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Nick Caistor Fidel Castro Titles in the series Critical Lives present the work of leading cultural figures of the modern period. Each book explores the life of the artist, writer, philosopher or architect in question and relates it to their major works. In the same series Georges Bataille Claude Debussy Edweard Muybridge Stuart Kendall David J. Code Marta Braun Charles Baudelaire Fyodor Dostoevsky Vladimir Nabokov Rosemary Lloyd Robert Bird Barbara Wyllie Simone de Beauvoir Marcel Duchamp Pablo Neruda Ursula Tidd Caroline Cros Dominic Moran Samuel Beckett Sergei Eisenstein Octavio Paz Andrew Gibson Mike O’Mahony Nick Caistor Walter Benjamin Michel Foucault Pablo Picasso Esther Leslie David Macey Mary Ann Caws John Berger Mahatma Gandhi Edgar Allan Poe Andy Merrifield Douglas Allen Kevin J. Hayes Jorge Luis Borges Jean Genet Ezra Pound Jason Wilson Stephen Barber Alec Marsh Constantin Brancusi Allen Ginsberg Marcel Proust Sanda Miller Steve Finbow Adam Watt William S. Burroughs Derek Jarman Jean-Paul Sartre Phil Baker Michael Charlesworth Andrew Leak Charles Bukowski Alfred Jarry Erik Satie David Stephen Calonne Jill Fell Mary E. Davis John Cage James Joyce Arthur Schopenhauer Rob Haskins Andrew Gibson Peter B. Lewis Coco Chanel Franz Kafka Gertrude Stein Linda Simon Sander L. Gilman Lucy Daniel Noam Chomsky Lenin Simone Weil Wolfgang B. Sperlich Lars T. Lih Palle Yourgrau Jean Cocteau Stéphane Mallarmé Ludwig Wittgenstein James S. Williams Roger Pearson Edward Kanterian Salvador Dalí Gabriel García Márquez Frank Lloyd Wright Mary Ann Caws Stephen M. Hart Robert McCarter Guy Debord Karl Marx Andy Merrifield Paul Thomas Fidel Castro Nick Caistor reaktion books Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 33 Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2013 Copyright © Nick Caistor 2013 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Caistor, Nick. Fidel Castro. – (Critical lives) 1. Castro, Fidel, 1926– 2. Heads of state – Cuba – Biography. 3. Cuba – Politics and government – 1959–1990. 4. Cuba – Politics and government – 1990– I. Title II. Series 972.9'1064'092-dc23 isbn 978 1 78023 090 0 Contents Preface 7 1 Down on the Farm 11 2 Defying the Dictator 26 3 Making the Revolution 43 4 Missiles and Marxism 63 5 Revolution and the State 85 6 Losing the Plot 103 7 The Special Period 116 8 Time’s Wingèd Chariot 126 Conclusion: The Great Survivor 137 References 147 Select Bibliography 153 Acknowledgements 155 Photo Acknowledgements 157 Preface There is never any doubt when Fidel Castro Ruz is nearby. Over six feet tall, bulky and imposing, well-deserving of his nickname ‘El Caballo’ (The Horse), with piercing light-blue eyes, he quickly becomes the centre of attention whether he is in a small room or a huge open-air space, such as Revolution Square in the centre of Havana, where he has made so many of his trademark hours-long speeches. Fidel Castro not only brought revolution to Cuba, but went on to wield power there almost unchallenged for nearly fifty years, before ill health forced him to step down at the age of 81 in February 2008. The British historian Eric Hobsbawm described him as ‘by far the most important figure in the whole history of Cuba so far. He’s the only one who has turned Cuba into a global concept.’1 As part of that global role, for several decades he was one of the most prominent leaders in the developing world, ensuring that Cuba’s voice was heard on the most contentious international issues. To many people, this prominence was at best ambiguous, since Castro can also be seen as someone who helped to bring the world the closest it has ever come to nuclear conflict. In October 1962 the Soviet Union and the United States were only hours away from unleashing their nuclear arsenals against each other over the question of missiles the Soviets had placed in Cuba. Castro has consistently divided opinion. For most of the million or so Cubans who have fled the island since his 1959 Revolution, he 7 is a power-crazed dictator. To successive administrations in Washington, he has been an irritant, someone who enjoyed tweaking the nose of the ‘empire’. This constant battling with a much more powerful neighbour has won him support not only in Cuba and in the rest of Latin America, but all round the world. He has always been quick to respond to events outside the island and give his trenchant opinion: so, for example, in the hours after the 9/11 attacks on the United States when President George W. Bush called for a concerted international effort to fight terrorism, Fidel Castro was quick to point out that this should include the ‘terrorists’ in Florida who frequently launched attacks against his regime and were regarded as ‘heroes’ in the United States. Many people in Latin America and the developing world have also applauded Castro’s stubborn attempts to resist the spread of capitalist ideas over the entire globe. Since the end of the 1980s and the collapse of the communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, together with the general discrediting of the ideals they were meant to embody, there has been a renewed if some- times morbid interest in how ‘socialist’ Cuba and its leader have managed to survive for so long. As one Latin American foreign minister joked: ‘Castro and his Cuba should be kept as they are in a zoo, as unique exhibits no longer to be found anywhere in the wild’. The eleven million Cubans who continue to live under his uniquely Cuban kind of socialism seem equally divided. People I have spoken to on the island may complain bitterly about short- ages, the lack of personal and political freedom, and yet they still often show a grudging respect for ‘the great leader’. Much of this support comes from a fascination with Castro as a public figure, capable of dominating international meetings with his dynamic personality, especially in his trademark lengthy speeches to vast audiences. It remains to be seen what will happen in Cuba once Fidel Castro finally dies. For the moment, he has handed over power to 8 his younger brother Raúl, who for so many years seemed to exist in his shadow – as Fidel himself once unkindly remarked: ‘I don’t know how much he has been harmed by being my brother; because when there is a tall tree, it always casts a little shade on the others.’2 Raúl seems to have adopted the old adage of changing a little in order to change nothing. He has surrounded himself with trusted allies, some of whom are the last survivors of those who fought in the guerrilla war of the 1950s that brought them to power. Some day soon, however, there must be at least a generational renewal in Cuban politics, even though the apocalyptic scenario that has been forecast by many exiles in Miami may not become reality. After Fidel Castro it may not be the deluge in Cuba, although there are likely to be quite a few tropical storms. In his final days, no longer wielding that much power and able only to appear rarely in public, Fidel Castro has continued to give his opinion through blogs and articles rather than speeches, focusing now on anything and everything that catches his interest, from the injustices suffered by Cuban boxers at the Beijing Olympics, to the dangers of racism in the United States. He has also published a lengthy series of interviews with the title My Life: A Spoken Auto biography that gives his version of all he has lived through and achieved.3 This seems therefore a good moment to look back with a more critical eye on his life and to try to separate legend from facts, as far as these can be gleaned from one of the most closely guarded regimes in the world. I have reported on Cuba and Fidel Castro over some twenty years for the bbc and elsewhere. I have spoken to many of his closest associates, as well as some of his fiercest critics – including several people who have tried to assassinate him – in the United States. As far back as 1953, when he was in the dock for attacking the army barracks at Moncada in an attempt to overthrow the Batista regime, Castro claimed that whatever the court’s verdict, ‘History 9 will absolve me!’ Although many historians eschew the study of individuals since history in their view obeys greater laws, Fidel Castro’s defence plea cries out for a verdict on his achievements and failings. In the following study, bringing together personal details and a discussion of the ideas driving him on throughout his life, I hope to lay before readers enough evidence for them to be able to come to their own conclusion. 10 1 Down on the Farm The region of Galicia in northwest Spain can seem like a natural paradise. Its hills are green and wooded, the frequent rains make the land fertile, and its rivers are wide and powerful. The often rugged coast is bathed by the waters of the Atlantic. But life in the Galician countryside has always been hard: much of the land belongs to large landowners, while small farmers have struggled for centuries to make a living for themselves and their families. Isolated from the centre of imperial power in Madrid and the south of Spain, distant from the Mediterranean and its trade routes, Galicia has always looked out to America, and the harsh conditions in the province have meant that hundreds of thousands of Galician men and women have throughout history ventured overseas in search of a better life.
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