Castro: The revolutionary beard

“I’d go to class but I never paid much attention, and then I’d go and study... So I turned into even more of a self-taught man, you might say, an autodidact in mathematics, algebra, physics, geometry. I’d study those theorems and whatnot on my own... I’d just let my imagination fly [during lessons] and study at the end of the term, just before the exams. At the University of Havana [where he enrolled in September 1945 to study law], I never went to class, either. What I’d do was talk to other students in the park.

“In a relatively short time, on my own and with very little knowledge of economics or other essential subjects, I started becoming what today I would call a “utopian communist.”

And if I tell you that I became a revolutionary at the university, it’s because I came in contact with certain books.

But before I’d read any of those books, I was already questioning the political economy of capitalism, because, even then, it seemed irrational.”

Castro was admitted to the bar in 1950.

By March 10, 1952, the day of Fulgencio Batista’s coup d’état, Castro had already been a Marxist-Leninist for several years.

“I’d already formulated a plan for the future. I decided to launch a revolutionary programme and organise a popular uprising. I already had the idea that a revolutionary takeover of power was necessary.”

Castro, leading a group of 165 young people, attacked the Moncada Military barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953.

This action, which Castro hoped would trigger a popular insurrection against the Batista dictatorship, was thwarted by a series of chance incidents.

“If I were to organise a plan for taking the Moncada barracks again, I would do it exactly the same way; I wouldn’t change a thing. What failed there was that we lacked sufficient combat experience,” he says.

On August 1, 1953, Castro, had retreated into the mountains after the Moncada failure, was ambushed by a military patrol and taken prisoner.

He was later sentenced to 15 years in prison on October 16 1953.

With his brother Raul and others who took part in the Moncada assault, Castro was released from jail on May 15, 1955, having been granted amnesty by Batista in the face of overwhelming popular pressure.

In July of the same year, he went into exile in Mexico, where he laid the ground for an armed popular insurrection.

The revolution by Castro and his men began in December 1956.