CASTRO'S COMPROMISES

As the failure of its economy forces Cuba to reinvent itself, Fidel Castro has stayed largely in the background, leaving it to other officials to explain and defend the changes sweeping his country. But two weeks ago, he invited a delegation from TIME to dinner for a rare three-hour conversation that gave him an opportunity to define the compromises he is making: to expound, argue, and marshal the evidence in support of a reform process some Cubans fear is changing Cuba too much and others charge is not changing the country nearly enough.

TIME: Can you reflect on the strange love-hate relationship between Cuba and the U.S.?

Castro: The strange thing about this hatred is that it does not come from us. We have never hated the U.S. Thousands of Americans who have come to Cuba have had the opportunity of seeing that there is no hostile feeling against them. In no place in Latin America are Americans treated with more respect than in Cuba. I do not think either that there is any hatred on the part of U.S. citizens toward us. I recall that when I went to New York in 1960, some people booed me. But that came, to a very large extent, from lack of understanding. I think even that feeling has diminished.

TIME: Over the past several years, almost every revolutionary leader in the world has fallen by the wayside except you. How does it feel to be alone in this situation? What do you believe your legacy will be when you pass from the scene?

Castro: I would have to write an encyclopedia. [laughter]

Our system has not been exactly the same as in other countries. It was always very original, and it came from the people. Socialism did not come from the higher-ups: the people struggled, and they deposed the Batista government. There was a liberation. True. But it was a relative liberation: we got free from Batista, but we could not get rid of the U.S.

The U.S. started imposing conditions and measures simply to crush the revolution: subversion, dirty wars, mercenary invasions, assassination plots against us. I have an Olympic record in that regard, and I should be awarded a medal because there is no individual against whom so many assassination plots have been contrived, who is still living. That is partly luck. And partly because of the inefficiency of the ones who carried out the plots: they were not fanatics but people who were paid.

I am profoundly convinced that what we have been doing is the fair thing to do. It is the noblest thing to do and the most humane, and we will never be repentant for that. Never. I do not feel alone.

TIME: Did you feel betrayed when Mikhail Gorbachev told you Moscow would no longer provide you with economic assistance?

Castro: I had good personal relations with Mr. Gorbachev. I believe that he was full of good intentions. He never talked about destroying socialism. Later on, though, I think that he did not follow a consistent strategy. He said things could not be done in an orderly way, one priority after the other, but that everything had to be done at the same time. So he destroyed the history of the U.S.S.R. He destroyed the party. He destroyed the state. It was impossible for the Soviet Union to make the reforms they wanted while destroying history, destroying the party, destroying the government.

TIME: What lessons are you drawing from Boris Yeltsin?