Political career of Fidel Castro

Castro's desire to take the offensive against capitalism and spread communist revolution ultimately led to the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias – FAR) fighting in Africa.

[23] Militant anti-Castro groups, funded by exiles, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Rafael Trujillo's Dominican government, undertook armed attacks and set up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions.

[27] In September 1960, they created the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), a nationwide civilian organization which implemented neighborhood spying to weed out "counter-revolutionary" activities and could support the army in the case of invasion.

[31] The first Soviet official to visit Cuba (other than intelligence officers) was first deputy premier Anastas Mikoyan in February 1960, who struck a deal with Castro to trade Cuban sugar, fruit, fibers, and hides in return for crude oil, fertilizers, industrial goods, and a $100 million loan.

[35] Inspired by their earlier success with the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, on 17 March 1960, U.S. President Eisenhower secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop a plan to overthrow Castro's government.

He also met the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the two leaders publicly highlighted the poverty faced by U.S. citizens in areas like Harlem; Castro described New York as a "city of persecution" against black and poor Americans.

"[37] Subsequently, visited by four other socialists, Polish First Secretary Władysław Gomułka, Bulgarian chairman Todor Zhivkov, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru,[38] the Fair Play for Cuba Committee organized an evening's reception for Castro, attended by Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, C. Wright Mills and I. F. Stone.

The U.S. responded by ending diplomatic relations, and increasing CIA funding for exiled dissidents; these militants began attacking ships trading with Cuba, and bombed factories, shops, and sugar mills.

[62] The ORI began shaping Cuba using the Soviet model, persecuting political opponents and perceived social deviants such as prostitutes and homosexuals; Castro considered the latter a bourgeois trait.

[63] Government officials spoke out against his homophobia, but many gays were forced into the Military Units to Aid Production (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción - UMAP),[64] something Castro took responsibility for and regretted as a "great injustice" in 2010.

He visited 14 cities, addressed a Red Square rally and watched the May Day parade from the Kremlin, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Moscow State University and became the first foreigner to receive the Order of Lenin.

He supported Che Guevara's "Andean project", an unsuccessful plan to set up a guerrilla movement in the highlands of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, and allowed revolutionary groups from across the world, from the Viet Cong to the Black Panthers, to train in Cuba.

[95] Castro ultimately relented to Brezhnev's pressure to be obedient, and in August 1968 denounced the Prague Spring as led by a "fascist reactionary rabble" and praised the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

[99] In January 1969, Castro publicly celebrated his administration's tenth anniversary in Revolution Square, using the occasion to ask the assembled crowds if they would tolerate reduced sugar rations, reflecting the country's economic problems.

[102][103] Despite Cuba's economic problems, many of Castro's social reforms remained popular, with the population largely supportive of the "Achievements of the Revolution" in education, medical care and road construction, as well as the government's policy of "direct democracy".

Various NAM members were critical of Castro's attendance, claiming that Cuba was aligned to the Warsaw Pact and therefore should not be at the conference, particularly as he praised the Soviet Union in a speech that asserted that it was not imperialistic.

[111][112] As the Yom Kippur War broke out in October 1973 between Israel and an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria, Castro's government sent 4,000 troops to prevent Israeli forces from entering Syrian territory.

[114] That year, Cuba experienced an economic boost, due primarily to the high international price of sugar, but also influenced by new trade credits with Canada, Argentina, and parts of Western Europe.

[120][125] Castro extended support to Latin American revolutionary movements, namely the Sandinista National Liberation Front in its overthrow of the Nicaraguan rightist government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in July 1979.

[141] Castro supported the leftist New Jewel Movement that seized power in Grenada in 1979, sent doctors, teachers, and technicians to aid the country's development, and befriended the Grenadine President Maurice Bishop.

A number of senior military officers, including Ochoa and Tony de la Guardia, were investigated for corruption and complicity in cocaine smuggling, tried, and executed in 1989, despite calls for leniency.

Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos successfully appealed for more Cuban troops, with Castro later admitting that he devoted more time to Angola than to the domestic situation, believing that a victory would lead to the collapse of apartheid.

Gorbachev called for a negotiated end to the conflict and in 1988 organized a quadripartite talks between the USSR, U.S., Cuba, and South Africa; they agreed that all foreign troops would pull out of Angola.

He welcomed western politicians and investors to Cuba, befriended Manuel Fraga and took a particular interest in Margaret Thatcher's policies in the UK, believing that Cuban socialism could learn from her emphasis on low taxation and personal initiative.

[171][172] Fearing that dissident groups would invade, the government organised the "War of All the People" defence strategy, planning a widespread guerrilla warfare campaign, and the unemployed were given jobs building a network of bunkers and tunnels across the country.

Farmers' markets and small-scale private enterprises would be legalised in an attempt to stimulate economic growth, while U.S. dollars were also made legal tender, which allowed exiles to send money to friends and relatives in Cuba.

[193] The alliance boosted the Cuban economy, and in May 2005 Castro doubled the minimum wage for 1.6 million workers, raised pensions, and delivered new kitchen appliances to Cuba's poorest residents.

[190] Some economic problems remained; in 2004, Castro shut down 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills, and paper processors to compensate for the crisis of fuel shortages.

However, after massive damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, Castro successfully proposed a one-time cash purchase of food from the U.S. while declining its government's offer of humanitarian aid.

[203] On July 31, 2006, Castro delegated all his duties to his brother Raúl, the vice president; the transfer was described as a temporary measure while Fidel recovered from surgery for an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding".