Cuba Libre! is a an entertianing read as a summary, about 300 pages or so. And it does not deal much with the question I am asking. But I did not know that just after the revolution, Castro was looked upon as a hero in the US. He went on the Ed Sullivan show, Ed describing him as a “wonderful revolutionary.” Castro and Che were compared to The Sons of Liberty et al.
Then Castro nationalized the sugar industry and shut down the casinos and the US imposed the embargo and Castro sided with the Soviet Union, who would buy the sugar. What else was he going to do? I think Castro had every right to nationalize sugar, the Cuban people had been exploited for decades.
But what if he had not done that, or if the US had decided to work with him as an ally? Would Castro have become a communist?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CR5YM87/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Castro was a Marxist at heart. Being America’s puppet was never in the cards for Castro. He hated the fact that the US was exploiting Cuba and it’s people. He hated that many wealthy Cubans owed their success and loyalty to American corporate and political interest. Additionally, America’s attempts to foil his revolution was not something he would ever forgive.
I agree. Castro didn’t convert to communism after taking over Cuba. He already was a communist but chose to downplay this until he had achieved power. He understood that if he had openly proclaimed his goal of setting up a communist regime in Cuba, the United States would have offered far more support to the Batista regime.
I think if the US would have accepted him and tried to work with this new Cuba things would have been different. But no, we tried the Bay of Pigs and tried to assassinate Castro. Over time Castro would have relaxed things and relations would be much better.
Incidentally a relative of mine from Iowa was selected to visit Cuba on a friendship tour early on after Castro took over. He got to be in the same room as Castro but didnt get to actually meet him.
Castro wanted not just a break from US clienthood but also the overthrow of the Cuban social and economic elites, was willing to be totally ruthless to make it so, and would know from the start he’d have to get the opposing Great Power on his side to survive. Otherwise he would not be allowed to: just 5 years earlier the CIA/local Right Wingers/Military had knocked over democratic leftist Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and just 4 years later the same forces would do so to democratic leftist Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic. Given that was the deal for elected socialists, the USA was not going to embrace Castro. Bay of Pigs happened barely 2 years into Castro being in power, so there was the intention to engineer an “uprising” almost from the start (main difference with Arbenz and Bosch being Castro had quickly purged the Batista military and goverment and had his own loyal forces in charge)
Didnt that other guy make an argument.
Communism is resource abundance. Cuba joined communism because of its oil and iron.
Run that by again. Cuba has oil and iron deposits?
True but Cuban oil production has no global economic implications. Cuba consumes all of the oil it produces domestically so it doesn’t export oil. In fact Cuba imports oil as its domestic production covers less than a third of its consumption.
But that is all Venezuelan aid.