Che Guevara

[random_jew]

I see or hear this name at least once a day. People love him and his ideals but in all honesty, wtf did he do? All that he actually accomplished was help influence Fidel's communist views.

Seriously though, why do people love him so much? He was also a terrible military commander....

[TheVizier]

He fought for something he desired, and got it.

[Mantikore]

hes a symbol of left wing revolutionary ideals, so a lot of those people would like him.

[Chimro]

I know this is a bit off-topic, but what I never get is why it's okay to glorify Marxism and it's icons, but not Nazism and it's leaders.

Che Guevara shirts are everywhere and I hear tons of stupid college kids talking about how great Communism is, I even once saw a teenage boy with a red shirt with the Soviet coat of arms on it while shopping for groceries.

Communism has killed far more people and was in many ways more ruthless than Nazism yet it's perfectly acceptable to be a Communist; whereas being a Nazi is quite frowned upon and nobody wears Adolf Hitler or Rudolf Hess shirts.

[Graemy]

^Holocaust screwed it over for everybody.

[kurdt318]

Originally Posted by Chimro

Communism has killed far more people and was in many ways more ruthless than Nazism yet it's perfectly acceptable to be a Communist.

Firstly, most "marxists" that are cited as killing scores of people are less marxist and more authoritarian.

Secondly, in the slave trade white capitalists killed 99 million Africans, thats double what so-called "marxist leader" Stalin killed.

Thirdly, communists are the original feminists, civil rights leaders, union supporters, etc.

[vazilizaitsev89]

because it is the "rebellious" thing to do. even though half of those morons don't know who Ernesto Guevara was, nor do they know how many people he killed or why he killed those people

[kurdt318]

Originally Posted by vazilizaitsev89

because it is the "rebellious" thing to do. even though half of those morons don't know who Ernesto Guevara was

Ernesto Guevara? Was he related to Che?

nor do they know how many people he killed or why he killed those people

I've heard others say Che killed people with HIV/AIDS, which is stupid as Guevara died in 1967 and AIDS was first discovered in 1981. I tend to doubt their credibility afterwards.

[thatcoolkid]

He is overrated and over-glorified. No doubt about that.

People say he was brutal, yet he was also a great leader and visionary. He was Fidel's right hand man, helped him take over Cuba, etc, etc. He was tough. No denying that or what he did.

Most people don't understand him, or what he did, or what he was involved in. He's just a face on a T-shirt to them.

To be honest, I used to idolize him. Then I did some reading and got a fuller picture of him.

I will applaud him for trekking through the god damn jungle w/ asthma though. +1 for that.

All in all though... his guerrilla ass got owned in the end.

[23]

^

Leninist Marxism is naturally brutal.

Lenin basically adopted Marxism and changed it so that it would work.

Lenin created the idea of the "vanguard of the proletariat", a group of professional revolutionaries that would create the revolution for the people, instead of the people themselves rising up to defeat the bourgeois gov't. Lenin thought the people just didn't have the initiative or capital to start a revolution.

Of course, this vanguard eventually had more power than the people, thus defeating communism/Marxism's ideal of economic/political equality of society.

And that is why communism fails. It relies on Leninist Marxism, which is ultimately flawed.

If communism can somehow be adapted and implemented in a way other than Lenin's way, it might work.

But I doubt it.