Children attending school in Cuba start their day with a chant, “¡Seremo como el Che!”, meaning we will be like Che. To this day, revolutionary character is played upon as a central element to Cuba. Ideology, and popular support are the two central factors in any revolutionary government. Castro is no different in needing to establish both in order to gain power. Or is he? Communist ideology in Cuba is not a given truth to many historians, in this essay we will explore how Castro used ideology, and manipulated popular support in order to rise to power. While at times over-emphasized, guerrilla war, and the revolutionary spirit were part of the initial core of his attaining power.
Guerrilla warfare executed by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, and Fidel Castro, is a foreshadowing of the rest of Castro’s career in establishing power- ambiguous political stance. The version they used -Mao’s model- relied heavily on propaganda, and connecting to the poor people of the Sierra mountains. Besides fighting a dangerous war, both Castro and Che would lend themselves useful to the surrounding communities, in helping to build infrastructure, and instructing basic literacy skills. Extending this past helping directly, the machismo society in Cuba, lent Castro more support than he could have elsewhere hoped. Che, and Castro’s notoriously dramatic style was well-suited to capturing people’s attention, and built-up a movement that otherwise would have been one
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However, these can be addressed in more ways than one- the essential one being revolutionary spirit. This theme connects all of Castro’s decisions, and remains prevalent in contemporary Cuba’s culture. From naming of policies, down to how children start their days at school. It is evident that without the Cuban population’s support, there is no way that the fool who led the Moncada Barracks attack would’ve established a near forty-year long
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Show MoreThe Cuban Revolution was of great significance to the U.S. because it put Fidel Castro in power as a communist dictator in Cuba and contributed to the Soviet Union’s power during the Cold War. Castro went against everything that represented democracy and basic human rights, meaning that the U.S. was challenged by his role and meant to overthrow him and keep him out of
In January of 1959, Fidel Castro came to power. The United States’ attempted to overthrow Castro with the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a CIA operation to overthrow Fidel Castro by landing 1200 disgruntled Cuban exiles in the Bay of Pigs. The attempt fails miserably and is a huge embarrassment for Kennedy, who then vows to bring down Castro. After the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, Castro looked to the Soviet Union for protection. According to document D in 1962 “The soviets began shipping 40,000 troops, 60 missiles and 158 nuclear warheads to communist Cuba.”
Rafael Trujillo, the autocratic dictator of the Dominican Republic during the middle of the twentieth century, leveraged his status in society to oppress the working class for his benefit. In the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez exhibits Trujillo exploiting the proletariat to gain wealth and power by creating a hegemony in which the working class knew that they were being oppressed, but did not do anything about it. Trujillo forced the people to idolize him in a narcissistic way, evoked fear in the working class, and used the secret police to give himself an upper edge over the proletariat. A country’s dictator will exploit their people to keep their position in power.
The Cuban Revolution had many lasting impacts. One area that was greatly influenced from 1959 to 1990 was gender relations. From the start to the end of the revolution women in Cuba faced many difficulties in gaining civil rights, some people were against it while others fought fiercely for equality, but in the end the quality of these women's lives were changed for the better. Before and during the revolution, Cuban Women were treated unequally and some of the population saw this as a problem and others did not. Throughout this time many people were against women's rights, even women themselves.
Although this book is a work of nonfiction, Nordlinger uses a variety of abstract language and ideas to convey the facts he presents. These displays of figurative language add texture and life to what would otherwise be a rather dark and dull topic. The most common devices are metaphors, however other devices are implemented throughout. When speaking of Castro, a Cuban dictator, Nordlinger states, “if he has to break a few eggs along the way in order to make an omelette out of Cuba, so be it” (Nordlinger 118). As the majority of Nordlinger’s readers have not experienced the desire to conquer an entire country, Nordlinger uses this metaphor to make the dictator’s drive more relatable.
Therein lies the irony of solidarity mixed with ideas of superiority, a principle that De La Fuente should have emphasized rather than glazing over as it is crucial to examining revolutionary Cuba. In the other portion of the chapter, De La Fuente continues with Batista’s Cuba, but in a different light.
This situation, however, made Castro aware of both sides of the rift. One side had people learning and knowledge that Castro desperately craves and the other side had the beloved Latino culture that belonged to her. She heard the voice and saw the problems of both sides but did not see the way to bring them together due to their
John F. Kennedy, a former president of the United States, delivered his “Cuban Missile Crisis” speech on October 22, 1962, to the United States citizens and captives in Cuba. Those people were terrified of a nuclear missile attack during the Cold War time period. Due to the primary use of logos in Kennedy’s “Cuban Missile Crisis” speech, he informs his audience about the type of missiles in Cuba and the steps to be taken to respond to the Soviet Union’s placement of missiles in Cuba. This would hopefully alleviate some of the fear of the citizens of the United States. He shows pathos by continuing to ease the citizens’ fear of a missile attack by showing compassion towards the people.
One person who is a great analyst of all of this is, Bartolome de las Casas, who was a priest, who participate in the conquest of Cuba. Howard Zinn states that Las Casas once reported, “ they suffered and died in the mines and other
We should not feel unsafe and suppressed in our homeland. We cannot continue to remained trapped on this island. We did not give up democracy during the Cuban Revolution to be oppressed by a communist government for half of a century (The Cuban Libre Story). Let the following evidence depict our grievances.
People like Castro are jerks and are very forceful, bad leaders. Castro canceled elections, forced non-communists to resign from the government in disgrace, worked secret arms deals with the Soviets, carried out mass executions live on the TV’s, shut down the free press, attacked the church and confiscated its property, tortured critics, criminalized private commercial transactions and blanketed all of Cuba with the enduring terror of his dictatorship. A bad leader is a big push factor that made Mario Loyola and his family leave Cuba and go to the
Phase 1 of the guerrilla warfare principles emphasise on the importance of popular support, which Castro strongly related to. Additionally, the warfare encouraged troops to fight on land that is not only readily available, but an area rebels have cohesive knowledge on. Guerrilla warfare has proved to be successful method of initiating liberty on numerous occasions. It worked for Tito in Yugoslavia, the Viet Cong in Vietnam and certainly for Fidel Castro in Cuba. The country was free after four centuries of neocolonialism, and ‘Cuba Libre’ was finally
Castro pushed education for his people to assist his aim in creating a well-rounded Cuba. In politically, economically, and socially declining environments, Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro both gained power and attempted to bring the change the people so desperately
The Cuban Missile Address is delivered October 22nd, 1962 in the Presidential office through a major radio and television address (Podell, Anzovin, and States United 705). Historically, it is worth mentioning that United States had attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro, who was at the time Prime Minister of the Republic of Cuba, in at least two occasions known as the Bay of Pigs Operation and Operation Mongoose, because of his communist regime and close relationship with the Soviet Union (Pious). Then, after the Bay of Pigs incident, Fidel Castro urged Nikita Khrushchev, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to send support and weapons to Cuba, because of the fear of another attack to his person/regime, Nikita did by sending missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, hence, this major crisis that lasted 14 days ending October 28, 1962 (Deinema and Leydesdorff). In addition, the target audience for this speech is the American people as President starts his speech with the phrase, “Good evening, my fellow citizens” (Kennedy); however, the secondary audience would be the Cuban people, whom he describes as captive people, the Soviet Union leaders, whom he directly addresses and even quotes, and Fidel Castro of course (Kennedy). As noted above, the cultural, socio-political context is important to understand the seriousness of this crisis and
However, Fidel Castro’s ideology during his rise to power was being primarily nationalist , with a turn towards communism by the end of the Cuban revolution. Castro said that he wanted to elevate the standards of the Cuban people and this is what he did and why people joined him. Fidel Castro’s rise to power began on the 26th July of 1953, also known as the ‘July movement’ where Castro along with other rebels tried to "capture the Moncada army barracks in downtown Santiago de Cuba.”. Its aim was to take over this military site but this attempt failed. This event can be regarded as being a failure but it is an important factor in Fidel Castro’s rise to power as it led Castro and other rebels to face trials, trials in which Fidel Castro was sentenced to 15 years of prison.