Raúl Castro will certainly leave power at the next congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. These were the main dates that characterized his mandate and that of his brother, Fidel.
The late leader of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, who will leave the leadership of the Communist Party at the next Congress, have led the country for more than 60 years. Raúl Castro has the chairmanship of Cuba to Miguel Díaz-Canel in April 2018. Here are the ten dates that marked the Castro brothers’ mandates.
Triumph of the Revolution
On January 1, 1959, dictator Fulgencio Batista flees after 26 months of guerrilla warfare by the Castro brothers. Fidel Castro proclaims the “beginning of the revolution” from Santiago de Cuba (east). The government began to radicalize in May with the first agrarian reform law expropriating land from large landowners.
Nationalization and embargo
On August 17, 1960, American companies in Cuba were nationalized in response to the oil boycott and the lowering of the sugar quota system, which would lead to the breakdown of diplomatic relations on January 3, 1961. In February 1962, Washington ceased trading. embargo of the island, still in effect.
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Bay of Pigs
Between April 15 and 19, 1961, revolutionary forces defeated 1,400 CIA-trained and funded anti-Castro activists attempting to invade Cuba through Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón). On May 1, Fidel declared the Marxist-Lenin character of the revolution. In 1965 the existing political forces were to be united in the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the only one since then.
Missile crisis
From October 14 to 28, 1962, the United States discovered missiles installed in Cuba by the Soviet Union, unleashing a crisis that made the world tremble with fear of the start of a nuclear war.
Death of “Che”
On October 9, 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara, Fidel Castro’s brother-in-arms, died in Bolivia, a setback in the guerrilla struggle that Cuba was promoting in Latin America, for which he was accused of “exporting the revolution”.
Look at the USSR
On July 26, 1970, the “harvest of 10 million” failed and only 8.1 million tons of sugar, the island’s main raw material, was collected. Cuba is turning to the Soviet economic job and in 1972 it joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Came).
Operation “Carlota”
On November 5, 1975, Cuban military participation in Africa began, initially in Angola, a country embroiled in civil war after its independence. They are also moving to Ethiopia, and to a lesser extent to a dozen other countries. It ended in 1991 and involved about half a million soldiers. The operation was called “Carlota” in tribute to a black slave who fought for her freedom in colonial Cuba.
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The special period
On August 29, 1990, Cuba announced the start of the Special Period, a program of adjustment and resistance to face the serious crisis caused by the disappearance of the USSR and the communist bloc. This caused severe shortages on the island, especially of food.
Raúl is in command. Death of Fidel
On July 31, 2006, Raúl Castro, hitherto number two in the country’s leadership, temporarily replaced Fidel after becoming seriously ill. He officially became president in 2008 and began a slow program of reform to “update” the worn-out Soviet-style economic model. On November 25, 2016, Fidel passed away at the age of 90.
Thaw with the US.
On December 17, 2014, Raúl Castro and then President of the United States, Barack Obama, announced the beginning of the rapprochement that would lead to the re-establishment of relations in 2015, after more than half a century of confrontation. The thawing process begins, which will be halted after Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House in January 2017 with a harsh strengthening of economic sanctions.