Bits of Cuban History

A 144-page book, by French Marxist Régis Debray, subtitled lutte armée et lulte politique (“armed fight and political fight”) published in 1967, simultaneously in Paris and Havana, which elaborated Fidel Castro’s doctrine […]

By the end of 1958 wholesale army desertions had made Fulgencio Batista’s position untenable. He resigned in the early hours of New Year’s Day and fled to the Dominican Republic.

A 1933 revolt headed by non-commissioned army officers, including Fulgencio Batista, which triggered the Revolution of 1933. Upset by proposals for pay reductions for the lower echelons of the army

The Marxist demand economy system adopted after the Revolution of 1959 created numerous supply problems and productivity decreased. When the accumulated reserves of the old regime had been exhausted and

After the April 1961 failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the poor impression John Kennedy made on Nikita Khrushchev at their June 1961 meeting in Vienna, the Soviet

Unsuccessful attempt in April 1961 to invade Cuba and overthrow the Fidel Castro regime (which refers to the event by the name of the main landing beach, Playa Girón). Already

The nucleus of a Cuban exile force of 1,400 men, they Bay of Pigs invasion force, trained by the United States Central Intelligence Agency in Guatemala, which sailed from Puerto Cabezas,

Name given to Fidel Castro’s revolutionary cause, adopted from the date of his ill-fated 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba.  He began the movement in prison, and

A combined assault on the Presidential Palace, March 13, 1957, by the Directorio Revolucionario and members of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Auténtico) in an attempt to kill President Batista. Most of the attackers, including

A series of riots (looting, arson, police station bombings and c3,000 deaths) that took place in Bogotá, Colombia, following the April 9, 1948, murder of the popular Liberal Party leader