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History of the Cuban Revolution

CR occurred in 1959.
Prior, there were concerted attempts of Cuba to wrestle control over
their country from the Spanish.
Cuba, a prime example of Spanish imperialism.
The last Spanish stronghold and the source of Spanish wealth.
General dissatisfaction caused various forms of opposition.
1. Those who wanted internal self-government (autonomists)
2. Those who wanted independence (independentists)
3. Those who who supported annexation to the US (annexationists)
The first attempt of autonomy through revolution occurred on 10
October 1868 with the outbreak of the Ten Years War, led by sugar mill
owner Carlos Manuel de Cespedes.
This was the beginning of the demand for independence from external
control through revolutionary means, but Spain won and were able to
reestablish control and the Pacte de Zanjon was signed in which Spain
promised reform.
Increasing dissatisfaction with Spanish rule (resentment) grew as the
economic prosperity of Cuba increased, particularly after the Cuban
sugar rev in the late 18thc to early 19th c.
Another development, increasing involvement of a newly independent
USA in the affairs of Cuba in the early period.
As Spain proved increasingly unable to provide the necessary
developmental supports, the USA became a surrogate mother country.
Cuba's revolution has its origins in the struggle against Spanish
colonialism, which intensified in the second half of the 19th century. An
uprising in 1895 sealed the fate of Spanish colonialism, but victory was
snatched from the people by a US expeditionary force in 1898 once
they won the Spanish-American War 1898 and the Treat of Paris was
signed.

Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti, who had travelled in the USA, wrote
of the occupiers: 'I have lived inside the monster and I know its
entrails...Shall we bring the country dear to our hearts, virgin and
fruitful, to this frenzied pack of rich against poor,...white against
black.... Shall we deliver it into this oven of wrath, into these sharp-
toothed jaws, into this smoking crater?'
The English poet Rudyard Kipling celebrated the event in a poem
inviting the USA to 'Take up the white man's burden'. But Mark Twain
wrote of the US imperialist expedition that the stripes of the US flag
should be painted over in black and the stars replaced by a skull and
crossbones.
Cuba became an economic colony of the USA, with US troops
returning to suppress revolts. USA became Cuba major trading partner,
purchasing most of Cubas sugar and investing in the Cuban sugar
industry.
By 1920, US investors owned two thirds of the arable land. The Mafia
moved into Havana's gambling and tourist business in the 1930s. After
the Second World War, Cuba became a transshipment stage for 'French
Connection' heroin into the USA, and a degenerate playground, brothel
and casino for US imperialism. Spain became increasingly obsolete;
since wealth was no longer being transferred to their treasuries.
Historians described Cuba after 1902 as having de jure independence
but being transformed de facto into an American protectorate.

The Attack on the Moncada Barracks

On 26 July 1953, 160 young militants attacked the Moncada barracks in


Santiago. Half of them died, most after torture. Many went to prison. Fidel
Castro's brother Raul explained the event: 'It was not a putsch designed to
score an easy victory without the masses. It was a surprise action to disarm
the enemy and arm the people, with the aim of beginning armed
revolutionary action% it marked the start of an action to transform Cuba's
political, economic and social system and put an end to the foreign
oppression, poverty, unemployment, ill health and ignorance that weighed
upon our country and our people.'
Fidel Castro was among those captured and imprisoned. In his defence
speech, immortalised as 'History will absolve me', Castro identified three
social forces that would determined his revolutionary strategy and alliances.
'The big landowners, reactionary clergy and transnational corporations
represented by Batista.'
'The national bourgeoisie, capitalists in contradiction with imperialism, but
among whom only the most progressive would support a revolution.'
The masses, 'the 600,000 Cubans without work%. The 500,000 farm
labourers who live in miserable shacks,% the 100,000 small farmers who live
and die working land that is not theirs,% the 30,000 teachers and professors,
% so badly treated and paid; the 20,000 small businessmen weighed down
by debts; the 10,000 young professional people who find themselves at a
dead end% These are the people, the ones who know misfortune, and are
therefore capable of fighting with limitless courage.'
Following protests and in an attempt to court legitimacy, Batista released
Castro and the other survivors of Moncada in May 1955. Castro left for
Mexico amid rising repression and there met the Argentinian doctor Che
Guevara.

The Revolution begins

On 25 November 1956, the tiny yacht Granma set sail for Cuba. Castro
said, 'We will be free, or we will be martyrs.' 82 waded ashore to do battle
with Batista's thousands of US-equipped troops. They were immediately
strafed by Batista's planes. Tramping through swamps, sucking sugar cane
for moisture and nutrition, they were betrayed by their guide and ambushed.
12 partisans regrouped and began guerrilla warfare in the mountains of the
Sierra Maestra. On 21 August 1958, Castro ordered Che and Camilo
Cienfuegos to lead two columns down from the Sierra Maestra.
Batista fled Havana at 2am on 1 January 1959. A military junta replaced
him. Camilo and Che continued to lead their guerrilla columns into Havana.
Workers and peasants all over Cuba responded to Castro's call for a general
strike. The Revolution triumphed.
20,000 people had been killed in the liberation war. As he entered Havana
on 8 January, 32-year-old Castro reportedly ordered 50,000 rifles and
machine guns to be imported to defend the Revolution.
At the time of the Revolution, the largely rural population had an average
annual income per person of $91.25 - an eight of that of Mississippi, the
poorest state in the USA. Only 11% of Cuba drank milk, 4% ate meat, 2-3%
had running water, and 9.1% had electricity. 36% had intestinal parasites,
14% had tuberculosis, and 43% were illiterate.
On 2 January 1959, the government announced that 50-60% of casino
profits would be directed to welfare programmes. The first of a series of land
reforms was enacted on 17 May. Large estates were expropriated and turned
into state farms. The US United Fruit Company was dispossessed without
compensation. Land was turned over to small farmers, sugar cane farms
were made into cooperatives.
The Cuban government offered to discuss compensation for US-owned
farms and mineral properties. The US Secretary of State declined the offer.

Defence of the Revolution

During 1959, the CIA began monitoring the telephone conversations of


Cuban leaders. Subversive radio stations transmitted to Cuba from Miami,
the Bahamas and Central America.
At the end of the year, the CIA began to land saboteurs in Cuba.
On 6 July, the US sugar quota from Cuba was cut off. Castro nationalised
US-owned sugar mills.
In July, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended the President authorise a
full invasion.
As the invasion force approached on 16 April, Fidel Castro announced the
socialist character of the Revolution. At 2am on 17 April a force of 1,500
Cuban counterrevolutionaries landed at the Bay of Pigs. Castro personally
directed the counterattack, using Soviet-supplied weapons, while the workers
and peasants of the Committes for the Defence of the Revolution rounded up
thousands of counterrevolutionary sympathisers in the cities.
The invasion force was destroyed in less than 72 hours. US imperialism was
humiliated.
The gains of the national democratic revolution had been preserved only
by taking it forward to the socialist revolution. Later that year, Castro
explained: 'The anti-imperialist, socialist revolution could only be one single
revolution, because there is only one revolution. That is the great dialectic
truth of humanity: imperialism, and, standing against it, socialism.' He
thumped the table in front of him and shouted, 'I am a Marxist-Leninist and I
shall be a Marxist-Leninist until the last days of my life.'
The US imperialists have used every means at their disposal short of all-out
war to strangle the Revolution: economic sabotage, bacteriological warfare,
the economic blockade (which has cost Cuba an estimated 40bn) and
repeated attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. In the face of this relentless
pressure, still the Cuban people resist to defend the dignity of life socialism
has achieved.

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