Former President and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro passed away on Saturday, his brother and Cuban president Raul Castro announced on state television. CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, in a Facebook post, on Saturday, remembered Castro and recalled his meetings with the leader who served Cuba for close to five decades.
Here’s what Sitaram Yechury posted on Facebook:
Comrade Fidel - some memories.
(Excerpts from a book review of Fidel Castro:My Life, that I wrote in 2008)
Fidel Castro's meticulous attention to detail, I experienced personally in 1993. I accompanied Jyoti Basu to Cuba soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Time had carried Fidel on its cover with caption, "Castro's Cuba: The End Of The Dream".
One evening, after both of us retired, we were informed around 11 p.m. that the Commandante was waiting to receive us. In a discussion that lasted well over two hours and covered many issues, including the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Cuba, Fidel suddenly started asking detailed information regarding India on issues like the quantity of steel produced, the amount of arable and irrigated agricultural land, etc.
Jyoti Basu had least expected such questions and that too in the early hours of the morning. Fidel, then, turned to me and said, given Jyoti's age, one can pardon him but I had no business not to have this information on my fingertips. Since then, I met Fidel twice on different occasions, always with the latest handbook of statistics in my pocket!
Interviews with Comrade Fidel make for very illuminative reading of one of the tallest revolutionaries of the 20th century. The same day that 32-year old Fidel marched into Havana in victory after defeating Bastista's army, Gen. Charles De Gaulle was being installed as the first president of the Fifth Republic in France.
Only the monarchs of Britain and Thailand have held their ceremonial office longer than Fidel. He remains the longest serving political leader who steadfastly defended and consolidated socialist Cuba. As an interviewer notes, Cuba under Fidel, "clinging to its sovereignty, has achieved undeniably admirable results in the area of human development; the abolition of racism, the emancipation of women, the eradication of illiteracy, drastic reduction in infant mortality rates, higher levels of general knowledge… in questions of education, health, medical research and sports, Cuba has achieved results that many developed nations would envy".
Fidel has had to deal with no fewer than ten US presidents, from Eisenhower to Bush II, he survived over 600 assassination attempts, he led Cuba to successfully overcome the economic warfare unleashed by US imperialism as well as its acts of sabotage to destroy Cuba so well-documented by former CIA agent, Philip Agee.
While various attributes of Fidel emerge in various tribute, the overall impression that stays is what the former French President, Francois Mitterrand, once said on why he chose Castro as one of the three leaders that made the greatest impression on him: "because of his ability to anticipate the future, and his sense of history"
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