Introduction

Ernesto Che Guevara, who was born on June 14th, 1928, was an Argentinian Marxist Revolutionary, a trained physician, a celebrated writer, a politician, an intellectual, and, most famously, a military strategist and guerilla leader. Guevara became a key figure of the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew Fulgencio Batista, the dictator of Cuba. Guevara is known as a sort of symbol representing rebellion around the world, and is today part of pop culture. As a young medical student in Argentina, Che took a one-year vacation, and witnessed poverty and misery, which made him believe that only the elimination of capitalism(an economic system in which individuals are the ones that make the resources to earn wealth, not the government), monopolism(the presence of entities that control a whole section or type of market), neocolonialism(the influence of a stronger nation on a weaker one, without altering its sovereignty or land area), and imperialism(the stretching of a nation over to other territories) would bring prosperity. This made him support the Guatemalan reforms of President Jacobo Arbenz, who was later removed from power as a democratically-elected leader by a CIA-backed coup. He met revolutionaries Fidel and Raul Castro during his stay in Mexico City. Guevara later volunteered to be part of the 26th of July Movement, arriving in Cuba with the prospect of forming a rebellion, and later removed Fulgencio Batista from power. While in Cuba, he gained great popularity from the other guerrillas, and had even risen to 2nd-in-command. After the overthrowing of Batista, Guevara rose up in the ranks of the government, occupying many important spots in the Cuban Government under Fidel Castro. Guevara obtained a post in the judiciary branch of the government, reviewing appeals and handling the executions of war criminals during the revolution. While in this post, he organized many important projects, such as an extremely successful campaign concentrated on gaining literacy, took office as President of Cubas national bank, and got to be a director in charge of training for Cubas army. Not only that, but Guevara also served as a figurehead and representative to Cuban socialism. He was not only that, but also an author and artist, and wrote a manual on guerrilla warfare and a memoir on his life-changing trip in a motorcycle through South America. Guevara left Cuba to carry out two more revolutions, both unsuccessful, in Congo-Kinshasa and Bolivia, where he was killed. Guevara still today is a figure celebrated for his desire of revolution, and has been featured all over the media, as a figure of martyrdom, class struggle, and the desire to achieve goals for a moral reason, as opposed to one driven by material wants. A photograph taken by Alberto Korda, titled Guerrillero Heroico, or Heroic Guerrilla, is still the most famous photograph of him.

Early life
Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch the 14th of June, 1928, in the city of Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of Ernestos and Celias 5 children. The father later told, the first thing to note is that in my sons veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels, a reference to the familys Irish descent. Che grew up in a leftist household, and was

introduced at an early age to politics, and was introduced, by his father, to war veterans from the Spanish Civil War, frequently invited to the Guevara household. Che, though suffering from severe asthma, which later forced the family to move from Rosario, was a good athlete, and practiced swimming, football, golf, and shooting, and played rugby for Club Universitario de Buenos Aires. Guevara was also an intellectual at a young age. He learned chess from his father, was passionate for poetry, and was, probably because of the 3,000 books in the Guevara household, also an eager reader, and read as a young child books by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and other authors. His favorite subjects included philosophy, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology, and archaeology.

Motorcycles
In 1948, Guevara entered as a student of the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. During his time in college, he became interested with the world, and made two long trips that would change his life forever, and set his political ideology and revolutionary goals. The first of these trips was an expedition to the rural provinces of northern Argentina, a 4,500 kilometer trip in which he rode on a bicycle with a small motor. The second of these trips was a nine-month journey, covering 8,000 kilometers, which he conducted after taking a year off from his studies and inviting his friend Alberto Granado, riding on motorcycles to reach the final destination of the San Pablo Leper colony in Peru. The whole trip was a great, if not terrible, discovery for Guevara, as he witnessed many shocking sights, and became the most important journey of his live. He was enraged at the working conditions of miners in the Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile, and also by the encounter with a Communist couple hiding in the Atacama Desert, as they were being persecuted. He described them as the shivering flesh-and-blood victims of capitalist exploitation. Also, while traveling to Machu Picchu, Peru, he saw extreme poverty, and farmers working for wealthy landlords. Also, when he reached the leper colony, he was extremely surprised by their brotherhood, stating The highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people. Guevara later used documents he wrote from the trip to write The Motorcycle Diaries, which became a best-seller and was adapted into a film. He traveled through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and Miami, before going back to Argentina. His trip made him see all of Latin America not as separate nations, but as one nation by itself, bound by ancestral descent and culture. He completed his studies and received a medical degree in June 1953. Guevara was very moved by his travels, and that was what made him the guerrilla leader and revolutionary he became.

Guatemala
On July 7, 1953, Guevara set out once again to travel the world, this time going to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. At the end of his trip, he sent a letter before going to Guatemala, to his Aunt Beatriz, living in San Jos, Costa Rica. He spoke of the United Fruit Company, which controlled a plethora of land in all of the countries, exclaiming about capitalist octopuses. Later that month, he arrived to Guatemala, where the newly elected President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmn was leading a democratic nation, and was making sure of the undergoing of a plan, in which uncultivated portions of large land would be given to landless peasants. The United Fruit Company was affected greatly by the reforms, and was taken away 225,000 acres, all uncultivated. Guevara decided that Guatemala was going through good changes, and decided he would settle there, and become a follower of Arbenz. In Guatemala City, Guevara met Hilda Gadea Acosta, a left-wing Peruvian economist who was part of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance), which introduced him to powerful officers of the Arbenz government. Also, he established contact with Cuban exiles linked to the activity of Fidel Castro, and also had participated in the then-recent attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26th of 1953. During his stay in Guatemala, he acquired the nickname Che. Che is a Spanish interjection, commonly used in Argentina and Uruguay, which can be translated to English as either Hey! or Bro. Che, being from Argentina, used the word often, and was then given to him as a nickname. Guevara attempted to get a job while in Guatemala, but was unsuccessful, and was often in difficult economic situations. On May 15, 1954, a shipment of Czechoslovakian weapons came in from the order of Arbenzs government. Czechoslovakia was back then a communist state, and so the CIA then sponsored and supported an overthrow of the democratic government under Arbenz, and instead installed a right-wing dictatorship under Carlos Castillo Armas. Guevara initially wanted to fight to reinstate Arbenzs government, and joined a group called the Communist Youth, but was put off by the groups lack of reactiveness. Arbenz was taking refuge in the Mexican embassy, and urged his supporters to leave the country. Guevara also sought refuge in the Argentine consulate, while Hilda Gadea was imprisoned. He later received a safeconduct pass some weeks after, and travelled to Mexico. There in Mexico, he rendezvoused with Gadea, and married her on September 1955. Guevara, after the coup, saw the United States as a nation that would do anything to destroy a force that could finally reach balance, in which devastating ranges of socioeconomic inequality would finally be ceased. Guevara, while speaking about the coup, said: "The last Latin American revolutionary democracy that of Jacobo Arbenz failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the U.S.A. Its visible head was the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company." Guevaras experiences in Guatemala were what made him convinced that the only way to reach this balance, and prosperity to all, was through armed struggle. Gadea later said It was

Guatemala which finally convinced him of the necessity for armed struggle and for taking the initiative against imperialism.

Mexico
Guevara then arrived in Mexico City in the first weeks of September, 1954, and got a job at an allergy section of the General Hospital. He often gave lectures on medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Also, he worked for the Latina News Agency as a photographer. Guevara, though now settled, was still amazed by the poverty around him. Hilda Gadea notes that he was even sometimes thinking about becoming a doctor in Africa. During his stay in Mexico City, he reunited with some of the Cuban exiles he had previously met with in Guatemala City. One of these, ico Lpez, introduced him to Ral Castro in June 1955. Ral eventually introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, who was planning to overthrow the corrupt dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista. The first night they met, they had a long discussion, and Guevara was convinced he would fight in Fidels July 26 Movement, which he signed up right before daybreak. Despite contrasting personalities, they were one of the most powerful unions that would ever exist, committed to anti-imperialism. Guevara, after the conversation, saw Batistas regime as a U.S. backed tyranny. He called Batista a U.S. puppet whose strings need cutting Although he was recruited as the guerillas medic, he still went through the training the fighters had to take. The training included using hit-and-run guerilla tactics, 15-hour marches over mountains, across rivers, and through dense undergrowth, and learning how to ambush and how to quickly retreat. Alberto Bayo, the trainer, called Guevara his prize student, as he scored the best in all the training tests.

Cuba
Granma, Guerrilla Tactics, and Great Victories
Castros plan was to, from Mexico, sail to Cuba on his yacht, the Granma, with 82 men. They set off on November 25, 1956. Immediately after landing, they were attacked by Batistas military. Only 22 survived, after reuniting in the Cuban jungle. During the struggle, Guevara later claimed it was his transition from physician to combatant when, after one of the other combatants tried to flee, he picked up a box of ammunition, loaded a gun, and fired with the others. Only a small band of revolutionaries survived to re-group as a bedraggled fighting force deep in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, where they received some support. The survivors regrouped in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they continued to plan and train for guerilla ambushes. They received support from the urban guerrilla under Frank Pas, and the local campesinos (farmers). Guevara described the stay in the jungle as the most painful days of

the war Not only were morale and supplies low, but after an infection from a mosquito bite in the tropical climate; he grew cysts all over his body. Guevara, always a humanitarian, began to notice the quality of life of the subsistence farmers in the mountains. They lacked electricity, education, and clinics, and only about 3/5 of the adults were literate. As the struggle continued, Guevara became an important part of the guerilla movement, as he improved the guerrillas condition. For example, he built ovens and took care of initiation and training of recruits. Also, to the benefit of the campesinos, he made organized schools to teach campesinos how to read and write, established clinics, workshops teaching guerilla tactics, and published a newspaper to distribute. In fact, he was often called Castros brain. Meanwhile, he was promoted to comandante. Che Guevara, though he could be generous, charming, and caring, was also known to be sometimes ruthless and cold. For example, he sometimes sent out troops to find deserters and execute them. In Guevaras diaries, he described the execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant who had admitted to provide information to Batistas air force on the location of the guerrilla and their campesino allies, for 10,000 pesos. The purpose of the information was so that the air force could burn the houses and farms of the peasants. Eutimio requested that they could end his life quickly. Che stepped forward, and immediately shot him with a .32 pistol. He remarked in his diary: The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol on the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal lobe Although Guevara was known as a harsh man, he was also concerned with the intellectual wellbeing of his people, and their gaining of culture and intellect. He read to them during breaks readings from Robert Louis Stevenson, Cervantes, and Spanish poems. Also, he made his men teach the campesinos how to read and write, in what he called the battle against ignorance Though Guevara was described by Fidel Castro as intelligent, daring, and a wise leader, he was also impressed by his impulsive actions, which could sometimes be mistaken for foolishness. He remarked that sometimes Che took too many risks for his own good. Joel Iglesias, one of the fighters, wrote in his diary about one of Guevaras gambles, in which Joel, who was injured, was, right in the middle of enemy fire, picked up by Guevara on his back, and taken out from the battlefield. He said: Che ran out to me, defying the bullets, threw me over his shoulder, and got me out of there. The guards didnt dare fire at him... Guevara, developing new ideas and developments for the 26th of July movement, created Radio Rebelde (Rebel Radio), which would not only broadcast to the people of Cuba, but also to the other rebel columns all across the island. Guevara was inspired by the effectiveness of the CIA supplied radio in the ousting of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmns administration, from the Guatemalan coup. In the last days of July 1958, Guevara played an important role in the Battle of Las Mercedes, in which, under the command of 1,500 men, he stopped Batistas General Cantillo in a plan to surround Castros force. Che was becoming an expert at guerilla tactics.

Meanwhile, Che organized a column of fighters to push westward to finally take the capital city of Havana. He made a 7 week trek, and by December 1958, he was planning to take over the whole province of Las Villas. In the end, they were successful, and captured in a short time all but the capital city of Santa Clara. They finally then attacked Santa Clara, and captured it for themselves. Radio Rebelde immediately broadcasted the first reports of the capture, which took place on New Years Eve 1958. The heavily controlled media of the state, however, insisted that Guevara was dead and that the rebels had been unsuccessful. At 3 AM, on New Years Day, 1959, Fulgencio Batista, along with his family, fled to the Dominican Republic by plane, taking with him $300,000,000 dollars which he had amassed during his corrupt regime. Guevaras forces marched into the city the following day, finally taking control of the country. Fidel Castro campaigned in other large cities, and arrived at in the capital 6 days later. In the middle of January, the Che had a severe asthma attack, and so he went to rest at a villa in Tarara. While there, he formed the Tarara Group, which would debate new plans for social, political, and economic development, and he began to write Guerrilla Warfare. In February, the Che was declared a Cuban citizen by birth. When his wife, Hilda Gadea, finally came to Cuba in late January, he confessed that he had fallen in love with another woman, Aleida March. Gadea requested divorce, and finally they separated May 22. Meanwhile, on June the 2nd, he married Aleida, and returned to Tarara for his honeymoon. In total, Guevara had 5 children, one from Hilda, 3 from Aleida, and one illegitimate child born from Lilia Rosa Lpez.

Death Squads, Agrarian Reform, and Campesino Education

The first crisis occurred after the confusion over what to do with Batistas officials, especially those which had done crimes against the revolution. The Ley de la Sierra was passed for this purpose. This made the death penalty the punishment for serious crimes, passed not only for Batistas followers, but also for the followers of the revolution. Castro named Guevara to be the commander of La Cabaa prison, and also the assignment of reviewing the appeals of the Batista army, his supporters, chivatos (informants), and war criminals. Often, the penalty was death by firing squad. Though there was some criticism from some leaders. Ral Gmez Treto, an advisor in the Cuban Ministry of Justice, argued that it was better than the alternative, which was that the citizens punished the criminals themselves, in often more grotesque and cruel ways, which had happened 20 years ago in the rebellion against Gerardo Machado, former leader of Cuba. There was a 93% approval of the method from the civilians, in any case. In fact, a video clip broadcasted in the U.S. showed a million Cubans, asked by Fidel Castro if they approved of the harsh penalties, and he was met by a roaring "Si!" (Yes). About 20,000 Cubans were estimated to have been killed under Batistas regime, and most of the populace was bloodthirsty and in a lynching mood. Most of the ones sentenced to death were accused of torture and physical atrocities, and public executions were marked with shouts of "Paredn!"(To the wall), from the crowd. The number of prisoners killed varies from accounts. The estimates from Guevaras court are from 55 to 164. However, there are estimates outside that estimate hundreds. Some accuse

Guevara of taking pleasure in the executions. Others say that he pardoned as many prisoners as he could. In any case, Guevara had by most accounts become removed and neutral, and did not let humanitarian and political interfere with the executions. He believed that it was the only way to defend the revolution. This is further confirmed by a letter sent to Luis Paredes Lpez, when he said The executions by firing squads are not only a necessity for the people of Cuba, but also an imposition of the people. Another big part of the revolution, which was a process almost immediately started after the revolution, was the agrarian land reform that was one of the ideals of President Jacobo Arbenz. Guevara, in a speech January 27, 1959, Guevara talked about the social justice that the agrarian land reform plan would bring. On May 17, 1959, the Agrarian Reform Law came into place, which would make sure that all farms would be limited to 1,000 acres, and excess land would be redistributed to peasants in 67-acre pieces, or expropriated by the government. Also, it had forbid foreigners from owning sugar plantations. On June 12, 1959, Castro sent Guevara to a tour, mostly to visit nations from the Bandung Pact (Also known as the Afro-Asian Conference, which was a conference made by newly independent nations, rejecting their colonizers, joined to oppose neocolonialism, imperialism, and the creation of satellite or puppet states), and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong. This included Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, and Greece. This 3-month trip was rumored to have been Castro separating himself from Guevaras Marxist ideals, which had troubled both the U.S. and the July 26 movement. In Japan, he stayed 12 days. During his stay, he refused to lay a wreath to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which honored the soldiers that had been killed in WWII. He said that the Japanese imperialists had killed many Asians. Instead, he chose to visit Hiroshima, the site of the U.S. detonation of the atomic bomb, 14 years earlier. He remarked that President Truman was a macabre clown for the bombings, and he remarked in a postcard that one had to look at Hiroshima to fight better for peace. After Guevaras leave, it was noticeable Castros gain of power. Land seizing had begun, and landowners in the Camagey region had protested against the land reform, and elected Huber Matos, former rebel, to, along with the anti-Communist members of the 26 of July Movement, rebel against the new law. Also, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Generalissimo Rafael Lenidas Trujillo Molina announced he would be forming an Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean, which he would be training in the Dominican Republic. The force would be consisted on only of Spaniards and Cubans, but also Croatians, Germans, Greeks, and right-wing mercenaries, which were plotting to topple Castros regime. The severity and tension around these threats were heightened when La Coubre, a French freighter carrying weapons and munitions from Antwerp, Belgium, exploded in two massive blasts. The blasts killed 76 people and injured hundreds which were in Havana Harbor, where the ship was docked. Guevara arrived at the scene and personally treated the injured. Castro accused the CIA for the incident, and a state funeral was made the following day. Here, in the memorial, was the site where the most famous photograph of Che was taken by Alberto Korda, known as Guerrillero Heroico.

These threats made Castro more paranoid, as he was more eager to eliminate the war criminals, and counter-revolutionaries. Also, he ordered Guevara to speed the land reform. This led to the creation of the Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (National Instituto of Agrarian Reform), also known as the INRA. The INRA, under Guevara, gathered a militia of about 100,000 people, which helped in seizing control of land, supervising distribution, and later to set up the farms. The U.S., under the Eisenhower administration, unhappy with the reforms, reduced the U.S. imports of Cuban sugar in retaliation. Guevara, addressing 100,000 workers, made a speech in front of the Presidential Palace, criticizing U.S. economic aggression. The land reform was a big part of the goals of Guevara, but another one was literacy. During their stay in the mountains, Guevara had attempted to make a small effort to increase the literacy of the peasants. The literacy rate of Cuba, before 1959, was between 60-76%, caused by the lack of instructors and remoteness of the rural areas. To try to educate the campesinos, Guevara named 1961 the year of education, and created the Cuban Literacy Campaign, a sort of brigade composed of 100,00 volunteers, sent out to construct schools, train teachers, and teach the campesinos to read and write. The campaign was a success, as 707,212 adults were taught to read and write, and they had raised the literacy rate to 96%. With literacy, another goal of Guevara was making sure high education, such as university, could be accessible universally. He told the faculty of the University of Las Villas that universities would cease to be a privilege of the white middle class and described that the university had to include those of black, mulatto, worker and peasant descent.

Morals, Bay of Pigs, Revolution of the Toilets, and Soviet Betrayal

Guevara, now initiating his role in the financial sector, decided that it would be best to instill a sense of morals, and remove material incentives. Capitalism, as he viewed it, was something in which you could only gain wealth at the cost of others, and where someone had to be left out. He believed that greed and egotism was a characteristic only pertaining to it, and so he went out on a campaign to make what he called a new man and woman One of the main ideas of this new enforcing of morals was the ideas of will and volunteer work. Guevara, wanting to set an example, was known to work diligently at his job, working sometimes 36 hours straight, and organizing meetings in the dead of night. Guevaras plan was that each worker had a quota. Going under the quota would mean a pay cut, while workers that went over it would receive a certificate, instead of pay raises which Guevara had abolished. Guevara, talking about the moral aspect, said: "This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, or how many times a year someone can go to the beach, or how many ornaments from abroad one might be able to buy with his current salary. What really matters is that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility." The West, now snubbing them, especially with the United States hostility, was hurting Cubas economy. So, Guevara decided to form commercial relations with Eastern Bloc and Marxist states, which brought him to visit Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., North Korea, Hungary, and East

Germany at the end of 1960. The subsequent agreements did help the economy, but formed dependence with the Eastern Bloc. In East Germany he met Tamara Bunke, also known as Tania, who became his interpreter, and was also killed with him in Bolivia. His economic plans, meanwhile, which he hoped would be a great success, failed badly, and productivity was low and absence became high. On April 17, 1961, U.S.-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba in Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), in an invasion known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion (or in Spanish, Playa Girn). Che Guevara was not present that day, as he had been sent with other troops to the Pinar Del Rio, after a fake invasion 1 day before the real one. The Cuban Militia was successful, and the invaders were driven away. During a conference in August 1961, the Organization of American States, being held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Guevara sent a sort of sarcastic thank you note to President John F. Kennedy, for the Bay of Pigs Invasion. It said Thanks for Playa Girn. Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now, its stronger than ever. Guevara attacked the U.S.s status as a democracy, saying that it was guilty for having things such as financial oligarchy and discrimination against blacks. He wittily said U.S. experts never talk about agrarian reform because they prefer a safe subject, like a better water supply. In short they seem to prepare the revolution of the toilets Guevara, previously one of the most important people in the Soviet-Cuban relationship, ended his approval of the U.S.S.R. after one incident. Cuba had been given Soviet missiles, and had been building nuclear bases with the Soviets in Cuba. However, after a secret agreement with the United States and the U.S.S.R., with the U.N. as mediator, the U.S.S.R. dismantled Cuban bases, in exchange for an agreement that the U.S. would never again invade Cuba. After hearing wind of this, Cuba then denounced the Soviets and opposed them, and Guevara denounced them almost as much as the U.S. in later speeches.

International diplomacy
Guevara had now gained popularity as a revolutionary, and, as head of the Cuban delegation, travelled to New York to speak at the United Nations. He criticized the U.N. for not being able to stop apartheid, and also the U.S. policy towards their African-American citizens, snubbing their supposed nickname, Guardians of Freedom. Guevara, after his speech in the U.N., learned that there had been 2 attempts on his life by Cuban exiles. The first was by a Molly Gonzales, who had tried to break through the barricades when he arrived, and had brought a hunting knife, and later, during his speech, he had almost been killed by Guillermo Novo, with a bazooka, who was stationed on the East River. While in New York City, Guevara also appeared on the CBS Sunday news program Face the Nation and met with a range of people, from U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy[143] to associates of Malcolm X. Malcolm X expressed his admiration, declaring Guevara "one of the most revolutionary men in this country right now" while reading a statement from him to a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom.[144]

On December 17, Guevara left on a trip to the Peoples Republic of China, United Arab Republic, Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville, and Tanzania. He stopped in Ireland, where he wrote to his father about visiting the country, which was originally the home of his descendants.

Forgetting Marx and Adios, Cuba!

Guevara now viewed the Northern Hemisphere as the main oppressor against Communism, as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were all situated there. He was supporting North Vietnam, a communist nation, in the Vietnam War, and hoped that many other nations would rise in a similar way. Guevara, which had been a great supporter of the Maoist views that rapid industrialization and economic independence was key, was worried by Cubas extreme dependence on the U.S.S.R., and Castros continuous support and obedience exalted towards it. Guevara saw some of Castros actions as pre-monopolist Guevara still kept on criticizing the U.S.S.R., claiming that not only had they not fully embraced communism, but that they were also trying to co-exist with the United States. These things made Guevara believe that they had forgotten Marx, and that they would soon go back to capitalism. Two weeks after a controversial speech in Algiers, where he heavily criticized the Soviet Union, Guevara completely disappeared. He was nowhere to be seen, and was worried for, as he was second-in-command, after Castro. Later, Castro issued a public statement on a letter supposedly sent to him by Guevara on October 3, which said that Guevara, though still strongly supporting the Cuban Revolution, would leave Cuba to fight revolution abroad. He resigned all his positions in Cuba, and renounced his honorary Cuban citizenship.

Congo
In 1965, Guevara left to Africa, believing that the revolutionary cause would be better exercised there, as he believed capitalism was not as present, and because of the ongoing Congo Crisis, as different governments, parties, and forces continued to fight for the land, he believed he might form a successful Communist revolution. Though some advised against it, he finally travelled to the Congo, using the alias Ramn Bentez. Guevara at first joined guerilla leader Laurent-Dsir Kabila, who had held an unsuccessful coup a few months earlier, which was trying to re-install Patrice Lumumba back in power. He, along with about 100 other Afro-Cubans, formed a union with him. Later, however, he believed that Kabila did not have enough potential, and moved on, alone. As if to add more difficulty, he was being persecuted by an alliance of Cuban exiles, white mercenaries led by Mike Hoare, the Congo National Army, and the CIA. In fact, they soon located him in the mountains near the small village of Fizi. With locating him, they were able to

thwart communications, intercept attacks, and ambush his supply lines. The U.S. became fully aware of his movements. Guevara wanted to train the fighters his guerrilla tactics and war strategy, which he hoped would make enough force to set off the revolution. However, he later realized the incompetence, intransigence, and unwillingness of the Congolese forces. Also, he was suffering from acute asthma. With these setbacks, he decided to return to Cuba. At first, he wanted to send the wounded only, and stay to fight until his death, so as to set a revolutionary example. However, after his men and 2 emissaries from Castro pressured him to leave with him, he finally gave in. However, though he was persuaded to leave the Congo, he was reluctant to go back to Cuba, and instead stayed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Prague, Czechoslovakia, working on his books and diaries, and also editing them. After 6 months of this, he decided to test out his new false identity papers, provided to him by the Cuban Intelligence so he could start his new plan in Bolivia. However, before he set out to Bolivia, he went back to Cuba one last time, to visit his family, and leave a letter to his 5 children. The end of the letter told them: "Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary."

Bolivia
Guevara had disappeared from public view. Nobody had known of his whereabouts, and were unclear even in late 1966. However, in a speech in 1967, by the Cuban Minister of the Armed Forces, Juan Almeida, Guevara was announced to be serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America. Before leaving to Bolivia, Guevara had disguised himself as Adolfo Mena Gonzlez, a Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States. Guevara left to the ancahuaz region, to form his guerilla. However, the first few weeks were unproductive, as there were dangers everywhere. Tamara Bunke, Guevaras interpreter, was also supposedly working for the KGB ( ), the Soviet Intelligence Agency, or at least had unwillingly led the Soviets to Guevara. Guevara initially began with 50 people, which formed the ELN (Ejrcito de Liberacin Nacional de Bolivia), the National Liberation Army of Bolivia. They at first were effective, and won some skirmishes with the weak Bolivian army. Because of these, the Bolivian army, believing they had underestimated the size of the guerilla, began to put more effort into the elimination of the guerilla. They then eliminated two guerilla groups in September. There are many hypotheses why Guevaras plan to form a revolution in Bolivia failed. One reason was that he was faced with the CIA along with the Bolivian Army, and not just with the army as he had thought, which was badly trained. Also, the U.S. provided better training for the army, making an even greater disadvantage. Guevara had expected assistance from the Communist Party of Bolivia, but instead found out they were aligned with Moscow, as opposed

to Havana. Also, he was supposed to stay in contact with Havana, but instead became isolated. Guevara also had, admittedly, a problem with his personality. He wanted confrontation instead of compromise, and that helped with his defeat in the Congo, and his inability to negotiate with Bolivian leaders. Fidel Castro had, however, kept it in check in Cuba. In the end, Guevara faced extreme difficulty also because of the refusal of the peasants to join their force. They instead became informers, and the 11 months were an utter failure.

Capture and execution

On October7, an informant told the Bolivian forces of Guevaras location in a guerilla encampment in the Yuro ravine. After being surrounded by 1,800 soldiers, he shouted Dont shoot! I am Che Guevara Che was tied and incarcerated in a schoolhouse in La Higuera, Bolivia on October 8. He kept quiet, and refused to answer any questions. He only asked for something to smoke. He kicked and spit at Bolivian Officer Espinosa and Admiral Ugarteche, refusing to talk to either of them. On October 9, after a night of refusal to talk to officials, he requested that they send the teacher of the schoolhouse in which he was captive. They sent in 22-year-old Julia Cortez. Guevara then pointed out to her the condition in which the room was in, and that is was a disgrace and an insult to campesinos to study there, while the rich and important drove Mercedes cars. She agreed, and then he told her thats what we are fighting against. Later that day, Bolivian President Ren Barrientos asked that Guevara be executed, even though the U.S. wanted him to be extradited to Panama for further interrogation. The executioner, Mario Tern, a drunken soldier, was told to make the execution look similar to the false information which the government would release later, which said Guevara was killed in battle, when Bolivian forces had a clash with his guerilla. Guevara, moments before being executed, was asked if he thought about the afterlife, and his immortality. He replied that he only was thinking of the immortality of the revolution. When the executioner Tern entered the door, he shouted Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man! He was then shot 5 times in the leg, once in the shoulders and arms, once in the chest, and a shot in the throat, with a semiautomatic rifle. He was fatally wounded in the chest at about 1:10 PM. Months earlier, in the Tricontinental Conference, Guevara said that his epitaph would say Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons.

Death of a Revolutionary
After the execution, he was sent to a nearby town called Vallegrande, where he was taken pictures of and was checked to see if he was really Che.

He was displayed publicly, and many of the residents went past the body. Soon, they were convinced that Guevara looked a bit like Jesus Christ, and some were even clipping his hair. The United States thought the Bolivian execution of Guevara was stupid, but understandable. After his execution, his hands were amputated and sent to Argentina for DNA testing. The hands were later sent to Cuba. In regard to the corpse, it was moved to an undisclosed location, and for the moment nobody knew where it was. On October 15, Fidel Castro announced that he acknowledged the death of Guevara, and declared 3 days of mourning in Cuba. Afterwards, in front of 1 million mourners, he spoke of Ches values and character. "If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Ches spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che! Later, in 1995, Bolivian General Mario Vargas, in an interview, that Guevaras remains had been buried in an airstrip near Vallegrande. That set off a great search for the remains. Finally, in 1997, Cuban geologists and Argentine anthropologists located a mass grave, in which there was a man with amputated hands. They also found a bag of tobacco. The remains were confirmed, and were then sent to Cuba to be buried in Santa Clara, where Che had commanded over the decisive victory which liberated Cuba.

Che Lives
Even forty years after his death, Che remains alive in popular culture, and is known as an icon of rebellion and freedom. Che, though deceased, still lives on today. He is an icon of freedom, gallantry, chivalry, adventure, revolution, and perseverance. Nelson Mandela called him an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom. He is a national figure in Cuba, where his image is in the $3 peso bill, and schoolchildren pledge every morning that they will be like Che. In Argentina, colleges and high schools are named after him, and museums about him are all around the country. In Rosario, his hometown, a 12-foot statue erected in 2008 of him adorns the town. Meanwhile, he has been supposedly called a saint by Bolivian Campesinos, as Saint Ernesto. The monochrome image of him, made by Jim Fitzpatrick, from the original photo Guerrillero Heroico, has become a pop culture image, present in t-shirts, mugs, and other goods, ironically contributing to the consumer culture which Guevara fought. Guevara, though he left the world too early, still lives on today, as a message of hope, hope that the world will change so one day, starving children will be satiated children, that uneducated children will become educated, and mostly, that the common man will rise up, and he will contribute to the world. The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.