Historical Current Affairs Analysis

Ruben Batista  Godinez (18th  November 1933 to the 7th November 2007) giving his speech at a banquet commerating the 1933 Cuban Revolution.  This celebration was held on the 9th of September 2007 at the Renaissance Banquet Hall, Miami, Florida.

 

The tragic situation which Cuba is now in was illuminated by the late Fulgencio Ruben Batista y Godinez. Ruben Batista was the eldest son of the late President Fulgencio Batista (1901 to 1973). In a remarkable speech on the seventy fourth anniversary of the September 1933 Revolution, Ruben Batista did justice to this key historical event. He highlighted how the Cuban Army, as part of the Constitutional Armed Forces had fulfilled a role in taking Cuba toward genuine democracy. His speech was also noteworthy for calling for an end to discord among Cubans, emphasising that Castro had betrayed the Cuban people’s trust and lamenting the loss of human life due to political conflict and dictatorship.

A detailed background overview is provided  by Dr. David Bennett so that a context can be established in relation to the importance of Ruben Batista’s speech concerning both Cuba’s past and possible future. The central importance of this background review is to emphasize the need for Cuba to break with a patrimonial pattern of economic and political control which has afflicted this nation.

Cuba and the Patrimonial Paradigm

The seemingly radical nature of the Castro dictatorship has often been held up as a beacon of how South American countries can throw off North American dominance (‘Yankee imperialism’) and forge their own destiny. This image is now being put to potent use by Cuba’s communist dictatorship in its developing alliance with the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela to foster left wing populism across South America.

However, the fundamental problem which has bedevilled the peoples of South America and the Caribbean has been that of patrimonialism. Patrimonialism is where the state bolsters the economic interests of those in power. Under a patrimonial system the ruling elite may extend patronage to other sections of society to expand its support base so that it can continue on in power.

Much of twentieth century Latin American history has been concerned with authoritarian leaders becoming populists in order to widen their bases of support. Even when there have been alternations of power between political parties in South American countries a two party model conducive to a patrimonial approach has often ensued, so that leaders of two major political parties or configurations of parties continue to control the main levers of economic power. Contemporary Nicaragua is a glaring example of this two-party patrimonial model.

South American countries which have broken the pattern of patrimonial control have included the Central American republic of Costa Rica where a democratic revolution in 1948 resulted in the army being abolished. Although Costa Rica now has a strong two party system, the political parties are free of elite manipulation and the people have a capacity to determine their destiny through the processes of electoral democracy.

Costa Rica was a strong supporter of Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959 and there was an expectation in Cuba, as there was in South America and in the United States that the triumph by Castro’s phantom guerrilla force would herald a genuine democracy for Cuba. Castro’s triumph was reflective of the Cuban people’s desire to break with a patrimonial approach to politics. However, Cuba had already been the ‘first in the field’ in South America with regard to moving toward breaking with a patrimonial approach to government.

The Cuban revolution in 1933 initiated a process which set this nation on a path towards genuine democracy. Due to the democratic (if at times uneven) outlook of the sergeant turned revolutionary leader, Fulgencio Batista Zaldivar (1901 to 1973), the Cuban army fulfilled a crucial role in moving Cuba towards genuine democracy. Due to wariness on the part of the Cuban people concerning Batista’s democratic bona fides the role of army was therefore also regarded with suspicion. Ironically it was this misplaced suspicion which led the overwhelming majority of the Cuban population to mistakenly give their support to Fidel Castro in January 1959. The democratic expectations and financial probity expected of Fidel Castro by most Cubans were to be betrayed.

Corrupt regimes by their nature cannot spread wealth around sufficiently to pacify the majority of people. Such regimes can only survive in the long run if they resort to extensive repression, as has been the case with the Castro regime. This regime has perfected a model of patrimonial control under a totalitarian system of government. Access to sources of economic wealth, such as hotels frequented by foreign tourists, is now restricted to people who have Communist Party connections. The patrimonial nature of the communist regime was manifested by Fidel Castro handing power over to his brother Raul as the best guarantor of safeguarding the interests of Cuba’s communist nomenclature.

Qualified Independence: The ‘Platt Republic’ 1902 to 1934

Cuba as a nation was orientated toward a patrimonial approach to politics resulting from the legacy of Spanish colonial rule and American influence during the early years of independence. As Cuba was the world’s leading sugar producer in the nineteenth century, Spain tenaciously held on to to the country until the 1890s, seventy years after it had lost its colonies on the South American continent. The presence of a substantial expatriate Spanish community also impeded Cuba’s capacity to break free of its colonial past and associated restrictions. Spanish colonial officials enriched themselves and resorted to distribution of patronage to maintain their control in Cuba.

A suicidal attack by the Cuban poet and patriot Jose Marti (1853 to 1895) sparked Cuba’s War of Independence (1895 to 1898). American intervention in 1898 ended Spanish colonial rule and led to a four year American occupation of Cuba. The American intervention and occupation were unfortunate and helped ensure that a patrimonial approach to Cuban politics would continue after independence was granted. The Castro regime has been very skilful in manipulating such historical grievances in relation to American intervention in order to legitimize its continuing repression.

American intervention helped perpetuate a patrimonial approach to governance. When Cuba was granted independence in May 1902 a clause was inserted into the Cuban constitution which was popularly known as the Platt Amendment. This amendment granted the United States the right to intervene in Cuban affairs for the sake of preserving political stability. (A beneficial achievement of the Batista backed Mendieta government was the repeal of the Platt Amendment in 1934). The American motivation behind the Platt Amendment was to protect American economic interests which had been consolidated during the American occupation of Cuba (1898 to 1902).

While the Platt Amendment was an affront to Cuban sovereignty a paradigm shift still occurred in that Cubans now possessed the capacity to substantially determine their own destiny as a result of finally breaking with Spain. The American ‘right’ to intervene also helped to perpetuate a patrimonial approach to politics by distorting the nature of Cuba’s party system. In 1906 Cuba’s first president, Tomas Estrada Palma (1902 to 1906) moved to secure his re-election as president in a manner which might at least be described as heavy handed. To support his re-election President Estrada Palma founded the Moderate Party.

The resulting revolt by the president’s opponents led to a political compromise in which the office of Cuban president was occupied by the American High Commissioner (i.e. Ambassador) between 1906 and 1909. Under American supervision clean elections were held in 1908 which were won by Jose Miguel Gomez of the newly formed Liberal Party which was composed of anti-Estrada Palma forces. The Gomez administration was wearied by its failure to address pressing social problems such as unrest amongst Cuba’s African community whose strong support for Cuban independence had not resulted in the socio-economic gains which they had expected.

The 1912 elections, in which President Gomez declined to seek re-election, unfortunately led to the election of Mario Garcia Menocal of the Conservative Party, the successor to the Moderate Party. The corruption of the Menocal administration (1913 to 1921) aborted the potential which the Gomez administration had offered of breaking with a patrimonial approach to politics and economic development. The rigging of the 1916 presidential elections led to an abortive Liberal Party revolt that year and a subsequent polarisation of Cuban society between Conservatives and Liberals during the period of the ‘Platt Republic’.

The emerging Conservative-Liberal dichotomy retarded national unity and perpetuated a patrimonial approach as politics often became a zero-sum gain in which support or opposition to a government was based on expectations of patronage. To avoid another revolt President Menocal supported the presidential candidacy in the 1920 elections of Alfredo Zayas whose personal non-ideological political party, the Popular Party (‘the party of eight black cats’) held the balance of power between the Conservative and Liberal parties.

President Zayas’s very unfortunate decision to support the Liberal Party’s Gerardo Machado’s candidacy in the 1924 presidential election ensured Machado’s election.  This outcome was all the more tragic because he had won the Liberal Party nomination over an impeccable democrat in the person of Carlos Mendieta. (Being in opposition, the Cuban Liberal Party, had promisingly held a convention, in which delegates selected the party candidate for the 1924 presidential election). A Mendieta presidency at that point might have helped establish a political system in which the right to choose a president was transparent and free from elite manipulation.

Machado unfortunately established a dictatorship in 1928 when he pushed through a new constitution which gave him a new six year term. At this point a purge was carried out of both Machado’s Liberal Party and the opposition Conservative Party so that only the president’s supporters could receive the patronage which came from holding political office. This development was similar to Castro’s later actions in which access to major economic resources was (and still is) restricted to supporters of his dictatorship.

The 1933 Revolution

The outbreak of violent student riots in September 1930 represented the beginning of a cycle of violence arising from discontent at economic and political power being concentrated with a dictatorial elite. In the wake of the suppression of the student revolt two revolutionary organizations became prominent: the Student Directory and the ABC. The Student Directory’s base of support was derived from the students at Havana University, while the ABC was a predominately middle class organization which functioned as a secret society with a cell type approach to organization. ABC cells reached into various aspects of society and a young Sergeant Fulgencio Batista joined an ABC cell operating amongst the non-commissioned ranks of the army.

The outbreak of massive riots in July 1933 due to public opposition to Machado resulted in his resignation and flight. The vacuum which was created was filled by the American ambassador, Sumner Welles, virtually appointing Carlos Cespedes as the new provisional president. Public relief that Machado had gone was tempered by wariness that a reversion to overt American dominance was a distinct possibility.

The young ABC operative Sergeant Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar decided to proceed with a revolution of his own accord. Batista was a highly intelligent and self-motivated man who had used the army as an institution to climb the ladder from the margins of Cuban society to establish himself professionally. Up until the Sergeants’ Revolt, Batista had used his time in the army to gain skill as an expert typist and stenographer. The young sergeant was incensed by the injustices perpetuated by the Machado regime both within the army and in general society. Although he did not have an initial master plan to reform Cuban society it was Batista’s intention to utilize his involvement in Cuban politics to develop his ideas and subsequently improve his nation.

Batista’s democratic intentions sharply contrasted with Castro’s later premeditated ambition to establish a permanent dictatorship. A comparison between the Cuban revolutions of 1933 and 1959 provide a distinguishing model between two types of revolution. The 1933 Revolution is the type of revolution where a paradigm shift occurs over a period of time. This outcome is often dependent on the revolution not being appropriated by a narrow vanguard organisation.

The 1959 Cuban Revolution was inclined toward a dictatorship (despite widespread initial popular support) due to the calculated manipulation of Fidel Castro. The historical outcome of a revolutionary group hi-jacking and betraying a revolution was foretold by the brilliant British social democratic writer George Orwell in his masterpiece Animal Farm.

That the 1933 Cuban Revolution was orientated toward a broad based approach to revolutionary change was inherent in the nature of the revolt at the Columbia army barracks on September the 4th. Sergeant Batista as an ABC operative had been involved in plotting a revolution but when the revolt occurred he acted independently of the ABC. The revolt was orientated against being appropriated by a narrow revolutionary sectional group because the NCOs who had instigated this revolt lacked the professional skill and inclination at this point to establish a structured dictatorship.

Ruben Batista referred to the fact that the September 4th mutiny could not have got off the ground had Sergeant Batista not been assisted by NCOs such as Pablo Migolla and Galindez and some army officers. Sergeant Batista stood out among the NCOs due to his political sense of direction. Batista’s ultimate democratic intentions and mindset were reflected by the post 1933 Cuban armed forces acquiring the title of ‘The Constitutional Armed Forces’.

The 4th of September mutiny became a revolution when Sergeant Batista through the veteran anti-Machado activist and magazine editor Sergio Carbo made contact with the Student Directory to depose the Céspedes government and cede power to a five man junta called ‘the Pentarquia’ of which Carbo became a member. The Pentarquia was too cumbersome to function effectively and due to NCO support the dominant political group which took its place was the Student Directory. It was the Student Directory which named Dr. Grau San Martin as the new provisional president in that tumultuous September of 1933.

Batista’s action in supporting the Student Directory distinctly contrasted with Castro’s action in the first half of 1959 of aggrandizing power for his clique in covert collusion with the Cuban Communist Party, then known as the Popular Socialist Party (PPS). The danger of a revolutionary change facilitating a power shift to a narrow sectional group was alluded to by Ruben Batista’s reference to the Cuban army thwarting the Cuban Communist Party’s occupation of thirty sugar mills during the time of revolutionary upheavals in September 1933. This action was undertaken by the Cuban Communist Party to provoke American military intervention. The communist objective was to facilitate a further radicalization of Cuban politics in which potential constitutional democratic development was undermined.

Ruben Batista also referred to the fact that the communists had organised a demonstration to accompany the burial of the ashes of one of their leaders, Julio Antonia Mella. The Cuban Communist Party’s political opportunism had already been previously demonstrated by it making a pact just before Machado’s fall in which it pledged to support the Machado regime in return for government help in supporting a communist take over of Cuba’s trade union movement.

The Transition to Democracy

The threat of power passing to a revolutionary vanguard organisation also came from the alienated ABC party which had expected to become the ruling revolutionary party. In October and November 1933 revolts instigated by the displaced officer corps with ABC backing were violently put down. The October revolt was centred on the Hotel Nacional and the November revolt occurred at the Atares fort. The violent suppression of these two revolts have been used to foster the misrepresentation of Fulgencio Batista as a blood stained dictator and contributed to an early wariness toward him on the part of many Cubans.

However the suppression of these two revolts was instigated by the then Interior Minister Antonio Guiteras. The fact that the Batista-led army was united with Grau San Martin and Guiteras during the Hotel Nacional revolt was mentioned by Ruben Batista. Guiteras was the would be Fidel Castro of the 1933 Revolution who would almost certainly have established a dictatorship had it not been for Fulgencio Batista.

The standard belief, that Batista compromised, if not betrayed, the 1933 Revolution, commences with reference to the end of the Grau regime in January 1934. The end of Grau’s One Hundred Days Government was brought on by Grau himself in order to strengthen his long term position. The crushing of the Atares revolt actually left Batista in a vulnerable position because it provided Guiteras with the possible leverage to eliminate Batista and himself take power. Such an outcome threatened Grau whose own position was also under threat because the then politically dominant Student Directory, at the instigation of a prominent Directory member Eddy Chibás, was threatening to withdraw its support for Grau.

In a political masterstroke Grau resigned as president in January 1934 and intimated that his resignation was due to American non-recognition of his government. Grau resigned in favour of the next in line to the presidency, Secretary of State Carlos Hevia who was thought to be an ally of Guiteras. Instead of Hevia appointing Guiteras as his successor he appointed Carlos Mendieta as president after a two day interregnum. Mendieta, as mentioned previously, had been Machado’s arch-rival for the Liberal Party presidential nomination in 1924. Mendieta had a sufficient political base to fend off the immediate threat of Guiteras taking power.

President Carlos Mendieta had previously established his own political party, the National Union and the support of this party was crucial in underpinning the viability of Cuba’s new government. Meanwhile as Grau correctly and cynically calculated his resignation generated a wave of public sympathy for himself. Accordingly Grau’s supporters formed a new party, the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which later became popularly known at the Autentico Party.

The Autentico Party still shares a revolutionary heritage with the historical legacy of Fulgencio Batista and this was reflected by Ruben Batista’s acknowledgement of Dr. Leonor Ferreira at the 2007 Banquet ‘as a worthy representative of the Autentico Party’. The formation of the Autentico Party was a positive political development because it was indicative that the 1933 Revolution was ushering in political change in which a political party’s viability was underwritten by popular support as opposed to its patrimonial capacity.

Grau’s calculation that elections in April 1934 to a constituent assembly would facilitate his return to power went awry when Mendieta postponed those elections. This postponement and Grau’s banishment into exile alienated a substantial portion of the population against Mendieta, Batista and the Constitutional Armed Forces. For Batista, Grau’s calculated resignation probably saved his physical and political life which had been under threat from a politically strengthened Guiteras following the crushing of the Hotel Nacional and Atares revolts.

Popular hostility toward Mendieta was ironic because he was a democrat committed to holding elections when conditions were more settled. Indeed, had Mendieta been elected in 1924 instead of Machado, Cuba probably would have proceeded to become a functioning democracy.

Mendieta (who was financially honest) was in the tragic situation of his democratic orientated regime confronting a hostile population. This hostility in turn created dependence by Mendieta on the Batista led army. In a pattern which Castro would replicate in the 1950s Guiteras’s Joven Cuba (Young Cuba) instigated a campaign of violent terrorist activity (which Ruben Batista cited in his speech) to harness political discontent to prevent a transition to constitutional democratic rule.

The crushing of the Joven Cuba instigated general strike in March 1935 by the Constitutional Armed Forces, in which Guiteras died in a shoot out, has been used by Castro supporters as a sign post of the end of the revolutionary cycle ushered in by the September 1933 Revolution. In actual fact the opposite was the case because the failure of the March 1935 general strike prevented power from going to a revolutionary vanguard group and actually facilitated a paradigm shift to electoral democracy. This latter development was identified by Ruben Batista in his speech by stating that army’s establishment of order made possible the elections of 1936.

The Autentico Party’s boycott of the January 1936 general elections led to an abstention rate of 40%. The threat of a Conservative Party boycott (this party at this time was known as the ‘Conjunto’) led by former President Menocal precipitated Mendieta’s resignation in December 1935 (Mendieta was succeeded as president by Jose Barnet who served until May 1936). Mendieta’s abortive presidential candidacy created a power vacuum which was filled by Batista assembling a three party pro-government electoral coalition.

The first party in the pro-government coalition was the Cuban Liberal Party. Batista had first exercised his political power by countermanding Mendieta’s banning of the Liberal Party, which had ironically gained a sense of cohesion as a reaction to the violence against Machadistas following the 1933 Revolution.

Because the Liberal Party was too discredited to put up a presidential candidate, Batista eventually chose Miguel Mariano Gomez, a former Mayor of Havana, of the Republican Action Party (an anti-Machado Liberal Party breakaway party) to run for president. Gomez was also the son of the respected former president Jose Miguel Gomez. To reinforce the unity of the Liberal camp a third party was dealt into the government coalition with Federico Learedo Bru of Mendieta’s National Union being named Gomez’s running mate.

The January 1936 elections were essentially a re-run of the rivalry of the Liberal-Conservative divide even though this division was becoming attenuated due to just under half of the population being devotedly loyal to the exiled Grau. Batista had had to struggle against public mistrust and an array of challenges to hold elections in 1936. Castro by contrast acted energetically to establish a dictatorship from his very first days in power, despite his avowed democratic intentions. Nonetheless it is still Batista who is characterised as the tyrant.

Although Fulgencio Batista had assembled the Liberal coalition which had secured Miguel Mariano Gomez’s election there was friction between the two men due to their different backgrounds and expectations. These tensions boiled over in December 1936, when at Batista’s instigation, the Congress impeached and removed President Gomez after he had vetoed the establishment of a Civilian-Military Institute. This action may have been heavy handed on Batista’s part but a constitutional framework remained in place and Batista worked well with Gomez’s constitutional, successor Learedo Bru.

The establishment of a Civilian-Military Institute was a masterstroke by Colonel Batista because it provided the army with a useful outlet in which to address societal ills. Ruben Batista in his speech referred to the fact that under his father’s command soldiers went out to the most remote parts of Cuba to establish and teach in Civic Rural Schools. As someone who could not have risen from the margins of Cuban society without being literate, Fulgencio Batista was determined that all Cubans would have access to education. Having had a brother who had died from Tuberculosis, Batista also travelled around Cuba supervising the establishment of anti-Tuberculosis Sanatoriums.

There were opportunities for financial gain for Cuba’s new officer corps which were exploited by diverting public works funds. However for the first time in Cuba’s history there was a power group, who, having initially come from the lower socio-economic echelons of society, that was attempting to address the needs of the less fortunate. Local government officials, governors and mayors were democratically elected in this period. The Cuban press in the 1930s was relatively free to comment on public affairs although the extent to which the army chief of staff exercised actual political power remained a moot point which was normally only cryptically referred to.

In contrast to countries such the nearby Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo, Fulgencio Batista did not use his control of the military to establish an overt personal dictatorship in which the scope for later democratic consolidation was extinguished. The major problem that Batista faced in the 1930s was public wariness of him as being a military strongman, who in the final event would not surrender his latent power, despite the existence of an ostensible constitutional framework. Public wariness toward Batista was also manifested by a strong sentiment toward the exiled Grau which was all the more touching because he was at that time was without any patronage base.

The high level of voter abstention in the March 1938 congressional elections was a warning to Batista that he lacked a sufficient popular base due to his reliance on the Liberal camp. Batista therefore heeded this warning by allowing Grau to return from exile and by legalising the Cuban Communist Party.

The participation of a diverse range of political parties in elections to a constituent assembly in November 1939 was the circuit breaker which provided the impetus for democratic development. As Ruben Batista pointed out in his speech ‘the Communists, the Autenticos, the Liberals and Conservatives’ participated in the 1939 constituent assembly elections. The Batista backed Bru government probably did not have popular majority support. Therefore the 1939 elections helped Batista ascertain the extent of support that pro-government parties actually had without having to immediately surrender executive power.

The 1940 Constitution: Democracy Consolidated

The constituent assembly election results were a shock because the under resourced Autentico Party won a plurality of the vote. This development was pleasing because it reflected the fact that Cubans were prepared to vote for a party based on its principles and potential to advance the public good. The various parties in the constituent assembly put aside partisan rivalries to draft a new constitution to replace the American sponsored 1902 Constitution. The 1940 Constitution had a certain mystique attached it because it was drawn up by and for Cubans (Indeed, Cuba today, is officially governed by a Marxist-Leninist version of the 1940 Constitution which was adopted in 1976).

The 1940 Constitution was highly democratic and a prominent feature of it was the provision for the election of a president for a four year term who was banned from running again for term for eight years. With the benefit of hindsight the presidential term should have been six years with a life long ban on a president ever running again for that office (similar to the Mexican Constitution). Such a provision might have deterred presidents from using their time in power to build up their patronage base in order to return to power at a later time.

Having retired from the army in December 1939 Batista ran for office under the new constitution in June 1940. Fulgencio Batista’s election to the presidency was facilitated by Menocal breaking his alliance with the Autentico Party and having his party, now known as the Democratic-Republican Party (the latest successor to the Conservative Party) aligning with Batista. Although the alliance of parties (including the Cuban Communist Party) which supported Batista for president ran under the banner of the ‘Democratic Socialist Coalition’ this electoral configuration was in effect an alliance between the old Conservative and Liberal parties against the newly emergent Autentico Party.

As Ruben Batista pointed out the Cuban army which had been reviled for suppressing political terrorism in the 1930s had guaranteed the conduct of a fair presidential election in 1940 which was legitimately won by Fulgencio Batista. During his first constitutional term as president (1940 to 1944) President Batista pursued policies which supported agricultural and industrial diversification that precipitated an economic recovery as Cuba emerged from the Great Depression.

Respecting the 1940 Constitution President Batista did not seek re-election in 1944. In that year Cuban democracy was seemingly consolidated when Grau defeated the presidential candidate Carlos Saladrigas of the Democratic Socialist Coalition in an electoral upset. Although there had previously been transitions of power from one party to another, this was the first one in which a Cuban president had been elected without the tacit support of the out-going president.

President Batista demonstrated his democratic bona fides by, as Ruben Batista recounted in his Banquet Speech, accompanying president-elect Grau to a banquet at the Columbia Army Barracks and asking the officers there to show the incoming president the same loyalty that they had given to him. Grau’s election certainly constituted a potential breakthrough because the new president’s election was due to his genuine popularity. At this time Grau had a misplaced reputation for honesty, if not naiveté. Had Grau lived up to the high expectations which people had of him Cuba might then have broken with the cycle of patrimonial politics.

Failed Expectations: Autentico Party Misrule: 1944 to 1952

However Grau was actually a corrupt and cynical character (who still possessed virtues of physical courage and tenacity) and his misrule set the scene for Castro’s later rise to power. To make up for having been denied the spoils of office, Grau saw to it that leaders from three ostensible revolutionary organisations, the Revolutionary Action Guiteras (ARG), the Insurrectional Revolutionary Union (UIR) and the Socialist Revolutionary Union (MSR) were brought into the national police. This action of Grau’s was reprehensible because it had the effect of promoting a climate of extortion, with money more often than not going to Autentico politicians.

The aforementioned ‘revolutionary’ groups were really gangster organisations and two of them, the UIR and the MSR were based at Havana University where they pursued an at times bloody feud against each other. The ill-effects of this legacy still bedevil Cuba today because Fidel Castro was a member of the UIR as a law student at Havana University. Using the contacts which he had established in the UIR, Castro founded his 26th of July Movement which he would use as a vehicle to ultimately establish his absolute dictatorship.

Discontent over Autentico Party misrule manifested itself in 1947 when Grau’s major rival within the ruling party Eddy Chibas broke away and founded his own party, the Cuban People’s Party, which was popularly known as the Ortodoxo Party. This new party was similar to the pre-1944 Autentico Party in that its viability was underwritten by the personal following of its charismatic leader.

The problem for the Ortodoxo Party was that too much of the population was wary of the mercurial Chibas to actually take the plunge and elect him as president. For this reason Chibas came in third behind the Batista backed presidential candidate Dr. Ricardo Nunez Purtuondo in the 1948 presidential election. (Nuenz was the candidate of the Liberal Party and his running mate came from the Democratic Party, the latest incarnation of the Cuban Conservative Party). The successful Autentico presidential candidate Carlos Prio Socarrás owed his election to astute distribution of patronage.

The Prio regime had its successes, such as the establishment of a viable Central Bank and Cuban currency in place of the American dollar as the primary unit of exchange (A feat which the Castro regime is now seemingly incapable of achieving). However, the Prio regime was grossly corrupt and it continued to benefit from the corruption that gangsterism was generated.

To secure his position after his presidential term expired, Prio ran his brother Antonio (who scandalously served as Finance Minister) for Mayor of Havana in the 1950 local government elections. The mayoralty of Havana was then the second most powerful and lucrative position in Cuba. Prío’s action of imposing his own brother led to the probable Autentico mayoral candidate Nicolas Castellanos running for mayor under the banner of the then moribund Cuban National Party (PNC).

The Castellanos mayoral candidacy was supported by Batista, Grau and the Cuban Communist Party (the PPS). A year after returning from exile in 1948 Batista founded his own political party the United Action Party (the PAU). Batista did this to secure his political base as Prio began to win the Liberal and Democratic parties over to his camp. Castellanos’s upset victory over Antonio Prio paradoxically created a challenge for Batista because the new mayor was now in a position to run for president of Cuba himself as standard bearer of the PNC. Furthermore, Grau himself split from the party he had founded to establish a new political party, the Cubinandad Party.

A standout characteristic of Fulgencio Batista’s was that he was prepared to meet with anyone to consider doing a deal with them. Once a deal was arrived at Batista was known to honour it. Having declared his intention in December 1950 to run for president in 1952, Batista came to an arrangement with Castellanos that which ever of the PAU and the PNC parties had the most members at the time; the other would support it as the presidential standard bearer. In arriving at this arrangement Batista was also trying to create a ‘win-win’ situation by which the non-Autentico and Ortodoxo parties would ultimately be united.

To help understand how the seemingly improbable scenario came about in which a communist regime was established ninety miles off the coast of the United States, it is necessary to understand the political manoeuvrings in relation to the abortive 1952 elections. The key event and subsequent precipitant cause of Castro’s rise to power undoubtedly was the public’s reaction to the suicide of Eddy Chibas in August 1951. The maverick Ortodoxo Party leader was unable to substantiate allegations of corruption against the reviled Education Minister Sanchez Arango in a much anticipated national radio broadcast. Consequently, the much embarrassed Chibas dramatically shot himself during his radio broadcast to the nation to signify his contempt for the endemic corruption which engulfed Cuba at that time.

The ensuing groundswell of revulsion against political corruption was such that Chibas became more powerful in death than he ever was in life. A young, calculating and aspiring Ortodoxo politician named Fidel Castro moved to establish himself as Chibas’s political heir. This action was all the more cynical because Chibas had been wary of the young Castro as a demagogue and as an opportunist. Since the establishment of the communist state in Cuba, Chibas has become a non-person.

However at this time Castro appreciated that memories and respect for the departed Chibas would provide him with a springboard to take power. From the Sierra Maestra Mountains in the 1950s, Castro’s self-declared radicalism was supposedly reflective of his being a follower of Chibas, who abhorred corruption, rather than the reality of his being a Leninist totalitarian. There was a widespread expectation that with the triumph of the 1959 Revolution, after a period of provisional government, elections would be held, in which Chibas’s highly respected brother Raul (whose support Castro had assiduously cultivated) would be elected president of Cuba with Castro’s backing.

The impact of Chibas’s suicide on the 1952 presidential election was profound because a momentum was created in which the Ortodoxo Party’s replacement presidential candidate, Roberto Agramonte (who was also Chibas’s first cousin) assumed front runner status. For Prio, an Ortodoxo Party election victory was to be avoided because public disgust against corruption could create a scenario in which senior Autentico Party figures could be prosecuted.

Prio was probably canny enough to have appreciated that any action on his part to either abort or rig the 1952 elections could very well have precipitated a revolution. The election of either Batista or Castellanos to the presidency was probably tolerable from Prío’s perspective because he might have arrived at arrangements with them to avoid prosecution on stepping down as president. However, the acerbic Agramonte was known to abhor political compromise with corrupt politicians. Although the Autentico Party’s nomination of an honest man for president in the person of Carlos Hevia was a helpful step, Prio may have thought that this might not have been enough to have prevented an Ortodoxo electoral victory.

The 1952 ‘Coup’ Re-Assessed

It is at this point that Fulgencio Batista’s action in taking power in a coup in March 1952 and thereby aborting the June 1952 presidential elections warrants detailed analysis. As Ruben Batista stated in his speech this action was ‘controversial’. The standard line which has been accepted concerning the 1952 coup was that as a presidential candidate Batista was badly trailing in opinion polls and in order to avoid personal humiliation and political oblivion utilized his still existing military connections to overturn the democratic system.

The above scenario (one which I have previously adhered to) is, on closer analysis, inaccurate. Batista definitely was not a presidential candidate in 1952 but a prospective one. In early1952 the PAU held a convention in which Batista was elected party president as opposed to being nominated the party’s presidential candidate. Batista’s election as party president was undertaken to strengthen his hand in his dealings with Castellanos. Batista was prepared to forgo his presidential aspirations if Castellanos would also withdraw and support either Batista’s preferred candidate Carlos Saladrigas (the Democratic Socialist Coalition’s failed presidential candidate in 1944) or Grau’s nephew Pepe San Martin.

That the 1952 presidential election did not proceed was arguably more Prío’s fault than Batista’s. Prío’s action of bringing the Graus and Castellanos back into the Autentico Party camp (along with the Liberal and Democratic parties) not only aborted Batista’s chances of winning the presidency but even of proceeding with a presidential candidacy.

Having deprived Batista of any capacity to win the presidency or even maintain a post-election political base, it was probably Prio (possibly through a former minister in the first Batista government Dr. Anselmo Alliegro who was an intermediary between the two men) who offered Batista the opportunity to return to power by means of a military coup. This scenario is speculative and difficult empirically to verify due to the considerable lapse of time and neglect of analysis undertaken in relation to the politics of pre-totalitarian Cuba. However, in the light of subsequent events such a deal is plausible because Batista allowed Autentico Party figures (until they went into revolt against him after 1956) to maintain their ill-gotten wealth and because Autentico politicians had a vested interest in avoiding an Agramonte presidency.

Although Batista has been condemned for staging the March 10, 1952 military coup, it should not be forgotten that had he not taken this opportunity that Prio may very well have arranged for an army general such as General Ruperto Cabrera to take power instead. I believe that from Prío’s perspective Batista’s return to power had the immediate benefit of thwarting Agramonte’s election to the presidency (and the prospect of prosecution) while still holding out the prospect that there would be a return to electoral politics in which the Autentico Party could eventually return to power.

President Prio was clearly forewarned of the coup but he actively prevented any resistance to it. While Prio went into exile (he was allowed to return in August 1955) none of the deposed president’s assets, including his beloved and extravagant La Chata estate, were taken from him. Even though the Congress was dissolved congressmen were still allowed to draw their salaries for six months. Importantly nearly all Autentico Party governors and mayors were allowed to continue to hold office; indeed the coup had eliminated the immediate prospect of their removal. This last point is very important because it was possibly indicative of an underlying collusion between Batista and the former ruling party.

It would appear that Ruben Batista obliquely referred to the pre-arranged nature of the coup when he said in his Banquet Speech that the March 10 coup was ‘controversial’:

‘if one does not take into account that the existing situation made it possible that the move be taken without any shedding of blood, accepted as it was by all the establishment, especially by the veterans of the War of Independence.’

Had the June 1952 presidential elections proceeded the Ortodoxo Party may have emerged as the mainstream centre left party with the Autentico Party filling the alternative role of a centre-right party. The development of ideologically coherent political parties coupled with democratic nominating procedures may well have served to help Cuba break with a patrimonial approach to politics.

Batista on staging the ‘coup’ initially intended to minimize the extent of constitutional disruption and tried to persuade Carlos Saladrigas, the presidential candidate he had unsuccessfully supported in 1944, to accept the position of provisional president. Indeed it was Batista’s original intention that presidential elections be held in September 1952. But given Saladrigas’s refusal to accept the provisional presidency and the deeply unsettled mood of the nation Batista himself assumed the position and elections were postponed for an unspecified period.

Taking a longer term view Batista moved to steady the nation before returning it to constitutional normality. This included ending the scourge of gangsterism, perhaps the most pernicious aspect of Autentico Party rule. Batista therefore came to arrangements with the MSR and the UIR whereby they would forgo extortion activity in return for the government turning a blind eye to smuggling and gambling activity. The new regime also began to forge a close relationship with the Cuban Confederation of Workers (CTC) in order to forestall possible labour unrest. Batista also met with leaders of the intensely hostile student umbrella group the FEU shortly after the coup and told them that they were welcome to fulfil a constructive role in keeping his government accountable for its actions.

The success or otherwise of the new government was based on the public accepting its ultimate democratic bona fides. In this regard the twenty seven year old Fidel Castro (who had been an aspiring Ortodoxo congressional candidate) moved to create an unstable situation in which to thwart a return to democratic normality. It was with this purpose in mind that Castro and one hundred and thirty four supporters launched an attack on the Moncada army barracks in the port city of Santiago (Cuba’s second biggest city) in July 1953. Castro hoped that the element of surprise would enable him to prevail because most soldiers were distracted by a local carnival.

Although the Moncada attack failed the underlying strategic correctness of Castro’s plan was eventually vindicated. As Castro may well have anticipated, the attack had the effect of precipitating a violent reaction on the part of the secret police, the Military Intelligence Service (SIM). Batista’s Achilles Heel was his relationship with General Francisco Tabernilla and the SIM. From this perspective the promotion of political motivated violence offered Castro the scope to provoke counter-action on the part of authoritarian Tabernilla which would lead to unrest conducive to further political polarization.

General Tabernilla was one of the few army officers who had supported the Sergeant’s Revolt of 1933. During the eight year period of Autentico Party rule it was Tabernilla’s personal following within the army which enabled Batista to vicariously maintain a base of support within the armed forces. Following the coup Batista placed the Tabernilla’s supporters in control of the SIM and appointed them to senior positions within the army due to their supposed loyalty.

Although Batista’s preference for the Tabernilla faction was tempered by a degree of wariness on his part this preference had the effect of alienating younger professionally trained officers from the Cuban leader (who had crucially acquiesced to Batista’s return to power). Batista’s ultimate strategy for reining in the Tabernilla faction was predicated on creating conditions in which democratic normality prevailed.

The Dysfunctional Democracy: Cuba 1954 to 1958

General elections held in November 1954 returned Cuba to constitutional rule. Most governors and mayors, who had once belonged to the Autentico Party, entered the PAU which was accordingly relaunched as the Progressive Action Party (PAP). Former Autenticos who could not be accommodated within the PAP formed a new political party called the Cuban Radical Party (PUR). The established Democratic and Liberal parties also entered into an alliance with the PAP and the PUR to form a new four party governing alliance called the Progressive Coalition.

The conduct of the balloting of the 1954 general elections was generally fair but the legitimacy of the presidential vote was tarnished by Batista being elected president unopposed. The Autentico and Ortodoxo parties were divided amongst themselves as to whether to take part in the elections. Grau initially ran for president but withdrew claiming that the election would be rigged, although he probably lacked support to win. Instead the electionist wings of these two opposition parties ran candidates at local government and congressional levels.

The presidential election boycott probably did not faze Batista because he had a four year term during which there would be time to re-assure the Cuban people of his democratic principles. For this reason Batista unfortunately released Castro and his cohorts in May 1955 from a fifteen year jail sentence for their attack on the Moncada army barracks. This general amnesty was solicited by the opposition parties and the Cuban press.

Castro, who had been humanely treated during his imprisonment (even receiving a courtesy visit from the Interior Minister) on his release departed shortly thereafter for the United States and eventually to Mexico to train and return as a guerrilla. Castro deliberately forewent the opportunity to oppose Batista constitutionally due to his desire to create a violent revolutionary situation which would eventually allow him to take absolute power.

Due to recent memories of its misrule the Autentico Party under the leadership of Tony Varona and Miro Cardona joined a configuration of opposition parties and groups formed in late 1955 called the Society of Friends of the Republic (SAR). The prestige of the SAR was due to the leadership of the elderly and highly respected Cosme de la Torriente, a veteran of the War of Independence. The SAR was also composed of the representatives from the Ortodoxo Party as well as minority anti-government factions within the ruling Progressive Coalition. Important civic groups such the FEU were also represented in the SAR.

Due to Torriente’s great prestige the Batista government entered into negotiations with the SAR between January and March 1956 which were known as the Civic Dialogue. This dialogue offered Cuba the best opportunity to avoid adverse ramifications of the March 1952 coup by the opposition agreeing to grant President Batista and his supporter’s immunity when the Batista presidency ended.

President Batista was himself open to allowing the opposition to take power democratically when his presidential term expired in February 1959. Having returned to power through possible covert collusion with the Autentico Party it should not have been beyond the realms of possibility for an arrangement being developed concerning an amnesty as a result of the Autentico Party being a key member of the SAR. The SAR was prepared to grant an amnesty if President Batista immediately stepped down. To Batista’s mind to have made such a concession would to have compromised his government’s constitutional legitimacy.

The failure of Civic Dialogue was a diaster because it undermined one of the key essentials of democracy: transfer of power from one party to another without fear of retribution. In fact President Batista in late 1958 was still prepared to cede power to a democratic opposition. The tragedy of the failure of the Civic Dialogue was that Cuba returned to a situation similar to the 1930s where there was probable majority opposition to the government on the mistaken premise that the nation was a dictatorship as opposed to being a dysfunctional democracy. It was this public misassumption which was the major reason why Castro came to power in January 1959.

Within a month of the collapse of the Civic Dialogue ostensible supporters of Prio launched a revolt. Although this revolt failed, it succeeded in its ultimate objective: that of forcing a reluctant Prio into exile and compelling to him use his extensive financial resources to fund armed opposition to the Batista government. The myriad of revolts which occurred between 1956 and 1958 do not warrant detailing except to make the point that the preliminary conditions were established which enabled Castro’s phantom guerrilla force to prevail in January 1959.

An important revolt which did lay the groundwork for Castro’s rise to power was the attack undertaken by Antonio Echevarria (a former president of the FEU) on the presidential palace in March 1957. Echevarria’s audacious attack on the presidential palace was undertaken by his newly formed Revolutionary Directorate (DR). This attack was funded by Prio (who also provided advice concerning the lay out of the Presidential Palace) with the objective of killing President Batista.

In his Banquet Speech Ruben Batista still paid tribute to Echevarria’s democratic principles and bravery despite Echevarria’s intention of killing his father. Ruben Batista was at pains to point out that Echevarria was not murdered (as was often reported) but that he died in combat fighting for his principles. The abortive March 1957 DR attack on the Presidential Palace consolidated the political polarization of Cuban society which would be crucial to Castro’s rise to power.

Misplaced Support: Vital American Assistance to Fidel Castro!

The other crucial factor which contributed to Castro’s rise to power, ironically enough was American support for his rebellion! Castro landed in Cuba in December 1956 and established a base in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Through the extensive publicity Castro received from his interviews with the New York Times journalist Herbert Mathews (which included front page coverage on the New York Times) Castro was able to generate widespread support for his 26th of July Movement which (similar to Guiteras’s disruption campaign undertaken by Jove Cuba in the 1930s) carried out an urban terrorist campaign to polarize Cuban society. Partisans of the 26th of July Movement were a mixture of genuine democratic idealists and gangster elements from the UIR and the MSR.

Castro’s ‘rebellion’ has been mythologised as an assertion of Cuban national identity against the ‘Yankee’ colossus to the North (i.e. the United States). In fact the 26th of July Movement’s Miami based lobby group was more important to Castro than his guerrilla force in the Sierra Maestra. Due to the extensiveness of the Mathews generated publicity which Castro received in the Unites States a strong lobby developed for him within the American State Department.

The U.S. Ambassador to Cuba between 1957 and 1958, Earl Smith recounted in his memoirs On the Fourth Floor that William A. Wieland, the Director of Caribbean and Central American Affairs, Roy Rubottom, Assistant Secretary State for Latin American Affairs and John L Topping, Chief of the CIA were the bureaucrats who lobbied for regime change in Cuba on the basis that Mathew’s Robin Hood portrayal of Castro was accurate. The title On the Fourth Floor was selected because these bureaucrats worked on the fourth floor of the State Department.

It is ironic that the United States during the Mc Cathy era is portrayed as being paranoid about communist infiltration when American foreign policy mistakes during this time by specific State Department bureaucrats set the scene for the establishment of a communist dictatorship in Cuba. The epitome of American foreign policy naiveté on the part of the usually astute Eisenhower administration was the imposition of an arms embargo against Cuba in March 1958. Ruben Batista conveyed the catastrophic impact of this American mistake in his speech when he said that the Cuban army was:

‘frustrated and adversely affected by a change on the part of the Government of the U.S.A., which intervened in favour of Castroism by confiscating arms already purchased as it also imposed a complete embargo in March 1958.’

For Castro, who is probably the United States most dangerous adversary, it must be a source of wry amusement that his arch-enemy supported his rise to power. From the Sierra Maestra Castro was filmed speaking in broken but still clear English emphatically denying that he or his supporters were communist.

American hostility toward Batista in the 1950s was also fuelled by the powerful American community in Cuba. President Batista ‘dug his grave’ by implementing the National Economic Development Program. This policy opened Cuba up to non-American foreign investment and the awarding of public works contract to French and West German companies alienated the American business community in Cuba from Batista. The threat to the traditional economic power of the American community in Cuba combined with widespread public mistrust of President Batista’s democratic bona fides created the essential dual dynamics which led to Castro’s rise to power

Economic diversity was also pursued by the Batista government under the National Economic Development Program promoting light industrial development. Up until 1958 Cuba, despite political turmoil, enjoyed high rates of economic growth. The Batista government also undertook a program of building government commission flats to address the problem of urban poverty.

Cynics have pointed out that Batista and government officials diverted funds for public works programs to enrich themselves. Although this is probably true the corruption of the Batista regime was not as extensive as that of the preceding Autentico Party governments. Furthermore, Batista by contrast to other Cuban presidents, always completed the public works programs which his government undertook.

The problem of corruption was a by-product of Cuba being a patrimonial state. The tragedy of the situation was that whatever corruption there may have been under Batista the ultimate impact of his government’s economic diversification policies would have been a break with the patrimonial legacy of Spanish colonial rule and an end of the economic clout of Cuba’s American community.

Castro Gains Momentum

What limited but still important support that the Batista government garnered from its economic reforms was reflected by Cuba’s peak confederation of trade unions, the CTC (led by the courageous Eusebio Majul) helping thwart the 26th of July Movement backed general strike in March 1958. The failure of the 1958 strike could have been the circuit breaker which the failure of the March 1935 strike had been. However this was not to be the case because the Cuban middle class was overwhelmingly distrustful of President Batista’s democratic intentions to the extent that they rejected the constitutional processes which were still available to them.

The general mistake on the part of the Cuban public supporting Castro was derived from the Autentico and Ortodoxo parties (who probably had the overwhelming support of the Cuban people at this point) adhering to the Pact of Caracas in July 1958. The Pact of Caracas (so named because it was signed in the Venezuelan capital) was also signed by a broad range of opposition groups. Ironically ex-president Prio helped instigate the Pact as a means of pre-empting Castro from establishing a dictatorship. There were already credible reports of executions of 26th of July Movement guerrillas at Fidel Castro’s instigation. This brutality was due to Castro’s desire to exercise absolute control over his movement so that he could establish a dictatorship.

It was already widely rumoured that Castro’s younger half-brother Raul was, or had been, a member of the Cuban Communist Party, the PPS. Prio even crudely joked about the adverse consequences if Castro and his cohorts turned out to be communists. The dual and inherently contradictory objectives of the Pact of Caracas in bringing Batista down while stopping Castro from establishing a communist dictatorship were predicated on uniting opposition groups and the Cuban people around Manuel Urrutia, the titular head of the 26th of July Movement as a provisional president.

The designation of Urrutia as a transitional figure was a widely popular move because of the desire to have an impartial figure in office who would guarantee democratic elections and therefore ensure that Cuban politicians would never again violate democracy. For Prio and his wing of the Autentico Party the Pact of Caracas was a means by which they could regain public support by emphasizing their strident opposition to the increasingly discredited figure of President Fulgencio Batista. Urrutia was known to be a staunch democrat and an anti-communist. Castro instead of scorning a pact which was aimed at stifling him cleverly endorsed it.

Fidel Castro knew that the Pact’s short term impact of alienating the public from constitutional processes and precipitating President Batista’s fall from power would create the vacuum he needed to become a totalitarian dictator. Such a sequence Castro knew would counteract Prío’s strategy of preventing the establishment of a communist dictatorship.

President Batista’s Failed Exit Strategy

President Batista himself met with the respective leaders of the electionist wings of the Ortodoxo and Autentico parties in August 1958. The outcome of these meetings was an agreement that democratic and clean elections would be held and that the results would be respected in return for former members of the Batista government being granted immunity from prosecution. A genuine transfer of power from one party to another would have been a vital pre-requisite in Cuba ending its patrimonial approach to politics.

The ruling Progressive Coalition selected Carlos Agüero of the PAP as its presidential candidate with Gaston Godoy of the Democratic Party as his running mate in March 1958. It was alleged and unfortunately widely believed that Agüero would be nothing more than a puppet for Batista when his constitutional term expired. Had Agüero ever taken office it was his intention to have been a transitional figure who would have served a maximum of two years. During this interregnum Agüero planned to hold elections to a constituent assembly to revise the 1940 constitution.

The benefit of such elections would have been (similar to the constituent assembly elections of 1939) to allow a mistrusted government to gauge its level of support by permitting an opposition victory without having to immediately cede executive power. Subsequent public acceptance of constitutional processes would hopefully then have allowed those politicians, including local government incumbents, who had accepted the 1952 coup, to either continue on in public office or at the very least gracefully exit without fear of retribution at a later date.

The importance of competitive elections being held as a circuit breaker was the reason why out-going vice-president and Liberal Party leader Gus Inclán publicly challenged Castro to take part in the 1958 elections. This process can be seen as an indication that President Batista was not a rapacious dictator desperately clinging to power but a political leader trying to engineer a political compromise which would prevent his country from actually becoming a dictatorship.

The fact that Castro had pronounced death sentences against all candidates running for office in the November 1958 elections should have been a warning to Cubans and Castro’s international admirers that he was actually a dictator in waiting. Had Castro really been a democrat why didn’t he support elections taking place and then call for a revolution in the event of their being rigged? In the light of subsequent events this is something of a rhetorical question.

The success of the election boycott was reflective of both Castro’s disruptive terrorist campaign and the popularity of the boycott wings of the Autentico and Ortodoxo parties. Agüero’s election victory was due to the success of the boycott movement in conjunction with the cumulative bloc votes of politicians aligned to the Progressive Coalition. Agüero prevailed over the main opposition candidate Carlos Marquez Sterling of the electionist wing of the Ortodoxo Party, the Free People’s Party. With the considerable benefit of hindsight Progressive Coalition bloc votes should have supported Marquez Sterling.

The election of an impeccable democrat in the person of Carlos Marquez Sterling would probably have circumvented Castro’s on-coming totalitarian dictatorship. The Cuban Liberal Party, the ostensible junior coalition party in the ruling Progressive Coalition, should have given its support to Marquez Sterling, who was a former Liberal Party stalwart. With regard to the 1958 elections the leadership of the Cuban Liberal Party, (which was drawn from the party’s former youth wing which had participated in the abortive Liberal Revolution of 1916) did not demonstrate the strategic skill which had enabled their party to adapt following Machado’s fall in 1933.

By contrast the Philippine Liberal Party fulfilled a vital role in preventing the Philippines becoming a communist dictatorship in the 1980s by linking up with centre left forces (the ‘soc-dems’). Since the fall of the Marcos regime in 1986 (a regime which was more similar to the Machado regime than the Batista administration) the Philippine Liberal Party has fulfilled a vital role in sustaining the Philippine’s fragile democracy. The ramifications of the Cuban Liberal Party’s failure to sustain democracy may have been obliquely referred to in Ruben Batista’s Banquet Speech when he introduced Dr. Roberto Rodriquez de Aragon as one of the ‘statesman we should have had’.

Dr. Rodriquez, a former president of the Young Liberals was elected to Congress in the 1954 and 1958 elections (Ruben Batista himself was elected to Congress in the 1958 elections as a candidate of the PAP). Had the Batista administration managed an exit which thwarted Castro’s establishment of a dictatorship then the Cuban Liberal Party may well have revitalized as a refuge for politicians who had supported Batista following the 1952 ‘coup’.

The overwhelming boycott of the 1958 elections was the indicator that the deluge which had threatened to engulf Cuba since Chibas’1951 suicide was about to descend. President Batista was therefore prepared in December 1958 to make way for an American backed three man military junta as a means of preventing Castro’s rise to power. In return Batista asked the Eisenhower administration that he be given asylum in Daytona Florida.

The American refusal to grant Batista asylum was the final missed opportunity in preventing Castro’s rise to power. Perhaps President Batista should have departed Cuba at this point for another part of the world to thwart Castro. However the outgoing president still hoped take refuge in Daytona so that he could maintain a political base in Cuba, as he done between 1946 and 1948, and therefore eventually return to Cuba.

The weak position in which the Cuban army found itself in December 1958 was due to a lack of willingness on its part to fight for a government which was now overwhelming rejected by the people. Ruben Batista pointed out that the army had fought to impede the ‘arrival of Communism in Cuba’ with a loss of 967 members of the armed forces. The president’s son specifically paid tribute to the heroism of army commanders Jesus Sosa Blanco, Juan Capote and Colonel Blanco Rico who lost their lives. However by late 1958 the disastrous psychological impact of the American arms embargo and the overwhelming degree of opposition to the Batista government generated by the Caracas Pact fatally undermined the army’s capacity to resist Castro’s phantom army.

Had President Batista resorted to the massive and brutal repression which Francois Duvalier of Haiti had unleashed in 1963 in the face of widespread unrest the Cuban leader might also have secured his position. But from Batista’s perspective to have embarked upon a repressive course would have been self-defeating. Fulgencio Batista was someone who became involved in Cuban politics due to his opposition to a dictatorship. As a military strongman in the 1930s Batista had applied his political skills to bring a democracy to Cuba. Batista’s return to power in 1952 was, in the belief of his supporters, part of a deal to address a political dilemma (i.e. Prío’s reluctance to risk Agramonte’s possible election to the presidency) which would have preserved Cuban democracy in the long run had it not been for Castro’s subversive political genius.

The outgoing Cuban president’s democratic bona fides were demonstrated when he rejected an offer of help from the Dominican Republic’s tyrant General Rafael Trujillo in December 1958. The rejection of the offer of assistance from Dominican troops may also have been due to a concern on Batista’s part that they might have linked up with the military faction loyal to the reviled General Tabernilla and thereby allowed him to take power.

Trujillo was a bogeyman to many Cubans because Cuba’s then extensive expatriate Dominican refugee community had shared stories of the repression which they had escaped. Cuban hostility toward Trujillo’s repressive regime had helped underpin a widespread fear that Batista was or would become a repressive dictator in the Trujillo mould.

Ironically and revealingly, Batista’s refusal in late December to accept help from Trujillo led General Tabernilla to enter into a pact with Castro. Under this pact Batista would be betrayed and handed over to Castro in return for a cease fire. The fact that Castro was prepared to enter into an alliance with Tabernilla was indicative of his brazen hypocrisy and covert dictatorial agenda.

President Batista on uncovering the plot famously fled the country on New Year’s Day 1959. The president’s flight into exile has contributed to the caricature of Fulgencio Batista as a corrupt dictator who shamefully abandoned his loyal supporters. However Batista’s flight into exile, although pre-planned as a contingency, was precipitated by the immediacy of Tabernilla’s betrayal. The real ramification of the caricature of Fulgencio Batista as a corrupt self-seeking dictator have been to negate a proper understanding of the complexities of pre-totalitarian Cuba and in doing so obscure the nature of Castro’s betrayal of the Cuban people’s democratic aspirations.

Castro’s Betrayal: Democracy Denied

With President Batista’s flight into exile power seemingly passed to Manuel Urrutia as provisional president and Miro Cardona of the Autentico Party as premier, but de facto power was soon assumed by Castro. It should be appreciated that the Cuban army was still substantially intact at the time of Batista’s flight. For Castro to establish a dictatorship it was necessary to eliminate the army by resorting to wholesale executions of army officers and political figures associated with Batista.

At a series of massive rallies Castro utilized his impressive demagogic skills to generate support for his policy of executions. Had President Urrutia and his highly talented cabinet utilized their prestige at this early stage by opposing the executions policy then Castro might even then have been thwarted from establishing his dictatorship. However cabinet members such as Cardona and Agramonte probably thought that the elimination of Batistano officers and politicians would have solidified the political dominance of their respective wings of the Autentico and Ortodoxo parties.

Ruben Batista referred to the tragic contradiction of the notion that public support for political repression would lead to democracy when he stated in his Banquet Speech that:

‘ the public laughed and amused themselves without thinking that their turn might also come, while those intellectuals that supported the Revolution said nothing because they said it was the beginning of a new Cuba. Those who defended human rights, those who defended justice, allowed the massacre of thousands of people.’

When President Urrutia moved against Castro (who had assumed the premiership in February) in July 1959 it was too late and the former judge was deposed.

By this time it had become apparent to even the most politically naïve Cubans that Castro had betrayed their democratic aspirations. For this reason the failure of the Kennedy administration to provide air support to the heroic Cuban exile Brigade 2506 during the Bay of Pigs ‘Invasion’ of Cuba in April 1961 by was reprehensible. Although the brigade was vastly outnumbered the provision of American air support would have provided units in the Cuban army with the courage and capacity to defect over to the side of the freedom fighters.

Although the failure of the Bay of Pigs ‘Invasion’ secured the Castro regime’s hold on power courageous opposition to the regime continued. While Castro’s peasant rebellion had been more mythic than actual his regime faced a substantial peasant rebellion in the Escambray Mountains which was crushed in the mid 1960s due to massive and concerted repression. The entrenchment of Castro’s dictatorship has not been due to popular support for his regime but rather its effective employment of systematic repression.

Historical Paradoxes: Cuba’s Future Democratic Potential

The discrediting of Marxist-Leninism with Eastern and Central Europe breaking free from communism in 1989 has not led to the fall of the Castro regime. A distinguishing skill of Castro is his capacity to foresee probable scenarios and take preventative action. This skill was evidenced by Castro when he had General Aranaldo Ochoa executed in July 1989 by falsely indicting him for drug smuggling.

Although Ochoa probably had not been plotting against the regime Castro had him executed anyway because this general was charismatic and well connected within the armed forces. Ochoa could have become a focal point for political reform which could have got out of control. The execution of Ochoa had the immediate ramification of securing Raul Castro’s position within the army and the subsequent stifling of any potential political reform. The transferral of power from Fidel Castro to Raul Castro in 2006 was not indicative of any desire on Fidel’s part to selflessly forgo power but rather secure his personal position which has been compromised by ill-health.

Those who think that Castro has been weakened in the long run by the disintegration of the Soviet bloc should think again. The election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 in Venezuela and his establishment of a quasi authoritarian populist regime based on Castro’s advice to the Venezuelan leader have resulted in the expansion of Cuban influence throughout South America to an extent which would have been unimaginable during the Cold War. Financed by Venezuelan oil money Cuban backed political parties across South America are being elected to power. Even Paraguay, whose conservative Colorado Party had been in power for sixty two years elected a Chavez backed government this year (2008).

While no one at this stage can doubt the democratic legitimacy of these recently elected regimes it remains to be seen if they will follow the course which Hugo Chavez is pursuing of restricting access to economic resources to centralize his political power instead of pursuing genuine socio-economic reform to address and combat entrenched poverty.

It would be immoral and counter-productive for the United States to attempt to bring down democratically elected governments. However the United States should not forgo providing financial and logistical support to civil society groups, such as trade unions, to prevent Chavez backed regimes from becoming dictatorships. If the United States is to avoid further foreign policy reverses in South America due to Cuban communist astuteness there should be a greater American appreciation of history as a factor in foreign policy analysis.

History as a social science is often paradoxically cyclical. Che Guevara who is now lauded as the epitome of selfless romantic heroism was actually despised during his period in Bolivia between 1966 and 1967 as a guerrilla leader. Bolivia had already had a revolution in 1952 which had resulted in the nationalization of copper mines and an effective land reform program being undertaken. Consequently the native Indian population rejected Guevara’s appeals and he accordingly treated them with contempt by terrorizing them.

Guevara’s capture and execution in 1967 however was utilized by Castro to turn him into a powerful and worldwide chic symbol for radical socio-political change. The potency of this symbolic transformation is now evidenced by the Cuban/Chavez backed ruling party in Bolivia, the Movement for Socialism (MAS), drawing its legitimacy from being the supposed standard bearer of Guevara’s ideals and now having the support of the nation’s indigenous population (Harsh neo-liberal economic reform policies in Bolivia in the 1980s and 1990s aided in the revisionist re-assessment of Guevara).

The potential for ironical twists and turns should also not be discounted in relation to Cuba’s political future. It will therefore be important that Chavez backed regimes in South America do not become dictatorships if Cuba is again to become a democracy. A post-Castro Cuban Communist Party will have the option of re-inventing itself as a populist political party similar to the MAS.

Gearing for the Sunrise: Ending Patrimonial Dictatorship

For a political transformation in Cuba to occur the Rubicon that must be crossed is allowing democratic multi-party elections to take place on the basis that power is derived from popular sovereignty. Figures associated with authoritarian regimes have been able to ultimately benefit from initially limited democratic reforms. The Franco regime in Spain allowed the election of a minority of deputies under a restricted franchise to the Cortes in 1967. This electoral exercise endowed the legislature with a degree of political legitimacy as a representative forum which set the scene for fully fledged democratic parliamentary elections in 1977 under His Majesty King Juan Carlos. Spain’s transition to a democracy has ensured that nation’s survival and nullified predictions which were made in 1975 on the death of Franco that Spain would disintegrate.

By contrast the tributes which were paid to Yugoslavia’s dictator Joseph Bronz Tito on his death in 1980 have proven to be hollow. Tito was praised as a Marxist maverick whose political genius had ensured his country’s survival by devising an elaborate constitution which provided for a collectivist communist leadership to maintain national unity. Tito’s 1974 constitution may have helped ensure Yugoslavia’s continued survival had Tito or his successors made provision for multi-party elections that facilitated national unity by providing the Yugoslav peoples with a meaningful stake in ruling their country.

The initial turmoil which Indonesia experienced following the departure of long time strong man President Suharto in 1998 did not lead to this archipelago nation disintegrating. An important reason for this was that the two government sanctioned opposition parties under Suharto as well as his own party developed national followings which transcended ethnic and regional differences. Consequently and paradoxically partisan political party rivalries have provided a sense of national cohesion in contemporary Indonesia. Furthermore having allowed for multi-party elections, albeit tightly controlled, President Suharto laid the groundwork for acceptance of the principle and the practice that power should be derived from the will of the people.

The much anticipated fall of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986 did not lead to the feared communist takeover because President Ferdinand Marcos exercised the option of giving way to a centrist alternative rather than clinging to power. Such an option may not have been available to Marcos had he not allowed the opposition to win a quarter of the seats in rigged parliamentary elections in 1984. The foresight of the late Philippine dictator (who died in 1989) helped facilitate his family’s return in 1991 and they have since utilized intense pockets of electoral support as leverage to hold onto the wealth that they accumulated during their rule.

Dismounting the Tiger: Possible Exit Strategies to Cuban Democracy

There are also options for Cuba’s ruling communist elite to prepare the groundwork for a democratic transition. Cuba’s national legislature, the so-called People Power Assembly, is constituted by indirect election in which deputies are chosen by municipal council delegates. While there is nothing democratic about the method of selection, paradoxically there is scope for a minority of deputies to be selected who are not drawn from the Communist Party and who are critical of the Leninist system.

The intermediary concession of granting minority parliamentary representation to representatives opposing the continuance of a Leninist political system could lay the foundation for a civic dialogue which eventually leads to full constitutional electoral democracy and national reconciliation. It should not be forgotten that for all the repression of the Castro regime, it has not been the most repressive in the history of communism. That dubious distinction rests with North Korea and Albania. North Korea faces probable implosion due to the obstinacy of its family dictatorship.

However in the case of Albania, its one-time Stalinist Communist Party (the Party of Albanian Labor), was able to reposition itself as a social democratic political party by becoming the Albanian Socialist Party and actually win a democratic election. Similarly, the former Romanian Communist Party (which subsequently became the National Salvation Front) gained tremendous popular support when rank and file party members sided with the people against the Ceausescu family and their secret police during the violent 1989 Revolution.

Although the Cuban Revolution of 1959 is based on a specious mythology, scope exists for re-invention by the ruling party drawing on revolutionary myths and traditions the Cuban Communist Party could reposition itself in a post-Castro era as a populist political party in the Chavez mould. The reverse scenario that therefore must be avoided at all costs is that of Chavez backed ruling political parties in South America becoming authoritarian or even totalitarian ruling parties while the Castros are still in power.

If Cuba is to break free from being a patrimonial state then political repression must end. Therefore the right of the Cuban people to determine their destiny through democratic multi-party elections should be granted.

Cuban Democracy: Bringing the 1933 Revolution Full Circle

The most poignant point in Ruben Batista’s Banquet speech was his tribute to Cubans who had lost their lives due to political violence and repression.

‘Ladies and Gentleman, in the name of all of these fallen Cubans, our friends, and even those who were our enemies, because they were all Cubans…. in their name and in their honour, we request a minute of silence.’ (A peal of the trumpet is heard as a sign of mourning).

It is to be hoped that future Cuban political leaders will not have to call for tributes to their countrymen who lose their lives because of political violence and repression. Unless there is a transition to a genuine multi-democracy in the post-Castro era then there may well be a banquet commemorating a future anti-totalitarian Cuban revolution.

Dr. David Bennett is the Convenor of Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (HCAA), editor of Social Action Australia Pty Ltd and the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML). He previously wrote an article on President Fulgencio Batista which is in the Cuba section of this HCAA website. Mr. Bennett can be contacted on the following email address: s.a.a.editor@gmail.com

Dr. Bennett gratefully acknowledges Mr. Roberto Torricellia’s previous assistance in supplying him with helpful answers to queries which the author had concerning pre-totalitarian Cuban history and politics. These answers helped provide the author with some of the material in this article. However Dr. Bennett assumes sole responsibility for the conclusions, hypotheses and interpretations made in this article.

The full text of Ruben Batista’s Banquet Speech (which is in Spanish) can be accessed from the Libros section of the cubarepublicana website http://www.cubarepublicana.org/cuba.html

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