Fidel Castro Case Study

2. After the attack on the Moncada Barracks fails, and Castro and his revolutionaries are released from prison, he begins to gather recruitments to start his revolution campaign in Mexico. Shortly after, he and Che Guevara return to Cuba to start the revolution. The group that implemented these problems became known as the July 26 Movement, after the date of the attack on the Moncada Barracks. During Castro’s trial for the attack on the Moncada Barracks, he outlines the six problems in Batista’s regime: foreign Monopolies on land ownership, lack of industrialization, inadequate housing, high unemployment, poor education, and deplorable healthcare. After Castro comes to power, he takes steps (i.e. the Five Revolutionary Laws, Land Reform, Social Reform, etc.) to solve these problems.

4. Fidel Castro put into place a series of agrarian and urban reform laws in the spring of 1959, at the beginning of Castro’s rule. The First Urban Reform Law states that there would be a 50% cut in rent, which was good for the peasants, but bad for the landowners (such as United States companies). The Agrarian Reform Law took land from people who had more than 1000 acres of land, and gave it to the poor. It was bad for landowners, especially foreign ones, because they lost land. In addition to that, the prices were controlled. The United States began to worry about these laws because they seemed communist in nature, and began placing economic sanctions on Cuba, pushing Cuba closer to the Soviet Union.

6. The First Declaration of Havana was a speech given by Castro in September of 1960, to express his wish to cut ties with the United States, and instead become closer to the Soviet Union. In doing so, he stopped selling sugar to the United States, an...

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...gh a photo taken by a spy plane. Because the United Sates felt threatened by the missiles in Cuba, the US confronted the Soviets, and made a deal for both the US and the Soviets to remove their prospective places. The historical significance is that the United States negotiated with the Soviet Union, not to Cuba, and the missiles were removed from Cuba without the consent of Castro. This made Castro think that the Soviet Union was imperialist, and no better than the United States, which led to the Year of Decisive Endeavor.

14. Castro’s speech to the Cuban Communist Party Central Committee was a secret speech given to the CPP by Castro in January of 1968, where he expresses his disillusionment with the USSR, because of their lack of support to Cuban revolution in the October Crisis. This is significant because this is when Castro cuts ties with the Soviet Union.