Raúl Castro on the hands of Fulgencio Batista in 1938, a future dictator that he will topple with his brother in 1959 Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz ( ; ; born 3 June 1931) is a Cuban retired politician and general who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the one-party communist state, from 2011 to 2021, and President of Cuba between 2008 and 2018, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro. Wikipedia