War & Peace Quote by Fidel Castro

Castro doesn’t argue against capitalism so much as he indicts it, stacking visceral adjectives like charges in a courtroom: “repugnant,” “filthy,” “gross,” “alienating.” It’s moral language, almost hygienic. Capitalism isn’t merely inefficient or unjust; it’s contaminating. That choice matters because it bypasses policy debate and goes straight for legitimacy. If the system is dirty, you don’t reform it - you cleanse yourself of it.

The punchline arrives disguised as causality: capitalism “causes war, hypocrisy and competition.” War is the heavy historical claim, calibrated for a Cold War world where Cuba framed itself as a besieged island resisting an imperial order. “Hypocrisy” is the cultural jab: liberal democracies preach freedom while underwriting coups, sanctions, and unequal trade; the accusation invites listeners to see capitalist morality as theater. Then “competition,” normally capitalism’s proud virtue, gets recoded as social corrosion - a device that turns the opponent’s self-image against them. The subtext is collective identity: we (the revolution) are solidarity; they (capital) are atomization.

The context sharpens the intent. Castro is speaking as a statesman who built his authority on anti-imperialism and redistribution, and who needed a language that fused economics with ethics to sustain revolutionary discipline through scarcity and confrontation. The quote functions as political cement: it offers a single enemy with multiple faces - military, moral, psychological - and, by making capitalism feel disgusting, makes dissent feel like complicity.