Che Guevara
In Guevara's private writings from this time (since released), he displays his growing criticism of the Soviet political economy, believing that the Soviets had "forgotten Marx". This led Guevara to denounce a range of Soviet practices including what he saw as their attempt to "air-brush the inherent violence of class struggle integral to the transition from capitalism to socialism", their "dangerous" policy of peaceful co-existence with the United States, their failure to push for a "change in consciousness" towards the idea of work, and their attempt to "liberalize" the socialist economy. Guevara wanted the complete elimination of money, interest, commodity production, the market economy, and "mercantile relationships": all conditions that the Soviets argued would only disappear when world communism was achieved. Disagreeing with this incrementalist approach, Guevara criticized the "Soviet Manual of Political Economy", correctly predicting that if USSR did not abolish the law of value (as Guevara desired), it would eventually return to capitalism.
Che Guevara in popular culture
The laundry where Guevara's corpse was displayed to the world's press in Vallegrande is now a place of pilgrimage as well, with hundreds of personal messages transcribed and carved into the surrounding walls from admiring visitors. In large letters above the table where Che's dead body once lay, an engraving now reads "None dies as long as he is remembered."Many of the rural campesinos in the small Bolivian town of Vallegrande, where anthropologists retrieved Che's remains in 1997, firmly believe that there exists a "curse of Che". This belief exists because six of the Bolivian politicians and military officers who share responsibility for Guevara's death have since died a violent death. They were murdered, died in accidents, or in the case of Bolivian President René Barrientos were killed in a helicopter crash. In addition, General Gary Prado, who arrested Guevara, became paralyzed after a shot went off from a gun he was handling and hit his spine.There are those, both supporters and detractors that object to the mass dissemination of Che's image in popular and counter-culture. His detractors dislike the widespread pictorial dissemination of someone they deem to be a "murderer" but also delight in the contradiction and/or irony of a Marxist being utilized as a Capitalist commodity. Conversely, some Che supporters object to the commodification or diminishing of his image by its use in popular culture, and resent those entrepreneurial companies who profit from and/or exploit his legacy; viewing such marketing as an obvious conflict to Guevara's personal ideology.