Cuban Revolution Chapter Summary

Here Castro pinned Cuba and the rest of Latin America against the United States. Similar to Che he is positing that the people of Latin America will follow the Cuban Revolution and succeed in taking power in their own countries. As a result of the history of Cuba and many of these Latin American countries, the exploitation remark is a poignant one. Too many of these countries have a history of struggle with exploitation for their labor and natural resources, and in many of these countries they still struggle with this fact. He refers to the the U.S as an oligarchy which means a form of government where a few people are in power, usually referred to as wealthy elites (“Oligarchy, n”). It is no wonder than why the Castro would refer to the U.S and the Batista government as a regime. He also uses words like “Yankee monopolies” which . refer to the vast amount of influence the U.S had on the Cuban economy. The historical

These lessons were supposed to be the three main points in forming revolution (Childs 605). These lessons given by Che and the experiences from the Cuban Revolution would later be formalized into the foco theory. Che wrote that those lessons were, “1. Popular forces can win a war against the army. 2. It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. 3. In undeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.” (Guevara 1). The first lesson is rather straightforward in saying that guerilla can win against popular forces. In a way this statement simplifies things and does not account for other circumstances that are needed for a guerilla force to take on a popular army. The last two points are the most controversial because it went against traditional Marxism and because it discredited the urban class’ contribution to such a revolution (Childs