Fulgencio Batista

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General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar
19th President of Cuba
In office October 1940 – October 1944 October 1952 - January 1959
Preceded by	Federico Laredo Brú
Born	January 16, 1901 Banes, Holguín Province, Cuba
Died	August 6, 1973 Guadalmina, Spain
Political party	P.A.U.- Partido de Accion Unitaria

General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (pronounced [fulˈɣensio baˈtista̩]) (January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was the de facto military leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1940, and thus the eminence grise of Cuban politics for that period of time, and the de jure President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 after having won election. He then became the country's leader after staging a coup, from 1952 to 1959. His authoritarian government during this subsequent period generated opposition despite his attempt to placate critics with a 'show' election in 1954 where he ran without opposition. The opposition included the entire coalition that had overthrown Machado inclusive of Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement, by which Batista was overthrown, in what is known as the Cuban Revolution.

[edit] Youth and first rule

Fulgencio was born in Banes, Holguín Province, in 1901. He is said to have been the son of Belisario Batista [1] and Carmela Zaldívar, Cubans who fought for independence from Spain. Of very humble origins, Batista began working from an early age. A self-educated man, he attended school at night and is said to have been a voracious reader. Batista was considered socially a mulatto (mixed African and European blood). He bought a ticket to Havana and joined the army in 1921. [2] Sergeant Batista was the union leader in Cuba's soldiers, and the leader of the 1933 "Sergeants' Revolt" which replaced the Provisional Government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, at the request of the anti-Machado coalition, who had previously ousted Gerardo Machado. It is generally conceded that U.S. Special Envoy Sumner Welles approved of this since it was a fait accompli. Céspedes was a well-respected civil engineer and the most successful minister in the Machado government but lacked a political coalition that could sustain him. Initially a pentarchical presidency with five members, one each from the anti-Machado coalition, was created but within days the representative for the students and professors of the Universtity of Havana, Ramón Grau, was made president and Batista became the Army Chief of Staff, with the rank of Colonel, and effectively controlled the presidency^{[citation needed]}. The majority of the commissioned officer corps was 'forcefully retired' (meaning executed).^{[citation needed]}

During this period, Batista violently suppressed a number of attempts to defeat his control. This included the quashing of an uprising in the ancient Atarés fort (Havana) by Blas Hernández, a rural guerrilla who had fought Gerardo Machado. Many of those who surrendered were executed. Another attempt was the attack on the Hotel Nacional where Cuban former army officers of the Cuban Olympic rifle team (including one Enrique Ros) put up stiff resistance until they were defeated. Here again Batista troops executed a good number of the surrendered. The irony is that many of these officers had helped overthrow Machado. There were many other often minor and almost unrecorded attempted revolts against Batista. These too were bloodily suppressed. These minor revolts included one in Guamá, a place in the Sierra Maestra south of Guisa, where the followers of an anti-Batista guerrilla leader known as Gamboa (apparently a member, or former member, of the Antonio Guiteras anti-Machado guerrillas) were defeated and dispersed.

Grau was president for just over 100 days before being replaced by Carlos Mendieta y Montefur (11 months), then José Barnet y Vinajeras (5 months), and then Miguel Gómez y Arias (7 months) before Federico Laredo Brú managed to rule from December 1936 to October 1940.

In October, 1940, Batista, who formed a coalition with the Cuban Communist Party [3] was elected President of Cuba. During his tenure, he drafted the 1940 constitution (later approved by President Grau), widely regarded as a progressive document with regards to labor, unemployment, and social security, and implemented several liberal economic reforms. In 1944, Batista was forbidden by law to seek re-election because of term limits and was succeeded by Grau. Batista retired to Florida but returned to Cuba in 1948 upon election to the senate.

During the election of 1952 Batista, who was expected to run for the presidency again but was not expected to win^{[citation needed]}, staged a coup to take by force what he could not achieve again at the ballot box.

[edit] Second rule

Batista staged an almost bloodless coup d'état on March 10, 1952, removing Carlos Prío Socarrás (elected in 1948) who was ending his term. Cubans in general were stunned: remembering the bloodshed of the 1930s, they were reluctant to fight. Batista created a consultive council integrated from pliable political personalities of all parties who appointed him President three months before new elections were to be held. There were unanswered appeals to the Organization of American States and the UN (Thomas, 1971, 1998). Batista’s past democratic and pro-labor tendencies and the fear of another episode of bloody violence gained him tenuous support from the now very old survivors of the Independence Wars, the bankers, the association of cane growers, the colonos (often prosperous share croppers and owners), and the leader of the major labor confederation, the CTC, Eusebio Mujal. Only a few labor leaders, such as Pascasio Linarer, Jesús Artigas and Calixto Sánchez rebelled. The Ortodoxo and Auténtico, the major political parties, were undecisive and the Communist Party backed him.

The small Communist Party, which retained some government posts, and the communist paper were co-opted and supported Batista even though relations with the USSR were broken. The new government received diplomatic recognition from the United States, the number of American corporations continued to swell in Cuba, and the island became a major tourist destination, creating unprecedented material prosperity for its inhabitants. This period was marked by considerable construction of private highrises, and public tunnels and roads. Havana became the third most expensive and dynamic city in the world with more TV sets, telephones, and late model Cadillacs per household than any city in America. The "Civic Plaza", and all surrounding buildings, now renamed as Plaza de la Revolución (Revolutionary Square), where Fidel Castro often speaks, was completed in these times.

José Martí Monument, erected during Batista's Presidency in Civic Square (Now "Revolutionary Square"), designed by Enrique Luis Varela, sculpture by Juan José Sicre (1958)

The Cuban people, tired of corrupt governments, were somewhat accepting of the coup at first, hoping that Batista would restore stability to the island after the political violence, labor unrest, and government corruption that had occurred during Prío's tenure and noting Batista's humble origins and the fact that unlike many of his opponents, he achieved the full support of the labor movement including the Communist party. During these years Batista created the program to bring education to peasants, building schools (although modestly), and implementing the minimum wage for farm workers, a measure deeply resented by the landowners. Despite the unprecedented economic prosperity of the 1950s, opposition parties like the Ortodoxo and the Auténtico managed to promote social unrest instigating university students to plant bombs and kill civilians and military personnel alike. Batista responded with repression of the subversives. Ultimately, the existing government corruption, tainted with claims of close relationship with the mafia, saw a rise in general opposition to his regime from the rich and middle class Cubans.

Advocates of liberal democracy also viewed Batista's presidency as unconstitutional and unacceptable because he was not elected. (He later held an election and won unopposed. This was to legitimize his status within the Americas, but some reports say as many as 75% of voters in Havana — and even more in Santiago — simply refused to cast votes.) Cross-class urban resistance grew despite high casualties and the country folk (guajiros) increasingly turned to armed resistance. The overtly communist party, Partido Socialista Popular, supported Batista until about the middle of 1957.

[edit] Opposition

Near the end of 1955, anti-Batista demonstrations and student rioting were frequent. The military police dealt with the opposition violently. Students who wanted to march from the University of Havana were stopped by the police and beaten. One of the student leaders, José A. Echeverría, had to be hosptialized. When another popular student leader was killed on December 10, his funeral led to a nationwide protest, with a five-minute nationwide work stoppage. Batista suspended constitutional rights, put tighter censorship restrictions on what the media could report. The military police patrolled streets picking up anyone suspected of being part of the insurrection.

Among the numerous opponents to Batista was Fidel Castro, who had a relatively effective net of informants who were successful in predicting attacks by Batista. The notorious BRAC (Buro de Repression de Actividades Comunistas) (see "Repuesta" pp. 57-64) was not effective against overt and covert communists but apparently used communist contacts to provide high level X-4 information (e.g. "Repuesta" p. 132) on disaffected officials of the Cuban Army and non-Castro resistance that was almost without exception co-opted. In May 1958, in response to a pre-warned and failed assault on the presidential palace by other resistance groups (see "Repuesta" pp. 57-64), Batista launched a major assault against Castro and the other rebel groups (unaffiliated with Castro). Despite being outnumbered (Castro claims his men numbered fewer than 100; however, there were far greater numbers of pickets or scouts (escopeteros) who saw action in those days), Castro's forces scored a series of victories, aided by the corruption of Batista's leading army officers and massive desertions. During this period, the U.S. broke off relations with Batista, stating that a peaceful transition to a new government was necessary and imposed an embargo preventing Batista from acquiring American arms. US companies still had extensive business interests in Cuba at this time, and the unrest was damaging to these. According to Antonio Núñez Jiménez, a military commander and minister under Castro at the time that Batista was deposed, 75% of Cuba's prime farmland was owned by foreign individuals (inclusive of Fidel's own father who was a Spanish citizen) or foreign (mostly U.S.) companies. This data differs substantially from the one reported in 1958 for the Latin American Annual Yearbook by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce showing a significant increase in the ownership of lands and industries by Cuban nationals as a result of Batista's economic policies during his years in power. Against this backdrop of growing civil war, Batista, constitutionally prohibited from continuing as president, organized an election in which his preferred candidate Carlos Rivero Aguero defeated Grau. That was not enough, however, as his regime began to collapse. On January 1, 1959, Batista's regime collapsed after his departure from Cuba. Castro's forces entered Havana one week later on January 8, 1959.

[edit] Aftermath

Batista later moved to Portugal and then Marbella, Spain, where he lived and wrote books the rest of his life. He died on August 6, 1973, in Guadalmina, Spain [4]. Much like Machado, Batista started with good intentions and attempted to create a consensus coalition to move the social, economic, and political framework of the country towards a stable liberal democracy but lost that vision as time progressed.

Raoul G. Cantero, III, born in Spain, naturalized in the US, a graduate of Harvard Law School, a judge on Florida State Supreme Court, is the grandson of Fulgencio Batista.

Marta Fernández de Batista, Batista's widow, died on Monday October 2, 2006. Roberto Batista, her son, says that she died at her West Palm Beach home. She had a heart attack on September 8. Batista was buried with her husband in San Isidro Cemetery in Madrid after a mass in West Palm Beach.

[edit] See also

Cuba Portal

• Cuban Revolution

[edit] Books written by Batista

• 1939: Estoy con el Pueblo [I am With the People]. Havana.
• 1960: Repuesta. Manuel León Sánchez S.C.L., Mexico City.
• 1961: Piedras y leyes [Stones and Laws]. Mexico City.
• 1962: Cuba Betrayed. Vantage Press, New York ASIN B0007DEH9A
• 1962: To Rule is to Foresee ASIN B0007IYHK4
• 1964: The Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic. (Blas M. Rocafort trans.) Devin-Adair Company, New York. ISBN 0-8159-5614-2
• unfinished autobiography and archive in the University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection [5]

[edit] Bibliography on Batista

• Argote-Freyre, Frank. Fulgencio Batista: Volume 1, From Revolutionary to Strongman. Rutgers University Press, Rutgers, New Jersey. ISBN 0-8135-3701-0. 2006.
• Chester,Edmund A. A Sergeant Named Batista. Holt. ASIN B0007DPO1U. 1954.
• Gellman, Irwin F. Roosevelt and Batista: Good neighbor diplomacy in Cuba, 1933-1945. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM. ISBN 0-8263-0284-X. 1973.
• Valdés Sánchez, Servando Fulgencio Batista: El poder de las armas (1933-1940) Editora Historia, SBN 597048051. 1998

[edit] History of the era

• 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
• Fernández, Julio César 1940 Yo acuso a Batista. Construyendo a Cuba. Havana
• Kapcia A. 2002. The Siege of the Hotel Nacional, Cuba, 1933: A Reassessment. Journal of Latin American Studies, 34, 283-309.
• Phillips, R Hart 1935 Cuban side show. Cuban Press, Havana 2nd edition. ASIN B000860P60
• Phillips, R Hart. 1959 Cuba, Island of Paradox. McDowell Obolensky, New York, NY ASIN B0007E0OAU
• Phillips, R Hart. 1960 Cuba Island of Paradise 1960 Astor-Honor Inc, ISBN 0-8392-5012-6
• Phillips, Ruby Hart 1961 The Tragic Island: How Communism Came to Cuba. Englewood Cliffs, NJ
• Phillips, R Hart. 1962 The Cuban dilemma McDowell Obolensky, New York, NY Library of Congress number 6218787
• Smith, Earl T. 1962 (1991 edition) The Fourth Floor. Selous Foundation Press, Washington DC. ISBN 0-944273-06-8
• Hugh Thomas Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom (Paperback) Da Capo Press; Updated edition (April, 1998) ISBN 0-306-80827-7
• Welles, Sumner 1944 The time for decision Harper & brothers ASIN B0006AQB0M
• Argote-Freyre, Frank Fulgencio Bastista: From Revolutionary to Strongman, Rutgers University Press (April 2006) ISBN 0-8135-3701-0