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Author : A. Shchetinin
Director of the Department of Latin America, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
I ARRIVED IN HAVANA three days after Fidel Castro's funeral.
The city was returning to its normal life except that on the streets
there were numerous pictures of the Comandante.
During Cuba's nine-day mourning, there were debates on our televi-
sion on Fidel's legacy. I don't know who had the brainwave to dig
through the Comandante's record before the final honors were paid
to him, and who needed those attacks on the deceased.
The high-profile anchor cited an estimate of the ratio between Cuban
emigres in the United States and the population of the Caribbean is-
land itself. He didn't mention the huge numbers of ethnic Russians
who found themselves abroad overnight 25 years ago.
I was listening to all that and wondering what was happening to this world.
They were talking about a man who had just passed away and whose ideas had for more than
half a century reigned over the minds of millions of people in many countries; a man who had
become for those people a symbol of dignity, justice and liberation from diktat; a politician who
influenced the world history of the latter half of the 20th century. He survived many U.S. pres-
idents and general secretaries of the Soviet Communist Party. Can their historical roles be com-
pared to his? You don't have to like him but you can't afford not to acknowledge his personality.
Surely, Fidel was a man of his epoch, the era of Soviet socialism, the Cold War, a bipolar world,
and national liberation movements. He followed the logic of that era and was one of its loyal
and outstanding soldiers with all the controversial aspects and shortcomings of his rule. He de-
fended Cuba from a mercenary military invasion. He prevented the country from being crushed
by the financial and economic embargo imposed on it and by attempts to isolate it. Any assess-
ments of what he did should be based on criteria of those times, criteria that many young people
of today would probably find hard to comprehend.
By assessing and judging Fidel we primarily judge ourselves - ourselves as we were just a third
of a century ago.
Cuba, "the island of crimson dawn," is part of our life, our history, our present, and hopefully
our future. We've learned to cooperate in a pragmatic way and to be close friends but with no
affectation. We've made it clear that we have interests there. Cuba has again become our reliable
and consistent ally in global affairs.
Электронное приложение к журналу «
Международная жизнь
»
Yo Soy Fidel!