Great Bastards of History

by Juré Fiorillo

  His need to win—and gain recognition—bordered on obsession. Intent on mastering basketball, he practiced throughout the night in the darkened court. “Fidel drove me crazy,” his athletic coach said, “always asking me what he had to do to be a leader, what he had to do to make himself known.” Castro appeared to be looking for alternative ways to legitimize himself in society. His parents finally married in 1941, after Angel Castro obtained a divorce from his first wife. The elder Castro formally recognized Fidel as his son, legally entitling him to the surname he had used all his life.

  As the end of the school semester approached, Castro was often on the verge of failing. But each time, he managed to ace his final exams by cramming an entire term’s worth of work into a few days of marathon studying. It was an approach that confounded his teachers, and carried over to his collegiate years, where, ironically, the future leader of Cuba failed a class in Latin American studies. He was disinterested in the history of the Americas, leading his professor to remark, “He tried to make it, not study it.”

  BIRTH OF A GUERRILLA

  It was while attending law school at the University of Havana that Fidel Castro became interested in politics and social justice. The university was a breeding ground for political and revolutionary theories. Students actively criticized the government and called out for social reform. They were especially disillusioned with former president Fulgencio Batista, a revolutionary hero who led the military coup that unseated dictator Gerardo Machado in 1933. After leaving office in 1944, Batista installed a number of puppet presidents.

  The strongest grievance against Batista was that he had not punished the corrupt officials and assassins who had worked for the Machado regime. Now these students formed violent gangs and exacted their own bloody revenge against Machado’s deposed tyrants. A handful of gangs jockeyed for control over the student federation elections on campus. They fought each other with guns, out in the open. Numerous students were killed during this time. “Many of them who died as gangsters, victims of illusion, today would be considered as heroes,” Castro said later.

  In 1948, Castro married Mirta Diaz Balart, a fellow student from a well-todo Cuban family. They had one child together. The marriage was an unhappy one, eventually ending in divorce. Castro graduated from law school and went to work as an attorney in a small law firm. Politically ambitious, he set his sights on a parliament position. Castro ran on the Orthodox Party ticket. The Orthodox Party was a radical, nationalistic, anti-American group that sought to eradicate government corruption and cronyism. Castro’s ambitions were thwarted when General Batista emerged out of retirement to lead a successful coup d’etat against President Carlos Prío Socarrás. Batista canceled the elections and declared himself provisional president. Castro attempted to bring legal charges against Batista for violating the constitution, but he was denied a hearing in court.

  Furious, Castro abandoned his law practice and organized an army with the aim of deposing Batista. On July 26, 1953, Castro and his makeshift army attacked Moncada Barracks, Batista’s largest military post. More than half of Castro’s 160 soldiers were killed in the failed coup. Castro was arrested and tried for the audacious attack. At his trial he defended his actions in the now-famous speech “History Shall Absolve Me.”

  “I warn you, I am just beginning!” he told the court. “If there is in your hearts a vestige of love for your country, love for humanity, love for justice, listen carefully … I know that the regime will try to suppress the truth by all possible means; I know that there will be a conspiracy to bury me in oblivion. But my voice will not be stifled—it will rise from my breast even when I feel most alone, and my heart will give it all the fire that callous cowards deny it … Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”

  He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison; he served two years before being released on general amnesty in May 1955. Castro left Cuba to live in exile in Mexico.

  THE REVOLUTIONARY RETURNS HOME

  While in Mexico, Castro met Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Ché” Guevera. Together, the two formed a guerrilla army and plotted to overthrow Batista. They called their planned action “The 26th of July Movement” after the first failed attack against Batista. Castro sailed into Cuba with eighty-two soldiers. Despite being grossly outmanned, the guerrilla army was successful—due in no small part to the support and assistance of Cuban citizens who joined the fight against Batista. Batista resigned and fled the island in January 1959. Over the next few years, Fidel Castro consolidated his power, installing his supporters in office, executing hundreds of real and imagined enemies, expropriating foreign-owned land, nationalizing all businesses, and declaring himself the voice of the Cuban people. He also declared himself maximum leader, an omnipotent title affirming his leadership. Civil liberties were curtailed; dissenters were imprisoned, exiled, or worse.

  Former Cuban president Fulgencio Batista fled the island in 1959, after being ousted from office during a coup led by Castro.

  Ironically, the wealthy boy despised capitalism and the oligarchy, identifying instead with the poor and the disenfranchised classes. “No doubt what has had the greatest influence is that where I was born, I lived with people of the most humble origins,” he stated. “I remember the illiterate unemployed men who would stand in line near the cane fields, with nobody to bring them a drop of water, or breakfast, or lunch, or give them shelter, or transport. And I can’t forget those children going barefoot. All the children whom I played with in Birán, all those I grew up with, ran around with, all over the place, were very, very poor.”

  Adamant about decreasing illiteracy, Castro implemented the state-sponsored “Great Campaign for Literacy.” As a result, Cuban literacy rates increased more than 95 percent. A universal health care system was also implemented. Castro recreated the country; he molded and shaped it much the way a father shapes a son. Divorced, he sired several children by several different women, including five with his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, but his most beloved offspring was clearly Cuba. The illegitimate boy had fathered a nation, and in the process recast himself as the epitome of legitimacy. He heralded the transformation of the tiny island into the first Communist country in the Americas, and he formed a political alliance with the former Soviet Union. His Communist politics alarmed and alienated the United States. After an American embargo against Cuba, the island relied heavily on the Soviet Union for assistance.

  In 1961, 1,400 insurgents, nearly all exiled Cubans trained by the American CIA, invaded the island’s Bay of Pigs in an attempt to assassinate Castro. Castro’s army captured 1,200 of them. Authorized by President John F. Kennedy, the covert mission was a colossal failure—and a huge embarrassment to the United States. One year later, the United States learned that Castro was allowing the Soviet Union to construct a missile base in Cuba. Both Castro and Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev feared an American invasion of Cuba. And Kennedy feared the Soviets would deploy the missiles, launching them at the United States from a base less than 100 miles (161 km) from Florida. He called for the base to be dismantled. The United States began to block Soviet ships carrying armaments from reaching Cuba. The Soviets were on high alert, ready to deploy the nuclear missiles if attacked. For seven days, Kennedy and Khrushchev were deadlocked. Finally, the Soviet prime minister agreed to dismantle the base in exchange for a promise that the United States would not invade Cuba, and that the country would remove its own nuclear missiles in Turkey. Kennedy agreed to the terms, and a nuclear war was narrowly averted.

  IRONICALLY, THE WEALTHY BOY DESPISED CAPITALISM AND THE OLIGARCHY, IDENTIFYING INSTEAD WITH THE POOR AND THE DISENFRANCHISED CLASSES.

  The dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Cuba in dire financial straits, and without its strongest ally. Today, most Cubans teeter on the border of poverty. Eleven and a half million people reside on the island, which at 42,427 square miles (110,860 square kilometers) is roughly the size of Pennsylvania. Although the government pays
medical and educational expenses, the average annual income is estimated to be a mere $240. Food shortages are common. Less than 10 percent of Cubans have a telephone. More than 1.5 million Cubans have been exiled from the country, and thousands have died trying to flee the island by boat. The suicide rate is among the highest in Latin America.

  “This revolution is in ruins. There is no food, there’s no freedom. People say it’s all because of the Yanqui aggression, but that’s a myth, as real as dragons and witches, a children’s tale,” Ché Guevara’s grandson, Canek Sánchez Guevara, told Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Andres Oppenheimer. “And if you graduate, there is no work in your field. They’ll ask you to go to the countryside and work in agriculture. This place is hopeless.”

  Revolutionary, dictator, liberator, tyrant, megalomaniac—Fidel Castro has occupied a number of roles in his staggeringly long political career. His has been the longest political reign in Latin American history. In 2006, illness forced him to curtail his activities and appoint his brother Raúl acting president. In 2008, Castro resigned the presidency. The following year, newly elected American President Barack Obama expressed his desire to open a dialogue with Cuba. With the legendary dictator in declining health, his “softer” brother in charge, and the possibility of a truce with the United States, Cuba’s future seems to be on the verge of being freed from Castro’s iron grip—a grip that has lasted for half a century.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INTRODUCTION

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  CHAPTER 1: WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

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  CHAPTER 2: LEONARDO DA VINCI

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  CHAPTER 3: FRANCISCO PIZARRO

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  CHAPTER 4: ELIZABETH I

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  CHAPTER 5: JAMES SCOTT, 1ST DUKE OF MONMOUTH

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  CHAPTER 6: ALEXANDER HAMILTON

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  CHAPTER 7: JAMES SMITHSON

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  CHAPTER 8: BERNARDO O’HIGGINS

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  CHAPTER 9: ALEXANDRE DUMAS FILS

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  CHAPTER 10: HENRY STANLEY

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