PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND

WORLD HISTORY ASSIGNMENT

NAME: SHRINWANTI NAYAK

ROLL NO.: 21/POL/120
COURSE: B.A.(H) POLITICAL SCIENCE
YEAR: II
SEMESTER: III
SUBMISSION TO: DR. PAPORI KONWAR
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 11-11-2022
 QUESTION: DISCUSS ANY ONE INCIDENT/ EVENT/ EPISODE FROM
THE HISTORY OF THE 20TH CENTURY (FIRST WORLD WAR,1914 TO
THE DISINTEGRATION OF USSR, 1991), WHICH YOU THINK HAS
SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACTED INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. WHY DO
YOU THINK SO?

ANSWER:
THE CUBAN REVOLUTION: FIDEL CASTRO – A GLOBAL
INFLUENCE AND CHE GUEVARA – A YOUTH ICON.

“This time the revolution is for real”, Fidel Castro proclaimed in January 1, 1959. Since then,
Cuba has charted a course different from the rest of the Carribean; the revolution effected the
island's real independence from the United States and restructured Cuban society in favour of
the popular classes. Revolutionary Cuba offered an alternative to dependent capitalism, though
one sustained by substantial trade, credit and aid from the Soviet Union until 1989. Socialism
registered social advancements (such as health and education) which towered impressively
over those of most of the Third World, though it never quite realized stable rates of economic
growth and steady improvements in overall living standards. While firmly bound by a single
party, the political system also drew on the exceptional leadership of Fidel Castro and at least
initially an extraordinary fount of popular support.
Global relationships have become deeply embedded in the advancement of human species.
International relations have helped spread technology into areas far beyond the lands in which
they were developed. In the process, societies developed new complexities and these new
connections nourished an environment promoting outward expansion. Trade increased wealth
and growing ideologies united various people under shared beliefs. As these global
relationships created the conditions needed for advancement, they have also paved the way for
imperial conquests. Although time has progressed, the globalized world of today still carries
the traits of the past. As the world becomes more intertwined and the global market expands,
the question that must be asked is: How will society approach the international relationships of
the future?
This essay will trace the uprise and course of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 from the
international point of view along with the significance of two most important figures of the
revolution Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
America had been highly influential in Cuba since early 1900s. Much of Cuba’s industry was
owned by US business and its main export, sugar, was controlled by the USA. In 1950’s, Cuba
was being led under the corrupt and oppressive military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
However, he supported US interests on the island and hence, Washington supported him. The
seeds of the revolution were sown when Batista seized power during a hotly contested election.
When it became clear that Batista—who had been president from 1940 to 1944—would not
win the 1952 election, he seized power prior to the voting and cancelled the elections outright.
Many people in Cuba were disgusted by his power grab, preferring Cuba’s democracy, as
flawed as it was. One such person was rising political star Fidel Castro, who would likely have
won a seat in Congress had the 1952 elections taken place. Castro immediately began plotting
Batista’s downfall.

On the morning of July 26, 1953, Castro made his move. For a revolution to succeed, he needed
weapons, and he selected the isolated Moncada barracks as his target. The compound was
attacked at dawn by 138 men. It was hoped that the element of surprise would make up for the
rebels’ lack of numbers and arms. The attack was a fiasco almost from the start, and the rebels
were routed after a firefight that lasted a few hours. Many were captured. Nineteen federal
soldiers were killed; those remaining took out their anger on captured rebels, and most of them
were shot. Fidel and Raul Castro escaped but were later captured.

The Castros and surviving rebels were put on public trial. Fidel, a trained lawyer, turned the
tables on the Batista dictatorship by making the trial about the power grab. Basically, his
argument was that as a loyal Cuban, he had taken up arms against the dictatorship because it
was his civic duty. He made long speeches and the government belatedly tried to shut him up
by claiming he was too ill to attend his own trial. His most famous quote from the trial was,
“History will absolve me.” He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but had become a nationally
recognized figure and a hero to many poor Cubans.
In May 1955, the Batista government, bending to international pressure to reform, released
many political prisoners, including those who had taken part in the Moncada assault. Fidel and
Raul Castro went to Mexico to regroup and plan the next step in the revolution. There they met
up with many disaffected Cuban exiles who joined the new “26th of July Movement,” named
after the date of the Moncada assault. Among the new recruits were charismatic Cuban exile
Camilo Cienfuegos and Argentine doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevara. In November 1956, 82 men
crowded onto the tiny yacht Granma and set sail to Cuba and revolution.

Batista and his inner circle, seeing that Castro’s victory was inevitable, took what loot they
could gather up and fled. Batista authorized some of his subordinates to deal with Castro and
the rebels. The people of Cuba took to the streets, joyfully greeting the rebels. Cienfuegos and
Guevara and their men entered Havana on January 2, 1959, and disarmed the remaining
military installations. Castro made his way into Havana slowly, pausing in every town, city,
and village along the way to give speeches to the cheering crowds, finally entering Havana on
January 9, 1959.

The Castro brothers quickly consolidated their power, sweeping away all remnants of the
Batista regime and muscling out all of the rival rebel groups that had aided them in their rise
to power. Raul Castro and Che Guevara were put in charge of organizing squads to round up
the Batista-era "war criminals" who'd engaged in torture and murder under the old regime in
order to bring them to trial and execution.

Bay of Pigs

A timeline released by the National Security Archives shows the U.S. began planning to
overthrow the government of Cuba in October, 1959. On April 17, 1961, approximately 1,400
members of a CIA-trained Cuban exile force landed at the Bay of Pigs, while the United States
denied any involvement.
Documents released by the National Security Archive show that the CIA expected the Cuban
people to welcome a U.S.-sponsored invasion, spontaneously rising up against the Castro
regime. It expected Cuban military and police forces to refuse to fight against the CIA's 1,400-
man mercenary invasion force. President Kennedy had withdrawn support for the invasion at
the last minute by cancelling several bombing sorties that could have crippled the entire Cuban
Air Force. The brief military invasion ended in total failure and quickly became a foreign policy
debacle for Kennedy. He had approved the plan just three months into his presidency.

The Cubans had repelled the invaders, killing many and capturing a thousand. On May 1, 1961,
as hundreds of thousands celebrating May Day roared their approval, Castro announced:
“The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin
America than the revolutionary government. … If Mr. Kennedy does not like socialism, we
do not like imperialism. We do not like Capitalism.”
In a nationally broadcast speech on December 2, 1961, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-
Leninist and that Cuba was adopting Communism. On February 7, 1962, the U.S. imposed an
embargo against Cuba. This embargo was broadened during 1962 and 1963, including a general
travel ban for American tourists.
Many theories are offered for the failure of the U.S. operation. Some argue that Kennedy's last-
minute decision to withdraw air support caused the invasion to fail. Others argue that the
Americans misjudged Cuban support for Castro. They had believed the testimonies of the
Cuban exiles, who told them that Castro was not well supported by the Cuban people. In the
weeks prior to the invasion, the Castro regime had rounded up tens of thousands of Cubans,
holing them up in sports stadiums across the island in order to quash discontent on the island
and prevent its adversaries from joining exile forces. The idea that Cubans would rise up against
Castro, while possibly correct judging from the discontent reported to be growing on the island
at the time, would never happen — perhaps as a result of the widespread incarcerations
throughout Cuba and the reprisals the families would have to endure, like public humiliation
and harassment. As well, the CIA-trained force of 1,400 armed only with light arms faced a
Cuban force of tens of thousands armed with tanks and artillery. In addition, the covert
placement of dozens of Cuban intelligence officials in the invasion force gave the Cuban
government detailed information on the operation.

Cuban Missiles Crisis

Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. heightened during the 1962 missile crisis, which nearly
brought the US and the USSR into nuclear conflict. Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing
missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to a possible U.S. invasion and justified the move in response
to US missile deployment in Turkey. After consultations with his military advisors, he met
with a Cuban delegation led by Raúl Castro in July in order to work out the specifics. It was
agreed to deploy Soviet R-12 MRBMs on Cuban soil; however, American Lockheed U-2
reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on 15 October 1962
before the weapons had actually been deployed. The US government viewed the installation of
Soviet nuclear weapons 90 miles south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to US
security. As a result, the US publicly announced its discovery on 22 October 1962, and
implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels
heading for the island. Nikolai Serge Vich Leonov, who would become a General in the KGB
Intelligence Directorate and the Soviet KGB deputy station chief in Warsaw, was the translator
Castro used for contact with the Russians during this period.
In a personal letter to Khrushchev dated 27 October 1962, Castro urged Khrushchev to launch
a nuclear first strike against the United States if Cuba were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected
any first strike response. Soviet field commanders in Cuba were; however, authorized to use
tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. Khrushchev agreed to remove the
missiles in exchange for a US commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the
US would remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a
measure that the US implemented a few months later. The missile swap was never publicized
because the Kennedy Administration demanded secrecy in order to preserve NATO relations
and protect Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections.

Cuba and the world

Although Castro initially positioned himself as a nationalist, he soon gravitated toward
communism and openly courted the leaders of the Soviet Union. Communist Cuba would be a
thorn in the side of the United States for decades, triggering international incidents such as the
Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States imposed a trade embargo in 1962
that led to years of hardship for the Cuban people.

The Cuban Revolution has demonstrated remarkable adaptability in overcoming external and
internal threats without perverting its ideals of social justice. This gives promise to the
proposition that ways will be found to preserve those ideals even after an eventual
normalization of relations with the United States gives rise to a corrosive invasion by free-
marketers and dollar bearing tourists from the North.
Under Castro, Cuba has become a player on the international stage. The prime example is its
intervention in Angola: thousands of Cuban troops were sent there in the 1970s to support a
leftist movement. The Cuban revolution inspired revolutionaries throughout Latin America as
idealistic young men and women took up arms to try and change hated governments for new
ones. The results were mixed.
In Nicaragua, rebel Sandinistas eventually did overthrow the government and come to power.
In the southern part of South America, the upswing in Marxist revolutionary groups such as
Chile's MIR and Uruguay's Tupamaros led to right-wing military governments seizing power
(Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is a prime example). Working together through Operation
Condor, these repressive governments waged a war of terror on their own citizens. The Marxist
rebellions were stamped out, however, many innocent civilians died as well.
Cuba and the United States, meanwhile, maintained an antagonistic relationship well into the
first decade of the 21st century. Waves of migrants fled the island nation over the years,
transforming the ethnic makeup of Miami and South Florida. In 1980 alone, more than 125,000
Cubans fled in makeshift boats in what came to be known as the Mariel Boatlift.

Castro and a dream of global liberation

Fidel Castro's life story is not the story of the leader of a poor underdeveloped nation struggling
to survive against the fierce opposition of the United States. For four decades, Castro purposely
stood at the centre of the dangerous game the United States, the Soviet Union and sometimes
China played for political pre-eminence in the Third World. By deftly manipulating the
opportunities afforded Cuba by the Cold War, he managed to turn his island into a launching
pad for the projection of his leadership throughout the world.
Castro’s legacy goes far beyond the Americas, however. The Cuban leader and the Revolution
he led had a global view. The Cubans believed that they had a responsibility to take on the
forces of imperialism, capitalism, Zionism, apartheid, and injustice internationally. So while
Castro will always remain first a Latin American Revolutionary, his contributions were so
much more extensive than that.

Relations with the Soviet

Following the establishment of diplomatic ties to the Soviet Union, and after the Cuban Missile
Crisis, Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military and economic aid.
Castro was able to build a formidable military force with the help of Soviet equipment and
military advisors. The KGB kept in close touch with Havana, and Castro tightened Communist
Party control over all levels of government, the media, and the educational system, while
developing a Soviet-style internal police force.

Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union caused something of a split between him and Guevara,
who took a more pro-Chinese view following ideological conflict between the CPSU and the
Maoist CPC. In 1966, Guevara left for Bolivia in an ill-fated attempt to stir up revolution
against the country's government.

On 23 August 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership
to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to
repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech
rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian 'counterrevolutionaries',
who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists". He
called the leaders of the rebellion "the agents of West Germany and fascist reactionary rabble."
In return for his public backing of the invasion, at a time when many Soviet allies were deeming
the invasion an infringement of Czechoslovakia's sovereignty, the Soviets bailed out the Cuban
economy with extra loans and an immediate increase in oil exports.
In 1971, despite an Organization of American States convention that no nation in the Western
Hemisphere would have a relationship with Cuba (the only exception being Mexico, which had
refused to adopt that convention), Castro took a month-long visit to Chile, following the re-
establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The visit, in which Castro participated
actively in the internal politics of the country, holding massive rallies and giving public advice
to Allende, was seen by those on the political right as proof to support their view that "The
Chilean Way to Socialism" was an effort to put Chile on the same path as Cuba.

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, the comradely relationship
between Havana and Moscow was strained by Gorbachev's implementation of economic and
political reforms in the USSR. "We are witnessing sad things in other socialist countries, very
sad things," lamented Castro in November 1989, in reference to the changes that were sweeping
such communist allies as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. The
subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had an immediate and devastating effect on
Cuba.

Relations with other nations

Cuba had a role to be played in the apartheid. On November 4, 1975, Castro ordered the
deployment of Cuban troops to Angola in order to aid the Marxist MPLA-ruled government
against the South African-backed UNITA opposition forces. Moscow aided the Cuban
initiative with the USSR engaging in a massive airlift of Cuban forces into Angola. On Cuba's
role in Angola, Nelson Mandela is said to have remarked "Cuban internationalists have done
so much for African independence, freedom, and justice." Cuban troops were also sent to
Marxist Ethiopia to assist Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden War with Somalia in 1977.
In addition, Castro extended support to Marxist Revolutionary movements throughout Latin
America, such as aiding the Sandinistas in overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua
in 1979. It has been claimed by the Carthage Foundation-funded Centre for a Free Cuba that
an estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Cuban military actions abroad.
Cuba and Panama have restored diplomatic ties after breaking them off in 2005 when Panama's
former president pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of attempting to assassinate Cuban
President Fidel Castro. The foreign minister of each country re-established official diplomatic
relations in Havana by signing a document describing a spirit of fraternity that has long linked
both nations. Cuba, once shunned by many of its Latin American neighbours, now has full
diplomatic relations with all but Costa Rica and El Salvador.
Although the relationship between Cuba and Mexico remains strained, each side appears to
make attempts to improve it. In 1998, Fidel Castro apologised for remarks he made about
Mickey Mouse which led Mexico to recall its ambassador from Havana. He said he intended
no offense when he said earlier that Mexican children would find it easier to name Disney
characters than to recount key figures in Mexican history. Rather, he said, his words were meant
to underscore the cultural dominance of the US. Mexican president, Vicente Fox, apologised
to Fidel Castro in 2002 over allegations by Castro that Fox forced him to leave a United Nations
summit in Mexico so that he would not be in the presence of President Bush, who also attended.
At a summit meeting of sixteen Caribbean countries in 1998, Castro called for regional unity,
saying that only strengthened cooperation between Caribbean countries would prevent their
domination by rich nations in a global economy. Caribbean nations have embraced Cuba's Fidel
Castro while accusing the US of breaking trade promises. Castro, until recently a regional
outcast, has been increasing grants and scholarships to the Caribbean countries, while US aid
has dropped 25% over the past five years. Cuba has opened four additional embassies in the
Caribbean Community including: Antigua and Barbados, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines. This development makes Cuba the only country to have embassies in all
independent countries of the Caribbean Community.
In the poorest areas of Latin America and Africa, Castro is seen as a hero, the leader of the
Third World, and the enemy of the wealthy and greedy. On a visit to South Africa, he was
warmly received by President Nelson Mandela. President Mandela gave Castro South Africa's
highest civilian award for foreigners, the Order of Good Hope. Last December Castro fulfilled
his promise of sending 100 medical aid workers to Botswana, according to the Botswana
presidency. These workers play an important role in Botswana's war against HIV/AIDS.
According to Anna Vallejera, Cuba's first-ever Ambassador to Botswana, the health workers
are part of her country's ongoing commitment to proactively assist in the global war against
HIV/AID, ‘The president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez is a grand admirer of his and Bolivian
president Evo Morales called him the "Grandfather". In Harlem, he is seen as an icon because
of his historic visit with Malcolm X in 1960 at the Hotel Theresa.

Castro was known to be a friend of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and was
an honorary pall bearer at Trudeau's funeral in October 2000. They had continued their
friendship after Trudeau left office until his death. Canada became one of the first American
allies to openly trade with Cuba. Cuba still has a good relationship with Canada. In 1998
Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien arrived in Cuba to meet President Castro and highlight
their close ties. He is the first Canadian government leader to visit the island since Pierre
Trudeau was in Havana in 1976.
Castro was fiercely committed to creating his own revolutionary world and to fighting
imperialism whenever and wherever the opportunity arose -- in Africa, Asia, Latin America,
the Middle East. "Any revolutionary movement, in any corner of the world, can count on the
help of Cuban fighters," he told an audience of Third World revolutionary leaders in early
1966. When his revolutionary goals clashed with those of his Soviet benefactor, he nevertheless
pursued them. Among Kremlin officials he became known as "the viper in our breast.
In 2008, the aging Fidel Castro stepped down as president of Cuba, installing his brother Raul
in his stead. During the next five years, the government gradually loosened its tight restrictions
on foreign travel and also began allowing some private economic activity among its citizens.
The U.S. also began to engage Cuba under the direction of President Barack Obama, and by
2015 announced that the long-standing embargo would gradually be loosened.

The announcement resulted in a surge of travel from the U.S. to Cuba and more cultural
exchanges between the two nations. However, with the election of Donald Trump as president
in 2016, the relationship between the two countries is in flux. Fidel Castro died on November
25, 2016. Raúl Castro announced municipal elections for October 2017, and Cuba's National
Assembly officially confirmed Miguel Díaz-Canel as Cuba’s new head of state.

Che Guevara as a Global Youth Icon

“They said he looked like Christ,” said Susana Osinaga, 87, a retired nurse who helped wash
the dirt and blood off Guevara’s body. “People today still pray to Saint Ernesto. They say he
grants miracles.”

Ernesto “Che” Guevara today has become a commercial T-shirt icon, but more importantly, he
is an appealing symbol to legions of young rebels and revolutionaries all over the world. It is
ironic that, politically, he has become less relevant in today’s Cuba than he is in other countries
around the world. Nevertheless, he continues to exercise a subtle but real influence on Cuba’s
political culture—not as a source of specific programmatic political or economic proposals, but
as a cultural model of sacrifice and idealism. In that limited sense, the official slogan “seremos
como el Che” (we shall be like Che), chanted regularly by Cuban schoolchildren, probably has
a diffuse but significant influence over the popular imagination, even if most Cubans also think
of Che as a failed quixotic figure.
Guevara expounded a vision of a new socialist citizen who would work for the good of society
rather than for personal profit, a notion he embodied through his own hard work. Often, he
slept in his office, and, in support of the volunteer labour program he had organized, he spent
his day off working in a sugarcane field. He grew increasingly disheartened, however, as Cuba
became a client state of the Soviet Union, and he felt betrayed by the Soviets when they
removed their missiles from the island without consulting the Cuban leadership during the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Guevara began looking to the People’s Republic of China and
its leader Mao Zedong for support and as an example.

In a broader sense, for many rebellious young people throughout the world, Che Guevara is
seen as a key leader of the Cuban Revolution—one of the most important revolutions of the
twentieth century—and the only one who coherently practiced what he preached. Even more
appealing to many are Che’s personal values: political honesty, egalitarianism, radicalism, and
willingness to sacrifice for a cause, including his position of power in Cuba. To many of the
contemporary rebels active in anticapitalist movements, Che is not only a radical,
uncompromising opponent of capitalism, but—given his opposition to the traditional pro-
Moscow Communist parties—also a revolutionary who shares their own ideals in pursuit of
revolutionary and antibureaucratic politics. This is what makes Che’s ideas and practices
important, and this study relevant, in today’s world.

Ché's reputation outside of Cuba, among leftist intellectuals and the radical youth that called
itself "the new left," grew by leaps and bounds. It was an era of world revolution, and Fidel
Castro had declared his readiness to support revolutionaries "in any corner of the world." Ché
was the most visible advocate of this commitment. In early 1965 he mysteriously disappeared
from view. For six months Fidel kept his silence. Then, in October 1965, he revealed the
contents a letter he had kept secret. In an emotional farewell, Ché had renounced all his official
posts, given up his Cuban citizenship and left Cuba "to fight imperialism... in new fields of
battle." Ché wrote, "I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution...
and I say goodbye to you, to the comrades, to your people, who are now mine."
In popular culture, Che is a highly politicized and controversial figure, in death his stylized
image has been transformed into a worldwide emblem for an array of causes, representing a
complex mesh of sometimes conflicting narrative. Che Guevara is viewed as everything from
an inspirational icon of revolution, to a retro and vintage logo. For many around the world, Che
has become a generic symbol of the underdog, the idealist, the iconoclast, or the martyr. Author
Susan Sontag spoke of the potential positive ramifications of utilizing Che as a symbol, posting:

‘I don't disdain the impact of Che as a romantic image, especially among newly radicalized
youth in the United States and Western Europe; if the glamour of Che's person, the heroism of
his life, and the pathos of his death, are useful to young people in strengthening their
disaffiliation from the life-style of American imperialism and in advancing the development of
a revolutionary consciousness, so much the better.’

Conclusion

The entire theme of the Cuban revolution stands on the political ideology of communism. Fidel
Castro called himself a Marxist-Leninist and Che still stands as an inspiration among the
communist revolutionaries worldwide till date. Though it cannot be said the revolution has a
direct significance in the contemporary international relations, the impact of its legacy cannot
be denied. In the words of Nelson Mandela, the Cubans ‘destroyed the myth of the invincibility
of the White oppressor’. Fidel Castro, with his natural leadership incites challenged the then
super power US, not only politically, ideologically with arms and ammunitions as well. On the
other hand, Che Guevara still continues to radically guide the future occupants of the seats of
those international forums, who would frame the policies of the forthcoming world.

As we consider the struggle of the Cuban people and their leaders to construct a just and
socialist society, it is essential that we not measure their accomplishments against some abstract
concept of what that society should be. Ken Cole’s article emphasizes the principle of praxis
as a requisite in the human effort to achieve fulfilment. He concludes with a quotation from
Karl Marx that epitomizes the human condition: “Men make their own history, but they do not
do it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but
circumstances directly encountered.”