How Should History Remember Fidel Castro?

To many, he was a heroic champion of the disenfranchised; to others, a cruel tyrant. Following Fidel Castro’s death in November 2016, we asked five historians to offer their verdicts on the Cuban leader’s life and legacy.

- Matt Elton

₹

SIMON HALL

Castro was a revolutionary who symbolised his age. In December 1956, he returned from exile in Mexico, determined to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, Cuba’s American-backed strongman. Arriving on 2 December aboard the Granma, Castro boldly predicted that “we will be free or we will be martyrs.”

It was a cry that resonated with the times: 1956 saw a historic victory for African-Americans in Montgomery, following a year-long boycott of the city’s segregated buses, while, in South Africa, tens of thousands of women took to the streets of Pretoria to denounce apartheid.

The year also ushered in independence for Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and the Gold Coast – the first surrender of colonial power in sub-Saharan Africa – and witnessed a popular uprising against Stalinist rule in Hungary. In the decade that followed triumphant march into Havana, in January 1959, the Cuban Revolution proved an inspiration for Black Power activists, opponents of the war in Vietnam, South African freedom fighters, Latin American revolutionaries, and radical students in Britain, Europe and the United States.

Castro’s death at the end of 2016, a year whose highlights included Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, is a reminder that, today, the forces of history appear to be marching to a very different beat.

ANDREW ROBERTS