Cuban History: The Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was one of the most defining events in Cuba’s history. With blood hardwork and a dream the Cuban Revolution was one of the most influential and defining moments in Cuba’s history. The Cuban Revolution was led by Fidel Castro and a few other key figures such as Che Guevara and his brother Raul Castro. Before Castro’s revolution the Cuban government had been taken over by Fulgencio Batista. He made Cuba into a puppet for countries to take resources from without proper retribution. When Castro re-took Cuba he nationalized the land that was owned by foreign governments and gave it back to the citizens of Cuba without giving the foreign countries anything in return. Even though many lives have been lost …show more content…
because of the Cuban Revolution it is still one of the most influential revolutions to have ever happened in the modern age. With little man power Fidel Castro was able to retake the government from Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro had only eighty five men with him when he sailed from Mexico to Cuba on a yacht meant for only twenty five people. Once they made sure they were met by the military and almost all but twelve people were killed (Sanchez 1). Most men would have given up and just let go of their hope for change but Fidel retreated with his remaining revolutionaries to the sierra maestra mountains, where they hid from the government. This shows the fight that was inside the revolution. The will of men to witness almost all of their friends and fellow comrades to die for a cause made it all the more worthy. This is what helped the fire inside the revolution to help retake the …show more content…
government. When Castro and his men finally took over Cuba by securing the capital city Havana things started to change quickly. With the support of his people he made foreign owned property nationalized without reimbursement and gave it to the people. This property was estimated to be worth more than almost two billion dollars by the U.S government in 1972 (Miroff 1). This helped boost the cuban economy and led Castro to start pursuing other issues like the education in Cuba. Castro launched a huge literacy campaign that successfully taught more than 700,000 cubans to read and write (Fernandez 1). The people were very eager for this movement, over a million students and teachers helped teach the downtrodden and impoverished. This was important because in a way Castro was uniting the cuban people with intelligence and written language. However, Castro had also made his revolution into a dictatorship and a very constricting one at that. The cultural and artistic expression in Cuba became very limited once Castro was in control.
Free speech inside the revolution was a very touchy subject. According to Fidel Castro “Cubans are not prohibited from “writing on any subject he likes.” On the one hand it seemed Castro was letting people do what they want but in reality he was limiting the expression of free speech. Not to mention the amount of human life that was lost due to the revolution. Thousands upon thousands of people have died trying to defect from Cuba since the revolution took over. The limited cultural expression has certainly led to some of this distrust in the government which has led to these large amounts of people trying to defect from Cuba and seek asylum in the United
States. The reason for Cubans defecting to the United States was for the lack of money in Cuba. It is a socialist country as a result the economy in Cuba is very poor. Certain economic reforms have made it so that approximately 26% of people in Cuba live in poverty (Felcon 1). The majority of these Cubans that are poor are senior citizens over the age of 65. They aren’t given enough money to afford to live in Cuba. Cuba is on the verge of bankruptcy as well (Felcon 1). With a great deal of young people defecting to the United States to help support their families inside of Cuba, there is no one to help support Cuba’s economy. Cuba’s lack of money mostly comes from the fact that they are spending all of the money on pensions for seniors and providing free healthcare for everyone (Felcon 1). Helping people by providing free services is good and all but now there isn’t enough money to support everyone and it is hurting Cuba as a whole.
The Cuban Revolution was one of the most defining events in Cuba’s history. With blood hardwork and a dream the Cuban Revolution was one of the most influential and defining moments in Cuba’s history. The Cuban Revolution was led by Fidel Castro and a few other key figures such as Che Guevara and his brother Raul Castro. Before Castro’s revolution the Cuban government had been taken over by Fulgencio Batista. He made Cuba into a puppet for countries to take resources from without proper retribution. When Castro re-took Cuba he nationalized the land that was owned by foreign governments and gave it back to the citizens of Cuba without giving the foreign countries anything in return. Even though many lives have been lost …show more content…
because of the Cuban Revolution it is still one of the most influential revolutions to have ever happened in the modern age. With little man power Fidel Castro was able to retake the government from Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro had only eighty five men with him when he sailed from Mexico to Cuba on a yacht meant for only twenty five people. Once they made sure they were met by the military and almost all but twelve people were killed (Sanchez 1). Most men would have given up and just let go of their hope for change but Fidel retreated with his remaining revolutionaries to the sierra maestra mountains, where they hid from the government. This shows the fight that was inside the revolution. The will of men to witness almost all of their friends and fellow comrades to die for a cause made it all the more worthy. This is what helped the fire inside the revolution to help retake the …show more content…
government. When Castro and his men finally took over Cuba by securing the capital city Havana things started to change quickly. With the support of his people he made foreign owned property nationalized without reimbursement and gave it to the people. This property was estimated to be worth more than almost two billion dollars by the U.S government in 1972 (Miroff 1). This helped boost the cuban economy and led Castro to start pursuing other issues like the education in Cuba. Castro launched a huge literacy campaign that successfully taught more than 700,000 cubans to read and write (Fernandez 1). The people were very eager for this movement, over a million students and teachers helped teach the downtrodden and impoverished. This was important because in a way Castro was uniting the cuban people with intelligence and written language. However, Castro had also made his revolution into a dictatorship and a very constricting one at that. The cultural and artistic expression in Cuba became very limited once Castro was in control.
Free speech inside the revolution was a very touchy subject. According to Fidel Castro “Cubans are not prohibited from “writing on any subject he likes.” On the one hand it seemed Castro was letting people do what they want but in reality he was limiting the expression of free speech. Not to mention the amount of human life that was lost due to the revolution. Thousands upon thousands of people have died trying to defect from Cuba since the revolution took over. The limited cultural expression has certainly led to some of this distrust in the government which has led to these large amounts of people trying to defect from Cuba and seek asylum in the United
States. The reason for Cubans defecting to the United States was for the lack of money in Cuba. It is a socialist country as a result the economy in Cuba is very poor. Certain economic reforms have made it so that approximately 26% of people in Cuba live in poverty (Felcon 1). The majority of these Cubans that are poor are senior citizens over the age of 65. They aren’t given enough money to afford to live in Cuba. Cuba is on the verge of bankruptcy as well (Felcon 1). With a great deal of young people defecting to the United States to help support their families inside of Cuba, there is no one to help support Cuba’s economy. Cuba’s lack of money mostly comes from the fact that they are spending all of the money on pensions for seniors and providing free healthcare for everyone (Felcon 1). Helping people by providing free services is good and all but now there isn’t enough money to support everyone and it is hurting Cuba as a whole.