Fidel Castro and the Revolution

In July,1953, Fidel Castro, a young dissident who had been active in student politics, led an attack on the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Most of the attackers were killed, but Castro was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was released in May, 1955, as one of the political prisoners freed by a general amnesty declared by Batista.

Castro went into exile in Mexico, where he organized other Cubans—their group was called the 26th of July Movement after the date of the attack—and planned revolution. The group established contacts with the opposition in Cuba. The Argentinean Ernesto "Che" Guevara joined the movement, and for the next three years the group trained for guerrilla warfare.

In December 1956, fewer than 60 revolutionaries landed in Oriente Province from the yacht Granma. This attempt at revolution failed, and Castro, Guevara, and the surviving revolutionaries fled to the Sierra Maestre Mountains. There they continued their guerrilla struggle, organizing support among the population and publicizing their cause abroad.

While Castro was becoming a folk hero, the Batista regime was rapidly losing support. Urban terrorism increased, the middle class became alienated, and the United States cooled in its support of Batista.

The revolution culminated in an attack from the Sierra Maestra in the last days of December, 1988. The Cuban army disintegrated, and on New Year's Day Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic. A week later, on January 8, 1959, Guevara entered Havana.

The Revolutionary Government, 1959-63

The first few years of Cuba's revolutionary government saw the dissolution of the political structures of the old republic, without a firm plan or alternative to replace them except a resolve to end corruption in government, to promote Cuban nationalism, and to meet the needs of the working classes. All power was in the hands of the leaders of the revolution, specifically Fidel Castro, his brother Raul Castro, and Che Guevara. The old institutions were disbanded, and much of the land and material wealth of the country was redistributed. These measures made a strong statement that the revolutionary government had the common people's interests at heart, but they antagonized much of the middle and upper classes.

An early goal of the revolutionary government was to lessen dependence on the sugar crop. The leaders thought that industrial development was the answer, and made plans to expand industry throughout the country. As part of that planning, the First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, Anastas Mikoyan, visited Cuba in February, 1960, and signed an agreement in which the Soviet Union would provide a massive amount of industrial equipment and technical assistance, and would in turn buy a significant amount of sugar between then and 1964.

In 1960 and 1961, the government nationalized foreign enterprises, offering long term bonds in return. Among the nationalized properties belonging to Americans were 36 large sugar mills, the national phone system, the national electrical system, all oil refineries, and all U.S.-owned banks. The United States retaliated with a trade embargo which is still in effect, and withdrew all aid and technical assistance. This severing of economic ties between Cuba and its largest partner would have been catastrophic to Cuba if the Soviet Union had not been there to absorb much of the sugar crop and to provide imports.

In April, 1961, Castro announced that the revolution was socialist. He subsequently began to shape many of the revolutionary institutions after the Soviet model. In 1961-62, a massive education and literacy campaign was undertaken, reminiscent of such campaigns in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Many resources were poured into the health system, and other social improvements were undertaken.

The American response to the ties developing between Cuba and the Soviet Union was, after Mikoyan's visit to Cuba in February, 1960, a decision to recruit, train and supply a Cuban-American military force. In January, 1961, diplomatic relations were severed. Soon after his inauguration, President Kennedy approved a previously conceived plan to invade Cuba using the Cuban-American military force (but no non-Cuban Americans), and on April 17, that force landed at the Bay of Pigs. Castro's army crushed the invasion in two days and took the surviving Cuban-Americans prisoner. He later ransomed those prisoners for $62 million in needed goods and medical supplies, and the Cuban-Americans were back in the United States in time for Christmas. Despite the disaster, Kennedy got credit at the time for taking a strong stand against Communism.

The next crisis in U.S.-Cuban relations came a year and a half later. The USSR had persuaded Castro to allow the Soviets to install nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. On learning that missiles and supporting troops were proceeding toward Cuba, the United States announced a naval quarantine of the area until all the missiles were removed. For six days, President Kennedy and Premier Krushchev were nose to nose on the issue, but then Krushchev backed downor, as Secretary of State Dean Rusk later put it in his account of the crisis, "Krushchev blinked." One of the upshots of the confrontation was a commitment on the American side not to invade Cuba as long as there was no buildup of Soviet nuclear arms. Another result of the confrontation was a noticeable souring of Cuban-Soviet relations and the strengthening of the relationship between Cuba and communist China.

Besides the U.S. reaction, the response of other countries in Latin America to the Cuban revolutionary government and its Soviet links was not favorable, largely because Cuba insisted on "exporting the revolution" by providing support to dissident groups. In January, 1962, the Organization of American States voted to exclude Cuba after Venezuela had provided evidence of Cuban support for Venezuelan insurgents. There were other incidents, and ultimately all the OAS states except Mexico severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. (There is still animosity toward Mexico among the Cuban-American population as a result of Mexico's action.)

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