Guevara (Che Guevara) Ernesto. Biography

Childhood, adolescence, youth

The Che Guevara family. From left to right: Ernesto Guevara, mother Celia, sister Celia, brother Roberto, father Ernesto with son Juan Martin in his arms and sister Anna Maria

Che Guevara at the age of one (1929)

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

At the age of two, on May 2, 1930, Tete experienced the first attack of bronchial asthma - this disease haunted him until the end of his life. To restore the health of the baby, the family moved to the province of Cordoba, as an area with a healthier mountain climate. Having sold the estate, the family acquired "Villa Nidia" in the town of Alta Gracia, at an altitude of two thousand meters above sea level. His father began to work as a building contractor, and his mother began to look after the sick Tete. For the first two years, Che was unable to attend school and was homeschooled as he suffered from daily asthma attacks. After that, he underwent intermittent (due to health reasons) training in high school in Alta Gracia. At the age of thirteen, Ernesto entered the state-owned Dean Funes College in Córdoba, from which he graduated in 1945, then enrolling in the medical faculty of the University of Buenos Aires. Father Don Ernesto Guevara Lynch said in February 1969:

Hobbies

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

Che Guevara (first from right) with rugby comrades, 1947

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

Ernesto in Mar del Plata (Argentina), 1943

In 1950, already a student, Ernesto took a job as a sailor on an oil tanker from Argentina, visiting Trinidad and British Guiana. After that, he traveled on a moped, which was provided to him by the Mikron company for advertising purposes, with partial coverage of travel expenses. In an advertisement from the Argentinean magazine El Grafico dated May 5, 1950, Che wrote:

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

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

In difficult years

Ernesto Guevara in 1945

Journey through South America

Ernesto Che Guevara in 1951

We were no longer held back in Argentina, and we headed for Chile, the first foreign country that lay in our way. Having passed the province of Mendoza, where Che's ancestors once lived and where we visited several haciendas, watching how horses are tamed and how our gauchos live, we turned south, away from the Andean peaks, impassable for our stunted two-wheeled Rocinante. We had to work hard. The bike kept breaking down and needed fixing. We didn't so much ride it as we dragged it on ourselves.

Stopping for the night in the forest or in the field, they earned money for food by doing odd jobs: they washed dishes in restaurants, treated peasants or acted as veterinarians, repaired radios, worked as loaders, porters or sailors. They exchanged experience with colleagues, visiting leper colonies, where they had the opportunity to take a break from the road. Guevara and Granandos were not afraid of infection, and felt compassion for lepers, wanting to devote their lives to their treatment. On February 18, 1952, they arrived at Temuco in Chile. The local newspaper Diario Austral published an article entitled: "Two Argentine leprosy experts travel through South America on a motorcycle." Granandos' motorcycle finally broke down near Santiago, after which they moved to the port of Valparaiso (where they intended to visit the leper colony of Easter Island, however, they learned that they would have to wait six months for the steamer, and abandoned the idea) and then on foot, on hitches or "hares" on steamers or trains. We walked to the copper mine of Chuquicamata, which belonged to the American company Braden Copper Mining Company, spending the night in the barracks of the mine guards. In Peru, travelers got acquainted with the life of the Quechua and Aymara Indians, by that time exploited by landowners and drowning out their hunger with coca leaves. In the city of Cuzco , Ernesto spent several hours reading books about the Inca Empire in the local library . Spent a few days in the ruins ancient city Inca Machu Picchu in Peru. Having settled down on the site for sacrifices of an ancient temple, they began to drink mate and fantasize. Granandos recalled a dialogue with Ernesto:

From Machu Picchu we went to the mountain village of Huambo, stopping on the way to the leper colony of the Peruvian communist doctor Hugo Pesche. He warmly welcomed travelers, introducing them to the methods of treatment of leprosy known to him, and wrote a letter of recommendation to a large leper colony near the city of San Pablo in the province of Loreto in Peru. From the village of Pucallpa on the river Ucayali, having settled on a ship, the travelers went to the port of Iquitos on the banks of the Amazon. In Iquitos, they were delayed due to Ernesto's asthma, which forced him to go to the hospital for a while. On reaching the leper colony in San Pablo, Granados and Guevara received a cordial welcome and were invited to treat patients in the laboratory of the center. The patients, trying to thank the travelers for their friendly attitude, built them a raft, calling it "Mambo Tango" on which they could sail to the next point of the route - the Colombian port of Leticia on the Amazon.

Second trip to Latin America

The path that Che Guevara traveled, 1953-1956.

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

Guatemala

Life in Mexico City

On September 21, 1954 they arrived in Mexico City. They settled in the apartment of Puerto Rican Juan Juarbe, a figure Nationalist Party, which advocated the independence of Puerto Rico and was outlawed due to their shooting in the US Congress. The Peruvian Lucho (Luis) de la Puente lived in the same apartment, who later, on October 23, 1965, was shot dead in a battle with anti-partisan "rangers" in one of the mountainous regions of Peru. Che and Patoho, having no stable means of subsistence, hunted for pictures in the parks. Che recalled this time like this:

We were both broke... Patojo didn't have a penny, I only had a few pesos. I bought a camera and we smuggled pictures in the parks. One Mexican, the owner of a small photo laboratory, helped us print the cards. We got to know Mexico City by walking up and down it, trying to foist our unimportant photographs on customers. How many had to be persuaded, persuaded that the child photographed by us has a very pretty look and that, really, it is worth paying a peso for such charm. We fed on this craft for several months. Little by little things got better...

Having written the article "I saw the overthrow of Árbenz", Che, however, did not manage to get a job as a journalist. At this time, Ilda Gadea arrived from Guatemala, and they got married. Che began to sell books from the Fondo de culture economy publishing house, got a job as a night watchman at a book exhibition, continuing to read books. In the city hospital, he was accepted by competition for a job in the allergic department. He lectured on medicine in National University, began to engage in scientific work (in particular, experiments on cats) at the Institute of Cardiology and the laboratory of a French hospital. On February 15, 1956, Ilda gave birth to a daughter, who was named after her mother Ildita. In an interview with a correspondent for the Mexican magazine Siempre, in September 1959, Che stated:

Raul Roa, a Cuban publicist and opponent of Batista, who later became Minister of Foreign Affairs in socialist Cuba, recalled his Mexican meeting with Guevara:

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

Preparing an expedition to Cuba

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

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

Colonel of the Spanish army Alberto Baio, a veteran of the war with the Francoists and the author of the manual "150 questions for the guerrilla", was engaged in the military training of the group. Initially requesting a fee of 100,000 Mexican pesos (or 8,000 US dollars), then halved it. However, believing in the capabilities of his students, he not only did not take a fee, but also sold his furniture factory, transferring the proceeds to the Fidel group. The colonel bought for 26 thousand US dollars the hacienda "Santa Rosa" 35 km from the capital, from Erasmo Rivera, a former partisan of Pancho Villa, as a new base for training the detachment. Che, while training with the group, taught how to make dressings, heal fractures, and give injections, having received more than a hundred injections in one of the classes - one or more from each of the members of the group.

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

After the arrest, we were taken to the "Miguel Schulz" prison - a place of detention for emigrants. There I saw Che. In a cheap see-through nylon raincoat and an old hat, he looked like a scarecrow. And I, wanting to make him laugh, told him what an impression he makes ... When we were taken out of prison for interrogation, he was the only one handcuffed. I was indignant and told the representative of the prosecutor's office that Guevara was not a criminal to put handcuffs on him and that in Mexico even criminals are not put on them. He returned to prison without handcuffs. Maria Antonia

The former president Lazaro Cárdenas, his former maritime minister Heriberto Jara, the labor leader Lombarde Toledano, the artists Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, as well as cultural figures and scientists interceded for the prisoners. A month later, Mexican authorities released Fidel Castro and the rest of the prisoners, with the exception of Ernesto Guevara and Cuban Calixto Garcia, who were accused of illegal entry into the country. After leaving prison, Fidel Castro continued to prepare for an expedition to Cuba, raising money, buying weapons and organizing clandestine appearances. The training of fighters continued in small groups in various parts of the country. The Granma yacht was purchased from the Swedish ethnographer Werner Green for $12,000. Che feared that Fidel's worries about getting him out of prison would delay his departure, but Fidel told him: "I won't leave you!" The Mexican police also arrested Che's wife, but some time later Ilda and Che were released. Che spent 57 days in prison. The police continued to follow, breaking into safe houses. The press wrote about Fidel's preparations for sailing to Cuba. Frank Pais brought 8,000 dollars from Santiago and was ready to raise an uprising in the city. Due to the increased raids and the possibility of issuing a group, a yacht and a transmitter to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City by a provocateur for 15 thousand dollars, preparations were accelerated. Fidel gave the order to isolate the alleged provocateur and concentrate in the port of Tuspan in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Granma was moored. Frank Pais was sent a telegram "The book is sold out" as a prearranged signal to prepare an uprising at the appointed time. Che with a medical bag ran home to Ilda, kissed his sleeping daughter and wrote a farewell letter to his parents.

Departure on the Granma

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

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

Cuban Revolution

First days

The Granma arrived on the coast of Cuba only on December 2, 1956, in the Las Coloradas region of Oriente province, immediately running aground. A boat was launched into the water, but it sank. A group of 82 people wade to the shore, shoulder-deep in water; weapons and a small amount of food were brought to land. At the landing site, which Raul Castro later compared to a "shipwreck", boats and planes of units subordinate to Batista rushed, and Fidel Castro's group came under fire. The group made their way for a long time along the swampy coast, which is a mangrove. On the night of December 5, the revolutionaries walked along a sugarcane plantation, by morning they made a halt on the territory of the central (sugar factory along with the plantation) in the area of ​​Alegria de Pio (Holy Joy). Che, being a doctor of the detachment, bandaged his comrades, since their legs were worn out from a difficult campaign in uncomfortable shoes, making the last dressing to the detachment fighter Umberto Lamote. In the middle of the day, enemy planes appeared in the sky. Under enemy fire, half of the fighters of the detachment were killed in battle and approximately 20 people were captured. The next day, the survivors gathered in a cabin near the Sierra Maestra.

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

Somewhere in the forest, during the long nights (with the sunset our inactivity began) we made daring plans. They dreamed of battles, major operations, of victory. Those were happy hours. Together with everyone, I enjoyed for the first time in my life cigars, which I learned to smoke to drive away annoying mosquitoes. Since then, the aroma of Cuban tobacco has ingrained in me. And the head was spinning, either from a strong "Havana", or from the audacity of our plans - one is more desperate than the other. Ernesto Che Guevara

Sierra Maestra

Ernesto Che Guevara on a mule in the Sierra Maestra.

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

Dear old woman! I am writing to you these flaming Martian lines from Cuban manigua. I'm alive and I'm out for blood. It seems that I really am a soldier (at least I am dirty and tattered), for I write on a camping plate, with a gun on my shoulder and a new acquisition in my lips - a cigar. The matter was not easy. You already know that after seven days of sailing on the Granma, where it was impossible even to breathe, we, through the fault of the navigator, ended up in stinking thickets, and our misfortunes continued until we were attacked in the already famous Alegria de Pio and not scattered in different directions, like doves. There I was wounded in the neck, and I survived only thanks to my cat's happiness, because the machine-gun bullet hit the box of cartridges that I carried on my chest, and from there ricocheted into the neck. I wandered for several days in the mountains, considering myself dangerously wounded, in addition to a wound in my neck, my chest was still very sore. Of the guys you know, only Jimmy Hirtzel died, he surrendered, and they killed him. I, along with Almeida and Ramirito, who you know, spent seven days of terrible hunger and thirst, until we left the encirclement and, with the help of the peasants, joined Fidel (they say, although this has not yet been confirmed, that poor Nyiko also died). We had to work hard to reorganize into a detachment, to arm ourselves. After that, we attacked the army post, we killed and wounded several soldiers, and took others prisoner. The dead remained at the battlefield. Some time later, we captured three more soldiers and disarmed them. If we add to this that we had no losses and that we are at home in the mountains, then it will be clear to you how demoralized the soldiers are, they will never be able to surround us. Naturally, the struggle has not yet been won, there are still many battles to be fought, but the scales are already tilting in our direction, and this advantage will increase every day. Now, speaking of you, I would like to know if you are still in the same house where I am writing to you, and how do you live there, especially “the most tender petal of love”? Hug her and kiss her as hard as her bones will allow. I was in such a hurry that I left photos of you and your daughter in Pancho's house. Send them to me. You can write to me at your uncle's address and at Patojo's name. Letters may be a little delayed, but I think they will reach.

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

A member of the detachment, Rafael Chao, claimed that Che did not shout at anyone and did not allow mockery, but often used strong words in conversation, and was very sharp, "when necessary." “I did not know a less selfish person. If he had only one boniato tuber, he was ready to give it to his comrades..

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

Battle of Uvero

Main article: Battle of Uvero

In May 1957, it was planned to arrive from the USA (Miami) of the Corinthia ship with reinforcements led by Calixto Sanchez. To divert attention from their landing, Fidel gave the order to storm the barracks in the village of Uvero, 15 km from Santiago. In addition, this opened up the possibility of an exit from the Sierra Maestra to the valley of the province of Oriente. Che took part in the battle for Uvero, and described it in Episodes of the Revolutionary War. On May 27, 1957, a headquarters was assembled, where Fidel announced the upcoming battle. Having started the hike in the evening, during the night we covered about 16 kilometers along the mountain winding road, taking about eight hours to travel, often stopping for precaution, especially in dangerous areas. The guide was Caldero, who was well versed in the area of ​​the Uvero barracks and the approaches to it. The wooden barracks was located on the seashore, it was guarded by posts. It was decided to surround her in the dark on three sides. A group of Jorge Sotus and Guillermo Garcia attacked a post on the coastal road from Peladero. Almeida was instructed to eliminate the post opposite the height. Fidel was located in the height area, and Raul's platoon attacked the barracks from the front. Che was assigned a direction between them. Camilo Cienfuegos and Ameiheiras lost direction in the dark. The task of the attack was facilitated by the presence of a bush, but the enemy noticed the attackers and opened fire. Crescencio Perez's platoon did not participate in the assault, guarding the road to Chivirico to block the approach of enemy reinforcements. During the attack, it was forbidden to shoot at living quarters where there were women and children. The wounded casquitos were given first aid, leaving two of their seriously wounded in the care of the doctor of the enemy garrison. Having loaded a truck with equipment and medicines, we went to the mountains. Che pointed out that two hours and forty-five minutes elapsed from the first shot to the capture of the barracks. The attackers lost 15 people killed and wounded, and the enemy lost 19 people wounded and 14 killed. The victory strengthened the morale of the detachment. Subsequently, other small enemy garrisons at the foot of the Sierra Maestra were destroyed.

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

Further struggle

Relations with local peasants did not always go smoothly: anti-communist propaganda was made on the radio and in church services. The peasant woman Iniria Gutierrez recalled that before joining the detachment she had heard only "terrible things" about communism, and was surprised by the direction of Che's political views. In a feuilleton published in January 1958 in the first issue of the insurgent newspaper El Cubano Libre, signed Sniper, Che wrote on this subject: “All those who take up arms are communists, for they are tired of poverty, no matter how this country has never happened.” To suppress robberies and anarchy, to improve relations with the local population, a discipline commission was created in the detachment, endowed with the powers of a military tribunal. The pseudo-revolutionary gang of the Chinese Chang was liquidated. Che noted: “At that hard time it was necessary with a firm hand to stop any violation of revolutionary discipline and not allow anarchy to develop in the liberated regions. Executions were also carried out on the facts of desertion from the detachment. Medical assistance was provided to the prisoners, and Che was very careful not to offend them. As a rule, they were released.

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

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

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

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

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

Che Guevara as a statesman

Che Guevara in Moscow in 1964.

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

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

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

For him, neither the trial nor the investigation mattered. He immediately began to shoot, because he was a man without a heart

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

Che Guevara's last letter to his parents

Dear old people! I again feel the ribs of Rocinante in my heels, again, dressed in armor, I set off. About ten years ago I wrote you another farewell letter. As far as I remember, then I regretted that I was not a better soldier and a good doctor; the second is no longer of interest to me, but the soldier turned out to be not so bad from me. Basically, nothing has changed since then, except that I have become much more conscious, my Marxism has taken root in me and cleared up. I believe that armed struggle is the only way out for peoples fighting for their liberation, and I am consistent in my views. Many will call me an adventurer, and this is true. But I'm the only adventurer of a special kind, the kind who risk their own skin to prove their case. Maybe I'll try to make it last. I am not looking for such an end, but it is possible, if logically based on the calculation of possibilities. And if that happens, accept my last embrace. I loved you deeply, but I did not know how to express my love. I am too direct in my actions and I think that sometimes I was not understood. Besides, it was not easy to understand me, but this time - trust me. So, the determination, which I have cultivated with the passion of the artist, will make frail legs and tired lungs work. I'll get mine. Remember sometimes this modest condottiere of the 20th century. Kiss Celia, Roberto, Juan Martin and Pototin, Beatriz, everyone. Your prodigal and incorrigible son Ernesto hugs you tightly.

Rebel

Congo

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

Bolivia

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

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

Captivity and execution

The hunt for Guevara in Bolivia was led by Felix Rodriguez, a CIA agent. An informant informed the Bolivian Special Forces of the whereabouts of Guevara's partisan detachment, and on October 8, 1967, the detachment's camp was surrounded, and Guevara himself was captured in the Cuebrada del Yuro gorge. According to some of the soldiers who were present, when they approached Guevara during the skirmish, he allegedly shouted: "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I stand for you more alive than dead.. Rodriguez, upon hearing of Guevara's capture, immediately reported it to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Ernesto Che Guevara full name- Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna (Spanish: Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna). Born June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina - died October 9, 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia. Latin American revolutionary, commander of the 1959 Cuban Revolution and Cuban statesman.

In addition to the Latin American continent, he also acted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries of the world (the data is still classified).

The nickname Che used to emphasize his Argentine origin.

The interjection che is a common address in Argentina.

Natalia Cardone - Che Guevara

Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 in the Argentine city of Rosario, in the family of architect Ernesto Guevara Lynch (1900-1987). Both Ernesto Che Guevara's father and mother were Argentine Creoles. My paternal grandmother was descended through the male line from the Irish rebel Patrick Lynch. There were also California Creoles in the paternal family who received US citizenship.

Ernesto Guevara's mother, Celia De La Serna, was born in 1908 in Buenos Aires and married Ernesto Guevara Lynch in 1927. A year later, the first-born was born - Ernesto.

Celia inherited a plantation of yerba mate (the so-called Paraguayan tea) in the province of Misiones. Having improved the position of the workers (in particular, by starting to pay them wages in cash, not in products), Che's father caused dissatisfaction with the surrounding planters, and the family was forced to move to Rosario, at that time the second largest city in Argentina, by opening a yerba processing factory there. mate. Che was born in this city. Due to the global economic crisis, the family returned to the plantation in Misiones some time later.

In addition to Ernesto, whose childhood name was Tete (this is a diminutive of Ernesto), there were four more children in the family: Celia, Roberto, Anna Maria and Juan Martin. All children received higher education.

At the age of two, on May 7, 1930, Tete experienced the first attack of bronchial asthma - this disease haunted him until the end of his life. To restore the health of the baby, the family moved to the province of Cordoba - an area with a healthier mountain climate.

Che Guevara as a child

Having sold the estate, the family acquired "Villa Nidia" in the town of Alta Gracia, at an altitude of two thousand meters above sea level. His father began to work as a building contractor, and his mother began to look after the sick Tete. For the first two years, Ernesto could not attend school and was homeschooled (learned to read at age 4) as he suffered from daily asthma attacks. After that, he went intermittently (due to health reasons) studying at a high school in Alta Gracia.

At the age of thirteen, Ernesto entered the Dean Funes State College in Córdoba, from which he graduated in 1945, then enrolling in the medical faculty of the University of Buenos Aires.

Father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch in February 1969 said: “I tried to raise my children comprehensively. And our house was always open to their peers, among whom were the children of the rich families of Cordoba, and the working guys, there were also children of the communists. Tete, for example, was friends with Negrita, the daughter of the poet Cayetano Cordoba Iturburu, who then shared the ideas of the communists, married to his sister Celia ".

In 1964, speaking with a correspondent for the Cuban newspaper El Mundo, Guevara said that he first became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, being passionate about chess, when a Cuban chess player arrived in Buenos Aires. Che's parents house had a library of several thousand books. From the age of four, Ernesto, like his parents, became passionately interested in reading, which continued until the end of his life.

In his youth, the future revolutionary had an extensive reading circle: Salgari, Dumas, later -, Kropotkin,. He read the then popular social novels by Latin American authors - Ciro Alegria from Peru, Jorge Icaza from Ecuador, Jose Eustasio Rivera from Colombia, which described the life of Indians and workers on plantations, the works of Argentine authors - José Hernandez, Sarmiento and others.

Young Ernesto read in the original French (knowing this language since childhood) and interpreting Sartre's philosophical works L'imagination, Situations I and Situations II, L'Être et le Nèant, Baudlaire, "Qu'est-ce que la literature?", "L'imagie". He loved poetry and even composed poetry himself. He read out Baudelaire, Verlaine, Antonio Machada, Pablo Neruda, the works of the contemporary Spanish Republican poet Leon Felipe.

In his backpack, in addition to "Bolivian Diary", a notebook with his favorite poems was posthumously discovered. Subsequently, two-volume and nine-volume collected works of Che Guevara were published in Cuba. Tete was strong in the exact sciences, such as mathematics, but chose the profession of a doctor.

He played football at the local Atalaya sports club, playing in the reserve team (he could not play in the first team, because of asthma he needed an inhaler from time to time). He also played rugby (played for the San Isidro club), equestrian sports, was fond of golf and gliding, having a special passion for cycling (in the caption on one of his photographs, presented to his bride Chinchina, he called himself "king of the pedal") .

In 1950, already a student, Ernesto was hired as a sailor on an oil cargo ship from Argentina, visited the island of Trinidad and British Guiana. After that, he made a trip on a moped, which was provided to him by the Mikron company for advertising purposes, with partial coverage of the travel expenses. In an advertisement from the Argentinean magazine El Grafico dated May 5, 1950, Che wrote: February 23, 1950. Seniors, representatives of the Mikron moped company. I am sending you the Mikron moped for testing. On it I made a journey of four thousand kilometers through the twelve provinces of Argentina. The moped functioned flawlessly throughout the trip, and I did not find the slightest malfunction in it. Hope to get it back in the same condition.".

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

The Spanish Civil War caused significant public outcry in Argentina. Guevara's parents assisted the Relief Committee of Republican Spain In addition, they were neighbors and friends of Juan González Aguilar (deputy of Juan Negrin, Prime Minister of the Spanish government before the defeat of the Republic), who emigrated to Argentina and settled in Alta Gracia. The children went to the same school and then to a college in Cordoba. Che's mother, Celia, took them daily by car to college. A prominent republican general, Jurado, who was staying with the Gonzales, visited the home of the Guevara family and talked about the events of the war and the actions of the Francoists and German Nazis, which, according to his father, influenced the political views of the young Che.

During World War II, the President of Argentina Juan Peron maintained diplomatic relations with the Axis countries - and Che's parents were among the active opponents of his regime. In particular, Celia was arrested for her participation in one of the anti-Peronist demonstrations in Cordoba. In addition to her, her husband also participated in the military organization against the dictatorship of Peron; bombs were made in the house for demonstrations. Significant enthusiasm among the Republicans was caused by the news of the victory of the USSR in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Together with the doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granado (friendly nickname - Mial) for seven months from February to August 1952, Ernesto Guevara traveled through Latin America, visiting Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Granado was six years older than Che. He was from the southern province of Cordoba, graduated from the pharmaceutical faculty of the university, became interested in the problem of treating leprosy and, after studying at the university for another three years, became a doctor of biochemistry.

Starting in 1945, he worked in a leper colony 180 km from Cordoba. In 1941, he met Ernesto Guevara, who was then 13 years old, through his brother Thomas, Ernesto's classmate at Dean Funes College. He began to visit often the house of Che's parents and used their rich library. They became friends with a love of reading and disputes about what they read. Granado and his brothers made long mountain walks and built outdoor huts in the vicinity of Córdoba, and Ernesto often joined them (his parents believed that this would help his fight against asthma).

The Guevara family lived in Buenos Aires, where Ernesto studied at the medical faculty.

At the Institute for the Study of Allergy, he trained under the guidance of the Argentine scientist Dr. Pisani. At that time, the Guevara family was experiencing financial difficulties, and Ernesto was forced to work as a librarian. Coming on vacation to Cordoba, he visited Granado in the leper colony, helped him in experiments to study new methods of treating lepers.

On one of his visits, in September 1951, Granado, on the advice of his brother Thomas, invited him to become a partner on a trip to South America. Granado intended to visit the leper colonies of various countries of the continent, to get acquainted with their work and, perhaps, to write a book about it. Ernesto enthusiastically accepted this offer, asking him to wait until the moment when he passed the next exams, since he was in his last year at the Faculty of Medicine. Ernesto's parents did not object, provided that he returned no later than a year later to pass the final exams.

On December 29, 1951, having loaded Granado's heavily worn motorcycle with useful items, a tent, blankets, taking a camera and an automatic pistol, they set off. We stopped by to say goodbye to Chinchina, who gave Ernesto $15 and asked him to bring her a dress or swimsuit from the USA. Ernesto gave her a parting puppy, calling it Kambek - “Come back”, translated from in English("come back").

They also said goodbye to Ernesto's parents. Granado recalled: “Nothing further delayed us in Argentina, and we headed to Chile, the first foreign country that lay in our way. Having passed the province of Mendoza, where Che's ancestors once lived and where we visited several haciendas, watching how horses are tamed and how our gauchos live, we turned south, away from the Andean peaks, impassable for our stunted two-wheeled Rocinante. We had to work hard. The bike kept breaking down and needed fixing. We didn’t so much ride it as we dragged it on ourselves.”.

Stopping for the night in the forest or in the field, they earned their food by doing odd jobs: they washed dishes in restaurants, treated peasants or acted as veterinarians, repaired radios, worked as loaders, porters or sailors. They exchanged experience with colleagues, visiting leper colonies, where they had the opportunity to take a break from the road.

Guevara and Granado were not afraid of infection and felt sympathy for lepers, wanting to devote their lives to their treatment.

On February 18, 1952, they arrived in the Chilean city of Temuco. The local newspaper "Diario Austral" published an article entitled: "Two Argentine leprosy experts travel through South America on a motorcycle."

Granado's motorcycle finally broke down near Santiago, after which they moved to the port of Valparaiso (where they intended to visit the Easter Island leper colony, but they found out that they would have to wait six months for the steamer, and abandoned the idea), and then on foot, on hitches or "hares" on boats or trains. We walked to the copper mine of Chuquicamata, which belonged to the American company Braden Copper Mining Company, spending the night in the barracks of the mine guards.

In Peru, travelers got acquainted with the life of the Quechua and Aymara Indians, who by that time were exploited by landowners and drowned their hunger with coca leaves. In the city of Cusco, Ernesto spent several hours reading books about the Inca Empire in the local library. We spent several days at the ruins of the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru. Having settled down on the site for sacrifices of an ancient temple, they began to drink mate and fantasize.

Granado recalled a dialogue with Ernesto: “You know, old man, let's stay here. I will marry an Indian woman from a noble Inca family, I will proclaim myself emperor and become the ruler of Peru, and I will appoint you prime minister, and together we will carry out a social revolution.. Che replied: "You're crazy, Mial, they don't make a revolution without shooting!".

Che Guevara - Victory will be ours

From Machu Picchu we went to the mountain village of Huambo, stopping on the way to the leper colony of the Peruvian communist doctor Hugo Pesce. He warmly welcomed travelers, introduced them to the methods of treatment of leprosy known to him, and wrote a letter of recommendation to a large leper colony near the city of San Pablo in the province of Loreto in Peru.

From the village of Pucallpa on the Ucayali River, having settled on a ship, the travelers went to the port of Iquitos on the banks of the Amazon. In Iquitos, they were delayed due to Ernesto's asthma, which forced him to go to the hospital for a while. Having reached the leper colony in San Pablo, Granado and Guevara were cordially received and invited to treat patients in the laboratory of the center. The sick, trying to thank the travelers for their friendly attitude, built a raft for them, calling it "Mambo Tango". On this raft, Ernesto and Alberto planned to sail to the next point of the route - the Colombian port of Leticia on the Amazon.

On June 21, 1952, having packed their belongings on a raft, they sailed down the Amazon towards Leticia. They took a lot of pictures and kept diaries. By negligence, they sailed past Leticia, because of which they had to purchase a boat and return from Brazilian territory. Having a suspicious and tired appearance, both comrades ended up behind bars in Colombia.

According to Granado, the police chief, being a football fan familiar with Argentina's football success, released the travelers after learning where they were from in exchange for a promise to coach a local football team. The team won the regional championship, and the fans bought them plane tickets to the Colombian capital, Bogotá.

In Colombia at that time, President Laureano Gomez's "violencia" was in effect, which consisted in the forceful suppression of the discontent of the peasants. Guevara and Granado were again imprisoned, but they were released, taking a promise to leave Colombia immediately. Having received money for the trip from fellow students, Ernesto and Alberto took a bus to the city of Cucuta near Venezuela, and then crossed the border on the international bridge to the city of San Cristobal in Venezuela.

Granado remained to work in Venezuela in the leper colony of Caracas, where he was offered a monthly salary of eight hundred American dollars. Later, working in a leper colony, he meets his future wife, Julia. Che needed to get to Buenos Aires alone.

Having accidentally met a distant relative - a horse trader, at the end of July he went to accompany a batch of horses from Caracas to Miami by plane, and from there he had to return on an empty flight through the Venezuelan Maracaibo to Buenos Aires. However, Che stayed in Miami for a month. He managed to buy Chinchina the promised lace dress, but in Miami he lived almost without money, spending time in the local library.

In August 1952, Che returned to Buenos Aires, where he began preparing for exams and a thesis on allergies.

In March 1953, Guevara received his doctorate in dermatology. Not wanting to serve in the army, he caused an asthma attack with an ice bath and was declared unfit for military service. Having a diploma in medical education, Che decided to go to the Venezuelan leper colony in Caracas to Granado, but later fate brought them together only in the 1960s in Cuba.

Ernesto went to Venezuela through the capital of Bolivia - La Paz by train, which was called the "milk convoy" (the train stopped at all stations, and there farmers loaded cans of milk).

On April 9, 1952, a revolution took place in Bolivia, in which miners and peasants participated. The Nationalist Revolutionary Movement party, which came to power, led by President Paz Estenssoro, paid compensation to foreign owners, nationalized the tin mines, and in addition, organized a militia from miners and peasants, and carried out agrarian reform.

In Bolivia, Che visited the mountain villages of the Indians, the villages of miners, met with members of the government, and even worked in the department of information and culture, as well as in the department for the implementation of agrarian reform. He visited the ruins of the Indian sanctuaries of Tiahuanaco, which are located near Lake Titicaca, taking many pictures of the Gate of the Sun temple, where the Indians of an ancient civilization worshiped the sun god Viracocha.

In La Paz, Ernesto met the lawyer Ricardo Rojo, who persuaded him to leave for Guatemala, but Ernesto agreed to be a fellow traveler only as far as Colombia, since he still had the intention to go to the Caracas leper colony, where Granado was waiting for him. Rojo flew by plane to the capital of Peru - Lima, and Ernesto, on a bus with a fellow traveler, a student from Argentina, Carlos Ferrer, traveled around Lake Titicaca and arrived in the Peruvian city of Cusco, where Ernesto had already been during a previous trip in 1952.

After being stopped by the border guards (their pamphlets and books about the revolution in Bolivia were taken from them), they arrived in Lima, where they met with Rojo. Since it was dangerous to linger in Lima due to the political situation in the country during the years of General Odria, the travelers - Rojo, Ferrer and Ernesto - took a bus along the coast Pacific Ocean to Ecuador, reaching the border of this country on September 26, 1953.

In Guayaquil, they applied for a visa to the representation of Colombia, but the consul demanded that they have air tickets to the capital, Bogota, considering it unsafe for foreigners to travel by bus because of the military coup that had just taken place in Colombia (General Rojas Pinilla overthrew President Laureano Gomez). Lacking funds for air travel, the travelers turned to a local leader of the socialist party with a letter of recommendation that they had from the future president of Chile, Salvador Allende, and through it got free tickets for students on the United Fruit Company steamer from Guayaquil to Panama.

Under the influence of Rojo, as well as press reports about the upcoming US invasion against President Árbenz, Ernesto travels to Guatemala. By that time, the Árbenz government had passed a law through the Guatemalan parliament, according to which the workers of the United Fruit Company were doubling their wages. 554,000 hectares of landowners' land were expropriated, including 160,000 hectares of United Fruit, which caused a sharp negative reaction from the Americans.

From Guayaquil, Ernesto sent a postcard to Alberto Granado: "Baby! I'm going to Guatemala. Then I'll write to you", after which the connection between them was interrupted for a while. In Panama, Guevara and Ferrer were delayed as they ran out of money, while Rojo continued on his way to Guatemala. Guevara sold his books and published a number of reports about Machu Picchu and other historical sites in Peru in a local magazine.

Guevara and Ferrer went to Costa Rican San Jose by a passing truck, which overturned on the way due to a tropical downpour, after which Ernesto, injuring left hand, some time with difficulty owned it. Travelers reached San Jose in early December 1953. There, Ernesto met the leader of the Venezuelan Democratic Action Party and the future president of Venezuela, Romulo Betancourt, with whom they sharply disagreed, and the future president of the Dominican Republic, writer Juan Bosch, as well as Cubans - opponents of the dictator Batista.

At the end of 1953, Guevara and friends from Argentina traveled from San José to San Salvador by bus. On December 24, they reached the city of Guatemala, the capital of the republic of the same name, on passing cars. Having letters of recommendation to prominent figures of the country and a letter from Lima to the revolutionary Ilda Gadea, Ernesto found Ilda in the Cervantes boarding house, where he settled himself. Common views and interests brought the future spouses together.

Subsequently Hilda Gadea recalled the impression that Guevara then made on her: “Dr. Ernesto Guevara struck me from the very first conversations with his intelligence, seriousness, his views and knowledge of Marxism ... Coming from a bourgeois family, he, having a medical degree in his hands, could easily make a career in his homeland, as is done in our countries all professionals with higher education. Meanwhile, he strove to work in the most backward areas, even for free, in order to treat ordinary people. But most of all I admired his attitude to medicine. Based on what he saw in his travels in various countries of South America, he spoke with indignation about the unsanitary conditions and poverty in which our peoples live. I well remember that in connection with this we discussed the novel The Citadel by Archibald Cronin and other books that dealt with the subject of the doctor's duty to the working people. Referring to these books, Ernesto came to the conclusion that a doctor in our countries should not be a privileged specialist, he should not serve the ruling classes, invent useless medicines for imaginary patients. Of course, by doing this, you can secure a solid income and achieve success in life, but is this what young conscious specialists in our countries should strive for? Dr. Guevara believed that it was the duty of the physician to devote himself to improving the living conditions of the masses. And this will inevitably lead him to condemn the government systems that prevail in our countries, exploited by the oligarchies, where the intervention of Yankee imperialism was intensifying..

In Guatemala, Ernesto met with emigrants from Cuba - supporters of Fidel Castro, among whom were Antonio Lopez (Nyiko), Mario Dalmau, Dario Lopez - future participants in the Granma yacht trip.

Wanting to go as a doctor to the Indian communities in the remote region of Guatemala - the Peten jungle, Ernesto was refused by the Ministry of Health, which required him to first pass the procedure for confirming a doctor's diploma within a year. Odd jobs, writing in newspapers, and peddling books (which, according to Ilda Gadea, he read more than he sold) allowed him to earn a livelihood. Traveling around Guatemala with a knapsack on his back, he studied the culture of the ancient Maya Indians. Collaborated with the youth organization "Patriotic Youth of Labor" of the Guatemalan Labor Party.

On June 17, 1954, the armed groups of Colonel Armas from Honduras invaded the territory of Guatemala, the executions of supporters of the Arbenz government and the bombing of the capital and other cities of Guatemala began.

Ernesto, according to Ilda Gadea, asked to be sent to the fighting area, and called for the creation of a militia. He was in groups air defense cities during the bombing, helped in the transport of weapons. Mario Dahlmau claimed that “together with the members of the Patriotic Youth of Labor, he was on guard duty in the midst of fires and bomb explosions, exposing himself mortal danger". Ernesto Guevara was on the list of "dangerous communists" to be eliminated after the overthrow of Arbenz. The Argentine ambassador warned him about the danger at the Cervantes boarding house and offered to take refuge in the embassy, ​​in which Ernesto took refuge along with a number of other Arbenz supporters, after which, with the help of the ambassador, he left the country and went by train to Mexico City.

On September 21, 1954, Guevara arrived in Mexico City and settled in the apartment of a Puerto Rican leader of the Nationalist Party, which advocated the independence of Puerto Rico and was outlawed due to the shooting committed by its activists in the US Congress. The Peruvian Lucio (Luis) de la Puente lived in the same apartment, who later, on October 23, 1965, was shot dead in a battle with anti-partisan "rangers" in one of the mountainous regions of Peru.

Che and his friend Patojo, having no stable means of subsistence, hunted for pictures in the parks. Che recalled this time like this: “We were both broke… Patojo didn’t have a penny, I only had a few pesos. I bought a camera and we smuggled pictures in the parks. One Mexican, the owner of a small photo laboratory, helped us print the cards. We got to know Mexico City by walking up and down it, trying to foist our unimportant photographs on customers. How many had to be persuaded, persuaded that the child photographed by us has a very pretty look and that, really, it is worth paying a peso for such charm. We fed on this craft for several months. Little by little, things got better…”.

Having written the article "I saw the overthrow of Árbenz", Che, however, did not manage to get a job as a journalist. At this time, Ilda Gadea arrived from Guatemala, and they got married. Che began to sell books from the Fondo de culture economy publishing house, got a job as a night watchman at a book exhibition, continuing to read books. In the city hospital, he was accepted by competition for a job in the allergic department. He lectured on medicine at the National University, began to engage in scientific work (in particular experiments on cats) at the Institute of Cardiology and the laboratory of a French hospital.

On February 15, 1956, Ilda gave birth to a daughter, who was named after her mother Ildita. In an interview with a correspondent for the Mexican magazine Siempre in September 1959, Che stated: “When my daughter was born in Mexico City, we could register her as a Peruvian - on her mother, or as an Argentine - on her father. Both that and another would be logical, because we were, as it were, passing through Mexico. Nevertheless, my wife and I decided to register her as a Mexican as a token of gratitude and respect for the people who sheltered us in the bitter hour of defeat and exile..

Raul Roa, a Cuban publicist and opponent of Batista, who later became a long-term foreign minister in socialist Cuba, recalled his Mexican meeting with Guevara: “I met Che one night at the house of his compatriot Ricardo Rojo. He had just arrived from Guatemala, where he first took part in the revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement. He was still bitter about defeat. Che seemed and was young. His image is imprinted in my memory: a clear mind, ascetic pallor, asthmatic breathing, a prominent forehead, thick hair, decisive judgments, an energetic chin, calm movements, a sensitive, penetrating look, a sharp thought, speaks calmly, laughs loudly ... He just started working in the allergic department of the Institute of Cardiology. We talked about Argentina, Guatemala and Cuba, looked at their problems through the prism of Latin America. Even then, Che towered over the narrow horizon of the Creole nationalists and reasoned from the standpoint of a continental revolutionary. This Argentine doctor, unlike many emigrants who were concerned only with the fate of their country, thought not so much about Argentina, but about Latin America as a whole, trying to find its “weakest link””.

Comandante Che

At the end of June 1955, two Cubans came to the city hospital of Mexico City, to the doctor on duty - Ernesto Guevara, for a consultation, one of whom turned out to be Nyiko Lopez, Guevara's acquaintance from Guatemala.

He told Che that the Cuban revolutionaries who attacked the Moncada barracks had been released from the hard labor prison on the island of Pinos under an amnesty and began to gather in Mexico City to prepare an armed expedition to Cuba. A few days later, acquaintance with Raul Castro, in which Che found a like-minded person, later saying about him: “I don't think this one is like the others. At least he speaks better than others, besides, he thinks. At this time, Fidel, while in the United States, was collecting money for an expedition among emigrants from Cuba. Speaking in New York at a rally against Batista, Fidel said: “I can tell you with all responsibility that in 1956 we will gain freedom or become martyrs.”.

The first meeting between Fidel and Che took place on July 9, 1955. in a safe house of Fidel supporters. It discussed the details of the upcoming hostilities in the Cuban province of Oriente. Fidel claimed that Che at that time “had more mature revolutionary ideas than me. In ideological, theoretical terms, it was more developed. Compared to me, he was a more advanced revolutionary." By morning, Che, whom Fidel made, in his words, the impression of an "exceptional person", was enlisted as a doctor in the detachment of the future expedition.

In September 1955, another military coup took place in Argentina, and President Peron was overthrown. Emigrants - opponents of the overthrown dictator were invited to return to their homeland, which was used by many Argentines living in Mexico City. Che refused to return because he was carried away by the upcoming expedition to Cuba.

The Mexican Arsacio Vanegas Arroyo owned a small printing house that printed documents of the July 26 Movement, which was headed by Fidel. In addition, Arsacio was engaged in physical training for the participants of the upcoming expedition to Cuba, being a wrestler: long hiking trips over rough terrain, judo, for which an athletics hall was rented. Arsacio recalled: “In addition, the guys listened to lectures on geography, history, the political situation and other topics. Sometimes I myself stayed to listen to these lectures. The guys also went to the cinema to watch films about the war.”

Colonel of the Spanish army Alberto Baio, a veteran of the war with the Francoists and the author of the manual "150 questions for the guerrilla", was engaged in the military training of the group. Initially asking for a fee of 100,000 Mexican pesos (or 8,000 US dollars), he then cut it in half. However, believing in the capabilities of his students, he not only did not take a fee, but also sold his furniture factory, transferring the proceeds to the Fidel group. The Colonel purchased the Santa Rosa hacienda, 35 km from the capital, from Erasmo Rivera, a former Pancho Villa partisan, for 26 thousand US dollars, as a new base for training the detachment.

Che, while training with the group, taught how to make dressings, heal fractures and wounds, and give injections, having received more than a hundred injections in one of the classes - one or several from each of the trained members of the group.

June 22, 1956 Mexican police arrested on one of the streets of Mexico City. Then an ambush was set up in a safe house. At the Santa Rosa ranch, the police captured Che and some of his comrades. The arrest of the Cuban conspirators and the participation of Colonel Bayo in this case were reported in the press. Subsequently, it turned out that the arrests were made on a tip from a provocateur who had infiltrated the ranks of the conspirators. On June 26, the Mexican newspaper Excelsior published a list of those arrested, including the name of Ernesto Che Guevara Serna, who was described as an "international communist agitator", mentioning his role in Guatemala under President Árbenz.

Former Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas, former Maritime Minister Heriberto Jara, labor leader Lombarde Toledano, artists Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, as well as cultural figures and scientists interceded for the prisoners. A month later, Mexican authorities released Fidel Castro and the rest of the prisoners, with the exception of Ernesto Guevara and Cuban Calixto Garcia, who were accused of illegal entry into the country. After leaving prison, Fidel Castro continued to prepare for an expedition to Cuba, raising money, buying weapons and organizing clandestine appearances. The training of fighters continued in small groups in various parts of the country. A yacht was purchased from the Swedish ethnographer Werner Green "Granma" for 12 thousand dollars.

Che feared that Fidel's worries about getting him out of prison would delay his departure, but Fidel told him: "I won't leave you!" The Mexican police also arrested Che's wife, but some time later Ilda and Che were released. Che spent 57 days in prison. The police continued to follow the Cubans, broke into safe houses. The press was writing with might and main about Fidel's preparations for sailing to Cuba.

Due to the increasing number of roundups and the possibility of issuing the group, yacht and transmitter to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City for the announced reward of $15,000, preparations were expedited. Fidel gave the order to isolate the alleged provocateur and concentrate in the port of Tuspan in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Granma was moored. Che with a medical bag ran home to Ilda, kissed his sleeping daughter, wrote a farewell letter to his parents and left for the port. Ilda soon returned to Peru, later giving Guevara their common daughter Ildita.

At 2 am on November 25, 1956, in Tuspan, the detachment landed on the Granma. The police received a "mordida" (bribe) and were absent from the pier. 82 people with weapons and equipment boarded an overcrowded yacht, which was designed for 8-12 people. At that time there was a storm on the sea and it was raining, the Granma, with the lights extinguished, lay on a course for Cuba.

Che recalled that “out of 82 people, only two or three sailors, and four or five passengers did not suffer from seasickness”. The ship leaked, as it turned out later, due to an open faucet in the lavatory, however, trying to eliminate the draft of the ship when the pumping pump was not working, they managed to throw canned food overboard.

On the Granma, Che suffered from asthma, but, according to Roberto Roque Nunez, he cheered others up and joked. Ladislao Ondino Pino was appointed captain of the ship, and Roberto Roque Nunez was appointed navigator. The latter went overboard, falling from the roof of the captain's cabin and for several hours they searched for him in the ocean and then removed him from the water. The yacht often strayed off course.

The arrival time of the group in the village of Nikero near Santiago was calculated on November 30th. On this day, at 5:40 am, Fidel's supporters, led by Frank Pais, seized government offices in the capital and took to the streets, but could not keep the situation under control.

The Granma arrived on the coast of Cuba only on December 2, 1956, in the Las Coloradas region of Oriente province, immediately running aground off the coast. A boat was launched into the water, but it sank. A group of 82 people wade to the shore, shoulder-deep in water; weapons and a small amount of food and medicine were brought to land.

At the landing site, which Raul Castro later compared to a "shipwreck", boats and planes of units subordinate to Batista rushed, and Fidel Castro's group came under fire. About 35,000 armed soldiers, tanks, 15 Coast Guard vessels, 10 warships, 78 fighters and transport aircraft were waiting for them.

The group made their way along the swampy coast, which is a mangrove thicket, for a long time. In the middle of the day on December 5, in the locality of Alegria de Pio (Holy Joy), the group was attacked by government aircraft. Under enemy fire, half of the fighters of the detachment were killed in battle and approximately 20 people were captured. The next day, the survivors gathered in a hut near the Sierra Maestra. Fidel said: “The enemy defeated us, but failed to destroy us. We will fight and win this war.". Guajiro - the peasants of Cuba friendly accepted the members of the detachment and sheltered them in their homes.

“Somewhere in the forest, during the long nights (with the sunset our inactivity began) we made daring plans. They dreamed of battles, major operations, of victory. Those were happy hours. Together with everyone, I enjoyed for the first time in my life cigars, which I learned to smoke to drive away annoying mosquitoes. Since then, the aroma of Cuban tobacco has ingrained in me. And my head was spinning, either from a strong "Havana", or from the audacity of our plans - one is more desperate than the other "- recalled Ernesto Che Guevara.

The Cuban communist writer Pablo de la Torriente Brau wrote that back in the 19th century, in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, the fighters for the independence of Cuba found a convenient shelter. “Woe to him who raises the sword to these heights. A rebel with a rifle, hiding behind an unbreakable cliff, can fight here against ten. The machine-gunner, seated in the gorge, will hold back the onslaught of a thousand soldiers. Let those who go to war on these peaks not count on airplanes! The caves will shelter the rebels."

Fidel and the members of the expedition to Granma, as well as Che, were not familiar with this area.

On January 22, 1957, at Arroyo de Infierno (Hell's Creek), the detachment defeated the detachment of casquitos (Batista soldiers). Five casquitos were killed, the detachment suffered no losses.

“Dear old woman!

I am writing you these flaming Martian lines from Cuban manigua. I'm alive and I'm out for blood. It seems that I really am a soldier (at least I am dirty and tattered), for I write on a camping plate, with a gun on my shoulder and a new acquisition in my lips - a cigar. The matter was not easy. You already know that after seven days of sailing on the Granma, where it was impossible even to breathe, we, through the fault of the navigator, ended up in stinking thickets, and our misfortunes continued until we were attacked in the already famous Alegria de Pio and not scattered in different directions, like doves. There I was wounded in the neck, and I survived only thanks to my cat's happiness, because the machine-gun bullet hit the box of cartridges that I carried on my chest, and from there ricocheted into the neck. I wandered for several days in the mountains, considering myself dangerously wounded, in addition to a wound in my neck, my chest was still very sore. Of the guys you know, only Jimmy Hirtzel died, he surrendered, and they killed him. I, along with Almeida and Ramirito, who you know, spent seven days of terrible hunger and thirst, until we left the encirclement and, with the help of the peasants, joined Fidel (they say, although this has not yet been confirmed, that poor Nyiko also died). We had to work hard to reorganize into a detachment, to arm ourselves. After that, we attacked the army post, we killed and wounded several soldiers, and took others prisoner. The dead remained at the battlefield. Some time later, we captured three more soldiers and disarmed them. If we add to this that we had no losses and that we are at home in the mountains, then it will be clear to you how demoralized the soldiers are, they will never be able to surround us. Naturally, the struggle has not yet been won, there are still many battles to be fought, but the scales are already tilting in our direction, and this advantage will increase every day.

Now, speaking of you, I would like to know if you are still in the same house where I am writing to you, and how do you live there, especially “the most tender petal of love”? Hug her and kiss her as hard as her bones will allow. I was in such a hurry that I left photos of you and your daughter in Pancho's house. Send them to me. You can write to me at your uncle's address and at Patojo's name. Letters may be delayed a little, but I think they will reach ".

In February Che had an attack of malaria and then another attack of asthma. During one of the skirmishes, the peasant Crespo, having put Che on his back, carried him out from under enemy fire, since Che could not move independently. Che was left at the farmer's house with an accompanying fighter and was able to cross one of the crossings, holding on to tree trunks and leaning on the butt of a gun, in ten days, with the help of adrenaline, which the farmer managed to get.

In the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, Che, who suffered from asthma, periodically rested up in peasant huts so as not to delay the movement of the column. He was often seen with a book or a notebook in hand.

A member of the detachment, Rafael Chao, claimed that Che did not shout at anyone and did not allow mockery, but he often used strong words in conversation and was very sharp, "when necessary." “I did not know a less selfish person. If he had only one boniato tuber, he was ready to give it to his comrades..

Throughout the war, Che kept a diary, which later served as the basis for his famous book "Episodes of the Revolutionary War". Over time, the detachment managed to establish contact with the organization "Movement of July 26" in Santiago and Havana. The location of the detachment in the mountains was visited by activists and leaders of the underground: Frank Pais, Armando Hart, Vilma Espin, Celia Sanchez, supplies were established.

In order to refute Batista's reports about the defeat of the "robbers" - "forahidos", a New York Times correspondent arrived at the location of the detachment on February 17, 1957. He met with Fidel and a week later published a report with photographs of Fidel and the fighters of the detachment. In this report, he wrote: “Apparently, General Batista has no reason to hope to crush the Castro uprising. He can only count on the fact that one of the columns of soldiers will accidentally run into the young leader and his headquarters and destroy them, but this is unlikely to happen ... ".

In May 1957, a ship with reinforcements was planned to arrive from the USA (Miami). To divert attention from their landing, Fidel gave the order to storm the barracks in the village of Uvero, 50 km from Santiago. In addition, this opened up the possibility of an exit from the Sierra Maestra to the valley of the province of Oriente. Che took part in the battle for Uvero and described it in Episodes of the Revolutionary War.

On May 27, 1957, a headquarters was assembled, where Fidel announced the upcoming battle. Starting the hike in the evening, they walked about 16 kilometers overnight along a mountainous winding road, spending about eight hours on the way, often stopping for precaution, especially in dangerous areas. The wooden barracks was located on the seashore, it was guarded by posts. During the attack, it was forbidden to shoot at living quarters where there were women and children. The wounded soldiers were given first aid, and two of their seriously wounded were left in the care of the doctor of the enemy garrison.

Having loaded a truck with equipment and medicines, we went to the mountains. Che pointed out that two hours and forty-five minutes elapsed from the first shot to the capture of the barracks. The attackers lost 15 people killed and wounded, and the enemy lost 19 people wounded and 14 killed.

The victory strengthened the morale of the detachment. Subsequently, other small enemy garrisons were destroyed at the foot of the Sierra Maestra.

Che Guevara made his own recipe for the Molotov cocktail. It consisted of 3/4 of gasoline and 1/4 of oil. Incendiary mixtures were often used by partisans against buildings, light vehicles and enemy infantry. The recipe for Che Guevara's Molotov cocktail was distinguished by its ease of manufacture and the availability of components.

Relations with local peasants did not always go smoothly: anti-communist propaganda was carried out on the radio and in church services. In a feuilleton published in January 1958 in the first issue of the insurgent newspaper El Cubano Libre signed Sniper, Che wrote about the myths planted by the ruling regime: “Communists are all those who take up arms, because they are tired of poverty, in whatever country this happens”.

To suppress robberies and anarchy, to improve relations with the local population, a discipline commission was created in the detachment, endowed with the powers of a military tribunal. The pseudo-revolutionary gang of the Chinese Chang was liquidated. Che noted: “At that difficult time, it was necessary with a firm hand to stop any violation of revolutionary discipline and not allow anarchy to develop in the liberated areas”. Executions were also carried out on the facts of desertion from the detachment. Medical assistance was provided to the prisoners, and Che was very careful not to offend them. As a rule, they were released.

On June 5, 1957, Fidel Castro singled out a column led by Che, consisting of 75 fighters (for the purpose of secrecy, it was called the fourth column). Che was promoted to the rank of major. In July, Fidel, together with representatives of the bourgeois opposition, signed a manifesto on the formation of the Revolutionary Civil Front, whose demands included the replacement of Batista by an elected president and agrarian reform, which included the division of vacant lands. Che considered these oppositionists "closely connected with the northern rulers."

Fearing police persecution, Batista's opponents swelled the ranks of the rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains. There were centers of uprising in the mountains of Escambray, the Sierra del Cristal and in the Baracoa region under the leadership of the Revolutionary Directorate, the July 26 Movement and individual communists.

In October, politicians from the bourgeois camp in Miami established the Liberation Council, proclaiming Felipe Pazos interim president and issuing a manifesto to the people. Fidel rejected the Miami Pact, considering it to be pro-American.

In a letter to Fidel, Che wrote: “Once again, congratulations on your announcement. I told you that it will always be to your credit that you proved the possibility of an armed struggle that enjoys the support of the people. Now you are embarking on an even more wonderful path that will lead to power as a result armed struggle masses".

By the end of 1957, rebel troops dominated the Sierra Maestra, but did not descend into the valleys. Food items such as beans, corn and rice were purchased from local farmers. Medicines were delivered by underground workers from the city. Meat was confiscated from large cattle merchants and those who were accused of treachery. Part of the confiscated was transferred to local peasants.

Che organized sanitary posts, field hospitals, workshops for repairing weapons, making handicraft shoes, duffel bags, uniforms, and cigarettes. On the initiative of Che and under his editorship, the newspaper El Cubano Libre (Free Cuba) began to appear in the Sierra Maestra, the first issues of which were handwritten and then printed on a hectograph.

From March 1958, the guerrillas moved to more active operations, starting to operate outside the Sierra Maestra. Since the end of the summer, communication and cooperation with the Cuban communists has been established. A general offensive began, during which the column of partisans under the command of Che was instructed to capture the middle of the island, the province of Las Villas and the key city on the way to Santiago - Santa Clara, uniting and coordinating all the anti-Batista forces for this.

On August 21, by order of Fidel Che, he was appointed "commander of all rebel units operating in the province of Las Villas, both in rural areas and in cities," with the responsibility of collecting taxes and spending them on military needs, administering justice and carrying out agrarian laws. rebel army, as well as organizations military units and appointment of officers. At the same time, he publicly announced: “Those who do not want to take risks can leave the column. He will not be considered a coward." Most expressed their readiness to follow him.

Government propaganda called for national unity and harmony, as strikes and insurrections expanded in the cities of Cuba.

In March 1958, the US government announced an arms embargo against Batista forces, although arming and refueling government aircraft at Guantanamo continued for some time.

At the end of 1958, according to the constitution (statute) announced by Batista, presidential elections were to be held. In the Sierra Maestra, no one spoke openly about communism or socialism, and the reforms openly proposed by Fidel, such as the liquidation of latifundia, the nationalization of transport, electric companies and other important enterprises, were moderate and not denied even by pro-American politicians.

By October 16, after a 600-kilometer march and frequent skirmishes with troops, Che's column reached the Escambray mountains in the province of Las Villas, opening a new front. Then he met his second wife, the underground worker Aleida March. One of the first measures Che promulgated the law on agrarian reform, which freed small tenants from payments to the landowner and opened a school, which ensured him the sympathy of the peasantry.

From the second half of December, the rebels began a decisive offensive, almost every day freeing new town. On December 28, the battles for Santa Clara began. In the middle of the day on January 1, the remnants of the garrison capitulated. On the same day, the dictator Batista fled the country. On January 2, the partisans, in particular, units under the command of Che Guevara entered Havana without a fight, where they were enthusiastically welcomed by the population.

From the moment Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, repressions began against his political opponents.

Initially, it was announced that only "war criminals" - functionaries of the Batista regime directly responsible for torture and executions - would be tried.

The public trials held by Castro were regarded by the American newspaper The New York Times as a parody of justice: “On the whole, the procedure is disgusting. The defender did not try to defend at all, instead he asked the court to excuse him for defending the prisoner.

Not only political opponents were repressed, but also allies of the Cuban communists in the revolutionary struggle - the anarchists. After the rebels occupied the city of Santiago de Cuba on January 12, 1959, a show trial was held there over 72 policemen, etc. persons, one way or another connected with the regime and accused of "war crimes". As defense counsel began to refute the allegations of the prosecution, presiding officer Raul Castro declared: “If one is guilty, everyone is guilty. They are sentenced to be shot!” All 72 were shot.

All legal guarantees for the accused have been cancelled. "Partisan Law". The investigative conclusion was considered irrefutable proof of the crime. The lawyer simply admitted the charges, but asked the government to show generosity and reduce the punishment.

Che Guevara personally instructed the judges: “There should be no red tape with litigation. This is a revolution, the evidence here is secondary. We must act on conviction. They are all a gang of criminals and murderers. In addition, it should be remembered that there is an appeals tribunal". The Court of Appeal, chaired by Che himself, did not overturn a single sentence.

Executions in the Havana fortress-prison La Cabaña were personally ordered by Che Guevara, who was appointed commandant of the prison and led the appeal tribunal. After Castro's supporters came to power in Cuba, more than eight thousand people were shot, many without trial or investigation. Soon after the revolution, Che changed his signature: instead of the usual "Doctor Guevara" - "Major Ernesto Che Guevara" or simply "Che".

On February 9, 1959, by presidential decree, Che was proclaimed a citizen of Cuba with the rights of a born Cuban (before him, only one person had been awarded this honor, Dominican General Maximo Gomez in the 19th century). As an officer in the rebel army, he was given a salary of 125 pesos (dollars).

From June 12 to September 5, Che Guevara made his first foreign trip as an official, visiting Egypt (where he met and established friendly relations that lasted until the end of his life with Brazilian President Janio Cuadrus), Sudan, Pakistan, India, Ceylon, Burma, Indonesia , Japan, Yugoslavia, Morocco and Spain.

On October 7, he was appointed head of the department of industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), while maintaining the military post of head of the training department of the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

On February 5, 1960, at the opening of the Soviet exhibition of achievements in science, technology and culture, he participated in official negotiations for the first time and met with the USSR delegation headed by A. I. Mikoyan.

In May, his book Guerrilla Warfare was published in Havana. As a member of the top leadership of the "July 26 Movement" after its merger with the People's Socialist Party and the "Revolutionary Directorate of March 13" in the 2nd half of 1961, he entered the newly formed "United Revolutionary Organizations" (ORO) as a member of the National Leadership, Secretariat and Economic Commission ORO. After the transformation of the ORO into the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, he became a member of its National Leadership and Secretariat.

October 22 - December 19, at the head of a government delegation, visited the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China and North Korea, agreeing on long-term purchases of Cuban sugar and the provision of technical and financial assistance to Cuba. On November 7, he attended a military parade and a demonstration of workers in Moscow, standing on the Mausoleum.

On February 23, 1961, he was appointed Minister of Industry and part-time member of the Central Planning Council.

April 17, during the landing of anti-Castro forces on Playa Giron, he leads troops in the province of Pinar del Rio.

In August 1961, during negotiations with a representative of the American delegation during a visit to Uruguay, he offered to compensate American owners for the cost of property confiscated in Cuba, as well as to reduce revolutionary propaganda in Latin America in exchange for an end to the blockade and anti-Cuban actions.

During the second visit to the USSR in August 1962, he agreed on cooperation in the military field.

When ration cards were introduced in Cuba in 1962, Che insisted that his ration should not exceed the usual one received by ordinary citizens.

He took an active personal part in cutting reeds, unloading steamships, building industrial and residential buildings, and landscaping.

In August 1964 he received a diploma of "Shock Worker of Communist Labor" for the development of 240 hours of voluntary labor per quarter.

On December 11, 1964, he made a big anti-American speech at the XIX UN General Assembly.

Che Guevara believed that he could count on unlimited economic assistance from the "fraternal" countries. Che, being a minister of the revolutionary government, learned a lesson from conflicts with the fraternal countries of the socialist camp. Negotiating support, economic and military cooperation, discussing international politics with Chinese and Soviet leaders, he came to an unexpected conclusion and had the courage to speak out publicly in his famous Algerian speech. It was a real indictment against the non-internationalist policy of the socialist countries. He reproached them for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of trade similar to those dictated by imperialism in the world market, as well as for refusing unconditional support, including military support, for renouncing the struggle for national liberation, in particular, in the Congo and Vietnam.

Che was well aware of the famous equation: the less developed the economy, the greater the role of violence in the formation of a new formation. If in the early 1950s he playfully signs letters "Stalin II", then after the victory of the revolution he is forced to prove: "In Cuba there are no conditions for the formation of the Stalinist system."

At the same time, in 1965, Che called "a great Marxist."

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

The sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, Juanita, who knew Guevara closely, who later left for the United States, wrote about him in a biographical book. “Fidel and Raul, my brothers. Secret history": “Neither the trial nor the investigation mattered to him. He immediately began to shoot, because he was a man without a heart.

On March 14, 1965, the Comandante arrives from a long foreign trip to North America and Africa (Egypt) in Havana, and on April 1 he writes farewell letters to his parents and children (in particular, he wrote: “Your father was a man who acted according to his views and undoubtedly lived according to his convictions ... Always be able to feel most deeply any injustice committed anywhere in the world” and Fidel Castro, in which, among other things, he renounces Cuban citizenship and all posts and wrote that “my modest help is now required in other countries of the globe”.

In the spring of 1965 Che leaves Cuba heading off in an unknown direction.

Che Guevara's last letter to his parents:

“Dear old people!

Again I feel the ribs of Rocinante in my heels, again, dressed in armor, I set off.

About ten years ago I wrote you another farewell letter.

As far as I remember, then I regretted that I was not a better soldier and a better doctor; the second is no longer of interest to me, but the soldier turned out to be not so bad from me.

Basically, nothing has changed since then, except that I have become much more conscious, my Marxism has taken root in me and cleared up. I believe that armed struggle is the only way out for peoples fighting for their liberation, and I am consistent in my views. Many will call me an adventurer, and this is true. But I'm the only adventurer of a special kind, the kind who risk their own skin to prove their case.

Maybe I'll try to make it last. I am not looking for such an end, but it is possible, if logically based on the calculation of possibilities. And if that happens, accept my last embrace.

I loved you deeply, but I did not know how to express my love. I am too direct in my actions and I think that sometimes I was not understood. Besides, it was not easy to understand me, but this time - trust me. So, the determination, which I have cultivated with the passion of the artist, will make frail legs and tired lungs work. I'll get mine.

Remember sometimes this modest condottiere of the 20th century.

Kiss Celia, Roberto, Juan Martin and Pototin, Beatriz, everyone.

Your prodigal and incorrigible son Ernesto hugs you tightly".

In April 1965, Guevara arrived in the Republic of the Congo. where the fighting was going on at the time. He had high hopes for the Congo, he believed that the vast territory of this country, covered with jungles, would provide excellent opportunities for organizing a guerrilla war.

A total of about 150 Cuban volunteers, all blacks, participated in the operation. However, from the very beginning, the operation in the Congo was plagued by setbacks. Relations with local rebels led by the future (in 1997-2001) President Laurent-Desire Kabila were quite difficult, and Guevara did not have faith in the local leadership.

In the first battle on June 20, Cuban and rebel forces were defeated. Later, Guevara came to the conclusion that it was impossible to win the war with such allies, but still continued the operation. The final blow to the Congolese expedition of Guevara was dealt in October, when Joseph Kasavubu came to power in the Congo, who put forward initiatives to resolve the conflict. After Kasavubu's statements, Tanzania, which served as a rear base for the Cubans, stopped supporting them. Guevara had no choice but to stop the operation.

At the end of November, he returned to Tanzania and, while at the Cuban embassy, ​​prepared a diary of the Congo operation, which began with the words "This is a story of failure": “Organizational work is not carried out, middle-level cadres do nothing, do not know what they should do and do not inspire confidence in anyone ... Indiscipline and lack of selflessness are the main signs of these fighters. It is unthinkable to win the war with such troops... What could we do? All the Congolese leaders were on the run, the peasants became more and more hostile towards us. But the realization that we were leaving the area in the same way that brought us here, leaving defenseless peasants, was still overwhelming for us..

After Tanzania, from February to July 1966, Che was in Czechoslovakia with a changed appearance and under the name of Uruguayan citizen Ramon Benitez (initially for treatment of malaria and asthma in a closed sanatorium of the Ministry of Health of Czechoslovakia in the village of Kamenitsa, 30 km south of Prague, then for secret villa of the State Security Service of Czechoslovakia in the nearby village of Ladvi).

According to Fidel Castro, he did not want to return to Cuba, but Castro persuaded Che to secretly return to Cuba in order to begin preparations for creating a revolutionary center in Latin America.

He left Czechoslovakia on July 19, 1966, via Vienna, Zurich and Moscow, in the company of his Cuban associate Fernandez "Pacho" de Oca, posing as an Argentine businessman. In November 1966, his partisan struggle began in Bolivia.

Rumors about the whereabouts of Guevara did not stop in 1965-1967. Representatives of the Mozambican independence movement FRELIMO reported a meeting with Che in Dar es Salaam, during which they refused the assistance offered to him in their revolutionary project. The truth turned out to be rumors that Guevara led the guerrillas in Bolivia.

By order of Fidel Castro, in the spring of 1966, the Bolivian communists specially bought land to create bases where partisans were trained under the leadership of Guevara. Guevara's entourage as an agent included Hyde Tamara Bunke Bieder (also known by her nickname "Tanya"), a former Stasi agent who, according to some reports, also worked for the KGB and lived and worked in Cuba since 1961. René Barrientos, frightened by the news of the guerrillas in his country, turned to the CIA for help. Against Guevara, it was decided to use the CIA forces specially trained for anti-guerrilla operations.

On September 15, 1967, the Bolivian government began to scatter leaflets over the villages of the province of Vallegrande about a $4,200 bounty on Che Guevara's head.

Throughout his stay in Bolivia (11 months), Che kept a diary almost daily, in which he mainly paid attention to the shortcomings, mistakes, miscalculations and weaknesses of the partisans.

Guevara's partisan detachment consisted of about 50 people (of which 17 were Cubans, 14 of whom died in Bolivia, Bolivians, Peruvians, Chileans, Argentines) and acted as the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (Spanish: Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia). It was well equipped and had several successful operations against regular troops in the difficult mountainous terrain of the Camiri region.

However, in August - September, the Bolivian army was able to eliminate two groups of guerrillas, killing one of the leaders, "Joaquin".

Despite the brutal nature of the conflict, Guevara provided medical care to all the wounded Bolivian soldiers who were captured by the guerrillas, and later released them.

During his last fight in Quebrada del Yuro, Guevara was wounded, his rifle was hit by a bullet that disabled the weapon, and he shot all the cartridges from the pistol. When, unarmed and wounded, he was captured and led under escort to a school that served as a temporary prison for government troops for guerrillas, he saw several wounded Bolivian soldiers there. Guevara offered to provide them with medical assistance, which was refused by the Bolivian officer. Che himself received only an aspirin tablet.

Death of Che Guevara

“There was no man the CIA feared more than Che Guevara, because he had the capabilities and charisma necessary to direct the fight against political repression traditional power hierarchies in Latin America,” Philip Agee, CIA agent who fled to Cuba.

Who killed Che Guevara?

Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban refugee turned agent for the CIA's special operations unit, was an adviser to Bolivian troops during the hunt for Che Guevara in Bolivia. In addition, the 2007 documentary The Enemy of My Enemy, directed by Kevin McDonald, alleges that the Nazi criminal Klaus Barbier, known as the "Butcher of Lyon", was an adviser to and may have helped the CIA prepare the capture of Che Guevara.

On October 7, 1967, the informant Ciro Bustos gave the Bolivian special forces the location of the Che Guevara partisan detachment in the Quebrada del Yuro gorge (he, however, denies this).

On October 8, 1967, one of the local women told the army that she heard voices on the cascades of the river in the Quebrada del Yuro Gorge, closer to where it merges with the San Antonio River. It is not known whether this was the same woman who had previously been paid 50 pesos by Che's party to keep quiet (Rojo, 218). In the morning, several groups of Bolivian rangers scattered along the gorge, in which the woman heard Che's detachment, and took up advantageous positions (Harris, 126).

At noon, one of the detachments from General Prado's brigade, who had just finished training under the guidance of advisers from the CIA, fired on Che's detachment, killing two soldiers and wounding many (Harris, 127).

At 13:30, they surrounded the remnants of the detachment with 650 soldiers and captured the wounded Che Guevara at the moment when one of the Bolivian partisans Simeon Cuba Sarabia "Willy" tried to carry him away. Che Guevara's biographer John Lee Anderson wrote about the moment of Che's arrest according to the Bolivian sergeant Bernardino Juanca: twice wounded Che, whose weapon was broken, allegedly shouted: "Do not shoot! I'm Che Guevara, and I'm worth more alive than dead.".

Che Guevara and his people were tied up and on the evening of October 8 were escorted to a dilapidated adobe hut that served as a school in the nearby village of La Higuera. For the next half day, Che refused to answer the questions of the Bolivian officers and spoke only to the Bolivian soldiers.

One of these soldiers, helicopter pilot Jaime Nino de Guzmán, wrote that Che Guevara looked terrible.

According to Guzman, Che had a through wound in his right shin, his hair was covered in mud, his clothes were torn, and his legs were dressed in rough leather socks. Despite his tired appearance, Guzman recalls, "Che held his head up high, looked everyone straight in the eye and asked only for a smoke." Guzmán says that the prisoner "liked him" and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe.

Later that evening on October 8, despite his hands being tied, Che Guevara slammed the Bolivian officer Espinosa against the wall after he entered the school and tried to snatch the pipe from the smoking Che's mouth as a souvenir for himself.

In another case of defiance, Che Guevara spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche, who tried to question him hours before his execution. The night of October 8-9, Che Guevara spent on the floor of the same school. Next to him lay the bodies of two of his dead comrades.

On the morning of the next day, October 9, Che Guevara asked to be allowed to see the village school teacher, 22-year-old Julia Cortes. Cortez would later say that she found Che "a comely man with a soft, ironic look" and that during their conversation she realized that she "couldn't look him in the eye" because his "gaze was unbearable, piercing and so calm".

During the conversation, Che Guevara remarked to Cortes that the school was in poor condition, said that it was anti-pedagogical to educate poor schoolchildren in such conditions while government officials drive Mercedes, and stated: "That's exactly why we are fighting against it."

On the same day, October 9, at 12:30, an order from the high command from La Paz came over the radio. The message said: "Proceed to destroy Senor Guevara."

The order, signed by the President of the military government of Bolivia, René Barrientes Ortuño, was transmitted in encrypted form to CIA agent Felix Rodriguez. He entered the room and said to Che Guevara: "Comandante, I'm sorry." The execution order was passed despite the US government's desire to have Che Guevara transported to Panama for further interrogation.

The executioner volunteered to be Mario Teran, a 31-year-old sergeant in the Bolivian army, who personally wished to kill Che Guevara in revenge for his three friends killed in earlier battles with Che Guevara's detachment. To keep the wounds consistent with the story the Bolivian government planned to present to the public, Felix Rodriguez ordered Teran to aim carefully so that it looked like Guevara had been killed in action.

Gary Prado, the Bolivian general who commanded the army that captured Che Guevara, said that the reason for the execution of the Comandante was the great risk of his escape from prison, and that the execution canceled the trial, which would have drawn world attention to Che Guevara and Cuba. In addition, negative aspects for the Bolivian authorities of the cooperation of the President of Bolivia with the CIA and Nazi criminals could come up at the trial.

30 minutes before the execution, Felix Rodriguez tried to find out from Che where the other wanted rebels were, but he refused to answer. Rodriguez, with the help of other soldiers, got Che to his feet and led him out of the school to show the soldiers and take pictures with him. One of the soldiers filmed Che Guevara surrounded by soldiers of the Bolivian army. After that, Rodriguez took Che back to the school and told him quietly that he would be executed. Che Guevara responded by asking Rodriguez if he was a Mexican American or a Puerto Rican, making it clear that he knew why he did not speak Bolivian Spanish. Rodriguez replied that he was born in Cuba, but emigrated to the United States and this moment is a CIA agent. Che Guevara only grinned in response and refused to talk to him further.

A little later, a few minutes before the execution, one of the soldiers guarding Che asked him if he thought about his immortality. "No," replied Che, "I am thinking about the immortality of the revolution."

After this conversation, Sergeant Teran entered the hut and immediately ordered all the other soldiers to leave. One on one with Teran, Che Guevara said to the executioner: “I know you came to kill me. Shoot. Do this. Shoot me, coward! You will only kill a human!".

During Che's words, Teran hesitated, then started firing from his M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, hitting Che in the arms and legs. For a few seconds, Guevara writhed in pain on the ground, biting his hand to keep from screaming. Teran fired several more times, mortally wounding Che in the chest.

According to Rodriguez, Che Guevara's death occurred at 13:10 local time. Altogether, Teran fired nine bullets at Che: five in the legs, one each in the right shoulder, arm and chest, the last bullet hit the throat.

Dead Che Guevara

A month before the execution, Che Guevara wrote an epitaph for himself, in which were the words: "Even if death comes unexpectedly, let it be welcome, such that our battle cry can reach the ear that can hear, and the other hand would reach out to take our weapons".

The body of the shot Guevara was tied to the skids of a helicopter and taken to the nearby town of Vallegrande, where he was paraded to the press. After a military surgeon amputated and placed Che's hands in a jar of formalin (in order to confirm the identification of the victim's fingerprints), Bolivian army officers removed the body to an unknown destination and refused to say where it was buried.

On October 15, Fidel Castro announced the death of Guevara to the public. Guevara's death was recognized as a heavy blow to the socialist revolutionary movement in Latin America and throughout the world.

On July 1, 1995, in an interview with Che's biographer John Lee Anderson, Bolivian General Mario Vargas said that "he participated in the burial of Che and that the body of the Comandante and his friends was buried in a mass grave next to a dirt airstrip behind the mountain town of Vallegrande in Central Bolivia."

Anderson's article in the New York Times led to a two-year search for the partisans' remains.

In 1997, the remains of a body with amputated arms were exhumed from under the runway near Vallegrande. The body was identified as belonging to Guevara and returned to Cuba.

On October 16, 1997, the remains of Guevara and six of his comrades, who were killed during the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia, were reburied with military honors in a purpose-built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, where he won the decisive battle for the Cuban revolution.

Che Guevara family

Father - Ernesto Guevara Lynch (1900, Buenos Aires - 1987, Havana).

Mother - Celia de la Serna and Llosa (1908, Buenos Aires - 1965, Buenos Aires).

Sister - Celia (b.1929), architect.

Brother - Roberto (b.1932), lawyer.

Sister - Anna Maria (b.1934), architect.

Brother - Juan Martin (b.1943), designer.

First wife (1955-1959) - Peruvian Ilda Gadea (1925-1974), economist and revolutionary. The daughter Ilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea (1956, Mexico City - 1995, Havana) was born in marriage, her son, grandson Che, Kanek Sanchez Guevara (1974, Havana - 2015, Oaxaca, Mexico), writer and designer, Cuban dissident emigrated to Mexico in 1996 year.

Born in marriage:

daughter Aleida Guevara March (b.1960), pediatrician and political activist
son of Camilo Guevara March (b.1962), lawyer, member of the Cuban Fisheries Ministry
daughter Celia Guevara March (b.1963), veterinarian
son of Ernesto Guevara March (b.1965), lawyer.

Bibliography of Che Guevara

Che Guevara E Obras. 1957-1967. T.I-II. La Habana: Casa de las Americas, 1970. - (Collección nuestra America)
Che Guevara E. Escritos y discursos. T. 1-9. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977
Che Guevara E. Diario de uncombatiente
Che Guevara E. Articles, speeches, letters. Moscow: Cultural Revolution, 2006. ISBN 5-902764-06-8
Che Guevara E. "Episodes of the Revolutionary War" M .: Military Publishing House of the USSR Ministry of Defense, 1974
Che Guevara E. Diary of a motorcyclist. Translation from Spanish by V. V. Simonov. St. Petersburg: RedFish; Amphora, 2005. ISBN 5-483-00121-4
Che Guevara E. Diary of a motorcyclist. Translation from Spanish by A. Vedyushkin. Cherdantsevo (Sverdlovsk region): IE Klepikov M.V., 2005. ISBN 5-91007-001-0
Che Guevara E. Bolivian diary (unavailable link from 14-05-2013
Che Guevara E. Guerrilla War
Che Guevara E. Guerrilla warfare as a method
Che Guevara E. "Message to the peoples of the world sent to the Conference of three continents"
Che Guevara E. Cuba and the Kennedy Plan
Che Guevara E. Economic views Ernesto Che Guevara
Che Guevara E. Speech at the Second Afro-Asian Economic Conference
Che Guevara E. "Stone (Story)"
Che Guevara E. “Letter from Che Guevara to Fidel Castro. Havana, April 1, 1965"
Che Guevara E. Letter to Armando Hart Davalos
Che Guevara E. University reform and revolution.

Ernesto Che Guevara has been dead for over 40 years. His great contemporaries, such as Charles de Gaulle and Mao Zedong, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, took their places of honor in textbooks world history, and Che is still an idol… Why?

Who is Che Guevara?

Che Guevara - Latin American revolutionary, commander of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Full name Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Linch or in Spanish Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Linch.

To understand the unusual popularity of Che Guevara, one must delve into the biography of this Latin American revolutionary, popular for so many years. I tried to collect the most interesting and unusual facts from the life of Che Guevara.

1. The distant ancestor of Che's mother was General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, Viceroy of Peru.
2. Ernesto Che Guevara's childhood name was Tete, which means "pig" * is a diminutive of Ernesto.
He later received the nickname Borov:

“And of course Ernesto continued to play rugby with the Granado brothers. His friend Barral spoke of Guevara as the most gambler on the team, although he still always carried an inhaler with him to games.
It was then that he earned a rude nickname, which, however, he was very proud of:
“- They called me Borov.
- Because you were fat?
No, because I was dirty.
Fear of cold water, which sometimes caused asthma attacks, gave rise to Ernesto's dislike for personal hygiene. (Paco Ignacio Taibo)

3. For the first two years of school, Che Guevara could not attend school and studied at home, as he suffered from daily asthma attacks. The first attack of bronchial asthma happened to Ernesto Che Guevara at the age of two, and this disease haunted him until the end of his life.
4. Ernesto entered Dean Funes State College only at 30 and all because of the aforementioned asthma at 14 years old.
5. Che Guevara was born in Argentina, and became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, when the Cuban chess player Capablanca arrived in Buenos Aires. Ernesto was very passionate about chess.
6. Starting from the age of 4, Guevara became passionately interested in reading, since there was a library of several thousand books in the house of Che's parents.
7. Ernesto Che Guevara was very fond of poetry and even composed poetry himself.
8. Che was strong in the exact sciences, especially in mathematics, but chose the profession of a doctor.
9. Che Guevara in his youth was fond of football (however, like most boys in Argentina), rugby, horseback riding, golf, gliding and loved to travel by bike.
10. In the newspapers, the name of Che Guevara appeared for the first time not in connection with revolutionary events, and when he made a tour of four thousand kilometers on a moped, having traveled all over South America.
11. Che Guevara wanted to devote his life to treating lepers in South America, like Albert Schweitzer, whose authority he bowed to.
12. In the 40s, Ernesto even worked as a librarian.
13. On his first second trip to South America, Che Guevara and the doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granados (do you remember that Che wanted to devote his life to treating lepers?) earned money for food by doing odd jobs: they washed dishes in restaurants, treated peasants, or acted as veterinarians, repaired radios, worked as loaders, porters or sailors.
14. When Che and Alberto got to Brazil Colombia they were arrested for looking suspicious and tired. But the police chief, being a football fan familiar with Argentina's football success, released them after learning where they were from in exchange for a promise to coach the local football team. The team won the regional championship, and the fans bought them plane tickets to the Colombian capital, Bogotá.
15. In Colombia, Guevara and Granandos again went to jail, but they were released with a promise to leave Colombia immediately.
16. Ernesto Che Guevara, not wanting to serve in the army, caused an asthma attack with an ice bath and was declared unfit for military service. As you can see, they don’t want to serve in the army, not only in our country :)
17. Che was very interested in ancient cultures, read a lot about them and often visited the ruins of the Indians of ancient civilizations.
18. Being from a bourgeois family, he, having a medical degree in his hands, sought to work in the most backward areas, even for free, in order to treat ordinary people.
19. Ernesto once came to the conclusion that in order to be a successful and rich doctor, it is not necessary to be a privileged specialist, but to serve the ruling classes and invent useless medicines for imaginary patients. But Che believed that he was obliged to devote himself to improving the living conditions of the broad masses.
20. On June 17, 1954, the armed groups of Armas from Honduras invaded the territory of Guatemala, the executions of supporters of the Arbenz government and the bombing of the capital and other cities of Guatemala began. Ernesto Che Guevara asked to be sent to the fighting area and called for the creation of a militia.
21. “Compared to me, he was a more advanced revolutionary,” recalls Fidel Castro.
22. Che Guevara learned to smoke cigars in Cuba to ward off annoying mosquitoes.

23. Che did not shout at anyone, and did not allow mockery, but often used strong words in conversation, and was very sharp, "when necessary."
24. On June 5, 1957, Fidel Castro singled out a convoy led by Che Guevara consisting of 75 fighters. Che was awarded the rank of commandant (major). It should be noted that during the revolution in Cuba in 1956-1959, the commander was the highest rank among the rebels, who deliberately did not assign each other a higher military rank. The most famous commandantes are Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos.
25. As a Marxist, Ernesto Che Guevara reproached the "fraternal" socialist countries (USSR and China) for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of trade similar to those dictated by imperialism in the world market.
26. Che Guevara in the early 1950s jokingly signs the letters "Stalin II".
27. During his life, Che, leading partisan detachments, was wounded in battle 2 times. Che wrote to his parents after the second wound: “he used up two, five remained,” meaning that he, like a cat, had seven lives.
28. Ernesto Che Guevara was shot by Bolivian army sergeant Mario Teran, who pulled out a short straw in a dispute between soldiers for the honor of killing Che. The sergeant was ordered to fire carefully in order to simulate death in battle. This was done to avoid the accusation that Che was executed without trial or investigation.
29. After the death of Che, many Latin Americans began to consider him a saint and addressed him as “San Ernesto de La Higuera”.
30. Che is traditionally, with all monetary reforms, depicted on the front side of a banknote in denominations of three Cuban pesos.

31. The world-famous two-color portrait of Che Guevara full face, has become a symbol of the romantic revolutionary movement. The portrait was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick from a 1960 photograph taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda. Che's beret shows the asterisk José Marti, the hallmark of the Comandante, received from Fidel Castro in July 1957 along with this title.

32. The famous song "Hasta Siempre Comandante" ("Commandante forever"), contrary to popular belief, was written by Carlos Puebla before the death of Che Guevara, and not after.

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

* Many thanks for pointing out the inaccuracies in the text to Alexander, the author of the project about Che Guevara. I deliberately left the original text for the story crossed out as an edification that open sources do not always indicate the correct facts and they need to be verified.

You can buy T-shirts with Che Guevara, as well as badges, mugs, baseball caps by clicking on the banner below. High quality and affordable, I recommend!

(Spanish Ernesto Che Guevara; full name: Ernesto Rafael Guevara de La Serna; 1928 - 1967) - legendary revolutionary, Latin American statesman, known as " Commander of the Cuban Revolution"(Spanish Сomandante - "commander").

In addition to Latin America, Guevara also acted in the Republic of the Congo and other countries (complete data is still classified). The nickname "Che" emphasized his Argentine origin (the interjection "Che" is a very common appeal in).

In 2000, Time magazine included Che Guevara in the lists of "20 Heroes and Icons" and "Heroes and Idols of the 20th Century." (Eng. TIME 100: Heroes & Icons of the 20th Century).

In 2013 (the 85th anniversary of Che's birth), his manuscripts were included in the UNESCO documentary heritage as part of the Memory of the World program.

Childhood and youth

E. Guevara was born on 06/14/1928 in (Argentina) in the family of architect Ernesto Guevara Lynch (1900 - 1987) and Celia De La Serna. Ernesto's parents were Argentine Creoles, while his father's was Irish and Californian Creoles.

Having married, Celia inherited a yerba mate plantation in the northeast of Argentina, in the province of Misiones (Spanish: Misiones). In an effort to improve the lives of the workers, her husband angered local planters, and the family was forced to move to Rosario, setting up a small yerba mate processing factory there. There the future legendary Che was born.

In addition to Ernesto (in childhood he was affectionately called Tete, in the photo is a boy in a shirt), the family had four younger children: sisters Celia and Anna Maria, brothers Roberto and Juan Martin. Parents gave higher education to all children: daughters became architects, Roberto became a lawyer, and Juan Martin became a designer.

In 1930, 2-year-old Tete suffered a severe attack of bronchial asthma, and subsequently asthma attacks haunted him all his life. For the sake of restoring the health of the first-born, the family, having sold the estate, acquired “Villa Nydia” (Spanish: Villa Nydia) in the province of Cordoba (Spanish: Cordoba), moving to a region with a healthier mountain climate (2 thousand meters above sea level). His father worked as a building contractor, and his mother took care of a sick boy. With the change in climate, the baby's well-being did not improve, so Ernesto had difficulty in every word he uttered.

For the first 2 years, Ernesto studied at home due to daily attacks, then he studied at a high school in Alta Gracia (Spanish: Alta Gracia). Having learned to read at the age of 4, Ernesto was passionate about reading, this love lasted all his life. The boy enthusiastically read the works of Marx, Engels, Freud, which were in abundance in his father's library (in parental home There was a rich library - several thousand books). The young man also adored poetry, even wrote poetry himself, later collected works of Che Guevara (2 and 9 volumes) were published in Cuba. At the age of 10, Ernesto became interested in chess, and first became interested in Cuba when Capablanca, a famous Cuban chess player, arrived in.

Despite his illness, Tete was seriously involved in rugby, football, was fond of equestrian sports, golf, gliding, and also loved cycling.

At the age of 13, Ernesto entered the State College. Dean Funes (Spanish: Dean Funes) of the city, graduating in 1945, then entered the medical faculty of the University of Buenos Aires.

In his youth, Ernesto was deeply impressed by Spanish emigrants who fled to Argentina from repression during the civil war, as well as a chain of political crises in his native country, the apotheosis of which was the establishment of the “left-fascist” dictatorship of J. Peron. Events like these completely cemented in the young man the contempt for parliamentary games, hatred for military dictators and the army, which is a means to achieve dirty political goals, but most of all, for American imperialism, which is ready to commit any crime for the sake of money.

The formation of political views

The outbreak of civil war in Spain caused a huge public outcry in Argentina. Ernesto's parents were ardent opponents of the regime: his father was in an organization acting against the dictatorship of Peron, and Celia was arrested more than once for participating in anti-government demonstrations in Cordoba. They even made bombs for demonstrators in their house.

Ernesto himself, while studying at the University, was very little interested in politics, he wanted to become a doctor, dreaming of alleviating human suffering. At first, the young man was only interested in diseases of the respiratory tract, because it was closest to him, but later he became interested in one of the most terrible ailments of mankind - leprosy (leprosy).

At the end of 1948, Ernesto made his first big bicycle trip through the northern provinces of Argentina, during which he sought to get better acquainted with the life of the poorest segments of the population and the remnants of indigenous Indian tribes, doomed by the then political regime to extinction. On this trip, he realized that the whole society in which he lived needed treatment, and realized his impotence in this matter as a physician.

In 1951, after passing the exams, Ernesto, together with his friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist doctor, went on a longer trip. Friends stayed for the night in the field or in the forest, earning their livelihood with all sorts of odd jobs. Young people visited southern Argentina (according to some reports, Guevara met there), Florida and Miami.

In Peru, travelers got acquainted with life and, mercilessly exploited by landowners and drowning hunger with coca leaves. In the city of Ernesto, in the local library, he read books about. Friends spent several days on the ruins of the ancient city of the Incas in Peru, in all countries they visited leper colonies, took a lot of pictures and kept diaries.

Upon returning from a 7-month trip, in August 1952, Ernesto firmly decided on the main goal of his life: to alleviate the suffering of people. He immediately began to prepare for the exams and proceeded to the thesis. In March 1953, Ernesto Guevara received his diploma as a surgeon, a specialist in skin diseases. Avoiding military service, he caused an asthma attack by taking an ice bath and was declared unfit for military service. With a brand new diploma in dermatology, Ernesto decided to devote himself to the work of a practicing doctor for 10 years and went to the Venezuelan leper colony in. Passionately fond of archeology, interested in the stories of friends about the ancient architectural monuments of the Mayan civilization and the revolutionary events taking place in Guatemala, Guevara and like-minded people hastily headed there (his travel notes about the ancient monuments of the Maya and the Incas were written there).

In Guatemala, Guevara worked as a doctor during the reign of the Socialist President Árbenz.

Sharing Marxist beliefs and thoroughly studying the works of Lenin, Ernesto, however, did not join the Communist Party, fearing to lose his position as a medical worker. Then he was friends with Ilda Gadea (a Marxist Indian school), who later became his wife, who introduced Ernesto to Lieutenant Antonio Lopez Fernandez (Nico), the closest supporter of Fidel Castro.

On June 17, 1954, armed groups of Castillo Armas (Spanish: Carlos Castillo Armas; President of Guatemala from 1954 to 1957) invaded Guatemala from Honduras, carrying out executions of supporters of the Arbenz government. The bombing of the cities of Guatemala began. Together with other members of the organization "Patriotic Youth of Labor", Ernesto served as a guard during the bombings, participated in the transport of weapons, risking his life. Guevara was on the list of "dangerous communists" to be eliminated after the overthrow of Arbenz. The Argentine ambassador offered him asylum at the embassy, ​​where Che took refuge with a group of supporters of Arbenz, and after his overthrow (not without the active support of the American special services), Ernesto left the country and moved to Mexico City, where from September 1954 he worked in the city hospital.

"Comandante" of the Cuban Revolution

At the end of June 1955, Cuban revolutionaries gathered in Mexico City and began preparing an expedition to Cuba, while Fidel Castro in the United States raised funds for it among Cuban emigrants.

On July 9, 1955, Fidel and Che met in a safe house where the forthcoming hostilities in Orient were discussed. Fidel said that Che "was the most mature and advanced revolutionary among others." Soon Ernesto, who was impressed by Castro as an "exceptional man", did not hesitate to join the emerging detachment as a doctor. The expedition was preparing for a serious struggle in the name of the liberation of the Cuban people.

Nickname " Che“, which Guevara was proud of until the end of his life, he found it in this detachment for the typical for a native of Argentina, the manner of using this exclamation when talking.

Ernesto Che Guevara first served as a doctor in the detachment, and then led one of the brigades, receiving the highest rank of "comandante" (major).

He coached the group, taught them how to do injections and dressings, how to apply splints. Soon the rebel camp was dispersed by the police. On June 22, 1956, Fidel Castro was arrested in Mexico City, then, as a result of an ambush set up in a safe house, Che and a group of comrades were also arrested. Guevara spent about 2 months in prison. Fidel was preparing to sail to Cuba.

On a stormy night on November 25, 1956, in Tuspan, a detachment of 82 people boarded the Granma ship, which headed for Cuba. Arriving on Cuban shores on December 2, 1956, the Granma ran aground. The fighters reached the shore up to their shoulders in the water, boats and planes subordinate to Batista rushed to the landing site, and Castro's detachment came under fire from 35 thousand armed soldiers, tanks, coast guard ships, 10 warships, several fighters. The group made their way through the mangroves of the marshy coast for a long time. Che bandaged his comrades, whose legs were worn to the blood from a hard campaign. Under the fire of enemy aircraft, almost half of the fighters of the detachment were killed and many were captured.

Fidel said, addressing the survivors: "The enemy will not be able to destroy us, we will fight and still win this war." Cuban peasants sympathized with the members of the detachment, feeding them and sheltering them in their homes.

The disease periodically choked Che, but he stubbornly walked through the mountains in full gear. An ardent devotion to revolutionary ideas gave strength to a hardy fighter with an iron will.

In the mountains of the Sierra Maestra (Spanish: Sierra Maestra), Guevara, who suffered from asthma, sometimes rested up in peasant huts so as not to delay the advance of the column. He never parted with books, a pen and a notebook for a second, he read a lot, sacrificing minutes of sleep in order to make another entry in his diary.

On March 13, 1957, the student organization of Havana started an uprising in an attempt to take over the university, the radio station, and the Presidential Palace. Most of the rebels died in clashes with the government army. In mid-March, Frank Pais (Spanish Frank Isaac País Garcia, 1934 - 1957), a Cuban revolutionary, organizer of the underground movement, sent reinforcements from 50 citizens to Fidel Castro. The replenishment was not ready for long hikes in the mountains, so it was decided to start training volunteers. To the squad barbudos» Fidel (Spanish: Barbudos – “bearded people”), who grew beards in field conditions, volunteers joined, and Cuban emigrants delivered weapons, money, food and medicine to them.

Che proved himself to be a talented, resolute, courageous and successful brigade commander. Demanding, but fair to the soldiers subordinate to him and merciless to the enemies, Ernesto Guevara won several victories over parts of the government army. The battle for the city of Santa Clara (Spanish: Santa Clara), an important strategic point near Havana, predetermined the victory of the Cuban revolution. The battle, which began on December 28, 1958, ended on December 31 with the capture of the capital of Cuba - the Revolution won, the revolutionary army entered Havana.

Rise to power in Cuba

With the coming to power of F. Castro, persecution of his political opponents began in Cuba. In Santiago de Cuba, after being occupied by the rebels, on January 12, 1959, a show trial was held over 72 policemen and other persons accused of "war crimes". All were shot. The “Partisan Law” canceled all legal guarantees in relation to the accused, “Che” personally instructed the judges: “They are all a gang of criminals, and we must act in accordance with our convictions, not arranging red tape with trials.” Ernesto Che Guevara led the Appeal Tribunal and, being the commandant of the prison, personally ordered executions in the Havana prison fortress of La Cabana (Spanish: La Cabana, full name: Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana). After the adherents of F. Castro came to power in Cuba, more than 8 thousand people were shot.

Che, the second person (after Fidel) in the new government, was given Cuban citizenship in February 1959, entrusting the most important government posts: Guevara headed the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, achieving a significant increase in its effectiveness; served as Minister of Industry; served as President of the National Bank of Cuba. Che, who had no experience in the field of public administration and economics, in the shortest possible time studied and established affairs in the areas entrusted to him.

In 1959, after visiting Japan, Egypt, India, Pakistan and Yugoslavia, Guevara entered into a historic agreement with the USSR to import oil and export sugar, ending the dependence of the Cuban economy on the United States. Later, when he visited the Soviet Union, he was impressed by the successes achieved there in building socialism, however, he did not fully approve of the policy pursued by the then leadership, even then seeing a rollback to imperialism. As it turned out, Che was largely right.

Ernesto Che Guevara - Bfather and inspirer of the world revolutionary movement

Che was fascinated by the revolutionary movement all over the world, he wanted to be his ideological inspirer. To do this, he attended a meeting of the UN General Assembly; became the initiator of the Conference of 3 Continents, designed to implement the program of liberation cooperation in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America; published books on the tactics of guerrilla warfare and the revolutionary struggle in Cuba.

In the end, for the sake of the world revolution, Ernesto Che Guevara abandoned everything else, and in 1965, having left all government posts, renouncing Cuban citizenship, having written a few lines to his relatives, he disappeared from public life. Then there were many rumors about his fate: they said that he was either in a lunatic asylum somewhere in the Russian outback, or died somewhere in Latin America.

But in the spring of 1965, Guevara arrived in the Republic of the Congo, where the fighting was then taking place. Che had high hopes for the Congo, he believed that vast territories covered with jungles had excellent opportunities for organizing a guerrilla war. More than 100 Cuban volunteers participated in the military operation. But from the very beginning, the enterprise in the Congo was plagued by failures. In several battles, the rebel forces were defeated. Guevara was forced to stop acting and leave for the Cuban embassy in Tanzania. His diary of those events in the Congo begins: "This is a story of complete failure."

After Tanzania, the Comandante went to Eastern Europe, but Castro persuaded him to secretly return to Cuba to prepare for the creation of a revolutionary center in Latin America. In 1966, Che led the Bolivian guerrilla war.

The Bolivian communists bought land specifically for the organization of bases, where Guevara led the training of the guerrillas. In April 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara secretly made his way into the territory with a small detachment, scoring several victories over government troops. Alarmed by the appearance of "furious Che" and partisans in his country, Bolivian President Rene Barientos (Spanish Rene Barrientos) turned to the American intelligence services for help. Against Che Guevara, it was decided to use the forces of the CIA.

The Comandante guerrilla detachment, numbering almost 50 people, acted as the Bolivian National Liberation Army (Spanish: Ejercito de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia). In September 1967, by order of the government in Bolivia, leaflets were scattered about the issuance of a bonus for the head of a revolutionary in the amount of $ 4,200.

Perhaps at that time there was no person whom the CIA feared more than Che, who had incredible charisma and was obsessed with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200brevolution in Latin America.

Captivity and execution

On October 7, 1967, the Bolivian special military units, controlled by the CIA, learned from informants about the location of the Che detachment - the Quebrada del Yuro gorge (Spanish: Quebrada del Yuro) near.

With the help of the most modern American reconnaissance equipment, they located and surrounded the partisan detachment in the vicinity of the village of Vallegrande (Spanish: Vallegrande). When trying to break through the encirclement, a bullet hit Che's weapon, the unarmed commander was wounded and captured on October 8.

Jon Lee Anderson, an American journalist and biographer of Che Guevara, described his arrest as follows: a wounded Che, whom one of the partisans tried to carry away on himself, shouted: “Don't shoot! I, Ernesto Che Guevara, I am worth more alive than dead.”

The guerrillas were tied up and escorted to an adobe hut in the nearby village of La Higuera (Spanish: La Higuera, "The Fig Tree"). According to one of the guards, Che, wounded twice in the leg, tired, covered in mud, in torn clothes, looked terrible. However, he "holds his head high without lowering his eyes." Bolivian Rear Admiral Horacio Ugarteche, who interrogated him right before his execution, "Che" spat in the face. The night of October 8-9, Che Guevara spent on the clay floor of the hut, next to the bodies of 2 killed partisans.

On October 9, at 12:30, an order came from the command: "Destroy Senor Guevara." Che's executioner volunteered to be a certain Mario Teran (Spanish: Mario Teran), a 31-year-old Bolivian army sergeant who wished to avenge his friends killed in battles with Guevara's detachment. Teran was ordered to aim carefully and make it look like Che had been killed in action.

30 min. before the execution, F. Rodriguez (CIA officer, colonel of the US Armed Forces) asked Che where the other rebels were, but he refused to answer. The prisoner was taken out of the house so that the Bolivian soldiers could take pictures with him. A few minutes before the execution, one of the guards asked Che if he thought about the immortality of his soul, to which he replied: "I only think about the immortality of the revolution." Then he said to Teran: "Shoot me, coward! Know that you will only kill a man!” The executioner hesitated, then fired 9 times. Che Guevara's heart stopped at 13:10 local time.

The body of the legendary Che was tied to the skids of a helicopter and thus taken to Vallegrande, where it was put on public display. After a military surgeon amputated Che's hands, on October 11, 1967, soldiers of the Bolivian army secretly buried the bodies of Guevara and 6 of his associates, carefully hiding the burial place. On October 15, F. Castro informed the world about Che's death, which was a heavy blow to the world revolutionary movement. Local residents began to consider Guevara a saint, turning to him in prayer with the words: "San Ernesto de La Higuera."

The fear of enemies before Che (even before the dead) was so great that the house where the commandant was shot was razed to the ground.

In the summer of 1995, the tomb of the legendary Che was discovered near the airport in Vallegrande. But only in June 1997, Cuban and Argentine scientists managed to find and identify the remains of Che Guevara, who were transported to Cuba and buried with magnificent honors on October 17, 1997 in the mausoleum of Santa Clara (Spanish: Santa Clara).

The Latin American revolution is the goal that Ernesto Che Guevara set for himself. For your own great purpose he sacrificed his family, friends, associates. The greatest romantic, Che was sure that it should be started by a person who was familiar with the intricacies of the conduct of guerrilla warfare. Che did not see a more suitable candidate than himself.

Che considered himself a soldier of the world revolution, in the necessity of which he always sincerely believed. Guevara longed for the happiness of the peoples of Latin America and strove for the triumph of social justice in his native continent. In his last letter, he wrote to his children: "Your father was a man who lived according to his convictions and always acted according to his conscience and his views."

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Ernesto Che Guevara passed away when he was not even forty years old. But no one is able to imagine him as a gray-haired old man. He remained forever full of revolutionary energy, looking to the future as a young and rebellious partisan leader - "commandante Che Guevara" - a symbol of the struggle for freedom and social justice.

Unfortunately, in Lately the personality of Che Guevara is mentioned less and less by our media, and in history books (and even then, not in all) it is written only in passing. This is not surprising, the current generation has other heroes from the category of "self-made man", now understood as a "successful businessman" or "show business star", in honor. And the very concepts of heroism, service to the idea of ​​social justice, along with the triumph of liberal ideology and its forcible planting, somehow faded and depreciated. Once again, I emphasize, unfortunately!
It was this that prompted me to write a relatively short historical and biographical essay on Commandant Ernesto Che Guevara in order to recall what a Personality really is. Perhaps, this essay will seem to someone too panegyric. Well, I won't argue with that. Comandante Che and the story of his life for me and in fact are the subject of admiration. And of which I am absolutely sure that as an idol it is much better to have Ernesto Che Guevara than some, for example, Justin Bieber.

FORMATION OF PERSONALITY

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is widely known by his revolutionary nickname "Che". Dozens of books have been written about him, thousands of articles by both his admirers and opponents in different countries peace. Almost half a century after his death (October 9, 1967 in Bolivia), the "heroic partisan", as he is called in Latin America, became a legend of the revolutionary liberation movement in all parts of the world, an idol for several generations of young people.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, according to official figures, was born on June 14, 1928 in the Argentine city of Rossario, in fact, he was born a month earlier - on May 14. And the first date was put on the birth certificate in order to hide from the then swaggering society to which his parents belonged, the architect Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Senra, the fact that the bride went down the aisle while pregnant. Ernesto was born not in the capital Buenos Aires, where his parents got married, but in the provincial Rossario, where their long honeymoon ended.

Ernesto's family (besides him there were four more children) had a good income, although by the time of the birth of the first-born, only memories, a good house and an excellent library remained from the wealth of eminent ancestors. Parents adhered to democratic, anti-fascist views, actively supported the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War and when thousands of them were in exile in Argentina. These freedom-loving ideas were assimilated by their children.

Ernesto, or Tete, as he was called in childhood and adolescence, in 1953 became a certified doctor, a dermatological surgeon. In his veins flowed the blood of Spanish conquistadors and grandees, Irish rebels. Among his ancestors were the viceroy of Peru, military generals. If genetics is of any importance in the formation of the human personality, then Ernesto Guevara was all right with this.

Ernesto Guevara - student at the University of Buenos Aires (1951)

From his youth, Guevara was drawn to travel, knowledge of the world. This was combined in him with complete indifference to everyday life, petty-bourgeois conventions and an extremely heightened sense of social justice. Having been ill at an early age with severe pneumonia, he remained an asthmatic for the rest of his life. With this disease he had to fight constantly. And he courageously resisted him, which tempered his character. He always treated difficulties stoically, he wrote about his misadventures in diaries and letters to relatives and friends with a sense of humor. He knew what pain was. He knew how to appreciate life and its small and big pleasures. Never remained indifferent to someone else's pain.

The disease made him a "white ticket", it seemed that he was ordered to fight the path that his famous ancestors walked. But fate decreed otherwise. Thanks to his diligence, self-discipline, ability to maintain self-control at the most critical moments, acquired knowledge and natural military talent, he managed to accomplish military feats. And many of his eminent ancestors got their place in history precisely as relatives of the world famous Che.

Since childhood, Ernesto has been addicted to reading. A large family library contained several thousand volumes (classics - from Spanish to Russian, books on history, philosophy, psychology, art, works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kropotkin, Bakunin and other authors). In addition to his native Spanish, with the help of his mother, he mastered French, and at school and at

University has mastered English well. This opened up to him a vast world of Spanish, French and English literature.

He passed everything he read through his soul, critically comprehended, almost always made notes. He kept a diary in which he recorded not only what he saw, but also thoughts and ideas. He did not part with books and a diary even during partisan campaigns. A backpack with them was his constant companion until the last day of his life.

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE

In 1953 - 1956, Ernesto Guevara visited many countries in Latin America. Some he visited as a ship's doctor, others he rode a moped, sailed with a friend on a makeshift raft along the Amazon and its tributaries. He worked in a leper colony in the Peruvian selva. After everything he saw - social injustice, the wild poverty of the bulk of the population in Latin America - he was drawn to where the revolutionary struggle was unfolding.

He traveled to Bolivia, and then to Guatemala, where in the early 1950s. there were revolutions and where the people then (for a number of reasons) could not defend the social gains. From there, in September 1954, he arrived in Mexico, where it was difficult to get a job in his specialty, so he interrupted by odd jobs, photographed, and wrote articles. From the comprehension of what he saw, practical conclusions were drawn.

Love and revolutionary struggle intertwined in the life of Ernesto Guevara in a natural way. There were three bright women in his life - the Peruvian Ilda Gadea, the Cuban peasant woman from the Sierra Maestra Soila Rodriguez and the participant in the rebel war Aleila March. The official marriage with the latter was the most durable and lasted from June 2, 1959 until Che's death. Ernesto Guevara had five children: a daughter, Hilda-Beatrice, from her first marriage, two daughters, Aleida and Celia, and two sons, Camilo and Ernesto, from the latter. All three women, despite the fact that their family life with Che was short-lived, retained the warmest memories of him as a man and a person.

In Mexico, Ernesto met the Cuban revolutionaries who immigrated there, who were preparing to continue the struggle. One of them, a participant in the assault on the Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, Antonio Lopez Fernandez (Nyiko), he knew from Guatemala. When they met in Mexico City in July 1955, he brought him together with Raul Castro, a member of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba (PNS) and an active participant in the assault on the Moncada barracks.

Raul Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara in 1958

Soon he met Fidel Castro, who was preparing an armed expedition to Cuba. Ernesto, after a conversation with Fidel, decided to participate in the expedition as a doctor.

PREPARATION FOR A MILITARY EXPEDITION TO CUBA

The Castro brothers in the very first days after meeting Ernesto gave him that very famous nickname - Che, with which he never parted. This happened because Ernesto often used the Italian-Argentine exclamation "che", expressing admiration and surprise.
Interestingly, Che and Raul Castro were the first to join the expedition. At that moment, they still had no ship, no weapons, no money with which they could be purchased. At the call of Fidel Castro, supporters of the "July 26 Movement" created by him in May 1955 (after his release from prison) only began to come to Mexico one after another at the call of Fidel Castro.

In January 1956, Ernesto joined the military training of the battle group, which was led by a member of the Spanish Civil War, former Republican Army Colonel Albert Baio. The 63-year-old Spanish officer, who had vast combat experience, managed to compress the three-year program of a classical military school to six months. This was achieved through exceptional organization, discipline and intensity of theoretical and combat training. Ernesto Guevara was the first to study and practice. Six months later, Che became, according to A. Bayo, the best fighter among his cadets. His skills as a climber and hang glider, experience of long journeys along the broken roads of the Latin American hinterland and selva, good knowledge of geography and topography, as well as the ability to navigate the terrain, came in handy here.

At the end of June 1956, when the preparations for the expedition were in full swing, members of the Mexican secret police, on a tip from agents of the Cuban dictator Batista, arrested 23 expeditionaries. Fidel Castro was one of the first to be detained. According to the stories of Raul Castro, a curious incident occurred at the Santa Rosa ranch, where combat training was held. At the time of the capture of the ranch by the police, Che was sitting high on a tree, from where he corrected the fire of his comrades with binoculars in his hands. From above, he watched the entire procedure of arrest and search, being unable to help his friends, he himself remained unnoticed. But when the arrested were led to the police cars, he shouted from the tree: "Hey, you, wait, there's another one!" With these words, he jumped down and joined his comrades, whom he did not want to leave in trouble.

In defense of the Cuban revolutionaries, many influential political figures in Mexico, led by the country's former president Lazaro Cardenas, spoke out. After 22 days of detention, they were released.

Another interesting episode in Che's life also belongs to the mentioned arrest, when, contrary to the strict instructions of Fidel Castro, during interrogation by the Mexican police, he answered in the affirmative to the question "Are there any Marxists here?" Then he explained to Fidel that he "couldn't lie."

REBELLION COMBAT

On December 2, 1956, the revolutionaries landed from the Granma motor yacht on the swampy coast of southeastern Cuba, a few tens of kilometers from the Sierra Maestra mountain range.

Cuban "Aurora" - yacht "Granma"

Che was one of 17 people out of 82 expeditionaries who were lucky after the first skirmishes with government troops to stay alive, not to be taken prisoner and to reach impregnable mountainous regions led by Fidel. With this detachment, the creation of the Insurgent Army began. Che showed himself to be an outstanding commander. On July 5, 1957, he was appointed by F. Castro as commander of the first separate column of the Rebel Army, which received operational independence. He was the first to be awarded the highest rank among the rebels - commandant.

Comandante Che in the Sierra Maestra (1957)

At the end of August 1958, Fidel Castro sent two "invasion" columns to the west of the country. One of them was commanded by Che Guevara, the second was led by Camilo Cienfuegos - two legendary rebel commanders.

Camilo Cienfuegos and Fidel Castro (1959)

In the Che column, which began to break through to the west on August 31, there were at first only 140 people. Descending from the mountains to the plains was not an easy test for the partisans. They had to overcome the psychological barrier and fight with the enemy outnumbered in the open field. In September and early October, Che's column fought through the savannah and swamps of the provinces of Oriente, Camagüey and Villa Clara. On October 16, after a 47-day transition, she reached the Escambray mountain range, located in the western part of the country, 300 km from Havana. Here the column was replenished with several hundred fighters from the battle groups created by the local organizations of the July 26 Movement and the NSP. Within two months, Che Guevara, having regrouped the forces under his command, began an active military campaign against government troops.
On January 2, 1959, the advanced columns of the Rebel Army under the command of Enresto Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, on the orders of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, entered Havana.

Che Guevara in June 1959 in Cuba

For services to the new Cuba, on February 7, 1959, the revolutionary government granted Che Guevara Cuban citizenship. Soon he was approved as head of the industrialization department, then he served as minister of heavy industry and director of the National Bank of Cuba. These appointments were due to his previous activities in the territories liberated by the rebels, since during the rebel war Che Guevara demonstrated not only his talent as a partisan commander, but also his great organizing abilities as a business executive. Che also played a big role in the process of uniting all revolutionary organizations, which ended with the creation of a new, unified Communist Party of Cuba.

Che Guevara in Moscow (1964)

But the soul of a true romantic revolutionary demanded the continuation of the revolutionary struggle. And despite the fact that the personality of Ernesto Che Guevara in Cuba was no less popular than Fidel Castro himself (and it is possible that this is also why), Che decided to leave the "Island of Freedom" so that, as he explained in his farewell letter, to continue the fight against "imperialism wherever it exists."

On March 31, 1965, Che left Havana for the Congo (Zaire), where he spent seven months at the request of the Congolese insurgency, fighting against the Mabuto dictatorship. He then continued the liberation struggle in Bolivia.

Che Guevara in Bolivia (1967)

In October 1967, Che Guevara's detachment was surrounded by special units of the Bolivian army, Guevara himself was wounded and captured. The next day after the capture and brutal interrogation, on October 9, the frantic Che was shot.

Only 30 years later, in June 1997, Argentine and Cuban scientists managed to find and identify the remains of the legendary Comandante. They were transported to Cuba and on October 17, 1997 they were buried with honors in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara.

Thank you for attention.
Sergei Vorobyov.