The Cuban Revolution was a military and political revolution that occurred on the Caribbean island of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began owing to opposition to the government of the de-facto military dictator of the country, Fulgencio Batista, and was led by Fidel Castro and others such as his brother Raúl and the Argentine-born Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. The revolution resulted in the establishment of a communist state which became closely allied with the Soviet Union, leading famously to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. A great many people were either opposed to the communist takeover or had been complicit with the Batista regime and fled Cuba in the aftermath of the revolution. Further waves of migration from Cuba occurred throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s owing to the repression of the Castro regime, with most of them heading for the United States and the state of Florida in particular, which lies just 165 kilometers from Cuba at its closest point. In total, over 1.1 million people would eventually flee from Cuba owing to the revolution and its aftermath.[1]
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Chronology of eventsChronology of events
For centuries, Cuba was a colony of Spain, and had been one of the first regions colonized by the Spanish in the early sixteenth century. It was guarded determinedly by the Spanish government in the nineteenth century and remained a colony even after Spain had lost its empire in Central and South America. However, as successive rebellions were waged in Cuba against the Spanish in the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States eventually became involved in the conflicts. The Spanish-American War of 1898 saw Cuba trade Spanish domination for US supremacy. Cuba was eventually granted its independence and theoretically became a republic during the early twentieth century, but this was a highly corrupt regime in which the military had a strong influence.[2]
In 1952 Fulgencio Batista, a former army commander who had been President of Cuba previously between 1940 and 1944, once again assumed that office. But this time he was determined to fashion a military dictatorship. He would rule Cuba for much of the rest of the 1950s, allying closely with the US government and also allowing Italian-American criminal organizations to develop Havana with casinos and entertainment centers.[3] His regime’s repressive policies and corruption soon sparked a rural rebellion led by Fidel Castro, his brother Raúl and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. This began with the attack on the Moncada Barracks on the 26th of July 1953 and became known as the 26th of July Movement.[4]
The revolutionaries had only limited support in their early years, but a more sustained insurgency in eastern Cuba was mounted from 1956 onwards. Moreover, efforts by Batista to crush the revolt by sending his army to the Movement’s base of operations in the Sierra Maestra mountains failed. Then the rebels went on the offensive and gained the initiative, despite the holding of elections in 1958 in which Batista did not stand. The revolutionaries seized the city of Santa Clara on the 31st of December 1958. Just hours later, on New Year’s Day 1959, Batista fled the country. Guevara entered Havana with his forces the following day and by the 8th of January, Castro was in control of Cuba.[5]
The Castro regime, which has continued to rule Cuba down to the present day, quickly established itself as a Marxist-Leninist communist administration, one which allied closely with the Soviet Union. Many people faced arrest and persecution in 1959 and the years which followed for one of several reasons. They might be said to have been involved with the Batista regime, they might have fallen foul of the regime owing to their opposition to communism or they might simply have breached one of the many oppressive laws introduced by the government. This led to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing or trying to flee Cuba, a major mass migration with the United States as the main destination.[6]
Extent of migrationExtent of migration
It is estimated that over the decades, over 1.1 million Cubans have fled from their homeland to the United States. This occurred in distinct waves. For instance, the ascent to power of the Castro regime in January 1959 triggered the first wave which lasted up to 1962 and is known as ‘the Golden Wave’. Approximately 200,000 people fled from Cuba during this particular wave of migration.[7] In the 1960s the US government, with the complicity of the Castro regime which wished to rid itself of what it deemed to be disloyal elements, facilitated further migration in an effort to undermine the Castro regime by running ‘Freedom Flights’ from Varadero Beach in Cuba to Miami on a daily basis. These would operate from 1965 to 1973 and resulted in the arrival of a further quarter of a million Cubans to Florida.[8] Finally, an enormous wave of Cubans crossed the waters to Florida in the summer and autumn of 1980 in an exodus known as the Mariel Boatlift, as small boats crossed between the Sunshine State and Cuba almost constantly conveying would-be exiles to the United States; as many as 125,000 arrived to America during this period. Beyond these particular waves of migration following the Cuban Revolution, there has always been a steady stream of individuals who have found ways and means of leaving Cuba and entering the United States since 1959.[9]
Demographic impactDemographic impact
The demographic impact of this migration following the Cuban Revolution has been felt almost entirely in the state of Florida. Approximately 1.2 million or 7.4% of Florida’s 21 million people are of Cuban descent. Moreover, the bulk of these Cubans in Florida are concentrated in Miami-Dade County in the south-east of the state, around the city of Miami. There are three-quarters of a million people of Cuban extraction here, accounting for a quarter of the county’s nearly three million people. As such, the migration from Cuba to the United States which followed from the Cuban Revolution has transformed the demography of Florida and of the city of Miami in particular, making Cuban Americans the single biggest demographic in the city by the end of the twentieth century.[10] The city elected its first Cuban mayor, Xavier Suárez, in 1985. Elsewhere, the impact of Cuban migration to the United States has been relatively negligible, with a small community of Cuban Americans developing in other south-eastern states such as Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and Louisiana, but these are all dwarfed by developments in Florida. A considerable Cuban community had also developed over the years in cities like New York and Los Angeles. Furthermore, the early 2020s have seen a renewed surge in Cuban migration to the United States.[11]
See alsoSee also
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References
- ↑ Cuban Revolution. Encyclopedia Britannica
- ↑ The Spanish-American War, 1898. Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute. United States Department of State
- ↑ Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973). PBS
- ↑ Castro's Failed Coup. PBS
- ↑ Cuba profile - Timeline. BBC
- ↑ Cuba: Fidel Castro’s Record of Repression. Human Rights Watch
- ↑ Post-Revolution Cuba. PBS
- ↑ Cuban Exiles in America. PBS
- ↑ MARIEL BOATLIFT OF 1980. Inmigration History
- ↑ Transforming a City. Library of Congress
- ↑ Historic wave of Cuban migrants will have a lasting impact on Florida. NBC News