Che Guevara

NAME Ernesto Guevara, better known as Che Guevara. The nickname “Che” came from his habit of constantly using the Argentine slang word che (meaning “pal” or “buddy”) when speaking.

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Che Guevara was a Marxist revolutionary, guerrilla leader, author, physician, and major figure in the Cuban Revolution. He became an international symbol of rebellion and anti-imperialism, immortalized in the iconic 1960 photograph Guerrillero Heroico by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda.

BIRTH Ernesto Guevara was born on May 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina, though his birth certificate was falsified to show June 14, 1928, to conceal that his mother was pregnant before marriage. He was born to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna y Llosa.

FAMILY BACKGROUND Guevara was the eldest of five children in an upper-class Argentine family of Spanish, Basque, and Irish ancestry. His family had pre-independence immigrant roots, with notable 18th-century ancestors including Luis María Peralta, a Spanish landowner in colonial California, and Patrick Lynch, who emigrated from Ireland. His father declared that "in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels," referring to his restless nature. The family had leftist leanings and opposed Juan Perón's government. (1)

A teenage Ernesto (left) with his parents and siblings, c. 1944

CHILDHOOD Che developed chronic asthma at age two, which afflicted him throughout his life. The family moved frequently seeking suitable climates for his condition, eventually settling in Alta Gracia, Córdoba, in 1932. Despite being often bedridden due to asthma, he showed early empathy for the poor. This condition often confined him to his home, where he became a voracious and eclectic reader. Despite his illness, he was an enthusiastic and competitive sportsman.

His bohemian upbringing allowed him considerable freedom, and he was determined to lead an active life despite his illness.

EDUCATION He was initially homeschooled by his mother due to his asthma. He later attended the Dean Funes National School in Córdoba and enrolled at the University of Buenos Aires in 1948, where he studied medicine. Guevera graduated with a medical degree in 1953, specializing in dermatology with a focus on leprosy. 

During his studies, he took a famous motorcycle journey across South America in 1951-1952 with friend Alberto Granado, which profoundly influenced his political awakening.

CAREER RECORD 1953 After graduating as a doctor, Guevara traveled to Guatemala and then Mexico, where he met Fidel and Raúl Castro 

1956-1959 He joined Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement and participated in the Cuban Revolution 

1959 Commander of La Cabaña prison

1959-1961 President of the National Bank of Cuba 

1961-1965 Minister of Industries 

1965-1967 He left Cuba to promote revolution in Congo and later Bolivia, where he was captured and executed in 1967.

APPEARANCE Che Guevara was of slight build but became known for his iconic image featuring a beard and beret. His most famous photograph "Guerrillero Heroico" by Alberto Korda shows him with an intense gaze, beard, and black beret, which became globally recognizable. He was known for his unkempt appearance, often wearing unwashed clothes for weeks and not bathing regularly.

Guerrillero Heroico, 1960 by Alberto Korda

FASHION Guevara was notably indifferent to fashion and personal grooming, which earned him the nickname "Chancho" (pig) in his youth.

Che’s trademark style included a beret with a star, olive green military fatigues, and an unshaven beard, deliberately cultivated to project solidarity with guerrilla fighters and the working class.

As a government minister, he maintained his austere style, wearing only olive green drab clothing and refusing luxuries or privileges. His iconic look included a black beret and military-style clothing, which became synonymous with revolutionary fashion.

CHARACTER Disciplined, idealistic, and uncompromising, Che was admired for his courage and feared for his ruthlessness. He was both romantic and pragmatic, inspiring deep loyalty from some and harsh criticism from others.

Colleagues described him as intelligent, penetratingly discerning, and hungry for adventure. He was also noted for his caring personality and leadership skills , though he could be ruthless when it came to revolutionary discipline.

SPEAKING VOICE Guevara spoke Spanish with a typical La Plata accent common to regions of Uruguay, southern Brazil, and northeastern Argentina, which frequently used the interjection "che". This characteristic accent led to his famous nickname. His voice was firm, deliberate, and commanding.

He was known to be articulate and gave his first political speech on his 24th birthday advocating for a unified Latin America.

SENSE OF HUMOUR Guevera engaged in various "cons" and schemes during his travels to obtain food and shelter, showing a playful side. He demonstrated wit in his interactions, such as when negotiating with doctors about his smoking habits during his illness. His ability to charm people suggests he possessed a certain lighthearted quality despite his serious revolutionary commitments.

 He used wit and irony in his writings and conversations, particularly when criticizing political opponents or bureaucracy.

RELATIONSHIPS Che Guevara married his first wife Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist, after she became pregnant at Tepotzotlán, outside Mexico City, Mexico on August 18. 1955. He was 27 years old and she was 33 at the time of their wedding. Raúl Castro was among the guests present at the wedding ceremony. The marriage certificate from this wedding was actually stolen from a Mexican registry office and later returned in an unmarked envelope in 1999. Their daughter, Hilda Beatriz "Hildita" Guevara Gadea, was born on February 15, 1956. The marriage ended in divorce in May 1959.

Guevara with his first wife Hilda Gadea at Chichen Itza during their honeymoon trip

Guevara married his second wife Aleida March Torres in a civil wedding ceremony at La Cabaña military fortress, Havana, Cuba June 2, 1959. Torres was a Cuban revolutionary who had been a member of his guerrilla column during the Cuban Revolution. Guevara and Aleida went to Tarará, a seaside resort town 20 kilometers from Havana, for their honeymoon. Raúl Castro and his wife were present at this wedding ceremony as well. The couple had four children together: Aleida (nicknamed Alyusha), Camilo, Celia, and Ernesto. Their marriage was described as both traditional and revolutionary, with Aleida serving as his personal secretary while managing domestic duties.

He had a very close and influential relationship with Fidel Castro, and their partnership was central to the Cuban Revolution's success.

MONEY AND FAME As a government minister, Che Guevara famously demonstrated his disdain for capitalism by signing Cuban currency simply "Che". He refused privileges, gifts, and luxuries, accepting only books and cigars. He supported his family on a modest government salary and was known for his austere lifestyle.  

Guevara rose to international fame after the Cuban Revolution and became a global icon, but he actively rejected the comforts of fame and power to pursue his revolutionary goals.

FOOD AND DRINK He had no great luxuries due to his asthma and lifestyle, though he enjoyed Argentine staples and simple soldier’s meals in camp.

Guevara was a dedicated cigar smoker from 1956 until his death, preferring large sizes of brands like Montecristo, H. Upmann, and Partagas. He smoked cigars both for pleasure and claimed they helped with his asthma (though this was medically unfounded).  During his revolutionary campaigns, he shared tobacco equally among his troops. 

Che Guevara in his office as Minister of Industry

He accompanied his cigars with unsweetened tea, "an undrinkable beverage by Cuban standards". (2)

He was not typically a drinker of hard liquor but made rare exceptions.

MUSIC AND ARTS  Guevara was an avid lover of music, particularly classical music, and was known to have a good singing voice. He enjoyed the arts and found inspiration in them.

LITERATURE Guevara loved reading poetry, especially works by Pablo Neruda and Walt Whitman, and could recite long poems by heart. His reading list included Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda and works by Francisco de Quevedo. He also enjoyed French poetry and often quoted extensively from it.

Guevara was an voracious reader with access to over 3,000 books in his family home. His reading interests were diverse, including Karl Marx, Jules Verne, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, H.G. Wells, Franz Kafka, and Jack London. He kept notebooks with ideas and philosophies from important thinkers, studying works from Buddha to Bertrand Russell. 

In 1961, Guevara authored Guerrilla Warfare, a manual on revolutionary tactics. Ironically, Bolivian counter-insurgency forces studied this very book, leading to his eventual capture.

NATURE During his motorcycle journey across South America, Guevara forged a profound bond with the continent’s landscapes and its indigenous peoples. The vastness of the Amazon rainforest left a lasting mark on him, particularly during his stays at leper colonies. Later, the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains became both his battlefield and his refuge during the Cuban Revolution. Nature was a source of solace and reflection, often finding its way into the pages of his diaries.

PETS He loved animals, but his itinerant lifestyle and military campaigns left little room for pets.

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Guevara was an excellent athlete despite his asthma. He was particularly passionate about rugby, playing flyhalf for Club Universitario de Buenos Aires with an aggressive style. He also enjoyed swimming, football, golf, shooting, and cycling. His competitive nature drove him to excel in various sports as compensation for his illness.

Chess was another significant hobby - he learned from his father and played in tournaments by age 12, becoming an exceptionally good player. He saw the game as strategic training for the mind.

Guevara participated in fishing trips, including Cuba's annual Hemingway Marlin Fishing Contest in 1960, but he was not truly passionate about fishing and preferred to read on the boat rather than actively fish; his friend Fidel Castro was far more enthusiastic about the sport and actually won the contest that year.

Guevara fishing off the coast of Havana, on 15 May 1960

SCIENCE AND MATHS As a medical student and qualified doctor, Guevara had strong scientific knowledge, particularly in medicine and dermatology. He conducted advanced medical research on allergies and specialized in leprosy treatment.  His medical background influenced his revolutionary approach to public health and social medicine.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Guevara was deeply influenced by Marxist philosophy and developed his own revolutionary theory known as "Guevarism". His philosophy centered on the concept of the "new man" under socialism and the role of moral versus material incentives.

Though raised in a Catholic household, he grew into a staunch atheist, with his "real religion" being Marxism and revolution. Despite his anti-religious stance, he influenced revolutionary Christianity in Latin America. He famously said he would "squish Christ like a worm" if necessary for the revolution. (3)

CUBAN REVOLUTION Che Guevara’s entry into the Cuban Revolution reads like the sort of career change you might make on a whim after a gap year, except in his case it involved jungle warfare, ambushes, and the odd hand grenade. He first met Fidel Castro in Mexico in 1955, signed up with the 26th of July Movement, and within a year was bobbing across to Cuba on a leaky yacht with 81 others, seasick but determined. Officially, he was the group’s doctor, but the revolution had other plans. Before long, Che was less concerned with stethoscopes and more with rifles, quickly rising to become one of Castro’s most trusted commanders.

In the Sierra Maestra mountains, Guevara somehow managed to do everything at once: run guerrilla campaigns, train peasant fighters, cobble together health clinics, and even improvise weapons factories. He also launched Radio Rebelde, which not only boosted rebel communication but also let the Cuban people know there was, in fact, a revolution on. Against improbable odds, his forces scored pivotal victories at places like Las Mercedes and, most famously, Santa Clara, where Guevara’s leadership tipped the balance and sent Batista fleeing into exile.

Granma survivors in the Sierra Maestra. Che Guevara stands second from left.

After the revolution’s triumph, Che proved he was as much a bureaucrat as a battlefield commander. He ran tribunals and executions at Havana’s La Cabaña prison, chaired the National Bank of Cuba—famously signing banknotes with just “Che,” as if he were autographing them—and later became Minister of Industries. In those roles, he drove agrarian reform, nationalization programs, and literacy campaigns with the same unrelenting zeal he once applied to jungle skirmishes.

He was disciplined, visionary, and tireless, though also unyielding and often ruthless. To some, he was a saint of revolution; to others, a merciless ideologue. Either way, he became one of the 20th century’s most enduring icons—a man whose face, thanks to Alberto Korda’s photograph, now appears on more T-shirts than he ever could have imagined.

POLITICS Guevara was a committed Marxist-Leninist who saw capitalism and imperialism, particularly from the United States, as the primary enemies. He developed theories on guerrilla warfare and the "foco" strategy, believing small guerrilla groups could create revolutionary conditions. His political vision included continental revolution across Latin America and the creation of a "new socialist man". He opposed both capitalism and what he saw as Soviet revisionism.

After the Cuban Revolution, he served as a key figure in the new government, implementing reforms such as nationalization and the famous literacy campaign.

SCANDAL Guevara's most controversial period was his command of La Cabaña prison from January to June 1959, where he oversaw revolutionary tribunals and executions of former Batista regime members. Estimates of those executed under his command range from 55 to 600 people. Critics called him "El Carnicero de La Cabaña" (The Butcher of La Cabaña). He never overturned a death sentence and was known for his harsh discipline toward deserters and suspected traitors.

MILITARY RECORD Guevara joined Castro's 26th of July Movement as the expedition's doctor but quickly became a military commander. He was the first rebel promoted to "Comandante" and led crucial battles including the capture of Santa Clara, which was decisive in toppling Batista. His military strategies were praised as "brilliant" by experts, such as Major Larry James Bockman, particularly his victory at Santa Clara despite being outnumbered 10:1. 

After the revolution, he attempted to export his guerrilla warfare strategies to other countries, including the Congo and Bolivia, though these later campaigns were ultimately unsuccessful.

Guevara, holding a Congolese baby and standing with a fellow Afro-Cuban soldier in the Congo Crisis, 1965

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Guevara suffered from severe chronic asthma throughout his life, but he refused to let the illness define him. His asthma worsened in humid climates and during stress, often requiring special medication. Guevara pushed himself to the limits of physical endurance during his travels and guerrilla campaigns, demonstrating remarkable willpower and often carried an asthma inhaler during combat.

He developed pulmonary emphysema later in life, forcing doctors to limit his cigar smoking. 

His final campaign in Bolivia was marked by severe deterioration of his health.

HOMES Guevara lived in various places during his life. As a child, his family moved to different parts of Argentina to find a suitable climate for his asthma. Later, as a revolutionary, he lived in jungle camps and barracks.

After the Cuban Revolution, he lived in La Casa del Ché at La Cabaña fortress, which served as both his residence and office. This home has been preserved as a museum and contains his working office where important revolutionary meetings took place.

TRAVEL Guevara's most famous journey was the 1951-1952 motorcycle trip across South America with Alberto Granado, documented in his book The Motorcycle Diaries. This 8,000-kilometer journey through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela profoundly shaped his political consciousness. 

He traveled widely as a Cuban diplomat to represent the new government.

His final travels took him to Congo (1965) and Bolivia (1966-1967) in pursuit of international revolution.

DEATH Che Guevara was captured on October 8, 1967, by Bolivian Special Forces aided by CIA operative Félix Rodríguez during a guerrilla campaign in Bolivia. He was executed aged 39 on October 9, 1967, in a schoolhouse in La Higuera, Bolivia, by Mario Terán, a 27-year-old Bolivian sergeant reportedly under the influence of alcohol and seeking revenge for fallen comrades. His last words were reportedly: "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man". He was shot nine times in a manner designed to appear as battle wounds. He was 39 years old at the time of his death.

Guevara's hands were cut off to confirm his identity, and his body was buried in an unmarked mass grave. His remains were discovered and returned to Cuba in 1997.

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Che Guevara has appeared in numerous films, documentaries, and books. Notable portrayals include the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries and Steven Soderbergh's two-part biopic Che (2008). 

His image has become one of the most reproduced in popular culture, appearing on t-shirts, posters, and merchandise worldwide.  Alberto Korda's iconic photograph "Guerrillero Heroico" became a global symbol of rebellion.

Guevara's life has inspired countless books, documentaries, and artistic works.

ACHIEVEMENTS Major role in the Cuban Revolution (1959).

Served in the Cuban government as a minister and diplomat.

Wrote influential works such as Guerrilla Warfare (1961).

Became a global symbol of rebellion and anti-imperialism.

Left a lasting cultural and political legacy, debated to this day.

Sources: (1) Ernesto Che Guevara by I. Lavretsky (2) Cigar Aficionado (3) Hollow Verse