This documentary is terrific to make us realize how bad leftist, socialist or communist movements are. When Guevara, the Castro brothers and their followers (they were 82 at the very beginning) left Mexico for Cuba in an attempt to engineer a coup d’état against the pro-American dictator of the time, the whole entreprise looks today like a children’s crusade gone mad. First, the trip itself was awful as they lost their way several times. Then, their boat got stuck in the sand a few meters from the shores. When they finally reached the land, they were welcomed with heavy fire from the local army. They lost almost the whole group, down to 17. And it it with these 17 men that Guevara and the Castro brothers, from their hiding place in the mountains, miraculously succeeded to raise a small troop and overthrow the Cuban governement. At first, they were welcomed as liberators. But rapidly, as the reality of their ideology became more apparent, the people came to realize that the country was heading for a full communist state.

Guevara had other guerilla adventures in Congo and Bolivia. But, in the end, he failed to realize his goal, like any other communist revolutionary before him, because communism is not a good ideology. It destroys societies as it simply replaces a certain form of exploitation by another. That’s why I find that the whole personality cult that has developed around Guevara is absolutely intoxicating. A lot of youth bear his portrait on T-shirts, as if he were some kind of Christ-like figure. That’s a total inversion of all values. Instead of bearing the portrait of Christ who exemplifies the greatest form of humanity and service, they bear the portrait of someone who was, essentially, a killer, a criminal and a dictator. But I guess it’s only consistent with the spirit of the times…