“Illusion is the first of all pleasures.” Voltaire’s incision into reality, found in the Maid of Orleans, punctures deeply into both human nature and the perception of the impact of the Cold War on the Cuban Revolution. Simple analyses would propose that there was a clean and direct connection between the struggle of the superpowers in the mid-20th century and the shifts in leadership in Cuba, which is seen as a reflection of the ideoeconomic tug of war of the US and USSR – that Cuba became communist as a result thereof. Despite this crayon illustration of the events, sinking one’s teeth deeper into the history reveals a far more complex and interesting reality. I will first challenge the idea that the Cuban Revolution was itself a primarily communist vehicle, in the same confronting the idea that the Revolution was a manifestation of Soviet interests in the Caribbean. I will then show how, rather than the obvious connection, the Cold War did have a direct impact on the causes of the Cuban Revolution insofar as US policy created the environment which fostered revolutionary sentiment. Finally, I will show how US hyper-anxiety over perceived shifts toward communism and corporate greed pushed the newly enthroned Cuban government into the hands of the USSR, thus setting the stage for nuclear conflict.
Let us first address the idea that the Cuban Revolution was a result of Soviet artifice. I would argue that this belief, which I apprehend to float in the American mindset in a largely unexamined sense, is the result of projection. The CIA has a long and storied history of putting its efforts, weapons, and agents behind revolutionaries and insurgents in foreign lands to promote the US political agenda. Indeed, one of such events was the Cuban Revolution itself, with other examples including Afghanistan, Persia, and Nicaragua. Though the USSR’s KGB also, naturally, participated in similar projects, its sphere of interest was not in the Americas at the time. Rather, the soviets focused on their recently claimed and puppeted lands in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, with brief stints in other regions. In keeping with this, the USSR had no involvement in raising, recruiting, or supporting the revolutionaries in Cuba or indeed most other revolutions in the American continents. It is, therefore, striking to find out that the CIA backed the 26 de Julio revolutionary force, as it subverts the expectation that it had Soviet backing. Not only is there nuance in the fact that the Cuban Revolution was not driven by the USSR, but also in the fact that the US was ambivalent in its support. Until the curtain call of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, the US supported the violent caudillo directly, giving military support and council. When that call came, the US pulled the rug under Batista and welcomed the revolutionaries as the new heads of the Cuban government. When positioned in the context of the Cold War, it is clear that the 26 de Julio movement could not have been deeply communist, otherwise Batista would have received as much support as Pinochet in crushing it. Thus, it is useful to ask: why would the US support the revolutionaries and how were they not communists?
To comprehend the complexity of the US position in Cuba and thereby gain insight into the revolutionary movement and the Cold War, it is important to understand the modus operandi of the US in its hemispherical zone of influence. Firstly, the US desired a stable government that was happy to deal with the US across a range of issues. Secondly, it necessitated that such a government would allow American companies to manage mostly uninfringed upon operations in its lands. Finally, the US required that such a government not be a communist one – I would argue out of a dual desire for US companies to be profitably operational inside such countries and a desire to look powerful and resolute in the public eye (no commie country should be allowed to exist on the American continents!), a la Cold War. When looked at through this lens, the actions of the US in the context of the era make sense – Batista’s government was stable, fully willing to allow for exploitation of Cuban resources by American companies, and fervently anti-communist. Unfortunately for the US, Batista had his faults of total tyranny, brutality, and a sad inability to hide such mannerisms in black sites (gosh, how inconsiderate – you should always hide your human rights abuses in black sites). The public eye was increasingly displeased with the US association to Batista, and as such, the US was more willing to see a change in administration – taking away support from Batista and giving it to the 26 de Julio movement. Had the movement been a fullfledged vehicle for communism, such support would have never been given, considering that it would be an embarrassment for the US to have its lackey overthrown by communist revolutionaries some 200 miles south of Miami. This reveals that, although not connected to the Cold War as obviously as one might think, the Cuban Revolution was allowed to unfold as it did principally by Cold-War-conscious actions of the US – putting pressure on Batista to look better in the public eye, leading him to free political prisoners, including Fidel Castro. Indeed, Castro – a major leader of the revolution – never inched close to expressing communist or socialist convictions during the take-over of Cuba, giving the US further affirmation to support him. It is therefore clear that unlike the dramatized vision of the 26 de Julio revolutionary movement as a bloodthirsty communist force, its ideology was far less clear at the time of the takeover. Its focus was more pointedly on resisting Batista, his brutality, and poverty – not the grand ideals of communism.
Though revealing, the above argumentation leaves open the inquiry of the tension between Cuba and the US, with its peak in the Cuban Missile Crisis. How did a country led by US, not Soviet, backed revolutionaries come to host Soviet nuclear missiles and its ideologically defanged Castro become an Anti-US figure? To comprehend this, let us turn to the records of a conversation between Robert Kleberg, an American businessmen with lands in Cuba, and the US Secretary of State, found in the Office of the Historian’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” archive (1959). In these records, Kleberg argues strongly against a set of proposed reforms meant to be enacted by the Cuban government – now under revolutionary command. The reforms would have taken away large swaths of land controlled by Kleberg and the well-known American sugar companies, defenestrating American interests in Cuba, and causing a massive economic loss. Moreover, Kleberg emphasizes, such land reform seemed modeled on communist initiatives, and if such a reform was a herald of further government actions, Cuba might have been on the path to Communism. Kleberg asked that this reform be combatted by a cancellation of American import quotas of Cuban sugar, so that, by economic pressure, the Cubans would be forced to allow the continued domination of their industries by Americans. This conversation reveals much. Firstly, Kleberg’s analysis that the reform might suggest a path toward communism in Cuba reinforces the above arguments that the revolutionaries were not outwardly seen as communist. Secondly and more importantly, it shows us how the Cold War managed to become entangled into the history of Cuba from another angle. The US ended up going through with a manifestation of Kleberg’s proposal – economic sanctions that would have left the lifeblood of the Cuban economy, sugar, with nowhere to go. This was an action of pure greed and corporate interests, but also one of anxiety over the perceptions of communism, rather than reality, and a strategic ineptitude. The reforms were not necessarily a communist action – they were meant to alleviate the massive rural poverty in Cuba that was allowed to thrive during Batista’s reign. Moreover, the sanctions pushed the revolutionary Cuban government to sell their sugar elsewhere, with the only market as large as the US, naturally, being the Soviets, who gladly bought Cuban sugar and forged a path for an outwardly and stridently communist government in Cuba.
It is through the events of these brief few years that a common conception of Soviet artifice is challenged and in its stead is revealed a complex tale of US decisions, too self-righteous, greedy, and shortsighted to see that they would lead a potential ally into becoming a vicious enemy – a folly the US would go onto repeat many times, creating for itself a cadre of enemies, a reputation of greedy entitlement, and more disconnected, dysfunctional world.
Work Cited
Office of the Historian. 324. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, June 24, 1959, 2:40-3 p.m. in “Foreign Relations of the United States”, 1958-1960, Volume VI. Government Printing Office, 1959
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