Ernesto “Che” Guevara he was a well-known revolutionary who was born in Argentina into a well-off family. He graduated in Medicine and traveled to South America, which made him aware of the state of poverty in which the needy population lived. During his second trip across the same continent, he met Cubans who convinced him to join the Cuban Revolution.
He was one of the great names of that revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and was linked with the command and training of troops. For more than six years, he held important positions in the Cuban government, and spent his last years fighting in Congo and Bolivia, where he was captured and executed.
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First years
![Che Guevara's involvement in the Cuban Revolution made him one of the best known names in Latin America.[1]](/f/901f70155da7f4e59cb6d3665ca06cff.jpg)
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, known worldwide as Che Guevara, was born in Rosario, Argentina on June 14, 1928. He came from an upper-class family and was the first of five children who
ErnestoGuevaraLynch and celiainthereserna had at your wedding. Some biographies show that his mother was a descendant of the last viceroy of Peru, but there are historians who question this information.There are other studies as well that show that Che Guevara was descended from a Spanish explorer named Domingo Martínez de Irala, known to have been the first governor of Asunción. So, in addition to the good financial condition of his family, Che was possibly heir to important personalities in the history of the southern cone of America. colonized by the spanish.
He had four brothers, called celia, Roberto, A-N-AMaria and JuanMartin. In his childhood, Che Guevara had an asthma attack that led his parents to move from Buenos Aires and settle in a place that was better for the health of their eldest son. That's how Che Guevara came to live in Alta Gracia, a city close to Córdoba.
This change happened because Alta Gracia is in the mountainous region of Córdoba, and Che Guevara's parents imagined that the mountainous air of this small town would be good for his health. In Alta Gracia, the main house Che lived in is known as Villa Nydia, which is now a museum.
Che Guevara read a lot of books, mainly because, in his moments of asthmatic crisis, he was not much disposed to other activities. Che's primary (primary) education was held in Alta Gracia, and secondary (high school) in Córdoba, capital of the province of Córdoba.
In 1946, Che Guevara completed his basic studies, and the following year was one of many upheavals in his life, as his parents divorced and moved to Buenos Aires. Che Guevara also moved and settled in his maternal grandmother's house, and, in 1948, he started the course in Medicine at University of Buenos Aires. As a university student, he combined study time with work and maintained his great interest in reading, reading authors like Karl Marx.
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Travels
Che Guevara became very famous for taking a tour of South America in the first half of 1952, but, before her, he made a 4,500 km trip through the northwest of Argentine territory, including passing through Cordoba. He even worked as a doctor on an oil tanker in the year 1951.
It was in January 1952 that Che Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado started the famous trip through south america. In this adventure, Che and his friend set out on a motorcycleNorton and, with little money, they passed through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. The motorcycle broke down while they were in Chile, and the trip continued on foot and via hitchhikers.
![Model of the motorcycle used by Che on his tour of South America in 1952.[2]](/f/6b11688ad1e51359783192b5253bd844.jpg)
During this trip, Che and Granado had contact with thepovertyof the South American population, and this scenario had a great impact on Che Guevara, both in the way of seeing the situation of the population and in the ways of acting to fight against it. He and his friend also worked on a voluntary basis by giving medical care for needy populations.
This trip lasted until July 1952, and when he returned to Buenos Aires, Che tried to finish his course. In April 1953, he received a medical degree from the University of Bueno Aires and soon went on another trip. This time, his companion was a childhood friend named Carlos Ferrer.
Along the way, Che passed through Bolivia, where he came into contact with the experiencerevolutionary carried out by the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement. Then he went to Peru, then Ecuador. Finally, he decided to go to Guatemala to witness the progressive government taking place in that Central American country.
Arrived at Guatemala in late December 1953, and at that time the country was ruled by Jacobo Arbenz. The Guatemalan government was in the process of carrying out some reforms, and Che Guevara was therefore witnessing another reform experience in progress. The government, however, was not a communist, and historian Victor G. Kiernan defines it as a liberal government with a progressive agenda|1|.
Among the reforms carried out in Guatemala was the land reform, which harmed the interests of the United Fruit Company, a company that had ties to US intelligence people, the CIA. You United States then led an international conspiracy that led to a coup. led by Colonel Castillo Armas, who brought troops from Honduras.
The coup in Guatemala forced Jacobo Arbenz to resign from the presidency, and the new reality in Guatemala brought the Che Guevara's life at risk, what did he do if shelter at the argentine embassy. At the time, he had a relationship with Hilda Gadea, and, with the coup, she He was arrested and remained in jail for a few weeks. The persecution against the two happened because they had connections with communists.
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Che and the Cuban Revolution
After Guatemala, Che moved to the Mexico, staying there from 1954 to 1956. In Mexico he had direct contact with revolutionariesCubans and met participants of the attack on Moncada Barracks, one of the milestones that started the Cuban Revolution. These Cuban revolutionaries were fighting against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and among them were the brothersCastro — Fidel and Raul.
In this country, Che worked as a photographer and doctor to survive and lived with great financial difficulties. Convinced to join the Cuban struggle, he left for the Caribbean island together with Fidel's group, with the aim of conquering the country and overthrowing the Batista dictatorship. Shortly after arriving in Cuba, Fidel Castro's group was attacked by Cuban troops, and the survivors settled in Sierra Maestra. With the help of the peasant population, they carried out the work of rebuilding the struggle against Fulgencio.
In the Sierra Maestra mountains, Cuban guerrillas rebuilt their strength, and the fight against Fulgencio Batista's troops continued until early 1959. The decisive advances took place from 1958 onwards, and the support of the urban population and the rural population to the guerrillas made the dictator of Cuba flee on January 1, 1959. On the 8th, Cuban revolutionaries entered the country's capital, Havana, victorious.
In the course of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara had an outstanding role and assumed leadership positions among the revolutionaries. he acted as commander of troops and was training new recruits for the guerrillas. His importance during the struggle also made him an important name in the government built from 1959 onwards. Because of his role, Che Guevara is considered a great national hero in Cuba.
Between 1959 and 1965, he held different functions in the Cuban government, being involved in trials that condemned the crimes committed by figures from the Batista dictatorship. It is estimated that, of these judgments, which were part of the CommissionDebugger, 500 people were sentenced to death.
He also held the role of commander of the Cuban army, the presidency of the National Bank, and was at the head of the Ministry of Industry. Che Guevara was one of the great supporters of Cuba's alignment with the Soviet Union as a way to safeguard its sovereignty. He defended this because he witnessed what US interference had caused in Guatemala.
With the failed attempt to invasion of the Bay of Pigs, in 1961, Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union as a way to protect itself from a new attempt at US interference. Also in 1961, Che Guevara made a diplomatic trip to Brazil and was decorated by the president Janio Quadros, with the Grand Cross of the National Order of the Southern Cross.
This was one of Brazil's greatest honors, and this attitude of the Brazilian president was part of his government's project of trying to implement a politicsexternalindependent from both the United States and the Soviet Union. If you want to know more about the revolutionary process that made Che Guevara and the Castro brothers famous around the world, read: Cuban revolution.
Death
After 1965, Che Guevara decided to abandon his duties in the Cuban government to participate again in the revolutionary struggle elsewhere. he had a internationalist vision and, therefore, he argued that the revolution should be taken to other countries. His dream was to be able to transform his country, but as Argentina did not have the scene for a revolution of this type, Che went to other territories.
Between 1965 and 1966, Che was in the territory of the current Democratic Republic of Congo, but the attempt at revolution in that African country failed. The last years of his life were lived in the Bolivia, a country that, since 1964, was governed by a dictatorship. Che tried to overthrow the Bolivian dictatorship by joining the local guerrillas, but failed.
He arrived in Bolivia in 1966, but in 1967 he was already no support from the Communist Party of Bolivia and was pursued by the Bolivian army and US intelligence. On October 8, 1967, his guerrilla was surrounded by Bolivian troops and he, wounded, was taken away as prisoner. He was captured in Quebrada del Churo and later taken to La Higuera, where he was executed by Bolivian soldiers on October 9, 1967.
Che Guevara's remains were only found in 1997. After verifying that, in fact, they were his remains, they were taken to Cuba and placed in a memorial.
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Personal life
Throughout his life, Che Guevara had two wives: HildaGadea, to whom he was married from 1955 to 1959, and aleidamarch, to whom he was married from 1959 to 1967 (the year of Che Guevara's death). From their first marriage, Che and Hilda had a daughter named Hilda Beatriz Guecara Gadea; and, in their second marriage, Che and Aleida had four children: Aleida, Camilo, Celia and Ernesto.
Note
|1| KIERNAN, Victor G. U.S: the new imperialism. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2009. P. 369.
Image credits
[1] Uncle Leo and Shutterstock
[2] Personal archive/Daniel Neves
By Daniel Neves
History teacher
