Fidel Castro: 1926
In the 1940’s and 1950’s Cuba suffered from very instable government structure. With flourishing prostitution, organized crime, and political instability, the country was a hot spot for revolutionaries and political radicals. Of this environment rose the infamous revolutionary Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz.
Raised in a broken family with two brothers and four sisters, Fidel was sent to a Jesuit school in Havana. He would later attend the University of Havana where he discovered the political culture. The political struggles of Cuba were magnified in the University where a gang-like culture thrived amongst politically active students. It is here where many believe that Castro was introduced to the Cuban Communist Party.
Castro would eventually marry into a wealthy family where he would be introduced to the wealthy lifestyle in Cuba. He was said to have considered Columbia University for further education with his new exposure to wealth and decided rather to stay in Havana and get his Doctor of Laws degree. Castro became known for his views on nationalism and opposition to the United States. He would become a candidate for Congress for the Cuban People’s Party 1952 with great prospects due to his gift of public speaking.
Castro was ready to unleash his revolutionary might as he corralled over a hundred armed men and women to attempt a military coup. He led the group in an attack of the “Moncada Army Barracks” in Santiago Cuba. The attempt would prove to be a failure. During the battle eight were killed. Once captured, over eighty were executed. Fidel’s life was spared because the arresting lieutenant knew him and imprisoned him instead. He would later be sentenced to fifteen years in jail.
After only two years in jail, Castro’s popularity from a speech published and his cult-like fascination would bide well for his release by Fulguencio Batista. Castro would later leave for Mexico where he would meet revolutionary Che Guevara. Together they coordinated another revolutionary army of eighty people with the intentions of a second coup attempt. Castro and Che slowly marched to the Sierra Mountains where they would lose almost all of the members of their small army to Batista’s soldiers. Eventually they would capture the Mountainous region and redistribute the land to the peasants in the area.
Slowly but surely Castro’s support grew as peasants and Batista’s soldiers joined forces with him. With the full support of the United States, Batista was unable to stave the influence of Castro and the tactics of Che’s guerilla warfare. After word that Castro’s military force was marching on Havana, Batista would flee Cuba handing only to leave a leaderless Cuba in the hands of Castro.
Castro immediately began regulating business in the name of assisting the Cuban people. He confiscated property, nationalized the telephone company, installed a nationalized health care system, and redistributed land amongst the peasants. Upon ordering doctors to relocate to all areas of Cuba under the new socialized medical system, more than half of the doctors left Cuba. Child and infant mortality rates sky rocketed due to the lack of doctors and medical experience.
Castro then pursued a more aggressive policy when dealing with the United States including nationalizing almost a billion dollars of American property in Cuba. The United States would then back away from assisting Cuba with any economic aid that Batista had used along with refusing to purchase sugar from Cuba which is its biggest export. Castro would retaliate by joining the Soviet Union’s Nakita Khrushchev in taunting the United States with Communist military threats.
After Castro’s anti-capitalist regime set in over 250,000 upper and middle class Cubans left the country due to failing economic conditions and stifled economic growth. It was then that Castro’s true colors would surface as a Communist dictator. He killed thousands of opponents and imprisoned thousands as well including all from politicians to writers. All of these were replaced with people that supported Castro.
Over the next several years the United States tried to bring down Castro’s Communist regime. In 1961 the United States attacked Cuba in the Bay of Pigs attack which was an absolute failure. Also that year, a United States spy plane photographed a Soviet Union military installation in Cuba. Surface to Air missiles were sited. Another spy plane then spotted a long range missile facility which could put missiles into the United States. JFK escalated military activity in the United States prepared to attack Cuba and the Soviet Union. Only after a Kennedy laid out the United States intentions, did Khrushchev pull his missiles out of Cuba.
In 1991 Cuba suffered massive economic failures after many years of government oppression. Castro’s own daughter sought asylum in the United States. This was a huge embarrassment to Castro. Over the next decade, Cuba would struggle with the oppression. Boat loads of Cubans would seek freedom in the Untied States often resulting in there deaths at sea. They died trying to get here… because they saw the light of Lady Liberty.
