Encyclopedia
General
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the
de facto military leader of
Cuba from 1933 to 1940 and the
de jure President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944. He then became the country's leader, after staging a
coup, from 1952 to 1959. His authoritarian government generated opposition, notably from
Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement by which Batista was overthrown, in what is known as the
Cuban Revolution.
Youth and first rule
Batista was born in Banes,
Holguín Province, Cuba in 1901. He is said to have been the son of Belisario Batista and Carmela Zaldívar, Cubans who fought for independence from Spain. Of very humble origins, Batista began working from an early age. A self-educated man, he attended school at night and is said to have been a voracious reader. Batista was considered socially a
mestizoDuring this period, Batista violently suppressed a number of attempts to defeat his control. This included the quashing of an uprising in the ancient Atares fort by Blas Hernández, a rural
guerrilla who had fought Gerardo Machado. Many of those who surrendered were executed. Another attempt was the attack on the Hotel Nacional where Cuban former army officers of the Cuban Olympic rifle team put up stiff resistance until they were defeated. Here again Batista troops executed a good number of the surrendered. The irony is that many of these officers had helped overthrow Machado. There were many other often minor and almost unrecorded attempted revolts against Batista. These too were bloodily suppressed. These minor revolts included one in Guamá, a place in the Sierra Maestra south of Guisa, where the followers of an anti-Batista guerrilla leader known as Gamboa were defeated and dispersed.
Grau was president for just over 100 days before being replaced by Carlos Mendieta y Montefur , then José Barnet y Vinajeras , and then Miguel Gómez y Arias before Federico Laredo Brú managed to rule from December 1936 to October 1940.
In October, 1940, Batista, who formed a coalition with the
Cuban Communist Party was elected President of Cuba. During his tenure, he drafted the 1940 constitution , widely regarded as a progressive document with regards to labor,
unemployment, and social security, and implemented several
liberal economic reforms. In 1944, Batista was forbidden by law to seek re-election by term limits and was succeeded by Grau. Batista retired to
Florida before returning in 1952.
Second rule
Batista staged an almost bloodless
coup d'état on March 10, 1952, removing
Carlos Prío Socarrás . Cubans in general were stunned, for they, remembering the bloodshed of the 1930's, were not ready to fight. Batista created a consultive council integrated from pliable political personalities of all parties who appointed him President three months before new elections were to be held. There were unanswered appeals to the Organization of American States and the UN . Batista’s past democratic and pro-labor tendencies and the fear of another episode of bloody violence gained him tenuous support from the now very old survivors of the Independence Wars, the bankers, the association of cane growers, the colonos , and the leader of the major labor confederation, the CTC, Eusebio Mujal. Only a few labor leaders, such as Pascasio Linarer, Jesús Artigas and Calixto Sánchez” rebelled. The Ortodoxo and Auténtico, the major political parties, were undecisive.
The small Communist Party retained some government posts and the communist paper were co-opted and supported Batista even though relations with the USSR were broken. The new government received diplomatic recognition from the
United States, the number of American corporations continued to swell in Cuba, and the island became a major tourist destination, creating unprecedented material prosperity for its inhabitants. This period was marked by considerable construction of private highrises, and public tunnels and roads. Havana became the third most expensive and dynamic city in the world with more TV sets, telephones, and late model Cadillacs per household than any city in America. The "Civic Plaza," and all surrounding buildings, now renamed as Plaza de la Revolución , where
Fidel Castro often speaks, was completed in these times.
The Cuban people, tired of corrupt governments, were somewhat accepting of the coup at first, hoping that Batista would restore stability to the island after the political violence, labor unrest, and government corruption that had occurred during Prío's tenure and noting Batista's humble origins and the fact that unlike many of his opponents, he achieved the full support of the labor movement including the communist party. During these years Batista created the program to bring education to peasants, building schools , and implementing the minimum wage for farm workers, a measure deeply resented by the landowners. Despite the unprecedented economic prosperity of the 1950s, opposition parties like the Orthodoxo and the Auténtico managed to promote social unrest instigating university students to plant bombs and kill civilians and military personnel alike. Batista responded with repression of the subversives. Ultimately, the existing government corruption, tainted with claims of close relationship with the mafia, saw a rise in general opposition to his regime from the rich and middle class Cubans.
Advocates of
liberal democracy also viewed Batista's presidency as unconstitutional and unacceptable because he was not elected. . Cross-class urban resistance grew despite high casualties and the country folk increasingly turned to armed resistance. The overtly communist party, Partido Socialista Popular, supported Batista until about the middle of 1958.
Opposition
Among the numerous opponents to Batista was
Fidel Castro, a young lawyer. Castro had first attempted to challenge the coup judicially, but his petition was refused by the courts. Castro published 25 articles against Batista, 13 statements attacking Batista and two manifestos while he was in the mountains . Then Castro led a disastrous attack on the
Moncada Barracks on 26 July, 1953, by which Castro's guerrilla movement became subsequently known, the 26th of July Movement. After being captured while sleeping, Castro was put to trial, found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
With pressure from a coalition of intellectuals, a media campaign and the advice of politicians from several parties, Batista decided to free Castro early. Castro was released in a general amnesty, in May 1955, and went into exile in
Mexico and then
United States where he plotted another attempt against Batista's government. Castro's return to Cuba as head of the 26th of July Movement was marked by another disastrous attack in December, 1956 from the sea. Despite supporting urban actions by Frank País in
Santiago in the days preceding the landing and rural support coordinated by País that included Celia Sanchez, the bandit Cresencio Perez, and the trucks from Huber Matos farm, the Castro invasion was easily suppressed and only Castro and some 11 to 17 others were able to retreat successfully into the mountains and from there wage a guerrilla war. Batista in "Repuesta" mentions how he ordered a truce and "protective" guard on the Castro family in Birán so that the Castro brothers could leave the country safely. He then complains bitterly that the protective squad he had sent out for this purpose was attacked, apparently referring to Castro's first attack on an isolated patrol at La Plata on January 15th 1957.
Castro had a relatively effective net of informants who were successful in predicting attacks by Batista. There were low-level informants called "Chivatos" which means "the goats", the same word that many years before had given
Billy the Kid his nickname. The notorious BRAC was not effective against overt and covert communists but apparently used communist contacts to provide high level X-4 information on disaffected officials of the Cuban army and non-Castro resistance that was almost without exception co-opted. In May 1958, in response to a pre-warned and failed assault on the presidential palace by other resistance groups , Batista launched a major assault against Castro and the other rebel groups . Despite being outnumbered , Castro's forces scored a series of victories, aided by the corruption of Batista's leading army officers and massive desertions. During this period, the U.S. broke off relations with Batista, stating that a peaceful transition to a new government was necessary and imposing an embargo preventing Batista from acquiring American arms. US companies still had extensive business interests in Cuba at this time, and the unrest was damaging to these. According to Antonio Núñez Jiménez, a military commander and minister under Castro at the time that Batista was deposed, 75% of Cuba's prime farm land was owned by foreign individuals or foreign companies. This data differs substantially from the one reported in 1958 for the Latin American Annual Yearbook by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce showing a significant increase in the ownership of lands and industries by Cuban nationals as a result of Batista's economic policies during his years in power. Against this backdrop of growing civil war, Batista, constitutionally prohibited from continuing as president, organized an election in which his preferred candidate Carlos Rivero Aguero defeated Grau. That was not enough, however, as his regime began to collapse. On January 1, 1959, Batista's regime collapsed; Castro gained control of Cuba. Castro's forces entered
Havana that same day.
Aftermath
Batista later moved to
Portugal and then
Marbella,
Spain where he lived and wrote books the rest of his life; he died on August 6, 1973, in Guadalmina,
Spain ; Raoul G. Cantero, III, born in Spain, naturalized in the US, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and first Hispanic judge on Florida State Supreme Court, is the grandson of Fulgencio Batista.
Books written by Batista
- 1939: Estoy con el Pueblo [I am With the People]. Havana.
- 1960: Repuesta. Manuel León Sánchez S.C.L., Mexico City.
- 1961: Piedras y leyes [Stones and Laws]. Mexico City.
- 1962: Cuba Betrayed. Vantage Press, New York ASIN B0007DEH9A
- 1962: To Rule is to Foresee ASIN B0007IYHK4
- 1964: The Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic. Devin-Adair Company, New York. ISBN 0-8159-5614-2
- unfinished autobiography and archive in the University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection
Bibliography on Batista
- Argote-Freyre, Frank. Fulgencio Batista: Volume 1, From Revolutionary to Strongman. Rutgers University Press, Rutgers, New Jersey. ISBN 0-8135-3701-0. 2006.
- Chester,Edmund A. A Sergeant Named Batista. Holt. ASIN B0007DPO1U. 1954.
- Gellman, Irwin F. Roosevelt and Batista: Good neighbor diplomacy in Cuba, 1933-1945. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM. ISBN 0-8263-0284-X. 1973.
- Valdés Sánchez, Servando Fulgencio Batista: El poder de las armas Editora Historia, SBN 597048051. 1998
History of the era
- Carrillo, Justo 1985 Cuba 1933: Estudiantes, Yanquis y Soldados. University of Miami Iberian Studies Institute ISBN 0-935501-00-2 Transaction Publishers ISBN 1-56000-690-0
- Fernández, Julio César 1940 Yo acuso a Batista. Construyendo a Cuba. Havana
- Kapcia A. 2002. The Siege of the Hotel Nacional, Cuba, 1933: A Reassessment. Journal of Latin American Studies, 34, 283-309.
- Phillips, R Hart 1935 Cuban side show. Cuban Press, Havana 2nd edition. ASIN: B000860P60
- Phillips, R Hart. 1959 Cuba, Island of Paradox. McDowell Obolensky, New York, NY ASIN: B0007E0OAU
- Phillips, R Hart. 1960 Cuba Island of Paradise 1960 Astor-Honor Inc, ISBN 0-8392-5012-6
- Phillips, Ruby Hart 1961 The Tragic Island: How Communism Came to Cuba. Englewood Cliffs, NJ
- Phillips, R Hart. 1962 The Cuban dilemma McDowell Obolensky, New York, NY Library of Congress number 6218787
- Smith, Earl T. 1962 The fourth floor. Selous Foundation Press, Washington DC. ISBN 09442730682
- Hugh Thomas Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom Da Capo Press; Updated edition ISBN 0-306-80827-7
- Welles, Sumner 1944 The time for decision Harper & brothers ASIN B0006AQB0M
- Argote-Freyre, Frank Fulgencio Bastista: From Revolutionary to Strongman, Rutgers University Press ISBN 0-8135-3701-0
See also
