Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (American Spanish: [fiˈðel aleˈxandɾo ˈkastɾo ˈrus]; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban politician and revolutionary who served as Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist-Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration the Republic of Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and businesses were nationalized, and state socialist reforms implemented throughout society. Internationally, Castro was the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and from 2006 to 2008. The illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista's military junta, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group with Che Guevara and his brother Raúl Castro, referred to as the 26th of July Movement. Returning to Cuba, Castro led the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. As anti-Batista sentiment grew, Castro took a leading role in the Cuban Revolution which ousted the president in 1959, and brought his own assumption of military and political power. Alarmed by his friendly relations with the Soviet Union, the United States government unsuccessfully attempted to remove him, by assassination, economic blockade and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro formed an economic and military alliance with the Soviets and allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis – a defining incident of the Cold War – in 1962. In 1961, Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of his administration, with Cuba becoming a one-party state under Communist Party rule; the first of its kind in the Western hemisphere. Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, socialist reforms introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported foreign revolutionary groups in the hope of toppling Western imperialism, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, and sending Cuban troops to aid leftist allies in the Yom Kippur War, Ethio-Somali War, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage and earned its leader great respect in the developing world. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its economic "Special Period" and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American Pink Tide – namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela – and joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas in 2006. Due to failing health, in 2006, he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who formally assumed the presidency in 2008. Castro is a controversial and divisive world figure. Decorated with various international awards, his supporters laud him as a champion of socialism, anti-imperialism, and humanitarianism, whose revolutionary regime secured Cuba's independence from American imperialism. Conversely, critics view him as a dictator whose administration has overseen multiple human-rights abuses, an exodus of more than one million Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's economy. Through his actions and his writings he has significantly influenced the politics of various individuals and groups across the world.