Metamorphosis Anyone??—Cuba

History shows that the different political systems around the world are unique. Over time there have been three countries that would rise to power and claim superiority of everyone else. These countries are the Soviet Union (Russia), England (English), and who could forget the United States of America. The result of the end of the Second World War, there were events that were put in place that would shape what happened in other area of the world.

Before we discuss what happened in these countries before they changed, we need to discuss what happened in both places that would lead the people to do what they did.  The events that lead to what happen was different in both places— there was no single event that happened in Germany to lead to the occupation. When Germany fall apart after the Second World War, the country was divided among the allies. However, in Cuba there was something that was different, there was progression of events that would lead the people of Cuba rise follow Castro and his fellow revolutionaries. First, we need to know a little Cuban history.

What we know is complex and started well before the insurrection. Before the Revolution, Cuba was aiming toward independence and formed a republic until the rise of Fulgencio Batista. Batista would become president of Cuba for the 1^st time in 1940-1944.  Even though he did not believe in a communist government; he did except financial help from the Democratic-Socialistic party to campaign for the presidency, which we can read in the connected hyperlink on Batista. During his first term, Batista could have a normal political incumbency. Most of his big mistakes were made during his second term of president were he appointed himself to dictator and it is here that Batista was supposedly connected to organized crime. Because he was not call the shots in government, Castro and the revolutionaries would rise to overthrow him and put him in exile. During his fight to stay in power, there were many popular culture that would show what happen. For example, in the 1974 classic movie—The Godfather Part II; when the audience can see how the people were celebrating the removal of Batista.

We cannot discuss the reign of terror of Batista without mentioning his competition of Castro. We learned in lecture that Castro came from the elite portion of the countries. His political views along with his brother would put a kink into the current form of government and this would lead to the exile of the duo to neighboring Mexico. However, they did not stay there long; they would use this time to come up with a strategy to overthrown Batista and start of the Cuban Revolution.   

 Historians and different authors like John Charles Chasteen who have studied the subject of Latin America have claimed that the Soviet Union had little to do with what transpired in Cuba in the middle of the 20^th century and the same could be said from lecture. Conspiracy theorists have deduced that what happened in Europe and in Cuba, were related. What I mean about related, there are many similarities between what happened there is Europe and what happen in Cuba. In the table below, some facts that I was able to research from different sources;

Events	Countries
	East Germany- USSR	Cuba
Conception (dates)	1949-1990	1953-1959; 1959- present
Death Tolls	Not Available
Escape Attempts	4 million surviving   171 reported deaths	Over a million Unknown reported death
Immigrating Population	NA	1,785,547
Geography	Land	Water & island
Military	Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deuschlands; aka Stasi	Revolutionary Armed Forces
Political System	Communism/socialism
Population	≈ 2,277,000 during occupation	≈ 11,210,064
Security Measures	Inner & Outer Wall surrounded	US Military Base & the Caribbean Sea

Although that history shows that there is no connection between Soviet Union and Cuba that is not what I am trying argue. What I am trying to argue is that there are similarities in how everything happened with the people when the power shifted. Although what happen in East Germany was temporary (1949-1990); we can hope that pretty soon the same could be said in Cuba. Today, we are now slowly seeing changes within the Cuban government when Raúl stepped up and Fidel retired. 

© Mary Costley, February 28, 2015

outside links are hyperlinked into the text.