So, we’ve been running the Cold War for
over year now, and I’ve just been informed
we haven’t even STARTED on Cuba yet? Can
this be true?
[checks notes]
Huh… Well, I guess we should end that particular
embargo. See what I did there? Cuba, despite
being a small island, played a massive role
in the Cold War. It was a communist state
less than 100 miles off the American coast,
and the focal point of one of the most dangerous
moments of the entire conflict. We’ll be
visiting Cuba several times over the course
of this channel. I’m your host David and
today we are going to go into the history
of this country and set up all the reasons
WHY it took the course it did. Fix yourself
a Cubata and break out the Cohibas. Esta es...La
Guerra Fria!
Our story begins, not like it usually does
at the end of the Second World War but rather
in the late 19th century. The United States,
through an accident and yellow journalism,
found itself in a war with the decaying colonial
empire of Spain. By that time, though, Cuba
was already embroiled in a war of independence
against their Spanish colonial masters. Their
struggle had loomed heavily in the minds of
the American people. Reports of Spanish atrocities
(arguably exaggerated) increased the mood
and desire for the US to intervene. Even after
a change in Spanish policy towards Cuba, the
toothpaste was well out of the tube. In response
to fears of violence against Americans in
Havana, the US dispatched the USS Maine in
late January of 1898. The Maine, you will
remember, was a US Navy armoured cruiser.
In what’s now thought by historians to be
an accidental ignition of coal gases, the
Maine exploded just off the coast, killing
over 200 American sailors and sinking the
ship. The cause has not been established conclusively
to this day, but at the time, it was definitely
blamed on a sea mine planted by the Spanish.
Americans freaked out and demanded a response
from the government of US President William
McKinley. Newspaper barons like William Randolf
Hearst spread newspaper articles sewing a
conspiracy that the Spanish sunk the Maine.
As a quick aside, the character of Charles
Foster Kane in Citizen Kane is based on Hearst,
and there’s a part of the movie which refers
to this exact moment. Either way, back in
the real world, McKinley and the leadership
of the Republican party didn’t want a war.
Still, the people were shouting ‘Remember
the Maine, To Hell with Spain!’. Things
changed when senator Redfield Proctor gave
his analysis, concluding that the US had to
go to war to intervene, turning around most
of the constituents opposing intervention..
McKinley asked, and got permission from congress
soon after, to intervene in the Cuban revolution.
The resolution focused on independence for
Cuba, and a brief occupation until peace could
be achieved. On April 25th 1898, the United
States declared war on Spain.
This was… not a close war. The United States
destroyed the Spanish occupation of Cuba,
and at the same time also invaded the Spanish
colonies of Puerto Rico and the Phillippines.
Spain surrendered by July and signed a peace
treaty granting Cuba its independence. Notable
to point out here though, the leadership of
Cuba’s rebel force played no role at the
peace treaty process in Paris, nor the actual
surrender ceremonies. Weird.
In 1902, the United States passed the Platt
amendment, which on May 20th gave the Cuban
people formal independence. However, Cubans
today do not consider this an actual moment
of independence, and now we’re going to
go into all the reasons the Cubans are probably
right about that. A year later the Cuban government
signed the Cuban-American Treaty of Relations
which leased Guantanamo Bay to the United
States to use as a Caribbean military port
(and apparently extraconstitutional prison
with a questionable record on human rights
*torture* but that is a different video for
a different channel). The Americans still
hold this territory to this day, much to the
dismay of the current Cuban government.
One part of the treaty included a clause which
gave the US the right to intervene for the
quote “...preservation of Cuban independence,
the maintenance of a government adequate for
the protection of life, property, and individual
liberty…” endquote. When Estrada Palma
rigged the 1905 election, liberals rose up
in revolt. Both factions asked the US to intervene.
President Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley’s
old Vice President before his assassination,
was reluctant to interfere. Without US aid,
Palma decided to resign. The next day, Roosevelt’s
Secretary of War William H Taft invoked the
treaty to declare himself the provisionary
leader of Cuba until they could have elections.
US soldiers began an occupation of Cuba, which
would last for several years. In 1909, the
occupational governor of Cuba, Charles Magoon,
decided the island was ready for elections.
They went through, and Cuba had a new president,
José Miguel Gómez, and with that, the occupation
ended. What this showed is that the United
States was fully ready to intervene in Cuban
politics if and when they so desired.
The period that followed was economically
quite prosperous for Cuba. The First World
War created a sugar shortage so, Cuba managed
to make mad bank off their primary cash crop.
Wait…”Mad Bank”?? I’m getting too
old for this… Anyway, not everything was
rosy. One attempt to make a black republic
led by the Partido Independiente de Color
resulted in a brutal counterinsurgency in
order to suppress the insurgency.
And of course, there is the danger in relying
on a single commodity like Cuba did. In 1920,
the price of sugar crashed, and the Cuban
economy crashed along with it. In this recession,
foreign, primarily American corporations began
to invest in the country and take ownership
over many of the island’s industries and
businesses. Meaning that money started to
flow out of Cuba to piggy banks in New York.
Just like in a colony. But Cuba was totally
not a colony. Right.
In the 20s this got worse as Cuba opened to
American tourism, with American owned businesses
opening around the country. With it came the
rise of powerful organized crime, and Cuba
also became a Caribbean Las Vegas, but you
know, before Las Vegas. Prostitution and gambling
becoming growing segments of the economy;
this is the second time i’ve been able to
talk about blackjack and hookers! The President
at the time Gerardo Machado grew increasingly
less popular, and broke more and more promises
in order to hang on to power. How could this
get any worse? Spoiler: It got worse.
The entire global economy crashed in 1929.
Protest and even terrorist groups began to
challenge the authority of the government,
leading to repression as the economy began
to crumble across the island nation. The US
intervened with the threat of invasion in
1933 to force the President to make a change
in government. A general strike forced Machado
into exile and installed a temporary government
led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada.
This wasn’t a military coup per se, but
it WAS made up of a lot of soldiers. This
was followed by another provisional government…
followed by a takeover by a student organization.
But while this government ran and held its
own President, Ramón Grau San Martín, a
man behind the scenes was put in charge of
the military and took effective control of
the country. And this man was the military
commander Fulgencio Batista.
Let’s talk a little bit about Batista. He
was born in 1901 to veterans of the war of
independence. He came up in pretty modest
conditions, working as a labourer since the
age of 14. Eventually, he found his way into
the military, where his skills as a stenographer
helped him rise in the ranks. He was the secretary
of the soldiers who participated in the 1933
coup. In the political chaos which followed,
he rose to head of the military and was now
de facto running the country.
The Grau government was weak, and Batista,
together with conspirators from the US, forced
the President to resign in 1934, putting Carlos
Mendieta in charge with recognition from Washington.
Ah yes, the US supporting a military takeover
of the government. A cold war tale as old
as time. This administration didn’t even
last the year. From 1934 to 1940, Cuba went
through a string of weak presidents while
Batista really ruled as the military leader
and strongman dictator of Cuba.
But in 1940, Cuban politics would undergo
a significant change. 1940 saw a new constitution
which allowed unions and healthcare. Coinciding
with the new constitution was an election
for a new president. And who stood for President?
None other than Fulgencio Batista. Notably,
he was the only non-white Cuban to run the
country. Batista was a Social Democrat, and
used progressive reforms, with a strong dose
of capitalism to weave a happy relationship
between a Cuban population that wanted significant
improvements, and the United States which
didn’t want threats to their dominance over
vast sectors of the Cuban economy. Hell, even
the Communists liked him. Well, For a time
anyway. Around the same time, Cuba also participated
in the Second World War, playing a significant
role in the Battle of the Caribbean.
In 1944, the new constitution forbade Batista
from running for another term, so he handpicked
a successor Carlos Saladrigas Zayas. Though
unfortunately for Batista, Grau defeated him
in the election.
After that, Batista pushed a hard reset on
his life. He moved to the US, he divorced
his wife and remarried. Batista spent the
next eight years chilling in expensive hotels
and houses between New York and Daytona Beach.
It’s suspected the copious amounts of money
he had came from basically raiding the Cuban
treasury before Grau could take office. He
was even elected to the Cuban senate FROM
the US. But, eventually, he decided to return
to Cuba for another shot at the presidency.
With permission from Grau, he formed a new
political party and stood for the 1952 election.
This... didn’t go great for Batista. His
new party remained a weak third place in the
polls.
But our hero Batista was not going to let
a little democracy get in the way of his desire
to be President. With his friends in the army,
he staged a coup a few months before the election.
He ousted the President, cancelled the election,
and of course, the US soon after recognized
his government. Another triumph for US Foreign
Policy and its quest for global democracy.
Cuba was at the time of Batista’s takeover
doing pretty well. It was one of the most
developed states in Latin America, on par
with some countries in southern Europe. While
wages did stay high under the Batista regime,
it was marred by growing corruption and inequality.
The rising tide did not raise all boats. One
in three Cubans still lived in poverty. As
well, American control of the economy and
the role of organized crime deepened during
the Batista regime, with his support. American
capitalists owned such a massive amount of
the Cuban economy, it was hard to see it as
anything but a colony. Leftists were not happy
with the state of things.
And I can think of no more prominent leftist
who opposed the Batista regime than Fidel
Castro. Let’s give a bit of background since
Castro is one of the more influential world
leaders of the 20th century. He was born in
1926, the son of Canadian and Spanish immigrants
to Cuba. Relatively well-off, he went to good
schools and became a lawyer. As part of the
politically woke student movement, he got
into activism surrounding anti-imperialism,
especially against the United States.
He had an intense career. He once participated
in a militia group which was going to overthrow
the right-wing dictator of the Dominican Republic
Rafael Trujillo, but the Cuban government
on the behest of the US forced them to stop.
At a protest the next year he got the crap
kicked out of him by Cuban police as part
of an anti-communist crackdown. He co-founded
a law firm which worked with poor Cubans trying
to find justice. Castro tried several times
to challenge the Cuban legal system to make
progressive change but hit brick walls constantly.
He even tried to make a run for local office,
when Batista’s coup cancelled elections.
Violence seemed to be a last resort, but Castro
appeared to be all out of resorts.
Trying to find a way to end the military dictatorship
of his country, Castro along with his brother
Raul founded a resistance movement called…
“the movement” They began the process
of getting weapons, training, and publishing
newspapers to get ready for a coming revolution.
Obviously, what comes next needs to be a video
or two or three all on their own own, so please
come back soon to learn about how Cuba became
a workers paradise... spoiler alert.
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