Biography Ernesto Che Guevara, personal life, interesting facts. Comandante Che Guevara

Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1927 in one of the largest cities in Argentina, Rosario. The famous prefix "Che" was used much later. With her help, while living in Cuba, the revolutionary stressed his own Argentine origin. "Che" is a reference to an interjection. In Ernesto's homeland, it is a popular appeal.

Childhood and interests

Father Guevara was an architect, mother - a girl from the family of planters. The family moved several times. College future commandant Che Guevara graduated in Cordoba, and received his higher education in Buenos Aires. The young man decided to become a doctor. He was a surgeon and dermatologist.

An early biography of Ernesto Che Guevara shows how extraordinary his personality was. The young man was interested not only in medicine, but also in the numerous humanities. The circle of his reading consisted of the works of the most famous writers: Verne, Hugo, Dumas, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. Socialist views of the revolutionary formed the works of Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Lenin and other left-wing theorists.

A little-known fact, which differed biography Ernesto Che Guevara - he knew the French language. In addition, he loved poetry, knew by heart the works of Verlaine, Baudelaire, Lorca. In Bolivia, where the revolutionary was killed, he carried with him in his backpack a notebook with his favorite poems.

On the roads of America

The first independent journey of Guevara from Argentina dates back to 1950, when he worked part time on a cargo ship and visited British Guiana and Trinidad. The Argentinian loved bicycles and mopeds. The next voyage embraced Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Later the guerrilla biography of Ernesto Che Guevara will be full of many such expeditions. In his early youth, he traveled to neighboring countries to get to know the world better and gain fresh impressions.

Guevara's partner in one of his travels was Doctor of Biochemistry Alberto Granado. Together with him, the Argentine doctor visited the leprosarium of Latin American countries. Also, the couple visited the ruins of several ancient Indian cities (the revolutionary was always keenly interested in the history of the indigenous population of the New World). When Ernesto traveled to Colombia, there began a civil war. Randomly, he even visited Florida. A few years later, as a symbol of "exports of revolutions", Che will become one of the main opponents of the administration of the White House.

In Guatemala

In 1953, the future leader of the Cuban Revolution, Ernesto Che Guevara, during a break between two major travels in Latin America, defended his thesis devoted to the study of allergies. Becoming a surgeon, the young man decided to move to Venezuela and work there in the leper colony. However, on the road to Caracas, one of the fellow travelers compelled Guevara to go to Guatemala.

The traveler was in the Central American republic on the eve of the invasion of the Nicaraguan army, organized by the CIA. The cities of Guatemala were bombed, and the socialist president Jacobo Arbens refused power. The new head of state Castillo Armas was pro-American and began repressions against the supporters of leftist ideas living in the country.

In Guatemala, the biography of Ernesto Che Guevara was directly linked to the war for the first time. The Argentinian helped the defenders of the overthrown regime to transport weapons, participated in extinguishing fires during air strikes. When the Socialists suffered a final defeat, the name of Guevara fell into the lists of persons who were expected to be repressed. Ernesto managed to take refuge in the embassy of his native Argentina, where he was under diplomatic protection. From there, in September 1954, he moved to Mexico City.

Acquaintance with Cuban revolutionaries

In the Mexican capital, Guevara tried to get a job as a journalist. He wrote a trial article about the Guatemalan events, but the matter did not go any further. For several months, the Argentine was working as a photographer. Then he was a watchman in the building of the book publishing house. In the summer of 1955, Ernesto Che Guevara, whose private life lit up with a joyous occasion, got married. In Mexico, the bride of Ilda Gadea came to him from his native land. The occasional earnings hardly helped the emigrant to make ends meet. Finally, Ernesto, by competition, settled in the city hospital, where he began to work in an allergic department.

In June 1955 two young men came to see doctor Guevara. They were Cuban revolutionaries who tried to overthrow dictator Batista on his native island. Two years earlier, the opponents of the old regime had attacked the Moncada barracks, after which they were tried and put behind bars. The day before, an amnesty was announced, and the revolutionaries began to flock to Mexico City. During his troubles in Latin America, Ernesto met with many Cuban socialists. One of his old friends and came to see him, offering to participate in the upcoming military expedition to the Caribbean island.

A few days later, the Argentinian first met Raul Castro. Even then the doctor firmly decided to give his consent to participate in the raid. In July 1955, Raul's older brother arrived in Mexico from the United States. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara became the main characters in the impending revolution. Their first meeting took place at one of the conspiratorial apartments of the Cubans. The next day, Guevara became a member of the expedition as a doctor. Recalling that period, Fidel Castro later admitted that Che was much better than the Cuban comrades in understanding the theoretical and ideological questions of the revolution.

Guerrilla warfare

Preparing to sail for Cuba, members of the July 26 Movement (the so-called organization headed by Fidel Castro) faced many difficulties. A provocateur entered the ranks of the revolutionaries, who informed the authorities about the suspicious activity of foreigners. In the summer of 1956, the Mexican police staged a round-up, after which the conspirators, including Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, were arrested. Famous social and cultural figures began to intercede for opponents of the Batista regime. As a result, the revolutionaries were released. Guevara spent more than his remaining companions (57 days) under arrest, since he was charged with an illegal border crossing.

Finally, the expeditionary team left Mexico and went to Cuba on a ship. The sailing took place on November 25, 1956. Ahead was a months-long partisan war. The arrival of Castro's supporters on the island was overshadowed by the shipwreck. The detachment, consisting of 82 men, was in mangroves. He was attacked by government aircraft. Half of the expedition was killed by shelling, and another two dozen people were taken prisoner. Finally, the revolutionaries took refuge in the Sierra-Maestra mountains. Provincial peasants supported the guerrillas, gave them shelter and food. Another safe hiding place was caves and difficult passes.

At the beginning of the new 1957, Batista's opponents won the first victory, killing five government soldiers. Soon some members of the detachment fell ill with malaria. Ernesto Che Guevara was among them. Guerrilla warfare made us get used to the deadly danger. Every day, the fighters faced the next fatal threat. Che struggled with insidious disease, laying in the huts of peasants. Comrades often saw how he sat with a notebook or another book. Diary of Guevara later formed the basis of his own memories of the guerrilla war, published after the victory of the revolution.

By the end of 1957, the insurgents already controlled the Sierra Maestra mountains. The squad was joined by new volunteers from among the local residents, dissatisfied with the regime of Batista. At the same time, Fidel made Ernesto a major (commandant). Che Guevara began to command a separate column, consisting of 75 people. The underground had support abroad. To them in the mountains penetrated American journalists, who released in the US reports on the "Movement on July 26".

The commandant not only led the fighting, but also conducted propaganda activities. Ernesto Che Guevara became editor in chief of the newspaper "Free Cuba". The first numbers were written by hand, then the rebels managed to get a hectograph.

Victory over Batista

In the spring of 1958, a new stage of guerrilla warfare was launched. Supporters of Castro began to leave the mountains and operate in the valleys. In the summer, a stable connection was established with the Cuban communists in the cities, where strikes began to occur. The detachment of Che Guevara was responsible for the offensive in the province of Las Villas. After making a 600-km path, in October this army reached the Escambray mountain range and opened a new front. For Batista, the situation got worse: the US authorities refused to supply him with weapons.

In Las Villas, where the power of the insurgents was finally established, a law was promulgated on the implementation of the agrarian reform - the liquidation of the estates of the landlords. The course for scrapping old patriarchal customs in the country attracted all the new peasants to the ranks of revolutionaries. The initiator of the popular reform was Ernesto Che Guevara. Years of his life he spent on the theoretical works of socialists, and now honed his oratorical skills, convincing ordinary citizens of Cuba in the correctness of the path that the members of the "Movement of July 26" offered.

The last and decisive battle was the battle for Santa Clara. It began on December 28 and ended with the rebel victory on January 1, 1959. A few hours after the capitulation of the garrison, Batista left Cuba and spent the rest of his life in forced emigration. Fights for Santa Clara was directed directly by Che Guevara. On January 2, his troops entered Havana, where the triumphant population was waiting for the revolutionaries.

New life

After the defeat of Batista, newspapers all over the world asked who Che Guevara was, what made this rebel leader famous and what is his political future? In February 1959, the government of Fidel Castro proclaimed him a Cuban citizen. Then Guevara began to use in his signatures the famous prefix "Che", with which he went down in history.

Under the new government, the former insurgent served as president of the National Bank (1959 - 1961) and minister of industry (1961 - 1965). In the first summer after the victory of the revolution, he spent an entire world tour as an official person, during which he visited Egypt, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Burma, Japan, Morocco, Spain and Yugoslavia. In the same June 1959, the commandant for the second time married. His wife became a participant of the "Movement on July 26" Aleyda March. Children Ernesto Che Guevara (Aleyda, Camilo, Celia, Ernesto) were born in marriage with this woman (except the eldest daughter of Ilda).

Government Activities

In the spring of 1961, the US leadership finally quarreled with Castro began the operation in the Gulf of Pigs. On the Island of Freedom, an enemy landing landed. Before the end of the operation, Che Guevara led the troops in one of the provinces of Cuba. The American plan failed, and the socialist government in Havana survived.

In the autumn Che Guevara visited the GDR, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. In the Soviet Union, his delegation signed agreements on the supply of Cuban sugar. Moscow also promised financial and technical assistance to the Island of Liberty. Ernesto Che Guevara, interesting facts about which could constitute a separate book, participated in the festive parade dedicated to the anniversary of the October Revolution. The Cuban guest stood on the rostrum of the mausoleum next to Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. Later Guevara visited the Soviet Union several times.

As a minister, Che seriously revised his attitude towards the governments of the socialist countries. He was dissatisfied with the fact that the major communist states (primarily the USSR and China) established their rigid conditions of commodity exchange with subsidized small partners, such as Cuba.

In 1965, during his visit to Algeria, Guevara delivered a famous speech in which he criticized Moscow and Beijing for their bondage to fraternal countries. This episode once again showed who Che Guevara is, what was famous and what reputation this revolutionary had. He did not compromise his own principles, even if he had to face a conflict with his allies. Another reason for the dissatisfaction of the commandant was the reluctance of the socialist camp to actively intervene in the new regional revolutions.

Expedition to Africa

In the spring of 1965, Che Guevara found himself in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This Central African country was experiencing a political crisis, and in its jungle, the partisans who advocated the establishment of socialism in their homeland acted. The Comandante arrived in Congo with another hundred Cubans. He helped organize the underground, shared with them their own experience gained during the war with Batista.

Although Che Guevara put all his forces into the new adventure, new failures awaited him at every step. The rebels suffered several defeats, and the relationship of the Cubans with the leader of the African comrades Kabila from the outset did not work out. After several months of bloodshed, the Congolese authorities, against whom the Socialists acted, made some compromises and settled the conflict. Another blow to the insurgents was the refusal of Tanzania to provide them with rear bases. In November 1965, Che Guevara left the Congo, never reaching the goals set before the revolution.

Future plans

Staying in Africa cost Che another malaria disease. In addition, exacerbated asthma attacks, from which he suffered from his earliest childhood. The first half of 1966, the commandant conspiratorially held in Czechoslovakia, where he was treated in a sanatorium of Czechoslovakia. Resting from war, the Latin American continued to work on planning for new revolutions around the world. His statement about the need to create "a lot of Vietnam", where at that time there was a conflict between the two major world political systems, became widely known.

In the summer of 1966 the commandant returned to Cuba and headed preparations for the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia. As it turned out, this war was his last. In March 1967, the President of Bolivia, Barrientos, was horrified to learn about the operation in his country of partisans abandoned in the jungles of socialist Cuba.

To get rid of the "red threat", the politician turned to Washington for help. In the White House, it was decided to use special units of the CIA against the Che detachment. Soon, over the provincial villages in the vicinity of which the partisans were operating, leaflets scattered from the air began to appear, informing them of the great reward for the murder of the Cuban revolutionary.

Death

In total, Che Guevara spent 11 months in Bolivia. All this time he kept records, which, after his death, were published as a separate book. Gradually the Bolivian authorities began to press the insurgents. Two detachments were destroyed, after which the commandant remained practically completely isolated. On October 8, 1967, he, along with several comrades, was surrounded. Two rebels were killed. Many were injured, including Ernesto Che Guevara. How the revolutionary died, it became known thanks to the reminiscences of several eyewitnesses.

Guevara and his comrades were escorted to the village of La Higuera, where for the prisoners there was a place in a small clay building, which was a local school. The rebels were captured by the Bolivian detachment, who the day before finished training, organized by military advisers, sent by the CIA. Che refused to answer the questions of the officers, talked only with the soldiers and from time to time asked to smoke.

On the morning of October 9, an order came to the village from the Bolivian capital to execute a Cuban revolutionary. On the same day he was shot. The body was transported to a town nearby, where the corpse of Guevara was on display to local residents and journalists. The hands were amputated from the body in order to officially confirm the death of the insurgent with the help of fingerprints. The remains were buried in a secret mass grave.

The burial was discovered in 1997 thanks to the efforts of American journalists. Then the remains of Che and several of his comrades were handed over to Cuba. There they were betrayed with honor. The mausoleum where Ernesto Che Guevara is buried is in Santa Clara, the city in which the commandant in 1959 won its main victory.