Fidel Castro Leadership Style

There are few world leaders whose influence and longevity on the global stage can rival that of Cuba’s enigmatic former ruler, Fidel Castro. Born to a wealthy Spanish father in 1926, Castro would go on to become a central figure in some of the most pivotal and important events of the 20th century.

His brinkmanship during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 caused what is widely believed to be the closest any world power has come to launching an all-out nuclear war, and his continued antagonism towards the US over the next five decades gained him respect and enmity from friend and foe alike.

The rise to power of this once charismatic, divisive, popular and despised soldier-cum-statesman is a story that encompasses a heady dose of both myth and reality in varying measure. But what was it about the leadership style of Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz that captivated the hearts of such a large and diverse set of people, and why, even today, is his legacy still so eagerly debated – and, ultimately, still so controversial?

 

What Leadership Qualities Did Fidel Castro Have?

During the long years of his public life, Castro would chart a path for Cuba through some of the most turbulent times in human history, doing so in the face of constant threats from enemies at home and abroad, including numerous assassination attempts by the United States and political pressure from all quarters.

 

In the great showdown between East and West, Castro would be cast, depending on the perspective, as either a courageous martyr or a cynical, selfish manipulator.

 

To guide him through these troubled waters, Castro would rely on all the qualities that made him a great leader in many of the battle zones of Latin America where he first cut his teeth as a revolutionary soldier. That singular commitment that saw him prevail first in Colombia then later Cuba, would also see him turn his tiny Caribbean island into a critical power broker at the center of global affairs. 

 

His ability to make friends with key allies would also ensure the future security of Cuba, as he struck deals with world leaders such as Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. He would also embark on a policy of full authoritarianism on the domestic front, strangling any legitimate opportunity for opponents to contest for a slice of Castro’s power. 

 

Was Fidel Castro An Autocratic Leader?

Although not definitively anti-democratic, communism, wherever it’s been implemented as a governing ideology, has tended to create strong, authoritarian leaders, who often times rule as singular, cult personalities, arrogating almost all executive power to themselves and their inner circle.

 

History is replete with examples of this phenomenon: think Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania, Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia and Mao Zedong’s China. Such was the force of personality of these rulers that their names alone can conjure up and condense succinctly the politics, philosophy and character of their regimes.

 

It’s in this vein of autocratic leadership that Castro’s rule over Cuba can best be understood. There’s little doubt that El Comandante was a war criminal and a serial abuser of human rights – he executed many prisoners and enemies without due process, including Chicho Osorio and many others – so much so that if Castro had ever faced a Nuremburg-style tribunal at any point during his life he would likely have been facing the ultimate sanction for his crimes multiple times over.

 

But Castro’s actions outside of the theater of war, towards his own civilians in a time of peace, were little better. Despite Fidel’s much vaunted regard for the Cuban people, he would brook no dissent, ruthlessly quelling any rivals to his own grip on power, including the use of arbitrary detention, beatings, and public acts of humiliation.

 

Castro also refused the presence of international monitors in his country, such as Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross, no doubt in a bid to prevent them uncovering any illegal actions by the government’s security forces.

 

As is often the case, autocratic leaders like Castro can sometimes use their all-encompassing powers for good. In this case, Castro was able to push through an education program that UNESCO concluded had brought close to universal literacy for the island, as well either meeting, or coming close to meeting, the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000.

 

Was Fidel Castro A Transformational Leader?

There’s an old aphorism by French writer Alexandre Dumas that exclaims something to the effect that nothing succeeds like success; and, to the extent that Fidel Castro garnered such a large amount of admiration from both influential and common folk alike, this couldn’t be more true.

 

For a man whose military exploits and political theories – if judged in the harshest sense – left a trail of blood and misery across multiple continents, the high esteem to which he was held by so many famous world-leading personalities, on both the domestic and global stage, might seem unusual, if not downright perverse. 

 

But this regard for Castro was born precisely out of the fact that he was a winner, and his ability to secure material success for Cuba – and the wider Marxist-Leninist cause worldwide – was what underpinned the power of Fidel’s transformative political and social agenda. Castro really did engineer a metamorphosis in Cuban society, in abstract and concrete terms, and became a totem for would-be revolutionaries all around the globe.

 

An interesting feature of the early days of the Cuban Revolution was that the vast majority of the fighters making up the rebel army that won victory in 1959 were actually composed of the country’s middle-class population. And while this might elicit some sarcastic comments from the regime’s detractors  – something along the lines of their being “champagne socialists” etc. – it does point to another aspect of Castro’s leadership – that he could pivot what was a bourgeois uprising into one that encompassed all elements of Cuban society.

 

The fact that in later years the middle-class would turn against Castro’s government, with many leaving for destinations like Florida in the US, only underscores the reality of the earlier class coalition.

 

Apologists for Castro’s legacy and reputation will often point to two domains in which the Cuban leader really did excel: healthcare and education. And there’s some justification in emphasizing this aspect of his social policy, because, unlike many other totalitarian rulers of his ilk, Castro genuinely made a point out of ensuring his people had much of their basic human needs taken care of.

 

The success of his cradle-to-grave medical coverage, and the country’s comprehensive schooling system, could put many developed nations’ efforts to shame. Again, this proves that Castro wasn’t just a tin-pot dictator, but a substantive statesman that could deliver change for his people that was recognized globally, even sometimes by his own enemies.

 

Indeed, so successful was Cuba’s medical program that it began sending missions abroad, providing medical personnel and services to countries in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. 

 

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What Was Fidel Castro’s Ideology?

Castro’s apparent commitment to the principles of revolutionary communism was not always as certain as today’s commonplace assumptions might suggest.

 

It’s an often forgotten fact that, after the culmination of the guerilla war lasting from 1956 to 1959, having finally wrested power from President Fulgencio Batista, Castro would triumphantly enter Havana declaring that the takeover did not amount to a communist revolution, with The Atlantic magazine’s reporter at the time also declaring that Castro himself was “not a Communist”.

 

But this early iteration of Fidel Castro’s political beliefs was not to hold. It wasn’t long before the as-then Prime Minister of Cuba’s Marxist-Leninist leanings began to show, and the Cuban people shortly found their nation in the grip of a one-party Communist state.

 

Castro’s decision in 1960 to nationalize all US-backed businesses in the country – a policy in line with his increasingly Marxist outlook – turned out to be the proverbial straw that broke the back of American patience with the fledging dictator-in-waiting.

 

Despite the emphasis ascribed to Karl Marx’s influence on Castro, it was arguably another political theorist, José Martí, who had the greater impact on El Comandante’s thinking. Castro would many times allude to Martí in his public speeches and declarations, stating in 2009 that it wasn’t his Marxist ideas that inspired his actions in the Bogotazo riots in Colombia in 1948, but rather the anti-imperialist and pro-democratic teachings of Martí instead. 

 

Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to say that Fidel Castro’s political ideology is most accurately described as socialist-nationalist, which again would be highly attributable to the influence of  José Marti’s works.

 

How Rich Was Fidel Castro?

Having grown up on a 25,000-acre sugar plantation, Castro was well accustomed to the trappings of extreme wealth, and, through the patronage of his prosperous father, he enjoyed the benefits of a good and expensive boarding school education too.

 

But it wouldn’t be until later in life, when Castro had seized power in Cuba, that his own personal money fund would begin to accumulate. While notoriously secretive about his private affairs – including his financial dealings – a number of important Cuban exiles and business figures have come forward in recent years to say that Castro owned a portfolio of prime real estate on the Caribbean Island as well as a controlling stake in many other commercial enterprises.

 

He was known to have retired to his “Punto Cero” gated compound after his brother became president, and is reputed to also own other property in Cuba, such as La Caleta del Rosario, replete with its own private marina.

 

When Forbes magazine included Castro’s name among its “Kings, Queens and Dictators” rich list of 2006, the Cuban president made the quite extraordinary claim that his monthly salary only amounted to around 900 pesos, or about $40.

 

In addition to his business interests, property holdings, and his 900 pesos a month, Castro is also believed to have millions stashed away in Swiss and other international bank accounts. Forbes has previously estimated Fidel Castro’s personal fortune to stand somewhere in the region of $900 million. 

 

Fidel Castro Leadership Style: Conclusion

Aristotle said that “man is by nature a political animal”, and it’s by this political nature that people will come to judge Castro. For some, he was an iconic left-wing hero fighting evil colonial forces; for others, little more than a murderer, imprisoning a hapless people on a backwards, failed state of an island.

 

Castro believed that History Will Absolve Me. Ultimately, only time will tell.

 

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