KC Hill
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Oracle of DelphiDecember 2 - Fidel Castro and Communism in Cuba
December 2nd 2006 08:41
December 2nd, 1956
Today, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of what became known as the Cuban Revolution. Of course, the true revolution is not recognised as having occured until December in 1959, when US-supported Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Havana on New Years Eve. Nevertheless, December 2nd 1956 was the approximate beginning of the revolution, when Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and eighty other men landed on the Eastern shore of Cuba in a Mexican-bought yacht.
The landing was met by the Cuban Air Force, which managed to kill most of the 82 revolutionaries. Split into two, the landing party were lost for days, until twelve of the original eighty-two managed to meet on the Sierra Maestra mountain range. There, the Cuban Army launched an attack on the group, injuring Che Guevara and setting the revolution back a further two years until Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement managed to overtake the previous government.
December 2nd, 1961
Five years later, on the same day, Castro announced in a national broadcast that the Cuban government had officially undertaken Communism as its core set of beliefs. While Castro had already forged ties to other Marxist-Leninist countries since 1959, including the Soviet Union and China, there was no official recognition of the government following suit until this day in 1961.
Several key events occured in the run up to this announcement that can be seen to contribute to the official decision. It is general knowledge that the US was aggressively opposed to Communism in general, and the changeover of Batista to Castro led to strict sanctions being placed on the Carribean island. In late 1960, the US placed a trade embargo on the country, in response to an aid agreement signed between Castro and the Soviet Union. This was followed by a string of CIA-organised assassination attempts on Castro, including exploding oysters, poisoned cigars, and the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.
US opposition to the Soviet-Cuban alliance came to a head in October 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis began. The missile crisis was the closest that the US and Soviet Union ever came to a "hot war," or direct conflict.
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