Page 57 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

876 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Che Guevara,
Socialism and Man

in Cuba 1
Pope Gregory VII died at Salerno on 25 May 1085.
It is not a matter of how many kilograms of meat
Prior to death, Gregory VII absolved all whom he had
one has to eat, nor of how many times a year
excommunicated with the exception of Henry IV and
someone can go to the beach, nor how many
the antipope Guibert. According to religious history
pretty things from abroad you might be able to
accounts, the pontiff’s final words were “I have loved
buy with present-day wages. It is a matter of
justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile.” His
making the individual feel more complete, with
body was interred in the Church of Saint Matthew in
much more internal richness and much more
Salerno. Hildebrand was beatified in 1584, and canon-
responsibility.
ized as Pope Saint Gregory VII by Pope Benedict XIII in
Che Guevara (1928–1967)
1728.
H. Micheal Tarver and Carlos E. Márquez
ogy,and archaeology.In December 1952,Guevara took
Further Reading an eight-month break from medical school to travel to
South America with a friend. He witnessed the general
Coppa, F. J. (1999). Encyclopedia of the Vatican and papacy. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press. condition of indigenous peoples throughout South Amer-
Cowdrey, H. E. J. (1998). Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085. New York: ica and was particularly moved by the working condi-
Oxford University Press.
Cowdrey, H. E. J. (2000). Popes and church reform in the 11th century. tions of copper miners in Chile. He attributed Latin
Burlington,VT: Ashgate Publishing. America’s economic problems to heavy penetration by
Cowdrey, H. E. J. (2002). The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085:
An English translation. New York: Oxford University Press. foreign corporations.
Levillain, P. (2002). The papacy:An encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. After graduating in 1953, Guevara continued travel-
ing, winding up in Guatemala City where President
Jacobo Arbenz was challenging the U.S.-owned United
Fruit Company’s claim to Guatemala’s fertile land. Here
Guevara, Che Guevara met Hilda Gadea,a Peruvian activist who intro-

(1928 –1967) duced Guevara to the ideas of Mao Zedong. Together
Latin American revolutionary they watched the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup overthrow
Arbenz, plunging Guatemala into more than four
rnesto “Che” Guevara’s image is known worldwide, decades of political violence. The coup solidified Gue-
Eappropriated globally by people identifying with his vara’s belief that Latin America’s major problem in the
sense of social justice, idealism, and rebellion.An Argen- 1950s was “Yankee imperialism,” which he understood
tine who fought for independence in Cuba, the Congo, as the combined political, military, and economic power
and Bolivia, Guevara represents a stateless “new man” that U.S. policy makers and corporations and their local
committed to international socialism. His published cri- collaborators held over the region’s economy.It also per-
tiques of capitalism and imperialism reflected an under- suaded him that armed revolution would be required to
standing that both the problems and solutions of the fix the problem in most of Latin America.
twentieth century were global in scope. Guevara and Gadea parted ways, seeking the pro-
Born in Rosario, Argentina in 1928, Guevara was tection of their respective national embassies; by coin-
homeschooled until he was nine years old due to severe cidence, they reunited in Mexico City and married. It
asthma. All his life Guevara read voraciously and by was here that Guevara met Fidel Castro (b. 1926), who
adulthood was knowledgeable on subjects that included had led a failed effort in Cuba to overthrow the dicta-
literature, Latin American and Spanish poetry, French torship of Fulgencio Batista in 1953. After serving less
existentialist philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, psychol- than two years in prison, Castro and other Cuban exiles