How Did The American Revolution Influence The Cuban Revolution

Alanna Dwoskin

The Cuban Revolution’s Influence on Nicaragua

During the mid to late 1900s, the working class people of Latin America became frustrated by the amount of injustice in their society, and responded with a series of revolutions and insurgencies. Many of these revolutions failed because of lack of organization and support of revolutionary groups as well as backlash from counterinsurgency forces led by authoritarian dictators and supported by U.S. military intervention. However, amidst the backdrop of failed revolutions, two revolutions that stand out as the most successful were the Cuban revolution and the Nicaraguan revolution, which were the only two that completely overthrew their dictators. The Cuban revolution preceding the

majority of the revolutions in Latin America and was deemed an influence due to its “ideals and aspirations for the fulfillment of the age-old political, social, and economic aspirations for the fulfillment of the downtrodden masses.” The Nicaraguan revolution that came years later in the 1960s – 1980s mostly led by Carlos Fonseca, defeated the Somoza regime with strategies that were similar to those used in Cuba. The Cuban revolution had a great influence on the Nicaraguan thus making them similar in many ways, such as their areas of guerilla tactics, goals the revolution would achieve and fundamental principles that governed and guided the revolution.
The Cuban Revolution was the first of two successful revolutions in Latin America. Starting in the 1930s Cuba began to fall into an oppressed state when
Fulgencia Batista began to manipulate the Cuban government behind the scenes in 1934 during the revolution against Gerardo Machado. When he was elected as president in 1940, Batista maintained his rule through an authoritarian government that oppressed the people. The people of Cuba took notice to Batista’s methods and were not satisfied with the authoritarian rule and conditions of the relationship Cuba had established with the United States. The Cuban’s saw this relationship as dependent, which juxtaposed what they wanted, which was to be an independently functioning country. The Cubans felt like they were being served unjustly and were ready to make reforms. Revolution-aries such as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro recognized the inequality in their society and began to lead the revolution with a drive and passion for success. Guerrilla warfare, a tactic used in other revolutions preceding the Cuban revolution became a hallmark of the Cuban revolution due to its widespread success. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro led small armies throughout Cuba and performed strategically planned attacks against the government to unite the people against Batista. They began to have military success because of all of the support they gained from the working class Cubans in urban areas and lower class Cubans in rural areas. Batista was threatened by these attacks and recognized that the revolution against him had gained many followers, so he oppressed the people further hoping that would stop the revolution. The United States saw that the guerilla groups were gaining access to the arms they sent to Cuba, so they stopped sending arms, which weakened Cuba’s relationship with the United States. After Batista’s relationship with the U.S. was weakened, he and his followers fled Cuba on December 31, 1958 with 300 million dollars. Fidel arrived in Cuba in January 1959 to begin leadership and had a large amount of public support. Fidel had the best interest of the masses (the working class) in mind and to benefit them his policies were based on nationalizing private properties and businesses for with the hope of fixing inequalities in Cuba and setting them up for a brighter furture.
Pre-revolution, Cuba and Nicaragua were experiencing similar political, governmental, social and economic issues that created ideal conditions for change. In Cuba during the 1940s and specifically 1950s a majority of Cubans began to oppose the authoritarian rule Batista imposed. Similarly, in Nicaragua during the 1960s-1980s revolutionary actions took place in order to overthrow dictatorial Somoza regime, one of the longest family dynasties seen in Latin America, consisted of Anastasio Somoza, followed by his son Luis Somoza Debayle, who was followed by René Schick. Both the Cuban and Nicaraguans felt that the government was not fairly serving them. Under the rule of Batista, the Cuban people felt oppressed by military rule that infringed their basic human rights. A majority of the land and wealth was distributed to the minority of the people, the elites, and many poor and working class people struggled because of this stratification. The Cuban people wanted independence for their country, which they gained from Spain long ago. The dependent relationship Batista created with the United States frustrated the Cuban people because of their desire for independence. Nicaragua also struggles with a dependent relationship. The United States occupied Nicaragua from 1912-1933, in which they left after they replaced members of the National Guard so that it was politically neutral. Anastasio Somoza, a member of the National Guard who was hand picked by the United States completely replaced the new National Guard with liberals. The National Guard became an elite class that lacked opposing ideas that created an oppressive rule in Nicaragua that did not represent all Nicaraguans, especially the lower class. The relationship Somoza created with the U.S was similar to the one in Cuba where their economy and military became dependent. The Somoza regime also used oppressive military rule to remain dominant. The Nicaraguan people began to see the Somoza regime as corrupt and saw Nicaragua was ready for a revolution. In Cuba and Nicaragua “Would-be revolutionaries encountered the reality of hunger, the elements, peasant hostility, and, [if these were not enough to make them abandon the quest,] army bullets.” The first hand account of the disservice the government was doing to the people inspired the revolutionaries to make a real change. The military rule, oppression from the government, social stratification and inequality and economic dependency seen in Cuba and Nicaragua created ideal conditions for revolution.
Guerilla warfare contributed to the success of the Cuban revolution because of the small focused attacks that were strategically placed to take down Batista. In the Cuban revolution “the function of the guerilla foco was to drive the bourgeois-landowner state into the use of force, unmasking the true face of the oligarchic regime. Thus the foco itself would start the revolutionary process by turning the constitutional government into a repressive dictatorship against which popular opposition could be generated.” Guerilla warfare began as a very small movement in Cuba to combat the revolution. The point of guerilla warfare was to achieve success in the long run, but on that path guerilla groups would encounter many failures. An example of an unsuccessful attack would be the attack on the Moncada Barracks in July 26th 1953, Castro’s first attack against Batista. This attack became a symbol for the revolution and the inspiration for the name of Castro’s revolutionary party the July 16th Movement
(M-26-7). Attention was brought to the issues that Cuba’s government had as there were more small attacks. On January 17, 1957 Castro and army of 20 attacked the La Plata barracks, which was a military victory for Castro. In 1956 guerilla armies began to grow because of all the support they were gaining and with that the battle of Santa Clara is won in December As urban and rural guerilla warfare action and support of the revolution increased and caused an impact, Batista became more oppressive, which drew more peoples attention toward revolution. The guerilla attacks had such a great impact on the revolution because of how threatening they were to Batista. Guerilla attacks were crucial to the revolution and overthrow of the government, so “it was not until the Cuban Revolution that guerrilla warfare became the preferred method of insurrection in Latin America.”
Nicaragua also used guerilla warfare to overthrow the Somoza regime, and it contributed largely to their success in overthrowing the dictatorship. The guerilla attacks targeting the Somoza regime were effective in creating a revolution. The Somoza regime was hardly affected by guerilla attacks in the early 1960s because the National Guard stopped all guerilla attacks, and the Alliance for Progress took action in suppressing the revoltuion. The regime remained strong through oppression though they lacked support from the people. The Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) emerged in 1961. The FSLN was a Fidelista guerilla group who opposed Somoza. “The Nicaraguans’ model, as they planned their own uprising in 1962, was that of a rural guerrilla war, with peasant support and a mountain base camp, leading rapidly to a nationwide insurrection and military defeat of the dictator’s army.” Most of their attacks were ineffective, but over the next few years they managed to create networks of support in mostly rural but also urban areas. To gain support, they used Maoist strategy by appealing to the needs of the weak. The FSLN was the only guerilla group in Nicaragua to ever achieve success. Carlos Fonseca, an active revolutionary and leader of the FSLN was inspired by the Cuban revolution. “The victory of the July 26th movement, more than anything else, convinced him that something more radical than the PSN’s perspective of electoral blocs and labor organizing was possible in his own country.” The PSN was a less radical revolutionary party in Nicaragua. Like the Cuban revolution, the guerrilla attacks drew attention to the flaws in the government and egged them on to oppress them more to prove their point. In Nicaragua the actions of the FSLN highlighted that “the repression of 1975 and 1976 seriously undermined the idea that Somoza had a moral right to govern Nicaragua or that he could continue to do so with any measure of stability.” The Foco theory of guerilla warfare as seen in Cuba was applied to the revolution in Nicaragua and contributed to its success.
The goals that revolution would obtain in Nicaragua were very similar to those in Cuba. They both needed a revolution in order to make change in the system so that the working class given political, social and economic justice. The purpose of the revolution was to “return to the workers and peasants, to all working people, the riches that have been violently ripped from them.” They desired to be liberated from dictatorships and authoritarian rule, foreign intervention and occupation from the United States, having to be dependent on the United States to keep a stable economy, inequality, and social stratification due to the dominance of the elites, which were a very small percentage of the population. The two themes that Carlos Fonseca guided the revolution with were “the fight for national liberation and against U.S. imperialism the struggle for socialist revolution.” Socialism appealed to the Nicaraguans because it supported the working class and socialist policies promoted equality. With Cuba being successful the Nicaraguans were able to “look to Cuba – and behind Cuba, the Russian Revolution – for inspiration and a sense of what was possible.” As the Nicaraguans fought the revolution, drawing similarities between Nicaragua’s current state and Cuba’s past, “following the Cuban road meant not just overthrowing the U.S. backed Somoza dictatorship but also beginning the socialist transformation of Nicaragua” The adoption of socialism was crucial to creating equality and satisfying their revolutionary goals.
The core principles and fundamentals of the Nicaraguan revolution were in place to aid the poor and working class to find justice in society; they were similar to those established in the Cuban revolution, which they took inspiration from.

The goal for change in the revolution would cause the tables to turn for an outcome where the oppressed would have their voices heard and satisfied. As said by Fidel Castro, “the revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.” With the people who suffered from injustice in the Cuban society in mind the July 26th movement’s core principles were to achieve “national sovereignty, economic independence, work for all, social justice, education, political democracy, civil authority, religious freedom, public morality, and constructive friendship with all countries.” All these things they wanted to change for the benefit of the lower part of the socio-economic spectrum, which was the majority of Cuba and Nicaragua. Including other fundamentals from the July 26th Movement, the FSLN had “democratic demands for land reform, nationalization of foreign owned mines, and expropriation of the wealth of Somoza and his friends.” The people’s recognition that they were not being justly served by their government caused them to gain a set of core principles which were based off having the country serve workers rather than only fulfill the needs of the

elites.
The Cuban revolution seen as the first successful revolution in Latin America influenced other countries in their revolutions such as Nicaragua. The lower class and working people of Cuba and Nicaragua both suffered from oppression from authoritarian governments, which inspired revolutionaries to create change. The revolutions wanted to attain similar goals, which included social justice, economic freedom, independence form foreign intervention and equality. Cuba demonstrated ideal strategies and goals for revolution that had a successful outcome, which caused the Cuban revolution to become an influence for other countries in Latin America and successfully for Nicaragua. As said by Augusto Sandino, an influential figure in the Nicaraguan revolution, “the New World should be the land of genuinely free nations.”