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Raúl was born on his father's plantation in Birán, in the northern
portion of the province of Oriente, on June 3, 1931. He is the fifth
of seven children of Angel Castro y Argiz and Line Ruz Gonsález de
Castro.Raúl attended the Jesuit school Colegio Dolores in Santiago
de Cuba and later also Jesuit school Colegio Belén in Havana. Later
as a student at the University of Havana. Raúl's interests in
politics became evident, He was a member of the Juventud Socialista
(Socialist Youth), an affiliate of the Moscow-oriented Partido
Socialista Popular, Cuba's Communist Party. In 1953, while still a
student at the University of Havana, Raúl made his first trip
behind the Iron Curtain. He has gone to participate in the World
Youth Congress in Vienna, and visited the Soviet bloc capitals of
Bucharest, Budapest, and Prague. Upon his return, Raúl began to get
involved in his brother's struggle against Batista's government. The
younger Castro, then, supposedly broke off from the communist
organization to join his brother's fight, and did so with
enthusiasm, saying that "the government has to be overthrown so
that the revolution can begin." He agreed with Fidel's view
that "reform in Cuba could not be accomplished by
constitutional means" but by overthrowing the oppressive
government. On July 26, 1953, Raúl accompanied his brother and 160
followers in an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.
The attack was a dismal failure; Raúl and Fidel were captured and
many of their followers were executed. Both brothers were imprisoned
and Raúl was given a 13-year old sentence but released in a general
amnesty in May of 1955. Although a disaster, the Moncada raid gave
birth to Fidel's 26th of July Movement. After his release from
prison Raúl went to Mexico with Fidel to form and organize the
movement. Late in 1956 Raúl, Fidel, and 80 revolutionaries left
Mexico in a yacht named Granma and landed in Oriente
province. Most of the rebels were killed but the Castro brothers
managed to escape to the Sierra Maestra mountains along with 12
others.
In the mountains, the Castro brothers
gained support and Raúl--on February 27, 1958--gained the rank of
Major. He took some supporters and established a second front in the
Sierra Cristal mountains in Northeastern Oriente. Named after
underground leader Frank Pa’s (who was murdered in July 1957),
Raúl's "Frank Pa’s Second Front" grew to a force of
several hundred men. During his stay in the mountains, Raúl Castro
gained a reputation for being "the most hot-headed, impetuous,
and violently anti-American" of the rebels, and possessing a
killer instinct. He reportedly matched the Cuban dictator
"terror for terror". In the summer of 1958, he kidnapped
47 Americans and 3 Canadians, ranging from engineers employed at the
Moa Nickel Company to American servicemen stationed at Guantánamo
Base. It was reported that Fidel disapproved of the kidnappings and
ordered Raúlto release the hostages. Raúl did not comply. He kept
the captives to negotiate with the Americans, and also because he
knew that Batista would not plan any attacks while there were
American citizens present in his camp. When the U.S. agreed to
Raúl's demands, he released the prisoners, on July 18, 1958. The
kidnappings had made headlines all over the world and new
accusations of communism were hurled at Raúl. On assaults, the
rebels had won. Raúl Castro then decided to marry his fiancée,
Vilma Espín, who had fought alongside him in the mountains (under
the name of Deborah), and was reported to be his "political
mentor." They were married on January 26, 1959. She was the
daughter of an upper-class rum distiller, and held a chemical
engineering degree from MIT.
In the wake of the revolution, ú
began to punish Batista supporters. After he became head of the
Armed Forces he directed the execution of nearly 100 officers and
soldiers of the Batista Army and ordered them buried in a mass grave
near Santiago de Cuba. In 1959 Raúl was named Minister of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces, giving him ministerial rank and complete
control in reorganizing the armed forces. He build up the army into
a highly professionalized modern military establishment closely
modeled on the Soviet Armed Forces and equipped with the latest
Soviet Equipment. The army's motto: "At your orders,
commander-in-chief--for no matter what, no matter where, and under
all circumstances." He also made military service for training
in the Soviet Union. In 1969 he completed an advanced course in
military studies taught by Soviet experts. In March of the same year
he asked that soldiers be trained "to exhibit friendship with
the sister armies of socialist countries; especially the Great
Soviet Army, whose representatives work at the side of our officers
and also harvest the fruits of our common efforts."
As commander of Cuba's two military
intelligence organizations, Raúl directly thwarted numerous
counter-revolutionary activities. It was he who led Cuban land
forces against exile forces in the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 17,
1961. He cleaned the presence of the Guantánamo Naval Base in Cuba
a "cancer" and a permanent focus of provocation. During
the 1960's, it was Raúl who played a major role in transforming the
framework of the Cuban government into a "Soviet-like single
political party" structure. His power was consolidated with his
positions as the 2nd Secretary of the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC)
and Vice-Premier. It was Raúl who arranged for the deployment of
Soviet long-range missiles in Cuba which resulted in the Cuban
Missile Crisis of 1962. In the 1970's and early 1980's he has
visited the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and has been invited as
observer to the Warsaw Pact Manuevers. In the early 1970's, when
Raúl was promoted to First Vice-Premier, he was also given the new
military rank of division commander, which is equivalent to that of
General. He is also a member of the Secretariat and the Politburo of
Cuba's Communist Party. He was on of the principal figures in the
move toward a more Sovietized bureaucratic order and has long
enjoyed Moscow's confidence as a politically reliable Cuban leader
and as a competent administrator.
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