Fidel Castro
From Infoshop OpenWiki
Dr. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz has led Cuba since taking power in a nationalist revolution on 1 January 1959.
Castro was born in Birán, Oriente on 13 August 1926 as the son of a wealthy Galician immigrant and his mistress. After graduating from a Jesuit preparatory school, Castro began to practice law. He started to become involved in revolutionary politics during the first government of dictator Fulgencio Batista, who had the support of the Moscow-backed Communist Party of the time. Castro was jailed after a disastrous attack on the Moncada barracks in July 1953. He was released in 1955 and fled into exile.
Over the next few years, Castro and his associates (including Che Guevara) secretly returned to Cuba and started a guerrilla campaign against the government. He entered Havana victoriously on the first day of 1959, forcing President Batista out of the country.
Castro's government had initial support from the United States because he rid Cuba of a public relations embarrassment. It was only in 1962 that he declared himself a communist and was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. The Communist Party of Cuba, which absorbed the older Communist Party, was founded in 1965 and became the sole legal party under Castro's direct leadership.
