Gerardo Machado
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Gerardo Machado y Morales (September 28, 1871, Camajuani – March 29, 1939, Miami Beach, Florida) was a Cuban general of the Cuban War of Independence and the 5th president of Cuba (1925-1933). He was from the central provinces and poor background, said to have been a cattle rustler, before he joined the fight for independence. A butcher by trade he had only three fingers on his left hand. He married cousin Elvira Machado Nodal; they had three daughters; Laudelina (Nena), Angela Elvira and Berta [1].
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[edit] War experience
He was one of the youngest Cuban generals of the 1895 to 1898 Cuban War of Independence [2]. Only two other War of Independence generals were younger: Calixto Enamorado (1874-1951) [3] and Enrique Loynaz del Castillo (1871-1963) [4], [5]. Gerardo Machado fought in the middle provinces [6] along with José Miguel Gómez (1858-1921) who also was president on the Liberal Party ticket and José de Jesus Monteagudo who would later defeat the disorganized black separatist forces of Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet win the 1912 Race War [7] and cruelly crush this rebellion [8].
Machado, said to the party's War leader in Las Villas province, fought on the defeated Liberal side in the 1917 "Little War of February 1917” La Chambelona (Chambelona War), with José Miguel Gómez, Alfredo Zayas and with Enrique Loynaz del Castillo. Calixto Enamorado fought on the Conservative side. After the initial victories of the Liberals, things turned worse. Yet Machado continued to fight even after the Liberals lost to the machine guns of Colonel Rosendo Collazo at Caicaje [9] once the hacienda of Santiago Saura Orraque [10] and Juan Manuel Perez de la Cruz [11] on 8th of March until his cause was unsustainable and surrendered [12].
President Mario García Menocal had clearly won. Technically there was no US intervention in this war [13] and Cuban Army Offices notably Julio Sanguilí, in Santiago [14], regained control. Since in this war the Liberals were said to be pro-German, US President Woodrow Wilson, worried about Mexico and Pancho Villa, and the loss of able general, Menocal's friend and Cuba hand Frederick Funston had one less distraction on his hands. Menocal declared war on Germany April 7 of that same year. John J. Pershing, less tactful than Funston, in the Cuban circumstance, would be sent first to Mexico and then Europe.
[edit] Political life
A political figure, he served in the Liberal Party Administration of José Miguel Gómez [15]. Allied with his predecessor outgoing president Alfredo Zayas and Running as a Liberal Party candidate, he defeated Mario García Menocal of the Conservative Party by an overwhelming majority to become Cuba's 5th president. He took office as President of Cuba on May 20, 1925 and left office on August 12, 1933. Elected at the time of a fall in world sugar prices, he was a Cuban industrialist and member of the political elite of the Liberal Party. Machado was an economic reformer who tried to wean Cuba off of its heavy reliance on the sugar industry and resultant dependency on the United States. His presidency saw the passage of the Vejeda Act of 1926, a failed attempt to raise sugar prices by cutting production, and the Customs-Tariff Law of 1927, a successful attempt to encourage the diversification of Cuban industry.
Machado was determined to modernize Cuba [16], he constructed the Central Highway [17]. Politically he was less adroit, he determined to make Cuba the "Switzerland of the Americas" he became despotic and forced his way into a second term. By this time Machado had become an equal opportunity tyrant as documented by Walker Evans [18] and had made many enemies of the political left (except for a period of truce with the Cuban Communist Party), the center and the right. He also abused and censored the press [19], [20]. The struggles against Machado have influenced both film [21] and literature. However, to place the matter in international context, during Machado’s rule Mussolini controlled Italy [22], and Hitler was busy in Germany; there was Depression in the US. It was in these turbulent times when Machado ruled that Cuban links to the Stalinist Communist international were made for the first time by Fabio Grobart [23]. [24].
Although Machado is said to have ordered the murder of defecting communist Julio Antonio Mella in Mexico this murder is generally conceded to have been carried out by the Stalinist faction of the Communist International who were in a death struggle with the followers of Leon Trotsky. The actual assassination was done by an action group that included notorious communist assassin Vittorio Vidali. Trotsky was eventually also murdered in that country by communist assassin Ramon Mercader.
[edit] Machado loses power
In Cuba, Machado engaged in a long struggle with diverse insurgent groups which varied from the green shirts of the ABC to Blas Hernandez, to the conservative veterans of the Cuban War of Independence to the radical Antonio Guiteras group, and clung on for several years. As Cuba was hit with severe poverty during the Great Depression, discontent increased which was met by death squad tactics by Machado, swelling the numbers of such insurgents. Thousands were massacred by Machado's government and insurgent groups responded with terrorist campaigns against government officials and buildings. Machado turned almost all Cubans, from the richest to the poorest, into his dedicated enemies. He was finally toppled in the 1933 by US influence, Sumner Welles [25], old Cuban War of Independence Veterans, Army Officers and Civic Leaders in a general strike [26] (Alba, 1968). His regime's collapse was followed by a revolution led by dissident students, labor activists, and non-commissioned military officers, that left the power in the hands of Fulgencio Batista. [27] [28].
[edit] References
[edit] Memoirs and papers
Machado y Morales, Gerardo (written in 1936 published in 1957 and later) Ocho años de lucha – memorias. Ediciones Universales, [29] and Ediciones Historicas Cubanas. Miami ISBN 0-89729-328-2 ISBN 0-89729-328-2
A collection Gerardo Machado’s papers have been digitized by the Cuban Heritage Collection Digitizing Project of the University of Miami [30].
[edit] General references
- Alba, Víctor 1968 Politics and the labor movement in Latin America. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California . ASIN B0006BNYGK
- Duarte Oropesa, José (1989) Historiología Cubana. Ediciones Universal Miami ISBN 84-399-2580-8
- Carrillo, Justo 1985 Cuba 1933: Estudiantes, Yanquis y Soldados. University of Miami Iberian Studies Institute ISBN 0-935501-00-2 Transaction Publishers (January 1994) ISBN 1-56000-690-0
- Masó, Calixto (1998) Historia de Cuba 3rd edition. Ediciones Universal, Miami. ISBN 0-89729-875-6
Perez, Louis A. Jr. "Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution." Third Edition. New York/Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2006
- Perez-Stable, Marifeli (1999); The Cuban Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Riera Hernández, Mario. 1953. Cincuenta y dos años de política: Oriente, 1900-1952. La Habana.
- Riera, Mario. 1955. Cuba política, 1899-1955. La Habana: Impresora Modelo, S.A.
- Riera Hernández, Mario. 1968. Cuba libre: 1895-1958. Miami: Colonial Press of Miami, Inc.
- Riera Hernández, Mario. 1974. Cuba repúblicana: 1899-1958. Miami: Editorial AIP.
- Thomas, Hugh (1998) Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom. Da Capo Press; Updated edition (April, 1998) ISBN 0-306-80827-7
- Perez-Stable, Marifeli (1999); The Cuban Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[edit] Chambelona
- Cano Vázquez, F. 1953: La Revolución de la Chambelona. Revista Bohemia. La Habana, May 1st 1953. 45 (19) 82-86, 184, 188.
- González, Reynaldo 1978 Nosotros los liberales nos comimos la lechona. Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Havana
- Waldemar, León Caicaje: Batalla Final de una Revuelta. Bohemia pp. 100-103, 113
- Montaner, Carlos Alberto 1982 Cuba: claves para una conciencia en crisis. [31]
- Montaner, Carlos Alberto 1999 Viaje al Corazón de Cuba. Planes and Janés [32]
- Morales y Morales, Vidal 1959 (printed 1962) Sobre la guerra civil de 1917. Documentos del Siglo XX, Boletín del Archivo Nacional. Volume 58 pp.178-256.
- Parker, William Belmont 1919 Cubans of Today Putnam's Sons, New York,
- Portell Vila, Herminio La Chambelona en Oriente. Bohemia pp. 12-13, 112-125.
- Primelles, L- 1955 Crónica cubana, 1915-1918: La reelección de Menocal y la Revolución de 1917. La danza de los millones - Editorial Lex, Havana.
| Preceded by: Alfredo Zayas |
President of Cuba 1925–1933 |
Succeeded by: Ramón Grau San Martín |
