Fidel Castro Read online

  While it has been widely believed that the Revolution to socialize Cuba meant the wealthy were taken down by force and thrown out of their homes and out of the country by the poor and the oppressed, this was not the case, according to Castro. No one was expelled; people, mainly people of the upper and upper-middle classes, chose to leave, believing they would return when action was taken against these seemingly “lawless” band of guerrillas, and when everything was restored to normal, they could go home again. But nothing in their idea of what was “normal” was ever going to be normal again.

  There is valid reason for speculation. In 1959, the creation of the Ministry for the Recovery of Misappropriated Assets did spark a seizure of properties. “[In May 1959] we created the Agrarian Reform Laws, the first of which we passed on 17 May that year,” Castro said. Farms were taken over by the government, and industry was nationalized. This affected the holdings of private citizens of Cuba as well as foreign interests. Castro said, “We even issued an administrative order: ‘The law will recognize no right to land taken by persons through their own means.’ [Because of this] there was going to be total chaos within a revolution that had the support of more than 90 percent of the population, according to the surveys. Because there were rivalries and disagreements and all that sort of thing.”

  By August 1960, more than $25 billion worth of property and industry had been nationalized. Castro didn’t miss those who opposed his ideas and left the country because they were against his process, and has referred to these defectors as “enemies” at certain times.

  It was clear that Castro was ready for big sweeping change, and be believed the people of Cuba, all the people of Cuba, supported him in that. He said, “There was a kind of de facto amnesty, on behalf of unity. Everyone accepted the decision made by the 26th of July Movement and the Rebel army for the sake of unity among all those who to a greater or lesser extent had fought against the tyranny.”

  Those who opposed him simply left. “[M]any of those who went to Miami … were not actually planning to take part in bringing down the Revolution,” Castro explained. “They all lived under the conviction that it would be the United States and its powerful armed forces that would bring down the Revolution. Many of the rich and privileged who left Cuba and abandoned their homes and abandoned everything—it’s not that we expelled them or took their homes away. They said, ‘This will last four or five months. How long can a Revolution last in this country?’”

  Right from the beginning, laws were created to improve the situation for blacks and women, and efforts were made to improve medical facilities, housing, communications, and education. By the end of 1960, all Cuban children were in school, versus roughly half before the Revolution. Unemployment had been drastically reduced. “We reinstated all the workers who had been fired during the Batista period, in all the factories,” Castro explained. “Our accounts weren’t particularly ‘economics-based,’ and they didn’t jibe very well with the ideas put forth by … what we today call the ‘pro-Yankee neo-liberals’,” but the fact remains that people went back to work. More people working meant less crime and less corruption, and there was also reform for how people lived. “We also drastically reduced rents, which later became a new rent-reform that turned renters into buyers of real estate,” Castro said.

  In addition to the improvements being made on the ground level for society, attention was paid to the cultural aspects that had been neglected, as is wont to happen in a society that consists mainly of people working and over-working to just get food on the table. Now that those concerns had been addressed, more attention could be paid to enhancing quality of life.

  There were still those who remained who did not support Castro and his actions, however; Castro did not turn a blind eye to these groups. Rather, he established the Committees for Defense of the Revolution in September 1960, which was designed to monitor suspicious behaviors and communication, and deal with anyone who looked to be acting against the Revolution. Castro felt this necessary as no one would have rebelled against what was going on if they understood what was going on. Castro said, “There was widespread ignorance about economics and what prevailed were the old slogans and bywords of unions and campesino organizations, all very justifiable, but all within the framework of a capitalist society that had to be transformed.”

  It’s important to grasp that while Fidel was forcing through all this power, he, was not technically in charge. The title of president belonged to the Castro-appointed Urrutia, though Castro had become prime minister in 1959. It wasn’t long before he saw that some of the cooperation, or, rather, lack of cooperation, was coming from inside the government, and from powerful places.

  Castro explained, “We had to act in the face of idiocies, stupidities. Every few minutes there was a problem because, for example, Urrutia said, with no waning, that all the casinos had to be closed—there was still gambling and that sort of thing—and the reaction to that was pretty strong on the part of the people who worked in the casinos and tourism and so on.” Castro wanted to disempower and also empower the people at once. He wanted the government to control all the financial interests in the country, but he wanted the citizens to feel in some way in control of their personal interests, and taking away the casinos definitely stood in the way of that.

  Castro would also take action to have Cuban not be dependent in any way on the United States, who he felt worked against him and did whatever was possible to punish him and the Revolution. He was determined to create Cuba into a world power that could thrive without capitalism and poison capitalist thinking.

  He was very concerned with the plight of the poor, and worked to make these people self-sufficient, so to speak. First they had to collect all the land they could; then it was time to dole it out. As he explained, “Later we worked hard to establish agricultural cooperatives. We also favored state agricultural cooperation because those enormous tracts of land … how could we divide all that land up and distribute it … ?”

  Other social reforms in the works included those to empower races and disempower religion. He abolished private clubs and declared Cuba to be a one-party socialist state on May 1, 1961. He instated free health care and education through high school.

  Castro also set forth social reform for women, which has been one of the more controversial aspects of his reform. While many believe he made incredible advances for women, about as many believe that there has never been a more oppressive society for women than the Cuban nation under Castro’s rule. People have many opinions, and there seems to be evidence to support both sides, but the truth remains a mystery.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CASTRO AND WOMEN'S REFORM

  “I organized a unit of women in the Sierra, the Marianas. We showed that women could be as good at soldiering as men. I had to fight hard against machismo there, because we had … the lightest weapons reserved for the women, and some men said, ‘How can we give a woman an M-I?’—this was after Batista’s last offensive—‘Why don’t I get one?’ I had a phrase I used with some of the men—I’ll tell you what it was. I’d say, ‘Listen, you know why [we’re using women]? I’ll tell you—because they’re better soldiers than you are.”

  The topic of women, of Castro’s relationship with women, treatment of women, regard for women, respect for women, courts a fair amount of controversy for those who study his life and career. There are as many texts to support that he respects and supports women as there are articles and other documented evidence that Castro’s Cuba is an exploitative, torturous environment that oppresses women worse than any Third World regime. Which is correct?

  It’s known that while Castro had an arm’s-length relationship with his father, he and his mother, Lina Ruz Gonzalez, enjoyed a warm, even close, relationship. When Castro was in prison after being captured and tried for storming the Moncada Barracks, Lina, his mother had visited him more than once in prison, and offered her support for his efforts. Not much is known about her and their relationshi
p after Castro came to power; the details of Castro’s personal life are generally off-limits unless he chose to share them. What is known, however, is that despite that he was acting in the interests of the poor, and not in the interests of their class, she stood behind her son.

  While in college, Fidel married Mirta Diaz-Balart, and the marriage did not end well, mainly due to her loyalties not lying where he believed they should be; that even if she and their son were starving to death while he served out his jail sentence, not only was she to stand by him, she was not to accept help from her family.

  Not only was this marriage fairly short-lived, but it was marred by Fidel’s many alleged infidelities, at least one of which had been confirmed when a letter intended for his mistress landed in his wife’s hands. That ended with a bitter custody battle, forged and won by Fidel in his cell. Mirta remarried, leaving their son behind in Cuba.

  Fidel would marry again, but not before having multiple affairs and fathering several illegitimate children with them. In fact, Fidel would continue to enjoy a string of lovers, reportedly throughout his life. Several years ago, the New York Post published an article about known men who have had the most lovers. Among the names on the list were Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, both known for their dalliances. Topping the list, however, by tens of thousands ahead of the rest, was Fidel Castro, having had a reported 35,000 women in his bed. Whether this is number is accurate or not has not been confirmed by Fidel; though close advisors have confirmed that Fidel generally takes a woman for lunch and dinner, and apparently also breakfast sometimes.

  His womanizing aside, however, it’s important to note that he has placed women in positions of importance. During the Revolution, Celia Sanchez was as important as Che or Raul. Reportedly, anyone who wanted to discuss anything with Fidel had to go through her.

  During the attacks on the Moncada Barracks, he relied heavily on women, who fought right alongside the men, including Haydee Santamaría, who, in prison following their capture, had been served her brother’s eyeballs as proof of his demise; and Melba Hernández, in whose apartment the plans for the attack were laid out and discussed. Fidel has never taken away from their contribution to his cause.

  After the Revolution, Castro made certain women’s rights part of the forefront of his program of social reform, including creating a generous maternity situation for women. Castro said, “Since women also have childbirth as a natural function we give them, if they have children, a year off to raise their baby—not to encourage them to have more children, but the best thing that can happen to a child when he comes into the world is to have his mother’s influence, and his mother’s milk.”

  After the Revolution, the Rebel Government established the Federation of Cuban Women for the advancement of women in Cuba, and Cuban women have the same constitutional rights as men, and are constitutionally guaranteed the same opportunities as men. They also, at the time of this writing, hold 48.9 percent of the seats in Parliament—a far cry from the percentage of women in the United States who hold office. They do, however, struggle to make as earn as men, like in the U.S., though Castro seemed determined to fix that.

  All of this is well and good, except there’s a darker side of the story of women in Cuba and the way they are treated, though the research seems to indicate that this is not at the hands of the government, but of splinter groups.

  Fidel said, “Today we might say that we are the least machista country, not in the world, I wouldn’t say that, but at least in this hemisphere. We have created a culture of equality and respect, which you’re aware is not something you find in all of our societies … [O]ur machismo was inherited and we know very well how all that was inherited and cultivated in capitalist societies … My own feelings were different … I had a feeling of solidarity, because I saw and suffered over the way women were discriminated against in that exploitative society.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CASTRO MEETS WORLD

  “[I]n the first few days and months those terrorist activities were organized by Batista elements, really—former police officers and Batista people mixed in with some counter-revolutionaries. But even then, the U.S. administration, using those elements, was working intensely against Cuba. In the months prior to the invasion of óó, the CIA was frantically creating anti-Cuba and counter-revolutionary organizations—over time it created more than 300 of them. And today we know that in March 1960 President Eisenhower signed an order authorizing a ‘powerful propaganda offensive’ against the Revolution and a clandestine plan of action to topple the Cuban government.”

  Fidel Castro has always had a lot to say about the United States being against Cuba, going on well before the success of the Cuban Revolution and its various reforms in the late 1950s and early 1960s; well before the attacks on the Moncada Barracks in the early 1950s. Between Batista’s two reigns of Cuba, once in the 1940s and then his forcible takeover in the 1950s, Batista lived in the United States, where he picked up all his capitalist notions and made relationships that he would later work to nurture, even at the cost of exploiting his own people. That, for Castro, was the biggest outrage: that one could turn his back on the interests of his own countrymen to make money for those who had even less interest in the welfare of the people.

  The United States was where Batista got his ideas; the United States had encouraged, even empowered, Batista to carry them out in Cuba. Batista had to go, along with all his alliances. Batista had made Cuba dependent on the source of its exploitation, and Castro worked tirelessly to put an end to that.

  To that end, though, Castro knew the story wasn’t one-sided. He knew that for as hard as he pulled away from the controlling capitalism of the United States, there would be pushback. Whether it was all valid or not was irrelevant to Castro; he believed it, and that was all that mattered. He believed that the United States was actively terrorizing Cuba.

  “Sabotage, the infiltration of men and the draining of military equipment in order to sabotage us and encourage uprising and terrorist activities.”

  “They sent in planes to spray the cane fields with incendiary materials … They hijacked our airplanes and flew them to the U.S., and many of those planes were destroyed, others confiscated.”

  “They killed diplomats, they killed our compañeros, even in the U.S.”

  Several months after the Cuban Revolution, Castro made a visit to the United States, the first since his ill-fated Miami honeymoon in the 1940s—the trip during which he lost all his money. During his 11-day trip, for which he had not been given or accepted formal government invitation, he was the consummate tourist. He caught a game at Yankee Stadium, he visited the Bronx Zoo, and he placed a wreath on the tomb of George Washington. He wished to meet with then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower, but Eisenhower refused, sending Vice President Richard Nixon instead. The insult did not go unheeded, the meeting did not go that well, and the visit went downhill from there.

  Castro spoke before the Council on Foreign Relations, describing in great detail why Cuba would not be dependent on the U.S. His statements were greeted with great heckling from the Americans present. It was a frustrating waste of time that ended with Castro storming out. Castro said, “From the first moment [to this day], the American administration has been working to create an unfavorable image of the Cuban Revolution. They have carried out huge publicity campaigns against us, huge attempts to isolate Cuba. The objective has been to halt the influence of revolutionary ideas. They broke off diplomatic relations in the 1960s and took measures to impose an economic blockade.” Two years later, nearly to the day, would come the Bay of Pigs invasion.

  Perhaps the most insidious conspiracy Castro believes to have been a device of the United States against the Cuban people was the so-called “Operation Peter Pan,” in which 14,000 children were exiled from Cuba, separated from their families, never to be reunited. Castro explained, “… Operation Peter Pan, the kidnapping, practically, of 14,000 of this country’s children, after our adversaries
invented the appalling lie that the Revolution was going to take children away from their parents, take away the parents’ custody. Under that pretext, or due to that unfounded or absurd fear, 14,000 of this country’s children were clandestinely sent to the United States, and several Catholic priests who were opposed to the Revolution took part in that kidnapping, as did Catholic priests in Miami.”

  So, in Castro’s eyes, it was the U.S. government that scared the Cuban people into tossing their children into the “better” capitalist abyss—a misguided attempt to try to “rescue” them from great evils, a horrible conspiracy sparked by the United States to weaken Cuba and hit the people in a place they could not ignore. The rumor was that the government was going to take children away from their parents; that like everything else that had been nationalized, so, too, would parenting.

  Castro said, “When you’re dealing with things involving such deep emotions, people go crazy. They’re easily taken in because of the kind of lie it is, the circumstances of the moment, and the way the lie is spread. In this case, given an emotion such as the emotion of parenthood, that mad idea hit a nerve, it hit people’s instinct—they couldn’t process it. Which is why [our enemies] were able to scare even so many middle-class parents, and that made the exodus, the clandestine shipment of the children, much easier and many families were separated forever.”

  There was more to it; in fact, the more it went on, the more insidious the fate of these children became. Castro had later quipped, “It’s been 46 years and we still don’t have enough facilities for the mothers who want to send their children to childcare centers.” In other words, how could the people really believe that the government was going to be able to care for all of these children?