Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War

Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928 - 1967), was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. As a medical student, he traveled through Latin America and was transformed by the poverty he witnessed. His experiences led him to conclude that the region's ingrained economic inequalities were an result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's radical ideology. Later, in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their Movement, and travelled to Cuba with the intention of overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Batista. He rose to prominence , was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime. Following the Revolution, he performed key roles in the new government. These included instituting agrarian reform as minister of industries, serving as national bank president, instructional director for Cuba's armed forces, reviewing appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the tribunals, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and brought to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. He was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful motorcycle journey across South America. He left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.