
From his first meeting with Fidel Castro in Mexico in 1955 to his death in the Bolivian Andes in 1967, Ché Guevara's revolutionary career spanned little more than a decade. Yet the handsome young face, gaze set firmly on the future, has lived on through generations. In today's imagination Ché remains a mythical, romantic hero -- an uncompromising revolutionary, selfless, dedicated, incorruptible, ready to die for his beliefs.
Determined Nature
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna grew up in the shelter of provincial aristocracy in Argentina. His personality was not forged in easy privilege, but by the fierce battle he waged against acute asthma.

"He was a very sick boy," his brother later remembered, "but his character and willpower allowed him to overcome it." Guevara came to believe that all life was an act of will. "Any task, no matter how daunting could be solved by dint of enthusiasm, revolutionary fervor and unbending determination."
Restless Traveler
In 1948 Guevara went to Buenos Aires to study medicine. Restless by nature, he left his native land in 1952 on an eight-month journey of discovery and awakening. As he made his way north through South America, Guevara witnessed injustices that filled him with indignation.
"I will be with the people," he wrote in the journal he called viaje, "journey." "I will dip my weapons in blood and, crazed with fury, I will cut the throats of my defeated enemies. I can already feel my dilated nostrils savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, of death to the enemy." One year later, having completed his medical degree, he left Argentina for good.
Anti-American, Pro-Communist
At age 26, Guevara arrived in Mexico. He had spent five weeks in Bolivia and nine months in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of reformist president Jacobo Arbenz by a CIA-backed military coup.
The event forever fixed his hatred of the United States.
By then he was a convinced Marxist, and ardent admirer
of the Soviet Union. Married to a Guatemalan woman, Hilda Galea, he intended to name his first son Vladimir. He had decided to join the ranks of the Communist Party, "somewhere in the world." But despite his lofty ideals, Ché was little more than a drifter, a wandering photographer, an underpaid medical researcher -- a rebel in search of a cause.


A Comrade
Guevara discovered that cause in late summer 1955, when he was introduced to a daring exiled Cuban rebel leader committed to freeing his country from a dictator. The rebel's name was Fidel Castro, and he was planning to return to his native Cuba and take up arms. "By the small hours of that night I had become one of the future expeditionaries," Ché later recorded. Castro's passion and Guevara's ideas ignited each other. "It was like Lenin and Trotsky, like Hitler and Goebbels, like Mao Tse-Tung and Zhu De," journalist Georgie Anne Geyer would later write.
A Survivor
Ché distinguished himself, outperforming every Cuban while training in Mexico, despite his bouts of asthma. He was one of the few survivors of Castro's disastrous Granma landing, which the Cuban army had spotted. Ché Guevara made his way to the remote Sierra Maestra, where he joined Castro and
seventeen other Granma survivors — the
men who would form the core leadership
of revolutionary Cuba.

Jungle Fighter
Ché fought bravely in the mountains. He earned Castro's confidence and was the first rebel to be given the rank of comandante. Marching on Santa Clara in late 1958, his column derailed an armored train filled with dictator Fulgencio Batista's troops and took over the city. Guevara's triumph would be the final blow in the rebel military campaign against Batista.
Cuban Leader
By January 1959, Guevara, along with the Castro brothers, was recognized as one of the three most powerful leaders of the Cuban revolution. He became a Cuban citizen, divorced Hilda Galea, married a beautiful Cuban woman, Aleida March, and began a new family.
Oversaw Prisons
Guevara's first assignment was to oversee executions at an infamous prison, La Cabaña. Between 1959 and 1963, approximately 500 men were killed under his watch. Many individuals imprisoned at La Cabaña, including human rights activist Armando Valladares, allege that Guevara took a personal interest in the interrogation, torture, and execution of political prisoners.
Author
Guevara recorded the two years he spent in overthrowing Batista's regime in a detailed account entitled Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria, which came out in 1963. An English translation, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, was issued five years later.
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From his first meeting with Fidel Castro in Mexico in 1955 to his death in the Bolivian Andes in 1967, Ché Guevara's revolutionary career spanned little more than a decade. Yet the handsome young face, gaze set firmly on the future, has lived on through generations. In today's imagination Ché remains a mythical, romantic hero -- an uncompromising revolutionary, selfless, dedicated, incorruptible, ready to die for his beliefs.
Determined Nature
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna grew up in the shelter of provincial aristocracy in Argentina. His personality was not forged in easy privilege, but by the fierce battle he waged against acute asthma.

"He was a very sick boy," his brother later remembered, "but his character and willpower allowed him to overcome it." Guevara came to believe that all life was an act of will. "Any task, no matter how daunting could be solved by dint of enthusiasm, revolutionary fervor and unbending determination."
Restless Traveler
In 1948 Guevara went to Buenos Aires to study medicine. Restless by nature, he left his native land in 1952 on an eight-month journey of discovery and awakening. As he made his way north through South America, Guevara witnessed injustices that filled him with indignation.
"I will be with the people," he wrote in the journal he called viaje, "journey." "I will dip my weapons in blood and, crazed with fury, I will cut the throats of my defeated enemies. I can already feel my dilated nostrils savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, of death to the enemy." One year later, having completed his medical degree, he left Argentina for good.
Anti-American, Pro-Communist
At age 26, Guevara arrived in Mexico. He had spent five weeks in Bolivia and nine months in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of reformist president Jacobo Arbenz by a CIA-backed military coup.
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