CUBA AND FIDEL CASTRO

Prior to the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba had either directly controlled by Spain or economically dominated by the USA. Fulgencio Batista, a staunch anti-Communist and close ally of the United States, had led a corrupt right-wing dictatorship since 1952. He was precisely the type of Latin American ruler who benefited from US Cold War policies of containment in the region but presided over a country with deep social and economic divides. Batista fled Cuba on New Year's Day 1959 and one week later, Fidel Castro, the leader of the 26th July Movement, became the new leader of Cuba. He pledged to initiate a program of reforms that would heal the urban and rural divides, bring together the different social elements within Cuban society, achieve economic independence and diversify the sugar-dominated economy.

The 26th of July Movement united a broad cross-section of Cuban society who were opposed to Batista. This coalition included the Fidelistas (supporters of Castro), sugar plantation workers, peasants, urban elites and eventually the Cuban Communist Party. The first 18 months after the revolution are characterized by the fragmentation of this coalition, Castro's consolidation of power and his gradual adoption of Marxist-Leninist thought.

Provisional government

When the 26th July movement rolled into Cuba, Castro remained leader of the revolutionary army and retained the right of overall veto. He installed two moderates, Manuel Urrutia and Jose Cardona, as President and Prime Minister respectively, and also promised that there would free elections in the near future. This never happened.

However, there were purges of former supporters of the Batista regime. Roughly 500 Batistianos were hauled before kangaroo courts and executed. News of these executions alarmed international opinion, especially within the United States, although it should also be noted that the extent of these purges paled in comparison to those committed in the USSR under Stalin, Mao's China or even the human rights abuses committed in right-wing authoritarian regimes in other parts of Latin America, such as Pinochet's Chile in the 1970's.

Castro's Cuba begins to take shape

After less than 6 weeks, a frustrated Cardona resigned in protest at the direction the new government appeared to be headed. Castro replaced him as Prime Minister and was granted lawmaking power the passage of the Fundamental Law of the Republic.

He immediately began to introduce reforms that appeared to indicate that he was moving further left politically. He nationalised the US-owned telecommunications company, forced sales of vacant urban land at lower prices and halved urban rents. These reforms were extremely popular, especially with Cuban workers, who saw the cost of living begin to drop. In April 1959, Castro embarked on a publicity tour of the United States in order to win sympathy and support for the revolution.

In May, Castro introduced the Agrarian Reform Law (ARF) which effectively redistributed large agricultural landholdings which were owned by wealthy Cubans or US interests to members of the rural population. The majority of this land was owned by US companies such as Coca-Cola and comprised 75% of cultivated land. Almost 100,000 Cubans received 27 hectares each and all uncultivated land reverted to state ownership. Sharecropping was banned and significant restrictions introduced on foreign ownership.

Compensation took the form of 20 year government bonds (with 4.5% interest p.a.) valued at time of takeover. Essentially this meant that no money would be paid until 20 years later and would be based on land values lower than before the revolution. This ushered in the start of an economic war with the USA.

Opposition groups began to emerge following his refusal to hold free elections, even from within the Fidelistas . The most prominent opponent was Major Huber Matos, who was alarmed about both the policies of the Castro regime and the influence Raul Castro and Che Guevara had within the government. When Matos wrote a letter of resignation in protest, Castro expertly manipulated public opinion by resigning, claiming that a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was afoot. When there was public uproar, Castro returned to office and Matos sentence to 15 years in prison for treason.

Castro soon curtailed freedoms of speech and press and continued to quell dissent. This resulted in an exodus of wealthy and middle class Cubans to the USA, which was permitted by Castro. This proved to be a useful tactic to keep control of Cuba- potential resistance groups could not anywhere near as effective in Miami compared to Havana.

Castro also began to create a cult of personality similar to other populist leaders. Evoking the memory of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, Castro's connection the people grew stronger. His use of Cuban nationalist and anti-US rhetoric, along with his magnetic personality, allowed him to distract the population from any economic shortcomings or criticism of his human rights record. In fact, he often resembled a combination of Jose Marti, Karl Marx and Robin Hood.

This cult of personality made him extraordinarily popular and allowed him to claim even more power for himself and create a centralized government with a powerful bureaucracy. However, while the 1960's there was a clear feeling that the revolution was serving the people, in the 1970's there was sense that the people were serving the revolution.

Cuban foreign policy under Castro

Castro's economic policies would inevitably bring Cuba into conflict with the USA, and the prospect of this, as well as ideological opposition, was the reason behind some of the opposition to his regime. An economic war waged throughout 1960.

When the US oil companies refused to allow Cuba to purchase their oil on credit, Castro terminated their contracts and purchased Soviet crude oil. When he ordered the US-owned oil refineries to process this oil, they refused. He responded by nationalising the oil refineries. When the US retaliated by refusing to purchase Cuban sugar (the US accounted for 80% of this industry), Castro ordered the seizure of of all American property.

Finally the US launched a trade embargo of Cuba and broke off diplomatic relations by the 3rd January 1961. Economically and politically, Cuba therefore had no choice but to move closer to the USSR.

Soviet Deputy Anastas Mikoyan visited Cuban to investigate the viability of a close relationship with Castro during the middle of Cuba's economic struggles with the USA in 1960. Having viewed the situation favourably, the USSR agreed to purchase sugar in exchange for selling crude oil in a deal that was very attractive to Cuba. Following the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, the USSR agreed to militarily support Castro and began placing mid and intermediate range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads on Cuba. This the led to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Castro viewed Khrushchev's agreement with Kennedy to resolve this crisis as a betrayal of revolutionary ideas. Khrushchev's successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was less willing to tolerate Castro's often reckless belligerence towards the USA. Cuban-Soviet relations were stretched further for the rest of the 1960's, following Castro's attempts to export Cuban-style communist revolution to other parts of Latin America.

These attempts to spread Marxist-Leninism concerned the USSR as there was an increasing acknowledgement that the Americas did indeed represent the USA's 'backyard and a desire to move towards détente. Castro's call for revolution across Latin America therefore both angered and embarrassed Moscow. His wish to transform himself into a leader in the developing world also brought Cuban involvement in Africa, including countries such as Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia. Che Guevara left Cuba in 1963 to spread Marxist-Leninism but was captured and executed by CIA-backed government forces in Bolivia in 1967.

Castro's attempts to diversify the Cuban economy

Although Castro introduced extremely successful healthcare and education reforms, his efforts to diversify Cuba's one-crop economy were less successful. Castro's dilemma was that in order to end Cuba's reliance on sugar exports, he needed to develop other areas of the economy. However, the funds to do this would not be available without significant revenues from the sugar industry.

Therefore, in 1963, he declared 1970 to be the "Year of Decisive Endeavour", aiming to collect 10 million tonnes of sugar in that year's harvest. Castro was prone to making bold declarations in order to deflect from shortcomings in other areas and, due to his cult of personality, was able to drive the Cuban people to make prodigious efforts. 1970 was no exception- a record harvest of 8.5 million tonnes was collected but this still fell short of the overly-ambitious target set by Castro.

Castro's response was to put himself at the mercy of the people in a public display of contrition at La Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana, offering to take the blame for this failure and resign. The crowd turned this offer down and demanded he stay in power. Castro had successfully gambled on his cult of personality being able to keep him in power and furthermore, had managed to deflect attention away from his failings again. Economically, the consequences of Cuba's failure to diversify the economy resulted in closer ties with the USSR.

One of Castro's biggest dilemmas was how best to motivate people, a problem that was shared with other countries that had a planned economy. Che Guevara argued that Cubans should not rely on material incentives and instead should be motivated by moral rewards. This constituted part of what was Guevara's so-called 'New Man' ideal. Although opposed by members of Castro's government who advocated a more conventional economic policy of material reward and pragmatism, Guevara's ideas were implemented, even after he resigned to spread the revolution in other parts of Latin America.

Castro's social reforms

Arguably Castro's biggest achievements were in education, healthcare and combating racism and went a long way to securing the loyalty of the 'first generation of the revolution'. In keeping with his practice of setting ambitious goals and mobilizing the Cuban people, 1961 was declared the 'Year of Education' as he pledged to eliminate illiteracy in 12 months. Particular focus was on the often overlooked rural areas as 100,000 students taught 1 million people to read and write and giving Cuban one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America. Education was made free for all Cubans and the impact on culture was significant as a new generation of Cuban authors was created; in 1973, 800 new titles and 28 million new books were published. Likewise, much needed improvements were made to healthcare in the countryside as thousands of new doctors were trained and new hospitals opened. Infant mortality rates dropped significantly and life expectancy improved dramatically, especially in combination with advances in other areas such as nutrition and food supply.

Prior to his racial reforms, Castro had struggled to win over Afro-Cubans because he had not come up a coherent strategy to do so. Additionally, many Afro-Cubans were Batistianos, Batista had been a mulatto and had promoted many Afro-Cubans and fellow mulattoes to important positions within the military. ​Finally, important reforms in the 1970's that guaranteed equal access to employment, education, healthcare and wages regardless of race or gender also helped to win over the large Afro-Cuban population. Castro was greatly assisted in this by social trends such as the increase in mixed-race marriage which helped to heal racial divisions in Cuban society.

Summary

Cuba, like Castro himself, remains a mass of contradictions. One of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere with public access to only limited or even antiquated consumer goods and technologies, it also has one of the highest rates of adult literacy in Latin America. In terms of healthcare, Cuba has one of best ratios of healthcare worker to citizen in the world, regularly making massive contributions to the World Health Organization in terms of personnel. Racial and social divides in modern-day Cuba are also significantly smaller than during the Batista era.

However, these advances have also come at the cost of political and social freedoms as Castro constructed the apparatus of an authoritarian state.

Castro himself could simultaneously be a naive idealist, seemingly out of touch with reality, and a cruel despot. What is not in doubt that he has been able to skillfully maintain his power by pursuing a complex balancing act between meeting populism, authoritarianism and despotism.