The Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro's Impact

The Cuban revolution brought a lot of unrest to the people of Cuba. It was a time in Cuba where many people in Cuba didn’t have enough money for anything including money for food and shelter. Before the 1950’s, the troubles in Cuba life wasn’t all that bad. People would work in the sugar fields and would receive a hefty amount of cash during the sugar harvest season. Things started to change though as work came to an end and the people would have to take low paying jobs. Soon enough, people didn’t have enough money for food and their diet would consist of bananas and sweet potatoes. Before the revolution, Cuba was led by a corrupt ruler, Fulgencio Batista. In 1952, Batista took control of Cuba and did very little to improve the conditions. In the mid-1950’s a man by the name of Fidel Castro led a revolt against Batista with guerilla warfare and Batista left Havana, Cuba’s capital. (Source 6) At first Castro seemed like the perfect man for the job in Cuba. Soon enough people found out that Castro was communist and he intended to make Cuba a socialist state where everything is owned and controlled by the government. The people in the government that did not want this were forced by Fidel Castro to leave Cuba. Was Fidel Castro good for Cuba or bad for Cuba? I believe that he did more good for Cuba than he gets credit for based on the changes made in Cuba from his leadership. There were many causes that led up to the revolution in Cuba while under Batista’s rule. The people of Cuba were unhappy with what was going on in their country. The government
Graham, page 2 seemed to have control of everything that went on in the country and the government was corrupt. (Source 5) Above all that the government was unfair to its own people. The people of Cuba were isolated, had no freedom and lived in fear. There were student riots and anti-Batista demonstrations which were frequent. These were dealt with in a violent manner by Batista’s military police.