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The year  marks an unheralded watershed in the history of the Cuban Republic and the career of Fulgencio Batista. The period of revolutionary turmoil was at an end. The general strike of  was the last gasp of revolutionary forces seeking to redefine the core of Cuban society. As historian Robert Whitney puts it, Batista had succeeded “in disciplining the masses.”1 The venue for political struggle now shifted from the battlefield of the streets to the halls of government and the backrooms where political deals were made. Reform, not revolution, would typify the next fifteen years of Cuban history. Batista evolved with the times. Since September , , he had been the unrivaled leader of the Cuban military, and that constituency remained a key element of his support throughout his entire public life. But the sword proved to be double-edged. The more Batista used it, the more reliant he became on his hierarchy of lieutenant colonels who administered regiments in every province of the island. Individually, they were no match for him, but if several were ever to ally against him, they could pose a significant and, perhaps fatal, threat. There were other disadvantages to the use of brute force to settle political disputes. Violence created instability throughout Cuban society, and instability was bad for business. As long as order was maintained , business could function more or less normally, and the United States would look the other way as Batista charted the island’s destiny. Although only thirty-five in , Batista understood power and the many forms in which it manifests itself. Besides the power that the armed forces provided with the bayonet, the military also served Batista as a base from which to dispense lucrative public works contracts across the island. He had           8 in the shadow of batista 11Chap11.qxd 2/26/2006 7:36 AM Page 199 secured a blank check from President Mendieta to make improvements to military facilities without the prior approval of the cabinet or the president. Military facilities were largely neglected in the years after independence, but in the mid s, Batista initiated an enormous reconstruction program throughout the nation. The squalid old wooden barracks were replaced with new structures of bricks and mortar. He lavished money on Camp Columbia , the name of which was changed to Ciudad Militar (Military City), building a host of new medical, recreational, and housing facilities there. Libraries, social clubs, theaters, and swimming facilities were built at every major military installation on the island.2 Even more important, Batista used his power base in the military to nudge and push his way into the civilian political arena. At first, he tiptoed onto the political stage, but later he became the main attraction. His first major foray into the world of elective politics came with his efforts to construct a winning coalition for the elections of . After securing a presidential term for Miguel Mariano Gómez, Batista spent the next four years trying to build a winning coalition for himself. As one of the principal architects of the Tripartite Coalition, along with Ambassador Caffery, Batista became one of its most influential political leaders. Although the coalition eventually disintegrated , Batista, over the next four years, cobbled together some of the remnants into a political coalition with himself as its standard bearer. Violence was no longer the first weapon employed against disagreeable political opponents. Batista wielded the civilian politicians’ own system, of which they were the alleged masters, against them. When President Gómez proved uncooperative, Batista employed his political allies against him, rather than a battalion of soldiers. Political disputes were now to be settled in the political arena. Gradually, the revolutionary parties came to accept the fact that Batista-backed governments could not be ousted by force, and that the electoral process was their best avenue to power. The Auténticos; the Communists, operating through a front party known as the Partido Unión Revolucionaria (Union Revolutionary Party);3 and the ABC revolutionary movement rejoined the electoral process in the late s. Former President Ramón Grau San Martín, leader of the Auténticos, emerged as Batista’s most formidable rival, and the two waged a series of masterful political duels over the course of the next decade. For Batista to succeed as a political leader, he needed a social agenda. The first move in that direction came in February , when he established an army program to bring education to rural Cuba. Batista...

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