A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.

　　I began a revolution with 82 men. If I had do it again， I＇d do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.我和82个人一起开始革命。如果我必须再做一次，我将怀着坚定的信念，和10或15个人一起干。只要你有信念和行动计划，队伍再小也没有关系。

　　Condemn me， it does not matter， history will absolve me.

　　判处我吧，这不重要，历史会宣判我无罪！

　　Fidel Castro, ailing and 81, announced last week he was resigning as Cuba's president, ending a half-century of rule that made him a communist icon and a relentless opponent of U.S. policy around the globe.

　　"I will not aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept, the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," read a letter signed by Mr. Castro published early last Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

　　"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath," Mr. Castro wrote in the letter. But "it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer."

　　The end of Mr. Castro's rule, the longest in the world for a head of government, frees his 76-year-old brother Raul Castro to implement reforms he has hinted at since taking over as acting president when Mr. Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006. Raul Castro was elected last Sunday as president of Cuba during a legislative session held at Cuba's Palace of Conventions in Havana, the nation's capital.

　　The rise to power

　　Fidel Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926, near Birán in Cuba's eastern Oriente province. His father, Angel Castro, was a wealthy landowner originally from Spain. His mother, Lina Ruz Gonzáles, had been a maid to Mr. Angel Castro’s first wife.

　　One of five children, Mr. Castro was educated in Jesuit schools. He grew up in wealthy circumstances amid poverty. A peasant rebellion in Oriente during Mr. Castro’s formative years is thought to have influenced his political leanings.

　　Mr. Castro offered free legal services to the poor after earning a law degree from the University of Havana.

　　In 1952, at the age of 25, Mr. Castro ran for the Cuban parliament. But just before the election, the government was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista, who established a dictatorship. Mr. Castro was one of about 150 fighters who attempted to overthrow Mr. Batista in 1953. An attack on a military barracks landed Mr. Castro in prison but made him famous throughout Cuba.

　　Mr. Castro was released in 1955 under an amnesty. He went to Mexico and spent time in the United States, preparing for a second attempt to overthrow Batista.

　　Mr. Castro returned to Cuba on December 2, 1956, by boat with a band of 81 insurgents. Most were killed. The survivors, including the Castros and Guevara, fled into the Sierra Maestra Mountains along the southeastern coast. There, they mounted a full-scale attack in 1958, forcing Batista to flee the country in January 1959, allowing Mr. Castro to become prime minister.

　　Reshaping Cuba

　　Mr. Castro rose to power on New Year's Day 1959. The United States was the first country to recognize Castro's government, but the countries soon clashed when Castro applied for Soviet aid. This shaped Cuba into a communist state.

　　The fiery guerrilla leader survived assassination attempts, a CIA-backed invasion and a missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Ten U.S. administrations tried to topple him, most famously in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Hostilities reached their peak with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. At the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, Mr. Castro eventually made peace with numerous governments that once shunned him.

　　His ironclad rule ensured Cuba remained communist long after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe. For good or ill, Mr. Castro is without a doubt the most important leader to emerge from Latin America since the wars of independence of the early 19th century, not only reshaping Cuban society but also providing inspiration for leftists across Latin America and in other parts of the world.

　　Mr. Castro remains fairly popular in Cuba. Mr. Castro's supporters admire his ability to provide a high level of health care and education for citizens while remaining independent of the United States. His detractors call him a dictator whose totalitarian government systematically denied individual freedoms and civil liberties such as speech, movement and assembly.

　　Although Mr. Castro never held an open election, many scholars argue that during the early years of his regime, he would have won popular support.