Che, part 1- The Argentine

Che, part 1: The Argentine depicts the story of che Guevara after he made his transformation into the notorious revolutionary.  The film starts off with the meeting of the important figures of the revolution in Mexico City and here is where the alliance begins between Che and Fidel Castro.  Che joins up with Castro in order to fight the revolution in cuba.

Before the continuance of this story, we encounter a somewhat different Guevara in Eric Zolov’s article, “Between Bohemianism and a REvolutionary Rebirth: Che Guevara in Mexico.”  In this article we see that Mexico was never a really important aspect to Guevara, that this region was just a stepping stone to him in his ultimate path of revolutionary concern.  As stated in the Zolov’s article it was “the country that for him stood at the end of the ‘American continent.’”  This is the belief of Guevara wanting the Southern American countries to become free of American Imperialism.  This strong independent need for these countries from Guevara are noted in the “Message to the Tricontinental Congress” with the mention of the wars of Korea and Vietnam with US involvement.  Guevara’s opinions on this subject and the independency of these countries are displayed in the inserts of the film where he is speaking to councils of foreign countries and addressing the issues of the time.

Back to the story of Che, part 1, Castro, Guevara and their followers incorporate intensive strategic actions that are known as guerrilla warfare.  Guevara explains these actions and the reasons behind them in his article, “Guerrilla Warfare, A Method.”  He points ou t the different important aspects of these tactics and what groups of people would need to know, understand and implicate in order to be successful at this type of fighting.  Guevara makes it a point to state the implications of risk in all that are involved and that those who choose to participate are doing so because of their distant goal as stated by Guevara, “We must remember that the heroism of the guerrilla fighter, at this moment, consists of the scope of the planned goal and the enormous number of sacrifices they must mak in order to achieve it.”  Guevara demonstrates this understanding in his attempt to protect those that he sees unfit to be a revolutionary at this time.  If he let the illiterate, or the young, or the uneducated accompany the revolutionaries then Guevara understands the chances of these individuals to aid in the movement decreases because of their lack of skills and knowledge to understand their potential sacrifice as well as their lack in attempting to avoid these risks.