How does a revolutionary become so famous in the world? Even today we see his face on the tea-shirts and other memorabilia. Though born and brought up in Argentina, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara came to be revered all over South America or the Americas, for he dreamt of uniting the whole of Americas and evicting the exploitative colonial and imperial powers of his time, mainly the Americans. He was fearless, but ruthless in disciplining his forces, led an honest and devoted life, with great amount of self sacrifice to his avowed cause of liberating Latin America from the exploitative forces of the West. Well worth the study![1]
Ernesto was born as the eldest son of Ernesto Guevara and
Celia on June 14th 1927, who were whites of aristocratic family, but
with declining fortunes. He had two sisters and two brothers after him. His
parents were quite wild in the sense, Ernesto Sr. bought 500 acres of jungle
and was trying to tame it and cultivate so as to restore the family fortunes,
but nothing much came out of it. Mother Celia was adventurous, taking her two
year old son for swims in the winter. He developed asthmatic bronchitis, which
would accompany him throughout his life and give him breathless days and
nights, inhibiting his own adventurous life. Even as a teenager, he was puny
compared to his peers and was mostly confined to home, but devoured books in
his spare time. By seventeen he had developed into an extremely attractive
young man, with a devil-may-care attitude, contempt for formality and
intelligent. He also indulged in daredevil stunts like balancing on pipelines
over deep chasms, leaping from high rocks into rivers and bicycling along train
tracts. He read voraciously from Freud to Karl Marx and Engels’ Das Kapital,
Hitler’s Mein Kamp, and Lenin.
He studied to become a Medical Doctor, especially in the
field of allergy-treatment, but his life would take him all over the world. He
went for hitchhiking trip in 1948 and a solo motorbike trip in 1950, going to
the remote regions of Argentina. On his travels into the country side he saw
poverty, ignorance and sufferings among the native Argentine Indians, with no
development but only exploitation, all of which moved him and he attributed it to
neo-colonial exploitation by USA. In 1952 he travelled with another friend to
through South America, Chile, Peru, Easter Island, and noticed the similar
conditions of the poor black South American people. In these escapades he would
suffer want, breakdown of vehicles, no place to stay, no money, etc., but
somehow managed to hitchhike or take help from people connected with his family
or his own medical profession. He would continue such travels and kept
faithfully a diary throughout his life. These travels enlarged his views about
life itself and he slowly would become interested in politics. He said, “I am
not the person I was before. The vagabonding through our ‘America’ has changed
me more than I thought.”
In 1953, in his 25th year he received his medical
degree. He refused to take a job locally and settle down as his parents wished,
but started on a trip again to Venezuela, Bolivia, by train with a second class
ticket, and some money collected from friends and relatives. He saw firsthand
how people suffered in Bolivia’s mines operated by the state, exported to USA.
Soviet-Communist expansion was on the talk, and America was resisting it during
the Cold War. In Cuba, a group of young rebels were fighting against the
government, including student leader Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. Ernesto
with his friends crossed over to Central America, mostly consisting of ‘Banana
Republics’ – Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Caribbean islands, all
dominated by USA. He got to observe the leftist revolution in Guatemala, and
was awoken into political revolutionary ideas and started to get involved in it
personally. He also got friendly with Hilda who was well read and politically
oriented. She got him contacts and helped him find a job and also took care of
him when asthma debilitated him.
He escapes CIA’s grasp from Guatemala, and with others
regrouped in Mexico in 1954, and as Marxist guerrillas they would haunt
American government for the next forty years. Mexico was an old Spanish
colonial city, built on the ruins of Aztec capital; in fifties was a
cosmopolitan city, a refuge to all communist aspirants of Latin America. He
meets many exiled Cuban followers of Castro there. Ernesto had by now become a
confirmed communist. Same year the newly elected President of Cuba, Batista,
basically a dictator supported by USA and CIA, released Castro, his brother
Raul and eighteen others from jail, quite an ill-advised move.
Cuba also became the whorehouse of the Caribbean, frequented
by weekending Americans for drinking and gambling in night clubs and casinos.
Castro now became the charismatic leader of the Cuban exiles, planning to
overthrow Batista and capture power by guerrilla war. Ernesto gets to meet
Castro in July 1955 who was just 28 then, and on his invitation joined his
guerrilla movement at once. Ernesto was 26 by then, and would become Castro’s
trusted right hand soon. Hilda and Ernesto gets married in August 1955. And
when Castro was busy raising funds for his organization in USA, Ernesto kept
himself busy with mountain climbing to keep himself fit for the oncoming war. He
also took training in handling weapons. In February 1956, he became a father to
a girl child, whom he called, ‘my little Mao.’ Very soon he would divorce Hilda
and marry Aleida, with whom he had four children.
The guerrilla group, Castro and Ernesto with 82
revolutionaries, and guns left Mexico secretly
in November 1956 in a boat called ‘Granma,’ towards Cuba, known as ‘the 26th
July Movement’. They landed in a wrong spot, were spotted by Cuban coast guard
and were attacked by government troops and were almost decimated. Many of them
fled through sugar cane fields into the forest. Only 22 of the 82 regrouped
eventually. Rest were either shot dead on surrender or disappeared. But they
hiked the mountains, found some sympathetic farmers and in spite of the initial
debacle, regrouped. By now Ernesto was being addressed ‘Che,’ “Che Guevara.’
The rebels with the help of sympathetic local population fought and captured
power in Cuba, the first communist victory in the area. Che himself was becoming
an audacious and reckless guerrilla fighter. He was very strict with soldiers
and punished them severely for insubordination or desertion.
Che, though was instrumental in Castro establishing his rule
in Cuba, knew well that he was an outsider, an Argentine national and had no
place in the power equations of Cuba. One habit he picked up in Cuba was his
fondness for smoking Cuban cigars. He worked relentlessly as the Minister of
Industries of Cuba for many years building up Cuban future. He was involved in
Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA and the Cuban Missile crisis. He met world leaders,
including Mao and Khrushchev. He met Nehru but was not impressed with his pacifism.
Che was thinking of bringing in revolution like that of Cuba,
in the whole of Latin America. Castro also encouraged him to look outside to
plant his Marxist communist revolution. Argentina itself was not yet ready for
such a war; Congo in African continent seemed to have scope and Che sent two
missions to Congo to ferment a Marxist revolution, but it did not succeed. Next
he took up personally campaign and insurgence in Bolivia. It ended
disastrously. It was as if he knew he would die and still walked into it. In
his last battle, October 8th known as ‘the Day of the Heroic Guerrilla,’
his group was ambushed; he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and was
executed by being shot, in October 1967. He was buried with his companions in a
remote and unknown place. Only in July 1997, his skeleton was discovered in the
area of Vallegrande airstrip, Bolivia. His remains were flown to Cuba and
interred in a mausoleum built to honour the ‘Heroic Guerrilla,’ who fought for
Cuba.
When he died he was just 39 and left behind his wife and five
children. He had relentless hatred of the enemy, USA, whom he considered the
greatest enemy of mankind. In this process of evicting the American presence in
Latin America, he got transformed into ‘an effective, violent, seductive, and
cold killing machine.’ He appreciated the success of Vietnam in throwing away
the yoke of imperialism. To bring such a stage in Latin America, he was willing
to die. He died for his cause. For him the highest step in the human ladder was
to become a revolutionary. He became one. In his personal example he embodied
selflessness, faith, willpower and sacrifice. He envisaged creation of a ‘new
socialist man,’ who would be selfless, moral, and dedicated to the revolution.
It never was to be. Nevertheless, Che’s political ideology had a great impact
on Latin America and the world.
But the question is, was it worth it? Does the loss of so
many lives and use of violence justify the ideology to free one’s country of imperialism
by the West? Maybe Gandhi was shrewder and avoided such blood bath in India by
advocating non-violent movement to overthrow the imperialist power of British
Raj. Still he could do nothing to avoid the bloodletting that followed the
partition of India into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. I am reminded of the
fourth horse of Apocalypse, a pale green horse with the rider named Death and
Hades following at his heals as if to collect the dead!
Maybe time has come for us to pray and long for the return of
the Lord Jesus Christ, who will come and establish his kingdom on earth and
rule with justice and fairness and equity. War will be no more. Maybe it will
be utopian to expect such a rule from human beings, who are flawed since the
very beginning.
“Come Lord Jesus, Marana tha!” Amen.
[1] “ Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life,” by Jon Lee Anderson, Bantam Books, Great Britain, 1997, Revised edition 2010, 730 pages.
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