He is a hero of the political left in Europe and he sure is one of the most charismatic persons of the 20th century: Ernsesto "Che" Guevara - the Argentinian upper middle class doctor who got the Cuban Revolution under way in the late 1950's. With the other half of this "project" - Fidel Castro - being close to death, it is the right time (well, it is ALWAYS the right time) to recommend a book that does a good job in "separating the man from the myth", as the New York Times Book Review finds. JON LEE ANDERSON'S "CHE" is a classic by now. First published in 1997 this epic biography gives an insight into the weird struggle of the Cuban Revolution. It started with the journey of a group of men to the island south of Florida on what by today´s standards cannot be called a boat (the boat´s name was grandma - so is the title of a Cuban propaganda newspaper). It continued in the Cuban wilderness - with scarce supplies. Eventually, and I still don´t get how exactly that was possible, Che and his men managed to overthrow a corrupt and smugly self-confident system, a system, where nobody with a liberal-democratic mindset would want to live. But who would want to live in Che´s socialist Cuba either? There were plenty of downsides to this whole thing, you can still see them today. Other than the fact that Che´s beloved firing squads had a lot of work to do in the dawn of the revolution, life under his regiment reminds one of a George Orwell novel ("1984" or "Animal Farm" - choose your favourite). Free speech, free press, free choice of what to study? Non of these things existed, and mostly still don´t exist in 2007. That is particulary interesting since Che is extraordinarily popular among students. If you plan the economy, don´t plan on a prosperous future for your country (probably somone already put it like this, if not, I keep the credits).
Until his death, Che's vision was to enable a revolution that would hit the Americas like a huge wave. That didn´t exactly work out the way he imagined. Maybe one of his biggest problems was that his closest comrades - first and foremost Fidel - were not as idealistic about Socialism/Communism/Marxism/Leninism than Che himself. They paid lip service to Che´s ideas and real service to power and influence.
Let´s wait and see how long Cuba will be like we know it. Of course, oil money comes in handy these days - but I have already talked about that elsewhere.
Anderson, Jon Lee: "Che Guevara - A Revolutionary Life". Publisher: Grove/Atlantic. 1st Pbk. Ed edition, April 1998.
