Fidel Castro And His Version Of Communism

‘The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food security, culture, science, and wellbeing… is what I want for all,’ was written by the Cuban leader Fidel Castro in his article, Reality and Dreams (Castro-Ruz). Fidel Castro is most widely known for his impressive 49 years as leader of Cuba, the longest time any nation has been controlled by a non-royal. Despite many claims that he obtained that power in a rather immoral manner, Castro’s reign is considered to be one of the most influential examples of communist leadership. This is due to the fact that his charismatic personality led to decades of lasting support, resulting in him being able to have complete control of Cuba’s government and conquer any force that stood in his way. He spent his years of authority fighting for Cuba to be a communist country, focusing primarily on Karl Marx and Jose Marti’s idea of equality among all citizens, something that Castro was denied himself. His efforts to make Cuba communist resulted in Cuba being the first communist nation on the western side of the world, and his leadership led to it remaining one of the few communist nations in the world. However, you cannot comprehend what type of man Fidel Castro was until you learn about his personal life, his ideology of the concept of communism, and the results of his leadership.

Fidel Castro lived a rather unusual life, starting out far more impoverished than nearly everyone around him, and then he eventually became the most prosperous and powerful person in Cuba. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926 in Biran, Cuba. He was born to his father, Angel Castro y Argiz and Lina Ruz Gonzales. At the time, Angel was married to another woman, Maria Argota y Reyes, so Fidel had five step siblings: Manuel, Maria, Pedro, Antonia, and Georgina Castro Argota. Angel had seven children to Gonzales, so Fidel had six full siblings: Angelita, Ramon, Raul, Juana, Emma, and Agustina Castro Ruz. When Fidel turned six, he was sent to live with a tutor in Santiago de Cuba. The tutor that Castro went to had a lot of children, resulting in Castro living a poor childhood. Because his family was Roman Catholic, Castro was baptized Roman Catholic at age eight, but he later became an atheist because the idea of religion didn’t make much sense to him. Castro was sent to La Salle boarding school but was later transferred to Dolores School due to him misbehaving. After being ridiculed for being poor, he transferred again to a different school in Havana. He took an interest in geography, history, debating, and politics, especially focusing on Karl Marx and Jose Mirta. In 1945, Castro began to study law at the University of Havana. It was here where he became involved in student activism in order to change Cuba’s government style. He made speeches that consisted of mainly reasons why to overthrow the current president, Ramon Grau. Castro began to join in urban riots in order to cause chaos among the government. In 1948, he met Mirta Diaz Balart who went to the same university as him. They got married on October 11, 1948. However, she didn’t stop him from his activism. By this time, he was already well known and too involved to let a relationship get in the way of his power. Castro and Mirta had a son in September of 1949 and moved to a larger flat in Havana in order to have more room for the child, Fildelito. Castro left it up to Mirta to raise the child, not only because that was how it normally went, but because he cared about his activism and his own success, things that he thought were impossible with the baby in his life. Castro continued his activism by joining the 30 September Movement, an organization that encouraged the government to put an end to unjustified violence in Cuba. During a public speech, Castro revealed the governments way to stop this violence. This resulted in him hiding in the countryside in order to avoid any trouble. He used this time to study for his degree in law. Once he felt it was safe, he moved back to Havana where we reunited with his family and got his degree in law. After graduating, he put all of his efforts into his activism. Since he was so involved and passionate about politics, he decided to run for a position in the House of Representatives. However, General Fulgencio Batista overtook Cuba and cancelled the election. Castro attempted every legal way possible to dislodge Batista, but failed. He decided to form a group, including his brother Raul, to overrule Batista and take over Cuba. On July 26, 1953, Castro and his followers attempted to overthrow them by attacking the Moncada Barracks. Castro and his followers failed and were either executed or arrested. Castro was sentenced to 15 years in jail for organizing a group to overthrow the government. While in prison with the other rebels, Castro renamed the group the 26th of July and taught them the writings of Karl Marx and Jose Marti. While imprisoned, Castro learned that his wife, Mirta, accepted a government job. After sharing his contempt, they got a divorce in 1955. Mirta was granted custody of Fidelito. Deemed no longer a threat, Castro and the rest of the rebels, including his brother Raul, were released from prison on May 15, 1955. He and his brother, Raul, decided to try again to overthrow Batista. Luckily, Batista was known for being corrupt, so it was easy to recruit followers. This time, it ended in success. Castro overtook Cuba on January 1st, 1959, despite his group being heavily outnumbered. From here on, he made dramatic changes to Cuba’s government just as he had planned.

Even though Fidel Castro’s reign had just begun, he already made some substantial actions. His first order of business was to make a one-party government that controlled all aspects of Cuba, keeping to his promise of a communist nation. In reaction to his newly found communist nation, America decided to try and take him over before he rebelled and took over America. 1962 America planned the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which Castro’s army annihilated. This was not their only attempt to stop Castro. The Central Intelligence Agency tried to assassinate Castro 638 times, all being failures. During this time, he had yet another child. In the early 1960’s, he met a woman named Dalia Soto del Valle and instantly began a relationship with her. In 1962, they had a child named Alexis Castro Soto del Valle. He kept both Dalia and Alexis a secret in order to protect them from any danger since they were associated with him. Because of this, there’s very little information about his relationship with Dalia and the children they had together. During the following years, they had four more children: Alexander, Antonio, Alejandro, and Angel Castro Soto del Valle. He kept these four in secret as well. Nothing would be known about them until 2010, 30 years after Fidel and Dalia’s marriage. In 1976, Castro gave up the title as prime minister and became president instead, while still maintaining the commander-in-chief and secretary-general title. His brother, Raul, ranked second in all government positions under Fidel. In 1980, he married Dalia, but he still kept it a secret from the public. As leader, he raised literacy rates, improved economy, and created equality. This changed when Cuba’s largest trading partner, the Soviet Union, fell in 1991, resulting in a drastic decline in economy. However, Cuba still maintained relatively stable. Castro was elected for another five year term in 2003 and began to take action against freedom of speech. In 2006, Castro had to have surgery for intestinal bleeding. While recovering, he gave his power over the Raul, the first time Fidel was without power since 1959. In February of 2008, Castro made a statement refusing another term in office, stating that the leader should be of strong health, which he no longer was. A few years later, he gave up his positions as commander-in-chief and secretary general, both going to Raul. When Castro stepped down, his family was identified and first seen in public with him. In April of 2016, he made an announcement that he was going to pass soon and that he wanted congress to keep Cuba communist. Fidel Castro has died of natural causes at 10:29 P.M. on November 25th, 2016. Fidel was cremated and his ashes were interred on December 4th, 2016 in Santiago de Cuba, with thousands of Cubans commemorating the moment. Nearly all of Fidel’s life had been spent morphing Cuba into a communist nation and keeping it that way. After his years of ruling, it is easy to see that his version of communism differed from the traditional kind that Karl Marx wrote about.

Because he was never too subtle about his belief in communism’s efficiency, it is obvious that Fidel Castro’s whole life revolved around the idea of equality among citizens. He spent his early life waging war to make Cuba communist, then he spent the remainder of his life striving to keep it that way. He has an abundance of faith in communism, faith that would take years of life and experience to develop. He began to have trust in communism in his childhood, when he spent his school days learning about Karl Marx, the creator of communism, and Jose Marti, a Cuban author who is known for writing about the shameful poverty and inequality that was far too evident in his country. After experiencing a poverty-stricken childhood that he was often harassed for, he found himself immediately entranced by the idea that the bias that accompanied social classes could be abolished. Being the natural leader he was, he successfully took over Cuba and based Cuba’s government off of the ideas proposed by Marx and Marti. Even though he based Cuba’s government off of their beliefs, he tweaked their ideas in his own way. He followed the traditional communist beliefs: social classes are toxic, you need a violent revolution to conform others, and there should be free education for all. The area that Castro morphed into his own was how much freedom of speech the citizens of Cuba had. Marx was a heavy believer of freedom of speech, saying that original thoughts were the only way for any society to be able to function smoothly (Heinze). Castro directly opposed freedom of speech because he felt that original thoughts only belonged in capitalist nations where innovations were awarded with a higher profile and frequently more money. He took the belief of equality far more literally and thought that no one should have innovative thoughts because it would be as though they were above the others around them. He felt that original thoughts were detrimental because they created a sense of superiority in the person who thought them and went against the communist government style that declared every person as equal. To avoid innovative thoughts, Castro arrested those who voiced them because it was as though they were showing that they stood out from everyone else, which went directly against the idea of communism. Castro’s version of communism differed from the original because he denied people the freedom of speech in order to avoid people rising above the others and becoming a capitalist nation. Refusing the right of freedom of speech may seem cruel and harsh, but him leading Cuba’s communist government did have some beneficial outcomes, especially in terms of literacy among the citizens.

Fidel Castro was known for being strict and assertive, so it may come as a shock to learn that his uppermost priority was increasing the literacy rate among the citizens of Cuba. Castro knew that competent employees were an essential in order the keep the economy of Cuba stable, so he decided to put literacy above all else. He believed that as long as they could read and write they would be able to do many of the jobs necessary for Cuba because they would understand how to do it without people constantly informing them how. Castro introduced the Cuban Literacy Campaign in 1961 and promised to teach many of the illiterate children and adults of the nation how to read and write. In order the achieve this, willing teachers and literate people would temporarily stay in the houses of families who were illiterate. During this time, the volunteers would teach the families how to read and write, and the family would provide food and shelter for the volunteers. With 250,000 volunteers, the campaign resulted in success. In the 1950’s, before Castro implemented this campaign, the literacy rate was estimated to be around 70%. Towards the end of his reign in 2006, the literacy rate was 99.8%, one of the highest at the time. Not only was the literacy rate ene of the highest among the surveyed countries, but the literacy rate for women was higher than it was for men by 0.09%, which is a rare feat since most countries prioritized male education over female education. Today, the literacy rate of Cuba remains one of the highest seen due to Castro’s efforts to raise it. This campaign made Cubans more educations, resulting in the nation being far more progressive in terms of economy, racial equality, and gender equality, all of which Castro deemed necessary to keep Cuba controlled by a government system based on equality. Fidel Castro incorporating this campaign into his nation resulted in more citizens having the ability to do jobs they were not capable of before, and it is most likely the reason why Cuba has been able to maintain its title as a communist nation for so long.

Fidel Castro spent decades of his life revolved around the idea that all nations should adapt a government style based on equality for its citizens, resulting in him conforming Cuba into a communist nation. His efforts must have been effective considering that it has been over 12 years after his resign, and his idea of communism is still spread all throughout Cuba, leaving it one of the last communist nations to exist. He showed signs of being a born leader, having the ability to use his charism and persuasion skills to gain followers and lead them all to victory. After being persecuted for being financially inferior to all those around him, he put these skills to use. He led a revolution, resulting in him taking over Cuba and adapting his own belief system as to how a government should work. Park of that unique belief was his opinion of freedom of speech. Unlike many of the communist leaders seen in his time, Castro refused his citizens the right to freedom of speech so he could keep everyone in the nation equal. Despite these harsh measures, his version of communism did have some undeniable productive outcomes. Castro prioritized literacy, changing Cuba’s low literacy rate to one of the highest in the world while spending little money. Though his reign may not be remembered positively by most, there is no denying that Fidel Castro did the unthinkable by spreading his style of communism into the western side of the world, resulting in many studying and discussing him today.