Before the Revolution

Activity 1:

Opening: Open by showing the class Video Footage of Havana Cuba in the 1950s (Cuba Before Castro).

Do not tell students what they are watching, simply ask where and when they think this footage was shot. I had many students say Florida, others said California, some even said New York.  Ask students to take not of what they see and what impression they get of this place. Is it developed? Is it calm? Is it somewhere they would like to live?

At the end of the clip you can reveal to the class where and when the footage is from and gauge their reactions compared to some of the assumptions they had of Cuba.

Class Discussion: Transition into a Class discussion about what make a successful society - create categories you should come up with something along he lines of Sovereignty, Employment, economics, Society, Education, Politics, and Health (or at least thats what one of my classes established.) 

Reading and evidence gathering: Distribute the first article to the first half of the class and the second article to the second half of the class. Individually or in pairs, students should read their assigned articles, collect information in the form of a chart on the issues of: Sovereignty, Employment, economics, Society, Education, Politics, and Health in Cuba before the revolution in 1958. Have students circle any words that are new and unclear.

1. What was life like for Cubans in the1950s?

2. What Castro Found, By Ana Simo, MARCH 5, 2000.

Share out: Students share out their findings and create a master chart. This will become important later for discussing the July 26th Movement and its manifesto. 

Activity 2: 

Here are a few sources that I included in an essay packet that I gave to the students. If you would like to build more background about Cuba before the revolution as part of whole class activities you can utilize some of these resources and questions.

Azucar!: Impact of Sugar in Cuba

Directions: After reading and annotating the above excerpts, answer the questions below in complete and thoughtful sentences, using the above sources as evidence of your claims.

In 1932, Dewin G Nourse of the Institute of Economics said the following about US ownership of the Cuban Sugar Industry:

“Our citizens have invested over a billion dollars in Cuba, and own more than three-fourths of the enormous sugar industry of the Island.”

In the Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs (1970), James H. Hitchman wrote:

“Most of the American-owned Cuban land was not held by homesteaders but by large corporations or small groups of wealthy men. Absentee land ownership was the common method of United States agricultural investment.”

In 1932, Herminio Portell Vilá wrote in the Hispanic American Historical Review:

"The sugar industry-always a parasitical growth-has never been able to pay its expenses with its own resources in normal times. It depended on slavery for its prosperity in former times and now the masked slavery of the West Indian laborers is unable to save it. Some sort of economic euthanasia is needed for industries which have developed into monstrosities as is the case with Cuba's sugar industry."

In a book entitled, Our Cuban Colony: A study in Sugar 1928, Leland Hamilton Jenks wrote:

“Annexationists prophesied a time when, with Cuba under our flag, we would control the world’s supply of sugar as absolutely as we did cotton.”

Questions: 

1. What was the United States relationship to Cuba in the early 1900s?

2. What role did the US play in the sugar industry?

3. What effect did US involvement have on Cuba?

Fulgencio Batista 

Fulgencio Batista(J.A. Sierra)

What evidence does this piece provide on the corruption perpetuated by Batista?

Fulgencio Batista (PBS)

1. What evidence did you identify in this reading to help prove the corruption that took place under Batista’s rule?

2. What evidence was there of Batista’s relationship with the US?

3. What explanation was given for why Batista let Castro go after he was arrested?

Book reveals extent of Mafia's Cuban Empire By Carlos Rodriguez Matorell, Daily News, July 17, 2008

1. What does this article reveal about the roe of the US mafia in Cuba?

2. What relationship did Batista have with American Mafioso’s

3. What affect did this relationship and subsequent actions have on Cuba?4.

Beginnings of Resistance 

Frank País and the Underground Movement in the cities

An excerpt from Terrence Cannon’s book: REVOLUTIONARY CUBA, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York © 1981 by Terrence Cannon

1. Who was Frank Pais? Where and who did he organize?

2. How did his movement help Castro and the July 26th Movement?

3. What evidence is there in this piece of police brutality in Cuba?

These are the words of Fidel Castro spoken in his defense at a trial in 1953.

“Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time there was a Republic. It had its Constitution, its laws, its freedoms, a President, a Congress and Courts of Law. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom. The people were not satisfied with the government officials at that time, but they had the power to elect new officials and only a few days remained before they would do so. Public opinion was respected and heeded and all problems of common interest were freely discussed. There were political parties, radio and television debates and forums and public meetings. The whole nation pulsated with enthusiasm. This people had suffered greatly and although it was unhappy, it longed to be happy and had a right to be happy. It had been deceived many times and it looked upon the past with real horror. This country innocently believed that such a past could not return; the people were proud of their love of freedom and they carried their heads high in the conviction that liberty would be respected as a sacred right. They felt confident that no one would dare commit the crime of violating their democratic institutions. They wanted a change for the better, aspired to progress; and they saw all this at hand. All their hope was in the future.

• How does Castro describe Cuba before Batista came to power?

Poor country! One morning the citizens woke up dismayed; under the cover of night, while the people slept, the ghosts of the past had conspired and has seized the citizenry by its hands, its feet, and its neck. That grip, those claws were familiar: those jaws, those death-dealing scythes, those boots. No; it was no nightmare; it as a sad and terrible reality: a man named Fulgencio Batista had just perpetrated the appalling crime that no one had expected.”

• How does Castro portray Batista?

When we speak of struggle, the people mean the vast unredeemed masses, to whom all make promises and who all deceive; we mean the people who yearn for a better, more dignified and more just nation . . . people who, to attain these changes, are ready to give even the very last breath of their lives—when they believe in something or in someone . . . .These are the people, the ones who know misfortune and, therefore, are capable of fighting with limitless courage! To the people whose desperate roads through life have been paved with the bricks of betrayal we . . . say . . . Here you have it, fight for it with all your might so that liberty and happiness may be yours.

• Which “people” does Fidel Castro feel are the basis of the Cuban Revolution?

• Why and how do “these people” fight according to Castro