Che Guevara – Guerrilla in the Mist
Origin Story
Martyrdom, Mythmaking, and 1968 Iconography
Dorian and Ian explain how Che's death and timing fed the 1968 New Left and created a global icon.
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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