It was during Batista’s government that a group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro overthrew the regime and started a revolution to redesign the social, politic and economic system of the country. The Revolution succeeded and Cuba became the first communist Latin American country, achieving great advances in education and health, but having sacrificed its previous economic prosperity.
After the Revolution, Cuba lost its earlier American support and the long political conflict between these two countries just started. However, Cuba was not alone: as these were the times of the Cold War, the Soviet Union helped Cuba reorganize, and supplied its new communist ally with weapons and other resources.
Aerial Photograph of Missiles in Cuba
Some years later, in 1962, the Soviet Union installed medium range nuclear missiles in Cuba, which was considered as a threat by the US and led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. As we studied in class, this conflict never resulted in an actual war, and the Soviets eventually removed the missiles after an American blockade. However, all these conflicts and negotiations brought about disagreements between the Cuban government and the USSR, and the relations between these two countries started to decline.
At the end of Cold war, Cuba remained as one of the few communist nations still standing, along with China and North Korea. With the collapse of the USSR, the Cuban government lost its great ally, while the conflicts -as well as the trade embargo- with the United States continued. Now that the US had become the only superpower, its influence over the whole international system was unmatched, and Cuba’s emarginated economy suffered stagnation and shortages of all kinds.
References:
"Latin America, history of." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 06 Sept 2009 http://search.eb.com/eb/article-60819.
Goldstein, Joshua .S, and Jon C. Pevehouse. International Relations. 8th ed. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2009. p. p. 26-37
