Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Spanish: [fiˈðel ˈkastro]; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban politician, socialist revolutionary, and former political leader of the country.[1] As the primary leader of the Cuban Revolution, Castro served as the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then as the President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008. He served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011. In 2006, he was succeeded by his younger brother, Raúl Castro, who is the current President of the Councils of State and Ministers, and who previously served under Fidel as Minister of Defence from 1959 to 2008.
While studying law at the University of Havana, he began his political career and became a recognized figure in Cuban politics.[2] His political career continued with nationalist critiques of the president, Fulgencio Batista, and of the United States' political and corporate influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities.[3] He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated, and later released. He then traveled to Mexico[4][5] to organize and train for an invasion of Cuba to overthrow Batista's government, which began in December 1956.
Castro subsequently came to power as a result of the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the US-backed[6] dictatorship of Batista,[7] and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba.[8] In 1965 he became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1976 he became President of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also held the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban armed forces.
Following intestinal surgery from an undisclosed digestive illness believed to have been diverticulitis,[9] Castro transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro, on July 31, 2006. On February 19, 2008, five days before his mandate was to expire, he announced he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief.[10][11] On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly elected Raúl Castro to succeed him as the President of Cuba.[12] Castro is currently most active in commenting on world affairs, commonly in the form of his regularly published Reflections, articles offering his view on world events from US foreign policy to global warming.[13]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
1.1 Childhood and education: 1927–1945
1.2 University and political involvement: 1945-1948
1.3 Marriage and employement: 1948-1952
2 Cuban Revolution
2.1 Attack on Moncada Barracks
2.2 July 26 Movement
2.3 Operation Verano
2.4 Battle of Yaguajay
2.5 Collapse of the Batista regime
2.6 New government
2.7 Castro consolidates power
3 Years in power
3.1 Bay of Pigs Invasion
3.2 Reaction: the socialist state
3.3 Cuban Missile Crisis
3.4 Assassination attempts
3.5 United States embargo
3.6 Foreign relations
3.6.1 Soviet Union
3.6.2 Other countries
4 Religious beliefs
5 Succession issues
5.1 Speculation on illness 1998–2005
5.2 Transfer of duties, speculation on illness 2006–2007
5.3 Retirement
6 Public image
7 Personal life
8 Controversy and criticism
8.1 Human rights record
8.2 Allegations of mismanagement
8.3 Allegations of wealth
9 Authored works
10 See also
11 References
11.1 Footnotes
11.2 Bibliography
12 Further reading
13 External links
Early life
Childhood and education: 1927–1945
A letter written by the 12-year-old Castro, learning English, to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt — "My good friend Roosevelt." In the letter Castro expresses his joy at Roosevelt's re-election, states his age as "twelve years old" and writes, "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill," signing the letter, "Thank you very much. Good by [sic]. Your friend, Fidel Castro."[14]
Fidel's father, Ángel Castro y Argiz (1875-1956) was a Spaniard born to a poor peasant family in rural Galicia, north-west Spain. Working as a manual labourer on local farms, in 1895 he was conscripted into the Spanish army to fight in the Cuban War of Independence against the Cuban forces who wished to cede from the Spanish Empire. The United States subsequently declared war on Spain, leading to the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the U.S. seized control of Cuba from Spain, setting up their own American government on the island. In 1902, the Republic of Cuba was proclaimed, however it remained only partially independent of the U.S., who remained economically and politically dominant over it. For a time, Cuba enjoyed economic growth, and Ángel Castro decided to migrate there permanently in search of employment.[15][16][17] Doing so, he undertook various jobs, eventually earning enough money to set up his own business growing sugar cane on a farm in Birán, near Mayarí in Oriente Province.[18][16][17]
Ángel took a wife, María Luisa Argota, with whom he had two daughters, but they separated after several years and he began a relationship with a household servant who was thirty years his junior.[19][20] This woman, Lina Ruz González (September 23, 1903 – August 6, 1963),[21] came from an impoverished Cuban family of Canarian descent, but became Ángel's domestic partner, bearing him three sons and four daughters.[19][22][23]
Fidel was Lina's third child, being born at his father's farm on 13 August 1927,[19][24][25] and was given his mother's surname of Ruz rather than his father's because he had been born out of wedlock, something that carried a particular social stigma at the time.[26][27] Although he was from a prosperous background, with his father's business proving ever more profitable, his father ensured that he grew up alongside the children of the farm's workforce, many of whom were Haitian economic migrants of African descent,[28][20] something that Fidel would later relate prevented him from absorbing "bourgeois culture" at an early age.[29] Aged six, Fidel, along with his elder siblings Ramón and Angela, was sent to live with their teacher in Santiago de Cuba, and it was here that the children dwelt in cramped conditions and in relative poverty, often failing to have enough to eat because of their tutor's poor economic situation.[30][31] Aged eight, Fidel was then baptized into the Roman Catholic Church (something usually performed soon after birth), although later gave up his faith in Christianity, becoming an atheist.[30][32] Being baptised enabled Fidel to begin attending the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, but here he often got into trouble with the school authorities for misbehaviour, and so he was instead sent to the privately-funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago.[33][34]
In 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana, although to get in he had to pretend to be a year older than he was; his father bribed an administrator to supply him with a fake birth certificate stating that he was born in 1926 rather than 1927.[35] Although Fidel took an interest in history and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sport, including swimming, mountain climbing, table tennis, athletics, basketball and baseball.[36] There are persistent rumors, but no evidence, that Castro was scouted for various U.S. baseball teams.[37][38] Meanwhile, Ángel Castro finally dissolved his first marriage when Fidel was fifteen, allowing him to marry Fidel's mother; Fidel was formally recognized by his father when he was seventeen, when his surname was legally changed from Ruz to Castro.[26][27]
University and political involvement: 1945-1948
Grau and Batista, two Cuban presidents whose administrations were marked by corruption and political repression. Castro protested against both of them as a student.
In late 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana.[39] He became immediately embroiled in the student protest movement, which in Cuba at that time was particularly volatile: under the regime of Cuban President Gerardo Machado, which had lasted until 1933, there had been a government crackdown on student protesters, with student leaders being killed or terrorised by violent gangs.[39][40] Meanwhile, in 1940, Fulgencio Batista was elected president of Cuba, largely based upon his reputation for opposing the Machado administration and the United States government which had fervently supported it. He implemented agrarian reform, voting rights for women, minimum wages and working hours and increased rights for trade unions, moves which concerned the U.S. government, which considered them to be "communistic" and a threat to American economic interests in the country. In 1944, Batista stood for election again, but was defeated by Ramón Grau, himself a veteran of the anti-Machado student movement.[41]
Despite this, Grau continued with Machado's policy of employing armed gangs to terrorise student protesters, leading to a form of gangsterismo culture within the university that was dominated by a variety of violent and often armed student groups who spent much of their time fighting one another and running criminal enterprises rather than opposing the government.[42] Castro, believing that the gangs posed a physical threat to his university aspirations, experienced what he later described as "a great moment of decision."[43] Becoming surrounded by this gang culture, Castro focused on political objectives, unsuccesfully campaigning for the position of President of the Federation of University Students (FEU). To do so he put forward a platform of "honesty, decency and justice" and emphasised his opposition to political corruption, something that he increasingly associated with the involvement of the U.S. government in Cuban politics.[44] He became passionate about anti-imperialism and opposing American intervention in the Carribbean, joining the University Committee for the Independence of Puerto Rico and the Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic.[45]
He was in contact with members of several different student leftist groups at the time, including the Cuban Communist Party, the Socialist Revolutionary Movement (MAR) and the Insurrectional Revolutionary Union (UIR), although did not adopt the Marxist or communist ideas of the former and mistrusted some of MAR's connections to the Grau government. Castro himself had become highly critical of the corruption and violence of Grau's regime, delivering a public speech on the subject in November 1946 that earned him a place on the front page of several newspapers. Instead, it was to the UIR that he grew closest to, although whether he ever became a member or not has remained unknown.[46] In 1947, Castro joined a newly founded socialist party, the Partido Ortodoxo, which had been formed by veteran politician Eduardo Chibás. A charismatic figure, Chibás attracted many Cubans with his message of social justice, honest government, and political freedom.[47][48] The Partido Ortodoxo publicly exposed corruption and demanded government and social reform. Though Chibás lost the election, Castro, considering Chibás his mentor, remained committed to his cause, working fervently on his behalf. In 1951, while running for president again, Chibás shot himself in the stomach during a radio broadcast. Castro was present and accompanied him to the hospital where he died.[49]
Meanwhile, the student gang violence had escalated after Grau had given several prominent gang leaders, including members of the MAR, positions in the police force, and Castro soon received a threat urging him to either leave the university and its political arena or be killed. He did not give in to the threat, instead going around armed with a gun and surrounded by friends and allies who were similarly carrying weapons.[50] Various accusations would arise in later years alleging that Castro carried out gang-related assasination attempts at this time, including of prominent UIR member Lionel Gómez, but these have remained unproven.[51] He was to be implicated in a number of shootings linked to Rolando Masferrer's MSR action group. Rivalries were so intense that Castro apparently collaborated in an attempt on Masferrer's life during this period,[43] while Masferrer, whose paramilitary group Les Tigres later became an instrument of state violence under Batista,[52] perennially hunted the younger student seeking violent retribution.[53]
During 1948, Castro was twice linked to political assassinations.[2] He was suspected of Manolo Castro's assassination that took place on February 22.[2] This was soon followed on June 6 by the assassination of the university policeman Oscar Fernandez, who was killed in front of his home; as he lay dying, he allegedly identified Castro as his killer, as did several other witnesses, although Castro himself was never put on trial for the incident.[2] In 1948, Castro joined an anti-American demonstration trip to Bogotá, Colombia, paid by Argentine army colonel and President Juan Perón.[2] Castro joined mob violence and property destruction, and later sought refuge in the Argentine embassy.[2]
Marriage and employement: 1948-1952
In 1948, Castro married Mirta Díaz Balart, a student from a wealthy Cuban family through which he was exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite. Mirta's father gave them tens of thousands to spend in a three-month honeymoon in New York.[54] Castro also received a US$1,000 wedding gift from Fulgencio Batista, the ex-President who was a friend of both families.[2][54] Although Castro considered enrolling at Columbia University, a private university in Manhattan, he returned to Cuba to complete his degree.[2]
Castro started to have money problems. He refused to find work and others had to pay the family's bills.[2][54] The relationship with his wife was also strained. In 1950 he graduated from law school with a Doctor of Laws degree and began practicing law in a small partnership in Havana.[54] By now he had become well known for his passionately nationalist views and his intense opposition to the United States. Castro spoke publicly against the United States involvement in defending South Korea in the Korean War.[2]
In 1951, Fidel Castro said to Batista "I don't see an important book here". When Batista asked which, Castro replied "Curzio Malaparte's The Technique of the Coup d'état".[54] According to Rafael Diaz-Ballart, Fidel Castro realized that Batista was not a "revolutionary" leader anymore, even though both looked at each other with admiration.[54]
Increasingly interested in a career in politics, Castro had become a candidate for a seat in the Cuban parliament in the 1952 elections when former president, General Fulgencio Batista, ousted President Carlos Prío Socarrás in a coup d'état, cancelled the elections and assumed government as "provisional president". Batista was supported by establishment elements of Cuban society, powerful Cuban agencies, and labor unions.[citation needed]
