Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution (Spanish: Revolución cubana) was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement and its allies against the military dictatorship of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953,[9] and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as the Day of the Revolution (Dia de la Revolución). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.[10]

For the Cold War conflicts following the success of the Cuban Revolution, see Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution.
For other uses, see Cuban Revolution (disambiguation).

Cuban Revolution

Raúl Castro (left), with his arm around his second-in-command, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in their Sierra de Cristal mountain stronghold in Oriente Province, Cuba, in 1958
Date26 July 1953 – 1 January 1959
(5 years, 5 months and 6 days)
Location
Cuba
Result

26th of July Movement victory

Belligerents
Cuban Government
Supported by:
 Dominican Republic
 United States
 Costa Rica (after 1959)[1]		 26th of July Movement
Supported by:
 Costa Rica (until 1959)[2]
Commanders and leaders
Fulgencio Batista
Eulogio Cantillo
José Quevedo Pérez
Alberto del Río Chaviano
Joaquín Casillas 
Cornelio Rojas 
Fernández Suero
Cándido Hernández
Alfredo Abon Lee		 Fidel Castro
Raúl Castro
Che Guevara
Abel Santamaría 
Camilo Cienfuegos
Huber Matos
Juan Almeida Bosque
Frank País †
René Ramos Latour †
Roberto Rodriguez †
Rolando Cubela Secades
Humberto Sori Marín
Alfonso Perez Leon
Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo
William Alexander Morgan
José Antonio Echeverría †
Reynol Garcia 
Strength
20,000 (1958) 3,000 (1958)
Casualties and losses
2,000 killed[3]
Arms captured:
1 M4 Sherman tank
12 mortars
2 bazookas
12 machine guns
21 light machine guns
142 M-1 rifles
200 Dominican Cristobal submachine guns[4]		 1,000 killed[3]
Thousands of dissidents arrested and murdered by Batista's government; unknown number of people executed by the Rebel Army[5][6][7][8]
Part of a series on the
History of Cuba
Governorate of Cuba (1511–1519)
Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535–1821)
Captaincy General of Cuba (1607–1898)
US Military Government (1898–1902)
Republic of Cuba (1902–1959)
Republic of Cuba (1959–)
Timeline
    Topical
     Cuba portal

    The Cuban Revolution had powerful domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it transformed Cuba–United States relations, although efforts to improve diplomatic relations have gained momentum in recent years such as the Cuban thaw.[11][12][13][14] In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro's government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba's economy and civil society.[15][16] The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban intervention in foreign military conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.[17][18][19][20] Several rebellions occurred in the six years following 1959, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were repressed by the revolutionary government.[21][22][23][24]

    Background

    Politics of Cuba

    In the decades following United States' invasion of Cuba in 1898, and formal independence from the U.S. on May 20, 1902, Cuba experienced a period of significant instability, enduring a number of revolts, coups and a period of U.S. military occupation. Fulgencio Batista, a former soldier who had served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became president for the second time in 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and canceling the 1952 elections.[25] Although Batista had been relatively progressive during his first term,[26] in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns.[27] While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure,[28] Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organized crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy, especially sugar-cane plantations and other local resources.[28][29][30] Although the US armed and politically supported the Batista dictatorship, later US presidents recognized its corruption and the justifiability of removing it.[31]

    Opposition

    During his first term as President, Batista had not been supported by the Communist Party of Cuba,[26] and during his second term he became strongly anti-communist.[28][32] Batista developed a rather weak security bridge as an attempt to silence political opponents. In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts.[33] After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952. Batista was known as a corrupt leader and constantly pampered himself with exotic foods and elegant women.[34]

    Early stages
    Further information: Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution

    Attack on Moncada Barracks
    Main article: Moncada Barracks

    Striking their first blow against the Batista government, Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered 69 Movement fighters and planned a multi-pronged attack on several military installations.[35] On 26 July 1953, the rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo, only to be decisively defeated by government soldiers.[9] It was hoped that the staged attack would spark a nationwide revolt against Batista's government. After an hour of fighting the rebel leader fled to the mountains.[36] The exact number of rebels killed in the battle is debatable; however, in his autobiography, Fidel Castro claimed that nine were killed in the fighting, and an additional 56 were executed after being captured by the Batista government.[37] Due to the government's large number of men, Hunt revised the number to be around 60 members taking the opportunity to flee to the mountains along with Castro.[38] Among the dead was Abel Santamaría, Castro's second-in-command, who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the same day as the attack.[39]

    Imprisonment and emigration

    Numerous key Movement revolutionaries, including the Castro brothers, were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the words "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Castro's defense was based on nationalism, the representation and beneficial programs for the non-elite Cubans, and his patriotism and justice for the Cuban community.[40] Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in the Presidio Modelo prison, located on Isla de Pinos, while Raúl was sentenced to 13 years.[41] However, in 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista government freed all political prisoners in Cuba, including the Moncada attackers. Fidel's Jesuit childhood teachers succeeded in persuading Batista to include Fidel and Raúl in the release.[42]

    Soon, the Castro brothers joined with other exiles in Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of Batista, receiving training from Alberto Bayo, a leader of Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. In June 1955, Fidel met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who joined his cause.[42] Raul and Castro's chief advisor Ernesto aided the initiation of Batista's amnesty.[40] The revolutionaries named themselves the "26th of July Movement", in reference to the date of their attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.[9]

    Student protests in Havana, 1956.

    Student demonstrations

    By late 1955, student riots and demonstrations became less common, and unemployment became problematic as new graduates could not find jobs.[43][44] These protests were dealt with increasing repression. All young people were seen as possible revolutionaries.[45] Due to its continued opposition to the Cuban government and much protest activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on November 30, 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government).[46]

    Attack on Domingo Goicuria barracks

    While the Castro brothers and the other July 26 Movement guerrillas were training in Mexico and preparing for their amphibious deployment to Cuba, another revolutionary group followed the example of the Moncada Barracks assault. On 29 April 1956 at 12:50 PM during Sunday mass, an independent guerrilla group of around 100 rebels led by Reynol Garcia attacked the Domingo Goicuria army barracks in Matanzas province. The attack was repelled with ten rebels and three soldiers killed in the fighting, and one rebel summarily executed by the garrison commander. Florida International University historian Miguel A. Brito was in the nearby cathedral when the firefight began. He writes, "That day, the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."[47][48]

    Escalating conflict
    Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos' route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958

    Granma landing
    Main article: Granma (yacht)

    The yacht Granma departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 November 1956, carrying the Castro brothers and 80 others including Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, even though the yacht was only designed to accommodate 12 people with a maximum of 25. On December 2,[49] it landed in Playa Las Coloradas, in the municipality of Niquero, arriving two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs.[50] This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the llano wing of the Movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in southeastern Cuba. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants – while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains.[51]

    The group of survivors included Fidel and Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. The dispersed survivors, alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for each other. Eventually, the men would link up again – with the help of peasant sympathizers – and would form the core leadership of the guerrilla army. A number of female revolutionaries, including Celia Sanchez and Haydée Santamaría (the sister of Abel Santamaria), also assisted Fidel Castro's operations in the mountains.[52]

    Presidential palace attack
    Main article: Havana Presidential Palace attack (1957)

    On 13 March 1957, a separate group of revolutionaries – the anticommunist Student Revolutionary Directorate (RD) (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, DRE), composed mostly of students – stormed the Presidential Palace in Havana, attempting to assassinate Batista and overthrow the government. The attack ended in utter failure. The RD's leader, student José Antonio Echeverría, died in a shootout with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to spread the news of Batista's anticipated death. The handful of survivors included Dr. Humberto Castello (who later became the Inspector General in the Escambray), Rolando Cubela and Faure Chomon (both later Commandantes of the 13 March Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province).[53]

    Frank País's death and strike
    See also: Frank País

    On July 20, 1957 rebel leader Frank País was captured and killed in Santiago de Cuba during an intense and violent policing campaign. During his funeral, activists began marching through the city and raised a general strike. The strike would start skirmishes with the police and spread across various provinces that would last days.[54]

    Strengthening insurgency and United States involvement

    The United States supplied Cuba with planes, ships, tanks and other tech such as napalm, which was used against the rebels. This would eventually come to an end due to a later arms embargo in 1958.[55]

    According to Tad Szulc the United States began funding the 26th of July Movement around October or November 1957 and ending around middle 1958. "No less than $50,000" would be delivered to key leaders of the 26th of July Movement.[56] The purpose being to instill sympathies to the United States amongst the rebels in case the movement succeeded.[57]

    Comandante William Alexander Morgan of the Second National Front of the Escambray

    While Batista increased troop deployments to the Sierra Maestra region to crush the 26 July guerrillas, the Second National Front of the Escambray kept battalions of the Constitutional Army tied up in the Escambray Mountains region. The Second National Front was led by former Revolutionary Directorate member Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the "Yanqui Comandante" William Alexander Morgan. Gutiérrez Menoyo formed and headed the guerrilla band after news had broken out about Castro's landing in the Sierra Maestra, and José Antonio Echeverría had stormed the Havana Radio station. Though Morgan was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, his recreating features from Army basic training made a critical difference in the Second National Front troops battle readiness.[58]

    Thereafter, the United States imposed an economic embargo on the Cuban government and recalled its ambassador, weakening the government's mandate further.[59] Batista's support among Cubans began to fade, with former supporters either joining the revolutionaries or distancing themselves from Batista. Once Batista started making drastic decisions concerning Cuba's economy, he began to nationalize U.S oil refineries and other U.S properties.[60] Nonetheless, the Mafia and U.S. businessmen maintained their support for the regime.[61][62]

    Batista's government often resorted to brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. However, in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro, aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small garrisons of Batista's troops. Castro was joined by CIA connected Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare.

    In addition, poorly armed irregulars known as escopeteros harassed Batista's forces in the foothills and plains of Oriente Province. The escopeteros also provided direct military support to Castro's main forces by protecting supply lines and by sharing intelligence.[63] Ultimately, the mountains came under Castro's control.[64]

    In addition to armed resistance, the rebels sought to use propaganda to their advantage. A pirate radio station called Radio Rebelde ("Rebel Radio") was set up in February 1958, allowing Castro and his forces to broadcast their message nationwide within enemy territory.[65] Castro's affiliation with the New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews created a front page-worthy report on anti-communist propaganda.[66] The radio broadcasts were made possible by Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro who subsequently became a Cuban exile in Puerto Rico.[67]

    During this time, Castro's forces remained quite small in numbers, sometimes fewer than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force had a manpower of around 37,000.[68] Even so, nearly every time the Cuban military fought against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. An arms embargo – imposed on the Cuban government by the United States on 14 March 1958 – contributed significantly to the weakness of Batista's forces. The Cuban air force rapidly deteriorated: it could not repair its airplanes without importing parts from the United States.[69]

    Operation Verano
    Main article: Operation Verano

    Batista finally responded to Castro's efforts with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano, known to the rebels as la Ofensiva. The army sent some 12,000 soldiers, half of them untrained recruits, into the mountains, along with his own brother Raul. In a series of small skirmishes, Castro's determined guerrillas defeated the Cuban army.[69] In the Battle of La Plata, which lasted from 11 to 21 July 1958, Castro's forces defeated a 500-man battalion, capturing 240 men while losing just three of their own.[70]

    However, the tide nearly turned on 29 July 1958, when Batista's troops almost destroyed Castro's small army of some 300 men at the Battle of Las Mercedes. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and received, a temporary cease-fire on 1 August. Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By the 8 August, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.[69]

    Rebel offensive

    The enemy soldier in the Cuban example which at present concerns us, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumb left by a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to him. His salary and his pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never worth his life. If the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up; that is to say, withdrawing from the face of the guerrilla danger.

    — Che Guevara, 1958[71]
    Map showing key locations in the Sierra Maestra during the 1958 stage of the Cuban Revolution

    On 21 August 1958, after the defeat of Batista's Ofensiva, Castro's forces began their own offensive. In the Oriente province (in the area of the present-day provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Guantánamo and Holguín),[72] Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida Bosque directed attacks on four fronts. Descending from the mountains with new weapons captured during the Ofensiva and smuggled in by plane, Castro's forces won a series of initial victories. Castro's major victory at Guisa, and the successful capture of several towns including Maffo, Contramaestre, and Central Oriente, brought the Cauto plains under his control.

    Meanwhile, three rebel columns, under the command of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Jaime Vega, proceeded westward toward Santa Clara, the capital of Villa Clara Province. Batista's forces ambushed and destroyed Jaime Vega's column, but the surviving two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined forces with several other resistance groups not under the command of Castro. When Che Guevara's column passed through the province of Las Villas, and specifically through the Escambray Mountains – where the anticommunist Revolutionary Directorate forces (who became known as the 13 March Movement) had been fighting Batista's army for many months – friction developed between the two groups of rebels. Nonetheless, the combined rebel army continued the offensive, and Cienfuegos won a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on 30 December 1958, earning him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay".

    Battle of Santa Clara and Batista's flight
    Che Guevara with Manuel Urrutia in 1959, who was president at the beginning of the revolution, after being appointed by the rebels.

    On 31 December 1958, the Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando Cubela, Juan ("El Mejicano") Abrahantes, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Comandante William Alexander Morgan, leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting as Batista departed, and had captured the city of Cienfuegos by 2 January.[73]

    Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo entered Havana's Presidential Palace, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra as the new President, and began appointing new members to Batista's old government.[74]

    Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On 2 January, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight, and Castro's forces took over the city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on 8 January after a long victory march. His initial choice of president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, took office on 3 January.[75]

    Aftermath
    Victorious rebels in the Havana Hilton, January 1959.
    Main article: Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution
    Further information: Foreign relations of Cuba

    Relations with the United States
    Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1962.

    I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

    — U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963[76]

    The Cuban Revolution was a crucial turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Although the United States government was initially willing to recognize Castro's new government,[77] it soon came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America, as they had in Southeast Asia.[78] Meanwhile, Castro's government resented the Americans for providing aid to Batista's government during the revolution.[77] After the revolutionary government nationalized all U.S. property in Cuba in August 1960, the American Eisenhower administration froze all Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and tightened its embargo of Cuba.[11][16][79] The Key West–Havana ferry shut down. In 1961, the U.S. government backed an armed counterrevolutionary assault on the Bay of Pigs with the aim of ousting Castro, but the counterrevolutionaries were swiftly defeated by the Cuban military.[78] The U.S. Embargo against Cuba – the longest-lasting single foreign policy in American history[80] – is still in force as of 2020, although it underwent a partial loosening during the Obama Administration, only to be strengthened in 2017 under Trump.[11] The U.S. began efforts to normalize relations with Cuba in the mid-2010s,[13][81] and formally reopened its embassy in Havana after over half a century in August 2015.[14] The Trump administration has reversed much of the Cuban Thaw by severely restricting travel by US citizens to Cuba and tightening the US government's 62-year-old embargo against the country.[82][83]

    Global influence
    The greatest threat presented by Castro's Cuba is as an example to other Latin American states which are beset by poverty, corruption, feudalism, and plutocratic exploitation ... his influence in Latin America might be overwhelming and irresistible if, with Soviet help, he could establish in Cuba a Communist utopia.

    -– Walter Lippmann, Newsweek, 27 April 1964[84]

    Castro's victory and post-revolutionary foreign policy had global repercussions as influenced by the expansion of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe after the 1917 October Revolution. In line with his call for revolution in Latin America and beyond against imperial powers, laid out in his Declarations of Havana, Castro immediately sought to "export" his revolution to other countries in the Caribbean and beyond, sending weapons to Algerian rebels as early as 1960.[20] In the following decades, Cuba became heavily involved in supporting Communist insurgencies and independence movements in many developing countries, sending military aid to insurgents in Ghana, Nicaragua, Yemen and Angola, among others.[20] Castro's intervention in the Angolan Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s was particularly significant, involving as many as 60,000 Cuban soldiers.[20][85]

    Relations with the Soviet Union

    Following the American embargo, the Soviet Union became Cuba's main ally.[16] The two Communist countries quickly developed close military and intelligence ties, culminating in the stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, an act which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuba maintained close links to the Soviets until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The end of Soviet economic aid and the loss of its trade partners in the Eastern Bloc led to an economic crisis and period of shortages known as the Special Period in Cuba.[86]

    Characteristics

    Ideology
    Propaganda poster in Havana, 2012

    At the time of the revolution various sectors of society supported the revolutionary movement from communists to business leaders and the Catholic Church.[87]

    The beliefs of Fidel Castro during the revolution have been the subject of much historical debate. Fidel Castro was openly ambiguous about his beliefs at the time. Some orthodox historians argue Castro was a communist from the beginning with a long term plan; however, others have argued he had no strong ideological loyalties. Leslie Dewart has stated that there is no evidence to suggest Castro was ever a communist agent. Levine and Papasotiriou believe Castro believed in little outside of a distaste for American imperialism. While Ana Serra believed it was the publication of "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba."[88] As evidence for his lack of communist leanings they note his friendly relations with the United States shortly after the revolution and him not joining the Cuban Communist Party during the beginning of his land reforms.[87]

    At the time of the revolution the 26th of July Movement involved people of various political persuasions, but most were in agreement and desired the reinstatement of the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and supported the ideals of Jose Marti. Che Guevara commented to Jorge Masetti in an interview during the revolution that "Fidel isn't a communist" also stating "politically you can define Fidel and his movement as 'revolutionary nationalist'. Of course he is anti-American, in the sense that Americans are anti-revolutionaries".[89]

    Women's roles
    Raúl Castro, Vilma Espín, Jorge Risquet and José Nivaldo Causse in 1958

    The importance of women's contributions to the Cuban Revolution is reflected in the very accomplishments that allowed the revolution to be successful, from the participation in the Moncada Barracks, to the Mariana Grajales all-women's platoon that served as Fidel Castro's personal security detail. Tete Puebla, second in command of the Mariana Grajales Platoon, has said:

    Women in Cuba have always been on the front line of the struggle. At Moncada we had Yeye (Haydee Santamaria) and Melba (Hernandez). With the Granma (yacht) and November 30, we had Celia, Vilma, and many other compañeras. There were many women comrades who were tortured and murdered. From the beginning there were women in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. First they were simple soldiers, later sergeants. Those of us in the Mariana Grajales Platoon were the first officers. The ones who ended the war with officers' ranks stayed in the armed forces.[90]

    Before the Mariana Grajales Platoon was established, the revolutionary women of the Sierra Maestra were not organized for combat and primarily helped with cooking, mending clothes, and tending to the sick, frequently acting as couriers, as well as teaching guerrillas to read and write.[91] Haydée Santamaría and Melba Hernandez were the only women who participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, afterward acting alongside Natalia Revuelta, and Lidia Castro (Fidel Castro's sister) to form alliances with anti-Batista organizations, as well as the assembly and distribution of "History Will Absolve Me".[92] Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin were leading strategists and highly skilled combatants who held essential roles throughout the revolution. Tete Puebla, founding member and second in command of the Mariana Grajales Platoon, said of Celia Sanchez, "When you speak of Celia, you've got to speak of Fidel, and vice versa. Celia's ideas touched almost everything in the Sierra.[90]

    • The Cuban Revolution, including Batista's resignation and flight into exile, plays a major role in the plot of the 1974 film The Godfather Part II.[93]
    • The 1987 video game Guevara, released in the United States as Guerrilla War, features Castro and Guevara fighting in the jungle against the forces of an unnamed dictator.[94][95]
    • The Cuban dissident and exile Reinaldo Arenas wrote about Castro's persecution of homosexuals in his 1992 autobiography Antes Que Anochezca, which became the basis for the 2000 film Before Night Falls.[96]
    • Steven Soderbergh's 2008 film Che, a two-part biopic about Che Guevara, depicts the rise of Castro's movement and Guevara's role in the Cuban Revolution.[97]
    • The 2013 strategic board game Cuba Libre by US wargaming publisher GMT Games puts players into the roles of the involved parties in the Revolution and lets them reenact the conflict alongside a randomized storyline of the key historical events.[98][99]

    There were many foreign presences in Cuba during this time. Esther Brinch was a Danish translator for the Danish government in 1960's Cuba. Brinch's work covered the Cuban Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis.[100] A collection of Brinch’s archival materials is housed at the George Mason University Special Collections Research Center.

    See also

    References
    1. Lopez, Jaime (24 May 2012). "Newly Declassified Information Shows Costa Rica During the Cold War". The Costa Rica Star. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
    2. Cambronero, Natasha (26 November 2016). "Los pactos y las rupturas de Fidel Castro con los gobiernos de Costa Rica". La Nación (San Jose). Retrieved 4 January 2021.
    3. Dixon, Jeffrey S.; Sarkees, Meredith Reid (2015). A Guide to Intra-state Wars: An Examination of Civil, Regional, and Intercommunal Wars, 1816-2014. CQ Press. p. 98.
    4. Jowett, Philip (2019). Liberty or Death: Latin American Conflicts, 1900–70. p. 309.
    5. Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson (1997). International Conflict: A Chronological Encyclopedia of Conflicts and Their Management, 1945–1995. Congressional Quarterly.
    6. Singer, Joel David and Small, Melvin (1974). The Wages of War, 1816–1965. Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.
    7. Eckhardt, William, in Sivard, Ruth Leger (1987). World Military and Social Expenditures, 1987–88 (12th edition). World Priorities.
    8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 26 January 2019.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
    9. Faria, Miguel A., Jr. (27 July 2004). "Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement". Newsmax Media. Archived from the original on 22 August 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
    10. "Cuba Marks 50 Years Since 'Triumphant Revolution'" Archived 27 May 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Jason Beaubien. NPR. 1 January 2009. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
    11. "Cuba receives first US shipment in 50 years". Al Jazeera. 14 July 2012. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
    12. "On Cuba Embargo, It's the U.S. and Israel Against the World – Again". The New York Times. 28 October 2014. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
    13. "Cuba off the U.S. terrorism list: Goodbye to a Cold War relic". Los Angeles Times. 17 April 2015. Archived from the original on 18 April 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
    14. "US flag raised over reopened Cuba embassy in Havana". BBC News. 15 August 2015. Archived from the original on 18 August 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
    15. Lazo, Mario (1970). American Policy Failures in Cuba – Dagger in the Heart. Twin Circle Publishing Co.: New York. pp. 198–200, 204. Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 68-31632.
    16. Gary B. Nash, Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J. Frederick, Allen F. Davis, Allan M. Winkler, Charlene Mires and Carla Gardina Pestana. The American People, Concise Edition: Creating a Nation and a Society, Combined Volume (6th edition, 2007). New York: Longman.
    17. "The Cuban Army Abroad – Meet Castro's Foreign Cold Warriors".
    18. Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College. U.S. Army War College. 1977. p. 13.
    19. "Foreign Intervention by Cuba" (PDF).
    20. "Makers of the Twentieth Century: Castro". History Today. 1981. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
    21. Tamayo, Juan O. "El alzamiento más prolongado contra Castro". elnuevoherald (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 May 2019.
    22. "Los rostros del Escambray". elnuevoherald (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 May 2019.
    23. "¿Quien era el Capitan Tondique? - Proyecto Tondique". ¿Quien era el Capitan Tondique? - Proyecto Tondique (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 May 2019.
    24. "New Clashes Reported In Cuban Countryside". www.latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
    25. "From the archive, 11 March 1962: Batista's revolution". The Guardian. 11 March 2013. Archived from the original on 17 October 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
    26. Julia E. Sweig (2004). Inside the Cuban Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01612-5.
    27. Arthur Meier Schlesinger (1973). The Dynamics of World Power: A Documentary History of the United States Foreign Policy 1985–1993. McGraw-Hill. p. 512. ISBN 0-07-079729-3.
    28. "Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Democratic Dinner, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
    29. "Fulgencio Batista". HistoryOfCuba.com. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
    30. Díaz-Briquets, Sergio & Pérez-López, Jorge F. (2006). Corruption in Cuba: Castro and beyond. University of Texas Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-292-71482-3. Archived from the original on 18 October 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
    31. New Republic, 14 Dec. 1963, Jean Daniel "Unofficial Envoy: An Historic Report from Two Capitals," page 16 US President John F. Kennedy said: "I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries."
    32. James Stuart Olson (2000). Historical Dictionary of the 1950s. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 67–68. ISBN 0-313-30619-2.
    33. "Biography of Fidel Castro". About.com. Archived from the original on 24 April 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
    34. Bourne, Peter G. (1986). Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro. New York City: Dodd, Mead & Company. pp. 68–69. ISBN 978-0-396-08518-8.
    35. "Historical sites: Moncada Army Barracks and". CubaTravelInfo. Archived from the original on 10 July 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
    36. Hunt, Michael H. (2004). The World Transformed: 1945 to the present. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 257. ISBN 9780199371020.
    37. Castro (2007), p. 133
    38. Hunt, Michael (2014). The World Transformed 1945 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 257.
    39. Castro (2007), p. 672
    40. Hunt, Michael (2014). The World Transformed 1945 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 258.
    41. "Chronicle of an Unforgettable Agony: Cuba's Political Prisons". Contacto Magazine. September 1996. Archived from the original on 28 January 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
    42. Castro (2007), p. 174
    43. Horowitz, Irving Louis (1988). Cuban communism. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books. p. 662. ISBN 978-0-88738-672-5.
    44. Thomas, Hugh (March 1971). Cuba; the Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row. p. 1173. ISBN 978-0-06-014259-9.
    45. Invisible Latin America, by Samuel Shapiro, Ayer Publishing, 1963, ISBN 0-8369-2521-1, p. 77.
    46. Historia de Cuba: Desde Colon hasta Castro. Carlos Márquez Sterling. Miami, Florida. 1963.
    47. "Uprising In Cuba Quickly Quelled, Ten Listed Dead". Florence Morning News. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
    48. "Finally, Cuba's Matanzas gets some respect". Victoria Advocate. Retrieved 5 May 2010. ...the world knows about the Moncada attack in Oriente province that made Fidel Castro famous, but few have heard of the attack on the Goicuria Barracks in Matanzas on April 29, 1956. That event caught the young Bretos on a Sunday outing to mass at the cathedral with his Aunt Nena. He remembers the scene vividly: the staccato gun fire, the military fighter that roared by, the news that all the rebels had been killed, the photographs of the colonel in charge who smiled proudly over the corpses and of a prisoner being shot in cold blood, the latter image published in the Spanish edition of Life. "That day," Bretos writes, "the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."
    49. "Cuban Revolution: The Voyage of the Granma". Latin American History. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 24 December 2014. The yacht, designed for only 12 passengers and supposedly with a maximum capacity of 25, also had to carry fuel for a week as well as food and weapons for the soldiers.
    50. Castro (2007), p. 182
    51. Thomas (1998)
    52. "Opiniones: Haydee Santamaría, una mujer revolucionaria" (in Spanish). La Ventana. 2 July 2004. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
    53. Faria (2002), pp. 40–41
    54. Cushion, Steve (2018). A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution How the Working Class Shaped the Guerillas' Victory. Monthly Review Press.
    55. Ernesto "Che" Guevara (World Leaders Past & Present), by Douglas Kellner, 1989, Chelsea House Publishers, ISBN 1-55546-835-7, p. 45.
    56. "1950s CIA Aid to Castro Reported". Los Angeles Times. 19 October 1986. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
    57. "CIA Helped Fund Castro In 50s, Author Contends" (PDF). Washington Post. 19 October 1986. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
    58. American Comandante Archived 20 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine, 2015 episode of American Experience
    59. Louis A. Pérez. Cuba and the United States.
    60. Hunt, Michael (2014). The World Transformed 1945 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 260.
    61. English (2008)
    62. "The Batista-Lansky Alliance: How the mafia and a Cuban dictator built Havana's casinos". Cigar Aficionado. May 2001. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
    63. Dewitt, Don A. (2011). U.S. Marines at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. p. 31. ISBN 9781462021246. Archived from the original on 25 October 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
    64. Mallin, Jay (2018). Covering Castro: Rise and Decline of Cuba's Communist Dictator. New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-351-29418-8.
    65. "About Us". Radio Rebelde. Archived from the original on 9 June 2013. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
    66. Hunt, Michael (2014). The World Transformed 1945 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 267. ISBN 9780199371020.
    67. "Carlos Franqui". Daily Telegraph. 24 May 2010. Archived from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
    68. "Batista Says Manpower Edge Lacking". Park City Daily News. 1 January 1959. Archived from the original on 12 September 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
    69. "Air war over Cuba 1956–1959". ACIG.org. 30 November 2011. Archived from the original on 18 March 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
    70. "1958: Battle of La Plata (El Jigüe)". Cuba 1952–1959. 15 December 2009. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
    71. The Life & Times of Che Guevara by David Sandison (1996). Paragon. ISBN 0-7525-1776-7. p. 41.
    72. Brown & Tucker (2013), p. 127
    73. Faria (2002), p. 69
    74. Quirk 1993, p. 212; Coltman 2003, p. 137.
    75. Thomas (1998), pp. 691–93
    76. "Jean Daniel Bensaid: Biography" Archived 12 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine . Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 3 December 2012.
    77. Gleijeses, Piero (2002). Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959–1976. University of North Carolina Press. p. 14.
    78. "Ahead Of Bay Of Pigs, Fears Of Communism". NPR. 17 April 2011. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
    79. Faria (2002), p. 105
    80. "Washington and the Cuban Revolution Today: Ballad of a Never-Ending Policy – Part I: The Myth of the Miami Lobby". Dissident Voice. 22 June 2013. Archived from the original on 27 October 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
    81. "Obama hails 'new chapter' in US-Cuba ties". BBC News. 17 December 2014. Archived from the original on 17 December 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
    82. "Trump administration bans educational and recreational travel to Cuba". PBS. 4 June 2019. Archived from the original on 4 June 2019. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
    83. "Helms-Burton Act: US firms face lawsuits over seized Cuban land". BBC. 3 May 2019. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
    84. "Cuba Once More" by Walter Lippmann. Newsweek. 27 April 1964. p. 23.
    85. "La Guerras Secretas de Fidel Castro" Archived 18 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish). CubaMatinal.com. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
    86. "Parrot diplomacy". The Economist. 24 July 2008. Archived from the original on 24 May 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
    87. "Cuba receives first US shipment in 50 years" (PDF). Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
    88. Serra, Ana. Ideology and the novel in the Cuban revolution : the making of a revolutionary identity in the first decade. OCLC 42657417.
    89. Brown, Jonathan (24 April 2017). Cuba's Revolutionary World. Harvard University Press.
    90. Puebla, Teté, and Mary-Alice Waters. Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla & the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War, 1956–58. New York: Pathfinder, 2003.
    91. Puebla, Teté, and Mary-Alice Waters. Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla & the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War, 1956–58. New York: Pathfinder, 2003
    92. Shayne, Julie D. The Revolution Question: Feminisms in El Salvador, Chile, and Cuba. Rutgers University Press, 2004.
    93. "Film locations for The Godfather Part 2 (1974)". Movie-Locations.com. Archived from the original on 22 September 2013. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
    94. Scott Sharkey. "EGM's Top Ten Videogame Politicians: Election time puts us in a voting mood". Electronic Gaming Monthly 234 (November 2008): 97.
    95. "Guerrilla War/Guevara". Hardcore Gaming 101. 18 October 2013. Archived from the original on 30 October 2013. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
    96. "Antes Que Anochezca = Before Night Falls". Publishers Weekly. 3 February 1992. Archived from the original on 25 January 2015. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
    97. "Che: Part One". The Observer. 4 January 2009. Archived from the original on 5 September 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
    98. "Cuba Libre". GMT Games. Archived from the original on 18 April 2014. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
    99. "Cuba Libre". BoardGameGeek.com. Archived from the original on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
    100. "Guide to the Esther Brinch Cuban Revolution documents, 1960-1967Esther Brinch Cuban Revolution documents". scrc.gmu.edu. Retrieved 9 April 2020.

    Bibliography
    • Brown, Gates; Tucker, Spencer C. (2013). "Cuban Revolution". In Tucker, Spencer C. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A New Era of Modern Warfare: A New Era of Modern Warfare. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-280-9.
    • Castro, Fidel (2007). Ignacio Ramonet (ed.). Fidel Castro: My Life. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-102626-8.
    • Clark, Juan (1992). Cuba: Mito y Realidad: Testimonios de un Pueblo. Miami: Saeta Ediciones. ISBN 978-0-917049-16-3.
    • English, T. J. (2008). Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-06-114771-5.
    • Font, Fabián Escalante (1995). The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62. Ocean Front. ISBN 1875284869.
    • Faria, Miguel A., Jr. (2002). Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise. Milledgeville, GA: Hacienda Pub Inc. ISBN 0-9641077-3-2.
    • Lazo, Mario (1968). Dagger in the heart: American policy failures in Cuba. New York: Twin Circle.
    • Thomas, Hugh (1998). Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80827-7.

    Further reading
    • Thomas M. Leonard (1999). Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29979-X.
    • Julio García Luis (2008). Cuban Revolution Reader: A Documentary History of Key Moments in Fidel Castro's Revolution. Ocean Press. ISBN 1-920888-89-6.
    • Samuel Farber (2012). Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment. Haymarket Books. ISBN 9781608461394.
    • Joseph Hansen (1994). Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution: A Marxist Appreciation. Pathfinder Press. ISBN 0-87348-559-9.
    • Julia E. Sweig (2004). Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01612-2.
    • Thomas C. Wright (2000). Latin America in the Era of the Cuban Revolution. Praeger Paperback. ISBN 0-275-96706-9.
    • Marifeli Perez-Stable (1998). The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512749-8.
    • Geraldine Lievesley (2004). The Cuban Revolution: Past, Present and Future Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-96853-0.
    • Teo A. Babun (2005). The Cuban Revolution: Years of Promise. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2860-4.
    • Antonio Rafael de la Cova (2007). The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1-57003-672-1.
    • Samuel Farber (2006). The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-5673-8.
    • Jules R. Benjamin (1992). The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02536-3.
    • Comite central del Partido comunista de Cuba: Comisión de orientación revolucionaria (1972). Rencontre symbolique entre deux processus historiques [i.e., de Cuba et de Chile]. La Habana, Cuba: Éditions politiques.
    • David M. Watry (2014). Diplomacy at the Brink: Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden in the Cold War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 9780807157183.
    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.