FIDEL CASTRO: A MACHIAVELLIAN PRINCE? Alfred G. Cuzán1 Preface Two versions of this essay are in print. A short version appears in the Proceedings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, 1999, Volume 9, pp. 178-191. An extended version was published by the National Endowment for Cuban and Cuban- American Studies (Coral Gables, Florida, 1999). In light of the renewed interest about Cuba prompted by the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Castro regime announced by President Obama, I post the latter here with a few alterations, corrections, and additions, including more recent references and a few “postscripts” in the footnotes. A number of people, some of them regrettably no longer living, kindly read original drafts of the essay and offered encouragement and suggestions. Many thanks to Luis Aguilar León, Marvin Alisky, Charles W. Anderson, Ernesto Betancourt, James and Marian Busey, Juan Caballero, Juan del Aguila, Art Doerr, Barry Evans, Edward Gonzalez, Yvon Grenier, James A. Hall, Brian Latell, Michael Ledeen, Adolfo Leyva, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Jorge Pérez-López, Enrique Pumar, Mauricio Solaún, Gordon Tullock, James W. Witt, José Zayas, and Eduardo Zayas-Bazán. It goes without saying that responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation rests on me. June 26, 2015 1 Alfred G. Cuzán is a distinguished professor of political science at The University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, 32514. He can be reached at
[email protected]. FIDEL CASTRO: A MACHIAVELLIAN PRINCE? Alfred G. Cuzán 1. Introduction: Machiavelli and Castro This is an exploratory essay on whether Fidel Castro qualifies as a Machiavellian prince.2 Much of The Prince deals with the problem of how a man can raise himself from private fortune or even obscure and abject origins to a position of undisputed political primacy as conqueror or founder of a new state or regime.