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| Fidel Castro (1926-2016) |
Cuban
leader Fidel Castro established the first communist state in the
Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of
Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He ruled over Cuba for nearly five decades, until
handing off power to his younger brother Raúl in 2008. During that time,
Castro’s regime was successful in reducing illiteracy, stamping out racism and
improving public health care, but was widely criticized for stifling economic
and political freedoms. Castro’s Cuba also had a highly antagonistic
relationship with the United States–most notably resulting in the Bay of Pigs
invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The two nations officially normalized
relations in July 2015, ending a trade embargo that had been in place since 1960,
when U.S.-owned businesses in Cuba were nationalized without compensation.
Castro died on November 25, 2016, at 90.
Fidel Castro: Early
Years
Castro
was born on August 13, 1926, in Birán, a small town in eastern Cuba. His father
was a wealthy Spanish sugarcane farmer who first came to the island during the
Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898); his mother was a domestic servant for
his father’s family who bore him out of wedlock. After attending a couple of
Jesuit schools–including the Colegio de Belén, where he excelled at
baseball–Castro enrolled as a law student at the University of Havana. While
there, he became interested in politics, joining the anti-corruption Orthodox
Party and participating in an aborted coup attempt against the brutal Dominican
Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.
Did You Know?
In addition to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States made
several failed attempts on Fidel Castro's life, including poisoning his cigars
with Botox.
In 1950, Castro graduated from the
University of Havana and opened a law office. Two years later, he ran for
election to the Cuban House of Representatives. The election never happened,
however, because Batista seized power that March. Castro responded by planning
a popular uprising. “From that moment on, I had a clear idea of the struggle
ahead,” he said in a 2006 “spoken autobiography.”
Castro’s Revolution
Begins
In July 1953, Castro led about 120 men in an attack on
the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The assault failed, Castro was
captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and many of his men were killed.
The U.S.-backed Batista, looking to improve his authoritarian image,
subsequently released Castro in 1955 as part of a general amnesty. Castro ended
up in Mexico, where he met fellow revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and
plotted his return.
The following year, Castro and 81
other men sailed on the yacht “Granma” to the eastern coast of Cuba, where
government forces immediately ambushed them. The estimated 18 survivors,
including Castro, his brother Raúl and Guevara, fled deep into the SierraMaestra Mountains in southeastern Cuba with virtually no weapons or supplies.
According to Castro, the
revolutionaries started reorganizing with only two rifles,. But by early 1957
they were already attracting recruits and winning small battles against Rural
Guard patrols. “We’d take out the men in front, attack the center, and then
ambush the rear when it started retreating, in the terrain we’d chosen,” Castro
said in his spoken autobiography. In 1958, Batista tried to snuff out the
uprising with a massive offensive, complete with air force bombers and naval
offshore units. The guerrillas held their ground, launched a counterattack and
wrested control from Batista on January 1, 1959. Castro arrived in Havana a
week later and soon took over as prime minister. At the same time,
revolutionary tribunals began trying and executing members of the old regime
for alleged war crimes.
Castro’s Rule
In 1960, Castro nationalized all
U.S.-owned businesses, including oil refineries, factories and casinos. This
prompted the United States to end diplomatic relations and impose a trade
embargo that still stands today. Meanwhile, in April 1961, about 1,400 Cuban exiles
trained and funded by the CIA landed near the Bay of Pigs with the intent of
overthrowing Castro. Their plans ended in disaster, however, partially because
a first wave of bombers missed their targets and a second air strike was called
off. Ultimately, more than 100 exiles were killed and nearly everyone else was
captured. In December 1962, Castro freed them in exchange for medical supplies
and baby food worth about $52 million.
Castro publicly declared himself a
Marxist - Leninist in late 1961. By that time, Cuba was becoming increasingly
dependent on the Soviet Union for economic and military support. In October
1962, the United States discovered that nuclear missiles had been stationed
there, just 90 miles from Florida, setting off fears of a World War III. After
a 13-day standoff, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the
nukes against the wishes of Castro, who was left out of the negotiations. In
return, U.S. President John F. Kennedy publicly consented not to reinvade Cuba
and privately consented to take American nuclear weapons out of Turkey.
Cuban Life under
Castro
After taking power, Castro abolished
legal discrimination, brought electricity to the countryside, provided for full
employment and advanced the causes of education and health care, in part by
building new schools and medical facilities. But he also closed down opposition
newspapers, jailed thousands of political opponents and made no move toward
elections. Moreover, he limited the amount of land a person could own, abolished
private business and presided over housing and consumer goods shortages. With
political and economic options so limited, hundreds of thousands of Cubans,
including vast numbers of professionals and technicians, left Cuba, often for
the United States.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Castro
supplied military and financial aid to various leftist guerrilla movements in
Latin America and Africa. Nonetheless, relations with many countries, with the
notable exception of the United States, began to normalize. Cuba’s economy
foundered when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s and the United
States expanded sanctions even further. Yet Castro, who by this time had
switched his title from prime minister to president, found new trading partners
and was able to cling to power until 2006, when he temporarily gave control of
the government to Raúl after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery. Two years
later, in 2008, he permanently resigned.
In 2015, U.S. and Cuban officials
announced they had agreed to terms on the normalization of relations between
the two nations, with mutual embassies and diplomatic missions opening in each
country.
Castro died on November 25, 2016, at
the age of 90. His death was announced on state television and later
confirmed by his brother Raúl. Castro will be laid to rest in the city of
Santiago de Cuba.
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