Fidel Castro: Birán to Cinco Palmas E-Book

Eugenio Suárez Pérez

• Herausgeber: RUTH
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Spanisch

Seitenzahl: 520

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The pages of Fidel Castro: "Birán to Cinco Palmas" cover the most notable moments in the first thirty years of life of the leader of the Cuban Revolution. From his childhood to the historical reencounter with his brother Raúl, shortly after their return to Cuba aboard the cabin cruiser Granma, the gradual development of the thinking and actions of this exceptional figure can be appreciated.

Leseprobe

Original title in Spanish:Fidel Castro: De Birán a Cinco Palmas

First edition:Mayra Fernández Perón and Josefina Ezpeleta Laplace

E-book edition: Claudia María Pérez Portas

Design: Enrique Mayol Amador

E-book desktop publishing and design: Alejandro Fermín Romero

© Eugenio Suárez Pérez and Acela A. Caner Román, 2013

© Angie Todd, 2013

© Editorial JOSÉ MARTÍ, 2013

ISBN:978-959-09-0623-7

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INTRODUCTION

Fidel Castro, the maximum leader of the Cuban Revolution, is known throughout the world for his rebellious spirit, his clear and profound thinking, his vibrant use of language, his immense culture, his absolute sincerity and his unlimited generosity and solidarity. As Ernesto “Che” Guevara said, Fidel is “a leader of world stature at a height seldom known to history.”

Approaching the life and works of Fidel does not merely signify coming into contact with the most noble and revolutionary ideas and actions of the contemporary world, but also with moments in the history of Cuba and the Americas that, at times, would appear to have been taken from a fabulous adventure story: It is to know a man of principles, an exceptional man.

Fidel Castro: Birán to Cinco Palmas is a book of impassioned passages that brings us closer to the fertile life of the Cuban president and arouses our interest in further research on this man, as sensitive as he is a revolutionary. That is, in essence, the supreme objective of this work.

Fruit of meticulous bibliographical research and selection, this book compiles excerpts from interviews with the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolution and his closest comrades in study and in arms, which give the book an intimate and colloquial tone. Also included in its pages are excerpts from Fidel’s letters, speeches, indictments, defenses and charges, together with press notes, research material by eminent academics, and testimonies from collaborators, workers and campesinos whom he helped in difficult circumstances.

All the documented memoirs in the book have been published and their references are to be found at the end of each chapter, so that interested readers can have access to the sources and further explore the distinct stages or facets of Fidel’s life.

In order to promote understanding of the text and make it easier reading, short paragraphs have been inserted to connect the diverse material compiled.

On account of the book’s particular characteristics and because we are not in the presence of a complete or completed work, the historical events narrated do not always appear in rigorous chronological order, although they have been organized with a certain time orientation.

In such a context, this book, which covers the first three decades of Fidel’s life, begins with details of his birth on August 13, 1926, in Birán, an almost forgotten point in the geography of the former Oriente Province; moves through distinct facets related to his childhood and adolescence, studies and hazardous life as a revolutionary combatant; and concludes on December 5, 1956, the date of the reencounter with his brother Raúl in Cinco Palmas after the Alegría del Pío dispersal, where Fidel, optimistic and confident in the power of his ideas and Cuban dignity, confirmed that seven rifles were enough to win the Revolution.

So, enjoy your reading of these pages that lead us, in Fidel’s hand, along the glorious route from Birán to Cinco Palmas.

THE EARLY YEARS

I Was Born a Guerrilla

Birán, a farm located in the former province of Oriente, not far from the Bay of Nipe, was the geographic point where, in the summer of 1926, the family of Ángel Castro Argiz and Lina Ruz González was increased by the birth of their third son, whom they named Fidel Alejandro.

Many years later, as a prominent statesman, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz referred to his birth and life in that remote place, asserting he was born:

On August 13, 1926. If you want to know the time, I think it was around 2:00 in the morning. Maybe that had something to do with my guerrilla spirit, with my revolutionary activities. Nature and the time of my birth must have had some influence. There are other factors that should be taken into account now, right?—what kind of a day it was and whether or not Nature has anything to do with the lives of men. Anyway, I think I was born early in the morning—I think I was told that once. Therefore, I was born a guerrilla, because I was born at around 2:00 in the morning.1

My father was the son of an extremely poor farmer in Galicia. At the time of Cuba’s last war of independence, which began in 1895, he was sent here as a Spanish soldier to fight. So here my father was, very young and drafted into military service as a soldier in the Spanish Army. When the war was over, he was shipped back to Spain, but it seems he’d taken a liking to Cuba. Along with many other immigrants, he left for Cuba in the early years of this [20th] century. Penniless and with no relatives here, he got himself a job.

Important investments were made in that period. U.S. citizens had seized the best land in Cuba and had started to destroy forests, build sugar mills and grow sugarcane, all of which involved big investments in those days. My father worked in one of the sugar mills.

. . . Later, he apparently got a group of workers together. He managed them and contracted the men to work for a U.S. firm. He set up a sort of small enterprise that, as far as I can remember, cleared land to plant sugarcane or felled trees to supply sugar mills with firewood. It’s possible that, as the organizer of that enterprise with a group of men under him, he began to make a profit. In other words, my father was clearly a very active, enterprising person, and he had an instinctive sense of organization.2

My maternal grandparents were also very poor; they came from a very poor family. My grandfather hauled sugarcane in an ox cart. He, like my mother, was born in the western part of the country, in Pinar del Río Province. During the early years of the century he and the rest of the family moved to what used to be called Oriente Province, 1000 kilometers away from his home, in an ox cart, and settled there.

. . . Two of my mother’s brothers also worked there as ox-cart drivers.3

. . . she [his mother] learned how to read and write when she was practically an adult.

. . . My mother was practically illiterate. She learned how to read and write all by herself. I don’t remember her ever having a teacher other than herself. She never mentioned one. With great effort she tried to learn. I never heard of her ever having gone to school.4

. . . So like my mother, he [his father] also learned how to read and write all by himself, through sheer determination.5

Not Landowner Stock

I was born into a landowning family, but not of landowner stock. What do I mean by that? My father was a Spanish campesino from a very humble family, who came to Cuba at the beginning of the century as a Spanish émigré.

He began to work in difficult conditions. He was an enterprising man, who made his mark and came to occupy a certain leadership position in early-century labors. He gradually accumulated money and set about acquiring land. In other words, he was successful in business and came to be the proprietor of a certain amount of land, around 1000 hectares if I remember correctly. That was not so hard in the early period of the Republic. Then he rented more land. And when I was born, it’s true that I was born into the heart of what could be called a landowning family.

Now, on the other hand, my mother was a very humble campesino, very poor. For that reason the traditions of what we could call an oligarchy in the heart of my family did not exist. Nevertheless, objectively speaking, our social position at that moment was of a family that had relatively plentiful economic resources. It was an owner of land and had all the comforts—we could say—and the privileges enjoyed by a landowning family in our country.6

There was no bourgeois or feudal society in Birán. There weren’t twenty or thirty landowners whose families would get together, always forming the same group. My father was an isolated landowner. Sometimes a friend would visit him, but we hardly ever visited anybody. My parents usually stayed home; they didn’t go to visit other families. They worked all the time. So, the only people we saw were the ones who lived there. I used to go to the Haitians’ quarters, to their huts, and sometimes I was scolded for it but only because I ate the dry corn they cooked. I got into trouble because I ate with them—for health, not social reasons. Nobody at home ever said, “Don’t go near so-and-so.” Never. They weren’t class conscious; they didn’t have a rich people’s or landowners’ mentality.7

. . . The school was a small, nondenominational school. About fifteen to twenty children went there. I was sent there because there wasn’t any nursery school. I was the third oldest child in my family, and my nursery school was that school. They sent me there when I was very young. They didn’t have anything else to do with me, so they sent me there with my older sister and brother.

I can’t remember when I learned how to read and write. All I remember is that they used to put me in a small desk in the front row, where I could see the blackboard and listen to everything that was being said. So, it may be said that I learned in nursery school—which was the school. I think it was there that I learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. How old was I then? Probably four, or maybe five.

Religion wasn’t taught in that school. You were taught the national anthem and told about the flag, the coat of arms and things like that. It was a public school.8

Life of the Poor

Even before being baptized I was sent to Santiago de Cuba. My teacher had led my family to believe that I was a very industrious student. She made them believe that I was smart and had a talent for learning. That was the real reason why they sent me to Santiago de Cuba when I was around five; I was taken from a world in which I lived without any material problems and taken to a city where I lived poorly and was hungry.9

. . . Thus I could say that I went hungry, that I was left virtually barefoot, that I had to stitch up my shoes when they broke.

I was in that situation for a year or so. It could be said that on that occasion I knew poverty.

Could that have had an influence on me? Really, I don’t know, I can’t be sure of that.10

I was poor because the teacher’s family was poor. She was the only one earning any money. That was during the economic crisis of the thirties, around 1931 or 1932. The family consisted of two sisters and their father, and one of the sisters was the only one who had a job. Sometimes she wouldn’t be paid or would be paid only after a long wait. During the great economic crisis of the early thirties, salaries often weren’t paid and the people were very poor.

I went to Santiago de Cuba to live in a very small frame house that leaked like a sieve when it rained. The house is still there; it’s still standing.

During the school year, the teacher kept working in Birán, and her sister had to live on that salary. My family sent forty pesos for my board, an amount that had the same purchasing power as 300 or 400 pesos now. There were two of us, my older sister and me. In view of that situation of poverty, their not receiving salaries, and the fact that they wanted to save, not much money went for food. There were five people to be fed—later six, because my brother Ramón came too, a few months later. We got a small container with a little rice, some beans, sweet potatoes, plantains, and things like that. The container arrived at noon, and it was shared first by five and then by six people, for lunch and dinner. I used to think I had a huge appetite; the food always seemed delicious. Actually, it was just that I was always hungry. It was a rough period.

Later, the teacher’s sister married the Haitian consul in Santiago de Cuba. Since I happened to be there at the time and my wealthy godfather hadn’t materialized and the baptism hadn’t been performed—I was around five years old and, as they said, a “Jew,” because I hadn’t been baptized and didn’t even know what it meant—a solution had to be found for the problem. I guess that this use of the term Jew is also linked to some religious prejudices that we can discuss later on. Anyway, finally I was baptized, and the Haitian consul became my godfather, because he’d married the teacher’s sister, Belén, who was a good and noble person. She was a piano teacher, but she didn’t have any work or students.11

. . . During the period I told you about, I was sent to Santiago de Cuba while still very young. I had many unmet needs and went through a lot of hardships. Around a year later, things started to improve somewhat. At one point, my parents became aware of the difficulties I was facing. They protested and even made me return to Birán. But, after the protests, the teacher’s explanation, and the subsequent reconciliation, I was sent back to her house in Santiago de Cuba. The situation, of course, improved after the scandal. How much time did I spend there in all? At least two years.

In the beginning, I wasn’t sent to school; my godmother gave me classes. Those classes consisted of having me study the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables that were printed on the cover of my notebook. I learned them by heart. I believe I learned them so well I’ve never forgotten them. Sometimes I can calculate almost as quickly as a computer.12

. . . Most of the people who have played a role in our history had mentors, outstanding teachers, or professors. Unfortunately, I’ve had to be my own mentor all my life. How grateful I would have been if somebody had taught me about politics, if somebody had taught me revolutionary ideas!13

That’s how it was. I had no textbook, only my notebook and some notes. And of course I learned arithmetic, reading, writing and taking notes. My spelling and handwriting must have improved a little. I think I spent around two years there just wasting my time. The only useful aspect was the experience of tough, difficult conditions, hardships, and sacrifices. I think I was the victim of exploitation, in view of the income that family got from what my parents paid them.14

I Should Have Been a Musician

In one of his conversations with Frei Betto, evoking the days of his childhood, Fidel confessed to the eminent Brazilian friar:

I also remember the Three Wise Men. One of the beliefs that was inculcated in five-, six- and seven-year-olds was that of the Three Wise Men. . . . I must have been three or four the first time the Wise Men came. I can even remember the things they brought me: some apples, a toy car—things like that—and some candy.

January 6 was the Epiphany. We were told that the Three Wise Men, who’d traveled to pay homage to Christ when He was born, came every year to bring children presents.

I spent three Epiphanies with that family. Therefore, I must have been there at least two and a half years.

Frei Betto: So the capitalist Santa Claus never became popular in Cuba?

Fidel Castro: No, never. What we had were the Three Wise Men, who rode camels. Children wrote letters to the Three Wise Men: Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. I can still remember my first letters. I wrote when I was five and asked them for everything—cars, trains, movie cameras, the works. I wrote long letters to the Three Wise Men on January 5, we looked for grass, and I put it under my bed with some water. The disappointments came later.

Frei Betto: What’s that about the grass?

Fidel Castro: Since the Three Wise Men rode camels, you had to provide them with some grass and water, which you put under your bed.

Frei Betto: All mixed up?

Fidel Castro: Either mixed up or the grass and water next to each other.

Frei Betto: How interesting! I didn’t know that.

Fidel Castro: You had to provide food and water for the camels, especially if you wanted the Three Wise Men to bring you lots of presents, everything you’d asked them for in your letter.

Frei Betto: And what did the Three Wise Men eat?

Fidel Castro: Well, I don’t know. Nobody remembered to leave food for the Three Wise Men. Maybe that’s why they weren’t very generous with me. The camels ate the grass and drank the water, but I got very few toys in exchange. I remember that my first present was a small cardboard trumpet; just the tip was made out of metal, something like aluminum. My first present was a small trumpet the size of a pencil.

For three consecutive years, three times, I was given a trumpet; I should have become a musician. After all—The second year, the Three Wise Men brought me a trumpet that was half aluminum and half cardboard. The third time, it was a trumpet with three small keys, made completely of aluminum.15

My First Rebellion

Once I started attending school the education was systematic, but the most important thing was the material and environmental improvement; for the first time I had teachers, classes, friends to play with, and many other activities that I’d lacked when I was a single student studying arithmetic from the cover of a notebook. That new situation lasted up until I launched my first act of rebellion, when I was still very young.16

When Frei Betto asked him about the reasons that impelled him to take this decision, the leader of the Cuban Revolution replied:

I was tired of the whole situation. At the teacher’s house, I’d be spanked every so often, and if I didn’t behave perfectly, they threatened to send me to boarding school. Then one day I realized that I’d be better off in boarding school than in that house.17

Those people had had a French education. They spoke perfect French. I guess that’s how they got to know the consul. I don’t remember exactly how it was they’d gotten a French education. I don’t know if they’d been to France or had attended a school in Haiti. They knew how to speak French and had perfect manners. Of course, I was taught those manners when I was very young. Among other things, you weren’t supposed to ask for anything. The very poor children used to have a penny to buy a rayado or granizado, which is what they called snow-cones, but I couldn’t ask them for anything; that was forbidden, according to the rules of French education. If I asked another boy to give me some, the children, with the selfishness characteristics of that age and the desperate poverty in which they lived—they knew the rules I had to follow—used to say, “You’re begging! I’m going to tell on you!”

That family had its code, and I’m not criticizing it. You had to do this and that and the other thing. You were subjected to a lot of discipline. You had to speak in an educated way. You couldn’t raise your voice. Naturally, you couldn’t use any improper language. When they threatened to send me to boarding school, I was already tired and had become aware of what had happened before. I even realized that I’d been starving and that I hadn’t been treated fairly. I haven’t told you everything in full detail, because I don’t want to make this an autobiography; I just want to touch on subjects you’re interested in. So one day when I got to school, I deliberately started to break all the rules and regulations. In what amounted to a conscious act of rebellion aimed at having them send me to boarding school, I raised my voice and said all the words I’d been forbidden to use. That’s the story of my first—though not my last—rebellion, which took place when I was in the first grade. I must have been seven at most; my age could be verified.18

A Violent Confrontation

In the conversation with Frei Betto, Fidel confided they sent him to boarding school:

Yes, and I began to be happy. For me, boarding school meant freedom.

Frei Betto: How long were you at La Salle boarding school?

Fidel Castro: Nearly four years. I was there for the second half of the first grade, second grade and third grade. Because of my good grades, I was promoted to the fifth grade straight from the third grade, so I made up for one of the years I’d lost.19

However, although the organization of the teaching wasn’t bad, serious conflicts arose and Fidel made his second rebellion. He referred to the La Salle School:

. . . Those people hadn’t had the training that the Jesuits had. Moreover, they used really reprehensible methods at times. Some teachers or authorities at the school hit the students every so often. My conflict there was over that, because of an incident with another student. It was a small quarrel typical of students of that age. I had the opportunity to see how violence is used against students in what would now be called bad teaching methods. That was the first time the brother monitor in charge of the students hit me with a fair amount of violence. He slapped both sides of my face. It was a degrading and abusive thing. I was in the third grade, and I never forgot it. Later, when I was in the fifth grade, I was hit on the head twice. The last time I wouldn’t put up with it, and it ended up in a violent personal confrontation between the monitor and me. After all that, I decided not to go back to that school.20

My Battle to Study

I began as a day student at the school, after Christmas vacation—and also after arguing a lot at home. I had to argue at home and demand that I be sent away to study. That’s when I launched my battle to study. I had to struggle, because the people at my old school had told my parents that I’d behaved badly, and those arbitrary reports had influenced my family. I said I wouldn’t accept not being allowed to study. I knew what the problem was and what was behind the conflict. It stemmed from an abusive, violent act, the physical punishment of a student. I think I had very clear ideas about the matter—the result of instinct; because of some notions of justice and dignity that I was acquiring; or perhaps because, when I was still quite young, I’d begun to see some incorrect, unfair things by which I was victimized. I began to acquire values. I was very aware of them, and I had to demand very firmly that I be sent away to study—perhaps not so much out of a love of study but rather because I felt an injustice had been committed against me. And I was sent away to study; my mother supported me. I convinced her first, and then she convinced my father. They sent me to Santiago de Cuba again, but as a day student. . . .

Summer came and they left me there because my older sister was there studying. A black teacher from Santiago de Cuba came to tutor my sister. She was very well trained. Her name was Professor Danger. She became interested in me. Since I had nothing else to do during my vacation, I went to class with my sister, who was preparing for high school. I answered all the questions in all the subjects the teacher taught, and this made her genuinely interested in me. I wasn’t old enough to enter high school, so she began to draw up a study plan for both before and during the first year of high school at the same time. Then, when I got old enough, I could take the exams. She was the first person I ever met who encouraged me; who set a goal, an objective, for me; and who motivated me. She got me interested in studying when I was that young. I think you can stimulate children at that age with a specific objective. How old was I? Ten or maybe eleven.21

When I was in the fifth grade, then, I went to live in the home of a businessman’s family. I couldn’t say they were bad people, but they weren’t my family; they couldn’t have the same interest, and they applied some strict—even arbitrary—rules. For example, they didn’t take into account the fact that I’d had problems in my other school, as I’ve already explained, and that I’d transferred to a more rigorous school. They didn’t consider the psychological factors involved in the adaptation to a new, more demanding school and new teachers. They wanted me to get the highest grades; they demanded it. If I didn’t get the highest grades, I didn’t get that week’s ten cents for going to the movies, five cents to buy an ice cream after the movies and five cents on Thursday for buying some comic books. I remember that clearly. There were some comic books that came from Argentina, a weekly called El Gorrión (The house sparrow). I read some novels there, too. De tal palo, tal astilla (Like father, like son) was one of them. Five cents. The normal weekly allowance was twenty-five cents. If you didn’t get the highest grades, you didn’t get the twenty-five cents. That measure was arbitrary and completely unfair, because they didn’t take my new circumstances into account. It wasn’t the right psychological approach for an eleven-year-old.22

. . . I decided to create a situation in which they had no alternative but to send me to school as a boarder. Thus, between the first and sixth grades, I had to wage three battles to solve three problems.

By the time I started to board in the sixth grade, I was getting excellent grades, and in the seventh grade I was among the top students in my class. I also gained a lot in other ways, because the world of sports and trips to the countryside and the mountains were within reach. I liked sports a lot—especially basketball, soccer and baseball.23

Now, certain factors contributed to develop a certain spirit of rebellion in me. We could say that I rebelled in the first place against the unjust conditions in the house of the family where I was sent at the age of five. In the very schools to which I was sent I also felt a rebellious impulse against certain injustices. We could say that during the period of my childhood, I felt the sensation of things that appeared to me unjust and that fomented a feeling of rebellion in me approximately three times. Those factors could have contributed to developing a relatively rebellious nature. That spirit of rebellion could also have manifested itself in later life.

My social relations as a boy, during school vacations, were with very poor children from the place where I lived.

I could say that in spite of my family’s economic situation, in the country where I was born, I always mixed with the children of the poorest families, as there was no aristocratic tradition in my family. Third, that the process of my childhood and adolescence led me more than once to adopt an attitude of opposition and rebellion against things that I believed were unjust. Although we received the education that goes with those particular schools, our training also contained a preeminence of certain principles of rectitude.

Now, while a character, a spirit might have been developed in all that phase of my life, I did not acquire any political awareness. It was as a university student that I acquired the political awareness that helped me to interpret life, helped me to interpret the world, helped me to interpret society and helped me to interpret history. Principally when I came into contact with Marxist literature, which exercised an extraordinary influence over me, and helped me to understand things that otherwise I never would have understood.

Thus I can state that I acquired my political awareness through study, through analysis, through observation, not through class origin. But I do not believe in any way that class origin is an insuperable factor, I believe that people’s conscience can raise them above their class origins.24

With the Havana Jesuits

Fidel recalled details of his student life, affirming:

At that school, on my own, I decided to go on to the Jesuits’ school in Havana. I hadn’t had any conflicts there; I was completely successful academically and in sports. I had no problems in the sixth or seventh grades or in the first and second year of high school, as I was there until the end of the year. I consciously decided to seek new horizons. I may have been influenced by the prestige of the other school in Havana, by its catalogues and buildings and the books written about it. I felt motivated to leave the school I was in and go to the other one. I made the decision and suggested it at home, and I was allowed to transfer to the other school.

. . . The Colegio de Belén. It belonged to the Havana Jesuits and was the best Jesuit school in the country—perhaps the best school in Cuba in general, because of its material base and facilities. It was a huge place, a center with great prestige, where the cream of the aristocracy and the Cuban bourgeoisie went.25

I joined the basketball team and some other teams in the sixteen-year-old age group. I began to take an active part in sports and became quite good in basketball, soccer, baseball and track and field—nearly everything—right from the start. When I arrived, I found a wide range of activities. My favorites were sports and Explorers. I maintained my old love of the mountains, camping, and things like that, which I continued to do on my own. There was an Explorers’ group there. It seems that during our first excursions, the teachers decided I was good, and they promoted me, until one day they made me the head of the school’s Explorers—the Explorers’ general, as it was called.26

While at this school, I climbed the highest mountain in the west. We had a three-day holiday, and I organized a trip to Pinar del Río Province with three of my friends. The expedition lasted five days instead of three, because the mountain was in the north and I didn’t know where it was exactly. We went out to look for it and to explore it. We took a train that went south, but the mountain was in the north. We began the trip at night and hiked for three days before reaching the mountain—Pan de Guajaibón, which was quite a difficult one to climb. We reached the top but got back to school two days after classes had started.27

Many years later, Fidel recounted some of his experiences as a pupil of the Jesuits, of whom he said:

. . . I am very grateful to them because they taught me some things that helped me in life, above all, to have a certain fortitude, a certain sense of honor, and specific ethical principles that—while at a far remove from the political and social ideas I might have now—the Spanish Jesuits inculcated in their pupils.

But I came out of there an athlete, an explorer, a mountain climber and entered the University of Havana as a political illiterate, without the fortune of a revolutionary preceptor, which would have been so useful to me in that part of my life.28

A good student?

I had some duties at school, because students used to be assigned specific tasks. If you were in charge of a classroom or study hall, you had to turn out the lights and close the doors and windows. I was in charge of the main study hall where we stayed for a while after dinner before going to bed. During exam time, I had to be the last to leave. I used to stay there for two, three, or four hours, going over my notes. Even though it wasn’t exactly right, it was allowed—perhaps because it didn’t hurt anybody. During exam time I studied all the time—before and after lunch and during recess. I studied the textbooks to learn everything I was supposed to know but didn’t about mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. I’m self-taught in all those subjects; somehow I managed to understand them. I developed a capacity to unravel the mysteries of physics, geometry, mathematics, botany, and chemistry with textbooks alone. I usually got excellent grades, which were often higher than those obtained by the best students.29

. . . So the teachers came and gave their exams, which were usually tough. It seems that my specialty was those exams given by the state teachers. Often when the best students became confused and didn’t answer correctly, I managed to get the highest grades in subjects that were considered difficult. I remember when I got the only high grade on a Cuban geography exam; it was ninety. Our school complained to the state high school teachers, pointing to the low marks and they replied, “The textbook the students used isn’t very good.” Then our teachers said, “Well, there’s one student who used that same textbook and got a ninety.” The thing is, I used a little imagination and made an effort to explain the answer. For me the exams were a question of honor.

In short I was very involved in sports, the Explorers, all kinds of outdoor activities, and cramming during that period, but I got good grades.

I also made a lot of friends among my fellow students. Without trying—and without even realizing it I became popular as a sports enthusiast, an athlete, an Explorer, a mountain climber, and also as an individual who in the end got good grades. Some political virtues may also have been apparent without my being aware of them.30

Was I a good student? No, I wasn’t a good student, and I should start by saying that I cannot present myself before this generation as a good student. I went to classes, that’s true, and as Professor Delio was telling you—much to his displeasure because he wanted me to have been a model in everything—the teacher was in the classroom and I was there physically, but my mind was elsewhere. I explained to him that I was seated there with the rest of them, the teacher was explaining something and I was thinking about goodness knows what: mountains, sports, or any other of those things that boys, and girls, think about sometimes.

So I became a last-minute student, the worst recommendation that could be given to anybody; now, I was a good last-minute student. In that, I think I could maybe compete with Ana Fidelia [Quirot, Cuban runner] in her last race when she won the World Championship, because the rest of them were ahead and finally, I devoted all my time to studying: recreation, lunch, evening meal, like a self-taught pupil.

I told Delio that I even studied mathematics, physics, and science on my own account near the end of the year, when I finally obtained good grades, often above those of the best year students. That was my final effort. The Jesuit teachers applauded me strongly in the championships period, forgave me everything and criticized me at the end of the year, when they wrote home predicting that I would definitely fail the year.

I haven’t forgotten a teacher of great character, he was an inspector, and it was him that called me up one time, along with a gentleman that represented me there, a representative of my father, and informed him right there that I was going to fail the year. Of the three years, I don’t even remember if it was the second in that school. He voiced his complaints. I studied like I always did, and I recall that one day, leaving the dining room, that strict inspector said to me: “Do you know how many marks you scored in physics?” with a Spanish accent.

I acted dumb and said to myself: There’s something going on here to explain why he came out with that question, but I knew I’d done well in the exam, so I said: “No.” He said: “One hundred!” The best pupil scored 90, the school’s most brilliant student had scored 90 when he had to go to the state school for the exams or the teachers from the state schools went there for the exams.

They didn’t manage to inculcate the habit of studying every day in me and, as I said, they consented to everything in relation to sports medals, they treated me better than the Cuban team. Criticism was left to the end. They didn’t teach me the habit of really studying every day.31

In other aspects school life turned out well for me in terms of sports, explorations, excursions, all those things. I had good relations with the other boys, excellent relations, which I realized on the last day, really by the way they responded when they gave me the high school leaving certificate at the school.

I never imagined that I had so many friends in the school. I think that was the result of the kind of relations I had with the others, without practicing politics or far less; but when I went up to University, what did I know about politics?

What had I brought from school, what had I maybe brought from my home, what had I brought? A profound sense of justice, a specific ethic that was acquired over time. Those ethics must inevitably have Christian precepts, those that you learn in one way or another, those that you learn fighting against injustice from a very early age, fighting against abuses from a very early age, combined with a sense of equality in my relations with everybody from a very early age and, moreover, indisputably derived from a rebellious temperament or character—however you want to describe it. I reacted, I never resigned myself to abuse and things being imposed by force.32

I Knew Very Little about Politics

I should say that when I went up to University, I knew very little about politics. What did I know about politics in that period? The most I remember is that I had a brother, or a half-brother, who was nominated as a representative for the Authentic Party, there in Oriente Province. I remember that at that time, there were forty-two representatives for Oriente, and that each party had its candidates. I was about fourteen years old, and I went about teaching people how to vote; there I was with some ballot slips touring the huts and houses of Birán, teaching people how to vote for Pedro Emilio Castro. I don’t recall the exact number of candidates on the ballot slip, but I had to give an explanation to those people, who were almost all illiterate: the place, the party and everything, where they had to mark a cross.

But don’t start thinking that I was a revolutionary at fourteen, or that I was a politician at fourteen and had chosen a specific political option; it was only that the candidate was my brother and he had offered me a horse if he won the elections. Really, it was a campaign—yes, yes, that was in 1939—what I did was hardly altruistic. But he talked to me, he was kind enough to take notice of me; boys always like to be taken notice of, to be taken into account, and he gave me that task which I carried out up until election day, when all my efforts came to nothing; the rural guard arrived and prevented everyone from voting.33

I Regret Not Having All My Life to Read and Study

I have read as many books as I could in my life and it pains me not having more time to read. I suffer when I see libraries, I suffer when I look over a list of the titles of all kinds of books, and I regret not having all my life to read and study.

I have read all kinds of literature.

My initial readings, those that most attracted me, were of history books: Cuban history, universal history and many biographies; I have read almost all the basic classical biographies. At school, at the high school leaving certificate, I came into contact with literature, basically with the classics of Spanish literature.

The Bible was not missing from my classical works, of course. Anyone who analyzes my terminology will find biblical vocabulary, because I studied for twelve years in religious schools, like La Salle Brothers and fundamentally with the Jesuits. I was at La Salle Brothers from first to fifth grade, and continued with the Jesuits from fifth grade until I obtained the high school leaving certificate. They put me very much in contact with Spanish literature above all, not so much with universal literature. It was later when I had the opportunity to read many works, and then when I was in prison. The most time I had for reading was during the close to two years when I was in prison from 1953 and 1955.

Let me say that I have always maintained an interest in Cuban history, for anything in relation to our independence fighters, in first place Martí, and everything on Martí’s works.

The first books I really deeply immersed myself in were Martí’s literature, Martí’s writings; I don’t think there’s anything written by Martí—including his political declarations, his speeches, comprising two thick volumes of 2000 pages or more—that I didn’t read either studying for the high school leaving certificate or at University. Then, the biographies of our patriots: Máximo Gómez, [Carlos Manuel de] Céspedes, [Ignacio] Agramonte and [Antonio] Maceo; I drank in all that literature, everything related to those figures! I could say that I obtained my first political training reading Cuban history, still as a student; but even after graduating, I always read a lot. I always liked and still like reading, and am fanatical about any literature that refers to our Wars of Independence, or to the figures of our fight for independence.34

During Vacations

Fidel recalls:

During my vacations I had to work. When I was an adolescent, my father used to take me to the office or have me work at the store. I had to spend part of my vacation doing that work, which wasn’t at all voluntary—I had no alternative. I’ll never forget the many poor people who came there—barefoot, ragged and hungry—looking for a chit so they could buy at the store.35

Lots of people in Birán have many memories of the times when Fidel returned to the land of his birth. Among them, a well-built man of exceptional height: Gilberto Suárez, better known as Llane, recounts:

On one occasion he was in the cockpit with a group of boys who almost always met there from the early hours to fight. When Mongo arrived he called me over: “Hey, you’d better put gloves on with Fidel.” I told him: “Well, kid, I can see that the fights go on for a long time and I can’t spend much time here; a little while, yes, but that’s it, because Fidel always likes to prolong the fights.” Mongo, who acted as Fidel’s second, convinced me by telling me not to worry, that it was just going to be a quick bout, nothing more.

I put the gloves on, but he noticed I didn’t tie them. He came over and said: “Tie your gloves,” and I told him: “No, kid, I’m not going to, because when I want to take them off, I can do so, and when they’re tied, that means a long time fighting.”

I could see that Fidel was squaring up to have a good fight with me. We began to lock with each other. Somehow, he managed to catch me off guard and gave me a powerful blow. Then we started to go for each other until I connected with his head. Fidel would have been about fifteen and me, twenty.

Mongo quickly put Fidel in his corner and told him: “O.K. That’s enough,” and he replied straight off: “What’s enough?” and with that came back to me. It was then that I took off running, and everyone behind me, because at that time he went about with rifles and things like that and we thought he was going to kill us.

One day in the store, I heard someone climbing the stairs and when I looked, I saw it was Fidel and Lina. I immediately tried to hide, but the store-owner, a friend of Fidel’s, called him over and said: “Hey, kid, what happened between you and Llane?”

“Don’t tell me anything Bartolo, this black guy shows promise, he’s got a fantastic punch, he gave me a blow here that still hurts,” Fidel answered, resting his head on a block of ice that they’d brought to the store. Then he said: “I’m going to take him to Havana; I’m going to train him to really box there in Vedado.”

That fight between Fidel and me was on a Thursday coming up to 4:30 p.m. Really, the fight took place because Mongo knew that if he didn’t find a fighter, he’d have to put on the gloves again with Fidel, which he was constantly doing. Those were days when Fidel was on vacation in Birán.36

A journalist asked Llane about a baseball game when Fidel made a triple play.

“I didn’t play in that challenge, but I remember it well, because a lot of us went to see the encounter. There was a tremendous hit, I think it was the Galician Iglesias who connected. Mongo’s team was winning 1-0 in the ninth inning, no outs, when the rival team managed to fill the bases. Everything was ready for some sensational play: that man sounded a master hit, a fly that landed in the bushes, I think it was a guásima tree. In a split second Fidel came out of those bushes with the ball in his glove, threw in rapidly and the rest is easy to guess: triple play and victory for Birán.

On another occasion, Fidel demonstrated his qualities as a pitcher. My brother Felipe was the catcher in that game in which he pitched out fourteen strikers.37

Fidel is an uncut diamond. the artist has the spark

From fifth grade in elementary school to the second year of high school, René Fernández Bárzaga and Fidel Castro Ruz shared the pleasant concerns of childhood and youth in the religious educational institution belonging to the Jesuit order, together with Balbino Pérez Suárez, the son of a prosperous businessman who owned the Puerto Padre El Encanto store. A firm friendship budded and developed between those adolescents, which has lasted for life.

Fidel, René, and Balbino met four years ago in Las Tunas Province at a glass-bottling factory. Balbino showed the leader of the Revolution a photo capturing a trip to the country in which they appear with other classmates from the Santiago school.

Fidel, with lucid precision, set about identifying the members of the group, children in that period: Mastrapa, Prada, Martínez, René, Balbino, all of whom, with time, went their different ways. Fidel and his brother Raúl, both pupils at Dolores School, threw in their lot with the poor of the earth.38

René affirmed that Fidel was the precursor of mountaineering and camping in Dolores and in Santiago de Cuba, and showed us a photo with Fidel and other students wearing scout uniform.

“One of our first expeditions was in Puerto Boniato, then in El Cobre, El Caney... Fidel scaled the highest mountain, he was the first to make the ascent and the last to come down; sometimes the bus that took us to the countryside had to delay its return to Santiago by two to three hours because Fidel was still up in the mountains.”

After a pause, Fernández Bárzaga relates:

“Out of the whole group, Fidel was the mountain climber par excellence. He thrilled with emotion and joy every time we had an expedition to a mountainous area.”39

René and Balbino likewise highlighted Fidel’s role in sports, even as a young boy. On various occasions he was declared best student athlete of the year, mainly in Belén. Once he won the 800-meter inter-school competitions; he demonstrated skill in basketball and practiced all sports: soccer, swimming and baseball.40

“Escapades? Those of our age and class background. Despite the discipline imposed by the Jesuits, they allowed us to get away with some fooling about because we were our daddies’ sons, and daddy was a rich trader, landowner or politician and paid well for our education.

“There were exceptions in order to change our attitudes and Brother Salgueiro is recalled today with much affection, without forgetting that he came down hard on any indiscipline. Fidel, for example, recounted that he quickly became an expert in long division because instead of lines, Brother Salgueiro used to give out division sums with six figures in the dividend and three in the divisor as a general rule, and twenty sums for each punishment.

“The teacher in this story of ours was Spanish, short but with a fearsome character; he didn’t swear out of respect for his habit, but when he got into a bad mood he fumed and was unashamed of it, but he was very noble. He was in charge of the boarding students.

“Salgueiro has lived in the Dominican Republic for many years, we have a letter from him here in which he evokes the days of Dolores School when we called him ‘Twenty sums.’ And there’s a piece of story that Fidel has related of that episode: ‘At the end of vacations one year we brought a parakeet from Birán for the father Prefect, who really liked those little creatures, and prepared a perch in a little garden outside the study room where Brother Salgueiro supervised us.’

“Taught by the boarders, the first thing the parakeet learnt to say was ‘Salgueiro, twenty sums, twenty sums!’ And it was always repeating ‘Twenty sums!’ Salgueiro didn’t kill the bird because he was one of the Prefect. He ended up giving the parakeet to the San José home, where the nuns taught it to pray, and people speak wonders of it.”41

Fidel distinguished himself in the Jesuit School in Havana, where he studied for his high school leaving certificate. A large number of references to the boy born in Birán appear in the Ecos de Belén yearbooks published between 1942 and 1945.

At the end of the account of the 1944-45 course, the Jesuit School yearbook contains a report on Fidel by Father Amado Llorente, which reads as follows:

Fidel Castro Ruz

Always distinguished himself in all subjects related to letters. Showing excellence and sociability he was a true athlete, defending the School flag with courage and pride. He has won the admiration and affection of everyone. He is to follow a Law Degree and we have no doubt that he will fill the book of his life with brilliant pages. Fidel is an uncut diamond. The artist has the spark.42

Endnotes

1. Frei Betto,Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto(Sydney: Pathfinder Press, 1986), 71.

2. Ibid., 69.

3. Ibid., 77.

4. Ibid., 67.

5. Ibid., 68.

6. Centro de Estudios de Historia Militar de las FAR (FAR Military History Study Center),Moncada: la acción[Moncada: the Action], 2d edition, Vol. 2 (Havana: Editora Política, 1985), 3-4.

7. Frei Betto, op. cit., 109.

8. Ibid., 75.

9. Ibid., 79.

10. Centro de Estudios de Historia Militar de las FAR, op. cit., 4.

11. Frei Betto, op. cit., 79-80.

12. Ibid., 84.

13. Ibid., 111.

14. Ibid., 84.

15. Ibid., 84-85.

16. Ibid., 86.

17. Id.

18. Ibid., 86-87.

19. Ibid., 87.

20. Ibid., 90-91.

21. Ibid., 93.

22. Ibid., 92.

23. Ibid., 94.

24. Centro de Estudios de Historia Militar de las FAR, op. cit., 6-7.

25. Frei Betto, op. cit., 101.

26. Ibid., 102.

27. Ibid., 103.

28. Fidel Castro, “Una revolución solo puede ser hija de la cultura y las ideas” [A Revolution Can Only Be the Child of Culture and Ideas]. Speech given in the Aula Magna of the Central University of Venezuela, February 3, 1999 (Havana: Editora Política, 1999), 49.

29. Frei Betto, op. cit., 104-105.

30. Ibid., 105-106.

31. Fidel Castro, “Discurso pronunciado con motivo del inicio del curso escolar 1995-1996 en la enseñanza superior y sus 50 años de vida revolucionaria” [Speech Given to Mark the Beginning of the 1995-96 Academic Year in Higher Education and His Fifty Years of Revolutionary Life],Granmadaily (September 8, 1995): 4.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid., 3.

34. Tomás Borges,Un grano de maíz[A Grain of Corn] (Havana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 1992), 265-266.

35. Frei Betto, op. cit., 114.

36. Reynaldo López Rodríguez, “El gigante que boxeó con Fidel” [The Giant Who Boxed with Fidel],Ahoranewspaper (September 2, 1990).

37. Id.

38. Aldo Isidrón del Valle, “Viaje al mundo de los recuerdos” [Journey to the World of Memories], inAntes del Moncada[Before Moncada] (Havana: Editorial Pablo de la Torriente, 1989), 1.

39. Ibid., 2.

40. Ibid., 3.

41. Ibid., 7-8.

42.Ecos de Belén,Year VII, June 1945.

Aged just three, Fidel Alejandro clutches a book in his hands. One of the first photos to be taken of Ángel and Lina’s little son.

Fidel liked to explore and hunt while on vacation in Birán.

After gaining his baccalaureate, Fidel Castro Ruz presented this photo for his undergraduate file in the Faculty of Law at the University of Havana.

POLITICAL INITIATION

Fidel at University

In 1945, Fidel enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Havana.His vocation as a politician and revolutionary quickly revealed itself. There, right from the outset, he felt that a whole new world was opening up for him.

On the 50th anniversary of his entry into higher education, Fidel told a group of students:

Well, I shared the first few months at University with playing sports, because I wanted to keep them up, as well as initiating myself in political activities. But at that point it was a political involvement that didn’t extend beyond the University, but remained as internal politics.

So, I put myself forward as a delegate within the anthropology course. It was a special course because one could help students in various ways, giving information about practice days and warnings of laboratory and exam days, because many students didn’t attend the University as such; they were registered but didn’t attend. I also organized the first-year nominations.

Naturally, there were some second- and third-year students who were trying to capture us so as to gain a majority because, at that time, delegates from the various courses elected the year delegate, and the year delegates elected the president of the Law Faculty. That’s how it was.

I got involved in those activities in the first year; of course I had to share them with sports. It wasn’t long before it became apparent that the time I had to devote to sports and political activities was irreconcilable. Without thinking twice I totally opted for political activities, organizing the nominations’ slate, supporting it, seeking support among the students; we were working well together. We discovered that it was dominated by a political mafia, but our working methods produced results.

I remember that on election day, around 200 students turned out to vote. I received 181 votes and my adversary 33, and our party won all the course subjects and all the delegates in the first year, totally—in contrast to the last elections—it was a united vote; the majority won and elected me year delegate. It would seem that afterwards they elected me faculty treasurer. Really, when they elected me treasurer of the Faculty of Law, I didn’t have and never had a single cent, so it was an honorary post, the treasurer of nothing. That was how the first year began.

I was already beginning to stand out, relatively speaking, people were starting to notice me and, at the same time, governmental disrepute was rapidly increasing and, as students, we came out against that government.

Chibás’ rebellion with the Orthodoxy movement virtually coincided with that period, and culminated in a party called the Orthodoxy Cuban People’s Party, in a response to the frustrations of the Grau government; and we had already demonstrated against the government. Those University leaders had positions, sinecures, responsibilities and everything in the government, and they had governmental resources.1

My Battle Gets Complicated

In that way my battle became more complicated in the second year, when the Faculty of Law became decisive in terms of the FEU [Federation of University Students] elections. So I did the same work in the second year—the course that came afterward, the first career year—I continued working on the second year and the first; we engaged in the same politics. But it should be said that in the second year, our adversaries couldn’t produce a nomination slate, they didn’t have the people to organize the slate, and that was a fact. And by employing a similar working method in the first year, we attained another crushing victory. We now had both year courses, and the largest ones in the Faculty of Law, and that’s when governmental interest in maintaining the FEU at all costs came into play; first wanting to beat us and then, to intimidate us.