Resting Revolutionaries Castros Cuba Essay - 2892 Words

If any of the rhetoric being disseminated by the Castro regime is to be believed than Cuba is little more than the floating hotbed of revolutionaries. An island of Chà ©s. It logically follows that a Cuba at political rest must be a content nation, otherwise the people would rise. Instead, the casual observer sees a country that seems constantly at the edge of boiling over, but discontentment never quite reaches revolutionary status. This phenomenon is particularly surprising in the time following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a chapter in history known as Cuba’s â€Å"Special period.† Despite all reasonable expectations and his own reputation as revolutionary, Castro was able to keep his grip over the island and suppress all the symptoms of†¦show more content†¦In his centrally planned economy a favorable relationship with the Soviet Union was vital. This dependency lasted throughout the 1980s and helped bolster the idea that the Cuban revolution was a su ccessful model for other countries seeking equality and welfare to follow. Cuba’s main exports were sugar and hostile rhetoric directed at the U.S. and capitalism as a whole The Soviet Union accepted and rewarded the Cuban government for both. As early as April 1989, cracks in the alliance began to show. In Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to Cuba, he attempted to convince Castro to take a more positive attitude towards reformism and more flexibility in fixing Cuba’s economy (Pavlov 139). Given economic difficulties in the USSR it was easy to see that resentment was beginning to poison the well. In 1985 they had paid over 11 times the world price for Cuban sugar, by 1989 they only paid three times the price (Bain 777). By July 1989, Castro became aware of the possibility that the socialist bloc would break apart and that the USSR might lose the Cold war, leaving Cuba out in the cold (â€Å"Post-Soviet). This possibility posed a fundamental threat to the survival of everything the Revolution had accomplished. Castro took few economic initiatives to protect the island from the ruin Cuba would deal with were the USSR to topple. However, as early as 1990 Castro began to approach the problem of rhetoric and framing the oncoming storm in as poeticShow MoreRelatedEssay about Cubas Government and Ernesto Guevara1461 Words   |  6 Pagesunder the leadership of Fidel Castro helped lead a small guerrilla band of soldiers to take over the country. After the old government was out Che helped Castro decide communism as the way to go for Cuba. He helped Castro try to quickly industrialize the country, set up social reforms to try, and make Cuba a better place for its citizens. 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