As we mark the 95th anniversary of his birth, let’s explore some intriguing facts about the life of this legend.
From a Lineage of Planters and Rebels
The future hero of the Cuban Revolution hailed from Argentina. The firstborn in a family of Latin American and Californian Creoles from the city of Rosario, he was born on June 14, 1928. Ernesto Guevara’s mother was the heiress of a tea plantation owner, while his father was an architect and entrepreneur. One of his mother’s distant ancestors was the Peruvian viceroy José de la Serna y e Inocosa, and his paternal grandmother was a descendant of the Irish rebel Patrick Lynch. Ernesto’s parents raised their children with an openness to peers from various social classes, welcoming both the children of the wealthy and those of ordinary workers into their home.
It is known that his father, a landowner, tried to improve the conditions of his workers by shifting from paying them in goods for their labor on the plantations to paying them in cash. This decision cost the progressive planter some business conflicts, yet nothing deterred Ernesto’s parents from adhering to leftist views throughout their lives. Eventually, both of Guevara’s parents participated in protests against the regime of Argentine President Juan Perón, who maintained diplomatic relations with Nazi countries during World War II. According to some reports, explosive devices were even manufactured in their home for protest demonstrations at that time.
The Guevara Family. (Ernesto is on the far left)
Between Books and Asthma
At the age of two, Tete (as he was called in childhood) frightened his parents for the first time with an asthma attack, a condition he would live with for the rest of his life. Due to daily breathing difficulties, he attended school intermittently and entered college at the age of 13. Meanwhile, he learned to read at the age of four and had nearly finished his family’s library, which consisted of a thousand volumes, by the time he entered university. From a young age, the future revolutionary was captivated not only by Jules Verne and Jack London, Anatole France and Victor Hugo, but also by the philosophical works of Freud and Sartre, Marx and Lenin. Guevara had a deep appreciation for poetry, reading equally well in Spanish and French; his favorite poets included Baudelaire and Verlaine, Machado and Lorca, Felipe and Neruda.
Teachers noted Ernesto’s curiosity (especially his interest in the exact sciences) and leadership qualities. According to the school principal’s recollections, classmates considered him a “leader.” He fearlessly tasted ink and chalk, explored abandoned mines, and staged a bullfight with a ram. Everyone was surprised that a boy dependent on an inhaler was involved in various sports clubs and activities: he played soccer and rugby, practiced horseback riding and cycling, and was passionate about golf and gliding. As time went on, asthma would not even prevent him from smoking Cuban cigars (the smoke kept mosquitoes away and became a refuge for the forest brothers in arms from bloodsuckers).
Ernesto Guevara (first on the right) with his rugby friends, 1947
Finding His Path
In 1953, Ernesto graduated as a doctor (all five children in the Guevara family received higher education). While studying at the medical faculty in Buenos Aires, the young macho, whom his classmates called the “king of pedals,” embarked on a long journey on a moped (provided to him for promotional purposes by the manufacturer). On two wheels, Guevara successfully crossed 12 Argentine provinces, covering 4,000 kilometers through rough terrain and mountain roads.
Guevara worked as a librarian, was a sailor on an oil tanker, and traveled by motorcycle through several Latin American countries, studying the operations of local leper colonies. During the journey, two doctor friends worked as dishwashers, veterinarians, porters, and laborers. This marked the beginning of Guevara’s path to saving the world from leprosy. Having seen the world from various perspectives, he ultimately decided to dedicate himself to the fight for a better future for the downtrodden. In particular, after visiting the “backyard of America,” Guevara was disheartened by the poverty and oppression of the freedom-loving people. His lifelong enemy would become the “capitalist octopus.”
Guevara’s interest in Cuba was sparked by a childhood fascination with chess: he became enamored with the homeland of his idol, world champion José Raúl Capablanca, after the great Cuban visited Argentina. However, his truly fateful encounter would come later in Mexico, at the cardiology institute where Guevara was practicing, when Fidel Castro appeared in 1955.
Raúl Castro with Ernesto Che Guevara
Revolutions Make Romantics
By that time, Guevara already had his first personal revolutionary experience, gained during the coup in Guatemala in 1954. Quick to act, Ernesto rushed to assist the Arbenz government, joining the ranks of local patriotic youth. The foreign rebel stood guard amid explosions and unrest. After finding himself on a list of dangerous criminals, the rookie revolutionary left Guatemala and moved to a neighboring country. It was during his two years in Mexico that Ernesto finally decided to exchange his medical career for revolutionary struggle. By the time he met Fidel Castro, a revolution was already being prepared in Cuba.
In revolutionary activities, Guevara established himself as a brave soldier (having been wounded in battle twice) and a talented commander. Castro acknowledged his priority in strategic and tactical planning (“He was a more skilled revolutionary than I,” Fidel said of his comrade). At the same time, the Argentine knew how to treat his subordinates with respect and remain calm in the most stressful situations. The comandante (major) personally assisted the wounded and participated in marches alongside everyone else. Guevara earned the revolutionary nickname “Che” due to his tendency to use the Argentine filler word “che” in conversation.
Che Guevara in Cuba
The Hunt for a Sentence
The victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 brought Guevara the position of Minister of Finance. When his parents saw their son’s signature on a Cuban banknote, they couldn’t help but joke, “Their bank is gone.” Close family members were aware of Guevara’s views on money: he considered it a global evil and dreamed of abolishing it.
The Argentine was officially granted Cuban citizenship, and some historians referred to his departure from Cuba as “exile,” linking this “removal from affairs” to competition for leadership with Fidel. However, a letter from Ernesto to the country’s leader refuted this: revolutionary comrades remained friends even in power. Castro simply saw his mission in state-building, while Guevara could not sit idly by while other countries needed transformation.
In 1965, the comandante moved to the Congo (where attempts at a communist revolution in Africa proved unsuccessful), and then to Bolivia, where a real hunt was opened against him following a preemptive sentence. This hunt was reportedly not without the involvement of various intelligence agencies (these pages of the revolutionary’s biography remain classified to this day). In 1967, Guevara was captured, and on the night of October 9, the revolutionary was executed: he was shot in a rural school building. Che Guevara was buried with his hands severed: the amputated limbs were handed over to the police for fingerprinting after the hasty execution. The exact burial site remained unknown until recently, and only in 1997 were Che’s remains discovered in a mass grave near one of the field airstrips and transported from Vallegrande to Cuba. The revolutionary passed away at the age of 39.
Che Guevara in the Congo
A Symbol of Struggle
For the Latin American population, Che Guevara is akin to a saint. The famous two-tone portrait of the revolutionary by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick (a copy of a photograph by Alberto Korda from 1960) is the most reproduced human face in the world. This romantic symbol of struggle lives its own life, and the well-known historical figure has long become a pop icon.
The Che Guevara Monument in La Higuera
At the same time, this legendary figure does not have a straightforward historical assessment. The national hero of Cubans evokes equal admiration among revolution supporters and condemnation among opponents. Representatives of the opposing camp see in him a fanatic, a “heartless man,” a ruthless soldier of the revolution, and “Stalin No. 2”: the societal-political ideal of the fighter was communism of the “Stalinist model.” The comandante was willing to treat poor people for free while simultaneously endorsing repression against “enemies of the people.” He criticized the Soviet government for imposing onerous conditions of economic cooperation on the poorest countries, which he claimed “were no different from the dictates of global imperialism.” An incorrigible idealist, Che Guevara, according to historians, became the author of a new theory of revolution, for which the presence of prepared revolutionaries is more important than the demand from society.