The True Story of Che Guevara

The True Story of Che Guevara

Argentinian doctor; joined Castro in Mexico in 1954; a leader of the 1956-59 Cuban Revolution. Che served as president of Cuba’s national bank and as Cuba’s minister of industry in the period immediately following the Cuban Revolution.  Towards the end of his formal affiliation with the Cuban government, Che came to implicitly criticize Soviet bureacracy. His positions put him at odds with the party line of the Cuban CP. In 1965, Che realized that the defence of the Cuban revolution and the creation of revolutions abroad were naturally not always in sync, and this ultimately led to his resignation and his return to revolutionary work abroad.

During Che’s subsequent revolutionary campaigns, he wrote his Message to the Tricontinental (1967) in which he openly criticized the Soviet Union; claiming that the Northern hemisphere of the world, both the Soviet Union and the US, exploited the Southern hemisphere of the world. He strongly supported the Vietnamese Revolution, and urged his comrades in South America to create “many vietnams.”  In 1965 Che left Cuba to set up guerrilla forces first in the Congo and then later in Bolivia, where he was ultimately captured and killed in October 1967. Accounts of his execution have varied over the years, but many contemprary accounts indicate some degree of collaboration between Bolivia’s government troops and the United States CIA.

Guevara developed a theory of primacy of military struggle, in particular concept of guerilla foquismo. Many of Che’s theories regarding guerilla tactics are articulated in his 1961 work “Guerilla Warfare.”  Director: Maria Berry, Writer: Maria Berry
Stars: Mario Ramirez Reyes and Andrew Blood and Jay Costelo.

From his famous motorcycle trips to his historic role in the Cuban Revolution, Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara is profiled in a documentary produced to explore the life of the man whose visage has become an iconic symbol of hard left politics.

This man, who ordered the execution of countless human beings while in charge of the notorious La Cabaña prison in Havana, who terrorized Cuban society and who denied freedom to thousands of citizens whom he considered “deviants” or “anti-revolutionaries” can never be accepted as a hero, martyr or — the shock of it — a saint.

Its a good documentary in the fact that it brings to light other people in the revolution, and it has this kind of new way of presenting the man, with lots of hard guitar in the background to make him seem “radical” i guess. Jon Anderson the author of one of the best bio’s on him is interviewed many times, also there are interviews with American soldiers who fought in the revolution,which is very interesting to get to see them. Overall it is one of the better documentaries.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-true-story-of-che-guevara/