref>{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=61}} Unlike many of Guevara's later economic initiatives, this campaign was "a remarkable success". By the completion of the [[Cuban literacy campaign]], 707,212 adults had been taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=61}}

Accompanying literacy, Guevara was also concerned with establishing universal access to higher education. To accomplish this the new regime introduced [[affirmative action]] to the universities. While announcing this new commitment, Guevara told the gathered faculty and students at the [[University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas|University of Las Villas]] that the days when education was "a privilege of the white middle class" had ended. "The University" he said, "must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant." If it did not, he warned, the people were going to break down its doors "and paint the University the colors they like."{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=449}}

===Economic reforms and the "New Man"===
{{See also|Guanahacabibes camp}}
{{Marxism|People}}
In September 1960, when Guevara was asked about Cuba's ideology at the First Latin American Congress, he replied, "If I were asked whether our revolution is Communist, I would define it as [[Marxism|Marxist]]. Our revolution has discovered by its methods the paths that Marx pointed out."<ref>Cuba: A Dissenting Report, by Samuel Shapiro, [[The New Republic|''New Republic'']], 12 September 1960, pp. 8-26, 21.</ref> Consequently, when enacting and advocating Cuban policy, Guevara cited the political philosopher [[Karl Marx]] as his ideological inspiration. In defending his political stance, Guevara confidently remarked, "There are truths so evident, so much a part of people's knowledge, that it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be Marxist with the same naturalness with which one is '[[Newtonian dynamics|Newtonian]]' in [[physics]], or '[[Louis Pasteur|Pasteurian]]' in [[biology]]."<ref name = "Notes1960" /> According to Guevara, the "practical revolutionaries" of the Cuban Revolution had the goal of "simply fulfill(ing) laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist."<ref name = "Notes1960" /> Using Marx's predictions and system of [[dialectical materialism]], Guevara professed that "The laws of Marxism are present in the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently of what its leaders profess or fully know of those laws from a theoretical point of view."<ref name = "Notes1960" />

{{blockquote|The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.|Che Guevara, ''Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban'', October 1960<ref name = "Notes1960">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1960/10/08.htm |title=Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution |first=Che |last=Guevara |magazine=Verde Olivo |date=8 October 1960 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.|Che Guevara, ''Man and Socialism in Cuba''<ref>[http://www.sadena.com/Books-Texts/Che%20Guevara%20-%20Man%20and%20Socialism%20in%20Cuba.pdf ''Man and Socialism in Cuba''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128172204/http://sadena.com/Books-Texts/Che%20Guevara%20-%20Man%20and%20Socialism%20in%20Cuba.pdf|date=2010-11-28}} by Che Guevara</ref>}}

[[File:Beauvoir Sartre - Che Guevara -1960 - Cuba.jpg|thumb|Guevara meeting with French [[existentialism|existentialist]] philosophers [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] at his office in Havana, March 1960. Sartre later wrote that Che was ''"the most complete human being of our time"''. In addition to Spanish, Guevara was fluent in French.<ref>[[#refDumur1964|Dumur 1964]] a 1964 video interview of Che Guevara speaking French (with English subtitles).</ref>]]

In an effort to eliminate [[Social inequality|social inequalities]], Guevara and Cuba's new leadership had moved to swiftly transform the political and economic base of the country through [[nationalization|nationalizing]] factories, banks, and businesses, while attempting to ensure affordable housing, healthcare, and employment for all Cubans.<ref name = "Hansing4142">[[#refHansing2002|Hansing 2002]], pp 41–42.</ref> In order for a genuine transformation of consciousness to take root, it was believed that such structural changes had to be accompanied by a conversion in people's [[social relation]]s and [[Value (ethics and social sciences)#Value system|values]]. Believing that the attitudes in Cuba towards [[Racism in Cuba|race]], [[Women in Cuba|women]], [[individualism]], and [[Manual labour|manual labor]] were the product of the island's outdated past, all individuals were urged to view each other as equals and take on the values of what Guevara termed ''"el Hombre Nuevo"'' (the New Man).<ref name= "Hansing4142" /> Guevara hoped his "new man" to be ultimately "selfless and cooperative, obedient and hard working, [[gender-blind]], incorruptible, [[Anti-consumerism|non-materialistic]], and [[anti-imperialism|anti-imperialist]]".<ref name= "Hansing4142" /> To accomplish this, Guevara emphasized the tenets of [[Marxism–Leninism]], and wanted to use the state to emphasize qualities such as [[egalitarianism]] and [[Self-denial|self-sacrifice]], at the same time as "unity, equality, and freedom" became the new maxims.<ref name= "Hansing4142" /> Guevara's first desired economic goal of the new man, which coincided with his aversion for [[Distribution of wealth#Wealth concentration|wealth condensation]] and [[economic inequality]], was to see a nationwide elimination of material incentives in favor of [[Morality|moral]] ones. He negatively viewed capitalism as a "contest among wolves" where "one can only win at the cost of others" and thus desired to see the creation of a "new man and woman".<ref name="SocialismAndMan" /> Guevara continually stressed that a socialist economy in itself is not "worth the effort, sacrifice, and risks of war and destruction" if it ends up encouraging "greed and individual ambition at the expense of [[Social organization#Collectivism and individualism|collective spirit]]".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=62}} A primary goal of Guevara's thus became to reform "individual consciousness" and values to produce better workers and citizens.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=62}} In his view, Cuba's "new man" would be able to overcome the "[[egotism]]" and "[[selfishness]]" that he loathed and discerned was uniquely characteristic of individuals in capitalist societies.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=62}} To promote this concept of a "new man", the government also created a series of party-dominated institutions and mechanisms on all levels of society, which included organizations such as [[Labour movement|labor groups]], [[Young Communist League (Cuba)|youth leagues]], [[Federation of Cuban Women|women's groups]], [[Community centre|community centers]], and [[Palace of Culture|houses of culture]] to promote state-sponsored art, music, and literature. In congruence with this, all educational, mass media, and artistic community based facilities were nationalized and utilized to instill the government's official [[Socialist mode of production|socialist]] ideology.<ref name= "Hansing4142" /> In describing this new method of "development", Guevara stated:

{{blockquote|There is a great difference between free-enterprise development and revolutionary development. In one of them, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, the friends of the government, the best wheeler-dealers. In the other, wealth is the people's patrimony.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=59}}}}

A further integral part of fostering a sense of "unity between the individual and the mass", Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara "led by example", working "endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane" on his day off.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/castro-che-guevara-1928-1967/ |website=[[PBS]] |title=Che Guevara, Popular but Ineffective}}</ref> He was known for working 36 hours at a stretch, calling meetings after midnight, and eating on the run.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=62}} Such behavior was emblematic of Guevara's new program of moral incentives, where each worker was now required to meet a quota and produce a certain quantity of goods. As a replacement for the pay increases abolished by Guevara, workers who exceeded their quota now only received a certificate of commendation, while workers who failed to meet their quotas were given a pay cut.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=62}} Guevara unapologetically defended his personal philosophy towards motivation and work, stating:

[[File:CheFishing.jpg|thumb|Guevara fishing off the coast of Havana, on 15 May 1960. Along with Castro, Guevara competed with expatriate author [[Ernest Hemingway]] at what was known as the "[[Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament|Hemingway Fishing Contest]]".]]

{{blockquote|This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, or how many times a year someone can go to the beach, or how many ornaments from abroad one might be able to buy with his current salary. What really matters is that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=75}}}}

At some point in 1960, Guevara ordered the construction of the [[Guanahacabibes camp]]: a labor camp to "rehabilitate" his employees who had committed infractions at work. Historians have had difficulty characterizing the camp, because it was extra-legal and thus poorly documented. There is a general consensus that employees worked at the camp to regain their employment after a negative incident, and were under no legal pressure to work at the camp.<ref>{{cite book |last=Llorente |first=Renzo |author-link= |date=2018 |title=The Political Theory of Che Guevara
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h-LaDwAAQBAJ&dq=che+guanahacabibes&pg=PA92 |location= |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |pages=91–92 |isbn=9781783487189}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Alvarez de Toledo |first=Lucia |author-link= |date=2013 |title=The Story of Che Guevara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p4-JAwAAQBAJ&dq=Guanahacabibes+camp+che&pg=PT377 |location= |publisher=Hachette Book Group |page= |isbn=9781623652173}}</ref> However, the historian Rachel Hynson has theorized that other poorly documented "Guanahacabibes" camps also existed, that were more brutal and legally binding.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hynson |first=Rachel |author-link= |date=2020 |title=Laboring for the State Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1971 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vC2xDwAAQBAJ&dq=uvero+quemado+rehabilitation+center&pg=PA230 |location= |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=230–236 |isbn=9781107188679}}</ref>

In the face of a loss of commercial connections with Western states, Guevara tried to replace them with closer commercial relationships with [[Eastern Bloc]] states, visiting a number of Marxist states and signing trade agreements with them. At the end of 1960 he visited [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]], the [[Soviet Union]], [[North Korea]], [[Hungarian People's Republic|Hungary]], and [[East Germany]] and signed, for instance, a trade agreement in [[East Berlin]] on 17 December 1960.<ref>{{cite web |date=23 March 1984 |title=Latin America Report |issue=JPRS–LAM–84–037 |page=24 |url=http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA351284 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111115225537/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA351284 |url-status=dead |archive-date=15 November 2011 |publisher=Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) |access-date=30 October 2010}}</ref> Such agreements helped Cuba's economy to a certain degree but also had the disadvantage of a growing economic dependency on the Eastern Bloc. It was also in East Germany where Guevara met [[Tamara Bunke]] (later known as "Tania"), who was assigned as his interpreter, and who joined him years later, and was killed with him in Bolivia.

According to [[Douglas Kellner]], his programs were unsuccessful,{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=63}} and accompanied a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=74}} In a meeting with French economist [[René Dumont]], Guevara blamed the inadequacy of the agrarian reform law enacted by the Cuban government in 1959, which turned large plantations into farm [[cooperative]]s or split up land amongst peasants.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=269}} In Guevara's opinion, this situation continued to promote a "heightened sense of individual ownership" in which workers could not see the positive social benefits of their labor, leading them to instead seek individual material gain as before.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=306}} Decades later, Che's former deputy Ernesto Betancourt, subsequently the director of the US government-funded [[Radio y Televisión Martí|Radio Martí]] and an early ally turned Castro-critic, accused Guevara of being "ignorant of the most elementary economic principles."<ref name="ReferenceB">[[#refLlosa2005|Vargas Llosa 2005]].</ref>

===Bay of Pigs and Four Year Plan===
{{Main|Bay of Pigs Invasion|Four Year Plan (Cuba)}}
{{anchor|gunaccident}}
In 1960, Guevara began promoting an idea of rapidly industrializing Cuba, and diversifying Cuba's agriculture. In 1961, Guevara proposed a four-year plan for rapid industrialization that would create a 15% annual growth rate, and a tenfold increase in the production of fruits.<ref name=Farber>{{cite book |last=Farber |first=Samuel |date=2016 |title=The Politics of Che Guevara Theory and Practice
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SZ0fDAAAQBAJ&dq=guevara+%22industrialization%22&pg=PA22 |location= |publisher= Haymarket Books|pages=20–25 |isbn=9781608466597 |access-date=}}</ref> As head of the Ministry of Industries, Guevara announced on the radio program ''People's University'' on March 3, 1961, that "accelerated industrialization" would require the centralization of all economic decision making.<ref name=biography>{{cite book |last=James |first=Daniel |author-link= |date=2001 |title=Che Guevara A Biography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0p0AEAdjvoIC&dq=che+guevara+%22accelerated+industrialization%22&pg=PA123 |location= |publisher=Cooper Square Press |pages=124–125 |isbn=9781461732068}}</ref>

On 17 April 1961, 1,400 US-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba during the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]]. Guevara did not play a key role in the fighting, as one day before the invasion a warship carrying Marines faked an invasion off the West Coast of [[Pinar del Río]] and drew forces commanded by Guevara to that region. However, historians give him a share of credit for the victory as he was director of instruction for Cuba's armed forces at the time.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|pp=69–70}} Author [[Tad Szulc]] in his explanation of the Cuban victory, assigns Guevara partial credit, stating: "The revolutionaries won because Che Guevara, as the head of the Instruction Department of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in charge of the militia training program, had done so well in preparing 200,000 men and women for war."{{sfn|Kellner|1989|pp=69–70}} It was also during this deployment that he suffered a bullet grazing to the cheek when his pistol fell out of its holster and accidentally discharged.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=507}}

[[File:CheyFidel.jpg|thumb|left|Guevara (left) and [[Fidel Castro]], photographed by Alberto Korda in 1961]]

In August 1961, during an economic conference of the [[Organization of American States]] in [[Punta del Este]], Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note of "gratitude" to United States President [[John F. Kennedy]] through [[Richard N. Goodwin]], Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. It read "Thanks for Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now it's stronger than ever."{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=509}} In response to United States Treasury Secretary [[C. Douglas Dillon|Douglas Dillon]] presenting the [[Alliance for Progress]] for ratification by the meeting, Guevara antagonistically attacked the United States' claim of being a "democracy", stating that such a system was not compatible with "financial [[oligarchy]], [[Racial segregation in the United States|discrimination against blacks]], and outrages by the [[Ku Klux Klan]]".<ref name="PuntaDelEsteChe">[http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1961/08/08.htm "Economics Cannot be Separated from Politics"] speech by Che Guevara to the ministerial meeting of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council (CIES), in Punta del Este, Uruguay on 8 August 1961.</ref> Guevara continued, speaking out against the "persecution" that in his view "drove scientists like [[J. Robert Oppenheimer|Oppenheimer]] from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of [[Paul Robeson]], and sent the [[Julius and Ethel Rosenberg|Rosenbergs]] to their deaths against the protests of a shocked world."<ref name="PuntaDelEsteChe"/> Guevara ended his remarks by insinuating that the United States was not interested in real reforms, sardonically quipping that "U.S. experts never talk about agrarian reform; they prefer a safe subject, like a better water supply. In short, they seem to prepare the revolution of the toilets."{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=78}} Nevertheless, Goodwin stated in his memo to President Kennedy following the meeting that Guevara viewed him as someone of the "newer generation"<ref name=goodwinche /> and that Guevara, whom Goodwin alleged sent a message to him the day after the meeting through one of the meeting's Argentine participants whom he described as "Darretta",<ref name=goodwinche /> also viewed the conversation which the two had as "quite profitable".<ref name=goodwinche>{{cite web |last1=Goodwin |first1=Richard |title=Memorandum for the President |url=https://americancentury.omeka.wlu.edu/files/original/3e027f808b843322ec9f28e8e78e93b7.pdf |website=The American Century |publisher=The White House |access-date=18 November 2021 |date=22 August 1961 |type=Memorandum |archive-date=29 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200329213523/https://americancentury.omeka.wlu.edu/files/original/3e027f808b843322ec9f28e8e78e93b7.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Guevara was a member of JUCEPLAN, the central planning board of Cuba, while he was head of the Ministry of Industries. The head of JUCEPLAN, Regino Boti, announced in August 1961 that the country would soon have a 10% rate of economic growth, and throughout 1961, various Marxist economists from throughout the world were invited to Cuba to assist in economic planning.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gott |first=Richard |date=2005 |title=Cuba A New History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aVq0qOnLFusC&dq=cuba+four+year+plan&pg=PA187 |location= |publisher=Yale University Press |page=187 |isbn= 978-0-300-11114-9|access-date=}}</ref>{{sfn|Llorente |2018|p=7}} The [[Four Year Plan (Cuba)|four-year plan]] drafted by JUCEPLAN in 1961 stressed industrialization and agricultural diversification, minimizing sugar production. This plan was devised to be implemented in 1962 through 1965.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Todd |first1=Allan |last2=Waller |first2=Sally |date=2015 |title=History for the IB Diploma Paper 2
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_pfCgAAQBAJ&dq=guevara+juceplan+four+year+plan&pg=PA228 |location= |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=228 |isbn=9781107558892 |access-date=}}</ref>

===Great Debate and Missile Crisis===
{{Further|Great Debate (Cuba)|Cuban Missile Crisis}}
{{See also|Guerrillerismo}}
In March 1962, Guevara admitted in a speech that [[Four Year Plan (Cuba)|the economic plan]] was a failure, specifically stating it was "an absurd plan, disconnected from reality, with absurd goals and imaginary resources."<ref name=Farber/> The failure of the industrialization plan had immediate impacts by 1962. In that year, Cuba introduced a [[Rationing in Cuba|rationing system for food]].<ref name=cuba>{{cite book |last1=McAuslan |first1=Fiona |last2=Norman |first2=Matthew |date=2003 |title=Cuba |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HlECg0cGX-sC&dq=cuba+1960+industrialization&pg=PA520 |location= |publisher=Rough Guides |page=520 |isbn=9781858289038 |access-date=}}</ref>

[[Fidel Castro]] soon invited Marxist economists around the world to debate two main propositions. One proposition proposed by Che Guevara was that Cuba could bypass any capitalist then "socialist" transition period and immediately become an industrialized "communist" society if "subjective conditions" like public consciousness and vanguard action are perfected. The other proposition held by the [[Popular Socialist Party (Cuba)|Popular Socialist Party]] was that Cuba required a transitionary period as a [[mixed economy]] in which Cuba's sugar economy was maximized for profit before a "communist" society could be established.<ref name=def>{{cite book |last=Kapcia |first=Antoni |date=2022 |title=Historical Dictionary of Cuba |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xbpmEAAAQBAJ&dq=the+great+debate+1962+cuba&pg=PA261 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |pages=261–262 |location=Lanham |isbn=978-1-4422-6455-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |date=2018 |title=Cuba's Forgotten Decade How the 1970s Shaped the Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ek1jDwAAQBAJ&dq=the+great+debate+1962+cuba&pg=PA10 |publisher=[[Lexington Books]] |location=Lanham |page=10 |isbn=978-1-4985-6874-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Underlid |first=Even |date=2021 |title=Cuba Was Different Views of the Cuban Communist Party on the Collapse of Soviet and Eastern European Socialism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_3AhEAAAQBAJ&dq=the+great+debate+1962+cuba&pg=PA229 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |location=Leiden; Boston |page=229 |isbn=978-90-04-44290-0}}</ref>

Guevara elaborated in this period that moral incentives should exist as the main motivator to increase workers' production. All profits created by enterprises were to be given to the state budget, and the state budget would cover losses. Institutions that developed socialist consciousness were regarded as the most important element in maintaining a path to socialism rather than materially incentivized increases in production. Implementation of the profit-motive was regarded as a path towards capitalism and as one of the flaws of the [[Eastern bloc]] economies.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gordy |first=Katherine |date=2015 |title=Living Ideology in Cuba Socialism in Principle and Practice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OXv_CQAAQBAJ&dq=carlos+rafael+rodriguez+great+debate&pg=PA91 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |location=Ann Arbor |pages=90–92 |isbn=978-0-472-05261-5}}</ref> The economy would also rely on mass mobilizations and centralized planning as a method for developing the economy.<ref name=soviets>{{cite book |date=2019 |title=Soviet Influence on Cuban Culture, 1961–1987 When the Soviets Came to Stay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XA7BDwAAQBAJ&dq=carlos+rafael+rodriguez+great+debate&pg=PA12 |publisher=[[Lexington Books]] |location=Lanham, MD |pages=12–13 |isbn=978-1-4985-8012-0}}</ref> The main ideal that compromised the consciousness that would develop socialism was the praise of the "new man", a citizen that was only motivated by human solidarity and self-sacrifice.<ref>{{cite book |last=Artaraz |first=Kepa |date=2009 |title=Cuba and Western Intellectuals Since 1959 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OafFAAAAQBAJ |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |location=New York |page=23 |isbn=978-0-230-61829-9}}</ref>

Outside of economic matters, Guevara served as the main architect of the [[Cuba–Soviet Union relations|Cuban–Soviet relationship]],{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=492}} and played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet [[Nuclear weapon|nuclear-armed]] [[ballistic missile]]s that precipitated the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] in October 1962 and brought the world to the brink of [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=530}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gow |first=Cathrine Hester |title=World History Series: The Cuban Missile Crisis |publisher=[[LucentBooks]] |year=1997 |isbn=1-56006-289-4 |location=San Diego, California |pages=Pages=60–82 |language=en}}</ref> After the Soviets proposed planting nuclear missiles in Cuba it was Che Guevara himself who traveled to the Soviet Union on 30 August 1962, to sign off on the final agreement.<ref>{{cite book |last= Abrams |first= Dennis |date=2013 |title=Ernesto "Che" Guevara
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xsVbAgAAQBAJ&dq=che+guevara+nuclear+missiles&pg=PT83 |location=New York |publisher=Infobase Learning |isbn=978-1-4381-4613-3}}</ref> Guevara argued with Khruschev that the missile deal should be made public but Khruschev insisted on secrecy, and swore the Soviet Union's support if the Americans discovered the missiles. By the time Guevara arrived in Cuba the United States had already discovered the Soviet troops in Cuba via U-2 spy planes.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eric |first1=Luther |last2=Henken |first2=Ted |date=2001 |title=Che Guevara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ZiMFkQ1hjkC&q=che+guevara+missiles |location=Indianapolis, IN |publisher=Alpha |page=165 |isbn=978-0-02-864199-7}}</ref>

A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'', Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=545}} While expounding on the incident later, Guevara reiterated that the cause of socialist liberation against global "imperialist aggression" would ultimately have been worth the possibility of "millions of atomic war victims".{{sfn|Guevara|Deutschmann|1997|p=304}} The missile crisis further convinced Guevara that the world's two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) used Cuba as a pawn in their own global strategies. Afterward, he denounced the Soviets almost as frequently as he denounced the Americans.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=73}}
[[File:Che Guevara.jpg|thumb|Che Guevara in his office as Minister of Industry (in the Hotel Riviera), while being interviewed by Laura Berquist for ''Look'' magazine. (1963)]]
Economic decline in Cuba continued past 1962, in the next year, sugar production was down by over a third of its 1961 level.<ref name=Leslie>{{cite book |last= |first= |date=1993 |title=Cuba A Short History
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ADjFLkpt9I4C&dq=cuba+1963+sugar+harvest&pg=PA108 |location= |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=108 |isbn= 978-0-521-43682-3|access-date=}}</ref> The sugar harvest of 1963 only brought in 3.8 million tons, the lowest harvest in Cuba in over twenty years.<ref>{{cite book |last=Perez |first=Louis |date=2015 |title=Cuba Between Reform and Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sri6BwAAQBAJ&dq=cuba+sugar+harvest+1963&pg=PA269 |location= |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=269 |isbn=9780199301447 |access-date=}}</ref> General food production was also down per capita by 40% for the next three years.<ref>{{cite book |last=Martinez-Fernandez |first=Luis |date=2014 |title=Revolutionary Cuba A History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h37SEAAAQBAJ&dq=cuba+1963+sugar+harvest&pg=PA88 |location= |publisher=University Press of Florida |page=83 |isbn=9780813048765 |access-date=}}</ref> In the same year, Castro began to emphasize sugar production in economic planning.<ref name=Leslie/> Guevara also resigned from his position as head of Ministry of Industries.<ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |date=2005 |title=Encyclopedia of Politics The Left and the Right · Volume 1
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bpx2AwAAQBAJ&dq=guevara+four+year+plan&pg=PA204 |location= |publisher=SAGE Publications |page=204 |isbn=9781452265315 |access-date=}}</ref>

In February of 1963, Guevara published the essay ''Against bureaucratism'', in which he describes the "guerrillaism" of the Cuban leadership, the necessity of bureaucratization to prevent rash decision-making amongst ex-guerrillas, and the new need to de-bureaucratize to end idleness in production.<ref>{{cite web |last=Guevara |first=Che |date=1963 |title=Against bureaucratism |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/02/against-bureaucratism.htm |website=marxists.org |location= |publisher=unknown |access-date=}}</ref> Since his essay, the word "''[[Guerrillerismo]]''", taken from his essay, has been used by historians to refer to a style of rhetoric that developed in Cuba, that constantly linked government decisions to the guerrilla struggle of the [[Cuban Revolution]], inferring they are all part of the same struggle.<ref name=clayfield>{{cite book |last=Clayfield |first=Anna |date=2019 |title=The Guerrilla Legacy of the Cuban Revolution
 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Guerrilla_Legacy_of_the_Cuban_Revolu/zYPSEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=cuba+%22guerrillerismo%22&pg=PA13&printsec=frontcover |location= |publisher=University of Florida Press |page=10-16 |isbn=9781683401087 |access-date=}}</ref>

In 1964, Guevara published an article, titled ''The Cuban Economy: Its Past, and Its Present Importance'', which analyzed the recent failure of Guevara's economic plans. In the article Guevara states that he committed "two principle errors": the diversification of agriculture, and dispersing resources evenly for various agricultural sectors. Specifically on the move away from sugar, Guevara states:
{{Blockquote
|text=The entire economic history of Cuba had demonstrated that no other agricultural activity would give such returns as those yielded by the cultivation of the sugarcane. At the outset of the Revolution many of us were not aware of this basic economic fact, because a fetishistic idea connected sugar with our dependence on imperialism and with the misery in the rural areas, without analysing the real causes: the relation to the uneven trade balance.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Guevara |first1=Ernesto Che |date=1964 |title=The Cuban Economy: Its Past, and Its Present Importance |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2611726 |journal=International Affairs |volume=40 |issue=4 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=589–599 |doi= 10.2307/2611726|jstor=2611726 |access-date=|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
}}

==International diplomacy==
[[File:CheGuevaraCountries.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Countries Che Guevara visited (red) and those in which he participated in armed revolution (green)]]

===United Nations delegation===
In December 1964, Che Guevara had emerged as a "revolutionary statesman of world stature" and thus traveled to New York City as head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the United Nations.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=60}} On 11 December 1964, during Guevara's hour-long, impassioned address at the UN, he criticized the United Nations' inability to confront the "brutal policy of [[apartheid]]" in South Africa, asking "Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?".<ref name="GuevaraUnitedNations">[http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1964/12/11.htm "Colonialism is Doomed"] speech to the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City by Cuban representative Che Guevara on 11 December 1964.</ref> Guevara then denounced the [[Jim Crow laws|United States policy towards their black population]], stating:

{{blockquote|Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men—how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?<ref name="GuevaraUnitedNations"/>}}

An indignant Guevara ended his speech by reciting the ''Second Declaration of Havana'', decreeing Latin America a "family of 200 million brothers who suffer the same miseries".<ref name="GuevaraUnitedNations"/> This "epic", Guevara declared, would be written by the "hungry Indian masses, peasants without land, exploited workers, and progressive masses". To Guevara the conflict was a struggle of masses and ideas, which would be carried forth by those "mistreated and scorned by [[imperialism]]" who were previously considered "a weak and submissive flock". With this "flock", Guevara now asserted, "Yankee monopoly capitalism" now terrifyingly saw their "gravediggers".<ref name="GuevaraUnitedNations"/> It would be during this "hour of vindication", Guevara pronounced, that the "anonymous mass" would begin to write its own history "with its own blood" and reclaim those "rights that were laughed at by one and all for 500 years". Guevara closed his remarks to the General Assembly by hypothesizing that this "wave of anger" would "sweep the lands of Latin America" and that the labor masses who "turn the wheel of history" were now, for the first time, "awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected".<ref name="GuevaraUnitedNations"/>

[[File:Chenasser.jpg|thumb|Meeting Egyptian President [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] in Cairo, 1964]]

Guevara later learned there had been two failed attempts on his life by [[Cuban exile]]s during his stop at the UN complex.<ref name="NYTDec1964">[http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/bazooka.htm Bazooka Fired at UN as Cuban Speaks] by [[Homer Bigart]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 12 December 1964, p. 1.</ref> The first from Molly Gonzales, who tried to break through barricades upon his arrival with a seven-inch hunting knife, and the second by Guillermo Novo, who fired a timer-initiated bazooka from a boat in the [[East River]] at the [[Headquarters of the United Nations|United Nations Headquarters]] during his address, but missed and was off target. Afterwards Guevara commented on both incidents, stating that "it is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun", while adding with a languid wave of his cigar that the explosion had "given the whole thing more flavor".<ref name="NYTDec1964"/>

[[File:CheinMoscow.jpg|thumb|upright|Walking through [[Red Square]] in Moscow, November 1964]]

While in New York, Guevara appeared on the [[CBS]] Sunday news program ''[[Face the Nation]],''<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/embed/CPCuzfDeUpc CBS Video] of Che Guevara being interviewed by ''[[Face the Nation]]'' on 13 December 1964, (29:11)</ref> and met with a wide range of people, from United States Senator [[Eugene McCarthy]]{{sfn|Hart|2004|p=271}} to associates of [[Malcolm X]]. The latter expressed his admiration, declaring Guevara "one of the most revolutionary men in this country right now" while reading a statement from him to a crowd at the [[Audubon Ballroom]].{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=618}}

===World travel===
On 17 December, Guevara left New York for Paris, France, and from there embarked on a three-month world tour that included visits to the People's Republic of China, North Korea, the [[United Arab Republic]], Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, [[Republic of Dahomey|Dahomey]], Congo-Brazzaville, and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland and [[Prague]]. While in Ireland, Guevara embraced his own Irish heritage, celebrating [[Saint Patrick's Day]] in [[Limerick]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/che_guevara_irish_roots.htm |title=Che Guevara: Father Of Revolution, Son Of Galway |publisher=Fantompowa.net |access-date=31 October 2010}}</ref> He wrote to his father on this visit, humorously stating "I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors. When they found out, the television [station] came to ask me about the Lynch genealogy, but in case they were horse thieves or something like that, I didn't say much."<ref>[http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Gerry-Adam-featured-in-new-Che-Guevara-documentary-57716202.html Gerry Adams Featured in New Che Guevara Documentary] by Kenneth Haynes, ''Irish Central'', 8 September 2009</ref>

During Guevara's time in Algeria, he was interviewed by Spanish poet [[Juan Goytisolo]] inside the Cuban embassy. During the interview, Guevara noticed a book by openly gay Cuban writer [[Virgilio Piñera]] that was sitting on the table next to him. When he noticed it, he threw the book against the wall and yelled "how dare you have in our embassy a book by this foul faggot?".<ref>{{cite book |last=Faber |first=Samuel |date=2011 |title=Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959 A Critical Assessment |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ce6Y5R95vYC&dq=Virgilio+Pi%C3%B1era+che+guevara&pg=PA217 |location=Chicago, Ill. |publisher=Haymarket Books |page=217 |isbn=978-1-60846-139-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |date=2015 |title=The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KKogCwAAQBAJ&dq=Virgilio+Pi%C3%B1era+che+guevara&pg=PT547 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |page= |isbn=978-0-19-163733-9}}</ref><ref name=Entiendes>{{cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |date=1995 |title=¿Entiendes? Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oCGO6aGbhTIC&dq=Virgilio+Pi%C3%B1era+che+guevara&pg=PA168 |location=Durham |publisher=Duke University Press |page= |isbn=978-0-8223-1615-2}}</ref> This moment has been marked as a turn in Goytisolo's personal identity as it influenced him to slowly come out of the closet as gay and begin to sympathize with the LGBT citizens of Cuba.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ellis |first=Robert |date=1997 |title=The Hispanic Homograph Gay Self-representation in Contemporary Spanish Autobiography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7oZLFafIMjUC&dq=Virgilio+Pi%C3%B1era+che+guevara&pg=PA44 |location=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois Press |page=44 |isbn=978-0-252-06611-5}}</ref>

During this voyage, he wrote a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of a Uruguayan weekly, which was later retitled ''Socialism and Man in Cuba''.<ref name="SocialismAndMan">[http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/03/man-socialism.htm "Socialism and Man in Cuba"] A letter to [[Carlos Quijano]], editor of ''[[Marcha (newspaper)|Marcha]]'', a weekly newspaper published in Montevideo, Uruguay; published as "From Algiers, for Marcha: The Cuban Revolution Today" by Che Guevara on 12 March 1965.</ref> Outlined in the treatise was Guevara's summons for the creation of a new consciousness, a new status of work, and a new role of the individual. He also laid out the reasoning behind his [[Anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] sentiments, stating:

{{Blockquote|The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the example of [[John D. Rockefeller|Rockefeller]]—whether or not it is true—about the possibilities of success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of [[Rockefeller family|a Rockefeller]], and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.<ref name="SocialismAndMan"/>}}

Guevara ended the essay by declaring that "the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love" and beckoning on all revolutionaries to "strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into acts that serve as examples", thus becoming "a moving force".<ref name="SocialismAndMan"/> The genesis for Guevara's assertions relied on the fact that he believed the example of the Cuban Revolution was "something spiritual that would transcend all borders".{{sfn|Anderson|1997|pp=37–38}}

===Visit to Algeria and political turn===
In [[Algiers]], Algeria, on 24 February 1965, Guevara made what turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage when he delivered a speech at an economic seminar on Afro-Asian solidarity.<ref>[[#refGuevara1969|Guevara 1969]], p. 350.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url =https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/02/24.htm| title=Che Guevara At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria|author=Guevara, Che|access-date=4 November 2018|publisher=marxists.org}}</ref> He specified the moral duty of the socialist countries, accusing them of tacit complicity with the exploiting Western countries. He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist bloc countries must implement in order to accomplish the defeat of [[imperialism]].<ref>[[#refGuevara1969|Guevara 1969]], pp. 352–59.</ref> Having criticized the Soviet Union (the primary financial backer of Cuba) in such a public manner, he returned to Cuba on 14 March to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raúl Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós, and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport.

As revealed in his last public speech in Algiers, Guevara had come to view the [[Northern Hemisphere]], led by the US in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the [[Southern Hemisphere]]. He strongly supported communist [[North Vietnam]] in the [[Vietnam War]], and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create "many Vietnams".<ref name="MessTricont1967">[http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1967/04/16.htm Message to the Tricontinental] (1967) A letter sent by Che Guevara from his jungle camp in Bolivia, to the [[Tricontinental Conference 1966]], published by the Executive Secretariat of the [[Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America]] (OSPAAAL), Havana, 16 April 1967.</ref> Che's denunciations of the Soviets made him popular among intellectuals and artists of the Western European left who had lost faith in the Soviet Union, while his condemnation of imperialism and call to revolution inspired young radical students in the United States, who were impatient for societal change.<ref name="Michiko">[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/books/21kaku.html Brand Che: Revolutionary as Marketer's Dream] by [[Michiko Kakutani]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 20 April 2009</ref>

{{Quote box|quote=[[Karl Marx|Marx]] characterized the psychological or philosophical manifestation of capitalist [[social relations]] as [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienation]] and [[Class struggle|antagonism]]; the result of the [[commodification]] of labor and the operation of the [[law of value]]. For Guevara, the challenge was to replace the individuals' alienation from the [[Relations of production|productive process]], and the antagonism generated by class relations, with integration and solidarity, developing a [[Class consciousness|collective attitude]] to production and the concept of work as a social duty.|source=—Helen Yaffe, author of ''Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution''<ref name = "Yaffe2006" />|width=30%|align=right}}

In Guevara's private writings from this time (since released), he displays his growing criticism of the Soviet political economy, believing that the Soviets had "forgotten [[Karl Marx|Marx]]".<ref name = "Yaffe2006">[http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/yaffeh/che-critic.htm Ernesto 'Che' Guevara: A Rebel Against Soviet Political Economy] by Helen Yaffe (author of ''Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution''), 2006</ref> This led Guevara to denounce a range of Soviet practices including what he saw as their attempt to "air-brush the inherent violence of [[Class conflict|class struggle]] integral to [[Communization|the transition]] from capitalism to socialism", their "dangerous" policy of [[peaceful co-existence]] with the United States, their failure to push for a "change in consciousness" towards the idea of work, and their attempt to "[[Economic liberalization|liberalize]]" the socialist economy. Guevara wanted the complete elimination of [[money]], [[interest]], [[Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|commodity production]], the [[market economy]], and "[[Mercantilism|mercantile relationships]]": all conditions that the Soviets argued would only disappear when [[world communism]] was achieved.<ref name="Yaffe2006"/> Disagreeing with this incrementalist approach, Guevara criticized the ''Soviet Manual of Political Economy'', predicting that if the Soviet Union did not abolish the [[law of value]] (as Guevara desired), it would eventually return to capitalism.<ref name="Yaffe2006"/>
[[File:Che-airport-14mar65.jpg|thumb|Guevara returning to Cuba at Rancho Boyeros airport on 14 March 1965. He is received by (left to right) Fidel Castro, Aleida March, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and Osvaldo Dorticos.]]
Two weeks after his Algiers speech and his return to Cuba, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether.<ref>[[#refAbrams2010|Abrams 2010]], p. 100</ref> His whereabouts were a great mystery in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the failure of the Cuban industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industries, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials who disapproved of Guevara's pro-[[Chinese Communist Party|Chinese communist]] stance on the [[Sino-Soviet split]], and to serious differences between Guevara and the pragmatic Castro regarding Cuba's economic development and ideological line.<ref>[[#refAbrams2010|Abrams 2010]], p. 103.</ref> Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara's fate, Castro stated on 16 June 1965, that the people would be informed when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Still, rumors spread both inside and outside Cuba concerning the missing Guevara's whereabouts.

There are various rumors from retired Cuban officials who were around the Castro brothers that the Castro brothers and Guevara had a strong disagreement after Guevara's Algiers speech. Intelligence files from the [[East Germany|East German]] embassy in Cuba detail various heated exchanges between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara after Guevara's return from Africa. Whether Castro disagreed with Guevara's criticisms of the Soviet Union or just found them unproductive to express on the world stage remains unclear.<ref>{{cite book|last=Glejieses|first=Piero|date=2011|title=Conflicting Missions Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QHWGwG71hzMC&dq=guevara+critiized+fdel&pg=PA104|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=Chapel Hill|pages=102–104|isbn=978-0-8078-6162-2}}</ref>

On 3 October 1965, Castro publicly revealed an undated letter purportedly written to him by Guevara around seven months earlier which was later titled Che Guevara's "farewell letter". In the letter, Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight for the revolutionary cause abroad. Additionally, he resigned from all his positions in the Cuban government and communist party, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.<ref>[[#refGuevara1965|Guevara 1965]].</ref>

==Congo Crisis==

===Military involvement===
{{Main|Simba rebellion}}
{{further|Operation South}}
<!-- We need a separate page to cover Guevara's activities in Africa. A period that covers important African history in terms of his impact on Colonialism and role in the CIA driven Cold War objectives in Central Africa -->
[[File:CheInCongo1965.jpg|thumb|upright|left|37-year-old Guevara, holding a Congolese baby and standing with a fellow [[Afro-Cubans|Afro-Cuban]] soldier in the [[Congo Crisis]], 1965]]

{{Quote box|quote=I tried to make them understand that the real issue was not the liberation of any given state, but a common war against the common master, who was one and the same in Mozambique and in Malawi, in Rhodesia and in South Africa, in the Congo and in Angola, but not one of them agreed.|source=—Che Guevara, in February 1965, after meeting with various African liberation movement leaders in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania<ref>[https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112124 Excerpt from Che's ''Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria (Congo)''] February 1965, hosted at the [[Wilson Center Digital Archive]]</ref>|width=30%|align=right}}

In early 1965, Guevara went to Africa to offer his knowledge and experience as a guerrilla to the ongoing [[Congo Crisis|conflict in the Congo]]. According to Algerian President [[Ahmed Ben Bella]], Guevara thought that Africa was imperialism's weak link and so had enormous revolutionary potential.<ref>[[#refBenBella1997|Ben Bella 1997]].</ref> Egyptian President [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]], who had fraternal relations with Che since his 1959 visit, saw Guevara's plan to fight in Congo as "unwise" and warned that he would become a "[[Tarzan]]" figure, doomed to failure.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=624}} Despite the warning, Guevara traveled to Congo using the alias Ramón Benítez.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=629}} He led the Cuban operation in support of the leftist [[Simba rebellion|Simba movement]], which had emerged from the ongoing Congo conflict. Guevara, his second-in-command [[Víctor Dreke]], and 12 other Cuban expeditionaries arrived in Congo on 24 April 1965, and a contingent of approximately 100 [[Afro-Cubans]] joined them soon afterward.<ref>[[#refGalvez1999|Gálvez 1999]], p. 62.</ref><ref>[[#refGott2004|Gott 2004]] p. 219.</ref> For a time, they collaborated with guerrilla leader [[Laurent-Désiré Kabila]], who had helped supporters of the overthrown prime minister [[Patrice Lumumba]] to lead an unsuccessful revolt months earlier. As an admirer of the late Lumumba, Guevara declared that his "murder should be a lesson for all of us".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=86}} Guevara, with limited knowledge of [[Swahili language|Swahili]] and the local languages, was assigned a teenage interpreter, Freddy Ilanga. Over the course of seven months, Ilanga grew to "admire the hard-working Guevara", who "showed the same respect to black people as he did to whites".<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4522526.stm DR Congo's Rebel-Turned-Brain Surgeon] by Mark Doyle, ''[[BBC World Affairs]]'', 13 December 2005.</ref> Guevara soon became disillusioned with the poor discipline of Kabila's troops and later dismissed him, stating "nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour".{{sfn|BBC News|2001a}} Regardless, Che still regarded Kabila more favorably than other Simba leaders, several of whom still pretended to lead rebel forces even after they had fled into exile.{{sfn|Villafana|2017|pp=158, 160}}

As an additional obstacle, the Congolese military (the ''[[Armée Nationale Congolaise]]'', ANC) was aided by [[Mercenaries and the Democratic Republic of the Congo|mercenary troops]] led by [[Mad Mike Hoare|Mike Hoare]] and supported by [[CIA activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo|anti-Castro Cuban pilots and the CIA]]. These forces thwarted Guevara's movements from his base camp in the mountains near the village of [[Fizi]] on [[Lake Tanganyika]] in southeast Congo. They were able to monitor his communications and so pre-empted his attacks and interdicted his supply lines. Although Guevara tried to conceal his presence in Congo, the United States government knew his location and activities. The [[National Security Agency]] was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing transmissions via equipment aboard the [[USNS Private Jose F. Valdez (T-AG-169)|USNS ''Private Jose F. Valdez'']], a floating listening post that continuously cruised the Indian Ocean off [[Dar es Salaam]] for that purpose.<ref>{{harvnb|Bamford|2002|p=181}}: "The intercept operators knew that Dar-es-Salaam was serving as a communications center for the fighters, receiving messages from Castro in Cuba and relaying them on to the guerrillas deep in the bush."</ref> After becoming aware of the Communist Cubans' presence in eastern Congo, Hoare planned his strategies to explicitly counter their guerrilla warfare tactics.{{sfn|Villafana|2017|pp=153, 161}}

[[File:Cheguevaracongo.jpg|thumb|Listening to a [[Zenith Electronics|Zenith]] [[Trans-Oceanic]] [[shortwave radio receiver]] are (seated from the left) Rogelio Oliva, José María Martínez Tamayo (known as "Mbili" in the Congo and "Ricardo" in Bolivia), and Guevara. Standing behind them is Roberto Sánchez ("Lawton" in Cuba and "Changa" in the Congo), 1965.]]

Guevara's aim was to [[Exporting the revolution|export the revolution]] by instructing local anti-[[Mobutu Sese Seko|Mobutu]] Simba fighters in Marxist ideology and [[Foco|foco theory]] strategies of [[guerrilla warfare]]. In his ''Congo Diary'' book, he cites a combination of incompetence, intransigence, and infighting among the Congolese rebels as key reasons for the revolt's failure.<ref>[[#CITEREFIreland's Own2000|Ireland's Own 2000]].</ref> On 27 September 1965, the ANC and its allies launched [[Operation South]] to destroy Kabila's forces. With the support of Che and his Cubans, the Simbas put up substantial resistance. Regardless, the rebels were increasingly pushed back, lost their supply routes, and suffered under failing morale.{{sfn|Villafana|2017|pp=153–166}} Guevara himself was almost killed in one clash of the operation.{{sfn|Villafana|2017|p=164}} Regardless, he initially wanted to continue some form of guerrilla campaign from the local mountains, but even his Simba allies ultimately told him that the rebellion was defeated.{{sfn|Villafana|2017|pp=166–167}} On 20 November 1965, suffering from [[dysentery]] and acute asthma, and disheartened after seven months of defeats and inactivity, Guevara left Congo with the six Cuban survivors of his 12-man column. Guevara stated that he had planned to send the wounded back to Cuba and fight in the Congo alone until his death, as a revolutionary example. But after being urged by his comrades, and two Cuban emissaries personally sent by Castro, at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave Africa. During that day and night, Guevara's forces quietly took down their base camp, burned their huts, and destroyed or threw weapons into Lake Tanganyika that they could not take with them, before crossing the border by boat into Tanzania at night and traveling by land to Dar es Salaam. In speaking about his experience in Congo months later, Guevara concluded that he left rather than fight to the death because: "The human element failed. There is no will to fight. The [rebel] leaders are corrupt. In a word&nbsp;... there was nothing to do."{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=87}} Guevara also declared that "we can not liberate, all by ourselves, a country that does not want to fight."<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/12/cuba.artsandhumanities From Cuba to Congo, Dream to Disaster for Che Guevara] by ''[[The Guardian]]'', 12 August 2000</ref> A few weeks later, he wrote the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture, that began: "This is the story of a failure."{{sfn|Guevara|2000|p=1}}

===Flight from the Congo===
Following the failure of the rebellion in the Congo, Guevara was reluctant to return to Cuba, because Castro had already made public Guevara's "farewell letter"—a letter intended to only be revealed in the case of his death—wherein he severed all ties in order to devote himself to revolution throughout the world.<ref>[[#refCastañeda1998|Castañeda 1998]], p. 316.</ref> As a result, Guevara spent the next six months living clandestinely at the Cuban embassy in Dar es Salaam and later at a Cuban safehouse in [[Kamenice (Prague-East District)|Ládví]] near Prague.<ref>{{cite news |last=Willoughby|first=Ian|title=Che Guevara's central Bohemian hideaway|url=https://english.radio.cz/che-guevaras-central-bohemian-hideaway-8572588|work=Radio Prague International|publisher=[[Czech Radio]]|date=27 June 2010|access-date=9 February 2023}}</ref> While in Europe, Guevara made a secret visit to former Argentine president [[Juan Perón]] who lived in exile in [[Francoist Spain]] where he confided in Perón about his new plan to formulate a communist revolution to bring all of Latin America under socialist control. Perón warned Guevara that his plans for implementing a communist revolution throughout Latin America, starting with Bolivia, would be suicidal and futile, but Guevara's mind was already made up. Later, Perón remarked that Guevara was "an immature utopian... but one of us. I am happy for it to be so because he is giving the Yankees a real headache."<ref name=ODonnell>{{cite news |last=O'Donnell |first=Pacho |title=Opiniones de Perón sobre el Che|url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/subnotas/178453-56017-2011-10-08.html |newspaper=[[Página/12]] |access-date=23 May 2015|language=es}}</ref>

During this time abroad, Guevara compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience and wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy and the other on economics. As Guevara prepared for Bolivia, he secretly traveled back to Cuba on 21 July 1966 to visit Castro, as well as to see his wife and to write a last letter to his five children to be read upon his death, which ended with him instructing them:

{{blockquote|Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.{{sfn|Guevara|2009|p=167}}}}

==Bolivian insurgency==

===Departure to Bolivia===
[[File:Ernesto Guevara-Passport1966.png|thumb|Guevara's 1966 passport featuring him in disguise with a false name]]

In late 1966, Guevara's location was still not public knowledge, although representatives of Mozambique's independence movement, the [[FRELIMO]], reported that they met with Guevara in [[Dar es Salaam]] regarding his offer to aid in their revolutionary project, an offer which they ultimately rejected.<ref>[[#refMittleman1981|Mittleman 1981]], p. 38.</ref> In a speech at the 1967 [[International Workers' Day]] rally in Havana, the acting minister of the armed forces, Major [[Juan Almeida Bosque]], announced that Guevara was "serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America".<ref>{{Cite web |title=History of Che Guevara in Timeline - Popular Timelines |url=https://populartimelines.com/t/13623554/Che-Guevara |access-date=12 October 2023 |website=populartimelines.com |language=en}}</ref> In his book ''Opération Condor'' published in 2020, French journalist [[Pablo Daniel Magee]] reconstitutes the first incursion of Che Guevara in [[Bolivia]] on 3 October 1966, based on top-secret documents kept in the [[UNESCO]] protected [[Archives of Terror]] in [[Paraguay]].

Before he departed for Bolivia, Guevara altered his appearance by shaving off his beard and much of his hair, also dying it grey so that he was unrecognizable as Che Guevara.<ref>Jacobson, Sid and Ernie Colón. ''Che: A Graphic Biography''. [[Hill & Wang]], 2009. 96–97.</ref> On 3 November 1966, Guevara secretly arrived in [[La Paz]] on a flight from Montevideo, under the false name Adolfo Mena González, posing as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the [[Organization of American States]].<ref>Jacobson, Sid and Ernie Colón. ''Che: A Graphic Biography''. Hill and Wang, 2009. 98.</ref>

Three days after his arrival in Bolivia, Guevara left La Paz for the rural south east region of the country to form his guerrilla army. Guevara's first base camp was located in the [[Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests|montane dry forest]] in the remote Ñancahuazú region. Training at the camp in the Ñancahuazú valley proved to be hazardous, and little was accomplished in way of building a guerrilla army. The Argentine-born [[East Germany|East German]] operative [[Tamara Bunke]], better known by her ''[[Pseudonym#Military and paramilitary organizations|nom de guerre]]'' "Tania", had been installed as Che's primary agent in La Paz.<ref name="#refSelvage1985|Selvage 1985">[[#refSelvage1985|Selvage 1985]].</ref>{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=693}}

===Ñancahuazú Guerrilla===
{{Main|Ñancahuazú Guerrilla}}
[[File:CheinBolivia1.jpg|thumb|Guevara in rural Bolivia, shortly before his death (1967)]]

Guevara's guerrilla force, numbering about 50 men<ref>[http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/che/bolivia-guerrillas.htm Members of Che Guevara's Guerrilla Movement in Bolivia] by the ''Latin American Studies Organization''
</ref> and operating as the ELN (''Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia'', "National Liberation Army of Bolivia"), was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against Bolivian army regulars [[Route of Che|in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region during the early months of 1967]]. As a result of Guevara's units winning several skirmishes against Bolivian troops in the spring and summer of 1967, the Bolivian government began to overestimate the true size of the guerrilla force.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=97}}

Researchers hypothesize that Guevara's plan for fomenting a revolution in Bolivia failed for an array of reasons:
* Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents that he did not receive, nor did he receive support from Bolivia's Communist Party under the leadership of [[Mario Monje]], which was oriented toward Moscow rather than Havana. In Guevara's own diary captured after his death, he wrote about the [[Communist Party of Bolivia]], which he characterized as "distrustful, disloyal and stupid".<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20081208122004/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837605,00.html Bidding for Che]", ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', 15 December 1967.</ref>
* He had expected to deal only with the Bolivian military, who were poorly trained and equipped, and was unaware that the United States government had sent a team of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s [[Special Activities Center|Special Activities Division]] commandos and other operatives into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The [[Bolivian Army]] was also trained, advised, and supplied by [[United States Army Special Forces|US Army Special Forces]], including an elite battalion of [[United States Army Rangers|US Rangers]] trained in [[jungle warfare]] that set up camp in La Esperanza, a small settlement close to the location of Guevara's guerrillas.<ref>[[#refUSArmy1967|US Army 1967]] and [[#refRyan1998|Ryan 1998]], pp. 82–102, ''inter alia''. "US military personnel in Bolivia never exceeded 53 advisers, including a sixteen-man Mobile Training Team from the [[8th Special Forces Group (United States)|8th Special Forces Group]] based at [[Fort Gulick]], [[Panama Canal Zone]]" ([[#refSelvage1985|Selvage 1985]]).</ref>
* He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. The two [[shortwave radio]] transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty. Thus, the guerrillas were unable to communicate and be resupplied, leaving them isolated and stranded.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Félix Rodríguez, Che Guevara's captor, points the finger at Fidel Castro: "They sent him to Bolivia to be killed"|url=https://voz.us/felix-rodriguez-points-to-fidel-castro-they-sent-che-to-bolivia-to-be-killed/?lang=en|access-date=12 October 2023|website=Voz Media talks to the former CIA officer who captured Che Guevara. He spoke about the communist guerrilla's final moments before his execution.| date=15 February 2023 }}</ref>

In addition, Guevara's known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had previously surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local rebel leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo.<ref>[[#refGuevara1972|Guevara 1972]].</ref> This tendency had existed in Cuba, but had been kept in check by the timely interventions and guidance of Fidel Castro.<ref>[[#refCastañeda1998|Castañeda 1998]], pp. 107–112; 131–132.</ref>

The result was that Guevara was unable to attract inhabitants of the local area to join his militia during the eleven months he attempted recruitment. Many of the inhabitants willingly informed the Bolivian authorities and military about the guerrillas and their movements in the area. Near the end of the Bolivian venture, Guevara wrote in his diary: "Talking to these peasants is like talking to statues. They do not give us any help. Worse still, many of them are turning into informants."{{sfn|Wright|2000|p=86}}

[[Félix Rodríguez (soldier)|Félix Rodríguez]], a [[Cuban exile]] turned CIA Special Activities Division operative, advised Bolivian troops during the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia.<ref>[[#refRodriguez1989|Rodriguez and Weisman 1989]].</ref> In addition, the 2007 documentary ''[[My Enemy's Enemy]]'' alleges that [[Nazism|Nazi]] war criminal [[Klaus Barbie]] advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara's eventual capture.<ref name = "ObserverChe">[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/dec/23/world.secondworldwar Barbie "Boasted of Hunting Down Che"] by David Smith, ''[[The Observer]]'', 23 December 2007.</ref>

===Capture===
On 7 October 1967, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine.<ref>[http://www.theage.com.au/world/green-beret-behind-the-capture-of-che-guevara-20100907-14zhp.html Green Beret Behind the Capture of Che Guevara] by [[Richard Gott]], ''[[The Age]]'', 8 September 2010</ref> On the morning of 8 October, they encircled the area with two companies numbering 180 soldiers and advanced into the ravine, triggering a battle where Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with [[Simeon Cuba Sarabia]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rothman |first1=Lily |title=Read TIME's Original Report on the Death of Che Guevara |url=https://time.com/4970857/report-1967-death-che-guevara/ |access-date=9 October 2020 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=9 October 2017}}</ref> Che's biographer [[Jon Lee Anderson]] reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca's account: that as the Bolivian Rangers approached, a twice-wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, threw up his arms in surrender and shouted to the soldiers: "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead."{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=733}}

Guevara was tied up and taken to a dilapidated mud schoolhouse in the nearby village of [[La Higuera]] on the evening of 8 October. For the next half-day, Guevara refused to be interrogated by Bolivian officers and only spoke quietly to Bolivian soldiers. One of those Bolivian soldiers, a helicopter pilot named Jaime Nino de Guzman, describes Che as looking "dreadful". According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that "Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke." De Guzman states that he "took pity" and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, and that Guevara then smiled and thanked him.<ref name="The Man Who Buried Che">"[http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/cheremains111897.html The Man Who Buried Che] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207082403/http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/cheremains111897.html |date=2008-12-07 }}" by Juan O. Tamayo, ''Miami Herald'', 19 September 1997.</ref> Later on the night of 8 October, Guevara—despite having his hands tied—kicked a Bolivian army officer, named Captain Espinosa, against a wall after the officer entered the schoolhouse and tried to snatch Guevara's pipe from his mouth as a souvenir while he was still smoking it.<ref name="Michèle">{{cite magazine |last=Ray |first=Michèle |date=March 1968 |title=In Cold Blood: The Execution of Che by the CIA |magazine=[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts Magazine]] |pages=21–37|publisher=[[Edward Michael Keating|Edward M. Keating]]}}</ref> In another instance of defiance, Guevara spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Horacio Ugarteche, who attempted to question Guevara a few hours before his execution.<ref name="Michèle" />

The following morning on 9 October, Guevara asked to see the school teacher of the village, a 22-year-old woman named Julia Cortez. She later stated that she found Guevara to be an "agreeable looking man with a soft and ironic glance" and that during their conversation she found herself "unable to look him in the eye" because his "gaze was unbearable, piercing, and so tranquil".<ref name="Michèle"/> During their short conversation, Guevara pointed out to Cortez the poor condition of the schoolhouse, stating that it was "anti-[[Pedagogy|pedagogical]]" to expect campesino students to be educated there, while "government officials drive [[Mercedes (marque)|Mercedes]] cars"; Guevara said "that's what we are fighting against".<ref name="Michèle"/>

===Execution order===
Later on the morning of 9 October, Bolivian President [[René Barrientos]] ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed to the unit holding Guevara by [[Félix Rodríguez (soldier)|Félix Rodríguez]], reportedly despite the United States government's desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation.<ref>[[#refGrant2007|Grant 2007]]</ref> The executioner who volunteered to kill Guevara was [[Mario Terán]], a 27-year-old sergeant in the Bolivian army who, while [[Alcohol intoxication|half-drunk]], requested to shoot Guevara because three of his friends from B Company, all with the same first name of "Mario", had been killed in a firefight several days earlier with Guevara's band of guerrillas.{{sfn|Taibo|1999|p=267}} To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story that the Bolivian government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán not to shoot Guevara in the head, but to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army.<ref>[[#refGrant2007|Grant 2007]]. René Barrientos has never revealed his motives for ordering the summary execution of Guevara rather than putting him on trial or expelling him from the country or turning him over to the United States authorities.</ref> [[Gary Prado Salmón]], the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara, said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara were so there could be no possibility for Guevara to escape from prison, and also so there could be no drama of a public trial where adverse publicity might happen.<ref>Almudevar, Lola. "[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/09/MNVASLK4R.DTL Bolivia marks capture, execution of 'Che' Guevara 40 years ago]", ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]''. 9 October 2007; retrieved 7 November 2009.</ref>

==Death==
===Execution===

[[File:Che Guevara captured by CIA in Bolivia 1967.jpg|thumb|Guevara shortly before his execution, with CIA officer [[Félix Rodríguez (CIA agent)|Félix Rodríguez]] (left)]]

About 30 minutes before Guevara was killed, Félix Rodríguez attempted to question him about the whereabouts of other guerrilla fighters who were currently at large, but Guevara continued to remain silent. Rodríguez, assisted by a few Bolivian soldiers, helped Guevara to his feet and took him outside the hut to parade him before other Bolivian soldiers where he posed with Guevara for a [[photo opportunity]] where one soldier took a photograph of Rodríguez and other soldiers standing alongside Guevara. Afterwards, Rodríguez told Guevara that he was going to be executed. A little later, Guevara was asked by one of the Bolivian soldiers guarding him if he was thinking about his own immortality. "No" he replied, "I'm thinking about the immortality of the revolution".<ref>[[#refTime1970|''Time'' magazine 1970]].</ref> A few minutes later, Sergeant Terán entered the hut to shoot him, whereupon Guevara reportedly stood up and spoke to Terán what were his last words: "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!" Terán hesitated, then pointed his self-loading [[M1 carbine#Carbine, Cal 0, M2|M2 carbine]]<ref>{{cite web |title=The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified |publisher=The National Security Archive |url=http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/ |access-date=24 January 2016}}</ref> at Guevara and opened fire, hitting him in the arms and legs.<ref name="anderson739">{{harvnb|Anderson|1997|pp=739}}</ref> Then, as Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out, Terán fired another burst, fatally wounding him in the chest. Guevara was pronounced dead at 1:10&nbsp;p.m. local time according to Rodríguez.<ref name="anderson739"/> In all, Guevara was shot nine times by Terán. This included five times in his legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, and once in the chest and throat.<ref name="Michèle"/>

Months earlier, during his last public declaration to the [[Tricontinental Conference (1966)|Tricontinental Conference]],<ref name="MessTricont1967"/> Guevara had written his own [[epitaph]], stating: "Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons."<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/19/che-guevara-obituary-guardian-archive Obituary: Che Guevara, Marxist Architect of Revolution] by Richard Bourne, ''[[The Guardian]]'', 11 October 1967</ref>

===Aftermath===
[[File:FreddyAlbertoChe.jpg|thumb|left|The day after his execution on 10 October 1967, Guevara's corpse was displayed to the news media in the laundry house of the Vallegrande hospital (photo by {{ill|Freddy Alborta|es}}).<br />'''{{nbsp|4}}[[File:Camera-photo.svg|17px]]{{nbsp|4}}[[commons:Image:CheExec9B.jpg|Face]] {{nbsp|3}} [[commons:Image:CheExec19.jpg|Side angle]] {{nbsp|3}}[[commons:Image:Exec22.gif|Shoes]]''']]

After his execution, Guevara's body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to nearby [[Vallegrande]], where photographs were taken of him lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta.<ref>[[#refAlmudevar2007|Almudevar 2007]] and [[#refGott2005|Gott 2005]].</ref> Several witnesses were called to confirm his identity, key amongst them the British journalist [[Richard Gott]], the only witness to have met Guevara when he was alive. Put on display, as hundreds of local residents filed past the body, Guevara's corpse was considered by many to represent a "Christ-like" visage, with some even surreptitiously clipping locks of his hair as divine relics.{{sfn|Casey|2009|p=179}} Such comparisons were further extended when English art critic [[John Berger]], two weeks later upon seeing the post-mortem photographs, observed that they resembled two famous paintings: [[Rembrandt]]'s ''[[The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp]]'' and [[Andrea Mantegna]]'s ''[[Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Mantegna)|Lamentation over the Dead Christ]]''.{{sfn|Casey|2009|p=183}} There were also four correspondents present when Guevara's body arrived in Vallegrande, including [[Björn Kumm]] of the Swedish ''[[Aftonbladet]]'', who described the scene in an 11 November 1967 exclusive for ''[[The New Republic]]''.<ref>[http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/the-death-che-guevara The Death of Che Guevara] by [[Bjorn Kumm]], ''[[The New Republic]]'', Originally published on 11 November 1967.</ref>

A declassified memorandum dated 11 October 1967 to [[President of the United States|United States President]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] from his [[National Security Advisor (United States)|National Security Advisor]] [[Walt Rostow]], called the decision to kill Guevara "stupid" but "understandable from a Bolivian standpoint".{{sfn|Lacey|2007b}}

After the execution, Rodríguez took several of Guevara's personal items, including a watch which he continued to wear many years later, often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years.<ref>After the Cuban revolution, seeing that Guevara had no watch, his friend Oscarito Fernández Mell gave him his own gold watch. Sometime later, Che handed him a piece of paper; a receipt from the National Bank declaring that Mell had "donated" his gold wristband to Cuba's gold reserve. Guevara was still wearing his watch, but it now had a leather wristband ({{harvnb|Anderson|1997|p=503}}).</ref> Today, some of these belongings, including his flashlight, are on display by the CIA.<ref>[[#refKornbluh1997|Kornbluh 1997]].</ref> After a military doctor [[Dismemberment|dismembered]] his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. They were later sent to Cuba.<ref>{{cite magazine |first1=Laura |last1=Garza |url=http://www.themilitant.com/1995/5947/5947_9.html |title=Bolivian General Reveals Che Guevara's Burial Site |magazine=[[The Militant]] |date= 18 December 1995 |access-date=10 February 2012}}</ref>

Also removed when Guevara was captured were his 30,000-word, hand-written diary, a collection of his personal poetry, and a short story he had authored about a young communist guerrilla who learns to overcome his fears.<ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20081208122004/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837605,00.html Bidding for Che]", ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' Magazine, 15 December 1967.</ref> His diary documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia,<ref>[[#refGuevara1967|Guevara 1967]].</ref> with the first entry on 7 November 1966, shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last dated 7 October 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely because of discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara's decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall unsuccessful venture. It also records the rift between Guevara and the Communist Party of Bolivia that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally expected, and shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, partly because the guerrilla group had learned [[Quechuan languages|Quechua]], unaware that the local language was actually a [[Tupi–Guarani languages|Tupi–Guarani]] language.<ref>[[#refRyan1998|Ryan 1998]], p. 45.</ref> As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He endured ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.<ref>[[#refRyan1998|Ryan 1998]], p. 104.</ref> The Bolivian diary was quickly and crudely translated by ''[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts]]'' magazine and circulated around the world.<ref>[[#refRyan1998|Ryan 1998]], p. 148.</ref> There are at least four additional diaries in existence—those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias "Braulio"), Harry Villegas Tamayo ([[Harry Villegas|"Pombo"]]), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez ("Rolando"),<ref name="#refSelvage1985|Selvage 1985"/> and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez ("Benigno")<ref>[[#refRamirez1997|Ramírez 1997]].</ref>—each of which reveals additional aspects of the events.

French [[intellectual]] [[Régis Debray]], who was captured in April 1967 while with Guevara in Bolivia, gave an interview from prison in August 1968, in which he enlarged on the circumstances of Guevara's capture. Debray, who had lived with Guevara's band of guerrillas for a short time, said that in his view they were "victims of the forest" and thus "eaten by the jungle".<ref name="Nadle">{{cite journal|last=Nadle|first=Marlene|date=24 August 1968|title=Régis Debray Speaks from Prison|journal=[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts Magazine]]|page=42}}</ref> Debray described a destitute situation where Guevara's men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men. Debray recounts that Guevara and the others had been suffering an "illness" which caused their hands and feet to swell into "mounds of flesh" to the point where you could not discern the fingers on their hands. Debray described Guevara as "optimistic about the future of Latin America" despite the futile situation, and remarked that Guevara was "resigned to die in the knowledge that his death would be a sort of renaissance", noting that Guevara perceived death "as a promise of rebirth" and "ritual of renewal".<ref name="Nadle"/>

===Commemoration in Cuba===
On 15 October in Havana, [[Fidel Castro]] publicly acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=740}} On 18 October, Castro addressed a crowd of one million mourners in Havana's [[Plaza de la Revolución]] and spoke about Guevara's character as a revolutionary.{{sfn|Anderson|1997|p=741}} Castro remarked about Guevarism's legacy:<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1967/10/oct-18-1967.htm |title=Speech by the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz at the solemn evening in memory of Commander Ernesto Che Guevara, in the Plaza de la Revolución, on October 18, 1967 |last= |first= |date= |website=Marxists.org |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}}</ref>
{{Blockquote
|text=...those who sing victory are wrong. Those who believe his death is the defeat of his ideas, the defeat of his tactics, the defeat of his guerrilla conceptions, and the defeat of his thesis are mistaken. Because that man who fell as a mortal man, as a man who was exposed many times to bullets, as a soldier, as a leader, is a thousand times more capable than those who killed him with a stroke of luck.
}}

Fidel Castro closed his impassioned eulogy saying:

{{blockquote|If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che's spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=101}}}}

===International commemoration===
[[File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.0007 (16910967809).jpg|thumb|right|Portraits of Che Guevara at a march during the [[West German student movement]]]]
After pictures of the dead Guevara began being circulated and the circumstances of his death were being debated, Che's legacy began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his "assassination" occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, and poems were written about his life and death.<ref>[[#refDurschmied2002|Durschmied 2002]], pp. 307–09.</ref> Rallies in support of Guevara were held from "Mexico to [[Santiago]], [[Algiers]] to Angola, and [[Cairo]] to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]]".<ref>[[#refDurschmied2002|Durschmied 2002]], p. 305.</ref> The population of [[Budapest]] and [[Prague]] lit candles to honor Guevara's passing, and the picture of a smiling Che appeared in London and Paris.<ref>[[#refDurschmied2002|Durschmied 2002]], pp. 305–06.</ref>

A few months later, riots broke out in [[Berlin]], [[May 68|France]], and [[1968 Democratic National Convention protests|Chicago]], and the unrest spread to the American college campuses. Young men and women wore Che Guevara T-shirts and carried his pictures during their protest marches. In the view of military historian [[Erik Durschmied]]: "In those [[Protests of 1968|heady months of 1968]], Che Guevara was not dead. He was very much alive."<ref>[[#refDurschmied2002|Durschmied 2002]], p. 306.</ref>

Even in the United States, the government which Guevara so vigorously denounced, students began to emulate his style of dress, donning military fatigues, [[beret]]s, and growing their hair and beards to show that they too were opponents of U.S. foreign policy.<ref>''Ernesto "Che" Guevara (World Leaders Past & Present)'', by [[Douglas Kellner]], 1989, Chelsea House Publishers, {{ISBN|1555468357}}, p. 101</ref> For instance, the [[Black Panthers]] began to style themselves "Che-type" while adopting his trademark black [[beret]], while Arab guerrillas began to name combat operations in his honor.<ref name = "Embalm">[https://web.archive.org/web/20130826060200/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,942333,00.html Che: A Myth Embalmed in a Matrix of Ignorance] by ''[[Time Magazine]]'' 12 October 1970</ref> [[Far-left politics|Radical left-wing]] activists responded to Guevara's apparent indifference to rewards and glory, and concurred with Guevara's sanctioning of violence as a necessity to instill [[Socialism (Marxism)|socialist]] ideals.<ref>Trento, Angelo. ''Castro and Cuba : From the revolution to the present''. p.64. Arris books. 2005.</ref>

==Legacy==
{{Main|Legacy of Che Guevara}}
{{Further|Che Guevara in popular culture}}
===Ideology and policy in Cuba===
{{Further|Military Units to Aid Production|Revolutionary Offensive|Rectification process|Battle of Ideas}}
[[File:Waiting For The Revolution (89315271).jpeg|250px|thumb|Portrait of Che Guevara, with quote, in Santa Clara, Cuba. Quote translates as: "Until victory, always".]]
As early as 1965, the Yugoslav communist journal [[Borba (newspaper)|Borba]] observed the many half-completed or empty factories in Cuba, a legacy of Guevara's short tenure as Minister of Industries, "standing like sad memories of the conflict between pretension and reality".<ref name=HughT>Hugh Thomas. Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. p. 1,007.</ref> The ethos of Guevara's "socialist new man": a citizen committed to self-sacrifice and asceticism, was still revered in Cuba after Guevara's departure. The definition of the "socialist new man" was often edited to justify certain labor programs. A famous utilization of the "new man" concept was in the labelling of certain sectors of the Cuban population as "anti-socials", who had fallen outside the "new man" concept. Between 1965 and 1968, these "anti-socials" were interned in [[Military Units to Aid Production|UMAP labor camps]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Bustamante |first=Michael |author-link= |date=2021 |title=Cuban Memory Wars Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F8_9DwAAQBAJ&dq=che+guevara+new+man+military+units+to+aid+production&pg=PA119 |location= |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |page=119 |isbn=9781469662046}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Hamilton |first=Carrie |author-link= |date=2012 |title=Sexual Revolutions in Cuba Passion, Politics, and Memory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gc02NlKczIEC&dq=che+guevara+military+units+to+aid+production&pg=PA40 |location= |publisher= UNC Press Books|page=40 |isbn=9780807882511}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Goldman |first=Dara |author-link= |date= 2008|title=Out of Bounds Islands and the Demarcation of Identity in the Hispanic Caribbean |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9U4uDrN0ggkC&dq=che+guevara+UMAP+new+man&pg=PA63 |location= |publisher=Bucknell University Press |page=63 |isbn=9780838756775}}</ref>

In 1966, during Guevara's adventures abroad, the Cuban economy was reorganized on Guevarist moral lines. Cuban propaganda stressed voluntarism and ideological motivations to increase productions. Material incentives were not given to workers who were more productive than others.<ref name=Leadership>{{cite book |last=Kapcia |first=Antoni |date=2014 |title=Leadership in the Cuban Revolution The Unseen Story |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImxjDgAAQBAJ&dq=the+great+debate+1962+cuba&pg=PT106 |publisher=[[Zed Books]] |location=London |isbn=978-1-78032-528-6}}</ref> Cuban intellectuals were expected to participate actively in creating a positive national ethos and ignore any desire to create "art for art's sake".<ref name=fifties>{{cite book |last=Kapcia |first=Antoni |date=2008 |title=Cuba in Revolution A History Since the Fifties |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gebxAQAAQBAJ&dq=the+great+debate+1962+cuba&pg=PT24 |publisher=Reaktion Books |location=London |isbn=978-1-86189-448-9}}</ref>

Guevara's death in 1967 precipitated the abandonment of guerrilla warfare as an instrument of Cuban foreign policy, ushering in a ''rapprochement'' with the [[Soviet Union]], and the reformation of the government along Soviet lines. When Cuban troops returned to Africa in the 1970s, it was as part of a large-scale military expedition, and support for insurrection movements in Latin America and the Caribbean became logistical and organizational rather than overt. Cuba also abandoned Guevara's plans for economic diversification and rapid industrialization, which had ultimately proved to be impracticable in view of the country's incorporation into the [[Comecon]] system.<ref name=HughT/>

In 1968, the Cuban economy was remodeled, inspired by Guevara's arguments in the [[Great Debate (Cuba)|Great Debate]], from years earlier. All non-agricultural private businesses was nationalized, central planning was done more on an [[Ad hoc|ad-hoc]] basis, and the entire Cuban economy was directed at producing a 10 million ton sugar harvest.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Peet |first1=Richard |last2=Hartwick |first2=Elaine |date=2009 |title=Theories of Development –-Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives |edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f0xavJRgCtYC&dq=the+great+debate+1962+cuba&pg=PA189 |publisher=Guilford Publications |location=New York |page=189 |isbn=978-1-60623-066-4}}</ref> The focus on sugar would eventually render all other facets of the Cuban economy underdeveloped and would be the ultimate legacy of the offensive.<ref name=Leadership/>

A series of economic reforms in Cuba, officially titled the "Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies", were based in the economic ethos of [[Guevarism]]. The reforms began in 1986, and lasted until 1992. The policy changes were aimed at eliminating private businesses, trade markets, that had been introduced into the Cuban law and Cuban culture during the 1970s. The new reforms aimed to nationalize more of the economy and eliminate material incentives for extra labor, instead relying on moral enthusiasm alone. Castro often justified this return to moral incentives by mentioning the moral incentives championed by Che Guevara, and often alluded to Guevarism when promoting these reforms.<ref name=Rev>{{cite book |last=Martinez-Fernandez |first=Luis |author-link= |date=2014 |title=Revolutionary Cuba A History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h37SEAAAQBAJ&dq=Rectification+of+Errors+cuba&pg=PA172 |location= |publisher=University Press of Florida |pages=172–178 |isbn=9780813048765}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |date=1993 |title=Conflict and Change in Cuba
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQ2mC6ZkE_wC&q=rectification%20process |location= |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |pages=86–97 |isbn=9780826314659}}</ref><ref name= Cuba>{{cite book |last1=Henken |first1=Ted |last2=Celaya |first2=Miriam |last3=Castellanos |first3= Dimas |author-link= |date=2013 |title=Cuba |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XhXHEAAAQBAJ&dq=rectification+process+cuba&pg=PA156 |location= |publisher=ABC-CLIO |pages=156–157 |isbn=9781610690126}}</ref>

The economic reforms, and mass mobilizations, implemented during the [[Battle of Ideas]] (2000–2006), were often conducted in homage to the philosophy of Che Guevara. These reforms stressed economic voluntarism, central planning, and radical consciousness as a driver of the economy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Todd |first=Allan |author-link= |date=2024 |title=Che Guevara The Romantic Revolutionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8qoNEQAAQBAJ&dq=cuba+guevara+%22battle+of+ideas%22&pg=PT330 |location= |publisher=Pen and Sword History |page= |isbn=9781399042758}}</ref>

===Ideology in Argentina===
{{Main|Tendencia Revolucionaria}}
[[File:Cristina Fernandez con poster Che Guevara.jpg|thumb|Former Argentine president [[Cristina Fernández de Kirchner]] with a poster of Che Guevara, 2009.]]
Argentina felt the impact of the [[Cuban Revolution]], as [[John William Cooke]], a close associate of Perón who emerged as the main representative of the Peronist left, moved to Cuba in 1960. While in Cuba, Cooke associated Peronism with ''[[Fidelismo]]'', and seeing the left-wing nationalism of Peronism and Marxism-Leninism of ''Fidelismo'' as complementary; he wrote:<ref name=speron>{{cite book |title=Soldiers of Peron: Argentina's Montoneros |first=Richard |last=Gillespie |year=1982 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-821131-7 |pages=36–37}}</ref> 
{{Blockquote
|text=
Nowadays nobody thinks that national liberation can be achieved without social revolution and therefore the struggle is also [one] by the poor against the rich... Since national liberation is indivisible from social revolution, there is no bourgeois nationalism, for the bourgeoisie's objective was to 'privatize the lucre and socialize the sacrifices.}}
Cooke's concept of mixing national liberation with social revolution became the core concept of a new "[[Tendencia Revolucionaria|Revolutionary Peronism]]", and was embraced by Perón himself.<ref name=speron></ref>

With the assistance of Cooke, Cuba opened a dialogue between the new Cuban government and Perón. Che Guevara appealed for unity amongst anti-imperialist forces in Latin America, and explicitly recognized Peronism as a fellow in the anti-imperialist movement.{{sfn|Bradbury|2023|p=48}} Perón himself praised the Cuban Revolution and discussed the parallels it had with his own 'revolution', and would increasingly adapt the Cuban rhetoric throughout the 1960s. Che Guevara subsequently visited Perón in Madrid, and argued that Peronism is "a kind of indigenous Latin American socialism with which the Cuban Revolution could side". Perón maintained a close relationship with Guevara and paid homage to him upon his death in 1967, calling him "one of ours, perhaps the best" and remarking that Peronism:
{{Blockquote
|text=
...as a national, popular and revolutionary movement, pays homage to the idealist, the revolutionary, Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, Argentine guerrilla dead in action taking up arms to seek the triumph of national revolutions in Latin America.<ref>{{cite book |title=Juan Perón: The Life of the People's Colonel |page=201 |first=Jill |last=Hedges |publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]] |isbn=978-0-7556-0268-1 |year=2021}}</ref>}}

Che Guevara has continued to have a lasting impact on the Argentine left. When President [[Cristina Fernández de Kirchner]] made [[Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice|24 March a holiday to remember the fall of the Argentine military dictatorship]], the holiday was first celebrated by a mass parade of communist groups and trade unions, many waving banners displaying the face of Guevara.<ref>{{cite book |last=Casey |first=Michael |date=2011 |title=Che's Afterlife The Legacy of an Image |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Che_s_Afterlife/gsZ3Ojx2ZOYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Cristina+Fernandez+on+che+guevara&pg=PA143&printsec=frontcover |location= |publisher=[[Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group]] |page=143–144 |isbn=9780307807656 |access-date=}}</ref>

===Retrieval of remains and possessions===
{{Main|Che Guevara Mausoleum}}
[[File:Che Guevara - Grab in Santa Clara, Kuba.jpg|thumb|right|[[Che Guevara Mausoleum|Che Guevara's Monument and Mausoleum]] in [[Santa Clara, Cuba|Santa Clara]], Cuba]]

In late 1995, the retired [[Bolivia]]n General Mario Vargas revealed to [[Jon Lee Anderson]], author of ''Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life'', that Guevara's corpse lay near a [[Vallegrande]] airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which lasted more than a year. In July 1997, a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine [[forensic anthropology|forensic anthropologists]] discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man without hands (as Guevara would have been). Bolivian government officials with the Ministry of Interior later identified the body as Guevara when the excavated teeth "perfectly matched" a plaster mold of Che's teeth made in Cuba prior to his Congolese expedition. The "clincher" then arrived when Argentine forensic anthropologist Alejandro Inchaurregui inspected the inside hidden pocket of a blue jacket dug up next to the handless cadaver and found a small bag of pipe tobacco. Nino de Guzman, the Bolivian helicopter pilot who had given Che a small bag of tobacco, later remarked that he "had serious doubts" at first and "thought the Cubans would just find any old bones and call it Che"; but "after hearing about the tobacco pouch, I have no doubts."<ref name="The Man Who Buried Che"/> On 17 October 1997 (30 years and 8 days after Guevara's death), Guevara's remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built [[Che Guevara Mausoleum|mausoleum]] in the Cuban city of [[Santa Clara, Cuba|Santa Clara]], where he had commanded over the [[Battle of Santa Clara|decisive military victory]] of the [[Cuban Revolution]].<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9710/17/cuba.che/ Cuba salutes 'Che' Guevara: Revolutionary Icon Finally Laid to Rest], CNN, 17 October 1997</ref>

In July 2008, the Bolivian government of [[Evo Morales]] unveiled Guevara's formerly-sealed diaries composed in two frayed notebooks, along with a logbook and several black-and-white photographs. At this event Bolivia's vice-minister of culture, [[Pablo Groux]], expressed that there were plans to publish photographs of every handwritten page later in the year.<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN0743477420080707?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0 Bolivia unveils original Che Guevara diary] by Eduardo Garcia, Reuters, 7 July 2008.</ref> Meanwhile, in August 2009, anthropologists working for Bolivia's Justice Ministry discovered and unearthed the bodies of five of Guevara's fellow guerrillas near the Bolivian town of [[Teoponte]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090826095411/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090821-che-guevara-find-video-ap.html Slain Che Guevara Soldiers Found?] video report by ''[[National Geographic Society|National Geographic]]'', 21 August 2009.</ref>

{{Blockquote|The discovery of Che's remains metonymically activated a series of interlinked associations—rebel, martyr, rogue figure from a picaresque adventure, savior, renegade, extremist—in which there was no fixed divide among them. The current court of opinion places Che on a continuum that teeters between viewing him as a misguided rebel, a coruscatingly brilliant guerrilla philosopher, a poet-warrior jousting at windmills, a brazen warrior who threw down the gauntlet to the bourgeoisie, the object of fervent paeans to his sainthood, or a mass murderer clothed in the guise of an avenging angel whose every action is imbricated in violence—the archetypal Fanatical Terrorist.|Dr. [[Peter McLaren]], author of ''Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution''{{sfn|McLaren|2000|p=7}}}}

===Biographical debate===
Guevara's life and legacy remain contentious. The perceived contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of duality, one who was "able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill", while prophesying that "the most important revolutionary ambition was to see man liberated from [[Marx's theory of alienation|his alienation]]".{{sfn|Löwy|1973|pp=7, 33}} Guevara's paradoxical standing is further complicated by his array of seemingly diametrically opposed qualities. He was a [[Secular humanism|secular humanist]] and sympathetic practitioner of medicine who did not hesitate to shoot his enemies, a celebrated [[Proletarian internationalism|internationalist]] leader who advocated violence to enforce a [[utopia]]n philosophy of the [[Public good (economics)|collective good]], an [[Idealism|idealistic]] [[intellectual]] who loved literature but refused to allow dissent, an [[Anti-imperialism|anti-imperialist]] [[Marxism|Marxist]] [[Insurgency|insurgent]] who was radically willing to forge a poverty-less new world on the apocalyptic ashes of the old one, and finally, an outspoken [[Anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] whose image has been [[Commodification|commoditized]]. Che's history continues to be rewritten and re-imagined.{{sfn|Löwy|1973|pp=7, 9, 15, 25, 75, 106}}<ref name="Löwy">{{cite web |url=http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1144 |title=The Spark That Does Not Die |first=Michael |last=Löwy |author-link=Michael Löwy |website=International Viewpoint |date=July 1997}}</ref> Moreover, [[Sociology|sociologist]] [[Michael Löwy]] contends that the many facets of Guevara's life (i.e. doctor and economist, revolutionary and banker, military theoretician and ambassador, deep thinker and political agitator) illuminated the rise of the "Che myth", allowing him to be invariably crystallized in his many [[metanarrative]] roles as a "Red [[Robin Hood]], [[Don Quixote]] of communism, new [[Giuseppe Garibaldi|Garibaldi]], Marxist [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint Just]], [[El Cid|Cid Campeador]] of [[the Wretched of the Earth]], [[Galahad|Sir Galahad]] of the beggars&nbsp;... and [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] devil who haunts the dreams of the rich, kindling braziers of subversion all over the world".{{sfn|Löwy|1973|p=7}}
[[File:Chile quema libros 1973.JPG|thumb|upright|The burning of a painting containing Che's face, following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile (1973–1990)|Pinochet regime]] in Chile]]

As such, various notable individuals have lauded Guevara; for example, [[Nelson Mandela]] referred to him as "an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom",{{sfn|Guevara|2009|p=II}} while [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] described him as "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age".<ref>[[#refMoynihan2006|Moynihan 2006]].</ref> Others who have expressed their admiration include authors [[Graham Greene]], who remarked that Guevara "represented the idea of gallantry, chivalry, and adventure",<ref>[[#refSinclair1968/06|Sinclair 1968/2006]], p. 80.</ref> and [[Susan Sontag]], who supposed that "[Che's] goal was nothing less than the cause of humanity itself."<ref>[[#refSinclair1968/06|Sinclair 1968/2006]], p. 127.</ref> In the [[Pan-Africanism|Pan-African]] community philosopher [[Frantz Fanon]] professed Guevara to be "the world symbol of the possibilities of one man",{{sfn|McLaren|2000|p=3}} while [[Black power|Black Power]] leader [[Stokely Carmichael]] eulogized that "Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us."<ref>[[#refSinclair1968/06|Sinclair 1968/2006]], p. 67.</ref> Praise has been reflected throughout the political spectrum, with [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] theorist [[Murray Rothbard]] extolling Guevara as a "heroic figure" who "more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, was the living embodiment of the principle of revolution",<ref>"[https://mises.org/journals/lar/pdfs/3_3/3_3_1.pdf Ernesto Che Guevara R.I.P.]" by [[Murray Rothbard|Rothbard, Murray]], ''Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought'', Volume 3, Number 3 (Spring-Autumn 1967).</ref> while journalist [[Christopher Hitchens]] reminisced that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] [[Romanticism|romantics]] insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do—fought and died for his beliefs."<ref name="myth"/> Former CIA employee [[Philip Agee]] said "There was no person more feared by the company (CIA) than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America".{{sfn|Guevara|2009|p=II}}

[[File:4CheFaces.jpg|thumb|left|Author Michael Casey notes how [[Guerrillero Heroico|Che's image]] has become a logo as recognizable as the [[Swoosh|Nike Swoosh]] or [[Golden Arches|McDonald's Golden Arches]].<ref name="Michiko" />]]

Conversely, Jacobo Machover, an exiled opposition author, dismisses all praise of Guevara and portrays him as a callous executioner.<ref name="Machover">[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2461399.ece Behind Che Guevara's mask, the cold executioner] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121181216/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2461399.ece |date=21 November 2008 }} ''Times Online'', 16 September 2007.</ref> Exiled former Cuban prisoners have expressed similar opinions, among them [[Armando Valladares]], who declared Guevara "a man full of hatred" who executed dozens without trial,<ref>[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/27/del-toro-walks-away-from-questions-on-che/print/ "'Che' Spurs Debate, Del Toro Walkout"], ''[[The Washington Times]]'', 27 January 2009.</ref> and [[Carlos Alberto Montaner]], who asserted that Guevara possessed "a [[Maximilien Robespierre|Robespierre]] mentality", wherein cruelty against the revolution's enemies was a virtue.<ref>[http://www.freedomcollection.org/interviews/carlos_alberto_montaner/?vidid=343 Short interview on Che Guevara] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111192514/http://www.freedomcollection.org/interviews/carlos_alberto_montaner/?vidid=343 |date=11 November 2020 }} with [[Carlos Alberto Montaner]] for the ''[[Freedom Collection]]''</ref> [[Álvaro Vargas Llosa]] of the [[Independent Institute]] has hypothesized that Guevara's contemporary followers "delude themselves by clinging to a myth", describing Guevara as a "Marxist [[Puritans|Puritan]]" who employed his rigid power to suppress dissent, while also operating as a "cold-blooded killing machine".<ref name="ReferenceB" /> Llosa also accuses Guevara's "fanatical disposition" as being the linchpin of the "Sovietization" of the Cuban revolution, speculating that he possessed a "total subordination of reality to blind ideological orthodoxy".<ref name="ReferenceB" /> On a macro-level, [[Hoover Institution]] research fellow [[William Ratliff]] regards Guevara more as a creation of his historical environment, referring to him as a "fearless" and "head-strong Messiah-like figure", who was the product of a [[martyr]]-enamored [[Latin American culture]] which "inclined people to seek out and follow [[Paternalism|paternalistic]] miracle workers".<ref name="Ratliff07">[http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2040 Che is the "Patron Saint" of Warfare] by [[William Ratliff]], ''[[The Independent Institute]]'', 9 October 2007.</ref> Ratliff further speculates that the economic conditions in the region suited Guevara's commitment to "bring justice to the downtrodden by crushing centuries-old tyrannies"; describing Latin America as being plagued by what [[Moisés Naím]] referred to as the "legendary malignancies" of inequality, poverty, dysfunctional politics and malfunctioning institutions.<ref name="Ratliff07" />

[[File:SculptureCheGuevaraCuba.jpg|thumb|[[Plaza de la Revolución]], in Havana, Cuba. Aside the Ministry of the Interior building where Guevara once worked is a 5-story steel outline of his face. Under the image is Guevara's motto, the Spanish phrase: ''"Hasta la Victoria Siempre"'' (English: Until Victory, always).]]

In a mixed assessment, British historian [[Hugh Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton|Hugh Thomas]] opined that Guevara was a "brave, sincere and determined man who was also obstinate, narrow, and dogmatic".{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=106}} At the end of his life, according to Thomas, "he seems to have become convinced of the virtues of violence for its own sake", while "his influence over Castro for good or evil" grew after his death, as Fidel took up many of his views.{{sfn|Kellner|1989|p=106}} Similarly, the Cuban-American sociologist [[Samuel Farber]] lauds Che Guevara as "an honest and committed revolutionary", but also criticizes the fact that "he never embraced socialism in its most democratic essence".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Farber |first=Samuel |author-link=Samuel Farber |title=Assessing Che |journal=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |date=23 May 2016 |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/cuba-che-guevara-fidel-raul-castro-communism/}}</ref> Nevertheless, Guevara remains a national hero in Cuba, where his image adorns the 3 [[Cuban peso|peso]] banknote and school children begin each morning by pledging "We will be like Che."<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guevara-cuba-idUSN0432868420071004 Che Guevara's Ideals Lose Ground in Cuba] by Anthony Boadle, ''[[Reuters]]'', 4 October 2007: "he is the poster boy of communist Cuba, held up as a selfless leader who set an example of voluntary work with his own sweat, pushing a wheelbarrow at a building site or cutting sugar cane in the fields with a machete."</ref><ref>[[#refPeoplesWeekly2004|People's Weekly 2004]].</ref> In his homeland of Argentina, where high schools bear his name,<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1446436420080614?sp=true Argentina pays belated homage to "Che" Guevara] by Helen Popper, Reuters, 14 June 2008</ref> numerous Che museums dot the country, and in 2008, a {{convert|12|ft|m|round=0.5|adj=on|order=flip}} bronze statue of him was unveiled in the city of his birth, Rosario.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7455196.stm Statue for Che's '80th birthday'] by Daniel Schweimler, [[BBC News]], 15 June 2008.</ref> Guevara has been [[Sanctification|sanctified]] by some Bolivian campesinos<ref name="Tobar2004">[https://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/10/17/on_a_tourist_trail_in_bolivias_hills_ches_fame_lives_on/ On a tourist trail in Bolivia's hills, Che's fame lives on] By Hector Tobar, ''Los Angeles Times'', 17 October 2004.</ref> as "[[Che Guevara in popular culture#In religion|Saint Ernesto]]", who pray to him for assistance.<ref>[[#refSchipani2007|Schipani 2007]].</ref> In contrast, Guevara remains a hated figure amongst many in the [[Cuban exile]] and [[Cuban Americans|Cuban American]] community of the United States, who view him as "the butcher of [[La Cabaña]]".{{sfn|Casey|2009|pp=235, 325}} Despite this polarized status, a high-contrast [[monochrome]] graphic of [[Guerrillero Heroico|Che's face]], created in 1968 by Irish artist [[Jim Fitzpatrick (artist)|Jim Fitzpatrick]], became a universally [[Merchandising|merchandized]] and objectified image,{{sfn|BBC News|2001b}}<ref>see also [[Che Guevara (photo)]].</ref> found on an endless array of items, including T-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, and bikinis,{{sfn|Lacey|2007a}} contributing to the [[Consumer capitalism|consumer culture]] Guevara despised. Yet, he still remains a transcendent figure both in specifically political contexts{{sfn|BBC News|2007}} and as a wide-ranging popular icon of youthful rebellion.<ref name="myth">[[#refOHagan2004|O'Hagan 2004]].</ref>

Addressing the wide-ranging flexibility of his legacy, Trisha Ziff, director of the 2008 documentary ''[[Chevolution]]'', remarked that "Che Guevara's significance in modern times is less about the man and his specific history, and more about the ideals of creating a better society."<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trisha-ziff/viva-the-chevolution_b_97747.html Viva the Chevolution!] by Trisha Ziff, ''[[The Huffington Post]]'', 21 April 2008</ref> In a similar vein, the Chilean writer [[Ariel Dorfman]] has suggested Guevara's enduring appeal might be because "to those who will never follow in his footsteps, submerged as they are in a world of cynicism, self-interest and frantic consumption, nothing could be more vicariously gratifying than Che's disdain for material comfort and everyday desires."<ref name = "BBC02">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/2356903.stm Comrade Che Keeps an Eye on British Workers] by Owen Booth, ''[[BBC News]]'', 24 October 2002</ref>

===International honors===
Guevara received several honors of state during his life.
* '''1960''': [[File:TCH Rad Bileho Lva 1 tridy (pre1990) BAR.svg|55px]] Knight Grand Cross of the [[Order of the White Lion]]<ref>""Che" Guevara, condecorado por Checoslovaquia". ABC. 29 de octubre de 1960. Consultado el 13 de octubre de 2014.</ref>
* '''1961''': [[File:BRA - Order of the Southern Cross - Grand Cross BAR.svg|55px]] Knight Grand Cross of the [[Order of the Southern Cross]]<ref>"Janio Condecora Guevara" (en portugués). Folha de S.Paulo. 20 de agosto de 1961. Consultado el 13 de octubre de 2014.</ref>

==Archival media==

===Video footage===
* Guevara addressing the [[United Nations General Assembly]] on 11 December 1964, (6:21), public domain footage uploaded by the UN, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=bufHojkoGtw video clip]
* Guevara interviewed by ''[[Face the Nation]]'' on 13 December 1964, (29:11), from [[CBS]], [https://www.youtube.com/embed/dmtcF-xX_DE video clip]
* Guevara interviewed in 1964 on a visit to [[Dublin]], Ireland, (2:53), English translation, from RTÉ Libraries and Archives, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vBYUOOEHbJw video clip]
* Guevara interviewed in [[Paris, France|Paris]] and speaking French in 1964, (4:47), English subtitles, interviewed by Jean Dumur, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=128waCCK40I video clip] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130914201656/http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=128waCCK40I&vq=small |date=14 September 2013 }}
* Guevara reciting a poem, (0:58), English subtitles, from ''El Che: Investigating a Legend'' – Kultur Video 2001, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=QQI0BhEq4U8 video clip]
* Guevara showing support for Fidel Castro, (0:22), English subtitles, from ''El Che: Investigating a Legend'' – Kultur Video 2001, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=emcJlShCmA4 video clip]
* Guevara speaking about labor, (0:28), English subtitles, from ''El Che: Investigating a Legend'' – Kultur Video 2001, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xh-MB_NDr-o video clip]
* Guevara speaking about the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]], (0:17), English subtitles, from ''El Che: Investigating a Legend'' – Kultur Video 2001, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=OMA7Jv1RWIA video clip]
* Guevara speaking against [[imperialism]], (1:20), English subtitles, from ''El Che: Investigating a Legend'' – Kultur Video 2001, [https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=wdo6FwAPyng video clip]
* Guevara visiting Algeria in 1963 and giving a speech in French, from the Algerian Cinema Archive, [https://www.youtube.com/embed/kWNTvvoAja0 video clip]

===Audio recording===
* Guevara interviewed on ABC's ''[[Issues and Answers]]'', (22:27), English translation, narrated by [[Lisa Howard (reporter)|Lisa Howard]], 24 March 1964, [https://www.youtube.com/embed/I3wAQG6HUGQ audio clip]

==List of English-language works==
{{see also|Bibliography of Che Guevara}}

{{refbegin|30em}}
* ''A New Society: Reflections for Today's World'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 1996, {{ISBN|1875284060}}
* ''Back on the Road: A Journey Through Latin America'', {{nbsp|2}}Grove Press, 2002, {{ISBN|0802139426}}
* ''Che Guevara, Cuba, and the Road to Socialism'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder Press, 1991, {{ISBN|0873486439}}
* ''Che Guevara on Global Justice'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press (AU), 2002, {{ISBN|1876175451}}
* ''Che Guevara: Radical Writings on Guerrilla Warfare, Politics and Revolution'', {{nbsp|2}}Filiquarian Publishing, 2006, {{ISBN|1599869993}}
* ''Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2003, {{ISBN|1876175699}}
* ''Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder Press (NY), 1980, {{ISBN|0873486021}}
* ''Che Guevara Talks to Young People'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder, 2000, {{ISBN|087348911X}}
* ''Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press (AU), 2008, {{ISBN|1920888934}}
* ''Colonialism is Doomed'', {{nbsp|2}}Ministry of External Relations: Republic of Cuba, 1964, {{ASIN|B0010AAN1K}}
* ''Congo Diary: The Story of Che Guevara's "Lost" Year in Africa'' {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2011, {{ISBN|978-0980429299}}
* ''Critical Notes on Political Economy: A Revolutionary Humanist Approach to Marxist Economics'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2008, {{ISBN|1876175559}}
* ''Diary of a Combatant: The Diary of the Revolution that Made Che Guevara a Legend'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2013, {{ISBN|978-0987077943}}
* ''[[Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War]], 1956–58'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder Press (NY), 1996, {{ISBN|0873488245}}
* ''Global Justice: Three Essays on Liberation and Socialism'', {{nbsp|2}}Seven Stories Press, 2022, {{ISBN|1644211564}}
* ''[[Guerrilla Warfare (book)|Guerrilla Warfare]]: Authorized Edition'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2006, {{ISBN|1-920888-28-4}}
* ''I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967'', {{nbsp|2}}Seven Stories Press, 2021, {{ISBN|1644210959}}
* ''Latin America: Awakening of a Continent'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2005, {{ISBN|1876175737}}
* ''Latin America Diaries: The Sequel to The Motorcycle Diaries'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2011, {{ISBN|978-0980429275}}
* ''Marx & Engels: An Introduction'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2007, {{ISBN|1920888926}}
* ''Our America And Theirs: Kennedy And The Alliance For Progress'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2006, {{ISBN|1876175818}}
* ''[[Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War]]: Authorized Edition'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2005, {{ISBN|1920888330}}
* ''Self Portrait Che Guevara'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press (AU), 2004, {{ISBN|1876175826}}
* ''Socialism and Man in Cuba'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder Press (NY), 1989, {{ISBN|0873485777}}
* ''The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo'', {{nbsp|2}}Grove Press, 2001, {{ISBN|0802138349}}
* ''The Argentine'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press (AU), 2008, {{ISBN|1920888934}}
* ''The Awakening of Latin America: Writings, Letters and Speeches on Latin America, 1950–67'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2012, {{ISBN|978-0980429282}}
* ''The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder Press, 1994, {{ISBN|0873487664}}
* ''The Great Debate on Political Economy'', {{nbsp|2}}Ocean Press, 2006, {{ISBN|1876175540}}
* ''[[The Motorcycle Diaries (book)|The Motorcycle Diaries]]: A Journey Around South America'', {{nbsp|2}}London: Verso, 1996, {{ISBN|1857023994}}
* ''The Secret Papers of a Revolutionary: The Diary of Che Guevara'', {{nbsp|2}}American Reprint Co, 1975, {{ASIN|B0007GW08W}}
* ''To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's "Cold War" Against Cuba Doesn't End'', {{nbsp|2}}Pathfinder, 1993, {{ISBN|0873486331}}
{{refend}}

==See also==
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-break}}
'''Main:'''
* ''[[Guerrillero Heroico]]''
* [[Che Guevara in popular culture]]
* [[Legacy of Che Guevara]]
* [[Guevarism]]
{{Col-break}}
'''Books:'''
* ''[[The Motorcycle Diaries (book)|The Motorcycle Diaries]]''
* [[Guerrilla Warfare (book)|''Guerrilla Warfare'']]
* ''[[Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War]]''
{{Col-break}}
'''Films:'''
* [[Che (2008 film)|''Che – Part 1 & Part 2'']]
* [[The Motorcycle Diaries (film)|''The Motorcycle Diaries'']]
* ''[[Che!]]''
* ''[[The Hands of Che Guevara]]''
{{Col-break}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons}}
{{col-end}}

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Works cited==
{{refbegin|colwidth=30em}}
* {{cite book |last1=Abrams |first1=Dennis |title=Ernesto Che Guevara |date=2010 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1438134642 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9N2IT1szp_UC |language=en }}
* {{cite news |last1=Almudevar |first1=Lola |title=Bolivia marks capture, execution of 'Che' Guevara 40 years ago |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/09/MNVASLK4R.DTL&feed=rss.news |access-date=14 June 2018 |work=SFGate |date=9 October 2007 |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Jon Lee |author-link=Jon Lee Anderson |date=1997 |title=Che Guevara: a revolutionary life |publisher=[[Grove Press]] |location=New York |isbn=0802116000 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/cheguevara00jonl}}
* {{cite book |last1=Bamford |first1=James |date=2002 |title=Body of secrets anatomy of the ultra-secret National Security Agency |publisher=Anchor Books |location=New York |isbn=0385499086 |language=en |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/bodyofsecretsana0000bamf}}
* {{cite news |title=Profile: Laurent Kabila |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1121068.stm |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=14 June 2018 |date=17 January 2001 |language=en |ref={{SfnRef|BBC News|2001a}} }}
* {{cite news |title=Che Guevara photographer dies |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1352650.stm |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=14 June 2018 |date=26 May 2001 |language=en |ref={{SfnRef|BBC News|2001b}} }}
* {{cite news |title=Cuba pays tribute to Che Guevara |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7033880.stm |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=14 June 2018 |date=9 October 2007 |language=en |ref={{SfnRef|BBC News|2007}} }}
* {{cite news |last=Beaubien |first=Jason |year=2009 |title=Cuba Marks 50 Years Since 'Triumphant Revolution' |newspaper=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98937598}}
* {{cite web |last1=Ben Bella |first1=Ahmed |title=Che as I knew him |url=https://mondediplo.com/1997/10/che |website=Le Monde diplomatique |access-date=14 June 2018 |language=en |date=1 October 1997 }}
* {{cite book |last=Bockman |first=Major Larry James |date=1 April 1984 |title=The Spirit Of Moncada: Fidel Castro's Rise To Power, 1953–1959 |url= |location=Quantico, Virginia |publisher=Marine Corps Command and Staff College |ref=refBockman1984}}
* {{cite book |last=Bradbury |first=Pablo |year=2023 |title=Liberationist Christianity in Argentina (1930-1983) |issn=2633-7061 |publisher=Ingram Publisher Services |isbn=978-1-80010-922-3}}
* {{cite book |last=Casey |first=Michael |year=2009 |title=Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |isbn=978-0307279309}}
* {{cite book |last1=Castañeda |first1=Jorge G. |title=Compañero : the life and death of Che Guevara |date=1998 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York |isbn=0679759409 |language=en}}
* {{cite book |title=Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary |last=Crompton |first=Samuel |year=2009 |publisher=Gareth Stevens |isbn=978-1433900532 |url=https://archive.org/details/cheguevaramaking00crom |ref=refCrompton2009 }}
* {{cite book |last=Cullather |first=Nicholas |year=2006 |title=Secret History: The CIA's classified account of its operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954 |location=[[Palo Alto, California|Palo Alto]], California |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=978-0804754682 |url=https://archive.org/details/secrethistorycia00cull_0 }}
* {{cite book |last1=DePalma |first1=Anthony |title=The man who invented Fidel : Cuba, Castro, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times |date=2006 |publisher=Public Affairs |location=New York |isbn=1586483323 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/manwhoinventedfi00depa }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Dorfman |first=Ariel |author-link=Ariel Dorfman |date=14 June 1999 |url=http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html |title=Time 100: Che Guevara |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |access-date=9 July 2021 |archive-date=25 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110425121227/http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite book |last1=Dorschner |first1=John |last2=Fabricio |first2=Roberto |date=1980 |title=The Winds of December: The Cuban Revolution of 1958 |location=New York |publisher=Coward, McCann & Geoghegen |isbn=0698109937}}
* <cite id=refDumur1964> Dumur, Jean (interviewer) (1964). ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=128waCCK40I&vq=small L'interview de Che Guevara]'' (Video clip; 9:43; with English subtitles).</cite>
* {{cite book |title=The Blood of Revolution: From the Reign of Terror to the Rise of Khomeini |last=Durschmied |first=Erik |author-link=Erik Durschmied |year=2002 |publisher=Arcade Publishing |isbn=1559706074 |ref=refDurschmied2002}}
* <cite id=refFreeSoc>Free Society Project Inc. / Cuba Archive (30 September 2009). "{{cite web |url= http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/truth%20and%20memory/victims_of_che_guevara_in_cuba_9.30.2009.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100415080308/http://cubaarchive.org/home/images/stories/truth%20and%20memory/victims_of_che_guevara_in_cuba_9.30.2009.pdf |url-status= dead |archive-date= 15 April 2010 |title= Documented Victims of Che Guevara in Cuba: 1957 to 1959 }}&nbsp;{{small|(244&nbsp;KB)}}". Summit, New Jersey: Free Society Project.</cite>
* <cite id=refGalvez1999> Gálvez, William (1999). ''Che in Africa: Che Guevara's Congo Diary''. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1999. {{ISBN|1876175087}}.</cite>
* <cite id=refTreto1991> {{cite journal |last=Gómez Treto |first=Raúl |date=Spring 1991 |jstor=2633612 |title=Thirty Years of Cuban Revolutionary Penal Law |journal=Latin American Perspectives |volume=18 |number=2 Cuban Views on the Revolution |pages=114–125|doi=10.1177/0094582X9101800211 }}</cite>
* {{cite book |last=Gleijeses |first=Piero |author-link=Piero Gleijeses |year=1991 |title=Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |location=Princeton, New Jersey |isbn=978-0691025568 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mS7ZVKa6i3AC }}
* {{cite book |title=''Cuba: A New History'' |last=Gott |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Gott |year=2004 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=0300104111 |url=https://archive.org/details/cubanewhistory0000gott |ref=refGott2004 |url-access=registration }}
* <cite id=refGott2005> {{cite news |last=Gott |first=Richard |date=11 August 2005 |url=http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Che-Guevara-Gott11aug05.htm |title=Bolivia on the Day of the Death of Che Guevara |work=[[Le Monde diplomatique]] |access-date=26 February 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051126071737/http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Che-Guevara-Gott11aug05.htm |archive-date=26 November 2005 }}</cite>
* <cite id=refGrant2007>{{cite news |last=Grant |first=Will |date=8 October 2007 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7027619.stm |title=CIA man recounts Che Guevara's death |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=29 February 2008 }}</cite>
* <cite id=refGuevara1965> Guevara, Ernesto "Che" (1965). "Che Guevara's Farewell Letter".</cite>
* <cite id=refGuevara1967> Guevara, Ernesto "Che" (1967). ''"Diario (Bolivia)"''. Written 1966–1967.</cite>
* <cite id=refGuevara1969> Guevara, Ernesto "Che" (editors Bonachea, Rolando E. and Nelson P. Valdés; 1969). ''Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: [[MIT Press]]. {{ISBN|0262520168}}</cite>
* {{cite book |last=Guevara |first=Ernesto |year=2009 |title=Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara |publisher=[[Ocean Press]] |isbn=978-1920888930 |url=https://archive.org/details/chediariesoferne00guev }}
* <cite id=refGuevara1972> Guevara, Ernesto "Che" (1972). ''Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria''.</cite>
* {{cite book |last=Guevara |first=Ernesto "Che" |translator-first=Patrick |translator-last=Camiller |date=2000 |title=The African Dream |location=New York |publisher=[[Grove Publishers]] |isbn=0802138349}}
* {{cite book |last1=Guevara |first1=Ernesto |last2=Deutschmann |first2=David |year=1997 |title=Che Guevara Reader: Writings by Ernesto Che Guevara on Guerrilla Strategy, Politics & Revolution |publisher=[[Ocean Press]] |isbn=1875284931}}
* {{cite book |last=Guevara Lynch |first=Ernesto |date=2000 |title=Aquí va un soldado de América |trans-title=Here goes a soldier from America |language=es |location=Barcelona |publisher=Plaza y Janés Editores, S.A. |isbn=8401013275}}
* {{cite book |last=Guevara Lynch |first=Ernesto |title=The Young Che: Memories of Che Guevara by His Father |year=2007 |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |isbn=978-0307390448 |url=https://archive.org/details/youngchememories00guev }}
* {{cite book |last=Haney |first=Rich |date=2005 |title=Celia Sánchez: The Legend of Cuba's Revolutionary Heart |location=New York |publisher=Algora Pub |isbn=0875863957}}
* <cite id=refHansing2002> Katrin Hansing (2002). ''Rasta, Race and Revolution: The Emergence and Development of the Rastafari Movement in Socialist Cuba''. LIT Verlag Münster. {{ISBN|3825896005}}.</cite>
* {{cite book |last=Hart |first=Joseph |date=2004 |title=Che: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of a Revolutionary |location=New York |publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press |isbn=1560255196}}
* {{cite book |last=Immerman |first=Richard H. |year=1982 |title=The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention |url=https://archive.org/details/ciainguatemalafo0000imme |url-access=registration |location=Austin, Texas |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |isbn=978-0292710832 }}
* {{cite web |author=Ireland's Own |date=12 August 2000 |url=http://irelandsown.net/Che2.html |title=From Cuba to Congo, Dream to Disaster for Che Guevara |access-date=11 January 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209160232/http://irelandsown.net/Che2.html |archive-date=9 February 2006 }}
* {{cite book |last=Kellner |first=Douglas |year=1989 |title=Ernesto "Che" Guevara (World Leaders Past & Present) |author-link=Douglas Kellner |publisher=Chelsea House Publishers |isbn=1555468357 |url=https://archive.org/details/ernestocheguevar0000kell/page/112}}
* <cite id=refKornbluh1997> [[Peter Kornbluh|Kornbluh, Peter]] (1997). ''[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/index.html Electronic Briefing Book No. 5]''. National Security Archive. Accessed 25 March 2007.</cite>
* {{cite news |last=Lacey |first=Mark |date=9 October 2007 |title=A Revolutionary Icon, and Now, a Bikini |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/world/americas/09che.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |ref={{sfnref|Lacey|2007a}} }}
* {{cite news |last=Lacey |first=Mark |date=26 October 2007 |title=Lone Bidder Buys Strands of Che's Hair at U.S. Auction |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/americas/26che.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |ref={{sfnref|Lacey|2007b}} }}
* {{cite book |last=Lavretsky |first=Iosif |author-link=Iosif Grigulevich |translator-first=A. B. |translator-last=Eklof |title=Ernesto Che Guevara |url=https://archive.org/details/ErnestoCheGuevara |year=1976 |publisher=Progress Publishers |location=Moscow |oclc=22746662 |asin=B000B9V7AW |page=5 |ref=refLavretsky1976 }}
* {{cite book |last=Löwy |first=Michael |title=The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare |author-link=Michael Löwy |year=1973 |publisher=[[Monthly Review Press]] |isbn=0853452741 |url=https://archive.org/details/marxismofcheguev00lowy }}
* {{cite book |title=Che Guevara (Critical Lives) |last=Luther |first=Eric |year=2001 |publisher=Penguin Group (USA) |isbn=002864199X |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifeworkofchegue0000luth/page/276 276] |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeworkofchegue0000luth/page/276 |ref=refLuther2001 }}
* {{cite book |last=McLaren |first=Peter |title=Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution |author-link=Peter McLaren |year=2000 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=0847695336}}
* <cite id=refMittleman1981>{{Cite book |last=Mittleman |first=James H. |date=1981 |title=Underdevelopment and the Transition to Socialism – Mozambique and Tanzania |location=New York |publisher=Academic Press |isbn=0125006608}}</cite>
* <cite id=refMoynihan2006> Moynihan, Michael. "Neutering Sartre at Dagens Nyheter". ''Stockholm Spectator''. Accessed 26 February 2006.</cite>
* <cite id=refNiess2007> Che Guevara, by Frank Niess, Haus Publishers Ltd, 2007, {{ISBN|1904341993}}.</cite>
* <cite id=refOHagan2004>{{cite news |last=O'Hagan |first=Sean |date=11 July 2004 |url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1258340,00.html |title=Just a pretty face? |work=[[The Observer]] |access-date=25 October 2006 }}</cite>
* {{cite book |title=Le Che en Bolivie |last=Ramírez |first=Dariel Alarcón |year=1997 |publisher=Éditions du Rocher |location=Paris |isbn=2268024377 |ref=refRamirez1997}}
* {{cite book |last=Ramonet |first=Ignacio |author-link=Ignacio Ramonet |date=2007 |translator-first=Andrew |translator-last=Hurley |title=Fidel Castro: My Life |location=London |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |isbn=978-0141026268}}
* {{cite book |title=Che Guevara and the FBI: The U.S. Political Police Dossier on the Latin American Revolutionary |last=Ratner |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Ratner |year=1997 |publisher=Ocean Press |isbn=1875284761 |url=https://archive.org/details/cheguevarafbiusp0000ratn }}
* <cite id=refRodriguez1989>[[Félix Rodríguez (Central Intelligence Agency)|Rodriguez, Félix I.]] and John Weisman (1989). ''Shadow Warrior/the CIA Hero of a Hundred Unknown Battles''. New York: [[Simon & Schuster]]. {{ISBN|0671667211}}.</cite>
* <cite id=refRyan1998>{{cite book |last=Ryan |first=Henry Butterfield |date=1998 |title=The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=0195118790}}</cite>
* {{cite book |last=Sandison |first=David |year=1996 |title=The Life & Times of Che Guevara |publisher=Paragon |isbn=0752517767}}
* <cite id=refSchipani2007> Schipani, Andres (23 September 2007). "[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/23/theobserver.worldnews The Final Triumph of Saint Che]". ''The Observer''. (Reporting from La Higuera.)</cite>
* <cite id=refSelvage1985> Selvage, Major Donald R. – USMC (1 April 1985). ''Che Guevara in Bolivia''.</cite>
* {{cite book |title=Viva Che!: The Strange Death and Life of Che Guevara |last=Sinclair |first=Andrew |year=2006 |orig-year=1968 |publisher=Sutton publishing |isbn=0750943106 |url=https://archive.org/details/vivachestrangede0000unse |ref=refSinclair1968/06 }}
* {{cite book |title=Modern Latin America |last1=Skidmore |first1=Thomas E. |author-link1=Thomas Skidmore |last2=Smith |first2=Peter H. |year=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195055337 |page=[https://archive.org/details/modernlatinameri00skid_2/page/436 436] |url=https://archive.org/details/modernlatinameri00skid_2 |url-access=registration |ref=refSkidmore }}
* {{cite book |last=Taibo |first=Paco Ignacio, II |title=Guevara, Also Known as Che |author-link=Paco Ignacio Taibo II |year=1999 |publisher=St Martin's Griffin |edition=2nd |isbn=0312206526}}
* {{cite magazine |date=8 August 1960 |title=Castro's Brain |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869742,00.html |ref={{sfnref|Time|1960}} }}
* <cite id=refTime1970> ''Time Magazine'' (12 October 1970). "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130826060200/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,942333,00.html Che: A Myth Embalmed in a Matrix of Ignorance]".</cite>
* <cite id=refUSArmy1967> U.S. Army (28 April 1967). ''[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/che14_1.htm Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Activation, Organization and Training of the 2d Ranger Battalion – Bolivian Army]''. Accessed 19 June 2006.</cite>
* <cite id=refLlosa2005> [[Álvaro Vargas Llosa|Vargas Llosa, Alvaro]] (11 July 2005). "[http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1535 The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand]". ''The Independent Institute''. Accessed 10 November 2006.</cite>
* <cite id=refPeoplesWeekly2004> "World Combined Sources" (2 October 2004). "[http://www.peoplesworld.org/che-guevara-remains-a-hero-to-cubans/ Che Guevara remains a hero to Cubans]". ''People's Weekly World''.</cite>
* {{cite book |last=Wright |first=Thomas C. |year=2000 |title=Latin America in the Era of the Cuban Revolution |edition=Revised |publisher=Praeger |isbn=0275967069}}
* {{cite book |last=Villafana |first=Frank |year=2017 |title=Cold War in the Congo: The Confrontation of Cuban Military Forces, 1960–1967 |location=Abingdon; New York City |publisher=Routledge |orig-year=1st pub. 2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1GRQDwAAQBAJ |isbn=978-1-4128-4766-7 }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-break}}
* A&E Biography: [http://www.biography.com/people/che-guevara-9322774/videos/che-guevara-revolutionary-rebel-19573315841 Che Guevara – Revolutionary Rebel] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170203124900/http://www.biography.com/people/che-guevara-9322774/videos/che-guevara-revolutionary-rebel-19573315841 |date=3 February 2017 }}
* BBC Audio Archive: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/cuba/6228.shtml Profile of Che Guevara]
* BBC News – Che Guevara Images: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7029522.stm Set 1], [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7034237.stm Set 2], [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7035498.stm Set 3]
* Che Guevara Internet Archive: [http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/audio.htm Speeches], [http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/images.htm Images]
* Democracy Now: "[http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/9/the_life_legacy_of_latin_american Life & Legacy of Che Guevara]"
* ''Encyclopædia Britannica'': [https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/248399/Che-Guevara Che Guevara entry]
* History A&E Video: [http://www.history.com/topics/che-guevara Che Guevara Fast Facts]
* In Defense of Marxism: [http://www.marxist.com/forty-years-death-che-guevara091007/print.htm 40th Anniversary Part 1] --- [https://web.archive.org/web/20140317225511/http://www.marxist.com/forty-years-death-che-guevara-part-two101007/print.htm Part 2]
{{Col-break}}
* National Security Archive: [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/index.html The Death of Che Guevara]
* NPR Audio Report: [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4058889 Che Guevara Still an Icon]
* ''The New York Times'' Interactive Gallery: "[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/10/08/world/americas/20071008_CHE_AUDIO_GRAPHIC.html A Revolutionary Afterlife]"
* ''Slate'' Magazine: [http://todayspictures.slate.com/20080610/ Picture Essay of Che]
* Slideshow: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/interactive/2009/jan/09/fidel-castro-che-guevara-biography ''Fidel and Che: A Revolutionary Friendship'']
* ''The Guardian'': [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/16/socialsciences.highereducation "Making of a Marxist" ~ Che's Early Journals]
* The History Channel: ''[https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-true-story-of-che-guevara/ The True Story of Che Guevara]''
* ''The Wall Street Journal'' Gallery: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121329914405168815 "The Ubiquitous Che"]
{{col-end}}

{{Che Guevara|state=expanded}}
{{Communism}}
{{Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Socialism|Communism|Cuba}}
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