Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (born Rubén Zaldívar; 16 January 1901 – 6 August 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and again from 1952 to his resignation in 1959, when he was overthrown in the Cuban Revolution. From 1936 till 1940 he was the de facto leader of Cuba.
Batista first came to prominence in the Revolt of the Sergeants, which overthrew the provisional government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada. Batista then appointed himself chief of the armed forces, with the rank of colonel, and effectively controlled the five-member "pentarchy" that functioned as the collective head of state. He maintained control through a series of puppet presidents until 1940, when he was elected president on a populist platform. He then instated the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and presided over Cuban support for the Allies during World War II. After finishing his term in 1944, Batista moved to Florida, returning to Cuba to run for president in 1952. Facing certain electoral defeat, he led a military coup against President Carlos Prío Socarrás that pre-empted the election.
Back in power and receiving financial, military and logistical support from the United States government,Fidel: The Untold Story. (2001). Directed by Estela Bravo. First Run Features. (91 min). Viewable clip. "Batista's forces were trained by the United States, which also armed them with tanks, artillery, and aircraft." Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans.Historical Dictionary of the 1950s, by James Stuart Olson, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, , pp. 67–68. Eventually, it reached the point where most of the sugar industry was in U.S. hands, and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land.Fidel: The Untold Story. (2001). Directed by Estela Bravo. First Run Features. (91 min). Viewable clip. Batista's repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships both with the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large U.S.-based multinational companies who were awarded lucrative contracts.Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution, by T.J. English, William Morrow, 2008, .
To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace—which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and demonstrations—Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities secret police to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions. These murders mounted in 1957, as socialist ideas became more influential. While exact numbers are unclear, estimates of the death toll attributed to Batista range from hundreds to up to 20,000 victims.
Batista's efforts to quell the unrest proved not only ineffective, but his tactics were the catalyst to even wider resistance against his regime. During this time, revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, founders of the 26th of July Movement, began a revolution that saw a combination of peaceful protests and guerrilla warfare in both rural and urban areas of Cuba between 1956 and 1958. After almost two years of fighting, rebel forces led by Guevara defeated Batista's forces at the Battle of Santa Clara on New Year's Eve, 1958, effectively collapsing the regime. On 1 January 1959, Batista announced his resignation, fleeing the country to the Dominican Republic under the protection of Rafael Trujillo, before settling in Portugal, spending the rest of his life in exile until his death in 1973.
Early life
Batista was born in the town of Veguita, located in the municipality of Banes, Cuba, in 1901 to Belisario Batista Palermo"Mambí Army" Data Base . and Carmela Zaldívar González, who had fought in the Cuban War of Independence. He was of Spanish, African, Chinese, and possibly some Taíno descent.Havana By Brendan Sainsbury .Fidel Castro's Road to Power, Volume 1. Both Batista's parents are believed to have been of mixed race and one may have had Indigenous Caribbean blood.Hugh Thomas, p. 391 "Cuba" . His mother named him Rubén and gave him her last name, Zaldívar. His father did not want to register him as a Batista. In the registration records of the Banes courthouse, he was legally Rubén Zaldívar until 1939, when he tried to register as a presidential candidate under the name Fulgencio Batista. When it was discovered that no birth certificate existed for a "Fulgencio Batista", he had to postpone his candidacy registration and pay 15,000 pesos to the local judge.
Batista was initially educated at a public school in Banes and later attended night classes at an American Quaker school.Batista y Zaldívar, Fulgencio by Aimee Estill, Historical Text Archive. He left home at age 14, after the death of his mother. Coming from a humble background, he earned a living as a laborer in the cane fields, docks, and railroads. He was a tailor, mechanic, charcoal vendor and fruit peddler. In 1921, he traveled to Havana, and in April joined the army as a private.La piel de la memoria by René Dayre Abella. After learning shorthand and typing, Batista left the army in 1923, working briefly as a teacher of stenography before enlisting in the Guardia Rural (rural police). He transferred back to the army as a corporal, becoming secretary to a regimental colonel.Hugh Thomas, p. 392 "Cuba" . In September 1933, he held the rank of sergeant stenographer and as such acted as the secretary of a group of non-commissioned officers who led a "sergeants' conspiracy" for better conditions and improved prospects of promotion.Hugh Thomas, p. 390 "Cuba" .
1933 coup
In 1933, Batista led an uprising called the Sergeants' Revolt, as part of the coup that overthrew the government of Gerardo Machado.American Experience: Fulgencio Batista by PBS. Machado was succeeded by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, who lacked a political coalition that could sustain him and was soon replaced.Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1933. The American Republics: Volume V, p. 384. http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1933v05/reference/frus.frus1933v05.i0010.pdf
Batista was not originally the leader of the movement. His contemporaries have claimed that he was called to join the conspiracy mainly because he was the only sergeant who had a car.
A short-lived five-member presidency, known as the Pentarchy of 1933, was established. The Pentarchy included a representative from each anti-Machado faction. Batista was not a member, but controlled Cuba's armed forces. Within days, the representative for the students and professors of the University of Havana, Ramón Grau San Martín, was made president—and Batista became the Army Chief of Staff, with the rank of colonel, effectively putting him in control of the presidency.Frank Argote-Freyre. Fulgencio Batista: Volume 1, From Revolutionary to Strongman. Rutgers University Press, New Jersey. The majority of the commissioned officer corps were forced to retire or, some speculate, were killed.
Grau remained president for just over 100 days before Batista, conspiring with the U.S. envoy Sumner Welles, forced him to resign in January 1934. Grau was replaced by Carlos Mendieta, and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government, which lasted eleven months. Batista then became the strongman behind a succession of puppet presidents until he was elected president in 1940. After Mendieta, succeeding governments were led by José Agripino Barnet (five months) and Miguel Mariano Gómez (seven months) before Federico Laredo Brú ruled from December 1936 to October 1940.
Constitutional presidency (1940–1944)
Batista defeated Grau in the first presidential election (1940) under the new Cuban constitution, and served a four-year term as President of Cuba, the first and to this day only non-white Cuban in that office. Batista was endorsed by the Democratic Socialist Coalition and the original Cuban Communist Party (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), which at the time had little significance and no probability of an electoral victory. Batista also supported corporatism and statism in his first term. During this term in office, Batista carried out major social reforms and established numerous economic regulations and pro-union policies.
Cuba entered World War II on the side of the Allies on December 9, 1941, declaring war on Japan two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 11, the Batista government declared war on Germany and Italy. In December 1942, after a friendly visit to Washington, Batista said Latin America would applaud if the Declaration by United Nations called for war with Francisco Franco's Spain, calling the regime fascist."Plain Talk in Spanish", Time, December 28, 1942, Retrieved March 2, 2010"Batista's Boost", Time, January 18, 1943, Retrieved March 2, 2010.
Between presidencies (1944–1952)
In 1944, Batista's handpicked successor, Carlos Saladrigas Zayas, was defeated by Grau. In the final months of his presidency, Batista sought to handicap the incoming Grau administration. In a July 17, 1944, dispatch to the U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Ambassador Spruille Braden wrote:
Shortly after, Batista left Cuba for the United States. "I just felt safer there," he said. He divorced his wife, Elisa Godínez, and married Marta Fernández in 1945. Two of their four children were born in the United States. For the next eight years, Batista remained in the background, spending time in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City and a home in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Batista continued to participate in Cuban politics and was elected to the Cuban Senate in absentia in 1948. Returning to Cuba, he decided to run for president and received permission from President Grau, whereupon he formed the United Action Party. On taking power he founded the Progressive Action Party, but he never regained his former popular support, though the unions supported him until the end.Biography of Fulgencio Batista – Profile About.com.
Military coup and dictatorship (1952–1959)
In 1952, Batista again ran for president. In a three-way race, Roberto Agramonte of the Orthodox Party led in all the polls, followed by Carlos Hevia of the Authentic Party. Batista's United Action coalition was running a distant third.
On March 10, 1952, three months before the elections, Batista, with army backing, staged a coup and seized power. He ousted outgoing President Carlos Prío Socarrás, canceled the elections and took control of the government as a provisional president. The United States recognized his government on March 27.This date is given in many sources although there is none that seemed to be clearly definitive. The closest is a recommendation from US Secretary of State Dean Acheson to President Truman on March 24 recommending recognition on that date: When asked by the U.S. government to analyze Batista's Cuba, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said:
The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the government's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice ... is an open invitation to revolution.The Dynamics of World Power: A Documentary History of the United States Foreign Policy 1945–1973, by Arthur Meier Schlesinger, 1973, McGraw-Hill, , p. 512.
Economy of Cuba