Fidel Castro biography

Made by: Balogh Bence

 Short
summary
• Fidel Castro, in full Fidel
Alejandro Castro Ruz,
born August 13, 1926,
near Birán, Cuba, died
November 25, 2016,
Cuba, political leader
of Cuba. (1959–2008) who
transformed
his country. into the first
communist state in
the Western Hemisphere.
Coming to power
• Fidel Castro’s revolutionary career began while he was enrolled at the School of Law of
the University of Havana, when he participated in resistance movements in the
Dominican Republic and Colombia. He became active in Cuban politics after graduating in
1950, and he prepared to run for legislative office in the 1952 elections. Those elections
were cancelled when Fulgencio Batista forcibly seized power. Castro began organizing a
resistance movement against Cuba’s new dictator, leading several ill-fated attempts
against Batista’s forces, such as the assault on Santiago de Cuba and another on Cuba’s
eastern coast. The tide of battle would turn, however: Castro’s guerrilla
warfare campaign and his propaganda efforts succeeded in eroding the power of
Batista’s military and popular support while also attracting volunteers to the
revolutionary cause. Batista was forced to flee the country in 1959. Shortly after, Castro
assumed complete authority over Cuba’s new government.
Political Actions
• Fidel Castro turned Cuba into the first communist state in the Western
Hemisphere. He enacted sweeping reforms over the almost five decades that he
ruled, some of them laudable and others less so. On the one hand, the changes
he implemented provided rural areas with electricity, offered free education and
health care to all Cubans, and weeded out racism in his country’s society. But
these reforms were accompanied by more-suppressive ones: the elimination of a
free press, the jailing of dissidents, and the implementation of a one-party state.
Castro’s communist reforms also aligned Cuba with the Soviet Union and
alienated it from the United States, a rift that the United States responded to by
imposing a trade embargo on Cuba that lasted into the 21st century. After the fall
of the Soviet Union, Castro had no choice but to begin accepting some
economically liberal policies as means to keep Cuba’s economy afloat.
Personal life
• Fidel Castro was born out of wedlock. He
was conceived through an extramarital
affair between his father, Ángel Castro y
Argiz, a well-to-do sugarcane farmer
hailing from Spain, and Ángel’s wife’s
servant Lina Ruz Gonzáles; the pair wed
when Fidel was a teenager. In his adult
years, Fidel Castro married two different
women and had multiple children by
them. The Castro family is shrouded in
mystery, however, and little is known
about his kids. In 1993 a daughter he had
had out of wedlock while he was a young
revolutionary sought asylum in the
United States and publicly denounced
her father’s government. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND.
Political beliefs
• Fidel Castro professed to be Marxist after assuming leadership of Cuba.
Even prior to that, the staunchly anti-communist U.S. government had
suspicions about Castro’s political leanings based on the content of his
fiery oration—suspicions that would be confirmed in the first year of the
new Cuba, as it aligned itself more and more with the Soviet Union.
Indeed, Castro’s philosophy gravitated toward a Leninist strain of
Marxism as his rule progressed, although his beliefs differentiated
themselves in some key ways, such as his identification with nonaligned
countries and his celebration of guerrilla-style revolution. A better way to
understand Castroism is as a system that sought to combine the
economic and political elements of Marxism with those of Simón Bolívar,
whose anti-imperialist bent is clearly evident in Castro’s own philosophy.
After retirement
• In the years directly prior to Fidel Castro’s retirement, Cuba was
undergoing immense changes. These changes were brought on in part by
the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which had been Cuba’s chief ally
and trade partner. Castro sought to offset the ensuing market decline by
allowing the implementation of a limited number of economically liberal
reforms. Raúl Castro—Fidel’s younger brother and successor—continued
to gradually adopt free-market policies. The island nation’s newfound
economic liberalism, combined with a rollback in some of its more
repressive policies, led to improved U.S.-Cuban relations. In 2014 U.S.
Pres. Barack Obama and Raúl Castro agreed to reopen diplomatic relations
and halt the trade embargo, both of which had been in effect for over five
decades. In 2017 U.S. Pres. Donald Trump restored some of the
commercial and diplomatic restrictions that had been lifted under Obama.
Hungarian
reference 
Castro visited
Hungary , and even
went hunting with
the former
communist leader,
Kádár János. He
spent most of his
time here In
Balatonaliga.
Footage of him arriving in Budapest.
Attempted assasination
• Character assassination was the aim of the plot to depilate Castro’s face, but,
through the years, U.S. intelligence agencies also formulated many aborted or
unsuccessful plots to actually take Castro’s life. Although it is questionable
whether they undertook the 634 attempts to kill Castro that were claimed by
Fabián Escalante, the former head of the Cuban Department of State Security,
there is abundant evidence of U.S. government plots to assassinate Castro.
Some of them were very strange . Two of the oddest revolved around Castro’s
passion for scuba diving: one called for an explosive seashell to be planted in
an area where he liked to dive, and the other involved a wet suit tainted with
a disease-causing fungus and a tuberculosis-laced breathing apparatus that
were to be given to him. Other proposed instruments of death included a
fountain pen that concealed a hypodermic needle so fine that being stabbed
by it would be undetectable, botulism toxin pills to be administered to Castro
by a former lover, and both poisoned and exploding cigars.
Friends with Che Guevara
• In November 1956, Castro and 81
others sailed aboard the Granma to
the eastern coast of Cuba. They were
immediately ambushed by
government forces. Castro, with his
brother Raúl and Che Guevara,
hastily retreated to the Sierra
Maestra Mountains with a few other
survivors but almost no weapons or
supplies.
Thank you for your attention!