--- title: What Fidel Castro Meant to Cuba’s Youth description: To the young Havanans, Fidel Castro was, similarly, an abstraction. canonical: https://time.com/4585586/fidel-castro-young-cubans/ author: Julia Cooke article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-30T15:09:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:55.179Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What Fidel Castro Meant to Cuba’s Youth og:description: He was an abstraction og:url: https://time.com/4585586/fidel-castro-young-cubans/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt687a76478d784514/6988b003bc6cfc01a73df73d/fidel-youth-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1867 og:image:height: 1050 og:image:alt: CUBA-CASTRO-DECEASE-HOMAGE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Fidel Castro Meant to Cuba’s Youth twitter:description: He was an abstraction twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt687a76478d784514/6988b003bc6cfc01a73df73d/fidel-youth-facebook.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Fidel Castro Meant to Cuba’s Youth > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=efeb5e5a-0ce8-41a7-aa25-cce1f7bc70c2&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Fidel Castro Dies Aged 90 [Watch (HLS stream): Fidel Castro Dies Aged 90](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GhhftOhs.m3u8) (3:37)  _Published 2016-11-26. Former President Fidel Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule, has died at age 90._ by [Julia Cooke](https://time.com/author/julia-cooke/) ## Julia Cooke Nov 30, 2016 3:09 PM UTC  A girl holds a sign reading "I am Cuba, Fidel, Revolution" as Cubans gather at Revolution Square to pay homage to Fidel Castro in Havana, on Nov. 29, 2016. A girl holds a sign reading "I am Cuba, Fidel, Revolution" as Cubans gather at Revolution Square to pay homage to Fidel Castro in Havana, on Nov. 29, 2016. Rodrigo Arangua—AFP/Getty Images by [Julia Cooke](https://time.com/author/julia-cooke/) ## Julia Cooke Nov 30, 2016 3:09 PM UTC They used to be the first band of attendees to greet a television camera on May Day, young Cubans standing in front of the million people at the plaza, smiling and screaming in the dawn light, waving multi-colored arms like bunting over the crowd barriers, wearing red t-shirts distributed the night before. The place of pride, closest to the cameras and to [Fidel Castro](http://time.com/4305653/fidel-castro-life-in-pictures/?iid=sr-link1), was reserved for the young. They proved something essential, as Fidel aged through the early 2000s: that the revolution was not the exclusive province of the old and gray. Never mind that few of them wanted to be there more than once, if at all, and even then they came for the pride and thrill of the march to the plaza. Never mind that attendance at a certain number of these all-night affairs was compulsory. For the cameras, they served their purpose. To the young Havanans, Fidel was, similarly, an abstraction. For the young, Fidel was a grandparent’s comment that things had been different before, that the seventies and eighties had been better, not like now, with mass enthusiasm exhausted. Fidel was the twentysomething’s cavity filled at the dentist’s—free—and a taste for rice and beans because it was quite literally all he’d eaten as a kid in the years after the U.S.S.R.’s fall. Fidel was the power invoked when the matriarch from whom I rented an under-the-table room tapped her shoulder silently, indicating the military stature of the man who’d rung the doorbell during our daily lunch, that he was impossible to turn away but perilous to have in the house. Fidel was also the eye roll and the _pffffffft_ sound her 22-year-old son made as he followed me into my room to wait quietly until the man departed. Fidel was the trio of cars that sped around the bend of the _malecón_ and the sense that, were you to get in its way while crossing the street, the caravan might well run you over and keep going. In their short lifetimes, the dignity he’d once represented for standing up to corrupt powers had given way to more prosaic concerns, as the revolution’s schools struggled to attract teachers, ration cards became objects of fiction rather than fact and friends, and family scattered across the globe. To the majority of young Cubans, Fidel was a historical but not human figure, a grandfather of fable rather than flesh. He, and the system he put in place, was to be respected and then disobeyed and then, if luck prevailed, left behind. If Fidel was an abstraction to the young in life, he remains so in death. His death is a quiet mood suffusing the city, a photo posted on Facebook of an American newscaster and her crew on an otherwise empty street, an absence of stimulus that contrasts with the complicated grief of the elderly. Without the infrastructural economic changes for which they have been waiting—the legalization of more jobs, of private practice for professionals, of a wholesale market for restaurants and bed and breakfasts, to name only a very few—Fidel’s death means not a great deal to the young. It has been 10 years since his last May Day appearance. ## Transcript [ APPLAUSE ] Depending on whom you talk to Fidel Castro was a revered revolutionary legend or a despised tyrannical dictator. [ APPLAUSE ] There is little middle ground. [ APPLAUSE ] Castro came to power in 1959 in a widely popular revolution overthrowing Cuba's then dictator Fulgencio Batista. The new government quickly gain the recognition of the United States. But it wasn't long before the bearded rebels left this ideology. Put them on a collision course with America. Especially when he allied himself with the Soviet Union. Seeing a new threat just 90 miles offshore, the US decided to act. I have directed the armed forces to prepare- First, launching a trade embargo, followed by the failed CIA- backed Bay of Pigs Invasion and several assassination attempts on Castro. All this while the Cuban leader allowed the Soviet Union to secretly build nuclear missile bases on the island. When they were discovered by the U. S in 1962, the so- called Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. As Castro turn on more and more socialism, thousands of his well to do Cubans fled the country. The millions left behind became part of his new social experimental one party communist state. Led by one man, himself. He imposed the idea that those who didn't like it could leave. He divided families. Many saw positives. Education and healthcare for all. Racial integration. What Fidel achieved in the social order of this country has not been achieved by any poor nation and even by many rich countries despite being submitted to enormous pressures. But critics say it came at a terrible cost. The dreams of freedom that they've given the Cuban people we're turn into the nightmare we live today. Cause we have a totalitarian regime which our basic liberties have been abolish. What Castro never manage to achieve was economic prosperity even with the years of subsidies with the Soviet Union. For that Castro always blame the United States and it's embargo. But many blame the man himself. Pointing to his unwavering belief in an outdated and inefficient socialist model. Castro had little tolerance for dissent. [ FOREIGN ] Opponents were often dismissed as traitors, imprisoned, or exiled. As more and more dissidents ended up under arrest, Castro became the target of international condemnation. Look like so many times before, Castro never backed down, proudly defending his record on human rights. There hasn't been a single case of death quads here. Never has a person disappeared in Cuba, which has been common practice all over Latin America. So we feel proud of our clean record with relation to this problem. Call it pride or selective reasoning, But Castro never lost faith on the revolution. Opponents can see Castro's popularity diminish as his beard grow wider but his intelligence and shrewdness continue to command firm and respect. It will eventually outlive many of his critics and outlast ten US administrations. In the end, it was illness, not Washington that forced him to retire. [ MUSIC ] Passing Cuba's leadership to his younger brother, Raul. It is last year, Castro appeared only occasionally, mostly in photos looking frail. At times he tried to play the role of elder stage man but more and more, he simply seem In consequential. [ FOREIGN ] The Cuban government has been very agile. It has slowly removed him from the scene. It would have been one thing if he had abruptly died back in July 31st, 2006. Instead his image and importance have slowly faded. Castro always insisted death was not something he feared. [ FOREIGN ] And I have never been afraid of death. [ FOREIGN ] I have never been concerned about this . >> [ FOREIGN ] I have not to feel attached to this issues . >> [ FOREIGN ] I have not been attached to that which is called the power . >> That latter statement seems ironic, coming from a man who almost single handedly dictated over Cuba. For nearly half a century. 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