Essay about Cuban Revolution

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John Papadopoulos

LACAS

The Cuban Revolution

It’s been 60 years ago since the Cuban revolution began; the main reason why the revolution started was because of the corrupt ruler Fulgencio Batista. Batista was a greedy ruler who cared little about the people and only cared about getting as much money as possible. Batista made backwards deals that allowed foreign nations like the U.S to intervene in Cuban affairs and completely take control of all economic operations. When Batista was in power he made little to no changes to help improve the state of Cuba, the people were unsatisfied with the changes he was making. In June 1952 Batista decided to cancel the elections after his first term, Cuba still remained to have extremely high unemployment rates and little resources. All of these reasons were the spark needed to begin the revolution.
The revolution lasted from 1953–1959 and was orchestrated by Fidel Castro along with a ton of radical revolutionaries who called themselves The 26 of July Movement. The movement entailed student street protests, guerilla warfare, police assaults and other forms of violence that crippled the country all together. The revolution was meaningful and successful in some aspects. Education and health care was drastically improved for the poor, infant mortality rate has dropped significantly. The Cuban revolution brought change that has impacted Cuba and other countries significantly. Cuba became a socialist state and reformed into a communist party. Today Cuba has one of the best health care systems in the entire world. Health care and education is free and all Cuban’s are equal regardless of race, gender and class. In addition all homes in Cuba have electricity, plumbing and running water the only nation in Latin America with those feats.

The reason why this topic is important is because Cuba has become one of the greater countries in Latin America post revolution. In addition Cuba’s relationship with the U.S has been completely altered after this movement and this revolution has started a new anti U.S movement. During the revolution the U.S was funding Batista to fight off the revolutionaries. After the revolution America set an embargo on all Cuban trade. Shortly after the U.S tried to defeat Castro in Cuba known as the assault on the Bay of Pigs. The U.S lost and ever since relations have been shaky. The U.S didn’t care about the people of Cuba and never helped or aided with any sort of democracy. They look at Cuba as a profit that was just to produce sugar and nothing else.
Cuba is considered one of the first Anti-U.S countries in Latin America, since Cuba has started a trend that is beginning to rub off on other Latin American countries. Many rulers in other Latin American countries such as Venezuela are beginning to become more Anti- Washington. The United States can’t continue to treat these countries as their “employers”. Many countries want their own policies and do not want to be manipulated and have foreign nations reaping the economic benefits in their own country. Today in the Caribbean we still see countries giving up resources and land for big American corporations.

Novas, Himilce. Everything You Need to Know about Latino History. New York: Plume, 1994. Print.

One of Novas main arguments is that The Platt Amendment helped fuel the Cuban revolution. Many Cubans believed that the amendment oppressed the economy, the amendment “had the right to instruct the Cuban people on how to govern themselves, to interfere in Cuban foreign policy when it deemed necessary”. Novas believed that the Platt amendment was the “thorn on the side” of Cuban patriots. The Platt amendment caused a great deal of friction that was directly related to the revolution. González, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. New York: Viking, 2000. Print. Gonzalez talks about how Batista was a corrupted leader and how Cuba’s economy during this time frame was a “total appendage of