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Che Guevara
Thinker

Che Guevara

1928–1967 · Argentine · politician

Che Guevara was the twentieth century’s iconic revolutionary — a theorist and practitioner of guerrilla warfare whose photogenic martyrdom made him the universal symbol of rebellion

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was the iconic revolutionary of the 20th century, whose image—beret, beard, defiant stare—became the universal symbol of rebellion. An Argentine doctor who joined Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution, Che became the theorist and practitioner of guerrilla warfare worldwide.

Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries described his youthful journey across South America that radicalized him. In Cuba, he helped win the revolution, served as president of the national bank and minister of industry, and developed the theory of the 'New Man'—a revolutionary consciousness transcending material incentives.

Che left Cuba to spread revolution, failing in the Congo before his final campaign in Bolivia. Captured and executed by Bolivian forces with CIA assistance in 1967, he became more powerful in death than life. His image adorns t-shirts worldwide, making him history's most commercialized revolutionary. Whether Che was romantic idealist or ruthless killer, his commitment to revolutionary struggle—and his photogenic martyrdom—created an enduring icon.

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Major works3
  1. Guerrilla Warfare1961
  2. The Motorcycle Diaries
  3. Bolivian Diary
Traditions1
Marxism

Where Marxism sits

Descends fromDialectical PhilosophyGerman IdealismMaterialismPolitical EconomyUtopian Socialism
Gave rise toAnti-Colonial ThoughtCritical TheoryDemocratic SocialismLiberation TheologyRadical FeminismSyndicalism
Formed againstClassical LiberalismUtopian Socialism
Provoked a reaction inCatholic Political ThoughtChristian DemocracySocial AnarchismSocial Democracy
Archetypes1
Archetype

Vanguard Collectivist

As a guerrilla commander and minister he helped impose Cuba's one-party communist state, embodying vanguard authoritarian-left revolution taken to its coercive extreme.

Influences & connections8

A selection of notable, documented connections — not an exhaustive map.

Intellectual lineage

  • Karl Marx

    Author of Das Kapital whose materialist analysis of class and capital gave Guevara his whole framework; from Marx's humanism Che derived the 'New Man,' a consciousness freed of material incentive.

  • Vladimir Lenin

    The Bolshevik whose Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and vanguard doctrine shaped Guevara's picture of a US-led imperial order and of the disciplined revolutionary who forces history's hand.

  • Fidel Castro

    The Cuban leader who recruited the young Argentine doctor in Mexico City in 1955 and handed him a revolution; alongside Fidel, Guevara turned from theorist into commander of the July 26th Movement.

  • Ho Chi Minh

    Ho's protracted people's war against France and America made Vietnam the model anti-imperial struggle Che invoked in his 1967 'Message to the Tricontinental,' urging revolutionaries to create 'two, three, many Vietnams.'

  • Mao Zedong

    The strategist of protracted people's war whose On Guerrilla Warfare Guevara studied; Che's own manual and 'foco' theory extended Mao's conviction that revolution is born in the countryside, not the city.

  • Patrice Lumumba

    The assassinated Congolese leader whose betrayal by Belgium and the CIA drew Che to the Congo in 1965 to fight beside Lumumbist rebels, hardening his conviction that armed struggle was the answer to imperialism.

Influenced

Hugo ChávezThomas Sankara
Sources & further reading1

Primary material and secondary scholarship on Che Guevara — not necessarily written by them.

  • Jon Lee Anderson's Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

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