Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926 in Birán, the former Cuban province of Oriente. His father, Ángel Castro Argiz, son of poor peasants from Galicia, was a landowner and sugar cane plantation colonist. His mother, Lina Ruz González, came from a peasant family in the province of Pinar del Río.



He learned to read and write at the rural public school in Birán and continued his primary education at the private Catholic schools of La Salle and Dolores, in the city of Santiago de Cuba. He began his high school studies at Dolores School itself and completed them at Colegio de Belén, of the Society of Jesus, in Havana, where he graduated as Bachelor of Letters in June 1945.



The Jesuits of Belén said: "He always distinguished himself in all subjects related to the humanities. (...) he was a true athlete (...) He has been able to win the admiration and affection of all. He will pursue a career in Law and we have no doubt that he will fill with brilliant pages the book of his life. Fidel has the makings and the artist will not be lacking". ¹



In September 1945 he enrolled in the careers of Law and Social Sciences and Diplomatic Law at the University of Havana. There he immediately became involved in political struggles within the university student body and held different positions in the University Student Federation. He was a prominent member of various progressive and anti-imperialist student organizations such as the Pro-Independence Committee of Puerto Rico, the September 30 Committee—which he founded—and the Pro-Dominican Democracy Committee, in which he held the presidency.



As part of his political activity in those years, he organized and participated in countless acts of protest and denunciation against the political and social situation in the country. More than once he was beaten or imprisoned by repressive forces.



Between July and September 1947, while in his third year of studies, he enlisted in an expeditionary force organized to fight against the regime of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. The expedition trained at Cayo Confites. He was promoted to lieutenant, platoon commander, and later to commander of a battalion company. The expedition, which was traveling by ship, was intercepted by a frigate of the Cuban Navy. Fidel jumped into the water with his weapon to avoid capture. He considered it a disgrace that the expedition ended up arrested without fighting.



He came into contact with Marxist ideas when he was already a university student.



A supporter of the Cuban People's Party (Orthodox), of progressive tendency, he actively participated starting in 1948 in the political campaigns of that Party and, in particular, of its main leader, Eduardo R. Chibás. Within his political organization he worked to cultivate the most radical and combative positions among young members. After Chibás's death, he redoubled his efforts to expose the corruption of Carlos Prío's government.

After his participation in the expedition against Trujillo, he traveled in 1948 to Venezuela, Panama, and Colombia as a student leader, with the objective of organizing a Latin American Congress of Students, which was to take place in the latter country. He was in Bogotá when the popular rebellion occurred provoked by the assassination of Colombian leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, in April of that year. He resolutely joined that struggle. He survived by pure chance.



In March 1949 he led a protest in front of the United States diplomatic mission in Havana, to express popular indignation at the disrespect toward the monument of Cuba's National Hero, José Martí, by North American marines.



Fidel graduated as Doctor of Civil Law and Licentiate in Diplomatic Law in 1950. From his law office, he devoted himself fundamentally to the defense of humble people and sectors.



When Fulgencio Batista's coup d'état occurred on March 10, 1952, he was among the first to denounce the reactionary and illegitimate character of the de facto regime and call for its overthrow.



He organized and trained a large contingent of approximately twelve hundred young workers, employees, and students, who came fundamentally from the Orthodox ranks. With 160 of them, on July 26, 1953, he commanded the assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba and on the Bayamo barracks, in an action conceived as the detonator of armed struggle against the Batista regime.



When the element of surprise failed, they could not achieve the objective. He was taken prisoner by the tyranny's repressive forces a few days after the military setback and was held incommunicado for 76 days. He was subsequently tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison. In a secluded and monitored environment, he undertook his own defense before the court that tried him, and delivered the argument known as History Will Absolve Me, in which he outlined the program of the future Revolution in Cuba.



"No weapon, no force is capable of defeating a people who decide to fight for their rights. Past and present historical examples are countless. The case of Bolivia is very recent, where the miners, with sticks of dynamite, defeated and crushed the regiments of the regular army," he said on that occasion.

From prison he continued his work of denouncing the oppressive regime, while maturing his revolutionary plans and deepening the theoretical and ideological preparation of his companions.



As a result of strong pressure and popular campaigns, he was freed in May 1955. In the weeks that followed he deployed intense work of agitation and denunciation, founded the July 26 Movement to continue the revolutionary struggle.



In July 1955, having shown that it was impossible to continue the anti-Batista struggle through legal means, Fidel departed for Mexico to organize, from exile, the armed insurrection. In precarious economic conditions and subject to the strict surveillance and persecution of Batista agents, he deployed a strenuous organizational and preparatory effort, while continuing an intense campaign to disseminate the ideas and purposes of the insurrectional movement. He traveled to the United States, where, together with his exiled compatriots, he created "patriotic clubs" in order to obtain political and economic support for the revolutionary struggle. He was in Philadelphia, New York, Tampa, Union City, Bridgeport, and Miami.



With the motto: "In 1956 we will be free or we will be martyrs," Fidel, Raúl, Juan Manuel Márquez, Juan Almeida Bosque, Ernesto Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and other outstanding revolutionaries trained with long walks through the streets of Mexico City, mountain climbing, self-defense, guerrilla tactics, and shooting practice.



On June 20, 1956, together with Che and other combatants, he was detained. The "training houses" were discovered and a substantial part of the weapons were confiscated.



After leaving Mexican police facilities, the revolutionary conspiracy accelerated. They bought the yacht Granma and set sail from the Tuxpan River toward Cuba in the early morning of November 25, 1956, with 82 combatants on board, whose average age was 27 years. After 7 days of sailing, they landed on December 2 at Las Coloradas beach, on the southwestern coast of the former province of Oriente. Batista's forces located the landing and harassed the expeditionaries. On December 5, the tyranny's army surprised Fidel and his combatants at Alegría de Pío. The revolutionaries were decimated, several were captured during the pursuit, and many were killed on the spot.

With the valuable cooperation of the peasants, Fidel met up with Raúl at a place known as Cinco Palmas and regrouped the revolutionary force. He then set out for the Sierra Maestra to continue the revolutionary struggle from there.



On January 17, 1957, he directed the first armed action against Batista's army at La Plata barracks and achieved his first victory. The Rebel Army began to grow and strengthen.



In his capacity as Commander in Chief, he directed the military action and revolutionary struggle of the rebel forces and the July 26 Movement during the 25 months of war. He had under his direct command Column One "José Martí" and personally participated in almost all the operations, combats, and major battles that took place during the war in the territory of the first rebel front.



After the overwhelming defeat of the tyranny's elite troops, these, through their main leaders, decided to recognize the rebel victory in the very theater of operations in the province of Oriente on December 28. At dawn on January 1, 1959, Fidel faced, with a revolutionary general strike, respected by all workers, the coup d'état in the capital of the Republic, promoted by the United States government. He entered victoriously that same day in Santiago de Cuba and arrived in Havana on January 8.



Upon concluding the insurrectional struggle, he maintained his functions as Commander in Chief. On February 13, 1959, he was appointed Prime Minister of the revolutionary government.

 

He directed and participated in all actions undertaken in defense of the country and the Revolution in cases of military aggression from abroad or activities of counter-revolutionary bands within the country, especially the defeat of the invasion organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, carried out at Playa Girón, in April 1961.



In the name of revolutionary power, he proclaimed on April 16, 1961 the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution. He led the Cuban people through the dramatic days of the October Crisis of 1962.



He held the position of Secretary General of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations and, later, Secretary General of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba. From the Constitution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965, his position was First Secretary and Member of the Political Bureau, in which he was ratified by all five Party Congresses held since then.



He was elected Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power, representing the municipality of Santiago de Cuba, in its successive sessions from its creation in 1976. From then until 2008, he held the positions of President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers.



He presided over official Cuban missions in more than 50 countries.



He received more than a hundred high foreign and Cuban decorations, as well as numerous honorary academic distinctions from higher education centers in Cuba, Latin America, and Europe.



He strategically directed the participation of hundreds of thousands of Cuban combatants in internationalist missions in Algeria, Syria, Angola, Ethiopia, and other countries, and promoted and organized the contribution of tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, teachers, and technicians who have served in more than 40 Third World countries, as well as the pursuit of studies in Cuba by tens of thousands of students from those nations. More recently, he promoted comprehensive programs of Cuban assistance and cooperation in health matters in numerous countries of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and the creation in Cuba of international schools of Medical Sciences, Sports and Physical Culture among other disciplines for Third World students.

He promoted on a world scale the Third World's struggle against the prevailing international economic order, particularly against external debt, the squandering of resources as a result of military spending and neoliberal globalization, as well as efforts toward the unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. He was the principal promoter of the Non-Aligned Movement.



He led the decided action of the Cuban people to confront the effects of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States for more than forty years and the economic consequences of the collapse of the European socialist community, and promoted the persistent effort of Cubans to overcome the grave difficulties resulting from these factors, their resistance during the so-called Special Period, and the resumption of economic growth and development in the country.



For nearly fifty years, he promoted and directed the struggle of the Cuban people for the consolidation of the revolutionary process, its advance toward socialism, the unity of revolutionary forces and all the people, the country's economic and social transformations, the development of education, health, sports, culture, and science, defense, confrontation with external aggression, the conduct of an active foreign policy of principles, actions of solidarity with peoples struggling for independence and progress, and the deepening of the revolutionary, internationalist, and communist consciousness of the people.



On July 31, 2006 he resigned from his official positions due to health problems. From then on, he wrote about the problems of the contemporary world in numerous reflections and articles published in Cuban media during his convalescence. He devoted tremendous efforts in his later years to projects related to agriculture and human and animal nutrition. By his moral authority, he influenced important and strategic decisions of the Revolution.

Fidel's life cannot be reduced to a few lines. His permanent and indissoluble bond with the people, his brilliant oratory, his constant teaching, his unlimited dedication to the cause of the Revolution have left an indelible mark on the Cuban people and have served as inspiration for millions of men and women from all continents. Future generations of Cubans will have in him, as in Martí, a paradigm and deep motivation to give continuity to his work.

 

He died on November 25, 2016, in Havana, Cuba at 10:29 p.m., at the age of 90. In compliance with his will, his remains were cremated. His ashes were deposited in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, in a solemn ceremony, on December 4, 2016.