Fidel Castro

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Birthday:

13 August 1926, Biran, Oriente Province, Cuba

Birth Name:

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

Height:

187 cm

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in Birán, Holguin Province, Cuba, the fifth of nine children of Ángel María Bautista Castro y Argiz, a plantation owner originally from Galicia, Spain, who operated a plantation in Cuba's Oriente Province. His mother, Lina Ruz González, was a servant in his father's home who bore Fidel out of wedlock (they later were married several years after Angel's first wife died). Known as a rebellious, loud, and troublesome child, Fidel was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago de Cuba, where he was often teased by his wealthier classmates who called him a "peasant." He later attended Belen College before enrolling at the University of Havana, where he earned a law degree. After graduating from the university, Castro briefly practiced law, before he went on to marry Mirta Diaz-Balart, a wealthy philosophy student with family ties to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. They had a son, Fidelito, but after 5 years, the couple divorce and went their separate ways. After several years in prison and exile (he lived in Mexico and New York City before starting the revolution) Castro led an attack on the Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953. The attack, which was a major attack on Batista's hold of Cuba, found Castro once again imprisoned before he was released. After his release he went to the Yucatan, where he organized a rebel force that landed in Cuba in 1958 and after many successful battles, Castro rode triumphantly into Havana on January 8, 1959. Show less «

[from a 1957 NY Times interview] Power does not interest me. After victory I want to go back to my village and just be a lawyer again.

[text from a famous 1953 speech. The last line is considered his most famous quote ever] "I know that imprisonment will be harder for me tha...Show more »

[text from a famous 1953 speech. The last line is considered his most famous quote ever] "I know that imprisonment will be harder for me than it has ever been for anyone, filled with cowardly threats and hideous cruelty. But I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me." Show less «

I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

I would not vote for the mayor. It's not just because he didn't invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there ...Show more »

I would not vote for the mayor. It's not just because he didn't invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes. Show less «

I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.

How can we help President Obama?

Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist.

The revenues of Cuban state-run companies are used exclusively for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong.

There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.

A revolution is not a bed of roses.

North Americans don't understand... that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba.

The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.

I am a Marxist Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his lif...Show more »

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened. Show less «

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief.

A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if y...Show more »

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action. Show less «

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.

My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from...Show more »

My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious. Show less «

The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

No thieves, no traitors, no interventionists! This time the revolution is for real!

More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World.