Fidel Castro Biography

Castro, as the country's new leader, adopted communist domestic policies and established military and economic ties with the Soviet Union, causing tensions with the US. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the culmination of tensions between the US and Cuba. Improvements in healthcare and education were accomplished under Castro's leadership, but he maintained totalitarian control over the country and violently prosecuted or imprisoned anyone suspected of being an enemy of the state. Thousands of dissidents have been slain or perished while attempting to flee the tyranny. Castro was also responsible for the spread of communist revolutions throughout the world.

However, following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in 1991 and its devastating impact on Cuba's economy, Castro gradually eased several limitations. Castro officially handed up leadership to his brother Ral Castro in 2008 due to ill health, although he continued to wield political power in Cuba and internationally. Fidel Castro, who lived to be 90 years old, died in 2016. As we know, who is Fidel Castro and what are the roles and responsibilities of Fidel Castro lets discuss about his life history and Fidel Castro biography and career details.

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Early Life

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926, in the Oriente Province of Cuba, near Birán. Ral and Ramón, his two brothers, and Angela, Emma, and Agustina, his three sisters, made up his family of six children. His father, Nigel, was a wealthy Spanish sugar plantation owner who did most of his business with the American owned United Fruit Company, which dominated the region's agriculture at the time. Castro was educated in expensive Jesuit boarding schools and grew up in an affluent family amid Cuba's poverty, yet his teachers instilled in him a feeling of Spanish pride. 

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Castro proved he was intellectually talented from an early age, but he was also a troublemaker who was often more interested in sports than schoolwork. He went to Santiago de Cuba's Colegio Dolores and later Havana's El Colegio de Belén, where he pitched for the baseball team, played basketball and ran track. Castro, however, started law school at the University of Havana after graduating in late 1945 and got immersed in the milieu of Cuban nationalism, anti-imperialism, and socialism, focusing his energy more fully on politics.

Political Insurrections and Arrests

He went to Santiago de Cuba's Colegio Dolores and later Havana's El Colegio de Belén, where he pitched for the baseball team, played basketball and ran track. Castro, however, started law school at the University of Havana after graduating in late 1945 and got immersed in the milieu of Cuban nationalism, anti-imperialism, and socialism, focusing his energy more fully on politics. In 1947, Castro became a member of the Partido Ortodoxo, an anti-communist political organisation formed to reform the Cuban government. 

Its creator, Cuban presidential candidate Eduardo Chibás, lost the election in 1948 but inspired Castro to become a devout follower. He promised to expose the government's wrongdoing and warn the public about former president General Fulgencio Batista, who was planning a comeback. Chibás' attempts, however, were thwarted when his ostensible friends declined to produce evidence of official malfeasance. Chibás committed suicide during a radio programme in August 1951. 

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However, he gained an interest in Karl Marx's work and decided to compete for a seat in the Cuban congress at the same time. However, in March 1952, a coup led by General Fulgencio Batista ousted the government, cancelling the impending election and leaving Castro without a valid political platform and insufficient income to maintain his family. 

Batista established himself as a dictator, consolidating his influence among the military and the Cuban elite, and having his administration recognised by the US. As a result, Castro and other members of the Partido Ortodoxo formed a group known as "The Movement" and plotted an insurgency. Castro and about 150 allies invaded the Moncada military barracks outside of Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953, to depose Batista. Castro was apprehended, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years in jail after the attack failed. Ral, his younger brother, was also imprisoned.

A career in Law and Politics: 1950–1952

Castro was a co-founder of a legal partnership that largely served underprivileged Cubans, but it was a financial failure. Castro, who was unconcerned about money or material possessions, neglected to pay his bills; his furniture was repossessed, and his electricity was turned off, causing his wife much grief. In November 1950, he took part in a high school protest in Cienfuegos, fighting with police to protest the Education Ministry's ban on student unions; he was arrested and accused of violent conduct, but the charges were dropped by the magistrate. 

His dreams for Cuba were still concentrated on Chibás and the Partido Ortodoxo, and he was present when Chibás committed suicide in 1951 for political reasons. Castro planned to run for Congress in June 1952, seeing himself as Chibás' heir, but senior Ortodoxo members were afraid of his radical reputation and refused to nominate him.

Instead, he was nominated as a House of Representatives candidate by party members in Havana's poorest districts, and he began campaigning. The Ortodoxo had a sizable following and was expected to win the election. Castro met with former President Fulgencio Batista, who had returned to politics with the Unitary Action Party, during his campaign. 

Cuba Under Castro

Castro, on the other hand, was not humiliated for long. He combined Cuba's Communist Party with his revolutionary organisations in 1965 and became the party's leader. He initiated a campaign encouraging violent resistance to imperialism in Latin American and African countries within a few years. To promote revolution and communism on three continents, Castro formed the Organization for Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in January 1966. He also founded the Latin American Solidarity Organization in 1967 to promote revolution in several Latin American countries. By offering military backing to pro-Soviet groups in Angola, Ethiopia, and Yemen in the 1970s, Castro maintained his position as the chief advocate for Third World countries. 

Even though the Soviet government continued to significantly finance Cuba during this time, the expeditions were eventually fruitless, putting pressure on the Cuban economy. Meanwhile, the USA's decision not to invade Cuba did not prohibit further attempts to destabilise the Castro regime. Castro has been the target of several CIA assassination attempts over the years (an estimated 638 in total, according to Cuban intelligence), ranging from exploding cigars to a fungus-infected scuba-diving outfit to a mafia-style shooting. Castro was cited as remarking that surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic sport, he would have won gold medals. Castro's rule is credited with the establishment of 10,000 new schools and a literacy rate of 98 percent. 

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Cubans have access to a universal healthcare system that has reduced infant mortality to 11 fatalities per 1,000 people (1.1 per cent). Civil freedoms were eroded at the same period, with labour unions losing the ability to strike, independent newspapers being shut down, and religious organisations being hounded. Castro suppressed dissent to his reign by executing and imprisoning opponents, as well as forcibly emigrating them. Though specific figures are unknown, the Cuban Archive estimates that tens of thousands were slaughtered, with 5,600 people killed by firing squads alone. 

During the 1980 Canimar River Massacre and the Tugboat Massacre of 1994, additional Cubans were killed by state authorities as they attempted to exit the nation. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled the country under Castro's dictatorship, many settling in Miami, just over the Florida Straits. The most significant of these exoduses happened in 1980 when Castro opened the Mariel port to allow exiled Cubans residing in Miami to claim their families.

Fidel Castro Cause of Death

Castro died on November 25, 2016, late at night. The cause of death hasn't been revealed. President Raul Castro confirmed the news in a brief speech, saying, "The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died this evening at 22:29 [EST]." His death comes nine months after his older brother Ramón, who died in February at the age of 91. On November 26, 2016, Fidel Castro was cremated. A funeral procession travelled 900 kilometres (560 miles) along the island's central highway from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, retracing the route of the "Freedom Caravan" of January 1959, and his ashes were interred in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba after nine days of public mourning.