Fidel Castro, the late Cuban leader who led a revolution in the 1950s, was known for giving lengthy speeches.
Castro died at the age of 90 on Friday, Nov. 26.
He holds the record for longest speech given to the UN General Assembly in 1960 (269 minutes) and British newspaper the Independent claims his longest speech was over eight hours.
Throughout the years, he’s made notable remarks to leaders, his people, and the world.
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Castro’s communist revolution against U.S.-backed former Cuban President Fulgencio Batista started on July 1953, with a failed rebel assault in Santiago.
“Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me,” he said at his trial later that year.
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His revolution was successful after over five years of fighting. He became president in 1959, and the Communist Party took control of the government.
“I am not interested in power nor do I envisage assuming it at any time. All that I will do is to make sure that the sacrifices of so many compatriots should not be in vain, whatever the future may hold in store for me.”
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Throughout his career, his speeches often centred on Cuba-U.S. relations and Castro promised to always stay true to his ideals.
“Cuba is not opposed to finding a solution to its historical differences with the United States, but no one should expect Cuba to change its position or yield in its principles. Cuba is and will continue to be socialist. Cuba is and will continue to be a friend of the Soviet Union and of all the socialist states,” he said on Dec. 20, 1980, to Congress of Communist Party of Cuba.
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The trade embargo between the U.S. and the communist country started 1962 after Soviet missiles were installed in Cuba.
Over the next 50 years, the country lost over one trillion dollars due to the embargo, the government said.
In the early 1990s, Cuba began to feel the effects of waning Soviet Trade (the USSR ceased to exist in Dec. 1991).
“We will take the steps we have to take to keep our factories running, to keep our workers employed, to keep going forward in these difficult conditions, and … find the formulas to save the country, save the revolution and save socialism,” he said on Oct. 14, 1991, to Communist Party congress.
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Over 50 years after his revolution, he continued to be re-elected as leader of the Communist party again and again.
“I promise that I will be with you, if you so wish, for as long as I feel that I can be useful – and if it is not decided by nature before – not a minute less and not a second more … Now I understand that it was not my destiny to rest at the end of my life,” Castro said on March 6, 2003, upon being re-elected by Cuba’s National Assembly to sixth term as Council of State president.
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Castro’s health started degrading in the 2000s, and he temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul. On July 31, 2006, he announced his surgeries.
“I do not have the slightest doubt that our people and our revolution will fight to the last drop of blood to defend these and other ideas and measures that are necessary to safeguard this historic process”
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“I was at death’s door, but I came back,” he said, speaking of his 2006 illness in an Aug. 30, 2010 interview with Mexican daily La Jornada.
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In 2011, he wrote an opinion piece on the need to hand off to young leaders.
“The new generation is being called upon to rectify and change without hesitation all that should be rectified and changed … Persisting in revolutionary principles is, in my judgment, the principal legacy we can leave them.”
At a Congress in the same year, Castro stepped down as head of the party. But despite the talk of rejuvenation, he was replaced by his 79-year-old brother, with two grey-haired veterans of the revolution selected as Raul’s chief deputies.
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“I’ll be 90 years old soon,” Castro said at an April 2016 communist party congress where he made his most extensive public appearance in years. “Soon I’ll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof that on this planet, if one works with fervour and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need and that need to be fought for without ever giving up.”
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