Take me to the picture gallery

Fact Sheet

Name: Fulgencio Batasta y Zaldívar
Country: Cuba
Birthday: January 16, 1901
Died: August 6, 1973
Dates in Power: 1940-1944, then 1952-1959
How Leader Came into Power: elected, then coup
Classification: Military dictator
Nuclear Capability: no
Major Achievements: Cruel Cuban dictator known for very pro-US policies, later deposed by Fidel Castro

Score Card (click here for the explanations)

Charisma/ Popularity: 2
Danger Rating (Foreign Policy): 2
Oppression Rating: 4
Number of Domestic Victims: 3
Longevity: 4
Economics: 4
Notoriety/ Infamy: 2.5
Statesman Factor: 3
Extremism: 3.5
Progressiveness: 2
Total Score (50 max): 30

Diese Seite auf Deutsch anzeigen!

Cast your vote!

Browse Books on Batista!:

General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar  (January 16, 1901 - August 6, 1973) was the de facto military leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1940 and the de jure President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944. He then became the country's leader, after staging a coup, from 1952 to 1959. His authoritarian government generated opposition, notably from Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement by which Batista was ousted, in what is known as the Cuban Revolution.

Youth and first rule

Batista was born in Banes, Holguín Province, Cuba in 1901. He is said to have been the son of Belisario Batista and Carmela Zaldívar, Cubans who fought for independence from Spain. Of very humble origins, Batista began working from an early age. A self-educated man, he attended school at night and is said to have been a voracious reader. Batista was considered socially a mulatto (mixed African and Spanish blood, for the Taíno were considered extinct. Photographs reveal additional admixtures which while some say were Filipino and seemingly indicate strong proportions of indigenous Taíno). He bought a ticket to Havana and joined the army in 1921. Sergeant Batista was a leader of the 1933 "Sergeants' Revolt" which replaced the Provisional Government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes who had previously ousted Gerardo Machado. It is generally conceded that U.S. Special Envoy Sumner Welles approved of this. Ramón Grau was made president and Batista became the Army Chief of Staff and effectively controlled the presidency.

During this period Batista violently suppressed a number of attempts to defeat his control. This included the squashing of an uprising in the ancient Atares fort (Havana) by Blas Hernández, a rural guerrilla who had fought Gerardo Machado. Many of those who surrendered were executed. Another attempt was the attack on the Hotel Nacional where Cuban former army officers of the Cuban Olympic rifle team (including one Enrique Ros) put up stiff resistance until they were defeated. Here again Batista troops executed a good number of the surrendered. The irony is that many of these officers had helped overthrow Machado. There were many other often minor and almost unrecorded attempted revolts against Batista. These too were bloodily suppressed. These minor revolts included one in Guamá, a place in the Sierra Maestra south of Guisa, where the followers of an anti-Batista guerrilla leader known as Gamboa (apparently a member, or former member, of the Antonio Guiteras anti-Machado guerrillas) were defeated and dispersed.

Grau was president for just over 100 days before being replaced by Carlos Mendieta y Montefur (11 months), then José Barnet y Vinajeras (5 months), and then Miguel Gómez y Arias (7 months) before Federico Laredo Brú managed to rule from December 1936 to October 1940.

In October, 1940, Batista, who formed a coalition with the Cuban Communist Party was elected President of Cuba. During his tenure, he drafted the 1940 constitution (later approved by President Grau), widely regarded as a progressive document with regards to labor, unemployment, and social security, and implemented several liberal economic reforms. In 1944, Batista was forbidden by law to seek re-election by term limits and was succeeded by Grau. Batista retired to Florida before returning in 1952.

Second rule

Batista staged an almost bloodless coup d'état on March 10, 1952, removing Carlos Prío Socarrás (elected in 1948). Cubans in general were stunned, for they, remembering the bloodshed of the 1930's, were not ready to fight. Batista created a consultive council integrated from pliable political personalities of all parties who appointed him President three months before new elections were to be held. There were unanswered appeals to the Organization of American States and the UN (Thomas, 1971, 1998). Batista's past democratic and pro-labor tendencies and the fear of another episode of bloody violence gained him tenuous support from the now very old survivors of the Independence Wars, the bankers, the association of cane growers, the colonos (often prosperous share croppers and owners), and the leader of the major labor confederation, the CTC, Eusebio Mujal. Only a few labor leaders "such as Pascasio Linarer, Jesús Artigas and Calixto Sánchez" rebelled. The Ortodoxo and Auténtico, the major political parties, were undecisive.

The small Communist Party retained some government posts and the communist paper were co-opted and supported Batista even though relations with the USSR were broken. The new government received diplomatic recognition from the United States, the number of American corporations continued to swell in Cuba, and the island became a major tourist destination, creating unprecedented material prosperity for its inhabitants. This period was marked by considerable construction of private highrises, and public tunnels and roads. Havana became the third most expensive and dynamic city in the world with more TV sets, telephones, and late model Cadillacs per household than any city in America. The "Civic Plaza," and all surrounding buildings, now renamed as Plaza de la Revolución (Revolutionary Square), where Fidel Castro often speaks, was completed in these times. Revolution Square: José Martí Monument designed Enrique Luis Varela, sculpture by Juan José Sicre (1958)

The Cuban people, tired of corrupt governments, were somewhat accepting of the coup at first, hoping that Batista would restore stability to the island after the political violence, labor unrest, and government corruption that had occurred during Prío's tenure and noting Batista's humble origins and the fact that unlike many of his opponents, he achieved the full support of the labor movement including the communist party. During these years Batista created the program to bring education to peasants, building schools (although modestly), and implementing the minimum wage for farm workers, a measure deeply resented by the landowners. Despite the unprecedented economic prosperity of the 1950s, opposition parties like the Orthodoxo and the Auténtico managed to promote social unrest instigating university students to plant bombs and kill civilians and military personnel alike. Batista responded with repression of the subversives. Ultimately, the existing government corruption, tainted with claims of close relationship with the mafia, saw a rise in general opposition to his regime from the rich and middle class Cubans.

Advocates of liberal democracy also viewed Batista's presidency as unconstitutional and unacceptable because he was not elected (he later held an election and won unopposed; this was to legitimize his status with America). Cross-class urban resistance grew despite high casualties and the country folk (guajiros) increasingly turned to armed resistance. The overtly communist party, Partido Socialista Popular, supported Batista until about the middle of 1958.

Opposition

Among the numerous opponents to Batista was Fidel Castro, a young lawyer. Castro had first attempted to challenge the coup judicially, but his petition was refused by the courts. Castro published 25 articles against Batista, 13 statements attacking Batista and two manifestos while he was in the mountains. Then Castro led a disastrous attack on the Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953, by which Castro's guerrilla movement became subsequently known, the 26th of July Movement. Castro fled the scene of the battle[citation needed] leaving behind his soldiers who were captured and executed by Batista's forces. After being captured while sleeping, Castro was put to trial, found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

With pressure from a coalition of intellectuals, a media campaign and the advice of politicians from several parties, Batista decided to free Castro early. Castro was released in a general amnesty in May 1955 and went into exile in Mexico and then United States where he plotted another attempt against Batista's government. Castro's return to Cuba as head of the 26th of July Movement was marked by another disastrous attack in December, 1956 from the sea. Despite supporting urban actions by Frank País in Santiago in the days preceding the landing and rural support coordinated by Pais that included Celia Sanchez, the bandit Cresencio Perez, and the trucks from Huber Matos farm, the Castro invasion was easily suppressed and only Castro and some 11 to 17 others were able to retreat successfully into the mountains and from there wage a guerrilla war. Batista in "Repuesta" (p. 179 footnote, pp. 227, 268-269,298) mentions how he ordered a truce and "protective" guard on the Castro family in Birán so that the Castro brothers could leave the country safely. He then complains bitterly that the protective squad he had sent out for this purpose was attacked, apparently referring to Castro's first attack on an isolated patrol at La Plata on January 15th 1957.

Castro had a relatively effective net of informants who were successful in predicting attacks by Batista. There were low level informants called "Chivatos" which means "the goats", the same word that many years before had given Billy the Kid his nickname. The notorious BRAC (Buro de Repression de Actividades Comunistas} (see "Repuesta" pp. 57-64) was not effective against overt and covert communists but apparently used communist contacts to provide high level X-4 information (e.g. "Repuesta" p. 132) on disaffected officials of the Cuban army and non-Castro resistance that was almost without exception co-opted. In May 1958, in response to a prewarned and failed assault on the presidential palace by other resistance groups (see "Repuesta" pp. 57-64), Batista launched a major assault against Castro and the other rebel groups (unaffiliated with Castro). Despite being outnumbered (Castro claims his men numbered fewer than 100; however, there were far greater numbers of pickets or scouts (escopeteros) who saw action in those days), Castro's forces scored a series of victories, aided by the corruption of Batista's leading army officers and massive desertions. During this period, the U.S. broke off relations with Batista, stating that a peaceful transition to a new government was necessary and imposing an embargo preventing Batista from acquiring American arms. US companies still had extensive business interests in Cuba at this time, and the unrest was damaging to these. According to Antonio Núñez Jiménez, a military commander and minister under Castro at the time that Batista was deposed, 75% of Cuba's prime farm land was owned by foreign individuals or foreign (mostly U.S.) companies. This data differs substantially from the one reported in 1958 for the Latin American Annual Yearbook by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce showing a significant increase in the ownership of lands and industries by Cuban nationals as a result of Batista's economic policies during his years in power. Against this backdrop of growing civil war, Batista, constitutionally prohibited from continuing as president, organized an election in which his preferred candidate Carlos Rivero Aguero defeated Grau. That was not enough, however, as his regime began to collapse. On January 1, 1959, Batista's regime collapsed; Castro gained control of Cuba. Castro's forces (but not Castro himself) entered Havana that same day.

Batista later moved to Portugal and then Marbella, Spain where he lived and wrote books the rest of his life; he died on August 6, 1973, in Guadalamina, Spain.

Source article is from www.wikipedia.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista

and is subject to the GNU-FDL license for free documentation. 

List of authors at: