The real Che Guevara separated from the myth
Douglas Young - Special to The Telegraph
Hollywood has dutifully churned out yet another cinematic agitprop paean
to a leftist "martyr," this time Ernesto Guevara. So let's recall the
real "Che" and try to discern why many supposedly democratic, civil
libertarian liberals still swoon over this Stalinist mass-murderer.
The meticulous myth of Senor Guevara is of a handsome Argentine
heroically helping Fidel Castro's guerrillas liberate Cuba from the
fascist Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1959. Then he became a global
revolutionary icon inspiring the downtrodden to rise up everywhere, even
personally leading rebel warriors in the Congo before being executed
doing the same in Bolivia in 1967.
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The (communist) party line says Che personifies the selfless
humanitarian courageously fighting for "social justice." He's the
Marxists' martyred Christ figure replete with pictures of his half-naked
corpse riddled with bullet holes. And the classic poster of an angry
young Guevara has scarred countless college dorm rooms for over 40
years, putting a face on the eternally young rebel for angry adolescents
everywhere.
The real Guevara was a reckless bourgeois adrenaline-junkie seeking a
place in history as a liberator of the oppressed. But this fanatic's
vehicle of "liberation" was Stalinism, named for Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin, murderer of well over 20 million of his own people. As one of
Castro's top lieutenants, Che helped steer Cuba's revolutionary regime
in a radically repressive direction.
Soon after overthrowing Batista, Guevara choreographed the executions of
hundreds of Batista officials without fair trials. He thought nothing of
summarily executing even fellow guerrillas suspected of disloyalty and
shot one himself with no due process.
Che was a purist political fanatic who saw everything in stark black and
white. Therefore he vociferously opposed freedoms of religion, speech,
press, assembly, protest, or any other rights not completely consistent
with his North Korean-style communism.
How many rock music-loving teens sporting Guevara T-shirts today know
their hero supported Cuba's 1960s' repression of the genre? How many
homosexual fans know he had gays jailed? Did the Barack Obama volunteers
in that Texas campaign headquarters with Che's poster on the wall know
that Guevara fervently opposed any free elections? How "progressive" is
that?
How socially just was it that Che was enraged when the Russians blinked
during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and withdrew their nuclear missiles
from the island, thus averting a nuclear war? Guevara was such a zealous
ideologue that he relished the specter of millions of Cuban lives
sacrificed on the altar of communism, declaring Cuba "a people ready to
sacrifice itself to nuclear arms, that its ashes might serve as a basis
for new societies." Some humanitarian.
Che was a narcissist who boasted that "I have no house, wife, children,
parents, or brothers; my friends are friends as long as they think like
me, politically." This is a role model for today's "post-political"
voters claiming we should get beyond partisanship?
Adding to the ridiculousness of the Che cult is that he was virtually a
complete failure. As a medical doctor, he never even had a practice.
When put in charge of the Cuban economy at the start of Castro's
government, his uncompromising communist diktats ran it completely into
the ground from which it never recovered. Humiliated, and also angry
that Castro wasn't fomenting enough revolution abroad, he then tried to
lead such quixotic adventures in Argentina, the Congo and Bolivia,
failing miserably everywhere while sacrificing the lives of scores of
naïve, idealistic young followers as deluded pawns in the service of his
personality cult.
Another reason he fled Cuba in the mid-1960s was the complete mess he
made of his private life. Though he preached sexual purity to his
colleagues, he was a shameless adulterer who abandoned two wives and
many children, some legitimate, others not. As a grandson put it, "he
was never home." The public Che who supposedly had such great love for
humanity privately couldn't stand most folks.
Guevara's promiscuous communist adventurism was the pattern of a
terminal adolescent running away from his problems to get caught up in
some heroic crusade against his eternal bete noir, "Yankee imperialism."
So why do so many well-heeled American libs still admire this thug? Are
the young simply ignorant of his execrable record and drawn to the image
of the dashing young rebel? Do older progressives feel guilt for their
free market prosperity, and showing solidarity with Che absolves them?
Do hippies-turned-yuppies get nostalgic for their youthful protests and
rationalize that the symbolism of Che as a "social reformer" eclipses
his actual horrific human rights record? And are some American
Guevaraistas truly dangerous leftists who seek to emulate their icon and
destroy our free, democratic, capitalist society? Ask that guy wearing
the Che T-shirt.
Dr. Douglas Young is professor of political science and history at
Gainesville State College.
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