How Did Che Guevara Influence The Cuban Revolution

Castro’s involvement with the foreign and domestic politics during the early Cold War period greatly influenced the outcome of the Cuban Revolution. Without the actions taken by foreign powers like the United States and Russia, some events on the domestic front may have had very different results. It is important to understand how every nation’s foreign policies can influence more than just one other nation, and this was especially true for Cuba. It was this mix and chain of events which produced the communist Cuba that we are familiar with today.

Methods: This investigation will describe Che Guevara’s involvement in Latin American independence movements, focusing specifically on his involvement with Fidel Castro’s “26th of July” movement. His actions and words will be analyzed, and his conduct this period of political upheaval will be used as evidence in order to answer the investigative question.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a part of the 26th of July Movement in Cuba. He became a revolutionary leader who inspired many and brought the guerrilla to victory in 1959. He was a part of the eighty-two men who sailed on the Granma from Mexico to Cuba in December of 1956 (Staten 114). The biographical film, Che: Part One directed by Steven Soderbergh, shows the journey of Che and the guerrillas as they attempted to defeat Batista’s military. Che: Part One is not simply just a depiction of Che’s life, but it brings you right into the action of the armed struggle the guerrilla faced. The revolution shaped Che into the leader he became. He started out as a simple doctor who wanted to bring the people of Cuba what they deserved. Che went through changes as the periods of the revolution went on. He grew to be a leader that would bring his people to the victories they achieved. Throughout the portrayal of the revolution, it can be seen how Che changes and adapts based on what situation he is facing and how the movie shows it. The film goes back and forth between the times Che is in Cuba fighting and after he wins the revolution and talks about his experiences.

In weeks 9 to 11, the movement we looked at had very similar themes, often regarding things like rebellion and standing up for culture and what a society deems is “right”. We first learned about Che Guevara and how he became an icon to both Latin America and North American culture from Dr Anna Hamling. Her lecture was on the perpective of cultural icons, how people viewed them, and what it took to become an icon. She discussed the ways that people viewed Che, some seeing him as a hero where others saw him as just a tyrant who murdered anybody who got in his way.

The next portion of the paper analyses the film “The Revolution is Us” by David C. Stone. She criticizes this documentary by saying that it only tells a single story of what it means to be Cuban under the Revolution. In this instance she is referring to this Pacheco, who in the mind tells the story of what it means to be Cuban in the eyes of a manipulative government. Pacheco is a man who mentions that he would die for the revolution and feels that he in forever indented or at the service of the Revolution. Later on in this section Guerra mentions the “absence of all the most integrated Cubans from the collection deliberately provides tunnel vision into Cuban society; yet this is an advantage in that one sees citizen- deputies actively

However, the revolution, led by Fidel Castro, brought hope for those who supported the fight against the repressive government in the island, but it also brought a red signal of danger and fear of Cold War to other countries in America, especially for United States. Even though the revolutionary Fidel Castro was friend with the Soviet Union, Cuba never played a big role outside of the island. Nevertheless, United State anti-communism policy encouraged a violent anti-revolutionary reaction that spreader all over Latin America in the 60’s and 70’s.

I decided to write this research paper because we were assigned to find an issue or subject within Latin America to write about. One of the most widely known and influential revolutionary figure in the history of Latin America is Ché Guevara. Ché knew how to use his intelligence and judgment in all the circumstances he encountered taking advantage of each moment as if it was a highly intensive chess game he was sincerely

Meanwhile, as supplies and morale diminished, and with an allergy to mosquito bites which resulted in agonizing cysts on his body, Guevara considered these "the most painful days of the war" (“Che: Part One”).

In his centrally planned economy a favorable relationship with the Soviet Union was vital. This dependency lasted throughout the 1980s and helped bolster the idea that the Cuban revolution was a successful model for other countries seeking equality and welfare to follow. Cuba’s main exports were sugar and hostile rhetoric directed at the U.S. and capitalism as a whole The Soviet Union accepted and rewarded the Cuban government for both.

In my 27 years on this planet, I have heard little to nothing about the revolutionist and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Of the small amount of conversation which has occurred in front of me, Castro was always described in a negative way. He was described as a cruel, selfish Communist dictator who is against the ideas and beliefs of my own country. For those reasons, I have never bothered educating myself about Castro and his life. Now that I am older, my education has presented the opportunity for me to get to know Castro and see things from his perspective, the non-American perspective. Because I am curious about Castro 's rise early life, rise to power, and accomplishments during his rule, I have

It is hard to travel anywhere in the world without seeing somewhere the iconic image of Che Guevara on a T-Shirt, souvenir, or poster. The original photographer, and the Irish artist who turned that photograph into a print, are virtually unknown. However, their image has been redistributed to the point where it can effectively be called an icon or a meme. There is no small amount of irony in the fact that an icon of communism has become an emblem of capitalism: as the image has been bought and sold countless times in countless countries around the world. The iconic image of Che Guevara has a hipster chic to it, but also political panache. To don the Che Guevara image means one does not agree with the establishment and is part of the 99%. However, Che Guevara is a controversial figure too. The image has been banned in some parts of the world, because Che was a radical revolutionary who was not against the use of armed uprisings in communist revolts. Therefore, the iconic Che Guevara image created first in Cuba and turned into pop art by an Irishman is a paradoxical and typically postmodern cultural meme.

Cuba’s political instability and sugar-centered economy were the result of U.S. influence through the Platt Amendment and the various Sugar Acts and reciprocity treaties. Marifeli Perez-Stable takes this stance in her book The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy in her interpretation of Cuban radical nationalism in the 1950’s. The domination of Cuba’s economy by the sugar industry was responsible for much of its wealth but also a great deal of its problems. While the sugar industry generally remained a profitable enterprise in the first half of the 20th Century, Cuba’s growth was hindered by her dependence on it. It fostered unemployment or underemployment, the standard of living was

When we engage in different experiences, we uncover aspects of our self that lead to emotional revelations. Over the course of their travels across South America, Che and Alberto discover how the capitalist system erects barriers of race, class, culture, employment, economics and even health that are oppressive and inhumane. The boisterous memoir of Che’s youthful adventures is interwoven with a record of the poverty, exploitation, illness and suffering he witnessed along the way. It was these experiences that first awakened his political and social conscience. “Chiquicamata” is a place where Che travels to which reveals the juxtaposing elements of requisitioning of land and manpower as part of the discovery process. Che uses figurative language to describe the mine and its surroundings. He states: “they display their grey spine, prematurely aged in the battle with the elements and their wrinkles that do not correspond to their true geological age.” the use of personification here emphasises the harsh severity of the environment and landscape. Through travel Guevara also discovers the plight of the poor and this angers him. He states: “one would do well not to forget the lesson taught by the graveyards of the mines, containing only a small number of people devoured by cave-ins, the silica and the hellish climate of the mountain.” Che uses strong emotive words with reference to death and this

Like the much used stencil of Guevara's determined visage, the general perception of his life is flat and two-dimensional. No where more so, it seems, then in the country richest in Guevara's history, Cuba. An article printed July 21st 1997 in Newsweek, entitled 'Return Of The Rebel', explored Cuban society in the wake of the long-awaited discovery of Guevara's skeleton in Bolivian town of Vallegrande. In it journalist Brook Lamer explains how 'the Cuban Government played a pivotal role in creating the Che mystique, and it is not about to let its franchise slip away'[2].

After it became officially globally acknowledged that Cuba was in fact a communist state and was being led through a dictatorship run by Castro, it did not take long before powerful enemies and essential allies were formed. The act of seizing all foreign land with none or very little compensation was received with great hostility amongst those who lost in their property through this process, and probably the reaction that had the biggest impact on Cuba’s economy was that of the US. Castro’s communistic policies did not of course help calm this resentment and also took part in leading to the establishment of trade embargos with Cuba from the US. This meant that Cuba would now lose a very valuable buyer of their precious sugar, [5] but they did however gain another one, a powerful nation that shared quite similar Marxist ideals and were quick to form an alliance with the Cubans, the USSR.