Customer Reviews

Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography

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This inspiring book is the result of conversations held in 2003-05. It is an autobiography à deux, `an oral summing-up of Fidel Castro's life by Fidel himself'.

Chapters cover his childhood and youth, his meeting Che Guevara, the 1959 Cuban revolution, the failed US attack at the Bay of Pigs, the 47-year US blockade, the incessant media attacks on Cuba, the US state's terrorist attacks on Cuba which have killed 3,500 people, the October 1962 crisis, Che's death, the collapse of the Soviet Union, globalisation, Cuba's relations with Spain, France and Latin America, and Cuba today.

Fidel is rightly proud of Cuba's magnificent achievements in education and health. Cuba's primary school children are first in the world in languages and maths. Cuba is first in the world in teachers per person and has the smallest class sizes. Cuba is educating thousands of people from Africa, Asia and Latin America, without charging a cent. Cuba provides government-sponsored scholarships to nearly 30,000 students from 121 countries currently enrolled in Cuba's universities, some 23,000 of whom are being trained as doctors.

Cuba is first in the world in doctors per person and is the largest educator of doctors in the world, ten times more than the USA. Cuba sends thousands of doctors to Africa, with its 30 million AIDS patients, while the whole EU cannot send even a hundred doctors there, instead stealing Africa's doctors and nurses. 37,000 Cuban health workers, including 18,000 doctors, are providing services in 79 countries. Since 2004, Cuba's Operation Miracle has restored sight to 1,000,000 patients from 32 countries.

Fidel has much to contribute to the debate on globalisation. He points out that the total debt owed by the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America is $2.5 trillion, and that they get $53 billion a year aid, while paying interest of $350 billion a year. He notes that 500 monopolies control 80% of the world's economy, profiting from poverty-level wages.

Fidel points out that capitalism undermines all reforms and that one can't build socialism by capitalist methods. He attaches great importance to ethics, ideas, knowledge, values, and culture. As José Marti, another of Cuba's heroes, said, "Being cultured is the only way to be free."

The First Section of this review is an introduction to Chapters 1 through 9 of Fidel Castro's spoken autobiography by Ignacio Ramonet. Following the First Section, the Second Section consists of four questions which Ignacio Ramonet asks Castro, and Fidel's answers to them. These questions and answers concern occurrences within Cuba after the triumph of the Revolutionary War on December 31, 1959, and prior to April 17, 1961.

First Section.

The most impressive thing to me about the first nine chapters of Ramonet's book is how understandably Castro conveys the fact that the Cuban Revolutionary War eschewed terrorism (defined as executing captured, non-uniformed combatants or using random violence against civilians.) Fidel considered such terrorism immoral, but more to the point, he considered it immoral because unnecessary. Terrorism would have been highly counter-productive where the soil for revolution vis-à-vis the imperialistic United States was seeded more widely and far earlier than in Vietnam, for example -- where the Vietcong did employ terrorism in a war against an invasion by America essentially indistinguishable from its unprovoked attack on Iraq in 2003.

Similarly, Fidel invoked Che Guevarra's medical skills (and those of other revolutionary soldiers as the revolution gained momentum) to treat wounded Batista soldiers on the battlefield, once the non-fatally wounded revolutionary soldiers were evacuated or cared for. And not infrequently, these cared-for Batista forces, after returning to health, joined the revolutionary forces in the war against Batista.

Chapter 1 is an introduction by the book's author, and it should be read first and carefully by anyone largely ignorant of the facts regarding Cuba since 1953, which is to say by 99.9% of all living Americans. Chapters 2 through 4 concern Fidel's childhood and growing political awareness, before 1953. Then after a brief philosophical diversion in Chapter 5, The Backdrop of the Revolution, Chapters 6 through 9 mainly describe the revolutionary war in Cuba from July 26, 1953, to December 31, 1959. These four chapters are simply riveting, and no one can read them without astonishment at how close, twice, Fidel and his inner core of revolutionaries came to being wiped out. But finally and most important for non-Cubans interested in understanding the Cuban Revolution, Chapters 6 through 9 hammer home the fact that the revolutionary war was just that: A War. And as such, it was an exercise in military, to repeat military, genius and leadership on Fidel's part and on the part of his soldiers.

Second Section.

THE DEMONSTRATION EXECUTIONS. Q. When the war ended, you and your followers had promised to bring to trial and eventually put to death members of Batista's repressive forces, and you created `revolutionary tribunals' that carried out a purge that many observers characterized as excessive. Do you think that was a mistake? (p 220.)

A. I think the error (was) in ... allowing the proceedings to be attended by a great number of our countrymen....But I'd been in Venezuela (in 1952) ... and (I knew that) ... (w)hen Machado fell, (his) people were dragged through the streets; there were lynchings, houses were invaded and attacked, people sought vengeance, revenge....(W)e ... did not want to see ... personal vengeance (in 1960 in Cuba)....

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS. Q. One of (the) criticisms...against the Revolution was that...there ... were internment camps that homosexuals were sent to, locked up and repressed. What can you tell me about that subject? (p 222.)

A. There was no persecution of homosexuals, or internment camps for homosexuals .... (However) ... (o)bligatory military service was instituted... (Reviewer's note: with three exceptions: educational deferments, conscientious objectors, and homosexuals.) ... Homosexuals were not called up (because) ... machismo was ... very much present in our society, and ... rejection of the idea of homosexuals ... in the military (was widespread).

(We created) Military Units to Aid Production ... we tried to raise the morale of people ... sent to the camps, (to) present them with an opportunity to work, to help the country in those difficult times" ... (But) I can't deny that there were prejudices ... (that) homosexuals were most certainly the victims of discrimination ... Today a much more civilized, more educated population is gradually overcoming those prejudices.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE BLACK POPULATION. Q. Did you have to fight, too, against discrimination against the black population (p227)?

A. For us revolutionaries, fighting racial discrimination has been a sacred principle.

THE MIAMI CUBANS. Q. ... against Cuba, Washington was able to tap anti-revolutionary Cubans for help? (p256)

A. That's right. Listen, I'm going to tell you something: ... many of those who were involved in terrorist activities were not actually planning to ... bring ... down the Revolution....

(Many of the rich and privileged who left Cuba and abandoned their homes and ... everything - it's not that we expelled them and took their homes away - they said: "This will last four or five months, how long can a revolution last in this country?")

But the counter-revolutionaries also had the conviction ... that their despicable cause would win out in the end ... (because their fight was joined with that of the United States) ... They expected the United States to step in and bring the Revolution down.


(This review will be continued)

Just arrived by mail, just translated and available, I am reading the preface of Fidel's autobiography by co-author/interviewer, Ignacio Ramonet. The preface is titled "A Hundred Hours with Fidel."

You know how some movies can allow you to talk at low moments to yourself or a companion, or some TV shows can, too. Yet, other movies demand your attention to the extent the world must be silent to savor every word, every observation.

Baldwin does this for me. James Baldwin is to me, I see now, what Jose Marti is to Fidel, the embodiment of a spiritual value, transcending political dogma, left or right.

Opening this book, I had to shut off the radio and the world and let my savory honey-sweetened espresso get cold ...

Fidel's selection of Ramonet, a Spanish journalist and editor or Le Monde, is reportedly smart and political. He wanted someone who had heaped both praise and criticism on Fidel and Cuba, someone on the outsde who wouldn't be easily accused of being a Cuban agent.

Ramonet is beginning this autobiography/interview [over 700 pages] with his first meeting Fidel and the unrecorded long hours they spent in Cuba and on foreign official visits. The book was completed a few months before Fidel's "sudden" illness, as if Fidel knew ...

What can I say? You get an inspiring picture/impression of the man writer Alice Walker calls A PRIEST.

Ramonet writes:
"What I discovered during this time was a private, almost shy Fidel, a polite, affable man who pays attention to each person he talks to and speaks without affectation, yet with the manners and gestures of a somewhat old-fashioned courtesy that has earned him the titel of the last Spanish gentleman. He is always attentive to others, aware of them as persons - and he never raised his voice. I never heard him give an order. But still wherever he is he exercises absolute authority - it is the force of his overwhelming personality ...

"He is a leader who lives, so far as I could see, modestly, austerely, in almost spartan conditions: there is no luxury; his furniture is sober; his food is frugal, healthy, macrobiotic. His are the habits of a soldier-monk ...

"He sleeps about four hours a night, and sometimes one or two more during the day, when he has a chance. His workday, all seven days a weekm usuallu ends at five or six in the morning, as the sun is rising ..."

Hopefully, to promote the book, the author[s] may consent to have this preface printed alone as an article/essay in itself. It stands alone beautifully.

A passerby, who felt he had the right, saw me with the book, freshly unboxed sitting at the beach, and asked me how could I buy THAT and put money in a dictator's hands. I no longer pity Americans or their country, which is going to a fate worse than Hell. I quoted Fidel to this passerby "What's wrong with being a dictator? The US has many friends who are dictators."

Since Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba I've been curious to learn the nature of the man. I've never seen or heard anything about him but propaganda. Read a bio 35 years ago that made him out to be a bufoon, which I now know was propaganda. Knew it before now, because had he been as shallow as the biographer made him out to be, he could not have lasted this long. Hearing his life, this being a spoken biography, from his own words, I've come to respect the man as much as I respect someone like Nelson Mandela. Ignatio Ramonet, the 'interviewer' who directs Fidel's talking with questions and comments, does not let him get away with dancing his way around a question. A few times Fidel was apparently uncomfortable with the question and it seemed to me like he was wanting to get around it, but Ramonet kept at him every time to address it. Fidel is up front about his own errors in decision making. Most importantly, I have found in him a man with firm ethical foundation and a love for the Cuban people that guides his own life and decisions. I admire his ongoing ability to stand up to what he calls 'the empire,' the American government. With less than 50 pages to go, I've come to admire the man, Fidel Castro, as one of the great men of the 20th century, up there with Nelson Mandela, who I hold to be the most important man of the 20th century. When Time magazine gave it to Einstein, I took it for a copout.
To bring him back to human perspective, he, like Mandela, is a man whose hand I'd like to shake. As for the book itself, I pick it up every free moment, can't stop reading in it, and regret that I'm getting so close to the end. Will pass it on to a friend as soon as I'm finished with it, a friend who has the same curiosity about Fidel that I had. I've come to this attitude toward Fidel Castro not because what he has to say about himself is self-serving, but because I've come to see the man that he is, who he is, and I appreciate the man himself. I actually stand in awe of him.

When the book arrived I was eager to begin reading it, but instead I set it aside and I didn't start reading it until I made sure I was going to be able to dedicate the time for it since I am usually a busy person and this books merits a comprehensible amount of time to read.

As an avid reader of the history of the Cuban Revolution, I have been exposed to many different versions of the Cuban Revolution, its politics, economics, social culture, etc. I have also read dozens of books by Fidel Castro (usually collected speeches and interviews) so I knew what to expect from a book like this one.

I am used to reading what Fidel Castro has said in interviews and speeches and to the surprise of no one, Castro is an excellent story-teller, a magnificent speaker, well read and rounded, and he has his convictions and strong personality that goes with it. Those who are interested in reading this book should take Castro seriously. We should not read this book with any preconceived notions or political prejudice against him. These are his words and thought and this is the closest we will come at knowing how he thinks and what he believes.

Ignacio Ramonet, Ph.D., interviewed Castro for over 100 hours so there is plenty of valuable information. The conversation starts off with the life of Castro, so that in itself is a biography--or autobiography since Castro is the one telling it. From this the conversation moves to his early years as a university student radicalized by the political environment of the day. This is continued by his life as a political candidate, his failed attacks to the Moncada Garrison, and his role in the Cuban Revolution. The rest is his role as Prime Minister and then President of Cuba and the Cuban society in general.

This book is worth your time (if you have it) because it will be helpful in having a balanced view of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro is getting ZERO dollars from this book. He is NOT getting any royalties, therefore it is important to listen to what this leader has to say. There are dozens of books out there by Cuban "exiles" that deserve attention and are worth reading, but unfortunately they are lost or mixed in with the hundreds more of anti-Castro propaganda that is easily mistaken by innocent readers as a piece of fine scholarly or researched work.

Enjoy it!

This book is presented entirely in the form of interviews between journalist Ignacio Ramonet and the Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The interview format with soft questions held out the only real possibility of creating a balanced picture of Castro's long career as Cuba's strongman, such as that created by authors like Tad Szulc's "Critical Portrait of Castro." The early chapters describe Castro childhood at his father's 25,000 acre plantation and his entry into politics thru the liberal flavored Orthodox Party led by the much admired Cuban Senator Eduardo Chibas. The book goes on to cover various topics- such as Castro's struggle to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista, who took over the country with a coup in 52 and moves on to significant events, such as the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. Fidel's dislike for American capitalism, democratic institutions, and dissent within Cuba is obvious. Typical of Castro, he makes up a false accusations against dissident Armando Valladares involvement in the American led operation Mongoose started after April of 61, several months after Valladares was in prison (Valladares objected to Castro's propaganda on his work desk and for that served 22 years in prison!). Most of the material in the book is typical of Fidel Castro- telling his distorted view of the history of Cuba- blaming, finger pointing, and critiquing anybody that he does not like on this planet. How critical of Castro's Robb-Illusion can a book authored by Fidel be, a dictator that has been the leader of the most repressive regime in the Americas for over fifty years- at its best at propaganda, political repression, and economic mismanagement of Cuba? If you like to read over 600 pages of historical distortions and false propaganda by a communist dinosaur ... This is your book!

This is a great book. It gives the point of view of a very intriguing man who has managed to survive despite repeated attempts on his life by the United States. One can always find fault in any book and this one is not perfect. It does give very interesting views on various aspects of Cuban life, the Castro government, and he takes on many of his critics. This is a great book for anyone wanting to learn more about Cuba, Castro or how U.S. policies are often hypocritical. There are always two sides to every story despite how hard the U.S. media tries to only give one. The main point I found is everytime Cuba tries to allow more freedom of speech or democratic processes the U.S. uses them to undermine and overthrow the government. If we would stay out of other power's affairs we would do much more for democracy. Anyone should be able to see that when we try to install democracy in foreign countries the result is a catastophe for U.S. taxpayers and the innocent civilians living in the country.

This remarkable book is called a "spoken autobiography" --- it is presented entirely in the form of interviews between Ignacio Ramonet, a distinguished journalist (editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique), and the Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Since Castro is not only a highly controversial political figure but a rigidly demanding person, the interview format probably held out the only real possibility of creating a complete picture of his long life and career.

The book comes with two significant caveats. First, Castro had full rights to change and augment the completed manuscript, and did so after its completion and publication in Spain in 2006. According to Ramonet, Castro's editing allowed him to "complete a phrase here and there, change oral expression into a more written style...which once more demonstrates his almost maniacal obsession with perfection." Ramonet states that "this version of the book, has, then, been totally revised, amended and completed personally by Fidel Castro."

Caveat the second: Ramonet states, "It never crossed my mind that we should speak about Castro's private life." Thus we have a spoken autobiography not entirely spoken and not including what many would consider essential autobiographical material.

If one knew nothing about Castro, a virtual impossibility, one could easily be convinced by the story he tells about his heroic deeds and the history of his revolution and subsequent leadership of the small island country of Cuba. A nation that, led by the young Fidel, swept its former dictator, Batista, into the dustbin of world affairs and its people into the light of literacy and permanent welfare, Cuba sits on the ocean of international life like a dimly glowing pearl. To the United States it is a gem whose destiny it has been unable to control, making it a constant source of irritation, a fact in which Castro glories, envisioning himself as David to America's Goliath, locked in a struggle that has not abated since the day he took over the reins of power in his strategically-placed fiefdom.

In this lengthy, highly detailed memoir, Castro presents a justification for each one of his actions, rarely admitting that he, personally, made a mistake. He easily deflects what are certainly meant as hard questions on the part of Ramonet. Throughout the book he tends to speak as "we," but it is never clear who the other members of that plurality might be. Perhaps it is the "royal we." He doesn't speak of his parliament or his cabinet, his committees or any plenary governing body to whom he is answerable.

Castro bitterly recalls every perceived injustice against his country, as one would expect, but is not, in this context, held accountable for Cuba's misdeeds. He rails against the Adjustment Act, through which the United States allows entry to anyone coming from Cuba on the basis that he or she is a political exile, which Castro considers, perhaps fairly, "an incentive to crime." He cites the fact that nearly every country in the world, except the United States and Israel, has voted in the United Nations to end the long-standing blockade against Cuba set up when it became obvious that Castro, turned away in an attempt to parlay with President Eisenhower, was going to deal directly and exclusively with the Soviets.

Castro contends that the U.S. drove him towards socialism and that the blockade serves to artificially impoverish his otherwise prosperous people. He believes that Latin American and African nations would rush to the defense of Cuba if need be, because Cuba has aided them in warfare and infrastructure, especially in the medical sphere. But he counts the possibility of war against Cuba as highly unlikely, as unlikely as the counter-revolution that would be the only way of removing Cuba's "irrevocable" socialism.

Castro's point of view is analytical at all times, rarely allowing emotion to seep through. He is paternalistically proud of the fact that his people are basically clothed, educated and fed, recalling the pitiful state of poverty and illiteracy of the majority during the shameful procession of other dictatorships before his. He states baldly that Cubans leave his country when they are able at great, indeed, ultimate risk "because they want a car." In the empire of Goliath, there are cars worth dying for. The book reveals Castro as a prodigious mind, a man capable of global thinking with a remarkable particularization of detail. He has met with other eminent players on the world stage (Saddam Hussein, Hugo Chavez) and had dealings with 10 U.S. presidents.

Clearly, the questions asked of him are ones he has had many years to contemplate in what is often described as his austere daily routine in an atmosphere of rigid security: "precautions have been taken" to prevent another assassination attempt, the most recent one having been perpetrated in 2003 by a relative living in the United States. He is willing to say that "every day, I think, I'm less conceited, less pretentious, less self-satisfied...I have not one iota of regret about what we've done in our country and the way we've organized our society."

--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

The book reads as a continuous interview, with the journalist Ramonet posing listed questions and the subsequent answers from Fidel Castro. Breadths of topics are covered, spanning from Fidel's childhood to his plans for a successor. It was interesting to read how Fidel avowed retiring if he became sick, and that his brother would surely succeed him. Many, particularly those anti-Castro, felt Fidel would never release power, staying in office until his death, immediately after which the Revolution would collapse. Instead, Fidel has proven true to his word and brother Raul has taken over as Commandante, and in a rather seamless transition. Of course, the book's co-author, Ramonet, is a friend of Castro leading to a lot of softball questions and he even suggestively adds-on positive points to many of Fidel's answers. Still, Ramonet does provide for an in-depth account, and poses a number of constructive critical questions. The issues of imprisonment of dissidents, the so-called 2003 crack-down, as well as much earlier anti-Cuban Revolution talking points are explored. Why did Cuba support the USSR's suppression of Czechoslovakia, Ramonet wonders, and send homosexuals to labor camps soon after the triumph of the Revolution? Castros' answers often read like that of a lawyer, not unexpected, he having been one. His answers are rarely, if ever, uninformative, though. This is an invaluable source as an account of Castro's life.

Although I'm not a communist, I must admit that this man is a great leader. He did exactly what was expected of him. Remember not all Cubans agreed with the current government, these are the Cubans who never were on the Castro regime side, and left the Island in pursuit of a better life abroad.
This book is written by the MAN who gave the people of Cuba what MOST of them wanted and deserved. It is worth reading it and analyzing. Some of the Cubans Exiles are a bunch of hypocrites, they wanted Fidel from the very beginning, and they threw the Americans out by calling "Yankee GO Home" all over the Island. Also they would shout whatever you say Fidel we will do! You are the boss, we are with you till the end, my house is your house, and you are our leader for ever. These same Cuban (scum's) later turned against Fidel and ran like rats to the United States begging the Americans to give them political asylum. These Cubans need a strong government to rule them, and El Commandant Fidel is the right man for the job. He is the best leader Cuba ever had and probably will have for many years to come. The problem is that these Cubans can't rule themselves and need a strong leader to force them to do the right thing. The exiles tried to manipulate Fidel like they had done with other leaders in the past, but it backfired on them. Cubans must be honest with themselves and the rest of the world; they got what they asked for! Read the book. This book will go down in history as one of the most fascinating biography of a great man El Commandante Fidel Castro!