title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro proclaimed the new administration a direct democracy, in which Cubans could assemble at demonstrations to express their democratic will. As a result, he rejected the need for elections, claiming that representative democratic systems served the interests of socio-economic elites. U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter announced that Cuba was adopting the Soviet model of rule, with a one-party state, government control of trade unions, suppression of civil liberties, and the absence of freedom of speech and press.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In January 1961, Castro ordered Havana's U.S. Embassy to reduce its 300-member staff, suspecting that many of them were spies. The U.S. responded by ending diplomatic relations, and it increased CIA funding for exiled dissidents; these militants began attacking ships that traded with Cuba, and bombed factories, shops, and sugar mills. Both President Eisenhower and his successor President Kennedy supported a CIA plan to aid a dissident militia, the Democratic Revolutionary Front, to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro; the plan resulted in the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. On 15 April, CIA-supplied B-26s bombed three Cuban military airfields; the U.S. announced that the perpetrators were defecting Cuban air force pilots, but Castro exposed these claims as false flag misinformation. Fearing invasion, he ordered the arrest of between 20,000 and 100,000 suspected counter-revolutionaries, publicly proclaiming, "What the imperialists cannot forgive us, is that we have made a Socialist revolution under their noses", his first announcement that the government was socialist.


title: Fidel Castro

text: The CIA and the Democratic Revolutionary Front had based a 1,400-strong army, Brigade 2506, in Nicaragua. On the night of 16 to 17 April, Brigade 2506 landed along Cuba's Bay of Pigs and engaged in a firefight with a local revolutionary militia. Castro ordered Captain José Ramón Fernández to launch the counter-offensive, before taking personal control of it. After bombing the invaders' ships and bringing in reinforcements, Castro forced the Brigade to surrender on 20 April. He ordered the 1189 captured rebels to be interrogated by a panel of journalists on live television, personally taking over the questioning on 25 April. Fourteen were put on trial for crimes allegedly committed before the revolution, while the others were returned to the U.S. in exchange for medicine and food valued at U.S. $25 million. Castro's victory reverberated around the world, especially in Latin America, but it also increased internal opposition primarily among the middle-class Cubans who had been detained in the run-up to the invasion. Although most were freed within a few days, many fled to the U.S., establishing themselves in Florida.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Consolidating "Socialist Cuba", Castro united the MR-26-7, PSP and Revolutionary Directorate into a governing party based on the Leninist principle of democratic centralism: the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations ("Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas" – ORI), renamed the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (PURSC) in 1962. Although the USSR was hesitant regarding Castro's embrace of socialism, relations with the Soviets deepened. Castro sent Fidelito for a Moscow schooling, Soviet technicians arrived on the island, and Castro was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. In December 1961, Castro admitted that he had been a Marxist–Leninist for years, and in his Second Declaration of Havana he called on Latin America to rise up in revolution. In response, the U.S. successfully pushed the Organization of American States to expel Cuba; the Soviets privately reprimanded Castro for recklessness, although he received praise from China. Despite their ideological affinity with China, in the Sino-Soviet split, Cuba allied with the wealthier Soviets, who offered economic and military aid.


title: Fidel Castro

text: The ORI began shaping Cuba using the Soviet model, persecuting political opponents and perceived social deviants such as prostitutes and homosexuals; Castro considered same-sex sexual activity a bourgeois trait. Gay men were forced into the Military Units to Aid Production ("Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción" – UMAP); after many revolutionary intellectuals decried this move, the UMAP camps were closed in 1967, although gay men continued to be imprisoned. By 1962, Cuba's economy was in steep decline, a result of poor economic management and low productivity coupled with the U.S. trade embargo. Food shortages led to rationing, resulting in protests in Cárdenas. Security reports indicated that many Cubans associated austerity with the "Old Communists" of the PSP, while Castro considered a number of them – namely Aníbal Escalante and Blas Roca – unduly loyal to Moscow. In March 1962 Castro removed the most prominent "Old Communists" from office, labelling them "sectarian". On a personal level, Castro was increasingly lonely, and his relations with Guevara became strained as the latter became increasingly anti-Soviet and pro-Chinese.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Militarily weaker than NATO, Khrushchev wanted to install Soviet R-12 MRBM nuclear missiles on Cuba to even the power balance. Although conflicted, Castro agreed, believing it would guarantee Cuba's safety and enhance the cause of socialism. Undertaken in secrecy, only the Castro brothers, Guevara, Dorticós and security chief Ramiro Valdés knew the full plan. Upon discovering it through aerial reconnaissance, in October the U.S. implemented an island-wide quarantine to search vessels headed to Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis. The U.S. saw the missiles as offensive; Castro insisted they were for defense only. Castro urged that Khrushchev should launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. if Cuba were invaded, but Khrushchev was desperate to avoid nuclear war. Castro was left out of the negotiations, in which Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the U.S. would remove their MRBMs from Turkey and Italy. Feeling betrayed by Khrushchev, Castro was furious and soon fell ill. Proposing a five-point plan, Castro demanded that the U.S. end its embargo, withdraw from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, cease supporting dissidents, and stop violating Cuban air space and territorial waters. He presented these demands to U Thant, visiting Secretary-General of the United Nations, but the U.S. ignored them. In turn Castro refused to allow the U.N.'s inspection team into Cuba.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In May 1963, Castro visited the USSR at Khrushchev's personal invitation, touring 14 cities, addressing a Red Square rally, and being awarded both the Order of Lenin and an honorary doctorate from Moscow State University. Castro returned to Cuba with new ideas; inspired by Soviet newspaper "Pravda", he amalgamated "Hoy" and "Revolución" into a new daily, "Granma", and oversaw large investment into Cuban sport that resulted in an increased international sporting reputation. Seeking to further consolidate control, in 1963 the government cracked down on Protestant sects in Cuba, with Castro labeling them counter-revolutionary "instruments of imperialism"; many preachers were found guilty of illegal U.S. links and imprisoned. Measures were implemented to force perceived idle and delinquent youths to work, primarily through the introduction of mandatory military service. In September, the government temporarily permitted emigration for anyone other than males aged between 15 and 26, thereby ridding the government of thousands of critics, most of whom were from upper and middle-class backgrounds. In 1963, Castro's mother died. This was the last time his private life was reported in Cuba's press. In January 1964, Castro returned to Moscow, officially to sign a new five-year sugar trade agreement, but also to discuss the ramifications of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Castro was deeply concerned by the assassination, believing that a far-right conspiracy was behind it but that the Cubans would be blamed. In October 1965, the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations was officially renamed the "Cuban Communist Party" and published the membership of its Central Committee.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Despite Soviet misgivings, Castro continued to call for global revolution, funding militant leftists and those engaged in national liberation struggles. Cuba's foreign policy was strongly anti-imperialist, believing that every nation should control its own natural resources. He supported Che Guevara's "Andean project", an unsuccessful plan to set up a guerrilla movement in the highlands of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. He allowed revolutionary groups from around the world, from the Viet Cong to the Black Panthers, to train in Cuba.


title: Fidel Castro

text: He considered Western-dominated Africa to be ripe for revolution, and sent troops and medics to aid Ahmed Ben Bella's socialist regime in Algeria during the Sand War. He also allied with Alphonse Massamba-Débat's socialist government in Congo-Brazzaville. In 1965, Castro authorized Che Guevara to travel to Congo-Kinshasa to train revolutionaries against the Western-backed government. Castro was personally devastated when Guevara was killed by CIA-backed troops in Bolivia in October 1967 and publicly attributed it to Guevara's disregard for his own safety.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In 1966, Castro staged a Tri-Continental Conference of Africa, Asia and Latin America in Havana, further establishing himself as a significant player on the world stage. From this conference, Castro created the Latin American Solidarity Organization (OLAS), which adopted the slogan of "The duty of a revolution is to make revolution", signifying Havana's leadership of Latin America's revolutionary movement.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's increasing role on the world stage strained his relationship with the USSR, now under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev. Asserting Cuba's independence, Castro refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, declaring it a Soviet-U.S. attempt to dominate the Third World. Diverting from Soviet Marxist doctrine, he suggested that Cuban society could evolve straight to pure communism rather than gradually progress through various stages of socialism. In turn, the Soviet-loyalist Aníbal Escalante began organizing a government network of opposition to Castro, though in January 1968, he and his supporters were arrested for allegedly passing state secrets to Moscow. Recognising Cuba's economic dependence on the Soviets, Castro relented to Brezhnev's pressure to be obedient, and in August 1968 he denounced the leaders of the Prague Spring and praised the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Influenced by China's Great Leap Forward, in 1968 Castro proclaimed a Great Revolutionary Offensive, closing all remaining privately owned shops and businesses and denouncing their owners as capitalist counter-revolutionaries. The severe lack of consumer goods for purchase led productivity to decline, as large sectors of the population felt little incentive to work hard. This was exacerbated by the perception that a revolutionary elite had emerged, consisting of those connected to the administration; they had access to better housing, private transportation, servants, and the ability to purchase luxury goods abroad.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro publicly celebrated his administration's 10th anniversary in January 1969; in his celebratory speech he warned of sugar rations, reflecting the nation's economic problems. The 1969 crop was heavily damaged by a hurricane, and to meet its export quota, the government drafted in the army, implemented a seven-day working week, and postponed public holidays to lengthen the harvest. When that year's production quota was not met, Castro offered to resign during a public speech, but assembled crowds insisted he remain. Despite the economic issues, many of Castro's social reforms were popular, with the population largely supportive of the "Achievements of the Revolution" in education, medical care, housing, and road construction, as well as the policies of "direct democratic" public consultation. Seeking Soviet help, from 1970 to 1972 Soviet economists re-organized Cuba's economy, founding the Cuban-Soviet Commission of Economic, Scientific and Technical Collaboration, while Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin visited in October 1971. In July 1972, Cuba joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), an economic organization of socialist states, although this further limited Cuba's economy to agricultural production.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In May 1970, the crews of two Cuban fishing boats were kidnapped by Florida-based dissident group Alpha 66, who demanded that Cuba release imprisoned militants. Under U.S. pressure, the hostages were released, and Castro welcomed them back as heroes. In April 1971, Castro was internationally condemned for ordering the arrest of dissident poet Heberto Padilla who had been arrested 20 March; Padilla was freed, but the government established the National Cultural Council to ensure that intellectuals and artists supported the administration.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In November 1971, Castro visited Chile, where Marxist President Salvador Allende had been elected as the head of a left-wing coalition. Castro supported Allende's socialist reforms, but warned him of right-wing elements in Chile's military. In 1973, the military led a coup d'état and established a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. Castro proceeded to Guinea to meet socialist President Sékou Touré, praising him as Africa's greatest leader, and there received the Order of Fidelity to the People. He then went on a seven-week tour visiting leftist allies: Algeria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, where he was given further awards. On each trip, he was eager to visit factory and farm workers, publicly praising their governments; privately, he urged the regimes to aid revolutionary movements elsewhere, particularly those fighting the Vietnam War.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In September 1973, he returned to Algiers to attend the Fourth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Various NAM members were critical of Castro's attendance, claiming that Cuba was aligned to the Warsaw Pact and therefore should not be at the conference. At the conference he publicly broke off relations with Israel, citing its government's close relationship with the U.S. and its treatment of Palestinians during the Israel–Palestine conflict. This earned Castro respect throughout the Arab world, in particular from the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who became a friend and ally. As the Yom Kippur War broke out in October 1973 between Israel and an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria, Cuba sent 4,000 troops to aid Syria. Leaving Algiers, Castro visited Iraq and North Vietnam.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Cuba's economy grew in 1974 as a result of high international sugar prices and new credits with Argentina, Canada, and parts of Western Europe. A number of Latin American states called for Cuba's re-admittance into the Organization of American States (OAS), with the U.S. finally conceding in 1975 on Henry Kissinger's advice. Cuba's government underwent a restructuring along Soviet lines, claiming that this would further democratization and decentralize power away from Castro. Officially announcing Cuba's identity as a socialist state, the first National Congress of the Cuban Communist Party was held, and a new constitution drafted that abolished the position of president and prime minister. Castro remained the dominant figure in governance, taking the presidency of the newly created Council of State and Council of Ministers, making him both head of state and head of government.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro considered Africa to be "the weakest link in the imperialist chain", and at the request of Agostinho Neto he ordered 230 military advisers into Angola in November 1975 to aid Neto's Marxist MPLA in the Angolan Civil War. When the U.S. and South Africa stepped up their support of the opposition FLNA and UNITA, Castro ordered a further 18,000 troops to Angola, which played a major role in forcing a South African and UNITA retreat. The decision to intervene in Angola has been a controversial one, all the more so as Castro's critics have charged that it was not his decision at all, contending that the Soviets ordered him to do so. Castro always maintained that he took the decision to launch Operation Carlota himself in response to an appeal from Neto and that the Soviets were in fact opposed to Cuban intervention in Angola, which took place over their opposition.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Traveling to Angola, Castro celebrated with Neto, Sékou Touré and Guinea-Bissaun President Luís Cabral, where they agreed to support Mozambique's Marxist–Leninist government against RENAMO in the Mozambican Civil War. In February, Castro visited Algeria and then Libya, where he spent ten days with Gaddafi and oversaw the establishment of the Jamahariya system of governance, before attending talks with the Marxist government of South Yemen. From there he proceeded to Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Angola where he was greeted by crowds as a hero for Cuba's role in opposing apartheid South Africa. Throughout much of Africa he was hailed as a friend to national liberation from foreign dominance. This was followed with visits to East Berlin and Moscow.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In 1977, the Ogaden War broke out over the disputed Ogaden region as Somalia invaded Ethiopia; although a former ally of Somali President Siad Barre, Castro had warned him against such action, and Cuba sided with Mengistu Haile Mariam's Marxist government of Ethiopia. In a desperate attempt to stop the war, Castro had a summit with Barre where he proposed a federation of Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Yemen as an alternative to war. Barre who saw seizing the Ogaden as the first step towards creating a greater Somalia that would unite all of the Somalis into one state rejected the federation offer, and decided upon war. Castro sent troops under the command of General Arnaldo Ochoa to aid the overwhelmed Ethiopian army. Mengistu's regime was barely hanging on by 1977, having lost one-third of its army in Eritrea at the time of the Somali invasion. The intervention of 17, 000 Cuban troops into the Ogaden was by all accounts decisive in altering a war that Ethiopia was on the brink of losing into a victory.


title: Fidel Castro

text: After forcing back the Somalis, Mengistu then ordered the Ethiopians to suppress the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, a measure Castro refused to support. Castro extended support to Latin American revolutionary movements, namely the Sandinista National Liberation Front in its overthrow of the Nicaraguan rightist government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in July 1979. Castro's critics accused the government of wasting Cuban lives in these military endeavors; the anti-Castro Center for a Free Cuba has claimed that an estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in foreign Cuban military actions. When American critics claimed that Castro had no right to interfere in these nations, he countered that Cuba had been invited into them, pointing out the U.S.' own involvement in various foreign nations. Between 1979 and 1991 about 370, 000 Cuban troops together with 50, 000 Cuban civilians (mostly teachers and doctors) served in Angola, representing about 5% of Cuba's population. The Cuban intervention in Angola was envisioned as a short-term commitment, but the Angolan government used the profits from the oil industry to subsidize Cuba's economy, making Cuba as economically dependent upon Angola as Angola was militarily dependent upon Cuba.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In the late 1970s, Cuba's relations with North American states improved during the period with Mexican President Luis Echeverría, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and U.S. President Jimmy Carter in power. Carter continued criticizing Cuba's human rights abuses, but adopted a respectful approach which gained Castro's attention. Considering Carter well-meaning and sincere, Castro freed certain political prisoners and allowed some Cuban exiles to visit relatives on the island, hoping that in turn Carter would abolish the economic embargo and stop CIA support for militant dissidents. Conversely, his relationship with China declined, as he accused Deng Xiaoping's Chinese government of betraying their revolutionary principles by initiating trade links with the U.S. and attacking Vietnam. In 1979, the Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was held in Havana, where Castro was selected as NAM president, a position he held until 1982. In his capacity as both president of the NAM and of Cuba he appeared at the United Nations General Assembly in October 1979 and gave a speech on the disparity between the world's rich and poor. His speech was greeted with much applause from other world leaders, though his standing in NAM was damaged by Cuba's refusal to condemn the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.


title: Fidel Castro

text: By the 1980s, Cuba's economy was again in trouble, following a decline in the market price of sugar and 1979's decimated harvest. For the first time, unemployment became a serious problem in Castro's Cuba, with the government sending unemployed youth to other countries, primarily East Germany, to work there. Desperate for money, Cuba's government secretly sold off paintings from national collections and illicitly traded for U.S. electronic goods through Panama. Increasing numbers of Cubans fled to Florida, but were labelled "scum" and "lumpen" by Castro and his CDR supporters. In one incident, 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian Embassy requesting asylum, and so the U.S. agreed that it would accept 3,500 refugees. Castro conceded that those who wanted to leave could do so from Mariel port. In what was known as the Mariel boatlift, hundreds of boats arrived from the U.S., leading to a mass exodus of 120,000; Castro's government took advantage of the situation by loading criminals, the mentally ill, and homosexuals onto the boats destined for Florida. The event destabilized Carter's administration, and later, in 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected U.S. president.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Reagan's administration adopted a hard-line approach against Castro, making its desire to overthrow his regime clear. In late 1981, Castro publicly accused the U.S. of biological warfare against Cuba by orchestrating a dengue fever epidemic. Cuba's economy became even more dependent on Soviet aid, with Soviet subsidies (mainly in the form of supplies of low-cost oil and voluntarily buying Cuban sugar at inflated prices) averaging $4–5 billion a year by the late 1980s. This accounted for 30–38% of the country's entire GDP. Soviet economic assistance had not helped Cuba's long-term growth prospects by promoting diversification or sustainability. Although described as a "relatively highly developed Latin American export economy" in 1959 and the early 1960s, Cuba's basic economic structure changed very little between then and the 1980s. Tobacco products such as cigars and cigarettes were the only manufactured products among Cuba's leading exports, and even these are produced by a pre-industrial process. The Cuban economy remained highly inefficient and over-specialized in a few highly subsidized commodities provided by the Soviet bloc countries.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Although despising Argentina's right-wing military junta, Castro supported them in the 1982 Falklands War against Britain and offered military aid to the Argentinians. Castro supported the leftist New Jewel Movement that seized power in Grenada in 1979, befriending Grenadine President Maurice Bishop and sending doctors, teachers, and technicians to aid the country's development. When Bishop was executed in a Soviet-backed coup by hard-line Marxist Bernard Coard in October 1983, Castro condemned the killing but cautiously retained support for Grenada's government. However, the U.S. used the coup as a basis for invading the island. Cuban soldiers died in the conflict, with Castro denouncing the invasion and comparing the U.S. to Nazi Germany. In a July 1983 speech marking the 30th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Castro condemned Reagan's administration as a "reactionary, extremist clique" who were waging an "openly warmongering and fascist foreign policy". Castro feared a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua and sent Ochoa to train the governing Sandinistas in guerrilla warfare, but received little support from the USSR.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary-General of the Soviet Communist Party; a reformer, he implemented measures to increase freedom of the press ("glasnost") and economic decentralization ("perestroika") in an attempt to strengthen socialism. Like many orthodox Marxist critics, Castro feared that the reforms would weaken the socialist state and allow capitalist elements to regain control. Gorbachev conceded to U.S. demands to reduce support for Cuba, with Soviet-Cuban relations deteriorating. On medical advice given him in October 1985, Castro gave up regularly smoking Cuban cigars, helping to set an example for the rest of the populace. Castro became passionate in his denunciation of the Third World debt problem, arguing that the Third World would never escape the debt that First World banks and governments imposed upon it. In 1985, Havana hosted five international conferences on the world debt problem.


title: Fidel Castro

text: By November 1987, Castro began spending more time on the Angolan Civil War, in which the Marxist MPLA government had fallen into retreat. Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos successfully appealed for more Cuban troops, with Castro later admitting that he devoted more time to Angola than to the domestic situation, believing that a victory would lead to the collapse of apartheid. In response to the siege of Cuito Cuanavale in 1987–1988 by South African-UNITA forces, Castro sent an additional 12,000 Cuban Army troops to Angola in late 1987. From afar in Havana, Castro was closely involved in the decision-making about the defense of Cuito Cuanavle and came into conflict with Ochoa, whom he criticized for almost losing Cuito Cuanavle to a South African-UNITA assault on 13 January 1988 despite warning for almost two months prior that such an attack was coming. On 30 January 1988, Ochoa was summoned to a meeting with Castro in Havana where he was told that Cuito Cuanavale must not fall and to execute Castro's plans for a pull-back to more defensible positions over the objections of the Angolans. The Cuban troops played a decisive role in the relief of Cuito Cuanavale, breaking the siege in March 1988, which led to the withdrawal of most of the South African troops from Angola. Cuban propaganda turned the siege of Cuito Cuanavle into a decisive victory that changed the course of African history and Castro awarded 82 soldiers medals of the newly created Medal of Merit for the Defense of Cuito Cuanavle on 1 April 1988. Tensions were increased with the Cubans advancing close to the border of Namibia, which led to warnings from the South African government that they considered this an extremely unfriendly act, causing South Africa to mobilize and call up its reserves. In the spring of 1988, the intensity of South African-Cuban fighting drastically increased with both sides taking heavy losses.


title: Fidel Castro

text: The prospect of an all-out Cuban-South African war served to concentrate minds in both Moscow and Washington and led to an increased push for a diplomatic solution to the Angolan war. The cost of Cuba's wars in Africa were paid for with Soviet subsidies at a time when the Soviet economy was badly hurt by low oil prices while the apartheid government of South Africa had by the 1980s become a very awkward American ally as much of the American population, especially black Americans, objected to apartheid. From the viewpoint of both Moscow and Washington, having both Cuba and South Africa disengage in Angola was the best possible outcome. The low oil prices of the 1980s had also changed the Angolan attitude about subsidizing the Cuban economy as dos Santos found the promises made in the 1970s when oil prices were high to be a serious drain upon Angola's economy in the 1980s. South African whites were vastly outnumbered by South African blacks, and accordingly the South African Army could not take heavy losses with its white troops as that would fatally weaken the ability of the South African state to uphold apartheid. The Cubans had also taken heavy losses while the increasing difficult relations with dos Santos who become less generous in subsidizing the Cuban economy suggested that such losses were not worth the cost. Gorbachev called for a negotiated end to the conflict and in 1988 organized a quadripartite talks between the USSR, U.S., Cuba and South Africa; they agreed that all foreign troops would pull out of Angola while South Africa agreed to grant independence to Namibia. Castro was angered by Gorbachev's approach, believing that he was abandoning the plight of the world's poor in favor of détente.


title: Fidel Castro

text: When Gorbachev visited Cuba in April 1989, he informed Castro that "perestroika" meant an end to subsidies for Cuba. Ignoring calls for liberalization in accordance with the Soviet example, Castro continued to clamp down on internal dissidents and in particular kept tabs on the military, the primary threat to the government. A number of senior military officers, including Ochoa and Tony de la Guardia, were investigated for corruption and complicity in cocaine smuggling, tried, and executed in 1989, despite calls for leniency. In Eastern Europe, socialist governments fell to capitalist reformers between 1989 and 1991 and many Western observers expected the same in Cuba. Increasingly isolated, Cuba improved relations with Manuel Noriega's right-wing government in Panama – despite Castro's personal hatred of Noriega – but it was overthrown in a U.S. invasion in December 1989. In February 1990, Castro's allies in Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, were defeated by the U.S.-funded National Opposition Union in an election. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the U.S. secured a majority vote for a resolution condemning Cuba's human rights violations at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland. Cuba asserted that this was a manifestation of U.S. hegemony, and refused to allow an investigative delegation to enter the country.


title: Fidel Castro

text: With favourable trade from the Soviet bloc ended, Castro publicly declared that Cuba was entering a "Special Period in Time of Peace". Petrol rations were dramatically reduced, Chinese bicycles were imported to replace cars, and factories performing non-essential tasks were shut down. Oxen began to replace tractors, firewood began being used for cooking and electricity cuts were introduced that lasted 16 hours a day. Castro admitted that Cuba faced the worst situation short of open war, and that the country might have to resort to subsistence farming. By 1992, Cuba's economy had declined by over 40% in under two years, with major food shortages, widespread malnutrition and a lack of basic goods. Castro hoped for a restoration of Marxism–Leninism in the USSR, but refrained from backing the 1991 coup in that country. When Gorbachev regained control, Cuba-Soviet relations deteriorated further and Soviet troops were withdrawn in September 1991. In December, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved as Boris Yeltsin abolished the Soviet Communist Party and introducing a capitalist multiparty democracy. Yeltsin despised Castro and developed links with the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation. Castro tried improving relations with the capitalist nations. He welcomed Western politicians and investors to Cuba, befriended Manuel Fraga and took a particular interest in Margaret Thatcher's policies in the UK, believing that Cuban socialism could learn from her emphasis on low taxation and personal initiative. He ceased support for foreign militants, refrained from praising FARC on a 1994 visit to Colombia and called for a negotiated settlement between the Zapatistas and Mexican government in 1995. Publicly, he presented himself as a moderate on the world stage.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In 1991, Havana hosted the Pan American Games, which involved construction of a stadium and accommodation for the athletes; Castro admitted that it was an expensive error, but it was a success for Cuba's government. Crowds regularly shouted "Fidel! Fidel!" in front of foreign journalists, while Cuba became the first Latin American nation to beat the U.S. to the top of the gold-medal table. Support for Castro remained strong, and although there were small anti-government demonstrations, the Cuban opposition rejected the exile community's calls for an armed uprising. In August 1994, Havana witnessed the largest anti-Castro demonstration in Cuban history, as 200 to 300 young men threw stones at police, demanding that they be allowed to emigrate to Miami. A larger pro-Castro crowd confronted them, who were joined by Castro; he informed media that the men were anti-socials misled by the U.S. The protests dispersed with no recorded injuries. Fearing that dissident groups would invade, the government organised the "War of All the People" defense strategy, planning a widespread guerrilla warfare campaign, and the unemployed were given jobs building a network of bunkers and tunnels across the country.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro believed in the need for reform if Cuban socialism was to survive in a world now dominated by capitalist free markets. In October 1991, the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party was held in Santiago, at which a number of important changes to the government were announced. Castro would step down as head of government, to be replaced by the much younger Carlos Lage, although Castro would remain the head of the Communist Party and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Many older members of government were to be retired and replaced by their younger counterparts. A number of economic changes were proposed, and subsequently put to a national referendum. Free farmers' markets and small-scale private enterprises would be legalized in an attempt to stimulate economic growth, while U.S. dollars were also made legal tender. Certain restrictions on emigration were eased, allowing more discontented Cuban citizens to move to the United States. Further democratization was to be brought in by having the National Assembly's members elected directly by the people, rather than through municipal and provincial assemblies. Castro welcomed debate between proponents and opponents of the economics reforms—although over time he began to increasingly sympathise with the opponent's positions, arguing that such reforms must be delayed.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's government diversified its economy into biotechnology and tourism, the latter outstripping Cuba's sugar industry as its primary source of revenue in 1995. The arrival of thousands of Mexican and Spanish tourists led to increasing numbers of Cubans turning to prostitution; officially illegal, Castro refrained from cracking down on prostitution in Cuba, fearing a political backlash. Economic hardship led many Cubans toward religion, both in the form of Roman Catholicism and Santería. Although long thinking religious belief to be backward, Castro softened his approach to religious institutions and religious people were permitted for the first time to join the Communist Party. Although he viewed the Roman Catholic Church as a reactionary, pro-capitalist institution, Castro organized a visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II for January 1998; it strengthened the position of both the Cuban Church and Castro's government.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In the early 1990s Castro embraced environmentalism, campaigning against global warming and the waste of natural resources, and accusing the U.S. of being the world's primary polluter. In 1994 a ministry dedicated to the environment was established, and new laws established in 1997 that promoted awareness of environmental issues throughout Cuba and stressed the sustainable use of natural resources. By 2006, Cuba was the world's only nation which met the United Nations Development Programme's definition of sustainable development, with an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8. Castro also became a proponent of the anti-globalization movement, criticizing U.S. global hegemony and the control exerted by multinationals. Castro maintained his strong stance against apartheid, and at the 26 July celebrations in 1991, he was joined onstage by Nelson Mandela, recently released from prison. Mandela praised Cuba's involvement in battling South Africa during the Angolan Civil War and thanked Castro personally. Castro later attended Mandela's inauguration as President of South Africa in 1994. In 2001, Castro attended the Conference Against Racism in South Africa at which he lectured on the global spread of racial stereotypes through U.S. film.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Mired in economic problems, Cuba was aided by the election of socialist and anti-imperialist Hugo Chávez to the Venezuelan Presidency in 1999. Castro and Chávez developed a close friendship, with the former acting as a mentor and father-figure to the latter, and together they built an alliance that had repercussions throughout Latin America. In 2000, they signed an agreement through which Cuba would send 20,000 medics to Venezuela, in return receiving 53,000 barrels of oil per day at preferential rates; in 2004, this trade was stepped up, with Cuba sending 40,000 medics and Venezuela providing 90,000 barrels a day. That same year, Castro initiated "Misión Milagro", a joint medical project which aimed to provide free eye operations on 300,000 individuals from each nation. The alliance boosted the Cuban economy, and in May 2005 Castro doubled the minimum wage for 1.6 million workers, raised pensions, and delivered new kitchen appliances to Cuba's poorest residents. Some economic problems remained; in 2004, Castro shut down 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills and paper processors to compensate for a critical shortage of fuel. In September 2005, Castro established a group of medical professionals, known as the Henry Reeve Brigade, with the mission of international medical solidarity. The group were sent throughout the world to carry out humanitarian missions on behalf of the Cuban government.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Cuba and Venezuela were the founding members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). ALBA sought to redistribute wealth evenly throughout member countries, to protect the region's agriculture, and to oppose economic liberalization and privatization. ALBA's origins lay in a December 2004 agreement signed between the two countries, and was formalized through a People's Trade Agreement also signed by Evo Morales' Bolivia in April 2006. Castro had also been calling for greater Caribbean integration since the late 1990s, saying that only strengthened cooperation between Caribbean countries would prevent their domination by rich nations in a global economy. Cuba has opened four additional embassies in the Caribbean Community including: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This development makes Cuba the only country to have embassies in all independent countries of the Caribbean Community.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In contrast to the improved relations between Cuba and a number of leftist Latin American states, in 2004 it broke off diplomatic ties with Panama after centrist President Mireya Moscoso pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of attempting to assassinate Castro in 2000. Diplomatic ties were reinstalled in 2005 following the election of leftist President Martín Torrijos.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's improving relations across Latin America were accompanied by continuing animosity towards the U.S. However, after massive damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, Castro successfully proposed a one-time cash purchase of food from the U.S. while declining its government's offer of humanitarian aid. Castro expressed solidarity with the U.S. following the 2001 September 11 attacks, condemning Al-Qaeda and offering Cuban airports for the emergency diversion of any U.S. planes. He recognized that the attacks would make U.S. foreign policy more aggressive, which he believed was counter-productive. Castro criticized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying that the U.S.-led war had imposed an international "law of the jungle".


title: Fidel Castro

text: Meanwhile, in 1998, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien arrived in Cuba to meet Castro and highlight their close ties. He was the first Canadian government leader to visit the island since Pierre Trudeau was in Havana in 1976. In 2002, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited Cuba, where he highlighted the lack of civil liberties in the country and urged the government to pay attention to the Varela Project of Oswaldo Payá.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding, and on 31 July 2006, delegated his presidential duties to Raúl Castro. In February 2007, Raúl announced that Fidel's health was improving and that he was taking part in important issues of government. Later that month, Fidel called into Hugo Chávez's radio show "Aló Presidente". On 21 April, Castro met Wu Guanzheng of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo Standing member, with Chávez visiting in August, and Morales in September. That month, the Non-Aligned Movement held its 14th Summit in Havana, there agreeing to appoint Castro as the organisation's president for a year's term.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Commenting on Castro's recovery, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away." Hearing about this, the atheist Castro replied: "Now I understand why I survived Bush's plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me." The quote was picked up on by the world's media.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In a February 2008 letter, Castro announced that he would not accept the positions of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief at that month's National Assembly meetings, remarking, "It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer". On 24 February 2008, the National Assembly of People's Power unanimously voted Raúl as president. Describing his brother as "not substitutable", Raúl proposed that Fidel continue to be consulted on matters of great importance, a motion unanimously approved by the 597 National Assembly members.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Following his retirement, Castro's health deteriorated; international press speculated that he had diverticulitis, but Cuba's government refused to corroborate this. He continued to interact with the Cuban people, published an opinion column titled "Reflections" in "Granma", used a Twitter account, and gave occasional public lectures. In January 2009 Castro asked Cubans not to worry about his lack of recent news columns and failing health, and not to be disturbed by his future death. He continued meeting foreign leaders and dignitaries, and that month photographs were released of Castro's meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernández.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In July 2010, he made his first public appearance since falling ill, greeting science center workers and giving a television interview to "Mesa Redonda" in which he discussed U.S. tensions with Iran and North Korea. On 7 August 2010, Castro gave his first speech to the National Assembly in four years, urging the U.S. not to take military actions against those nations and warning of a nuclear holocaust. When asked whether Castro may be re-entering government, culture minister Abel Prieto told the BBC, "I think that he has always been in Cuba's political life but he is not in the government ... He has been very careful about that. His big battle is international affairs."


title: Fidel Castro

text: On 19 April 2011, Castro resigned from the Communist Party central committee, thus stepping down as First Secretary. Raúl was selected as his successor. Now without any official role in the country's government, he took on the role of an elder statesman. In March 2011, Castro condemned the NATO-led military intervention in Libya. In March 2012, Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba for three days, during which time he briefly met with Castro despite the Pope's vocal opposition to Cuba's government. Later that year it was revealed that along with Hugo Chávez, Castro had played a significant behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating peace talks between the Colombian government and the far left FARC guerrilla movement to end the conflict which had raged since 1964. During the North Korea crisis of 2013, he urged both the North Korean and U.S. governments to show restraint. Calling the situation "incredible and absurd", he maintained that war would not benefit either side, and that it represented "one of the gravest risks of nuclear war" since the Cuban missile crisis.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In December 2014, Castro was awarded the Chinese Confucius Peace Prize for seeking peaceful solutions to his nation's conflict with the U.S. and for his post-retirement efforts to prevent nuclear war. In January 2015, he publicly commented on the "Cuban Thaw", an increased normalization between Cuba-U.S. relations, by stating that while it was a positive move for establishing peace in the region, he mistrusted the U.S. government. He did not meet with U.S. President Barack Obama on the latter's visit to Cuba in March 2016, although sent him a letter stating that Cuba "has no need of gifts from the empire". That April, he gave his most extensive public appearance in many years when addressing the Communist Party. Highlighting that he was soon to turn 90 years old, he noted that he would die in the near future but urged those assembled to retain their communist ideals. In September 2016, Castro was visited at his Havana home by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and later that month was visited by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. In late October 2016, Castro met with the Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who became one of the last foreign leaders to meet him.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro died in Havana on the night of 25 November 2016. The cause of death was not disclosed. His brother, President Raúl Castro, confirmed the news in a brief speech: "The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 [EST] this evening." His death came 9 months after his older brother Ramón died at the age of 91 in February. Fidel Castro was cremated the next day. A funeral procession travelled along the island's central highway from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, tracing in reverse, the route of the "Freedom Caravan" of January 1959, and after nine days of public mourning, his ashes were entombed in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro proclaimed himself to be "a Socialist, a Marxist, and a Leninist", and publicly identified as a Marxist–Leninist from December 1961 onward. As a Marxist, Castro sought to transform Cuba from a capitalist state which was dominated by foreign imperialism to a socialist society and ultimately to a communist society. Influenced by Guevara, he suggested that Cuba could evade most stages of socialism and progress straight to communism. The Cuban Revolution nevertheless did not meet the Marxist assumption that socialism would be achieved through proletariat revolution, for most of the forces involved in Batista's overthrow were led by members of the Cuban middle-class. According to Castro, a country could be regarded as socialist if its means of production were controlled by the state. In this way, his understanding of socialism was less about who controlled power in a country and more about the method of distribution.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's government was also nationalistic, with Castro declaring, "We are not only Marxist-Leninists, but also nationalists and patriots". In this it drew upon a longstanding tradition of Cuban nationalism. Castro biographer Sebastian Balfour noted that "the vein of moral regeneration and voluntarism that runs through" Castro's thought owes far more to "Hispanic nationalism" than European socialism or Marxism–Leninism. Historian Richard Gott remarked that one of the keys to Castro's success was his ability to use the "twin themes of socialism and nationalism" and keep them "endlessly in play". Castro described Karl Marx and Cuban nationalist José Martí as his main political influences, although Gott believed that Martí ultimately remained more important than Marx in Castro's politics. Castro described Martí's political ideas as "a philosophy of independence and an exceptional humanistic philosophy", and his supporters and apologists repeatedly claimed that there were great similarities between the two figures.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Biographer Volka Skierka described Castro's government as a "highly individual, socialist-nationalist "fidelista" system", with Theodore Draper terming his approach "Castroism", viewing it as a blend of European socialism with the Latin American revolutionary tradition.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Political scientist Paul C. Sondrol has described Castro's approach to politics as "totalitarian utopianism", with a style of leadership that drew upon the wider Latin American phenomenon of the "caudillo". He drew inspiration from the wider Latin American anti-imperialist movements of the 1930s and 1940s, including Argentina's Perón and Guatemala's Jacobo Árbenz. Castro took a relatively socially conservative stance on many issues, opposing drug use, gambling, and prostitution, which he viewed as moral evils. Instead, he advocated hard work, family values, integrity, and self-discipline. Although his government repressed homosexual activity for decades, later in his life he took responsibility for this persecution, regretting it as a "great injustice", as he himself put it.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Juan Reynaldo Sánchez, Castro's former bodyguard, detailed much of his personal and private life in his book "The Double Life of Fidel Castro". He described Castro as "Nothing ordinary about him at all, he is unique, special, and different". He profiled him as an egocentric who loved being the center of attention, and with his almost electric charisma, grabbing the attention of the people around him. He was also extremely manipulative; with his formidable intelligence, he was capable of manipulating a person or a group of people without much difficulty. In addition, he was repetitive and obsessive. In discussions with his colleagues or foreigners, he would repeat the same things over again on a continuous loop until they were convinced he was right. It was absolutely impossible to contradict him on any subject whatsoever. Anyone who attempted to convince him that he was wrong or even making a suggestion that it could be improved slightly was making a "fatal error". Fidel would then make a mental mark of the individual as an "idiot", and would wait for the right time to retaliate against them. Nobody, not even Raúl was exempt from this; despite being the minister of the armed forces, he would bring seemingly minor military decisions to Castro for his final approval in order to avoid inadvertently contradicting him. Sánchez believed that General Arnaldo Ochoa's downfall was significantly related to his willingness to contradict Fidel's orders in Angola.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Biographer Leycester Coltman described Castro as "fiercely hard-working, dedicated, loyal ... generous and magnanimous" but noted that he could be "vindictive and unforgiving". He asserted that Castro "always had a keen sense of humor and could laugh at himself" but could equally be "a bad loser" who would act with "ferocious rage if he thought that he was being humiliated". Publicly he was known for throwing tantrums, and could make "snap judgements" which he refused to back down from. In private though, Castro was actually skilled at keeping his anger in check and not allowing it to affect his judgement, simply becoming cold and withdrawn; Sánchez stated that in 17 years he had only seen Castro explode in anger twice, one upon being informed of his daughter Alina's defection in 1993.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro was known for working long hours; he primarily woke up late – rarely before 10 or 11 am – and started his working day around noon, and would work until late at night, often only going to bed at 3 or 4 am. He preferred to meet foreign diplomats in these early hours, believing that they would be tired and he could gain the upper hand in negotiations. Castro liked to meet with ordinary citizens, both in Cuba and abroad, but took a particularly paternal attitude toward Cubans, treating them as if "they were a part of his own giant family". British historian Alex von Tunzelmann commented that "though ruthless, [Castro] was a patriot, a man with a profound sense that it was his mission to save the Cuban people". Political scientist Paul C. Sondrol characterized Castro as "quintessentially totalitarian in his charismatic appeal, utopian functional role and public, transformative utilisation of power".


title: Fidel Castro

text: Balfour described Castro as having a "voracity for knowledge" and "elephantine memory" that allowed him to speak for hours on a variety of different subjects. His hero was Alexander the Great, whose Spanish equivalent "Alejandro" he adopted as his "nom de guerre". Castro was a voracious reader; amongst his favorite authors were Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, William Shakespeare, and Maxim Gorky, and he named "For Whom the Bell Tolls" as his favorite book, committing several portions of the novel to memory and even utilizing some of its lessons as a guerilla fighter. He enjoyed art and photography and was known as a patron of both within Cuba but was uninterested in music and disliked dancing. He was also an avid fan of cinema, particularly Soviet films. His favorite film was the five-hour long 1967 adaption of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". Castro had a lifelong passion, almost obsession, with cows and, starting in 1966, with bovine genetics and breeding. State media frequently published details of his attempts to breed cows with increased milk yields. This interest reached its peak in 1982 when a cow that Fidel had bred, "Ubre Blanca", broke the Guinness World Record for producing 29 gallons of milk live on national television. She was promoted into a national celebrity and propaganda tool, and when the cow died in 1985, "Granma" published an official obituary for her on the front page, and the postal service issued stamps in her honor as well.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Fidel Castro's religious beliefs have been a matter of some debate; he was baptized and raised as a Roman Catholic. He criticized use of the Bible to justify the oppression of women and Africans, but commented that Christianity exhibited "a group of very humane precepts" which gave the world "ethical values" and a "sense of social justice", relating, "If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian." During a visit of Jesse Jackson, Castro accompanied him to a Methodist Church service where he even spoke from the pulpit with a Bible before him, an event that marked a beginning of increased openness towards Christianity in Cuba. He promoted the idea that Jesus Christ was a communist, citing the feeding of the 5,000 and the story of Jesus and the rich young man as evidence.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Within Cuba, Castro was primarily referred to by his official military title "Comandante El Jefe"; he was usually addressed as "Comandante" (The Commander) in general discourse as well as in person but could also be addressed as "El Jefe" (the Chief) in the third person, particularly within the party and military command. Castro was often nicknamed ""El Caballo"" ("The Horse"), a label attributed to Cuban entertainer Benny Moré which alludes to Castro's well known philandering during the 1950s and early 1960s.


title: Fidel Castro

text: With his logorrheic oratorical abilities and profound charisma, Castro was extremely skilled at the art of manipulation and deception, easily whipping up his audience and even entire segments of the population into support for him. Large throngs of supporters gathered to cheer at Castro's fiery speeches, which typically lasted for hours (even outdoors in inclement weather) and without the use of written notes. During speeches, Castro regularly cited reports and books he had read on a wide variety of subjects, including military matters, plant cultivation, filmmaking, and chess strategies. Officially, the Cuban government did maintain a cult of personality, but unlike other Soviet-era leaders and his allies, it was less widespread and took on a more subtle and discreet form. There were no statues or large portraits of him but rather signs with "thoughts" of the "Comandante". Although his popularity among segments of the Cuban populace nevertheless led to one developing without the government's involvement and would be used to judge each individual's devotion to his "revolutionary cause" (judged by their contribution to the revolution). Indeed, by 2006 Castro's image could frequently be found in Cuban stores, classrooms, taxicabs, and on national television. In private, however, Castro hated such idolization campaigns and believed that he had intellectual ascendancy over leaders who engaged in such behavior, such as his friend Kim Il-sung of North Korea whose cult of personality he considered excessive, outlandish, and unreasonable.


title: Fidel Castro

text: He gave no importance to his appearance or clothing; for 37 years, he wore only his trademark olive-green military fatigues or the standard dress uniform for formal events and special occasions, emphasizing his role as the perpetual revolutionary, but in the mid-1990s began wearing dark civilian suits and "guayabera" in public. At over tall with a few inches added from his combat boots, Castro usually towered over most foreign leaders he met with, giving him a dominating presence in any room or photo that was taken, which he used to his advantage (for comparison, Abraham Lincoln and Charles De Gaulle, both well known for their tall heights, stood at 6'4 and 6'5 respectively). Until his uprising against Batista, Castro typically kept a pencil-thin moustache along with combed back hair, typical of Upper-class Cuban men in the 1950s but grew out both during his years as a guerilla fighter and retaining them afterwards. Castro also disliked worrying about his appearance and hated shaving, making the beard and uniform all the more convenient for him. His uniform was also kept simple, he never wore any medals or decorations and his only marker of rank was the "Comandante El Jefe" insignia stitched on the shoulder straps. Until the 1990s, he wore combat boots, but due to orthopedic issues, abandoned them for sneakers and tennis shoes instead. Around his waist, he often carried a 9mm Browning pistol in a brown leather holster with an additional three clips. His personal weapon of choice was a 7.62 Kalashnikov AKM which Castro occasionally carried with him during the 1960s but was later kept stored in a suitcase carried by one of the members of his escort or kept placed between his feet while driving along with five cartridges; he frequently used it during shooting exercises and practice. Castro had a lifelong love of guns and was considered an expert sharpshooter, impressing foreign visitors and even holding up against members of his own elite bodyguards who engaged in frequent competition with him.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's most iconic public feature eventually became the Cuban cigar that he smoked on a daily basis. Introduced to it by his father at the age of 15, Castro continued the habit for almost 44 years with the exception of a brief period during the 1950s while a guerilla fighter and boycotting against Batista linked tobacco firms. Castro claimed that he quit around 1985 during an anti-smoking campaign promoted by the Communist Party. Sánchez disputes this, saying that his doctor had Castro reduce his cigar usage starting in 1980 and quit entirely in 1983 after a cancerous ulcer was found in his intestine. Prior to the Revolution, Castro smoked various brands including Romeo y Julieta Churchill, H. Upmann, Bauza, and Partagás. In the early 1960s, Castro saw one of his bodyguards smoking a noticeably aromatic but unbranded cigar. Castro and the bodyguard located the cigar maker, Eduardo Ribera, who agreed to establish the El Laguito Factory and branded the cigars as Cohiba which became Castro's signature brand and elevating its profile internationally. Initially restricted for his own private use and other members of the Politburo, it was later presented as diplomatic gifts for allied countries and friends of Castro, most notably seen smoked by Che Guevara, Josip Broz Tito, Houari Boumédiène, Sukarno, and Saddam Hussein.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's primary residence was at "Punto Cero", a large and vegetative estate approximately 6 km from the "Palacio de la Revolution" in the Siboney neighborhood. The main house is a L-Shaped two-story family mansion with a 600-square-yard footprint, 50-foot-long swimming pool, six greenhouses providing fruit and vegetables for Fidel and Raúl's families as well as their bodyguard units, and a large lawn with free-range chickens and cows. Close by is a second two-story building used to house the bodyguards and the domestic staff. The house itself was decorated in a classical Caribbean style, with local wicker and wood furniture, porcelain plates, watercolor paintings, and art books. Sánchez described the estate as naturally beautiful and tastefully decorated, and while considered luxurious for the average Cuban, was not lavish or over-the-top compared to the residences of the Somoza clan or the Kim dynasty of North Korea. Raúl and Vilma's house "La Rinconada" is located close by on 222nd street. Raúl usually hosted large family barbecues on Sundays where Fidel would sometimes come, giving his extended family, sisters, and his elder brother Ramón a rare opportunity to see him. Next to "Punto Cero" is "Unit 160" which was the base of Fidel's bodyguard units. The base was over five acres large and surrounded by high walls, essentially a "city within a city" consisting of support personnel for transportation, communications, electronics, food, and an extensive armory of Kalashnikovs, Makarovs, and Browning's. Members of that unit also assisted in Fidel's passion for Bovine breeding and a stable was kept for some of Fidel's most prized cows.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In addition to "Punto Cero", Castro had 5 other residences in Havana: "Casa Cojimar", his initial home after 1959 but disused by the 1970s; a house on 160th Street near the Playa district; "Casa Carbonell", maintained by Cuban Intelligence for his covert meetings with representatives of foreign groups or intelligence assets; A beach house in Santa Maria del Mar (next to the Tropico Hotel); and two houses retrofitted with air-raid shelters and connected to the MINFAR command bunkers for use in war: "Casa Punta Brava" (Dalia's old house before meeting Fidel) and "Casa Gallego", near the bodyguards base at Unit 160. In the west of Cuba, he had three residences: "Casa Americana" (confiscated from an American businessman connected to Batista); "Rancho la Tranquilidad" in the locality of Mil Cumbres; and La Deseada, a hunting lodge utilized in the winter for duck hunting and fishing trips. He also had two homes in Matanzas, one in Ciego de Avila, a horse ranch "Hacienda San Cayetano" in Camaguey along with another house in a vacation compound for the Politburo nearby, "Casa Guardalavaca" in Holguin, and two residences in Santiago de Cuba (One of which is shared with Ramiro Valdes).


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's main vacation destination was Cayo de Piedra, a small key island formerly the site of a lighthouse, approximately a mile long and divided into two by a cyclone in the 1960s. He came upon the island by accident while reviewing the region in the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Instantly falling in love with the island, he ordered it closed off and had the lighthouse demolished. Osmany Cienfuegos designed the a private bungalow, guesthouse, bridge, marina, and a building for the use of the bodyguards and support staff. He arrived here from his inaccessible private marina located near the Bay of Pigs, "La Caleta del Rosario", which also housed another residence and guesthouse. Castro utilized two yachts, "Aquarama I", confiscated from a Batista Government official and later in the 1970s, the 90-foot white hull "Aquarama II". "Aquarama II", which was decorated with wood donated from Angola, had two double cabins, one for Fidel's personal use, a main sitting room, two bathrooms, a bar, a secure communications suite, and was equipped with four Osa-class missile boat engines gifted from Brezhnev allowing for top speeds of over 42 Knots. "Aquarama II" had two companion speedboats utilized by his escort, "Pioniera I" and "Pioniera II"; one was equipped with a large cache of weapons and another was equipped with medical equipment.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro also had a keen interest in gastronomy and was known to wander into his kitchen to discuss cookery with his chefs. His diet was quintessentially Cuban, based on traditional pescatarian cuisine but also the additional influence from his native Galicia. All of his food was sourced from Punto Cero or fished from his private island of Cayo Piedra, with the exception of cases of Algerian Red Wine gifted initially from Houari Boumediene and continued by successive Algerian governments and Iraqi figs and fruit jams from Saddam Hussein. Castro, who typically woke up in the late morning, usually had tea or fish bouillon for breakfast accompanied by milk provided from one of the cows that grazed on "Punto Cero"; they were all bred to provide milk which suited Castro's demanding taste. His lunches were also frugal and consisted of fish or seafood soup with fresh produce. Dinner was his primary meal, consisting of grilled fish, chicken, mutton, or even "pata negra" ham on special occasions along with a large serving of green vegetables, but was prevented from eating beef or coffee by his dietician.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Until 1979, Castro's primary vehicle was a black ZiL limousine, first an armored convertible ZIL-111 from Khrushchev, a ZIL-114 and briefly a ZIL-4104 gifted to him by Leonid Brezhnev, while his escort would accompany him in several Alfa Romeo 1750s and 2000s. In 1979, during the Non-Aligned movement summit at Havana, Saddam Hussein gave Castro his Armored Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL which he had brought from Baghdad and became his sole transport for the rest of his life. Subsequently, Fidel ordered two mechanics from his bodyguard unit to West Germany to purchase several second-hand Mercedes-Benz 500's to replace the obsolete Alfa Romeos. Castro always travelled with at least fourteen guards and four of his aides, spread out over four vehicles; three Mercedes-Benz's and one Soviet Lada which trailed the main convoy (to keep the military presence at a minimal). Whenever he would leave Havana, a fifth Mercedes would join the procession carrying his doctor, nurse, and photographer.


title: Fidel Castro

text: In his personal life, Castro was known for being distant, withdrawn, and confided in very few people. His closest and most trusted friend was Raúl Castro, his younger brother by five years and longtime armed forces minister. Although Raúl has a vastly contrasting, almost polar opposite personality to Castro, Sánchez describes Raúl as complementing Castro's personality in all the ways that he is not. Whereas Fidel was "charismatic, energetic, visionary but extremely impulsive and totally disorganized", Raúl was described as a "natural, methodical, and uncompromising organizer". Castro spoke nearly every day with Raúl, met several times a week, and was a frequent visitor at Raúl and Vilma's house; Vilma was also considered close to Castro and often appeared in public with him at national events. Besides Raúl, Castro was not close to any of his other siblings, although he did have friendly relations with his elder brother Ramón and sister Angelita. His sister Juanita Castro has been living in the United States since the early 1960s, and is a public opponent of the Cuban regime.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Outside of his immediate family, Castro's closest friend was fellow revolutionary Celia Sánchez, who accompanied him almost everywhere during the 1960s, and controlled almost all access to the leader. Reynaldo Sánchez confirmed that Celia was indeed Castro's mistress and regarded her as the "true love of his life". Castro provided a large apartment for Celia on 11th Street near Vedado, "El Once" whom Fidel visited every day before returning home. Over the years, Castro added an elevator, fitness room, and a bowling alley for his and Celia's personal use. He even provided bodyguards from his own escort to Celia for her own protection.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro's closest male friends were the members of his immediate bodyguard unit, "Escolta" or the "Escort". His security was provided by Department 1 of the Personal Security Directorate of MININT (Ministry of the Interior). Department 1 was for Fidel's security, Department 2 was Raúl and Vilma's, and Department 3 was for the members of the Politburo and so on. Unlike the other MININT Departments, both his and Raúl's units bypassed the normal chain of command and reported to them directly. Castro's security consisted of three concentric "anillos" or rings. The third ring consisted of thousands of soldiers both in MININT and MINFAR who provided support for Logistics, Air-Defense, Intelligence, etc.; The second ring consisted of eighty to one hundred soldiers who provided the outer perimeter security; And the first ring, the Elite "Escolta" or "The Escort", which provided his immediate security and consisted of two teams of 15 elite soldiers who worked 24-hour shifts, along with around 10 support staff.


title: Fidel Castro

text: A soldier at heart, Castro had more affinity with his escort than his civilian family. He spent most of his time under their protection and were usually his companions in his personal interests. A sports fan, he also spent much of his time trying to keep fit, undertaking regular exercise such as hunting, fly fishing, underwater fishing, scuba diving, and playing basketball. They were also his companions on special events, such as his birthday or during national holidays, which they would regularly exchange gifts and engage in one-sided discussions with Castro where he would recall his life stories. The members of the Escort Castro was closest to was the former Mayor of Havana Jose "Pepín" Naranjo who became his official aide until his death in 1995 and his own personal physician, Eugenio Selman. Outside of his escort, Castro was also close to Manuel "Barbarroja" Pineiro, the head of the American Department of the DGI, Antonio Núñez Jiménez, and the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez.


title: Fidel Castro

text: The Cuban government has never published an official marital history of Castro, with most information coming from defectors and scarce details published in state media and pieced together over the years. In his earlier years in power, he showcased some of his family life, in particular his eldest son Fidelito in order to portray himself as a normal "family man" to the apprehensive American audience, but eventually abandoned that as he became more concerned about his personal safety. Throughout his rule, Castro never named an official "First Lady" and when the need for such a public female companion was necessary, Celia Sánchez or Raúl's wife, Vilma Espín, would play such a role of "la primera dama".


title: Fidel Castro

text: Overall, Sánchez described Castro as a compulsive lover or "womanizer"; he has been officially married twice but has carried on numerous affairs, including many one-night stands. Popular with women and often recognized as a sex symbol in Cuba, Castro never had difficulty in finding love and seduction, and Sánchez denies that Castro ever engaged in any unusual or un-consensual behavior. Castro was also described as a poor father; often absent from their lives, he had little interest in the activities of his children and was more interested in his work. Raúl, who had much more stronger paternal feelings towards his family, was often the one who played the role of surrogate father to Castro's children, in particular Fidelito and Alina.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Castro had another daughter, Francisca Pupo (born 1953), the result of a one-night affair. Pupo and her husband now live in Miami. Another son known as Ciro was also born in the early 1960s, the result of another brief fling, his existence confirmed by Celia Sánchez.


title: Fidel Castro

text: One of the most controversial political leaders of his era, Castro both inspired and dismayed people around the world during his lifetime. The London "Observer" stated that he proved to be "as divisive in death as he was in life", and that the only thing that his "enemies and admirers" agreed upon was that he was "a towering figure" who "transformed a small Caribbean island into a major force in world affairs". "The Daily Telegraph" noted that around the world he was "either praised as a brave champion of the people, or derided as a power-mad dictator."


title: Fidel Castro

text: According to political scientists, Castro ruled a single-party authoritarian regime in Cuba. Political opposition was not permitted. According to political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, the Cuban regime entailed "full authoritarianism ... (like China and Saudi Arabia)", as there were "no viable channels... for opposition to contest legally for executive power." Censorship of information was extensive, and independent journalism was repressed.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Despite its small size and limited economic weight, Castro's Cuba gained a large role in world affairs. The Castro government relied heavily on its appeals to nationalistic sentiment, in particular the widespread hostility to the U.S. government. According to Balfour, Castro's domestic popularity stemmed from the fact that he symbolised "a long-cherished hope of national liberation and social justice" for much of the population. Balfour also noted that throughout Latin America, Castro served as "a symbol of defiance against the continued economic and cultural imperialism of the United States". Similarly, Wayne S. Smith – the former Chief of the United States Interests Section in Havana – noted that Castro's opposition to U.S. dominance and transformation of Cuba into a significant world player resulted in him receiving "warm applause" throughout the Western Hemisphere.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Various Western governments and human rights organizations nevertheless heavily criticized Castro and he was widely reviled in the U.S. Following Castro's death, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump called him a "brutal dictator", while the Cuban-American politician Marco Rubio called him "an evil, murderous dictator" who turned Cuba into "an impoverished island prison". Castro publicly rejected the "dictator" label, stating that he constitutionally held less power than most heads of state and insisting that his regime allowed for greater democratic involvement in policy making than Western liberal democracies. Nevertheless, critics claim that Castro wielded significant unofficial influence aside from his official duties. Quirk stated that Castro wielded "absolute power" in Cuba, albeit not in a legal or constitutional manner, while Bourne claimed that power in Cuba was "completely invested" in Castro, adding that it was very rare for "a country and a people" to have been so completely dominated by "the personality of one man". Balfour stated that Castro's "moral and political hegemony" within Cuba diminished the opportunities for democratic debate and decision making. Describing Castro as a "totalitarian dictator", Sondrol suggested that in leading "a political system largely [of] his own creation and bearing his indelible stamp", Castro's leadership style warranted comparisons with totalitarian leaders like Mao Zedong, Hideki Tojo, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Noting that there were "few more polarising political figures" than Castro, Amnesty International described him as "a progressive but deeply flawed leader". In their view, he should be "applauded" for his regime's "substantial improvements" to healthcare and education, but criticised for its "ruthless suppression of freedom of expression." Human Rights Watch stated that his government constructed a "repressive machinery" which deprived Cubans of their "basic rights". Castro defended his government's record on human rights, stating that the state was forced to limit the freedoms of individuals and imprison those involved in counter-revolutionary activities in order to protect the rights of the collective populace, such as the right to employment, education, and health care.


title: Fidel Castro

text: Historian and journalist Richard Gott considered Castro to be "one of the most extraordinary political figures of the twentieth century", commenting that he had become a "world hero in the mould" of Giuseppe Garibaldi to people throughout the developing world for his anti-imperialist efforts. Balfour stated that Castro's story had "few parallels in contemporary history", for there existed no other "Third World leader" in the second half of the twentieth century who held "such a prominent and restless part on the international stage" or remained head of state for such a long period. Bourne described Castro as "an influential world leader" who commanded "great respect" from individuals of all political ideologies across the developing world. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Castro as a "remarkable leader" and a "larger than life leader who served his people." The European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Castro "was a hero for many." Russian President Vladimir Putin described Castro as both "a sincere and reliable friend of Russia" and a "symbol of an era", while Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping similarly referred to him as "a close comrade and a sincere friend" to China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed him "one of the most iconic personalities of the 20th century" and a "great friend", while South African President Jacob Zuma praised Castro for aiding black South Africans in "our struggle against apartheid". He was awarded a wide variety of awards and honors from foreign governments and was cited as an inspiration for foreign leaders like Ahmed Ben Bella and Nelson Mandela, who subsequently awarded him South Africa's highest civilian award for foreigners, the Order of Good Hope. The biographer Volka Skierka stated that "he will go down in history as one of the few revolutionaries who remained true to his principles".


title: Fidel Castro

text: Following Castro's death, Cuba's government announced that it would be passing a law prohibiting the naming of "institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, or erecting busts, statues or other forms of tribute" in honor of the late Cuban leader in keeping with his wishes to prevent an extensive cult of personality from developing around him.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ontology and an eschatology which predicts the ultimate conquest of evil by good. Zoroastrianism exalts an uncreated and benevolent deity of wisdom known as "Ahura Mazda" () as its supreme being. Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism, messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, angels, and demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions and Gnosticism, Northern Buddhism, and Greek philosophy.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: With possible roots dating back to the 2nd millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism enters recorded history around the middle of the 6th century BCE. It served as the state religion of the ancient Iranian empires for more than a millennium (approximately from 600 BCE to 650 CE), but declined from the 7th century CE onwards as a direct result of the Arab-Muslim conquest of Persia (633–654 CE), which led to the large-scale persecution of the Zoroastrian people. Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians in the world at around 110,000–120,000 at most, with the majority of this figure living in India, Iran, and North America; their number has been thought to be declining.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: The most important texts of Zoroastrianism are those contained within the Avesta, which includes the central writings thought to be composed by Zoroaster known as the "Gathas", that define the teachings of Zoroaster and which are poems within the liturgy of worship, the "Yasna" which serve as the basis for worship. The religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods of the Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition into emanations of the natural world as "ahuras" and "daevas", the latter of which were not considered to be worthy of worship. Zoroaster proclaimed that Ahura Mazda was the supreme creator, the creative and sustaining force of the universe through "Asha", and that human beings are given a choice between supporting Ahura Mazda or not, making them ultimately responsible for their choices. Though Ahura Mazda has no equal contesting force, "Angra Mainyu" (destructive spirit/mentality), whose forces are born from "Aka Manah" (evil thought), is considered to be the main adversarial force of the religion, standing against "Spenta Mainyu" (creative spirit/mentality). Middle Persian literature developed Angra Mainyu further into "Ahriman", advancing him to be the direct adversary to Ahura Mazda.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Additionally, the life force that originates from Ahura Mazda, known as "Asha" (truth, cosmic order), stands in opposition to "Druj" (falsehood, deceit). Ahura Mazda is considered to be all-good with no evil emanating from the deity. Ahura Mazda works in "gētīg" (the visible material realm) and "mēnōg" (the invisible spiritual and mental realm) through the seven (six when excluding Spenta Mainyu) Amesha Spentas.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: The name "Zoroaster" ("Ζωροάστηρ") is a Greek rendering of the Avestan name "Zarathustra". He is known as "Zartosht" and "Zardosht" in Persian and "Zaratosht" in Gujarati. The Zoroastrian name of the religion is "Mazdayasna", which combines "Mazda-" with the Avestan word "yasna", meaning "worship, devotion". In English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is "Behdin", meaning "of the good religion", deriving from "beh" < Middle Persian "weh" ‘good’ + "din" < Middle Persian "dēn" < Avestan "daēnā"". In the Zoroastrian liturgy, this term is used as a title for a lay individual who has been formally inducted into the religion in a "Navjote" ceremony, in contrast to the priestly titles of "osta, osti, ervad (hirbod), mobed and dastur".


title: Zoroastrianism

text: The first surviving reference to Zoroaster in English scholarship is attributed to Thomas Browne (1605–1682), who briefly refers to Zoroaster in his 1643 "Religio Medici". The term "Mazdaism" () is an alternative form in English used as well for the faith, taking "Mazda-" from the name Ahura Mazda and adding the suffix "-ism" to suggest a belief system.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, all-good, and uncreated supreme creator deity, Ahura Mazda, or the "Wise Lord" ("Ahura" meaning "Lord" and "Mazda" meaning "Wisdom" in Avestan). Zoroaster keeps the two attributes separate as two different concepts in most of the Gathas yet sometimes combines them into one form. Zoroaster also claims that Ahura Mazda is omniscient but not omnipotent. In the Gathas, Ahura Mazda is noted as working through emanations known as the Amesha Spenta and with the help of "other ahuras", of which Sraosha is the only one explicitly named of the latter category.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Scholars and theologians have long debated on the nature of Zoroastrianism, with dualism, monotheism, and polytheism being the main terms applied to the religion. Some scholars assert that Zoroastrianism's concept of divinity covers both being and mind as immanent entities, describing Zoroastrianism as having a belief in an immanent self-creating universe with consciousness as its special attribute, thereby putting Zoroastrianism in the pantheistic fold sharing its origin with Indian Hinduism. In any case, Asha, the main spiritual force which comes from Ahura Mazda, is the cosmic order which is the antithesis of chaos, which is evident as "druj", falsehood and disorder. The resulting cosmic conflict involves all of creation, mental/spiritual and material, including humanity at its core, which has an active role to play in the conflict.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: In the Zoroastrian tradition, druj comes from Angra Mainyu (also referred to in later texts as "Ahriman"), the destructive spirit/mentality, while the main representative of Asha in this conflict is Spenta Mainyu, the creative spirit/mentality. Ahura Mazda is immanent in humankind and interacts with creation through emanations known as the Amesha Spenta, the bounteous/holy immortals, which are representative and guardians of different aspects of creation and the ideal personality. Ahura Mazda, through these Amesha Spenta, is assisted by a league of countless divinities called Yazatas, meaning "worthy of worship", and each is generally a hypostasis of a moral or physical aspect of creation. According to Zoroastrian cosmology, in articulating the Ahuna Vairya formula, Ahura Mazda made the ultimate triumph of good against Angra Mainyu evident. Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail over the evil Angra Mainyu, at which point reality will undergo a cosmic renovation called Frashokereti and limited time will end. In the final renovation, all of creation—even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to or chose to descend into "darkness"—will be reunited with Ahura Mazda in the Kshatra Vairya (meaning "best dominion"), being resurrected to immortality. In Middle Persian literature, the prominent belief was that at the end of time a savior-figure known as the Saoshyant would bring about the Frashokereti, while in the Gathic texts the term Saoshyant (meaning "one who brings benefit") referred to all believers of Mazdayasna but changed into a messianic concept in later writings.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Zoroastrian theology includes foremost the importance of following the Threefold Path of Asha revolving around Good Thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds. There is also a heavy emphasis on spreading happiness, mostly through charity, and respecting the spiritual equality and duty of both men and women. Zoroastrianism's emphasis on the protection and veneration of nature and its elements has led some to proclaim it as the "world's first proponent of ecology." The Avesta and other texts call for the protection of water, earth, fire, and air making it, in effect, an ecological religion: "It is not surprising that Mazdaism…is called the first ecological religion. The reverence for Yazatas (divine spirits) emphasizes the preservation of nature (Avesta: Yasnas 1.19, 3.4, 16.9; Yashts 6.3–4, 10.13)." However, this particular assertion is limited to natural forces held as emanations of asha by the fact that early Zoroastrians had a duty to exterminate "evil" species, a dictate no longer followed in modern Zoroastrianism.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Zoroastrianism is not entirely uniform in theological and philosophical thought, especially with historical and modern influences having a significant impact on individual and local beliefs, practices, values, and vocabulary, sometimes merging with tradition and in other cases displacing it. The ultimate purpose in the life of a practicing Zoroastrian is to become an "ashavan" (a master of Asha) and to bring happiness into the world, which contributes to the cosmic battle against evil. The core teachings of Zoroastrianism include:


title: Zoroastrianism

text: The religion states that active and ethical participation in life through good deeds formed from good thoughts and good words is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. This active participation is a central element in Zoroaster's concept of free will, and Zoroastrianism as such rejects extreme forms of asceticism and monasticism but historically has allowed for moderate expressions of these concepts.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: In Zoroastrian tradition, life is a temporary state in which a mortal is expected actively to participate in the continuing battle between Asha and Druj. Prior to its incarnation at the birth of the child, the "urvan" (soul) of an individual is still united with its "fravashi" (personal/higher spirit), which has existed since Ahura Mazda created the universe. Prior to the splitting off of the "urvan", the fravashi participates in the maintenance of creation led by Ahura Mazda. During the life of a given individual, the fravashi acts as a source of inspiration to perform good actions and as a spiritual protector. The fravashis of ancestors cultural, spiritual, and heroic, associated with illustrious bloodlines, are venerated and can be called upon to aid the living. On the fourth day after death, the urvan is reunited with its fravashi, whereupon the experiences of life in the material world are collected for use in the continuing battle for good in the spiritual world. For the most part, Zoroastrianism does not have a notion of reincarnation. Followers of Ilm-e-Kshnoom in India believe in reincarnation and practice vegetarianism, among other currently non-traditional opinions, although there have been various theological statements supporting vegetarianism in Zoroastrianism's history and claims that Zoroaster was vegetarian.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: In Zoroastrianism, water ("aban") and fire ("atar") are agents of ritual purity, and the associated purification ceremonies are considered the basis of ritual life. In Zoroastrian cosmogony, water and fire are respectively the second and last primordial elements to have been created, and scripture considers fire to have its origin in the waters (re. which conception see Apam Napat). Both water and fire are considered life-sustaining, and both water and fire are represented within the precinct of a fire temple. Zoroastrians usually pray in the presence of some form of fire (which can be considered evident in any source of light), and the culminating rite of the principal act of worship constitutes a "strengthening of the waters". Fire is considered a medium through which spiritual insight and wisdom are gained, and water is considered the source of that wisdom. Both fire and water are also hypostasized as the Yazatas Atar and Anahita, with worship hymns and litanies dedicated to them.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: A corpse is considered a host for decay, i.e., of "druj". Consequently, scripture enjoins the safe disposal of the dead in a manner such that a corpse does not pollute the good creation. These injunctions are the doctrinal basis of the fast-fading traditional practice of ritual exposure, most commonly identified with the so-called Towers of Silence for which there is no standard technical term in either scripture or tradition. Ritual exposure is currently mainly practiced by Zoroastrian communities of the Indian subcontinent, in locations where it is not illegal and diclofenac poisoning has not led to the virtual extinction of scavenger birds. Other Zoroastrian communities either cremate their dead, or bury them in graves that are cased with lime mortar, though Zoroastrians are keen to dispose of their dead in the most environmentally harmless way possible.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: For a variety of social and political factors the Zoroastrians of the Indian subcontinent, namely the Parsis and Iranis, have not engaged in conversion since at least the 18th century. Zoroastrian high priests have historically opined there is no reason to not allow conversion which is also supported by the Revayats and other scripture though later priests have condemned these judgements. Within Iran, many of the beleaguered Zoroastrians have been also historically opposed or not practically concerned with the matter of conversion. Currently though, The Council of Tehran Mobeds (the highest ecclesiastical authority within Iran) endorses conversion but conversion from Islam to Zoroastrianism is illegal under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: The roots of Zoroastrianism are thought to lie in a common prehistoric Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to the early 2nd millennium BCE. The prophet Zoroaster himself, though traditionally dated to the 6th century BCE, is thought by many modern historians to have been a reformer of the polytheistic Iranian religion who lived in the 10th century BCE. Zoroastrianism as a religion was not firmly established until several centuries later. Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BCE. Herodotus' "The Histories" (completed c. 440 BCE) includes a description of Greater Iranian society with what may be recognizably Zoroastrian features, including exposure of the dead.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: "The Histories" is a primary source of information on the early period of the Achaemenid era (648–330 BCE), in particular with respect to the role of the Magi. According to Herodotus, the Magi were the sixth tribe of the Medes (until the unification of the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great, all Iranians were referred to as "Mede" or "Mada" by the peoples of the Ancient World) and wielded considerable influence at the courts of the Median emperors.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Following the unification of the Median and Persian empires in 550 BCE, Cyrus the Great and later his son Cambyses II curtailed the powers of the Magi after they had attempted to sow dissent following their loss of influence. In 522 BCE, the Magi revolted and set up a rival claimant to the throne. The usurper, pretending to be Cyrus' younger son Smerdis, took power shortly thereafter. Owing to the despotic rule of Cambyses and his long absence in Egypt, "the whole people, Persians, Medes and all the other nations" acknowledged the usurper, especially as he granted a remission of taxes for three years.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Darius I and later Achaemenid emperors acknowledged their devotion to Ahura Mazda in inscriptions, as attested to several times in the Behistun inscription, and appear to have continued the model of coexistence with other religions. Whether Darius was a follower of the teachings of Zoroaster has not been conclusively established as there is no indication of note that worship of Ahura Mazda was exclusively a Zoroastrian practice.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: According to later Zoroastrian legend ("Denkard" and the "Book of Arda Viraf"), many sacred texts were lost when Alexander the Great's troops invaded Persepolis and subsequently destroyed the royal library there. Diodorus Siculus's "Bibliotheca historica", which was completed circa 60 BCE, appears to substantiate this Zoroastrian legend. According to one archaeological examination, the ruins of the palace of Xerxes bear traces of having been burned. Whether a vast collection of (semi-)religious texts "written on parchment in gold ink", as suggested by the "Denkard", actually existed remains a matter of speculation.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: Alexander's conquests largely displaced Zoroastrianism with Hellenistic beliefs, though the religion continued to be practiced many centuries following the demise of the Achaemenids in mainland Persia and the core regions of the former Achaemenid Empire, most notably Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus. In the Cappadocian kingdom, whose territory was formerly an Achaemenid possession, Persian colonists, cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, continued to practice the faith [Zoroastrianism] of their forefathers; and there Strabo, observing in the first century B.C., records (XV.3.15) that these "fire kindlers" possessed many "holy places of the Persian Gods", as well as fire temples. Strabo further states that these were "noteworthy enclosures; and in their midst there is an altar, on which there is a large quantity of ashes and where the magi keep the fire ever burning." It was not until the end of the Parthian period (247 – 224) that Zoroastrianism would receive renewed interest.


title: Zoroastrianism

text: As late as the Parthian period, a form of Zoroastrianism was without a doubt the dominant religion in the Armenian lands. The Sassanids aggressively promoted the Zurvanite form of Zoroastrianism, often building fire temples in captured territories to promote the religion. During the period of their centuries-long suzerainty over the Caucasus, the Sassanids made attempts to promote Zoroastrianism there with considerable successes, and it was prominent in the pre-Christian Caucasus (especially modern-day Azerbaijan).