When Fidel Castro marched into Havana in January 1959, a two-year armed struggle had ended. Yet, for Castro and the Cuban people the strife for independence had begun long before.

Whenever there is a revolution or a change in government, there has to be a basis for change — conditions that provoke and facilitate an uprising. Conditions in Cuba were harsh, and the discontent would sow the seeds of the revolution.

The power in Cuba was shared between two entities: The United States of America and Batista. The United States of America exercised great influence on Cuba’s domestic affairs: ever since they had “liberated” the Caribbean island from Spanish colonial rule¹, they ensured their domination by the Platt Amendment — which granted them military bases (notably Guantanamo Bay, which still exists today) and the right to intervene in Cuba’s affairs. On top of that, US Companies controlled the key industries, including but not restricted to sugar and rum, owned half of the land, a majority of the railway and the complete electricity and telephone services. Although the Cubans had been freed from Spanish rule, they were now dominated by another foreign power. The spirit of independence was kept alive.

The second power in Cuba was Batista, a military dictator, supported by the USA. In 1952, when it seemed as though Fidel Castro’s party was going to win the elections, Batista seized control by a military coup. Immediately, he banned elections, removed freedom of speech and crushed political opposition. The repressive police force used methods of torture and imprisonment without trial to deal with opponents of the state. Cuba tumbled into an abyss of corruption, gambling, prostitution, poverty and unemployment. Batista had reignited the flames of revolution.

But Castro could not deterred. After Batista had dissolved his party so close to victory, Castro decided that action had to be taken by force. In a plan doomed to failure he ordered an attack on the Moncada Barracks, a military base. The idea was to arm the rebels, encourage a national uprising and thus spark off a revolution. The odds were against him: with his fellow hundred rebels he stood no chance against the thousand soldiers that were stationed at the base. Nevertheless he believed that, with the element of surprise on his side, they might achieve victory. The coup was launched on July 26, but failed after a patrol struck alarm. Most of the rebels were arrested or, like Castro, caught on flight. Many were tortured and executed. Castro’s trial was held in secrecy, where he held one of his most famous speeches, finishing off with, “history will absolve me, …” Before, however, he would be absolved in to history, he was sentenced to fifteen years of prison. Although the entire plan had failed, it made people aware of the resistance to Batista. On top of that he used, similar to Hitler, the trial to his advantage and gained popular support throughout Cuba. This marked the true birth of the Cuban Revolution.

Castro spent his time in prison reading books (such as Marx) and educating his fellow rebels. The situation in Cuba changed to his advantage: anti-government activities decreased, the sugar industry was booming, foreign relations with the USA were good and Batista was re-elected. This comforted Batista, and he felt safe enough to declare a political amnesty², resulting in Castro’s release from prison³. Forced into exile, however, he travelled through the United States for seven weeks to collect money to finance his revolutionary plan. Weapons were bought and guerrilla warfare was drilled in Mexico, where Ché Guevara and Camillo Cienfuegos joined the rebels. A donation of forty thousand dollars by the Cuban opposition leader enabled them to buy the notorious yacht “Granma”, which would be used to transport the rebels to the Cuban shore. Meanwhile in Cuba support for Castro grew.

His legendary journey with the “Granma” began November 25, 1956 - and legend has it that she withstood heavy storms while carrying eighty-two armed rebels although constructed to hold only a fraction of that weight. The landing was ill-fated: after a government plane had spotted them, they were forced to abandon their supplies and to move inland, where a local farmer betrayed them. The resulting ambush of government troops killed most of the rebels — only seventeen survived, among them Castro, Guevara and Cienfuegos. They fled into hiding in the Sierra Maestras. Their survival meant a new, even if little, hope for victory. To show he was alive and well, Castro invited an American journalist⁴ to interview him. With the rebel victory at the outpost of El Uvero⁵ Batista’s forces gave up the mountain region of Oriente province.

Throughout the next two years, the rebels established their headquarters in the Sierra Maestras from which they launched their assaults, usually in the cover of the night, on government troops. A number of factors where crucial for rebel survival in the mountains. Above all, it was due to the support of the peasants. By educating the peasants, providing them with free health care and by increasing their wages through pressurising the sugar plantation owners the rebels were guaranteed hideouts, food and clothing from the local population. Yet supplies alone were not enough to seize a whole island, and so the rebels built an armoury to repair and build weapons, laid telephone lines to connect fifty-five outposts and broadcasted a rebel radio to the Cuban people. Without doubt the peasants where the decisive factor that contributed to rebel survival in the mountains and the establishing of a communications network provided the basis for assaults.

Victory followed victory and soon the rebels controlled basically the entire eastern part of Cuba. Batista, who still had US support despite the suspension of arms shipments⁶, launched an attack on the rebels⁷. Although the government army was superior in numbers and armaments⁸, the rebels achieved victory. This was largely due to the poorly trained government armies, who, unlike the guerrilla rebels, could not make use of the (mountain) landscape. Using constant harassing and ambushing, combined with the excellent intelligence network and the moral advantage of fighting for a cause, the rebels gradually forced Batista’s army to its knees⁹. Besides that, Castro guaranteed good treatment to the prisoners so government soldiers would be more likely to surrender to the rebels. Rebel victory was a mere question of time, and two days after Ché Guevara liberated Santa Clara¹⁰ Batista left the country.

Initially Castro had no intention of becoming head of state. Urrutia, an anti-Batista conservative, was appointed new President. Castro remained “commandente-en-jefe”¹¹. The new government issued moderate reforms, such as lowering the rents, improving the wages and attacking gambling and prostitution. However, the “real” power remained in Castro’s hands - ha had gained a lot of popularity and influence through the revolution and kept up contact with the people (via television speeches or simply talking). Castro became Prime Minister in February after the former resigned¹².

The rebels had spent two years in peasant shelter and knew well of the their needs - improving their conditions would be a primary target for reform. The first step was by restricting the maximum farm size to a thousand acres; anything above was expropriated, converted into co-operative farms or redistributed among the peasants. In June the same year, a large number of cattle farms¹³ were seized by the government. Besides managing the co-operative farms, the newly founded INRA¹⁴ was also in charge of the construction of roads, hospital, schools and housing. Yet, protests started out in the country: the conservative press attacked Castro of being a communist and President Urrutia publicly attacked the Cuban Communist Party. Following this, Castro resigned and denounced the president in a television speech. As a result, Urrutia was forced to resign and the public demanded Castro to resume duties¹⁵. This had two decisive effects: for one, it showed that the public stood behind Castro and his politics, and, from then on, Castro would continually place more and more communists in the cabinet, replacing liberals and other possible opponents.

After Batista left and the rebel army took over the military bases and prisons, the true crimes of the former regime became evident: torture chambers, dead bodies and unnamed graves were found. The cry for justice was heard throughout the country. Castro answered by starting what Ché Guevara euphemistically called “revolutionary justice”. Batista’s henchmen, accused of having tortured and killed prisoners and political opponents where put on “show trials”¹⁶ - the improper judiciary procedures where heavily condemned by the USA - and in nearly all cases found guilty and executed¹⁷. Three months later, forty-four Batista air force pilots were tried but found innocent on deliberately bombing civilians. However, Castro forced a retrial after which the pilots were found guilty and sentenced to prison. “Revolutionary justice,” Castro argued, “is based not upon legal precepts, but on moral conviction.” Effectively “revolutionary justice” had replaced law and order in Cuba, and Castro showed his true despotic colours.

August 1959 was a decisive stage in the Cuban revolution. While many of who opposed Castro fled to Florida, a few staid behind to lead a “counter revolution”. Eliminating this opposition would be crucial for the survival of the revolution. Unlike their predecessors, the counter-revolutionaries did not enjoy peasant support and gradually succumbed into exile or were captured. Defeating opposition showed that the people stood behind Castro. Even with the counter-revolutionaries removed, opposition still had to be taken care of. “Committees for the Defence of the Revolution” were set up for vigilance, to keep regime critics in check and to “defend the revolution”. Although Castro has been accused of making use of purges in his judiciary system, one could still expect a fair trial when not convicted of political opposition.

Education was another challenge the government faced. Castro stressed the importance of education in the “First Manifesto” issued during the rebel days in the Sierra Mountains. “An intensive campaign against illiteracy, and civic education emphasising the duties and rights of each citizen to his society and country,” was to be the mission of his provisional government. Castro turned his words to actions when he came to power: primary education was made compulsory and the illiteracy problem was tackled and solved in the “Year of Education”. Throughout the year of 1961, “Brigadistas” - young literacy workers - taught reading and writing even in the most remote areas of Cuba. By the end of the year Castro declared that illiteracy had been wiped out. The reform of education was one of the greatest achievements of Castro’s government, but it also had a political side to it. For Castro it was clear, “The countries that are the most exploited economically and the most oppressed politically are the countries that have the most illiterates.”¹⁸ Evidently, for Castro the struggle for education was an extension of the struggle for independence.

Castro liked to quote José Marti, “without economic independence, there can be no political independence.” Both Marti and Castro targeted this statement at the United States, which owned a lot of the industry in Cuba. Apart from that, Cuba was economically backward. The plan was to get rid of the dependence of sugar and to build new factories instead. This ended in a disaster: Cuba was without raw materials to supply the industry and did not posses the necessary technology to support such a rapid advance. Ché Guevara explained the failures, “Our first error was the way we carried out diversification […] The entire economic history of Cuba had shown that no other agricultural activity would give such returns as those yielded by the cultivation of sugar cane […] The second mistake was that of dispersing our resources over a great number of agricultural products [this] produced a great weakness in the [organisation of] agriculture.”¹⁹ Quite rightly to him the failure resulted from the shifting of the industry away from sugar, depriving the economy of its main source of income. As a consequence, the government from then on relied on the sugar harvest and issued “The Battle for the Ten Million Tons”²⁰. It aimed to produce ten million tons of sugar by the end of 1970. Posters throughout the entire country encouraged Cubans to contribute in any way they could, soldiers and volunteers were moved to the fields to cut the canes - it seemed as though the people were willing to help their country. However, due to machinery breakdowns, problems with transportation, low cane yields and bad weather the far-reaching goal was not achieved. The battle was a setback for the government, the society and the revolution - they had expected much, worked hard and still not achieved their goal.

Despite economic changes, Cuba was also bound to great social changes. Free health care and medical treatment were now available to any Cuban citizen. As a result, hygiene and sanitation greatly improved, infant mortality drastically decreased and the life expectancy was raised. The availability of medicine was greatly due to the Soviet Union, which shipped in the necessary equipment from her eastern satellite states. Improving the health was a great achievement of the revolution and a common trademark for socialist states. However, also the role of the church was changed through the revolution. Religion was banned from schools, the number of priests was reduced and churches could not be in new settlements. This meant a great change to the Cuban society, which, as a former Spanish colony, had been very much indoctrinated to the Christian belief.

Cuba is nowadays seen as one of the last communist states. When Castro came to power he had no intentions of creating a communist society. When he issued the land reforms he was unjustly stamped a communist - redistributing the land is not a communist trademark. He desired a socialist state where everybody enjoyed work, free education and free health care. He wanted to free Cuba to political independence by creating an independent economy. This resulted in a clash with the United States and hence a trade embargo and Cuba ran into the Soviet Union on which it was now economically dependent. Although there were great setbacks in the economic sector and a doubtful judiciary system (when dealing with political opponents) was set up, Castro could claim great successes in the areas of social welfare.

¹ 1898 during the Spanish-American War

² November 1954

³ May 1955

⁴ New York Times, February 17, 1957

⁵ May 28, 1957

⁶ May 4, 1958 - Washington disapproved Batista using the arms for domestic affairs

⁷ May 24, 1958

⁸ 10,000 soldiers, Sherman tanks and armoured vehicles

⁹ army retreats from the Sierra Maestras August 7, 1958

¹⁰ December 31, 1958

¹¹ commander-in-chief — head of the rebel army; the title he still occupies nowadays

¹² Cardona

¹³ 133 to be precise, many of which were in American hands

¹⁴ Institute of National Agrarian Reform

¹⁵ July 1959

¹⁶ January 1959

¹⁷ it is estimated that overall 4000 people were sentenced to death

¹⁸ Fidel Castro, in a speech to voluntary Literacy Teacher, September 1961

¹⁹ Ché Guevara, an article from “International Affairs”, published in London, 1964

²⁰ announced by Castro in 1964 during his visit to the Soviet Union