Ernesto (Che) Guevara: The Last “Heroic” Guerrilla

We take the opportunity presented by the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara to reexamine his life and revolutionary program and the legacy he left behind. Attention is given to the formative influences that led to his introduction to Fidel Castro and his involvement in the Cuban revolution. We take a close look at the stylized theory of revolution that emerged from this experience, his reflective writings on the subject, and his subsequent attempts to generalize and apply his revolutionary model in the Congo and Bolivia. This model is critically interpreted and evaluated through the lense of his eleven month Bolivian campaign. We conclude by examining the ‘paradox’ of Che Guevara. He was a failed guerrilla who remains an iconic symbol of the revolutionary Left. He was an authentic true believer who dreamed that it might be possible to one day forge a utopian society of ‘new men’ and yet, fifty years after his death, his revolutionary project is farther away from being realized than ever. His heroic image, in the meantime, has evolved to become one of the most successful capitalist brands in history.