The Controversy Behind The Fidel Castro’s Figure

Fulgencio Batista was the primary leader of Cuba in some title or another from 1933 to 1958. He was elected president on a populist platform in 1940 but he was in power before that after leading the Revolt of the Sergeants that overthrew the rule of the dictator Gerardo Machado. For a while he served as chief of the armed forces, which within the Cuban system of government at the time, made him a part of the five member presidency. After his term expired he lived in Florida for a few years before returning to run again. When he realized he couldn’t win the vote, he led a forcible military coup that put him back in power. Suspending the 1940 Cuban Constitution that he himself had put in place, Batista began to look more and more like a dictator. He ended up intertwined with the American mafia and other criminal activities though the United States government continued to support him until the end of his reign. While the wealthy profited fabulously, life for the poor became stripped of basic civil liberties and in his years of power almost 20,000 people were killed by his secret police, some of them publically executed.

This continued until 1958 when he was overthrown by Fidel Castro and his 26 of July movement. The 26th of July Movement's name originated from the failed attack lead by Castro himself on the Moncada Barracks, an army facility in the city of Santiago de Cuba, on 26 July 1953. This armed attack is widely accepted as the beginning of the Cuban Revolution and though it failed it served as a rallying cry for the revolution. However, it ended badly for Castro who was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison though he was granted his freedom after only two due to the ensuing riots and outrage. Almost all of Fidel Castro's followers were young and inexperienced. Only four of the 160 rebels who fought with him at the Moncada Barracks were university graduates and most had only a primary education.

Of the 137 whose ages are known, the average age was 26, the same as that of Fidel Castro. At the end of the revolution, December 2, 1956, 82 men landed in Cuba, having sailed in by boat ready to organize and lead an armed revolt. The final battle started off very badly and they sustained numerous casualties. The landing party was split into two and wandered lost for two days, most of their supplies abandoned where they landed. They were also betrayed by their peasant guide in an ambush, which killed more of their remaining men. However, while the revolutionaries were setting up camp in the mountains, more groups of rebels were formulating in the cities putting pressure on the Batista regime. Many middle-class and professional persons flocked toward Castro and his movement and when they allied with Castro and his people in the mountains, it was over for Batista.

Che Guevara was a prominent proponent of communism during the Cuban revolution. Born on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina he was working as a doctor at the University of Buenos Aires before he became political active in his native country of Argentina. In 1954, he met Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and his brother Raul while in Mexico. Guevara became part of Fidel Castro’s efforts to overthrow the Batista government in Cuba. He served as a military advisor to Castro and led guerrilla troops in battles against Batista forces. When Castro took power in 1959, Guevara became in charge of La Cabaña Fortress prison.

Once he had Cuba though, Castro’s rule was thought by many to have been not much different from his predecessor’s. Human’s rights advocate Erika Guevara-Rosas said, “Authorities jailed hundreds of prisoners of conscience solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly in a campaign of ruthless suppression.” Castro was a firm believer in communism and communism does not stress the importance of individual liberties. It is generally said that he ruled by fear and intimidation.

Though there is actually much more to Fidel Castro's reign than just bad. Under him, literacy grew dramatically, racism was eliminated, public health care was repaired and enhanced, the electric grid was expanded to the countryside, full employment was provided, and new medical facilities and schools were constructed. He also invested heavily in sports, making Cuba a contender in games such as what American’s would call soccer. He also went to great lengths to establish peace and diplomatic relations with foreign countries.