12.4.2013 Assignment

"History will absolve me"

Cuban Revolution (1953-1959)

Welcome,

·      Analyze the political cartoon below, what do you notice, what is the message that the illustrator is trying to portray?

Today we are continuing our understanding of revolutions, but instead of just focusing on the American Revolution of the late 18th Century we are venturing into the 20th by studying the Cuban Revolution.

The Cuban Revolution (1953-1959) was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro and its allies against the government of Cuban President Batista. The revolution began in July 1953, and finally ousted Batista on January 1st 1959, replacing the government with a socialist state.

Answer the question that corresponds with the last part of the video:

1. What is a revolution? 
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Please Read the section below:

On October 16, 1953, Fidel Castro made a four-hour speech, but it wasn’t one of his long stem-winders to his followers.It was a speech he gave as a prisoner, while being tried in court for leading a small group of rebels in an attack on the Moncada military barracks in Cuba on July 26th. The remarks Castro made during his trial included his famous quotation: “History will absolve me.” (“La historia me absolver.”)

The Moncada Barracks attack was an attempt to start an insurrection against the Cuban dictator Fulgencia Batista. It failed at the time and the men involved were either killed or captured by Batista’s soldiers. But it turned out to be the beginning of the “Cuban Revolution.”

The historical record makes it pretty clear why the revolution happened. Fulgencio Batista was a ruthless dictator. And, he got rich taking cuts and bribes from the U.S. corporations that ran most of Cuba’s major industries and from the American mobsters who ran most of the hotels and casinos in Havana.

 Meanwhile, most Cubans were poor, uneducated, ill-housed and disenfranchised. In his remarks at his October 16, 1953 trial, Castro reviewed the many political crimes of Batista and his illegitimate presidency. The entire speech is famous among Marxists, but most books of quotations just give the “History will absolve me” line.

Batista made the mistake of not executing Castro after he was found guilty at the trial. Instead, Fidel was put in prison and then – in an even bigger blunder – Batista allowed him to be released in 1955, thinking he was no longer a serious threat.

The following year, Fidel, his brother Raul Castro, and Che Guevara began organizing disgruntled Cuban peasants into a growing revolutionary army. They formed a guerrilla army, a small group of militants that use ambushes, hit and run tactics, and extreme mobility to bring down a larger, less mobile traditional army. A few years later they succeeded in driving Batista out of the country (along with the American corporations and the mob).

Most of the Cuban people supported Castro's revolution because he had promised them to bring back democracy and freedom to Cuba. However, far from calling free democratic elections, Fidel Castro, the master of lie and political cheat, aligned with the Soviet Union and the European Eastern block of communist nations, setting up a Marxist regime in cuba and a new dictatorship, which would last many times longer than the preceding one and would be even crueler, subjecting the island not only to Marxist tyranny, but also extreme poverty. thus, overtime, the people of Cuba would be worse off, economically and politically, than they used to be during Batista's regime. 


EXIT TICKET:

• Please go to www.edmodo.com and log in and complete the question.

HOMEWORK:

• Definitions and sentences in context.