Comparing Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro
There have been many dictators through out history that have shaped the way we look at them now. Sometimes it’s the way that dictators came to power that people judge them on. Sometimes it’s how long they stayed in power, but it’s not just how long they stayed in power. It’s what they did to stay in power. These two men are some of the most infamous dictators for those reasons alone. These men are Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro, and they played a huge part in shaping the way we look at dictators today.
Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro had very similar traits in the beginning of their climb to power. But unlike Castro, Stalin was not the leader of the revolutionary party. After Castro graduated from the University of Havana, he practiced law for two years before deciding to run for a position in the Cuban parliament. However, during the elections to see if Castro was going to be voted to a position in parliament, a different party led by Felgencio Batista over threw the corrupt government that was being run by Carlos Prio Sacarras. Not much time had passed when Castro tried to take legal action against Batista by indicting him for uprising the constitution, the petition failed. Castro was frustrated due to the lack of legal action, so he decided to take matters into his own hands and turned to violence. Castro led an attack on the Mancada Barracks and lost, he was later captured by Batista’s men and put on trial. While Castro was on trial he gave his now famous “History Will Absolve Me” speech. Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison but went into voluntary exile after only serving two years. He spent time in parts of the U.S. and Mexico before returning to Cuba in 1956. Wh...
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...e stop them not the enemy, not even some that they used to call allies. Is this why the world looks at dictators and can only see senseless and cruel mad man that will stop at nothing and will kill everyone that stands in there way, or were they just men striving for excellence that did what was necessary to survive and stay in there positions of power, even if it meant killing. Either way, it there actions shaped how we look at dictators now.
Works Cited
"Fidel Castro(a)." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Student Resources in Context. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
“Fidel Castro(b).”DiscoverTheNetworks.com,2005. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
The History Guide. Steven Kreis, 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. .
"Joseph Stalin." UXL Biographies. Detroit: U*X*L, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
Paterson, Thomas G. Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. 352.
An outstanding similarity in both men includes their rises to power. Macbeth killed Duncan in an effort to become Thane of Cawdor and Fidel Castro rallied an army of men to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. Fulgencio Batista was the Cuban president before the Cuban Revolution. During the Cuban Revolution, Castro rallied together an army of 138 men, but was later captured. When he was captured he knew there was no legal way to get rid of Fulgencio and instead formed a revolution against him. The first attempt failed and Fidel and Raul Castro were both jailed. After being freed they rebelled again and this time they were triumphant. Fidel Castro finally became the president of Cuba. He rose to power and became loved by the public, but later in 1959
In 1952, Flugencio Batista, then president of Cuba, conducted yet another falsified election in his favor. Resulting in a shutdown of all political parties, constitutional rights and even the closure of the University where Castro attended. By July 26, 1953 Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, standing for social justice, began assembling, “111 insurgents... and headed an armed assault on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba,” (Padgett 43). Raúl and Fidel were caught and set to trial, beginning the Revolution of Cuba. It was at this trial where Fidel Castro stood before the judges announcing his lack of fear for prison stating confidently, “History will absolve me” (Fidel Castro). This is where his support came from, he was seen by his followers as the symbol of avengers who stood up the greater evil. Through gore and long ensued battles his victory came in January of 1959, Fidel Castro was the new leader of Cuba (Fidel: The Untold Story). Those who were pro Batista fled to Miami and other far away locations as soon as possible. While those who stayed, predominately the working class, stayed and celebrated in the streets because justice had been served and the dictator had been overthrown by the Valiant
Stalin is a very interesting man who always changed how he thought of everybody (he also called himself Stalin because “stalin” means steel) (Montefiore 30 “Young Stalin“).He had a huge effect on Russia; in a bad way. When Stalin used to work with Lenin and Trotsky, it wasn’t a competition of who was the best and who should control the country of Russia, but then it all changed. After that, he got people to turn against them and got rid of t...
Son of a poverty-stricken shoemaker, raised in a backward province, Joseph Stalin had only a minimum of education. However, he had a burning faith in the destiny of social revolution and an iron determination to play a prominent role in it. His rise to power was bloody and bold, yet under his leadership, in an unexplainable twenty-nine years, Russia because a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945. From a young revolutionist to an absolute master of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin cast his shadow over the entire globe through his provocative affair in Domestic and Foreign policy.
Josef Stalin, a politician from the earliest beginnings of his life, strove to achieve a national sense of power during his reign over the citizens of Russia. Adolf Hitler, however, a born high school dropout somewhat longed for a place in life. He rather fell into his role as a politician, after his brief shortcomings in arts and sciences. These two individuals developed varying ideas to put their controlling minds to work to lead their political parties in the direction of total domination of the state.
Joseph Stalin’s official reign of terror ended with his death in 1953, but the effects of his autocratic rule continued for many years to follow. His lasting hold on the people of the former Soviet Union still lingers in a few brainwashed minds. In the article "Stalin’s Afterlife" and the movie "Russia’s War - Blood Upon the Snow", Stalin is portrayed as the monster really was and should be remembered as.
Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Second Edition by Julia E. Sweig (Apr 26, 2013)
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926, near Birάn in Cuba’s Eastern Oriente Province to a wealthy sugar plantation owner and a mother who was a domestic servant to his father’s first wife (Source A). Castro was the third of six children and was raised in prominently wealthy circumstances that allowed him to attend well known and well revered schools like Belen Jesuit Prep. (Source A). He was a man that could not be just labeled solely by one phrase or one convenient definition, he was loved by supporters of communist rule and he was also a face feared by many Cubans. He held multitudes of titles to countless different people, ranging from honorable military leader to a protruding symbol of the communist revolution in Latin America that was feared by the Cuban people and Americans alike.
Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the nation through the second world war. Roosevelt built a powerful wartime coalition with Britain and the Soviet Union, and led the U.S to victory against Nazi Germany. He was elected for presidency four times, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. His wartime efforts prepared the path for Harry Truman, to win the war against Japan four months after his death.
Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold 199). The main aspects of his worldview was “socialism
At the start of the 20th century, Russia began to rapidly change. The Czarist autocracy that was previously in place was overthrown and the most influential family, the Romanovs, were no more. The Russian Revolution was soon in full swing and people were needed to take charge. One of the leader who emerges as a result of this is Joseph Stalin. Starting out as a simple countryside peasant, he quickly rose to a position of power. Eventually reaching the position of dictator, he implemented new policies that would further industrialize Russia as well as further progressing his goal of having total control over the Russian people. These policies include his 5-year plans as well as the creation of a totalitarian state. Joseph Stalin is, by many, considered one of the most ruthless leaders in the history of the world.
Although it is certain that Fidel Castro and Fulgencio Batista would not have been able to peacefully sit in the same room together, they are alike in more ways than either man would ever have liked to admit. When reviewing the effects they had on Cuban history, many similarities could be noted. At the very start of each man's political career, he overthrew his predecessor using some sort of militant force. In Batista's case, this was achieved by staging a coup with military backing. For Castro, he was a main figurehead in the Cuban Revolution who eventually emerged as Cuba's leader for many years to come. At the onset of both leader's career's as Cuba's leader, Batista and Castro were admired by the majority of the public, but they went on to establish dictatorships and suspended the constitution, thus were later disliked by many.
Among those leaders, Fidel Castro is the most influential one. Fidel Castro as the former revolutionary leader, in 1959, he took his brother Raul Castro and Che Guevara, led the people in Cuba overturn the Batistuta dictatorship that supported by United States. In many decades, United States was unhappy about Cuba, which lead by Castro, and set the blockade and embargo towards Cuba. Fidel Castro was so insist about revolution and never give in. He always wears the khaki military uniform in public to represent his determination as a revolutionary. In 1960s, the central intelligence agency (CIA) of America organized Cuban mercenaries several times to armed landing and tried to assassinate Castro, in order to change the revolutionary regime under Castro’s power. Castro once said that in his life, he has bee. Few years ago, the U.S former president Mr. Clinton mock ups him in a speech. He said that, “he is president of Cuba when I was in kindergarten, he is president when I was in elementary school, he is president when I was in high school, he is present when I was in college, he is president when I was campaign for America president, and he is still present when I no longer be the president of America”. Fidel Castro is such a leader who never afraid of being assassinating and so determine about revolution in