He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba. 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.

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. Yet Castro remained one of the most remarkable revolutionary figures of the 20th century.

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. 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.