My Life - Fidel Castro

[Radical]

"My Life" is an autobiography of Fidel Castro.

Since I started reading this book I have learnt so much of Fidel Casto and the reasons behind many of the desicions he has made since the start of the Cuban Revolution.

I strongly challange anybody that criticizes Fidel to read this book.

[New Tet]

"My Life" is an autobiography of Fidel Castro.

Since I started reading this book I have learnt so much of Fidel Casto and the reasons behind many of the desicions he has made since the start of the Cuban Revolution.

I strongly challange anybody that criticizes Fidel to read this book.

That's a great challenge! I read Tad Szulk's "Fidel" which an anarchist friend of mine gave me for a birthday present years ago. I loved it. It showed Fidel in more dimensions than the anti-Cuba propagandists allow.

[LOLseph Stalin]

My Life is also an Autobiography by Leon Trotsky. Such an original title... :rolleyes:

[gorillafuck]

My Life is also an Autobiography by Leon Trotsky. Such an original title... :rolleyes:
I don't think Trotsky was being very original either.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I don't think Trotsky was being very original either.

He wasn't. Like anybody could go and write an autobiography and call it "My Life".

[scarletghoul]

I believe Clinton wrote a book with the same title.

[Radical]

Well I advise you all to read it if you really want to know of this truly great communist leader, Fidel Castro

[Punk-Guevara]

I read a couple times biography of Fidel,by Serbian author,he wrote also Che's Biography,and I think it's pretty good,he even met Fidel,and that's the main reason to write that book...Sorry for my gramathical errors...:)

[LeninBalls]

Yes, it's a great book that explains a lot of reasons behind Castro's mistakes and clears up a lot of misconceptions about Cuba and Castro. It even goes to show the story behind Castro being a Soviet puppet and why Cuba "forced homosexuals into labour".

[Pogue]

I read it. I find he dodges alot of the difficult questions in the manner you'd expect from a dictator. Also, I find it funny you seem to think it clears things up. It is his views after all, do you really expect him to offer anything other than an entirely biased view of things.

Really interesting read though, I enjoyed it and learnt alot but always recognised any book written by Fidel Castro is going to contain lies because its just the opinion of Fidel Castro. He also fails to offer an adequate justification for his support of the Soviet repression of the Czechoslovakian rising.

I'd suggest to the OP that he reads less biased accounts if he really wants to learn the true reality.

[mosfeld]

Excellent book, recommended.


you'd expect from a dictator.
Please, elaborate... How is he a dictator?

[Pogue]

Excellent book, recommended.


Please, elaborate... How is he a dictator?

In fairness, ex-dictator now. This is because he was the autocratic ruler of Cuba.

[mosfeld]

In fairness, ex-dictator now. This is because he was the autocratic ruler of Cuba.

The president of Cuba is elected by the national assembly every 5 years and what he can do is extremely limited compared to, say, the president of the USA or the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Yeah, Fidel was clearly a dictator. Care to explain exactly how he was autocratic? Is that one of your slanderous but meaningless words/phrases you constantly throw around like, for example, ''anti-working class reactionary'', which you've spouted so many times without relevancy, to insult anything which challenges your simplistic, idealistic and often bourgeois worldview?

[Radical]

I read it. I find he dodges alot of the difficult questions in the manner you'd expect from a dictator. Also, I find it funny you seem to think it clears things up. It is his views after all, do you really expect him to offer anything other than an entirely biased view of things.

Really interesting read though, I enjoyed it and learnt alot but always recognised any book written by Fidel Castro is going to contain lies because its just the opinion of Fidel Castro. He also fails to offer an adequate justification for his support of the Soviet repression of the Czechoslovakian rising.

I'd suggest to the OP that he reads less biased accounts if he really wants to learn the true reality.

Please show sources from "My Life" that shows Fidel to be lieing.

Quote from the Capitalist Professor of COMMUNICATION THOERY "Ignacio Ramonet" interviewing Fidel - "At no time during the more than hundred hours of conversation did Fidel put any limitation on the questions or issues that we could discuss. He never asked, although it wouldent have been strange to do so in a such a wide-ranging project, for a list of questions or subjects to be talked about. If there are any questions or subjects missing in this book, that absense is attributable only to my own shortcomings as an interviewer, never to Castro's refusal to speak about this or that aspect of his long political life.
And I also wanted to bring out from behind the armour-plating of his many public functions the private Fidel - my belief being that a person may manage to hide his true personality in an interview lasting ten minitues or an hour or two hours, but in an interview llasting as long as these conversations did, no one can do that. In a hundred or more hours, the person interviewed, willly-nilly, reveals his soul, drops the mask at some point, shows his true humanity(or lack thereof), his true self. "

Also a quote from the Capitalist "Oliver Stone"
"I admire his revolution, his faith in himself and his honesty."


Again, Please show sources from "My Life" that shows Fidel to be lieing.

[Pogue]

Please show sources from "My Life" that shows Fidel to be lieing.

Quote from the Capitalist Professor of COMMUNICATION THOERY "Ignacio Ramonet" interviewing Fidel - "At no time during the more than hundred hours of conversation did Fidel put any limitation on the questions or issues that we could discuss. He never asked, although it wouldent have been strange to do so in a such a wide-ranging project, for a list of questions or subjects to be talked about. If there are any questions or subjects missing in this book, that absense is attributable only to my own shortcomings as an interviewer, never to Castro's refusal to speak about this or that aspect of his long political life.
And I also wanted to bring out from behind the armour-plating of his many public functions the private Fidel - my belief being that a person may manage to hide his true personality in an interview lasting ten minitues or an hour or two hours, but in an interview llasting as long as these conversations did, no one can do that. In a hundred or more hours, the person interviewed, willly-nilly, reveals his soul, drops the mask at some point, shows his true humanity(or lack thereof), his true self. "

Also a quote from the Capitalist "Oliver Stone"
"I admire his revolution, his faith in himself and his honesty."


Again, Please show sources from "My Life" that shows Fidel to be lieing.

What I said is, if you ask someone their perspective on themselves, they are hardly going to mention the bad bits are they. Fidel is hardly going to admit, for example that his support for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was disgusting, or anything else. Obviously you can't trust what he is saying.

[New Tet]

And Szulk is hardly a friend of the revolution, which tells a lot.

The book tells about Fidel, not Szulc, so I'll have to take your word for it.

Szulc's reporting in NYT anticipated attack on Cuba:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/22/world/tad-szulc-74-dies-times-correspondent-who-uncovered-bay-of-pigs-imbroglio.html


I think that 'Fidel' is a very good critical appraisal of the Cuban leader. It shows him to be a pretty courageous and intelligent guy with an enormous degree of compassion and an equal amount of political and strategic astuteness.

By pure coincidence, I met the exiled son of a person who Szulc mentions in passing during the course of his account of Fidel's rise in political influence!

My advise is that I wouldn't judge Szulc's biography of Fidel exclusively on the basis of his supposed friendships and much less without reading it first!

http://www.amazon.com/review/R270KFZKP3CUEJ

[manic expression]

What I said is, if you ask someone their perspective on themselves, they are hardly going to mention the bad bits are they. Fidel is hardly going to admit, for example that his support for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was disgusting, or anything else. Obviously you can't trust what he is saying.

So what you're saying is that you can't trust what he's saying because he's saying it. Your obsession with opposing Fidel, regardless of the facts, is noted.

[Pogue]

What I am saying is that this book should not be accepted as an accurate portrayal of Fidel Castro's life. I would have thought that was obvious - he is hardly going to admit to doing some questionable things. He has a style in this book of responding to questions in the way many politicians do - really indirectly, especially on more direct questions. If I can find my copy of the book I'll post some specific examples.

[New Tet]

What I am saying is that this book should not be accepted as an accurate portrayal of Fidel Castro's life. I would have thought that was obvious - he is hardly going to admit to doing some questionable things. He has a style in this book of responding to questions in the way many politicians do - really indirectly, especially on more direct questions. If I can find my copy of the book I'll post some specific examples.

I have no doubt that Fidel can be equivocal when he wants to (how equivocal I can't judge not having read the book in question). Years ago, I loved reading an edition of his collected speeches of 1961-1964 (i think).

I think that History will judge Fidel not so much for his numerous equivocations, errors and abuses of power but for what he did for Cuba and how well he protected it from U.S. imperialist aggression.

[manic expression]

What I am saying is that this book should not be accepted as an accurate portrayal of Fidel Castro's life. I would have thought that was obvious - he is hardly going to admit to doing some questionable things. He has a style in this book of responding to questions in the way many politicians do - really indirectly, especially on more direct questions. If I can find my copy of the book I'll post some specific examples.

Posters here have already shown Fidel's honesty on the subjects of history and politics, including the experiences of ideological enemies who met and spoke with him. You may not like his style of answering questions, but that means little here.