Bits of Cuban History

A 144-page book, by French Marxist Régis Debray, subtitled lutte armée et lulte politique (“armed fight and political fight”) published in 1967, simultaneously in Paris and Havana, which elaborated Fidel Castro’s doctrine of the period, emphasizing guerrilla warfare. Not only are orthodox Communist theory and leadership – which insist on the guiding role of the party and …

RÉVOLUTION DANS LA RÉVOLUTION? (“Revolution in the revolution?”) Read More »

By the end of 1958 wholesale army desertions had made Fulgencio Batista’s position untenable. He resigned in the early hours of New Year’s Day and fled to the Dominican Republic. Within hours, the guerrillas from the Sierra Maestra, led by Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara, entered Havana, but their leader, Fidel Castro, chose to make …

Revolution of 1959 Read More »

A 1933 revolt headed by non-commissioned army officers, including Fulgencio Batista, which triggered the Revolution of 1933. Upset by proposals for pay reductions for the lower echelons of the army and restrictions on promotion, plus the desire to receive immunity for their crimes as participants in the terror of the Machadato, they arranged to meet members …

Sergeants’ Revolt Read More »

The Marxist demand economy system adopted after the Revolution of 1959 created numerous supply problems and productivity decreased. When the accumulated reserves of the old regime had been exhausted and stocks were not replaced, store shelves emptied. Years of scarcity followed the period of affluence. In April 1962, rationing was introduced: a shock, as this …

Rationing Read More »

After the April 1961 failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the poor impression John Kennedy made on Nikita Khrushchev at their June 1961 meeting in Vienna, the Soviet Union felt it could upgrade its economic and military involvement in Cuba without provoking a strong US reaction. By mid-1962, it had introduced nuclear-capacity bombers and nuclear …

MISSILE CRISIS Read More »

Unsuccessful attempt in April 1961 to invade Cuba and overthrow the Fidel Castro regime (which refers to the event by the name of the main landing beach, Playa Girón). Already by the final months of the Eisenhower administration, the United States’ relations with Cuba had so deteriorated that the Central Intelligence Agency had begun training …

BAY OF PIGS INVASION Read More »

The nucleus of a Cuban exile force of 1,400 men, they Bay of Pigs invasion force, trained by the United States Central Intelligence Agency in Guatemala, which sailed from Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, on April 14, 1961, to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro, begun three days later. The brigade was originally composed of six battalions of …

BRIGADE 2506 Read More »

Name given to Fidel Castro’s revolutionary cause, adopted from the date of his ill-fated 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba.  He began the movement in prison, and after his 1955 release he traveled in the United States and Mexico seeking funds for it. His forces sailed from Mexico to Oriente province in …

Movimiento Veintiseis de Julio (26th July Movement) Read More »

A combined assault on the Presidential Palace, March 13, 1957, by the Directorio Revolucionario and members of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Auténtico) in an attempt to kill President Batista. Most of the attackers, including their leader Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo, were killed after their reinforcements had failed to arrive, and their failure, in turn, doomed the associated seizure of Radio …

PRESIDENTIAL PALACE ATTACK Read More »

A series of riots (looting, arson, police station bombings and c3,000 deaths) that took place in Bogotá, Colombia, following the April 9, 1948, murder of the popular Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and the assassin’s lynching by an angry mob. Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón, seeking to establish an anti-imperialist Latin American Student Union …

Bogotazo Read More »