Just months after Fidel and Raúl Castro seized control of Cuba in 1959, they filled the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana with adoring crowds to celebrate the International Day of the Worker. “The whole country is like a vast field of dry grass,” Yoani Sánchez, one of Cuba’s leading independent bloggers, wrote shortly after Raúl stepped down. The smallest …
When Miguel Diaz-Canel, the newly designated first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and who has been the President of the country since October 10, 2019, was born on April 20, 1960, it was barely a year since the revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro had won power by overthrowing Fulgencio Batista’s regime. Fidel’s brother and fellow revolutionary Raul …
The retirement of Raul Castro as the first secretary of Cuba’s ruling Communist Party brings to an end the six-decade-long rule of the “historic generation”, who, under the leadership of Fidel Castro, captured power in 1959 through an armed revolution. In 2018, Mr. Raul stepped down as President, handing government responsibilities to his hand-picked next generation leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Now …
