Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April 1961 by the United States of America and the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, clandestinely and directly financed by the U.S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
The Cuban Revolution was the military and political overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which had reigned as the government of Cuba between 1952 and 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, which saw Batista topple the nascent Cuban democracy and consolidate power. Among those opposing the coup was Fidel Castro, then a novice attorney who attempted to contest the coup through Cuba's judiciary. Once these efforts proved fruitless, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953.
Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán was a Cuban revolutionary. One of the major figures of the Cuban Revolution, he was considered second only to Fidel Castro among the revolutionary leadership.
After the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military aid and was an ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In 1972 Cuba joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), an economic organization of states designed to create co-operation among the communist planned economies, which was dominated by its largest economy, the Soviet Union. Moscow kept in regular contact with Havana and shared varying close relations until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Cuba then entered an era of serious economic hardship, the Special Period.
Fidelismo, otherwise known as Castroism, consists of the personal beliefs of Fidel Castro, which were often anti-imperialist, Cuban nationalist, supportive of Hispanidad, and later Marxism–Leninist. Castro described two historical figures as being particular influences on his political viewpoints: the Cuban anti-imperialist revolutionary José Martí, and the German sociologist and theorist Karl Marx. The thought of Che Guevara and Jules Régis Debray have also been important influences on Fidel Castro.
Rafael García Bárcena was a Cuban philosopher who later took a leading role in the Cuban Revolution against President Fulgencio Batista. A professor of philosophy, he founded the National Revolutionary Movement. Consisting largely of middle-class members, it contrasted with Fidel Castro's predominantly working class support base, the 26th of July Movement. In March 1953, the MNR had planned to attack and seize control of the barracks at Camp Colombia, but police had been alerted to the plot, with the conspirators being rounded up and tortured. In all, fourteen people were sentenced to imprisonment for the attack plot.
The Communist Party of Cuba is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26th of July Movement and Popular Socialist Party that seized power in Cuba after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The party governs Cuba as an authoritarian one-party state where dissidence and political opposition are prohibited and repressed. The Cuban constitution ascribes the role of the party to be the "leading force of society and of the state".
The early life of Cuban dictator and politician Fidel Castro spans the first 26 years of his life, from 1926 to 1952. Born in Birán, Oriente Province, Castro was the illegitimate son of Ángel Castro y Argiz, a wealthy farmer and landowner, and his mistress Lina Ruz González. First educated by a tutor in Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro then attended two boarding schools before being sent to El Colegio de Belén, a school run by Jesuits in Havana. In 1945 he began studying law at the University of Havana, where he first became politically conscious, becoming a staunch anti-imperialist and critic of United States involvement in the Caribbean. Involved in student politics, he was affiliated to Eduardo Chibás and his Partido Ortodoxo, achieving publicity as a vocal critic of the pro-U.S. administration of President Ramón Grau and his Partido Auténtico.
The Cuban communist revolutionary and politician Fidel Castro took part in the Cuban Revolution from 1953 to 1959. Following on from his early life, Castro decided to fight for the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's military junta by founding a paramilitary organization, "The Movement". In July 1953, they launched a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, during which many militants were killed and Castro was arrested. Placed on trial, he defended his actions and provided his famous "History Will Absolve Me" speech, before being sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in the Model Prison on the Isla de Pinos. Renaming his group the "26th of July Movement" (MR-26-7), Castro was pardoned by Batista's government in May 1955, claiming they no longer considered him a political threat while offering to give him a place in the government, but he refused. Restructuring the MR-26-7, he fled to Mexico with his brother Raúl Castro, where he met with Argentine Marxist-Leninist Che Guevara, and together they put a small revolutionary force intent on overthrowing Batista.
The political career of Fidel Castro saw Cuba undergo significant economic, political, and social changes. In the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and an associated group of revolutionaries toppled the ruling government of Fulgencio Batista, forcing Batista out of power on 1 January 1959. Castro, who had already been an important figure in Cuban society, went on to serve as prime minister from 1959 to 1976. He was also the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the communist state, from 1961 to 2011. In 1976, Castro officially became president of the Council of State and president of the Council of Ministers. He retained the title until 2008, when the presidency was transferred to his brother, Raúl Castro, who was vice president. Fidel Castro remained the first secretary of the Communist Party until 2011.
The consolidation of the Cuban Revolution is a period in Cuban history typically defined as starting in the aftermath of the revolution in 1959 and ending in 1962, after the total political consolidation of Fidel Castro as the maximum leader of Cuba. The period encompasses early domestic reforms, human rights violations, and the ousting of various political groups. This period of political consolidation climaxed with the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which then cooled much of the international contestation that arose alongside Castro's bolstering of power.
The grey years were a loosely defined period in Cuban history, generally agreed to have started with the Padilla affair in 1971. It is often associated with the tenure of Luis Pavón Tamayo as the head of Cuba's National Cultural Council from 1971 to 1976. The period is also sometimes called the quinquenio gris, the trinquenio amargo, or the decada negra.
The Revolutionary Offensive was a political campaign in Cuba starting in 1968 to nationalize all remaining private small businesses, which at the time totaled to be about 58,000 small enterprises. The campaign would spur industrialization in Cuba and focus the economy on sugar production, specifically to a deadline for an annual sugar harvest of 10 million tons by 1970. The economic focus on sugar production involved international volunteers and the mobilization of workers from all sectors of the Cuban economy. Economic mobilization also coincided with greater militarization of Cuban political structures and society in general.
The Escalante affair was a political incident in Cuba after politician Anibal Escalante gave his comrades in the Popular Socialist Party positions of authority over the general members in the newly formed Integrated Revolutionary Organizations, causing Fidel Castro to dismiss him and his compatriots from the IRO.
The Great Debate was an era in Cuban history retroactively named by historians, that was defined by public debate about the future of Cuban economic policy that took place from 1962 to 1965. The debate began after Cuba fell into an economic crisis in 1962 after years of internal economic complications, United States sanctions, and the flight of professionals from Cuba. In 1962 Fidel Castro invited Marxist economists around the world to debate two main propositions. One proposition proposed by Che Guevara was that Cuba could bypass any capitalist then "socialist" transition period and immediately become an industrialized "communist" society if "subjective conditions" like public consciousness and vanguard action are perfected. The other proposition held by the Popular Socialist Party was that Cuba required a transitionary period as a mixed economy in which Cuba's sugar economy was maximized for profit before a "communist" society could be established. Eventually Fidel Castro would implement ideas of both and use the moral incentives proposed by Guevara but also focusing on developing the sugar economy rather than industrialization.
The concept of a grassroots dictatorship was created by historian Lillian Guerra to describe her understanding of the unique political structure of Cuba. According to Guerra, Cuba is a "grassroots dictatorship", because of its mass deputization of citizens as spies, to gather intelligence on neighbors' "subversive" activities, and generally collaborate with government initiatives. This mass deputization is carried out by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) who organize citizens to carry out "acts of repudiation" against other citizens who are considered subversive. These "acts of repudiation" often involve the gathering of deputized citizens to taunt or assault targeted "subversive" citizens. Through the mass deputization of citizens via CDRs, Guerra argues that the Cuban government is able to suppress public speech, and maintain a sense of "grassroots" support, despite the undemocratic nature of the Cuban government.
The rectification process was a series of economic reforms in Cuba, officially titled the Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies. The process began in 1986, and lasted until 1992. The reforms were aimed at eliminating private businesses, trade markets, that had been introduced into the Cuban law and Cuban culture, during the 1970s. The new reforms aimed to nationalize more of the economy and eliminate material incentives for extra labor, instead relying on moral enthusiasm alone. Castro often justified this return to moral incentives by mentioning the moral incentives championed by Che Guevara, and often alluded to Guevarism when promoting reforms.
The institutionalization process, sometimes more formally referred to as the "process of institutionalization", or the "institutionalization of the Cuban Revolution", was a series of political reforms, typically identified by historians as to have taken place between 1976 and 1985, although sometimes identified as having begun in 1970. This process was proceeded by a period of government that was directly managed by Fidel Castro without much input from other officials, which had been status-quo since the conclusion of the Cuban Revolution. The institutionalization process was also proceeded by a deepening of Cuba-Soviet relations in the early 1970s, which had soured before in the 1960s.
The Battle of Ideas was a mass political campaign in Cuba that began after the return of Elián González to Cuba in 2000. The Battle of Ideas was preceded by popular disillusionment in the economy after the crisis of the Special Period, and a growing embrace of capitalism via dollarization. The Cuban government intended to revitalize the population's enthusiasm for socialism. The effort for ideological revitalization began after Elián González's return, because it was seen as a breakthrough diplomatic success, after years of crisis and internal decline. The Battle of Ideas attempted to emphasize human development, deemphasize economic growth, and return to the ideological spirit of the 1960s. This meant a focus on education, healthcare, centralized economic planning, and the mass mobilization of the population. Cuba also began forging closer diplomatic ties with Pink tide governments, often providing medical services.
