The examining the domestic impacts of the Cold War on a given nation in the Americas, it seems advisable to choose a nation the history of which reflects the kind of events one might be able to expect to see more broadly as a result of the Cold War in the Americas. As such, I put forward Cuba as the nation to be analyzed because I find that the widely adopted vision of its Cold War history – an internal revolution, a powerful dictator, and involvement from the US and occasionally the USSR – is reflective of much of the history of the wider region of the Americas. With the reasoning for choosing Cuba argued, I put forward the following domestic factors to be considered: 1) foreign influence on governance, 2) increased internal tensions, and 3) forced diplomatic and economic alignment. Following the analysis of the above three areas of consideration, it will have been successfully established that the Cold war was an example of historical continuity, that it unexpectedly led to a Communist Cuba, and that more broadly, it led to poorer conditions in the nations which the participating superpowers puppeted (mostly the US).
Firstly, how did the Cold War impact the influence of foreign powers on internal governance in Cuba? When contextualized, the wish of the US to influence the governments of its South American neighbors is hardly new. From the Spanish War with the catchphrase “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain” and the conquest of Spanish colonies to support for the caudillo Porfirio Diaz, there is no shortage of influencemongering which the US engaged in to ensure its interests were more than advocated for in the South American theatre. As such, the historical continuity of influence under Cold War conditions can be stalwartly defended. Notwithstanding, it can be stated that changes were made in the intensity of the intrusion with which the US “influenced” Cuban and other South American governments. Namely, the Cold War created a supposedly ideological element – communism and capitalism – which had to be taken into consideration when supporting or opposing a given regime. Supposedly, I say, because in truth capitalism simply meant that US companies had access to the resources of a given nation whereas communism meant the opposite – as such, continuity is reaffirmed, with the ideological component being a mere guise for traditional resource-warfare. Still, during this time period – of the mid-20th century – the US took charge in using covert means to assassinate, bribe, and back uprisings until it got the government which it wanted to rule a country – the Batista regime in the case of Cuba.
This leads to the second element of analysis: increased internal tensions. As mentioned, the ideological war between capitalism and communism was the ostensible reason for the US meddling in foreign affairs – rather reminiscent, I think, of the White Man’s burden to civilize or the Christian duty to convert – and as a result, the leaders it backed would be expected to share this ideological bent. Batista was a brutal dictator, and though his policies were certainly not communist, I would argue that exactly what he did politically was of little consequence to the US, so long as he allowed US companies the access they desired to exploit Cuban resources and people. As such, we can observe that again, support for governments by the US was a resource play, disguised as a righteous, ideological necessity. Batista’s friendliness toward the US was not characteristic of the amiability he had for his own people, however. As discontent grew over his leadership and the massive siphoning of wealth from the poor to the Cuban elite and US international conglomerates, Batista’s repression became more severe. Over the course of his leadership in the 1950’s, thousands who were found in opposition to the regime would be abducted, tortured, imprisoned, and killed. This kind of horrible treatment which the Batista government imposed upon its own people, alongside its disastrous economic policies, is what is often credited as the major contributing factor to the 26 de Julio movement and the Cuban Revolution.
The Cuban Revolution and the 26 de Julio movement was not, as one might expect, a vessel for communist thought and ideology. Fidel Castro, indeed, was seemingly not taken in by communist ideals nearly as much as some of his allies and made sure to broadcast that to the world, leading to the US supporting him against Batista when it became clear that the globally reviled strongman would be ousted. The Revolution’s main directive was to recapture some measure of dignity to the Cuban people from the claws of its government, including, naturally, some measure of economic policy changes. Upon the victory of the 26 de Julio movement, things did not change rapidly, however, as the movement began to move further to redistribute some of the highly unequally concentrated wealth, the US, under pressure from its companies, became anxious about a communist state rising in Cuba. To quell this possibility, they instituted embargos on Cuban sugar exports to force the Cuban government to abandon any sense of care for making basic resources more accessible to a wider range of people and keep allowing full foreign exploitation. Instead of this desired event, Cuba was pushed to sell to someone else – the Soviets, who were more than pleased to pay for the Cuban sugar for above-market prices and in-so-doing create for themselves an ally a ferry-ride away from the American coastline. Thus, it becomes apparent that the American attempt to punish Cuba for relatively tame wealth redistribution policy is what pushed it into becoming aligned with the Communists and expelling the Americans out of the Cuban sugar trade completely.
Throughout the above, it has been shown that the conditions of the Cold War were by no means unique when looked at in a wider historical context, that American anxiety over losing access to resources led to a Soviet-aligned Cuba and the realization of said fear, and that, across the Americas, foreign meddling in government affairs often led to governments which, logically, were aligned with foreign interests, rather than those of their own peopl
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