He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba.
他在1959年大胆夺取了古巴政权，此后终生享有国内外追随者的强大个人崇拜。
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.
但在半个多世纪的掌权期间，刚刚去世、享年90岁的菲德尔.卡斯特罗(Fidel Castro)从一个广受欢迎、魄力非凡的游击队领导人，沦为一个传统的独裁者，就像是从另一个时代穿越而来的威权遗物。
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，虽然出现了一些新朋友——如已故委内瑞拉领导人乌戈.查韦斯(Hugo Chávez)——给他捧场，但他受到了外国政府和人权组织的抨击，而且被许多先前的支持者（甚至包括他的女儿）抛弃。
Yet Castro remained one of the most remarkable revolutionary figures of the 20th century.
即便如此，卡斯特罗仍是20世纪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.
对于这个固执、任性的造反者出身的政治家，他晚年发明并不断重复的口号社会主义或死亡是一句非常恰当的墓志铭。作为政治家，当历史潮流顺应他时，他便顺流而动；而当历史潮流逆他而行时，他敢于企图阻挡。
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.
作为他那个时代掌权最久的国家领导人之一（先任总理，后任总统），他营造了自己的传奇，直到晚年还留着胡须，身穿橄榄绿制服，使他成为一眼即可认出的世界人物。
Driven by a certainty of his destiny to oust the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, he accomplished an extraordinary feat of leadership.
在天赋使命推翻富尔亨西奥.巴蒂斯塔(Fulgencio Batista)腐败独裁统治的驱使下，他成就了一项非凡的领导力壮举。
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.
纪律、勇气、对民心的敏锐直觉、运气以及人格力量的结合，被证明比巴蒂斯塔的庞大军队更为强大。
Castro’s victory gave hope to guerrilla movements throughout Latin America and beyond.
卡斯特罗的胜利给整个拉丁美洲乃至其他地方的游击运动带来希望。
To dismiss the hagiography surrounding that revolution cannot detract from the heroic journey Castro embarked on when,
即便不理会对那场革命的神化描述，也不能否认卡斯特罗当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，他登上老旧的格拉玛号(Granma)游艇，从墨西哥海岸启航，向古巴进发。
The Granma was designed to accommodate only eight people, yet 82 comrades in arms were crammed on board.
设计仅能搭载8人的格拉玛号，挤满了82名全副武装的战士。
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.
该船在冲上海岸时解体，使登陆行动变得更像一场海难，而在遭遇最初的伏击之后，只有21人幸存。
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.
卡斯特罗带领幸存的战友进入森林覆盖的马埃斯特腊山脉(Sierra Maestra)，其中包括他的弟弟劳尔.卡斯特罗(Raúl Castro)和具有传奇色彩、从阿根廷医生成为国际革命主义者的切.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.
随着卡斯特罗越来越得人心的反抗运动充分利用政府内部的弱点（最后连美国都放弃了对政府的支持），巴蒂斯塔政权在不到两年后垮台。
By January 1959, a bearded Castro was riding in triumph on a tank through the streets of Havana.
1959年1月，留着大胡子的卡斯特罗以胜利者的姿态搭乘一辆坦克出现在哈瓦那的大街上。
He was only 32.
那年他才32岁。
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.
武装夺权的壮举，加上美国总统约翰.肯尼迪(John Kennedy) 1961年试图（通过古巴流亡人士在猪湾(Bay of Pigs)发起的入侵行动）推翻他未果，引燃了发展中世界整整一代人以及欧美学生的想象力。
To many on the left, Castro’s socialist experiment promised the dawn of a new era for emergent nations.
对许多左翼人士而言，卡斯特罗的社会主义实验预示着新兴国家一个崭新时代的到来。
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].
卡斯特罗曾在山区的丛林中写道：这场战争结束后，对我来说，一场更广泛、更大规模的战争才将开始：一场我要针对（美国）发动的战争。
I am aware this is my true destiny.
我知道这才是我真实的归宿。
Through the sheer force of his personality, Castro strode the world stage in the 1960s and 1970s.
凭借个人魅力，卡斯特罗大步游走于上世纪60和70年代的世界舞台。
He was an influential member of the nonaligned movement; a self-depicted David standing up to an imperial Goliath.
他是不结盟运动中颇具影响力的成员；自封为大卫(David)，勇敢抗击帝国主义巨人歌利亚(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.
陷入与苏联冷战的恐惧之中的美国，把卡斯特罗视为对其地区霸权的直接威胁，历届白宫主人都对古巴念念不忘，以至于卡斯特罗制造事端的真正能力被夸大了。
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.
在美国眼里，卡斯特罗构成的威胁如此严重，以至于中情局(CIA)据称策划了多起试图暗杀卡斯特罗或败坏其名声的阴谋和计划。
The more bizarre of these involved poisoned cigars, exploding seashells and chemicals to make his beard fall out.
其中特别怪异的手段包括有毒雪茄、贝壳炸弹以及让他掉胡子的化学品。
Even if Washington had been less obsessed, Castro would not have been an easy partner.
当然，即使华盛顿不那么纠结，卡斯特罗也不会成为一个易于合作的伙伴。
His attitude towards the US was complex and ambivalent.
他对美国的态度复杂且矛盾。
Although passionate about baseball, at heart he always perceived the US as the aggressor nation.
虽然卡斯特罗钟爱棒球，但他在内心始终认为美国是侵略者。
He never forgave the US for backing the Batista regime.
他永远不原谅美国曾经支持巴蒂斯塔政权。
This stance, coupled with his own brand of socialism, led him almost inevitably towards Moscow.
这一立场，加上他自己品牌的社会主义主张，使他几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.
苏古联盟是一场基于利益的联姻：苏联领导人尼基塔.赫鲁晓夫(Nikita Khruschev)及其继任者提供广泛的经济和军事援助，以换取古巴在苏联与美国的冷战中充当苏联的猫爪。
The missile crisis of 1962, during which the world came to the verge of nuclear war, brought home the dangers of this policy.
1962年古巴导弹危机把世界推向了核战争的边缘，突显了这项政策的危险。
The confrontation was over Russia’s construction of sites in Cuba to house intermediate-range nuclear missiles to threaten the US.
这场对峙的症结是苏联在古巴建造导弹发射基地，并在那里部署了对美国构成威胁的中程核导弹。
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.
卡斯特罗本人在这场对峙中沦为一个边缘角色，他最早获悉莫斯科决定撤回导弹是通过美联社(AP)的报道。
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.
在苏联的庇护下（尽管卡斯特罗并非总是和莫斯科意见一致），他继续追求着他的国际主义野心，向非洲、中东、拉美和加勒比地区派遣援助和军事顾问，以支持相关政府和游击队。
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.
也许他觉得自己受制于一个仅有1100万人口的小岛，必须输出革命才能保证国内安全。
His most audacious and effective move was to send troops to Angola in 1976 to bolster the new Soviet-backed leftwing government there.
他最大胆而有效的一次行动是1976年出兵安哥拉，支持该国在苏联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.
到上世纪80年代中期，古巴投入安哥拉的兵力已超过5万，这支军队最终在美国斡旋安哥拉实现停火、而邻国纳米比亚达成独立协议后撤出了安哥拉。
The alliance with Moscow solved Cuba’s desperate fuel needs and found a market for its sugar crop, previously bought by the US.
与苏联结盟解决了古巴迫切需要的燃料供应，并为其糖料作物找到了市场（之前美国是买家）。
Soft credits and high support prices for sugar allowed the country to make spectacular progress in health, housing and literacy, Castro’s proudest achievement.
优惠贷款和对蔗糖的高支持性价格，使古巴在医疗、住房和扫盲率方面取得了巨大进步，这是卡斯特罗最引以为豪的成就。
And yet the arrangement masked serious inefficiencies.
然而，这种安排掩盖了严重的效率低下。
It locked Cuba into a single-crop economy and linked the island to distant trading partners with which it had little affinity.
它使得古巴深陷单一作物经济，并把这个岛国与遥远且毫无亲和力的贸易伙伴捆绑在一起。
This flaw was exposed when the cold war came to an end.
冷战结束后，这种缺陷暴露了出来。
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年期间向古巴提供约650亿美元财政援助的苏联集团解体，使古巴不得不自谋生路。
The economy shrank by half in the four years from 1989, plunging the island into a deep recession.
1989年后的4年里，经济萎缩过半，使这个岛国陷入深度衰退。
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，卡斯特罗拒绝支持对中央控制的经济模式进行改革，但随着时间推移，他的政府似乎越来越受制于经济和社会力量，而非控制它们。
Eventually, as economic conditions worsened, he bowed to circumstance.
最终，随着经济形势恶化，他不得不向现实低头。
In doing so, he overturned some of the fundamental tenets of his first 30 years in power.
在此过程中，他推翻了自己头30年掌权时坚持的一些基本原则。
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.
他开始吸引外国投资，允许使用美元，使私营部门活动合法化（包括农业领域的有限改革），并默许关闭亏损国有企业带来的失业。
However, he was never more than a reluctant reformer and later reversed some of these changes.
然而，他一直只是一个不情愿的改革者，后来又逆转了一部分改革措施。
Social advances were undermined by the recession of the early 1990s.
古巴的社会进步也受到上世纪90年代初经济衰退的破坏。
Prostitution, banished from Havana for three decades, returned with a vengeance.
哈瓦那消失30年之久的卖淫活动卷土重来。
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.
卡斯特罗的经济遗产比较清晰：尽管存在种种社会不公，但他接手的经济拥有一个繁荣的中产阶层，基础设施也跻身于拉美最佳行列。
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，他的政策给古巴人民带来了苦难（甚至食物都要靠配给），迫使150万人流亡海外，其中很多人居住在佛罗里达海峡对岸的美国迈阿密，与古巴相隔仅几十英里。
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in August 1926 in Oriente province – or so the official Cuban biographies say.
根据官方传记，菲德尔.亚历杭德罗.卡斯特罗.鲁斯(Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz) 1926年8月生于古巴的东方省(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.
但调查传记作家已经证实，他的出生日期被推前了一年，使他能够进入该省的La Salle学校。
His father Angel, a tough emigrant from Galicia, was a prosperous farmer in Oriente.
他的父亲安赫尔(Angel)是一位来自西班牙加利西亚(Galicia)的移民，颇能吃苦耐劳，后来成为东方省一名富裕的种植园主。
He had two children by his first wife.
第一任妻子为他生了两个孩子。
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.
菲德尔的母亲原来是家里的一名女佣，在与安赫尔结婚前就为他生下了菲德尔及其妹妹安吉拉(Angela)、弟弟劳尔，婚后又生了4个孩子。
Fidel’s childhood home was rich, but culture was evidently lacking – a visitor once described the atmosphere as barbaric beyond belief.
卡斯特罗童年时家境富裕，但显然缺乏文化熏陶——一位访客曾形容其家庭氛围野蛮得令人难以置信。
Perhaps it was there that he first imbibed the anti-Americanism that was so important to his life.
也许正是在这样的家庭环境中，他第一次接触到了影响他一生的反美主义。
He grew up under the shadow of big US-owned sugar plantations.
他成长在美国人拥有的大型甘蔗种植园的阴影下。
His father had fought the Americans as a sergeant in the 1898 Spanish-American war.
他的父亲在1898年美西战争中作为中士与美国人作战。
Spain’s defeat had left Cuba dominated by the US, which engendered resentment by supporting a succession of unpopular dictators.
西班牙战败使美国得以支配古巴，而美国对一个又一个不得人心的独裁者的支持引起了民众不满。
Cubans were told little of Fidel’s personal life.
古巴人很少了解卡斯特罗的私生活。
In 1949 he married Mirta Díaz-Balart, who bore him one son, known as Fidelito, before their divorce five years later.
1949年，他与米尔塔.迪亚斯-巴拉特(Mirta Díaz-Balart)结婚，后者给他生了一个儿子，名叫菲德立托(Fidelito)，但五年后他们离婚了。
His later companion Dalia Soto del Valle, a former schoolteacher, bore him five more sons.
他后来的伴侣、曾为教师的达莉亚.索托.德.瓦里(Dalia Soto del Valle)又为他生了5个儿子。
Fidel fathered other children including Alina Fernandez-Revuelta, who was born out of a romance with Naty Revuelta, a society figure.
卡斯特罗还有其他子女，其中包括阿里娜.费尔南德斯-雷韦尔塔(Alina Fernandez-Revuelta)，她是卡斯特罗与社交名流娜蒂.雷韦尔塔(Naty Revuelta)一段浪漫史的结晶。
As a child Fidel spent 11 years in boarding schools, seven of those with the Jesuits, who provided him with a strong intellectual discipline.
孩童时期，卡斯特罗有11年时间都上寄宿学校，其中7年是在耶稣会开办的学校，这赋予他强大的学识。
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发展型学生；学校给他的最终评语认定，他很有可能做出一番大事：他将让自己扬名。
At university in Havana, studying law, he relished the challenge and violence of campus politics.
在哈瓦那大学攻读法律期间，他乐于接受校园政治的挑战和暴力，
But he also had a reputation as a playboy.
但也有花花公子的名声。
Indeed, when he married Mirta, a philosophy student, he could have opted for a life of wealth and privilege.
的确，在与哲学系学生米尔塔结婚后，他本可以选择一条富足并享受特权的人生道路。
His father was then worth more than $500,000.
他父亲当时的身价已达到50多万美元。
He set up a law practice but the law could not sustain his great ambition.
他开办了一家律师事务所，但法律无法实现他的宏大野心。
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年发动军事政变后，他认定自己不能在体制内有所作为。
In that year, he asked his father for $3,000 to finance an insurrection (he received $140).
同年，他向父亲索要3000美元以资助一场暴动（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.
之后，他与一小群志同道合者发动了一场自杀式的冒险行动——攻打古巴圣地亚哥的蒙卡达兵营，希望以此激起人民起义。
The 1953 attack failed disastrously.
1953年发动的这场进攻彻底失败。
Castro was lucky to be captured alive.
卡斯特罗幸运地活着被俘。
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审期间的自我辩护而出现转机，他在法庭上慷慨陈词，反将巴蒂斯塔政权推到了被告席上。
His speech culminated in the memorable words: Condemn me, it does not matter.
他的演讲以令人难忘的一句话收尾：判决我吧，没有关系。
History will absolve me.
历史将宣判我无罪。
It was clandestinely edited and published while Castro was in prison.
当卡斯特罗还身陷囹圄时，这篇演讲就被秘密地编辑并发表。
He emerged in 1955 after two years, a dedicated revolutionary.
两年后的1955年，卡斯特罗获释，从此成为了一名职业革命者。
His ideology was a homegrown mix of nationalism, communism and opportunism.
他的意识形态是一套将民族主义、共产主义和机会主义杂糅在一起的自制理论。
Arguably he gave most importance to the ideas of the man he sought to equal: José Martí, the 19th-century national hero.
可以说，卡斯特罗最看重的是他的偶像、19世纪古巴民族英雄何塞.马蒂(José Martí)的思想。
Castro exploited the Cuban Communist party to attain power, then proceeded to oust its leadership and expropriate its language.
卡斯特罗利用古巴共产党夺取了权力，然后罢免了党的领导层，抢占了党的话语。
Progress, he claimed, was possible only in a command economy with a tightly controlled state apparatus under a loyal one-party system.
他声称，要取得进步，就只能实行指令经济，同时依靠忠诚的一党体制下严密控制的国家机器。
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.
随着苏联的援助消失后古巴人深受经济崩溃之苦，这种观点日益遭到怀疑，但体制保证了卡斯特罗像管理自己的领地一样统治着古巴。
Castro ruled with a mixture of caprice, obsession and hard-headed pragmatism, which generated many ironies and contradictions.
卡斯特罗的统治手段交织着任性、强迫症和不带感情的务实，这一切产生了许多具有讽刺意味和自相矛盾的现象。
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.
他在公开场合斥责资本主义的罪恶，但却为世界（包括美国）的头号资本家们举办私人晚宴。这些人访问古巴，与他会面，寻找商业机会。
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，他煽动反天主教情绪，以排挤基本上支持巴蒂斯塔政权的保守的教会体制。
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年后，在敏锐地感觉到古巴复兴的天主教会可能威胁他的内部权力基础后，他扩大了官方对宗教的宽容，并在1996年策划了一场与教皇约翰.保罗二世(Pope John Paul II)在梵蒂冈的历史性会面。
The meeting agreed on a papal trip.
这次会面商定了教皇的古巴之旅。
Ever mistrustful, he delegated only to his brother Raúl,
一向多疑的卡斯特罗只愿意把权力下放给自己弟弟劳尔。
his longtime armed forces minister who succeeded him as president in 2008, and three years later as party leader.
长期担任武装力量部长的劳尔在2008年接替哥哥出任古巴总统，并在3年后成为古巴共产党最高领导人。
His greatest personal confidante was Celia Sanchez, who had helped to organise his life from the earliest days of his campaign in the Sierra.
卡斯特罗最欣赏的红颜知己是塞莉娅.桑切斯(Celia Sanchez)，后者从他还在山区的武装斗争生涯早期开始就帮助安排他的日程。
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，她的死让卡斯特罗陷入了深深的忧郁之中，自此再也没有完全恢复。
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.
从那时起，他似乎越来越不接地气，1989年的一起丑闻——几名古巴高级将领据称参与了哥伦比亚黑手党的毒品走私活动——严重抹黑了他的形象。
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.
他下令对几名首犯执行死刑，而其中一名军官在部队里深受官兵爱戴，似乎表明他被卡斯特罗兄弟视为竞争对手。
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——冗长的家长式作风讲话、对官员的斥责以及公开承认错误——使他有时受到古巴人的拥戴，有时则惹恼古巴人，或让人民厌烦。
It also betrayed a gigantic ego.
其言行还暴露出无限膨胀的自高自大。
Castro never believed in democracy, once describing multi-party politics as multi-rubbish.
卡斯特罗从不相信民主，曾经把多党政治形容为多重废物。
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.
他认为言论自由在发展中国家是一种奢侈品，他也蔑视选举的理念，从而疏远了很多当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.
他拒绝支持重大的政治变革而且继续迫害国内反对者，因此遭到了外国政府和人权组织的尖锐批评，并阻碍了古巴在苏联集团解体后融入美国主导的国际社会的进程。
His domestic popularity also waned.
他在国内的支持率也每况愈下。
Defections multiplied and included the flight to the US of his daughter Alina.
逃亡的人数成倍增加，就连他的女儿阿里娜也逃到美国。
Castro used the hostility of the US, and the continuing American embargo, to justify maintaining one-party socialism and the persecution of opponents.
卡斯特罗利用美国的敌视和持续的贸易禁运来证明其维持一党制社会主义以及迫害反对派的合理性。
The embargo became one of his strongest propaganda weapons in his quixotic struggle to prove he would never bow to Uncle Sam.
贸易禁运成为他最强大的宣传武器之一，他不切实际的努力只是为了证明自己永远不会屈服于山姆大叔。
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.
这种努力固然持久，但却使卡斯特罗和他的国家在一个时过境迁的世界中变得不合时宜，尤其是在巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama) 2014年12月17日宣布要与古巴重新建立外交关系并考虑解除禁运之后。
Rather than absolving him, history seemed to have passed him by.
历史似乎并未宣判他无罪，而只是把他抛在了后面。