Author Bio: Born on August 13th, 1926 near Birán, Cuba, Fidel Castro was sworn in as Cuba's prime minister in February 1959 after leading a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the previous dictator, Fulgencio Batista. As well as taking over leadership, Fidel Castro turned to communism and adopted Marxism-Leninism as the nation's official doctrine. This creates his bias against the United States and imperialism in the Second Declaration of Havana. He ruled as dictator over Cuba until handed power over to his brother, Raúl Castro, in 2008.
Date/Context: The year 1961 was important to the relationship between Cuba and the United States. On January 3, President Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations with the Cuban government. Then, on April 14, Fidel Castro formally announced that Cuba was a socialist state. The following year, Castro gave the Second Declaration of Havana on February 4, 1962, soon after officially adopting Marxism-Leninism. Three days later, on February 7, the United States imposed a full economic embargo on Cuba. Castro and Cuba's adherence to communism made them allies with the Soviet Union. In October 1962, Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev created a plan to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, in what is now known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. This context of such a pivotal time makes the Second Declaration of Havana a major event.
Summary: Fidel Castro opens the Second Declaration of Havana by describing the "cruelest exploitation of the world by imperialism" and the circumstances behind the industrialization of the United States and some European countries, which led to imperialism. Castro then describes a new social class of merchants and producers of articles made for commerce , and negatively portrays their motives for its actions throughout its history. He then contrasts the poor region of Latin America, which is suffering greatly after the end of World War II, to the wealthy North America, especially the United States. Fidel Castro claims that the United States kept its wealth by exploiting Latin America's poor people and raw resources through military pacts and "Washington's diplomatic lobbying." he then talks about the topic of Cuba's revolution, and claims that it was destined to occur and teaches the world that nothing can stop people's movements for liberation. Castro then appeals to the people of Latin America to join together because of their many similarities, such as the suffering through the same trials, and facing the same enemy. he concludes that Latin America's fights for independence were a great story, but this struggle against imperialism is a great epic, conducted by the people, and will be a greater service for humankind than were the independence struggles. Castro appeals to the people one last time, saying that this epic story will be written by the 200 million Latin Americans, and the "Yankee monopoly capital" already fears them.
Key Quotation: "The epic of Latin America's independence struggles was great, and that fight was a heroic one. But today's generation of Latin Americans is summoned to write a greater epic, one even more decisive for humanity."
Your PDP on "Second Declaration of Havana" was very informational and got a lot of great information across; however, there are minor suggestions I have in order to improve the statements being described. To begin, the first noticeably important component of this assignment was your introduction of the character Fidel Castro. The detailed yet short explanation of history makes the bias seem very accurate and strongly supported. You also flowed into the purpose of the bias very nicely without adding excess information. Furthermore, the key quotation was an identifying characteristic for me because it essentially sums up the entire piece and expresses the tone for the majority of the passage. The basic summary and analysis of the piece in one sentence is normally hard to find. Also, the length of your summary was exceptional; not too short nor too long. For minor corrections: the first thing I noticed was a space between the word "commence" and a comma placed in your summary. Adding on, the letter H should be capitalized towards the end of the summary since it is the beginning of a sentence. Thirdly, the "comma and" scenario should be avoided throughout writing so if it is possible to remove the comma or rephrase the sentence, that should be done. In essence, the written message described in your PDP was great; just try to prevent small grammatical and typing issues that could distract others from the writing.
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