Fidel Castro: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: An undeniably strong leader's strengths and weaknesses
Review: Fidel Castro: A Biography is a solid and thorough rendition of the life of Cuba's tenacious and controversial political leader. Tracing his early years, his influence on profound events of history, economic and social issues plaguing the nation of Cuba up to the modern era, and much more, Fidel Castro: A Biography is an exceptional, evenhanded portrait of an undeniably strong leader's strengths and weaknesses. An inset selection of black-and-white photographic plates complements the involving prose.

Rating:
Summary: Useful, but naive, account of Castro's revolutionary career
Review: This vigorous new biography of Fidel Castro by a German journalist is marred by its liberal perspective. It reflects the EU's social democratic approach to Cuba and socialism, basically hostile, under a veneer of friendship.

It is not as good as Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che, and it unfortunately overlooks key sources like Morley, Petras, Huberman and Sweezy. Nonetheless, it vividly portrays the great revolutionary from his days as a guerrilla leader in the Sierra Maestra to the present.

Skierka tells the story of President Kennedy's policies towards Cuba, starting with his Bay of Pigs attack in April 1961 (with no UN authorisation - like Bush's recent attack on Iraq). That November, Kennedy approved the invasion plan Operation Mongoose. In February 1962, he ordered a total blockade of Cuba, and demanded a military strike. Then he reversed course and secretly contacted Castro, which infuriated the CIA, the Mafia and the Cuban exiles, who arranged Kennedy's assassination, and blamed Castro.

Contrary to Skierka's view, Cuba has every right to defend itself against its external enemies and their internal allies. Those who take foreign money to propagandise and organise betray their country. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua won liberals' plaudits by allowing the counter-revolution to organise, but the Sandinistas lost power as a result, and Nicaragua's workers and peasants lost too.

Castro said, referring to Gorbachev, "there are two types of communists: good and bad ones, as defined by imperialism. Those who do not submit to imperialism they call inflexible." Castro told Gabriel Garcia Marquez that Perestroika "is leading the Socialist world back to capitalism." Garcia Marquez suggested, "perhaps it's the beginning of true socialism, of socialism with a human face." Castro replied, "No. Believe me, Gabo, it's going to be a disaster."

The USA and the EU pose a growing threat to Cuba, playing hard cop/soft cop, the USA with economic sanctions and ceaseless, recently intensified, terrorist attacks organised from Florida by the CIA and the Mafia, the EU with diplomatic and cultural boycotts. A country needs working class resoluteness and thought to survive as independent in the face of this onslaught.