"Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time."
— Jean Paul Sartre
In addition to being a Marxist revolutionary, Che was also a talented writer (authored dozens of books, diaries & essays), theorist of guerrilla warfare, internationalist statesman, self-taught economist, medical physician, and poetic intellectual who wrote some of the most impassioned pleas for battling against imperialism that you will ever read.
So, what are some of the things that Che did?
Che Guevara:
- Traveled the length of South America and worked in a Leper colony where he treated lepers (as seen in the excellent film/memoir ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’).
- Was radicalized from living in Guatemala during the 1953 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz by the CIA (Operation PBSUCCESS) on behalf of Secretary of State Dulles and the United Fruit Company. He tried to no avail to organize a resistance in the streets as U.S. planes bombed and strafed the capital city.
- Was named "the best guerrilla of them all" by their instructor General Bayo, despite having crippling asthma, during their training for invading Cuba.
- Tended to numerous sick campesinos in the Sierra Maestra as both a doctor and even at times as a dentist.
- Set up factories to make grenades, built ovens to bake bread, taught new recruits about tactics, organized schools to teach illiterate campesinos to read and write, established health clinics, workshops to teach military tactics, a newspaper to disseminate information, and set up the Radio Rebelde station – All as a guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra.
- Won the Battle of Santa Clara where his men were outnumbered 10:1.
- Played a pivotal role in the victorious two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime, rising from medic to second in command behind only Fidel Castro.
- Helped remove the Mafia and U.S.-backed dictatorship of Batista from Cuba which had killed 20,000 Cubans and tortured thousands more. He also saw to it that a few hundred of the worst war criminals received revolutionary justice by firing squad.
- Stopped American companies from owning 70 % of the arable land in Cuba and 1% of the Cuban population from controlling 46 % of the wealth.
- Helped spearhead a nationwide literacy campaign in Cuba, which brought the national literacy rate from 60 to 97 % in 1 year.
- Instituted agrarian reform as minister of industries and broke up the large estates, served as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversed the globe to 40 + countries as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism.
- Trained the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and brought the Soviet nuclear-armedballistic missiles to Cuba which won the agreement from Kennedy that the U.S. would never invade the island again.
- Composed a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, which is still studied by military academies and insurgents all around the world even today. He also created his own military theory of Focalism (Foco Theory), which describes how rural peasants can utilize guerrilla warfare and class consciousness to overthrow a urban based dictatorship.
- Desegregated the schools and universities in Cuba before they were in the Southern U.S.
- Called out South Africa’s Apartheid in 1964 to the U.N., 30 years before the West!
- Denounced the racism and KKK in America in the 1960’s and denounced Patrice Lumumba’s assassination by the Belgians/CIA on the World stage.
- Warned of the dangers of the IMF, 3 decades before most of the developing world realized they had been scammed into debt slavery.
- Fought white mercenaries in the African Congo with an all black army in 1964.
- Battled 3 U.S.-backed dictators on 3 separate continents (Batista/Cuba, Mobutu/Congo, & Barrientos/Bolivia).
- Spoke out against US and eventually USSR Imperialism while demanding that the poor of the world be allowed to live a life of dignity.
- Gave his life to help bring down capitalism, imperialism, and neocolonialism by leaving a bourgeoisie comfortable life of the upper class, a potential well compensated career as a medical doctor, and a high regarded governmental position, each time to slog through the jungle and fight guerrilla wars against impenetrable odds. In fact, near the end it took 1,800 Bolivian and CIA assisted rangers to bring down his 25 men.
"Above all, always be capable of feeling most deeply any injustice committed against anyone in the world. That is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary."
— Che’s last words to his children in a farewell letter
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