Fidel Castro, Hero or Villain?

23February2024

For many years, Afro-Cubans were not allowed to have equal rights to education, housing and employment due to the racism imposed on them when the US came in to help them win the war of independence against Spain. This unequal treatment lasted through several leaders until the rise of Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. Castro was the leader of the people, campaigning for racial lines to end for Cuba. This timeline will highlight some of the moments in his life that greatly impacted his country.

Castro was born on August 13, 1926 on his father's farm to his father and his father's household servant, his mistress. His father was a migrant who elevated himself and became wealthy by growing sugarcane on Las Manacas farm in Biran. Castro was one of seven children. At age six, he was sent to live with his teacher in Santiago de Cuba and at age either he was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. Castro was not the best student in grade school. He took more of an interest in sports than he did academic subjects. Because he was baptized, he was able to attend Jesuit-run schools. Jesuit is the The Society of Jesus which was a religious order of clerics headquartered in Rome. He did eventually go to the University of Havana in 1945 to study law. It was here that he became passionate about political activism and the rise against imperialistic government. He was anti-imperialistic and against big government, super powers, and the invasion of the US in the Caribbean.

In 1947, he joined the Party of the Cuban People. This party was led by Eduardo Chibas. Castro already had publicly criticized the corrupt Cuban government run by Ramon Grau, who employed gang leaders as police officers. Eduardo Chibas advocated for social justice, honest government, and political freedom. These ideals were in line with Castro's ideals. Together they exposed corruption and demanded reform. Although Chibas lost the election in 1948, Castro still campaigned against corrupt government. He received death threats and was told to leave school but he stood his ground and did not leave school. He armed himself with firepower and friends with firepower and stayed. The American historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote that Castro "began his career as a revolutionary with no ideology at all: he was a student politician turned street fighter turned guerrilla, a voracious reader, an interminable speaker, and a pretty good baseball player". (Gaddis 1997, p. 180)

After his 1948 trip to a summit in Bogota Columbia, Castro became an important part of the protests in Cuba against unfair government practices. During this time, he also got married to Mirta Diaz Balart, who was a student from a wealthy family. Because of his relationship with her, he was able to be exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite. After his marriage, Castro seemed to gravitate further to the left influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. He adopted the Marxist view that meaningful political change could only be brought about by a revolution of the people. Once he visited one of Havana's poorest neighborhoods, he became active in the student anti-racist campaign. The disparities were so great it fueled him to do more for the poorer race and class of people. Although he faced a lot of violence and threats that sent him into hiding for a while, he did eventually finish the University and graduate with a Doctor of Law in September, 1950.

Castro wanted to run for Congress in the 1952 elections but some feared he was too radical and may cause problems so it was hard for him to get a nomination. However, he found nominating power in some of the poorest districts because he stood up for the poor. He was nominated for the House of Representatives by party members in Havana's poorest districts. He was favored to do well and although they were scared of his radical tactics the Partido Ortodoxo with whom he and Chibas had a great affiliation with did back him. During his campaign, he met with General Fulgencio Batista who was a former president and a member of Unitary Action Party. At that time Batista offered him a seat in his administration if he was successful. On March 10, 1952, Batista seized power in a military coup, with Prío fleeing to Mexico. He then declared himself as president, Batista cancelled the planned presidential elections, leaving Castro deprived of being elected. Batista became a one man dictatorship and moved all the way to the right, making solid alliances with both the wealthy elite and the United States, cutting off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, suppressing trade unions and persecuting Cuban socialist groups. Castro tried to get rid of Batista the legal way by bringing lawsuits against the government but they all failed so he had to think of another way to get him out of office. In 1952, Castro formed a group called "The Movement". He also published an underground newspaper called "The Accuser" while arming and training anti-Batista recruits. He stockpiled weapons for a planned attack on Moncada Barracks which were military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. He intended to start up a revolution with the poor cane cutters and promote further uprisings. The attack too place on July 26, 1953. However, they ran into trouble. Castro's men had to retreat when the alarm went off and the government soldiers set off gun fire. Some were killed on both sides. Some rebels were captured, tortured and executed. Castro took some men and went into the mountains to establish a guerrilla base. Meanwhile Batista ordered military rule and outlawed and imposed strict media censorship. He even tried to spread lies about Castro's invasion and stated that the rebels were communists who had killed hospital patients. However, news and photographs of the army's use of torture and executions in Oriente soon spread the true stories, causing widespread public and some governmental disapproval. Eventually Castro was caught and arrested and charged with "organizing an uprising of armed persons against the Constitutional Powers of the State". However, Castor argued that they had risen up against Batista, who had seized power in an unconstitutional manner. Many of those arrested were acquitted or received light sentences, but Castro received 15 years in the hospital wing of the Model Prison a comfortable and modern prison located on the Isles of Pines.

On May 15, 1955, Castro was released along with other prisoners accused in the attack against the barracks. Batista did this because he thought Castro was no threat and this was backed by the US and major corporations. Also, it was thought by his government and Congress that this would look good for them. Castro went on a mission to figure out how to take down the government by force since they offered him no other choice. He learned guerilla warfare and was able to obtain CIA weapons to defend his rebels and fight off the military. On December 31, 1958, Batista went into exile with 300 million US dollars.

In 1959, Castro took over the government. Although not being totally truthful, Castro announced that Urrutia had been selected by "popular election" to be the acting president. Entering Havana, Castro proclaimed himself Representative of the Rebel Armed Forces of the Presidency, setting up home and office in the penthouse of the Havana Hilton Hotel. Castro had a great deal of influence over Urrutia's regime. He ensured that the government implemented policies to cut corruption and fight illiteracy and that it attempted to remove Batista followers from positions of power by dismissing Congress and barring all those elected in the rigged elections of 1954 and 1958 from future office. He then pushed Urrutia to issue a temporary ban on political parties. Although repeatedly denying that he was a communist to the press, he began frequently meeting members of the PSP to discuss the creation of a socialist state.

On February 16, 1959, Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba. In April, he visited the US on a where President Dwight D. Eisenhower would not meet with him, but instead sent Vice President Richard Nixon, whom Castro instantly disliked. However, Nixon described him as a leader of men. He said he had the power to lead but was very inexperienced and that basically they should guide him. In May of 1959, he wrote into law a land cap of 993 acres for each owner and stated that no foreigner could own any Cuban land. He redistributed the extra land now taken from the rich to approximately 200,000 peasants. They received title deeds as large land holdings were broken up; popular among the working class, but it alienated the richer landowners, including Castro's own mother, whose farmlands were taken. Within a year, Castro and his government had effectively redistributed 15 percent of the nation's wealth, declaring that "the revolution is the dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters". Judges and politicians had their pay reduced while low-level civil servants saw theirs raised, and declared that people who paid less than $100 in rent, cut in half. He took funds from the wealthy mafia leaders that owned and casinos and properties and redistributed it into literacy programs and funding for the poor. He was determined to close the class gap and the racial divide. For this, he was considered a hero in many eyes whose lives were vastly improved. For those whose wealth was lessened or diminished he was a villain. Some would say he ruined them. However, Castro went on a mission to improve education by opening schools and making education available for all people. He created affordable housing, provided vaccines for children to lower infant mortality, created better healthcare, and built new roads and made sanitation improvements for the water. Because his politics did not sit well with the middle class or lawyers, doctors, engineers and other professionals, they immigrated to Florida in the United States. This caused Cuba to have an economic "brain drain". Within 2 years, Cuba's productivity decreased and the country's financial reserves were drained.

In 1960 when the Cold War was going on between the US and Russia, Castro sided with Russia because of the ideological views related to Marxist-Leninist socialist state. Castro also held contempt for the US so he provided supplies to Russian in exchange for $100 million dollar loan and crude oil, fertilizer, and industrial goods. When the US oil companies would not process Soviet oil, he nationalized the refineries and most US-owned assets on the island, including banks and sugar mills. At this time, Castro was becoming a villain to the US.

In September 1960, Castro flew to New York City for the General Assembly of the United Nations. He stayed at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where he met anti-establishment people like Malcolm X. He decided to stay in Harlem as a way of expressing solidarity with the poor African-American population living there, thus leading to an assortment of world leaders such as Nasser of Egypt and Nehru of India having to drive out to Harlem to see him. He also met Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, with the two publicly condemning the poverty and racism faced by Americans in areas like Harlem.

In conclusion, I could go on and on about other interactions between the US and Cuba that were adversarial and created the shape we are in today. The Cuban reduction of US embassy members sparked the Bay of Pigs incident in 1961 and then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Castro was able to bring a lot of people together from poor countries and to try to put in place socialist planning to end class and ethnic separation but the consequence of this was economic stagnation and detriment. Castro died in Havana on the night of November 25, 2016. His legacy is that he took a relatively socially conservative stance on many issues, like opposing drug use, gambling, and prostitution, which he viewed as moral evils. Instead, he advocated hard work, family values, integrity, and self-discipline. Although he was a villain to those who believed in separatism and racial disparity, he was a hero to most people that felt like the underdog.