“Any image that has become important in the history of photography was made important by the uses that they (the public) did of it, not because what the photographers want them to do.” 

-- Roberto Salas, coworker of Korda, the photographer who took the photo Solo Guerilla Fighter

In the photo “Solo Guerilla Fighter,” we see a man, a solemn man, staring forward. We look at him from below, as if facing a grand statue. He is handsome. His hair flutters in the wind; his skin is tanned. His face appears masculine, polished by the black and white color under the sun. He is serious. His lips close firmly and his forehead wrinkles, perhaps implying some imminent danger. His eyes stare out with sorrow, perhaps telling his empathy to the pain in front of him. Who is he and what happened to him? 

He is Che Guevera, an Argentinian, a bright meteor that shot across the sky, shining an ephemeral light of idealism upon the gloomy base color of the realpolitik of the late-twentieth century. In his 20s, he began his famous motorcycle journey across South America that was  “galvanized by the inequality” he witnessed (Lopez and Ziff). From this experience, he decided to “take power at the point of the gun” to help people in pain (Lopez and Ziff). His uncompromising ideal against oppressive governments found its home in Cuba. In 1959, Che founded a socialist regime with Fidel Castro whom he had met in Mexico on his motorcycle journey, overthrowing the Batista dictatorship (Lopez and Ziff). Then, the historical moment of this picture came. A French freighter La Coubre carrying ammunition suspiciously exploded in Havana Harbor on March 4th, 1960, killing up to 100 people (Coubre).  

When Che founded the socialist regime, Cuba was involved in the Cold War, the duel between the world’s two largest superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. As a socialist regime, Cuba sided with the Soviet Union, thus landing on the opposite side of the United States. The leaders of Cuba realized that they had to defend themselves against their enemy on the doorstep: the United States was only 90 miles from Cuba’s coastline. As a step in expanding armament, the ammunition carried by La Coubre was among the weapons Cuba bought abroad to prepare for the possible defense battle against the United States (Lopez and Ziff).

After the explosion of La Coubre, a large memorial was held for the victims of the explosion. Castro, the number one leader of Cuba, made a speech, blaming the catastrophe on America (Ehrenreich). Che Guevera, the number two leader of Cuba, only appeared a few seconds on the podium of the memorial, staring at the crowd. Then he left. The moment was intuitively captured by Alberto Korda, a photographer for the Cuban magazine Revolución (Wells). At the moment of taking the photo, Korda felt “taken aback for a moment” by Che's gaze (Lopez and Ziff). After he got back to his studio and developed the films he produced that day, he revisited this photo. Of all the photos that he had taken that day, he was drawn to this one, going so far as to hang it on the wall in his Havana studio (Iconic). 

However, the photo vanished, just like Che. Feeling betrayed by the USSR and failing to industrialize Cuba, Che left after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1965 (Anderson qtd. in Lopez and Ziff). To export the revolution, he went to Congo and Bolivia to fight against the local oppressive governments (Lopez and Ziff). Both revolutions failed. In Bolivia, he was brutally murdered after his capture in 1967 (Lopez and Ziff). As for Korda’s photo, the magazine Revolución did not choose to use it to report the memorial for the explosion, and it was used only once later for the magazine at the corner of a page (Lopez and Ziff). It was until seven years later that an Italian radical left-wing publisher called Feltrinelli asked for a copy of Che’s portrait. He had been planning to publish Che’s diary in Bolivia written months before Che’s death for European readers (Pirro). He believed the photo taken by Korda was perfect for the cover of the diary (Pirro). The Cuban official introduced Korda to him, and Korda gave him the photo, “declining to make a charge” (Wells). Feltrinelli then had Che’s Bolivian diary published in Europe with the photo as its cover (Holmes). 

Had the photo not been passed to Feltrinelli at the perfect time, the photo probably would have remained unknown forever. At the end of the 1960s, Europe was in turmoil with people wanting change (Fitzpatrick qtd. in Holmes). Students took to the street, the workers went on strike, and people were demanding social changes in Western European countries. Then, fuel was added to the fire. The brutal murder of Che triggered mass protests for justice all over Europe (Lopez and Ziff). The photo was “copied by several revolutionary groups in Europe” and “like a wildfire swept across Europe and then to the rest of the world” (Lopez and Ziff). People held posters of Che during protests in Paris, Prague, Washington, Mexico City, and other cities (Lopez and Ziff). Che had become a political symbol representing liberty, idealism, and rebelliousness

However, this image of Che does not correspond to what Che looks like today. Today’s Che seems to be associated more with popular culture, not so much as politics. His face appears on mass-produced T-shirts, mugs, and even underwear. How did revolutionary Che become popular Che? The key is decontextualization. In fact, the photo of Che has been decontextualized twice, once from a specific historical moment and once from himself. Both times, Che becomes less revolutionary and more symbolic.

The first decontextualization was done by the photographer himself. The original photo was larger than the current, portrait-like one with the palm tree and another man beside him. By cropping out the sides of the photo, leaving Che in the center, Korda “gave the portrait an ageless quality, divorced from the specifics of time and place” (Kakutani). When the protestors in Paris held the image of Che, they were not thinking of the explosion in the Havana Harbor; they were focused only on Che and the ideals he represented. 

The second decontextualization was done by the public. Che was separated from his original ideas and became a spirit that everyone can appropriate. The characteristics, such as determination, tenderness, rebelliousness, masculinity, and more, collapse into this image. People began to buy the items associated with Che that were mass-produced by the capitalist system that Che fought against. They may not have known him or his dream of socialism, but people were willing to pay money to buy items with Che’s image on them just because he looked cool. Some people detest this process as it is “turning him (Che) into a shallow god with some sort of fan club” (Jacobson qtd. in Lopez and Ziff). But the trend is irresistible and the idea behind Che is reinvented constantly. When Che appears on a poster of a peaceful protest against the death penalty, he represents kindheartedness. When Che appears on the tattoo of a fanatical soccer fan, he represents wildness. When Che appears on underwear in a nightclub, he represents erotism. However, no matter which platform we see Che’s face on, he is always harmless. People do not prefer to associate Che with guns. Instead, people prefer to consider Che as “[a] freedom-loving, bohemian guy who questions authority” (Lopez and Ziff). 

We don’t know if Alberto Korda has ever thought about what kind of Che he would like to show the world when he pressed the shutter at the Havana Harbor half a century ago. But what we do know is that when people hold posters with Che’s image, when people tattoo his face on their bodies, or when people wear the shirt with his image, a Chevolution is going on, a liberal, disarmed, and down-top revolution.

Works Cited

“La Coubre Explosion.” Che Guevara Biography Illustrated, 25 Mar. 2014, cheguevarabiography.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/la-coubre-explosion/.

Ehrenreich, Ben. “Capitalizing on Che Guevara's Image.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2008, www.latimes.com/newsletters/topofthetimes/la-ig-che1-2008jun01-story.html.

Holmes, Stephanie. “Americas | Che: The Icon and the Ad.” BBC News, BBC, 5 Oct. 2007, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7028598.stm.

“Iconic Photo of Che Guevara Now Half a Century Old.” Latin American Herald Tribune, www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=353283.

Kakutani, Michiko. “Brand Che: Revolutionary as Marketer's Dream.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Apr. 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/books/21kaku.html?_r=2.

Kardo, Alberto, Guerrillero Heroico. 1960. Revolución. 

Lopez, Luis and Trisha Ziff, directors. Chevolution. Apr. 2008.

Pirro, Deirdre. “Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.” The Florentine, 5 Mar. 2008, www.theflorentine.net/2008/03/06/giangiacomo-feltrinelli/.

Wells, Matt. “After 40 Years and Millions of Posters, Che's Photographer Sues for Copyright.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Aug. 2000, www.theguardian.com/world/2000/aug/07/cuba.mattwells.