They were the unstoppable left-wing idealists who joined forces to turn Cuba into a Communist state and the scourge of America. But as these remarkable shots show, even Marxist revolutionaries needed a bit of down time.

Here are images of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as you’ve never seen them before – relaxing with a round of golf and spot of sea fishing.

The comrades-in-arms appear in 55 black and white images from the 50s and 60s taken by Alberto Korda – Castro’s personal photographer.

The signed vintage prints, made from his original negatives, are being auctioned by his daughter Norka next Thursday for £50,000.

The pictures include one of Castro and Guevara on a fishing trip soon after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and another of them playing golf in 1961.

In others, Guevara talks to philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, while Castro faces up to a tiger at New York’s Bronx Zoo, takes a photograph of Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev in Russia 1963 and meets workers in rural Cuba.

A shot of Fidel on a hillside with backpack and rifle, which was reproduced as a poster, is expected to fetch £5,000.

Chris Albury, of Gloucestershire-based auctioneers Dominic Winter, said: ‘It is an amazing collection.’