Catiline And Castro Comparison Essay

There are moments in history that can almost mirror later events. Patterns can be found in the types of people that obtain power, how they obtain power, and the circumstances of the state surrounding their rises to power. Catiline is an example of failure to secure power. He raised an army of revolutionists who were found out before they could carry out their plan to murder hundreds of senators. Fidel Castro, who did achieve power later in his political career, created a plan to attack that Moncada Barracks which failed, in the end. Catiline’s Conspiracy and the Castro’s attack on the Moncada Barracks bear resemblance. The similarities between the two events can be found in the leaders, Catiline and Castro, and their followers, as well as the …show more content…
Castro’s policies and beliefs were based in the idea of Marxism (as mentioned earlier), which is largely about equality and anti-capitalism doctrine, whereas Catiline who claims to be about the working class when Sallust writes for him, “All the rest of us, hard-working good men, aristocrats and plebeians, we are a common crowd, without favor and without prestige,” is in fact not . Most of his supporters were aristocrats, “There were also many aristocrats who participated more secretly in his plan; they were encouraged more by hope of power than by poverty or any necessity…especially aristocratic youth.” The Marxism ideals largely would and did appeal to impoverished young men, which is who Castro ended up recruiting, and in fact exclusively recruited . This, though, is a point where the two different events intersect once again. Both Castro and Catiline (through the words of Sallust) make it quite clear that their followers were young males. The two groups were …show more content…
Years prior was filled with bloodshed in Rome itself with the civil wars between Sulla and Marius. Sulla’s reign, as according to Sallust, had largely negative results, “But after L. Sulla took control of the Republic and from good beginnings created a disastrous outcome, everyone began to steal and rob.” Sallust’s claim is that regardless of the intentions of Sulla, his ruling and laws were detrimental to state. This would make Rome much more susceptible to an overthrow, and it would be likely that its citizens would be in favor of a revolution. Sallust even says this is so later on, “…in general all the plebs were eager for revolution and approved of Catiline’s intentions.” This quote is a good example of the overwhelming dissatisfaction that majority of Roman citizens had with the current state of the Republic. Dissatisfaction can easily be morphed into a revolution which is exactly what Catiline did. Similar to Rome, Cuba’s government was not faring well with its warring factions, coups, and corrupt government . The same dissatisfaction the Romans had, so did many Cubans, and the option of something different, a new set of standards, was appealing towards them. Fidel states that, “I discovered one thing: the easiest thing in the world, under those circumstances, was converting somebody to Marxism.” Castro recognizes the sheer force that unhappiness can bring about, and he used this to his advantage when