William Rozario

The Cuban Revolution is a very unique revolution, in that, it happened in Latin America during the Cold War, it put in a communist regime, and it managed to not be undone by the US. It is for this reason that we can use Cuba to study the effects of whether or not communism in Latin America can work. Now, before the revolution, Cuba was a, as PBS puts it “one of the most advanced and successful countries in Latin America” with “profound inequalities” (“Pre-Castro Cuba.”). Now, Cuba under Castro wasn’t exactly paradise on Earth. As History puts it, “As Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro oversaw sweeping reforms… But these changes came at an overwhelming price” (Blakemore). But nevertheless, regardless of all the bad things that Castro brought to Cuba, the country was better off under him than it was under Batista before him. 

Before Castro’s time, it was Fulgencio Batista who was in power. Bautista first became president in 1940,  with which he ushered in “an era of hope” (“Pre-Castro Cuba.”) who even stepped down when his time was up. However, that “era of hope”, which was marred by political violence and corruption, came to an end when hHe unseated Ramón Grau San Martín, the democratically elected president of Cuba, in a coup d’etat in 1952,  and destroyed “democratic republic he had brought into existence” (“Pre-Castro Cuba.”). Although Cuba “ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita.” and had the “the fourth highest in Latin America” (“Pre-Castro Cuba.”), “Neither health care nor education reached those rural Cubans at the bottom of society” and “Racism also blighted Cuban society.” (“Pre-Castro Cuba.”).

After the revolution, Cuba was under the power of one Fidel Castro, a man who according to the New York Times “really loves people as people” and had a “genuine, simple pleasure and affection for people, the humbler the better” (Matthews). This in contrast to Batista, a man so power hungry that he staged a coup d’etat to retake power despite already having been president before.

“Pre-Castro Cuba.”PBS, 14 November. 2019, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/comandante-pre-castro-cuba

Blakeore, Erin “How the Castro Family Dominated Cuba for Nearly 60 Years” History, https://www.history.com/news/cuba-after-castro-miguel-diaz-canel. Accessed 15 November 2019.

Matthews, Herbert L. “Now Castro Faces the Harder Fight.” The New York Times, 8 March 1959, p SM22.