Che Guevara biography. Ernesto Che Guevara: "Soldier of the World Revolution"

On June 14, 1928, the future symbol of the revolution, Comandante Che Guevara, one of the most controversial famous personalities of the past century.

Ernesto Rafael Guevara Lynch de la Serna appeared in a family of aristocrats, lived a bright, but short life, and after his death he became a human icon, a symbol of struggle and protest. At the same time, most young people who adorn themselves with a portrait of Che have difficulty imagining what kind of person he was, what ideas he professed and who he fought against.

For the birthday of the legendary revolutionary, we present rare archival photographs And Interesting Facts from the life of Comrade Che.

Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 in the Argentine city of Rosario, in the family of the architect Ernesto Guevara Lynch (1900–1987). Both Ernesto Che Guevara's father and mother were Argentine Creoles, and his ancestors included Irish and California Creoles. On his mother's side, Che was a descendant of the last Viceroy of Peru.

Pictured left: Ernesto Che Guevara in the arms of his mother Celia de la Serna, 1928. Right: Ernesto Che Guevara at the age of five in the Alta Gracia mountains with his sister Celia.

At the age of two, Ernesto suffered a severe form of bronchial asthma and this disease haunted him all his life. To restore his health, the family moved to the Argentine province of Cordoba.

For the first two years, Ernesto was unable to attend school and was homeschooled (he learned to read at age four) because he suffered from daily asthma attacks. After that, he underwent training intermittently due to health conditions high school in Alta Gracia. In addition to Ernesto, whose childhood name was Tete, a diminutive of Ernesto, the family had four more children: Celia, Roberto, Anna Maria and Juan Martin. All children received higher education.

In his youth, Che Guevara was fond of football (like most boys in Argentina), rugby, equestrianism, golf, gliding and loved to travel by bicycle. From the age of four, Guevara became passionate about reading; fortunately, in the house of Che’s parents there was a library of several thousand books. Ernesto Che Guevara was very fond of poetry and even composed poems himself. Che Guevara was born in Argentina, and became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, when Cuban chess player Capablanca came to Buenos Aires. Ernesto was very passionate about chess.

Ernesto was strong in exact sciences, especially in mathematics, but chose the profession of a doctor. Che Guevara wanted to devote his life to treating lepers in South America, like Albert Schweitzer, whose authority he bowed to. In 1945, he graduated from college and entered the medical faculty of the University of Buenos Aires.

In 1950, already a student, Ernesto became a sailor on an oil cargo ship from Argentina and visited the island of Trinidad and British Guiana. Afterwards, he traveled on a moped, which was provided to him by Mikron for advertising purposes, with partial coverage of the travel expenses.

Since childhood, Ernesto Che Guevara wanted to devote his life to treating lepers in South America. While traveling around South America with doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granados, they earned their living by doing odd jobs: washing dishes in restaurants, treating peasants, or acting as veterinarians. When Che and Alberto reached Colombia, they were arrested for looking suspicious and tired.

But the police chief, being a football fan familiar with Argentina's football successes, 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 fans bought them plane tickets to the capital of Colombia, Bogota. In the photo: the “Mambo Tango” raft, which was donated to Ernesto Che Guevara and Alberto Granado by patients of the San Pablo leper colony.

From 1953 to 1954, Guevara made his second long trip to Latin America. He visited Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and El Salvador. In Guatemala, he took part in the defense of the government of President Arbenz, after whose defeat he settled in Mexico, where he worked as a doctor. During this period of his life, Ernesto Guevara received his nickname Che for the characteristic Argentine Spanish interjection Che, which he abused in oral speech.

During his second big trip around Latin America in 1955 in Mexico, Che Guevara met. After this meeting, Che Guevara threw away all his medical work and realized that his destiny was revolution. He joined Castro and the revolutionary movement and soon joined his revolutionary squad. In December 1956, a group of 82 revolutionaries arrived on the coast of Cuba in the province of Oriente and launched an attack against the Batista regime.

On June 5, 1957, Fidel Castro allocated a column led by Che Guevara consisting of 75 fighters. Che was awarded the rank of commandante (major). During the Cuban revolution of 1956-1959, comandante was the highest rank among the rebels, who deliberately did not assign higher military ranks to each other. The most famous comandantes are Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos.

During his life, Che, leading partisan detachments, was wounded in battle twice. He wrote to his parents after the second wound: “Used two, five left,” meaning that he, like a cat, had seven lives.

In November 1958, Guevara led a guerrilla attack in the province of Oriente against government troops; in December, Guevara's column captured a strategic point in the province - the city of Santa Clara in the center of Cuba. In 1959, Batista fled the country, which came under the control of the revolutionaries.

Since Fidel Castro came to power, repressions against his political opponents began in Cuba. After the rebels occupied the city of Santiago de Cuba on January 12, 1959, a show trial was held there of 72 police officers and persons in one way or another associated with the regime and accused of “war crimes.” All 72 were shot. Executions in the Havana fortress-prison of La Cabaña were personally administered 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.

Photo from 1959. From left to right: Raul Castro, Antonio Nunez Jimenez, Ernesto Che Guevara, Juan Almeida.

After the victory of the revolution, Che Guevara received Cuban citizenship, was the head of the garrison of the La Cabaña fortress (Havana), and director of the Administration industrial development country, participated in the preparation of agrarian reform.

From November 1959 to February 1961, Ernesto Che Guevara was president of the National Bank of Cuba. In February 1961, Ernesto was appointed Minister of Industry and head of the Central Planning Council of Cuba. This photo is famous photograph Che at the Cuban Ministry of Industry, 1963.

In 1960, Che Guevara, at the head of an economic mission to Cuba, visited the countries of the socialist bloc, including the Soviet Union.

Being a Marxist, Ernesto Che Guevara reproached the “brotherly” socialist countries of the USSR and China for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of exchange of goods similar to those dictated by imperialism on the world market.

In April 1965, Ernesto Che Guevara sent a letter to Fidel Castro about his decision to continue participating in the revolutionary movement of one of the countries of the world and left Cuba.

In addition to the Latin American continent, Ernesto Che Guevara also carried out partisan activities in Democratic Republic Congo and other countries of the world (the data is still classified as confidential). Photo: Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1965. Che holds a child in his arms, and a Congolese guerrilla has his finger on the trigger of a rifle. Photo: AFP

In November 1966, Che Guevara arrived in Bolivia to organize the guerrilla movement. The partisan detachment he created on October 8, 1967 was surrounded and defeated by government forces. Ernesto Che Guevara was wounded, captured and killed the next day.

On October 11, 1967, his body and the bodies of six more of his associates were secretly buried near the airport in Vallegrande. In July 1995, the location of Guevara's grave was discovered. And in July 1997, the remains of the Comandante were returned to Cuba, and in October of the same year they were reburied in the mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara in Cuba.

After Che's death, many residents of Latin America began to consider him a saint and addressed him as San Ernesto de La Higuera. It is not without reason that many say that not a single dead person was as similar to Christ as Che in the photograph familiar to the whole world, where he lies on a table at school, surrounded by Bolivian military personnel.

Che Guevara is the national hero of Cuba, his portrait is on Cuban pesos, in schools, daily classes begin with the song “We will be like Che.” In Argentina, the revolutionary’s homeland, there are many museums dedicated to him, and in the city of Rosario in 2008, a 4-meter bronze statue of Che Guevara was installed. Among Bolivian workers, Che Guevara has the status of a saint - he is called Saint Ernesto when they ask for intercession and help. Catholic Church in those parts he sharply opposes this order, but cannot do anything in this situation.

Few of our contemporaries were able to stir up public consciousness so much and leave behind so many mysteries and secrets as the symbol of the 20th century - Che Guevara.

The story of Ernesto Guevara is still replete with blank spots. And the most difficult thing is to understand and explain everything that lay behind the motives and impulses of this unique person, how he collected ideas that captivated entire peoples and countries, where and how he drew strength.

Ernesto was born on June 14, 1928 in the family of Irish-born architect Ernesto Guevara Lynch. Royal blood flowed in his veins, which he inherited from his mother, Doña Celia de la Serna la Llosa. A distant ancestor of Ernesto's mother, José de la Serna e Hinojosa (1770-1833), was a Spanish general, colonial official and the penultimate viceroy of Peru. Perhaps it was in Che Guevara, after many, many years, that the spirit of a brave and noble nobleman, accustomed to commanding events and people, was revived.

On the family's yerba mate plantation, Ernesto Guevara Lynch became the first in the area to pay his workers in cash, causing discontent among local planters. The eldest Guevara tried to educate his five children comprehensively: the house had a huge library of several thousand books, the doors of the house were always open to children of various classes - both from rich families and from families of ordinary workers. For example, Ernesto was friends with the daughter of the poet and journalist Córdoba Ituburu, who shared the ideas of the communists.

During the years of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, Guevara's house was visited by many military figures, as well as political activists, who talked and discussed a lot about what was happening in the world. Most likely, it was at this time that Ernesto formed an understanding of the complex diversity of the world and sketches and ideas for the future concept of his worldview appeared.

Ernesto suffered from asthma from the age of two until the end of his life, so most of the time school curriculum He is studying at home. After receiving secondary education, in 1945 Ernesto entered the medical faculty of the University of Buenos Aires. As a student, he enjoys reading Sartre, Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, and the works of Argentine socialist authors. He himself keeps a diary and composes poems, which after his death will be published in multi-volume editions.

Young Ernesto has enough energy for a lot of things: he plays football, engages in rugby, horse riding, golf, gliding, travels a lot, preferring to travel by bicycle, hired a sailor, and visits several countries. Already at this age, the young man decides for himself that his main calling in life will not be his personal life, but serving people, following the example of those selfless people whom he sincerely admired. In 1952, together with the doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granadas, Ernesto Guevara visited Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia, visiting and studying the work of leper colonies. On the road, travelers did not disdain any kind of work, helping to repair, heal, carry heavy loads and harvest crops, observing everyday life along the way. ordinary people and the difficult living conditions of the Indians.

In 1953, Guevara received a diploma in surgery and dermatology. And instead of going to serve in the army, he goes to Bolivia, where at that time the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement party came to power. Truly global things are happening in the country: the nationalization of mines, agrarian reform, the involvement of workers and peasants in government... Ernesto Guevara works a lot, meets different people, travels, including to the sacred places of the Indians, carefully studying their culture.

He visits Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, meets, communicates and enters into discussions with revolutionary figures different countries. In the same year, Ernesto met revolutionary Hilda Gadea Acosta. The young man captivated Ilda with his knowledge of Marxism, depth of judgment and choice life goal- to help ordinary people and fight for justice.

During the military conflict in Guatemala in 1954, Ernesto Guevara received his first combat experience: he participated in the group air defense, helped transport weapons, participated in propaganda work, as a result of which he was included in the list of “dangerous communists” designated for destruction. Che Guevara has to flee to Mexico.

In Mexico in 1955, he married Ilda Gadea Acosta. Ernesto tries himself as a journalist, continues to practice medicine and leads active life, meeting many progressive-minded people. One of them would later call Guevara “a continental revolutionary who thinks not so much about Argentina as about Latin America as a whole”...

In Mexico, Ernesto meets Fidel and Raul Castro, this meeting welcomes him to the future Island of Freedom - Cuba. It is interesting that after the meeting, Fidel Castro noted the great revolutionary maturity and courage of Che Guevara’s ideas. In preparation for the expedition to Cuba, all members of the detachment underwent active physical training: cross-country throws, judo classes, physical training in the gym, military exercises. In turn, Che Guevara taught the squad members how to provide first aid.

Needless to say, the courage of the 82 people who went out to sea in storm and rain on a small ship designed for 10 people. Their landmark was the island of Cuba, their goal was freedom. Only a week later the ship arrived on the shores of Cuba, and the detachment immediately came under fire from Batiste’s military. More than half of the expedition members were lost.

Che Guevara himself would later write: “Somewhere in the forest, during the long nights (at sunset our inaction began) we made daring plans. They dreamed of battles, major operations, and victory. It was happy hour. Together with everyone else, I enjoyed, for the first time in my life, cigars, which I learned to smoke to ward off annoying mosquitoes. Since then, the aroma of Cuban tobacco has become ingrained in me. And my head was spinning, either from the strong “Havana”, or from the audacity of our plans - one more desperate than the other.”

People around Che Guevara note his great love of reading, iron will, loyalty to ideals, self-sacrifice and concern for his comrades. In a difficult struggle with the forces of Batiste, victory was nevertheless snatched, and Che became the minister of the revolutionary government of Cuba.

In this position, he meets with prominent politicians from many other countries: Mao Zedong, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, he comes to Moscow. Guevara becomes a global symbol of the modern revolutionary, openly promoting his understanding of Marxism and castigating the shortcomings of existing socialist states.

He participates in revolutionary movements in African countries and in Bolivia. In 1967, in Bolivia, his squad comes under fire from specially trained CIA forces and Che is captured. The next day he was shot. Ernesto's burial place was unknown until 1997, when his remains were exhumed and buried with military honors in Cuba.

For many residents of Latin America and Cuba, Che Guevara became a saint; they turned to him “San Ernesto de La Higuera”, asking for protection and mercy.

The image of Che Guevara has become in the history of our time something more than just a revolutionary character. The direction of Chegevarism is a real Path of nonconformism, search and courage, a path overshadowed by romanticism and faith in the ability of man to change the world for the better.

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Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1927 in one of the largest cities. The famous prefix “Che” began to be used much later. With its help, while living in Cuba, the revolutionary emphasized his own Argentine origin. "Che" is a reference to the interjection. It is a popular title in Ernesto's homeland.

Childhood and interests

Guevara's father was an architect, his mother was a girl from a family of planters. The family moved several times. The future Comandante Che Guevara graduated from college in Cordoba, and received his higher education in Buenos Aires. The young man decided to become a doctor. By profession he was a surgeon and dermatologist.

Already early biography Ernesto Che Guevara shows how extraordinary his personality was. The young man was interested not only in medicine, but also in numerous humanities. His reading range consisted of the most famous writers: Verne, Hugo, Dumas, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. The revolutionary's socialist views were shaped by the works of Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Lenin and other left-wing theorists.

A little-known fact that distinguished the biography of Ernesto Che Guevara is that he knew French perfectly. In addition, he loved poetry and knew the works of Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Lorca by heart. In Bolivia, where the revolutionary died, he carried a notebook with his favorite poems in his backpack.

On the roads of America

First independent travel Guevara's travels outside Argentina date back to 1950, when he worked part-time on a cargo ship and visited British Guiana and Trinidad. The Argentine loved bicycles and mopeds. The next voyage covered Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. In the future, the partisan biography of Ernesto Che Guevara will be full of many such expeditions. In his early youth, he traveled to neighboring countries to get to know the world better and gain fresh impressions.

Guevara's partner on one of his travels was the doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granado. Together with him, the Argentine doctor visited leper colonies in Latin American countries. The couple also visited the ruins of several ancient Indian cities (the revolutionary was always keenly interested in the history of the indigenous population of the New World). When Ernesto traveled to Colombia, it began Civil War. By chance, he even visited Florida. A few years later, Che, as a symbol of the “export of revolutions,” would become one of the main opponents of the White House administration.

In Guatemala

In 1953, future leader Ernesto Che Guevara, during a break between two major trips to Latin America, defended thesis dedicated to the study of allergies. Having become a surgeon, the young man decided to move to Venezuela and work in a leper colony there. However, on the way to Caracas, one of his fellow travelers persuaded Guevara to go to Guatemala.

The traveler found himself in the Central American republic on the eve of the invasion of the Nicaraguan army, organized by the CIA. Cities in Guatemala were bombed and Socialist President Jacobo Arbenz relinquished power. The new head of state, Castillo Armas, was pro-American and began repressions against supporters of leftist ideas living in the country.

In Guatemala, the biography of Ernesto Che Guevara was for the first time directly related to the war. The Argentine helped the defenders of the overthrown regime transport weapons and participated in extinguishing fires during air raids. When the socialists suffered a final defeat, Guevara's name was included in the lists of people who were awaiting repression. Ernesto managed to take refuge in the embassy of his native Argentina, where he found himself under diplomatic protection. From there he moved to Mexico City in September 1954.

Meet the Cuban revolutionaries

In the capital of Mexico, Guevara tried to get a job as a journalist. He wrote a test article about events in Guatemala, but it didn't go any further. For several months, the Argentine worked part-time as a photographer. Then he was a watchman in a book publishing house. In the summer of 1955, Ernesto Che Guevara, whose personal life was illuminated a joyful event, got married. His fiancée, Ilda Gadea, came to Mexico City from her homeland. Occasional earnings barely helped the emigrant. Finally, Ernesto, through a competition, got a job at a city hospital, where he began working in the allergy department.

In June 1955, two young men came to see doctor Guevara. These were Cuban revolutionaries trying to overthrow dictator Batista on his home island. Two years earlier, opponents of the old regime attacked the Moncada barracks, after which they were tried and imprisoned. The day before, an amnesty had been declared, and revolutionaries began to flock to Mexico City. During his ordeal in Latin America, Ernesto met many socialist Cubans. One of his old friends came to see him, offering to participate in the upcoming military expedition to the Caribbean island.

A few days later, the Argentine met for the first time. Even then, the doctor firmly decided to give his consent to participate in the raid. In July 1955, Raul's older brother arrived in Mexico from the United States. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara became the main actors the impending revolution. Their first meeting took place at one of the Cuban safe houses. The next day, Guevara became a member of the expedition as a doctor. Recalling that period, Fidel Castro later admitted that Che understood the theoretical and ideological issues of the revolution much better than his Cuban comrades.

Guerrilla warfare

As they prepared to sail to Cuba, members of the 26th of July Movement (the name of the organization led by Fidel Castro) faced many difficulties. An agent provocateur infiltrated the ranks of the revolutionaries and informed the authorities about the suspicious activities of foreigners. In the summer of 1956, Mexican police staged a raid after which the conspirators, including Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, were arrested. Famous public and cultural figures began to stand up for opponents of the Batista regime. As a result, the revolutionaries were released. Guevara spent more time under arrest than the rest of his comrades (57 days), as he was charged with illegally crossing the border.

Finally, the expeditionary force left Mexico and went by ship to Cuba. The departure took place on November 25, 1956. Ahead was a months-long guerrilla war. The arrival of Castro's supporters on the island was marred by a shipwreck. The detachment, consisting of 82 men, found itself in the mangroves. It was attacked by government aircraft. Half of the expedition died under shelling, and another two dozen people were captured. Finally, the revolutionaries took refuge in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Provincial peasants supported the partisans, gave them shelter and food. Caves and difficult passes became other safe shelters.

At the beginning of the new year 1957, Batista's opponents won their first victory, killing five government soldiers. Soon, some members of the detachment came down with malaria. Ernesto Che Guevara was among them. Guerrilla warfare made us get used to mortal danger. Every day the soldiers faced another fatal threat. Che fought the insidious disease, resting in peasant huts. His comrades often saw him sitting with a notepad or another book. Guevara's diary later formed the basis of his own memoirs of the guerrilla war, published after the victory of the revolution.

By the end of 1957, the rebels already controlled the Sierra Maestra mountains. New volunteers joined the detachment from among local residents dissatisfied with the Batista regime. At the same time, Fidel made Ernesto major (comandante). Che Guevara began to command a separate column consisting of 75 people. The underground fighters enjoyed support abroad. American journalists penetrated their mountains and produced reports in the United States about the July 26 Movement.

The Comandante not only led the military operations, but also conducted propaganda activities. Ernesto Che Guevara became the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Free Cuba. Its first issues were written by hand, then the rebels managed to get a hectograph.

Victory over Batista

In the spring of 1958, a new stage of guerrilla warfare began. Castro's supporters began to leave the mountains and operate in the valleys. In the summer, stable contact was established with Cuban communists in cities where strikes began to occur. Che Guevara's detachment was responsible for the offensive in the province of Las Villas. Having traveled a distance of 600 kilometers, in October this army reached the Escambray mountain range and opened a new front. For Batista, the situation was getting worse - the US authorities refused to supply him with weapons.

In Las Villas, where rebel power was finally established, a law was published on agrarian reform - the liquidation of landowners' estates. The policy of demolishing old patriarchal customs in the countryside attracted more and more peasants to the ranks of the revolutionaries. The initiator of the popular reform was Ernesto Che Guevara. He spent years of his life studying the theoretical works of socialists, and now he honed his oratory skills, convincing ordinary Cubans of the correctness of the path proposed by the members of the July 26 Movement.

The last and decisive battles were the battle for Santa Clara. It began on December 28 and ended with the rebel victory on January 1, 1959. A few hours after the surrender of the garrison, Batista left Cuba and spent the rest of his life in forced emigration. The battles for Santa Clara were led directly by Che Guevara. On January 2, his troops entered Havana, where a triumphant population awaited the revolutionaries.

New life

After Batista's defeat, newspapers around the world asked who Che Guevara was, what made this rebel leader famous and what was his political future? In February 1959, Fidel Castro's government declared him a citizen of Cuba. At the same time, Guevara began to use the famous prefix “Che” in his signatures, with which he went down in history.

At new government yesterday's rebel served as president of the National Bank (1959 - 1961) and minister of industry (1961 - 1965). In the first summer after the victory of the revolution, he, as official conducted an entire world tour, during which he visited Egypt, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Burma, Japan, Morocco, Spain and Yugoslavia. Also in June 1959, the commander married for the second time. His wife was Aleida March, a member of the July 26 Movement. The children of Ernesto Che Guevara (Aleida, Camilo, Celia, Ernesto) were born in marriage with this woman (except eldest daughter Ilda).

Government activities

In the spring of 1961, the American leadership, having finally fallen out with Castro, began an operation in which enemy troops landed on Liberty Island. Until the end of the operation, Che Guevara led troops in one of the provinces of Cuba. The American plan failed, and socialist power in Havana remained.

In the fall, Che Guevara visited the GDR, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. In the Soviet Union, his delegation signed agreements on the supply of Cuban sugar. Moscow also promised financial and technical assistance to Liberty Island. Ernesto Che Guevara, interesting facts about whom could form a separate book, participated in the festive parade dedicated to the next anniversary of the October Revolution. The Cuban guest stood on the podium of the mausoleum next to Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. Subsequently, Guevara visited the Soviet Union several more times.

As a minister, Che seriously reconsidered his attitude towards the governments of socialist countries. He was dissatisfied with the fact that large communist states (primarily the USSR and China) established their own strict conditions for the exchange of goods with subsidized small partners, such as Cuba.

In 1965, during a visit to Algeria, Guevara made a famous speech in which he criticized Moscow and Beijing for their enslaving attitude towards fraternal countries. This episode once again showed who Che Guevara was, what he became famous for and what reputation this revolutionary had. He did not compromise his own principles, even if he had to go into conflict with his allies. Another reason for the Comandante’s dissatisfaction was the reluctance of the socialist camp to actively intervene in new regional revolutions.

Expedition to Africa

In the spring of 1965, Che Guevara found himself in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This Central African country was experiencing a political crisis, and guerrillas were operating in its jungles, advocating the establishment of socialism in their homeland. The Comandante arrived in the Congo along with a hundred other Cubans. He helped organize underground workers, shared with them own experience, received during the war with Batista.

Although Che Guevara put all his strength into the new adventure, new failures awaited him at every step. The rebels suffered several defeats, and relations between the Cubans and the leader of their African comrades, Kabila, did not work out from the very beginning. After several months of bloodshed, the Congolese authorities, opposed by the socialists, made some compromises and resolved the conflict. Another blow to the rebels was Tanzania's refusal to provide them with rear bases. In November 1965, Che Guevara left the Congo without achieving the goals set for the revolution.

Future plans

Che's stay in Africa cost him another case of malaria. In addition, asthma attacks, from which he had suffered since early childhood, worsened. The commander spent the first half of 1966 in secret in Czechoslovakia, where he was treated in one of the sanatoriums of Czechoslovakia. While taking a break from the war, the Latin American continued to work on planning new revolutions around the world. His statement about the need to create “many Vietnams,” where at that time the conflict between the two main world political systems was in full swing, became widely known.

In the summer of 1966, the Comandante returned to Cuba and led preparations for the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia. As it turned out, this war was his last. In March 1967, Barrientos learned with horror about the activities of guerrillas in his country, thrown into the jungle from socialist Cuba.

To get rid of the “Red threat”, the politician turned to Washington for help. The White House decided to use Che's squad against special units CIA. Soon, leaflets scattered from the air began to appear over the provincial villages in the vicinity of which the guerrillas were operating, announcing a large reward for the murder of the Cuban revolutionary.

Death

In total, Che Guevara spent 11 months in Bolivia. All this time he kept notes, which after his death were published in the form of a separate book. Gradually, the Bolivian authorities began to push back the rebels. Two detachments were destroyed, after which the commander was left almost completely isolated. On October 8, 1967, he and several comrades were surrounded. Two rebels were killed. Many were injured, including Ernesto Che Guevara. How the revolutionary died became known thanks to the recollections of several eyewitnesses.

Guevara, along with his comrades, was sent under escort to the village of La Higuera, where there was a place for the prisoners in a small adobe building, which was local school. The underground fighters were captured by a Bolivian detachment, which had completed training the day before, organized by military advisers sent by the CIA. Che refused to answer the officers' questions, spoke only to the soldiers and from time to time asked for a smoke.

On the morning of October 9, an order came to the village from the Bolivian capital to execute the Cuban revolutionary. On the same day he was shot. The body was transported to a nearby town, where Guevara's corpse was put on display for local residents and journalists. The hands of the body were amputated in order to officially confirm the death of the rebel using prints. The remains were buried in a secret mass grave.

The burial was discovered in 1997 thanks to the efforts of American journalists. At the same time, the remains of Che and several of his comrades were transferred to Cuba. There they were interred with honors. The mausoleum where Ernesto Che Guevara is buried is located in Santa Clara, the city in which the Comandante won his main victory in 1959.

Nowadays, you can meet young people wearing T-shirts with the image of Che Guevara, find backpacks with his portrait and other items with his photograph. Why is he so popular? Who is Che Guevara? His biography will answer these questions.

Full name: Ernesto Rafael Guevara Lynch de la Serna. This man became a famous revolutionary in Latin America and was awarded the title of Comandante Cuban Revolution in 1959. According to some sources, he used the nickname Che to emphasize his Argentine origin; and according to others, he received it in Mexico. The word "che" was often used as an interjection in Argentina, meaning "friend"

Personality of Che Guevara

Who is Ernesto Che Guevara? Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. Since childhood, I grew up as an enthusiastic, intelligent and inquisitive person. The joy of his life was overshadowed only by asthma, which later helped him avoid military service. From the age of 4, the boy became addicted to reading books and politics. I read Marx, Lenin, France, Verne, Dumas, London, Hugo, Gorky, Dostoevsky, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Freud. He was keenly interested in the events of World War II and social life in America. At the same time, he loved painting and poetry. Graduated from the Faculty of Medicine.

The hobbies of childhood and youth shaped the character of the future revolutionary. Ernesto was a harsh man, but courageous, caustic in barbs, but a faithful and devoted comrade, romantic, but firm.

Crucial moment

Che Guevara's great passion was travel. He made an 8-month trip through Latin America with his comrade and friend Alberto Granado, a doctor of biochemistry. Together they visited Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. Seeing the suffering of the common people, they dreamed of devoting their lives to treating lepers.

Ernesto was upset by the downtroddenness and need of the common people, the corruption and cruelty of the authorities, and he began to think about how he could help people. He thought a lot about this, began to be active political activity. Gradually, Guevara came to the conclusion that the only thing that could somehow change the situation was social revolution. His active actions did not leave the US authorities unnoticed: they began to support the Guatemalan rebels and accused the president of trying to create communism.

Guevara suggested that the government arm the people and fight back, but Arbenz could not withstand the onslaught and resigned in June 1954. Che Guevara had to move to Mexico, the freest country in Latin America at that time. Here a fatal meeting with Cuban revolutionaries took place. Guevara met Fidel Castro, and they found much in common in their views and opinions. Che Guevara was preparing to take part in the Cuban Revolution and was willing to risk everything for its success.

Merits of Che Guevara

Who is Ernesto Che Guevara in the Cuban Revolution? He is its direct participant and activist. On December 2, 1956, he, along with a small group of Cuban revolutionaries, entered into battle with the troops of dictator Batista, but was defeated. Only a few survived, among whom was Guevara. They were able to take refuge in the Sierra Maestra mountains. However, the battle did not stop, and in the summer of 1957 the partisans started fighting in the valleys. The fighters for justice earned the trust of the common people, and soon the military ranks began to be replenished with new rebels...

In March 1958, Castro and his army began to advance. In this battle, the 8th column under the command of Che Guevara recaptured the city of Santa Clara and destroyed the garrison of government troops.

On January 1, 1959, the rebels managed to penetrate the capital of Cuba, Havana. Che Guevara received citizenship there, was proclaimed comandante and joined the ranks of the country's leadership. Despite all this, he continued simple life without luxury.

Che Guevara sincerely believed that he could create an ideal communist society, but all his hopes were dashed. The bureaucracy began to grow greatly, and bribery began to appear.

The Comandante decides to launch a Latin American revolution. For this he left his friends, government post, renounced his military rank and citizenship in Cuba. On November 7, 1966, Guevara began keeping a diary, where for 11 months he described all the events that took place and his thoughts about them.

The expedition to Bolivia turned out to be the last for Che Guevara. In 1967, he and his squad were captured. The next day after being captured, he and two comrades were shot.

This is how the great reformer, revolutionary and political figure Che Guevara. He truly became legendary personality, which people still remember to this day. We hope that now you know who Che Guevara is.

Paris was Saint-Just, the guerrillas of Havana have Che Guevara, the Latin American Nechaev.

Ernesto Guevara comes from a bourgeois family, born in 1928 in Buenos Aires. Even before receiving his medical diploma, this fragile bourgeois youth, prone to vagrancy and suffering from chronic asthma, managed to ride a moped from the pampas of Argentina to the jungles of Central America. In the early 50s, he found himself in Guatemala, where the government of Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by American intervention. There Guevara learned to hate the United States. “For ideological reasons, I am of the opinion that the solution to the problems of our world lies on the other side of the so-called Iron Curtain,” he wrote to one of his friends in 1957. In 1955, in Mexico, at night, he meets a young Cuban lawyer who, while in exile, is preparing a revolutionary detachment to invade his native Cuba - this is Fidel Castro. Guevara decides to side with the Cubans, with whom he lands on the island in December 1956. In the partisan detachment, Che Guevara is appointed commandant of the “column”, and he immediately shows extraordinary severity of character. One guerrillero boy from his column was shot on the spot without trial for petty theft of food. This “ardent supporter of authoritarianism,” who spread the communist revolution everywhere, often had to deal with Cuban commandants of a more democratic orientation, outraged by his lust for power.

Che Guevara

In the fall of 1958, he opens a second front on the Las Villas plain, in the central part of the island. In Santa Clara, he brilliantly carries out an attack on a train carrying reinforcements sent against the revolutionaries by the dictator Batista. The military is fleeing, away from the battle. After the seizure of power by Castro's supporters, Che Guevara assumes the powers of the revolutionary "prosecutor" - now the outcome of political prisoners' requests for pardon depends on him. The Kaban prison, where he officiates, examining all cases and almost never pardoning anyone, becomes the site of numerous executions, many of whose victims are old comrades who previously fought with Castro, but remained democrats.

After being appointed Minister of National Industry and President of the National Bank of Cuba, he introduced the “Soviet model” of the economy in Cuba. Professing contempt for money, but living in the most prestigious quarters of Havana, this Minister of Industry, deprived of the most elementary ideas O economic activity, ultimately ruins the National Bank. He really likes to establish “voluntary Sundays” - the fruit of his admiration for the USSR and China, he welcomes and “ cultural revolution» Mao Zedong. It was he, and not Fidel, who created the first forced labor camp on the Guanaja Peninsula, or rather, a forced labor camp.

In his testament, this diligent student of the School of Terror extols “productive hatred, which turns a person into an active, cruel, selective and cold-blooded killing machine.” “I cannot be friends with someone who does not share my views,” admits this fanatic, who named his son Vladimir in honor of Lenin. Dogmatic, soulless and intolerant in character, Che (his Argentine nickname) is the complete opposite of the open and hot-tempered Cubans. In Cuba, he becomes one of the initiators of the recruitment of young people who are ready to make sacrifices on the altar of the cult of the new man.

Obsessed with the idea of ​​exporting a Cuban-style revolution, this anti-American, blinded by hatred, sought to spread guerrilla warfare throughout the world, as he put it in May 1967: “Create two, three... many Vietnams!” In 1963, Che went to Algeria, then to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and finally ended up in the Congo, where his paths crossed with the notorious Marxist Desire Kabila, who ruled in Zaire and did not disdain mass beatings of the civilian population.

Castro used Che Guevara for tactical purposes. When their views diverged, Guevara left for Bolivia. There he tried to implement the theory of focoism (from foco - hearth), that is, to ignite the center of guerrilla warfare, regardless of the special position of the Bolivian Communist Party. Finding no support from the peasants—none of them joined his traveling guerrilla force—alone and pursued by the authorities, Che Guevara was captured and executed on October 8, 1967.

Based on materials from The Black Book of Communism.