 Guevara 's life and legacy remain contentious . The perceived contradictions of his ethos at various points in his life have created a complex character of duality , one who was " able to wield the pen and submachine gun with equal skill , " while prophesying that " the most important revolutionary ambition was to see man liberated from his alienation . " As undogmatic as he was committed , his vision of liberation was at once romantic , poetic , compassionate , and ruthless . Guevara 's paradoxical standing is further complicated by his array of seemingly diametrically opposed qualities . A secular humanist and sympathetic practitioner of medicine who did not hesitate to shoot his enemies , a celebrated internationalist leader who advocated violence to enforce a utopian philosophy of the collective good , an idealistic intellectual who loved literature but refused to allow dissent , an anti @-@ imperialist Marxist insurgent who was radically willing to forge a poverty @-@ less new world on the apocalyptic ashes of the old one , and finally , an outspoken anti @-@ capitalist whose image has been expropriated and commoditized ; Che 's history continues to be rewritten and re @-@ imagined . Sociologist Michael Löwy contends that the many facets of Guevara 's life ( i.e. doctor and economist , revolutionary and banker , military theoretician and ambassador , deep thinker and political agitator ) illuminated the rise of the " Che myth " , allowing him to be invariably crystallized in his many metanarrative roles as a " Red Robin Hood , Don Quixote of communism , new Garibaldi , Marxist Saint Just , Cid Campeador of the Wretched of the Earth , Sir Galahad of the beggars ... and Bolshevik devil who haunts the dreams of the rich , ( while ) kindling braziers of subversion all over the world . " 
