The Real Fidel Castro

Rating:
Summary: Altogether an annoying read
Review: Coltman gives his work credibility by freely admitting two important truths: Castro enjoys the warm support of a majority of the Cuban people, and Guevara and Castro were not at daggers drawn, but remained comrades-in-arms to the very end of Guevara's life. But with every political event and turning-point in the revolution that he describes, Coltman systematically distorts or omits the impact of popular mobilization by the Cuban people. He leaves out the milllions who marched in favour of socialism during the Mariel boat lifts in 1980. He says nothing of the hundreds of thousands who poured into voluntary work brigades during the fight against bureaucracy and stagnation in the late 1980s -- under the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party. He insists on seeing the revolution as the work of one talented megalomaniac, leaving out the facts in order to bolster this view. In 1960, for example, the Cuban delegation to the UN in New York was greeted by enthusiastic crowds in Harlem when Malcolm X arranged for the Cubans to stay at Harlem's Hotel Theresa. The delegation had been subject to politically-motivated and racist harrassment in their Manhattan hotel. Coltman portrays the incident as a shameful foray into the realm of prostitutes and shabby digs. Completely missing the point. As does his whole book.

Rating:
Summary: A Balanced Look at The Supreme Rebel
Review: Coltman has written a fun, water-color biography on Fidel Castro. Yes, there is a chronology of historical events that shaped the leader: his failed attack on the Moncada barracks, the U.S.-Soviet missle crisis, Cuban military assistance to Nicaragua and Angola, economic woes, and the Elian Gonzalez soap opera. But the good stuff is the gossipy diplo-circle comments, such as Fidel's response to a reporter's question about his eldest son Fidelito's "resignation" as head of Cuba's nuclear power program. "He didn't resign," Castro tells the journalist. "He was fired for incompetence! This isn't a monarchy." Castro haters get red-faced whenever anyone praises the man's candor, intelligence or humor, things that detract, in their minds, from the ruthless evil dictator he is supposed to be (read the much-praised "Waiting for Snow in Havana"). Coltman doesn't ignore any of the many charges leveled against Castro's strongman style of governing. Many sections of the book are built on episodes that brought Castro severe criticism. Thoughout this biography, however, we are shown the fiercely proud patriot -- proud of Cuba, proud of its campaign of revolution since its war of independence from Spain -- showing us Castro's point of view: why a firing squad is just punishment for a turncoat Army general, why dissidents receiving money from U.S. agencies that have ceaselessly fought his government are contemptible, why 'bourgeois elections' that never brought real democracy to Cuba -- and with a poor record throughout Latin America -- are a hollow promise. Coltman neither vilifies nor glorifies Fidel Castro. For many on both sides, this is unpardonable. For the other 99.9 percent of us, it's a true gift.

Rating:
Summary: less of evils
Review: I agree with many of the things that the two reviewers below say, however, compared to some other books claiming to be bios on Fidel, this books is one of the better ones. He is obviously biased toward communisum but as least he is not a terrorist, Cuban exile who commpletly distorts the truth about the Cuban revolution. Its like voteing for Kerry vs Bush, they both suck, one sucks less.

Rating:
Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at Fidel
Review: I found the other reviews quite interesting and insightful especially since I read them after reading this book. It is difficult for an American or Cuban to have an unbiased opinion on Fidel. That having been said, I found Coltman's look at Fidel to be an enjoyable read as well as candid in his depictions of his childhood.

Rating:
Summary: Strange imbalance
Review: I was born in Cuba and came to live in the USA when I was 8 years old. Rather than looking at Castro like Mephistopheles incarnated, I was always ambivalent about him. Of course, I wasn't born during the 1959 Revolution, nor did I suffer the untold number of tragic anecdotes we hear about these days-- yes, I also read 'Waiting for Snow in Havana' and I also sympathesize with that generation of Cubans because they are members of my own family. Which is why my thoughts on Castro always changed, though not my views about his policies. To me, he has done my harm to Cuba than every dictator that came before him, or probably will come after. I was never a communist and despite how I am able to romanticize his revolution (there's nothing romantic about it), I remember the repression of ideas, the jailing of people simply because of rumors or gossip, and the separations of families. As a historical figure, though, he is a complex figure, a result of the times that helped him to be raised from mere university thug to president to dictator. Have you read any of the stories written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? such as the 'Autumn of the Patriarch'? If analyzed and studied carefully, the patriarch is none other than Castro himself-- a close friend of Marquez, too. That book, though fiction, has all the nuances, mental complexities and intellectual rigors of a man such as Fidel! I, myself in my own humble ways, wrote a book about returning to Cuba (Rediscovering Cuba: A Personal Memoir). The first draft of that book had a chapter on Fidel. In the final edition, though, it was gone. I personally excised that chapter because after untold number of drafts, Castro came out either a hero or a thug. Perhaps in the future, more revisionist biographies will be published on Castro and those will express more clearly my own questionings. Anyone interested in such? Perhaps I should write it myself!

Rating:
Summary: Mean-spirited attack on a great revolutionary
Review: Sir Leycester Coltman was Head of the Foreign Office's Latin America Department, then Ambassador to Cuba (1991-94), then to Colombia (1994-98). But as this mean-minded book shows, this hardly qualified him to write `the real' biography of Fidel Castro.

This book gives the Foreign Office view, brimming with anti-trade union, anti-national and anti-communist sneers. For example, he casts doubts on Fidel's brother's parentage, citing as evidence Raul's `slanted oriental eyes', but even the book's photos disprove this.

Coltman patronisingly assumes that Britain can give lessons in democracy to Cuba, but how many of us voted Mandelson an EU Commissioner? Coltman smugly assumes that capitalism means progress, but capitalism, a mode of production, does not make technological innovations or scientific advances: the working class makes them all. He cannot describe US imperialism and the illegal US blockade without putting the offending words in inverted commas.

He claims that the Macmillan government's decision to sell the Cuban dictator Batista warplanes and tanks was `commercial rather than political', because Britain's economic situation was `desperate'. When Macmillan refused to sell Hawker Hunter fighters to Castro to defend Cuba against imminent US aggression, the situation was presumably not so desperate. Kennedy's illegal assault on Cuba showed that Bush's practice of unilateral, aggressive war is nothing new.

Cuba's eight million people have sustained independence and sovereignty, repelling all efforts to interfere in their internal affairs. So Fidel rightly opposed the Sandinistas' 1989 decision to bow to US-EU demands to hold multi-party elections in Nicaragua: the Sandinistas even let the US government fund the opposition.

He warned, "Some people think they can save socialism by making concessions. They fail to take account of the voracious mentality of imperialism and of the reactionary forces. If you give them part of a fingernail, they will want part of your finger; if you give them a piece, they will want the whole finger; if you give them the finger, they will ask for the forearm; if you give them the forearm, they will ask for the arm; and when you give them the arm, they will chop off your head."



Rating:
Summary: Strange imbalance
Review: This wonderful new account of Mr. Castro's life is full of the normal stories and anecdotes and gives an average account of his life, revealing nothing new but exposing nothing less. The real gem in this book is the nonchalant writing style, the narrative stride of the text and the up to date nature of the history which brings us to the present day. Covered within these pages are the typical story of Castro's early life, his exile to Mexico, his arrival aboard the Grandma in the Sierra Madre and his victory over Batista. Also covered are the typical stories of his government, the obsession with sugar, the forays into Latin America and Africa and the ever present `scandals' and persecutions of men like Padilla and Ochoa. A well written robust account of the life of Fidel and his Cuba. A superior account can be found in Guerilla Prince, especially for those interested in the foreign policy of the Fidel regime. Also of interest is the book Conflicting Missions. Nevertheless this new biography is commendable and worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: A modest but up to date account
Review: This wonderful new account of Mr. Castro's life is full of the normal stories and anecdotes and gives an average account of his life, revealing nothing new but exposing nothing less. The real gem in this book is the nonchalant writing style, the narrative stride of the text and the up to date nature of the history which brings us to the present day. Covered within these pages are the typical story of Castro's early life, his exile to Mexico, his arrival aboard the Grandma in the Sierra Madre and his victory over Batista. Also covered are the typical stories of his government, the obsession with sugar, the forays into Latin America and Africa and the ever present 'scandals' and persecutions of men like Padilla and Ochoa. A well written robust account of the life of Fidel and his Cuba. A superior account can be found in Guerilla Prince, especially for those interested in the foreign policy of the Fidel regime. Also of interest is the book Conflicting Missions. Nevertheless this new biography is commendable and worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: A substantial and objective view of a Latin American Legen..
Review: Written by an appointee of Margaret Thatcher, this book is an outstanding and objective view of a man, like it or not, who will go down in history with the same reverence as is accorded to Simon Bolivar.

Coming from a decisively Thatcherite background, the author's commentary is neither distorted by the hysterical whiners in Miami nor is it merely pinko propaganda. Coltman devotes a chapter to each major phase of Castro's life, from his studies in Jesuit schools, to Congressional candidate, to revolutionary, to nuts and bolts senior statesman.

For those wondering how it was possible for just one lawyer like Fidel to go from possessing just 12 rifles after his men had been massacred after a catastrophic landing of his rebel ship Granma to a decisive victory over an army of tens of thousands, this book is for you.

For those of you wondering how it is possible for a country to increase its literacy rate in just one year from 66% to 97%, this book is for you. For those of you wondering how it is possible for a nation subjected to the most extreme blockade in human history, for forty years, to have an infant mortality rate 15% lower than that of the United States, this book is for you. (One clue: in Cuba, if an expectant mother misses a prenatal doctor appointment THE NEXT DAY her obstetrician visits her personally at home. Why can't we do this in the USA rather than gold-plating all of our nuclear weapons because they explode more evenly?)

If you wonder how it is possible for a nation subjected to an embargo more extreme than the embargo recently imposed upon Iraq to have zero homeless people (compared for example to 50,000 homeless veterans sleeping in squalor on USA streets every night, many of them highly decorated), this book is for you. As they say in Cuba, "Every night, 30 million children sleep on the street. Many of them live in the USA. None of them live in Cuba."

If you want an inside, balanced examination of how this is all possible, written by an appointee of the free-market heroine Margaret Thatcher, read this book... I go to the island twice yearly on licensed visits, fully authorized, and am thoroughly familiar with what is actually happening there.

Matthew