Shortly after Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez passed away, many news channels reported on the fortune he inherited by his family, from valuable properties, to car lots, mansions, planes, and a lot of money in offshore banks.

According to Venezuelan news website Noticias Centro in an article published in 2015 “the late president’s family owns 17 country estates, totaling more than 100,000 acres, in addition to liquid assets of $550 million stored in various international bank accounts”.
There are clearly two main problems with this situation, the fact that a majority of Venezuelans suffer growing food shortages, unemployment and little or no access to proper health services, and of course the fact that Hugo Chavez was a socialist: “Being rich is bad, it’s inhumane. This is what I say and I condemn the rich”; “capitalism leads us straight to hell”, and “we must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world”, he used to say. Meanwhile his daughter Maria Gabriela Chavez is reported to be one of the richest persons in Venezuela, with a net worth of $4.2 billion.

This same contradiction is now brought to light with the death of Cuban former leader Fidel Castro; Castro apparently enjoyed a life of extreme luxury while over 15% of the country was living in extreme poverty. A decade ago Forbes estimated Castro’s personal net worth being close to $900 million, he, like Chavez owned several valuable estates, among them his residence, known as Punto Cero or Point Zero which is a 75-acre suburban home.

Some years back the book by Reinaldo Sanchez “La vida oculta de Fidel Castro” (The hidden life of Fidel Castro) also made special emphasis in the luxury and eccentricity that this political leader enjoyed, “While he sold to the world the image of a sacrificed revolutionary leader than never took vacation, in reality he lived like a capitalist with all the pleasures of a monarch and he handled Cuba as if he was a feudal lord. He has betrayed the hope of millions of Cubans”.

Reportedly Castro’s businesses included CIMEX, MEDICUBA,the Convention Palace, pharmaceutical companies and some hotels. Although Castro always denied being a millionaire, even stating he lived on a salary of $25 a month, and he always kept his life private, his son Antonio Castro has been less shy about his lifestyle.

Some love them and some hate them, this is common with political leaders, but is the contradiction between their communist speech and their lifestyle that raises eyebrows in these cases.