50 years ago Ernesto (Che) Guevara, a Latin American and Cuban revolutionary, was executed. We will tell you about the life, aspirations and death of the legendary commandant below.
Ernesto Guevara (full name - Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna) was born in Argentina, in the city of Rosario. His father was the architect Ernesto Guevara Lynch, his mother was Celia De La Serna. She inherited a mate plantation in the province of Misiones, but after the young family improved the situation of the workers, thus angering other planters, they had to move to Rosario, where the first child was born.
Later, the family moved to the province of Cordoba in the mountains - Ernesto had bronchial asthma and the mountain air was useful to him. At first, the boy suffered from daily seizures, due to which he could not go to school, but eventually he completed his studies and at the age of 13 he entered college, and then - at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires.
At the university, Guevara became interested in the study of leprosy and was going to devote his life to the treatment of South American lepers.
In 1952, with the doctor of biochemistry Alberto Granado, they traveled around Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela. Granado once said: “You know, old man, let's stay here. I will marry an Indian woman from a noble Inca family, proclaim myself emperor and become the ruler of Peru, and appoint you prime minister, and together we will carry out a social revolution. " Guevara replied: "You are crazy, you can't make a revolution without shooting!"
Ernesto's severed hands
After the trip, Guevara confirmed his intentions. After rejecting an offer of a promising university career, he decided to spend at least ten years as a practicing physician, believing that the physician must devote himself to improving the living conditions of the general public.
Guevara worked as a doctor in many countries of Latin America, which were covered in revolutionary events in those years. In Guatemala, he met his future revolutionary wife Ilda Gadea and supporters of Fidel Castro. When armed groups from Hondurasas invaded Guatemala in 1954 to overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz, Guevara participated in air defense during the bombings, helping to transport weapons.
Promotional video:
He was included in the list of "dangerous communists" who should have been destroyed after the overthrow of Arbenz. The Argentine Ambassador helped Guevara leave the country and go to Mexico City.
There, Guevara and Gadea got married and had a daughter. There, they met Fidel Castro, and Guevara received the nickname Che - for the typical Argentinean manner of using this exclamation in a friendly conversation.
Guevara joined Castro and other revolutionaries in preparing an armed expedition to Cuba. The training of the fighters went in small groups in different parts of the country, to get to the island the yacht "Granma" was bought.
The journey to Cuba took over two weeks. On the shore, a detachment of 82 insurgents was greeted by 35,000 armed soldiers, 78 aircraft, tanks, warships and coast guard ships. Half of the detachment was killed, 20 people were captured. However, the rebels were supported by the peasants, allowing them to advance day after day towards Havana. On December 28, 1958, the battle for the city of Santa Clara began, on December 31, the city was taken, and a day later the Revolutionary Army entered Havana. The revolution has won, a new stage has begun in the life of the Cuban people.
Having become the second person after Fidel Castro in the government, Che quickly figured out the areas entrusted to him and carried out a series of monetary and industrial reforms.
Corpse of Ernesto (Che) Guevara
In 1959, he married the revolutionary Aleida March. With his new wife, he traveled to Egypt, India, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Yugoslavia. Returning from his trip, he signed a historic agreement with the USSR on sugar exports and oil imports, breaking the dependence of the Cuban economy on the United States. Having visited the USSR later, he was delighted with the successes achieved there in building socialism.
However, the post of statesman attracted Che Guevara much less than the revolution. In 1965, he gave up all high posts, from Cuban citizenship, said goodbye to his family and disappeared from public life.
He spent some time in Africa, but it was not possible to organize wide demonstrations of the popular masses there. Then Che went to Latin America, where his people had long been preparing the performances of the popular masses in Bolivia. There, Guevara joined the partisan struggle.
At first, the actions of Guevara's detachment were successful. Several victories were won over government troops, Bolivian miners organized an armed uprising. However, it was brutally suppressed and did not find wide support among the people, and the Bolivian authorities, frightened by the appearance of Guevara, turned to the United States for help.
"There was no man whom the CIA feared more than Che Guevara, because he had the capabilities and charisma necessary to direct the fight against political repression of the traditional hierarchies of power in Latin America," wrote CIA agent Philip Agee, who fled to Cuba., CIA agent.
The denouement came in October 1967. The special services were able to find and capture the wounded Che Guevara and his people. On October 8, they were taken to a hut that served as a school in a nearby village. Guevara refused to answer the questions of Bolivian officers, communicating only with soldiers and was even able to hit one of the officers who tried to take the pipe away from him, and spat in the face of another.
On the night of October 8-9, Guevara spent on the floor next to his killed comrades. At 12:30, the order of the high command was received on the radio - "To begin the destruction of Senor Guevara." Before the execution, Bolivian soldiers tried to interrogate Guevara once again and get him to tell them the location of the other rebels, but he refused to answer.
“I know you came to kill me. Shoot. Do this. Shoot me, coward! You will only kill a man!”, - said Guevara to the sergeant, who volunteered to be the executioner, when they were left alone. He fired nine bullets at Guevara - first in the arms and legs, then in the chest. His death occurred at 13:10 local time.
The fear of enemies even before the dead Che was so great that the house where he was shot was razed to the ground and the place of burial was kept secret. Only in June 1997, Argentine and Cuban scientists managed to find and identify the remains of the legendary Comandante. They were transported to Cuba and on October 17, 1997, they were buried with honors in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara.
