Cuban History: The Cold War

The Cold War, which took place from 1949 to 1991 was a very tense time between Soviet Russia and the United States of America (Trueman, What was the Cold War). Both countries were constantly at odds and willing to attack each other with nuclear weapons due to their differences in political, economic and social beliefs.While Soviet Russia believed that communism was the best social, political and economic ideology for the world to follow the United States believed capitalism was the best ideology and that communism was the enemy to democracy. Although the Cold War was a proxy war the differences between Soviet Russia and the United States caused the countries to begin battling for world domination. At this time, the United States considered
This Amendment also gave the U.S the right to set up a military base at Guantanamo Bay. In 1912 when the U.S decided to intervene in Cuban affairs for the third time, there were already about 10,000 U.S citizens living on Cuban soil. More than ¾ of the land in Cuba was owned by Americans (Gonzalez 65). Because of the inequalities in Cuba due to U.S occupation there were often labor strikes. In order to keep the U.S as the main priority in Cuba and to keep the workers from continuing to strike the U.S would put U.S aligned dictators such Machado in power. However, these dictators were never able to completely halt resistance from the people in Cuba. In 1933, a nationwide strike took Machado out of power and replaced him with a new radical government led by Ramon Grau San Martin that transformed Cuba entirely. This new government abolished the Platt Amendment, decreed a minimum wage and gave women the right to vote (Gonzalez,65). This new government greatly upset the U.S who in turn looked to Cuba’s army commander Fulgencio Batista to help crush the liberal movement Grua by staging a coup. In January of 1934 Batista soldiers, “ ...unleashed a bloody repression that crushed the Grau government, killing or jailing most of its leaders and scattering the rest into exile
After the Dominican Republic's brutal dictator, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo was assassinated after thirty years in power a man named Juan Bosch came to power in the DR who was completely unwilling to destroy the country's communist movement (Dominicans, Death of Trujillo). Thus severely upset the U.S government who successfully defeated and exiled Bosch from the DR. However, two years later a very small group of army officers attempted to restore Bosch's power. The president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson sent 26,000 U.S troops to destroy any possibility of Bosch coming into power once again because he feared the DR would follow Cuba and become a communist country(Dominicans, U.S Occupation 1965). This attack on the D.R was successful and restored the U.S’s power in the Dominican Republic and brought to power Joaquín Balaguer who was a former aid of Trujillo. Balaguer destroyed any possibility of a communist party coming to power in the DR by using violence making him a huge hit with the U.S government. Because Balaguer was an ally with the U.S, any person fleeing the DR to go to the U.S due to Balaguer's brutal rule was not considered a refugee in the United States and were sent back to the DR. These same tactics were used in countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador where the U.S would oust democratically elected or communist leaders and