Raúl Castro, 60 years after the attack on the Moncada barracks

Posted on Thursday, 07.25.13

Raúl Castro, 60 years after the attack on the Moncada barracks
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
ELBLOGDEMONTANER.COM

I'm trying to decipher Raúl Castro's perceptions 60 years to the day
after the attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago, the event that
signaled the beginning of the Cuban Revolution.

That was the episode that placed both brothers on the Cuban political
map and the front pages of all the newspapers. At that moment, Raúl
Castro, a youth barely 22, was, both emotionally and intellectually,
just an appendage of his brother, Fidel — the dominant figure.

The process of codependence had begun a lot earlier, during Raúl's
teenage years. His parents, who lived at the other end of the country,
aware that he was an awful student, entrusted Fidel to "straighten him up."

Instead, Fidel used him. He turned Raúl into his deputy, brought him
into his underworld of pistol-packing violence and recruited him to
conquer first Cuba, then Africa, later the galaxy. There was a reason
why Fidel, at age 18, had legally substituted his middle name. He
dropped "Hipólito" and became "Alejandro."

The result was that Raúl, that affectionate and familiarly warm young
man described by his sister Juanita and who as a child dreamed about
becoming a radio announcer, turned into two unexpected beings under
Fidel's influence. He became an efficient butcher, a lot better
organized than his brother, and an apprentice communist.

It is likely that Raúl Castro's early association with the Communist
Party was a mission assigned to him by Fidel. Raúl did not have his own
autonomy to consider a political decision of that nature, especially
when Fidel was already planning to attack the Moncada barracks.

Fidel's heart leaned to the minuscule Popular Socialist Party, the party
of the communists, but his brain and unscrupulous pragmatism told him
that he should remain allied to the Orthodox Party, a major party that
was vaguely social-democratic and had a real chance to achieve power.
The way to solve that dilemma, then, was to install Raúl in the PSP,
while he formally remained in "the orthodoxy."

In early 1953, Raúl, sent by the PSP with his brother's blessing,
traveled to a "youth festival" in Vienna. In fact, it was a political
fair organized by Moscow to recruit its future cadres. During that trip,
Raúl first established relations with the KGB, in the person of agent
Sergei Leonov.

Fidel — boss, teacher, paternal figure — provided his brother with the
fire, the adrenaline and a simple explanation of political reality.
Leonov placed before his eyes the bright future of humanity: the
glorious Soviet Union. Raúl bit both hooks.

Now Raúl had everything: the mission, the method, the vision, the model.
When Fidel appointed him minister of defense so he could be his
brother's bodyguard, Raúl covered the walls with the revered portraits
of Soviet marshals and generals.

Sixty years have passed. Raúl today is a disillusioned old man, his
innards rotted by whiskey. During his long life, he learned many
lessons, all of them disappointing. The Soviet Union no longer exists.
Neither does Marxism. Everything was an absurd blunder.

Now he understands that his brother was a good political operator and a
shrewd warrior but also a disastrous leader, childishly obsessed with
inexhaustible dairy cows and prodigious vegetables. An irresponsible
fellow who steered that poor country into an interminable succession of
wars, conspiracies and arbitrariness.

To Fidel, a good narcissist, the function of every human being is to
serve him on his road to glory. That's exactly what he did with Raúl: He
shoved him into the PSP, dragged him to Moncada, led him to the Sierra
Maestra, made him comandante, minister, general and then assigned him
the presidency. Fidel manufactured Raúl's life. An important life, but
not his own.

It is true that, without his brother's magic wand, Raúl might have been
an insignificant man, but Fidel pushed him to the summit because he
needed a lieutenant who would be absolutely faithful to him, even as he
thought that his "little brother" was a woefully limited minor figure.
That suspicion (or certainty) has never ceased to hurt the current
president.

Sixty years after Moncada and at the age of 82, Raúl is painfully aware
of the total disaster he helped to provoke in his country. He has
finally understood his brother's true dimension. He is cognizant of the
failure of communism, although he knows that his life won't be long
enough to rectify the course.

Simply put, the damage is too deep. Raúl holds on to power but has
helped to turn the country into a festering dump. I suspect he will die
hugely ashamed of what he has done and, above all, of what he doesn't
dare do.

Source: "Raúl Castro, 60 years after the attack on the Moncada barracks
- Carlos Alberto Montaner - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/25/3522063/raul-castro-60-years-after-the.html