"El Comandante" redirects here. For the TV series, see El Comandante (TV series).
This article uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Castro and
the second or maternal family name is Ruz.
Fidel Castro
Castro during a visit to the United States in 1959
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Cuba
In office
3 October 1965 – 19 April 2011
Deputy Raúl Castro
Preceded by Blas Roca Calderio
Succeeded by Raúl Castro
15th President of Cuba
In office
2 December 1976 – 24 February 2008[a]
Vice
Raúl Castro
President
Preceded by Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Succeeded by Raúl Castro
16th Prime Minister of Cuba
In office
16 February 1959 – 2 December 1976
Manuel Urrutia Lleó
President
Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Preceded by José Miró Cardona
Succeeded by Himself (as President)
7th and 23rd Secretary-General
of the Non-Aligned Movement
In office
16 September 2006 – 24 February 2008
Preceded by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Succeeded by Raúl Castro
In office
10 September 1979 – 6 March 1983
Preceded by Junius Richard Jayawardene
Succeeded by Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Personal details
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
Born
13 August 1926
Birán, Cuba
25 November 2016 (aged 90)
Died
Havana, Cuba
Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, Santiago de
Resting place
Cuba
Political Communist Party of Cuba (1965–
party 2016)
Other
Orthodox Party (1947–1952)
political
26th of July Movement (1955–1965)
affiliations
Mirta Diaz-Balart
(m. 1948; div. 1955)
Spouse(s)
Dalia Soto del Valle (m. 1980)
11, including Alina Fernández, Fidel
Children
Castro Díaz-Balart
Ángel Castro y Argiz
Parents
Lina Ruz González
Raúl Castro (brother)
Relatives Ramón Castro Ruz (brother)
Juanita Castro (sister)
Residence Santiago de Cuba
Alma mater University of Havana
Profession Lawyer
Nishan-e-Pakistan
Awards
2018
Signature
Presidential powers were transferred to Raúl
Castro from 31 July 2006.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (American Spanish: [fiˈðel aleˈxandɾo ˈkastɾo ˈrus]; 13 August
1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who
governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President
from 1976 to 2008. A Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, Castro also served as the
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his
administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state, while industry and business
were nationalized and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
Born in Birán, Oriente as the son of a wealthy Spanish 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, launching a failed attack on
the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, Castro traveled to Mexico
where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl
Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban
Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the
Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political
power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The United States came to oppose Castro's government
and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade and
counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats,
Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in
Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis – a defining incident of the Cold War – in 1962.
Adopting a Marxist–Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-
party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere.
Policies 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 anti-imperialist revolutionary groups, backing the establishment
of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua and Grenada, as well as sending troops to aid
allies in the Yom Kippur, Ogaden, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with
Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cuba's medical
internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage. Following the Soviet Union's
dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba through the economic downturn of the "Special
Period", embracing environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s, Castro
forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide" – namely with Hugo Chávez's
Venezuela – and signed Cuba up to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006,
Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the
presidency by the National Assembly in 2008.
The longest-serving non-royal head of state in the 20th and 21st centuries, Castro polarized
world opinion. His supporters view him as a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism
whose revolutionary regime advanced economic and social justice while securing Cuba's
independence from American imperialism. Critics view him as a dictator whose
administration oversaw human-rights abuses, the exodus of a large number of Cubans and
the impoverishment of the country's economy. Castro was decorated with various
international awards and significantly influenced different individuals and groups across the
world.
