An outline, era by era

Cuba

Revolution (1959), Missile Crisis (1962)

20th Century · 1914 – 2000

Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, lying about 150 kilometres south of Florida. It was a Spanish colony for almost four centuries and became formally independent in 1902, though under heavy United States influence. On 1 January 1959 the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country, and a revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro took power after a guerrilla war. This was the Cuban Revolution.

Within a few years the new government nationalised much of the economy, broke with Washington and allied itself with the Soviet Union. In October 1962 the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, a thirteen-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that brought the world close to nuclear war. The revolution and the crisis shaped the Cold War in the Americas, and Cuba's government and its relations with the United States remained a major issue for decades.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Spanish-American War and the Platt Amendment

    Event

    What happened

    In 1898 the United States enters Cuba's war of independence against Spain, which had begun in 1895, and defeats Spanish forces within months. Under the Treaty of Paris of December 1898 Spain gives up Cuba, and the United States occupies the island until 1902. Before withdrawing, the US makes Cuba write the Platt Amendment into its constitution, giving the United States a right to intervene and to hold naval bases.

    The rest is history

    Cuba became independent in 1902 but with limited sovereignty. The Platt Amendment was the basis for US interventions in 1906 and later years, and for the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, leased in 1903. The treaty that cancelled the amendment in 1934 kept the Guantánamo lease. Resentment of this dependence fed the nationalism that later helped the revolution.

    Sources

    1. BookPérez, Louis A. Cuba under the Platt Amendment, 1902-1934. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986.
    2. BookPérez, Louis A. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  2. Machado, the 1933 revolt and the rise of Batista

    Event

    What happened

    President Gerardo Machado, elected in 1924, extends his rule and uses repression against opponents in the early 1930s, while the Great Depression ruins the sugar economy. A general strike and unrest force him from office in August 1933. In September 1933 a revolt of sergeants led by Fulgencio Batista overthrows the short-lived government that followed.

    The rest is history

    Batista, then an army sergeant, became the real power behind a series of presidents through the 1930s. He was elected president in 1940 and served until 1944. The 1933 events showed how politics in Cuba had come to turn on the army and on street violence. Batista returned to power by coup in 1952, which set the stage for the revolution.

    Sources

    1. BookPérez, Louis A. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
    2. BookThomas, Hugh. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971.

  3. Batista's coup of 1952

    Event

    What happened

    On 10 March 1952, shortly before a scheduled presidential election, Fulgencio Batista seizes power in a bloodless military coup and cancels the vote. He suspends the 1940 constitution. Many Cubans protest, including a young lawyer and candidate for parliament, Fidel Castro, who petitions the courts to declare the coup illegal and fails.

    The rest is history

    The coup closed the legal route to change and pushed some opponents towards armed action. Batista's government was recognised by the United States and kept good relations with American business. Corruption, repression and a divided opposition marked his second period in power. Castro turned to insurrection, beginning with the attack of 1953.

    Sources

    1. BookThomas, Hugh. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971.
    2. BookPérez, Louis A. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  4. The Moncada attack

    Event

    What happened

    On 26 July 1953 Fidel Castro leads about 120 young rebels in an attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, and a smaller one at Bayamo. The attack fails, and many rebels are killed or captured. Castro is tried and sentenced to fifteen years, and gives a courtroom defence later circulated as History Will Absolve Me.

    The rest is history

    Castro was freed under an amnesty in May 1955 and went to Mexico. The date gave its name to the 26th of July Movement, the organisation that fought Batista. The failed attack made Castro a national opposition figure. It remains the symbolic start of the revolution in Cuban official history.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCastro, Fidel. History Will Absolve Me. Defence speech at the Moncada trial, Santiago de Cuba, October 1953.Later reconstructed and published as a pamphlet.
    2. BookThomas, Hugh. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971.

  5. The Granma landing and the Sierra Maestra war

    Event

    What happened

    In December 1956 Castro, his brother Raúl, Che Guevara and about eighty others land from the yacht Granma on Cuba's south-east coast. Government forces kill or capture most of them, and a small band, perhaps a dozen or so, regroups in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Over 1957 and 1958 the guerrillas grow in number, while urban groups carry out strikes and attacks against Batista.

    The rest is history

    In 1958 Batista's summer offensive against the rebels failed, and the United States stopped arms sales to his government in March 1958. Rebel columns advanced across the island in late 1958, and the army collapsed. Batista left Cuba on 1 January 1959, and Castro's forces entered Havana within days. Historians stress the weakness and unpopularity of the old regime as well as the rebels' strength.

    Sources

    1. BookGuerra, Lillian. Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
    2. BookThomas, Hugh. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971.

  6. Radicalisation and the break with the United States

    Event

    What happened

    In May 1959 the new government passes an agrarian reform law that takes over large estates, including American-owned ones. In 1960 Cuba signs an oil and trade agreement with the Soviet Union, and when US-owned refineries refuse to process Soviet crude they are nationalised. The United States cuts the sugar quota and imposes an embargo on most exports, and in January 1961 it breaks diplomatic relations.

    The rest is history

    By 1961 Castro had declared the revolution socialist and later described himself as a Marxist-Leninist. Historians debate how far this was planned and how far it grew out of the conflict with Washington. The embargo, widened in 1962, remained in force into the 2020s. Cuba became closely tied to the Soviet bloc for trade and defence.

    Sources

    1. BookPérez, Louis A. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
    2. BookGleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

  7. The Bay of Pigs invasion

    Event

    What happened

    On 17 April 1961 about 1,400 Cuban exiles, trained and equipped by the CIA under a plan begun under President Eisenhower, land at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba's southern coast. Cuban forces under Castro's command defeat them within about three days, and over a thousand are captured. President Kennedy had declined to give the operation open US air support.

    The rest is history

    The failure embarrassed the Kennedy administration and strengthened Castro at home. It convinced Cuban and Soviet leaders that a further US attempt was likely. The captured prisoners were released in December 1962 in exchange for food and medicine. The invasion and later covert plans, such as Operation Mongoose, form part of the background to the missile crisis.

    Sources

    1. BookKornbluh, Peter, ed. Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba. New York: New Press, 1998.
    2. BookFursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: Norton, 1997.

  8. The Cuban Missile Crisis

    Event

    What happened

    In 1962 the Soviet Union secretly sends nuclear missiles and troops to Cuba. On 14 October a US U-2 plane photographs missile sites, and on 22 October President Kennedy announces a naval quarantine of the island. On 28 October Soviet leader Khrushchev agrees to remove the missiles.

    The rest is history

    The settlement included a US public pledge not to invade Cuba and a private understanding that US Jupiter missiles in Turkey would be withdrawn, which happened in 1963. Castro was not consulted and was angry at the deal. The crisis led to a Washington-Moscow hotline in 1963 and to arms control talks, including the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Cuba stayed a Soviet ally until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

    Sources

    1. BookFursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: Norton, 1997.
    2. BookDobbs, Michael. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Knopf, 2008.

  9. The Maine and the war it supposedly started

    Popular belief

    The legend

    In popular retellings, the American battleship USS Maine is blown up in Havana harbour by Spain in February 1898, and the cry "Remember the Maine" drives the United States into war to free Cuba. Newspapers are said to have simply invented the war.

    The rest is history

    The Maine did explode in Havana harbour on 15 February 1898, killing about 260 crew. A US Navy inquiry that year blamed an external mine, but a 1976 study by Admiral Hyman Rickover concluded that an internal coal bunker fire was more likely, and the cause is still debated. No evidence shows that Spain ordered an attack. The sensational press, notably the papers of Hearst and Pulitzer, whipped up war feeling, but Congress declared war in April 1898 mainly over the Cuban conflict, and historians see the press as one factor among several.

    Sources

    1. BookRickover, Hyman G. How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1976.
    2. BookPérez, Louis A. The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

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