Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (American Spanish: [fi'el ale'xand?o 'kast?

o 'rus] Abo
ut this sound audio (helpinfo); born August 13, 1926), commonly known as Fidel Ca
stro, is a Cuban politician and revolutionary who governed the Republic of Cuba
as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Pol
itically a Marxist Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Sec
retary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administra
tion Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationa
lized, and state socialist reforms implemented throughout society.
Born in Birn as the son of a wealthy farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperial
ist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating
in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colo
mbia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a
failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he
traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movem
ent, with his brother Ral Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took
a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war ag
ainst Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 195
9, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The Uni
ted States was alarmed by Castro's friendly relations with the Soviet Union, and
unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and
counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Countering thes
e threats, Castro formed an alliance with the Soviets and allowed them to place
nuclear weapons on the island, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis a defining inci
dent of the Cold War in 1962.
Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a o
ne-party socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western he
misphere. Reforms introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare
and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppressio
n of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary g
roups, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and
Grenada, and sending troops to aid allies in the Yom Kippur War, Ethio-Somali W
ar, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of th
e Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 83 and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased
Cuba's profile on the world stage and earned its leader great respect in the de
veloping world. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cub
a into its "Special Period" and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization
ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American Pink Tide namely
with Hugo Chvez's Venezuela and signed Cuba to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Am
ericas. In 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Ral Castro,
who formally assumed the presidency in 2008.
Castro is a controversial and divisive world figure. He is decorated with variou
s international awards, and his supporters laud him as a champion of socialism,
anti-imperialism, and humanitarianism, whose revolutionary regime secured Cuba's
independence from American imperialism. Conversely, critics view him as a total
itarian dictator whose administration oversaw multiple human-rights abuses, an e
xodus of more than one million Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's e
conomy. Through his actions and his writings he has significantly influenced the
politics of various individuals and groups across the world.
Castro was born out of wedlock at his father's farm on August 13, 1926.[1] His f
ather, ngel Castro y Argiz, was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, Northwest Spain.[
2] He had become financially successful by growing sugar cane at Las Manacas far
m in Birn, Oriente Province,[3] and after the collapse of his first marriage, he
took his household servant, Lina Ruz Gonzlez - also of Spanish origin, as his mis
tress and later on second wife; together they had seven children, among them Fid
el.[4] Aged six, Castro was sent to live with his teacher in Santiago de Cuba,[5
] before being baptized into the Roman Catholic Church aged eight.[6] Being bapt

ized enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, where he
regularly misbehaved, and so was sent to the privately funded, Jesuit-run Dolor
es School in Santiago.[7] In 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuitrun El Colegio de Beln in Havana.[8] Although Castro took an interest in history,
geography and debating at Beln, he did not excel academically, instead devoting
much of his time to playing sport.[9]
In 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana.[10] Admitting he
was "politically illiterate", he became embroiled in student activism,[11] and
the violent gangsterismo culture within the university.[12] Passionate about ant
i-imperialism and opposing U.S. intervention in the Caribbean,[13] he unsuccessf
ully campaigned for the presidency of the Federation of University Students on a
platform of "honesty, decency and justice".[14] Castro became critical of the c
orruption and violence of President Ramn Grau's government, delivering a public s
peech on the subject in November 1946 that received coverage on the front page o
f several newspapers.[15]
In 1947, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban People (Partido Ortodoxo), founded
by veteran politician Eduardo Chibs. A charismatic figure, Chibs advocated social
justice, honest government, and political freedom, while his party exposed corr
uption and demanded reform. Though Chibs lost the election, Castro remained commi
tted to working on his behalf.[16] Student violence escalated after Grau employe
d gang leaders as police officers, and Castro soon received a death threat urgin
g him to leave the university; refusing, he began carrying a gun and surrounding
himself with armed friends.[17] In later years anti-Castro dissidents accused h
im of committing gang-related assassinations at the time, but these remain unpro
ven.[18]