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Raúl Castro Ruz (born June 3, 1931) is a Cuban politician and revolutionary, the younger brother of Fidel Castro. He has been the Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1965 and First Vice-president of the Councils of State and Ministers, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, since 1959.
He participated actively in student fights from before the beginning of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship. He was a member of the group of attackers to the Moncada Quarter and spent 22 months of prison as a result of this action. During his exile in Mexico, he participated in the preparations of the expedition of the ship Granma, disembarking in Cuba on December 2, 1956. As combatant of the Rebel Army he took part in the campaign of the Sierra Maestra mountain range and in February of 1958 was assigned the mission to cross the old province of Oriente at the front of a column of guerrillas to open, to the northeast of that territory, the Eastern front "Frank País". These guerillas, however, were largely ineffective, and his participation in the famous taking of Santiago de Cuba on January 8, 1959, was limited to bribing members of Batista's armed forces in order to enter the city without any resistance.
Raúl Castro Ruz integrated the National Direction of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations and the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba. He is the Second Secretary of the Party's Central Committee since its constitution in October 1965 and Delegated Committee to the National Assembly of the Popular Power from its creation in 1976. It is, however, well known that Castro has these positions due to the patronage of his elder brother.
Raúl has been mooted as a possible successor to his brother. As Armed Forces minister, he controls much of the Military Forces in Cuba, prompting speculation that if he were to launch a power grab after his brother's death, it might be difficult to stop him. There is, however, serious debate over the matter, as his continuous survival in the government is attributed solely to his brother's protection, and it is widely believed that the generals would only be too happy to rid themselves of him as a potential obstacle to their power grab. Additionally, amongst the actual Cuban people Raúl Castro Ruz is seriously rumored to be a homosexual, which apparently could play a factor due to the "macho" oriented culture of the Cuban people. It is unlikely that there would be much inner support for a person who is considered both incompetent and effeminate.
Some have cited Raúl Castro as being more hardline than his brother — apparently, along with Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, he was one of only two communists involved in the original Granma expedition.
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