Cold War: The Cuban Revolution

         

Kennedy versus Khrushchev: Cold War Political Cartoon

          The Cold War as known to most Americans was a continuous state of military and political ideological conflict and differences between western powers i.e. The United States of America and its allies versus eastern powers i.e. The Soviet Union and its allies. It is important to note that the Cold War effort was one of ideological differences in governmental management and democratic principles and also contributed to the establishment of the military industrial complex. This time in American history tested the existed foreign policy that had made the United States the power house of the developed world. The Cold War, named solely because of the nuclear weapons that each major power possessed threatened the world with assured destruction if there was ever escalating tensions and or conflict. This psychological aspect of warfare heightened the consciousness of warfare in the everyday lives of the worlds inhabitants; from the combat soldier on the front lines to the demure darling housewives of the late 1940s and would last almost sixty years until the dissolution of the USSR in the mid 1990s.

Political Cartoon: United States role in Cuba

            The Cold War would also shape how the United States conducted foreign policy throughout the world. One great example, The Cuban Revolution, would show in great detail the flaws and subversion that U.S. policy would inflict on its neighbors in order to maintain control of its resources. The Cuban Revolution, led by a young lawyer and activist, Fidel Castro would overthrow the existing United States backed regime of Fulgencio Batista who had close ties to US businesses especially within the sugar industry and organized crime i.e. the Mafia. Under the leadership of Batista, Cuba had legalized gambling in an attempt to appeal to American tourism. Sugar was the major export of Cuba which was owned by the elite and backed by American investment capital. Under the Batista regime the profits of the sugar resource in Cuba was lavished on the elites and the everyday citizen was forced to choose between the basic necessities such as food and clothing.

Celebrate the Revolution Political Cartoon

            Additionally, the Batista regime, was responsible for widespread illiteracy, poverty and prostitution in Cuba while catering to the American elite through business ventures. President John F. Kennedy said it best when he remarked in an interview with Jean Daniel in October 1963,

"I believe that there is no country in the world 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 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. That is perfectly clear." --John F. Kennedy, October 1963

Literacy campaign of Cuban citizens

            After Castro's rise to power his reforms included the nationalization of American companies operating in Cuba, the infamous literacy movement which saw a more than 80% literacy rate among the lower classes, banned elections, land reform, banned religious freedoms, and made Cuba a one party government. Due to the embargo's sanctioned by the US government, Cuba, made the Soviet Union its main trading partner and through allying itself with the USSR it would be considered a beacon for the communist cause in Latin America. The Bay of Pigs incident, a failed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation that sent Cuban Americans to overthrow and kill Fidel Castro, underestimated loyal sentiment of most Cuba's citizens to Castro and his regime, and further alienated the relationship between Cuba and the United States. It is interesting to note that the same subversion techniques used against Castro i.e. assassination attempts would come to haunt the United States through the assassination of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy.

Fidel addresses the masses to fight for liberation

            The Cuban Revolution can be summed up as rampant discontent towards an "undemocratic" US sanctioned government that willfully neglected its citizens instead giving the riches of industry to US businesses. The United States through a hostile trade embargo and constant subversion techniques of its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would subject Cuba to even more widespread poverty and violence all in the name of democracy.

Citations:

Bercovitch, Jacob and Richard Jackson, International Conflict : A Chronological
       Encyclopedia of Conflicts and Their Management 1945-1995 (1997).

Griffith, Robert, and Paula Baker. "Fidel Castro Denounces U.S. Policy Toward 
      Cuba, 1960." Major Problems in American History since 1945: 
      Documents and Essays. 3rd ed. Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 127-30.   
      Print.

Nash, Gary B., 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.