Che Guevara (1928–67,) properly Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, was an Argentine Communist revolutionary leader. He was a theoretician of guerrilla warfare, a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution, and a guerrilla leader in South America. He is regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists worldwide, and his image remains an icon of leftist radicalism and anti-imperialism.
Born in Rosario, Argentina, Guevara graduated in medicine at the University of Buenos Aires 1953, then joined Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement in Mexico 1955, played an essential part in the Cuban revolution 1956–59, and afterward held government posts under Castro. In charge of Cuban economic policy, Guevara played a significant role in the transfer of Cuba’s traditional economic ties from the USA to the communist bloc.
An activist of revolution elsewhere, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to become a guerrilla leader in South America. He was captured and executed by government troops in Bolivia while trying to persuade Bolivian peasants and tin-miners to take up arms against the military government.
Guevara wrote Guerrilla Warfare (1961) and Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1968.) His writings inspired a generation of radicals and student leaders in the 1960s and 1970s. His remains were discovered in 1997 and returned to Cuba for a state funeral.
Guevara’s journal from a transcontinental trip which included motorcycling to Chile was posthumously published under his family’s assistance as The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey (2003) and adapted to film as The Motorcycle Diaries (2004.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Che Guevara
The monopoly capitalists – even while employing purely empirical methods – weave around art a complicated web which converts it into a willing tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type of art in which the artist has to be educated. Rebels are subdued by its machinery and only rare talents may create their own work. The rest become shameless hacks or are crushed.
—Che Guevara
I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Freedom
Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people’s unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear, that another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and that other men be ready to intone our funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns and new battle cries of war and victory.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Death, Action, Battle
We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Life
I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Determination
Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Revolution, Love
The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Revolution
Words that do not match deeds are not important.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Action, Communication
Silence is argument carried on by other means.
—Che Guevara
Topics: Silence, One liners
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