Batista

General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar
Batista
19th President of Cuba
In office October, 1938 – January, 1959
Preceded by	Federico Laredo Brú
Born	January 16, 1901 Banes, Oriente Province, Cuba
Died	August 6, 1973 Guadalmina, Spain
Political party	P.A.U.- Partido de Accion Unitaria

General Rubén 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 eminent rise of Cuban politics for that period of time, and the de jure President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 after having won the 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 the Machado inclusive of Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement, by which Batista was overthrown in what is known as the Cuban Revolution.

Early Years

Batista was born on January 16, 1901 in the Veguitas section in Banes, a small rural community in the northeast Oriente Province, Cuba. Batista, the first of four sons, was born to Belisario Batista Palermo and Carmela Zaldívar González, both of whom were said to be of mixed race. His father fought in the Cuban war of independence from Spain under General José Maceo. Batista’s mother was only fifteen years old when he was born. They had a very close relationship and, as a child, he turned to her for comfort. His relationship with his father, on the other hand, was one of respect rather than love and affection.

Of very humble origins, Batista and his family lived in a two room bohío, which consisted of dirt floors, bark and palm trees. The whole family slept in the only bedroom (the other room was the living room). There was no bathroom or running water; so Batista and his family (were forced to drink from rivers and ponds, which often made them ill.

Many questioned whether his origins and he was often referred to as a mulatto. Though Batista frequently acknowledged growing up in poverty, he rarely mentioned his racial and ethnic origins. He simply described his farents as "Cuban," as it was in his best interest to avoid discussions about his origins that might have caused prejudice in the minds of Cubans and Americans

Batista began working from an early age. His father worked twelve hour days cutting sugar cane, but in the off season, work and money was scarce. During these times, Batista's father would harveste bananas and his mother would sell them in makeshift fruit stand by their home. However, as money was tight, Batista was forced to leave school and begin working with his father at the age of eight to help supplement the family income.

In 1911, Batista was allowed to return to school, but only at night. He attended Colegio "Los Amigos" of Banes, which was run by Quakers at night. Since there was work and chores that needed to be done, Batista's parents considered school an indulgence and he was not allowed to do his school work at home. Nonetheless, he graduated at age twelve in the Spring of 1913 with a fourth grade education

When Batista's mother passed away in 1916 his family became fragmented. Batista worked various odd jobs and traveled the countryside. From 1916 until he enlisted in the army, he worked different office jobs, harvested oranges and sugar cane, and ran errands and did chores for soldiers, among many other things. Finally, Batista was hired by the railroad and, thus, gained the financial security and independence he was searching for. Additionally, while working for the railroad, Batista indulged himself in various books in order to educate himself.

In 1921, Batista joined the First Battalion, Fourth Infantry Company at Camp Columbia as a private in the Cuban army. Here, he studied sternography and took a number of courses to enhance his sternographic skills. He attended a small technical school called Colegio San Mario, as well as other schools in the area. At his height, Batista could transcribe up to 160 words per minute. He was a poster boy for sternography, and trade journals and magazines boasted his success as he became an adept typist. When his recruitment expired in April 1923, Batista did not automatically reenlist in the army. He took public speaking and phonetics classes until he reenlisted in the Rural Guard at the end of May 1923.

First Rule

On September 4, 1933 Batista led enlisted men, in alliance with students and labor leaders, in an uprising known as the Sergeants’ Revolt, which ousted the provisional government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. This rebellion was built on the grievances of enlisted men about the treatment they received in the army; additionally, the enlisted men blamed the officers for taking full credit for the overthrow of Gerardo Machado. The civilian revolutionaries and student movement allied with Batista; and, the enlisted men began to take control of the navy, police stations and armed forces. The students developed a program that established a new form of government, which included the creation of an executive commission of five individuals who were to rule the country together. However, the pentarchy did not last long, and Ramón Graú San Martín was selected president by the executive commission. Batista appointed himself Army Chief of Staff and the promoted himself to Colonel. This marked the beginning of the army’s role as an organized force that influenced and ran the government.

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.

During this period, Batista violently suppressed a number of attempts to defeat his control. This included the quashing of an uprising in the ancient Atares 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.

In October 1940, Batista, who formed a coalition with the Cuban Communist Party 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.

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 1930's, 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 with America, 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.

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 10th, his funeral led to a nationwide protest, with a 5-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.

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 [1]. 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, and first Hispanic judge on Florida State Supreme Court, is the grandson of Fulgencio Batista.

Marta Fernandez 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 in with her husband in San Isidro Cemetery in Madrid after a mass in West Palm Beach.

Selected bibliography

• 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 [2]

See also

Cuba Portal

• Cuban Revolution

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Argote-Freyre, Frank Fulgencio Batista: From Revolutionary to Strongman New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006 ISBN 0813537010
• Karol, K.S. Trans. Arnold Pomerans Guerrilas in Power: The Coure of the Cuban Revolution New York: Hill & Wang, 1970 ISBN 0809053470
• Matthews, Herbert L. Revolution in Cuba New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975 ISBN 0684142139
• Rice, Earle Jr. The Cuban Revolution World History Series San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 1995 ISBN 1560062754

External links

• Sierra, Jerry Fulgencio Batista, Cuban Dictator historyofcuba.com Retrieved September 24, 2007
• Sierra, Jerry Fulgencio Batista, from The History of Cuba historyofcuba.com Retrieved September 24, 2007
• American Experience: Fidel Castro: People & Events: Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973) PBS Retrieved September 24, 2007
• Fulgencio Batista The Cuban Experience Retrieved September 24, 2007
• Fulgencia Batista Spartacus Educational Retrieved September 24, 2007
• Fulgencio Batista Retrieved September 24, 2007

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