1. Read the sources below and answer the questions which follow regarding the role of ideology in Castro's consolidation of power.

2. In pairs discuss the role of ideology in Castro’s overthrow of Batista’s regime and his establishment of a single party state.

Source A

Extract from Castro’s ‘History will absolve me’ speech at his trial in October 1953. Cuba.

The famous French Declaration of the Rights of Man willed this principle to the coming generations: 'When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for them the most sacred of rights and the most imperative of duties.' 'When a person seizes sovereignty, he should be condemned to death by free men.'

…How can Batista's presence in power be justified when he gained it against the will of the people and by violating the laws of the Republic through the use of treachery and force? How could anyone call legitimate a regime of blood, oppression and ignominy? How could anyone call revolutionary a regime which has gathered the most backward men, methods and ideas of public life around it? How can anyone consider legally valid the high treason of a Court whose duty was to defend the Constitution? With what right do the Courts send to prison citizens who have tried to redeem their country by giving their own blood, their own lives? All this is monstrous to the eyes of the nation and to the principles of true justice!

… Still there is one argument more powerful than all the others. We are Cubans and to be Cuban implies a duty; not to fulfill that duty is a crime, is treason. We are proud of the history of our country… We were born in a free country that our parents bequeathed to us, and the Island will first sink into the sea before we consent to be the slaves of anyone…

… I cannot ask freedom for myself while my comrades are already suffering in the ignominious prison of the Isle of Pines. Send me there to join them and to share their fate. It is understandable that honest men should be dead or in prison in a Republic where the President is a criminal and a thief.

… I know that imprisonment will be harder for me than it has ever been for anyone, filled with cowardly threats and hideous cruelty. But I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.

Source B

Castro's ‘five revolutionary laws’ part of a manifesto he wrote during his imprisonment after his trial in 1953.

I] The reinstatement of the 1940 Cuban constitution

II] Land reform

III] Industrial workers to have 30% share of profits

IV] Sugar workers to have 55% share of profits

V] Confiscation of property of those guilty of fraud

Source C

Castro's Sierra Maestra Manifesto. July 1957.

Do the Sierra Maestra rebels not want free elections, a democratic regime, a constitutional government? It is because they deprived us of those rights that we have fought since March l0. We are here because we want them more than anyone else. To demonstrate it, there are our fighters dead in the mountains and our comrades murdered in the streets or secluded in prison dungeons. We are fighting for the beautiful ideal of a free, democratic, and just Cuba. What we do not do is to agree with the lies, farces, and compromises of the dictatorship.

We want elections, but with one condition: truly free, democratic, and impartial elections.

Source D

A letter written by Che Guevara. December 1957. Cuba.

Because of my ideological background, I belong to those who believe that the solution of the world’s problems lies behind the so-called iron curtain, and I see this movement [26 July] as one of the many inspired by the bourgeoisie’s desire to free themselves from the economic chains of imperialism. I always thought of Fidel as an authentic leaderof the leftist bourgeoisie, although his image is enhanced by personal qualities of extraordinary brilliance that set him above his class. 

Source E

A speech by Fidel Castro. Santiago de Cuba. 3^rd January 1959

We will not forget our peasants in the Sierra Maestra and those in the interior of the country… I as soon as I have a free moment we will see about building the first school city with seats for 20,000 children. We will do it with the help of the people and the rebels will work with them there… There will be freedom for all men because we have achieved freedom for all men. We shall never feel offended; we shall defend ourselves and we shall follow a single precept that of respect for the rights and feelings of others.

Source F

A press conference by Castro. Havana. Cuba. February, 1959.

The 26 July movement is one with radical ideas, but it is not a communist movement and it differs basically from communism on a whole series of basic points. And those in the 26 July movement, both Raul and Guevara, like all the others, are men who agree very closely with my political thinking, which is not communist thinking. The thinking of the July 26 movement is not communist thinking.

Source G

Extract from writing by Manuel Urrutia. In exile in the US. 1970.

The first time I heard the promise of elections repudiated was when Castro and I attended the opening of the library at Marta University at Las Villas. At the end of the meeting, Castro mentioned elections and a large number of his listeners shouted against them. After the speech, Castro asked, ‘Did you notice how they spoke against elections?’

Source H

A speech by Castro at the first official meeting of the PCC. 1965.

Since we feel that we have already reached a stage in which all types of labels and things that distinguish some revolutionaries from others must disappear once and for all and forever and that we have already reached the fortunate point in the history of our revolutionary process in which we can say that there is only one type of revolutionary, and since it is necessary that the name of our party says, not what we were yesterday, but what we are today and what we will be tomorrow, what, in your opinion, is the name our party should have? The Communist Party of Cuba! Well, that is the name that the revolutionary conscience of its members, and the objectives of our revolution, our first central committee adopted yesterday and that is quite proper.

Source I

An interview between Castro and a US journalist. 1963. Cuba.

At the time of Moncada I was a pure revolutionary but not a Marxist revolutionary. In my defense at the trial [see the History will absolve me speech] I outlined a very radical revolution, but I thought then that it could be done under the constitution of 1940 and within a democratic system. That was the time I was a utopian Marxist… it was a gradual process, a dynamic process in which the pressure of events forced me to accept Marxism as the answer to what I was seeking.

1. How consistent is Castro’s promotion of a ‘social justice’ agenda in these sources?
2. What do these sources reveal about Castro’s position towards ‘democracy in Cuba’?
3. What factors might have led Castro towards pursuing a ‘communist’ ideology after 1959?
4. Compare and contrast the views expressed by Castro in Source B, Source C and Source H.
5. With reference to the origin, purpose and content, analyse the value and limitations of Source A for historians studying Castro’s ideology.
6. With reference to the origin, purpose and content, analyse the value and limitations of Source H for historians studying Castro’s ideology.