Cuban Revolution

The World of SWeeT GoaTS & BlueBerry SeñoriTaS The Cuban Revolution

by Rachel Ropella

a grouP oF Fidel Castro's July 26 moVement reBels mounted on Horses and BrandisHing CuBan Flags

From 1953 to 1959, the Cuban Revolution was a political and military movement to overthrow the Cuban government led by Fulgencio Batista. Batista, a former military officer, had been elected President of Cuba and served from 1940 to 1944. Prior to being president, he had controlled the nation behind the scenes as the self-appointed chief of the military. By using the threat of military action, Batista was able to force any president of Cuba that he disliked to resign, and he would then replace them with his preferred candidate. When Batista's handpicked successor lost to Dr. Ramón Grau San Martin in the 1944 election, Batista fled the country and worked to disenfranchise the incoming Grau administration. In 1952, Batista ran again for the Cuban presidency. When it became clear that he was not going to win, he staged a coup with military backing and seized power three months prior to the election.

At the time, America backed Batista’s coup and profited, but soon Cubans and politicians of other countries became wary. Senator John F. Kennedy remarked on how the US “publicly praised Batista—hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend—at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.” It was in this environment that an international spotlight was thrown onto Cuba and the seeds of the revolution were sown.

Historians cite July 26, 1953, as the start of the Cuban Revolution. A young Fidel Castro led an attack on the Santiago de Cuba army barracks in an attempt to overthrow Batista. Castro, who was 27 years old at the time, had been a rising candidate for Congress in the 1952 election that Batista had halted. The attack was meant to be a rally to the people to reject the current government, with Castro wanting a new government to instate open elections and progressive social programs to help the impoverished. However, during the attack on the barracks, Castro and his core group were captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison. During his public trial, Castro denounced the government’s corruption, achieving national recognition and gaining a reputation as a hero among lower-class Cubans.

In May of 1955, the government released many political prisoners after facing international pressures, including Castro, who fled to Mexico and began to organize the revolutionary organization called the 26th of July Movement, named after the inciting Santiago de Cuba attack. Other key revolutionaries affiliated with Castro included Che Guevara and Camilo

The World of SWeeT GoaTS & BlueBerry SeñoriTaS Cienfuegos, who worked together to strategize while in Mexico before they all returned to Cuba the next year.

The 26th of July Movement and other rebel groups gained power and momentum through urban and rural guerrilla warfare. By the end of 1958, Batista’s larger army was scattered in their attempts to stop the revolutionists. After Cienfuegos and Guevara’s small armies were able to capture and “liberate” small towns and villages, they met with Castro and laid siege to the city of Santa Clara from December 28–30 of 1958. After the 26th of July Movement captured valuable military weapons and forced the remaining government to hand leadership over to them, Batista fled the country. On January 1, 1959 the Cuban Revolution had ended with Castro’s the 26th of July Movement taking over the government in Havana.

CienFuegos and Castro, entering HaVana in January 1959 While Castro had called for free general elections under the 26th of July Movement, it was clear once he was in power that elections would be postponed indefinitely and that Castro was to have complete authority. Under Castro, Cuba became the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, backed by the USSR. Furthermore, it became a one-party state where any dissenters were jailed and the free press was banned. After these changes in 1959 and throughout the ’60s, an exile began as Cuban migrants fled to America (especially to southern Florida) to find a better life. Under thenPresident Kennedy, the United States imposed a trade embargo with Cuba in 1962 which deeply impacted the economic health of Cuba. The US also established the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, granting lawful permanent residency to any Cuban citizen who had settled in the United States for at least a year prior.

For many, the Cuban Revolution holds a complicated legacy. Castro and the 26th of July Movement became deeply inspirational to revolutionaries throughout Latin America, causing young people to think critically and rise up against corrupt governments. However, Cuba became an area of international focus during the Cold War as tension grew between America and the USSR, leading to strained historical moments such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which ballistic missiles were deployed to the island by the USSR and almost led to a nuclear war. Well into the first decade of the 21st century, Cuba and the United States have maintained a tense relationship that is slowly mending through cultural exchanges and a loosened trade embargo.

However the Cuban Americans who left as exiles during the waves of migration from the ’60s to the ’80s still share deep pride for their Cuban heritage and remain passionately, politically engaged with both countries. “An identity as exiles has colored all aspects of the life of Cubans in the United States,” observed Guillermo Grenier, a Cuban professor of sociology at Florida International University. “It has shaped the social life of the Cuban American community and reinforced a sense of exceptionalism…and it has determined the nature of their participation in the political life of the new country.”