We came to realize that Fidel Castro’s cynicism and evil knew no limits. Nevertheless, a large sector of the population glorified him.
14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 28 July 2024 — I have friends who defend the military coup of 10 March 1952, led by General Fulgencio Batista. Others do the same with Fidel Castro’s attack on the Moncada Barracks on the 26th of July 1953. The two dates had tragic consequences for the Cuban nation, as anyone with even a passing awareness of the country’s history can attest.
As I see it, there is no historical justification whatsoever for the military coup while the actions of the 26th of July can be viewed as an act of revenge or retaliation for the disruption of the nation’s democratic processes.
Both events must be seen not as isolated events but as the main causes and consequences of the island’s ongoing drama, though the catastrophic results of the ultimate victory of the man who led the attack on the barracks have acquired a life of their own due to the magnitude of the event.
Batista had tasted power and enjoyed it while Castro, it seems, was willing to go all out for it
None of the participants in these unfortunate events could have foreseen what would happen, not even the main protagonists. Batista had tasted power and enjoyed it while Castro, it seems, was willing to go all out on a personal quest that would cast him as the righteous hero who could do anything and overcome everything. Someone for whom defeat, were it to come, would serve as just another step in his ascent.
We came to realize that Fidel Castro’s cynicism and evil knew no limits. Nevertheless, a large sector of the population glorified him in part due to our tendency to value heroism over good intentions.
When facing danger, he sought protection from the church, which years later he tried to destroy. At his trial, he took full advantage of the the judicial process. Speaking in his own defense, he portrayed himself as an imprisoned but not defeated hero, which suddenly put him on a par with the nation’s most prominent political leaders. His imprisonment and the deaths he caused were his elevator to fame.
Obviously, he was convinced that it was easier to take up arms than to participate in a contested election in which the loser would walk away ignominiously while the winner would have to periodically bend to popular will.
The new political conditions in the country provided the breeding ground for Castro to reach dimensions that even his closest associates could never have imagined. His boundless ambition, tenacity, keen sense of timing, characteristic audacity, absolute lack of loyalty to the commitments he made and political talents grew and matured to such an extent that he demanded the leadership position that he himself had created thanks to his cruel and ruthless nature.
Castro, who had been grown up among gangsters, acted like a “gang leader”
Castro, who had been grown up among gangsters, acted like a “gang leader,” someone who fought, took risks and was always ready to save his his own skin. His audacity was complemented by a keen sense of knowing when to switch sides, which never failed him when it came time to betray groups such as the Revolutionary Socialist Movement (MSR) or the Revolutionary Insurrectional Union (UIR).
The attack on the Moncada Barracks was a resounding failure due to poor planning and operational disorganization by the man who would later dub himself commander-in-chief and whose henchmen have, over the years, portrayed him as an exceptional military strategist. What the survivors of the assault did manage to accomplish was to establish a regime that has led Cuba to moral and material destruction.
Terror and its consequences — fear and social paralysis — quickly spread. The country began to decline, both economically and socially. Friendships and families were torn apart. Poverty, prison, exile and death were consequences that affected all of society.
Seventy-one years after the siege of the Moncada Barracks and sixty-five years after the triumph of the revolution, Castro’s legacy has little to show for itself.
The island is ruled by a “nomenklatura” that has enjoyed an uninterrupted reign of absolute power. It has degraded the nation to such an extent that even Raúl Castro, one of the chief architects of the dictatorship, once said, “It pains us to look upon the steady decline of moral and civic values such as honesty, decency, shame, decorum, integrity and sensitivity to the problems of others that have marked the the more than twenty-year span of the Special Period.”
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