1966 – 1967
Returning to Cuba
On 23rd July Guevara returned to Havana and went to San Andrés, the area chosen to train the guerilla fighters destined to take the revolution to Bolivia. Some of them had been with Guevara in the Sierra and in Congo, but when he reached the camp they struggled to recognize him – he was wearing a dental prosthesis, he had shaven, was smoking a pipe and was wearing a tie and glasses. Guevara met his four children in a secret location and they too did not recognize him. It was a heart-breaking meeting and the fighters were soon to leave.
YOU and EVERYBODY
Before leaving for Bolivia, Che left his wife a poem.
“My only one in the world: […] This one verse in love, to make you feel the exact dimension of my love. Yet, in the deepest labyrinth of the silent shell
The poles of my spirit meet and repel each other: YOU and EVERYBODY.
The Everybody that demands the extreme sacrifice; let my shadow alone darken the way! But, without violating the rules of sublimated love, I carry you hidden in my travel bag.
[…] Farewell, my one and only, […] I carry you in my chest, by my heart, and we will go off together, until the road dissolves…”
Che reaches Bolivia
Guevara departed from Cuba on 23rd October and after stopping off in various parts of Europe he landed in Brazil. He then moved to Bolivia. He met other Cubans and travelled on a jeep until, on 7th November, he reached Ñancahuazú, in the southern part of the country.
In his diary, as he always did, he wrote: “Today a new leg of the journey begins.”
Other Cuban and Bolivian fighters arrived at the camp and were moved to a more isolated location.
On 31st December Che met the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Bolivia, Mario Monje. The two men discovered they had insurmountable differences in opinion, which were critical for the future of the guerilla.
Che’s last letter
In January Aleida received the last letter from Che. “My one and only […] There are days in which melancholia advances uncontrollably and pours into me. At Christmas and New Year’s Eve especially. You have no idea how much I miss your usual tears, under a sky filled with new stars that make me think of how little I made of life at a personal level. […] Nothing interesting about my life here. I like the work, but it requires too much from me, […] I am losing weight, partly because I miss you all, partly because of the work. Give a kiss to all the little meat lumps and to everybody else. For you a kiss loaded with sighs and other kinds of distress from you poor, balding husband.”
Diary
In February one of the guerilla fighters drowned in the Rio Grande river. Che wrote that “We have received a death baptism.” March: “We are surrounded by 2,000 men.”
April: “The North Americans will intervene with force.”
May: “Not one peasant has joined up with us.”
On 14th June, Guevara wrote, “I am now 39 years old and inexorably drawing closer to an age that makes me think of my future as a guerilla fighter. For now, I am ‘whole’.”
July: “The total lack of contacts [with Cuba] continues.”
On 7th August he summed up the situation. “Today is 9 months exactly since we arrived and the guerilla started. Of the first six men, two are dead, one has vanished and two are wounded. I am suffering from asthma that I do not know how to stop.”
On 8th August he spoke to his men: “This type of fight allows us to transform into revolutionaries, the highest form of the human species […]”.
The short opinion on August was negative: “There is no doubt this has been the worst month.”
On 8th September there is bitterness in his words. “How I would like to come to power, if only to unmask the cowards and lackeys of every kind and force them to face their evil deeds.”
The end
8 October: in the Quebrada del Yuro, the group of guerilla fighters was ambushed by five battalions of army soldiers. Che was wounded, captured and transferred to the small village of La Higuera. The day after, the order to execute Guevara arrived from the capital La Paz. His body was exposed on a plank-bed for the benefit of photographers, journalists and television stations.
and then