Mao, Che

James Lileks (hat-tip: instapundit) observes that The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library are using an image of Mao to promote the opening of a new downtown library:

Hmm. I’m curious: how many people do you have to kill, and how many books do you have to destroy, before you’re no longer a benign historical image to be used in a “clever” ad campaign?

I think the same could be said about Che Guevara, whose image -- typically found on T-shirts -- is a favorite of college students and radical leftists. A fawning biographical movie was even made about him last year. I can only hope that this embrace of Che is due to ignorance and misguided romanticism of his role as a revolutionary. This is a man who embraced Stalinism and was utterly ruthless with those who stood in his way, even his own comrades:

"Guevara . . . quickly gain[ed] a reputation for ruthlessness; a child in his guerrilla unit who had stolen a little food was immediately shot without trial," writes Pascal Fontaine in "The Black Book." Guevara also wrote in his diary about executing peasant Eutimio Guerra, a suspected informant, with a single .32-caliber shot to the head. Guevara, in his will, praised the "extremely useful hatred that turns men into effective, violent, merciless, and cold killing machines." He tried to spread the havoc caused by the Cuban revolution in other countries from Africa to South America, rallying for "two, three, many Vietnams!"

Guevara oversaw executions at La Cabana prison; some of those executed were his former comrades who wouldn't relinquish their democratic beliefs. "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," he said. He didn't assuage his barbarity by being a brilliant statesman, either, helping drive the economy to ruin as head of Cuba's central bank and minister of industries. "Though claiming to despise money," writes Fontaine, "he lived in one of the rich, private areas of Havana."

At least some people are questioning Che's iconic status among the left.