Word: che
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Beheadings & Poetry. If Castro was the spearhead of Cuba's revolution, Che was its philosopher. Born in Argentina, he grew up battling in the streets against Dictator Juan Peron, gave up a medical career to become a full-time revolutionary, and by the early 1950s was in Mexico City plotting a Cuban revolution with Castro. Like Castro, Che had a passionate hatred of the U.S., an emotional worship of the Communist world, an obsessive determination to succeed in all things. Unlike Castro, however, he was cool and pragmatic. The same Che who could calmly order a comrade beheaded...
With Castro in power, Che dabbled in Cuban politics, agriculture, finance and military training; at the same time, he shaped his own independent and pragmatic brand of guerrilla Marxism, even more violent than Mao Tse-tung's. In contrast with Castro, Che was not afraid to put his theories above politics. In 1965, at a time when Castro was trying to draw closer to Moscow, Che went barnstorming around Africa and Asia, drumming up support for a bloc of small socialist countries to counteract the "imperialism of large socialist countries." After Che's return to Havana...
...Basic Flaw. Che's death illustrates how unsuccessful the attempt has been. In the eight years since Castro came to power, Cuba has spent $400 million on its "wars of liberation," trained 5,000 young Latin American guerrillas and launched more than 15 different at tempts at revolution in twelve Latin American countries. All of them have failed, though small groups still operate in Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia. Even in these countries, guerrilla bands have been reduced to a fraction of their original strength, and are at best fighting only defensive actions...
...flaw in Che's philosophy of revolution is revealed in his book Guerrilla Warfare, which sets down a step-by-step plan for organizing peasants for a Cuban-style revolution. What Che ignored was the fact that Castro did not really create a peasant revolution in Cuba. Though the peasants supported and sustained his forces during the early fighting in the Sierra Maestra, the real turning point came when Cuba's urban middle class, which actually made up the bulk of Castro's army, suddenly began deserting Dictator Fulgencio Batista and sent the jittery strongman fleeing into...
...practice, Che himself compounded the fallacy of his theories by breaking even his most basic rules. In Bolivia, he not only underestimated the army's capability: he also misjudged the mood of the campesinos, who wanted nothing to do with his revolution. To recruit guerrillas, Che had to hire men off the streets with promises of jobs, then terrorize them into fighting for him. "The inhabitants of the region are as impenetrable as rocks," he scribbled in his notebook. "You talk to them, and in the depths of their eyes it can be seen that they...