Cuba words to know

Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Che Guevara was born into a middle-class family on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina. He absorbed the left-leaning political views of his family and friends, and by his teens had become politically active, joining a group that opposed the government of Juan Perón. After graduating from high school with honors, Guevara studied medicine at the University of Buenos Aires with the intent on providing care for the needy. He received his degree in 1953. However, as Guevara's interest in Marxism grew, he decided to abandon medicine, believing that only revolution could bring justice to the people of South America. In 1953 he traveled to Guatemala, where he witnessed the CIA-backed overthrow of its leftist government, which only served to deepen his convictions. By 1955, Guevara was married and living in Mexico, where he met Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, who were preparing an attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Guevara joined Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, which landed a force of 81 men in the Cuban province of Oriente late in November 1956. Immediately detected by Batista's army, they were almost wiped out. The few survivors, including the wounded Guevara, reached the Sierra Maestra, where they became the nucleus of a guerrilla army. The rebels slowly gained in strength, seizing weapons from Batista's forces and winning support and new recruits. Over the next few years, he would serve as a primary adviser to Castro and lead their growing guerrilla forces in attacks against the crumbling Batista regime. In January 1959 Fidel Castro took control of Cuba and placed Guevara in charge of La Cabaña prison, where it is estimated that perhaps hundreds of people were executed on Guevara's extrajudicial orders. He was later appointed president of the national bank and minister of industry, and did much to shift the country's trade relations from the United States to the Soviet Union. In the early 1960s, Guevara also acted as an ambassador for Cuba, traveling the world to establish relations with other countries, most notably the Soviet Union, and was a key player during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also authored a manual on guerrilla warfare, and in 1964 delivered a speech to the United Nations in which he condemned U.S. foreign policy and the apartheid in South Africa. By 1965, with the Cuban economy in shambles, Guevara left his post to export his revolutionary ideologies to other parts of the world. He traveled first to the Congo to train troops in guerrilla warfare in support of a revolution there, but left later that year when it failed. After returning briefly to Cuba, in 1966 Guevara departed for Bolivia with a small force of rebels to incite a revolution there. He was captured by the Bolivian army and killed in La Higuera on October 9, 1967.

Camilo Cienfuegos (1932-1959)

Camilo Cienfuegos, born on 6 February 1932 in Havana's Lawton district, grew up in a working-class family that had emigrated from Spain prior to the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. His father, a tailor who worked a small shop in Havana, had left-wing political principles. Camilo enrolled in the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" in 1950, but left his studies soon after due to financial problems. During this period he started working as a tailor apprentice in "El Arte", a fashion store in downtown Havana. Around 1948 he became involved in political issues, taking part in popular protests against rising bus-fares. In April 1953 Cienfuegos and a friend traveled to the U.S. on 29-day visitors' visas in search of work. They spent several months working low-paying jobs in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco until immigration officials took them into custody and returned them to Cuba via Mexico. While in New York Cienfuegos became involved with a Cuban political exile group and wrote a few articles for its newspaper, La Voz de Cuba. In 1954 Cienfuegos became an active member of the underground student movement against autocratic President Fulgencio Batista. On 5 December 1955, the eve of the anniversary of the death of 19th-century Cuban independence hero Antonio Maceo, Cienfuegos and other students were shot and wounded in Havana while returning to the university after placing a wreath on Maceo's monument. In 1957 he became one of the top leaders of the revolutionary forces, appointed to the rank of Comandante. In 1958, with the defeat of Operation Verano, Cienfuegos was put in command of one of three columns which headed west out of the mountains with the intention of capturing the provincial capital city of Santa Clara. Che Guevara was in command of another column and Jaime Vega was in command of the third. Vega's column was ambushed and defeated by Batista's forces. Cienfuegos' and Guevara's columns reached the central provinces, where they combined their efforts with several other groups. Cienfuegos' column attacked an army outpost at Yaguajay and, after a tough fight, forced the garrison to surrender on 30 December 1958. This earned him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay". Cienfuegos' column then advanced against Santa Clara in conjunction with Guevara's forces, and the other non-Castro forces from the Escambray front. Together, the two columns captured Santa Clara on 31 December. Most of the defenders surrendered without firing their weapons. Batista fled Cuba the next day, leaving the guerrilla fighters victorious. On 28 October 1959, Cienfuegos' airplane disappeared over the Straits of Florida during a night flight, returning from Camagüey to Havana. An immediate search lasted several days, but the plane was not found.

Nationalization Campaign of 1960

According to geographer and Cuban Comandante Antonio Núñez Jiménez, 75% of Cuba's best arable land was owned by foreign individuals or foreign (mostly American) companies at the time of the revolution. The Castro government formally nationalized all foreign-owned property, particularly American holdings, in the nation on 6 August 1960. Included were U.S. oil companies and U.S. banks such as First National City Bank of New York and Chase Manhattan Bank.

Revolt of the Sergeants

After Batista rose to the rank of sergeant, he took a leading part in an uprising known as the "Revolt of the Sergeants". He took over the Cuban government on September 4, 1933. The coup overthrew the liberal government of Gerardo Machado, and marked the beginning of the army's influence as an organized force in the running of the government. It also signaled Batista's emergence as self-appointed chief of the armed forces, king-maker and favored U.S. strong man.

Fulgencio Batista 1901-1973

Batista was a soldier and political leader who twice ruled Cuba—first in 1933-44 with an efficient government and again in 1952-59 as a dictator, jailing his opponents, using terrorist methods, and making fortunes for himself and his associates. He was born in the town of Veguita, located in the municipality of Banes, Cuba, in 1901, to Belisario Batista Palermo and Carmela Zaldívar González. He was of Spanish, African and Chinese descent. Coming from a humble background, he earned a living as a laborer in the cane fields, docks, and railroads. In 1921, he traveled to Havana and joined the army where he rose to the rank of sergeant and developed a large personal following. In 1933, Batista led an uprising called the Revolt of the Sergeants, as part of the coup that overthrew the government of Gerardo Machado. Batista then became the strongman behind a succession of puppet presidents until he was himself elected president in 1940. While greatly enriching himself, he also governed the country most effectively, expanding the educational system, sponsoring a huge program of public works, and fostering the growth of the economy. After his term ended in 1944, Batista traveled abroad and lived for a while in Florida, where he invested part of the huge sums he had acquired in Cuba. During the eight years that he was out of power in Cuba, there was a resurgence of corruption on a grand scale, as well as a virtual breakdown of public services. In 1952, Batista again ran for president. In a three-way race, Roberto Agramonte of the Orthodox Party led in all the polls, followed by Carlos Hevia of the Authentic Party. Batista's United Action coalition was running a distant third. Resultantly, he returned to power, through a bloodless military coup that deposed Pres. Carlos Prío Socarrás in March 1952, which was widely welcomed. Shortly after the coup, the United States government recognized his government. Again in power, Batista did not continue the progressive social policies of his earlier term. Instead, he returned as a brutal dictator, controlling the university, the press, and the Congress, and he embezzled huge sums from the soaring economy. He also established lasting relationships with organized crime, notably with American mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, and under his rule Havana became known as "the Latin Las Vegas". In 1954 and '58 the country held presidential elections that, though purportedly "free," were manipulated to make Batista the sole candidate. His regime was finally toppled by the rebel forces led by Fidel Castro, who launched their successful attack in the fall of 1958. Faced with the collapse of his regime and with the growing discontent of his supporters, Batista fled with his family to the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959. Later he went into exile on the Portuguese island of Madeira and finally settled in Estoril, near Lisbon.

Fidel Castro (1926-2016)

Born in Birán, Oriente as the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The United States came to oppose Castro's government, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro formed an alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis—a defining incident of the Cold War—in 1962. Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, and sending troops to aid allies in the Yom Kippur War, Ogaden War, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its "Special Period" and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide"—namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela—and signed Cuba up to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008. Castro is a polarizing world figure. His supporters view him as a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism whose revolutionary regime advanced economic and social justice while securing Cuba's independence from American imperialism. Critics view him as a dictator whose administration oversaw human-rights abuses, the exodus of a large number of Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's economy. He was decorated with various international awards and significantly influenced various individuals and groups across the world.

Gerardo Machado

Gerardo Machado y Morales was a hero in the Cuban War of Independence (1895-98) who was later elected president by an overwhelming majority, only to become one of Cuba's most powerful dictators. He was born on Sept. 29, 1871 in Camajuaní, Cuba and died on March 29, 1939 in Miami Beach. He spent his childhood on his family's cattle farm and in his early 20s engaged in growing and selling tobacco. During Cuba's Ten Years' War against Spain (1868-1878), Machado's father joined the Cuban rebels and attained the rank of major. Leaving the army as a brigadier general after the war, he turned to farming and business but remained active in politics, heading the Liberal Party in 1920. His election to the presidency in 1924 was welcomed by most Cubans, especially the middle class, who thought a sensible businessman would restore order to Cuba's disrupted society. He was noted for stating that at the end of his term he would ask for the abrogation of the Platt Amendment. To counteract economic depression caused by declining sugar prices, Machado instituted a massive program of public works but was accused of enriching himself at public expense. Throughout his campaign leading to the 1924 general election, Machado stated numerous times that he did not aspire to be reelected, but only two years into his presidency he changed his mind. In 1927, Machado pushed a series of constitutional amendments in order to enable him to seek re-election, which he obtained in the 1928 presidential election. This was done despite of heated opposition from students and professional men, and Machado began to rule even more dictatorially. Disorder became widespread. In 1933 U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles, under instructions from Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, tried to mediate between Machado and opposition forces, but a general strike was called, and even the army demanded Machado's ouster. He was forced into an exile (August 12) from which he never returned.

National Institute of Agrarian Reform

Che Guevara crafted the Agrarian Reform Law which went into effect on May 17, 1959. This limited the size of farms to 3,333 acres and real estate to 1,000 acres. Any holdings over these limits were expropriated by the government and either redistributed to peasants in 67 acres parcels or held as state-run communes. A new government agency, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), was established to administer this law, and quickly became the most important governing body in the nation, with Guevara named Minister of Industries

Melba Hernandez (1921-2014)

Born in Cruces, Las Villas, Hernández was the only child of mulatto conservative parents who resided in a modern third-floor apartment on Jovellar Street in Vedado district of Havana. She graduated from the University of Havana School of Law in 1943. Hernández worked as a Customs attorney for the Carlos Prio government. She was one of the two women involved in the 1953 Moncada Barracks assault. Although she had been practicing law for a decade, during the Moncada trial she chose not to defend herself, as Fidel Castro did, and was instead represented by Jorge Paglieri Cardero. She was sentenced to 7 months in prison. She was later declared "Heroina del Moncada". In the early 1960s she was in charge of women's prisons in Cuba. Melba Hernandez was one of the women who participated in the 26th of July Movement. She helped the movement by obtaining 100 soldiers' uniform and stitching different ranks on them. The uniforms were used to attack the Moncada Barracks. The attack, led by Fidel Castro, failed and Fidel Castro, Melba Hernandez, Haydée Santamaria, and the remaining survivors of the attack were arrested. The Bautista government sentenced Fidel Castro to 15 years in prison since he was the leader of the attack, and Melba and Haydée were sentenced to 7 months in prison. Melba Hernandez took a role in the new government run by Fidel Castro. She became the head of the Cuban Committee in Solidarity with Vietnam in the 1960s to 1970s. She was the ambassador to Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1980s. She was the vice president of the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal of Our America, the secretary general of Organization in Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAL), director of the Communist Party's Center for Asian Studios, and deputy in Cuba's National Assembly between 1976 and 1986 and was re-elected in 1993.

Carlos Prio

Carlos Prío Socarrás was the President of Cuba from 1948 until he was deposed by a military coup led by Fulgencio Batista on March 10, 1952, three months before new elections were to be held. He was the first president of Cuba to be born in an independent Cuba and the last to gain his post through universal, contested elections. Prío became politically active while a law student at the University of Havana, spending two years in prison for his anti-government activities. He took part in the coup that deposed Gerardo Machado's dictatorship in 1933 and helped organize the Partido Revolucionario Cubano Auténtico. He went into exile in the United States when this party was outlawed, returned to Cuba in 1939, and was elected to the National Assembly. In 1940 he became leader of his party and was elected senator in that year and again in 1944. He served as prime minister from 1945 to 1947 and labour minister from 1947 to 1948. In the latter position he opposed the Communists, ending their control of the unions. Elected president in 1948, Prío continued the centrist policies of his predecessor, Ramón Grau, and pursued programs of agrarian reform and establishment of low-cost housing, a national bank, civil service, and labour courts. In spite of vigorous efforts to increase foreign trade and restore public order, Prío was unable to solve Cuba's economic problems. In the face of growing labour unrest, he did little to combat corruption and gang violence. In 1949 he tried to organize a bloc of Latin American countries committed to democratic government in order to combat internal and external antidemocratic elements. Prío was deposed by Fulgencio Batista in 1952 and went into exile in the United States until 1959, when he returned to Cuba to support Fidel Castro. He returned to Miami in 1961, becoming a spokesman for the Cuban community in exile. His death was apparently a suicide.

Attack on Moncada Army Barracks

Castro knew that legal means of removing Batista would never work. Therefore, he began plotting an armed revolution in secret, attracting to his cause many other Cubans disgusted by Batista's flagrant power grab. Castro knew that he needed two things to win: weapons and men to use them. The assault on Moncada was designed to provide both. The barracks were full of weapons, enough to outfit a small army of rebels. Castro reasoned that if the daring attack were successful, hundreds of angry Cubans would flock to his side to help him bring Batista down. On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led a group of approximately 120 rebels in an attack on the second largest military garrison in Cuba, headquarters of the 400 (others say about 1,000) strong Antonio Maceo regiment, under the command of President Fulgencio Batista. The group formed a sixteen-automobile caravan in order to give the appearance of being a delegation headed by a high-ranking officer sent from western Cuba. Their plan was that a first group of twenty men led by Abel Santamaría would take the civilian hospital at the rear of the barracks, a second group of five men led by Léster Rodríguez would take the Audiencia Building (Palacio de Justicia), and a third group of 90 men, led by Castro, would take the barracks, including the radio transmitter within it. The attack began poorly. The caravan of automobiles became separated by the time it arrived at the barracks, and the car carrying the guerillas' heavy weapons got lost. Furthermore, many of the rebels who would have taken part in the attack were left behind for a lack of weapons. The rebels also lost their possibility of surprise when Castro lost control of his car, crashed, and someone from the rebels opened fire to cover him. In Castro's autobiography, he claims that he drove his car into a group of soldiers at the gate who had realized an attack was in progress. The men in the cars behind him jumped out of their cars, believing they were inside the barracks, and the alarm was sounded before the barracks had been infiltrated. According to Castro, this was the fatal mistake in the operation. The net result of these events was the rebels being outnumbered more than 10 to 1. Although this was a defeat for the revolutionaries, this event paved the way for the insurrection against Batista. It was "the small engine that ignited the big engine of the Revolution."

Raul Castro

Cuban President Raúl Castro was born on June 3, 1931, near Birán, Cuba. The sixth of seven children born to a Spanish landowner and his Cuban wife, Raúl grew up on his father's farm and attended Catholic school with his older brother, Fidel Castro. As a young man, he became interested in politics and joined a socialist youth group. 1953, Raúl aided Fidel in an attempt to unseat the repressive Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, but the two brothers ended up in prison after a failed attack on a military base. When they were eventually pardoned and released in 1955, they fled to Mexico, where they planned their return to Cuba for the following year, when they would try, once again, to overthrow the Batista regime. For the next few years, Raúl assisted his brother in many ways, including leading a group of the movement's guerrilla fighters. Finally, in 1959, Batista fled Cuba, and Fidel assumed power. Raúl was soon appointed head of the armed forces and subsequently ordered the execution of 100 of Batista's military officers, among others, earning himself a reputation early on as a hard-line communist. As Fidel Castro's second in command, over the half century following their revolution, Raúl held numerous government posts and played a significant part in the shaping of Cuba's political history. In addition to heading the military, Raúl served as the country's defense minister from 1959 to 2008, during which time he had a key role in the events leading to the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962 he was appointed deputy prime minister and in 1972 became first deputy prime minister. He also served as first vice president of the council of the state and the council of ministers, and when the collapse of the Soviet Union led to economic fallout in Cuba, Raúl implemented reforms to help the country recover. In February 2008, Raúl succeeded Fidel as president of Cuba. Despite his reputation as a dedicated communist, since assuming leadership of Cuba, Raúl Castro has implemented numerous social, economic and political reforms, including the lifting of restrictions on commerce and travel for its citizens, allowing for the privatization of portions of military and government infrastructure and opening the country to foreign investment; these were part of an ambitious economic initiative that included 300 distinct reforms, many of which seemed to run counter to the economic policies established by Fidel Castro as part of the Cuban Revolution. In 2011, Raúl also instituted a two-term limit for the office of president (each term is five years), and when he was reelected in 2013, he announced his plans to leave politics at the end of his second term.

Batista 1952 Coup

During the eight years that he was out of power in Cuba, there was a resurgence of corruption on a grand scale, as well as a virtual breakdown of public services. In 1952, Batista again ran for president. In a three-way race, Roberto Agramonte of the Orthodox Party led in all the polls, followed by Carlos Hevia of the Authentic Party. Batista's United Action coalition was running a distant third. On March 10, 1952, three months before the elections, Batista, with army backing, staged a coup and seized power. He ousted outgoing President Carlos Prío Socarrás, canceled the elections, and took control of the government as "provisional president." Shortly after the coup, the United States government recognized his government. However Batista returned as a brutal dictator, controlling the university, the press, and the Congress, and he embezzled huge sums from the soaring economy.

Ramon Grau San Martin (1881-1969)

Grau's father, a rich tobacco grower, wanted Ramón to continue in his footsteps, but Ramón himself wanted to be a doctor. He studied at the University of Havana and graduated in 1908 with a Doctor of Medicine degree, then expatriated to Europe in order to expand his medical knowledge. He returned to Cuba in 1921 and became a professor of physiology at the University of Havana. After the 1933 Cuban Revolution Grau initially became one of the five members of the Pentarchy of 1933 government. Thereafter, on September 9, 1933, members of the Directorio Estudiantil Universitario met in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales and after intensive debate between various proposed candidates, it was agreed that Ramón Grau would be the next president. Grau was then President of what was famously called the government of One Hundred Days. In 1944 Grau won the popular vote in the presidential election, defeating Carlos Saladrigas Zayas, Batista's handpicked successor, and served until 1948. Despite his initial popularity in 1933, accusations of corruption tainted his administration's image, and a sizable number of Cubans began to distrust him. After turning over the presidency to his protégé, Carlos Prío, in 1948, Grau virtually withdrew from public life. He emerged again in 1952 to oppose Batista's coup d'état. Grau ran for president in the 1954 and 1958 Batista-sponsored elections but withdrew just prior to each election day, claiming government fraud. After the Cuban Revolution and the rise of Fidel Castro in 1959, Grau retired to his home in Havana and maintained a low profile. He died there on July 28, 1969.

Eddie Chibas (1907-1951)

He was a Cuban politician who used radio to broadcast his political views to the public. He primarily denounced corruption and gangsterism rampant during the governments of Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío which preceded the Batista era. He believed corruption was the most important problem Cuba faced. In 1947 he formed the Ortodoxos party which had the goal of exposing government corruption and bringing about revolutionary change through constitutional means. Castro also joined as he considered Chibás as his mentor. Chibás lost the 1948 election for president, coming in third place. He was an extremely strong critic of that election's winner, Carlos Prío Socarrás. Chibás shot himself during his weekly radio show; however, he had forgotten that his allotted radio time was only 25 minutes

Juan Almeida

Juan Almeida Bosque was born in Havana. He left school at the age of eleven and became a bricklayer.Whilst studying law at the University of Havana in 1952, he became close friends with the revolutionary Fidel Castro and in March of that year joined the anti-Batista movement. In 1953 he joined Fidel and his brother Raúl Castro in the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago. He was arrested and imprisoned with the Castro brothers in the Isle of Pines Prison. During the amnesty of May 15, 1955, he was released and transferred to Mexico. Almeida returned to Cuba with the Castro brothers, Che Guevara and 78 other revolutionaries on the Granma expedition and was one of just 12 who survived the initial landing.Almeida was particularly known for one incident in which he responded to demands by Batista's officers that the rebels give themselves up by shouting, "Nobody here is going to surrender!"—a phrase that became an enduring slogan of the revolution. Almeida, who was the only black commander among the revolutionaries, was later named a member of the powerful Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba; he also served as vice president of the Council of State and held a number of important military posts. In 1998 Castro gave Almeida the honorary title Hero of the Republic of Cuba. Almeida was largely inactive politically after suffering heart problems in 2003.

Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)

Khrushchev was born in the village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War II), Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers. In the power struggle triggered by Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", denouncing Stalin's purges and ushering in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Flaws in Khrushchev's policies eroded his popularity and emboldened potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed the premier in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the deadly fate of previous losers of Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a dacha in the countryside. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970. Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease.

Major Huber Matos (1918-2014)

Matos was born in Yara, in Oriente Province. He became a school teacher in Manzanillo, while also owning a small rice plantation. He joined the Cuban nationalist party, Partido Ortodoxo. Following Batista's coup of 10 March 1952, Matos became involved with the resistance movement. He moved to Costa Rica for several years, maintaining contact with the M-26-7 revolutionaries stationed in Sierra Maestra hills and helping them with logistical and organizational support. He developed contacts with President José Figueres of Costa Rica who supported Cuban rebel aims and helped Matos obtain weapons and supplies. On 11 January 1959, Matos was appointed Commander of the Army in the province of Camagüey. In July 1959, Matos denounced the direction the revolution was taking by giving openly anti-communist speeches in Camagüey. This launched a months-long dispute between him and Castro, then Prime Minister of Cuba, When Castro replaced President Manuel Urrutia with the more radical Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, Matos tendered his resignation in a letter to Castro. On 19 October, he sent a second letter of resignation to Castro. Two days later, Castro sent fellow revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos to arrest Matos. Matos says that he warned Cienfuegos that his life was in danger, that Castro resented Cienfuegos' his popularity and might even have hoped that Matos' supporters would kill him rather than allow him to take command from Matos. Cienfuegos relieved Matos of command and arrested Matos and his military adjutants. Cuban Communists later claimed Matos was helping plan a counter-revolution organized by the American Central Intelligence Agency and other Castro opponents, an operation that became the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The same day Matos was arrested. On 15 December, the court found Matos guilty of counter-revolutionary activity and sentenced him to twenty years in prison. He served the first six and a half years of his sentence at the Isla de la Juventud prison, where Castro had been imprisoned in 1953, and the remainder in Havana's La Cabaña Prison. Matos was reunited with his wife and children, who had left Cuba during the 1960s, in Costa Rica. They then moved to Miami where he lived until his death in February 2014. Matos, and his son Huber Rogelio Matos Araluce (Huber Matos Jr.), became active participants in the U.S.-based opposition to the Castro regime.

Moviemiento Estudantia

Moviemiento Estudantia was a Cuban student group which in opposition to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista from 1954 to 1957 played a role in the Cuban Revolution, which came to power in 1959.

Fundamental Law of the Republic (Feb 1959)

On February 7, 1959, Fidel's government passed the Fundamental Law of the Republic, reinstating but modifying the Constitution of 1940, which General Batista had suspended in 1952. It primarily concentrated legislative power in the executive. Among the changes was giving the Council of Ministers the legislative power and constitutional authority. Less than a week later, Fidel became Prime Minister Cardona. The Fundamental Law is not, in the strict sense of the word, a constitution. It does, however, serve as the basis for governmental procedure in Cuba to this day. Fidel Castro's promise, made in the mid-1960's, to frame a new constitution, has yet to be fulfilled.

Richard Bissel

Richard Mervin Bissell, Jr. was a Central Intelligence Agency officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 spy plane and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was born in the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and went to Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. He studied history at Yale University and then studied at the London School of Economics. He later returned to Yale where he was granted a Ph.D. in economics in 1939. Bissell worked closely with the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), which had helped to organize guerrilla fighting, sabotage and espionage during World War II. In July, 1947 Bissell was recruited by W. Averell Harriman to run a committee to lobby for an economic recovery plan for Europe. The following year he was appointed as an administrator of the Marshall Plan in Germany and eventually became head of the Economic Cooperation Administration. In March 1960 a top-secret policy paper was drafted entitled: A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime "to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more ... acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention." Bissell selected Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) as the landing area. This was 80 miles from the Escambray Mountains. What is more, this journey to the mountains was across an impenetrable swamp. As Bissell explained to Kennedy, this means that the guerrilla fallback option had been removed from the operation. According to Evan Thomas (The Very Best Men): "Some old CIA hands believe that Bissell was setting a trap to force U.S. intervention." On April 14, Kennedy asked Bissell how many Douglas B-26 Invaders were going to be used. He replied sixteen. Kennedy told him to use only eight. Bissell knew that the invasion could not succeed without adequate air cover. Yet he accepted this decision based on the idea that he would later change his mind "when the chips were down". After the operation's initial failure, Bissell told Kennedy that the operation could still be saved if American warplanes were allowed to fly cover. However, he was ultimately turned down. In February 1962 he left the Central Intelligence Agency and became head of the Institute for Defense Analyses in 1962. IDA was a Pentagon think tank set up to evaluate weapons systems. Later he worked for United Technologies in Hartford, Connecticut (1964-74), which supplied weapons systems. He also worked as a consultant for the Ford Foundation.

26th of July Movement 7-26

The 26th of July Movement is a revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro that overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba (1959). Its name originated from the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, an army facility in the city of Santiago de Cuba, on 26 July 1953. This attack was led by a young Fidel Castro, who was a legislative candidate in a free election that had been cancelled by Batista. The movement began formally in 1955 when Castro went to Mexico to form a disciplined guerrilla force. It features a reform program that includes distribution of land to peasants, nationalization of public services, industrialization, honest elections, and mass education reforms. n early 1957, with Castro back in Cuba fighting in the Sierra Maestra, "Civic Resistance" groups were organized in the cities, and numerous middle-class and professional persons gravitated toward Castro. In 1958 the movement joined in a "Junta of Unity" with most other groups opposing Batista. After Castro's victory, the 26th of July Movement was integrated into the Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas in 1961.

Partido Ortodoxo

The Party of the Cuban People - Orthodox, commonly called Orthodox Party, was a Cuban left-wing populist political party. It was founded in 1947 by Eduardo Chibás in response to perceived government corruption and lack of reform. Its primary aims were the establishment of a distinct national identity, economic independence and the implementation of social reforms. In the 1948 general elections Chibás came third in the presidential election, whilst the party won four seats in the House of Representatives. In the 1950 mid-term elections they won nine. Chibás' cousin, Roberto Agramonte, was the favorite to win the 1952 election (for the Orthodoxos) but Fulgencio Batista staged a coup before the winner was determined. Fidel Castro was an active member of the Ortodoxo Party in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He intended to run as an Ortodoxo Party candidate for the Cuban parliament prior to the coup by Batista. The Orthodox Party was a catch-all party, open to the all that wanted join to it. This was the party's platform: -Direct democracy -Free market and respect of the private ownership -Progressivissm -Anti-imperialism (mainly anti-Americanism) and nationalism -Agrarianism: Abolition of latifondium and monoculture, agricultural diversification -Fair payments and economic redistribution -Nationalization of railways, power plants, telephononic communications, etc. -Fight against political corruption, embezzlement and criminals -Corporatism and labor rights.

Agrarian Reform Law (May 1959)

The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 abolished large-scale landholdings, tenant farming, and sharecropping. It established a maximum limit of 100 caballerías (1,340 hectares or 3,311 acres) for sugar or rice plantations or cattle estates. In accordance with the law, the government subsequently would confiscate the land of 4,423 plantations, distributing approximately one-third of it to peasants who worked on it as tenant farmers or sharecroppers, and establishing state-managed farms and cooperatives with the rest. The former owners were offered compensation, based on the assessed value of the land for tax purposes, and with payment in the form of twenty-year bonds. Inasmuch as some US-owned plantations covered land of 200,000 hectares, the law had a significant effect on the Cuban structure of land ownership and distribution. It provided the foundation for a fundamental transformation in the quality of life of the rural population that endures to this day. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 symbolized faithful fulfillment of the promise made to the people in the Moncada program of 1953, presented by Fidel in "History will absolve me." Fidel noted that the Agrarian Reform Law seeks to promote the welfare of "that sector of the country that has suffered the most and is the most forgotten and abandoned," and he described the Agrarian Reform Law as an "essential economic measure, if the people are to be freed from underdevelopment and are to attain a higher standard of living" A new government agency, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), was established to administer this law, and quickly became the most important governing body in the nation, with Guevara named Minister of Industries

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs invasion as an attempt by the Central Intelligence Agency to push Castro from power. In April 1961, the CIA launched what its leaders believed would be the definitive strike: a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans who had fled their homes when Castro took over. However, the invasion did not go well: The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro's troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. The first part of the plan was to destroy Castro's tiny air force, making it impossible for his military to resist the invaders. A group of Cuban exiles took off from Nicaragua and conducted a strike against Cuban airfields. However, it turned out that Castro and his advisers knew about the raid and had moved his planes out of harm's way. Frustrated, Kennedy began to suspect that the plan the CIA had promised would be "both clandestine and successful" might in fact be "too large to be clandestine and too small to be successful." But it was too late to apply the brakes. On April 17, the Cuban exile brigade began its invasion at an isolated spot on the island's southern shore known as the Bay of Pigs. Almost immediately, the invasion was a disaster. The CIA had wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible, but a radio station on the beach broadcasted every detail of the operation to listeners across Cuba. Unexpected coral reefs sank some of the exiles' ships as they pulled into shore. Backup paratroopers landed in the wrong place. Before long, Castro's troops had pinned the invaders on the beach, and the exiles surrendered after less than a day of fighting; 114 were killed and over 1,100 were taken prisoner.

Committee for the Defense of the Revolution

The CDR system was formed by Fidel Castro on September 28, 1960, following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista. The slogan of the CDR is, "¡En cada barrio, Revolución!" ("In every neighborhood, Revolution!"). Fidel Castro proclaimed it "a collective system of revolutionary vigilance," established "so that everybody knows who lives on every block, what they do on every block, what relations they have had with the tyranny, in what activities are they involved, and with whom they meet." It is still present in Cuba today.

Communist Party of Cuba

The Communist Party of Cuba (Spanish: Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) is the political party that rules in Republic of Cuba, although others exist. It is a Communist party of the Marxist-Leninist model. The Cuban constitution ascribes the role of the Party to be the "leading force of society and of the state." The Communist Party is the only recognized political party in Cuba. Other parties, though not illegal, are unable to campaign or conduct any activities on the island that could be deemed counter-revolutionary. Compared with other ruling Communist Parties, such as the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Communist Party of China and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, the Communist Party of Cuba retains a stricter adherence to the tradition of Marxism-Leninism and the traditional Soviet model. The Cuban party is more deeply committed to the concept of socialism than other ruling parties and has been more reluctant in engaging in market reforms though it has been forced to accept some market measures in its economy due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the resultant loss of economic subsidies. The Communist Party of Cuba has favored supporting revolutions abroad and was active in assisting the ELN in Colombia, the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement in Grenada. Their most significant international role was in Angola where the Cuban direction of a joint Angolan/Soviet/Cuban force that was involved in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. This led to the withdrawal of intervening forces and, in the following peace agreement, the independence of Namibia from South African rule.

National Association of Small Farms

The National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) is a cooperative federation dedicated to promoting the interests of small farmers in Cuba. ANAP provides training, agricultural extension and other services to its members. Federation often negotiates with Cuban government on prices of agricultural production, credits, and other farmers' interests. It was formed in 1961 and its membership was limited to farmers whose land holdings were less than 67 hectares. The Cuban government supported ANAP by providing interest-free loans to its members. In 1977 ANAP supported the gradual transformation of the private sector. Individual farmers were endorsed to voluntarily join production co-operatives. By 1987 co-operative farms were accounting for 63% of private land holdings. Altogether 1,400 co-operative farms had 68,000 co-operative members.

Partido Autentico

The Partido Auténtico had its origins in the nationalist and anti-liberal Revolution of 1933. It was made up in February 1934 by many of the same individuals who had brought about the downfall of Gerardo Machado in the previous year to defend the changes caused by the Revolution of 1933. It was the most nationalistic of the major parties that existed between the 1933 and the 1959 Cuban Revolution. It had as its theme "Cuba para los cubanos" (Cuba for Cubans). Its electoral program contained socialist and corporatist elements. For instance, it supported numerous efforts to strengthen the power of the labor unions, some of the party's biggest supporters. Also, some of its members supported the management of the economy through tripartite commissions with businessmen, labor leaders and government bureaucrats as well as a second chamber (River Plate) with labor and business groups.

1958 Pastoral Letter

The Roman Catholic Church has been somewhat slow and hesitant in taking a firm, public position against the communist-totalitarian orientation of the Revolutionary Government. This has been due in part to timidity of some of the bishops but also to a realistic assessment that given the degree of popularity which Castro has enjoyed and the relatively little political influence which the Church has traditionally been able to exercise, it is unwise for the Church to take an exposed stand by attacking the regime too vigorously. Certainly now the clergy as a whole is fully conscious of the nature of the government and is firmly opposed to it. One general pastoral letter pointing out the dangers of communism and admonishing the Revolutionary Government was issued in August 1960.

March 1958 Arms Embargo

The United States arms embargo on Cuba was imposed on March 14, 1958 during the armed conflict between rebels led by Fidel Castro and the Fulgencio Batista regime. The armed conflict violated U.S. policy which had permitted the sale of weapons to Latin-American countries that were apart of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance as long as they were not used for hostile purposes. Another reason was due to Batista's renewal of the suspension of constitutional guarantees and reimposement of censorship on the press. The imposition of arms embargo publicly shows that US support have ended for the government of Cuba. The embargo even intercepted ships enroute to turn them back to US ports. The Eisenhower administration cited its reasons for the embargo as not wanting US-supplied weapons to be used in a civil war. The persistent lobbying of Castro and his revolutionary allies for a US embargo achieved their intended result. The arms embargo had more of an impact on Batista than the rebels. While the State Department enforced the embargo on Batista, with American tacit consent Castro continued to receive armaments and military supplies. Due to the arms embargo, the Cuban government began to openly purchase regular armaments from the Soviet Union, forging a stronger relationship

Literacy Crusade

The literacy crusade was a year-long effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution. It began on January 1 and ended on December 22, 1961, becoming the world's most ambitious and organized literacy campaign. The crusade helped dramatically improve the quality of life among the lowest sectors of Cuban society Furthermore, it helped even some of the large differences between literacy rates in urban and rural areas. The emphasizes the Cuban Revolution's drive for equality, particularly among classes. Together, education reforms brought unity and equality to the Cuban citizens Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60% and 76%, largely because of lack of education access in rural areas and a lack of instructors. As a result, the Cuban government of Fidel Castro at Che Guevara's behest dubbed 1961 the "year of education" and sent "literacy brigades" out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate guajiros (peasants) to read and write. The campaign was "a remarkable success." By its completion, 707,212 adults were taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%

1933 Revolution

The purpose behind this revolution as to oust Cuban dictator Gerardo Machado. A lot of workers and laborers went on strike and a central strike committee called The Cuban Confederation of Labor (CNOC) was organized. The regime responded by arresting more than one hundred labor leaders and other campaign supporters, and tried to round up telegraph operators to force them to go to work. Police fired on a crowd, killing twenty and wounding over one hundred. By August 6 more groups joined the strike: railway workers, hotel and restaurant workers, physicians, bakers, cigarmakers. The campaign escalated when government employees went on strike in Sanitation, Communications, and the Treasury Department. Electric and telephone utilities even locked their employees inside to prevent them from striking. At that point the U.S. ambassador pressured Machado to leave office; the dictator took to the radio to announce his determination to resist U.S. intervention. Machado also tried to divide the opposition by making a separate deal with labor. Recognizing, the severity of the threat to his regime, Machado called a meeting with the CNOC and offered them legal recognition as well as official government support if they ended the strike. CNOC leaders were in favor of the agreement as was the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Cuba. The workers, however, rejected their leaders' agreement and remained on strike. Nonetheless, seeing the campaign's broad support, the military decided to switch to the side of the people and placed Havana under military control on August 9. Without even the army to support him, Machado resigned on August 11 and left the country.