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| Fidel Castro |
Fidel Castro was a political leader of Cuba who was
instrumental in making his country the first and only communist state in the
Western Hemisphere. His defiance against the USA and his rhetoric against her
had made him a known and controversial figure in the world. A small communist
state just right at its immediate doorstep was an affront to the United States
the world’s leading superpower and the bastion of democracy and capitalism. American
presidents in the past with the help of the CIA planned and made efforts to get
rid of Castro. They carried out a CIA orchestrated invasion by Cuban exiles on
Cuba, made assassination attempts on him, instigated counter revolutions and imposed
economic embargo on that nation, but all of them failed. Castro as Cuban
communist leader and dictator outlasted 10 US presidents.
The son of an affluent sugar cane plantation owner who was
an immigrant from the Galicia region of Spain, Fidel Castro was born on August
13, 1926 in Biran Oriente, Cuba. He studied in Catholic schools in his
childhood as well as in high school. Although he was just an average student in
terms of academic performance, he excelled in sports. In college, he enrolled
in law school at the University of Havana. It was there that he learned Marxist
Leninist ideology and embraced its ideals. In 1948, he married Mirta Diaz-Balart
who was a daughter of a wealthy landlord. Although that marriage had given him further
high economic and socially privileged status, Castro was nevertheless averse to
a bourgeois lifestyle.
Getting involved in politics, Castro ran for congressional seat
in his district, but his aspiration was cut short by a military coup d’état led
by General Fulgencio Batista. Castro challenged the legitimacy of the Batista
government through legal means, but his moves did not prosper. His frustrations
in his effort along with the highhandedness of the military regime prompted him
to go underground. He then organized a group in a plot to mount an armed rebellion
against Batista.
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| Castro (second from the left) was under investigation |
On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro, his brother Raul and 160 armed
followers, raided the Moncada barracks In Santiago. However, they were repelled
by its trained 600 soldiers. Sixty of Castro’s men were killed and he and Raul
were captured, jailed and tried in court. The court sentenced him and Raul to
15 years imprisonment. The pleadings of the Catholic Church and Batista’s grant
of political amnesty reduced the brothers’ sentence to just 2 years.
After their release from prison Fidel and Raul went to
Mexico where they organized the “26th of July Movement” with fellow
Cubans. They also met a group of people who were opposed to the dictatorial
governments in the Caribbean countries. It was there that Fidel met Ernesto
“Che” Guevara, an Argentinean doctor and a fellow Marxist-Leninist ideologue
who also became an iconic figure in Latin American Marxist revolutions. Sharing
same political views and revolutionary cause, Fidel and Che Guevara developed
close association with each other.
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| Fidel Castro (right) |
On December 26, 1956, Castro and the armed expedition of 81
young men of the “26th of July Movement” rebels landed on Cuban soil
from a yacht called Granma. However, the group was intercepted by the military
and as a result nearly everyone was killed and only Fidel, his brother Raul,
Che Guevara and nine others were able to escape and retreat to the mountains of
Sierra Maestra.
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| Fidel Castro (right) and Che Guevara |
Eluding capture, Fidel, Raul and Che Guevara continued with
their underground activities, drawing people to their cause and organizing them.
Their prime targets were the people in the hinterland villages. The group
gained many members and supporters especially the poor people in the remote
villages so that many areas eventually came under rebels’ influence and control.
In contrast, the military government of Fulgencio Batista was popular only to
the elites and the middle class but was detached to the poor and ordinary
people who composed the majority of the Cubans. As corruption, repression and
brutalities of the Batista regime continued the elites and the middle class
were also disillusioned with the regime and they too became sympathetic to the
rebels led by Castro. Even the United States was appalled by the excesses of
Batista and his soldiers so that she withdrew her support to them.
The bad economic and social situations in Cuba along with
the withdrawal of US support greatly weakened the government but strengthened
the Castro-led rebellion. Castro had slowly gained momentum in the armed
rebellion against the now highly demoralized government forces. The rebels who
were backed by the people gradually captured towns after towns until it
would just be a matter of time that they would take the whole country. With the
defeats suffered by his soldiers, General Batista was forced to flee Cuba on
July 1, 1959 bringing along with him millions of dollars in government money and
lived in exile in the Dominican Republic.
A provisional government was established with Manuel Urrutia
as president and Fidel Castro as the commander of the revolutionary army. In
July 1959, Castro effectively took over as the supreme leader. Calling himself
a moderate socialist at first, Castro implemented social and economic reforms
to improve the lives of the Cubans such as undertaking massive infrastructure
projects, providing free education and health care and implementing agrarian
reform. The US at first was hopeful that Castro would not take drastic moves
that would adversely affect her interest. However, in the long run, Castro
revealed his real socialistic and nationalistic tendencies by seizing and
nationalizing businesses and collectivizing farms including those owned by the
Americans. Castro also made an economic cooperation and partnership with USSR
that greatly worried the US. The Soviets and Cuba made a deal on which Cuban
sugar was traded for Russian oil on a generous terms to the latter. Castro then
demanded that American oil companies such as Shell, ESSO and Standard Oil
processed the imported Russian oil. When they refused, Castro expropriated
those companies. Castro’s actions and his continuous rhetoric against the US
resulted to sanctions such as abolition of quota on Cuban sugar in the US
market, prohibition of export to that country on specific goods and the severance
of diplomatic relation.
In order to protect what he perceived as the gains of his
revolution, Castro made drastic measures such as jailing political opponents,
curtailing free speech and the freedom of the press and using the military to
suppress dissents. Despite his dictatorial policies, majority of the Cubans
were still behind him. However, Castro’s
method of governance had disillusioned some Cubans especially those who
belonged to the upper classes of society as well as those who were adversely
affected with his social reforms. Those people at the height of the revolution
had switched their support from Batista to Castro. But now, they have regretted
casting their lot on him since he was as repressive and brutal as Batista.
While acceptable to most Cubans, Castro’s rule on the other hand resulted to
thousands of Cubans fleeing and immigrating to the United States and settling
in Florida.
Realizing that Castro was establishing a communist state
right near its doorstep, US made moves to deal with him. The economic embargo
was not effective enough since USSR was giving financial support to Cuba. With other
means in mind, US leadership ordered the CIA to make clandestine training of
Cuban exiles in Guatemala with a mission to invade Cuba and topple down Castro.
The invasion force called Brigade 2506 landed on the Bay of Pigs on April 17,
1961. This planned invasion was thwarted because it was intercepted by Castro’s
revolutionary forces. The failed invasion only strengthened Castro’s hold of
his government and increased his prestige in the world stage.
Believing that the US would not stop in its effort to
eliminate him, Castro allowed USSR to deploy ballistic missiles with range
capable of reaching major US cities in Cuba as a deterrent to another US
invasion or attack. When he knew it, US President John F. Kennedy was very
furious and considered that move as an act of aggression by USSR and Cuba. In
retaliation the US imposed a naval quarantine around Cuba to prevent Soviet
ships carrying nuclear missiles and other weapons or delicate materials from
entering Cuba. The situation brought the world to the brink of nuclear war
between the two of the world’s superpowers. The highly dangerous conflict was
defused when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sensibly accepted US terms of
stopping the naval blockade in return for USSR’s taking away all its ballistic
missiles in Cuba. In addition US should pull out its nuclear missiles in Turkey
and Italy and secretly pledged with the Soviet premier not to invade Cuba in
the future. The deal reached by the two superpowers made the world breathe a
sigh of relief because a potential nuclear war or a third world war was averted.
Despite Cuba’s isolation to many western countries and the
economic embargo imposed by the US, Castro still made progress in his social
and economic endeavors for his country. He built massive public
infrastructures, implemented agrarian reforms, provided socialized housing and gave
free education and health care to all Cubans. Under his watch Cuba has the
highest number of doctors per capita in Latin America. There is however
perennial shortage of food and lack of personal freedom. Cuba was able to get
by with the help of the Soviets which always gave it generous financial deals.
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| An iconic photo of Che Guevara |
Like most communist leaders and ideologues, Fidel Castro
believed that Marxist ideals to attain a utopian society should be spread
throughout the world through armed or unarmed struggle. In this regard, his
co-revolutionary and Marxist friend Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia in 1967
while operating there to lay the groundwork for a communist insurgency.
Exporting his revolution, Castro sent Cuban forces to different parts of the
world to help Marxist inspired rebellions and he also extended help to
countries that are just allied with Cuba and USSR. As proxies to the Soviets,
Cuban troops went to Angola, Grenada and Ethiopia to help those countries win
armed conflicts. Cuba along with China, North Korea and other countries gave
assistance to North Viet Nam during the Viet Nam War. Castro's leadership
standing and prestige among the leaders of third world countries catapulted him
to a position as a head of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) from 1979 to 1982.
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| Fidel Castro at the UN |
The collapse and disintegration of USSR in 1991 was a big
blow to Cuba since it also meant that the former could no longer sustain its
financial subsidy that was provided to the latter. And there was also the US
economic embargo which was still in effect. But somehow Cuba was able to stave
off economic collapse by furthering its economic ties with such countries such
as Canada, China, Venezuela and others. Cuba also opened its door to the tourism industry
which replaced sugar as its biggest money earner.
With the passing of years, ill health, and old age have
finally caught up with Fidel Castro. Now physically weak, he temporarily handed
down powers to his younger brother Raul in July 2006. On February 19, 2008,
Fidel Castro announced he would no longer seek another term as president. Although
no longer at the helm, he was still consulted by Raul and other high Cuban
officials on issues of high importance. Several years after Fidel’s
resignation, a significant development occurred between Cuba and the United
States. President Barrack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro re-established
the diplomatic ties between their two countries. It was a major milestone that
may in the future lead to the lifting of the economic embargo against the
island nation. In the present it will not happen since the republican
controlled congress will not grant that reward to a country with serious human
rights issues.
Although Cubans still wanted to see him get involved in the
affairs of the government, Fidel Castro faded from the public view because of
his failing health. On November 25, 2016, the Cuban State television network
announced that Fidel Castro had died. Like most dictators, Castro was a divisive
figure in his country. Many of his countrymen mourned his passing away, while
on the other hand Cubans who were opposed to him, especially those in exiles in
Florida were glad that the leader who symbolized the violation of civil
liberties in Cuba was finally gone.
Fidel Castro will be remembered in history as the leader of
a poor, small country who defied a super power and got away with it. Some people
may not share his communist ideals, but many others will agree that he was an
extraordinary strong, decisive leader with a charismatic personality who had
the courage of his convictions to fight for the cause he believed in. In his
lifetime his actions as a leader had profound impact on USSR and USA which had also
somehow affected the lives of many people in the world.
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