Fidel Castro: Beyond the Legend, Katrien Demuynck and Marc Vandepitte, 2026, Praxis Press
Anniversaries matter in politics, by providing a renewed focus on historical events, even if sometimes it can appear to be a stretch to make them seem relevant.
It may have seemed a stretch for Cuba to make the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth this month a day of national commemoration, but the island’s circumstances certainly imbue this with relevance.
Ten million Cubans are suffering under US imperial aggression today like never before and the figure of Castro, who died 10 years ago, continues to embody their country’s historical aspiration to survive as an independent state free from a colonial yoke.
Given that, what we might reasonably expect from yet another biography of El Comandante are lessons that tell us what it was about this individual that enabled him to prevail in the face of overwhelmingly hostile odds where others might not.
Above all, today we want and need to know how the legacy of Castro, his insights and his decisions, provide clues to Cuba’s survival under a new, equally beleaguered generation of leaders.
Katrien Demuynck and Marc Vandepitte provide few explicit answers to this question, even if reading between the lines of their biography we can find valuable clues.
They have written a linear account of the man and his role in Cuban history—by no means the first (see below)—without analysing in detail the aspects of his style of leadership that mattered most in confronting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
We learn, for example, about the young Castro’s passion for history and philosophy, and the authors hint at how these informed his ability to understand the political significance of international events.
As a university student, Castro endlessly courted intellectual engagement in debate, which honed his oratorical skills and ability to convince others—abilities that he also applied in journalism and political activism.
In many ways he was a tirelessly curious autodidact, eschewing the formal curriculum to pursue his own intellectual interests, including the broad study of ideology.
Very rapidly his own nationalist and anti-colonialist reflexes inspired by José Martí and Simón Bolívar were complemented with knowledge of other schools of thought, not least the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
He was also fearless, both ignoring growing violence against opponents of the regime, and acutely aware of the value of international solidarity, joining an (ill-fated) expedition to help oust the brutal Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and being present in Colombia during the infamous Bogotazo.
His work as a lawyer for the poor and his own Orthodox Party activism convinced him of the need for revolutionary change as his thinking began to extend beyond parliamentary politics.
Such ideas gained clear legitimacy with the US-backed coup of March 1952 that established Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship, catalysed Castro’s belief in a military solution, and led him to begin the laborious task of creating an army of resistance.
The failed attack on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, and the harsh repression that followed catapulted Castro to national attention, and he turned his court speech into a propaganda platform with the now celebrated phrase “history will absolve me”.
Prison was transformed into an opportunity for recruitment and education, but above all as the origin of a sophisticated strategy to mobilise public opinion, giving this imprisoned group of rebels growing influence and explaining their eventual release.
By now Castro had become convinced that the only way forward was guerrilla warfare, and it was in exile in Mexico, seeking safety from growing threats, that he adopted a clear vision about how to proceed—which is what attracted the young Che Guevara to join him.
Despite doubts within the movement, Castro held firm to the idea of building a revolution from the bottom that would become as much social as political.
The story of the guerrillas’ activity in the Sierra Maestra has become the stuff of legend, but above all it demonstrates a military acumen, ability to engage with and hence inspire an initially suspicious peasantry, and a sensitivity to the value of international propaganda.
Against all odds, the ragtag commando was gradually transformed into a credible force whose threat resided as much in psychological victories as in acts of warfare, over which Castro presided with a skilful mix of discipline and camaraderie.
Demuynck and Vandepitte write that, at this stage, three elements weighed heavily on the revolutionary process that vindicated Castro’s cautious and patient approach: unlike other revolutions in China or Vietnam, which were led by established parties, he had to build his organisation from the bottom up, and so time was needed to form, consolidate, and prepare his movement for profound changes.
Secondly, victory meant it was highly probable that Cuba would endure yet another military intervention by the US, which implied the need for maximum unity among the revolutionary forces and as broad a front as possible with the civilian population.
Thirdly anti-communism was endemic, and while by then it was clear that the ultimate goal of the revolution was a socialist society, in the middle of the Cold War it remained unwise to state this explicitly.
Once victory was achieved, Castro directed the rebels to act quickly and decisively to consolidate power, avoid a vacuum, and ensure an orderly and above all disciplined transition, and immediately set about reorganising the state and securing international legitimacy.
The honeymoon ended and the story thereafter is largely one of how to remain resilient in the face of threats to the revolution.
As Demuynck and Vandepitte note: “The defence of the revolution would henceforth rest on two pillars: a significant military strengthening of the army and maintaining the unconditional support of the poorest segments of the population.”
Even so, as relations with the US deteriorated, counter-revolutionary plots proliferated, and middle-class Cubans left for Miami, Castro remained cautious about proclaiming the revolution’s socialist aspirations.
It would be in keeping with Latin American geopolitical tradition, however, that he looked east for a counter-balance to an increasingly hostile and aggressive Washington, and he sought out contacts in the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia and eastern Europe.
The Cuban leader saw these alliances as necessary realpolitik, as his country sought support from Moscow to survive economically and politically. The authors write: “The relationship thus did not grow out of ideological conviction, but from mutual necessity and cautious testing.”
The defeat of imperialism at the Bay of Pigs underlined the importance to the revolution of popular support and, ultimately as reflected in the embrace of socialism by the population, an effort by those in power to build genuine consensus.
It was this consensus, alongside an institutional capacity for learning, that carried Cuba through the tumultuous 1980s and the collapse of the Soviet bloc into the Special Period of the 1990s, a disastrous time for the country.
This experience bears most similarities with the present: the US hoped to deliver the final blow and tightened the economic embargo through the Torricelli Act in 1992 then the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, both extraterritorial laws aiming to scupper the economy.
Emergency measures were not just thrashed out by Havana, but through extensive public participation—80,000 so-called “worker parliaments”—and political changes that extended representation. Castro’s personal response was to make extensive visits and undertake endless debates. Economically, the tourism sector and medical diplomacy were invigorated.
The final chapter in Fidel Castro: Beyond the Legend is arguably the most instructive, examining the importance he placed upon ideas, and in particular winning the “battle of ideas” as a mode of leadership.
Just as on the verge of being killed after the Moncada Barracks fiasco the young Castro had dissuaded security forces from pulling the trigger by stating that it would be pointless to shoot him and his comrades because “ideas never die”, he put great store on persuasion.
The authors write: “His attempts to provide people with insight and convince them were tireless. In his speeches, he set out the plans of the revolution, explained past events, listed arguments for and against decisions to be taken, denounced abuses, admitted mistakes, and so on. No other government leader in history comes even remotely close to this.”
It was perhaps this inherently democratic instinct, more than any other characteristic, that explains how Castro led the Cubans successfully through generations of imperialist aggression and why the revolution has survived, if battered, to this day.
While ultimately Demuynck and Vandepitte have written a history of revolutionary Cuba as told through the life of Castro, and provide few deep analytical insights into his instinctive capacity for leadership, their work is nonetheless a timely, insightful and welcome addition to the existing corpus of work about him.
A selection from that corpus begins with Tad Szulc’s Fidel: A Critical Portrait, 1986, which was arguably the first comprehensive biography of Castro by a writer who first interviewed him in 1959 shortly after he had seized power.
The result was not absent of criticism but tends to focus heavily on the period that precedes the revolutionary triumph and Cuban history while failing to mine the personal depths of this complex individual.
Robert E Quirk’s Fidel Castro, 1993, is better for examining the chief protagonist shaping Castro’s life as a revolutionary leader: his adversary in Washington.
In that respect, this story is one not only about Castro’s relations with the US and Soviet Union and an analysis of his regime, but also one of a small country struggling to survive against the odds.
Leycester Coltman’s The Real Fidel Castro, 2003, is an original and interesting account written by Britain’s former ambassador to Cuba which offers unusual insights into Castro’s personality and behaviour, but again has been accused of focusing too much on his early life.
The German journalist Volker Skierka’s Fidel Castro: A Biography, 2004, is one of the best and most well researched biographies, not least because it is not only very readable but also historically even-handed.
One advantage gained by Skierka in his comprehensive research was the use of documents from East German archives that enable a broader picture of relations with the communist bloc.
Ignacio Ramonet’s Fidel Castro: My Life (A Spoken Autobiography), 2006/08, is of great value for being, in effect, told in the words of Castro himself.
Ramonet—who provides a Foreword for Demuynck and Vandepitte’s biography—conducted 100 hours of interviews with the Cuban leader and so, inevitably, there is no critical component to this work other than Castro’s own self-justifications.
And, inevitably for a leader of this historical stature, there are many other similar works, including (in English): Peter G Bourne’s Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro, 1986; John J Vail’s Castro: World Leaders Past and Present, 1986; Georgie Anne Geyer’s Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro, 1991; Sebastian Balfour’s Castro: Profiles in Power, 1995; Michael V Uschan’s Fidel Castro, 2009; and Richard Platt’s Fidel Castro: From Guerrilla to World Statesman, 2003.
Please help the Latin American Review of Books: you can subscribe on Substack, make a donation through Stripe . . . or just buy us a coffee
BUY THIS BOOK: UK/Europe
Categories: Caribbean, Cuba, International, Mexico, North America, Russia, United States, Yugoslavia (the former)