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Castro: El Supremo
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11746 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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4 / 1987 |
5,920 Words |
| Author
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Dolores Moyano Martin
Dolores Moyano Martin is a Washington-based writer who
specializes in Latin American affairs. |
FIDEL
A Critical Portrait
Tad Szulc
New York: William Morrow & Co., 1986
703 pp.
FIDEL
A Biography of Fidel Castro
Peter G. Bourne
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1986
322 pp.
Twenty-seven years in power make Fidel Castro's dictatorship the oldest in the hemisphere except for that of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who has ruled Paraguay for thirty-two. Is there a connection between Castro's longevity, the peculiar nature of his rule, and the tragic outcome of the Cuban revolution? Tad Szulc's monumental biography fails to address this and other fundamental questions. Instead, it devotes only fifty-plus pages out of seven hundred to a state he dubs "The Maturity" (1964-1986), crucial years when several changes introduced by Castro during the previous five (1959-1963) began to bear their unforeseen results. Indeed, we are subjected to a cataract of detail (250 pages) about well-known episodes of the guerrilla campaign - somewhat grandiosely dubbed "The War," since Batista's army was never defeated in battle but simply fell apart, with light casualties on both sides. The book's major contribution is official confirmation on the part of Castro and others that: (1) yes, there was a shadow (communist) government from the inception of the revolution; (2) no, it was not brought about by hostile U.S. policies, and (3) yes, Castro was a Marxist-Leninist before the
... (1985 of 37115 Characters)
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