Fidel Vs. Castro

Fidel Vs. Castro

By: Erreh Svaia

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”

George Orwell

Yes, if you consider the beginning of the Cuban Revolution with Fidel Castro leaving Tuxpan, Veracruz, México in an old small boat called Granma, along 81 men, Fidel story is full of romantic and idealistic details, he reminds me a lot of Leonidas, the main character from Frank Miller graphic novel 300, you probably saw the movie adaptation by Zack Snyder, the story of a brave king from Sparta (Greece), that leaves his land, along with a small group of 300 Spartans, in route to the place called the Thermopylae in order to stop the arrival of the Persian army led by the god-man Xerxes, a legendary battle that supposedly saved Western civilization from the Asian advances, the parallels with Fidel's small badly trained army igniting an almost impossible revolution against dictator Fulgencio Batista is quite inspiring, a brave idealistic fighter, Fidel inspired thousands of people who felt trapped under the power of a major force, call it David versus Goliath, it was an impressive feat, unfortunately, Fidel the brave fighter story ends there, then the evil side takes over, and after defeating Batista (who ruled Cuba for 7 years), Fidel dies and Castro the dictator comes to life (to rule Cuba for more than 50 years), a dictator to replace a dictator. 

After his triumphant revolution, Castro started to make some a big deviation from the original plan, freedom stops being the priority, there is a continuity of serious mistakes and  terrible decisions, collectivism of land (diminishing Cuba´s agricultural sector), a mad desire to make Cuban society an industrialized society (like Stalin´s dream), the naming of Ernesto “Che” Guevara as minister of finances and economy (with an enormous failure as a result), and the sinking of Cuba's then more or less advanced economy (in the 50s,it was one of the most advanced economies in Latin America), if that wasn't enough, Castro declared himself a Marxist to the big surprise of even his closest collaborators, he jailed and executed intellectuals, artists, dissidents, opponents and even homosexuals, just before handling his supposed independence from the imperialist USA right into the hands of the USSR, he handled the whole Island to the USSR and became the autocratic ruler of a Soviet satellite state in Latin America, and if that wasn't enough, Castro, the dictator, put the world under serious nuclear peril during the "missiles crisis” when he demanded to his Soviet protectors to use nuclear force against the USA, how's that for romantic idealism? 

When the USSR came down, Castro decided to put in practice a new plan in order to keep alive a dysfunctional country, create his own union of socialist republics in America, that's a story I have told you here to many times, Castro stopped being a brave fighter ad became a coward, a man who promoted authoritarianism, repression, prohibited free elections, free press, free mobility for his people and freedom of speech, how's that for a brave freedom fighter? He was a parasite who lived from the USSR, from Venezuela and from his puppet rulers in Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, and even in Spain and Greece, he condemned Cuba to isolation, to lack of development, lack of freedom, and lack of a future, by creating a repressive monarchy for his family, that's what the idol of many “progressive” left wingers did, yes, everyone learned to read in Cuba, but they could only read government authorized literature, yes, everyone had available health services for free in Cuba, but they lacked modern hospitals or medicines, yes, everyone was equal, because misery was distributed to everyone but the Castro family and his bureaucratic elite, who created a country of whistleblowers under the rule of a conservative gerontocracy. 

A list of people absent in the funeral rites for Castro tells me a lot of things, Putin was absent, he doesn't want to be associated with a left wing dictator or with USSR's communist past (he is now the “Che” Guevara for the far right wing), it could bring back memories to people who could associate Russia's current authoritarian present with its authoritarian past, Obama, once called a "socialist" doesn't want his brand of left wing vision to be associated with Castro's decadent left, Hollande knows Castro's funeral is also a funeral for the left, so he prefers to stay away and stop the damage his administration has generated for France and for European socialism, Xi Jinping doesn't want to be associated with a dictator, it could sparkle suspicion about his actual power concentration in China, neither did Kim Jung Un showed in Cuba, he might think that someone could use some logic and discover he is in reality a part of the dictator´s club.

Let´s not make another mistake, Nazis wrong doings were clearly recognized and condemned as crimes against humanity, Communism was not as severely accused, and it has more or less survived in its worst incarnations like Castro´s vision, let´s call things clearly for their name, Castro was a dictator, like Stalin, like Mao, like Mussolini, like Hitler, like the Kim´s in North Korea, and make every generation remember it.