Do you think Batista was more opressive then Castro?
That's a great question.
I think in the beginning, yes. Batista was under the thumb of US economic interests, which clearly treated Cuba as a colonial domain of the US corporate interests, including the tobacco and sugar growers. The peasants were very poor, and had no land.
In the first flush of the revolution, as I recall (this was many years ago, and I was in college and spending most of my time trying not to flunk out), the lot of the people did improve. Because of the US boycott, Cuba became a pawn of the Soviet Union. But since they were important to Russia -- a base 90 miles off the shore of the US -- Russia showered money on them, buying their sugar at high rates, etc. So the people economically did better than under Batista. I don't know whether they had any more or less freedom. Freedom tends to become more important after you have enough to eat than when you don't. And the euphoria of sacrificing for a common good which had imbued the Cuban (as the Chinese) revolutions began to wear off (as it also has in China and will do in Vietnam).
But as the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba was caught with the boycott still on and no country to support it. Certainly in the past few years they seem to be economically badly off, though better than many third world countries. As I said in an earlier post, I don't know that much about contemporary Cuba, but it's clear that the boycott is depriving the people of essential supplies. (Interestingly, our boycott of Cuba is even more sever than our boycotts of Lybia, Iraq, and other terrorist states. We won't even let food and medicine into Cuba. I find that very curious. There seems to be no rational basis for it.)
But as to your question, was Batista more oppressive than Castro, I would say in the early years, yes; now, I just don't know. |
