Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

chapter 14
The Socialist Utopia: Che Guevara
and the Cuban Revolution
Analyzing THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
Whether through the publication of Karl Marx’s writings in the nineteenth
century, the victory of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the formation of
Communist parties throughout the Western Hemisphere in the 1920s and
1930s, or the onset of the cold war in the late 1940s, Communism has
deeply impacted the history of Latin America and the rest of the world. But
arguably it was not until the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 that
Communism began to defi ne day-to-day life in Latin America. When Fidel
Castro and his ragtag guerrilla army descended from the mountains of eastern
Cuba and took control of the national government in Havana in January
1959, the future of socialism in Latin America suddenly became less of
a dream (or nightmare) and more of a real possibility.
One of those people in the mountains with Castro was a young, obscure
Argentine doctor named Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Today, he is arguably the
most widely recognized Latin American fi gure in the world and the person
most commonly associated with socialist revolution in Latin America.
Many people today, especially youth, might know nothing more about Che
than that his image is ubiquitous on T-shirts, a black fi gure set against a
red background—a handsome, dashing, beret-adorned face with eyes gazing
off into unknown utopian horizons. But regardless of how he is recognized
or remembered, Che has unquestionably achieved the rare and immortal
status of an icon.
We are interested in Che to the extent that he can stand as a symbol
of the era of revolutionary socialism in Latin America, roughly the thirtyyear
period between 1960 and 1990. By subjecting his legend to semiotic
analysis, we will illustrate the way in which discourses are present in the