page_title: Cuba
section_title: Revolution and Communist party rule (1959–present)
hierarchical_section_title: Cuba / History / Revolution and Communist party rule (1959–present)
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Berlin, Fidel Castro an der Grenze Berlin: Castro / Die Partei- und Regierungsdelegationen unter Leitung des Ersten Sekretärs der KPK und Ministerpräsidenten der Revolutionären Regierung der Republik Kuba, Fidel Castro(M), besichtigte am 14.6.1972 die Staatsgrenze der DDR zu Westberlin. Die Delegation, von Werner Lamberz, Mitglied des Politbüros und Sekretär des ZK der SED (2.v.l.), und anderen Persönlichkeiten, begleitet, wurde von Generalleutnant Arthur Kunath, Stadtkommandant von Berlin (2.v.r.), informiert. Rechts: Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Mitglied des Sekretariats des ZK der KPK und Minister der Revolutionären Regierung. Abgebildete Personen: Castro, Fidel: Ministerpräsident, Vorsitzender der KP, Kuba Lamberz, Werner: Politbüro des ZK der SED, Leiter der Abteilung Agitation beim ZK, DDR (GND 124666779) Kunath, Arthur: Stadtkommandant von Berlin, Generalleutnant, DDR
context_page_description: Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean meet. It is east of the Yucatán Peninsula, south of both the U.S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti and north of both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The area of the Republic of Cuba is 110,860 square kilometers. The island of Cuba is the largest island in Cuba and in the Caribbean, with an area of 105,006 square kilometers, and the second-most populous after Hispaniola, with over 11 million inhabitants.
  The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited by the Ciboney Taíno people from the 4th millennium BC until Spanish colonization in the 15th century. From the 15th century, it was a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, when Cuba was occupied by the United States and gained nominal independence as a de facto United States protectorate in 1902.
context_section_description: In the 1950s, various organizations, including some advocating armed uprising, competed for public support in bringing about political change. In 1956, Fidel Castro and about 80 supporters landed from the yacht Granma in an attempt to start a rebellion against the Batista government. It was not until 1958 that Castro's 26th of July Movement emerged as the leading revolutionary group. Batista's troops were defeated by Castro's fighters at the Battle of La Plata (11–21 July 1958). Although Batista's army gained a victory at the Battle of Las Mercedes (29 July–8 August 1958), the army commander allowed the rebels to escape back into the Sierra Maestra mountains. By late 1958, the rebels had broken out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general popular insurrection. They subsequently seized significant amounts of Dominican-made Cristóbal Carbines and hand grenades. After suffering a crucial defeat at the Battle of Santa Clara, Batista fled with his family to the Dominican Republic on 1 January 1959. Later he went into exile on the Portuguese island of Madeira and finally settled in Estoril, near Lisbon. Fidel Castro's forces entered the capital on 8 January 1959. The liberal Manuel Urrutia Lleó became the provisional president.
  After Dominican Republic strongman Rafael Trujillo formed an 
  anti-Castro Foreign Legion of 3,000 soldiers of fortune, including 200 former Batista soldiers and 400 Spanish veterans of Francisco Franco's World War II Blue Division, Castro sponsored or organized several attempts to unseat him. Castro feared a possible attack from the Dominican Republic and was determined to acquire jet aircraft as a preventive measure: Cuba's ability to repel an air attack was very precarious, since the Dominicans possessed 40 jet aircraft whereas Cuba had only one. The Dominican Air Force had the theoretical ability to reach and bomb Havana within 3 hours.
  Militant anti-Castro groups, funded by exiles, by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and by Trujillo's Dominican government, carried out armed attacks and set up guerrilla bases in the Escambray Mountains. This led to a failed rebellion, which lasted longer and involved more soldiers than the Cuban Revolution. Castro took up Weyler's tactics. Near 1,000 families were forcibly uprooted from the Escambray countryside, leaving the rebels without their habitat to support them; the uprooted men were sent to prisons and forced labor camps throughout Cuba.
  The United States Department of State estimated that 3,200 people were executed from 1959 to 1962. According to Amnesty International, official death sentences from 1959–87 numbered 237 of which all but 21 were actually carried out. Other estimates for the total number of political executions range from 4,000 to 33,000. The vast majority of those executed directly following the 1959 revolution were policemen, politicians, and informers of the Batista regime accused of crimes such as torture and murder, and their public trials and executions had widespread popular support among the Cuban population.
  The United States government initially reacted favorably to the Cuban revolution, seeing it as part of a movement to bring democracy to Latin America. Castro's legalization of the Communist party and the hundreds of executions of Batista agents, policemen and soldiers that followed caused a deterioration in the relationship between the two countries. The promulgation of the Agrarian Reform Law, expropriating thousands of acres of farmland (including from large U.S. landholders), further worsened relations. In response, between 1960 and 1964 the U.S. imposed a range of sanctions, eventually including a total ban on trade between the countries and a freeze on all Cuban-owned assets in the U.S. In February 1960, Castro signed a commercial agreement with Soviet Vice-Premier Anastas Mikoyan.
  In March 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his approval to a CIA plan to arm and train a group of Cuban refugees to overthrow the Castro regime. The invasion (known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion) took place on 14 April 1961, dur
caption: Fidel Castro and members of the East German Politburo in 1972
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