The longtime leader of the revolution in Cuba, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in Birán to a well-off family. Castro was radicalized during his legal studies at the University of Havana, coming to embrace anti-imperialism and opposition to US interference in the Caribbean and Latin America. Castro traveled abroad to participate in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, before returning to Cuba and setting his sights on freeing it from right-wing rule and US domination. After an initial abortive rebellion against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista failed, Castro spent several years in prison along with his comrades, who went on to form the nucleus of the 26th of July Movement. Released on amnesty, Castro went right back to revolutionary activity, spending time in exile. While away from Cuba, he met Che Guevara, who would go on to play a pivotal role in the revolution. On December 2, 1956, Castro landed with around 80 men on the Cuban shore, using a rickety and decrepit old yacht. The revolutionaries were ambushed by Batista's forces shortly thereafter, and their numbers slashed down to only around 20. From these 20 revolutionaries, Castro built up a revolutionary movement which swept Batista from power and liberated Cuba from imperialist control for the first time in history. Declaring himself a Marxist-Leninist, Castro went about radically transforming Cuba on a socialist model, instituting extensive land reform, a highly-effective literacy program, universal healthcare, and other such policies. He led Cuba through the heady early years of the revolution, in which the US constantly plotted to overthrow his government and assassinate him personally, through the Cuban Missile Crisis in which US bullishness came close to unleashing nuclear war, and through the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Cuba's ally the USSR. Castro instituted Cuba's celebrated policy of medical diplomacy, and in the Havana Declaration he expressed Cuba's intentions to support revolutionary movements abroad. Castro continued to lead Cuba until 2008, when he stepped down in favor of his brother Raul, and he died in 2016. Reviled in the United States and the imperial core, Castro remains a beloved and celebrated figure in the Global South, a symbol of anti-imperialism, resistance to US aggression, and hope for a better world.
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