“The Rise of Fidel Castro cult of personality
Uploaded by wiegerp on Nov 09, 2008
“The Rise of Fidel Castro is mainly due to his cult of personality” to what extent do you agree with this statement?
Although it is true that Herbert Matthews aided Castro to spark the Civil War by bringing the eyes of the world and portray sympathy towards Castro. The Rise of Fidel Castro Ruiz cannot be justified solely on 1 cause. His rise to power as a ruler is composed on many factors such as; the failures of Batista Government, the failures of Batista when acting against Castro, the role of the nationalist army, the army of the rebels and the Castro’s own discipline which contributed to his rise to power.
The failure of Batista government led to social discontent due to economic and political failures that motivated to a despair change in the society. “Fidelists wanted a change in society in which political and economic failures had deeply weakened the recourse to reform”. Politically; the country was ruled by Batista and a group of corrupt politicians that made no reforms at all. As Castro said In a speech of 1965; “the government was composed of the elite, those wealthy landowners and merchants that use the resources to satisfy their own purposes”.
Batista deeply failed in the satisfaction and wellbeing of the economy. By 1958; Cuba was a country highly dependent on the USA. Cuba 68% of all exports went to USA and 70% of all imports it received; came from the USA. USA controlled 3/5 of the railways, ½ of all the land and at the same time mainly all of the investments came from the USA. Even so; most of the mayor industrial lands and goods were under American domain. E.g. Cane sugar, cigars and oil refineries.
Socially before Castro conditions were also chaotic. There were 600,000 people unemployed; the other people unemployed worked mainly seasonal to 3 months. 3 million people did not have electricity; 3.5 million people lived in huts. 70% of all the rural children lacked professors, the poor were not allowed an electoral system whereas at the same time; they lived in terrible conditions with poor standards of living. Illiteracy rates got as high as 37 ½ percent. The working classes had very small power. All of this; compared to the rich people showed a great income inequality. The rich were privilege, merchants and landowners owned most of the wealth in the country. Their life style was...