Talk:Che Guevara

Archiving dormant and completed discussions

Cpmpleted Discussions from April 2 - May 23 2008 on this talk page have been moved to Archive 17   Redthoreau (talk) RT 03:45, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Sources

OK, one last note before I belatedly go to bed...

I've repeatedly expressed my surprise at the sources used here. I'd have thought the three main biographies were Anderson, Castañeda, and Taibo. I've been under the illusion that Taibo's is not translated, but have just realized I'm wrong about that. NB that these are all more or less center-to-left-leaning authors, but far to the right of (and in a fundamental sense unsympathetic to) Che. Anderson's basically a liberal (in the classical sense of the term). Castañeda's a former leftie who's spent the past decade or so moving rapidly to the right. Taibo II is probably the furthest left of the three, and indeed he co-wrote a book with Subcomandante Marcos.

I'd suggest that it would be good to add into the mix at least one source that is both scholarly and (basically) sympathetic. I remember seeing Jean Franco present a magnificent critique of all three of the above biographies, but I don't think it's ever been published. (I do have a draft copy myself.) Otherwise, there's Mike Gonzalez's Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution (2004). I haven't read this, but Gonzalez is both a member of the SWP and a sound scholar.

Meanwhile, Hugh Thomas's Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom is also, as I understand it, a pretty basic source that should be used. Other writers on Cuba that are worth reading include Lou Perez, Toni Kapcia, and Román de la Campa, but I'm not sure off the top of my head whether they've written anything on Guevara. For the exile position, i.e. quite squarely anti-Castro but from a scholarly point of view, there'd be Roberto González Echevarría or Gustavo Pérez Firmat, but I'm likewise fairly sure they've written little if anything on Guevara.

NB, as should be obvious, I'm much more familiar with literary and cultural critics than with historians. And NB also that Cuba is not my particular area. (Which is probably a good thing.) --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 13:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and as I mentioned in an edit summary... I'm surprised there's no mention of Régis Debray for the Bolivian section. He has had volume two of his autobiography just published, if I remember right... I saw a review in the LRB. And he was probably the most significant of the European champions of Guevarism. -- jbmurray (talk|contribs) 14:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

JbMurray I agree with your contention that the 3 primary credible biographers are (1) Jon Lee Anderson, (2) Jorge G. Castaneda, and (3) Paco Ignacio Taibo. I have all 3 of their books ~ (1) Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (2) Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, and (3) Guevara, Also Known as Che. For a complete list of books related directly to Che Guevara see This list. I have nearly all of these and would be more than happy to look up specific citations. What do you believe would be the best way to incorporate these 3 texts in unison with one another ?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 04:14, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent:) Regarding those three biographies (and I would probably throw in the Gonzalez, as well as any manifestly anti-Che source that is also reliable--none comes immediately to mind), I'd have thought the most important thing is to cross-check them when it comes to controversial or potentially controversial aspects of Che's life. I've dug up the Franco talk I mentioned and here, for what it's worth, is her brief account of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the major three:

Paco Taibo sticks closest to Che’s own words, citing copiously from his letters and writings and claiming that Che is “this story’s second narrator, the one who matters.” However since Che own words alone represent the voice of truth, the narrative breaks down whenever Che is without words.. Referring to his last hours, Taibo writes, “Now, for the first time the biographer will have to rely only on unfriendly witnesses, many of whom had axes to grind and a vested interests in distorting events and constructing a false account.” In this version, the biographer is unable to contemplate ambiguity,or contradiction and uses selected citation to monumentalize the past.

Anderson who had the advantage of having read Che’s private diaries, follows the well worn rules of U.S. journalism in which everything must pass through the sieve of personality. “What had compelled this son of an aristocratic Argentine family, a medical school graduate, to try and change the world?” . In his search for Che, the man, Anderson does not shun the superfluous ; on the contrary it is essential to his narrative - Che losing his temper and smacking his baby’s bottom, his favorite television programs, the name of his dog. He concludes that “along with his mistakes what is most remembered about Che is his personal example, embodying faith, willpower and sacrifice.“ The continuing significance of Guevara is that the revolutionary values of “self-sacrifice, honesty and dedication to a cause” “have transcended time and ideology to nurture and inspire new generations of fighters and dreamers.” Certain values while embodied in Che can be abstracted from their specificity to become a kind of gold standard for the individual.

Castañeda ‘s biography is a political biography that focuses on y the politics of cold war confrontation and while not shunning personal detail (did Tania sleep with Che?), he is above all interested in the political intricacies of Cuban-Soviet relations, and Cuban- U.S. relations and the exacerbation of the cold war that they implied. Che’s story is told as one of political disillusionment. That is perhaps why Castañeda polishes off the campaign in the Sierra Madre and Escambray in a mere twenty three pages, in contrast to Paco Taibo and Anderson both of whom devote nearly two hundred pages to the revolutionary campaign.

Hope this too-rapid comment is of some help. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

i have a website hey-che.com what deals about the impact of Che.. Could this be a usefull link for the che wikipedia section.. cheers heycheHeyche (talk) 13:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The History Channel's Documentary

Recently the History Channel released a 1 hr 30 min documentary entitled: "THE TRUE STORY OF CHE GUEVARA", where Jon Lee Anderson also narrates parts from his book. You can watch the full film --> Here -- and I would recommend that all editors watch it if they have the chance, as it helps give you a basic overview of his life and the accomplishments/controversy's surrounding it.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 03:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Che Guevara en Español

For those that speak Spanish ... the Che Guevara en Español article was a wealth of information that could possibly be incorporated in this article or other Che related articles.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 03:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Cuban flag?

I remember there being both a Cuban & Argentinean flag in Che's infobox. Why is it no longer there? He did have Cuban citizenship right? ʄ!•¿talk? 21:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that both flags were included. I agreed that they should be since he held citizenship in both nations. However at the time I believe another editor disagreed and thus removed the Cuban one. Do any other editors have a view on this?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 05:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a view on this and I don't think the Cuban flag should appear in the info box, just because someone has dual citizenship doesn't make them of that nationality, i have citizenship in multiple countries but I am still a New Zealander, so the last editor was correct in removing the flag as it does not really apply in this sense. Taifarious1 05:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I think questions of nationality are pretty irrelevant as they mean different things to different people, the important thing was it alerted the reader to a country that he was affiliated with. I mean it's only two flags, not six or something. ʄ!•¿talk? 11:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

After thinking about it more, I retract my earlier statement, I think it would be best to add the Cuba Flag to the info box, the bulk of his revolutionary work took place there and he is also buried there, so I think its entirely suitable to have it in there. ;) Taifarious1 04:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Noted and seeing no objection I will add it back.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 05:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Grammar Question

This is really getting the best of me. In the third paragraph of the introduction, it currently reads:

 As a result of his death, romantic visage, invocation to armed class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a "new man" driven by "moral" rather than "material" incentives [2], he 

Is it one "his", a colon after his, or something else? It just doesn't seem right to me.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Jmole (talk) 04:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thats really uncanny, as I was reading through the article, that exact line stumped me as well, im currently trawling for grammar and spelling issues and adding refs under cite tags, but I was trying to figure this one out, but I haven't been able to, ill have a look into it, but i think its easier to look into it in context so im reading through the ref given to understand it more, if i figure it out ill let you know. Taifarious1 05:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The stated source is in reference to the last 2 parts of the sentence not the full thing (which is still ok as you don't want a plethora of sources in the lead). Jmole, is your question whether the grammar is correct?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 05:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yah, it's a grammar question. It just doesn't flow. Jmole (talk) 13:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I did some minor adjusting ... let me know what you think.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 15:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that is much easier to understand, certainly for me anyway, I have fixed a few minor grammar mistakes in the article myself that seemed quite esoteric so to the average viewer I think the change will make much clearer. Taifarious1 00:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Good work, guys! Jmole (talk) 22:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a typo here- a common one that can be really irritating: See 4th paragraph "... Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was declared "the most famous photograph in the world."[4] You meant to us the word "titled". The word entitled actually refers to when one has a right to something... an entitlement. Somehow this word has been absorbed into the American lexicon to appear synonymous with the word "titled". Surely the words titled/entitled cannot mean the same thing.

en·ti·tle

Function: transitive verb 1 : to give a title to : designate link. "entitled" is the correct term.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 02:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that by the Maryland Institute of Art should be added to was declared "the most famous photograph in the world."[4], to make things clearer. --82.171.70.54 (talk) 15:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Che's Date of Birth

Che Guevara was born on the 14th of June, not May as the article suggests. This fact is found throughout printed texts on Che Guevara and Cuba. As for online sources, en.wikiquote.org indicates that Guevara's birth certificate says he was born on June 14. The correct date is also given within Wikipedia in the 2007 Schools section at http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/c/Che_Guevara.htm. I hope that the glaring error from this entry can be corrected and remain correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.241.193.195 (talk) 15:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You are incorrect. Biographer Jon Lee Anderson interviewed Che's mother discovered (in the late 90's) that he was in fact born on May 14 a month earlier - and his Mother had the birth certificate falsified so as to make it appear that her and her husband, Che's father were married before consummating. This was because Che's mother was 3 months pregnant when she married and thus they moved his birth up one month, and told family members he was born 2 months premature.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 02:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Bravo Redthoreau! That is some fine investigation, mainly by Jon Lee Anderson, but your explanation was superb. Taifarious1 04:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Is "superb" the appropriate word here? Might not "absurd" be more applicable given the fact that Jon Lee Anderson could not possibly have

"interviewed Che's mother (in the late 90's) and found out that he was in fact born on May 14 a month earlier - and she had the birth certificate falsified so as to make it appear that her and her husband, Che's father were married before consummating. This was because Che's mother was 3 months pregnant when she married and thus they moved his birth up one month, and told family members he was born 2 months premature.'" ?

The reason that Jon Lee Anderson could not possibly have conducted such an interview with Che's mother, Celia de la Serna, in the late 1990's is a simple one: She died on 18 May 1965!!  (And, just for the record, Jon Lee Anderson never conducted any interview with her at any other time either, nor does he pretend to have done so.) -- Polaris999 (talk) 20:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I meant to write that Jon Lee Anderson through conducting interviews found out such a fact (that Che's mother admitted to falsifying his birth certificate). The fact is still correct that he was born on May 14 ... not June 14 ... although yes I miswrote that JLA spoke to his Mother to find this out. Polaris do you dispute that he was born on May 14 or that JLA found this out (see pg 5 of his book if curious) ? Either way nice to see you out of hibernation ... even though you only did so to insult me. :o)   Redthoreau (talk) RT 22:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure you mean page 5? What edition of the book are you using? My edition, ISBN 0802116000, has no such statement by Anderson on that page. Could you check the page number? –Mattisse (Talk) 22:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

If you have the printed edition (which you must have) it would be page 3 while it seems that the online version link has it on page 5. My apologies for not noting the discrepancy.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 22:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, how do you know it is true? Jon Anderson indicates in his rather novelistic opening to his biography of Guevara that this is true, but because someone he interviewed said that, does that make it true? It may be "family lore", for example. Or the astrologer mentioned likes to tell the story, his moment of glory. Is there other evidence? (Not that this is that important one way or the other.) –Mattisse (Talk) 23:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't "know" for sure that it is true as I wasn’t there (this applies to almost everything I read in a book) ... all I can do is weigh the evidence and credibility of the author (Jon Lee Anderson) and the fact that he spent 5 years researching Guevara all across the globe (Cuba, Argentina, Russia, Bolivia, Congo, U.S.) --- was given rare access to Che's wife & family, Che's personal diaries, and sealed Cuban documents --- spent several months living amongst Che's family in Argentina --- and thus compiled an 800 page book with 50 pages of footnotes and accompanying sources. It is because of this, that I estimate and trust that Jon Lee Anderson (an investigative journalist by trade) would want to make certain that he was 100 % sure of such a fact - that he clearly states in the opening pages of his biography. In addition, I believe that JLA would most likely have had to of received several corroborating sources in placing his credibility on the line by making this ‘historical correction’, which in some ways could even be viewed as being "offensive" to Che's family.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 00:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It is really not in the same category as a statement that has multiple, reliable, unbiased sources, it it? Then you could know with more confidence. As User:Jbmurray says somewhere, Anderson is one of those biographers who wants to interject the psychodynamics of his subject into the history (Jbmurray didn't use those exact words), but what is the point of that "fact" supposed to be? What is the conclusion the reader is supposed to draw? –Mattisse (Talk) 00:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Since JLA's book was published in 1997, I would imagine that any corroborating sources would have had to of been published after that date - and I am not sure how I would decipher whether those sources were "echoing" JLA's account, or their own. If this is actually a fact that you or other editors question the validity of ... I would be more than willing to seek out further supporting evidence. Are you stating that you personally dispute his findings or have you found evidence/motive to call it into question? Also are you aware of anyone from Che's family, other biographers, or the Che Guevara Institute disputing this claim ?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 00:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it plays into the personalization through depicting incidents that then may leave the reader with a conclusion that User:Jbmurray was describing in Anderson that Jbmurray does not like. And it is the "echoing" process that you describe above that enables and proliferates pseudo facts. There is his birth certificate that gives a date. The birth certificated is substantiated. Do you have any reliable, unbiased, third-party evidence that substantiates Anderson's claim that could have been derived from "family lore" or an interview with the astrologer feeding into his role in the myth of the story? (Do we know where Anderson got that, other than conjure?) –Mattisse (Talk) 00:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) According to JLA the 'substantiated' birth certificate was "falsified" by a "doctor friend" to "avoid scandal." JLA also states that the family moved away to Misiones during the pregnancy and didn't allow family to see Che until he was already a month old. With regards to comments made by User:Jbmurray I don't believe it is clear that Jbmurray questions the validity of JLA, although yes he may have critiqued his style of delivery. If JbMurray (a poster's whose intellect I highly respect) does question this birth date, then I would of course cede to his judgment on the matter (however I am unaware that he actually does) and would be uncomfortable speaking for him. Moreover, am I to impugn from your comments that you question the use of May 14 as his date of birth?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 01:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

JbMurray objects to the use of personal tidbits in a biography in an attempt to define character by this method. Anderson opens the biography as if he were writing a novel with this uncited biographical tidbit. The point of citations is to remove the necessity of having to take an author's word that his information is correct by allowing readers to evaluation the source for themselves. By opening the biography with this, Anderson gives this tidbit undue emphasis. What is the relevance of this information to the biography? Does it convey information that cannot be conveyed in any other way, e.g. by a cited source? (And please do not change the wording of posts here.) –Mattisse (Talk) 14:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

If you believe that this point made by Jon Lee Anderson lacks sufficient credence for inclusion/correction then I would suggest you remove it. I feel there is a necessary level of credibility for inclusion ... but understand if you do not.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I find it impossible to participate in this discussion, or any other in which RedThoreau is involved on this Talk Page, because he habitually changes the entries he has previously made on this discussion page whenever it suits his interest. Isn't there a wikipedia policy against this? If so, WHY is it never enforced on this particular Talk Page?

Here is the latest example. After I had pointed out he was in incorrect when he asserted that Jon Lee Anderson had interviewed Che's mother, he then went back and edited his previous entry on the Talk Page, i.e. the one about which I had commented (and which he had made in response to User: 70.241.193.195), in an indexterous attempt to conceal the gravity of his error. You can observe what he did here: Diffs -- Polaris999 (talk) 03:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Polaris. I do not agree with your accusation of "habitually" altering my 'own words'. In this single instance, after you pointed out my instance of misspeaking, I simply corrected my error seeing that you had already quoted me in italics (which I did not edit). I thus figured that it would be obvious to any observer that you quoted me in italics and that I then went and slightly edited out the 3-4 words of mine that were in error. All of this is part of the record (as you display by pointing to the diff). To call my error one of "gravity", I find not only puzzling but disingenuous. The overall premise of my answer was in fact correct - That Jon Lee Anderson reported he was born on May 14 in the late 90's after interviews etc. The only mistake was my typo attributing this to a discussion with his mother - which I obviously know is false as I have read 20 + books on Che Guevara and am well aware of when his Mother died. Furthermore, I am unaware of any official policy governing one’s own words on talk pages (but if in fact there is one you can show me, I apologize for violating it, and will be glad to follow it in the future). I am unsure of why you have picked this opportunity to come out of hibernation, when in fact I have implored your valuable commitment to the article for several weeks (if not months). Anyone who does any investigation in our past correspondence will find that I have always been nothing but respectful, courteous, and overly complimentary of you and your editing capability. I even several times offered to edit while essentially “under your command” and following all of your suggestions. ----- I will continue to be respectful of you - as I value you as an editor, appreciate your past work on the Che article, and consider you a fair person --- regardless of how many times you insult me or impugn my integrity/capability/good faith. I have no interest in confrontation with you and hope that you will find it in yourself to place aside what I deem to be unprovoked hostility towards me.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 05:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Per your request, I am posting here a verbatim excerpt from Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, specifically the section labelled "Own Comments" :

"It is best to avoid changing your own comments. Other users may have already quoted you with a diff (see above) or have otherwise responded to your statement. Therefore, use "Show preview" and think about how your amended statement may look to others before you save it. "Altering a comment after it has been replied to robs the reply of its original context. It can also be confusing. Before you change, consider taking one of the following steps: Contact the person(s) who replied (through their talk page) and ask if it is okay to delete or change your text. use strike-through or a place-holder to show the comment has been altered. Strike-through is typed <s>like this</s> and ends up like this. A placeholder is a phrase such as "[Thoughtless and stupid comment removed by the author.]". This will ensure that your fellow editors' irritated responses still make sense. In turn, they may then wish to replace their reply with something like, "[Irritated response to deleted comment removed. Apology accepted.]" Please do not apply strike-through to other editors' comments without permission." Source: Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines

-- Polaris999 (talk) 06:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Polaris, I appreciate you pointing that out and will in the future do my best to abide by their "suggestion" (I believe I am correct in interpreting that as being the “generally accepted standard” with allowed “exceptions”, and not official declarative policy) --- but nonetheless I understand the inherent implicit rationale of such a standard and if I could redo my actions, I would have inserted a [correction template]. My apologies for not abiding by this 'courtesy' and I hope that in the future you will assume good faith with regards to my actions ... as I always have with yours.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 06:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Polaris, note that I have added back in the words and struck them out. Hope this helps.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 00:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, RedThoreau: restoring the text to what you had originally written and then striking it out is a definite improvement over simply removing the words that were being discussed. -- Polaris999 (talk) 00:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Date of birth, continued

You could do as JbMurray suggested above and cross-referenced the citation, especially since you use it as your opening piece, just like Anderson. Anderson has an agenda, as JbMurray points out. Also, you have the wrong page number in the article reference citation. Even if you use the Amazon.com reference, which you apparently are, it is still page 5. If you look carefully at the amazon.com selection you will see this is true. –Mattisse (Talk) 23:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The article reference uses page 3 which is the correct page # for the printed version (in my mind the better of the two to use). As for cross referencing Jorge Castaneda's "Companero" (published the same year as JLA's book in 1997) uses June 14 as the date of birth. (pg 3 as well). Thus I am unsure of how to proceed as it appears that JLA "discovered" this anecdote through his own investigation.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 00:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is a difficult problem. If we had a source that mentioned Anderson's claim and still claimed that the date was June, we could quote the two as sources that disagree with each other. As far as I know we don't have such a source. It's not so difficult to word it in the text: we can state that the birth certificate says one thing and that Anderson says something else. The infobox and the first sentence of the article are the problem, because there isn't really a lot of room there to put big explanations. How about stating the date of birth as "Spring 1928" with a footnote to an explanation? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The printed version uses page 5. Please, just look at your book if you are in doubt. It starts with the first sentence of Chapter One. Very high profile. You can't miss it. Anderson is the sole source of this. –Mattisse (Talk) 00:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

My printed version right in front of me has this on page 3. First page of the book under the heading "A Mate Plantation in Misiones". We must have different editions (although I wasn;t aware that there were). The ISBN 10 on the back of my book is 0-8021-3558-7   Redthoreau (talk) RT 01:01, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)As far as Anderson's own investigation, did no one in the family, relatives, best friends, cohorts, know of this previously? Frankly I can't trust the story telling of an old astrologer, especially as there is no particular point to the information. It only causes arguments, as some new editor periodically comes and changes it because there is so much evidence to the contrary. Is there some purpose service by relying solely on Anderson in this regard? –Mattisse (Talk) 01:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) You are right regarding the page number. I got confused by your Amazon.com reference. I apologize. –Mattisse (Talk) 01:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone here consider this source to be of any import? : MAJOR ERNESTO "CHE" GUEVARA DE LA SERNA

It was definitely written after the publication of the JLA book and by historians who are fully aware of the content of that book. In other words, despite what JLA has written about the version supposedly received from the astrologer, the official Cuban historians state in 2008 that Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born on "June 14, 1928". -- Polaris999 (talk) 01:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Polaris I am not familiar with that source. But if you trust it ... then I trust your judgment. Maybe we could use June 14 ... but make a footnote of JLA claiming May 14.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 01:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is another source to which I personally assign great importance: the "Chronology" of Che's life prepared by his widow, Aleida March. It states:

14 de junio de 1928 Ernesto Guevara de la Serna nace en Rosario, provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina.

Source URL is: Centro Che

I would like to know, please, what weight you would give to this source? -- Polaris999 (talk) 01:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I would assign a good deal of weight to that source. It is also noteworthy that the Cuban state honors/celebrates Che's birthday on June 14 and not May 14 (now this may be a result of not wanting to point out the "sultry" detail of his Mother having the birth certificate falsified to conceal premarital sex, but nevertheless). In addition, an article from today's Sun Sentinel For his 80th birthday, Che gets a website also there is a celebration tomorrow in Argentina Argentina to Fete 80th Che Birthday. I believe that it would be most prudent to use June 14 with a footnote acknowledging JLA's findings.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 02:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) In an unconnected possible irony ... I just realized that tomorrow (June 14) would have been Che's 80th birthday.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 01:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it is! Perhaps we can make our best effort to figure out how to handle his birthdate in this article before that day is done. -- Polaris999 (talk) 01:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Does it really matter which day he was born, anyway? Polaris999's arguments sound good: perhaps it could just say "June 14" with a footnote to the May 14 explanation. (Or would we get a lot of driveby edits from people who have just read Anderson?) By the way, I have it on page 3 in Anderson's book; and it sounds to me as if likely Che himself didn't know his own birthdate, at least not until he was 30, so perhaps his widow didn't know either.

Perhaps (except to astrologers) the actual date is less important than whether he was born prematurely or not, since one might want to speculate whether a premature birth would have affected his health or brain development. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:13, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Coppertwig -- I personally am with you in thinking that the exact date isn't of any particular importance, but as you intuit, when we tried putting in the June 14 date without any reference to the fact that JLA says it may have been May 14, the amount of driveby edits was beyond belief. Finally, we had to add an explanatory note, and I have just found it in an older version and include it in case it may be helpful if a new note is going to be written:

1. ^ a b The date of birth recorded on his birth certificate was 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source (Julia Constenla, quoted by Jon Lee Anderson) asserts that he was actually born on 14 May of that year. (Constenla alleges that she was told by an unidentified astrologer that his mother, Celia de la Serna, was already pregnant when she and Ernesto Guevara Lynch were married and that the birth date of their son was forged a month later than the actual date to avoid scandal.) Source: Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, New York: 1997, Grove Press, pp. 3 and 769.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Che_Guevara&oldid=191434286     -- Polaris999 (talk) 02:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Polaris I think it would be fitting if you went ahead and changed it and included the footnote. Maybe it could be a nice "symbolic" way (hopefully') to begin your resurgence in the article again.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 02:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, RedThoreau, for allowing me this honor. I hope that I have followed the proper format, but if not will count on you to make the necessary corrections. ¡Feliz cumpleaños del Comandante de la América Nuestra! -- Polaris999 (talk) 05:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Hurray! ¡Feliz consensus-building! And Che's 80th birthday and all that. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for discussion

In paragraph #8 of the section "After the revolution", these sentences appear:

An integral part of fostering a sense of “unity between the individual and the mass”, Guevara believed, was volunteer work and will. To display this, Guevara "led by example", working "endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane" on his day off, as did Castro.[58]

I take exception to the statement, "as did Castro". Fidel Castro performed volunteer work only on rare occasions, and always with extensive press coverage. With extremely rare exceptions, Castro's "participation" amounted to little more than brief photo ops and was in no way comparable to the strenuous efforts of Guevara who spent every Sunday morning from 6 AM to noon either cutting sugarcane, working in a textile factory (Textilera Ariguanabo), or unloading freighters at the docks. He did this even when he was so stricken with asthma that he could hardly breathe.

Furthermore, the citation [58] given for the above sentences re volunteer work is "PBS: Che Guevara, Popular but Ineffective" which reads verbatim as follows:

Popular But Ineffective

Lacking any managerial training, Ché was nevertheless named head of Cuba's central bank. Later, he became Minister of Industries. He called for the diversification of the Cuban economy, and for the elimination of what he called material incentives. Volunteer work and dedication of workers would drive economic growth. All that was needed was will. Ché led by example. He worked endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane. His good looks, acerbic humor and willingness to point out the revolution's shortcomings earned him the affection of many Cubans. But by 1963, as characterized by a CIA classified report, "Guevara... had brought... the economy to its lowest point since Castro came to power."

As is apparent, there is no reference in the PBS text to Fidel Castro having performed any volunteer work whatsoever. I therefore propose that the words "as did Castro" be expunged from the aforementioned sentence in paragraph #8 of the section "After the revolution",

I look forward to hearing the views of other editors. -- Polaris999 (talk) 03:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, unless another reference can be found to support the Castro statement, but as it stands now, i think it may have to be removed. Taifarious1 03:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree Polaris and would say it should be removed. Nice work and good eye to catch that. It's nice to have you back. :o)   Redthoreau (talk) RT 04:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Taifarious1 and RedThoreau — I shall remove it at once. :-)   -- Polaris999 (talk) 05:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

"Argentina pays belated homage to 'Che' Guevara'

I have just read an artical from 'Reuters' entiled "Argentina pays belated homage to 'Che' Guevara". It states that "A bronze statue of Ernesto "Che" Guevara was unveiled on Saturday [14 June 2008] in the Argentine city where he was born exactly 80 years ago, the first such monument to the revolutionary in his homeland."

I think this is information should be added to the main artical on 'Che' Guevara. This event is an important mile-stone in the legacy of Guevara as in his birth place, Argentina, he is still controversial.

The site which I read the artical from is: [1]

Thanks, --TorresE (talk) 11:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the request Torrese and I went ahead and added that for you with both the Reuters source and a BBC article from today. Let me know if my addition satisfies your suggestion.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 11:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

It would also be fitting to place a photograph of this statue on the Legacy of Che Guevara page, don't you think? Perhaps if someone happens to come across a public domain image of it, or takes one for this purpose, he/she will kindly bring it to our attention on this Talk page. -- Polaris999 (talk) 16:49, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Great: this helps confirm that the birthdate is considered by reliable sources to be June 14 (if we can go with the "page last updated" date). I fixed up the formatting of the birthdate footnote(s). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 16:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Major Lacuna

Esteemed Co-Editors:

Please take a look at this article, Che Guevara's Final Verdict on the Soviet Economy, and let's discuss how we can incorporate the salient points of Guevara's prescient critique of the Soviet system into this article, or perhaps create a "child" article to address the issue. I believe that the failure of any of the English-language WP articles on Guevara to adequately treat this subject — and his economic thought in general — is one of the most grievous shortcomings of our efforts to date.

Please let me know if you agree or disagree. And, in the case of those who may agree, is anyone willing to volunteer to assume responsibility for spearheading such a project?

-- Polaris999 (talk) 20:36, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis. I would also add that after Guevara's February 24 1965 Speech delivered at the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers, it became clear that he not only questioned the economic policies of the Soviet Union, but also their internationalist stances. As time went on, Che certainly began to favor the Chinese Maoist model of development over the Soviet system - and some scholars believe that it was this "critique" of the Soviet Union (as essentially being a complicit accomplice for capitalist imperialism) that may have led to Fidel essentially being told by the Soviet Union that Guevara was no longer 'welcome' on the Soviet/Cuban political landscape.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 03:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

RedThoreau, to the best of my knowledge, your assessment is 100% correct. -- Polaris999 (talk) 06:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

POV

This is obviously a biased article. In the "After the Revolution" section it states, "It is estimated that several hundred people were executed on Guevara's orders during this time.[48]" which is not only misleading, as the sentenced persons stood trial before their executions (which had the support of 93% of the Cuban people) they were not "ordered" to be executed they were convicted and sentenced, but it is in contradiction to its own citation, "Different sources cite different numbers of executions. Anderson (1997) gives the number specifically at La Cabaña prison as fifty-five (p. 387.) while also stating that as a whole "several hundred people were officially tried and executed across Cuba" (p. 387.). This is supported by Lago who gives the figure as 216 documented executions across Cuba in two years." Guevara would only have been overseeing the ones at La Cabaña, not all 216. Even if he was overseeing those 216 that is not "several hundred" as several means more than 2.

Also the article states, "Guevara oversaw the trials and executions of those convicted by revolutionary tribunal." Without a doubt Che was in favor of the summary trials, but the tales woven by Cuban exiles, in which he was the "Butcher of La Cabaña," presiding over most of the shootings in Habana, are flights of fantasy. Revolutionary Tribunals No.1 and No.2 did sit at La Cabaña, the first trying policemen and soldiers, the second (which did not pass death sentences) trying civilians. RT1, presided over by Miguel Ángel Duque de Estrada, did pass the death sentence in some cases, at least two dozen of which were in January. Che did not sit on either tribunal, but did review appeals in his capacity as commander. He could have had not doubts as he ratified the sentences; he believed in the justice of what he was doing and over the previous years had become tough-minded about such situations. (Lenerd (talk) 04:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC))

Lenerd. You seem to be knowledgeable on the subject and I would encourage you to take part in editing the article. Everything included must have a reliable source, so once you have a credible source to substantiate the above claims - then by all means please include them. Also any editor is free to "improve" the wording of the article as it relates to already existing sources, so by all means feel free to assist in that effort as well. I believe that all current editors want to present as “fair” and NPOV article as possible, but remember as well that sometimes there will be disagreement (hopefully respectful) on how best to do that (realizing their will be conflicting sources). I hope you will devote your efforts in this endeavor.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 06:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

A few problems with this paragraph ...

Following is the first paragraph of the section Cuba, which in my opinion needs some re-working:

Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and renewed his friendship with the other Cuban exiles whom he had known in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who later introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in what became the Cuban Revolution. Guevara recognized at once that Castro was the cause for which he had been searching.

Here are the problems I have noticed in this paragraph, sentence by sentence:

• 1. "Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and renewed his friendship with the other Cuban exiles whom he had known in Guatemala."

Comment: Guevara was not a Cuban exile, therefore he could not have renewed his friendship with "the other" Cuban exiles.

• 2. "In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who later introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in what became the Cuban Revolution."

Comment: tenses are mixed — "had formed ... was plotting ... became"

• 3. "Guevara recognized at once that Castro was the cause for which he had been searching."

Comment: Two issues here: First, last time I noticed, Fidel Castro was an individual, not a "cause". Second, the source given (Spartacus School Net: Che Guevara) is not the best one available — since the fact that CG joined Castro's movement immediately after meeting him is documented in hundreds of published sources, we should be able to find a better one to use as a reference here. (And how about choosing one that is not JLA, just for the sake of variety?)

Following is a new version of the paragraph in question, incorporating the changes I would like to make:

Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had met in Guatemala. In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro who subsequently introduced him to his older brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who had formed the 26th of July Movement and was now plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During a lengthy conversation with Castro on the night of their first meeting, Guevara concluded that the Cuban's cause was the one for which he had been searching and before daybreak he had signed up as a member of the 26J Movement.

Please enter your comments, corrections, enhancements, etc. here: Thank you! -- Polaris999 (talk) 16:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

• I like your new paragraph and think that it takes care of the problems in wording that you brought up. As far as another reference for when he had the recognition that he identified with Castro's cause, I believe the wording that now exists in the article is very close to Anderson. "After several hours more, Fidel Castro had invited Ernesto to join his guerrilla movement. Ernesto had accepted on the spot. ...It was the early days—Fidel was a long way from putting together his ambitious scheme—but it was the cause Ernesto had been searching for." (p. 175 Anderson) I agree that references/views other than Anderson's would improve the article. –Mattisse (Talk) 16:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your comments, Mattisse. I have found another source for sentence #3, ie, Che Guevara: A biography by Daniel James, page 83. As you know, almost all bios of CG tell basically the same story re the first meeting, and CG himself gives some details about it in his "Farewell Letter". I am just reluctant to cite JLA here since his work is already referenced so frequently in the current iteration of the CG article — to an extent which IMHO gives the impression that he is almost the sole source for the article — and his description of the first meeting does not reflect any new discoveries about it by him. What are your thoughts about this, please? -- Polaris999 (talk) 18:44, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I concur and agree with both Polaris' edits and the above comments. Nice work.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 18:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article seems to present Anderson's point of view. I agree with User:jbmurray that Anderson takes a very personal, psychodynamic view of his subject which (in my mind) compromises his objectivity. The novelistic style of writing (as in his opening regarding the fortune teller and birth date) are part of this as well as his calling Guevara "Ernesto" in the beginning of the book and switching to "Che" later on. To me this is unprofessional for a historian. The inclusion of more skeptical sources, as jbmurray suggested, would benefit the article, in my opinion. Even the article opening, "Guevara remains an admired, controversial, and significant historical figure..." seems out of place. Certainly if he was admired, he was also hated. Further, does this reflect the present, 2008? It is a very 20th century view, but is it a 21th century one? These are the thoughts I have about the article. The article would be more interesting to me if it included more of a neutral evaluation of his political thinking in the context of the times rather than concentrating on such a pro-Guevara stance regarding his legacy which now sounds so 1960s to me. –Mattisse (Talk) 19:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree that more could be done to include the other 2 primary biographers of Che Guevara - Jorge G. Castaneda, and Paco Ignacio Taibo II. I have both of their books – Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, and Guevara, Also Known as Che and would be willing to work with other editors to try and incorporate their perspectives as well (hopefully Jbmurray would be willing to assist us as I feel he could be a considerable asset). Furthermore, it is my view that the article at present does an acceptable job at remaining neutral - as both sides could find faults with it lining up with their reality (see above comments from Lenerd who finds it to be unfairly critical of Che’s actions in relation to the revolutionary tribunals). Of note as well ... Jon Lee Anderson is often seen as the "middle ground" biographer on Che with Castaneda being slightly to the right and Taibo II slightly to the left (JbMurray made note of this as well). All 3 are extremely credible in my mind though - and should be viewed as the consummate expert sources on information with relation to Guevara. -------- With regards to him being "beloved" and "hated" and it's present day relevance, I would actually make the case that Che was much more controversial when he was alive and after his death, than today. His worldwide fame and status as an icon has only grown since his death and is probably greater today than at anytime in history. Now yes most of his "iconic" status may not be based on Che the man - but Che the "idea" ... but still he has a significant following of admirers, while his detractors are mostly limited to older Cuban exiles and Conservative-leaning Americans ... a small portion in the overall worldwide view. In addition, Che’s “status” will probably only be enhanced by the soon to be released films “Guerrilla (film)” and “The Argentine (film)” which I would predict will create a resurgence of interest in his life story.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 20:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• (outdening also) I wish I had know previously you had such a high opinion of Lenerd. I reverted the following edit Lenerd made and you may want to add it back—I copied Polaris999's tables— Please do since you feel as you do about Lenerd. (I am quoting generally from an old edit, so some of this may be the writing of you and others. I only reverted Lenerd edits, nothing else.)

To implement this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959). Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against traitors, chivatos, and Batista's war criminals. The shootings were the reply to "barbarians who had gouges out eyes, castrated, burned flesh or ripped of testicles and fingernails, shoved iron into women's vaginas, burned feet, cut off fingers- whose actions, in short, made for a frightening picture." Serving in the post as "supreme appellate" over the revolutionary tribunals and executions of convicted war criminals from the previous regime, although he presided over none of the tribunals. Only one of which issued death sentences to policemen and military officials. Paúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, considered removing restrictions on the death penalty to be justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands. A private nationwide survey showed 93 percent in favor of the trials and shootings. Che reprimanded a group of militiamen who wanted to teach a lesson to some informants who were still on the loose. ... While Che was in favor of Revolutionary Tribunals No.1 and No.2 which were held at La Cabaña, the first trying policemen and soldiers, the second (which did not pass death sentences) trying civilians, he did not sit on either tribunal only reviewed the appeals. No.1 was, in truth, was presided over by Miguel Ángel Duque de Estrada, it did pass death sentences in some cases, at least two dozen that January.

I am not so wrapped up in the "legacy" and am far more interested in the history of political thinking than making anyone into a hero. In other words, I am more interested in people than their "legacies", particularly when their "legacy" is not actively influencing any of the world's many active issues today, say like J.F.K.'s legacy is. I am speaking for the United States so your part of the world may be different. Please restore the above impulsive reversions I made. –Mattisse (Talk) 20:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Where do I state that I have a "high opinion" of Lenerd? I was simply using his comments to illustrate that both sides on the hero/villain spectrum could find fault with the article - thus making it in my mind - pretty fair. I also have no desire to make a "hero" out of Che, but simply to compile a fair account of his life and let the reader decide for themselves if those actions are in fact "heroic." However, I do find it imperative that as editors we guard against the "smearing" of historical and politically controversial figures. Nevertheless, I personally wasn't taking any opinion on the edits that you reverted of Lenerd’s - and feel that the best way to judge their merit would probably be to have Polaris look them over and decide if they warrant inclusion.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the expression of confidence, RedThoreau. I will be glad to work with you and the other editors to try to sort this matter out together. Hopefully, Lenerd will return to clarify certain points, provide sources, etc. One suggestion I would make right now is that we remove the "supreme prosecutor" label because I consider it incorrect and unjustified — what are your thoughts about this? -- Polaris999 (talk) 21:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I would be ok with removing that title. How do you think it should read instead?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

RedThoreau, I would greatly prefer that you would write that sentence as seems best to you. -- Polaris999 (talk) 21:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have done my best to remove that from the lead and thus reword the paragraph. If you are unhappy with the result, please revert.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 23:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

RedThoreau, I think that the sentence you have written is outstanding. I also appreciate the fact that you moved the part about the tribunals into the proper chronological order. Cheers, Polaris999 (talk) 23:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 23:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a minute, please ... Let's take a careful look at what User:Lenerd wrote before we do a full restore. While I think some of his points are valid (I personally strongly disagree with JLA's characterization of CG as the "Supreme Prosecutor"), the issue remains that he has not adequately sourced his statements. The reference he gives, ie "<ref>''Revolución''</ref>" certainly does not suffice. Also, there are grammatical and orthographical problems with what he has written. Don't you think we should wait to see if he returns and corrects these problems here on the Talk page and then decide whether to include part or all of what he has written in the article itself? -- Polaris999 (talk) 21:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I am concerned that User:Lenerd may be scared off by my behavior. Redthoreau generously told him/her to feel free to edit (above), and I too quickly reverted. I should not have done that. Lenerd may not feel welcome here anymore. –Mattisse (Talk) 21:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Mattisse, sad to say but I would conjecture that if User:Lenerd is so easily scared off, he/she probably isn't well suited for editing this particular article in any case. I don't think that you should feel badly about what you did -- if you hadn't reverted it, I would have! -- Polaris999 (talk) 21:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Mattisse, to be clear - I never believed that your reverts of Lenerd were wrong to begin with and am not sure how you would have gotten that impression out of my above comments. Some of his additions were improperly sourced and poorly worded. His intended meaning may have merit, but was not carried out properly - hence why I messaged him about the issue in hopes that he would work within the confines of npov and attribute properly. As for you possibly "scaring him off" I can't say, and will leave that to you and him/her to possibly work out.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Mattisse, I have looked at the diffs on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Che_Guevara&diff=220425844&oldid=219865172 and it seems to me that the quote you are referring to was part of what Lenerd wrote. Would you plese take another look and bring it back into the "text box" if it was? (BTW I agree that your rollback was the right call.) -- Polaris999 (talk) 21:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

{outdent) Do you mean this quote?

Neither you nor anyone else can take matters into his own hands. There are revolutionary tribunals. If anyone acts on his own behalf, I'll order him to be locked up and tried by a revolutionary tribunal, too.

— Che Guevara, January 1959

I am not the best person to look at diffs, so if you see it as part of the editing by Lenerd, then it probably was. When I look at this diff http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Che_Guevara&diff=prev&oldid=220425844, which was Lenerd's first I think, it seems like the quote was already there (if it was part of the three edits of his in a row that I reverted). What do you think? –Mattisse (Talk) 21:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You are right. I am just now understanding that, until now, I have always thought that the wording in red represented the changed text. But I see that you are looking at the same diff. Therefore, I must be wrong. The red text only represents some of the text added? So the cquote was added along with the text in red? –Mattisse (Talk) 22:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That is my interpretation of the situation ... -- Polaris999 (talk) 22:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I wish you would indulge me here and explain about the diffs. How does one tell from a diff what is different if the red text does not tell the whole story, since text may just be moved down, for example, but still be old text? –Mattisse (Talk) 22:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Mattisse, I would be so pleased to explain the matter of Diffs to you if I understood it myself! Everything seems to make sense on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Che_Guevara&diff=prev&oldid=219865172 where I changed a few words, ie so that the sentence morphed from "One of his most prominent published works includes a manual on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare." to "One of his most influential works is a manual on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare." But when we move forward to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Che_Guevara&diff=next&oldid=219865172, things get confusing. It looks to me as if the text in green on the right (Revision as of 20:16, 19 June 2008) indicates which paragraphs Lenerd has modified and what he has added or changed in these paragraphs is shown in red. However, since the quote he adds is a new paragraph that he creates, there is no red lettering in it. That is my best guess -- please share any insights you may have about the Diffs with me as I, too, find them very perplexing at times. -- Polaris999 (talk) 22:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• (outdent) As far as an editor being scared off as Lenerd may have been, I have been scared off and have not edited the article since before the FACR in April or whenever it was, except for this revert, which now I am very sorry about. So I fully understand how an editor could be scared off. –Mattisse (Talk) 22:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could write a message to User:Lenerd explaining that you think you perhaps over-reacted and hope he/she will return to continue editing? -- Polaris999 (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid to edit here myself so I am not going to encourage another editor to do what I am unwilling to do. I do not agree with the tenor of the article. For that reason I was prevented from editing the article in the past. I do not see the atmosphere becoming more inclusive here. So I will leave my opinion out from now on. I regret I have expressed what I have so far. –Mattisse (Talk) 22:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Returning to the matter of the paragraph we are going to replace --

Am I correct in concluding that we have reached consensus re the paragraph discussed in the preceding topic about CG meeting FCR, etc.? If so, which source should we use as a reference? I have the impression that there is a preference for Taibo; is this perception correct? -- Polaris999 (talk) 21:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe so.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 22:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, RedThoreau. I will now make that change. Also, I will have to add the 2003 edition of the Taibo book to the "References" section as it is the one I am citing. -- Polaris999 (talk) 23:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have taken the Che Guevara off my watchlist. You two can do as you like. –Mattisse (Talk) 23:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Anderson, Castaneda, & Taibo II

Polaris (& any other interested editors) do you own/have access to all 3 of these books as I do ?   Redthoreau (talk) RT 23:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

yes, for me -- Polaris999 (talk) 23:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I have pretty much every book in print on Guevara (20 +) but these 3 would be a good place to start (I believe) on attempting to blend the 3 narratives of his life story - and possibly alleviate the "Anderson-centric" perspective that exists at present.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 23:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

the New variant of part After the revolution

The present version is based on those books whom Fontova fairly names hagiographes. All messages, adverse to the character, thus are unequivocally rejected as proceeding from enemies whereas the messages proceeding from it and its friends, are accepted non-critically. Taibo frankly expresses the despair to that for the description of last hours Che it has only testimony of its enemies, but it is quite happy, when it has only own diaries Che and stories of its adherents - differently, it recognizes, that wishes to write the book " Guevara eyes Guevara and its friends " —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sfrandzi (talk • contribs) 20:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

In the existing text prominent aspects of work of Guevara on Cuba are not shown. I offer such variant. If in three days I shall not meet its given reason criticism, I insert it into an article. My inserts are allocated by a fat font. Also I would be grateful to the one who will correct my English, rather imperfect:

During the rebellion against Batista's dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel Castro, "introduced into the liberated territories the 19th-century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra". "This law included the death penalty for extremely serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the dictatorship or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959, the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to war criminals captured and tried after the revolution. This latter extension, supported by the majority of the population, followed the same procedure as that seen in" the Nuremberg Trials held by the Allies after World War II. However organized, Castro courts have been characterized by eyewitnesses as "sickening" parody having nothing in common with justice . To implement this plan, Castro named Guevara commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, for a five-month tenure (January 2 through June 12, 1959). Guevara was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against traitors, chivatos, and Batista's war criminals. Serving in the post as "supreme prosecutor" on the appellate bench, Guevara oversaw the trials and executions of those convicted by revolutionary tribunal. Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice, considered removing restrictions on the death penalty to be justified in order to prevent citizens themselves from taking justice into their own hands.

According to testimony by José Vilasuso, one of the participants of the tribunal, Guevara instructed judges:

Don't delay these trials. This is a revolution, the proofs are secondary. We have to proceed by conviction. They are a gang of criminals and murderers. Besides, remember that there is an Appeals Tribunals.

An Appeals Tribunal supervised by Che, which did not cancel any verdict.

Doctor Armando M. Lago has made the list 216 person, executed Che Gevara in 1957-1959, of them 164 in prison La Cabana; however he considers this list not exhaustive. It is estimated that several hundred people were executed on Guevara's orders during this time.

Exist recurring charges by those who claim to have witnessed Guevara's cruelty at La Cabaña. As on an example of such charges, Samuel Farber specifies memoirs of Pierre San Martin. San Martin accuses, that Guevara personally participated in executions, doing final shot in a head. He also declared, that Guevara on his eyes has with own hand executed approximately 14-year-old boy, whose fault consisted of trying to protect his father Javier Arzuaga, the Basque chaplain in La Cabana, also mentions young boy Ariel Lima, 16 year-old. Che Guevara has refused to pardon it. In the same night the boy has been shot. On meeting with Romanian journalist Stephan Bacie, Guevara has kindly invited he to admire a show of execution; the shaken Romanian has written a poem: "I No Longer Sing of Che." .

Meeting with French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in March 1960. Guevara was also fluent in French.

On June 12, 1959, as soon as Guevara returned to Havana, Castro sent him out on a three-month tour of fourteen countries, most of them Bandung Pact members in Africa and Asia.

(...)

Guevara played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. During an interview with the British Communist newspaper The Daily Worker a few weeks after the crisis, Guevara still fuming, stated that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off. Sam Russell, the British correspondent who spoke to Guevara at the time came away with "mixed feelings", calling him "a warm character" and "clearly a man of great intelligence", but "crackers from the way he went on about the missiles."

In 1960, Guevara founded the organization of concentration camp Guanahacabibes, which became the first concentration camp of the UMAP system (Cuban GULAG). To this camp were banished those who had not commited particular crimes, but nevertheless were considered «delinquent»: homosexuals, Jehovahs Witnesses, practitioners of secret Afro-Cuban religions such as Abakua, non-political rebels and other "elements, potentially dangerous to a society", which "were re-educated" by means of labor and the militarized discipline. Che Guevara said:

[We] only send to Guanahacabibes those doubtful cases where we are not sure people should go to jail. (...) people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals, to a greater or lesser degree, along with simultaneous sanctions like being deprived of their posts, and in other cases not those sanctions, but rather to be reeducated through labor. It is hard labor, not brute labor, rather the working conditions are harsh but they are not brutal...

As the head of National bank and minister of the industry, Guevara has not reached any obvious successes. Guevara’s deputy in the National Bank, Ernesto Betancourt, so has characterized a level of his competence of economy: “[He] was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.” Guevara, being consecutive stalinist, was the supporter of extremely centralized, scheduled, state economy. He criticized Lenin for introduction of the New Economic policy supposing private manufacture and trade. He tried to eliminate absolutely mechanisms of the market from the Cuban economy. His idea consisted in industrialization of Cuba on the Soviet sample though Cuba had no neither raw material, nor financial resources for creation of the large-scale industry. For years when it supervised the industry of Cuba, the country saw the near-collapse of sugar production, the failure of industrialization, and the introduction of rationing.

Notes

Sfrandzi (talk) 19:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Thank you for putting your suggested edit on the talk page. I'll try to find time to comment on it as soon as I can. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Humberto Fontova is not an acceptable reliable source for this article per WP:RELIABLE (and yes I read his full book where he denounces anyone who admires Che as a "useful idiot" - he also misattributes this to Stalin ... always nice to see factual inaccuracies even in the title). This debate was already held and decided on. His work borders comedic and is replete with factual errors WP:NONSENSE, scurrilous unsourced accusations (sometimes he comically cites himself), and he is a ultra partisan editorialist.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Additionally here is a past discussion we had on an obvious error with relation to Fontova's "research" Talk:Che Guevara/Archive 14#Humberto Fontova and Che not needing proof to execute it is but one of many (I am sure that Polaris and I could literally go page by page and display the poor scholarship of Fontova if need be.) Moreover, all of the biographies used in the article have gone through a peer review process by scholars in related fields. I can give you access to the academic journal articles for a particular book if interested. Fontova's "Exposing the Real Che and the useful idiots who idolize him" has never gone through such a vetting process (not surprising given that it would be laughed at by anyone with even an elementary knowledge of the subject at hand.)   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Another issue is that there are literally 60 + books on Che Guevara that disagree with Humberto Fontova's "interpretation of reality". Nearly all of his more baseless and controversial proclamations have no other verifiable reference or source and his blog essays which make the rounds on Right-wing websites also are usually accompanied with very few sources (if any). Another tactic he shamelessly employs is to take an accepted fact about Guevara, and then lace it with a barrage of sophomoric insults and innuendo - unbecoming of anyone who would be utilized as a encyclopedic reference. He is literally the “textbook” epitome of violating WP:POV and is not considered one of the "main scholars and specialists on the issue." per wiki policy.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 21:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Redthoreau, would you please comment on the other sources Sfrandzi has introduced? I believe Sfrandzi is using five sources to support the new material: Llosa, which is already used as a reference in the article; Fontova, which you've commented on; and three other new ones: Farber, Cuellas and Vilasuso.

I've corrected English grammar in the above suggested text. I hope I didn't change the meaning. I will have comments on it later. I was not able to correct the grammar in these parts because I didn't understand them: "with own hand making coup de grace in a head" and "Any of these factorys and has started to work". Coppertwig (talk) 23:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Coppertwig, It appears that Sfrandzi has now attempted to switch the Humberto Fontova references to other sources. For those he has switched, I would need to be given web access to verify if in fact they do reside there, or if he/she is now merely claiming an alternative (difficult to locate) origin after the fact. To your question regarding the other sources ----- On the surface I would posit that Llosa (although far from objective in my opinion) would be an acceptable source as long as his claims have corroboration from a reliable second source (and no an article entitled: "Killing Machine" would not be acceptable, I would recommend using his book 'The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty' if anything). As for José Vilasuso my feelings are mixed. He is not mentioned at all by Anderson, Catsaneda, or Taibo the 3 primary biographers. I will have to conduct some research into where the verifiability of his proximity to the tribunals even comes from. Although I believe that a potentially disgruntled dissident's claims (which is what he appears to be) would be more than acceptable, I feel there would need to at least be some corroborating evidence to back up his claims which directly contradict the mountain of already existing evidence WP:UNDUE. Samuel Farber I would suggest is an acceptable source, although all he is being used to do in the above is to further corroborate the already accepted fact that a few hundred people were killed in the revolutionary tribunals. As for Jesus Hernandez Cuellas article for a small non established Cuban exile publication "Contacto Magazine" - those claims I would say need to be verified within established published sources/media.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 01:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

ОК if Fontova causes objections (though in my opinion he is no more biassed, than many authors accepted by you) - we shall do without Fontova. I any more do not speak about such impartial and neutral academic source, as "Raúl Gómez Treto, senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice". Further. Farber - the unconditional authority, and Farber describes Guevara as consecutive stalinist, whose principle: «one has to constantly think on behalf of masses and not on behalf of individuals... It's criminal to think of individuals because the needs of the individual become completely weakened in the face of the needs of the human conglomeration."(I would advise to learn this phrase by heart to lovely young anarchists who imagine, that freedom for which struggled Che is freedom to smoke marihuana and to make love!). If it so it is necessary to recognize, that informed for example Vilasuso data are not something new both surprising and demanding special acknowledgement. On the contrary, they are natural and at all do not discredit Guevara from the point of view of his values. For ruthlessness to enemies and contempt for bourgeois prejudices, including in the field of justice - not defect, and virtue and absolutely necessary quality of the revolutionary - from the point of view of stalinists, natural. Sfrandzi (talk) 13:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Sfrandzi, what is your native language? I ask because it is fairly difficult to understand what your trying to say much of the time (One option could also be for you to work on the Che Wikipedia article in your first language, as it would afford you the chance to clearly state your desired points). In reference to some of the sources which you have just added (it appears that every time I address your faulty sources, you add new ones, which unfortunately are just as bad) --- First to this college essay by Allison Aldrich I would hope that you would realize this is not an encyclopedia source. She cites nothing whatsoever! If I was her professor she would get an F. Also the "Collegiate Times" is not an established news source. I understand you are "itching" to have this "tale" of Che shooting a 14 year old boy included in the article (because it appears from your discombobulated "anarchist/pot/love" screed above, that I guess you believe he is in the incarnation of Stalin), but I have yet to see such a "story" contained in any reputable source, or by any scholar with any esteem or knowledge of the issue. Now one explanation for why this event is missing from the other 58 books written about Che Guevara, is because it never actually happened ... but then again from your previous comments I assume you would claim that Fidel has somehow tricked 95 % of the publishing world into only telling his account of events (sometimes I think Fidel detractors give him far too much credit).   Redthoreau (talk) RT 15:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

About 14-years boy. Primary source is specified: Pierre San Martin. Letter to the Editor // El Nuevo Herald, 28.12.1997. It – testimony by former prisoner of La-Cabana. Farber is in earnest to this document when writes: «This is an area which requires additional investigation, particularly in the light of recurring charges by those who claim to have witnessed Guevara's cruelty at La Cabaña. (a footnote: See, for example, the letter to the Editor of Pierre San Martin in El Nuevo Herald (Miami)», Further, indirect acknowledgement at Llosa. There as the testimony on execution of "the young boy " is resulted and even its name is named. It can be re-formulated as the not proved fact, as allegation and charges - in that case I trust you the corresponding formulation. Sfrandzi (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)Sfrandzi, A Dec 28, 1997 Letter to the Editor at the El Nuevo Herald is not an encyclopedic source for the "story" of the killed 14 year old boy. This as you note seems to be the primary source for the claim, which was then echoed by others (including a college student in an uncited copy and paste essay). This does not meet the criteria for inclusion according to wiki policy WP:RELIABLE.
---> Note the policy that "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" WP:VERIFY

Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim:

• Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources.
• Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions. This is especially true when proponents consider that there is a conspiracy to silence them.
• Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources; if such sources are not available, the material should not be included.
  Also see WP:SOURCE & WP:FRINGE

  Redthoreau (talk) RT 20:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Personally for me Che - the character from Dostoevsky's "Demons". In general the people similar Che Guevara, I have studied personally and I know very well. They can really seem interesting about charming. Until then while they will not come to authority and will not send you in concentration camp. And Stalin - only a special case of the general rule.Sfrandzi (talk) 16:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Sfrandzi, Although your "self diagnosis" of Che as a character portrait out of Dostoevsky's "Demons" is interesting (In your words: "a charmer who will throw you in a concentration camp"), Wikipedia does not publish original research WP:OR.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 20:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

OK:

• Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources.
• Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions.

See authoritative sources:

• Alvaro Llosa:

"His honesty (well, partial honesty) meant that he left written testimony of his cruelties, including the really ugly, though not the ugliest, stuff Guevara might have been enamored of his own death, but he was much more enamored of other people’s deaths. In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.” His earlier writings are also peppered with this rhetorical and ideological violence. Although his former girlfriend Chichina Ferreyra doubts that the original version of the diaries of his motorcycle trip contains the observation that “I feel my nostrils dilate savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood of the enemy,” Guevara did share with Granado at that very young age this exclamation: “Revolution without firing a shot? You’re crazy.” At other times the young bohemian seemed unable to distinguish between the levity of death as a spectacle and the tragedy of a revolution’s victims. Guevara’s disposition when he traveled with Castro from Mexico to Cuba aboard the Granma is captured in a phrase in a letter to his wife that he penned on January 28, 1957, not long after disembarking, which was published in her book Ernesto: A Memoir of Che Guevara in Sierra Maestra: “Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and bloodthirsty.” This mentality had been reinforced by his conviction that Arbenz had lost power because he had failed to execute his potential enemies. An earlier letter to his former girlfriend Tita Infante had observed that “if there had been some executions, the government would have maintained the capacity to return the blows.” It is hardly a surprise that during the armed struggle against Batista, and then after the triumphant entry into Havana, Guevara murdered or oversaw the executions in summary trials of scores of people—proven enemies, suspected enemies, and those who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.(...)At other times he would simulate executions without carrying them out, as a method of psychological torture. But the “cold-blooded killing machine” did not show the full extent of his rigor until, immediately after the collapse of the Batista regime, Castro put him in charge of La Cabaña prison. (Castro had a clinically good eye for picking the right person to guard the revolution against infection.) (...)In a manner chillingly reminiscent of Lavrenti Beria, Guevara presided during the first half of 1959 over one of the darkest periods of the revolution. (...)We called him “the butcher” because he enjoyed giving the order to shoot. I pleaded many times with Che on behalf of prisoners. I remember especially the case of Ariel Lima, a young boy. Che did not budge."

• Samuel Farber

"While much of the Left associates Stalinism with its Popular Front period, Guevara's Stalinism was of a different kind, much closer to the more aggressive, collectivizing variety of the late 20s and early 30s.(...) Guevara was personally responsible for supervising many of these repressive activities. (...)This is an area which requires additional investigation, particularly in the light of recurring charges by those who claim to have witnessed Guevara's cruelty at La Cabaña. (See, for example, the letter to the Editor of Pierre San Martin in El Nuevo Herald (Miami), December 28, 1997." – Sic!!!!! The authoritative source speaks: see this letter by San Martin, as Guevara has killed the 14-years-old boy!!!!! Sfrandzi)

• Mario Lazo

"Era un monstruo de crueldad, absolutamente despiadado y desprovisto del mas minimo apice de compasion. En todo momento rechazo con indiferencia nuestras suplicas y exhortaciones en favor de muchas victimas inocentes de los infames "tribunales" revolucionarios. (...)Cuando el escritor rumano Stefan Bacie visito La Habana, el Che Guevara lo invito a presenciar un fusilamiento. Baciu se ha referido algunas veces a ese macabro invite, la ultima vez en su poema (...):me invito, mordiendo el puro entre los labios, como se invita a alguien a tomar un trado en la cantina, a acompañarlo para ver como se fusila en el paredon de La Cabaña."

• Where surprising? Where the contradiction? On the contrary, very naturally and logically. The Killing Machine in operation. And there is a direct reference on a document which contains this history in an authoritative source. Which takes it seriously and considers necessary to investigate. Sfrandzi (talk) 21:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

ОК, has made the basic reference on Farber Sfrandzi (talk) 23:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Response to Sfrandzi -- I apologize for the length, but his barrage of claims requires a lengthy refute.

Per Llosa ... he shows very poor scholarship right off the bat by quoting out of context Che's message to the Tricontinental. Above as you pasted he states:

"In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: 'hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.'”

The actual quote by Guevara is - I am bolding the very next sentence that Llosa leaves out:

"Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy." "Message to the Tricontinental" by Che Guevara, Sent by Che Guevara from his jungle camp in Bolivia, to the Tricontinental solidarity organisation in Havana in the Spring of 1967, Published: April 16 1967.

Guevara here is clearly identifying that the enemy in his mind (The Imperialist United States) themselves are a brutal enemy, and thus the only way to repel such brutality is in fact to imitate it.

This is clear in the preceding paragraph before the famous "hatred statement" in the same letter. The paragraph before by Che Guevara is necessary to give the statement full context, it is as follows:

"It is absolutely just to avoid all useless sacrifices. Therefore, it is so important to clear up the real possibilities that dependent America may have of liberating itself through pacific means. For us, the solution to this question is quite clear: the present moment may or may not be the proper one for starting the struggle, but we cannot harbor any illusions, and we have no right to do so, that freedom can be obtained without fighting. And these battles shall not be mere street fights with stones against tear-gas bombs, or of pacific general strikes; neither shall it be the battle of a furious people destroying in two or three days the repressive scaffolds of the ruling oligarchies; the struggle shall be long, harsh, and its front shall be in the guerrilla's refuge, in the cities, in the homes of the fighters - where the repressive forces shall go seeking easy victims among their families — in the massacred rural population, in the villages or cities destroyed by the bombardments of the enemy.

They are pushing us into this struggle; there is no alternative: we must prepare it and we must decide to undertake it.

The beginnings will not be easy; they shall be extremely difficult. All the oligarchies' powers of repression, all their capacity for brutality and demagoguery will be placed at the service of their cause. Our mission, in the first hour, shall be to survive; later, we shall follow the perennial example of the guerrilla, carrying out armed propaganda (in the Vietnamese sense, that is, the bullets of propaganda, of the battles won or lost — but fought — against the enemy). The great lesson of the invincibility of the guerrillas taking root in the dispossessed masses. The galvanizing of the national spirit, the preparation for harder tasks, for resisting even more violent repressions. Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy."

"Message to the Tricontinental" by Che Guevara, Sent by Che Guevara from his jungle camp in Bolivia, to the Tricontinental solidarity organisation in Havana in the Spring of 1967, Published: April 16 1967.

A few paragraphs before Guevara addresses why this “hatred” is necessary and to whom he is referring (in this context the U.S. soldiers occupying South Vietnam):

"We must not underrate our adversary; the U.S. soldier has technical capacity and is backed by weapons and resources of such magnitude that render him frightful. He lacks the essential ideological motivation which his bitterest enemies of today — the Vietnamese soldiers — have in the highest degree. We will only be able to overcome that army by undermining their morale — and this is accomplished by defeating it and causing it repeated sufferings.” "Message to the Tricontinental" by Che Guevara, Sent by Che Guevara from his jungle camp in Bolivia, to the Tricontinental solidarity organisation in Havana in the Spring of 1967, Published: April 16 1967.

Thus it is clearly evident here that what Llosa is doing for ideological (propaganda) purposes, is giving the quote removed from its context to imply that Guevara was merely preaching "unbending hatred" ... failing to mention that in fact in the letter, he is stating that peaceful resolution to in his eyes "the brutality of U.S. led imperialism" would be preferable, but that his side is being given no choice (he also references the Bay of Pigs invasion, U.S. violence in the Dominican Republic and Panama etc in the letter). Thus Guevara believes the only way to counteract the fact that his side in the struggle will be outmanned, outgunned, and outnumbered ... is to display the same sort of "brutality" that his enemy will also show. Very big difference in the grand scheme of things than Llosa points out.

And I could do this with most of Llosa’s partisan statements, which lack both context and historical placement in their relevance. Llosa clearly has no intention of studying Guevara to understand his actions and life through an objective lens, he clearly is only interested in declaring Guevara “homicidal” while conveniently ignoring the contextual violence and invasion of South Vietnam, which would by the end of the conflict lead to over 2,000,000 million civilian deaths in which Guevara is speaking. That was the context (whether you agree with it or not) that Guevara was speaking within ... not a random plea for hatred as Llosa so shamelessly displays it.

In the very next sentences he provides no context for Guevara’s statement in a letter of being “Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and bloodthirsty.”

What Llosa conveniently fails to mention is the context of such a statement. At this time in January of 1957, Guevara and the others have landed in Cuba and had nearly all of their 82 initial fighters had been killed or executed. (Batista had an order of taking no prisoners, and those who surrendered were killed on the spot). He is speaking at this time after having been wounded himself, and after having watched 65 or so of his original 82 comrades killed either in battle or execution after capture. His letter is also in the context that he joined the expedition with hopes of being a doctor, but quickly saw that in order to survive he would need to switch to the role of a soldier. Thus yes he is honestly expressing that in a letter he is “alive and blood thirsty” and seeking revenge against those now trying to hunt him down and kill him (Batista’s troops). This is hardly the impression Llosa shamelessly paints in his writing, as it is devoid of all context of the situation the quote is referring to.

And this is just me addressing the first few sentences of the Llosa portion you mention. I could do this with all of the statements Llosa makes, which display a shockingly poor intellectual knowledge of the overall environment and historical context with which he purportedly pretends to speak with authority on.

As for a letter to the editor I have already pointed out how that will not be allowed on Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information.   Redthoreau (talk) RT 01:01, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I hope, I have shown, that reliable sources accuse Che of cruelty and name Killing Mashin. In the rest I remind your words: Wikipedia does not publish original research WP:OR.

As for a letter to the editor I have also already pointed, that I cite San Martin's letter not in itself, but that is why, that to this letter sends an reliable source - Farber, I cite in Farber's context. Thus, memoirs of the witness of events in any case are an reliable primary source of information:

Primary sources - writings on or about a topic by key figures of the topic - may be allowable, but should be restricted to purely descriptive explanations of the subject or its core concepts. They should not be used for interpretation or evaluation; use the interpretations and evaluations of reliable secondary sources for that purpose.

Sfrandzi (talk) 10:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

More Comments

Thank you for contributing suggestions, Sfrandzi. This article should talk about both good and bad things about Che Guevara. The balance of good and bad should be in the same proportions as in the reliable sources. Each part of this article needs to be very short because it talks about his whole life. There are many books about Che Guevara, and there is not enough room in this article for all the information. Some things that don't go in this article might go in another article. There are already many articles about Che Guevara at Wikipedia, for example Foco theory, and more can be written. I might write an article about Cuban aid to Africa. Each article should be from a neutral point of view. Some things might not be appropriate in any Wikipedia article.
I'm sorry, but I oppose most your suggested edits. I think it's possible that adding a few, short bad things about Che Guevara may improve this article, if they're well-verified and notable.
You said that you agree with Fontova that certain books are "hagiographies". I don't agree. Gleijeses in his book "Conflicting Missions", a thoroughly researched book with 103 pages of footnotes, says "...American journalist Jon Lee Anderson and Mexican professor Jorge Castañeda, whose recent biographies of Guevara, based on extensive research, are the new standards." (p. 102) The books say many things about Che: some good, some bad, many neutral. If we put in bad things, we have to put in good things too. Cormier mentions things like Che hugging lepers, giving free medical care during the Cuban guerrilla war to peasants who were impressed that they had been treated by Che himself, inspiring his soldiers, etc. The proportion of good and bad things should be similar to what's in the reliable sources.
You say that these things are prominent. I think there are things that are more prominent. We mention the number of executions; I don't think we need to give details of individual executions. Many leaders of countries are involved directly or indirectly in a number of deaths, for example starting wars or declining to give pardons in cases of capital punishment; we don't usually go into detail about these when describing their lives. Instead, we can talk about things like Guevara's speeches at international meetings where, for example, he denounced the Soviet Union's policies; we can talk about Che's involvement in Cuba's giving medical and military aid to Africa.
I'm willing to accept Redthoreau's position that Fontova's book is not a reliable source to establish facts. I'm undecided about whether the book can still be used to establish the fact that this type of material is being written about Guevara; it depends partly on how notable the book is.
Re this sentence: "However organized, Castro courts have been characterized by eyewitnesses as "sickening" parody having nothing in common with justice." I'm not sure whether I understand "However organized". The first reference is Fontova, which we've decided not to use. The second is written in a language I can't read. You could give a quote from it and also translate the quote into English; but I don't know whether it's a reliable source, anyway – I don't know anything about it. The third and fourth references (Cuellas and Vilasuso) apparently don't contain the word "sickening". Therefore I would say that this sentence is unverified and can't be used – sorry.
Re this sentence: "According to testimony by José Vilasuso, one of the participants of the tribunal, Guevara instructed judges..." The source says nothing about instructing judges. It says that Vilasuso is a lawyer and that Guevara chastised "us all". I don't see anything very special about that quote. Che said many things, and there are many that it would be interesting to quote here, but there is only room for a very small number of quotes on this page. Maybe some quotes can go on other pages in Wikipedia, or at Wikiquote.
Re the sentence "Doctor Armando M. Lago has made the list 216 person, executed Che Gevara in 1957-1959, of them 164 in prison La Cabana; however he considers this list not exhaustive." I don't see that this adds anything important; the information is already contained as a summary in the next sentence, "It is estimated that several hundred people were executed on Guevara's orders during this time."
Re the 14-year-old boy: I don't see anywhere in the Farber reference where it says anything about that. Could you tell me which paragraph it's in or provide a short quote that I can search for? I think Redthoreau is right: a letter to the editor is not a reliable enough source for something like this, and if the other sources only cite the letter to the editor, then they don't add reliability to it, so this article should not state the information as fact. If a large number of sources discuss it, then this article can report it as something that is talked about (not necessarily as something that is true). However, I don't think it's notable enough to mention in this article.
Re the 16-year-old Ariel Lima: if this can be verified, then maybe the article could say "It is estimated that several hundred people, including a 16-year-old, were executed on Guevara's orders during this time." It's difficult to write this, because we don't know whether there were other 16-year-olds or younger people also executed; we can't say that there were and we can't say there weren't, so it's hard to find the right words. I think it's not very notable that a 16-year-old was executed. If it were a 10-year-old it would be more interesting. We would also have to verify it better. The first source is Llosa, whom Redthoreau says is biassed. The second source is in Spanish, which I can't read. The third source says " In list Armando F.Lago N78: Ariel Lima Lago (Minor) (Executed) 8-1-59." This doesn't look like a complete reference. Where was it published? I think we haven't verified the story about Ariel Lima.
I think we should probably mention the estimates of much larger numbers of executions (thousands), at least in a footnote.
Re "On meeting with Romanian journalist Stephan Bacie, Guevara has kindly invited he to admire a show of execution; the shaken Romanian has written a poem: "I No Longer Sing of Che."" The reference is in Spanish, which I can't read. You could provide a quote from the reference and translate it into English. But, I think this is not notable. Probably many people spoke with Che and wrote of how they reacted: I don't see why this one should be chosen to be quoted here. However, on the topic of Che allegedly enjoying killing: didn't someone say that Che wrote a letter to his father in which he said he enjoyed killing? (I forget where I saw that. Likely somewhere on these talk pages.) If that could be verified, I think that would be better evidence of Che enjoying killing than other people observing him, and that maybe we could quote that in this article.
Re Guanahacabibes: Anderson calls it a "rehabilitation camp" and says it was "voluntary", with the incentive of not losing your job after having done something wrong. If we mention it, perhaps we could present more than one point of view about it. However, we would need a good reliable source for the concentration camp point of view. The first source is in Russian; Redthoreau says Llosa is biassed; and Farber does not use the phrase "concentration camp" and doesn't seem to me to actually contradict Anderson's interpretation.
I think it would be interesting to include information about what happened to the Cuban economy while Guevara was minister of industry, but we would need better references. Farber doesn't mention "sugar" or "ration", and Llosa may be biassed.
Re Redthoreau's argument mentioning Vietnam: This quote from the CIA "Weekly Cuban Summary" as quoted by Gleijeses suggests why Vietnam is relevant: "The US air strikes in North Vietnam are particularly relevant to Cuba. The Cubans recognize that they themselves could well be subject to such US action..." (Mar. 3, 1965)
I hope you are not too discouraged by these comments. This article has had a couple of years of editing and a lot of discussion on the talk pages. People have already looked at it carefully many times. Any new edits have to be looked at carefully. Maybe there are reasons why that information isn't already in the article. Maybe after some discussion we can still make some small changes in the article. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I oppose this edit for reasons I stated above. Sfrandzi, would you please revert your edit and discuss the things I said?☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:33, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Connection to Obama

A portrait of Che Quevara appears on the wall of Barack Obama's campaign office in Houston. Angie Y. (talk) 14:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

(I'll comment on Sfrandzi's material soon.) I reverted Angie Y.'s mention of a portrait of Guevara in Obama's office. No reference was given to verify it. From this news source, I get the impression that perhaps the portrait was a flag that was put up by one volunteer, not something put up by or approved of by Obama; therefore I think it's not notable and should not be mentioned. Also, as a statement about a living person (Obama), it may violate WP:BLP unless it's very solidly verified, so please discuss it on the talk page before re-inserting it. It may also be more appropriate on a different page and not very relevant to this page, which gives very brief summaries of various aspects of Che Guevara's life. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)