Word: castros
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Matos had fought alongside Castro in the mountains and after the victory was assigned the military leadership of Camaguey province. In October, 1959, he resigned to protest Communists replacing 26th of July members in leading local government jobs and in the rebel army. Matos was arrested, charged with treason, tried, and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment...
Draper cites other early indications of the second revolution's progress. At the congress of the Cuban Confederation of Labor in November, 1959, the 26th of July Movement could have "scored an overwhelming victory over the Communists." It failed to do so because Castro appeared unexpectedly and intervened on behalf of the Communists. By 1960 the Confederation of Labor was completely controlled by Communists. In early February, 1960, the President of the PSP (Partido Socialista Popular) publically equated anti-Communism and treason. The same month Soviet Deputy Premier Mikoyan signed the first Soviet-Cuban agreement in Havana, "amidst an official...
...second revolution occur? Draper denies that United States policy towards Cuba was "the "causative, operative factor.... The decision to turn Cuba into a Communist state was of such fundamental magnitude that it cannot be ascribed to a mere reactive response." In Draper's view, the second revolution resulted from Castro's refusal to permit any reductions or restrictions of his personal power...
...Castro had fought without the support of a large, disciplined army, a well-organized political party, or an ideology. He realized early that he did not need these props, if the populace would support him. To appeal to the largest possible number of Cubans, he "progressively moderated his program and propaganda." By 1958 he was voicing "little more than the traditional aspirations of the socially conscious, democratic-minded Cuban middle and working classes...
These promises served the 26th of July movement well, but they were incompatible with the undivided, unconstrained power which fell to Castro when Batista and entourage fled the country. Rather than honor the pre-victory democratic pledges, Castro turned to the Cuban and Russian Communists because they had the "disciplined and experienced cadres, the ideology, and the international support" to guarantee his leadership indefinitely. The Communists agreed to collaborate with Castro because they realized that otherwise they could have no hopes of seizing power...