What was pre-Castro Cuba like?

[bleedingheart]

I know there are people who absolutely detest Castro because he is a communist and he has imprisoned people etc... however if he was such a bad guy...why no popular uprisings in his over forty year dictatorship?

What was it like before he came to power, why did the people rally to him??

My mom remembers little of the Cuban-American politics of that era but she felt that communism was a welcome alternative to the cronyism of the prior government and that many american companies and the wealthy Cuban landowners were pushing on the poor until they got pushed out.

[MissBrooks]

1. Miami

[SharonAnn]

51. My husbandlived there as a teenager in a middle-class family.

His dad was the manager of an international company and a regular business man, selling and servicing office equipment.

They lived in Havana so rarely saw the terrible poverty of much of the country, but they saw enough to know it was there. They were not wealthy, like the "old families" or the Mob related businesses, just solidly middle-class. The office was closed in 1958 and the family was moved to another country.

He said it is a beautiful country and it's a shame the people still don't have a democratic government but it's good that the old families are gone.

[montanacowboy]

2. Wealthy Americans - Mob connected businesses,

American corporate owned everything...it was a real playground for the connected and the rich, lots of mob ties - that's why all those Cubanos in Florida are dying to take it back

[Jacobin]

3. Mafia playground, brutal military dictator repressing Cubans

[enigami]

6. not that castro is a brutal military dictator ?

[bleedingheart]

8. The Czar was a brutal dictator yet people jumped onto the

communist band wagon...and ended up with Stalin...who was worse than the Romanovs in many ways.

36. How was he worse...

than the Romanovs?

[Sterling]

43. I don't think it was a contest.

But Stalin was exceptional paranoid and cruel. I think they both were pretty damn bad.

[enigami]

4. Like Vegas

only more fun

[catzies]

21. and with better weather

n/t

[Calico Jack Rackham]

22. Like Vegas

with a secret police force.

[TroubleMan]

44. and young women and girls being forced into prostitution.

Castro's not a good guy, but he's better than Batista. So you can imagine how bad he was.

[ET Awful]

5. Las Vegas, but without as much enforcement and fewer regulations

coupled with big industry, etc.

[bleedingheart]

7. basically all the posts are reinforcing what my mom told me...

when she was a newly married gal in the early 50's it was very fashionable to go to Cuba for a few days...she refused because her first husband was a naturalized US citizen and did not have his passport and she didn't want him to be refused reentry into the US..

[ET Awful]

10. It's also worth mentioning that one of the reasons that Cuba

became a communist nation is that the US refused to help in their revolution, so they turned to the Soviet Union for assistance instead, or so some accounts of the times tell us.

Had the US helped the revolutionaries, not only would Cuba not be a communist country today, but would probably be a close ally.

[bleedingheart]

14. that is very interesting....

[Cuban_Liberal]

15. Bingo!

Thank you!

:thumbsup:

[Carl Brennan]

33. Why would Cuba being communist prevent them from being our ally??

Heck, during WWII two of our staunchest allies: the Soviet Union and China were communist. :shrug:


It is interesting to note that the utterly corrupt Chinese nationalist Chiang Kai-Shek was, like Battista, into drug dealing. The US chose to side with Mao because he was more dependable. Kai-Shek was so corrupt that he was profiteering off of illegal dope sent to Japaneze soldiers occupying his own country. This is the sleazebag that then settled in Taiwan.

Check out Alfred McCoy's "The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade".

[ET Awful]

35. Because at the time this happened we were at the peak of the "Red Scare"

[Carl Brennan]

37. Yea, the Red Scare was manufactured then as the anti-Castro

jingoism is now.

I was watching this old movie from WWII: "The Stage Door Canteen" about dance club in the US for GI's. It was amazing, they had Soviet and Communist Chinese troops being heralded as heroes being carried around on the shoulders of US GI's.

Then bang! almost overnight the Communists became our allies in war became our enemies in peace???

Very Orwellian. hmmmm. I wonder if Orwell was inspired by this?

[ET Awful]

41. Almost entirely throughout it's history, the US has practiced a philosophy

of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Doesn't matter who it was. That's how Rusmfeld made friends with Saddam. That's how the US backed the Mjahadeen and helped train Osama. That's how we ended up in bed with Stalin during WW2. That's how we put Pinochet it power in Chile, the list goes on and on and on.

[Carl Brennan]

42. But there is something deeper than this. Why the sudden flip

after WWII with China? What friend of our enemy were they? How does one go from ally to enemy in the blink of an eye?

IMHO once the Axis powers were defeated there were elements in the US: Dulles and other right-wing sleazebags who set about to create a new boogey man to justify the expansion of their highly profitable Military Industrial Complex.

[Sterling]

45. The Commies took complete control after WW2 in China.

That is enough reason to be enemies as far as the corporatist are concerned. It is a direct threat to their power.

From the 20s through 1949 I believe their was civil war going on in China. I think that is one reason Japan chose to take advantage of the situation and invade in the 30s. So During WW2 there was a civil war still going on in China. I am not sure if the Nationalists and the Commies cooperated during WW 2 but not long after the war the Nationalists were forced to retreat to Taiwan leaving total control of the mainland to the communists.

[Carl Brennan]

65. The thing that doesn't make sense is why we were close allies in a

bloody war for our mutual survival and then suddenly enemies. We had a choice between backing Mao or Kai-shek and we chose Mao. Later the Kuomintang element of the Nationalists got into the drug trade in SE Asia with the CIA.

[chicagiana]

76. Phiplosiphy doesn't matter ...

... what matters is that the so called "nationalists" were willing to bend over and kiss the ass of American businessman and mobsters.

The "communists" were the ones who wanted to be "all Chinese". In the end, they were led by the same self-serving types as the nationalists. Except, they weren't willing to give up sovereignty to the US.

[Sterling]

46. Well yes....

But Communism was and is a very real threat to the American aristocracy. Have you read Webster Tarpley's book on the Bush's?

It touches on a lot of this stuff.

[Carl Brennan]

68. I agree, Communism is a threat to the artistocrats, but, a great ally

to the have nots when needed.

IMO this whole Communist-- Capitalist antagonism is a smokescreen to cover up class struggle and our allegiance with Mao and Stalin in WWII shows that they were not a threat to us. Stalin and Roosevelt had a falling out over information sharing agreement made during the war. It was Allen Dulles who provoked this row between them by withholding this information and then Roosevelt died before it could be rectified. This was the birth of the Cold War IMO. Dulles was involved in some very weird banking arrangements in Switzerland where he was head of the German Shroeder bank there. Then he helped alot of high level Nazis escape on the "ratline". I think that Dulles was behind laundering Nazi loot in that bank. Patton's army were the ones who seized the loot as they advanced through Germany and Patton may have been murdered to shut him up:

http://www.gooff.com/news/read.asp?ID=1570
.........Gen. George S. Patton wanted to retire because he planned on being able to speak his mind about America being "soft on Communism." However, before resigning his Commission, he died after an automobile accident forced him to be hospitalized. In 1979, Douglas Bazata, a former Secret Service agent for the Office of Strategic Services(OSS, the predecessor of the CIA) revealed that he was ordered by the Director 'Wild Bill' Donovan to kill Patton in 1944. Although he didn't, he knows who did, and said that Patton was killed with cyanide at the hospital he was taken to after the accident.......

[ET Awful]

52. The flip occurred primarily because of a fear that post- WW2,

the only two superpowers were Russia and the US. Two very different philosophies and ways of life.

Some would argue that the only reason that nuclear weapons were used against Japan was to show our "strength" to Russion in order to dissuade them from any direct or indirect action against the US.

[no name no slogan]

69. Go read "An Homage To Catalonia"-- his book about the Spanish Civil War

Orwell spent time in an international battallion fighting against the Fascists. "Homage" is an autobiographical book about his experiences fighting in a predominantly non-Leninist Socialist unit in Catalonia.

The anti-Fascists in Spain were hardly a unified bloc, with Communists, Socialists, Anarchists and Republican Liberals all fighting against fascism. There was a lot of infighting and betrayal amongst the Republican factions, which is why they lost to the fascists in the end.

IMHO it's a good clue as to what inspired Orwell's later writings.

[tsuki]

54. Castro closed the brothels, the mob casinos, and the American

Politicos had no where to "fact find."

Castro had to cut ties with the corruption of the US to educate his people, implement health and dental care, and redistribute the wealth.

[Carl Brennan]

70. And the CIAs point man in pre-Castro Cuba was drug kingpin Santos

Trafficante, also Carlos Marcello. When JFK sought to moderate the US stance against Castro you can bet this pissed these guys off. The House Assasinations Committee named Marcello and Trafficante as the two main suspects in JFK's assasination.

[tsuki]

72. And so, for over 40 years, never having fought a war, we have boycotted

Cuba. Right.

[Carl Brennan]

73. Castro messed up the CIA--Mafia illegal drug trade.

[d_b]

79. Castro supposedly jailed members of the communist party

shortly after the revolution

[bobbieinok]

84. Castro came to US to ask for help and gave a speech at the UN

like so many other leaders/countries.....unable to get help from US, they turned to the soviet union

[NNN0LHI]

9. Think Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, and Bugsy Siegel n/t

[ET Awful]

11. That's BENNY goddamnit, nobody calls me Bugsy :)

Meyer Lansky was an interesting guy (and was the inspiration for Hyman Roth in the Godfather II). Meyer is also the one who originated the line "We're bigger than US Steel."

Siegel was the inspiration for Moe Green in the Godfather films.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. An American colony with a puppet president.

Kind of like what BushCorp would like to do with the rest of the 3rd world.

[NNN0LHI]

13. Or as Chimpy would call it, a democracy n/t

[ET Awful]

17. LMAO

Funniest one-liner I've seen all day :)

[Carl Brennan]

34. LOL nice one!!

:toast:

[oneighty]

16. Shipmates

of mine prior to Castro made regular trips to Cuba for fun and games. Plenty of whores, live sex shows, animals and girls. And so on.

I am glad Castro kicked Batista and the American criminals out.

180

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. This is like asking, "What was China like before Mao?" In other words,

is the country better or worse off than if Mao and his guerrilla army had not seized control? The country was split into various corrupt and feudal factions.

My parents are both from there and their families had different experiences. Mother's family were landowners and suffered terribly post revolution and during the Cultural Revolution. My father's family was essentially proletarian industrial workers.

My mother spent most of her life hating anything associated with Communism on general principle. My father recognizes various evils from the government under Mao but feels the country is overall significantly ahead of where it probably would have been if there had been no Mao.

[jaysunb]

19. Did you know that

65 % of all Cubans are Afro-Cubans ?
Have you noticed that nearly 100% of the "exiles" are not ?

Take these facts and put them together and you'll probaly start getting the BIG picture.

[bleedingheart]

20. I have noticed that but didn't know the percentages

thanks for the info.

[sonicx]

25. I think you have it backwards. I read that most Cubans are white and...

the rest are mixed or black.

edit: on second thought, i just looked at wikipedia, and it says that only 37% are white (and 51% mixed, 11% black).

[jaysunb]

29. 65%

are Black or mixed.....100% of the Miami crowd claim to be white.

[ChairOne]

49. Spoken like a true American - lol

1/3 white, approx.

[tsuki]

55. Ask an exile and they will tell you that they are not Cuban...they

are Spanish.

[ChairOne]

59. A *white* exile mebbe.... /eom

[tsuki]

63. Ask former Florida Republican Governor Martinez for example.

[ChairOne]

64. Perfect! lol /eom

[JanMichael]

23. "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!"

<stomps>

[GoBlue]

24. Basically the government was a dictator name Juan Batista

who was friendly to the rich. Kinda like Bush. Americans just loved vacationing and "investing" there.

[ragin_acadian]

26. pre-castro, the average lifespan of most cuban's was around mid thirty.

or at least that is what i heard. the vast majority were uneducated and living in poverty. kinda like the yucatan is now. they also had to deal with a dictator.

now cubans have healthcare, their average lifespan is mid 70's, 99% or more of the population is educated. big difference. they still have a "dictator"

so he locks up a few people that disagree with his government. i guess that makes him a bad guy. or maybe most of what we hear is propaganda sponsored by the U.S. government. or maybe those guys that got locked up were on the cia payroll, or financed by some group of exiled rich and infamous former cuban casino owners, sugarcane plantation owners, or other nefarious group that did the cuban people so well 50 years ago.

personally, i think the U.S. is more brutal to the cuban's than castro is. first off: sanctions - doesn't hurt the cuban government, it hurts the cuban people, even jimmy carter agrees with that. cia operatives shipped swine flu to cuba in the 1970's, did castro care? no. did cuban people starve, yes. there are other examples where WE have directly or indirectly blown up ship yards, factories, and other things that i am too lazy to look up right now.

i dunno, i think our attitude towards cuba is a farce. look at the two nations that we are coziest with: israel, and china - they have a better human rights record than cuba?

[tsuki]

56. Cuba has a better human rights record than the US.

[Warpy]

27. A Cuban landlord of mine about 30 years ago

talked to me at great length about this. His family had been business owners in Cuba, not rich but certainly comfortable. My landlord thought that Cuba desperately needed a revolution because too many were starving under Batista, while his cronies got rich. His family supported Castro and stayed after their business was nationalized, still supporting the revolution. Eventually they fled, though, because an inlaw had once been part of Batista's hated secret police, and I suppose the whole extended family was getting blamed for what one member had done.

The man still greatly admired Castro and what he had accomplished for the ordinary people of Cuba, even faced with an embargo the US seems to cling to like a smoker who wants to quit but can't quite face discarding that last pack of cigarettes. That didn't stop him from threatening to send his kids to Cuba to let the communists straighten them out whenever they misbehaved, though.

I think everyone that Batista wasn't directly enriching realized that Cuba needed a revolution and a great deal of reform. That there's such tremendous room for improvement in the area of civil rights shouldn't be a shock. Even under Castro, it's still better than it was under Batista.

The real test will come when Castro dies. If he's provided for a succession outside his family, perhaps the reforms will endure while reforms in the area of civil rights and limited free enterprise are enacted. I think this is what everyone hopes for. What they may get is a counterrevolution launched by all the bitter Batista Cubans in Miami and backed by Chimp.

[tsuki]

57. Castro educated the Cuban populace for his death. There will never be

a Batista counter revolution. The Bastistas will remain in Miami, the pampered of the Republican Party.

[Lefty48197]

28. My parents said it was like we think of Hawaii today: Paradise.

.

[tsuki]

61. My European friends call it paradise. Without Americans.

[MisterP]

30. tropical Disneyworld run by Brando and Pacino

[JanMichael]

31. Like Epcot and everybody was smiling and happy!

It was heaven on Earth. Much like Disney World and Las Vegas all wrapped up in a big warm fuzzy blanket!

[Mika]

32. Here ya go.. stats

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[robcon]

38. At least one thing hasn't changed...

"Police brutality and torture were common. "

[TheKingfish]

39. Guantanomo doesn't fall under Cuba's Jurisdiction

[tsuki]

60. Especially in Gitmo.

[ngant17]

40. Cuba BC (before Castro)

See some real audio of a recent interview I made of a resistance underground fighter from Havana at this link:

<http://www.geocities.com/ngant17/intervw1.htm>

name slightly changed at his request to protect from retailiation by Miami terrorists.

Just ask the Cuban people in Cuba while there is still time. They'd love to tell their story, most of the original 'historicos' are in their 70's and 80's now and Bush is trying to keep the lid on people-to-people contacts for that reason and more.

[Tinoire]

80. Cool! welcome to DU Ngant17

Welcome :toast:

That was very interesting! Thank you for sharing that :)

[Stinky The Clown]

47. Actually, the short bit about Cuba in "The Godfather" is quite accurate

if little more than a snapshot .... government cavorting with gangsters. Sex trade. Revolution.

In the 40's and 50's it was quite the vacation destination. Tropical paradise but with all the "sin" one could ask for. Batista defined banana republican.

[ChairOne]

50. Honduras defined "banana republic", IIRC... /eom

[ChairOne]

48. Pre-Castro Cuba = Juan Crow, also...

There are white Cubans and black Cubans after all, and the typical bush-voting-block ones in Miami (for example) were the white massa's, before they got thrown out by Castro... If nothing else, that helps to clarify why American Cubans are, on the whole, such gung-ho republicans...

There are some people who think that one of the major roots of US policy towards Cuba has to do with the racism, with the Commie+ stuff being used as a convenient smokescreen...

"Neeger" is, I believe, still a perfectly common word en la lengua...

The following seems to be a not-awful, if Reader's Digest-y account:

http://www.angelfire.com/pr/red/cuba/cuba_anti_racism.htm

[tsuki]

53. I remember the Baptistas fleeing Cuba. If I, as a junior high schooler,

could have sent them back to face the revolution, I would have. They were freepers, evil, vile, people that exploited all that Cuba had to offer.

The life expectancy under Baptista for the Cuban peasant was 35 years of age.

[ChairOne]

58. Who? /eom

[dflprincess]

62. Another thing ignored by the exiles who fled Castro

is that there were people forced out of Cuba because of Batista. I believe Desi Arnaz's family were among the Batista exiles.

[malaise]

66. Isn't it ironic that

since the most rapacious elements from all classes left Cuba, there is real social democracy. Education is world class; health care is world class and they are among the most self-sufficient people on the planet.

Isn't it ironic that the Cuban people were able to use adversity - the embargo - to advance science and technology with some help from the S.U. and others.

What many see as classic cars is mere evidence of the endurance, ingenuity and humn capacity of the Cuban people. They can fix anything - they throw away very little. Life is hard for the majority of humanity across the planet and Cuba is no different, but there is nothing that the majority of humanity view as more important than health and education.

The Cubans have also been very wise - there is no MSM.

I tell you what - if I had to select a place for retirement, Cuba would be my first choice. They are an intelligent people and community is everything there. Further, in Cuba I can turn on TV for news and find news.
Fidel's Cuba is an amazing example of human development.

[Mika]

71. Hey, malaise. FYI You can't use your SS money in Cuba

The US congress added a law a few years ago to the thousands of US laws passed against Cuba and American citizens that prevents US social security and medicaid and medicare checks from being cashed in Cuba or for use in Cuba.

Nice huh?

Anywhere but Cuba for "free" Americans.

[ngant17]

74. "Hey, malaise. FYI You can't use your SS money in Cuba"

I would think that with a little creativity and some honest friends to help out, you could possibly circumvent the teeth in this law.

For example, you can deposit money to an account in Canada which is directly transferable to a debit-card system which is widely-used and accepted in Cuba. The only drawback is the recent (Nov. 2004)abandoment of US dollars as an acceptable currency in Cuba, you basically pay a 10% penalty for dollar-conversions now. But everything can be traded on the euro instead of the dollar, and there is really nothing more than an inconvenience of conversion.

Again, with this approach, you need to have US citizens living here and who you completely trust, someone who can do the money transfers to Canada while you stay in Cuba. I don't know the law for longterm residence in Cuba by foreign citizens, but that's a separate issue.

[malaise]

82. Lucky me then

I'm not American.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

67. I was never there, but I know a couple who honeymooned there

They said that the land was beautiful, that the hotels were the height of luxury, but that they saw some of the poor sections of Havana, which made them wonder how people could survive in such an environment. Even in some of the better sections, they were spotted as Anglo tourists and accosted by beggars.

[TheKingfish]

85. Oh no not beggars!!

Try comparing Cuba to Haiti and not your neighborhood to be realistic.

[FlaGranny]

75. Nightclubs and

prostitution for people with money and squalor for the average Cuban.

[Jim Warren]

77. See some states of Mexico today

Oaxaca (wife is from there) or Chiapas for example.
Good ol' right wing government in action: the Latin American model.
Small ruling elite fabulously well-to-do family connected, majority population xpoor peasant class.

[d_b]

78. A U.S. cash-cow.

[leftofthedial]

81. a cross between miami, vegas and colombia

more or less

[jesusq]

83. Younger Cuban friends of mine

say they would go back to Cuba if they could make $100 more a month. Most of the older exiles were affluent Cubans and took their money and ran like hell. Perhaps a better question would be, What would post-Castro Cuba be like if the USA had not worked so diligently to undermine Castro for the last 40 years? Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) is facing some of the same challenges, but lucky for him, his country is sitting on the fifth largest oil reserves in the world, so no trade embargoes for Chavez.