Fidel Castro - Authoritarian Leader

Introduction

The authoritarian leader in history that I chose to profile was Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro led the Cuban Government from 1959 till 2008. For almost 50 years he had created a political system in Cuba that allowed him to control every aspect of the Cuban country. He was a ruthless leader that many people loved and despised. None the less Fidel Castro has established himself as one of the most recognized authoritarian leaders in history to date.

Fidel's Authoritarian Development

Fidel Castro's childhood up bringing had a great impact in his development as authoritarian leader. Fidel was born on August 13th, 1926 near Birán, Cuba (biography.com, 2012). Castro grew up in a wealthy house hold; his father a sugar plantation owner who descended from Spain (biography.com, 2012). By the age of thirteen he was already developing hid defiant ways helping to lead and organized strike of sugar workers on his father's own sugar plantation (Spartacus, 2012). Fidel Castro was a very intelligent gifted kid growing up, but was always more interested in sports (biography.com, 2012). Fidel won the award for being Cuba's best overall high school athlete in 1944 (Spartacus, 2012). Growing up in a wealthy family allowed Fidel the ability to expand his leadership qualities by pursuing an education from the University of Havana in a quest to become a lawyer in 1945 (Rosenberg, 2012).

Castro implementing Authoritarian leadership style

While going to the University of Havana Fidel was submersed into the world of politics. "Like many other Cubans, Castro resented the wealth and power of the American businessmen who appeared to control the country (Spartacus, 2012)." This is due to the fact that he was an authoritarian minded leader. He did not like the feeling that the US was controlling various aspects of the country he lived in. In 1947 Fidel Castro took a brief break from school and joined the Caribbean Legion (world biography, 2012). "This was a group of political exiles from Caribbean countries who planned to rid the Caribbean of dictator-led governments (Rosenberg, 2012)." Fidel attended various protests and riots with the Caribbean Legion which helped solidify his authoritarian based beliefs.

By 1950 Fidel Castro graduated law school from the University of Havana. By 1952 Fidel had became a candidate for Congress for the Cuban People's Party (Spartacus, 2012). He wanted to become a leader in the government so he could start implementing his beliefs into the Cuban economy. His campaign was short lived because General Fulgencio Batistaalong along with armed forces took control of the country before the elections could take place (Rosenberg, 2012). Fidel tried to legally go about removing General Fulgencio Batistaalong's power (Rosenberg, 2012). With no success Fidel decides to take action into his own hands.

Fidel began implementing his authoritarianism leadership on various followers. Castro begins to organize a band of rebels together to execute the goals and ideals he has set. Castro's goal is to over through the second-largest military base in Cuba the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba (Rosenberg, 2012). Fidel lead a group of 160 armed men to attack the military base. It is common for there to be an increase of aggression levels among authoritarian followers (Hackman, 2009). Many of the men were killed; Fidel and his brother were captured and sentenced to prison (Rosenberg, 2012). Although Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in prison this did not stop him in his quest to take power (Rosenberg, 2012).

Castro was released after serving only two years in prison (Rosenberg, 2012). He did not waste any time creating a new plan to execute his pursuit for power. Fidel created the "26th of July movement" which he then spent the next year working on in Mexico (Spartacus, 2012). Authoritarian leadership is said to be more positively accepted in larger groups (Hackman, 2009). That was what Fidel set out to do, which was to use his strong charismatic authoritarian leadership style to gain followers in support of a common goal (Hackman, 2009). In December 1956, Fidel had gathered enough followers to attempt to over through the Cuban government (world biography, 2012). This plan was abruptly stopped due to the Cuban Army; killing most of Fidel's army forcing him to retreat once again (Rosenberg, 2012).

Many people would have been discouraged and perhaps even giving