My goal here is to paint a detailed and nuanced picture of Fidel Castro and his leadership of Cuba. As a scholar of modern Latin American history, I think it's crucial we have a strong understanding of a leader who was arguably the most influential Latin American leader of the 20th Century. As a history scholar in general, I think it's always important to educate people about historical figures without using a hero or villain narrative.
What I will do here is give a brief background on Cuban history, then a quick overview of Fidel's part in the revolution and its aftermath, then summarize a few key parts of Cuba under Fidel. I hope this post is helpful. Enjoy!
The Platt Amendment
The end of the 1800s was a time of great hardship, but also great mustaches.
In 1898 the Spanish-American War officially popped off between Spain and the United States. It was a brief war that only lasted from April 21st to August 13th, when the US won. It marked not only the emergence of the US as an unofficial empire in nearby Latin America, but the end of Spain as a serious colonial power. Part of the reason the US gave for fighting was that it was trying to "free" Cuba and other Spanish holdings.
In a tragic foreshadowing of future affairs, Cuba did not really have say in the post-war talks. Cuba was freed from being a Spanish colony, but became a "protectorate" (basically, colony) of the United States. In 1901 Cuba was forced to integrate the Platt Amendment into their constitution, which forbade it from entering into treaties which "compromise Cuban independence" (which would be judged, of course, by the US), guaranteed US interests on the island, and gave the US authority to overthrow any Cuban leaders that it saw fit. This last clause wasn't put there for show- the US intervened in Cuba multiple times from 1901 to the time of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Fulgencio Batista, Castro's Predecessor
The man who Castro would overthrow, seen here totally pulling off that hat.
Fulgencio Batista emerged as a popular figure in the Cuban military in Platt Amendment Cuba. In 1933, he led a coup with other reformist officers known as the Revolt of the Sergeants against then president Gerardo Machado. Machado was yet another in a long line of presidents who had a blend of US-backed democracy and authoritarianism. Like most presidents of that time period, Machado had promised to modernize and improve infrastructure, education, and water access while challenging US dominance. Not to blow anyone's mind, but this politician didn't follow through on his promises. Crazy, right?
After the overthrow of Machado, Batista gained control of the military and was one of the most influential figures in the temporary coup government during the rest of the 30s, though he didn't officially run for office until 1940, when he ran for the Cuban presidency. He was elected by a wide margin. People from groups ranging from US-friendly economic elites to the Communist Party of Cuba supported him. The Cuban Constitution he helped establish in 1940 was actually pretty progressive for the time. It included labor rights, greater voting rights, furthered the system of checks and balances in the Cuban government, and even introduced the idea of communal rights in addition to individual ones. He also had an authoritarian side, but generally his presidency went well by the standards of the time.
His term ended in 1944 and he went to live in the United States. He came back in 1952 to run for president for the second time, but was a distant third place in the polls. That's when things got ugly.
After it became clear he wouldn't win, Batista launched another coup to overthrow the government in Cuba on March 10th, 1952. He installed himself as "president" of Cuba, but he was the "president" in the same way that Buffalo Wild Wings sells "buffalo" wings. Despite this, President Eisenhower still recognized Batista's regime on March 27th. One of Batista's first acts was to suspend the very 1940 Constitution he helped create. During this period of dictatorship he suppressed civil liberties, outlawed strikes, censored the media, and got rid of anyone who opposed him. He also had extensive ties to US corporations and organized crime, who helped him establish power at the expense of the Cuban people.
Even JFK himself would later criticize Eisenhower for supporting Batista and his human rights abuses, including being responsible for the death of around 20,000 Cubans (which is too many people no matter what country you're in, but extra devastating when it's in a tiny country with a population as small as Cuba's).
Fidel's Role in The Cuban Revolution
"Look, all I'm saying is that Batista is kind of a tool."
I'm not going to spend much time here, but one thing that can't be emphasized enough is that Fidel Castro was not the head leader of the Cuban Revolution. He was definitely one of its biggest stars, but his regime's narrative that he and his homies in the Sierra Maestra Mountains were the only true revolutionary force in 1959 is bullshit. There were many different revolutionary factions. This will become important later.
Castro was a lawyer and activist who was running for a local office in the 1952 elections when Batista overthrew the government and ended the semi-democracy that the island had in place. Castro, to put it mildly, was not a fan. On July 26th, 1953, Castro lead a group of people to attack the Moncanda Army Barracks. They were stopped and arrested, but were eventually released after intense pressure from the Cuban people. Castro and his collaborators, now called the 26th of July Movement because of the date they attacked the Moncanda Barracks, left to Mexico City and continued to plot against Batista. In December of 1956 they returned to Cuba by boat.
Castro and his crew, which Che Guevara had joined in Mexico City, went to the Sierra Maestra Mountains to continue their fight. The 26th of July Movement was one of the most visible forces in the Cuban Revolution, which had fully popped off by then. They were not the only fighting force, however. Others fought in the countryside and many in the cities as well. On New Year's Day, 1959, the revolutionary forces had won.
A New Cuba
"We won! We'll never have to worry about human rights abuses again!"
Through a combination of popular support, crafty political maneuvering, and good ol' fashioned repression tactics, Fidel Castro emerged as the leader of Cuba after the 1959 Revolution. Fidel, as a leader, actually didn't have a strict ideology. He leaned socialist, but was no ideologue. This was tricky, as he found himself in a complex geopolitical situation in the Cold War. He also found himself in the middle of two camps within his own clique: radical, pro-revolution figures like Che Guevara made up one side and pro-Soviet, more bureaucratic figures like Fidel's brother Raul made up the other. From day one Fidel tried to accommodate both, but over the years his position on this spectrum shifted quite often.
The US relationship with Castro was shaky, but cautiously optimistic at first. They really didn't know much about him. After his victory, Castro went to the United States to meet with politicians and citizens. After meeting with Castro, then-vice president Richard Nixon concluded Fidel Castro was naive about communism and didn't understand its dangers, but probably not a communist himself. There will still tensions, however, which were made worse when Fidel instituted land reform in Cuba, nationalized the telephone industry, and re-opened trade relations with the Soviet Union after they had been halted in 1952. Awkward!
The US responded by cutting sugar imports. Cuba responded by nationalizing more industries and moving closer to the Soviet Union to make up for the lack of trade with the US. This set off a geopolitical pissing contest between Eisenhower and Castro where one side would distance themselves further from the other, resulting in the other doing the same. This downward spiral led to Cuba nationalizing foreign (basically all US) holdings in the country in July of 1960 and the US cutting sugar imports from Cuba by 95% two days after.
Castro's Cuba
Castro loved two things: revolution and cigars.
Castro's rule of Cuba is, to put it mildly, quite a source of controversy. I'm not going to spend much time talking about his negatives, not because they're not important, but because media based in the United States and countries close to the US have already done a thorough job of doing so. Still, it's worth repeating. Castro was only a fan of free speech as long as it didn't criticize him- in other words, he wasn't really a fan of free speech at all. He crushed dissent and had a lot of political prisoners. It should also be said, however, that a lot of this is common after a revolution, including the American Revolution.
Equally undeniable as his dickishness, however, was how much he improved living conditions for Cubans. Healthcare and literacy campaigns in the countryside drastically reduced disease and illiteracy among some of the most neglected parts of Cuba. Even in 2014, the director of the World Health Organization praised Cuba for having a "model" healthcare system. Today the literacy rate of Cuba is actually higher than that of the United States, 99.7% for Cuba and about 99% even for the US, and exponentially higher than the literacy rate in the comment section on Youtube. Castro's economic policies also virtually eliminated extreme poverty (ie, the kind of poverty you see in Feed the Children advertisements), though less severe poverty still very much exists as it does basically everywhere.
Cuba's healthcare is so good, in fact, that it uses health care as part of its foreign policy. Called "medical diplomacy" by people much smarter than me, they send doctors abroad in exchange for trade (such as Venezuelan oil) or political goodwill. When natural disasters strike other countries, Cuba often sends more doctors and supplies than almost any other country- in fact, during the ebola outbreak back in 2014, they sent more doctors than any other country.
It is worth reiterating that Castro accomplished all this in a small island country with US hostility, including the economic embargo and multiple assassination attempts. At the same time, it's also worth reiterating all the repression of his own people he partook in.
Castro's Cuba and the Soviet Union
"Hey lil' Khrushchev lemme whisper in ya ear, tell ya something that you might like to hear."
Cuba and the Soviet Union were, of course, close during the Cold War. A misconception, however, is that Cuba was a puppet of the Soviets. Sometimes when we see smaller regimes linked to larger regimes, we make the mistake of thinking of the smaller regime as a mere puppet of the larger one. Really, Cuba and the Soviet Union were less a perfectly coordinated puppet-puppeteer duo and more a dysfunctional couple who stayed together out of convenience.
As mentioned earlier, there were two camps in Castro's Cuba: the pro-revolutionary side headed by Che and the pro-Soviet side led by Raul. Fidel listened to different sides at different times. In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, for example, landed Fidel on the side of Che's revolutionary camp. Fidel, who had been left out of the US-Soviet negotiations, feared that removing the missile bases in Cuba would lead to more US attempts to overthrow him. The agreement struck between the US and Soviets did include the promise from the US that they would not interfere in Cuba's affairs. The problem was that Fidel had, y'know, literally seen the US carry out regime overthrow in Cuba and other Latin American countries already, so he didn't trust the US's pledge.
This led to Castro more openly criticizing the Soviet Union and supporting revolutions abroad even when the Soviets opposed the decision, which they almost always opposed in Latin America. For those wondering why the SU didn't support certain revolutions, even communist ones, remember that they were an empire before anything else. They did not want to risk everything by pissing off the US to the point of war. They may have used communist rhetoric about abolishing global capitalism, but they often did not support the Cuban export of revolution, especially when it was in Latin America, which was recognized as the US's backyard. Castro and Guevara went about spread revolution during this time anyway since, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Castro felt the Soviets did not have his back.
A few years later, however, a wacky thing happened. In 1967, Castro promised that in 1970 the Cuban Revolution would reach another step in achieving unity through hard work by producing ten million tons of sugar. Its annual production was usually about six million tons in a good year. During those three years between 1967 to 1970 Cubans mobilized, working extra hours, redirecting resources from other industries, and mobilizing workers from outside the country to help out. Even Fidel worked four hours a day in the fields.
The result was a disaster. About seven and a half million tons were produced, which is incredibly impressive but fell short of the ten million ton mark, hurting the morale of the country. It was probably a good thing they didn't actually reach ten million tons, though, as the excess sugar Cuba produced reduced global sugar prices and hurt the sugar business, aka the biggest industry on the island. The fact that so many resources and workers from other industries had added to the sugar harvest cause meant other industries suffered, too. Basically, it was an economic clusterfuck.
Guess how many times Cuba criticized the Soviet Union or went against their wishes during the resulting economic downturn? This up and down pattern defined the Cuban-Soviet relationship for as long as the Soviet Union existed.
Castro's Cuba and The Third World
What I would've given to see a buddy cop movie starring these two.
The victory of the Cuban Revolution sent shock waves through Latin America, many of its citizens having its own problems with the US's role in their home countries. A small island nation repelled the Yankees?! It was like the Rebels overthrowing the Empire in Star Wars. "Fidelismo" was the name given to the optimism Fidel's victory inspired in a sizeable number of Latin Americans.
Meanwhile, to reiterate what I said above, Fidel felt that the Soviet Union turned their back on Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because of this, Cuba decided it wanted to support revolution abroad so that it could create "multiple Cubas" that would make it harder for the US to single out and target Cuba(1). In other words, Cuba didn't just support revolution out of idealism- it saw it as the key to its own survival.
Initial revolutionary movements supported by Cuba didn't do very well. This is because Castro and company simply bought way too much into their own hype. Che Guevara firmly believed that his and Fidel's 26th of July Movement had been the key component in the Cuban Revolution. Because of that, he coined the "foco" theory- the idea that a small band of guerillas in the countryside could ignite a spark of revolution that would spread everywhere else.
Considering that isn't even how the real Cuban Revolution played out, it didn't work out too well anywhere else either. It didn't play out well in the African movements they intervened in (most of which happened with \out Soviet knowledge) (1), and it certainly didn't play out well for Che in in Bolivia.
Cuba seemed to learn its lesson after Che's death in 1967, however, and decided to pick who it supported more carefully. Instead of recklessly jumping in and trying to spread revolution where there wasn't already meaningful calls for one, or joining a liberation movement when it barely had any membership or substantial support, Cuba figured out it'd be a good idea to, y'know, join movements that were already showing promise and momentum. This lead to great success, with Cuba helping Angola, among others, achieve independence and defend it against apartheid South African invaders.
This military defeat of apartheid South Africa also helped weaken its government. According to Nelson Mandela, aka That Guy Pretty Much Everyone In The World Agrees Was Good, this also showed South Africans that the apartheid government wasn't invincible and helped give morale to the internal South African movement against it. Castro's regime itself opposed apartheid and supported Mandela's African National Congress. It is worth noting that Ronald Reagan was one of apartheid's biggest supporters.
In victory, Nelson Mandela had this to say about Castro: "The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom, and justice unparalleled for its principled and selfless character."
Conclusion
The present state of things, though we'll see what wacky antics ensue when Trump comes in.
To say this post just scratches the surface is an understatement. There is so much more to be said about Cuban policies in both the domestic and international arena. Entire books cover single negative or positive aspects of the Castro regime, as well as certain aspects that don't fit into a good/bad narrative.
No doubt people who view Castro only as a hero or a monster will have a problem with this post. That's not even an attack on these people, either- Castro's regime had a huge impact on people all over the world. Some people's lives have been made much better thanks to Castro. Some people's lives much worse. When talking about history, it's crucial to remember the human impact.
Usually this is where I end with some sort of main point. Instead, though, I will leave you with some questions.
Does Fidel Castro's improvement of the livelihood of most Cubans justify the severe methods of repression he practiced? Did the fact that his support of anti-colonial liberation movements was rooted in self-preservation mean that this support was selfish, or was it still noble? Does the US deserve to point fingers at Cuba's human rights abuses when it has its own extensive history of supporting regimes with far worse human rights abuses? On the other hand, does that mean Fidel's human rights abuses should be ignored because other countries can be just as bad? How complicit was Fidel in the human suffering inflicted by the Soviet Union after aligning so closely with it? As the leader of a small island nation, did he have a choice? What would've happened if cooler heads had prevailed and the US and Cuba hadn't drifted apart? Would Cuba's list of good and bad look as it does today?
Just some food for thought. Thanks for reading!
(1)This idea, as well as my information about Cuba's involvement in Africa, is primarily drawn from Piero Gleijeses's book "Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976". This book gives an excellent overview of Cuban assistance of anti-colonial liberation movements in Africa. Incidentally, Piero Gleijeses might just be the historian with the best works covering Cold War Latin America.
