Biography of Ernesto Che Guevara, personal life, interesting facts. Comandante Che Guevara

On October 9, 1967, Sergeant Mario Teran of the Bolivian Rangers shot and killed Ernesto Guevara Lynch de la Serna, nicknamed "Che", an Argentinean, a doctor by education, one of the leaders of the revolution in Cuba and the leader of the guerrilla movement in Latin America and Africa. He died - and became a legend. In Cuba, in the slums of the big cities and in some rural areas of the continent, he is worshiped as God. Fidel Castro, Venezuelan and Bolivian presidents Nicolas Maduro and Evo Morales, communists and other leftists all over the world swear allegiance to his ideas.

The halo of romance with a machine gun, a fighter for the freedom of the working people is so strong that even quite liberal-minded people often treat Che with great reverence, even admire this figure. Such an image is associated with Soviet and, more broadly, left-wing propaganda: idealizing Che as a “great fighter against imperialism,” Soviet publications replicated the image of a kind of simple-hearted, honest dreamer who was not very versed in politics, but was ready to die defending the interests of the common people. This image is far from reality.

Che politician

Che's transformation into an outstanding revolutionary began with a meeting in Mexico with a young Cuban lawyer, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who were expelled from their homeland after organizing an armed uprising against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Fidel has been preparing an armed landing in Cuba - quite a common story in Latin America, where those dissatisfied with the regime have been organizing raids by "guerrilleros" - rebel groups - since the time of Francisco Miranda (he first landed with a small detachment in Venezuela in 1805, intending to overthrow Spanish rule). Che gets a job as a doctor in a detachment of the Castro brothers.

Fidel Castro (left) and Che Guevara, photo 1959

The Cuban revolution is unique. Unlike Russian, Chinese or, say, Cambodian, it was based on lies from the very beginning. Lenin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot openly called on the peoples to exterminate the "exploiters" and throw the "rotten democracy" into the dustbin of history. Fidel and his comrades, a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra mountains, tirelessly called for the overthrow of the dictatorship and the restoration of democracy. In 1957, F. Castro, giving an interview in the Sierra Maestra to journalist Herbert Matthews of the New York Times, said: “Power does not interest me. After the victory, I will return to my village and practice as a lawyer.” He adhered to this position until the seizure of power in January 1959. Fidel and his associates NEVER and NOTHING spoke of either socialism or communism. Free and fair elections - that was their only program.

At the headquarters of the Sierra Maestra. Fidel Castro (center) to his right with glasses Julio Camacho Aguilera

At the same time, Che and the youngest of the Castro brothers, Raul, were already communists, and Fidel himself was under the strongest charm of the Argentine personality. It was Che who was the brain center of the Barbudos movement, therefore, speaking of what Fidel did until 1964, one must keep in mind that behind him always loomed the shadow of a handsome Argentine half-educated doctor.

Left to right: Vilma Espin, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Celia Sanchez, photo 1959

But Fidel was consistent. He was not going to restore democracy, hold elections and become a rural lawyer - he tasted absolute power and did not want to give it up at all. And in order to explain to the people such a political pirouette, an enemy was needed - terrible and cruel. The United States, traditionally disliked in Latin America, has become an ideal candidate for this role.

Fidel Castro and US Vice President Richard Nixon during a press conference in Washington. April 15, 1959

Fidel and Che proved to be brilliant PR people. Their "July 26 Movement" did not play the most serious role in the anti-dictatorial struggle: the "urban guerrilla" unleashed by the "Revolutionary Student Directorate" bore the brunt of the struggle, attacking troops and police on the streets of Havana and Santiago, sending guerrilla detachments into the Escambray mountains and forests Pinar del Rio. Far from Marxism, they suffered the greatest losses: 80% of the dead rebels were members of the RSD (their leader, José Antonio Echeverria, also died), and the July 26 Movement accounted for less than 20% of the victims. It was the uprisings in the cities and a series of general strikes that crushed the dictatorship, and not the actions of the small "barbudos" of the Sierra Maestra - they were primarily a PR component of the anti-dictatorial struggle. Only at the end of the war, the directorate, bled white and having lost its leaders in battles, formally recognized the leadership of the Castro brothers in the revolutionary movement. And Fidel and Che received one after another delegations of journalists at their partisan bases, telling them about their love for democracy and freedom. And it was they who became the symbols and heroes of the revolution. January 8, 1959 Guerilleros led by Che Guevara enter Havana. The revolution has won.

Solemn entry into Havana of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, January 1959

Fidel does not go to the village - he becomes the head of the Rebel Army, and Manuel Urrutia, a former investigator who courageously spoke out in defense of the "barbudos" in 1956, becomes the interim (before the elections) president, the well-known democrat Miro Cardona becomes the prime minister. However, the real power is in the hands of Fidel and Che: in the six months that have passed since the revolution, they have shot about 600 Batista soldiers without trial or investigation in the Havana prison of Cabana and in Santa Clara - Che Guevara acts as a self-proclaimed judge and prosecutor.

Cuban President Manuel Urrutia (center), photographed in 1959

The revolution begins to devour its children. February 15, 1959 Prime Minister Miro Cardona resigns. He is replaced by F. Castro. In June of the same year, he cancels previously planned free elections, which were to be held within eighteen months. Fidel's explanation is simple: “Elections! What are they needed for?". Laws No. 53 and No. 54 limit the rights of citizens to freedom of association. In July 1959 President M. Urrutia resigned. At the same time, all independent publications are closed. The rapid march of Cuba towards communism begins. And man number 2 in this movement is Che Guevara. In fact, his role is greater: he is the main ideologist of the emerging regime.

Not all guerrilla leaders are ready to betray their ideals. Arrested William Morgan - the rebel commander of the Sierra Maestra (in early 1961 he was shot). The head of the rebel aviation, Diaz Lance, is fleeing to the United States. Another partisan commander, Umberto Sori Marin, tries to raise an uprising against the new dictatorship - he is captured and shot. Rebel commander Humberto Matos strongly objects to the abolition of elections and the elimination of democracy - and he is arrested. Even obedient judges do not dare to condemn the well-known partisan, and Fidel personally appears in court and threatens: “I will tell you straight. Choose: Matos or me! Matos is thrown in jail for 20 years...

Fidel Castro applauding William Morgan (standing), photo 1959

Former RSM activists and even the July 26 Movement again go to the mountains: an anti-Castro rebel movement of “true barbudos” arises in the mountains of Escambray. Against them, the army of Fidel and Che throws tanks and aircraft: unlike the Batista troops, it does not lack ammunition and fuel. Everything comes (free of charge) from the USSR. Left-wing emigrants from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Bolivia, Argentina and even Angola take part in the battles with the anti-Castro partisans. Peasants from Escambray are forcibly deported to other parts of the country: Batista could not afford such atrocity, but it simply did not occur to him.

The rebels are defeated. Units under the command of Che Guevara capture one of the leaders of the guerrilla - Jesus Carreras: in 1958, together with Che, he commanded the partisans in Escambray and often objected to the brutality of the Argentinean. Wounded, he is tied to a pole and Che commands: pli!

In Cuba, Che Guevara was the head of the Central Bank, the Minister of Industry and a special envoy with the rank of Vice President. But his ideal is a total revolution in the countries of the "third world" and, first of all, in Latin America. "Let's turn the continent into many Vietnams!" - that's his goal. And Fidel feels great in the role of the "revolutionary" dictator of Cuba, and he is increasingly afraid of Guevara's ideas of the world guerrilla. In addition, Fidel understands that his regime's open support of rebel movements abroad will sooner or later cause an American invasion. After the leader of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev got scared during the Caribbean crisis and withdrew Soviet missiles from Cuba, Fidel realized that the USSR would not fight for the sake of Cuba.

And for Che Guevara, the revolution could not in principle be limited to the framework of one country, and he begins to act independently. Camps are opening in Cuba (the Castro brothers do not dare to pull him up), in which hundreds of revolutionaries from countries Latin America and Africa. For their maintenance, travel, armament, food and training, poor Cuba spends huge amounts of money.

All of Latin America, according to Che, was ruled by reactionary pro-American dictatorships, with whom one could speak only in the language of arms. However, the real situation was completely different. Brazil, the largest country on the continent, lived under a democratic regime, its authorities opposed the United States and even - it is not clear for what merits - they awarded Che Guevara the highest award - the Order of the Southern Cross (it ended badly: the opposition rightfully called President Janio Cuadros to account and sent him resign). There was also democracy in Argentina, the Americans did not influence the country's politics in any way and had a rather weak position in the Argentine economy (the public sector and national private capital prevailed there). Argentine President A. Frondisi met with Che Guevara in Uruguay, helped the relatives and friends of the "heroic partisan" to travel to Cuba. There was also democracy in Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama and Ecuador. In Mexico, the Social Democratic Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled, there in 1917-40. a radical agrarian reform was carried out, and the property of American oil companies was confiscated as early as 1938. The Mexican government was sharply anti-American, it accepted political immigrants from countries ruled by dictators. Mexico once gave asylum to both Fidel Castro and Che himself. The farm where the future "Barbudos" trained before landing in Cuba was provided by a Mexican general, former president countries L. Cardenas. The future rebels were trained by a retired Spanish emigrant, Colonel A. Vaio. The Mexican police were well aware of the activities of the fidelists, but turned a blind eye to them. Social Democrats also ruled in Costa Rica and Venezuela. Really pro-American dictatorships were in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Paraguay (tyrants also ruled in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but they were in conflict with the United States, that is, they were not pro-American).

However, reality did not interest Che at all. In April 1959, a detachment of Cubans invades Panama (out of 85 Panamanian rebels, only two, the rest are Cubans). Members of the detachment are arrested and ... sent back to Cuba). May of the same year - the landing of airborne assault forces of Nicaraguan rebels and Cuban volunteers abandoned from Cuba in Nicaragua.

July 14: landing in the Dominican Republic of an armed group of Dominican and Cuban emigrants (198 people from seven countries, including 20 Cubans.) with the aim of overthrowing the regime of R. L. Trujillo. The landing party is defeated, the arrested Dominicans are shot, and the Cubans are imprisoned, from which they are released under an amnesty after the assassination of R. L. Trujillo in 1961.

Vice President Nixon (left) and R. L. Trujillo

August 13: 30 rebels (18 Cubans, 10 ex-Haitian military and 2 Venezuelans) land in Haiti. The landing was defeated, and Haitian Prime Minister Louis Marais shocked the audience at a meeting of heads of governments of Latin American states in Chile, for the first time directly declaring Cuba's aggression against the Republic of Haiti.

December: A thousand Paraguayan guerrillas and Cuban volunteers from bases in Argentina invade Paraguay but are defeated.

At the end of 1960, Cubans and Guatemalan revolutionaries landed in Guatemala (the landing was defeated); at the same time, the same operation with the same outcome is carried out in Honduras.

In May 1962, the communists of Venezuela, with the help of Cuba and with the participation of the Cubans, raise an uprising that resulted in a six-year guerrilla war. At the same time, in Venezuela there was a left-wing regime of a social democratic persuasion, the peasants there received land, and the workers received progressive labor laws.

The majority of communists did not support the idea of ​​a continental revolution. The leader of the Bolivian communists, M. Monge, repeatedly declared the unacceptability of an armed revolution in his country, to which Che objected to him, saying that "Bolivia must sacrifice itself for the sake of the continental guerrilla." The communist parties of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Peru came out sharply against partisanism. As a result, Che's comrades-in-arms in Latin America are small groups of the most varied persuasions - Trotskyists, Maoists, and even ultra-nationalists. So, in Argentina, the journalist J. R. Masetti, a former activist of the fascist Takuara party, a pathological anti-Semite, a sadist (his brutal treatment of his comrades-in-arms testifies to this) and a murderer (J. Masetti, apparently, was also a thief : when his detachment was defeated by the police, "comandante Segundo" (pseudonym J. Masetti) disappeared with a large amount of money given to him by Che Guevara to conduct guerrillas. It is believed that he fled with the money, changed his surname and moved to another country). Another Argentine comrade-in-arms Che - H. Baxter, who later became the leader of one of the Trotskyist groups, also left the fascist ranks. In Brazil, Che Guevara also finds supporters not from the Communist Party, but among the left-wing trabalists of L. Brizola (the left-nationalist Brazilian Trabalist (Labor) Party) - the brother-in-law of the then president of the country, J. Goulart.

It is clear that the activities of Che Guevara are causing increasing concern to Fidel. And then back in March 1965, at an economic seminar of Afro-Asiatic solidarity in Algeria, a “fiery revolutionary” suddenly accuses the USSR of “selling its aid to popular revolutions” based on its own selfish interests. In his opinion, all the resources of the socialist camp should be thrown into the war against the imperialists and help the "world guerrilla". Moscow demands that Havana remove Che. He renounces his Cuban citizenship and leaves. In Brazil, where he initially arrives, the communists do not show any will to rebellion and partisanship, and the Argentine goes to the Congo (Zaire), where tribal detachments fight each other, declaring themselves who are “defenders of democracy” for the sake of the West or East, and who - Revolutionaries and Marxists. The latter, the Simba rebels, and tried to lead Che.

Che Guevara in the Congo, photo 1965

It is worth dwelling on this savage movement in more detail in order to understand what forces Che Guevara (by the way, a descendant of the Spanish aristocrats) was ready to use to fight democracy all over the world. “The Simba rebels were a phenomenon that could only appear in the Congo. Local sorcerers performed special ceremonies with future fighters of partisan detachments, speaking to them from bullets. These fighters only needed, looking straight ahead, waving a palm branch and repeating the mai-mai spell (in Swahili - water-water) ... The Simba soon captured a significant part of the territory of the Congo, terrorizing and destroying thousands of Congolese, as well as dozens of white missionaries, clergy, nuns and emigrants from other countries. Initially, Simba detachments numbered several hundred people, dressed in rags and skins of wild animals, armed with spears and machetes ... In the captured settlements, Simba carried out executions to satisfy base instincts. Sometimes they shot the victims or chopped and tore their bodies to pieces with machetes and spears, and some were burned alive. Ritual cannibalism - eating certain organs of the human body, for example, the heart or liver, to gain "strength" - is a long-standing custom in these parts, so fights often broke out in the crowd for the right to eat a tidbit "(Rob Crott" The spirit of Ernesto Che Guevara wanders around Zaire, online version).

Simba rebels. Congo, photo 1964

All this did not in the least disgust Che Guevara; he was upset only by the complete unwillingness of Simba to fight. They were ready to rob, rape and eat civilians, but to climb under the bullets - thank you. And he moved to Bolivia, where he agreed with the local Trotskyists. There he met his death.

Che Guevara in Bolivia, photo 1967

In Bolivia, Che was going to release the local workers... However, from whom and from what - it is not clear. "Tin Barons" - local oligarchy associated with American companies- were overthrown by the revolution in 1952. At the same time, landless peasants received land, and workers - an 8-hour working day, pensions and paid holidays. The ensuing chaos - the result of the permissiveness of the leftist trade unions (they had their own armed police) led to a coup: in 1964, General Barrientos seized power (recall: when in 1962-63 Che demanded that the Bolivian communists raise an uprising, the country was still ruled by the left Nationalist revolutionary movement, and the communist leader M. Monge worked as an adviser to President V. Paz Estenssoro). Barrientos did not take the land from the peasants, the workers social benefits he didn’t deprive him (although he disarmed the police), he didn’t start senseless quarrels with the “American imperialists”, but he didn’t particularly flirt. It is not surprising that the Bolivian peasants did not understand at all why on earth they should partisan against the president who brought order, moreover, by origin the same Indian peasant as themselves. During the year of wanderings of his detachment through the jungle and mountains, only one peasant guy joined the partisans of Che Guevara, and he turned out to be an agent of the Bolivian military intelligence ...

General Barrientos

The continental guerrilla in Latin America has failed. In Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Panama, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the military suppressed partisan movements. In Guatemala and El Salvador, the rebels laid down their arms already in the 1990s. Only in Nicaragua did the Sandinista guerrillas win - because of the complete degradation of the regime of A. Somoza and, as before in Cuba, because of the American embargo on the supply of weapons, ammunition and fuel to the dictator's guard. And in Colombia, the guerrilla still continues today, with which the authorities cannot end due to the fact that the rebels, who have taken control of the production and sale of cocaine, have enormous funds.

Nicaraguan leader A. Somoza

But the adventures of Che Guevara and his Cuban associates have changed Latin America. In the 1960s and 70s, right-wing military coups took place in one country after another. The actions of Che Guevara's "guerrillas" provoked the military and reactionary forces to seize power, brutal repression, and in some cases to uncontrolled admission of foreign companies into the economies of countries. Democratic regimes by 1980 only Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela survived.

It should be noted that in most cases the army simply had no other choice but to prevent the partisans from seizing power through a coup. In Brazil, for example, President J. Goulart appoints his brother-in-law L. Brizola as his "successor", and he publicly declares that after winning the elections, Brazil "will follow the path of revolutionary Cuba." Organizations of supporters of L. Brizola appear in the army and navy, which demand a transition to socialism and disobey the command (the so-called "mutiny of Corporal Anselmo", who after the military coup first became a partisan, and then - a punisher in the ranks of the special services of the military regime), and the commander of the naval aviation in a television interview proudly declares that he is ready to fulfill any order of the president and ... general secretary of the communist party L.K. Prestes! And President J. Goulart orders the arrested rebels to be released, arresting instead of them the generals who suppressed the rebellion! What was the army to do in such conditions, except to overthrow the government? In Argentina and Uruguay, the democratic authorities could not suppress the rebel movements, and the armies also had to take power into their own hands. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans became victims of guerrilla wars, the suppression of the guerrilla, leftist terrorism and rightist terror (Colombia suffered the most).

Tanks on the streets of Brasilia during the 1964 military coup

The effect of the insurrection turned out to be exactly the opposite of what Che was up to. This is the result of Che-politician's activity.

Che economist

As Minister of Finance, head of the National Bank of Cuba and head of the Institute of Agrarian Reform, Che Guevara practically concentrated in his hands the management of the entire economy of the island. Constantly provoking the United States, he finally achieved the imposition of an embargo by the Americans. Cuba completely reoriented itself towards the USSR. At the same time, almost all nationalized factories stopped: Cuban and foreign specialists left, there were no spare parts and no opportunity to repair equipment. Soviet technology horrified the Cubans with its low quality, and Soviet engineers did not know how to work with American equipment. Soviet fuel oil, gasoline and motor oils turned out to be of such poor quality that cars, aircraft, tractors, industrial equipment and even power plants failed. Plantations and arable lands were overgrown with weeds - thousands of abandoned tractors and combines rusted on them; there were no parts for them. The Cuban peasant returned to the main tool of the 19th century - the machete. Food production (corn and rice) fell catastrophically, meat and poultry production dropped sharply. The export of fine Cuban coffee, bananas, and other tropical fruits has completely stopped.

Cuban Village 1950 Photographer Elizabeth Frey

Socialist Cuba had no funds to buy all this abroad - the economy stood up, and there was nothing to export. The country began to live solely due to free supplies of everything in the world from the countries of the socialist camp, i.e. humanitarian aid. Once a raw material appendage of the United States, Cuba in three or four years has become a unique country without an economy at all, living on handouts.

Road to the Sierra Maestra 1950 Photographer Elizabeth Frey

And Che Guevara himself constantly traveled to factories, factories and agricultural cooperatives. Checked, pointed out, scolded. But the enterprises still stood still ... Che's appeal to Moscow with a request (more precisely, a demand, he did not know how to ask) speaks well of Che's economic "talents" to build a steel plant in Cuba with a capacity of a million tons of steel per year. N. Khrushchev, dumbfounded, reminded Che that there were no reserves in Cuba iron ore, no coal, just as there is no sales market - there would simply be nowhere to put this steel. The Soviet leader offered to build several small conversion plants, which the "comandante" proudly refused: they say, "each developed country has its own metallurgical plant full cycle, and Cuba must have!”. He proposed to transport iron ore to Cuba from the USSR - "on the same ships that bring Cuban sugar to Russia." And he decided to buy coal in Mexico (it is not clear with what funds). Naturally, Moscow did not agree to such an economic adventure.

Che Guevara and Khrushchev during the visit of the Cuban revolutionary to Moscow in 1964

This caused an aggravation of Che's relations with the leadership of the USSR. In 1964, as mentioned above, he angrily attacked Moscow. According to him, “not socialism, but state capitalism is flourishing” there: it turns out that he was deeply outraged by the fact that in the USSR not everyone receives the same salary, they pay bonuses and additional payments for overtime work. But most of all, Che Guevara was angry that Moscow did not want to give developing countries everything they want, and for free - factory equipment, food and other necessary goods. Che was incapable of thinking about such an elementary thing that the USSR simply did not have enough goods or money for this.

The work of his hands is "revolutionary Cuba", now one of the most backward countries in Latin America (in the 1930s - 50s of the twentieth century, the economy and living standards on the island grew at the highest rates on the continent, and after 1959 - the lowest ). Before the revolution, there were very few very rich people there, the majority of the population was a fairly wealthy "middle class" and 30 percent of the poor (for Latin America at that time - the figure is very low, in Brazil and Colombia, for example, the poor then were 60%). Now there is sheer poverty, only corruption, prostitution and the black market flourish. So the dream of Che Guevara came true ...

Che-man

Why was Che Guevara, a failed politician and unfortunate economist, so charming? Well, a pretty face, though not Alain Delon. His personality is described in most detail by the American biographer J. Lee Anderson in the book “Ernesto Che Guevara. What matters is the revolution." The author himself clearly admires Che, downright admiring him. But the reader from the book will recognize the touches to the portrait of the “commandante”, which cannot be called other than disgusting.

Che basically did not wash for months, did not wash or iron his clothes, did not clean his shoes. He flaunted his slovenly appearance, dirt and related odour. “A revolutionary should not think about such trifles as dirt and stench,” he said. His subordinates - and in the first half of the 1960s almost all of Cuba was like that - he could insult and even beat. His adjutants either received a kick, or were locked in a closet as a punishment. The cruelty of Che in relation to people and entire nations has already been said above. People, including relatives, with their problems, worries and other things for Che Guevara meant absolutely nothing. Characteristic episode with his bride I. Gadea. She, a Peruvian revolutionary, met her future husband in Guatemala, where she actively supported the revolutionary regime of J. Arbenz.

Che Guevara and Hilda Gadea

After the overthrow of J. Arbenz and the coming to power of the extreme right, emigrant revolutionaries from other countries fled en masse from Guatemala to Mexico. Che also ran, but the bride ... he simply forgot! She did not leave on her own because it did not occur to her that her chosen one would forget about her. In the end, she was arrested by the police. True, the police turned out to be decent people and, after interrogation, they let me go and even helped me go to Mexico, taking my word of honor never to come to their country. Knowing the morals of the Latin American police, it should be noted that the result of the arrest could be completely different ...

All the activities of Che Guevara, everything he said and wrote after the Cuban Revolution clearly shows that he suffered from delusions of grandeur in a particularly severe form. The whole universe was supposed to revolve around his personality, and if this is not so - so much the worse for the universe! Attacks on N. Khrushchev, Mao Zedong, insults thrown in the face of J. Nehru and Sukarno can only be explained by one thing: these small people dared to advise him something, disagree with something!

Nehru examines Che Guevara's gift - a box of Cuban cigars, photo 1959

Behind his famous "Focism theory" (the "partisan hearth" theory, according to which 20-30 "devoted to the revolution" guerrillas are able to win a war in any Latin American country) is a frank cry from the heart: give ME 20-30 people and I will win any war with any opponent! Behind his demands for the USSR and China to give Cuba everything and for free, there is an insult: how is it, I need it, but they don’t give it! The statements of the Latin American communists that the guerrilla was not needed or had no chance of success in their countries automatically turned them into Che's personal enemies: how dare they object to ME!

Che, like Imam Khomeini, did not see reality, did not understand and did not recognize it. He designed it for himself and lived in it. Therefore, when, towards the end of his stay in Cuba, numerous delegations from different countries world, seeing the complete devastation and poverty, the catastrophic failure of all reforms in all areas of the economy and, in general, the total destruction of Cuban national life, began to doubt the correctness of the Cuban path, Che Guevara sincerely did not understand what they did not like.

HE simply CANNOT do something wrong or turn out badly. He SAW that everything was fine, that everything was working as it should. And he proudly drove foreigners to abandoned fields and non-working factories, showing them: look how wonderful we all are! He pointed to the poor, half-starved, ragged Cubans: this is how happily the Cuban people live! And predicted that with such a rapid economic development Cuba's per capita income will exceed America's in five years. The main thing is that he himself believed in it, the opinions of other people did not interest him.

On the other hand, Che spoke very often about his role in history: he had no doubt that he was the world's largest large scale. If in his youth he signed letters “Stalin II”, then by the 1960s, neither on Earth nor in heaven, he had seen a single figure of equal size to himself.

True, the people around him began to annoy him more and more. Che, during his stay in Cuba, increasingly spoke of the fact that the main goal of the revolution was the creation of a "new man." A man with one ambition: to make a revolution and fight against imperialism. That is, approximately what Pol Pot declared and did in Cambodia. The “new man” was not supposed to have not only “non-revolutionary” thoughts, but also ordinary human needs (since it was still impossible to satisfy these needs within the framework of the socio-economic model he created).

He was annoyed by Cubans who showered twice a day, wore deodorants and perfumes; in his opinion, these are “bourgeois habits” (that’s why at first Che was very fond of Soviet specialists: they did not use deodorants - they simply did not exist in the USSR then - and in the Cuban heat they “flavored” the air almost the same way as he did). He was also infuriated by the desire of women to dress beautifully and use jewelry. When he was presented with a project for a new 20-story National Bank building, he asked the architects: why are there elevators and toilets? And he ordered to remove elevators from the project: the revolutionaries had to walk, and for the administration of natural needs, one toilet was left - on the first floor.

Che Guevara never doubted his rightness, greatness and genius. His famous phrase: "I am a special type of adventurer - one of those who do not regret own life for the sake of proving his innocence ”demonstrates not his heroism and devotion to the idea, but mania. That is, he cannot be wrong, while normal people necessarily doubt, think, analyze, change their views and beliefs.

As a result, Che died, entering into conflict with his own personality. The war in Bolivia proved that the "theory of Focism" is illiterate nonsense, and he himself is a worthless organizer and a worthless commander. According to the memoirs of the surviving fighters of his detachment, in the last days before the defeat and his own death, Che Guevara did not put up any guards at halts or military guards at the crossings, he led his people through open areas (and the area of ​​\u200b\u200bguerrilla operations was literally teeming with rangers of the government army and was patrolled by aircraft ), and he himself walked ahead of the detachment.

Apparently, he began - no, not to understand (because of his mental illness he could not understand anything), but to feel that his theory and all his activities had failed. And he chose death, not having the courage to admit obvious defeat. What is significant: he chose death not only for himself, but also for his comrades, not to mention the soldiers of the Bolivian army.

Today, throughout the world, Che's ideas are shared, preached, dying and killed for them by thousands, tens of thousands of people. Absolutely not thinking about their essence and the personality of their idol.

bloody cult

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro essentially created a new religious cult - the cult of the guerrilla and the armed uprising. For them and their followers, the armed struggle "for the revolution" is a basic moral value and moral imperative, incomparably more important than Marxism, socialism and all other "isms". Therefore, they easily agreed to cooperate with anyone - with Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists, left-wing nationalists, slightly disguised fascists, Islamic radicals and Congolese Simba - as long as they were against imperialism and necessarily adhered to the concept of "people's war".

Che Guevara, during his famous trip to Latin America with his doctor friend Alberto Granados, said that the revolution (at that time he was not yet a Marxist or a communist, but was already raving about the revolution) must be bloody. A. Granados in the book “The Diaries of a Motorcyclist” recalls how, while in Peru, he once joked: “You know, old man, let's stay here. I will marry an Indian woman from a noble Inca family, I will proclaim myself emperor and become the ruler of Peru, and I will appoint you prime minister, and together we will realize social revolution". Che replied: “You are crazy, Mial [nickname of M. Granados - approx. auth.], they don’t make a revolution without shooting!”.

Alberto Granado and Che Guevara

For many decades, after the death of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro repeatedly noted in his interviews and speeches the inherent value of the guerrilla and the superiority of the armed revolution over the peaceful rise of revolutionaries to power. So, in 1979, after the seizure of power on the island of Grenada by a group of Stalinists led by Maurice Bishop, Castro repeatedly emphasized that Cuba had especially warm, friendly relations with the “revolutionary” Grenada. To questions from journalists about relations with Jamaica and Guyana, where Marxists also ruled at that time, Fidel answered: although the prime ministers of these countries, M. Manley and F. Burnham, are “our dear friends”, their regimes cannot be compared with the movement of M. Bishop, who seized power by force - the only correct way, corresponding to the Guevara-Fidelian moral imperative.

Guerrilla is blood and violence, and not always politically motivated. This is the settling of personal scores, and the struggle for power within the partisan movements. This is the taking of hostages for the purpose of ransom, including children and women, these are the murders not only of "bourgeois", officers and policemen, but also of their families. In 2007, after the destruction of one of the camps of the Colombian rebel movement FARC ("Revolutionary armed forces Colombia"), diaries written in English, Spanish and Dutch by the guerrilla "Ellen" (Tanja Neumeyer, Dutch, FARC militant) were seized by the government army. In them, she criticizes the leaders of the partisan movement, who manage huge amounts of foreign currency and wear super-expensive Rolexes, while ordinary fighters endure the most humiliating hardships.

Guerrilla is, finally, murder and extortion for the purpose of personal enrichment of partisan commanders. The same FARC not only sells drugs and kidnaps people for ransom, but also arranges explosions in crowded places (in markets and squares) that destroy and disfigure ordinary workers - the very ones whom the partisans promise to "liberate from the yoke of the bourgeois-landowner dictatorship." When carrying out terrorist attacks, FARC actively uses child "soldiers", and underage girls are also used by the rebels as sex slaves.

Combat Detachment FARC

The fact that FARC is a criminal terrorist organization is evidenced by the fate of Ingrid Betancourt, the leader of the opposition leftist Colombian Green Party, a presidential candidate in the 2002 elections. She had nothing to do with either the war with the guerrillas, or in general to power. Spent more than 6 years as a hostage of FARC, subjected to all sorts of humiliations. Moreover, Clara Rojas, I. Betancourt's assistant, who was captured with her, was not guilty of anything before the "revolutionaries". The media delicately reported that she, being a hostage, gave birth to a child, and without any medical assistance. It is impossible to imagine "love" between an unfortunate woman and some kind of security guard, especially given the mores that prevail in FARC.

Ingrid Betancourt during the FARC captivity

If the Guevarists did not have the strength to kill, rob and rape the "exploiters" and "servants of imperialism", they are forced to be content with their comrades-in-arms and comrades-in-arms, but the left-wing terrorists are simply not able to do without blood and human suffering. M. Shuvalov's article "Priest, partisan, Marxist: the life and political views of Manuel Perez", published on the Russian-language website of the FARC movement, says about the internal situation in the guerrilla:

“The guerrilla formation, which Perez joined [the National Liberation Army, created in 1964 with the help of Cuban special services, - approx. auth.], differed sharply from the ideas that he had already formed by that time. There were only 60-70 fighters in it, and therefore the partisans did not have enough strength even to organize another partisan front. In addition, the most necessary things were lacking: food, medicine, ammunition, so very often main goal partisans were simply surviving in the most difficult conditions of the selva. There was especially nowhere to wait for help from the partisans - the network of supporters and assistants of the partisans in the cities was actually liquidated as a result of the most severe repressions of the government. In addition, shortly before this, a bloody internal conflict had occurred among the ELN partisans, the consequences of which had not yet been erased by the time Lopez joined the detachment. It all started when José Ayala, a member of the leading faction at the time, was killed by members of the opposing faction after some ridiculous quarrel. Enraged by this story, Ayala's friends staged a show trial of three members of another faction, including one of the leaders of the ELN, Victor Medina Moron, accusing them of "conspiratorial activity" and aiding the enemy. As you might guess, the trial ended with the execution of all the accused ...

The entire internal regime of the ELN was extremely hierarchical and oppressive, and relations between people were very tense. During the first eight months of his stay in the detachment, Perez had to go through a kind of test, very difficult both in a purely physical and moral-psychological sense, much more difficult than circumstances required. (By the way, the oldest of the trinity of priests, Jose Antonio Jimenez, could not adapt to the hardships of life in the ELN partisan detachment - 8 months after leaving the partisans, he died of an unidentified illness).

However, a new test awaited Manuel Perez, in some respects even more difficult than any difficulties of field life. The fact is that Perez at some point in time took part in a discussion of several other partisans, during which critical remarks were made against one of the leaders of the ELN, Ricardo Lara Parada, in particular, one of the partisans spoke in the spirit that "Ricardo lives in best conditions than other fighters." This became known to the leadership of the ELN, and the participants in the discussion were accused of almost all mortal sins, including the intention to split the ELN, preparing an assassination attempt on Comrade Ricardo, inciting other fighters to desert, and much more in the same vein - a set that quite resembled in its own way absurdity of the famous formulations of the Soviet NKVD of the period of Stalinist repressions about "espionage in favor of Ethiopia" or "the desire to blow up all the blast furnaces in Chelyabinsk." Soon a special meeting of the so-called "Revolutionary People's Tribunal" was convened, at which all participants in the ill-fated discussion were convicted and sentenced to death.

By no means only the Colombian partisans killed and tortured their associates. Salvadoran guerrillas from the "Revolutionary Army of the People" in 1975 killed the founder of this movement - Roque Dalton, one of the greatest Spanish-language poets of the twentieth century. He was charged with spying for the CIA and at the same time ... Cuban communists, with whom the Salvadoran "revolutionaries" at that time had some tactical differences. In 1983, at the height civil war in El Salvador, guerrillas killed Melida Anaya Montes, deputy commander of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front. She was accused of a "terrible" crime - opportunism. What it was, the partisan communique, which told about the murder, does not say ...

A typical priest of a bloody cult is Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez (Carlos the Jackal), who is serving a life sentence in France. (International terrorist. Named in honor of V. Lenin. Carried out operations in the interests of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Red Brigades, the Colombian organization M-19, the Japanese Red Army, ETA, PLO, NFO Turkey. During the Palestinian-Jordanian war of 1970 In 1973 he tried to assassinate the Jewish businessman E. Schiff in London, attacking the Hapoalim Bank, three French newspapers with the help of cars with explosives, two rocket-propelled grenade attacks on planes at Orly airport, and a Parisian restaurant. "shot two policemen. The most famous terrorist attack of Carlos was the attack on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna with hostage taking. Sentenced to life imprisonment. In France, his autobiographical book "Revolutionary Islam" was published, in which he talks about his attitude to his religion. He is being held in the Sante Prison in Paris). From behind bars, in a telephone interview with the Venezuelan opposition newspaper Nacional, he criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to smithereens (W. Chavez himself considered the Jackal a "worthy successor to the peoples' struggle for justice," which testifies to his own mental and moral state ), considering his actions to build "Bolivarian socialism" not decisive enough. "He became the only military leader in the history of mankind who does not like blood," the terrorist said. According to him, during the "operations" that he led during his "revolutionary" activities, about 2 thousand people were killed, including about 200 civilians. " With my own hands I killed several dozen,” he said. That is, the measure of "revolutionary", according to this follower of Che Guevara, is the amount of human blood shed by him.

Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez in 2001

With all the above features, indicating a senseless atrocity, a criminal nature and complete uselessness for the working people of Latin America, the guerrilla is still wildly popular both on this continent and throughout the world - it is popular precisely as a moral phenomenon. A man in camouflage, in a beret and with a beard, proudly posing against the backdrop of mountains or jungles, is a symbol of the very “fight for freedom” that the maniac Che Guevara raved about.

All progressive mankind © recently celebrated the 90th anniversary of the birth of Ernesto Che Guevara - a fiery revolutionary, on the one hand, and an international terrorist, on the other.

The confessions of General Prado Salmon, who caught Che Guevara in 1967, are interesting. Gary Prado Salmon claims that Che Guevara and his fighters were deliberately sent to death by the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party in agreement with the USSR. He described Che Guevara's legacy as "an empty grave pit."

In the photo: Prado Salmon and Che Guevara captured by him.

Retired Bolivian general Gary Prado Salmon has again started talking about Fidel Castro's alleged complicity in the capture and murder of Guevara, ABC writes, citing an interview with the ex-general by the Efe news agency. "This theory has been put forward before, but in this case he dares to insist on it in a harsh form," writes journalist Manuel P. Villatoro.

"After so many years, we managed to get to the bottom that Che was sent here to die. Such is the truth," said the retired general.

"Fidel Castro got rid of him" by sending him to Bolivia to fight for an idea that was doomed to fail from the start. However, Prado Salmon noted, Fidel did this "not out of personal desire, but because the top of the Cuban Communist Party stopped tolerating his character and impulsiveness."

The general promised to give detailed arguments in the preface to his book, The Sacrificed Guerrilla Squad, which will be republished.

Che Guevara's comrade-in-arms in partisan detachments, Dariel Alarcon Ramirez, nicknamed Benigno, (who died in 2016), once said in an interview with Corriere della Sera: "[Che's] death is the result of a machination for which Fidel Castro and the USSR are responsible." The newspaper retells: "According to Alarcon Ramirez, the USSR considered the revolutionary dangerous for its interests and therefore delivered an ultimatum to the Cuban leader. And he, without hesitation, chose the help that the USSR was supposed to give him."

Fidel and Che met and became friends in the 1950s.

But in 1965, the friendship ended when Che Guevara criticized the USSR at a seminar of the organization of Afro-Asian solidarity in Algeria. "He accused the Soviet leadership [more precisely, all the socialist countries. - Approx. ed.] of acting as "accomplices of imperialist exploitation", using "immoral" practices. For Fidel, who was desperate to enlist economic support from the Russians, this was a real blow. In response, the Castro brothers pushed Che out of all political decisions, and, as Benigno assured in an interview shortly before his death, they almost obliged him to leave Cuba. Therefore, Che packed up his belongings and went to guerrilla in the Congo, "says in the article.

On October 3, 1965, Fidel publicly read out the farewell letter that Che handed him before leaving. Prado Salmon claims in an interview that it was Castro's "virtuoso move" to "slam the door" on Che's potential return to Cuba. "Benigno said that Che fell into a rage when he learned about the publication of the letter, because this letter was written in case he was captured or killed," the ex-general notes.

After the defeat in the Congo, Che returned to Cuba incognito, and from there went to Bolivia to lead the partisans and overthrow the government. Fidel promised to help him regularly. However, according to Prado Salmon in an interview, the Cuban leader preferred to forget about Che, and the partisans wandered through the jungle, suffering from hunger.

The ex-general came to the conclusion that the detachment "did not have contacts with Cuba." He refers to the information he received from Humberto Vasquez Viagna, a former classmate of Che Guevara. He "determined that the Castro government ordered intelligence officers who supported the guerrillas in Bolivia to leave the theater of operations," the article says.

On October 8, Bolivian soldiers, trained by the American Green Berets, surrounded the guerrillas, joined the battle and captured Che Guevara.

“Prado explained to Che that he would be put on trial. But this did not happen. Later, the partisan was handed over to CIA agent Felix Ismael Rodriguez, who had been preparing his capture for several months. On October 9, the agent was told that the prisoner should be dealt with. And soon this happened. Cuban journalist Alberto Muller, Fidel could have prevented a situation where Che received many injuries, but preferred that he die. In this way, Fidel got rid of a political opponent and acquired a martyr comrade-in-arms," ​​the article says.

) sells a collection of retro photographs featuring Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara. Korda was the personal photographer of the Cuban leader and accompanied him on state trips for 10 years.

In total, the collection contains 55 black and white images taken by a political photographer in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro playing golf with Che Guevara in 1961. Two years earlier, President Dwight Eisenhower had insulted Castro. He refused to meet with the new leader of Cuba, preferring a game of golf.

Putting the ball into the hole.

Guevara in his olive-colored military uniform with a golf club.

The Cuban leader (left) and Guevara (right) fishing shortly after the establishment of the communist regime with Castro's rise to power.

All photos were signed by Korda himself. He served as Castro's personal photographer and died in 2001 at the age of 72.

All 55 black and white photographs were taken in the 1950s and 1960s.

An anti-aircraft gun stationed near a hotel in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

This is the most expensive photo in the collection, for which they plan to receive 5,000 pounds. It depicts Castro standing on a mountainside with a backpack and a rifle.

Castro takes a Polaroid of Nikita Khrushchev and his family during a trip to Russia in 1963.

Hard Mode: Castro and a teenage security guard armed with a rifle in the Cuban jungle.

Eye to eye: Castro looks at a tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York.

Fidel Castro with a Cuban farmer.

Leaders: silhouette of Castro during the flight to Russia (left) and Che Guevara giving a speech (right).

Guevara works on a tractor.

Partisan leader: Che Guevara is a Latin American revolutionary and commander of the Cuban Revolution, an Argentinean by birth.

Brainstorming: Guevara talks with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

The collection also includes several shots of female models that Korda photographed early in his career. Before becoming a political photographer, he shot in the fashion genre.

And here's Korda's favorite photo. It depicts a little Cuban girl clutching a piece of log in her hands, replacing her doll, as the family could not afford to buy a toy.

Kodra later said that the picture, taken in 1959, marked a turning point in his career. Since then, he has dedicated his work to the revolution in order to eradicate "social inequality".

15.06.2016

The main face of the revolutionary movement around the world - Ernesto Che Guevara - would have turned 88 on June 14, 2016.

The Argentinean Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, who was trained as a doctor and became one of the main actors in the Cuban revolution, remains a symbol of the pursuit of ideals to this day.

Many today do not even know all the subtleties of what ideas Che Guevara was the bearer of. However, it is his face that flaunts on street graffiti, it is young people who wear T-shirts with his print. But doesn't this mean that the Comandante has become a symbol of the young, irresistible and romantic?

We have collected 15 facts and super-famous and rare photos about Che.

1. Che's full name is Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, and Che is a nickname.

The nickname Che used to emphasize his Argentine origin. The interjection che is a common address in Argentina.

2. The distant ancestor of Che's mother was General José de la Serna e Hinojosa, Viceroy of Peru.

The Che Guevara family. From left to right: Ernesto Guevara, mother Celia, sister Celia, brother Roberto, father Ernesto with son Juan Martin and sister Anna Maria.

3. Che did not like to wash.

Ernesto's childhood name was Tete, which means "pig". He was always dirty as a pig.

They called me Borov.
- Because you were fat?
No, because I was dirty.
Fear of cold water, which sometimes caused asthma attacks, gave rise to Ernesto's dislike for personal hygiene. (Paco Ignacio Taibo).

4. Che Guevara was born in Argentina, and became interested in Cuba at the age of 11, when the Cuban chess player Capablanca arrived in Buenos Aires. Ernesto was very passionate about chess.

5. The name of Che Guevara appeared in the newspapers for the first time not in connection with the revolutionary events, but when he made a tour of four thousand kilometers on a moped, having traveled all over South America.

When Che and Alberto got to Brazil Colombia they were arrested for looking suspicious and tired. But the police chief, being a football fan familiar with Argentina's football success, released them after learning where they were from in exchange for a promise to coach the local football team. The team won the regional championship, and the fans bought them plane tickets to the Colombian capital, Bogotá.

A feature film "The Diary of a Motorcyclist" was shot about this trip.

6. Che loved to read and was fond of Sartre all his life.

Young Ernesto read in the original on French(knowing this language since childhood) and was engaged in the interpretation of Sartre's philosophical works "L'imagination", "Situations I" and "Situations II", "L'Être et le Nèant", "Baudlaire", "Qu'est-ce que la literature?", "L'imagie". He loved poetry and even composed poetry himself.

In the photo: In 1960, Che Guevara met in Cuba with his idols - the writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

7. Che Guevara fell out of the army

Ernesto Che Guevara, not wanting to serve in the army, caused an asthma attack with an ice bath and was declared unfit for military service.

8. Che Guevara learned to smoke cigars in Cuba to ward off annoying mosquitoes.

Besides, it was cool. Although he was not allowed to smoke much, all because of the same asthma.

9. Che Guevara, in the early 1950s, sometimes signed his letters "Stalin II."

The sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, Juanita, who knew Guevara closely and later left for the United States, wrote about him in her biographical book: “Neither the trial nor the investigation mattered to him. He immediately began to shoot, because he was a man without a heart.

10. Accidentally was appointed Minister of Economy.

In November 1959 - February 1961, Ernesto Che Guevara was president of the National Bank of Cuba. In February 1961, Ernesto was appointed Minister of Industry and head of the Central Planning Council of Cuba. This picture - famous photograph Che at the Cuban Ministry of Industry, 1963.

According to legend, Fidel Castro, having gathered his associates, asked them a simple question: “Is there at least one economist among you? “When he heard “communist” instead of “economist”, Che was the first to raise his hand. And then it was too late to retreat.

11. Che Guevara was married twice, he has five children.

In 1955, he married the Peruvian revolutionary Ilda Gadea, who gave birth to Guevara's daughter. In 1959, his marriage to Ilda broke up, and the revolutionary married Aleida March (pictured), whom he met in a partisan detachment. With Aleida, they had four children.

12. Che criticized the USSR.

In 1963, Ernesto Che Guevara visited the USSR and spoke at a banquet in the Kremlin. His speech was tough: “Really, Nikita Sergeevich, everyone eats the way we do today. Soviet people? In the USSR, the bosses get more and more, the leaders have no obligations to the masses. There is a blasphemous defamation of the merits and personality of Stalin. The Khrushchev-Brezhnev group is mired in bureaucracy and nomenklatura Marxism, hypocrites about the US base in Guantanamo, even agrees with the American occupation of this Cuban region.

Later in 1964 in Moscow, he delivered an indictment against non-internationalist policies socialist countries. He reproached them for imposing on the poorest countries conditions of trade similar to those dictated by imperialism in the world market, as well as for refusing unconditional support, including military support, for renouncing the struggle for national liberation.

13. In some countries of Latin America, after the death of Che, in all seriousness they consider him a saint and call him San Ernesto de La Higuera.

In November 1966, Che Guevara arrived in Bolivia to organize a partisan movement. The partisan detachment he created on October 8, 1967 was surrounded and defeated by government troops. Ernesto Che Guevara was wounded, captured and killed the next day.

Many say that no dead person looked more like Christ than Che in the world-famous photo of him lying on a table at school, surrounded by the Bolivian military.

14. The source of the famous portrait of Che actually looks like this:

On March 5, 1960, Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took the famous photograph of Ernesto Che Guevara. Initially, the photo was a profile of a random person, but the author later removed unnecessary elements. The photo titled "Heroic Partisan" (Guerrillero Historico) hung on the wall in Korda's apartment for several years until he gave it to an Italian publisher he knew. He published a picture immediately after the death of Che Guevara, and the story of the enormous success of this image began, which allowed many of its participants to earn good money. Ironically, Korda is perhaps the only one to whom this photo did not bring material benefits.

15. How the famous portrait of Che appeared

The world-famous two-tone portrait of Che Guevara was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick from a photograph of Korda. Che's beret shows the star Jose Marti, the hallmark of the commandant (major, there was no higher rank in the revolutionary army), received from Fidel Castro in July 1957 along with this title.

Fitzpatrick attached a photo of Korda to window glass and transferred the contours of the image to paper. From the resulting "negative" with the help of a special copier and black ink, he printed a poster on red paper and then distributed free of charge almost all copies of his work, which soon became as famous as its black and white original.

15. Warhol made money on Che did not make a single move.

“Che was killed twice: first, by Sergeant Teran’s machine-gun fire, then by millions of his portraits,” the French philosopher Régis Debre once said.

This is once again confirmed by the story about the artist Andy Warhol. He managed to cash in on the Heroic Partisan (above) without even lifting a finger. His companion Gerard Malanga created a work based on a poster by Jim Fitzpatrick in the style of Warhol and passed off the work as a drawing of the latter. But Gerard's scam was revealed, a prison was waiting for him. The situation was saved by Warhol - he agreed to recognize the fake as his work, provided that he would get all the proceeds from the sale.

16. Che traditionally, with all monetary reforms, is depicted on the front side of a banknote in denominations of three Cuban pesos.

17. Che's grave was found only in July 1995.

Nearly 30 years after the assassination, the location of Guevara's grave in Bolivia was discovered. And in July 1997, the remains of the Comandante were returned to Cuba, in October 1997, the remains of Che Guevara were reburied in the mausoleum of the city of Santa Clara in Cuba (pictured).

18. Che Guevara never said his most famous quote.

Be realistic - demand the impossible! - This slogan of the Paris May 1968 is attributed to Che Guevara erroneously. It was actually shouted out at the University Paris III New Sorbonne by Jean Duvigno and Michel Leris (François Dosse, History of Structuralism: The sign sets, 1967-present, p. 113).

19. In 2000, Time magazine included Che Guevara in the lists of "20 Heroes and Icons" and "One Hundred Most Important Persons of the 20th Century."

20. The famous song "Hasta Siempre Comandante" ("Comandante forever"), contrary to popular belief, was written by Carlos Puebla before the death of Che Guevara, and not after.

Finally, I would like to say that in any country in the world, probably, there is a Che. People of completely different political and aesthetic views consider it theirs, without even thinking how much it internal motivations, his thoughts and actions, his temperament and ethical attitudes are alien to them, and sometimes even hostile.

The names of the leaders of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, have long become the personification of heroism and self-sacrifice for the sake of the happiness and well-being of their own people. And here I would like to recall that, according to F. Castro's confession, made by him in 1963, the combat experience of a Soviet officer who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War inspired the exploits of Che Guevara and himself.

The idol of the revolutionaries

After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara instantly gained worldwide fame. A few years later, when passions subsided a little, Spanish journalists once asked Fidel Castro about what gave him and his comrades strength during the revolutionary events in Cuba. In particular, the press was interested in which of the heroes of the Second World War the leaders of Cuba could call their idols. Fidel Castro's answer was not only unusual, but surprisingly detailed. The leader of the Cuban revolution did not list the famous names of the military leaders of the period of the Second World War, but spoke about the hero of Alexander Bek's story "Volokolamsk Highway". According to Fidel Castro, this work made an indelible impression on him and Che Guevara. And they were especially struck by the feat of the Hero described by Beck. Soviet Union Kazakh Bauyrdzhan Momysh-uly, who later became a real role model for them. At the same time, the intrigue was that a participant in the Battle of Moscow, military writer Bauyrdzhan Momysh-uly was still alive in the 1960s and led an active social life.

Fight not by numbers, but by skill

It should be noted that the combat biography of the Soviet officer really deserved to be told in a work of art. Bauyrjan Momysh-uly got into the ranks of the Red Army long before the start of the Great Patriotic War. By the summer of 1941, the brave officer managed to fight on Far East, and also participated in the campaign against Bessarabia. Since Momysh-uly had solid combat experience behind him, he was appointed battalion commander in the 316th Infantry Division, commanded by I.V. Panfilov. In the fall of 1941, the division was transferred to defend the approaches to Moscow. subordinate I.V. Panfilov was instructed to hold back the forces of the numerically superior enemy on a 40-kilometer front line. However, according to military standards, a fully equipped division could successfully repel an enemy offensive only within a range of 12 kilometers. In such a difficult situation, the division commander proposed a new strategy: not to create a positional line of defense, but to strike with mobile units at the moving columns of the enemy and immediately move aside. The strategy turned out to be so successful that the military unit received given name- 8th Guards Panfilov Division.

From theory to practice

Despite the fact that the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcontaining the enemy in such an unusual way belonged to I.V. Panfilov, in practice, its implementation was led by the battalion commander, Senior Lieutenant Momysh-uly. His contribution to the defense of Moscow was so great that the defense strategy developed by I.V. Panfilov, was called the Momysh-uly spiral.

Colonel General Erich Hoepner, who commanded the 4th Panzer Group, openly stated that he was amazed by the Russian wild division, whose soldiers fought, breaking all the rules, and were not at all afraid of death. An example is the battle near Demyansk, when Momash-ula's subordinates inflicted significant damage on the famous SS division "Dead Head". According to Soviet intelligence, the Germans occupied six villages near the city. At night, Momash-uly divided his regiment into 20 detachments and ordered at midnight to hit all six at once. settlements from different sides. The Germans were in shock. When trying to organize a defense in at least one direction, they immediately received a blow from the rear and from the flanks. In one night, the elite German part of the SS lost more than 1,200 soldiers and officers killed, while the Momysh-uly regiment lost only 157 fighters.

Meeting with an idol

Momash-uly learned from the newspapers about the high appraisal given to him by the leaders of the Cuban revolution. Without thinking twice, he invited famous Cubans to visit him. Surprisingly, his letter reached the addressees. And distinguished guests came to the USSR to visit their idol. At the same time, Fidel Castro insisted on a return visit. During it, Momysh-uly was received in Cuba at the state level, as the highest guest. At the personal request of the leaders of the country, the valiant Kazakh even read two courses for Cuban cadets: "Exiting the encirclement without losses" and "Waging night battles in the offensive." Subsequently, it turned out that it was the methods of warfare from Momysh-ula that were used by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara during the Cuban Revolution.