On January 7, 1959, just a few days after the Cuban Revolution ended, the United States recognized the new Cuban government under President Urrutia. But as Fidel Castro later gained absolute power and his government gradually turned socialist, relations between the two countries deteriorated rapidly. By July 1959, just seven months later, U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower was planning Castro’s overthrow; subsequently in March 1960, he ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to organize and train U.S.-based Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba.
In 1960, Castro entered into a trade agreement with the Soviet Union that included purchasing Russian oil. Then when U.S. petroleum companies in Cuba refused to refine the imported Russian oil, a succession of measures and retaliatory counter-measures followed quickly. In July 1960, Cuba seized the American oil companies and nationalized them the next month. In October 1960, the United States imposed an economic embargo on Cuba and banned all imports (which constituted 90% of all Cuban exports) from Cuba. The restriction included sugar, which was Cuba’s biggest source of revenue. In January 1960, the United States ended all official diplomatic relations with Cuba, closed its embassy in Havana, and banned trade to and forbid American private and business transactions with the island country.
In a national broadcast on April 16, 1961, Castro announced that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba will be adopt communism. With Cuba shedding off democracy and taking on a clearly communist state policy, thousands of Cubans from the upper and middle classes, including politicians, top government officials, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and many other professionals fled the country for exile in other countries, particularly in the United States. However, many other anti-Castro Cubans chose to remain and subsequently organized into armed groups to start a counter-revolution in the Escambray Mountains; these rebel groups’ activities laid the groundwork for Cuba’s next internal conflict, the “War against the Bandits”.
(Taken from Cuban Revolution – War of the 20th Century – Volume 2)
Background In March 1952, General Fulgencio Batista seized power in Cuba through a coup d’état. He then canceled the elections scheduled for June 1952, where he was running for the presidency but trailed in the polls and faced likely defeat. Having gained power, General Batista established a dictatorship, suppressed the opposition, and suspended the constitution and many civil liberties. Then in the November 1954 general elections that were boycotted by the political opposition, General Batista won the presidency and thus became Cuba’s official head of state.
President Batista favored a close working relationship with Cuba’s wealthy elite, particularly with American businesses, which had an established, dominating presence in Cuba. Since the early twentieth century, the United States had maintained political, economic, and military control over Cuba; e.g. during the first few decades of the 1900s, U.S. forces often intervened directly in Cuba by quelling unrest and violence, and restoring political order.
American corporations held a monopoly on the Cuban economy, dominating the production and commercial trade of the island’s main export, sugar, as well as other agricultural products, the mining and petroleum industries, and public utilities. The United States naturally entered into political, economic, and military alliances with and backed the Cuban government; in the context of the Cold War, successive Cuban governments after World War II were anti-communist and staunchly pro-American.
President Batista expanded the businesses of the American mafia in Cuba, where these criminal organizations built and operated racetracks, casinos, nightclubs, and hotels in Havana with relaxed tax laws provided by the Cuban government. President Batista amassed a large personal fortune from these transactions, and Havana was transformed into and became internationally known for its red-light district, where gambling, prostitution, and illegal drugs were rampant. President Batista’s regime was characterized by widespread corruption, as public officials and the police benefitted from bribes from the American crime syndicates as well as from outright embezzlement of government funds.
Cuba did achieve consistently high economic growth under President Batista, but much of the wealth was concentrated in the upper class, and a great divide existed between the small, wealthy elite and the masses of the urban poor and landless peasants. (Cuban society also contained a relatively dynamic middle class that included doctors, lawyers, and many other working professionals.)
President Batista was extremely unpopular among the general population, because he had gained power through force and made unequal economic policies. As a result, Havana (Cuba’s capital) seethed with discontent, with street demonstrations, protests, and riots occurring frequently. In response, President Batista deployed security forces to suppress dissenting elements, particularly those that advocated Marxist ideology. The government’s secret police regularly carried out extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances, as well as arbitrary arrests, detentions, and tortures. Some 20,000 persons were killed or disappeared during the Batista regime.
In 1953, a young lawyer and former student leader named Fidel Castro emerged to lead what ultimately would be the most serious challenge to President Batista. Castro previously had taken part in the aborted overthrow of the Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo and in the 1948 civil disturbance (known as “Bogotazo”) in Bogota, Colombia before completing his law studies at the University of Havana. Castro had run as an independent for Congress in the 1952 elections that were cancelled because of Batista’s coup. Castro was infuriated and began making preparations to overthrow what he declared was the illegitimate Batista regime that had seized power from a democratically elected government. Fidel organized an armed insurgent group, “The Movement”, whose aim was to overthrow President Batista. At its peak, “The Movement” would comprise 1,200 members in its civilian and military wings.