Cuba History

By | October 11, 2021

HISTORY: THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Cuba National Flag

On October 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes launched the famous “cry of Yara”, with which he proclaimed the independence of Cuba and the liberation of the slaves. A revolutionary army began the fight against the Spaniards, while shortly thereafter, in Camagüey, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Eduardo Agramonte and Ignacio Agramonte formed a government junta. On April 10, 1869, the patriots approved a Constitutional Charter (the “Constitution of Guaimaro”) and entrusted Céspedes with the presidency of the Republic. The armed clash (the “great war”), which saw men of other nationalities rushing to the ranks of the separatists, lasted ten years. At the end of 1877, the new Spanish Capitán General, Martínez Campos, was authorized to deal with the rioters and with the Zanjón Pact (February 10, 1878) the Cubans obtained a broad amnesty, the right to be represented at the Cortes of Madrid, administrative reforms and the recognition of the abolition of slavery. Many patriots, however, took refuge abroad determined to continue the struggle; among them (Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo, Calixto García, Tomás Estrada Palma) emerged José Martí, the “apostle” of Cuba; he founded the Partido de la Revolución Cubana (1892), tried to smooth out the rivalries between the nationalists, reassembled a liberation army and in 1895, having landed on the island, reopened hostilities against Spain. Note: according to plus-size-tips, Cuba is a country located in Caribbean.

HISTORY: THE PROTECTION OF THE UNITED STATES

Meanwhile in the United States the theory of “manifest destiny” had been strengthened, according to which the Caribs should become a fiefdom of the starry Republic. On February 15, 1898, when the US Navy unit Maine sank in the port of Havana following a mysterious explosion, Washington opened hostilities against Spain which, defeated, had to recognize (December 1898) the United States the possession of Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, as well as the protection of Cuba, recognized independent. The presence of US troops on the island and the attachment to the Cuban Constitution of the so-called Platt amendment, which granted the United States the use of a naval base (Guantánamo) and the right to intervene directly in the political and financial affairs of the new Republic, were the most conspicuous manifestations of the protection of the United States. When the first head of state, Estrada Palma, assumed power in February 1902, the US soldiers were withdrawn. But they returned several times, because Washington, thanks to the Platt amendment, did not stop intervening in Cuban politics, favoring the appointment of this or that president. After the dictatorship of General Gerardo Machado (1924-33), characterized by uninterrupted tension and riots and conspiracies, the presidential functions passed into various hands, now of provisional meetings, now of individual characters, but always maneuvered behind the scenes the former sergeant Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar who conditioned, in accordance with the United States, the succession of events and that in 1940, after the entry into force of a new Constitution, he became president of the Republic and supported his allies in the war against the Axis and Japan. Replaced in 1944 by Ramón Grau San Martín, leader of the reformist Partido Auténtico, he always exercised his vigilance and, faced with the needs of the democratic forces pressing for a reform that would give justice and freedom to the Cubans, on 10 March 1952 he returned to power in a coup.

HISTORY: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FIDEL CASTRO’S REVOLUTIONARY REGIME

The attacks and revolts re-exploded against the dictatorship and on 26 July 1953 some revolutionaries, including the young Fidel Castro Ruz, attempted to storm the Moncada barracks in Santiago: most of them were captured. Castro Ruz, tried, convicted and later amnestied, later resumed hostilities. In November 1956 he returned from Mexico, where he had taken refuge, and started the guerrilla warfare that would soon spread and that at the end of 1958 would have forced Batista to flee the island. On 1 January 1959 the columns of the partisans entered the capital; a revolutionary regime was established in Cuba. At first, Castroism seemed to take on the connotation of a progressive democracy and Judge Manuel Urrutia Lleóhe was appointed president. On July 17, 1959, Urrutia Lleó was ousted and replaced by the more radical (later communist) Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, and the Cuban political system moved further and further to the left until it identified itself with Marxist socialism. Fidel Castro Ruz became prime minister, retaining the title of “supreme leader of the revolution”. His brother Raúl and the Argentine-born commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara, both members of the guerrillas, occupied prominent government posts. Attempts to oppose this turning point were suffocated in blood, with mass trials and executions. Thousands of citizens preferred to emigrate to the United States. At the same time, measures began to be introduced to modify the socio-economic structure of the country. The agrarian reform of May 17, 1959 canceled the large estates and started a system of collective ownership. This policy – which in the international arena brought Cuba closer to the bloc led by the USSR – also affected foreign and above all American interests and determined an ever stronger friction with the USA, until in January 1961 President Eisenhower decided to break off diplomatic relations. With his successor, John F. Kennedy, things did not improve; indeed, in April of the same year, he authorized an expedition against the island by exiles who had departed from US bases. The operation failed on the Bay of Pigs. Another episode of this “cold war” was the clash that developed in October 1962 due to the installation of Soviet missile platforms in Cuba. After days of tension, Moscow and Washington reached a compromise: the first withdrew the missiles, the second accepted the “freezing” of the status quo Cuban. Havana was from that moment considered a new satellite of the USSR; so that, in July 1964, the Organization of American States ousted Cuba from the system. All this did not make Castro Ruz desist from his orientation, albeit, by now, in the abandonment of any idea of ​​”exporting” his own revolution. With the aid of the USSR, increased with the accession of Cuba to COMECON (1972), the government was able to devote itself to the development of the island.

Cuba History