Cuba celebrated the 94th birth anniversary of its revolutionary leader Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) who led the Republic of Cuba from 1961 to 2011 as one-party communist state with nationalized industry and business while socialist reforms were carried out and stabilized throughout society. Being a revolutionary leader, he clarified, "The first duty of the revolutionaries is to tell the truth. Fooling the people, promoting illusions, always brings the worst consequences."
He had described his revolution thus, "Fellow workers and peasants, this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the working people, with the working people, and for the working people. And for this revolution of the working people, by the working people, and for the working people we are prepared to give our lives."
Fidel Castro had called himself 'dialectical materialist' with a 'social vision' who was inspired by the thoughts and philosophy of Carl Marx. “From Marx, I received the concept of what human society is; otherwise, someone who hasn't read about it, or to whom it hasn't been explained, it's as though they were set down in the middle of a forest, at night, without knowing which way north is, or south, east or west. Marx told us what a society is and the history of its evolution. Without Marx, you can't formulate any argument that leads to a reasonable interpretation of historical events - what the tendencies are, the probable evolution of a humanity that has not yet completed its social evolution,” he explains in the book "My Life: A Spoken Autobiography."
He was critical of capitalist countries and always mocked their hypocrisy created through the charter of 'human rights' rather on the 'rights of humanity'. He is quoted to have said, “There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.”
He had subscribed for education with its own intrinsic value of liberation and seen people as community of learners and called his country 'an immense University'. He had brought his country to become one most literate country of the world and proudly declared, "We have the lowest student-teacher ratio and spend five times as much on schools than war - the opposite of what the United States does."
His message to the world was that the humanity could learn from those who have broken their chains; and those who have chained humanity for centuries had nothing to teach humanity.
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