Long live Fidel

Long live Fidel

Pablo Neruda triggered controversy for his affiliation with the Communist Party and his open support of Joseph Stalin, and Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro’s revolution brought sovereignty, non-mortgage-able and non-transferable granted property to all planters, non-quota planters, lessees, sharecroppers, and squatters. He made a Law for granted workers and employees the right to share thirty per cent of the profits of all the large industrial, mercantile and milling enterprises, including the sugar mills. He offered all planters the right to share fifty-five per cent of the sugar production.

He made a law for confiscation of all holdings and ill-gotten gains of frauds during previous regimes or gains of all their legatees and heirs. Castro wanted to make Cuba the bulwark of liberty and not place of tyranny.

Castro was influenced by his professor Primo de Rivera’s speeches. His biggest struggle against the Batista dictatorship of 1950s, Castro showed hatred against the United States. In 1959 U.S. saw totally transforming Cuban society.  The U.S. saw Castro as the leader of the Cuban revolution and against “the Yankees.” The Soviets provided the support for Castro’s ambitions.

11 US precedents right from Eisenhower till George W Bush tried to assassin him from 1953 to 2009. These presidents made 634 attempts to kill him. Fidel Castro is known for his fight against capitalism and imperialism.

I am stuck by the line of  Daily Mail UK ‘His handsome, bearded face may have largely disappeared from the T-shirts of the world's more idealistic students but Che Guevara still lives on for one man.’

In 1955 when Che met Fidel Castro, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in a letter to his parents, I got few lines for you.

"It didn't take much to prompt me to join any revolution against a tyrant, but Fidel struck me as an extraordinary man ... He had exceptional faith that once we left for Cuba (from Mexico) we would arrive. That once we arrived we would fight. And once we fought we would win. I shared his optimism. I had to, to fight, to achieve. Stop crying and fight."

Che was with him for Cuba, the post Batista years he wrote a letter to Fidel to resign his position. It is interesting to read few lines of this letter.

Che wrote a letter to Fidel Castro, on April 1, 1965. Havana

Fidel:

At this moment I remember many things: when I met you in Maria Antonia's house, when you proposed I come along, all the tensions involved in the preparations. One day they came by and asked who should be notified in case of death, and the real possibility of it struck us all. Later we knew it was true, that in a revolution one wins or dies (if it is a real one). Many comrades fell along the way to victory.

Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance. I can do that which is denied you due to your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part.

I have always been identified with the foreign policy of our revolution, and I continue to be. Wherever I am, I will feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary, and I shall behave as such. I am not sorry that I leave nothing material to my wife and children; I am happy it is that way. I ask nothing for them, as the state will provide them with enough to live on and receive an education.

Written: April 1, 1965 Transcription/Markup: Brian Baggins - Online Version: Ernesto Che Guevara Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002

Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s writing in Granma on the eve of Castro's 80th birthday. "Fidel Castro is there to win. His attitude in the face of defeat, even in the most minimal actions of everyday life, would seem to obey a private logic: he does not even admit it, and does not have a minute's peace until he succeeds in inverting the terms and converting it into victory."

The first time Castro and García Márquez met on Jan. 19, 1959, it was “Operation Truth,” It was Fidel Castro’s attempt to open Cuba’s trials of the Fulgencio Batista regime to journalists. García Márquez landed in Havana just to observe the trials along with his friend Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, he asked Castro, “Have you eaten?” The trial they witnessed was of a colonel accused of civilian murders in a small town called El Oro de Guisa. García Márquez first signed a request for leniency, but it was denied.

The Bay of Pigs and the New York episodes left a strong impression of Cuba on Garcia. His1967 publication “One Hundred Years of Solitude” made García Márquez an international sensation; two events the following year formed the basis for his relationship with Castro.

Fidel Castro will be known as a revolutionary of 20th century. CNN claims Fidel Castro survived 600 assassination attempts.  Today all over Cuba boards, placards are hung "Long live Fidel."