Cuban Revolution

Revolution Project
The Cuba

By- Sara Kim

Revolution?

Revolution generally means a big change. We call something revolution when old thing gets replaced by new thing in wide range. Actually, term of revolution is very hard to define. It means big change in general form, but it essentially means more than a big change. And there is no specific boundary of ‘big’ so the term of revolution is very hard to define.

-Political Revolution
Political revolution is a change of government or a big change of politic system, and it’s mostly occurred with a revolt. There are many examples of political revolution which can be French revolution and Russian revolution.
The revolution may take over a country or over whole world. There are many different types of revolution which are on the ones below
-Cultural Revolution
Cultural revolution is mostly known as Chinese Cultural Revolution which happened during 1966-1976 by Mao Zedong. However, that’s a socialist movement of Mao to defeat his opponent. Cultural revolution is actually a change of culture. Cultural revolution is very hard to define because cultural revolution does not only happens with itself but with other types of revolution such as others in the box
-Religious Revolution
Religious revolution is a change in a religion on change due to religion. -Social Revolution Social revolution happens when people starts to change their thoughts and change their way of living. Internet and digital stuffs brought social revolution.
-Industrial Revolution
Industrial revolution changes economical system and cultural system as well. the most popular industrial revolution is a industrial revolution which started from England to others in 18th century.

Cuba?

Simple facts of Cuba

Location-
Cuba is an island country located on Caribbean. In fact, Cuba is actually located between Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is the largest country on Caribbean. The blue colored island is Cuba.
Population-
Cuba’s general population is over 11 million. Its capital is La Habana, and population is over 2million.
Religion-
Catholicism 85%
Extent-
110,860 km2
Language-
Spanish
Natural resources-
Cuba’s natural resources are “cobalt, nickel, iron ore, chromium, copper, salt, timber, silica, petroleum, arable land” (CIA world fact).
Simple history- * Columbus found Cuba island in 1492 * Spanish colonized Cuba in 1511 * Achieve independence in 1898
Causes of Revolution? After Columbus discovered Cuba, Spanish colonized and took every economically useful parts of Cuba. America was in fight with Spain, and they won the war. America helped Cuba to achieve its independence, but the main economic product, sugar cane was in America’s hand. As the result, Cuba’s economy was still controlled by America and Cuba was actually colony of America.

Industry/Economy-
Cuba’s main industries were sugar, tour, and gamble. However, all these industries were under America’s control even Cuba was not colony anymore. Therefore, all Cuba’s economy was in domination of America. Hence, Cuba’s citizens had to live poor. In fact there were still wealthy Cubans who are mostly land owners or politician. In addition, there were loads of corruptions between the wealthy Cubans.

Wealthy & Poor- The gap between Wealthy ones and Poor ones were too big in Cuba. Wealthy ones such as landowners had too much money and poor ones like peasants had too little money or none. The money was not spread equally. Privileged groups took as much as they want to have, but the non-privileged group could not gain any even though they work harder than the wealthy ones.

Despotic government- Cuba’s government was a despotic government. It was lead by Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar who was the dictator of Cuba before the revolution. While he was the dictator of Cuba, there were several corruptions in the government and no one was treated fairly. Overall, the revolution was necessary in Cuba. Government was corrupted and Cubans had no actual power at all. In fact, Cuba was ruled by America, not Cuba itself. Cuba’s continues autocracy after the independence, corruption of government, and domination of America cased the revolution.

Fidel being questioned by Batista's police after Moncada in 1953.↑
Cuban revolution 1959?

↓Fidel and his comrades.

The revolution started On July7, 1953, with Fidel Castro and his 156 armed soldiers attacking barrack in Moncada, but failed by dictator Fulgencio Batista and America. As the result, Castro is arrested and sentenced for 15 years. Before he went to the prison, he left his famous speech, “History will absolve me”. Fortunately, Castro was pardoned only after 2years and exiled to Mexico. While he was staying in Mexico, he organized “26 of July movement”, an army for a war against Batista. Castro also could gain help of Che-Guevara while staying in Mexico. On December 1956, Castro returned to Cuba with Guevara and 86 revolutionary members. The revolution resumed by a guerilla war with Maestra Mountain on the middle. Castro started to gain supports from peasants which was necessary for the revolution. Batista tried to defeat the revolutionary activities, but his action brought more support for the revolution.
↓Frank País The revolutionary activity did not only occur by Castro, but also by in the cities. Pais is a man who Castro had left in charge while he was in Mexico. Pais attacked Batista’s government in loads of different ways. He was big help to Castro, but unfortunately, he was assassinated by Batista’s Police on july30, 1958. On May 24 of 1958, Batista planed to enter Sierra Maestra with seventeen battalions, tanks, planes, and ships to stop the revolutionary activities by Castro. Even though there were numerical inferiority between Castro’s army and Batista’s army, Castro could defeat Batista’s raid. Castro’s army was divided into several groups and each group attacked Batista’s government in different strategies. Fortunately, Batista’s Army was not prepared for Castro’s strategies such as guerilla wars. Therefore, Batista starts to fall down. He concludes that the situation was hopeless and decides to give-up the war. His generals also had similar conclusion, so there were no opponents about end of the war. January the 1st of 1959, the revolution was end, and Batista fled to Spain then he stayed in Spain until end of his life.

After the revolution? Fidel Castro made himself as a Prime minister of Cuba in February and he also dismissed all of Batista’s man. Castro soon canceled all the elections and he also jailed all the opponents. He renamed that the revolution was communist revolution then named himself as “President for life”, and started a new relationship with Soviet Union. It was a birth of another dictator.
“Bay of pigs invasion” Castro declared Cuba as communist country on April 4 of 1961, and the Bay of pigs invasion was on April 5 of 1961 which is right after
Castro’s announcement. Although the members of invasion were almost all Cuban exiles (1500 people), CIA was the key role of this invasion.
However, USA was defeated by Cuba due to poor selection od the location and lack of support at the last stage of the invasion. Hundreds were dead and thousands were arrested. After this “Bay of pigs invasion”, relationship between America and Cuba got worse.
Back ground-
USA had planed lots of different method to assassinate Castro such as poison or spy. They even planned to hold hand with Mafia but nothing worked. Meanwhile there was loads of Cuban flying to America after Castro’s communist government took over. They were mainly upper or middle class people who lost their properties from Castro. Most of them hated Castro and USA planned to use these Cuban for their plan. At the beginning of Castro’s govern, United States supported him. However, once US found out that Castro has adopted idea of communism, they turned around and started to attack Cuba. Their first plan was “Bay of pigs invasion”.
Problems solved? The problems were American having Cuban Industry, low level of Economy, too much gap between wealthy ones and poor one, and despotic government. However, only one problem was solved after the revolution which is American having Cuban Industry. Except this problem none of those problems were fixed. Castro continued Despotic government, and he even became worse dictator. The gap between wealthy and poor ones might have been better because Castro had collected all the lands from the land owners and hand those lands equally to farmers. However, the government still owned everything, so nothing was changed actually, except the structure of government. The revolution didn’t fix the major problem but made a new problem which is a bad relationship between USA which is the strongest country in the world. Due to Castro’s decision of changing the government structure to communist government, their relationship between USA became hostile relationship.
Important to study? Cuban revolution is actually a political revolution occurred by Castro. This revolution is very similar to the revolution which happened in Russia. The method of the revolution is different, but the causes and the results are very similar. They boss became communist government through the revolution. The reason why Cuban revolution is so significant is because Cuban revolution was the turning point of Cuba when it became isolated. The historians must study about this revolution because this revolution is one of the revolutions which brought up unique government structure, the communist government.

Bibliography
Information
Reference helped by noodle tools↓

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Harvard style referencing↓

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Picture
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Harvard style referencing↓

4. Luis A. Martin, 2001, IN DEFENSE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION. (20 September, 2001) < http://w1.1358.telia.com/~u155900388/forsvar.htm> ) 07 Sept. 2011. 5. Oracle, Frank País (1935-1958) < http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/the_cuban_revolution_-_1959.html > 08 Sept. 2011. 6. International center of photography, PAST EXHIBISION, <http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/cuba> 09 Sept. 2011. 7. Ivetteromero, More Bay of Pigs Invasion Secret Papers Released by CIA, (August 3, 2011) <http://repeatingislands.com/2011/08/03/more-bay-of-pigs-invasion-secret-papers-released-by-cia/> 08 Sept. 2011. 8. Oracle, Cuban revolution . <http://library.thinkquest.org/20176/crevolution.htm> 09 Oct.2011 9.

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