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{{Infobox Country or territory|native_name = |conventional_long_name = Republic of Cuba|common_name = Cuba|image_flag = Flag of Cuba.svg|image_coat = Cuba coa.gif|image_map = LocationCuba.svg|national_motto =
Patria y Libertad(Spanish language)"Patriotism and Liberty" a|national_anthem =
La Bayamesa("The Bayamo Song")]|demonym = Cuban|capital =
Havana|government_type = [Socialist republicb]|leader_name1 = Fidel Castro|leader_name2 = [Raúl Castro-->|percent_water = negligible|population_estimate = 11,382,820|population_estimate_year = 2006|population_estimate_rank = 73rd|population_census = 11,177,743|population_census_year = 2002|population_density_km2 = 102|population_density_sq_mi = 264 |sovereignty_note = from
Spain|established_date1 = [October 10 1868 [1902 [1959 ([ISO 4217)
Cuban convertible peso d|currency_code = CUC|time_zone = North American Eastern Standard Time Zone|utc_offset = -5|time_zone_DST = (Starts
March 11; ends
November 4)]|CCTLD = CU|calling_code = 53|footnotes = a As shown on the obverse of the 1992 coin (Note that the Spanish word "Patria" is translated into English as either "Cradle" or "Place of Birth" or as "Fatherland.")b states that "
Cuba is an independent and sovereign socialist state 1... the name of the Cuban state is Republic of Cuba 2." The usage "socialist republic" to describe the style of government of Cuba is nearly uniform, though forms of government have no universally agreed typology. For example, Atlapedia describes it as "Unitary Socialist Republic"; Encyclopedia Britannica omits the word "unitary," as do most sources.c At the start of the
Ten Years' War.d From 1993 to 2004, the United States dollar was used in addition to the peso until the dollar was replaced by the convertible peso.-->
Cuba, officially the
Republic of Cuba (
Spanish language:
or
ðe ˈkuβa), consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous of the
Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and several adjacent small islands. Winston Churchill considered Cuba to be a "...large, rich, beautiful island..." Churchill, Winston S. 1951 The Second World War, Volume 5: Closing the Ring. Houghton Miffin Edition. Bantam Books, New York No ISBN or other number provided. P. 606 “Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary 5. Feb (19)44. Your minute about raising certain legations to the status of embassy. I must say that Cuba has as good a claim as some other places –“la perla de Las Antillas.” Great offense will be given if all the others have it and this large, rich, beautiful island, the home of the cigar, is denied. Surely Cuba has much more claim than Venezuela. You will make a bitter enemy if you leave them out, and after a bit you will be forced to give them what you have given to the others.” Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern United States and the
Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and
Haiti and east of Mexico. The
Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south.
Cuba is the most populous Caribbean country. Its Cubans, Culture of Cuba and customs draw from several sources including the aboriginal Taíno and
Ciboney peoples, the period of
Spanish Empire, the introduction of Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies, and its proximity to the United States. The island has a tropical climate that is moderated by the surrounding waters; however, the warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that the island of Cuba sits across the access to the Gulf of Mexico make Cuba prone to frequent Tropical cyclone.
It is one of the few remaining Communist countries in the world.
History
The recorded history of Cuba began on 17 October 1492, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his Christopher Columbus#First voyage of discovery and claimed it for
Spain.Gott, Richard :
Cuba A New History. Yale University Press. p13 Columbus named the island
Isla Juana in reference to
Juan, Prince of Asturias, the heir apparent. The island had been inhabited by Native Americans peoples known as the
Taíno and Ciboney whose ancestors had come from
South America and possibly North and Central America in a complex series of migrations at least several centuries before. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney far more commonly written Siboney google searches yield about 518,000 for siboney. 54,700 for Ciboney
neo-Taino nations) were both farmers and
hunter-gatherers; some have suggested that copper trade was significant and mainland artifacts http://museum.archanth.cam.ac.uk/IACA.WWW/amulet.htm have been found in proximal Taino cultures.
The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by Sebastián de Ocampo in 1511, and in that year the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at
Baracoa. Other towns, including
Havana (founded in 1515), soon followed. The Spanish, as they did throughout the Americas, oppressed and enslaved the approximately 100,000 indigenous people that resisted conversion to Christianity on the island. Within a century they had all but disappeared as a distinct nation as a result of the combined effects of European introduced disease, forced labor and other mistreatment, though aspects of the region's
Indigenous peoples heritage has survived in part via the rise of a significant Mestizo population. An Interview On the Taino DNA testing in Puerto Rico. Profiles, Vol. 1, no. 2, 15 August 2000
° Cuban Site Casts Light on an Extinct People Anthony DePalma, The New York Times, 5 July 1998
°
Richard Gott Cuba: A new history, Yale University Press: 2004, p.7 "A third element in Cuba's ethnic mix, the trace of indigenous blood that runs through most of its people except for the most recent immigrants, has usually been ignored or denied. It is vigorously downplayed by most historians in Havana today, although those in Santiago are more freethinking. The official line, doggedly maintained over the years, in spite of increasing evidence to the contrary, is that the Tainos were destroyed during the early years of conquest. This is clearly not so." DNA Genealogy, E. Elizondo "The mt-DNA haplogroup results were a complete surprise. The test results indicated that I descended on my maternal line from Siberian Eskimos who migrated across the Aleutian chain and Alaska and down to North and South America*. This contrasted with my genealogy research which showed that my oldest known female ancestor, Maria Obregon Ceballos, was born in the city of Trinidad, one of the oldest towns in Cuba -founded in 1514, presumably of Spanish ancestry." http://www.cubagenweb.org/dna.htm With destruction of aboriginal society, the settlers began to exploit
African slaves, with more resistance to the diseases from the old world, and who soon made up a significant proportion of the inhabitants.
Colonial Cuba
Cuba was a Spain possession for 388 years, ruled by a governor in Havana, with an economy based on plantation agriculture, the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to
Europe and later to North America, and
mining. It was seized by the United Kingdom in 1762, but restored to Spain the following year. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to
France. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, a small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, supported by a population of plebian
Criollo (people), mixed-race (Mestizo) small farmers, laborers and African-descended slaves.
In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain’s empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence. This was partly because the prosperity of the Cuban settlers depended on their export trade to Europe, partly through fears of a slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the
United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial rule.
An additional factor was the continuous migration of Spaniards to Cuba from all social strata, a demographical trend that had ceased to exist in other Spanish possessions decades before and which contributed to the slow development of a Cuban national identity. Pirates were also still a problem and defense against them depended heavily on the presence of Spanish troops. The Times Thursday, September 01, 1825 London, Middlesex NASSAU (NEW PROVIDENCE), “June 4,-By an arrival from the coast of Cuba, we learn that His Majesty's schooner Speedwell accompanied by several barges from other vessels of war, is engaged in securing a key near Cayo Romano (off North Coast of Cuba), where a number of pirates, had secreted themselves in the woods. Some mall craft, which the pirates had used in. their cruises, were captured by the barges; and with the assistance of some chasseurs which the Spanish Government at Principe had furnished for the purpose, it was expected the pirates would be hunted out of their lurking-places…
Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Throughout the 19th century, Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island’s annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S., and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848, a pro-annexationist rebellion was defeated and there were several attempts by annexationist forces to invade the island from
Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain. During the summer of 1848, President
James Knox Polk quietly authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba and offer Spain up to $100 million, an astonishing sum of money at the time for one territory. Spain, however, refused to consider ceding one of its last possessions in the Americas. (Morro Castle (fortress), built in 1589 to guard the eastern entrance to Havana bay).However, trade in sugar and molasses was $18,000,000 in 1859 alone The North Carolina Standard; Wednesday. April 6, 1859. …facts are drawn from the official report on the " Commercial Relations of the United States with all Nations," prepared at the State Department and published by order of Congress, we imported from Cuba in 1838 as follows: Molasses, $3,051,1515; sugar, $15,555,409.
After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexationism, agitation for Cuban independence from Spain revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a wealthy lawyer landowner from Oriente province who freed his slaves, proclaimed a war and was named President of the Cuban Republic-in-arms. This resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish Army, allied with local supporters. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily or to even recognize the legitimacy of the Cuban government in arms, despite the fact that many European and Latin American nations had done so. In 1878, the Peace of Zanjon ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba.
The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there was further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U.S. would step in and annex the island. In 1879-1880, Cuban patriot Calixto Garcia attempted to start another war, known in Cuban history as "la guerra chiquita" (the little war) but received little support. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, slavery was abolished in 1886, although the African-descended minority remained socially and economically oppressed, despite formal civic equality granted in 1893. During this period, the rural poverty in Spain provoked by the Spanish Revolution of 1868 and its aftermath led to an even greater Spanish emigration to Cuba.
During the 1890s, pro-independence agitation revived, fueled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain’s increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba. Few of the promises for economic reform made by the Spanish government in the Pact of Zanjon were kept. In April 1895, a new war was declared, led by the writer and poet José Martí who had organized the war over a ten year period while in exile in the U.S. and proclaimed Cuba an independent republic — Martí was killed at Dos Rios shortly after landing in Cuba with the eastern expeditionary force. His death immortalized him and he has become Cuba’s undisputed national hero.
The Spanish armed forces totaled about 200,000 troops against a much smaller rebel army which relied mostly on guerilla and sabotage tactics to fight battles, and the Spaniards retaliated with a campaign of suppression. General Valeriano Weyler was appointed military governor of Cuba, and as a repressive measure he herded the rural population into what he called Valeriano Weyler#Cuba and the concentration camps, described by international observers as "fortified towns." These reconcentrados are often considered the prototype for the 20th century concentration camps.Anne Applebaum.
Gulag: A History of the German Concentration Camps. "the first modern concentration camps were set up not in Germany or Russia, but in colonial Cuba, in 1895. In that year, in an effort to put an end to a series of local insurgencies, imperial Spain began to prepare a policy of reconcentratión, intended to remove the Cuban peasants from their land and 'reconcentrate' them in camps, thereby depriving the insurgents of food, shelter and support. By 1900, the Spanish term reconcentratión had already been translated into English, and was used to describe a similar British project, initiated for similar reasons, during the Boer War in South Africa." Between 200,000 and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease during this period in the camps. These numbers were verified by both the Red Cross and U.S. Senator (and former Secretary of War) Redfield Proctor. U.S. and European protests against Spanish conduct on the island followed..
Military events of consequence include the break out to the western provinces "La Invasion", and the taking of the fort complexes at Tunas and Guisa.
In 1897, fearing U.S. intervention, Spain moved to a more conciliatory policy, promising home rule with an elected legislature. The rebels rejected this offer and the war for independence continued. Shortly afterwards, on
15 February 1898, the U.S.
battleship USS Maine (ACR-1) was mysteriously blown up in Havana harbor, killing 266 men. Forces in the U.S. favoring intervention in Cuba seized on this incident to accuse Spain of blowing up the ship (although Spain had no motive for doing so and there was no evidence of Spanish culpability). Swept along on a wave of nationalist sentiment, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for interventionhttp://www.bartleby.com/43/45.html and President
William McKinley was quick to comply.
A Spanish view of Maine incident
The justification McKinley used to send
Maine uninvited to Havana was a violent demonstration supporters of the Spanish status-quo had on January 12,1898. McKinley claimed it was dangerous for the 8,000 American residents in the island.
Maine, was the largest Navy ship built in an American shipyard to date, arrived in Havana on January 25. People were suspicious because the most important officers were at a party on shore. There were 81 foreigners and 82 black seamen among the 25 officers and 318 enlisted killed.
An investigative commission arrived to Havana on January 21 aboard USS
Mangrove where Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy Adolf Marix reported the ship had been sunk by a
mine placed underneath the ship by a diver named Pepe "Taco" Barquin.Report published in Document 207 of President MacKinley's Message to the55 Senate Appendix "F": Report on the Destruction of the USS Maine, 1898 available in New York Public Library. Marix reported Jose "Taco" Barquin had been offered $6,000 and was killed the day after. Another diver was killed by guards and another wounded and jailed on the night of the explosion. The one in jail (his arrest was recorded in Regla's official documents), Marix reported, was being poisoned by the authorities. According to a letter from Brigadier Freyre de Andrade, the chief planners were Garcia Corujedo ,Villasuso, Maribona and other Freemason businessmen, associated with gun runner
Maximo Gomez and New York politician Astor Chandler, a friend of
Theodore Roosevelt.The result was the Spanish-American War, in which U.S. forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and quickly overcame the exhausted Spanish resistance. In August a peace treaty was signed under which Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba. Some advocates in the U.S. supported Cuban independence, while others argued for outright annexation. As a compromise, the McKinley administration placed Cuba under a 20-year U.S. treaty. The Cuban independence movement bitterly opposed this arrangement, but unlike the
Philippines, where events had followed a similar course, there was no outbreak of armed resistance.
Other authors find the matter far less definitive and assignment of guilt far less clear.Samuels, Peggy and Harold.
Remembering the Maine. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995).
Independence
Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President of the
United States in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year treaty proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on
20 May 1902, with the independence leader
Tomás Estrada Palma becoming the country’s first president. Under the new Cuban constitution, however, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the
Platt Amendment, Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Cuba today does not celebrate May 20 as their date of independence, but instead
October 10, as the first declaration of independence and the day Castro and his army entered Havana, January 1, 1959, as "the triumph of the revolution".
Independent Cuba soon ran into difficulties as a result of factional disputes and corruption among the small educated elite and the failure of the government to deal with the deep social problems left behind by the Spanish. One notes however that Spain ruled Cuba from 1511 to 1898, and it took at least thirty years of dreadful war and uncertain peace to free Cuba from the Spanish. In 1906, following disputed elections to choose
Estrada Palma’s successor, an armed revolt broke out and the U.S. exercised its right of intervention. The country was placed under U.S. occupation and a U.S. governor,
Charles Edward Magoon, took charge for three years. Magoon's governorship in Cuba was viewed in a negative light by many Cuban historians for years thereafter, believing that much political corruption was introduced during Magoon's years as governor. In 1908 self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. retained its supervision of Cuban affairs. Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, however, constitutional government was maintained until 1925, when Gerardo Machado y Morales, having been elected President, suspended the constitution.
Machado was a Cuban nationalist and his regime had considerable local support despite its violent suppression of critics. However, it was during this period that
Soviet intrusion into Cuban affairs began with the arrival in Cuba of
Fabio Grobart. During Machado's tenure, a nationalistic economic program was pursued with several major national development projects being undertaken(see Infrastructure of Cuba).
Machado's hold on power was weakened following a decline in the demand for exported agricultural produce due to the Great Depression, the attacks first by War of Independence Veterans, and later by covert terrorist organizations principally the ABC Dutcher, Rodney (NEA) 1933 Machado Fights Terrorists With Terror To Hold Iron-Handed Foes: of "ABC” Copy Gangster Methods to Rid Island of Despot Who Has Ruled Since-1924 Syracuse Herald Friday evening, April 28, 1933. Front Page “Terrorism has been met "with terrorism in this unique outbreak waged mostly by students and young Intellectuals who brand Machado as a tyrant. On one side is the "ABC," secret terrorist, organization that has copied the methods ol gangsters in the fine art of assassination. On the other side are Machado's strong-armed and equally, ruthless secret police. Murder has followed murder in a series of spectacular killings. The Law of Flight Typical were assassinations of Dr. Clemente Vasquez Bella, president of the Cuban Senate and political ally of Machedo, and Capt. Miguel Calvo former head of the secret police Both were slain on busy throughfares, in daylight, by men who dashed past in autos firing shot guns. Many members, or suspected members of the "ABC" have been slain by the secret police in equally ruthless manner. Often, those killings have been defended on the ground that the victims preferred death to capture, though the evidence. In many cases Is not convincing. One police official alone is accused of 40 official assassinations. Police have also defended killings on the ground that the ley de fuga (law of flight) recognized the right of an officer to shoot an escaping prisoner. But, according to witnesses, prisoners have been released told to flee and then shot down they ran. Bombing has been common. Incendiary fires have destroyed much property. Great numbers of political prisoners have been jailed. President Machado, whose life has been threatened many times, is heavily guarded by soldiers and machine gun crews in his palace. He rides to and from his country estate in a bullet-proof auto, under escort of soldiers armed with rifles and machine guns. NEXT: Cuba economic distress and America's vast stake on the Island
During a general strike in which the communist party took the side of Machado Argote-Freyre, Frank, 2006 Fulgencio Batista: Volume 1, From Revolutionary to Strongman. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey ISBN 978-0813537010 p. 50 and later explained by the communists themselves in: Massón Sena, Caridad 2004 (accessed 6-9-07) Dos visiones sobre el nacionalismo y las alianzas: Mella y Villena. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Cultura Cubana “Juan Marinello”. La Habana, Cuba. http://168.96.200.17/ar/libros/cuba/marin/nacion.rtf. “ Según explicara Fabio Grobart a posteriori: “ Esta miopía política se reflejó también en una errónea conclusión que los dirigentes del Partido sacaron, de la justa apreciación de que sustituir a Machado por un gobierno de la oposición burgués-terrateniente significaba dejar a Cuba en su estado de semicolonia y a las masas populares en la misma miseria y esclavitud y que únicamente un gobierno de trabajadores podía producir los cambios radicales que el país necesitaba /.../Dicha a conclusión fue profundamente falsa por ser mecánica, por no basarse en un análisis correcto del desarrollo dialéctico de la situación y, esencialmente, por no tener en cuenta que las masas revolucionarias, enardecidas por la victoria sobre Machado y orientadas en su acción por una justa política de su vanguardia marxista-leninista, sí podría asegurar los cambios profundos, es decir, la realización del programa agrario-antimperialista, por el cual abogaba y luchaba desde su fundación el Partido Comunista.(22)” Reference 22 is Fabio Grobart, 1985, p. 93, This author also refers in this regard to Leonel Soto, 1977, vol. II, p. 8 the Senior elements of the Cuban army forced Machado into exile and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, son of Cuba's founding father, as President. In September, 4th-5th 1933) however, a second coup (led by sergeants, most notably
Fulgencio Batista, overthrew Céspedes leading to the formation of the first
Ramón Grau San Martín government. This government lasted just 100 days, but engineered radical socialistic changes in Cuban society and a rejection of the
Platt amendment.
In 1934, Batista and the army, who were the real center of power in Cuba, replaced Grau with
Carlos Mendieta y Montefur. In 1940, Batista decided to run for President himself. The leader of the constitutional liberals
Ramón Grau San Martín refused to support him, so he turned instead to the Communist Party of Cuba, which had grown in size and influence during the 1930s.
With the support of the Communist-controlled labor unions, Batista was elected President and his administration carried out major social reforms and introduced a new progressive constitution. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. Batista's administration formally took Cuba into World War II as a U.S. ally, declaring war on Japan on December 9, 1941, then on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941; Cuba, however, did not significantly participate militarily in World War II hostilities. At the end of his term in 1944, in accordance with the constitution, Batista stepped down and
Ramón Grau was elected to succeed him. Grau initiated increased government spending on health, education and housing. Grau’s liberals were bitter enemies of the Communists and Batista opposed most of Grau’s program.
In 1948, Grau was succeeded by Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau's minister of labor and was particularly hated by the Communists. Prío was a less principled liberal than Grau and, under his administration, corruption increased notably. This was partly a result of the postwar revival of U.S. wealth and the consequent influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a safe haven for mafia operations. However, the influence and power of the organized crime syndicates in Cuba is commonly exaggerated.Lack of political influence of the "Mafia" in Cuba is easily demonstrated. For instance: Schwartz, Rosalie 1997 Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NA; New Ed edition (February 1, 1999) ISBN-10 0803292651 ISBN-13 978-0803292659 P. 145 “One month after the March 1953 Saturday Evening Post hit the newsstands. Cuba’s military intelligence forces (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, or SIM) arrested a dozen North Americans suspected of running crooked games at the Tropicana, Sans Souci, and Jockey Club. The government deported eleven of the offenders and announced the problem solved.” p. 137 “Casino owners did not strew North American Garbage across a pristine Cuban landscape. Foreign gamblers introduced neither gangsterism nor vice to the island, nor did they necessarily corrupt righteous islanders. Cubans themselves scoffed at the idea that the mob could “march into Cuba and start giving orders like little Cesar, a reference to actor Edward G. Robinson’s celluloid character. “You just go ahead and send your toughest characters down here,” one Cuban challenged an American journalist. “I guarantee you that even a second-rate Cuban politician will run rings around him.” The mob was playing ball with seasoned veterans, not second stringers.” Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilizing the Cuban currency. The influx of North American money fueled a boom which did much to raise living standards and create a prosperous middle class in most urban areas, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.
From Batista to Castro
by the Directorio Revolucionario and the Organizacion Autentica in 1957
The 1952 election was a three-way race. Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodoxos party led in all the polls, followed by Dr.
Aurelio Hevia of the Auténtico party, and running a distant third was Batista, who was seeking a return to office. Both front runners, Agramonte and Hevia in their own camps, had decided to name Col.
Ramon Barquin, then a diplomat in
Washington, DC to head the Cuban Armed Forces after the elections. Barquin was a top officer who commanded the respect of the professional army and had promised to eliminate corruption in the ranks. Batista feared that Barquin would oust him and his followers, and when it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning, he staged a coup on
10 March 1952 and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army as a “provisional president” for the next two years. Justo Carrillo told Barquin in Washington on March 1952 that the inner circles knew that Batista had aimed the coup at him; they immediately began to conspire to oust Batista and restore democracy and civilian government in what was later dubbed La Conspiracion de los Puros de 1956 (Agrupacion Montecristi). In 1954, under pressure from the U.S., Batista agreed to elections. The Partido Auténtico put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance. Fulgencio Batista could then claim to be an elected President.
Fidel Castro directed a failed assault on the
Moncada Barracks, in Santiago de Cuba, and on the smaller Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Barracks and on the Feast of Saint Ann July 26, 1953.de La Cova, Antonio Rafael 2007 The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution. University of South Carolina Press ISBN-10 1570036721 ISBN-13 978-1570036729.
In April 1956, Batista had given the orders for Barquin to become General and Chief of the Army. But it was too late. Even after Barquin was informed, he decided to move forward with the coup to rescue the morale of the Armed Forces and the Cuban people. On April 4, 1956, a coup by hundreds of career officers led by Col. Barquin (then Vice Chair of the
Inter-American Defense Board in Washington and Cuban Military Attaché of Sea, Air and Land to the US) was frustrated by Rios Morejon. The coup broke the backbone of the Cuban Armed Forces. The officers were sentenced to the maximum terms allowed by Cuban Martial Law. Barquin was sentenced to solitary confinement for 8 years. La Conspiración de los Puros resulted in the imprisonment of the top commanding brass of the Armed Forces and the closing of the military academies. Barquin was the founder of La Escuela Superior de Guerra (Cuba's War College) and past director of La Escuela de Cadetes (Cuba's Military Academy). Without Barquin's officers the army's ability to combat the revolutionary insurgents was severely curtailed.
On 2 December 1956 a party of 82 badly trained revolutionaries led by Castro, landed in a yacht named
Granma (yacht) and tried to start an armed resistance movement in the
Sierra Maestra. The yacht had come from Mexico, where Castro had been exiled to, and where his army was strengthened with the help of Ernesto Che Guevara, who later became one of the most important people in the Cuban revolution and one of Castro's closest allies. Castro had gone to Mexico after serving only two years of a twenty year prison sentence for his part in a 1953 rebel attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.. Castro received his pardon from Batista after being requested by the Archbishop of Santiago, Monseñor
Enrique Perez Serantes and Senator Rafael Diaz-Balart, at the time Fidel Castro's brother-in-law. After the landing, Batista launched a campaign of repression against the opposition, which only served to increase support for the insurgency. With Barquin's professional officers in La Prision Modelo de Isla de Pinos in the Gulf of Mexico, the Army lacked the leadership and will to fight the insurgents.
Through 1957 and 1958, opposition to Batista grew, especially among the upper and middle classes and the students, among the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and in many rural areas. In response to Batista's plea to purchase better arms from the U.S. in order to root out the insurgents in the mountains, the United States government imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government on March 14,
1958. By late 1958, the rebels had succeeded in breaking out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general insurrection, joined by hundreds of students and others fleeing Batista’s crackdown on dissent in the cities. When the rebels captured
Santa Clara, Cuba, east of Havana, Batista decided the struggle was futile and fled the country to exile in
Portugal and later Spain. Batista named Gen. Eulogio Cantillo Chief of the Army and gave him instructions not to release Barquin and his officers. Nevertheless, Barquin, who had the backing of the US, was rescued from
Isla de Pinos in the early hours and taken to Campamento Ciudad Militar Columbia where he relieved Cantillo and assumed the post of Chief of Staff (serving as Chief of the Armed Forces and de facto president of Cuba for a short period of time) in an effort to establish order in the streets and the Armed Forces. He negotiated the symbolic change of command between
Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara, Raul and Fidel Castro, after the Supreme Court decided that the Revolution was the source of law and its representative should assume command. With less than 300 men Camilo assumed the post from Barquin who in Columbia alone commanded 12,000 professional soldiers. Castro’s rebel forces entered the capital on January 8
1959. Shortly after Dr.
Manuel Leo Urrutia assumed power.
Cuba following revolution
Fidel Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba in February 1959, and has held his position as
Head of State and Head of Government in the country until temporarily handing it over to his brother,
Raul Castro, for medical reasons in July 2006. During 1959, the new revolutionary government carried out measures such as the expropriation of
private property, the nationalization of public utilities, and began a campaign to institute tighter controls on the private sector such as the closing down of the
gambling industry. The government also evicted many Americans, including
mobsters (who controlled many businesses ) from the island. Some of these measures were undertaken by Fidel Castro's government in the name of the program that he had outlined in the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra http://www.chibas.org/raul_chibas_manifiesto.php while in the Sierra Maestra. However, he failed to enact one element of his reform program, which was to call elections under the Electoral Code of 1943 within the first 18 months of his time in power and to restore all of the provisions of the Constitution of Cuba that had been suspended under Batista.
Castro flew to
Washington, DC in April 1959, but was not met by President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, who decided to attend a golf tournament rather than meet with the Cuban leader.http://www.princeton.edu/plas/publications/Essays/castro.html Castro returned to Cuba after a series of meetings with
African-American leaders in
New York's
Harlem district, and after a lecture on "Cuba and the United States" delivered at the headquarters of the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York.http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagsg022.php Summary executions of suspected Batista collaborators and members of the opposition through the "paredones" that took place after show trials, coupled with the seizure of privately-owned businesses and the rapid demise of the independent press, nominally attributed to the powerful pro-revolution printing labor unions, raised questions about the nature of the new government. Attitudes towards the Cuban revolution both in Cuba and in the United States were changing rapidly. The nationalization of private property and businesses to the tune of $25 billion U.S. dollars Lazo, Mario, American Policy Failures in Cuba--Dagger in the Heart! 1970 Twin Circle Publishing Co., New York, pp.198-200, 240) and, particularly, U.S.-owned companies (to an excess of 1960 value of US $1.0 billions Lazo, Mario, American Policy Failures in Cuba--Dagger in the Heart! 1970, Twin Circle Publishing Co., New York, pp.198-200, 240 Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution--Escape from a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Macon, Georgia, pp.105,182,248) aroused immediate hostility within the
Eisenhower administration.
Middle class and Upper class Cubans began to leave their country in great numbers and formed a burgeoning
expatriate community in Miami that was opposed to the Castro government.
The United States government became increasingly hostile towards the Castro-led government of Cuba throughout 1959. Some contend that this, in turn, may have influenced Castro's movement away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and increase the power of hardline
Marxist figures in the government, notably
Che Guevara. This theory is open to debate and has been attacked in various publications which have argued that Castro undertook the Revolution with the goal of turning Cuba towards
socialism.
In October 1959, Castro openly declared himself to be friendly towards Communism, though he did not yet claim to be a Communist himself, while the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged. Many who had initially supported the revolution fled the country to join the growing exile community in Miami. In March 1960, the first aid agreements were signed with the Soviet Union. In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. saw the establishment of a Soviet base of influence in the Americas as a threat and plans were approved to remove Castro from power (see
The Cuban Project). In late 1960, a United States embargo against Cuba. As Cuba was forced to find new markets to trade in, the embargo strengthened Cuba's ties with the
Eastern Bloc countries. At the same time, the Kennedy administration authorized plans for an invasion of Cuba by Florida-based exiles, taking advantage of anti-Castro uprisings which were repressed (see some details and references in War Against the Bandits and
Bay of Pigs Invasion). The result was the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961. President John F. Kennedy withdrew promised US Air Force for the invading force at the last minute and the populist anti-Castro uprising failed to materialize. Kennedy refused to provide direct US military intervention and the invasion force was routed. After this Castro declared Cuba a
socialist republic, and himself a
Marxist-Leninist, in May of 1961 and December of 1961 respectively.
Marxist-Leninist Cuba
', one of the many remaining U.S. cars in Cuba, imported prior to the
United States embargo against Cuba.One immediate strategic result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the decision to place Soviet medium range ballistic missiles (
MRBMs) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Cuba. This precipitated the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, during which the Kennedy administration threatened the Soviet Union with
nuclear war unless the missiles were withdrawn. The idea to place missiles in Cuba was brought up either by Castro or
Khrushchev, but agreed by the USSR for the reason that the U.S. had their nuclear missiles placed in
Turkey and the
Middle East, thus directly threatening USSR security. With minutes to go until the Soviet ships carrying a further shipment of missiles reached a
US Navy blockade, the Soviets backed down, and made an agreement with Kennedy. All the missiles were to be withdrawn from Cuba, but at the same time the US was to move its missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East. Kennedy however couldn't lose face by doing this immediately, but made an assurance to withdraw the US missiles within a couple of months.
Another result was that Kennedy agreed not to invade Cuba in the future. In the aftermath of this, there was a resumption of contacts between the U.S. and Castro, resulting in the release of the anti-Castro fighters captured at the Bay of Pigs to the US in exchange for a package of aid. However in 1963 relations deteriorated again as Castro moved Cuba towards a fully-fledged Communist system modeled on the Soviet Union. Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution --- Escape From a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Inc., Macon, Georgia, pp. 163-228. The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba, and began
Cuban Project. In the beginning, U.S. influence in Latin America was strong enough to make the embargo very effective and Cuba was forced to divert virtually all its trade towards the Soviet Union and its allies. However, public declarations of support from Latin American governments for the USA's policies were harder to come by. The Mexican ambassador to the US told the Kennedy administration:
"If we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing."In 1965, Castro merged his revolutionary organizations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with
Blas Roca as Second Secretary; later to be succeeded by
Raúl Castro, who as Defense Minister and Fidel’s closest confidant became and has remained the second most powerful figure in the government. Raúl Castro’s position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch unsuccessful attempts at insurrectionary movements in Congo, and then
Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967. Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, President of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, was a figurehead of little importance. Castro introduced a new constitution in 1976 under which he became President himself, while remaining chairman of the Council of Ministers.
During the 1970s, Castro moved onto the world stage as a leading spokesperson for
Third World “anti-imperialist” governments. On a more concrete level, he provided invaluable military assistance to pro-Soviet forces in
Angola, Ethiopia,
Yemen and other
African and Middle Eastern trouble spots. Cuban forces were decisive in helping the MPLA forces win the Angolan Civil War in 1975. Although the bills for these expeditionary forces were paid by the Soviets, they placed a considerable strain on Cuba’s economy and manpower resources. Cuba was also hampered by its continuing dependency on sugar exports. The Soviets were forced to provide further economic assistance by buying the entire Cuban sugar crop, even though the Soviet Union grew enough sugar beet to meet its own needs. In exchange the Soviets had to supply Cuba with all its fuel, since it could not import oil from any other source.
Cuba’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union was deepened by Castro’s determination to build his vision of a socialist society in Cuba. This entailed the provision of state subsidized health care and education for the entire population, a first for the the Americas. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviets were prepared to subsidise all this in exchange for the strategic asset of an ally under the nose of the United States and the undoubted propaganda value of Castro’s considerable prestige in the developing world.
and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau join together in song, January 1976.By the 1970s, the ability of the U.S. to keep Cuba isolated was declining. Cuba had been expelled from the
Organization of American States in 1962 and the OAS had cooperated with the U.S. trade boycott for the next decade, but, in 1975, the OAS lifted all sanctions against Cuba and both Mexico and
Canada broke ranks with the U.S. by developing closer relations with Cuba. Both countries said that they hoped to foster liberalization in Cuba by allowing trade, cultural and diplomatic contacts to resume — in this they were disappointed, since there was no appreciable easing of repression against domestic opposition. Castro did stop openly supporting insurrectionary movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries.
The
Cuban-American in the U.S. grew in size, wealth and power and politicized elements effectively opposed liberalization of U.S. policy towards Cuba. However, the efforts of the exiles to foment an anti-Castro movement inside Cuba, let alone a revolution there, met limited success. On Sunday, April 6, 1980, 7,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. One of the people who entered the embassy at this time documented his experiences in "Days of the Embassy" (published June 8, 2007). On Monday,
April 7, the Cuban government granted permission for the emigration of Cubans seeking refuge in the Peruvian embassy.{{cite web] 500 Cuban citizens left the Peruvian Embassy for Costa Rica. On April 21 many of those Cubans started arriving in Miami via private boats and were halted by the
US State Department on
April 23. The boat lift continued, however, since Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel and this emigration became known as the Mariel boatlift. In all, over 125,000 Cubans emigrated to the United States before the flow of vessels ended on June 15.{{cite web]
Cuban Military Involvement Overseas
Americas
The Cuban Government's military involvement in other countries of the America has been extensive. The most well known of these were the failed attempts by
Ernesto Guevara in Bolivia and the support for the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua
Africa and Asia Minor
The Cuban Government's military involvement in Africa has also been extensive, ranging from Algeria in the north west and the adjacent Asia minor country of Yemen to the North East Ramazani, Rouhollah K. 1975 The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Vol. 3 Sijthoff & Noordhoof, Holland ISBN 9028600698 Mentions Cuban intervention in several different sections e.g. p. 75 “Just as the Soviet Union has sought the destruction of the Omani regime by proxy of South Yemini and Cuban support for the insurgents, the United States…” p. 115 “The Soviet Union indirectly intervened in the civil war in Oman by aiding the Dhofari rebels through Cuban and South Yemen.” to
Angola and Namibia in the south. Interesting insights into the history of international intrigue in Cuba, dating to the Gerardo Machado regime, when Stalinist Pole
Fabio Grobart first entered the Island, are given by Roger Fontaine Fontaine, Roger 1988 [http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/bg655.cfm?renderforprint=1 “Third, the U.S. should consider ending its low-level diplomatic ties with Cuba THE EARLY YEARS OF CUBAN TERRORISM Cuban history is replete with examples of terrorism, most notably in the early 1930s when groups of young Cubans struggled against General Gerardo Machado, who ran Cuba with an iron hand for nearly a decade beginning in 1925. Calling themselves the *ABC it is unclear what the initials stood for (This stood for the level of its cell structure A being the highest level B, the next etc El Jigue)), these young Cubans invented many of the techniques of modern urban terrorism (coordinated bombing, for example which Cuban advisers have passed on in scores of training camps around the world to thousands of Argentinians Brazilians, Chileans, Colombians, Ecuadorans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Uruguayans, to name a few in Latin America, and to Basques, Namibians, Palestinians West Germans, and Yemenis. ”
Post-Cold War Cuba
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic blow. It led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the United States in 1994, but was eventually slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a year by the U.S.-Cuban accords. It again increased in 2004-06 although at a far slower rate than before.
Castro’s "popularity," which opponents contend is difficult to asses in a tightly controlled society such as Cuba, was severely tested by the aftermath of the Soviet collapse (a time known in Cuba as the
Special Period). The loss of the nearly five billion USD that the Soviet government provided the Cuban government in aid in the form of a guaranteed export market for Cuban sugar and cheap oil had a significant impact on the country's economy.
While the collapse of the Soviet Union caused, as in all Communist countries, a crisis in confidence for those who believed that the Soviet Union was successfully “building socialism” and providing a model that other countries should follow, these events, nor the tightening of the embargo by the US government, were insufficient to persuade Cuba's Communists to surrender their grip on power. Notwithstanding the communist's insistance on clinging onto power, there were numerous popular uprisings in the early 1990s, the most notable of which was the "Maleconazo" of 1994.
By the later 1990s the situation in the country had stabilized. By then Cuba had more or less normal economic relations with most Latin American countries and had improved relations with the
European Union, which began providing aid and loans to the island. Communist China also emerged as a new source of aid and support, even though Cuba had sided with the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Cuba also found new allies in President of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela and
{{Infobox Country or territory|native_name = |conventional_long_name = Republic of Cuba|common_name = Cuba|image_flag = Flag of Cuba.svg|image_coat = Cuba coa.gif|image_map = LocationCuba.svg|national_motto =
Patria y Libertad(
Spanish language)"Patriotism and Liberty" a|national_anthem =
La Bayamesa("The Bayamo Song")]|demonym = Cuban|capital =
Havana|government_type = [Socialist republicb]|leader_name1 = Fidel Castro|leader_name2 = [Raúl Castro-->|percent_water = negligible|population_estimate = 11,382,820|population_estimate_year = 2006|population_estimate_rank = 73rd|population_census = 11,177,743|population_census_year = 2002|population_density_km2 = 102|population_density_sq_mi = 264 |sovereignty_note = from Spain|established_date1 = [October 10 1868 [1902 [1959 ([ISO 4217)Cuban convertible peso d|currency_code = CUC|time_zone = North American Eastern Standard Time Zone|utc_offset = -5|time_zone_DST = (Starts
March 11; ends
November 4)]|CCTLD = CU|calling_code = 53|footnotes = a As shown on the obverse of the 1992 coin (Note that the Spanish word "Patria" is translated into English as either "Cradle" or "Place of Birth" or as "Fatherland.")b states that "
Cuba is an independent and sovereign socialist state 1... the name of the Cuban state is Republic of Cuba 2." The usage "socialist republic" to describe the style of government of Cuba is nearly uniform, though forms of government have no universally agreed typology. For example, Atlapedia describes it as "Unitary Socialist Republic"; Encyclopedia Britannica omits the word "unitary," as do most sources.c At the start of the
Ten Years' War.d From 1993 to 2004, the
United States dollar was used in addition to the peso until the dollar was replaced by the convertible peso.-->
Cuba, officially the
Republic of Cuba (Spanish language:
or
ðe ˈkuβa), consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous of the
Greater Antilles), the
Isle of Youth and several adjacent small islands. Winston Churchill considered Cuba to be a "...large, rich, beautiful island..." Churchill, Winston S. 1951 The Second World War, Volume 5: Closing the Ring. Houghton Miffin Edition. Bantam Books, New York No ISBN or other number provided. P. 606 “Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary 5. Feb (19)44. Your minute about raising certain legations to the status of embassy. I must say that Cuba has as good a claim as some other places –“la perla de Las Antillas.” Great offense will be given if all the others have it and this large, rich, beautiful island, the home of the cigar, is denied. Surely Cuba has much more claim than Venezuela. You will make a bitter enemy if you leave them out, and after a bit you will be forced to give them what you have given to the others.” Cuba is located in the northern
Caribbean at the confluence of the
Caribbean Sea, the
Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern United States and the Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and
Haiti and east of Mexico. The Cayman Islands and
Jamaica are to the south.
Cuba is the most populous Caribbean country. Its Cubans,
Culture of Cuba and customs draw from several sources including the aboriginal Taíno and Ciboney peoples, the period of
Spanish Empire, the introduction of Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies, and its proximity to the United States. The island has a
tropical climate that is moderated by the surrounding waters; however, the warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that the island of Cuba sits across the access to the Gulf of Mexico make Cuba prone to frequent Tropical cyclone.
It is one of the few remaining Communist countries in the world.
History
The recorded history of Cuba began on 17 October
1492, when
Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his Christopher Columbus#First voyage of discovery and claimed it for
Spain.Gott, Richard :
Cuba A New History. Yale University Press. p13 Columbus named the island
Isla Juana in reference to Juan, Prince of Asturias, the heir apparent. The island had been inhabited by
Native Americans peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney whose ancestors had come from
South America and possibly North and Central America in a complex series of migrations at least several centuries before. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney far more commonly written Siboney google searches yield about 518,000 for siboney. 54,700 for Ciboney
neo-Taino nations) were both farmers and hunter-gatherers; some have suggested that copper trade was significant and mainland artifacts http://museum.archanth.cam.ac.uk/IACA.WWW/amulet.htm have been found in proximal Taino cultures.
The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by
Sebastián de Ocampo in 1511, and in that year the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at
Baracoa. Other towns, including Havana (founded in 1515), soon followed. The Spanish, as they did throughout the Americas, oppressed and enslaved the approximately 100,000 indigenous people that resisted conversion to Christianity on the island. Within a century they had all but disappeared as a distinct nation as a result of the combined effects of
European introduced disease, forced labor and other mistreatment, though aspects of the region's
Indigenous peoples heritage has survived in part via the rise of a significant Mestizo population. An Interview On the Taino DNA testing in Puerto Rico. Profiles, Vol. 1, no. 2, 15 August 2000
° Cuban Site Casts Light on an Extinct People Anthony DePalma, The New York Times, 5 July 1998
°
Richard Gott Cuba: A new history, Yale University Press: 2004, p.7 "A third element in Cuba's ethnic mix, the trace of indigenous blood that runs through most of its people except for the most recent immigrants, has usually been ignored or denied. It is vigorously downplayed by most historians in Havana today, although those in Santiago are more freethinking. The official line, doggedly maintained over the years, in spite of increasing evidence to the contrary, is that the Tainos were destroyed during the early years of conquest. This is clearly not so." DNA Genealogy, E. Elizondo "The mt-DNA haplogroup results were a complete surprise. The test results indicated that I descended on my maternal line from Siberian Eskimos who migrated across the Aleutian chain and Alaska and down to North and South America*. This contrasted with my genealogy research which showed that my oldest known female ancestor, Maria Obregon Ceballos, was born in the city of Trinidad, one of the oldest towns in Cuba -founded in 1514, presumably of Spanish ancestry." http://www.cubagenweb.org/dna.htm With destruction of aboriginal society, the settlers began to exploit African slaves, with more resistance to the diseases from the old world, and who soon made up a significant proportion of the inhabitants.
Colonial Cuba
Cuba was a Spain possession for 388 years, ruled by a governor in Havana, with an economy based on plantation agriculture, the export of
sugar,
coffee and tobacco to
Europe and later to North America, and
mining. It was seized by the
United Kingdom in 1762, but restored to Spain the following year. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving
Haiti when that territory was ceded to France. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, a small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, supported by a population of plebian
Criollo (people), mixed-race (Mestizo) small farmers, laborers and African-descended slaves.
In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain’s empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence. This was partly because the prosperity of the Cuban settlers depended on their export trade to Europe, partly through fears of a
slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the
United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial rule.
An additional factor was the continuous migration of Spaniards to Cuba from all social strata, a demographical trend that had ceased to exist in other Spanish possessions decades before and which contributed to the slow development of a Cuban national identity. Pirates were also still a problem and defense against them depended heavily on the presence of Spanish troops. The Times Thursday, September 01, 1825 London, Middlesex NASSAU (NEW PROVIDENCE), “June 4,-By an arrival from the coast of Cuba, we learn that His Majesty's schooner Speedwell accompanied by several barges from other vessels of war, is engaged in securing a key near Cayo Romano (off North Coast of Cuba), where a number of pirates, had secreted themselves in the woods. Some mall craft, which the pirates had used in. their cruises, were captured by the barges; and with the assistance of some chasseurs which the Spanish Government at Principe had furnished for the purpose, it was expected the pirates would be hunted out of their lurking-places…
Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Throughout the 19th century, Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island’s annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S., and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848, a pro-annexationist rebellion was defeated and there were several attempts by annexationist forces to invade the island from
Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain. During the summer of 1848, President James Knox Polk quietly authorized his ambassador to Spain,
Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba and offer Spain up to $100 million, an astonishing sum of money at the time for one territory. Spain, however, refused to consider ceding one of its last possessions in the Americas. (Morro Castle (fortress), built in 1589 to guard the eastern entrance to Havana bay).However, trade in sugar and molasses was $18,000,000 in 1859 alone The North Carolina Standard; Wednesday. April 6, 1859. …facts are drawn from the official report on the " Commercial Relations of the United States with all Nations," prepared at the State Department and published by order of Congress, we imported from Cuba in 1838 as follows: Molasses, $3,051,1515; sugar, $15,555,409.
After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexationism, agitation for Cuban independence from Spain revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a wealthy lawyer landowner from Oriente province who freed his slaves, proclaimed a war and was named President of the Cuban Republic-in-arms. This resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the
Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish Army, allied with local supporters. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily or to even recognize the legitimacy of the Cuban government in arms, despite the fact that many European and Latin American nations had done so. In 1878, the
Peace of Zanjon ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba.
The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there was further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U.S. would step in and annex the island. In 1879-1880, Cuban patriot Calixto Garcia attempted to start another war, known in Cuban history as "la guerra chiquita" (the little war) but received little support. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, slavery was abolished in 1886, although the African-descended minority remained socially and economically oppressed, despite formal civic equality granted in 1893. During this period, the rural poverty in Spain provoked by the Spanish Revolution of 1868 and its aftermath led to an even greater Spanish emigration to Cuba.
During the 1890s, pro-independence agitation revived, fueled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain’s increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba. Few of the promises for economic reform made by the Spanish government in the Pact of Zanjon were kept. In April 1895, a new war was declared, led by the writer and poet José Martí who had organized the war over a ten year period while in exile in the U.S. and proclaimed Cuba an independent republic — Martí was killed at Dos Rios shortly after landing in Cuba with the eastern expeditionary force. His death immortalized him and he has become Cuba’s undisputed national hero.
The Spanish armed forces totaled about 200,000 troops against a much smaller rebel army which relied mostly on guerilla and sabotage tactics to fight battles, and the Spaniards retaliated with a campaign of suppression. General
Valeriano Weyler was appointed military governor of Cuba, and as a repressive measure he herded the rural population into what he called Valeriano Weyler#Cuba and the concentration camps, described by international observers as "fortified towns." These reconcentrados are often considered the prototype for the 20th century concentration camps.Anne Applebaum.
Gulag: A History of the German Concentration Camps. "the first modern concentration camps were set up not in Germany or Russia, but in colonial Cuba, in 1895. In that year, in an effort to put an end to a series of local insurgencies, imperial Spain began to prepare a policy of reconcentratión, intended to remove the Cuban peasants from their land and 'reconcentrate' them in camps, thereby depriving the insurgents of food, shelter and support. By 1900, the Spanish term reconcentratión had already been translated into English, and was used to describe a similar British project, initiated for similar reasons, during the Boer War in South Africa." Between 200,000 and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease during this period in the camps. These numbers were verified by both the Red Cross and U.S. Senator (and former Secretary of War) Redfield Proctor. U.S. and European protests against Spanish conduct on the island followed..
Military events of consequence include the break out to the western provinces "La Invasion", and the taking of the fort complexes at Tunas and Guisa.
In 1897, fearing U.S. intervention, Spain moved to a more conciliatory policy, promising home rule with an elected legislature. The rebels rejected this offer and the war for independence continued. Shortly afterwards, on
15 February 1898, the U.S. battleship USS Maine (ACR-1) was mysteriously blown up in Havana harbor, killing 266 men. Forces in the U.S. favoring intervention in Cuba seized on this incident to accuse Spain of blowing up the ship (although Spain had no motive for doing so and there was no evidence of Spanish culpability). Swept along on a wave of nationalist sentiment, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for interventionhttp://www.bartleby.com/43/45.html and President
William McKinley was quick to comply.
A Spanish view of Maine incident
The justification McKinley used to send
Maine uninvited to Havana was a violent demonstration supporters of the Spanish status-quo had on January 12,1898. McKinley claimed it was dangerous for the 8,000 American residents in the island.
Maine, was the largest Navy ship built in an American shipyard to date, arrived in Havana on January 25. People were suspicious because the most important officers were at a party on shore. There were 81 foreigners and 82 black seamen among the 25 officers and 318 enlisted killed.
An investigative commission arrived to Havana on January 21 aboard USS
Mangrove where
Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy Adolf Marix reported the ship had been sunk by a
mine placed underneath the ship by a diver named Pepe "Taco" Barquin.Report published in Document 207 of President MacKinley's Message to the55 Senate Appendix "F": Report on the Destruction of the USS Maine, 1898 available in New York Public Library. Marix reported Jose "Taco" Barquin had been offered $6,000 and was killed the day after. Another diver was killed by guards and another wounded and jailed on the night of the explosion. The one in jail (his arrest was recorded in Regla's official documents), Marix reported, was being poisoned by the authorities. According to a letter from Brigadier Freyre de Andrade, the chief planners were Garcia Corujedo ,Villasuso, Maribona and other Freemason businessmen, associated with gun runner
Maximo Gomez and New York politician Astor Chandler, a friend of Theodore Roosevelt.The result was the Spanish-American War, in which U.S. forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and quickly overcame the exhausted Spanish resistance. In August a peace treaty was signed under which Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba. Some advocates in the U.S. supported Cuban independence, while others argued for outright annexation. As a compromise, the McKinley administration placed Cuba under a 20-year U.S. treaty. The Cuban independence movement bitterly opposed this arrangement, but unlike the
Philippines, where events had followed a similar course, there was no outbreak of armed resistance.
Other authors find the matter far less definitive and assignment of guilt far less clear.Samuels, Peggy and Harold.
Remembering the Maine. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995).
Independence
Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President of the United States in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year treaty proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on 20 May 1902, with the independence leader
Tomás Estrada Palma becoming the country’s first president. Under the new Cuban constitution, however, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Cuba today does not celebrate May 20 as their date of independence, but instead October 10, as the first declaration of independence and the day Castro and his army entered
Havana, January 1, 1959, as "the triumph of the revolution".
Independent Cuba soon ran into difficulties as a result of factional disputes and corruption among the small educated elite and the failure of the government to deal with the deep social problems left behind by the Spanish. One notes however that Spain ruled Cuba from 1511 to 1898, and it took at least thirty years of dreadful war and uncertain peace to free Cuba from the Spanish. In 1906, following disputed elections to choose
Estrada Palma’s successor, an armed revolt broke out and the U.S. exercised its right of intervention. The country was placed under U.S. occupation and a U.S. governor, Charles Edward Magoon, took charge for three years. Magoon's governorship in Cuba was viewed in a negative light by many Cuban historians for years thereafter, believing that much political corruption was introduced during Magoon's years as governor. In 1908 self-government was restored when
José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. retained its supervision of Cuban affairs. Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, however, constitutional government was maintained until 1925, when
Gerardo Machado y Morales, having been elected President, suspended the constitution.
Machado was a Cuban nationalist and his regime had considerable local support despite its violent suppression of critics. However, it was during this period that
Soviet intrusion into Cuban affairs began with the arrival in Cuba of Fabio Grobart. During Machado's tenure, a nationalistic economic program was pursued with several major national development projects being undertaken(see
Infrastructure of Cuba).
Machado's hold on power was weakened following a decline in the demand for exported agricultural produce due to the
Great Depression, the attacks first by War of Independence Veterans, and later by covert terrorist organizations principally the ABC Dutcher, Rodney (NEA) 1933 Machado Fights Terrorists With Terror To Hold Iron-Handed Foes: of "ABC” Copy Gangster Methods to Rid Island of Despot Who Has Ruled Since-1924 Syracuse Herald Friday evening, April 28, 1933. Front Page “Terrorism has been met "with terrorism in this unique outbreak waged mostly by students and young Intellectuals who brand Machado as a tyrant. On one side is the "ABC," secret terrorist, organization that has copied the methods ol gangsters in the fine art of assassination. On the other side are Machado's strong-armed and equally, ruthless secret police. Murder has followed murder in a series of spectacular killings. The Law of Flight Typical were assassinations of Dr. Clemente Vasquez Bella, president of the Cuban Senate and political ally of Machedo, and Capt. Miguel Calvo former head of the secret police Both were slain on busy throughfares, in daylight, by men who dashed past in autos firing shot guns. Many members, or suspected members of the "ABC" have been slain by the secret police in equally ruthless manner. Often, those killings have been defended on the ground that the victims preferred death to capture, though the evidence. In many cases Is not convincing. One police official alone is accused of 40 official assassinations. Police have also defended killings on the ground that the ley de fuga (law of flight) recognized the right of an officer to shoot an escaping prisoner. But, according to witnesses, prisoners have been released told to flee and then shot down they ran. Bombing has been common. Incendiary fires have destroyed much property. Great numbers of political prisoners have been jailed. President Machado, whose life has been threatened many times, is heavily guarded by soldiers and machine gun crews in his palace. He rides to and from his country estate in a bullet-proof auto, under escort of soldiers armed with rifles and machine guns. NEXT: Cuba economic distress and America's vast stake on the Island
During a general strike in which the communist party took the side of Machado Argote-Freyre, Frank, 2006 Fulgencio Batista: Volume 1, From Revolutionary to Strongman. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey ISBN 978-0813537010 p. 50 and later explained by the communists themselves in: Massón Sena, Caridad 2004 (accessed 6-9-07) Dos visiones sobre el nacionalismo y las alianzas: Mella y Villena. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Cultura Cubana “Juan Marinello”. La Habana, Cuba. http://168.96.200.17/ar/libros/cuba/marin/nacion.rtf. “ Según explicara Fabio Grobart a posteriori: “ Esta miopía política se reflejó también en una errónea conclusión que los dirigentes del Partido sacaron, de la justa apreciación de que sustituir a Machado por un gobierno de la oposición burgués-terrateniente significaba dejar a Cuba en su estado de semicolonia y a las masas populares en la misma miseria y esclavitud y que únicamente un gobierno de trabajadores podía producir los cambios radicales que el país necesitaba /.../Dicha a conclusión fue profundamente falsa por ser mecánica, por no basarse en un análisis correcto del desarrollo dialéctico de la situación y, esencialmente, por no tener en cuenta que las masas revolucionarias, enardecidas por la victoria sobre Machado y orientadas en su acción por una justa política de su vanguardia marxista-leninista, sí podría asegurar los cambios profundos, es decir, la realización del programa agrario-antimperialista, por el cual abogaba y luchaba desde su fundación el Partido Comunista.(22)” Reference 22 is Fabio Grobart, 1985, p. 93, This author also refers in this regard to Leonel Soto, 1977, vol. II, p. 8 the Senior elements of the Cuban army forced Machado into exile and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, son of Cuba's founding father, as President. In September, 4th-5th 1933) however, a second coup (led by sergeants, most notably Fulgencio Batista, overthrew Céspedes leading to the formation of the first
Ramón Grau San Martín government. This government lasted just 100 days, but engineered radical socialistic changes in Cuban society and a rejection of the
Platt amendment.
In 1934, Batista and the army, who were the real center of power in Cuba, replaced Grau with
Carlos Mendieta y Montefur. In 1940, Batista decided to run for President himself. The leader of the constitutional liberals
Ramón Grau San Martín refused to support him, so he turned instead to the
Communist Party of Cuba, which had grown in size and influence during the 1930s.
With the support of the Communist-controlled labor unions, Batista was elected President and his administration carried out major social reforms and introduced a new progressive constitution. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. Batista's administration formally took Cuba into
World War II as a U.S. ally, declaring war on Japan on December 9, 1941, then on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941; Cuba, however, did not significantly participate militarily in World War II hostilities. At the end of his term in 1944, in accordance with the constitution, Batista stepped down and Ramón Grau was elected to succeed him. Grau initiated increased government spending on health, education and housing. Grau’s liberals were bitter enemies of the Communists and Batista opposed most of Grau’s program.
In 1948, Grau was succeeded by Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau's minister of labor and was particularly hated by the Communists. Prío was a less principled liberal than Grau and, under his administration, corruption increased notably. This was partly a result of the postwar revival of U.S. wealth and the consequent influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a safe haven for
mafia operations. However, the influence and power of the organized crime syndicates in Cuba is commonly exaggerated.Lack of political influence of the "Mafia" in Cuba is easily demonstrated. For instance: Schwartz, Rosalie 1997 Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NA; New Ed edition (February 1, 1999) ISBN-10 0803292651 ISBN-13 978-0803292659 P. 145 “One month after the March 1953 Saturday Evening Post hit the newsstands. Cuba’s military intelligence forces (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, or SIM) arrested a dozen North Americans suspected of running crooked games at the Tropicana, Sans Souci, and Jockey Club. The government deported eleven of the offenders and announced the problem solved.” p. 137 “Casino owners did not strew North American Garbage across a pristine Cuban landscape. Foreign gamblers introduced neither gangsterism nor vice to the island, nor did they necessarily corrupt righteous islanders. Cubans themselves scoffed at the idea that the mob could “march into Cuba and start giving orders like little Cesar, a reference to actor Edward G. Robinson’s celluloid character. “You just go ahead and send your toughest characters down here,” one Cuban challenged an American journalist. “I guarantee you that even a second-rate Cuban politician will run rings around him.” The mob was playing ball with seasoned veterans, not second stringers.” Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilizing the Cuban currency. The influx of North American money fueled a boom which did much to raise living standards and create a prosperous middle class in most urban areas, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.
From Batista to Castro
by the Directorio Revolucionario and the Organizacion Autentica in 1957
The 1952 election was a three-way race.
Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodoxos party led in all the polls, followed by Dr.
Aurelio Hevia of the Auténtico party, and running a distant third was Batista, who was seeking a return to office. Both front runners, Agramonte and Hevia in their own camps, had decided to name Col.
Ramon Barquin, then a diplomat in
Washington, DC to head the Cuban Armed Forces after the elections. Barquin was a top officer who commanded the respect of the professional army and had promised to eliminate corruption in the ranks. Batista feared that Barquin would oust him and his followers, and when it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning, he staged a coup on 10 March 1952 and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army as a “provisional president” for the next two years. Justo Carrillo told Barquin in Washington on March 1952 that the inner circles knew that Batista had aimed the coup at him; they immediately began to conspire to oust Batista and restore democracy and civilian government in what was later dubbed La Conspiracion de los Puros de 1956 (Agrupacion Montecristi). In 1954, under pressure from the U.S., Batista agreed to elections. The Partido Auténtico put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance. Fulgencio Batista could then claim to be an elected President.
Fidel Castro directed a failed assault on the Moncada Barracks, in Santiago de Cuba, and on the smaller Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Barracks and on the
Feast of Saint Ann July 26, 1953.de La Cova, Antonio Rafael 2007 The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution. University of South Carolina Press ISBN-10 1570036721 ISBN-13 978-1570036729.
In April 1956, Batista had given the orders for Barquin to become General and Chief of the Army. But it was too late. Even after Barquin was informed, he decided to move forward with the coup to rescue the morale of the Armed Forces and the Cuban people. On April 4, 1956, a coup by hundreds of career officers led by Col. Barquin (then Vice Chair of the
Inter-American Defense Board in Washington and Cuban Military Attaché of Sea, Air and Land to the US) was frustrated by Rios Morejon. The coup broke the backbone of the Cuban Armed Forces. The officers were sentenced to the maximum terms allowed by Cuban Martial Law. Barquin was sentenced to solitary confinement for 8 years. La Conspiración de los Puros resulted in the imprisonment of the top commanding brass of the Armed Forces and the closing of the military academies. Barquin was the founder of La Escuela Superior de Guerra (Cuba's War College) and past director of La Escuela de Cadetes (Cuba's Military Academy). Without Barquin's officers the army's ability to combat the revolutionary insurgents was severely curtailed.
On 2 December 1956 a party of 82 badly trained revolutionaries led by Castro, landed in a yacht named Granma (yacht) and tried to start an armed resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra. The yacht had come from
Mexico, where Castro had been exiled to, and where his army was strengthened with the help of Ernesto Che Guevara, who later became one of the most important people in the Cuban revolution and one of Castro's closest allies. Castro had gone to Mexico after serving only two years of a twenty year prison sentence for his part in a 1953 rebel attack on the Moncada Barracks in
Santiago de Cuba.. Castro received his pardon from Batista after being requested by the Archbishop of Santiago, Monseñor
Enrique Perez Serantes and Senator Rafael Diaz-Balart, at the time Fidel Castro's brother-in-law. After the landing, Batista launched a campaign of repression against the opposition, which only served to increase support for the insurgency. With Barquin's professional officers in La Prision Modelo de Isla de Pinos in the Gulf of Mexico, the Army lacked the leadership and will to fight the insurgents.
Through 1957 and 1958, opposition to Batista grew, especially among the upper and middle classes and the students, among the hierarchy of the
Catholic Church and in many rural areas. In response to Batista's plea to purchase better arms from the U.S. in order to root out the insurgents in the mountains, the United States government imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government on
March 14, 1958. By late 1958, the rebels had succeeded in breaking out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general insurrection, joined by hundreds of students and others fleeing Batista’s crackdown on dissent in the cities. When the rebels captured
Santa Clara, Cuba, east of Havana, Batista decided the struggle was futile and fled the country to exile in Portugal and later Spain. Batista named Gen.
Eulogio Cantillo Chief of the Army and gave him instructions not to release Barquin and his officers. Nevertheless, Barquin, who had the backing of the US, was rescued from Isla de Pinos in the early hours and taken to Campamento Ciudad Militar Columbia where he relieved Cantillo and assumed the post of Chief of Staff (serving as Chief of the Armed Forces and de facto president of Cuba for a short period of time) in an effort to establish order in the streets and the Armed Forces. He negotiated the symbolic change of command between
Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara, Raul and Fidel Castro, after the Supreme Court decided that the Revolution was the source of law and its representative should assume command. With less than 300 men Camilo assumed the post from Barquin who in Columbia alone commanded 12,000 professional soldiers. Castro’s rebel forces entered the capital on
January 8 1959. Shortly after Dr.
Manuel Leo Urrutia assumed power.
Cuba following revolution
Fidel Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba in February 1959, and has held his position as Head of State and
Head of Government in the country until temporarily handing it over to his brother, Raul Castro, for medical reasons in July 2006. During 1959, the new revolutionary government carried out measures such as the
expropriation of
private property, the nationalization of public utilities, and began a campaign to institute tighter controls on the private sector such as the closing down of the
gambling industry. The government also evicted many Americans, including
mobsters (who controlled many businesses ) from the island. Some of these measures were undertaken by Fidel Castro's government in the name of the program that he had outlined in the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra http://www.chibas.org/raul_chibas_manifiesto.php while in the Sierra Maestra. However, he failed to enact one element of his reform program, which was to call elections under the Electoral Code of 1943 within the first 18 months of his time in power and to restore all of the provisions of the Constitution of Cuba that had been suspended under Batista.
Castro flew to
Washington, DC in April 1959, but was not met by
President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, who decided to attend a golf tournament rather than meet with the Cuban leader.http://www.princeton.edu/plas/publications/Essays/castro.html Castro returned to Cuba after a series of meetings with
African-American leaders in
New York's
Harlem district, and after a lecture on "Cuba and the United States" delivered at the headquarters of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagsg022.php
Summary executions of suspected Batista collaborators and members of the opposition through the "paredones" that took place after
show trials, coupled with the seizure of privately-owned businesses and the rapid demise of the independent press, nominally attributed to the powerful pro-revolution printing labor unions, raised questions about the nature of the new government. Attitudes towards the Cuban revolution both in Cuba and in the United States were changing rapidly. The nationalization of private property and businesses to the tune of $25 billion U.S. dollars Lazo, Mario, American Policy Failures in Cuba--Dagger in the Heart! 1970 Twin Circle Publishing Co., New York, pp.198-200, 240) and, particularly, U.S.-owned companies (to an excess of 1960 value of US $1.0 billions Lazo, Mario, American Policy Failures in Cuba--Dagger in the Heart! 1970, Twin Circle Publishing Co., New York, pp.198-200, 240 Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution--Escape from a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Macon, Georgia, pp.105,182,248) aroused immediate hostility within the
Eisenhower administration.
Middle class and
Upper class Cubans began to leave their country in great numbers and formed a burgeoning expatriate community in
Miami that was opposed to the Castro government.
The United States government became increasingly hostile towards the Castro-led government of Cuba throughout 1959. Some contend that this, in turn, may have influenced Castro's movement away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and increase the power of hardline
Marxist figures in the government, notably Che Guevara. This theory is open to debate and has been attacked in various publications which have argued that Castro undertook the Revolution with the goal of turning Cuba towards socialism.
In October 1959, Castro openly declared himself to be friendly towards Communism, though he did not yet claim to be a Communist himself, while the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged. Many who had initially supported the revolution fled the country to join the growing exile community in Miami. In March 1960, the first aid agreements were signed with the
Soviet Union. In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. saw the establishment of a Soviet base of influence in the Americas as a threat and plans were approved to remove Castro from power (see The Cuban Project). In late 1960, a
United States embargo against Cuba. As Cuba was forced to find new markets to trade in, the embargo strengthened Cuba's ties with the
Eastern Bloc countries. At the same time, the
Kennedy administration authorized plans for an invasion of Cuba by
Florida-based exiles, taking advantage of anti-Castro uprisings which were repressed (see some details and references in War Against the Bandits and Bay of Pigs Invasion). The result was the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961. President
John F. Kennedy withdrew promised US Air Force for the invading force at the last minute and the populist anti-Castro uprising failed to materialize. Kennedy refused to provide direct US military intervention and the invasion force was routed. After this Castro declared Cuba a socialist republic, and himself a Marxist-Leninist, in May of 1961 and December of 1961 respectively.
Marxist-Leninist Cuba
', one of the many remaining U.S. cars in Cuba, imported prior to the
United States embargo against Cuba.One immediate strategic result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the decision to place Soviet medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Cuba. This precipitated the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, during which the Kennedy administration threatened the Soviet Union with
nuclear war unless the missiles were withdrawn. The idea to place missiles in Cuba was brought up either by Castro or
Khrushchev, but agreed by the USSR for the reason that the U.S. had their nuclear missiles placed in
Turkey and the
Middle East, thus directly threatening USSR security. With minutes to go until the Soviet ships carrying a further shipment of missiles reached a
US Navy blockade, the Soviets backed down, and made an agreement with Kennedy. All the missiles were to be withdrawn from Cuba, but at the same time the US was to move its missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East. Kennedy however couldn't lose face by doing this immediately, but made an assurance to withdraw the US missiles within a couple of months.
Another result was that Kennedy agreed not to invade Cuba in the future. In the aftermath of this, there was a resumption of contacts between the U.S. and Castro, resulting in the release of the anti-Castro fighters captured at the Bay of Pigs to the US in exchange for a package of aid. However in 1963 relations deteriorated again as Castro moved Cuba towards a fully-fledged Communist system modeled on the Soviet Union. Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution --- Escape From a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Inc., Macon, Georgia, pp. 163-228. The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba, and began Cuban Project. In the beginning, U.S. influence in
Latin America was strong enough to make the embargo very effective and Cuba was forced to divert virtually all its trade towards the Soviet Union and its allies. However, public declarations of support from Latin American governments for the USA's policies were harder to come by. The Mexican ambassador to the US told the Kennedy administration:
"If we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing."In 1965, Castro merged his revolutionary organizations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with
Blas Roca as Second Secretary; later to be succeeded by
Raúl Castro, who as Defense Minister and Fidel’s closest confidant became and has remained the second most powerful figure in the government. Raúl Castro’s position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch unsuccessful attempts at insurrectionary movements in Congo, and then Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967. Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, President of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, was a figurehead of little importance. Castro introduced a new constitution in 1976 under which he became President himself, while remaining chairman of the Council of Ministers.
During the 1970s, Castro moved onto the world stage as a leading spokesperson for Third World “anti-imperialist” governments. On a more concrete level, he provided invaluable military assistance to pro-Soviet forces in Angola,
Ethiopia,
Yemen and other African and Middle Eastern trouble spots. Cuban forces were decisive in helping the
MPLA forces win the Angolan Civil War in 1975. Although the bills for these expeditionary forces were paid by the Soviets, they placed a considerable strain on Cuba’s economy and manpower resources. Cuba was also hampered by its continuing dependency on sugar exports. The Soviets were forced to provide further economic assistance by buying the entire Cuban sugar crop, even though the Soviet Union grew enough sugar beet to meet its own needs. In exchange the Soviets had to supply Cuba with all its fuel, since it could not import
oil from any other source.
Cuba’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union was deepened by Castro’s determination to build his vision of a socialist society in Cuba. This entailed the provision of state subsidized
health care and education for the entire population, a first for the
the Americas. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviets were prepared to subsidise all this in exchange for the strategic asset of an ally under the nose of the United States and the undoubted propaganda value of Castro’s considerable prestige in the developing world.
and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau join together in song, January 1976.By the 1970s, the ability of the U.S. to keep Cuba isolated was declining. Cuba had been expelled from the
Organization of American States in 1962 and the OAS had cooperated with the U.S. trade boycott for the next decade, but, in 1975, the OAS lifted all sanctions against Cuba and both Mexico and
Canada broke ranks with the U.S. by developing closer relations with Cuba. Both countries said that they hoped to foster liberalization in Cuba by allowing trade, cultural and diplomatic contacts to resume — in this they were disappointed, since there was no appreciable easing of repression against domestic opposition. Castro did stop openly supporting insurrectionary movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries.
The
Cuban-American in the U.S. grew in size, wealth and power and politicized elements effectively opposed liberalization of U.S. policy towards Cuba. However, the efforts of the exiles to foment an anti-Castro movement inside Cuba, let alone a revolution there, met limited success. On Sunday,
April 6,
1980, 7,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. One of the people who entered the embassy at this time documented his experiences in "Days of the Embassy" (published June 8, 2007). On Monday,
April 7, the Cuban government granted permission for the emigration of Cubans seeking refuge in the Peruvian embassy.{{cite web] 500 Cuban citizens left the Peruvian Embassy for Costa Rica. On April 21 many of those Cubans started arriving in Miami via private boats and were halted by the US State Department on
April 23. The boat lift continued, however, since Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel and this emigration became known as the
Mariel boatlift. In all, over 125,000 Cubans emigrated to the United States before the flow of vessels ended on June 15.{{cite web]
Cuban Military Involvement Overseas
Americas
The Cuban Government's military involvement in other countries of the America has been extensive. The most well known of these were the failed attempts by
Ernesto Guevara in Bolivia and the support for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua
Africa and Asia Minor
The Cuban Government's military involvement in Africa has also been extensive, ranging from
Algeria in the north west and the adjacent Asia minor country of
Yemen to the North East Ramazani, Rouhollah K. 1975 The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Vol. 3 Sijthoff & Noordhoof, Holland ISBN 9028600698 Mentions Cuban intervention in several different sections e.g. p. 75 “Just as the Soviet Union has sought the destruction of the Omani regime by proxy of South Yemini and Cuban support for the insurgents, the United States…” p. 115 “The Soviet Union indirectly intervened in the civil war in Oman by aiding the Dhofari rebels through Cuban and South Yemen.” to Angola and Namibia in the south. Interesting insights into the history of international intrigue in Cuba, dating to the Gerardo Machado regime, when Stalinist Pole Fabio Grobart first entered the Island, are given by Roger Fontaine Fontaine, Roger 1988 [http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/bg655.cfm?renderforprint=1 “Third, the U.S. should consider ending its low-level diplomatic ties with Cuba THE EARLY YEARS OF CUBAN TERRORISM Cuban history is replete with examples of terrorism, most notably in the early 1930s when groups of young Cubans struggled against General Gerardo Machado, who ran Cuba with an iron hand for nearly a decade beginning in 1925. Calling themselves the *ABC it is unclear what the initials stood for (This stood for the level of its cell structure A being the highest level B, the next etc El Jigue)), these young Cubans invented many of the techniques of modern urban terrorism (coordinated bombing, for example which Cuban advisers have passed on in scores of training camps around the world to thousands of Argentinians Brazilians, Chileans, Colombians, Ecuadorans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Uruguayans, to name a few in Latin America, and to Basques, Namibians, Palestinians West Germans, and Yemenis. ”
Post-Cold War Cuba
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic blow. It led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the United States in 1994, but was eventually slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a year by the U.S.-Cuban accords. It again increased in 2004-06 although at a far slower rate than before.
Castro’s "popularity," which opponents contend is difficult to asses in a tightly controlled society such as Cuba, was severely tested by the aftermath of the Soviet collapse (a time known in Cuba as the
Special Period). The loss of the nearly five billion USD that the Soviet government provided the Cuban government in aid in the form of a guaranteed export market for Cuban sugar and cheap oil had a significant impact on the country's economy.
While the collapse of the Soviet Union caused, as in all Communist countries, a crisis in confidence for those who believed that the Soviet Union was successfully “building socialism” and providing a model that other countries should follow, these events, nor the tightening of the embargo by the US government, were insufficient to persuade Cuba's Communists to surrender their grip on power. Notwithstanding the communist's insistance on clinging onto power, there were numerous popular uprisings in the early 1990s, the most notable of which was the "Maleconazo" of 1994.
By the later 1990s the situation in the country had stabilized. By then Cuba had more or less normal economic relations with most Latin American countries and had improved relations with the European Union, which began providing aid and loans to the island. Communist China also emerged as a new source of aid and support, even though Cuba had sided with the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Cuba also found new allies in President of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and
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BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Country profiles | Country profile: Cuba
Key facts, figures and dates ... Cuba has survived more than 40 years of US sanctions intended to topple the government of Fidel Castro.
BBC NEWS | Americas | Country profiles | Country profile: Cuba
Key facts, figures and dates ... Cuba has survived more than 40 years of US sanctions intended to topple the government of Fidel Castro.
