Che Guevara, June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967)[1] was
an Argentine Marxistrevolutionary, physician,
author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure
of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a
ubiquitous counter cultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in
popular culture.[5]
As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South
America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he
witnessed.[6] His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the
capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted
his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo
Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of
the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political
ideology.[6] Later, in Mexico City, he met Raúland Fidel Castro, joined
their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma,
with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio
Batista.[7] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was
promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the
victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista
regime.
Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals,[9] instituting agrarian land reform as minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba's armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion[10] and bringing the Sovietnuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.[11] Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopmentand dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedy being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.[12][13] Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfullyin Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed.
