Cuba

E

3

Grau’s Revolutionary Government

Without consulting the Cuban opposition, Sumner Welles appointed his close friend, diplomat Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, as the interim president. Céspedes stepped into a difficult situation. Outbursts of pent-up bitterness continued against Machado, and indignation grew over U.S. handling of the situation. Another coup within the army weakened Céspedes’ ability to govern. The coup was led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar, who seized control of the armed forces in September 1933. The Student Directorate rushed to support Batista and turned the mutiny into a demand that Céspedes step down, which he promptly did after serving only 23 days in office.

The unlikely alliance of military officers and students introduced a dynamic period of national reform. The Student Directorate installed Ramón Grau San Martín, a physician and a professor at the University of Havana Law School, as the new president. Grau moved quickly to put in place a program of radical measures. He nullified the Platt Amendment, gave women the vote, established an eight-hour work day, dissolved the political parties that had cooperated with Machado, approved a land redistribution program, and tried to extract fair taxation from U.S. sugar companies.

Grau’s administration quickly attracted enemies from both sides of the political spectrum. On the Left, the Communists urged the Student Directorate to seize U.S. businesses and the estates of wealthy Cubans. Frightened moderates and conservatives feared that Grau’s reform policy would erode their own power and wealth and also foresaw conflict with the United States. Both sides undercut Grau’s support. Confronted with growing opposition, the Student Directorate shocked everyone when it voted to dissolve itself, leaving Grau at the mercy of his adversaries. As Grau’s power base disintegrated, political instability returned and his economic reforms faltered.

E

4

Batista’s First Regime

In January 1934, with the encouragement of the U.S. government, Batista led a coup that ousted Grau. Over the next few years, a number of politicians served as president. However, as head of the military, Batista held the real power, governing from behind the scenes from 1934 to 1940. His will to sustain order was tested at first by radicals who ran clandestine operations and organized strikes in an effort to dislodge his government. But within a year, the military had repressed the radicals, arresting and executing many of their leaders. These actions brought peace and stability to the middle and upper classes.

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Economic conditions in Cuba improved between 1933 and 1940. The United States increased Cuba’s sugar quota (the amount of sugar Cuba was allowed to import into the United States each year), and the price of sugar rose from 25 cents per pound in 1933 to 31.4 cents per pound in 1937. Improvements in the sugar industry reinvigorated the Cuban economy. To prevent a repeat of the speculation that had ruined Cuban growers in the past, the government passed the Sugar Coordination Law in 1937. This law allowed the state to control all lands used for sugar cultivation, apportion acreage to producers, and regulate prices and wages.

Cubans also turned their attention to unresolved constitutional questions. Since Grau had not been elected according to the provisions of Cuba’s constitution, his reforms were of dubious legality. Cubans had also grown to resent the 1901 constitution essentially written by the U.S. occupation government. To ratify Grau’s reforms and write their own constitution, Cubans called a Constitutional Assembly. Throughout 1939 political associations and trade unions met to decide their positions on issues and to nominate their delegates to the assembly. In November 1939, Cubans elected 81 delegates, 44 of whom belonged to the Auténtico Party, which Grau had formed to preserve the reforms instituted during his presidency. The delegates adopted many of Grau’s reforms, such as universal suffrage, equal rights, fair elections, free political organization, agrarian reform, labor safety codes, minimum wages and maximum work hours, retirement pensions, national insurance guarantees, and the right to strike.

During the late 1930s, Batista developed a broad base of political support, building close relationships with political groups ranging from conservatives to Communists. In 1940 Batista felt confident enough to enter politics as a civilian candidate for president. He ran against Grau and won in a relatively fair election. During his four-year term, he supported the reforms of the new constitution. Batista’s term ended quietly in 1944, and he retired to the United States after his handpicked successor lost the election.

E

5

The Auténtico Presidents

Two Auténtico politicians held the presidency for the next eight years: Grau was president from 1944 to 1948 and Carlos Prío Socarrás from 1948 to 1952. As president, each oversaw a period of corruption unsurpassed by all previous presidents. The optimism and zeal for reform of Grau’s earlier administration had faded among many Auténtico politicians. After spending most of their political lives excluded from the spoils of the political system, the Auténticos now controlled a government that for years had functioned on the basis of greed and corruption. They took full advantage of the system. Uncertain over whether Auténtico rule would continue for long, government officials moved quickly to grab as much as they could from the public treasury. Governmental jobs supported thousands of Auténtico allies. Organized crime controlled tourism, gambling, drugs, and prostitution. Politicians anxious to receive the spoils of office fought gang wars against one another, turning the streets into a violent political forum.

The economy was strong during the 1940s, mainly due to an increase in trade during and directly after World War II (1939-1945). Between 1945 and 1948 sugar production rose 40 percent. Sugar producers’ profits increased by hundreds of millions of dollars. The resulting increase in demand led to higher prices for many products, causing severe hardship for the poor. The most devastating effect of this boom was the mismanagement of the windfall earnings. The boom years brought increased capital into the sugar aristocracy’s bank accounts and into the national treasury as tax revenues increased. Neither the sugar barons nor the government invested in diversifying industry or manufacturing. Instead, sugar barons added to their estates and updated equipment for their plantations. Corruption skimmed off most of the government funds. Most of the money generated by the boom went into the pockets of wealthy individuals, and the distribution of wealth was skewed in favor of the wealthy.

In response to political violence and economic inequities, political reformers, led by Eddy Chibás, a former member of the Auténtico Party, established the Orthodoxo Party in 1947. Chibás brought into the new party students, professionals, workers, and peasants. A passionate speaker, Chibás rekindled ideals of political integrity, democracy, and social reform. In frequent radio broadcasts, he accused the government of corruption and eroded Auténtico authority.

On August 5, 1951, Chibás shot himself during a radio broadcast after he was accused of making false statements about an Auténtico cabinet member. His death ten days later left the Orthodoxos without their center. His style and some of his principles influenced an Orthodoxo Party member, Fidel Castro, a young lawyer and political activist who was at Chibás’ bedside as he was dying.

E

6

The Batista Dictatorship

In 1952 Batista returned from the United States to run for president. When it became apparent that he did not have strong support among voters, Batista organized a bloodless military takeover and became dictator. Batista, however, found that the situation was very different than it had been at the time of his earlier coup in 1934, when he had considerable popular support and was able to build a successful coalition of political groups. In 1952 he faced Cuban citizens who respected their constitution. Organizations opposed to Batista seemed to appear everywhere. Most of these groups had one goal: the removal of Batista. Only university students, the Communists, and Fidel Castro articulated programs for a post-Batista government.

In 1953 Castro attracted a following of young people who shared his desire to topple Batista and reinstate the constitution. On July 26, Castro and 150 armed followers entered the Moncada Military Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Guards set off an alarm and quickly captured the attackers. Castro and several dozen men escaped, but were later arrested. The army brutally tortured and killed 68 insurgents, an act that made heroes and martyrs of Castro’s group.

Castro defended his action in a court hearing, arguing that the government, not his movement, was in violation of constitutional law because it took power illegally and because it had committed atrocities against defenseless prisoners. In a courtroom speech, he promised to lead a revolution that would oversee land reform, industrialization, housing construction, greater employment opportunities, and expanded health and welfare services. After a brief deliberation, a tribunal sentenced Castro to 15 years in prison.

Other revolutionary groups contested Batista’s dictatorship. The Federation of University Students organized rallies and called for Batista’s removal. Most of the students came from the middle class, and although they sympathized with the problems of workers, they did not formulate policies to assist them. In 1955 some of these students concluded that radical action was needed to remove Batista from office. They founded the Revolutionary Directorate to carry out bloody clashes with the army and to attempt to assassinate Batista.

In 1954 Batista won the presidential election, running unopposed after other parties refused to participate. The following year he felt confident enough to free all political prisoners, including Castro. Castro soon left for Mexico with a small number of followers to plan a revolutionary movement they would call the 26th of July Movement (M-26) after the date of the Moncada Barracks assault.

F

Cuban Revolution

Unrest continued in Cuba. In mid-1956 Batista faced dissension within the military as several officers conspired to overthrow him and reinstate liberal, democratic politicians. The leaders were court-martialed and jailed. On March 13, 1957, the Revolutionary Directorate attacked the presidential palace, intending to assassinate Batista. The president barely escaped as the rebels shot their way onto the grounds. José Antonio Echeverría, the directorate’s leader, was gunned down and the rest of his men were captured, killed, or forced into hiding.

Meanwhile Castro had been raising funds, acquiring weapons, and training a small band of guerrillas in Mexico. On November 29, 1956, Castro and about 80 men crammed themselves into a small yacht, the Granma, and set out to invade Cuba. All did not go as planned, however. Bad weather delayed their arrival, and the rebels landed 30 miles south of the point where weapons and reinforcements awaited them. As they waded ashore, Batista’s army ambushed them, and only a handful of men escaped. They formed a small guerrilla army in the Sierra Maestra, the mountains of southeast Cuba.

From his base in the mountains, Castro organized raids on military installations to acquire weapons and worked closely with the rural population to build a base of support. He invited Herbert Matthews, a New York Times correspondent, to the Sierra Maestra to report on the 26th of July Movement. Matthews’ reports brought international attention to Castro’s movement. New recruits joined him, and urban guerrilla groups, such as the Civic Resistance group, founded in 1957, became auxiliaries of the 26th of July Movement.

Well into 1958, U.S. State Department officials misread the Cuban population’s profound dissatisfaction with Batista, as U.S. diplomatic dispatches from Havana indicated that Batista had the opposition under control. Eventually, as Batista’s dictatorial tendencies grew and the extent of opposition to his regime became apparent, the alliance between the United States and Batista weakened. The United States discussed with Batista the possibility of working with the moderate opposition and scheduling free elections. Batista refused. The United States considered an armed intervention, but instead decided to force Batista to resign by withholding arms shipments. Meanwhile, the opposition was unifying around Castro. In March 1958, 45 civic organizations signed an open letter supporting Castro’s guerrillas.

Conditions deteriorated for Batista during the following months. On April 9, 1958, a general strike to protest the Batista government did not paralyze the country, but it did throw doubt on Batista’s ability to govern. In April and May Batista failed to suppress two major rebel offensives. In May Batista began an assault on Castro’s stronghold in the Sierra Maestra. In July more than 10,000 government soldiers failed to dislodge Castro’s men during the Battle of Jigue. In late August the rebel army moved out of its mountain sanctuary onto the plains.

The rebels made steady advances throughout the remainder of the year. In November government troops lost control of the central highway into Santiago. In December rebel forces won a bloody battle for control of Santa Clara, a city in central Cuba. Batista understood that his downfall was imminent. After his annual New Year’s Eve party, he and his closest advisers secretly boarded a plane for the Dominican Republic.

G

Cuba Under Castro

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