Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (August 13, 1926 – November 25, 2016), a Cuban politician and revolutionary who governed Cuba for nearly 50 years from 1976 – 2016 as Prime Minister has passed away at the age of 90.
Birth
Born in Biran, Oriente, the son of a noveau riche sugar cane farmer in Galicia, Spain, Castro became anti-leftist-imperialistic politician while studying law at the University of Havana. He participated in rebellions in right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia. He even was a part of attempt to overthrow Cuban President Fulgencia Batista with a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. He was imprisoned for a year before he arrived in Mexico to form the revolutionary movement, 26th July Movement with his brother, Raul Castro and Che Guevara. Castro had a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerilla war over Batista’s forces in the Sierra Maestra after returning to Cuba, where Castro assumed military and political power of Cuba after successfully overthrowing Batista in 1959. Opposing Cuba’s government, the United States unsuccessfully attempted to remove Castro by assassination, economic blockade and a counter revolution in the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. Castro retailiated by forming an alliance with the Soviet Union, where he allowed nuclear missiles on Cuba, launching the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Cuba became a pro-Soviet, one-party socialist state under Communist Party Rule when Castro adopted a Marxist-Leninist ideology, the first and only in the Western Hemisphere. Castro, a controversial and divisive dictator, has several international awards lauding him as a hero socialism and anti-imperialism who secured Cuban’s independence from American Imperialism. Castro is viewed as overseeing human-rights abuses, the exodus of a large number of Cubans and impoverishment of Cuban’s economy.
Biography
Castro was born out of wedlock August 13, 1926 when his father, Angel Castroy Argiz, a successful sugar cane farmer at La Manacas farm in Biran Oriente, Spain, when he took Lina Ruz Gonzalez, daughter of Canarian immigrants as his mistress, and later second wife, after his first marriage failed. The couple had six children, Castro being one of them. Castro was sent to live with his teacher at age six in Santiago de Cuba where he was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church at age eight. This enabled Castro to be school at La Salle boarding school, but frequent misbehaving caused Castro to be sent to the private-funded run Jesuit-run Delores school in Santiago. Castro then transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belen in Havana in 1945, where he studied history, geography and debate, despite not exceeding academically, devoted most of his time to playing sports.
Studying law at the University of Havana in 1945, claiming he was “politically illiterate,” Castro became involved in student activism and violent gangsterismo culturalism while enrolled at the university. His passion on anti-imperialism, Castro opposed U.S. intervention in the Caribbean where he unsuccessfully campaigned for the presidency of the Federation University of Students with the platform “honesty, decency, and justice.”
Rebellion and Marxism: 1947 – 1950
I joined the people; I grabbed a rifle in a police station that collapsed when it was rushed by a crowd. I witnessed the spectacle of a totally spontaneous revolution... [T]hat experience led me to identify myself even more with the cause of the people. My still incipient Marxist ideas had nothing to do with our conduct – it was a spontaneous reaction on our part, as young people with Martí-an, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and pro-democratic ideas.
— Fidel Castro on the Bogotazo, 2009
In June 1947, Castro joined the rebellion to overthrow the U.S. ally, right-wing military junta of Rafael Trujillo. April 1948 saw Castro traveling to Bogota, Colombia, where an assassination of the popular leftist leader, Jorge Elicier Gaitan Ayala brought rioting between the Conservatives and the Liberals. Castro married Mirta Diaz Balart, a student from a wealthy family that exposed Castro to the Cuban elite. The relationship was a love match, but strongly opposed by both families despite Diaz Balart’s father giving the couple tens of thousands of dollars for a three-month New York City honeymoon.
Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything.
— Fidel Castro on discovering Marxism, 2009
In September 1949 brought Castro’s son, Fidelito, where the new parents moved to a larger flat in Havana despite Castro becoming involved in the September 30 Movement that consisted of communists and members of the Partido Ortodoxo where the group’s purpose opposed the violence of gangs at the university. Going into hiding after his speech identified several key gang members, Castro concentrated on his law studies graduating with a Doctorate of Law in September 1950.
Career in law and politics: 1950 – 1952
Co-founding a legal partnership that catered to poor Cubans, it was unsuccessful failing to pay his bills resulting in his furniture being repossessed and electricity shut off, distressing his wife. In November 1950, Castro was arrested for violent conduct when he took part on a high school protest in which he fought with police for the Education Ministry’s association, but the charges were dismissed.
Cuban Revolution
The Movement and the Moncada Baracks Attacks 1952 – 1953
In a few hours you will be victorious or defeated, but regardless of the outcome – listen well, friends – this Movement will triumph. If you win tomorrow, the aspirations of Martí will be fulfilled sooner. If we fail, our action will nevertheless set an example for the Cuban people, and from the people will arise fresh new men willing to die for Cuba. They will pick up our banner and move forward... The people will back us in Oriente and in the whole island. As in '68 and '92, here in Oriente we will give the first cry of Liberty or Death!
— Fidel Castro's speech to the Movement just before the Moncada Attack, 1953
Castro formed the group, The Movement, and publishing an underground newspaper, El Acusador (The Accuser), which operated on a clandestine bell system, and arming and training anti-Batista recruits. Stockpiling weapons, Castro planned an attack on the Moncada Baracks, a military garrison outside Santiago de Cuba, Oriente.
Imprisonment and July 26 Movement : 1953 – 1956
I would honestly love to revolutionize this country from one end to the other! I am sure this would bring happiness to the Cuban people. I would not be stopped by the hatred and ill will of a few thousand people, including some of my relatives, half the people I know, two-thirds of my fellow professionals, and four-fifths of my ex-schoolmates
— Fidel Castro, 1954
While imprisoned with 25 of his comrades, Castro renamed his movement, the July26 Movement (MR 26-7), after the attack on Moncada, he formed a school for prisoners, studying the works of Marx, Lenin, and Marti, as well as Freud, Kant, Shakespeare, Munthe, Maugham, and Dostoyevsky, analyzing them in a Marxist framework. While imprisoned, Castro learned of his wife’s employment in the Ministry of the Interior, through a radio announcement, where the couple began divorce proceedings, with Marta taking custody of their son, Fidelito, angering Castro who did not want his son growing up in a bourgeois government.
1954 brought opposition from Batista’s government, an election that was considered fraudulent. Believing Castro and his supporters to be of no threat, Batista released the prisoners in May 15, 1955, when Congress and Batista agreed an amnesty for the Moncada incident’s perpetrators would be good publicity. Returning to Havana, Castro was closely monitored by the government when he gave radio interviews and press conferences. By now, Castro was divorced and had affairs with two of his female supporters, Naty Revuelto and Maria Labordo, both resulting in a child between the ladies and Castro.
1955 brought bombings and violent demonstrations, involving Castro and his brother, leading both to evade arrest by fleeing the country. Castro left this letter with the press:
"leaving Cuba because all doors of peaceful struggle have been closed to me ... As a follower of Martí, I believe the hour has come to take our rights and not beg for them, to fight instead of pleading for them."
Guerilla War: 1956 – 1959
From a deeply forested mountain range, Sierra Maestra, Castro and his revolutionaries led attacks against Batista’s forces for nearly two years. Biographer is noted for quoting:
“there was ‘no better place to hide’ in all the island.”
Provisional Government: 1959
Castro announced provisional lawyer Manuelo Urrutio Lleo provisional president by popular election; most of Urrutio’s cabinet MR26-7 members. Castro proclaimed himself Representative of Rebel Armed Forces of the Presidency which gave him an influence over President Urrutio’s regime—which was ruled by decree.
We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it.
— Castro's response to his critics regarding the mass executions, 1959
Premiership
Consolidating Leadership: 1959 – 1960
Castro was sworn in in Prime Minister of Cuba on February 16, 1959. Instantly disliking President Richard Nixon when he visited the U.S. on a charm offensive later in April, Castro proceeded on to Canada, Trinidad, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina to attend an economic conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina with an unsuccessful attempt proposing an $30-million U.S.-funded Marshall Plan for Latin America. Castro then signed into law the First Agrarian Reform, which enabled landownings of 993 acres (402 ha) per landowners and prohibited foreigners from obtaining Cuban land ownership. As many as 200,000 peasants received land; many of whom were working class, despite the wealthy being alienated. Castro also appointed himself President of the National Tourist Industry, hoping to attract African-Americans to a tropical paradise that would be free of racial discrimination.
Castro’s government was based solely on social projects to improve Cuba’s standard of living which often detrimented economic development. With major emphasis put on education, it opened up more than 30 classrooms in 30 years previously during Castro’s first 30 months of government. This education system provided a work-study program with half spent in the classroom and the other half in a productive activity environment.
Castro also used the radio to develop “a dialogue with the people,” that posed questions and provocative statements with popular groups like workers, peasants and students that constituted the majority of the population. Opposition coming from much of the middle class comprised of doctors, engineers and other professionals, began fleeing to Florida in the U.S. causing an economic brain drain.
The 1960’s brought about a cold war between the U.S., a largely capitalist-liberalist democracy and the Soviet Union, a Marxist-Leninist socialist state that was ruled by the Communist Party. With contempt for the U.S., Castro shared the same ideological views of Marxist-Leninist states. In an agreement with First Deputy Premiere Anastas Mikoya, Castro agreed to provide the Soviet Union with sugars, fruit, fibers, and hides in return for crude oil, fertilizers, industrial goods, and an $100 million loan.
Relations between Cuba and the U.S. continued to be strained by the explosion of the French vessel, Le Coubre, in Havana Harbor in March 1960. Carrying weapons from Belgium, the cause of the explosion was never determined, but Castro suggested the U.S. government was behind the attack.
Bay of Pigs Invasion and “Socialist Cuba”: 1961 – 1962
There was... no doubt about who the victors were. Cuba's stature in the world soared to new heights, and Fidel's role as the adored and revered leader among ordinary Cuban people received a renewed boost. His popularity was greater than ever. In his own mind he had done what generations of Cubans had only fantasized about: he had taken on the United States and won.
— Peter Bourne, Castro biographer, 1986
January 1961, Castro reduced the U.S. Embassy’s staff, suspecting many to be spies. This actions prompted U.S. to end diplomatic relations and increase CIA funding with exiled dissidents which led to militant attacks on ships trading with Cuba and bombing many factories, sugar mills and shops. Both Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy aided an CIA-plan to a dissident militia, a Democratic Revolutionary front to overthrow the Cuban government resulting in the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961.
Cuban Missile Crisis and furthering socialism: 1962 – 1968
Kruschev, who was militarily weaker than NATO, wished to install Soviet R-12 MRBM missiles on Cuba in hopes that he would improve the power balance. Conflicted, Castro agreed hoping it would guarantee safety and improve the cause of socialism. The Cuban Missile Crisis began when the U.S. discovered through aerial reconnaissance in October and implemented an island-wide quarantine to look for missiles headed for Cuba.
The greatest threat presented by Castro's Cuba is as an example to other Latin American states which are beset by poverty, corruption, feudalism, and plutocratic exploitation ... his influence in Latin America might be overwhelming and irresistible if, with Soviet help, he could establish in Cuba a Communist utopia.
— Walter Lippmann, Newsweek, April 27, 1964
Economic Stagnation and Third World Politics: 1969 – 1974
As Castro’s tenth anniversary approached in January 1969, he warned of sugar rations, reflecting Cuba’s economic problems. Due to the 1969 crop being damaged by a hurricane, Cuba exported sugar to meet its needs, implementing a seven-day work week and postponing public holidays to lengthen the harvest.
Presidency
Foreign Wars and NAM Presidency: 1975 – 1979
Castro, who considered Africa to be the weakest link in the imperialistic chain, and along with the request of Angolan President Agostinho Neto, ordered 230 military advisers into Southern Africa in November 1975 to assist Neto’s Marxist MPLA in the Angola Civil War.
There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.
— Fidel Castro's message to the UN General Assembly, 1979
Reagan and Gorbachev: 1980 – 1989
The 1980’s brought about a decline in Cuba’s economy as a decrease in the market value of sugar and 1979’s harvest was decimated, causing the nation to send its youth to other countries, mainly East Germany, to work. This also prompted Cuba to sell paintings from national collections illicitly trade U.S. electronic goods with Panama in an attempt to get funds. Labeled “scum” and “lumpen” by Castro and his CDR supporters, several large numbers of Cubans fled for U.S. Florida where they were 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in attempt to gain asylum leading the U.S. to grant asylum to nearly 3,500 refugees.
1985 saw Mikhail Gorbachev becoming Secretary-General of the Communist Party where he implemented measures to increase freedom of the press (glasnost) and economic decentralization (perestroika) in hopes of strengthening socialism. But Castro feared this would weaken the socialist state and allow capitalist elements to regain control. But Gorbachev gave into U.S. demands to decrease support to Cuba which weakened Soviet-Cuban relations.
Special Period: 1900 – 2000
With favourable trade bloc ended, Castro declared Cuba was in a “Special Period in Time of Peace” where petrol relations dramatically reduced, Chinese bicycles were imported to replace cars, and factories were shut down that were non-essential. Oxen replaced tractors, firewood was used for cooking, along with electricity cuts lasting more than 16 hours a day. Cuba was facing its worst situation with open war and might have to resort to farming to meet its needs as a declining economy loomed with many facing major food shortages, widespread malnutrition, and a lack of basic goods by over 40% in under two years.
By 1991, Havana hosted the Pan American Games, and although an expensive error, was a huge success for Cuba.
We do not have a smidgen of capitalism or neo-liberalism. We are facing a world completely ruled by neo-liberalism and capitalism. This does not mean that we are going to surrender. It means that we have to adopt to the reality of that world. That is what we are doing, with great equanimity, without giving up our ideals, our goals. I ask you to have trust in what the government and party are doing. They are defending, to the last atom, socialist ideas, principles and goals.
— Fidel Castro explaining the reforms of the Special Period
Pink Tide: 2000 – 2006
Still facing economic problems, Cuba was helped by the election of socialist and anti-imperialist Hugo Chavez, to the Venezuelan presidency in 1999. As Castro and Chavez developed a close friendship with Castro acting as mentor/father-figure to Chavez, they formed an alliance that posed major implications in the Latin American world. This saw a Cuban-Venezuelan agreement with Cuba sending 20,000 medics to Venezuelan and in return sending Cuba 53,000 barrels of oil per day at preferential rate; later, Cuba sent 40,000 medics with the return of 90,000 barrels of oil in 2004.
Final Years
Stepping Down: 2006 – 2008
After undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding in July 2006, Castro delegated much of his presidential duties to Raul Castro. However, Raul announced Castro’s health was improving and was again taking part in important government issues.
U.S. President George W. Bush made this comment regarding Castro’s recovery:
"One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away".
To which Castro replied:
"Now I understand why I survived Bush's plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me."
On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly of the People’s Power uninamously elected Raul as president. However, Raul’s statement about Castro not be substitutable, suggested Castro continued to be consulted on important matters to which the 597 National Assembly supported.
Retirement: 2008 – 2016
Despite allegations that Castro had a condition called diverticulitis, the Cuban government declined to comment. Castro continued interactions with the public through his public column “Reflections” in Granma and his twitter account, and occasional public lectures.
Death
Castro’s brother announced in a short speech on Cuban national television Castro’s death at 22: 29 EST on November 25, 2016, following the death of older brother, Ramon in February.
Political Ideology
Castro claimed to be socialist, a Marxist, and a Leninist, making it public in December 1961. He hoped to transform Cuba from a capitalist society dominated by foreign imperialism to a socialist society to a communist society.
Personal and Public Life
Castro identified himself as egalitarian despising systems where one group of people lived better than the rest. Hoping for a system that provided the necessary basic needs for everyone—enough to eat, healthcare, education, and adequate housing.
Public Image
Political scientist Paul C. Sondrol’s characterization of Castro is one of quintessential totalitarian. His utopian functional role and public transformation in his utilization of power.
Family Image
Although some files have been scarce, it is reported that his first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart bore him Fidel Angel “Fidelito” Castro Diaz Balart in 1949. The couple divorced in 1955, where Mirta moved back to Spain, returning to Cuba to live with Fidelito. Fidelito, who grew up in Cuba, where he ran Cuba’s atomic energy commission before being removed by his father.
A daughter was born to Castro, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, by his mistress Natalia “Naty” Revuelta Clews. Alina left Cuba in 1933 disguised as a Spanish tourist where she sought asylum in the U.S., frequently criticized her father’s views. Another son by an unnamed woman, Jorge Angel Castro, as well as another daughter, Franisca Pupo (1953), the result of an one-night affair, Pupo and her husband now live in Florida. Castro was known for engaging in many affairs, some spefically selected when he visited foreign allies.
Five more sons were born to Castro by his second wife, Dalia Soto Del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander “Alex”, and Angel Castro Soto Del Valle.
A sister, Juanita Castro, who has been living in the U. S. since 1961, has opposed Castro’s regime.
Reception and Legacy
Within Cuba, Fidel's domination of every aspect of the government and the society remains total. His personal needs for absolute control seems to have changed little over the years. He remains committed to a disciplined society in which he is still determined to remake the Cuban national character, creating work-orientated, socially concerned individuals ... He wants to increase people's standard of living, the availability of material goods, and to import the latest technology. But the economic realities, despite rapid dramatic growth in the gross national product, severely limit what Cuba can buy on the world market.
— Peter Bourne, Castro Biographer, 1986
Historian and journalist Richard Gott has regarded Castro as "one of the most extraordinary political figures of the twentieth century", noting that he had become a "world hero in the mould of Garibaldi and developing the world according to his anti-imperialistic beliefs.
Castro is criticized by human rights activists organizations and Western World and largely depised by the U.S.
Source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro
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