The First Years of the Revolution in Cuba

The first years

On January 5, 1959, Manuel Urrutia, defense lawyer for the Moncada barrack attackers, took over Cuba's presidency. Fidel arrived in Havana on January 8 and was appointed Prime Minister on February 16. Among the first measures taken by the young Revolution were: the reduction on apartment rent and electricity tariffs, together with the abolition of racial discrimination. Vice-president Richard Nixon welcomed Fidel during a visit in Washington and subsequently labeled him a communist. After this meeting, Nixon unleashed a subversive anti-Castro propaganda that gradually led to Bay of Pigs Invasion. Meanwhile, the Agrarian Reform was taking place in Cuba, through which all large-landed estates (over 400 ha) were nationalized, mainly affecting big American companies. In July, President Urrutia resigned after having strongly criticized the Agrarian Reform and was immediately replaced by Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, leader of the M-26-7 in the city of Cienfuegos. Later in October, the military Commander in Camagüey, Hubert Matos, attempted a coup d´etat that was successfully controlled by Commander Camilo Cienfuegos, who disappeared during his flight back to Havana. Cuban émigrés in Miami flew over Havana in B-25 planes, overtly trying to provoke a confrontation. As an answer to these actions, the Popular Militias were organized to safeguard the Revolution. At this time, counterrevolutionary bands supported by the CIA began operating in the Sierra del Escambray.

Meanwhile, the island's economic difficulties kept growing and many of the professionals who did not share the idea of a new society left for exile in Miami. With worsening relations between the US and Cuba, the latter sought support in the Soviet Union and important agreements were struck, many Russian technicians and professionals were sent to fill the deficit left by the Cuban professionals who had abandoned the country. On March 1960, the French merchant ship "La Coubre", transporting a cargo of weapons from Belgium, mysteriously exploded in Havana's port, resulting in 81 casualties and 200 wounded. The Cuban émigrés in Miami were blamed for the sabotage and relations with the northern neighbor worsened even more. Shortly after, President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to train and equip counterrevolutionaries to overthrow Castro's regime, this favored the strengthening of diplomatic relations with the USSR. In June 1960, under the American government's pressure, all refineries in Cuba which were owned by American companies: Texaco, Standard Oil and Shell, refused to refine Soviet oil. As a result they were also nationalized. This rendered Cuba totally depended on Soviet oil, and economic pressure on the part of the US deepened considerably. In July, Eisenhower cut the Cuban sugar quota to 70 000 t and the Soviet Union offered to buy all the sugar the Americans rejected, strengthening the Revolution's foothold. In August 1960, the revolutionary government nationalized American owned telephone and electricity companies, and many other US assets. The outraged American government issued the Organization of American States (OAS) a motion on extraterritorial intervention in the Western hemisphere (in reference to the Soviet Union), to which Cuba responded with the establishments of relations with socialist China and began to incite the rest of Latin America to rid themselves from the American neo-colonial control.

On September 28 that same year, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) were created to reinforce the support for the revolutionary process, while in a meeting with the United Nations, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to provide Cuba with arms to fight back any actions perpetrated by opposing armed troops. In October, most of the banks and almost 400 other Cuban companies had been nationalized, together with the nationalization of the real estate business through the Urban Reform Law. On October 9, the US imposed a partial embargo on Cuba, which brought about the confiscation of all American business remaining on the island. The Cold War attitude and actions of the American government facilitated the establishment of socialism in Cuba, in close partnership with the Soviet Union.