The Cuba Libre Story | |
---|---|
Genre | Documentary |
Directed by |
|
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 8 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers |
|
Producers |
|
Running time | 52 minutes |
Production company | LOOKSfilm |
Release | |
Original network | Netflix |
Original release | December 8, 2016 |
The Cuba Libre Story is a documentary series that portrays the history of Cuba from colonial times to 2015. [1] The eight-part series was released on Netflix on December 11, 2015. [2]
For The Cuba Libre Story, more than 50 international Cuba experts and contemporary witnesses were interviewed - both supporters and opponents of Fidel Castro and his predecessor Fulgencio Batista. Among them are Cuba's former intelligence chief Juan Antonio Rodríguez Menier and KGB Latin America chief Nikolai Leonov, Che Guevara's comrade Dariel Alarcón and CIA agent Félix Rodríguez, Fidel Castro's former lover Marita Lorenz and his former bodyguard Carlos Calvo, the stepdaughter of mafia boss Meyer Lansky, Cuba's famous novelist Leonardo Padura and the last Head of State of the GDR and personal friend of the Castro brothers, Egon Krenz. [3]
No. | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|
1 | "Breaking Chains" | December 11, 2015 |
2 | "War and Sugar" | December 11, 2015 |
3 | "Gangster's Paradise" | December 11, 2015 |
4 | "A Ragtag Revolution" | December 11, 2015 |
5 | "Making Heroes" | December 11, 2015 |
6 | "Of Soviets and Saviors" | December 11, 2015 |
7 | "Secrets and Sacrifices" | December 11, 2015 |
8 | "Moments of Transition" | December 11, 2015 |
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 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
Cuba has had a socialist political system since 1959 based on the "one state – one party" principle. Cuba is constitutionally defined as a Marxist–Leninist state. The present Constitution of Cuba, which was passed in a 2019 referendum, also describes the role of the Communist Party of Cuba to be the "leading force of society and of the state" and as having the capability of setting national policy, and First Secretary of the Communist Party is the most powerful position in Cuba. The 2019 Constitution of Cuba identifies the ideals represented by Cuban independence hero José Martí and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro as the primary foundation of Cuba's political system, while also stressing the importance of the influence of the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.
Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is a retired Cuban politician and general who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the one-party communist state, from 2011 to 2021, and President of Cuba between 2008 and 2018, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro.
The Cuban Revolution was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks. The rebels were arrested and while in prison formed the 26th of July Movement. After gaining amnesty the M-26-7 rebels organized an expedition from Mexico on the Granma yacht to invade Cuba. In the following years the M-26-7 rebel army would slowly defeat the Cuban army in the countryside, while its urban wing would engage in sabotage and rebel army recruitment. Over time the originally critical and ambivalent Popular Socialist Party would come to support the 26th of July Movement in late 1958. By the time the rebels were to oust Batista the revolution was being driven by the Popular Socialist Party, 26th of July Movement, and the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil.
Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán was a Cuban revolutionary born in Havana. Along with Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Juan Almeida Bosque, and Raúl Castro, he was a member of the 1956 Granma expedition, which launched Fidel Castro's armed insurgency against the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. He became one of Castro's top guerrilla commanders, known as the "Hero of Yaguajay" after winning a key battle of the Cuban Revolution. His signature weapons were a M1921AC Thompson and a modified M2 carbine.
Granma is the yacht that was used to transport 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in November 1956 for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista. The 60-foot diesel-powered cabin cruiser was built in 1943 by Wheeler Shipbuilding of Brooklyn, New York, as a light armored target practice boat, US Navy C-1994 and modified postwar to accommodate 12 people. "Granma", in English, is an affectionate term for a grandmother; the yacht is said to have been named for the previous owner's grandmother.
Manuel Urrutia Lleó was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the first revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after only seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward.
Delfín Fernández is a former Cuban spy who spent 15 years working for the Cuban counterintelligence Department 11 with the codename Agent Otto. He defected from Cuba and moved to Spain in 1999. He settled in Spain for five years, becoming one of Europe's most successful bodyguards. In 2005 Fernández moved to Miami, Florida and as of 2006 he was waiting to get U.S. residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Hotel Tryp Habana Libre is one of the larger hotels in Cuba, situated in Vedado, Havana. The hotel has 572 rooms in a 25-floor tower at Calle 23 and Calle L. Opened in 1958 as the Habana Hilton, the hotel famously served as the residence of Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries throughout 1959, after their capture of Havana.
William Alexander Morgan was a United States citizen who fought in the Cuban Revolution, leading a band of rebels that drove the Cuban army from key positions in the central mountains as part of Second National Front of Escambray, thereby helping to pave the way for Fidel Castro's forces to secure victory. Morgan was one of about two dozen U.S. citizens to fight in the revolution and one of only three foreign nationals to hold the rank of comandante in the rebel forces. In the years after the revolution, Morgan became disenchanted with Castro's turn to communism and he became one of the leaders of the CIA-supplied Escambray rebellion. In 1961, he was arrested by the Cuban government and, after a military trial, executed by firing squad in the presence of Fidel and Raúl Castro.
Operation 40 was the code name for a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored counterintelligence group composed of Cuban exiles. The group was formed to seize control of the Cuban government after the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Operation 40 continued to operate unofficially until disbanded in 1970 due to allegations that an aircraft that was carrying cocaine and heroin in support of the group crashed in California.
Cuba and the United States restored diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015. Relations had been severed in 1961 during the Cold War. U.S. diplomatic representation in Cuba is handled by the United States Embassy in Havana, and there is a similar Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. The United States, however, continues to maintain its commercial, economic, and financial embargo, making it illegal for U.S. corporations to do business with Cuba.
The 2006–2008 Cuban transfer of presidential duties was the handover of the title of president and presidential duties from longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl Castro, the next-in-line-of-succession person in Cuba, following Fidel's operation and recovery from an undisclosed digestive illness believed to be diverticulitis. Although Raúl Castro exercised the duties of president, Fidel Castro retained the title of President of the Council of State of Cuba and President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, during this period.
Ramón Eusebio Castro Ruz was a Cuban revolutionary and activist. He was the eldest brother of Fidel and Raúl Castro and a key figure of the Cuban Revolution.
638 Ways to Kill Castro is a Channel 4 documentary film, broadcast in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2006, which tells the story of some of the numerous attempts of the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Cuba's leader Fidel Castro. It was directed by Dollan Cannell.
Carlos Rafael Rodríguez Rodríguez was a Cuban Communist politician and economist, who served in the cabinets of presidents Fulgencio Batista and Fidel Castro.
Melba Hernández Rodríguez del Rey was a Cuban politician and diplomat. She served as the Cuban Ambassador to Vietnam and to Cambodia.
Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel y Bermúdez is a politician and engineer who is the third first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. Díaz-Canel succeeds the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, making him the first non-Castro leader of Cuba since the revolution. Díaz-Canel's leadership thus represents a non-dynastic form of succession for the party as well as for the state, and the end of Castro leadership in Cuba.
Bolivia–Cuba relations refers to the diplomatic relations between Bolivia and Cuba. Both nations are members of the United Nations, but relations of Bolivia with Cuba, like those of most countries in the Western Hemisphere with the notable exceptions of Canada and Mexico, have waxed and waned over the decades depending on geopolitical and regional political circumstances. Relations were good under Evo Morales, who shared the position of his like-minded left-wing allies in Nicaragua and Venezuela that Fidel Castro was a humanist and beloved icon of resistance to US hegemony in Latin America.
This article covers events in the year 2021 in Cuba.