Fidel Castro

[[Image:FidelCastro1.jpg|thumb||165px|"Elections!? We have {{wpl|Cuban parliamentary election, 2018|elections}}, but the candidates are all commies!"]]{{communism|1}}[[Image:RaulCastro.jpg|thumb|right|165px|The second fiddle to Fidel, Raúl Castro.]]
{{cquote|'''Castro:''' Ah, they're not so bad... They even named {{wpl|Castro_District,_San_Francisco|a street}} after me in San Francisco!<br>
'''Aide:''' *whispers into Castro's ear*<br>
'''Castro:''' ...It's full of ''[[Homosexuals|what]]!?!''|||''[[The Simpsons]]'', "The Trouble with Trillions"<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx-QK5_e9s8</ref>}}
'''Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz''' {{lived|1926|2016}} was a [[Marxist]] leader and [[Tobacco smoking|cigar]] aficionado. He was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of [[Cuba]] from 1961 until 2011, Prime Minister  from 1959 to 1976, and President of the State Council from 1976 until his official resignation in February 2008, being Cuba's [[dictator|leader]] for almost 50 years.<ref>Sondrol, Paul C. (1991). "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner". Journal of [[Latin America]]n Studies. 23 (3): 599–620. doi:10.1017/S0022216X00015868. JSTOR 157386.
</ref> In addition, Cuba did ''almost'' end the world [[John F. Kennedy|that one time.]]

After Fidel Castro resigned due to illness in 2008, his duties were taken over by his brother '''Raúl Castro''' {{lived|1931}}, who is notable for having been known by nobody until that point. The latter announced in 2013 he would not seek reelection to the post.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/world/americas/as-castro-era-drifts-to-close-a-new-face-steps-in-at-no-2.html?_r=0 As Castro Era Drifts to Close, a New Face Steps In at No. 2], ''The New York Times''</ref> However, Raúl either changed his mind or lied about this, depending on who you ask, being elected to a second term in 2013, but promised this would be his last.<ref>https://www.yahoo.com/news/cubas-raul-castro-announces-retirement-5-years-005517085.html?ref=gs</ref> Somewhat surprisingly,  Raúl Castro actually kept his promise.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/miguel-diaz-canel-cuba-selects-first-non-castro-president-in-60-years</ref>

The CIA attempted to kill Castro over six hundred times over the years, and he dodged every one of them.<ref>[https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/how-castro-survived-638-assassination-attempts/8064788 How Castro survived 638 very cunning assassination attempts] ABC</ref> Castro also had a habit of giving incredibly long speeches, talking in front of the United Nations for four hours and twenty-nine minutes in 1960 and once giving a speech for seven hours and ten minutes in 1986.<ref>[https://www.chron.com/entertainment/columnists/article/Fidel-Castro-holds-record-for-speechifying-10640174.php Fidel Castro holds record for speechifying] Chron</ref> David Mould noted that he once saw Castro speak "extemporaneously for more than three hours" while Castro was seventy-six, adding that according to the Cubans, it was a concession to his foreign guests as some had heard five or six-hour speeches.<ref>[https://davidhmould.com/at-sea/2018/8/3/fidel-castro-speaks-and-speaks Fidel Castro speaks ... and speaks] David H. Mould</ref>

==Life==
Castro's father was a sugar plantation owner from [[Spain|Spanish]] Galicia named Ángel Castro, and his mother was Lina Ruz (his father's maid). The young Fidel progressed through [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] schools to study [[law]] at Havana University in 1945. There, his involvement in student politics included a 1947 attempt to overthrow the {{wpl|Dominican Republic|Dominican}} dictator [[Rafael Trujillo]] and, in 1948, membership of the newly formed [[Nationalism|nationalist]] Ortodoxo Party. That same year he married Mirta Díaz-Balart, and had a son in 1949, Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, who was [[Nepotism|head of Cuba's atomic energy bureau]]. 

Castro [[divorce]]d Díaz-Balart in 1954. In 1956, he had a daughter named Alina Fernández with Natalia Revuelta, who fled to the [[United States]] in 1993 and became an outspoken critic of his regime. 

After graduating in 1950, Castro entered law practice specializing in [[Poverty|poor]] people's cases. In 1953 he was involved in a first unsuccessful attempt to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista. Imprisoned, then exiled to [[Mexico]], Castro returned to Cuba in 1956 to organize the [[revolution]].

==Revolution and dictatorship==
Fulgencio Batista seized power in a March 10, 1952 military ''coup d'état'' from Auténtico party president Carlos Prío and then set new records for political corruption and incompetence on the island.  Fidel Castro's first bid to overthrow Batista took place on July 26, 1953, when he led 160 other revolutionaries in seizing the Moncada barracks in Santiago.  The object was to spark a rebellion among Cuban youth against the government.  The attack failed and Castro and 27 comrades were eventually captured, tried and imprisoned.<ref>Mario Mencia. 1993. ''The Fertile Prison''. Melbourne: Ocean Press. ISBN 978-1875284087</ref>  In October 1954, Fidel's influential "History Will Absolve Me" was published clandestinely and circulated throughout Cuba.  On May 15, 1955, Fidel and the others were released under an amnesty.  Fidel, Raul and several more than went into exile in Mexico on July 7, 1955, where they were joined by future [[War#Guerilla war|guerrilla]] leader [[Che Guevara|Ernesto "Che" Guevara]].  

The revolutionaries, now organized as the "July 26 Revolutionary Movement," sailed on the ''Granma'' from Mexico to Cuba on December 2, 1956.  After a lengthy guerrilla campaign, Batista was toppled on January 1st, 1959.  Castro set up a [[Communism|communist]] regime with himself as maximum leader. According to its detractors, he transformed Cuba into a politically repressive one-party communist state,<ref>https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/11/18/cuba-raul-castro-imprisons-critics-crushes-dissent</ref><ref>Bourne, Peter G. (1986). Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro. New York City: Dodd, Mead & Company. ISBN 978-0396085188.
</ref> but [[Denialism|proponents]] argue that it was actually a [[Bullshit|popular grassroots democracy]].

At the time Castro took over, Cuba was essentially run by US corporations in league with the government. Castro came in and did the unthinkable: he took all of it. The plantations, the casinos, etc. The [[Mafia|mob]], for one, was not happy. Not only had Castro fooled the U.S. into helping him topple the regime, he then turned around and said ''rotfl jk I'm nationalizing all this''. The [[CIA]] tried and failed to assassinate him multiple times,<ref>In total, {{wpl|Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro|up to ''638'' attempts were made on his life by the CIA}}.</ref> and in 1962 the U.S. imposed an economic embargo on Cuba. Later, Castro was [[Excommunication|excommunicated]] by [[Pope]] John XXIII, but he didn't care. With full support from the now-defunct [[Soviet Union]], Castro had started deep transformations in the island, leading to the [[John F. Kennedy|Cuban Missile Crisis]].

[[Public education]], sports and particularly public health, [[Stopped clock|were much developed]]. However, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, [[Command economy|Cuba's economy]] plunged, with massive power, gas and water outages.

===Castroism===
Like [[Maoism|many]] [[Stalinism#Stalinism|of the other]] sugar daddies of the revolution, Castro acted on his own special blend of [[socialist]] thought which bears his name, albeit somewhat informally. Like many Soviet inspired revolutionary ideologies, it is at its core Marxism-Leninism with a few key ideological changes, most important of which is the rejection of [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]]'s idea of a vanguard party establishing a base of political support among the proles, instead proposing that a smaller band of guerrilla fighters win popular support through active insurgency against the bourgeois. In a nutshell, don't tell people about the revolution, ''show'' them the revolution.

Other tenets of Castroist thought include nationalization of foreign businesses, as experienced by the United States, and the forceful implementation of a different blend of social inequality (albeit better than under Batista).

===Homophobia===
One of the aspects of Castro's regime that has gotten more scrutiny in recent years involves his treatment of homosexuals. James Kirchick, writing in The Daily Beast, said upon Castro's death that "he was also an oppressor, torturer, and murderer of gay people."<ref name=Kirchick>[https://www.thedailybeast.com/fidel-castros-horrific-record-on-gay-rights Fidel Castro’s Horrific Record on Gay Rights] The Daily Beast</ref>

It should be noted that, although Castro's record in his early years is horrific, they were sadly not unusual for the time period. For reference, Kirchick notes the abuse of homosexuals in Cuba started in 1965,<ref name=Kirchick/> seven years before the DSM stopped listing homosexuality as a mental disorder.<ref>[https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/best-practice-highlights/working-with-lgbtq-patients Working with LGBTQ Patients] American Psychiatric Association</ref> Similarly, he notes that "Openly homosexual people were prevented from joining the Communist Party and fired from their jobs,"<ref name=Kirchick/> but the United States had been forcing homosexuals out of their military for decades by that point.<ref>[https://www.militaryonesource.mil/relationships/support-community/lgbtq-in-the-military/ LGBTQ in the Military: A Brief History, Current Policies and Safety] Military One Source</ref>

Still, even if these were standard examples of bigotry from this time, they were still examples of bigotry. Castro later came to realize exactly how terrible his actions were, and apologized for them in 2010.<ref>[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157 Fidel Castro takes blame for persecution of Cuban gays] BBC</ref>

==Death==
Fidel's death had been eagerly anticipated, and even encouraged by [[Andrew Schlafly|right-wingers]] (as noted above) for over half a century; he outlived [[Margaret Thatcher]], for crying out loud, but he [[irony|died on a Black Friday]].<ref>{{cite news|title=How social media reacted to Fidel Castro's death|date=26 November 2016|author=Helena Horton|journal=The Telegraph|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/26/social-media-reacted-fidel-castros-death/}}</ref> [[Andrew Schlafly]] has even been celebrating it since 2006.<ref>http://conservapedia.com/Mystery:Did_a_Fake_Fidel_Castro_Meet_the_Pope%3F</ref> After all the foreplay with the Grim Reaper, it finally landed the coup de grace on Saturday, November 26, 2016, 3:29 AM UTC +00:00. (That's 11:29 PM on Friday, November 25, local time.) Morbidly enough, this was Black Friday, which is a day where massive throngs of people in capitalist countries buy expensive gizmos they couldn't have in Cuba thanks to the economic sanctions enforced by the United States, not to mention the hopelessly incompetent [[command economy]].

==Stopped clock==
Castro denounced fascistic tendencies from other world leaders, such as condemning the anti-semitism espoused by [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]].<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/08/fidel-castro-criticises-mahmoud-ahmedinejad Fidel Castro accuses Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of antisemitism] The Guardian</ref>

==Jeffrey Epstein==
Former [[Colombia]]n president {{wpl|Andrés Pastrana}} has alleged that he met with Castro and [[Jeffrey Epstein]] after the latter had flown his "Lolita Express" to Cuba, although the flight has not appeared in any flight logs (it's worth noting that any flights from the US to Cuba would have been illegal at the time).<ref>[https://cbs12.com/news/local/fidel-castro-invited-jeffrey-epstein-to-cuba-former-colombian-president-says Fidel Castro invited Jeffrey Epstein to Cuba, former Colombian president says], Sabrina Lolo, ''CBS 12'' 14 August 2019</ref> Epstein had a picture of himself with Castro in his house.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/05/jeffrey-epstein-letters-photos Epstein scandal broadens as trove of letters from famous figures published], Anna Betts,  ''The Guardian'' 5 August 2025</ref>

==See also==
*[[Che Guevara]]
*[[Cuba]]

==External links==
*[http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/ Fidel Castro's speeches]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Fidel}}
[[Category:Anti-Catholicism]]
[[Category:Anti-imperialism]]
[[Category:Anti-intellectualism]]
[[Category:Anti-Western]]
[[Category:Authoritarianism]]
[[Category:Frequently misquoted people]]
[[Category:Dictators]]
[[Category:Epsteinsphere]]
[[Category:History of communism]]
[[Category:Homophobes]]
[[Category:Lawyers]]
[[Category:Left-wing activists]]
[[Category:Left-wing nationalism]]
[[Category:Machismo]]
[[Category:Military]]
[[Category:Socialists]]

Categories: Anti-Catholicism, Anti-imperialism, Anti-intellectualism, Anti-Western, Authoritarianism, Frequently misquoted people, Dictators, Epsteinsphere, History of communism, Homophobes, Lawyers, Left-wing activists, Left-wing nationalism, Machismo, Military, Socialists