Cuba under U.S. Influence

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On the eve of a Cuba victory, the U.S. intervened in the conflict. Following its intervention in 1898, the U.S. denied Cuban a seat at the peace negotiations and had Cuban sovereignty transferred to itself.  As mentioned earlier, Cuba was all ready well within the American sphere of influence; however, denied the legal right to annex the island by the Teller Amendment, with the Platt Amendment force upon the nation in 1903, U.S. domination went from informal economic domination to institutional imperialism.  

To Read the Platt Amendment Go Here:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/platt.htm

To Read the Teller Amendment Go Here:

http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist122/Part2/TellerAmndmnt.htm

The significance to the U.S. occupation, according to Perez, was that it “deprived Cubans of the opportunity to reorder the economy and reorganize property relations to accommodate their own interests.”[2]    By 1905, “An estimated 60 percent of all rural property in Cuba was owned by individuals and corporations from the United States.”[3]

          Under American supervision, Cuba under went a bourgeoisie revolution following the post war boom of the 1920s.  As Perez contends, “By the early 1920s, many within the new entrepreneurial bourgeoisie had reached the limit of their patience...The new entrepreneurs demanded a greater voice in public affairs.”[4]  Additionally, during this period labor started to organize, particular in the cigar and railroad industries. It was in this political climate that the reform liberal, Gerardo Machado ascended to the presidency in 1924. Machado was a proponent of industrialization and economic diversification.  By 1930, Cuba’s share of the world sugar market had risen to 46 percent.  However, the vast majority of its citizens did not partake in this prosperity. 

          However, the global economic crisis of the 1930s hit Cuba hard. The corruption of Machado was succeeded by the oppression of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. In 1935, a sergeant named Fulgencio Batista lead an army group in rebellion against their officers and “ended up with full state power in their hands.”[5] Batista assumed control of the military and placed Ramon Grau San Martin in charge of the civilian government.  In less then a month Grau would be dismiss by the right wing element headed by Batista, however, in that amount of time in proclaimed a series of reforms that included “the establishment of the eight-hour work day, a minimum wage, women’s suffrage, compulsory organization of professionals, autonomy for the University of Havana, repatriation of foreign workers, and the requirement that 50 percent of the employees in all industry and commerce be Cuban.  He had also announced the beginning of a program of land distribution.”[6]

          Yet it lasted only a month.  Following the overthrow of Gura, until the Castro lead revolution, Batista and his political puppet rule the island.  In an effort to bolster the regime prestige, the U.S. abolished the Platt amendment. Again a conservative dictator, friendly to U.S. imperialistic interest placed his iron grip upon the island.

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