Che, Part 1

In Che, Part 1, directed by Steven Soderbergh, Ernesto “Che” Guevara allies with Fidel Castro in order to attain a total Latin American revolution. In the declassified notes The Death of Che Guevara: A Chronology it is stated that “Guevara wanted to export the Cuban Revolution to different parts of Latin America and Africa,” (Kornbluh 5). In the film, Guevara and Castro begin to gather troops in order to form their columns of guerillas. Guevara hoping, that once the Revolution in Cuba is accomplished, he will use his guerilla tactics in hopes that he will take revolution to other countries of the world. Guevara’s outlook on revolution and guerilla warfare are accurately portrayed in Soderburgh’s film.
In Guevara’s Guerilla Warfare: A Method, Guevara points out that certain situations must be present in order for revolution to take place. There are many things mentioned in his article that are carried over into the film. Guevara writes, “ the defense must be armed so that the popular forces will not merely become recipients of the enemy’s blows,” (Guevara 6). In the movie, Guevara would not let members join the cause unless they had a weapon to defend themselves. Guevara also emphasized the need to educate the people. In the film, Guevara wants everyone to read and write, because those that are uneducated are easily swayed. He writes that “the peasantry is a class, that because of the ignorance in which it has been kept … requires the revolutionary and political leadership of the working class, and the revolutionary intellectuals,” (Guevara 3).
With guerilla warfare timing is everything. Guevara writes that “we should not fear violence, … but violence should be unleashed at that precise moment in which the leaders have found the most favorable circumstances,” (Guevara 5).  Guerilla warfare, is a warfare that, may not have many in number, but makes every blow they deal one that is effective.
After Guevara is successful in Cuba, he leaves to start revolutionary action in other parts of the world, like Bolivia. Because of Castro’s support of Guevara, Castro was “accused of ‘harming the communist cause through his sponsorship of guerilla activity,” (Kornbluh 2). Guevara’s ideas never gained popularity in Bolivia like they did in Cuba, and because of this his revolution never succeeded there. The United States trained Bolivian officers to kill Guevara. They were successful in capturing him, but before he died he said, “I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man,” (Kornbluh 11).  In Castro’s eulogy he tells the United States the same thing. They have only killed a man, and “they are mistaken who believe that his death is the death of his ideas, the defeat of his tactics, or the defeat of his guerilla concepts,” (Kornbluh 5). This was the hope of Walt Rostow who wrote that “in the Latin American context [Guevara’s death] will have a strong impact in discouraging would-be guerillas,” (Kornbluh 13).
It is not surprising that the United States wanted to keep everything top secret. They chose not to tell the world that Guevara was murdered for they feared “a trial would focus world attention on him and could generate sympathetic propaganda for Che and for Cuba,” (Kornbluh 10). This is just like guerilla warfare. If the truck that guerillas blow up is publicized as an accident, there is no attention focused to it. Guerillas without focus and attention from the masses are not successful.

Motorcycle Diaries

The 2004 movie The Motorcycle Diaries, directed by Walter Salles, follows Ernesto “El Che” Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado on their cross-continental journey on a motorcycle. In the movie, Guevara is depicted as an honest and sympathetic man. Every time Guevara meets a person who is less fortunate he is, he sympathizes with them. The Incan boy, the communist miner couple, and the inhabitants of the leper colony all represent people who Guevara is influenced by in the movie.
Eduardo Elena gives adequate background information of Ernesto Guevara’s travels and the Peronist government of Argentina in his work, Travel and Nationalism in Ernesto Guevara’s Argentina. Throughout his piece, Elena emphasizes that the focus of the Argentinean government was travel and tourism, brought about by Juan Perón. According to Elena, Guevara “traveled extensively in his teenage years and early twenties,” and did not take a single trip as the movie leads the audience to believe. (Elena 24). Guevara did not always stay in a country long enough to get the full picture of what was going on. According to Ann Zulawski, Guevara was offered a long-term job in Bolivia, but he turned it down for the overnight experience instead. (Zulawski 195).
Elena also notes the Guevara was a “devoted reader” and was said to have “familiarized himself with Karl Marx and other leftist authors.” (Elena 25). After reading this, it is not surprising that in the movie Guevara wants to build a hospital at the base of the mountain for anyone to come to for help, or that he is sympathetic towards the miner couple who are kicked off their land for being communists. His reading is very important in the movie, because in one of the books he reads that revolution should be original. This further emphasizes the impact reading had upon Guevara.
Elena also states that Guevara liked to find rural areas of the country so he could be with the “ordinary” people. (Elena 27). This is seen in the movie when Guevara talks with the miners, socializes with the lepers, and helps the dying woman. This is emphasized in Guevara’s own journal. Elena notes that Guevara “devoted little time in his journals to describing metropolitan areas or their inhabitants.” (Elena 28). The most important description Elena has to offer about Guevara is that “[Guevara] saw himself as something more [than a paradigm of tourism], he saw himself as someone dedicated to the serious business of investigating the inner workings of society.” (Elena 29).  Unfortunately, Ann Zulawski does not have as many praises for Guevara in her piece entitled What did Che See? Throughout her piece, Zulawski criticizes Guevara’s point of view of the social issues at hand in Bolivia. Zulawski believes that Guevara’s perception of the working class people of Bolivia during the revolution is an incorrect one, tainted by Guevara’s own stereotyping. Guevara assumed that the Indians were passive in their struggle for reforms. However, as Zulawski points out, (through Lilo Linke) the Indians that Guevara encountered “were nowhere close to passive.” (Zulawski 194). Zulawski also states that he saw “Indians as long suffering and impervious to contemporary political realities.” (Zulawski 192). It is interesting that sixty percent of Bolivians were Indian. (Zulawski 195). This helps to understand why the government would not want to grant them suffrage.Zulawski makes great note of the state of the mining industry in Bolivia, where eighty percent of its tin exports go to the United States. (Zulawski 185). Bolivia depended heavily on the trade with the United States. This heavily influenced the Bolivian government’s actions. (I.e. the labor movement’s role in wanting to nationalize the mines and have the working class run them). (Zulawski189). In the movie this is conveyed through Guevara's reading, where the author states that revolution needs to be original, and we are too few to be divided.
Overall, The Motorcycle Diaries does a great job setting up the ideal qualities of Ernesto “El Che” Guevara. These ideal qualities shaped him into the revolutionary he became. Unfortunately, for the audience, the movie was not one that focused on all aspects of his history, and does not emphasize the importance of all events going on in Latin America at this time.