For the Purpose of a Transition in Cuba

Brief Historical Analysis

The Republic of Cuba emerged as a continuance and a development of 19th-century colonial society, and as a republic it had already readjusted during the better part of the 20th century when a great rupture occurred, of which the consequences have perpetuated into the beginning of the 21st century.

Although we analyze the present to decipher the future, it is unavoidable to talk about the past that brought us to the current moment, and it is the only thing that has experience to advise the future.

From 1940 to 1952 Cuba enjoyed democratic regimes, and during that period the Cuban people were able to demonstrate their capabilities due to their freedoms and rights. We think it is useful to create a brief examination of the results up to 1952.

In January, 1939, the Democratic and Pluralist Central Workers Union of Cuba was established, and while it was recognized along with the CTM of Mexico as being the most representative organizations, it also gained significant social conquests.

In 1940 the Constitution of Cuba, which was recognized as the most advanced politically and socially in Latin America, was approved.

• The country’s population approached six million inhabitants, and the mortality rate was 7.5 per 1000.
• The gross national product was 2.031 billion pesos, which were on par with the American dollar.
• The reserves in gold, metallic coins, and dollars, which were controlled by the state, reached $400 million.
• The external debt was only $68 million.
• Solid economic institutions with Cuban capital existed, including the National Bank, the Bank of Agricultural and Industrial Fomentation (BANFAIC).
• The private banking sector operated with deposits that approached $656 million.
• The national capital primarily owned the central sugar producers.
• The sugar production that year reached seven million tons without neglecting other industries, and it rewarded the internal market while making it the major exporter of sugar in the world.
• The tobacco industry was firmly established with the capacity to cover both, the internal market and quality exportation.
• The cattle industry had reached a high level of development that, without restraining the national consumption of meat and milk, constantly maintained herds with a ratio of almost one head of cattle per inhabitant.
• There were laws for which part of the unexpected earnings of a bartering market of sugar was distributed among the cultivators of the earth and the workers in the sugar-mills.
• In the last six years of that period 200,000 apartments and lodgings were constructed principally from rubble-work masonry and concrete.
• Asphalt roads spanned a total of 6,000 kilometers.
• 78% of the Cuban population could read and write.
• 880,000 children attended elementary schools.
• In addition to the University of Havana, three new universities were founded.

Let us not assume that the republic was perfect, because there are always elements to improve, new things to initiate, and harmful factors to combat. Economic-social contradictions, which needed to be overcome, existed between the city and the countryside. However, the balance illustrates a diligent society that had progressed notably on many levels. It contained a large middle class and social values that were expressed in progressive laws acquired in part by a working class organized at the beginning of the democratic revolution of 1933 led by Ramón Grau San Martín, Antonio Guiteras, and the Central Workers Union of Cuba (CTC) organized in 1939.

In 1952 the Cuban democratic rhythm was interrupted by Fulgencio Batista’s coup d’etat. This event occurred while the country was preparing to vote for its president. The two major candidates, Dr. Roberto Agramonte of the Orthodox Party and Carlos Hevia, an engineer, of the Authentic Party, were both qualified for their capabilities and honesty. Batista was also running as a candidate from a smaller party, but he had no hope of election.

Knowing that he had no possibility of being elected, and devoted to obtaining power, Batista initiated the coup d’etat on March 10 with the support of a large part of the armed forces. This was possible because the rebellion of September 4, 1933, with a few exceptions, had left an army in place with little moral conviction about its function in a democratic society, and now Batista could newly benefit from it.

The civil government felt incapable of maintaining itself in power in the face of such hostile military forces, and it abandoned the country, thus leaving it open for the dictator. To strengthen his position even further, Batista proceeded to license hundreds of officials, sergeants, corporals, and soldiers, all of which had not supported the coup. He also proceeded to make new appointments and grant promotions to his partisans.

Opposition and reaction existed from the beginning of the dictatorship. The political parties, whose preparations for the democratic confrontation had been ridiculed, displayed their discontent in this manner from the beginning. The student body, which was faithful to its tradition of argument and struggle, organized an opposition that was more active each subsequent time. The Central Workers Union of Cuba (CTC) called for a general strike, and during the seven-year dictatorship it organized many resistances and strikes against it. However, the economic prosperity that the country was enjoying and the capability of some public officials designated by the dictator tempered the critical and discrepant voices for the time being. Some syndicate leaders reached a pact with the dictator that would bring about recovery and personal benefits for the working class. Nevertheless, others suffered through repression and exile and contributed to organize a democratic resistance movement.

The opposition repeatedly initiated dialogues with the purpose of finding peaceful alternatives to return to the constitutional order. However, Batista was stubborn and intent on maintaining power. He arrogantly scorned the attempts to initiate constructive dialogues and only organized some fixed elections to impose his candidate. These elections stunned the national climate further and simply accelerated the conditions for the triumph of a popular insurrection.

In addition, different groups from diverse places on the Cuban political map developed as secret organizations that began with propaganda and proclamation and expanded to frontal military action: the conspiracy involving García Bárcena, the events of November 30 in Santiago, the assaults on the barracks of Moncada and Goicuría in Santiago and Matanzas, the expedition to Corinth, the Granma’s arrival, the attack on the Presidential Palace with the capture of Radio Reloj, the military insurrection of Cienfuegos, the assault on the Haitian embassy, the creation of the 2nd Front of Escambray, the transgression on Colonel Blanco Rico, and the appearance of the 2nd Eastern Front. The strikes of the workers, bankers, and electricians, the general strikes in Camaguey and Oriente, the strike in April, and the events of Humboldt 7 all serve as testimony to the Cuban people’s courageous struggle, finally including the popular rising tied to the general strike of January 1, 1959 that permitted the guerrilla group led by Castro to assume central power. The people who had approved of the Constitution of 1940 refused to conform to life under the Statute of “Viernes de Dolores”, and Batista moved from the bloodless coup to crime as a way of maintaining himself in power at all costs.

The aim of the struggle for which many brave Cubans died was the fall of Fulgencio Batista so that the country could return to a democratic constitutional order and continue its development. According to public opinion, an establishment, which was not different from before, appeared. The “revolution” for the Cuban people was just that, and it was not the ideological realignment with Soviet Marxism. Certainly, no one desired the total demolition of the country’s economic, political, and social orders that had already demonstrated its efficiency. The renovation of the republic was desired, which would bring about the reformation of those negative aspects that were evident but could not be tolerated, as in the case of administrative corruption. Likewise, people wanted the continuation of the country’s industrialization and diversification along with the extension of educational, medical, and all types of services to rural areas that were difficult to access. In the democratic apparatus, as was mentioned earlier, Cuba had already demonstrated unrest for promoting to the classes more necessities with progressive legislation, and whatever a particular administration fell short of doing was the homework of the following administration.

When the downfall materialized, however, the events took another course. In this moment of total institutional crisis the population felt victorious, but in reality it felt helpless in the eventuality of an organized group that would want to reestablish a new dictator. Public institutions, which were appointed to preserve liberty and the system of rights, which acted as the army, and which also represented the political parties, were not in any condition to carry out these functions. Its own defeat, along with corruption in the higher ranks, demoralized the army, and the political parties lost confidence due to their inability to overthrow Batista.

Fidel Castro emerged as leader, along with a plan for absolute power and his group of unconditional followers, and he began to eliminate all who opposed him or had different opinions while also adopting the ideas and organizational methodology of the Pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist system as the structure for Cuban society.

The economic and political support from the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War and Fidel Castro’s guided exaltation of the process, including his ignorance of the other insurrectional and revolutionary expressions, contributed to the perturbation of the Cuban people and the confusion of global public opinion.

After a huge, bloody, and painful effort was carried out to overthrow Batista, the population expected the best. The Cuban people observed with passivity the development of the government’s actions, granting it credit considering the suspiciousness it provoked. Understanding that all its past efforts could have been amenable to a necessity of a major struggle, it was something their emotions rejected. There was always a false argument at hand or a rationalization for maintaining another small piece of hope. A global perspective of the events of those first months and years, however, undoubtedly demonstrate an evident concatenation in accord with a preconceived plan to gain the final result of communizing Cuba.

Fidel Castro proceeded to insult the Cuban past as a perverse time, abominable and guilty of how much frustration each Cuban could have. The coined phrase at that time was very clear: “They married us with a lie and obligated us to live with it, but now it appears that the world ends when we hear the truth.” With this therapy of multitudes, he incited and stimulated social angers in order to launch them against his opponents.

From the beginning foundational violence was established, and the people were persuaded to oppose their values and to favor a psychology of internal and external hostility that destroyed their best capabilities. Due to the actions of the government’s leaders and the unconditional communists, the new regime acquired a superhuman rank to dissolve all social and private aspects of life. “With the revolution everything, without the revolution nothing” became the supreme and lone command. With this order the solidarity that the Cuban people had as a population, and needed in order to mature as a nation, was destroyed. The destruction was so profound; it reached the basic level of society, which is the family.

The external hostility began with a disproportionate sermon against the United States that quickly became a visceral tirade.

The sovereignty of the country supposedly was in danger, and the Cuban people had to defend it, and this was the reason for arming themselves. Simultaneously, they praised Soviet Russia, which was sending them weapons with which to fight.

There was no peaceful ear for dialogue. For fear of falling into the center of the anger, the people suppressed their conviction: “de que no debía cambiarse camino por vereda,” which expressed their desire not to change the established system. The individual was not allowed to think, because that obstructed the system; instead, the individual was obligated to obey. Cuba’s new socialist friends, in a “fraternal” move, armed Cuba to its teeth so that it could defend its sovereignty. Years later we read these words spoken over 150 years ago by the priest Father Felix Varela, “el que nos enseñó a pensar”, (“the one who taught us to think”), and they appear to be just right:

“The people lose their freedom either through oppression by a tyrant or through the evil and ambition of some group of individuals who take advantage of their own people in order to enslave them, while in passing proclaiming their sovereignty. The first measure is well known, and even the most ignorant individuals protest against the injustices of a tyrant; the second is less noticeable and usually eludes even from the most expert politicians”.

without allowing the workers to exercise the fundamental principles of the right to labor: “Libertad sindical”, (unionized freedom), “contratación colectiva”, (collective contracting), and the We believed then and presume now that that “tour de force” was a mistake against our geography, our history, our idiosyncrasy, our interests, and even our future, as present Cuban reality demonstrates.

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