The Rise to Power of Castroism…

 1- “The Rise to Power of Castroism and the Failure of the Internal Resistance”

“They were not caused by an International conspiracy of the Communism.”

“Cuba entered the 20th century in an indeterminate state. In other words, the self-definition promulgated in the blueprint for independence had not been achieved when the Republic first came into being. The foundations of independence were based on two assumptions: an original agreement on the essence of nationhood and the endogenous creation of the Republic. Neither of these presumptions had been fulfilled by 1902.

The nation was born, therefore, with something missing.” (1)

2 – The Birth of the Republic

When the USA intervened on 1898, at the end of the Cuban war against Spain, it frustrated the hopes and aspirations of the Cuban people.

The Republic was doomed to failure:

• Cubans had been fighting for 30 years against Spain.
• USA took control of the economic power
• USA gave Spaniards the Cuban properties that were confiscated during the 30 years of struggle to gain independence from Spain.
• USA did not permit the Cubans to sit at the Paris Treaty negotiations of 1899, as a free    nation of the world.

 “Our flag had been raised, not after driving out the Spanish flag which would have symbolized victory instead, but only after the American flag was lowered, a symbol of custodianship.” ( 1)

3 – The Platt Amendment

• The Paris Treaty negotiations in 1899 and the Platt Amendment on 1901 paved the way for the American Army to intervene in Cuba whenever the USA government decided to do so, for their own convenience and with the excuses of helping Cubans to govern themselves and to respect lives, properties or liberties.
  Our Republic was mediated and our Nation inconclusive as a result of several military and civil USA interventions that occurred during the first 30 years.
• These USA interventions promoted giving power to politicians more subservient to Washington  whims and planted the roots of Caudillismo based on the strongman reputation of those Cuban politicians who had good access to the powers-at-be in Washington, D. C.

The U. S. left in Spanish hands all the Cuban properties confiscated by Spain during the war, giving support to the economic interests of Spain and a severe blow to the patricians who fought for independence; debilitating the economic basis of those called to rebuild a democratic Republic.

 4- A huge landholding process

The Republic, thus, was born inheriting a landowning economic structure and lacking any strategy for solving this problem in the founding of the nation. “The large landholding process,” according to Ramiro Guerra, one of our foremost historians, “It was a revision of the secular historical record regarding the creation of society and of the Cuban State. It depleted, undermined and destroyed its very basis and essence, its nationality.” (2)

• A single-crop, single-export economy controlled by a single Nation and organized around sugar production. The Republic was founded and constructed on top of this “sugar” base. The economy was not built on a solid and diversified foundation.
• Large estates were mostly in North American hands. That was the basic economic structure.
  No diversity of interests in the power structure was the rule. Our future was in the hands of the powerful neighbor economically, politically and socially. No other representative in the structure of power but the American Nation.

 5 – Cuba was too Black. 1898

At the end of the XIX Century Cuba was “too Black”, and the slaves that were liberated by the patricians fought in large numbers in the war of independence and gained great respect and leadership. The Black people were an important part of our Nation although the poorest one.

• They were a threat to the makers of the new mediated-Republic. Cuba had at that time 1,700,000 inhabitants.
• The U. S. opened the door to 800,000 Spanish immigrants giving them priority of employment. Before 1912 several thousand Blacks were assassinated during U. S. Interventions. As a result Cuba became more Spaniard and Whitish but less “criolla”
  (indigenous).
• In the U. S., an apartheid existed legally, since 1891. Plessy Vs Ferguson, Supreme Court Decision. (3)

What happened to that Republic?

It emerged carrying another unnecessary burden, the prejudice against Blacks, a very negative cultural legacy that debilitated our spirit and weakened our institutions as well as the democratic foundations of the nation. This prejudice and its sequel in the society gave birth to a huge resentment toward the foreigners.

As a consequence our Nation was inconclusive, and our Republic mediated as a result of several military and civil USA interventions in our country. These USA actions granted the power to those politicians more prone to Washington’s desires.

There were many Caudillos throughout our Republican history and the instability of any of them while in power, was a good excuse for calling the U. S. to intervene, in order to reestablish the public peace.

The Paris Treaty and The Platt Amendment paved the way for this attitude when they gave the U. S. Army the right to intervene in Cuba at any time in which Cubans could not govern themselves !!!!

6- 50 years of USA exploitation and tutelage…

• Gave way to a not well developed society, lacking political culture, which was exposed to and willing to accept Caudillismo  and violence as the way of solving problems.
• We called an outside arbiter to give us back national peace.
• We still do it!

 7- The unresolved problems, dating from 1902, revealed at the time of the 1933 Revolution were:

• Weakness of political alliances; poverty of Republican spirit; absence of solid political and democratic culture; political violence among so- called democrats, continued power of vested economic interests. 
• The owners of the land were still out of the country.
• But from 1902 to 1933: Civil and political societies were consolidated. Political parties were formed, civil society expanded, women societies appeared, universities were founded, student federations played an important role in the society, workers groups made a difference in the social justice pursue, the power of the press penetrated the whole nation, sanitation and health organizations proliferated.

 All this created a rich social fabric.

8- September 4, 1933. Batista took control of the Army. Republican Institutions began to open up to men of war.

• There was no global response from civil society, as it also happened during the first two interventions.
• Civil society, political society and the Nation lacked a central focus. What losses do we have
  • The Republic was eliminated because governance was no longer appropriate for Civil Institutions.
  • The army was the guarantor of foreign interests: Nationhood was eliminated.

   This was the first, great step toward the dissolution of the Republic and the beginning of a new dimension in the Cuban politics; militarism was reinforced, the winds of the 1959 Revolution began to blow.

The beginning of the Cuban Revolution should be pondered also through the objective and subjective meanings and consequences of the character of the Cuban society before the Revolution took place. I believe that Cuban culture was violent and for many Cubans the image of the strong man who was in charge of the government was an important one. So we enjoyed and suffered the caudillismo. For us, as a political society, foundational violence was an easy task. The spirit of solidarity was lacking at times, the compassion for the weaker, for the victim, was unimaginable most of the time. It was a common Cuban expression to say: “They broke his “siquitrilla” when talking about somebody whose properties were confiscated by the government at the time of the revolution.

9- In spite of evils afflicting the Republic, 1933 heralded a re-birth of democratic institutions

• Reformulation of political alliances and of civil society occurred. The intellectuals played a preeminent role, they restored the discourse of nationhood.
• Platt Amendment was eliminated. The Constitutional Assembly of 1940 created a legal pacific Revolution, an unexpected space within the closed political elite. But Political corruption erupted and violence unleashed against political classes or between radicals

10- After1940 political classes were rising up like the critical conscience of the Republic and of the Nation.

• The Orthodox Party( Eduardo Chibás) was leading this effort, trying to head off two evils, the corruption that was annihilating the Republic and the landholdings that held hostage the structural definition of Nationhood.
• For the next 12 years Cuba had an incipient constitutional rhythm until 1952.

The corruption in the political field jumped to a very high level including the time in which we enjoyed democratic administrations. Poverty was rampant due mainly to corruption and the lack of supportive institutions for the poorest and the problems of underdevelopment. In an agrarian survey done in 1956 in which I participated in the task force, there was a profound gap between half the population who lived in the cities and the other half who lived and worked in the countryside. The daily income of the farmworkers was approx. a quarter of a dollar daily, not to say that in “tiempo muerto”, for almost 6 months the sugar cane factories used to stop.

11- Batista’s 1952 coup tore apart the political options. The Army had become the violent arbiter again.

Batista’s rise to power causing the rupture of the incipient constitutional rhythm Cuba was having before 1952 could be named as the main cause of the rise to power of Castroism. This rupture created a political vacuum that lasted seven years.

After the Revolution against Machado in 1933, Batista accomplished another coup inside the Army staying in power for seven years. So, he was holding power without been elected for 14 years in Cuba before the revolution began. There were no chances for political institutions of working inside civil society in order to create a political culture. For 25 years he prevailed in the Cuban political arena.

Let Fidel Castro to describe this rupture: “I am going to tell you a story. There was upon a time one Republic, that had its Constitution, its laws, its liberties; a President, a Congress, Courts; everybody could meet and be associated, talk and write with total freedom. The government did not satisfy the people but the people could change it and just a few days remained in order to accomplished it…The People felt a noble trust being sure that nobody would dare to commit the crime of attempting against his democratic institutions..  “ – Self defense speech in court, October 16 of 1953. (4)

• During the next 7 years three fundamental unresolved problems remained to rekindle the political debate:
  • The political issues of nationhood (Who decides in Cuban political affairs?)
  • The national issues of property (Who owns the country?)
  • And the cultural issue of democracy (the agreement over governance)
• The legitimacy of the 1959 revolution was based on those three problems.
  • The Revolution nationalized the political actors. Only Cubans should decide in Cuban affairs. There was no need of helping Cubans to govern themselves anymore. But the concentration of power in a few hands is still the problem. Cuba entered also under the influence of the Soviets at the time of the Cold War.
  •  The Revolution nationalized the properties. The country recuperated the ownership of everything. But it was done while violating the rights of others who did not received proper compensation, half of Cubans lost their properties. The economic power remained in the hands of the State.  Cuban citizens are still waiting…. When the Soviets disappeared 12 years ago, the Cuban officialdom started an external privatization, a state- foreign investors co-management, a new state capitalism, in which the foreigners pay the salary of the Cuban workers with dollars and the Cuban government pay the workers in Cuban pesos. A new form of exploitation by the State.
  • I use today all Castro’s statements of his self defense speech in Cuban Courts in October 16 of 1953, as a proof of the Revolution violation of the democratic institutions of the Cuban Republic.

 12.-
 

Bibliography

1- Cuban Moderate Opposition roundtable platform. Havana, September 25 of 1999.
2- Ramiro Guerra Cuban historian .
3- Violence in political and social culture of Cuba: One interpretation. Paper presented by Antonio Garcia Crews at the IEC meeting in Miami. January 12, 2001.
4- Fidel Castro’s self defense speech in court, October 16 of 1953.
5- Coordinadora Social Democrata  Cubana. Paper presented in 1994 at the meeting organized by STC and IEC.

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