Castro's Relationship With The Usa example essay topic

Whereas today, Castro may be seen as the person who made it possible for "200 million people to live in the street and they are certainly not Cuban"; during the first decade of his rule Castro was effective in implementing social justice and freedom of the economy from the USA. This was done by implementing policies such as the land reform, education reforms, agricultural diversification and political decrees. Although these changes may seem to have great success; at the same time, Castro was unaware that these reforms would result in economic failures such as "the failure of 10 m tonnes" or the failure of the second land reform. These failures; combined with the political isolation from the USA of being a socialist country and the resentments towards the USSR of the Cuban missile Crisis left Cuba in a weak position in terms of an economic view. By the time Castro become prime minister and first secretary in 1959; the country's economy was weak due to the failure of the Cuban government to perform any reforms; as Castro argued in a speech in 1965 "the fide lists wanted a change in society where political and economical failures made it impossible to recourse the ability to reform". Cuba before Castro was ruled "by the elite, a group of wealthy landowners and merchants that use the resources to satisfy their own purposes"- Clive foss.

Politically; the country was ruled by corrupt politicians who failed to implement any change. Economically; the country was dependent on the USA; 67% of all exports in 1968 went to the USA and 70% of all imports came from the USA. The USA controlled 3/5 of the railways, 1/2 of all the industrial productive land. USA controlled the main businesses of tobacco "Cohiba" and rum "Havana Club". They also controlled electricity and telephone companies, not discarding the fact that they had the main oil refineries such as "Texaco". Socially; the country had 600,000 workers unemployed, the ones who were employed mainly worked in a basis of 3 months per year.

Therefore there was seasonal unemployment. Out of 100% of the education within rural areas; 70% of the rural children lacked a teacher. 3 million people did not have electricity; 3.5 million people lived in huts and there was 37 1/2 percent of illiteracy. The poor were not allowed to have health services nor an electorate system. They lived under poor living standards and there was a huge wealth and cultural gap between the rich and the poor. When Castro assumed power in January 1959 Castro had 5 main goals; these were: to return to the 1940's constitution, education reforms, land reforms, reduce the income inequality and economic independence.

During 1959; Castro's first actions were to perform ruthless show trials and public executions. These were combined by the land reforms to the big farms in which Fidel expropriated them from their land as owners and promised to pay them compensations. This was the first reforms he made in order to achieve economic independence and land reforms. From 1960 onwards; Castro's relationship with the USA was seen deteriorated at an accelerated rate. In January 1960 relationship was already tense; however the peak moment came in June.

In June; Castro asked the main oil industries to process Soviet Crude oil; this was because soviet crude oil was cheaper than USA oil. However; the companies were under the influence of the USA which rejected the Cuban proposition. As a result; Castro nationalized the oil refineries. This was followed by USA cutting the sugar quota; which resulted in the nationalization of many other industries such as telephone; railways and electricity. This spiral effect resulted in the alienation of USA involvement in the Cuban economy; all the private, big and small firms were nationalized. Up to 52 million dollars were nationalized only in Casinos.

Havana, the "USA's child" was also nationalized. The consequences were disastrous; USA started planning an invasion to Cuba by training Cuban exiles. The USA "believed that the Cubans would be grateful to get freed from Fidel Castro and that immediately after; the people would join" however that was not the case. USA had lost the invasion 72 hours later the invasion. They had lost 53 million dollars only in raid attacks; of the 8 b-26 bombers; they lost around 114 men from the 2604 division. As a result; Cuban government not only started massive trials and public executions but it completely alienated the relations with the USA.

In October 1961; Castro declared that he was Marxist and therefore Cuba was socialist achieving his purpose of economic independence. In this way; social justice was fulfilled; the nationalized firms allowed the government to employ many more people; living of standards increased; agricultural diversification was enabled. Illiteracy was wiped out completely; the poor were allowed to have health services and they were allowed a voting system. We cannot discard the income distribution; the poor were provided a better education and the rich were expropriated from part of their incomes and wealth. Houses were built and electricity reforms made it more efficient to reach more people. On the other hand; the short term reforms were ineffective, such as the land reforms; that were badly enabled.

The crops were destroyed, land was not re-planted in more than 2 years this including the fact that the workers were unskilled and lacked the technological materials to do this. The "10 million tonnes harvest" which was produced in 1963 to 1970 was chaotic because the supply the mills could give only resulted in 6 million maximum. Economically; the agricultural diversification although it was a good plan; had a bad effect; in 1963 the G.D. P of the country was 3.8 compared to the 6.8 in 1961. In 1965; the GDP grew 9% however since then; the GDP kept decreasing in a negative rate. In 1963; Castro wanted to attain the impossible; the 10 million tonnes production by 1970; this seriously damaged the agriculture of the country as the diversification focused on the production of sugar. Since 1961 Cuba lost support from the USA in terms of trade; however at the same time Cuba started to establish a link with USSR.

In 1961; USSR decided to increase its original purchase of 425000 tonnes of sugar to 1 million tonnes of sugar; increasing the discontent of USA. Since 1961 to 1967 Khrushchev decided to absorb 1 billion deficit from the USSR. Whereas the link between the socialist countries increased; the rivalry between USA and USSR also increased. Since 1961; USA under Kennedy opted to do any scrupulous methods in order to uptake Castro's regime. The government CIA got involved in paying the mafia to try and assassinate Castro. Castro was tried to kill 638 times by the CIA however they were unsuccessful.

To see how deep was the problem; Castro outlined in 1973 that if there was a competition in the Olympics for the amount of times a person could survive assassination's he would probably win the gold medal. In 1962; Khrushchev relation with USA got to its climax. Khrushchev decided to put a nuclear base in Cuba in order to "prevent the USA in attacking again" while at the same time; securing Castro's leadership. In October 1962; some U 2 planes shot down a nuclear base under construction. During this event that lasted 13 days; the world was seemed to be at brink of war however peace was achieved.

The USSR decided to disarm the missiles placed in Cuba if the USA decided never to invade Cuba again; (although there were other reasons for the demilitarization of the missile base such as the agreement on the demilitarization of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey). Khrushchev didn't ask Castro's opinion towards the disuse of the missiles; which would leave Cuba seriously unprotected against any offence. Castro condemned this action and offended Khrushchev by swearing "marion sin co jones" for his poor attitudes to expanding the revolution. From this point forward; Castro became politically isolate; although there was some trade with the USSR such as crude oil, steel, iron in return for sugar or other goods.

The international politics towards 2 of the main powers in the world diminished to a great extent. This is by far the main failure of Castro. Castro's initial approve ment towards power constituted on the first 2 decades of his regime; however during 1970 forward; the society demanded a change in society in respect to repression and isolation. In 1970; Herbert Padilla (one of Castro's main friends) was sent trailed and executed for trying to revolt against Castro. Culturally the society in 1970 was so desperate that he allowed 10,000 foreigners from the US to visit their relatives bringing goods. In 1980; part of the society 12500 were allowed to fly away from Cuba; apart from the already 16000 that had left.

In conclusion; Castro had some successes in achieving social democracy; with progressive democracy. He was able to achieve economic independence from the USA in 1960 but to a lesser extent a success as the independence turned from USA to the USSR. Fidel managed to perform social justice, justice and independence but these were made at great costs. These costs would be massive amount of deaths in trying to control his regime and great lack of identification towards Cuban ism.

This; is complemented by a total failure within the Economy regarding to economic growth and development. It is seen as a failure the small short reforms proved to be ineffective and damaging to the wellbeing of the country. Summed up to the international relations; Cuba remained isolated from the main countries and isolated from international politics to a mayor extent such as the ONU or the WTO. Wither Castro achieved social justice; he was unable to reform the economy and the success of development within Cuba which marks a more failing regime rather than a progressive and successful one..