History of the Cuban Revolution

President Ramon Grau San Martin and his party, the Autenticos, come to power in 1944 and make a mess of things. 

Batista inaugurated as President with great fanfare. We explore where this new, promising democratic experiment will lead and cover the second World War. 

We explore the theory of historical materialism, and how Marxism survives the voyage across the Atlantic and adapts to the different conditions of Cuba. 

In this episode I take a break from Cuban history to explain Marxism as we get closer to the revolution. Indebted to Alex Callinicos's The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx for helping me summarize the theory. 

Cuba enters the rough 1930s, a decade marred by violence, economic hardship, and military rule. It exits with a new, progressive constitution, and a Republic. 

The One Hundred Days Government, in an uneasy alliance with Batista, battles its opposition and is swept away by counter-revolution. 

Batista's mutiny turns into a revolution as a pentarchy briefly forms, only to be swept away in 5 days by a reformist student government.     

In the chaos after the fall of Machado, an ambitious sergeant leads an unlikely army mutiny that would transform into a revolution.