The View | Cuba’s sugar exports help explain the rise of Fidel Castro
Trade protectionism in the US acted as a block for Cuban agricultural exports and can explain the nation’s pivot towards the Soviets
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement and its allies against the authoritarian government of President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in 1953, and continued sporadically until Batista was ousted on January 1, 1959. The 26th of July Movement later reformed along communist lines, becoming the Communist Party in October 1965.
These events reshaped Cuba’s relationship with the US. Before the revolution, Cuba was one of the US’s strongest allies. Key Cuban industrial sectors were under the private control of US capital and agriculture was dominated by sugar production exported to the US market.
Watch: A look back on the life of Fidel Castro
Scholars have offered two interpretations regarding these ties and the origins of the Cuban Revolution.
Left-wing scholars blame the widespread economic inequality, exploitation, and dependence on the US as the underlying economic cause that invited revolution.
A major oversight in both interpretations is the neglect of the effects of increased trade protection in the US against Cuban sugar
Most leading scholars of the revolution counter that Cuba was not suffering from economic recession in the months before the rise of Castro’s July 26th Movement and that instead, the crisis was caused by the constitutional illegitimacy of the Batista dictatorship, a popular demand to restore democracy, and a loss of faith in a corrupt and sterile political system.
A major oversight in both interpretations is the neglect of the effects of increased trade protection in the US against Cuban sugar.
