Why Che Fascinated a Generation

Welcome back to Origin Story season eight: The Story of Socialism. This time, we take a look at hands-down the sexiest revolutionary of socialist history: Che Guevara.

Born in Argentina to wealthy but unhappy parents, Ernesto Guevara travelled around Latin America during his youth until he met Fidel Castro in Mexico City. From then on his path was set, following the Cuban nationalist leader into a guerilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra and then into government. He concocted a rare form of socialism which combined Maoist peasant rebellion with pan-Latin American nationalism and Jack Kerouac’s drifter idealism.

His fame lies not so much in his actions or his thoughts but his image, specifically the iconic Che photograph, taken by Alberto Korda on March 5th 1960. For decades, it has been put up in student bedrooms and raised above protest marches as an encapsulation of youthful idealism, resistance and social justice.

We look at the man behind the image and find a strange, intoxicating bundle of seemingly contradictory elements: a poet executioner, a cold-hearted idealist, a sociopath bohemian, and much more besides. 

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Reading list

Jon Lee Anderson – Che Guevara, a Revolutionary Life

Che Guevara – Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1956-58 (1963)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/reminiscences/index.htm

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro – Socialism and Man in Cuba (1965)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/03/man-socialism.htm

Che Guevara – The Motorcycle Diaries

Che Guevara – Guerrilla Warfare

Mark Kurlansky – 1968: The Year That Rocked the World (2004)

Michael Newman – Socialism: A Very Short Introduction (2020)

Andrew Sinclair – Che Guevara (1998)

FiIm club

Evita, directed by Alan Parker

The Motorcycle Diaries, directed by Walter Salles 

Che Part One and Part Two, directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison.

Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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