today marks 53 years since Che's untimely death, murdered by cowards as he attempted to bring about revolution in bolivia.
Che, in my opinion, is the immaculate ideal of a Marxist: compassionate, intelligent, witty, well-read, self-sacrificing, and guided by an unwavering moral center--the list goes on and on. a doctor and a warrior. a healer who knew what was poisoning this world and paid with his very life to attempt to stop it.
he left his country, home, friends, and family to fight with comrades under several nations' flags. severly asthmatic since childhood--sometimes needing to be carried by his comrades in inhospitably humid battlefields--still, he fought in the sierras of cuba. he fought with conviction and strength, and he helped win cubans their freedom.
and what did he do then? did he sit and accept his reward from his newly-adopted country, enjoy some of what he helped build? no. there were battles yet to be fought. and so he fought, until liberation or death came.
i'm a bit drunk but, i love Che and had to vent/ramble. please please please, read jon lee anderson's Che if you haven't: it's a long read but endlessly fascinating and never not inspiring
¡Que viva El Che!
He really was the epitome of the Socialist Revolution. Everything he did, he did for liberation, to give innocent humans a shot at a decent life. Completely filled with compassion, but backed up by the threat of violence. Che wrote about executing reactionaries in a completely detached and scientific manner as if he was pulling weeds or performing some other banal task. This combination of cold indifference to the death of your enemies paired with the warm drive of compassion is the Essence of the Revolution. Everyone should strive to be more like Che.
totally. having those two forces inside of you is the alchemy of a virtuous fighter. also that's what i find so inspiring about him. it's drilled into your head from birth, about the need for compromise. compromising your values, your vision for a better world, etc. but his life stands as a total and complete testament against that
I think I've always been meant to be a Communist purely because I personally feel compassion for the poor as well as a burning hatred for those who oppress them. Even as a young liberal I always hated the weakness of the liberal mindset and the mercy they grant those who harm the people. Otherwise, as a white man coming from a fallen petit bourgeois family I'd probably be a fascist.