The tyrant who advocated for the poor: how Fidel Castro’s life and rule is a political paradox

The US opinion of Cuba’s former leader is widely unfavourable, but elsewhere he has been praised for improving the lives of ordinary Cubans. Mick O’Hare examines the dichotomy of his rule

Fidel Castro addresses the crowds at Revolution Square in Havana, in 1965 (Getty)

Popular uprising or roughshod revolution? Political insurgencies rarely fail to create paradoxes. The contradictions inherent in the notion that one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist are pretty much irreconcilable. We can be certain the newly emancipated French peasant of 1789 felt differently about recent political developments than the dissident Jesuit staring face down into a basket in front of the Paris mob.

“My grandmother danced around the table,” says Maria Gutierrez, speaking of the time when Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement seized power in Cuba 60 years ago, in January 1959. What would ultimately morph into the Communist Party of Cuba had ousted corrupt, authoritarian dictator Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar – who had held power for a quarter of a century. Maria also remembers her grandmother, head in hands, sitting at the same table when, 17 years later, Maria’s uncle – her grandmother’s son – was arrested. “He ran a printing press,” says Maria. “Although he was unaware, people opposed to the government had printed leaflets on the night shift which questioned peacefully Cuba’s political direction.” Maria’s uncle would return home, but he was a cowed man. “He never told us what happened, but he never smiled and whenever a door shut he jumped in fear.”