Fidel Castro

I

Introduction

Fidel Castro, believed to be born in 1926, Cuba’s head of state from January 1959 until his resignation in February 2008. Fidel Castro claimed power in 1959 following the Cuban Revolution, an armed revolt that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He became prime minister of Cuba in 1961 and shortly thereafter canceled elections and suspended Cuba’s constitution. Castro continued to rule as prime minister without regard for the 1940 constitution until 1976, when the nation enacted a new constitution that allowed limited electoral participation by Cuban voters. Cuba’s National Assembly elected Castro president of the country in 1976, and he was subsequently reelected every five years. He resigned in February 2008 due to ill health and was succeeded by his brother Raúl Castro. However, Fidel remained the head of the Cuban Communist Party.

Castro declared himself a Communist in 1961 and began to transform Cuba into a socialist nation, inaugurating wide-ranging changes in the country’s social and economic systems. He instituted programs that dramatically increased the nation’s literacy rate and provided quality healthcare to almost all Cubans.

The socialist nature of Castro’s government sent many members of the elite and professional classes into exile. Government seizures of properties and business holdings, the suspension of elections, the militarization of society, control of the media, and the politicization of education convinced conservatives and moderates to seek exile in Spain, Mexico, France, and, primarily, the United States, particularly the state of Florida.

During the 1960s through the 1980s, Castro allied himself with the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); in addition, he supported revolutions of national liberation in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and became a leader among heads of state in nations that had recently won their freedom from colonial powers. Castro and his socialist government faced strong opposition from the United States, which formerly had been Cuba’s ally and main trading partner. United States businesses with holdings in Cuba opposed Castro’s seizure of their property, and many U.S. politicians saw Castro’s socialist policies and alliance with the USSR as a threat to the security of the United States.

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II

Childhood and Education

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on a sizable estate near Birán in Oriente Province. He was the third of seven children born to Angel Castro y Argiz, a Spanish immigrant, and Lina Ruz González, a household servant who later married Angel. Angel Castro was a self-made man whose fortune came from laying track for the sugar railway and transporting cane in oxcarts. He transported cane by oxcart from sugar fields to nearby processing mills, where it was converted into refined sugar. The railroad tracks he helped construct connected the sugar refineries to other rail lines in Cuba. Angel valued hard work and insisted that his sons demonstrate thrift and persistence.

Castro’s education began in the local public schools near the neighboring town of Mayarí, where his classmates were the children of laborers. Recognized for his scholastic talents, Castro was tutored and then enrolled in Santiago de Cuba’s La Salle School, which was run by French priests. At school, Castro was unruly and a fighter. He challenged the authority of the priests and vied for leadership among the students. Because of this behavior, his father sent him to the Dolores Colegio, a Catholic private school known for its tough discipline and high academic standards. There Castro learned the value of discipline and authority. While attending school in Santiago de Cubas, Castro witnessed U.S. soldiers’ behavior toward Cuban citizens, whom the Americans treated as inferiors, and he developed a strong aversion to U.S. influence in Cuban politics.

In 1940 Castro enrolled in the prestigious Belen Secondary School in Havana, where he competed with the children of Cuba’s elite for academic and social recognition. At Belen, Castro learned Cuban history and took as his hero José Martí, the father of Cuban independence from Spain. Castro also developed his athletic and oratory skills during his time at Belen.

III

Early Political Career

In 1945 Castro entered the University of Havana Law School, where he became involved in politics. At the university, politics centered around student political gangs, and Castro took part in the often violent confrontations among these gangs.

Castro’s political ideals matured as he committed himself to overthrowing President Ramón Grau San Martín, of the Auténtico Party, who had allowed corruption to grow in business and politics. Tired of university politics, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban People (the Ortodoxo Party), founded by Eduardo (Eddy) Chibás. The Ortodoxos publicly exposed government corruption and demanded reform. The party’s founding principles included building a strong sense of national identity among Cubans, opposing the influence of powerful foreign nations in Cuba’s affairs, supporting social justice, establishing economic independence for Cuba, and evenly distributing the nation’s wealth through government control of natural and economic resources.

Inspired by these values, Castro involved himself in three important activities. First, in 1947 he joined the Caribbean Legion, a group of political exiles from other Caribbean nations based in Cuba. With them, he took part in a failed effort to overthrow Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, by launching an invasion from Cuba.

When the Dominican coup attempt failed, Castro returned to Cuba to focus on his second crusade, the electoral defeat of the candidates of the Auténtico Party. Campaign activities were punctuated with violence, and amidst the furor, Castro’s firebrand speeches and effective political organization brought him early recognition, if not power, in the Ortodoxo Party.

In April 1948 Castro undertook the third formative activity in his early political career. He attended the Ninth Pan American Union conference, a student conference held in Bogotá, Colombia. The conference was organized by Argentine president Juan Perón to protest U.S. domination of the western hemisphere. Upon arriving in Bogotá, Castro and a friend, Rafael del Pino, disrupted the conference by showering astonished delegates with pamphlets condemning U.S. influence in Latin America. A few days later, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, and a man from whom the student rebels took council, was assassinated. The news of Gaitán’s death rocked Bogotá, and outraged students rioted in the streets.

Castro was later blamed for instigating the uprising, known as the Bogotazo, but he was little more than a spectator. His pamphleteering of the Pan American Union meeting has been cited as evidence that he was a Communist at that time. In truth, the Bogotazo proved a turning point in the development of Castro’s political thought. Because Gaitán’s commitment to reforming the political system through democratic means resulted in his death, Castro concluded that making changes through the electoral process could not succeed.

When Castro returned to Cuba, he threw himself into the presidential campaign of 1948, which pitted Carlos Prio Socarrás, a seasoned politician and member of the Auténtico Party, against Eddy Chibás, the leader of the Party of the Cuban People (called the Ortodoxo Party). Castro was cynical about Cuban electoral politics. He believed that elections were often rigged and that the United States controlled Cuban politicians, regardless of whether they were elected officials or dictators. As a result, Castro formed a radical branch of the Ortodoxo Party called the Radical Action Orthodox wing. This organization supported Chibás in the 1948 election. Prio Socarrás won the election, despite Castro’s efforts.

After Chibás committed suicide in 1951, Castro believed he should become the leader of the Ortodoxo Party and ran for a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives in the 1952 election. Before that election could occur, however, General Fulgencio Batista staged a bloodless coup d’etat and established a dictatorship that ended Castro’s chance to attain office legally. Castro’s cynicism hardened into rejection of electoral democracy, and he declared himself in favor of armed revolution.

IV

Rebel Leader

As dissatisfaction with Batista’s coup spread, Castro formed one of several underground organizations that plotted to overthrow Batista. Among the anti-Batista groups contributing to political destabilization were the Auténtico Party’s radical wing; Civic Resistance, a coalition of urban resistance groups that carried out acts of sabotage in the cities; and the National Revolutionary Movement, an anticommunist group that formed within the military. To stop the wave of popular rebellion, President Fulgencio Batista placed the armed forces on alert and dispatched secret police and informants to identify, torture, and kill organized dissidents.

On July 26, 1953, Castro and his supporters attacked Cuba’s second largest military base—the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Castro, his brother Raúl, and approximately 150 revolutionaries plotted to overrun the base, which was manned by 1000 trained soldiers. The rebels planned to seize the radio station at the base and announce the beginning of a guerrilla movement. They also intended to take weapons from the fort to use in their military campaign. Their mission failed badly. Over half of Castro’s band was captured, tortured, or killed. The martyrdom of the youthful revolutionaries had the unexpected effect of drawing attention to their heroism and generating sympathy for their cause. Castro’s guerrilla movement would be called the 26th of July Movement after the date of the assault on the barracks.

Castro and other conspirators survived the attack, but were captured. The prisoners went on trial from August to October of 1953 for conspiracy to overthrow the Cuban government. At his trial Castro countered the charge by attacking Batista’s illegitimate coup in what has become known as his “History Will Absolve Me” speech. He accused Batista of violating the democratic 1940 Constitution, of using terror and torture to suppress popular will, and of rejecting universal human rights guarantees. Castro declared that the young rebels stood for a return to democracy as established in the suspended 1940 Constitution, agrarian reform, the recovery of resources stolen by government officials and their friends, educational reform, profit sharing with laborers, and public housing provisions.

The court’s verdict was a foregone conclusion. Castro was found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the Batista government and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Castro served less than two years of his sentence. Prison afforded him time to read political philosophy, classical literature, history, and military strategy. His time in jail strengthened his will to change Cuba and shaped his ideas about the means of resistance.

In the 1954 national election, Batista ran unopposed because all major parties withdrew their candidates to protest his regime. While Castro was in jail, new militant operations formed: the Revolutionary Directorate, composed of university students, and the Second National Front of Escambray, composed of militant rural laborers. Both groups engaged in acts of sabotage, which Batista met with increasing violence. By 1955 Batista felt confident enough of his hold on power to grant a general amnesty for all political prisoners, including Castro.

In May 1955 Castro left prison. He soon departed for Mexico, where he trained and indoctrinated recruits in the ideals of social revolution. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine Marxist, joined Castro’s guerrilla band and added his ideals of an armed struggle based on the support of rural peasants to the movement’s ideological mix. After a year of preparation, Castro decided to take his guerrilla squadron to Cuba to begin a military campaign against Batista. In November 1956, Castro and 81 other men boarded the ship Granma and set sail for the southeastern coast of Cuba. Their plan was to form a revolutionary force in the Sierra Maestra, and to encourage a popular revolt. Batista's army met them at their landing at Playa Colorado, and only around a dozen men, including Castro, escaped arrest, torture, or prison.

In the Sierra Maestra, Castro established his military and political leadership. His tactics consisted of attacking small military units in order to capture weapons, gain territory, and impress the people with the strength of his revolutionary group. The rebels lived among Cuba’s rural peasantry who supported them with food, information, and sometimes shelter. Castro thus learned of the difficulties they faced. He promised that if he were successful, he would redistribute land to those who worked it, as well as provide free education and decent health care. While fighting in the mountains, the 26th of July Movement was bombed by U.S. planes. Castro’s troops escaped unharmed, but the peasants suffered serious casualties. Castro’s resolve to confront U.S. influence in Cuba hardened, and he pledged himself to support others around the world who were opposed to U.S. influence in their internal affairs.

During this time, Castro was only one of many leaders of the anti-Batista movement, and he was forced to compromise with other rebel leaders. However, he had one advantage—he had developed a clear ideological position, while other groups focused only on removing Batista.

By mid-1958 Batista’s government had lost most of its support in Cuba and abroad. The United States stopped the shipments of arms to the Cuban military, and Castro’s troops fanned out over the island. When guerrilla units led by the 26th of July Movement's Che Guevara attacked the city of Santa Clara in December 1958, Batista's forces crumbled. On January 1, 1959, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic, leaving Cuba without a leader or a consensus on governing principles.

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