On November 25, 2016, the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, a world-class figure, died and transcended to immortality; a sympathizer of the Orthodox Party, he was one of the first to denounce the reactionary and illegitimate nature of the de facto regime established after the coup d’état of March 10, 1952.
Imprisoned after the events of July 26, he assumed his self-defense, with a plea known as History Will Absolve Me in which he denounced the crimes committed by the tyranny and the evils that afflicted the country, enunciated the concept of people, if it is a matter of fight, and outlined the program of measures that would implement the future Revolution in Cuba.
Fidel suffered imprisonment in the so-called Isle of Pines (today Isla de la Juventud) and after the amnesty he went into exile in Mexico with the promise of returning to be free or martyrs; from that sister nation he left together with 81 other revolutionaries to disembark at Las Coloradas on December 2, 1956.
After several months of hard struggle with an army superior in arms and troops, he victoriously entered Santiago de Cuba on the first day of 1959 and arrived in Havana on January 8, to lead for almost 50 years the actions of the people in their advance towards the construction of Socialism.
Fidel defended the unity of the revolutionary forces and of all the people, and promoted the economic and social transformations of the country, the development of education, health, sports, culture and science, as well as the confrontation of external aggressions and the conduct of an active foreign policy based on the principles of proletarian internationalism and peaceful coexistence.
The Cuban State Security services counted up to 2007 a total of 638 assassination attempts against Fidel in different stages of development; the methods planned to kill him were multiple, although all of them were unsuccessful; the enemies of the Revolution not only tried to assassinate him physically, but also morally and intellectually, to affect his image and discredit his ideas.
Throughout his career he received countless recognitions, decorations, distinctions, awards and honors such as the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile, awarded in the United Arab Republic, the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace among Peoples, awarded in the former Soviet Union and the Collar of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, for having always been a friend of Mexico and representing in Latin America the passionate defense of the freedom of nations and the right to self-determination, among many others.