Reminiscences Of The Cuban Revolutionary WarBy Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.
HarperCollins.
Pages 314. Rs 295
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, held an exhibition on Che Guevara in 2006. Director Steven Soderbergh made a film on Guevara succinctly called Che which opened in January, 2009. A search on the Net yields a Che store that sells knick-knacks on Guevara. Time magazine rated Guevara as one of the 150 most influential people of the 20th century. This ‘Che’ cult began in the 1960s with Alberto Kordo’s photograph of Guevara, aptly titled ‘Guerrillero’. Since his death in 1967, the stylised visage of Ernesto Guevara has become an icon of radical chic within popular culture. But more importantly, he is revered even today as a symbol of freedom.
Guevara’s Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War is a gripping accounts of the guerrilla war waged by him and his band of guerrillas against capitalistic regimes in Cuba and Bolivia. The Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War takes the reader back to July, 1955, when Guevara met Raul and Fiedel Castro in Mexico and enlisted in the guerrilla expedition to overthrow the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
In November, 1956, Guevara began the historic armed struggle from Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains. In the initial phase of the struggle, Guevara, a doctor by profession, admitted to being faced with the dilemma of choosing between his "devotion to medicine" and his "duty as a revolutionary soldier". Very soon, the revolutionary in him triumphed and he played a pivotal role in the two-year campaign that deposed the Batista regime. The blood and gore of the many skirmishes at La Plata or Bueycito, the final offensive at Santa Clara, the betrayal by "traitor" informers and the death of rebel companions is described in stark detail.
The march on rugged terrain hunched under packs of ammunition and weapons, the scarcity of food and water, the low morale of soldiers et al take the reader to the very heart of the revolution. The photographs add to the quality of stark authenticity of the narrative. What comes through clearly in the narrative is the pledge of the rebels to "struggle to the last drop of our rebel blood to make this land a sovereign republic with the true attributes of a nation that is happy, democratic and fraternal".
The books is a compelling and vivid account of the revolution in Cuba. But it is the revolutionary fervour underlying the narratives that makes the account truly moving. The figure of Che with an army beret and a Cuban cigar becomes synonymous with iconic heroism.
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