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Revolution and the Road to Peace in Colombia: Lessons from the Cuban Revolution
110 pages, Paperback
Published April 21, 2025
2 people want to read
About the author
Fidel Castro
578 books286 followersCuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar in 1959, established a Communist state, served as prime minister until 1976 and then as president of the government and first secretary of the party, in declining health passed control de facto in 2006 to Raúl Castro, his younger brother, and officially retired in 2008.
Fidel Castro led a revolutionary movement that overthrew corrupt authoritarian regime of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar on New Year's Day, 1 January 1959.
Raúl Castro assisted Fidel Castro, his brother, in overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar in 1959.
United States in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro trained a force of 1,500 guerrilla troops, who landed at Bay of Pigs, the site, in an ill-fated invasion on 17 April 1961.
Castro, the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics and meanwhile studied law at the University of Havana. He participated in rebellions against right wing in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, afterward failed in an attack on the barracks of Moncada, planned against the military junta, which the United States of America backed, and served imprisonment for a year in 1953. On release, he went to Mexico, formed the movement of 26 July as a group with Ernesto Guevara, his friend and doctor.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, a politician, also served as the commander in chief of the armed forces. This politically Marxist-Leninist administered the socialist republic. People nationalized industry and businesses and implemented socialist reforms in all parts of society. Castro returned, ousted rivals in 1959, and brought his own assumption of military and political power.
Credentials of Castro and cordial relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics alarmed the Administrations of Dwight David Eisenhower and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who unsuccessfully attempted economic blockade, assassination, and even the invasion at Bay of Pigs of 1961 to remove him. In 1961, Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of his administration under rule of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The press and suppression of internal dissent accompanied socialist reforms that introduced central economic planning and expanded care and education.
Castro countered these threats, formed an economic and military alliance with the Soviets, allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, and thus sparked sparking the missile crisis in 1962.
Internationally, Castro also served as general of the nonaligned movement from 1979 to 1983.
Abroad, Castro supported foreign groups in the expectation of toppling world capitalism, sent troops to fight in the wars of Yom Kippur, Ogaden, and Angola.
Following the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, Castro went into economic "special period" and afterward forged alliances in the Latin American pink tide, namely with Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, and joined the Bolivarian alliance in 2006.
Due to failing, Castro in 2006 transferred his responsibilities to his vice, who assumed in 2008.
Supporters lauded Castro, a controversial and divisive world figure, as a champion of socialism, humanitarianism, and environmentalism against imperialism; critics viewed him as a dictator, who oversaw multiple rights abuses, an exodus of more than a million persons, and the impoverishment of the economy of the country. Through actions and writings, he significantly influenced the politics of various individuals and groups across the world.
Fidel Castro led a revolutionary movement that overthrew corrupt authoritarian regime of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar on New Year's Day, 1 January 1959.
Raúl Castro assisted Fidel Castro, his brother, in overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar in 1959.
United States in an attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro trained a force of 1,500 guerrilla troops, who landed at Bay of Pigs, the site, in an ill-fated invasion on 17 April 1961.
Castro, the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics and meanwhile studied law at the University of Havana. He participated in rebellions against right wing in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, afterward failed in an attack on the barracks of Moncada, planned against the military junta, which the United States of America backed, and served imprisonment for a year in 1953. On release, he went to Mexico, formed the movement of 26 July as a group with Ernesto Guevara, his friend and doctor.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, a politician, also served as the commander in chief of the armed forces. This politically Marxist-Leninist administered the socialist republic. People nationalized industry and businesses and implemented socialist reforms in all parts of society. Castro returned, ousted rivals in 1959, and brought his own assumption of military and political power.
Credentials of Castro and cordial relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics alarmed the Administrations of Dwight David Eisenhower and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who unsuccessfully attempted economic blockade, assassination, and even the invasion at Bay of Pigs of 1961 to remove him. In 1961, Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of his administration under rule of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The press and suppression of internal dissent accompanied socialist reforms that introduced central economic planning and expanded care and education.
Castro countered these threats, formed an economic and military alliance with the Soviets, allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, and thus sparked sparking the missile crisis in 1962.
Internationally, Castro also served as general of the nonaligned movement from 1979 to 1983.
Abroad, Castro supported foreign groups in the expectation of toppling world capitalism, sent troops to fight in the wars of Yom Kippur, Ogaden, and Angola.
Following the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, Castro went into economic "special period" and afterward forged alliances in the Latin American pink tide, namely with Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, and joined the Bolivarian alliance in 2006.
Due to failing, Castro in 2006 transferred his responsibilities to his vice, who assumed in 2008.
Supporters lauded Castro, a controversial and divisive world figure, as a champion of socialism, humanitarianism, and environmentalism against imperialism; critics viewed him as a dictator, who oversaw multiple rights abuses, an exodus of more than a million persons, and the impoverishment of the economy of the country. Through actions and writings, he significantly influenced the politics of various individuals and groups across the world.
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October 29, 2025
Marxism and Morality
"Victory in [revolutionary] war depends on a minimum of weapons and a maximum of moral values...."--Fidel Castro, radio broadcast, Aug. 19, 1958
While this book (also available in Spanish) will obviously be of interest to Colombians, and people with a particular interest in that country, that's not it's fundamental purpose. Yes, it reprints much material from Fidel's 'La paz en Colombia,' explaining his disagreements with the FARC and other Colombian groups, and Cuba's role in eventually ending that war.
But it is primarily a book for young workers and students interested in changing the world and wanting to discuss the most moral means of doing so. The so-called non-violence of the Civil Rights Movement was in reality backed by well-armed and well-known-to-be-armed Blacks in both urban and rural settings. King himself had a whole armory (often in the mule carts) until "liberal media" threatened to tell the truth. There were the Deacons for Defense, Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, and many more, without whom King could not have maneuvered. And SNCC (the Student Non-Violent Organizing Committee), was becoming less non-violent by the moment). During the 1963 March on Washington (despite Malcolm X having a sectarian attitude toward it) many SNCC members spent the time talking to Malcolm X at his nearby hotel suite, rather than at the official march. (See Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements Hardcover NY (Author) Malcolm X)
I'm not suggesting that the Civil Rights Movement should have been violent--protests should be as free from violence as possible (which has more to do with the cops than the protestors--but has to do with both). I'm simply trying to explain what actually existed. The Black Panther Party brought a lot more violence and their Stalinism brought little that was productive. A lot of good people died or spent years in prison. Much of their bluster and race-baiting has been taken over by the Woke. And Angela Davis pretends she was a leader of the BPP rather than the Communist Party liberal moderates she was really a leader of. It seems to work better for her career, but she's still a liberal.
The Civil Rights Movement, soon joined by the movement against the war in Vietnam (See Out Now: A Participant's Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War) changed this country enormously. Many Woke try to deny this basic fact. "No one was an anti-racist before they were born." But they don't even know what racism is. To them it's a bad idea held by poorly paid white workers. This idea sits quite well with their academic and corporate sponsors.
The truth, that racism is a tool to divide the working class and keep it from organizing unions), would not get the same response. (See Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55, Fighting Racism in World War II: From the pages of the Militant, and Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.
Cuba is on the US list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism," yet Cuba has never used terrorism; they fought a democratic war in which enemy soldiers were given the same medical care as patriots, and were released to the International Red Cross, since the Cuban Revolutionaries had no humane way to detain them. The strategy worked well: soldiers don't fight to the death when they can simply surrender and be treated well. The United States and its well-paid "anti-Castro Cubans" have repeatedly used terror against Cuba (unless you're reading the socialist newsweekly, the 'Militant,' it would be hard to know this. And the US has repeatedly used terror around the world, including the nuclear terror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the fire-bombing terror of Dresden!
"But weren't the Cubans in Africa?" Damn right they were! To fight against apartheid's South Africa's expansionism. I have lots of problems with the policies of Israel--but it has never been "apartheid." Jim Crow racism was a lot closer to apartheid than anything Israel has ever done!
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions was based on many lies, one of which was that the boycott movement primarily ended apartheid! It certainly played a role and is the only place in the world where I have supported sanctions--because they fall heaviest on the working class. In South Africa, most of the working class supported sanctions! But did they play a bigger role than Cuban/Angolan victories on the border of South Africa and in aiding the South African colony of Namibia gain its freedom? I really don't think so. Did it play a bigger role than the exemplary African National Congress mass resistance led by Nelson Mandela even before his release from prison? I really don't think so. (See Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991 by Piero Gleijeses, and Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own.)
So, this is a book about Marxism and Morality. There is a myth perpetrated by people who don't even know what philosophy is, that "Marxists have no morality." Even if one believes that morality comes from God; who had it during all the hundreds of years of white-Christian-on-white-Christian wars in Europe? Please tell me. Besides this, the one great book on Marxist Morality is Leon Trotsky's Their Morals and Ours: The Class Foundations of Moral Practice, but that was from a different revolution, and I've written enough now.
"Victory in [revolutionary] war depends on a minimum of weapons and a maximum of moral values...."--Fidel Castro, radio broadcast, Aug. 19, 1958
While this book (also available in Spanish) will obviously be of interest to Colombians, and people with a particular interest in that country, that's not it's fundamental purpose. Yes, it reprints much material from Fidel's 'La paz en Colombia,' explaining his disagreements with the FARC and other Colombian groups, and Cuba's role in eventually ending that war.
But it is primarily a book for young workers and students interested in changing the world and wanting to discuss the most moral means of doing so. The so-called non-violence of the Civil Rights Movement was in reality backed by well-armed and well-known-to-be-armed Blacks in both urban and rural settings. King himself had a whole armory (often in the mule carts) until "liberal media" threatened to tell the truth. There were the Deacons for Defense, Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, and many more, without whom King could not have maneuvered. And SNCC (the Student Non-Violent Organizing Committee), was becoming less non-violent by the moment). During the 1963 March on Washington (despite Malcolm X having a sectarian attitude toward it) many SNCC members spent the time talking to Malcolm X at his nearby hotel suite, rather than at the official march. (See Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements Hardcover NY (Author) Malcolm X)
I'm not suggesting that the Civil Rights Movement should have been violent--protests should be as free from violence as possible (which has more to do with the cops than the protestors--but has to do with both). I'm simply trying to explain what actually existed. The Black Panther Party brought a lot more violence and their Stalinism brought little that was productive. A lot of good people died or spent years in prison. Much of their bluster and race-baiting has been taken over by the Woke. And Angela Davis pretends she was a leader of the BPP rather than the Communist Party liberal moderates she was really a leader of. It seems to work better for her career, but she's still a liberal.
The Civil Rights Movement, soon joined by the movement against the war in Vietnam (See Out Now: A Participant's Account of the Movement in the United States Against the Vietnam War) changed this country enormously. Many Woke try to deny this basic fact. "No one was an anti-racist before they were born." But they don't even know what racism is. To them it's a bad idea held by poorly paid white workers. This idea sits quite well with their academic and corporate sponsors.
The truth, that racism is a tool to divide the working class and keep it from organizing unions), would not get the same response. (See Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55, Fighting Racism in World War II: From the pages of the Militant, and Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.
Cuba is on the US list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism," yet Cuba has never used terrorism; they fought a democratic war in which enemy soldiers were given the same medical care as patriots, and were released to the International Red Cross, since the Cuban Revolutionaries had no humane way to detain them. The strategy worked well: soldiers don't fight to the death when they can simply surrender and be treated well. The United States and its well-paid "anti-Castro Cubans" have repeatedly used terror against Cuba (unless you're reading the socialist newsweekly, the 'Militant,' it would be hard to know this. And the US has repeatedly used terror around the world, including the nuclear terror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the fire-bombing terror of Dresden!
"But weren't the Cubans in Africa?" Damn right they were! To fight against apartheid's South Africa's expansionism. I have lots of problems with the policies of Israel--but it has never been "apartheid." Jim Crow racism was a lot closer to apartheid than anything Israel has ever done!
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions was based on many lies, one of which was that the boycott movement primarily ended apartheid! It certainly played a role and is the only place in the world where I have supported sanctions--because they fall heaviest on the working class. In South Africa, most of the working class supported sanctions! But did they play a bigger role than Cuban/Angolan victories on the border of South Africa and in aiding the South African colony of Namibia gain its freedom? I really don't think so. Did it play a bigger role than the exemplary African National Congress mass resistance led by Nelson Mandela even before his release from prison? I really don't think so. (See Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991 by Piero Gleijeses, and Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own.)
So, this is a book about Marxism and Morality. There is a myth perpetrated by people who don't even know what philosophy is, that "Marxists have no morality." Even if one believes that morality comes from God; who had it during all the hundreds of years of white-Christian-on-white-Christian wars in Europe? Please tell me. Besides this, the one great book on Marxist Morality is Leon Trotsky's Their Morals and Ours: The Class Foundations of Moral Practice, but that was from a different revolution, and I've written enough now.
September 25, 2025
An influential perspective from one of the few movements to have progressed to governing a population. Regardless of their position on the spectrum, it has a lot of practical perspectives to offer to those who are aiming for power.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews