Commandante Ernesto "Che" Guevara

(192-1967)

This is Che Guevara on a bicycle. OK, it has a small engine, but it’s still a bike that you have to pedal. Che rode
this through Argentina in the late 40s. I was thinking about Che because I’m reading Companero: The Life and
Death of Che Guevara . Several years ago, I read Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life and The Motorcycle
Diaries . I recommend them both.

As you know, I’m a union organizer. In my office, I have a big Che poster mounted on the wall. It’s the one thing
you can see as you pass my office. A few people have commented that it’s a shocking thing to see. That may be
true. It’s there because it has one of my favorite quotations from Che (or anyone else, for that matter) printed on
it:
“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of
love.” — Che Guevara

Contributed by ron collins on Tue, 2007-10-09 18:16.

In sections:

• Che
• Obituary

COMMANDANTE ERNESTO "CHE"

GUEVARA (1928-1967)

Argentine physician and revolutionary guerrilla, Cuban official, diplomat and national hero

"And if there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution
in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara." -Phil Ochs

Remembering His Death, Celebrating His Life

On October 9, 1967, 40 years ago today, Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia by his CIA-
assisted and -directed captors.

He told the frightened soldier who was sent to execute him in the small room where Che lay,
seriously wounded: “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a
man." The Bolivian had been told not to shoot Che in the head, because they wanted to be sure to
get identifiable photos of him dead. After he was killed, and photos taken, Che's hands were
chopped off and sent to Cuba as further proof that the world-famous revolutionary was dead.

Che and his comrades were buried in secret graves, which were only
found in 1997 by an international team of forensic anthropologists. Their remains were returned
to Cuba and buried in a mausoleum in Santa Clara, the city in central Cuba which Che liberated in
the 1959 revolution.

Today in Bolivia, 40 years later, Che's life is being celebrated not just by the indigenous
campesinos he worked with but by the Government and the country's President Evo Morales, the
first indigenous President of Bolivia.

One of the CIA-paid Cuban exiles who were with the military group that hunted Che down was
Felix Rodriquez, a Cuban counterrevolutionary who
was later implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, during which he
helped the CIA train and infiltrate terrorists into Nicaragua.
Rodriquez lives freely in Miami, pardoned by the first President Bush
of his many terrorist crimes (including those in the US). He still has
Che's wristwatch, which he proudly displays to reporters.

Later this month at a gallery in Texas, another of

the counterrevolutionary Cuban CIA hirelings who were on the hunt for
Che will be auctioning off a lock of his hair, a copy of Che's
fingerprints, a map and other trophies of that day

Meanwhile, two years ago that frightened Bolivian sergeant who was sent
to shoot Che, now an old man, was going blind from cataracts. He can
now see again, thanks to the free surgery he received, from Cuban
doctors, part of the Venezuelan-Cuban program to provide free
ophthalmic care called "Operation Miracle."

--------------------------------*---------------------------------

Che's Life and Work:

Che Guevara was a Latin American revolutionary leader who rejected both
capitalism and orthodox Soviet communism. Like T.E. Lawrence, Guevara
lived an adventurous life. His tragic early death in Bolivia when he
was 39 created a legend that still lives. He once said that "the true
revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love," but he also wrote
influential works on guerrilla warfare:

"The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the

people. It draws its great force from the mass of the people
themselves. The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the
army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire
power. Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a
majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in
defense against oppression." (from "Guerrilla Warfare," 1960)

In the brief period of 8 years between the 1959 revolutionary victory in

Cuba and his assassination in 1967, the scope of Che's accomplishments
is truly astonishing. His legacy includes intellectual writings on
radical politics and social theory, military/guerrilla warfare strategy
and tactics, diplomatic memos, books, speeches, magazine articles,
letters, poetry and diaries, as well as official documents preserved in
government archives. Che's practical and theoretical work had a
profound political impact around the globe during the second half of
the 20th century, especially in the developing world, where
revolutionary organizing and anti-colonial struggles were inspired by
his thought and example. His writings have been translated into hundreds
of languages; in English much is available from the Australian
publishing house Ocean Press (see Sources).

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario,

Argentina into a middle-class family of Spanish-Irish descent. Celia de
la Serna y Llosa, his mother, had lost her parents while she was still
a child. Celia was raised by her religious aunt and her older sister,
Carmen de la Serna, who married in 1928 the Communist poet Cayetano
Córdova Itúrburu. Guevara's family was liberal, anti-Nazi and
anti-Peronist, and not very religious. With Celia's fortune (modest by
today's standards of wealth), the family lived comfortably, although
Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Ernesto's father, managed to spend much of it in
his unlucky business ventures. In his youth Guevara read widely and
among his reading list in the 1940s were Sartre, Pablo Neruda, Ciro
Alegría, and Karl Marx's Das Kapital. He also kept a philosophical
diary and in Africa during his 1965 Congo campaign, Guevara planned to
write a biography of Marx.

In 1953 Guevara graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, where he

was trained as a doctor. During these years Guevara read Stalin and
Mussolini but did not join radical student organizations. He made long
travels in Argentina and in other Latin America countries. At the same
time his critical views about the expanding economic influence of the
United States deepened. In 1952 he made a journey on his motor bike,
an old Norton 500 single, around South America. The journey opened his
eyes about the situation of the indigenous people and was crucial for
the awakening of his social conscience. Like Jack Kerouac later in his
book On the Road (1957), Guevara recorded his impressions in The
Motorcycle Diaries. "The person who wrote these notes died the day he
stepped back on Argentine soil," Guevara wrote in his diary. "Wandering
around our 'America with a capital A' has changed me more than I
thought."

After witnessing first hand American intervention during the 1954

CIA-instigated coup in Guatemala, Guevara was radicalized and became
convinced that the only way to bring about change was by violent
revolution. He wrote in a letter home: "Along the way, I had the
opportunity to pass through the dominions of the United Fruit Cpmpany,
convincing me once again of just how terrible these capitalist
octopuses are. I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned
comrade Stalin that I won’t rest until I see these capitalist octopuses
annihilated." In Guatemala Guevara met Hilda Gadea. They married in 1955
and had one child. Guevara was arrested with Fidel Castro in Mexico for
a short time. He had joined Castro's revolutionaries to overthrow the
US-supported Batista dictatorship in Cuba. In 1956 they loaded the
38-foot motor yacht Granma full of guerrillas and weapons and sailed to
Cuba, landing near Cabo Cruz on December 2.

The rebels made their base in the mountains of Sierra Maestra, attacking
garrisons and recruiting peasants to the revolutionary army. In the
areas controlled by the guerrillas, Guevara started land reform and
socialist organizing and education. In spite of his chronic asthma,
Guevara enjoyed the hard conditions and war.

His nickname "Che" derived from Guevara's habit of punctuating his

speech with the interjection "che," a common Argentine expression for
"friend."

Land reform became the slogan, the "banner and primary spearhead of our
movement," as Guevara described it in an interview, that eventually won
the peasants over to participate in the armed struggle. Guevara was
respected by his men, although considered violent -- he shot Eutimio
Guerra who had cooperated with dictator Fulgencio Batista's army.
In the mountains Guevara met Aleida March in 1958, a 24-year-old
revolutionary fighter, and she became Guevara's second wife in 1959. He
continued to write his diary and also composed articles for El Cubano
Libre. A selection of Gurvara's articles, which he wrote between 1959
and 1964, was published in 1963 [sic] as PASAJES DE LA GUERRA
REVOLUCIONARIA. For the world media, Cuba was a hot subject - The New
York Times, Paris Match and Latin American papers sent reporters to the
mountains to write stories of the revolutionaries. At the same time
Guevara was in the mountains, his uncle was serving as Argentina's
Ambassador to Cuba.

Guevara rose to the rank of major and led one of the forces that
invaded central Cuba in late 1958, liberating the city of Santa Clara.
After the Revolutionary victory in January 1959 Guevara gained fame as
a leading figure in Castro's government. He attracted much attention
with his speeches against imperialism and US policy in the Third World.
He argued strongly for centralized planning, and emphasized creation of
the 'new socialist man.' In his famous article, 'Notes on Man and
Socialism,' he argued that "to build communism, you must build new men
as well as the new economic base." The basis of revolutionary struggle
is "the happiness of people," the goal of socialism is the creation
of more complete and more devoped human beings.

In a discussion on September 14, 1961 Guevara opposed the right of

dissidents to make their views known even within the Communist Party
itself. However, privately Guevara was critical of the Soviet bloc, but
so was also Nikita Khruschev. When the executions of war criminals
started Guevara acted as the highest prosecuting authority. The
condemned were soldiers found guilty of murder, torture and other
serious crimes. Because Guevara was a doctor, one of his friends once
asked how he could work in such a position. Guevara's answer was like
something from Western movies: "Look, in this thing you have to kill
before they kill you." In 1959 Guevara formally adopted the nickname
Che and was granted honorary Cuban citizenship. He was visited by such
intellectuals as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre, who saw in him
the "most complete human being of our age."

The most famous picture of Guevara was taken by Alberto Diaz Gutiérrez,
known professionally as Korda, at a memorial rally held for more than
100 Cubans killed when the French ship La Coubre exploded as it was
being unloaded in Havana Harbor -- it is generally agreed as the result
of counterrevolutionary sabotage against the ship, which carried
munitions as part of its cargo. Korda declined to demand royalty
payments when the picture became a worldwide icon. But when a British
advertising agency appropriated the image for a vodka ad, Korda was
incensed and went to court to stop this commercial use of his famous
photo. "[Che] never drank himself," said the photographer, "and drink
should not be associated with his immortal memory."

From 1961 to 1965 Guevara was minister for industries, and director of
the national bank, signing the bank notes simply 'Che.' He traveled
widely, representing Cuba at the Organization of American States and
speaking at the United Nations, as well as making extended trips to
the USSR, India and Africa, meeting the leading figures of the world,
among others Jawaharel Nehru and Nikita Khruschev. Guevara was also the
architect of the close relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Although good a relationship with Moscow became the cornerstone of
Castro's foreign policy, Guevara followed with interest the development
of the Maoist model in China. In 1965 Guevara made public his
disappointments in Algieria and described the Kremlin as "an accomplice
of imperialism."

Guevara's departure from the Cuban government followed his return from
Algiers. To test his revolutionary theories he resigned from his
official government posts. He had published the highly influential
manuals "Guerrilla Warfare" (1960) and "Guerrilla Warfare: A
Method" (1963), which were based on his own experiences and partly on
chairman Mao Zedong's writings. President John F. Kennedy had
"Guerrilla Warfare" rapidly translated for him by the CIA. Guevara
stated that revolution in Latin America must come through insurgent
forces developed in rural areas with peasant support. There is no need
for the right preconditions for revolution, he wrote; guerrilla warfare
can begin the activities. In his last article, "Vietnam and World
Struggle," Guevara outlined his global perspective for revolutionary
struggle, and stressed the dual role of hate and love.

"And he did have a saving element of humor. I possess a tape of his

appearance on an early episode of 'Meet the Press' in December 1964,
where he confronts a solemn panel of network pundits. When they address
him about the 'conditions' that Cuba must meet in order to be permitted
the sunshine of American approval, he smiles as he proposes that there
need be no preconditions: 'After all, we do not demand that you abolish
racial discrimination....' A person as professionally skeptical as I.F.
Stone so far forgot himself as to write: 'He was the first man I ever
met who I thought not just handsome but beautiful. With his curly
reddish beard, he looked like a cross between a faun and a
Sunday-school print of Jesus.... He spoke with that utter sobriety which
sometimes masks immense apocalyptic visions." (Christopher Hitchens in
New York Review of Books, July 17, 1997).

During his disappearance from public life Guevara spent some time in
Africa organizing the Lumumba Battalion which took part in the Congo
civil war. He was not happy with the way Laurent Kabila fought against
Joseph Mobutu, although his first impression of Kabila was positive.
"Africa has a long way to go before it reaches real revolutionary
maturity," Guevara concluded in his diary.

In 1966 Guevara turned up incognito in Bolivia, where he trained and led

a guerrilla force in the Santa Cruz region. In his manual "Guerrilla
Warfare," Guevara had stressed that the guerrilla fighter needs full
support of the people of the area as an indispensable condition, but
Guevara failed to win the support of the peasants, and his group was
surrounded near Vallegrande by American-trained Bolivian troops. "The
decisive moment in a man's life is when he decides to confront death,"
Guevara once said. "If he confronts it, he will be a hero whether he
succeeds or not. He can be a good or a bad politician, but if he does
not confront death he will never be more than a politician."

After Guevara was captured, Captain Gary Prado Salmón assigned a

security detail around him to be sure that nothing happened. Guevara
told him, "Don't worry, Captain, don't worry. This is the end. It's
finished" (according to the documentary film 'Red Chapters,' 1999).
Guevara was assassinated in a schoolhouse in La Higuera on October 9,
1967, by Warrant Officer Mario Terán of the Bolivian Rangers, under the
command of Colonel Zenteno. Terán was half-drunk, celebrating his
birthday. Guevara's last words were, according to some sources: "Shoot,
coward, you are only going to kill a man."

Che was actually shot with the connivance of the CIA's the mercenary
Cuban counterrevolutionaries who were deployed with the
US-trained Bolivian military. One of these, Felix Rodriguez, later
living in Miami, bragged for years afterward that he had taken Che's
wristwatch and would eagerly display it to any reporter who seemed
interested.

In order to make a positive fingerprint comparison with records

in Argentina, Guevara's hands were amputated and put into a flask of
formaldehyde. They were later returned to Cuba. Guevara's corpse was
buried in a ditch at the end of the runway site of Vallegrande's new
airport. "Che considered himself a soldier of this revolution, with
absolutely no concern about surviving it," said Fidel Castro later in
"Che: A Memoir."

In the fall of 1997, a team of Cuban and international forensic

archeologists finally located the hidden unmarked graves of Che and his
companer@s in Bolivia. Their remains were exhumed and returned to Cuba,
where they are interred in a mausoleum and memorial museum in the
central city of Santa Clara, which Che liberated during the 1959
revolution. October 9, 2007 marks the 40th anniversary of Che's death.

Guevara's life inspired the film Che! (1969), directed by Richard

Fleischer and starring Omar Sharif (Guevara) and Jack Palance (Castro).
The fictionalized biography was criticized by James Baldwin in "The
Devil Finds Work" (1976): "The intention of Ché! was to make both the
man, and his Bolivian adventure, irrelevant and ridiculous; and to do
this, furthermore, with such a syrup of sympathy that any incipient of
Ché would think twice before leaving Mama, and the ever-ready friend at
the bank."

FURTHER READING: Cuba: An American Tragedy by Maurice Zeitlin

(1964); Che: The Making of a Legend by Martin Ebon (1969); Che Guevara
by A. Sinclair (1970); The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy,
Economics and Revolutionary Warfare by Michael Lowy (1973); The Latin
American Revolution by Donald C. Hodges (1974); The Legacy of Che
Guevara, ed. by Donald C. Hodges (1977); Shadow Warrior: The CIA’s Hero
of a Hundred Unknown Battles by Felix Rodriguez with John Weisman
(1989); Che Guevara, A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson (1997);
Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara by Jorge G. Castaneda
(1997); Guevara, Also Known as Che by Paco Ignacio Taibo (1997); Che in
Africa: Che Guevara's Congo Diary by William Gálvez (1999); Che
Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution by Peter McLaren
(2000) - See also: José Martí

Selected works:

* LA GUERRA DE GUERRILLAS, 1960 - Guerrilla Warfare

* PASAJES DE LA GUERRA REVOLUCIONARIA, 1963 - Reminiscences of the

Cuban Revolutionary War - Vallankumoussota Kuubassa

* Guerrilla Warfare: A Method, 1963

* EL SOCIALISMO Y EL HOMBRE - CUBA, 1965 - Socialism and Man

* Che Guevara Speaks, 1967 (ed. by George Lanvan)

* DIARIA DE CHE EN BOLIVIA, 1968 - Diary of Che Guevara (ed. by
Robert Scheer) / Bolivian Diary of Ernesto "Che" Guevara

* OBRAS COMPLETAS, 1968 (Complete Works)

* Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara, 1968 (ed.

by John Gerassi)

* Che Guevara on Revolution, 1969 (ed. by Jay Mallin)

* Che Guerava, 1969 (selected works)

* Che: Selected works of Ernesto Guevara, 1970 (ed. by Rolando

Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdes)

* OBRAS (Works) 1957-1967, 1970 (2 vols.)

* ESCRITOS Y DISCURSOS, 1977 (9 vols.) (Writings and Speeches)

* Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution: Writings and Speeches of

Ernesto Che Guevara, 1987

* The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America by Ernesto

Che Guevara, 1995 (trans. by Ann Wright) - Moottoripyöräpäiväkirja
(trans. into Finnish by Aleksi Siltala, from Notas de viaje. Mi primer
gran viaje: de la Argentina e Venezuela en motocicleta) - film 2004,
dir. by Walter Salles, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Rodrogo de la Serna

* Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1956-58, 1996 (ed. by

Mary-Alice Waters)

* Che Guevara Reader: Writings by Ernesto Che Guevara on Guerrilla

Strategy, Politics & Revolution, 1997

* Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings, 2000

* Che Guevara Talks to Young People, 2000 (ed. by Mary-Alice Waters)

* The Complete Bolivian Diaries of Che Guevara, and Other Captured

Documents, 2000 (ed. by Danile James)

* The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the

Congo, 2001 (trans. by Patrick Camiller)

* Back on the Road: A Journey to Latin America, 2002 (trans. by

Patrick Camiller) - Tien päällä taas (trans. into Finnish by Anu
Partanen, from Otra vez)

* Che Guevara on Global Justice, 2002

SELECTED SOURCES IN ENGLISH:

News, biographical and historical notes:

Kirjasto website, Finland

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/guevar.htm

NY Transfer News
http://www.blythe.org
http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/

Prensa Latina (Latin American international news service

in Cuba, which Che helped establish)
http://www.prensa-latina.org
http://www.plenglish.com

Granma International
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/

Radio Havana Cuba

http://www.radiohc.org
http://www.radiohc.cu

MacroHistory: Revolution and Che Guevara, 1960-1967

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch24x.html

Wikipedia entry for Santa Clara, Cuba

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara,_Cuba

Wikipedia entry for Che Guevara is generally full of venomous

anti-communist propaganda and hatred of Che, but there are some
decent photos and a fairly good bibliography and list of Che's writings
at the end. Also some links. Treat the text skeptically, however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

Che's writings, and archival photographs of Che

available from Ocean Press
http://www.oceanbooks.com.au/

Che Lives (offers a biography, speeches, and papers about Che)

http://www.Che-lives.com

Quotes:

BrainyQuote.com
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/phil_ochs.html

Thinkexist.com
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/top/nationality/argentinian/

Great quotes at Geocities

http://www.geocities.com/raqta24/gqtes.htm

***
Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles

Ernesto "Che" Guevara: A Chronology

-June 14th, 1928: Born in Rosario, Argentina. Son of Ernesto Guevara

Lynch and Celia de la Serna.

-May 2nd, 1930: Before the age of 2, Che suffers his first asthma
attack.

-1933: The Guevara family moves to Alta Gracias in the province

of Cordoba due to their son's asthma. In 1942, he begins his studies in
the Dean Funes National School in Cordoba some 45 kilometres from Alta
Gracia.

-In 1946, the family moves to Buenos Aires in an apartment belonging to

his paternal grandmother, Ana Isabel. When she falls sick, Ernesto
Guevara cares for her for 17 days and after her death, Che announces he
would study medicine.

-1947: Enrols in medicine at the University of Buenos Aires.

-October 1950: First trip throughout Latin America.

-December 29th, 1951: on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado

to tour South America.

-August 1952: Returns to Buenos Aires. He graduates as a doctor.

-July 7th, 1953: another trip throughout South and Central America
accompanied by Carlos "Calica" Ferrer.

-January 3rd, 1954: Meets Cuban Ñico Lopez in Guatemala, whom

nicknamed Ernesto, Che.

-September 1954: The democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz in

Guatemala falls and Guevara travels to Mexico.

-July 1955: He meets Fidel Castro and decides to join the struggle
against the Batista dictatorship.

-August 18th, 1955: He marries Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian

economist in Tepotzotlan, Mexico

-February 15th, 1956, Hildita is born. Her godfather is Raul Castro-

-June 1956: A betrayal informs the Mexican police of the preparations

of the Cubans and some 30 of them were detained. He spends time in
jail.

-November 25th, 1956: Travels on board the Granma yacht with another 81
men headed by Fidel Castro.
-December 2nd, 1956: Landed in Cuba and began the rebel struggle.

-July 21st, 1957: He becomes a Commander of the Rebel Army.

-February 24th, 1958: The first broadcast was launched on Radio

Rebelde, created by Che.

-December 28th, 1958: The Ciro Redondo Column 8, under the leadership
of Che arrived in the city of Santa Clara from the Sierra Maestra
Mountains.

-December 29-31, 1958: Che leads the Battle of Santa Clara which was
a hardest blow against Batista.

-January 3rd, 1959: Che enters Havana and sets up headquarters in La

Cabaña.

-February 9th, 1959: Che is declared a Cuban citizen.

-June 9th, 1959: He marries Aleida March, member of the July 26th
Movement in Santa Clara.

-November 26th, 1959: Is named President of the Cuban National Bank.

-November 24th, 1960: Aleida Guevara is born.

-February 23rd, 1961: Che is named Industry Minister.

-March 20th, 1962: His son Camilo is born.

-August 4th: Che heads a Cuban delegation to the Conference of the

Americas in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

-October-November of 1962: He heads the military command in Pinar del

Rio during the October Missile Crisis.

-June 14th, 1963: His daughter Celia is born.

-November 5th to the 19th: Visits the Soviet Union and

participates in the 47th anniversary of the October Revolution.

-December 11th, 1964: He speaks at the UN General Assembly.

-January of 1965: Travels to China, Mali, Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Benin,

Tanzania, Egypt and Algeria.

-March 15th, 1965: Last public

appearance: Talks about his trips abroad to members of the Industry
Ministry.
-April 1st, 1965: He writes a farewell letter to his parents, sons and
daughters and Fidel. Travels to the Congo in July and returns some
time later.

-October 3rd, 1965: Fidel makes public Che?s farewell letter.

-November 3rd, 1966: Arrives in La Paz and on the 7th in Ñacahuazú.

Begins to write his diary.

-March 5th, 1967: First combat with the Bolivian army in Lagunillas.

-March 25th, 1967: Creates the Bolivian National Liberation Army.

-March 27th, 1967: makes public Communiqué No. 1 of the organization

in Camiri.

-October 8th, 1967: He becomes a prisoner in El Yuro.

-October 9th, 1967: He is assassinated by Sergeant Mario Terán at

1.30pm in a school in the town of La Higuera.

-October 18th, 1967: Fidel announces his death in Havana's Revolution

Square.

-June 12th, 1997: Che's remains and rest of his comrades in arms are
identified in Valle Grande.

-October 17th, 1997: Official ceremony when the remains of Che

Guevara and his comrades in arms were laid to rest in the Memorial that
bears his name in the central city of Santa Clara.

***

Some Che Guevara quotes:

“I don't care if I fall as long as someone else

picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.”

"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice

then you are a comrade of mine."

"The revolution is not an apple that falls when

it is ripe; you have to make it fall."

“In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like

Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.”

"Words that do not match deeds are unimportant."

"Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!"

"The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated."

“Better to die standing, than to live on your knees.”

“I don't know if the Cuban revolution will survive or not. It's

difficult to say. But [if it doesn't] ... don't come looking for me
among the refugees in the embassies. I've had that experience, and I'm
not ever going to repeat it. I will go out with a machine gun in my
hand, to the barricades... I'll keep fighting to the end.”

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true

revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”

“It's a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to
have enemies.”

“Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry
has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take
up our arms.”

“I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and

keeps on shooting."

“Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a

different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his
platitudes.”

“Silence is argument carried out by other means.”

“In a revolution, one triumphs or dies.” -farewell letter to Fidel

Castro, April 1, 1965)

"We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it,
to his home, to his centers of entertainment: a total war. It is
necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment
outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may
be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his
moral fiber shall begin to decline, but we shall notice how the signs
of decadence begin to disappear.” -Message to the Tricontinental, 1967

“Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the

enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is
heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and
cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without
hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.” -Message to the Tricontinental,
1967