Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the fifth episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast.
Speaker: Today we've got a very exciting history episode where we're going to be talking about the Cuban Revolution from the 1950s and as well as the invasion of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Speaker: So we're in Latin America for this episode, metaphysically, unfortunately physically it's not possible.
Speaker: But, um, I think we should probably start from with a bit of, you know, background on the topic.
Speaker: So Cuba is a country in South, in central America, roughly Latin America, they speak Spanish and they've got a population of roughly 11 million people is the largest island in their Caribbean.
Speaker: And yes, so it's perhaps most known by many for being a socialist Marxist country.
Speaker: And that all stems back to what we're going to be talking about today and why Cuba is, as many of you will know, quite closed off to the Western world, despite its close proximity to the USA.
Speaker: So, Diane, firstly, what is the Cuban Revolution and what happened in Cuba in the 1950s?
Speaker: Well, I think...
Speaker: first of all we need to again establish the political system in cuba at that time is the following so you've got dictator batista he's a general you know classic coup by the by general takes over power in the late 40s and um
Speaker: He's, you know, very right wing, very basically a sort of General Franco, if we could compare it to Spain.
Speaker: And during the revolution, basically, main leader of the communist side, you know, is Fidel Castro.
Speaker: He was leader of Cuba until his death very fairly recently, a couple of years ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's a lawyer.
Speaker: Fidel is a lawyer who also had a whole clandestine cell movement.
Speaker: A bit like what happened in Europe at the time of the Nazis.
Speaker: You had people in France such as Albert Camus, for example, who had these cell systems and underground newspapers pushing, frankly, communist propaganda against the far right.
Speaker: And Castro being a revolutionary socialist,
Speaker: He initially tried a coup in 1953 at the Mancada barracks.
Speaker: It failed spectacularly.
Speaker: Six people died, 15 casualties.
Speaker: So yes, can you also go into perhaps the impacts?
Speaker: Because that is quite a momentous day in Cuban history, that failed coup that Castro and his brother led.
Speaker: So what did that sort of coup inspire or lead to in Cuba?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So what happened basically after that, he was put on trial and very famous speech occurred at his last sort of day in court.
Speaker: It's called History Will Absolve Me.
Speaker: It's a two hour speech where Castro basically goes from explaining how the system has put him in this position where he's not allowed to have a lawyer.
Speaker: So he had to represent himself and the hardships and basically does a whole propaganda speech.
Speaker: Ending it with, you know, you can condemn me absolutely fine because history is going to absolve me of all my quote-unquote sins.
Speaker: And then he was sent to prison.
Speaker: This is obviously not the end of the movement.
Speaker: Castro was in prison along 25 other people.
Speaker: And, you know, in prison, he read a lot.
Speaker: He was in solitary confinement.
Speaker: because one of the very important people came to the prison and then Castro's comrades started chanting communist propaganda.
Speaker: So then what happened to Castro after prison?
Speaker: Because as many listeners may know, he did manage to leave prison.
Speaker: Batista allowed him exile from Cuba.
Speaker: So what happened to Castro after he was freed and how was he freed as well?
Speaker: So in prison, Castro gave radio interviews and basically it's, you know, after a while,
Speaker: the dictatorship said, look, it's fine.
Speaker: He's not really a threat.
Speaker: He can't really do much.
Speaker: His support kind of faded.
Speaker: So as soon as Castro and Raul got out, they fled to Mexico, where they met, again, very important character here, Ernesto Guevara, known as Che, probably the most famous picture of all time.
Speaker: And after, you know, a bit of...
Speaker: time in Mexico, a bit of time in the US, they started a year at a war campaign, frankly, 1956.
Speaker: And basically, they managed to do this sort of alliance with the rebels.
Speaker: If any of you have studied Chinese history, Communist Party in China has also managed to accomplish this feat of collaboration between the party and then peasants who don't have a great quality of life.
Speaker: And got more trust, more trust, more trust.
Speaker: Until finally, you know, they had managed from the mountains in the south of Cuba to lead an insurrection, which, you know, proved to be successful.
Speaker: Now, of course, it's not that easy.
Speaker: There were a lot of attacks from Batista, a lot of attacks from Castro, a couple of assassination attempts on Castro by the CIA, which failed.
Speaker: But Castro reached Havana in 1959 and basically deemed himself and the Communist Party the ruling party.
Speaker: So as you mentioned, Che Guevara, perhaps one of the most famous sort of socialists in the world, was heavily involved in the Cuban revolution and getting Castro into power as a military dictator.
Speaker: So can you perhaps go into sort of more detail about Che Guevara for some of our listeners, just because it's a name that I think everyone sort of heard.
Speaker: However, many people won't know why they've heard of him.
Speaker: Yeah, so Che is, first of all, he's not Cuban.
Speaker: He's Argentine.
Speaker: And he comes from a very wealthy family in Argentina, which is a bit ironic.
Speaker: But he trained as a doctor, originally was an army doctor for Fidel Castro.
Speaker: But I think the most important one about Che Guevara is before he came to Cuba, in his last year of medical school, so when he was 24, he
Speaker: him and one of his friends went on a journey in South America.
Speaker: So some of you maybe have seen the film Motorcycle Diaries, if not, I very recommend it.
Speaker: There's also a book about it he wrote.
Speaker: His diaries from this journey.
Speaker: And there's a specific moment in this journey where Che is at a leper colony.
Speaker: I think, no, actually the first one was he was at a mine in Peru.
Speaker: saw how people were treated by this very rich American corporation and he didn't like it.
Speaker: Also in Peru, in Cusco, saw how the Incas were treated again, basically exploited for labor.
Speaker: But then the most poignant moment is this leper colony where he always had this revolutionary, so fire within him.
Speaker: But there he's like, look, a lot of people are suffering.
Speaker: And then other people are perfectly happy.
Speaker: And in his view, this injustice, you know, is killing him inside, basically.
Speaker: So that is really the moment where he makes a big speech about, you know, the unity of South America and how these corporations are basically exploiting people and everything.
Speaker: And he turns from a doctor, from just, you know, a doctor,
Speaker: into a very important political and military figure.
Speaker: And then, you know, after he is a huge player in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and also after Castro managed to take control of Cuba, he was one of the ministers.
Speaker: And also, he is very, very, very important for Castro because he's the guy who set out, like, look...
Speaker: You're an anti-revolutionary.
Speaker: You're going to get killed.
Speaker: And he is the guy that does all the dirty work, basically, for Castro.
Speaker: But he doesn't do it for material gain, in a way.
Speaker: So Che died relatively poor, executed by the CIA in 1967.
Speaker: But he does it just because of a sort of greater mission.
Speaker: He has this call that he needs to bring equality among people.
Speaker: And he has this mission to
Speaker: that governs him.
Speaker: He's not in this for the money.
Speaker: So Castro died with about 50 million in his bank account.
Speaker: Quite a lot of money.
Speaker: Yeah, that is a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Socialist leader.
Speaker: I think even, you know, I think that's just when he came into power.
Speaker: But I think by the time of his death, it was estimated that his total effort was somewhere with half a billion dollars.
Speaker: So yes, perhaps Che stuck a bit more honestly to the cause, to the Marxist-Lennist beliefs than Castro.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: So Che is purely in this because of an ideological sort of mission.
Speaker: And I think the most interesting thing about him is that he didn't just stay in Cuba.
Speaker: So following the success, he went into another...
Speaker: country, I think it was the Congo or Columbia.
Speaker: He also served in Bolivia.
Speaker: So he's basically just, you know, going from place to place fighting.
Speaker: It's Congo and Bolivia where he fought and eventually got, you know, captured by the CIA.
Speaker: And unfortunately, or fortunately, depending who you are, executed in 1967.
Speaker: Okay, so I think from that we've sort of taken a whistle-stop tour, but also in some sort of depth throughout 1950s Cuba.
Speaker: And we've gone from... And just if I could just say one last thing, I think, I don't know if a lot of people have heard about this phrase, but some of us were definitely a bit familiar.
Speaker: You know, patria o muerte, which is basically country or death.
Speaker: I don't know if you've heard that phrase, John.
Speaker: Yes, I have, yeah.
Speaker: That is actually a phrase coined by Fidel Castro, just as a fact.
Speaker: So we've just taken a sort of whistle-stop tour, however in some sort of depth as well, through 1950s Cuba.
Speaker: And we've explored the revolution, yet also some of the most instrumental figures in it.
Speaker: Dayan, you mentioned Che Guevara, also Fidel Castro and his brother Rahul.
Speaker: The next sort of perhaps most significant and most well-known part of Cuban history comes in the early 1960s.
Speaker: And this is, of course, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Speaker: So, John, could you just first of all give a bit of background again to, you know, how was politics at that time?
Speaker: And then also what actually was the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Speaker: It's a term that's thrown around, I think.
Speaker: So, obviously at the time the Cold War was occurring throughout the world.
Speaker: This is, as many of our listeners will know, was a sort of not a hot war, i.e.
Speaker: it was an active fighting between two armies head on head.
Speaker: However, it was rather sort of a war of espionage,
Speaker: alliances and threats, threats which occurred through the deployment of nuclear weapons in certain countries.
Speaker: The USA did this throughout Europe and obviously the USSR did this in Cuba.
Speaker: However, amidst these tensions of the Cold War era, in 1961 the USA led the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Speaker: So this was what came to be a failed military operation.
Speaker: And it was a group of Cuban exiles led by the CIA, so directly funded by the US government.
Speaker: And these people tried to lead an invasion, effectively to do a coup, overthrow and assassinate Castro.
Speaker: And whilst this sounds pretty awful to us, because even if you disagree with Cuba's, how Cuba's been governed at the time, you still may think, well, the USA apps shouldn't just go in to impose their rule on any country that they would like.
Speaker: However, the USA view Cuba as a huge threat.
Speaker: So Cuba is extremely close to the USA.
Speaker: It's, I think, around 100 miles away from the coast of Florida.
Speaker: It's like an arrow, right there.
Speaker: Oh wow, so yes.
Speaker: So it is really a real threat to them.
Speaker: And then Castro, amidst his socialist reforms, he sort of absorbed American businesses, American sugar companies in Cuba, and this greatly angered the USA.
Speaker: Therefore, between the 17th to 20th of April 1961, there was a failed invasion of Cuba.
Speaker: And it just looked utterly embarrassing when it was failed.
Speaker: As President Kennedy at the time, he sort of had to explain to the world, number one, why they tried to do an invasion, and number two, how it's so embarrassing that the USA failed to do an invasion against what was quite a small, sort of weak country.
Speaker: Yeah, so could you also name some of the key players perhaps and how the Cuban Missile Crisis at that time really affected foreign policy?
Speaker: Because it had a huge impact.
Speaker: Yeah, so the Cuban Missile Crisis, this came a little bit later, the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Speaker: It was a 13-day confrontation paired with extremely high tensions in October 1962.
Speaker: And it occurred between the USSA and the USSR.
Speaker: And it was effectively over the deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Speaker: So the USSR had armed Cuba and Cuba had asked for them.
Speaker: It wasn't forced upon them or anything.
Speaker: Cuba had asked for Soviet missiles, of which were armed with nuclear warheads.
Speaker: When a US U-2 spy plane saw this, inevitably President Kennedy was utterly shocked, horrified.
Speaker: He was extremely scared because around 90 miles off the coast of Florida, there was a series of armed nuclear warheads.
Speaker: Now, any president, I think, of the USA at the time would be extremely scared because in this 13-day confrontation, people obviously still say this is the closest we've ever come to a nuclear war.
Speaker: So Kennedy rather inevitably ordered naval blockade, technically called a quarantine.
Speaker: And this was the sort of stop movement of any military activity in and out of Cuba.
Speaker: And eventually this sort of quarantine and also a facilitation between the UN helped the USSR and the USA agree upon the installation of nuclear weapons would be stopped, all the weapons would be removed in Cuba and in exchange the USA would not ever invade Cuba.
Speaker: Also, secretly, the USA removed their missiles from Turkey and also perhaps Italy.
Speaker: However, this was sort of done secretly, but this was really one of the key things that occurred in the Cuban Missile Crisis, because these missiles in Turkey and Italy were trained on the USSR.
Speaker: So whilst the USA felt a huge nuclear threat from Cuba,
Speaker: The USSR similarly felt a threat from Turkey and Italy with these US armed missiles.
Speaker: I think it's also hugely interesting you say that, you know, we live in a time of NATO where, you know, missiles are everywhere, frankly.
Speaker: I'm in Romania right now and we've got missiles and we're very close to Russia.
Speaker: So how do you think, you know, times have changed in a way because back in the day, Turkey and Italy were a main concern.
Speaker: And now, I can't think of a country in NATO that doesn't have the ability to bomb Russia hugely.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's almost a bit of a full circle moment because with the Cuban Missile Crisis, you had this effectively quite big division between East and West.
Speaker: So you had the USSR directly against the USA and they were both trying to spread their influence around the world to sort of become bigger than the other.
Speaker: This is really true today.
Speaker: You see NATO, perhaps the West, as you would call it, they're trying to spread their influence throughout Europe, throughout the world.
Speaker: And similarly, you've got Russia trying to spread their influence throughout the world.
Speaker: You see that in Africa, where they've spread their influence.
Speaker: You see it in China, India.
Speaker: So it is a bit of a full circle moment, you could say, as the tensions between East and West definitely still do exist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think there's been as direct a confrontation as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Speaker: I mean, at this period of time, people literally fearing the end of the world.
Speaker: However, I do think that these tensions, these sort of conflicts erupting around the world, Russia-Ukraine war, for example, these are sort of reminiscent of the Cold War era.
Speaker: I mean, what do you think about the influence of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Diane?
Speaker: I think it's definitely a strong precedent.
Speaker: I think, you know, a lot of countries, especially the US and Russia, who are still at odds with each other, look at that moment like,
Speaker: I don't think we should probably get to that stage again.
Speaker: You know, I think they're a bit wary of the consequences, especially today with the kind of weapons that exist now.
Speaker: But yeah, I think it's definitely a moment in history that people look at and they're like, okay, that was big.
Speaker: Let's not go there again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think just for our last question, John,
Speaker: Obviously, you know, Cuba, country that I don't know how many people have visited.
Speaker: I personally have once, I think.
Speaker: But it is, you know, hugely beautiful, but unfortunately destroyed by socialism, you know, to say it.
Speaker: Because their economy is stagnant due to the lack of progress with, you know, Russian relations and the Eastern Bloc and
Speaker: how they're basically getting blocked off from doing trade with the US.
Speaker: But how do you compare Cuba to other socialist countries?
Speaker: I mean, I think to be brutally honest, I think evident in practically any socialist country, socialist countries are far behind capitalist countries.
Speaker: And I think perhaps the best way of...
Speaker: proving this is if you were asked would you rather go to a capitalist country such as the USA, UK, Italy, France to live in or would you rather live in a socialist country like Vietnam and Cuba?
Speaker: Now the economic performance of the capitalist country certainly means that you will say actually I want to live in the capitalist country
Speaker: So I think just generally socialist countries in the world are far behind capitalist countries.
Speaker: I think that's practically factual.
Speaker: I don't know how it directly competes with other socialist countries.
Speaker: I know for example, Vietnam, which is communist,
Speaker: but similar to Cuba.
Speaker: They've got quite a big tourism business they've been investing in.
Speaker: That sort of thing is quite a lot harder in Cuba, especially as many people in the United States will still feel quite huge animosity towards Cuba.
Speaker: But just in general, as a socialist country, I do honestly believe that under socialism, I don't think we're going to see
Speaker: Cuba ever grow to become a large economic power at all?
Speaker: I mean, what do you think?
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker: I think, you know, although it's got quite a decent tourism business as well, you know, because now the Caribbean is hard not to.
Speaker: But for the size of it, I think, you know, you look at the standard of living and it's definitely lower than a lot of other smaller countries in the same region.
Speaker: So I don't know if you...
Speaker: I'm saying tourism-wise, just as a canvas caveat here.
Speaker: I think if you look at the tourism standard in the Dominican Republic and the one in Cuba, there is quite a bit of a discrepancy.
Speaker: I think that is one of the direct impacts of socialism.
Speaker: Failed socialism, just like it has all around the world.
Speaker: But thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode, and we hope that you enjoyed it.
Speaker: Yes, thank you, everyone.
Speaker: As Diane said, we hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: And do listen back to some of our past episodes.
Speaker: We've had some great episodes this season, some great interviews with Ryan Wayne and Robyn's Reverie, which we'd love for you guys to listen to if you haven't yet.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: All right.
