I.

Introduction

Fidel Castro (c. 1926- ), Cuban statesman and revolutionary, who was leader of Cuba between 1959 and 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 cancelled elections and suspended Cuba’s constitution. Castro ruled without regard for Cuba’s 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, a position he retained until illness forced him to retire in 2008.

Castro transformed Cuba into a socialist nation, inaugurating wide-ranging changes in the country’s social and economic systems. He instituted programmes that dramatically increased the nation’s literacy rate and provided quality health care 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 many conservatives and moderates to seek exile in Spain, Mexico, France, and, primarily, in the United States.

During the Cold War, Castro allied himself with the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); in addition, he supported revolutions of national liberation in Latin America and Africa. Castro and his socialist government faced strong opposition from the United States, which had formerly been Cuba’s ally and main trading partner. United States businesses with holdings in Cuba opposed Castro’s seizure of their property and many US politicians saw Castro’s socialist policies and alliance with the USSR as a threat to the security of the United States.

II.

Education and Early Political Career

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on a sizable estate near Birán in Oriente Province, the third of seven children born to Spanish immigrant parents. Castro’s education began in the local public schools near the neighbouring town of Mayarí. Recognized for his scholastic talents, Castro was privately tutored and then enrolled in La Salle School in Santiago de Cuba, which was run by French priests. He later attended the Dolores Colegio, a Catholic private school known for its tough discipline and high academic standards. In 1940 Castro enrolled in the prestigious Belen Secondary School in Havana, where he learned Cuban history and about José Martí, the father of Cuban independence from Spain. Castro also developed his athletic and oratorical skills during his time at Belen.

In 1945 Castro entered the University of Havana Law School, where he became involved in politics. He joined the Party of the Cuban People (the Ortodoxo Party), which publicly exposed corruption in the government of President Ramón Grau San Martín 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. His speeches, effective political organization, and other activities brought him early recognition, if not power, in the party.

In 1947 Castro 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. In April 1948 he attended the Ninth Pan American Union conference, a student conference held in Bogotá, Colombia. Upon arriving in Bogotá, Castro and a friend, Rafael del Pino, disrupted the conference by showering delegates with pamphlets condemning US influence in Latin America. A few days later, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, was assassinated, 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. However, the assassination of Gaitán proved a turning point in the development of Castro’s political thought and he concluded that making changes through the electoral process could not succeed. When Batista instigated a bloodless coup d’état in Cuba and established a dictatorship in 1952, it ended Castro’s chance to attain office legally. Castro’s cynicism hardened into rejection of electoral democracy, and he declared himself in favour of armed revolution.

III.

Rebel Leader

As dissatisfaction with Batista’s coup spread, Castro formed one of several underground organizations that plotted to overthrow him. 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 1,000 trained soldiers. Their mission failed badly, with over half of Castro’s band captured 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 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, for agrarian reform, the recovery of resources stolen by government officials and their friends, educational reform, profit sharing with workers, and public housing provisions. Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

By 1955, Batista felt confident enough of his hold on power to grant a general amnesty for all political prisoners, and Castro was released after only two years. He 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. In November 1956, Castro and 81 other men boarded the ship Granma and set sail for the south-eastern 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. By mid-1958 Batista’s government had lost most of its support in Cuba and abroad. When guerrilla units led by 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 leaderless.

IV.

National Leader

Castro stepped into this vacuum, claiming total authority for himself and his movement. His political ideals set out in his “History Will Absolve Me” speech, and his dominant personal charisma, overpowered other rebel groups. His rhetoric and youth promised a break with the corrupt past. Millions of Cubans pledged themselves to the revolution .

A.

Domestic Policy

Castro became the head of the Cuban Armed Forces and brought before the politically moderate Cabinet sweeping reforms. During Castro’s first nine months in office, approximately 1,500 decrees, laws, and edicts were passed. Among the most important acts were the Agrarian Reform Law and the Urban Reform Law, both passed in 1959. These laws broke up large property holdings and redistributed them to the poor. Castro became prime minister in February 1959, following the resignation of Prime Minister Miró Cardona. At this point moderate Cabinet ministers and officials began leaving the government. In May 1961 Castro cancelled promised elections and declared the Constitution of 1940 outdated. In December he announced that Cuba would become a socialist nation.

Transforming Cuba into a socialist nation required a reorientation of values. To address this need, Castro and Che Guevara developed the New Man theory, which called for the development of a new type of citizen who would regard work not as a means of personal enrichment, but as a commitment to social change. This theory held that Cubans would no longer work for personal profit, but for the good of all people. Income and benefits, such as education and medical services, were to be evenly distributed. Under the new political structure, government agencies represented people, and political parties were dissolved. The state controlled the press, and neighbourhood watch groups checked for ideological purity. People advanced at work and in government according to their loyalty to Castro. Castro and Guevara also drew up a plan to export revolution around the world.

Although Castro advanced his political agenda, his economic plans failed. He wanted to diversify the economy, which had been heavily dependent on agricultural production. Castro devoted the first four years of the revolution to promoting the growth of Cuban industry that produced previously imported goods. However, Cuban products were impractical and of poor quality. At the same time, traditional agricultural production declined, and sugar output, upon which the economy depended, fell nearly 50 per cent.

In 1965 Castro reversed the economic plan and focused the economy again on agricultural production and the export of a few primary products. The focus on sugar production took on monumental proportions in 1969 and 1970, when Castro announced the goal of a 10-million tonne sugar harvest. Like the earlier industrial plan, the sugar harvest of 1970 failed to reach its target, drawing in only 8.5 million tonnes. This failure cost Cuba’s ally, the USSR, billions of dollars in financial aid. After 1970 the Soviets required Cuba to develop five-year and ten-year economic plans and to introduce a professional bureaucracy. The influx of Soviet financial aid helped the Cuban economy to recover during the 1970s, but it also made Cuba economically dependent on the USSR.

Although Castro had to agree to the USSR’s demands for economic planning, he insisted on charting his own course for political developments in Cuba. He deviated from the centrally controlled Soviet model by allowing some democratic participation in government through the Popular People’s Power movement inaugurated in 1976. This movement allowed voters to elect candidates approved by the Communist Party to serve in local government posts. These local party members in turn elected representatives to provincial and national assemblies, which would supervise government activities at the regional and national levels. Also in 1976, the newly elected National Assembly of People’s Power created the president of the State Council, which combined the functions of head of government, head of state, and commander of the armed forces. The assembly elected Castro to fill the post.

From 1975 to 1985, Castro allowed small-scale and individual capitalist enterprise by permitting private farmers to market their excess agricultural produce. In 1986, however, he reversed himself and again prohibited private sales, on the grounds that such capitalist policies disturbed the even distribution of wealth. Individuals and government officials who had profited too much from private trade were arrested and fined. Policy reversals such as these sent ripples of discontent throughout the island.

B.

Foreign Policy

Castro’s opposition to US influence in Cuba and other parts of the world made conflict between the two nations inevitable. Tensions escalated as Castro began seizing US businesses in Cuba; between 1959 and 1962, approximately 200,000 people who opposed Castro’s political leadership emigrated to the United States, Spain, and Mexico. In 1960 the United States placed a partial trade embargo on Cuba, prohibiting the importation of all items except food and medical supplies. The United States also suspended diplomatic relations and began arming and training Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba.

On April 17, 1961, approximately 1,500 Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba. These exiles, who were backed by the United States and trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, intended to raise a counter-revolution. The invasion failed, and most Cubans rallied behind Castro, consolidating his power.

Stunned by the defeat at the Bay of Pigs, the United States deployed Operation Mongoose, an effort to destroy Castro from within Cuba and through military invasion. Agents working for the US government made a number of unsuccessful attempts to assassinate or discredit Castro. A US invasion of Cuba never materialized, largely because of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. This crisis developed after Castro secretly accepted Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles with the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead to most major cities in the United States. After three tense weeks of negotiation, the superpowers agreed that the USSR would remove the missiles, while the United States promised never to invade Cuba. Castro was not consulted about the agreement, which infuriated him, but it did free Cuba from the threat of US military intervention. As a result, Castro was able to develop the economic and social policies promised by his revolution.

Castro chose international confrontation with the United States as his defining international principle. Confident of Soviet support, Castro allied himself with revolutionary groups throughout the world. In Africa he sent aid and later soldiers to various nations, beginning with Ghana in 1961, Algeria in 1962, and Angola in 1965. What began as small military missions to support the socialist Popular Movement of Liberation in Angola (MPLA) escalated into a full-fledged war that the rebels eventually won. Winning the Angolan conflict resulted in the world’s recognition of Cuba as a significant international military power.

Castro also involved Cuba in revolution in the western hemisphere. In 1967, Che Guevara went to Bolivia to initiate another revolution, but the Bolivian army captured and executed him within the year. In Nicaragua, Castro committed as many as 5,000 military advisers, medical technicians, teachers, and agricultural experts to aid the victorious Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1979 (see Nicaraguan Revolution). After insurrection began in El Salvador in 1979, Cuba and the USSR shipped arms to El Salvador’s Faribundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and Castro provided a haven for revolutionary planners.

C.

The Post-Cold War Years

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 left Cuba without its major economic and military ally. With the United States still enforcing a blockade on trade with Cuba, the loss of Soviet financial aid and trade threatened economic collapse. Castro declared a “Special Period in a Time of Peace”, which meant strict rationing, shortages, and required “voluntary” labour. Castro told Cubans that he had no solution for the crisis, but vowed that he would never surrender to American capitalism.

As the economic crisis deepened in 1992 and 1993, Castro reluctantly allowed foreign investments in specific economic sectors, such as tourism, biotechnology, and telecommunications. While the economy appeared to diversify, domestic economic scarcity led to an active black market, through which international products, including American goods, flowed. In 1993, in an attempt to stop spiralling inflation, Castro allowed Cubans to use foreign currency—including US dollars—that could be exchanged on global markets. These decisions destroyed the social and economic equality that the revolution had established. Cubans with access to US currency—obtained through jobs in the tourism industry or gifts from relatives overseas—attained a higher standard of living than other Cubans. Between 1989 and 1994 the Cuban economy shrank by 40 per cent, and some Cubans set out for the United States on rafts, swelling the Cuban exile community, in Miami in particular.

Relations with the United States remained central to Castro’s politics and Cuba’s future. When Cuban fighters shot down two US civilian aircraft belonging to Cuban exiles in February 1996, the US Congress passed the internationally controversial Helms-Burton bill allowing legal action in US courts against any company trading in nationalized Cuban property or assets. In January 1998, Castro welcomed a visit by Pope John Paul II to Cuba, but the Pope used the occasion to criticize heavily the Castro regime in Cuba, though also condemning the US embargo as a violation of human rights. Hopes for the easing of US sanctions against Cuba raised by the US Senate in August 1999 were overshadowed by the Elian Gonzalez affair during the first half of 2000. Castro led the Cuban response in the legal and political tussle to have the shipwrecked six-year-old boy returned from his exiled family in Miami to his father in Cuba.

Castro condemned the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, although he drew common cause with President Hugo Chávez Frías of Venezuela in criticizing the launch of military action against Afghanistan. Castro allowed the US military to use its base in Guantánamo Bay to hold Al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. Slowly improving economic conditions, funded in large part by Venezuelan oil, led Castro to reverse many of his previous market-oriented reforms of the early 1990s. In March 2003, in what was one of the largest crackdowns upon opposition during his rule, 78 dissidents were arrested and imprisoned following show trials.

D.

After Castro

Castro held tenaciously to power throughout his career. Ironically, his best ally may have been the United States who firstly through attempting to overthrow him, and later through economic sanctions, stoked Cuban nationalism. This pressure caused would-be Cuban dissidents to stand behind a leader whose failures they found less distasteful than the tactics of the United States. “I love power, and I am the revolution,” said Castro in 1987, a sentiment that echoed in his unwillingness to plan for his departure from office. Finally, ill health achieved what sanctions could not: in August 2006, following an operation for intestinal bleeding, Castro “temporarily” handed over power to the defence minister, his brother Raúl. Raúl was officially elected president by the National Assembly after Fidel formally retired from his role as president in February 2008.