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9. Revolution and Response
- University of Georgia Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Revolution and Response The end of the Batista regime came amid a revolutionary general strike on January i, 1959, summoning hundreds of thousands of Cubans to dramatic action against the old order, demanding nothing less than unconditional surrender to the new. The success of Cuban arms carried the island over a threshold never before crossed. Not since the nineteenth century had Cubans employed arms with such effect, and never before had the effects of Cuban arms been so complete. An unpopular government was displaced, its political allies discredited, and its armed forces defeated. Cubans had challenged a repressive regime on its own terms and succeeded—unconditionally and unassisted. This was a Cuban solution, one from which North Americans had been largely excluded and hence one over which the United States had little control. The deed of revolution awakened the popular imagination, creating a vast constituency for radical change. It raised expectations of revolution . Pressure for immediate, deep, sweeping change was building from below, and the invocation of revolution encouraged it to rise to the top. Reform decrees in early 1959 provided immediate material relief to vast numbers of people. In March, the government enacted the first Urban Reform Law. One of the more popular early reforms, the law decreed a 50 percent reduction of rents under $100 monthly, 40 percent reduction of rents between $100 and $200, and 30 percent reduction of rents over $200. Other measures soon followed. The new government reduced telephone rates and drastically cut electricity rates. Virtually all labor contractswere renegotiated and wages raised. Cane cutters' wages were increased by a flat 15percent. Health reforms, educational reforms, and unemployment relief followed in quick order. The Agrarian Reform Law of May 1959 restricted land titles to 1,000 acres, with the exception of property engaged in the production of sugar, rice, and livestock, for which the maximumlimit 238 9 239 Revolution and Response was fixed at 3,333 acres. Properties exceeding these limits were nationalized and compensation provided in the form of twenty-year bonds bearing an annual interest rate of 4.5 percent. II The revolution had succeeded unconditionally and because it had, it could proceed to make revolutionary change uncompromisingly. What was perhaps not immediately apparent during the early months of 1959 was that the United States was being shorn of much of its traditional power to influence the course of events on the island. Social structures were in disarray, the political system was in crisis, the economy was in distress. National institutions were in varying degrees of disintegration and disrepute, and because they had not served Cubans well, if at all, they were vulnerable. The old army had been defeated and dissolved, and it was replaced by one created from the ranks of the victorious guerrilla columns. The Batista administration had been dislodged; many bastistianos were brought to trial, and the assets of all were confiscated. But more than an unpopular ruler had been removed. In fact, almost all government, all its branches and at all levels, was stigmatized by association with the discredited regime: congressmen and senators, cabinet members and army commanders, judges and governors, provincial councillors and municipal aldermen, mayors and policemen. Nor were only those who held office stigmatized. Banished from the political life of the republic were all politicians who had participated in the 1958 elections. And gradually, too, there was mounting popular animus toward all politicians of the previous two decades, whose malfeasance and misconduct had contributedto the rise of the batistato. That the UnitedStates played so prominent a part in this discredited past all but guaranteed a day of reckoning. And, indeed, many of the early reform measures were designed as much to reduce the capacity of the United States to continue to function as a power contender as they were to improve Cuban living conditions. This meant necessarily [3.227.0.245] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:27 GMT) 240 CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES reducing the prominence of the North American role in the Cuban economy. Imports from the United States were among the first items reduced, declining from $543 million in 1959 to $224 million in 1960* At the same time, Cuba expanded its search for alternative markets and new suppliers. The traditional privileged position long enjoyed by North American capital was challenged. That was the meaning of the reduction of telephone and electricityrates and the renegotiation of labor contracts. It was especially the point of the Agrarian Reform Law, which with one stroke...