In his own words
● ‘‘Condemn me. It is of no importance. History will absolve me.’’ — in 1953, when he was defending himself at trial for his near-suicidal assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. ● ‘‘I began the revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I would do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.’’ — Castro in 1959. ● ‘‘I’m not thinking of cutting my beard, because I’m accustomed to my beard and my beard means many things to my country. When we fulfil the globe and other communist regimes in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism, leaving this island of 11 million people an economically crippled Marxist curiosity.
He survived long enough to see Raul Castro negotiate an opening with US President Barack Obama on December 17, 2014, when Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore diplomatic ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. He cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a month-long silence.
Fidel Castro Ruz was born August 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba’s sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father worked first recruiting labour for US sugar companies and later built up a prosperous plantation of his own. our promise of good government I will cut my beard.’’ — 1959 interview, 30 days after the revolution. ● ‘‘I reached the conclusion long ago that the one last sacrifice I must make for (Cuban) public health is to stop smoking. I haven’t really missed it that much.’’ — in December 1985 upon announcing he had stopped smoking cigars. ● ‘‘One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates.’’ — to director Oliver Stone in 2003 documentary Comandante.
Castro attended Jesuit schools, then the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul went to prison.
Fidel turned his trial defence into a manifesto that he smuggled out of jail, famously declaring, ‘‘History will absolve me.’’
Freed under a pardon, Castro fled to Mexico and organised a rebel band that returned in 1956, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba on a yacht named Granma. After losing most of his group in a bungled landing, he rallied support in Cuba’s eastern Sierra Maestra mountains.
Three years later, tens of thousands spilled into the streets of