Fidel Castro Biography

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, better known as Fidel Castro, was born in Birán, Cuba, on August 13, 1926, and died on November 25, 2016, in Havana, Cuba. He was a revolutionary, political and military Cuban, who ruled Cuba from 1959 to 2008.

Fidel Castro was the son of Ángel Castro Argiz and Lina Ruz González, both of Spanish descent, who enrolled him in one of the Birán schools when he was four years old. Although two years later, they would send him to study in Santiago de Cuba due to his excellent grades. In Santiago de Cuba, he would study in different institutions, starting with the Lasallian School of Santiago, going through the Dolores School, of Jesuit direction, and ending at the Colegio de Belén in Havana, where he would finally obtain his bachelor’s degree in 1945. That same year he would enter at the University of Havana, where he would take up to three courses at the same time: Social Sciences, Law and Diplomatic Law. In this institution, he had access to several texts that would redirect his political thinking, and he faced a candidate of the USF, University Student Federation, who received support from the then Cuban president.

In 1947, he was part of the Invasion of Cayo Confites with the aim of overthrowing the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo. The following year, and thanks to the financial support of Juan Domingo Perón, he traveled to Caracas, Panama, and Bogotá as a delegate of the USF. In this last city, he intended to meet with Jorge Eliécer Gaitán just the day he was murdered. Back in Cuba, Fidel Castro married the philosophy student Mirta Díaz-Balart, with whom Fidel would have his son Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart.

“Condemn me, it does not matter, history will absolve me.” Fidel Castro

In 1952, General Fulgencio Batista gave a coup to the government of President Carlos Prío Socarrás. For his actions, Fidel Castro would denounce him before an Emergency Court, but he would not be heard. For this reason, he decided to gather a group of young revolutionaries and try to take the Moncada barracks disguising themselves as soldiers. But this attempt failed and Fidel was imprisoned and sentenced to 15 years of captivity. In 1955, he was acquitted by the general amnesty of that year, and Castro went into exile in the United States and later in Mexico.

In 1956, he returned with 82 other men under the name of the 26th of July Movement. His idea was to disembark in surprise and take Santiago de Cuba, but this failed because the Batista Civil Guard was alerted. Several of the fighters of the July 26 Movement were killed in Alegría del Pío, but Raul Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Juan Almeida survived, who took refuge in the Sierra Maestra. From here they set up a new army and started a war against the government. After several unforeseen victories, a coup occurred on December 30, in which Batista flees the country.

After the coup, the country began to have a transitional government directed by Manuel Urrutia, which was made up of several groups of different types, among which was the 26th of July Movement. On January 8, 1959, Urrutia appointed Fidel Castro as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Country. Then, seeing how difficult it was to coordinate the different ministries that made up Cuba, Urrutia appointed Fidel Castro as prime minister. In this position, he fought against racism on the island, decreed the Agrarian Reform and eradicated the mafia, earning the acceptance of the majority of the population. In the middle of that same year, resigned from his position for the differences he had with Urrutia, before which the people pressured the latter to reincorporate him. Urrutia, on the other hand, resigned. With which came to preside over the country Osvaldo Dorticós, who re-appointed Fidel as prime minister.

After the expropriations made by the Agrarian Reform, the United States, under the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, a sabotage of the Cuban government began, sending planes and decreeing measures of censorship and not trade with the island. Given this, the Cuban government confiscated several refineries and then several US companies.

Later, with the Kennedy government, the tension between the two countries would increase, to the point of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, through which a group of 1,500 soldiers arrived on the island. However, these were stopped and returned to the United States in exchange for food and medicine. In 1962, the Soviet Union positioned several ballistic missiles on the island, which was about to develop a war between the two powers of the moment; but both the United States and the USSR reached an agreement, in which the US government undertook not to invade Cuba. After agreeing on this, the missiles were removed.

“Whoever feels an ideal, does not mind being consumed like an aerolite when it crosses the resistance of the atmosphere.” Fidel Castro

Later, in 1976, Castro would go from being prime minister to being president of Cuba, and he would take the reins of the country, proclaiming himself a socialist, until the 21st century, when his health began to get worse. Already on February 24, 2008, he announced that he would be replaced in power by his brother Raul Castro.

Finally, after having at least 638 assassination attempts by the US government, Castro died on November 25, 2016, for reasons not disclosed in Havana.