American influence in Cuban dates back to 1898 when American helped liberate Cuba from Spain. Since then American financial aid kept Cuban economy alive and helped Americans establish their power in Cuban soil for years to come. Cuban exports, namely sugar found its way into the American markets. American companies controlled most Cuban industries (sugar, copper, tobacco, textiles, manganese, nickel, paper, iron and rum); they also owned half the land, three fifths of the railway system and the entire electricity production and telecommunication system. Cuban economy though thriving had a very strong disparity. Unemployment was rampant in the country. During the sugar harvest unemployment fell to 8% as opposed to 30% during the rest of the year. There were no unemployment benefits and trade unions did nothing to help the civilians. The poverty was quite stark compared to the wealthy industrialists. Hence, the wealth of the country was concentrated in few hands and the American ambassador was known as the second most important man in Havana, the capital of Cuba.
In 1952, Fulgencio Batista seized power and starting ruling as a dictator. He ‘spent a lot of time dealing with his private affairs and his foreign fortunes, leaving himself too little time for affairs of state’. He was corrupt and his government was known to be brutal. American considered Cuba to quite a safe country with regard to the Cold War; the Benelux countries received more American aid than the whole of Latin America from 1945 to 1960. There were high anti American sentiments amongst the Cuban’s and many other Latin American countries, American Vice-President Nixon was met with protests in his tour of Latin America in 1958. Batista government was remarked as being conspicuously pro-American but an embarrassment none the less, due to high level of corruption.
The police under Batista fiercely put down a student protest on November 27, 1955 with beatings. Later during a baseball game being broadcasted on television, students showed anti-Batista banners, which led to a demonstration that was also put down by the police. In another demonstration, the police killed a well-liked student, Ciego de Ávila. His funeral on December 10 turned into a protest that increased the support of the growing Cuban Revolution. In 1956 University of Havana was partly destroyed by the government in hopes of preventing any public meetings or protests. On March 13, 1957, the leader of the rebellious students, José Echeverría, and his supporters attacked the presidential palace in order to kill Batista. Immediately after this, he declared on national radio that they killed Batista. Minutes later, police entered the studio and shot him, while the Cubans rejoiced to hear that their dictator had been killed. Later, it was confirmed that Batista had actually escaped the attack. March 13 is still declared as a national holiday. The Cuban Revolution, however, was not only in the hands of the students.
It was soon realized that a peaceful transition of good government was not possible, thus revolutionary sentiments arose in the citizens. One of the people to rise amongst these sentiments was Fidel Castro, a middle class lawyer. He tried to oust Batista in 1953 in which he was unsuccessful. However, Castro had support from the peasants since he had land reform policies which enabled all peasants to own some sort of land. Thus when Castro re-launched a guerilla movement, the civilians rose to aid him. Amongst these supporters was “Che” Guevara, who plotted the return of Castro in 1956. He wished to see the end of American influence, and in 1959 both he and Castro became rulers of Cuba after Batista fled Havana. Cuba’s success in this fight was due to poor morale in Batista’s army and the United States arms embargo to Batista due to the embarrassment that he had become. On 1st January 1959, Fidel Castro set up a liberal government in Cuba.
