A defeat that became a legend
The Bolivian expedition that ended with Guevara’s execution on 9 October 1967 was a military failure. Yet within a year his face was on walls and banners in cities from Paris to Mexico City. The campaign itself is told in the companion article on the capture and execution. This one concerns what happened to his image and reputation afterwards, and the reasons are as much about photography and timing as about politics.
It is also worth noting that most of the iconography is posthumous. The most famous picture of him was taken years before his death, and the mass reproduction of it came mainly after 1967, in the late 1960s and later.
The body on display
In the days after the execution, the Bolivian army flew Guevara’s body by helicopter to the town of Vallegrande and laid it on a concrete slab in the laundry room of a small hospital. Journalists and local people were allowed to see it, and photographs were taken of the body surrounded by soldiers and officials. The authorities wanted proof of death, since the claim that Guevara had been killed in combat was met with doubt.
The photographs had an effect that the army did not intend. Some observers compared the composition and the expression of the body to religious paintings, in particular to depictions of the dead Christ, and the comparison was repeated in later writing. In Latin America, where Catholic imagery was familiar, the association helped turn him into something like a martyr, in a way that a simple report of his death might not have done.
His hands were reportedly cut off so that fingerprints could confirm his identity, and the body was buried secretly in an unmarked place. The location was long kept from the public. It was only in 1997 that remains believed to be those of Guevara and some of his companions were found near the airstrip at Vallegrande, and they were taken to Cuba and laid to rest in the city of Santa Clara.
The Korda photograph
The portrait that came to represent Guevara was taken on 5 March 1960 by the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, known as Korda. Guevara was attending a memorial service in Havana for victims of the explosion of a ship, La Coubre. Korda took two frames of him, looking out with a serious expression, in a beret with a star, and later cropped one to a close portrait. It was known as “Guerrillero Heroico”, the heroic guerrilla.
For years the picture had little circulation outside Cuba. In 1967 the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who had travelled to Cuba, reportedly obtained a print and used it for posters and in the publication of Guevara’s writings after his death. In 1968 the Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick produced a stylised red-and-black version based on the photograph, which spread widely in Europe. Korda later said he had not sought payment for it and that he supported its use for causes he agreed with. In later years the image has also been used for commercial products, which has led to arguments about ownership and appropriate use.
The diary
Guevara had kept a diary during the Bolivian campaign. After his death, it passed into the hands of the Bolivian authorities, and copies reached Cuba and then others. In 1968 the Cuban government, under Fidel Castro, arranged for publication of the text with an introduction, and it was soon translated into many languages. Editions also appeared through magazines and publishers in other countries, in some cases against the wishes of the Cuban side.
The diary showed a man struggling with illness, hunger and isolation rather than a triumphant leader. Some readers found the account moving and honest, while others saw it as evidence that the plan was doomed. Whatever the reading, it gave readers a first-person record of the campaign and strengthened the idea that he had gone to Bolivia to die for his beliefs, which fed the legend.
The cult among students
The timing mattered. In 1968, protest movements in Paris, Berlin, Mexico City, Prague and the United States, among others, brought the student movement to a peak, and European student protest in particular drew on a shared stock of symbols. Another icon of the time was Mao Zedong, whose portrait and sayings were everywhere during the Cultural Revolution, and the two images sometimes appeared side by side. Young activists were hostile to the Vietnam War escalation, suspicious of established parties and attracted by the idea of direct action. Guevara, who had left a government post to fight and who had written about creating the “new man”, suited those feelings. Posters of him appeared in student rooms and at demonstrations, including those during May 1968 strikes in France.
Much of the attraction was symbolic. People who put up the poster did not always know the details of his career, which included his role in executions in Cuba after the revolution in 1959 and his controversial views on economics and discipline. Critics, then and later, argued that the cult ignored these aspects. Supporters replied that the image was a way of expressing opposition to injustice and to the established order. Both views reflect the fact that icons are made by their audiences as much as by the person depicted.
What the image became
Over the decades the image went through many forms: on T-shirts, murals, album covers and advertising. This commercial life has been called ironic, since Guevara was a Marxist who criticised capitalism. It has also meant that the picture has been used by people with very different views, some with little interest in the person it shows. The same face can signify rebellion, nostalgia or fashion, depending on who is wearing it. Its endless repetition has been compared with the repeated portraits of Andy Warhol, an artist who was himself interested in how images are turned into products.
The historical Che Guevara and the symbolic one are different, and the difference is the story of this article. The first was a revolutionary who died after a failed campaign in Bolivia. The second is a photograph that continues to circulate, partly because it was easy to reproduce and partly because the circumstances of 1967 and 1968 made it feel like the face of a generation.