告別卡斯特羅 魄力非凡的游擊隊領導人
He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba.
他在1959年大膽奪取了古巴政權，此後終生享有國內外追隨者的強大個人崇拜。
But during more than half a century in office Fidel Castro, who has died at the age of 90 , metamorphosed from a popular and charismatic guerrilla leader into a traditional caudillo, an autocratic holdover from another age.
但在半個多世紀的掌權期間，剛剛去世、享年90歲的菲德爾.卡斯特羅(Fidel Castro)從一個廣受歡迎、魄力非凡的游擊隊領導人，淪爲一個傳統的獨裁者，就像是從另一個時代穿越而來的威權遺物。
At his life’s end, although bolstered by the emergence of a few new friends such as the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, he was assailed by foreign governments and human rights groups and spurned by many former supporters, including even his daughter.
在晚年，雖然出現了一些新朋友——如已故委內瑞拉領導人烏戈.查韋斯(Hugo Chávez)——給他捧場，但他受到了外國政府和人權組織的抨擊，而且被許多先前的支持者（甚至包括他的女兒）拋棄。
Yet Castro remained one of the most remarkable revolutionary figures of the 20th century.
即便如此，卡斯特羅仍是20世紀最值得一提的革命人物之一。
The slogan he coined and repeated in his later years, socialism or death, is a fitting epitaph for a stubborn and headstrong rebel turned statesman who swam with the current of history when it suited, but dared to fight it when it turned against him.
對於這個固執、任性的造反者出身的政治家，他晚年發明並不斷重複的口號社會主義或死亡是一句非常恰當的墓誌銘。作爲政治家，當歷史潮流順應他時，他便順流而動；而當歷史潮流逆他而行時，他敢於企圖阻擋。
As one of the longest serving national leaders of his time, first as prime minister and then as president, he nurtured his own legend, keeping even into old age his beard and olive-green uniform that had made him an instantly recognisable world figure.
作爲他那個時代掌權最久的國家領導人之一（先任總理，後任總統），他營造了自己的傳奇，直到晚年還留着鬍鬚，身穿橄欖綠制服，使他成爲一眼即可認出的世界人物。
Driven by a certainty of his destiny to oust the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, he accomplished an extraordinary feat of leadership.
在天賦使命推翻富爾亨西奧.巴蒂斯塔(Fulgencio Batista)腐敗獨裁統治的驅使下，他成就了一項非凡的領導力壯舉。
A combination of discipline, courage, an astute instinct for popular feeling, luck and sheer force of personality proved more than a match for Batista’s large army.
紀律、勇氣、對民心的敏銳直覺、運氣以及人格力量的結合，被證明比巴蒂斯塔的龐大軍隊更爲強大。
Castro’s victory gave hope to guerrilla movements throughout Latin America and beyond.
卡斯特羅的勝利給整個拉丁美洲乃至其他地方的遊擊運動帶來希望。
To dismiss the hagiography surrounding that revolution cannot detract from the heroic journey Castro embarked on when,
即便不理會對那場革命的神化描述，也不能否認卡斯特羅當年踏上了一段英雄般的旅程。
on November 24 1956, he left the coast of Mexico on the Granma, an ageing motor launch, bound for Cuba.
1956年11月24日，他登上老舊的格拉瑪號(Granma)遊艇，從墨西哥海岸啓航，向古巴進發。
The Granma was designed to accommodate only eight people, yet 82 comrades in arms were crammed on board.
設計僅能搭載8人的格拉瑪號，擠滿了82名全副武裝的戰士。
The vessel broke up when it ran aground on the coast, turning the landing into more of a shipwreck, and only 21 survived an early ambush.
該船在衝上海岸時解體，使登陸行動變得更像一場海難，而在遭遇最初的伏擊之後，只有21人倖存。
Castro led a number of them into the forest-covered mountains of the Sierra Maestra, among whom were his younger brother Raúl and Ernesto Che Guevara, the legendary Argentine doctor turned international revolutionary.
卡斯特羅帶領倖存的戰友進入森林覆蓋的馬埃斯特臘山脈(Sierra Maestra)，其中包括他的弟弟勞爾.卡斯特羅(Raúl Castro)和具有傳奇色彩、從阿根廷醫生成爲國際革命主義者的切.格瓦拉(Che Guevara)。
Within two years the Batista regime crumbled, as Castro’s increasingly popular rebellion exploited internal weaknesses of the government, which was in the end abandoned, even by the US.
隨着卡斯特羅越來越得人心的反抗運動充分利用政府內部的弱點（最後連美國都放棄了對政府的支持），巴蒂斯塔政權在不到兩年後垮臺。
By January 1959, a bearded Castro was riding in triumph on a tank through the streets of Havana.
1959年1月，留着大鬍子的卡斯特羅以勝利者的姿態搭乘一輛坦克出現在哈瓦那的大街上。
He was only 32.
那年他才32歲。
Cuba was at his feet.
古巴已是他的天下。
That feat of arms, together with the failure of US President John Kennedy’s attempt to remove him in 1961 – via an invasion of Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs – fired the imagination of a generation in the developing world as well as students in Europe and the US.
武裝奪權的壯舉，加上美國總統約翰.肯尼迪(John Kennedy) 1961年試圖（通過古巴流亡人士在豬灣(Bay of Pigs)發起的入侵行動）推翻他未果，引燃了發展中世界整整一代人以及歐美學生的想象力。
To many on the left, Castro’s socialist experiment promised the dawn of a new era for emergent nations.
對許多左翼人士而言，卡斯特羅的社會主義實驗預示着新興國家一個嶄新時代的到來。
Castro wrote from the Sierra: When this war is over, a much wider and bigger war will commence for me: the war that I am going to wage against [the US].
卡斯特羅曾在山區的叢林中寫道：這場戰爭結束後，對我來說，一場更廣泛、更大規模的戰爭纔將開始：一場我要針對（美國）發動的戰爭。
I am aware this is my true destiny.
我知道這纔是我真實的歸宿。
Through the sheer force of his personality, Castro strode the world stage in the 1960s and 1970s.
憑藉個人魅力，卡斯特羅大步遊走於上世紀60和70年代的世界舞臺。
He was an influential member of the nonaligned movement; a self-depicted David standing up to an imperial Goliath.
他是不結盟運動中頗具影響力的成員；自封爲大衛(David)，勇敢抗擊帝國主義巨人歌利亞(Goliath)。
Gripped by fears generated by the cold war with the Soviet Union, the US saw Castro as a direct threat to its regional hegemony, and successive administrations in Washington developed such an obsession with Cuba that his real capacity for mischief was exaggerated.
陷入與蘇聯冷戰的恐懼之中的美國，把卡斯特羅視爲對其地區霸權的直接威脅，歷屆白宮主人都對古巴念念不忘，以至於卡斯特羅製造事端的真正能力被誇大了。
Such was the US perception of the threat posed by Castro that the CIA hatched a number of alleged plots and schemes to try to assassinate or discredit him.
在美國眼裏，卡斯特羅構成的威脅如此嚴重，以至於中情局(CIA)據稱策劃了多起試圖暗殺卡斯特羅或敗壞其名聲的陰謀和計劃。
The more bizarre of these involved poisoned cigars, exploding seashells and chemicals to make his beard fall out.
其中特別怪異的手段包括有毒雪茄、貝殼炸彈以及讓他掉鬍子的化學品。
Even if Washington had been less obsessed, Castro would not have been an easy partner.
當然，即使華盛頓不那麼糾結，卡斯特羅也不會成爲一個易於合作的夥伴。
His attitude towards the US was complex and ambivalent.
他對美國的態度複雜且矛盾。
Although passionate about baseball, at heart he always perceived the US as the aggressor nation.
雖然卡斯特羅鍾愛棒球，但他在內心始終認爲美國是侵略者。
He never forgave the US for backing the Batista regime.
他永遠不原諒美國曾經支持巴蒂斯塔政權。
This stance, coupled with his own brand of socialism, led him almost inevitably towards Moscow.
這一立場，加上他自己品牌的社會主義主張，使他幾乎不可避免地倒向了莫斯科。
The alliance was a marriage of convenience: Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev and his successors bartered extensive economic and military aid in return for using Cuba as a cat’s paw in the cold war with the US.
蘇古聯盟是一場基於利益的聯姻：蘇聯領導人尼基塔.赫魯曉夫(Nikita Khruschev)及其繼任者提供廣泛的經濟和軍事援助，以換取古巴在蘇聯與美國的冷戰中充當蘇聯的貓爪。
The missile crisis of 1962, during which the world came to the verge of nuclear war, brought home the dangers of this policy.
1962年古巴導彈危機把世界推向了核戰爭的邊緣，突顯了這項政策的危險。
The confrontation was over Russia’s construction of sites in Cuba to house intermediate-range nuclear missiles to threaten the US.
這場對峙的癥結是蘇聯在古巴建造導彈發射基地，並在那裏部署了對美國構成威脅的中程核導彈。
Castro himself was a marginal player during the showdown and it was from the Associated Press news agency that he first learnt of Moscow’s decision to withdraw its missiles.
卡斯特羅本人在這場對峙中淪爲一個邊緣角色，他最早獲悉莫斯科決定撤回導彈是通過美聯社(AP)的報道。
Under the Soviet umbrella, though not always in agreement with Moscow, Castro continued his internationalist ambitions, dispatching aid and military advisers to Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean in support of governments and guerrilla movements.
在蘇聯的庇護下（儘管卡斯特羅並非總是和莫斯科意見一致），他繼續追求着他的國際主義野心，向非洲、中東、拉美和加勒比地區派遣援助和軍事顧問，以支持相關政府和游擊隊。
Perhaps he felt constrained within the confines of a small island of only 11m inhabitants; he had to export his revolution in order to make it safe at home.
也許他覺得自己受制於一個僅有1100萬人口的小島，必須輸出革命才能保證國內安全。
His most audacious and effective move was to send troops to Angola in 1976 to bolster the new Soviet-backed leftwing government there.
他最大膽而有效的一次行動是1976年出兵安哥拉，支持該國在蘇聯支持下新成立的左翼政府。
By the mid-1980s, these were built up to a more than 50,000 strong force that was finally withdrawn under a US-brokered Angola ceasefire and an independence settlement in neighbouring Namibia.
到上世紀80年代中期，古巴投入安哥拉的兵力已超過5萬，這支軍隊最終在美國斡旋安哥拉實現停火、而鄰國納米比亞達成獨立協議後撤出了安哥拉。
The alliance with Moscow solved Cuba’s desperate fuel needs and found a market for its sugar crop, previously bought by the US.
與蘇聯結盟解決了古巴迫切需要的燃料供應，併爲其糖料作物找到了市場（之前美國是買家）。
Soft credits and high support prices for sugar allowed the country to make spectacular progress in health, housing and literacy, Castro’s proudest achievement.
優惠貸款和對蔗糖的高支持性價格，使古巴在醫療、住房和掃盲率方面取得了巨大進步，這是卡斯特羅最引以爲豪的成就。
And yet the arrangement masked serious inefficiencies.
然而，這種安排掩蓋了嚴重的效率低下。
It locked Cuba into a single-crop economy and linked the island to distant trading partners with which it had little affinity.
它使得古巴深陷單一作物經濟，並把這個島國與遙遠且毫無親和力的貿易伙伴捆綁在一起。
This flaw was exposed when the cold war came to an end.
冷戰結束後，這種缺陷暴露了出來。
Cuba was set adrift by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which had channelled some $65bn in financial support over three decades.
曾在30年期間向古巴提供約650億美元財政援助的蘇聯集團解體，使古巴不得不自謀生路。
The economy shrank by half in the four years from 1989, plunging the island into a deep recession.
1989年後的4年裏，經濟萎縮過半，使這個島國陷入深度衰退。
Initially, Castro refused to countenance change in the centrally controlled economy – but as time passed his government appeared increasingly at the mercy of economic and social forces rather than in control of them.
起初，卡斯特羅拒絕支持對中央控制的經濟模式進行改革，但隨着時間推移，他的政府似乎越來越受制於經濟和社會力量，而非控制它們。
Eventually, as economic conditions worsened, he bowed to circumstance.
最終，隨着經濟形勢惡化，他不得不向現實低頭。
In doing so, he overturned some of the fundamental tenets of his first 30 years in power.
在此過程中，他推翻了自己頭30年掌權時堅持的一些基本原則。
He began to woo foreign investment, permitted the use of the US dollar, legalised private sector activities, including limited reforms in agriculture, and implicitly tolerated unemployment by allowing the closure of lossmaking state enterprises.
他開始吸引外國投資，允許使用美元，使私營部門活動合法化（包括農業領域的有限改革），並默許關閉虧損國有企業帶來的失業。
However, he was never more than a reluctant reformer and later reversed some of these changes.
然而，他一直只是一個不情願的改革者，後來又逆轉了一部分改革措施。
Social advances were undermined by the recession of the early 1990s.
古巴的社會進步也受到上世紀90年代初經濟衰退的破壞。
Prostitution, banished from Havana for three decades, returned with a vengeance.
哈瓦那消失30年之久的賣淫活動捲土重來。
His economic legacy was less ambiguous: for all its social inequities, the economy he inherited had a thriving middle class and boasted one of the best infrastructures in Latin America.
卡斯特羅的經濟遺產比較清晰：儘管存在種種社會不公，但他接手的經濟擁有一個繁榮的中產階層，基礎設施也躋身於拉美最佳行列。
But his policies brought hardship, even food rationing, and drove 1.5m into exile, many of them settling only a few miles across the Florida straits in Miami.
但是，他的政策給古巴人民帶來了苦難（甚至食物都要靠配給），迫使150萬人流亡海外，其中很多人居住在佛羅里達海峽對岸的美國邁阿密，與古巴相隔僅幾十英里。
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in August 1926 in Oriente province – or so the official Cuban biographies say.
根據官方傳記，菲德爾.亞歷杭德羅.卡斯特羅.魯斯(Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz) 1926年8月生於古巴的東方省(Oriente province)。
But investigative biographers have demonstrated that his date of birth was put back a year so that he could enrol in La Salle school in Oriente.
但調查傳記作家已經證實，他的出生日期被推前了一年，使他能夠進入該省的La Salle學校。
His father Angel, a tough emigrant from Galicia, was a prosperous farmer in Oriente.
他的父親安赫爾(Angel)是一位來自西班牙加利西亞(Galicia)的移民，頗能吃苦耐勞，後來成爲東方省一名富裕的種植園主。
He had two children by his first wife.
第一任妻子爲他生了兩個孩子。
Fidel’s mother was originally hired as a maid; she had Fidel, along with his sister Angela and brother Raúl, out of wedlock before she married Angel and bore four more children.
菲德爾的母親原來是家裏的一名女傭，在與安赫爾結婚前就爲他生下了菲德爾及其妹妹安吉拉(Angela)、弟弟勞爾，婚後又生了4個孩子。
Fidel’s childhood home was rich, but culture was evidently lacking – a visitor once described the atmosphere as barbaric beyond belief.
卡斯特羅童年時家境富裕，但顯然缺乏文化薰陶——一位訪客曾形容其家庭氛圍野蠻得令人難以置信。
Perhaps it was there that he first imbibed the anti-Americanism that was so important to his life.
也許正是在這樣的家庭環境中，他第一次接觸到了影響他一生的反美主義。
He grew up under the shadow of big US-owned sugar plantations.
他成長在美國人擁有的大型甘蔗種植園的陰影下。
His father had fought the Americans as a sergeant in the 1898 Spanish-American war.
他的父親在1898年美西戰爭中作爲中士與美國人作戰。
Spain’s defeat had left Cuba dominated by the US, which engendered resentment by supporting a succession of unpopular dictators.
西班牙戰敗使美國得以支配古巴，而美國對一個又一個不得人心的獨裁者的支持引起了民衆不滿。
Cubans were told little of Fidel’s personal life.
古巴人很少了解卡斯特羅的私生活。
In 1949 he married Mirta Díaz-Balart, who bore him one son, known as Fidelito, before their divorce five years later.
1949年，他與米爾塔.迪亞斯-巴拉特(Mirta Díaz-Balart)結婚，後者給他生了一個兒子，名叫菲德立託(Fidelito)，但五年後他們離婚了。
His later companion Dalia Soto del Valle, a former schoolteacher, bore him five more sons.
他後來的伴侶、曾爲教師的達莉亞.索托.德.瓦里(Dalia Soto del Valle)又爲他生了5個兒子。
Fidel fathered other children including Alina Fernandez-Revuelta, who was born out of a romance with Naty Revuelta, a society figure.
卡斯特羅還有其他子女，其中包括阿里娜.費爾南德斯-雷韋爾塔(Alina Fernandez-Revuelta)，她是卡斯特羅與社交名流娜蒂.雷韋爾塔(Naty Revuelta)一段浪漫史的結晶。
As a child Fidel spent 11 years in boarding schools, seven of those with the Jesuits, who provided him with a strong intellectual discipline.
孩童時期，卡斯特羅有11年時間都上寄宿學校，其中7年是在耶穌會開辦的學校，這賦予他強大的學識。
His student ability was that of an outstanding all-rounder; his final school report recognised that he was cut out for great things: He will make a brilliant name for himself.
他是一名出色的全面發展型學生；學校給他的最終評語認定，他很有可能做出一番大事：他將讓自己揚名。
At university in Havana, studying law, he relished the challenge and violence of campus politics.
在哈瓦那大學攻讀法律期間，他樂於接受校園政治的挑戰和暴力，
But he also had a reputation as a playboy.
但也有花花公子的名聲。
Indeed, when he married Mirta, a philosophy student, he could have opted for a life of wealth and privilege.
的確，在與哲學系學生米爾塔結婚後，他本可以選擇一條富足並享受特權的人生道路。
His father was then worth more than $500,000.
他父親當時的身價已達到50多萬美元。
He set up a law practice but the law could not sustain his great ambition.
他開辦了一家律師事務所，但法律無法實現他的宏大野心。
He moved into politics, deciding that he could not work within the system after Batista engineered a coup in 1952.
他把精力投入政治，在巴蒂斯塔1952年發動軍事政變後，他認定自己不能在體制內有所作爲。
In that year, he asked his father for $3,000 to finance an insurrection (he received $140).
同年，他向父親索要3000美元以資助一場暴動（他拿到了140美元）。
He and a small group then went ahead with a suicidal venture to attack the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, in the hope of provoking an uprising.
之後，他與一小羣志同道合者發動了一場自殺式的冒險行動——攻打古巴聖地亞哥的蒙卡達兵營，希望以此激起人民起義。
The 1953 attack failed disastrously.
1953年發動的這場進攻徹底失敗。
Castro was lucky to be captured alive.
卡斯特羅幸運地活着被俘。
His political career, however, was enhanced by his own defence at his trial, when he turned the tables and put the regime in the dock.
然而，他的政治生涯因其在庭審期間的自我辯護而出現轉機，他在法庭上慷慨陳詞，反將巴蒂斯塔政權推到了被告席上。
His speech culminated in the memorable words: Condemn me, it does not matter.
他的演講以令人難忘的一句話收尾：判決我吧，沒有關係。
History will absolve me.
歷史將宣判我無罪。
It was clandestinely edited and published while Castro was in prison.
當卡斯特羅還身陷囹圄時，這篇演講就被祕密地編輯並發表。
He emerged in 1955 after two years, a dedicated revolutionary.
兩年後的1955年，卡斯特羅獲釋，從此成爲了一名職業革命者。
His ideology was a homegrown mix of nationalism, communism and opportunism.
他的意識形態是一套將民族主義、共產主義和機會主義雜糅在一起的自制理論。
Arguably he gave most importance to the ideas of the man he sought to equal: José Martí, the 19th-century national hero.
可以說，卡斯特羅最看重的是他的偶像、19世紀古巴民族英雄何塞.馬蒂(José Martí)的思想。
Castro exploited the Cuban Communist party to attain power, then proceeded to oust its leadership and expropriate its language.
卡斯特羅利用古巴共產黨奪取了權力，然後罷免了黨的領導層，搶佔了黨的話語。
Progress, he claimed, was possible only in a command economy with a tightly controlled state apparatus under a loyal one-party system.
他聲稱，要取得進步，就只能實行指令經濟，同時依靠忠誠的一黨體制下嚴密控制的國家機器。
Such a view became increasingly discredited as Cubans suffered the collapse of their economy once the Soviet subsidies disappeared, yet the system enabled him to run Cuba as his fiefdom.
隨着蘇聯的援助消失後古巴人深受經濟崩潰之苦，這種觀點日益遭到懷疑，但體制保證了卡斯特羅像管理自己的領地一樣統治着古巴。
Castro ruled with a mixture of caprice, obsession and hard-headed pragmatism, which generated many ironies and contradictions.
卡斯特羅的統治手段交織着任性、強迫症和不帶感情的務實，這一切產生了許多具有諷刺意味和自相矛盾的現象。
He railed in public against the evils of capitalism but hosted private dinners for leading capitalists of the world, including from the US, who visited to meet him and check out business opportunities.
他在公開場合斥責資本主義的罪惡，但卻爲世界（包括美國）的頭號資本家們舉辦私人晚宴。這些人訪問古巴，與他會面，尋找商業機會。
In the early years of the revolution, he fanned anti-Catholic sentiment to dislodge a conservative church hierarchy that had largely sided with the Batista regime.
在革命初期，他煽動反天主教情緒，以排擠基本上支持巴蒂斯塔政權的保守的教會體制。
Thirty years later, shrewdly perceiving the rejuvenated Cuban Catholic church as a possible threat to his internal power base, he increased official tolerance for religion and engineered a historic meeting with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 1996.
30年後，在敏銳地感覺到古巴復興的天主教會可能威脅他的內部權力基礎後，他擴大了官方對宗教的寬容，並在1996年策劃了一場與教皇約翰.保羅二世(Pope John Paul II)在梵蒂岡的歷史性會面。
The meeting agreed on a papal trip.
這次會面商定了教皇的古巴之旅。
Ever mistrustful, he delegated only to his brother Raúl,
一向多疑的卡斯特羅只願意把權力下放給自己弟弟勞爾。
his longtime armed forces minister who succeeded him as president in 2008, and three years later as party leader.
長期擔任武裝力量部長的勞爾在2008年接替哥哥出任古巴總統，並在3年後成爲古巴共產黨最高領導人。
His greatest personal confidante was Celia Sanchez, who had helped to organise his life from the earliest days of his campaign in the Sierra.
卡斯特羅最欣賞的紅顏知己是塞莉婭.桑切斯(Celia Sanchez)，後者從他還在山區的武裝鬥爭生涯早期開始就幫助安排他的日程。
Her death in 1980, from cancer, brought on Castro a deep melancholy from which he never fully recovered.
桑切斯1980年因癌症去世，她的死讓卡斯特羅陷入了深深的憂鬱之中，自此再也沒有完全恢復。
From that time he seemed increasingly out of touch, and he was badly tainted by a scandal arising from the supposed discovery of top generals’ involvement in drugs trafficking with the Colombian mafia in 1989.
從那時起，他似乎越來越不接地氣，1989年的一起醜聞——幾名古巴高級將領據稱參與了哥倫比亞黑手黨的毒品走私活動——嚴重抹黑了他的形象。
He had the main culprits executed by firing squad, the popularity among the troops of one of them suggesting he was seen by the Castro brothers as a rival.
他下令對幾名首犯執行死刑，而其中一名軍官在部隊裏深受官兵愛戴，似乎表明他被卡斯特羅兄弟視爲競爭對手。
His behaviour – his lengthy paternalistic discourses, his chiding of officials, his public admission of errors – endeared him to Cubans when it did not irk or bore them.
他的言行——冗長的家長式作風講話、對官員的斥責以及公開承認錯誤——使他有時受到古巴人的擁戴，有時則惹惱古巴人，或讓人民厭煩。
It also betrayed a gigantic ego.
其言行還暴露出無限膨脹的自高自大。
Castro never believed in democracy, once describing multi-party politics as multi-rubbish.
卡斯特羅從不相信民主，曾經把多黨政治形容爲多重廢物。
He regarded free speech in a developing country as a luxury and he spurned the idea of elections, thereby alienating many who had initially supported the revolution.
他認爲言論自由在發展中國家是一種奢侈品，他也蔑視選舉的理念，從而疏遠了很多當初支持古巴革命的人。
His refusal to countenance significant political change and his continued persecution of internal opponents earned him sharp criticism from foreign governments and human rights groups, and slowed Cuba’s integration into a US-dominated international community after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
他拒絕支持重大的政治變革而且繼續迫害國內反對者，因此遭到了外國政府和人權組織的尖銳批評，並阻礙了古巴在蘇聯集團解體後融入美國主導的國際社會的進程。
His domestic popularity also waned.
他在國內的支持率也每況愈下。
Defections multiplied and included the flight to the US of his daughter Alina.
逃亡的人數成倍增加，就連他的女兒阿里娜也逃到美國。
Castro used the hostility of the US, and the continuing American embargo, to justify maintaining one-party socialism and the persecution of opponents.
卡斯特羅利用美國的敵視和持續的貿易禁運來證明其維持一黨制社會主義以及迫害反對派的合理性。
The embargo became one of his strongest propaganda weapons in his quixotic struggle to prove he would never bow to Uncle Sam.
貿易禁運成爲他最強大的宣傳武器之一，他不切實際的努力只是爲了證明自己永遠不會屈服於山姆大叔。
It was an enduring effort but one that left him and his country an anachronism in a changed world [-- especially after Barack Obama moved on December 17 2014 to re-establish diplomatic relations and end the embargo.
這種努力固然持久，但卻使卡斯特羅和他的國家在一個時過境遷的世界中變得不合時宜，尤其是在巴拉克.奧巴馬(Barack Obama) 2014年12月17日宣佈要與古巴重新建立外交關係並考慮解除禁運之後。
Rather than absolving him, history seemed to have passed him by.
歷史似乎並未宣判他無罪，而只是把他拋在了後面。
