Raul Castro (Fidel’s youngest brother) with “Che” Guevara in 1958. Both were instrumental figures in the Cuban Revolution.
Under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista – who claimed power via military coup in 1952 – the Cuban people watched their civil liberties erode. The country had witnessed their liberal constitution of 1940 suspended by Batista and basic legislation in the realm of civil liberties appeared unobtainable. In short, Cubans desired a change of regime in order to ensure a brighter future for their families and the nation as a whole. Thus, when Fidel Castro mounted a revolution against Batista in the mid-1950s, there remained hope for positive change which culminated in Castro’s ascension to power in 1959 via a successful revolution. However, the aforementioned sentiment was not universally shared and short-lasting at that.
The journal World Affairs offered a take on the changing landscape of Cuba in its 1959 piece “Castro’s Cuba: an Inventory”. The author of the article, Joseph F. Thorning, provided a glance into the unrest plaguing Cuba following the revolutionary turmoil whilst hinting at the new regime’s proclivity for Marxist practices. Moreover, this document – written in a time of anti-communist sentiment inside the U.S. – helps place the developments which occurred in Cuba, and subsequent exodus to the United States, within the prevailing capitalism v. communism mindset. Thorning, describing the emerging totalitarian tendencies of Castro, notes the new regime’s meddling in the press. He writes:
There is only one type of mass meeting that is allowable in Castro’s Cuba: adulation for the “Supreme Chief of the Revolution”. The newspapers, reviews, magazines and other periodicals are expected to produce columns of copy on the same theme. Those editors and correspondents who sing in this chorus are favored by exclusive news handouts and the joyous smiles of politicians. The Marxist orientation of the “official” press is overwhelmingly obvious.
Thorning then continued to describe the shady nature of Castro’s nationalization of agriculture and his regime’s overarching goal of inciting the masses against the United States. While the latter accusation may be a bit biased in nature, it perhaps identifies the main audience of this article as English speaking Americans. Moreover, the anti-communist sentiment in this piece provides a solid framework for understanding the setting in the United States which Cuban exiles would enter in droves. However – as alluded to above – one must understand the latent bias in Thorning’s piece which stems from the inescapable ideological struggle between capitalism and communism. With this in mind, Thorning’s writing certainly expressed disdain for communism and Castro’s regime as a whole and perhaps he embellished certain critiques. Nevertheless, by all accounts, he was quite accurate in his assessment of the turbulent Cuban nation.
Adding a sense legitimacy and context to the above-mentioned document, María Cristina García – in her book Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida – notes that totalitarian practices established in 1959 and the early 1960s was the driving factor for Cuban migration in this period. García asserts that violence, harassment, and social indoctrination promulgated by the Castro regime comprised the main factors driving emigration at this time. Highlighting the climate in Cuba immediately following Castro’s ascension, she concluded that the populace was generally opposed to the ever-present Marxist propaganda, censorship and the explicit targeting of the clergy by the regime.
From these two sources one can garner an understanding of the motivating factors which ushered in the first wave of Cuban migration between 1959 and October 22, 1962; in this relatively small span of time, nearly a quarter of a million Cubans would emigrate to the United States.
– Ben Vorderstrasse