Fidel Castro was the son of a wealthy farmer in Cuba. Like many other infamous figures throughout history, his dreams far exceeded his grasp, and his legacy will always be in question. To the mid 20th century revolutionary zealots of Cuba, Africa, Central and South America, he was mythical. To the nations of the free world, he was a prickly burr under the saddle of democracy. Castro proclaimed himself to be a Socialist. If he wasn’t already dead, I am sure he would be tickled to death to see people like Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Congresswoman AOC from New York, and good old Senator Bernie Sanders out singing the praises and campaigning for Socialism and Communism. Comandante Castro died in 2016, but before he did, he ruled Cuba for more than half of a century. He never had a job, but he always had power, and he knew how to hold onto that power by taking everything he could from others to support his rule and ideology. That’s what the Socialist party does. And when they get strong enough, they move to become a full-blown communist party.
Castro and his Rebel army violently overthrew the government of Cuba at Christmastime in 1958 and seized power from President Fulgenico Batista. By the early 1960s, Fidel had brought Cuba to near economic ruin and was frantically begging to be rescued by Russia and the Soviet Union. For the next four and a half decades, Cuba precariously existed on subsidies from the Kremlin, North Korea and China to feed the people of the struggling socialist island while barely avoiding complete collapse. At one point in the 1980s, Castro shut down all of the country’s industrial production because his government could not afford to purchase energy to bring power to the island. When food and basic necessities became scarce, Castro negotiated a deal with the United States to allow 35,000 Cubans to leave for the United States. Before that immigration was over, more than 125,000 refugees had sought asylum. In violation of the agreement, Castro also sent many mentally ill and incarcerated individuals to Florida in what became known as the Mariel Boatlift.
Throughout history, many stories of human tragedy have been the direct result of failed government through dishonest practice and unsound policy. Time after time, we have witnessed the price paid by the innocent victims of dictatorial extremism and deceit. The scars and stories do not fade.
Javier was 12 when Castro overthrew the Cuban government. He had three sisters and one brother, His Mother was a schoolteacher, and his father was a doctor. The family lived on the outskirts of Havana. After the capitol of the country was taken over, they stayed in Cuba for two more years hoping that life would improve. But quickly, Castro’s socialist edicts started to take effect on the ordinary working-class people of Cuba. Javier’s mother was the first to lose her job. His father was forced to work for the Castro regime in a hospital treating those wounded in the revolution and victims of torture and interrogation by Castro's security forces. When the government monitors confiscated the family’s home, their automobile, their boat and the money held in bank accounts, the family feared the growing danger and decided to leave their country on a dark, stormy night in a small, crowded boat taking only one trunk full of clothing with them. Two days later they stepped onto land in America. It would be another fifteen years before they would again see family members who were prevented from leaving Cuba. I knew Javier while we were students at the University of Georgia. We were both members of the same fraternity, and I got to know him very well. He was an exceptional person, but I quickly learned to never mention the name “Fidel Castro” around him. Javier had a burning hatred for that man and the socialist ideas that destroyed his home and his country. The last time I saw him, he was doing well with a growing family, but that hatred still burned like hot coals in his soul. The one thing that I always remember him saying even way back then was, “Don’t ever think the same thing that happened to us, couldn’t happen right here.” That is the true story of one family and the terrible price that they, and so many other Cuban families paid because of a failed government, the maniacal dreams of a socialist dictator, and the tragedy of a nation lost to extremism.
