He was a Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. He was a member of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement', which seized power in Cuba (1959). After serving various important posts in the new government, he left Cuba (1966) with the hope of fomenting revolutions in other countries, first in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and later in Bolivia, where he was captured in a CIA-organized military operation. Some believe that the CIA wanted to keep him alive for interrogation but he was executed by the Bolivian army, although this is disputed. After his death, he became a hero of 3rd World socialist revolutionary movements, as a theorist and tactician of asymmetric warfare.