El Che

[Incongruous]

Is he a revolutionary demi-god or as the New York Sun put it a sociopathic thug?

His contribution to socialism is vast, his selflessness to his cause is unmatched
as his demise in a dank Bolivian choolhouse proves.

Yet his executions without fair trial are often compared to Lenin's often tyranical treatment of anyone who disagreed with him.

I believe he was a selfless revolutionary, who gave up the trappings of office to continue the struggle.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

My friend wears a T-shirt with Che on it...

A substitute once called him "guerilla" when he wore the shirt...

Funny, funny...

[lars573]

Is he a revolutionary demi-god or as the New York Sun put it a sociopathic thug?

His contribution to socialism is vast, his selflessness to his cause is unmatched
as his demise in a dank Bolivian choolhouse proves.

Yet his executions without fair trial are often compared to Lenin's often tyranical treatment of anyone who disagreed with him.

I believe he was a selfless revolutionary, who gave up the trappings of office to continue the struggle.

Both, as one is not exclusive of the other. That said his kind have done more to hurt socialism than help it.

[Proletariat]

His sort is typical of socialism. Nice selection of hero.

[Strike For The South]

oh come on prole you dont love this guy

[Major Robert Dump]

Most people who wear the shirts not only have no idea who he is, but have no idea how much the shirt pisses people off. Being the type of guy who wears shirts that say "Eating ain't Cheatin" "Me Love You Short Time" and "Jersey Girls Ain't Trash (trash gets picked up" I guess I don't have room to talk, but Che can kiss my grits, and people wearing Che shirts can expect some witty commentary from my direction.

[Ironside]

Personally I think that he fits into the category "fallen idealist" quite well.

Basically they start out with a good and noble goal, but with time they change the path to this goal to something dark and brutal, possibly thinking that sacrificing themself will make it better for other people or that this brutality isn't needed after the goal is reached.
As the goal cannot longer be reached (mostly due to that the goal gets increasingly utopian), they'll never stop.

[Soulforged]

Is he a revolutionary demi-god or as the New York Sun put it a sociopathic thug?

Nobody is a demi-god, but Guevara was certainly a revolutionary by the literal meaning of the word. A socialist can never be a sociopathic thug, a socialist is compromised with society, it will be contradictory. However to be fully compromised with society might be, sometimes, a double edged sword. From the point of view of the ideology communism presents itself as a glorified standard of the domination of the opressed over the opressors (this has many implications, is not the case to discuss them). Now what this actually means in reallity is unclear, no Marx, Engels or Lenin, ever discovered the applied mecanism of communism, so when it comes all to a revolution, so we can do all from scratch again, sumarial executions are in order, the intention is not to create fear, but to finish an era an initiate a new one. I disagree with any execution, but the fact is that there's no revolutions without deaths, wheter they're on the battlefield or decided behind the office. A bloodless revolution is possible, but it's also just a noble ideal.

His contribution to socialism is vast, his selflessness to his cause is unmatched as his demise in a dank Bolivian choolhouse proves.

There are certain recounts of this event that will surprise, I'll post it here.

I believe he was a selfless revolutionary, who gave up the trappings of office to continue the struggle.

Yes he was very concerned with the well living of the people of his country. However he couldn't initiate a revolution here so he helped the cubans achieve it.

Here is a link in spanish, very complete.

Here you'll find a collection of pictures.

Here's one source from the communist side version of the history (wich I suppose is the same as others ). Also there's a collection of interviews and some works of Guevara. He was also a doctor so I there's some medical works there too.

Don't expect more than a google from me, but this is what I found from the recounts of his death in Bolivia:

On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was put to death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives. His execution remains a historic and controversial event; and thirty years later, the circumstances of his guerrilla foray into Bolivia, his capture, killing, and burial are still the subject of intense public interest and discussion around the world.

Here's a neutral source (don't guide yourself by the term "hero" in the title).

A listing of his books. An excerpt on guerrila warfare (why not in a "Total War" forum?):

"The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It draws its great force from the mass of the people themselves. The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire power. Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression." (from Guerrilla Warfare, 1960)

Mora a rant about el "Che". A agree with his possition towards his public image, but a lot of things in this article are biased in my opinion, specially the use of clear persuasive lenguage to describe, both, Che and Castro.

Cuba was a nation of 6.5 million in 1959. Within three months in power, Castro and Che had shamed the Nazi prewar incarceration and murder rate. One defector claims that Che signed 500 death warrants, another says over 600. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book "Yo Soy El Che!" that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad. In his book "Che Guevara: A Biography," Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first few years of the Castro regime.

It also talks about the rumors concerning his suicidal mission on Bolivia (rumors say that Fidel wanted to get rid of him, but also create a martyr for his cause).

The capitalization of his ideal image.

The metamorphosis of Che Guevara into a capitalist brand is not new, but the brand has been enjoying a revival of late--an especially remarkable revival, since it comes years after the political and ideological collapse of all that Guevara represented. This windfall is owed substantially to The Motorcycle Diaries, the film produced by Robert Redford and directed by Walter Salles. (It is one of three major motion pictures on Che either made or in the process of being made in the last two years; the other two have been directed by Josh Evans and Steven Soderbergh.) Beautifully shot against landscapes that have clearly eluded the eroding effects of polluting capitalism, the film shows the young man on a voyage of self-discovery as his budding social conscience encounters social and economic exploitation--laying the ground for a New Wave re-invention of the man whom Sartre once called the most complete human being of our era.

An angry letter from a cuban.As always the vission of something is not absolute.

A text from peruvian author Alvaro Vargas Llosa. "The Killing Machine".

Guevara might have been enamored of his own death, but he was much more enamored of other people's deaths. In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his "Message to the Tricontinental": "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine." His earlier writings are also peppered with this rhetorical and ideological violence. Although his former girlfriend Chichina Ferreyra doubts that the original version of the diaries of his motorcycle trip contains the observation that "I feel my nostrils dilate savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood of the enemy," Guevara did share with Granado at that very young age this exclamation: "Revolution without firing a shot? You're crazy." At other times the young bohemian seemed unable to distinguish between the levity of death as a spectacle and the tragedy of a revolution's victims. In a letter to his mother in 1954, written in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of the revolutionary government of Jacobo Arbenz, he wrote: "It was all a lot of fun, what with the bombs, speeches, and other distractions to break the monotony I was living in."

Guevara's disposition when he traveled with Castro from Mexico to Cuba aboard the Granma is captured in a phrase in a letter to his wife that he penned on January 28, 1957, not long after disembarking, which was published in her book Ernesto: A Memoir of Che Guevara in Sierra Maestra: "Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and bloodthirsty."

An earlier letter to his former girlfriend Tita Infante had observed that "if there had been some executions, the government would have maintained the capacity to return the blows."

In January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information: "I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain.... His belongings were now mine."

The quotations from his diary continue. This is all from the hand of Vargas Llosa a respected authority in latin american literature.

Guevara's Diary on Bolivia (great part of the diary is in a moderate lenguaje, so don't expect to find any reference to a sadist in it)Note: the translation is from google, so it will not be good..

JANUARY 18

The day amaneció storm cloud, reason why I did not inspect of trenches. They left for Urban gondola, Ñato, the Doctor (Moor), Inti, Aniceto, Braulio. Alexander did not work to feel ill.

In the little short while it began to rain abundantly. Under the heavy shower the Parrot arrived to inform being expert into many things and offering themselves to collaborate with us, for the cocaine or what is, showing in that what is the suspicion that there is something more. I gave instructions him to the Parrot of which it jeopardizes it without offering to him much; only the payment of everything what carries with his jeep and to threaten it of death if it betrays. Due to the strong thing of the heavy shower, the Parrot left immediately to avoid that the river surrounded it.

Read the source if you've any doubts on the references. The same source but in spanish

Edit: Some corrections.

Edit:

Nothing to correct about political leaders, they all make mistakes and cause the deaths of innocents. They all have a tendency to lose sight of what the common good is in the pursuit of thier idealogical philosophy.

I wouldn't qualify many of those political movements as "mistakes", they're certainly full of intention, though many are separated from the object when the subject is behind a desk. But certainly political ideology is not a necessary nor sufficiet prequisite to talk about "mass murder" if you want to see it that way (though the literal meaning of mass murder is other).

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I was waiting for him to post...

[Soulforged]

I was waiting for him to post...

Were you waiting perhaps for a simple "Viva el Che" or perhaps a "¡Dale che cerrá esta discusión!"? . Well..... ¡Viva el CHE!

[Incongruous]

Wow! a lot of people here really don't like Che...

But I suppose they all wept when Reagen died.

[Soulforged]

Wow! a lot of people here really don't like Che...

But I suppose they all wept when Reagen died.

Is not bad to wept for anyone, they're people after all, they all fall, we all fall, we all are tempted, no one can judge the other over moral superiority. And a lot of people sure do the same with Guevara, that's because we try to remember the good in someone and not what he or she has done wrong, to the point that after death an ideal image is formed, usually completelly strange to the real one. This is not bad at all, it's only human nature.

[Redleg]

Edit:I wouldn't qualify many of those political movements as "mistakes", they're certainly full of intention, though many are separated from the object when the subject is behind a desk. But certainly political ideology is not a necessary nor sufficiet prequisite to talk about "mass murder" if you want to see it that way (though the literal meaning of mass murder is other).

I was not refering to the political movements as "mistakes." I was refering to the actions of the political leader (the individual)of the movement or the individual in charge of governing (the individual).

[Alexanderofmacedon]

From previous post:

This is what is on my friends shirt:
http://vamos-a-cuba.viabloga.com/images/che.jpg