To What Extent Was Brutality Used by Fidel Castro During the Cuban Revolution

“A revolution is not a bed of roses ... a revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.” – Fidel Castro, 1961. This statement was certainly true for Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries during the Cuban Revolution, an armed revolt that took place between July 26th 1953 and January 1st 1959, which ended successfully. During this revolt, many of Fidel Castro’s fellow revolutionaries were killed in this process of violent revolution (My Life, p133, 2006). However, Castro and his accompanying revolutionaries, of which he was the leader, also caused their fair share of deaths using brutality in the name of revolution and political justice. Using various combat tactics, the most prominent being guerrilla warfare, the Cuban Revolution was certainly won through the use of violence and brutality.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on the 13th of August, 1926, the third of six children, and the son of a wealthy sugar plantation owner. After Castro graduated from El Colegio de Belen in 1945, he entered law school at the University of Havana. It was during this period that Castro began to become involved politics, taking an interest in the political climate of Cuban nationalism, anti-imperialism, socialism, and social justice (http://www.biography.com/articles/fidel-castro-9241487, 2009). Castro immediately became involved with student protests, whose student groups were known to be violent and often armed, which can be attributed to the fact that there had been a government crackdown on these protesters, with students sometimes being killed or terrorized (The Real Fidel Castro, p16-17, 2003). Brutality was already present in the political system, perhaps a sign that brutality would be needed to change it.

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...ion if significant change was to take place, and the government had to be forcibly taken out, otherwise it is likely that they would have continued with the same political system. Because of this brutality, the rebels actions were far more public. Support was gained, and people who wanted to do something about the situation could, while people who were content to know that something was being done about the current state of the country could rest assured. Because of the use of brutality and violence, Cuba could finally succumb to a revolution.

Works Cited

Ramonet, I (2006). My Life. Cuba: Simon & Schuster Export . 133.

Coltman, L (2003). The Real Fidel Castro. London: Yale University Press.

A&E Television Networks. (2009). Fidel Castro Biography. Available: http://www.biography.com/articles/Fidel-Castro-9241487?part=0. Last accessed 1st July 2011.