Until Victory Che Guevara and the Revolutionary Ideal

Abstract

This chapter takes a wide-angle approach to Che Guevara as a symbol of antiestablishment and antisystemic sentiment in the late 1960s and 1970s. Guevara's popularity offers a critical point of entry into two principle dispositions of the global left: commitment to antiestablishment struggle and a desire for transnational solidarity. This spirit of emancipatory internationalism, which bridged multiple doctrinal positions, was born of egalitarian aspirations, a transnational imagination, and the belief that global socialist revolution was possible, even imminent. As a renowned proponent of radical-emancipatory politics, Guevara neatly embodied this internationalist ideal. In an era when coordinated action across national boundaries was difficult and radical politics was marred by factionalism, Guevara became a medium for claiming and broadcasting shared sentiments. As a link among movements in North America, Western Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, Guevara iconography helped to create and sustain communities of sentiment and dissent.