# Che Guevara **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425 "2013-08-16T16:45:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/21 "2013-08-17T00:33:46Z")
Guevara himself would be puzzled by efforts to paint him as “good” or “bad”-these terms held no meaning for him. He was a doctrinaire Marxist, and all that mattered to him was “la revolucion”. Whether innocent people lived or died was of no concern to him. Like all fanatics, he was killed by people he trusted-Castro resented his popularity, and sent him off to Bolivia (to foment a Cuban-style revolution). Castro made sure that he didn’t come back (alive). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/22 "2013-08-17T01:37:31Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Try looking at (1) who admires him and . Not sure. He has become a symbolic figure, and I’m not sure that what he actually did has much relevance for whoever, say, wears a T-shirt with his portrait. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/23 "2013-08-17T01:43:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Guevara was a “commie come lately” - he became a communist in the fifties. You had to be willfully blind by that point in order to think communism was still a good idea. Then hundreds of millions of people were willfully blind. Communism was exceedingly popular at least until the 70s. Including amongst people who thought that Communism as implemented in the Soviet Union was real bad. Also, you have to take into account what the world was in the 50s. Options other than communism weren’t very appealing, either, outside a very small number of democratic countries. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/24 "2013-08-17T01:52:14Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Not sure. He has become a symbolic figure, and I’m not sure that what he actually did has much relevance for whoever, say, wears a T-shirt with his portrait. Then that reflects very poorly on those who wear said t-shirts. And given that said shirts are mostly worn by clueless, empty-headed white teenagers, it’s clear that the symbolism doesn’t even occur to those stupid enough to don a Che shirt. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/25 "2013-08-17T02:38:53Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Then hundreds of millions of people were willfully blind. Communism was exceedingly popular at least until the 70s. Including amongst people who thought that Communism as implemented in the Soviet Union was real bad. Yes, there were a lot of people who were willfully blind. But anyone who was reasonably intelligent and educated, had been exposed to various alternatives, and stopped to think about politics - which describes Guevara - but still made a conscious decision that communism was the way to go was choosing the wrong path. The evidence of the vast flaws of communism was there to be seen by the fifties. > [@clairobscur](#): > > Also, you have to take into account what the world was in the 50s. Options other than communism weren’t very appealing, either, outside a very small number of democratic countries. Other alternatives weren’t perfect. But you’d have to reach way down to the bottom of the ideological barrel to find something worse than Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/26 "2013-08-17T05:30:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > … But you’d have to reach way down to the bottom of the ideological barrel to find something worse than Stalin. Oh, look, rooting around in the dregs, keeping Papa Joe company, it is Ronnie, again. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/27 "2013-08-17T06:23:55Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Oh, look, rooting around in the dregs, keeping Papa Joe company, it is Ronnie, again. Are you talking about Reagan? Because while he was not a particularly good president, saying he’s comparable to Stalin is just silly. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/28 "2013-08-17T07:45:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If Guevara had legitimately wanted to help people and make the world a better place, he wouldn’t have done it by promoting communism. What do you suppose was his actual motivation, then? Guevara, and the Castros, view of what constitutes a just society is different from what you (and I also) think of as a just society. The same goes for Islamic fundamentalists (or any other fundamentalists). Just because you don’t feel that that kind of society is good doesn’t mean that such people don’t want, in their own minds, to make society better according to their own standards. I don’t think you can understand such people by imposing your own viewpoint on them. Guevara wanted to impose a society in which prosperity in materialistic terms wasn’t the most important consideration. Communism in those terms may have been demonstrated not to be very effective, but that doesn’t mean (to them) that it wasn’t a valid way to run a society. It might be mentioned also that although Guevara oversaw the execution of many supporters of the Batista regime, Cuba did not undergo the same kind of horrors imposed by communism in the Soviet Union or Red China such as mass purges and executions and widespread starvation. Guevara is still idolized by many people in Cuba, despite the failures of communism in the island over the past 50+ years. Why do you think this is? (And it is genuine on the part of many people; it’s not just imposed by the regime.) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/29 "2013-08-17T13:45:33Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Guevara is still idolized by many people in Cuba, despite the failures of communism in the island over the past 50+ years. Why do you think this is? (And it is genuine on the part of many people; it’s not just imposed by the regime.) There are supposedly some old Russians who still idolize Stalin, and he was pretty much an evil bastard, wasn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/30 "2013-08-17T16:06:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Guevara is still idolized by many people in Cuba, despite the failures of communism in the island over the past 50+ years. Why do you think this is? (And it is genuine on the part of many people; it’s not just imposed by the regime.) That part is easy – like Camilo, he did not get the chance to become part of an aging, scletoric, corrupt institution. He is forever the young revolutionary, the spirit of what might have been, perhaps too much of a violent hothead but sincere in his goal. And the aging corrupt sclerotic institution has been selling THAT image and narrative to the ensuing generations of Cubans by every medium and in every venue conceivable for those 50+ years: the spirit of what might have been, the spirit of what might yet be if you’d only be true believers. The Communist Youth sing “seamos como el Che” = “let’s be like Che” – not let’s be like Fidel. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/31 "2013-08-17T16:24:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Are you talking about Reagan? Because while he was not a particularly good president, saying he’s comparable to Stalin is just silly. This section is “IMHO”. Your opinion is that Stalin was evil (as I understand it, he was quite popular in Russia), my opinion is that Reagan was similarly evil. I am not alone in having a very low opinion of him. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/32 "2013-08-17T16:44:05Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Your opinion is that Stalin was evil (as I understand it, he was quite popular in Russia) Right - especially in Ukraine, where he engineered the starvation of 3 million or so. (Though nothing worse than what Reagan did, to be sure.) ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/33 "2013-08-17T18:08:03Z")
> [@For You](#): > > This section is “IMHO”. Your opinion is that Stalin was evil (as I understand it, he was quite popular in Russia), my opinion is that Reagan was similarly evil. I am not alone in having a very low opinion of him. Stalin ruled the Soviet union and ordered the extermination of tens of millions. Reagan played a large, though not unique, role in defeating the same Soviet Union and setting hundreds of millions of people free. If you view the two as equally evil, that certainly says a lot about you. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/34 "2013-08-17T18:35:20Z")
> [@For You](#): > > This section is “IMHO”. Your opinion is that Stalin was evil (as I understand it, he was quite popular in Russia), my opinion is that Reagan was similarly evil. I am not alone in having a very low opinion of him. My opinion of Reagan is pretty low as well. But I stand by what I said. If you think Reagan is anywhere near as bad as Stalin, then that may be your opinion but your opinion is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/35 "2013-08-17T18:57:56Z")
A dangerous, egotistical maniac. And if you think Regan was akin to Stalin then there is no reason to continue discussing much of anything. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/36 "2013-08-17T19:22:27Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > That part is easy – like Camilo, he did not get the chance to become part of an aging, scletoric, corrupt institution. He is forever the young revolutionary, the spirit of what might have been, perhaps too much of a violent hothead but sincere in his goal. > > And the aging corrupt sclerotic institution has been selling THAT image and narrative to the ensuing generations of Cubans by every medium and in every venue conceivable for those 50+ years: the spirit of what might have been, the spirit of what might yet be if you’d only be true believers. The Communist Youth sing “seamos como el Che” = “let’s be like Che” – not let’s be like Fidel. While this is true, my point is more that there are still significant numbers of Cubans who believe in Communism, even after 50 years of failure to deliver a reasonable standard of living. The failure might be blamed on the US embargo, the details of Communism’s implementation such as corruption, or other reasons, but socialism itself is not necessarily blamed. La Revolucion may be seen to have had some positive aspects, even if people are disgruntled with their poverty and political repression. The saying goes in Cuba, “The greatest triumphs of the Revolution are education, health, and sports; and the greatest failures are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Even after the Castos die, I suspect that some aspects of the Revolution will remain, rather than being swept away entirely. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/37 "2013-08-17T21:21:36Z")
> [@Longshanks](#): > > Was Che Guevara good, bad or are those terms to simple to describe him. Bad. If that’s too simple, then try “really fucking bad”. ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/38 "2013-08-17T21:41:41Z")
One way I will describe him - absolutely drop dead gorgeous. You only usually see that one picture of him, but if you seek out more, the guy was stunning. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/39 "2013-08-17T21:57:25Z")
> [@Scougs](#): > > One way I will describe him - absolutely drop dead gorgeous. You only usually see that one picture of him, but if you seek out more, the guy was stunning. kinda like Omar Sharif. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425/40 "2013-08-18T00:59:34Z")
> [@Scougs](#): > > One way I will describe him - absolutely drop dead gorgeous. You only usually see that one picture of him, but if you seek out more, the guy was stunning. I always thought he looked like Dax Shepard. But then again, apparently a lot of women find Dax Shepard attractive, so what do I know? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/che-guevara/666425.md?page=3)