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Background:
On 20 May 1902, Cuba became an independant republic, but continual US interference
gave Cuba a series of weak, corrupt and US dependant governments. The US intervened
militarily in Cuba in 1906, 1912 and 1917. By
the 1920s, US companies owned two-thirds of Cuba's farmland and most of it's mines.
The sugar industry was
booming and with US prohibition (1919-33), the Mafioso
moved in -taking over the casinos, booze, drug running and prostitution. Havana
became a fashionable place where America's rich rubbed shoulders with US mobsters. Towards
the end of the 1920s, Cuba is under it's first real brutal dictator, Geraldo Machado
y Morales, who continued and increased the worst excesses of his predecessors.
By August 1933 Machado was finally toppled and escaped into exile, the next month
an army sergeant named Fulgencio Batista stepped into the power vacuum becoming
army chief of staff. Batista
ruled Cuba through a succession of puppet presidents until 1940 when he is elected
to the post. He saw that he would not get another term, so withdrew at the end
of his term and left Cuba.
The average Cuban now worked and lived like
a peasant, with none of the benefits
trickling down. As the gap between the rich and the poor grew wider, the poor
became impatient, but few were prepared to change. Batista
returned to Cuba in 1952 and seized power.
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After Batista's second
coup of 1952, his corrupt regime soon provoked violent opposition, mostly in the
cities. A revolutionary group was formed in Havana, that included Abel Santamaria
(later tortured and murdered by Batista's thugs), his sister Haydée Santamaria,
Melba Hernández, Fidel Castro and others.
On 26 July 1953 Castro
led 119 rebels in a failed attack on the stategically important army barracks
in Santiago de Cuba (1). Most of the rebels were
caught, 55 being tortured and executed. Castro and a few others escaped into the
nearby mountains. Castro was later caught and put on trial. As a lawyer by profession
he defended himself, -and copped a 15 year jail term on Isla de Pinos (Isla de
la Juventud) (2).
In February 1955 Batista won the Cuban presidency in rigged elections, and to
dampen the outcry, freed some political prisoners. Castro goes to Mexico, and
leaves Frank País in charge of organising the underground
resistance of the 26th of July Movement (M26-7). In December of the same year,
students at Havana University form the Directorio Revolucionario led by José
Antonio Echeverría.
On 2 December 1956, Castro
and 81 others land from Mexico at Playa las Coloradas (3)
on the southwestern tip of Cuba. After three days the group was routed by Batista's
army at Alegria de Pío (4).
Most were captured -although Castro, his brother Raúl, Guevara, Cienfuegos
and Almeida and six others escape into the Sierra Maestra (5),
where the M26-7 managed to send them supplies from Manzanillo.
On 17
January 1957, the guerrillas scored their first success by sacking an army outpost
on the south coast, and started gaining followers in both Cuba and abroad.
On 13 March 1957, university students mounted an unsuccessful attack on the Presidential
Palace in Havana. Most of the students were killed as they retreated and Batista's
men rounded up and shot anyone vaguely connected with the incident. Echeverría
was killed, but M26-7 won more followers.
On 28 May 1957, M26-7 overwhelmed
the army post in El Uvero (6) and captured badly
needed supplies. The movement had gained momentum and by the end of 1957, Castro
had established a fixed headquarters at La Plata in the Sierra Maestra. By February
1958 Raúl Castro had opened a second front in the Sierra de Cristal on Oriente's
north coast (7). In
May 1958 Batista sent an army of 10,000 into the Sierra Maestra to destroy Castro's
300 armed guerrillas. But by August, the rebels had defeated the army's advance
and captured a huge amount of arms. After
marches of incredible endurance, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos opened
additional fronts in Las Villas province. They cut rail and road links and important
battles were won in Guisa and the Sierra del Escambray. Guevara's men captured
an armoured train sent to reinforce Santa Clara, and enter the town on 28 December.
Meanwhile, Cienfuegos was locked in a fierce battle in Yaguajay, with Batista's
troops finally surrendering on 31 December. At
2 am, on 1 January 1959, Batista with US$40 million in stolen govt funds, fled
Cuba for the Dominican Republic, then to Spain.
Amid great jubilation, and
surpised that Batista had gone so quick, Castro's column enter Santiago de Cuba
that night, Guevara and Cienfuegos arrived in Havana on 2 January. On
the 5th of January, Manuel Urrutia is named Cuban president, and on the 16th,
Castro becomes prime minister.
Among
the first acts of the new government were rent and electricity cost reductions
and abolition of racial discrimination. Next came the 'First Agrarian Reform'
which nationalised all holdings over 400 hectares, infuriating large landholders
-primarily US companies.
Urrutia proved to be a toady to US interests and
resigned in July when Castro made a 'him or me' public address.
The first measures that the US government took to force
Cuba to it's knees after the 1959 revolution -by diplomatic pressure, conspiracies,
sabotage, pirate attacks, armed uprisings, subversive radio broadcasts, and the
organisation of a mercenary invasion -all were doomed.
By
1960, the US escalated economic actions aimed to crush Cuba's productive life.
So began
the tit-for-tat with the US, with America acting like a spoilt rich kid that had
one of it's sweets taken away. |
