Preview

What Major Events in the Cold War Caused Fidel Castro to Side with the Soviet Union Super Power?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
805 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Major Events in the Cold War Caused Fidel Castro to Side with the Soviet Union Super Power?
What major events in the Cold War caused Fidel Castro to side with the Soviet Union Super Power?

In the 1960’s the world was largely dominated by the Cold War which was a long period of tension and hostility that only occasionally broke out into open warfare. This conflict was caused by the rivalry of two superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union and emerged after the Second World War. Both super powers had different ideologies - the United States was a capitalist democracy, whereas the Soviet Union were communist. These two super powers tried to influence many different countries throughout the world which ended up causing worldwide tension. More specifically, Cuba as country was affected by the Cold War in many ways and there were many events that caused them to side with the Soviet Union during this time when driven away by America. The major events such as Cuba’s New Regime, the Bay of Pigs attack and the Cuban Missile Crisis all had an impact on Cuba being pushed away from American alliance and towards the Soviet Union.

Cuba was largely controlled and owned by the United States. This includes their economic wealth, oil, refineries, mines, cattle ranches and railways. When Fidel Castro came into power in Cuba, many things changed. He introduced the new regime, which America was extremely suspicious of when Castro began to bring in socialist reforms such as redistribution of land, the collectivization of agriculture and nationalization of transport. These measures affected American investors and in turn caused America to react by banning Cuban sugar imports to America and break all diplomatic relations. USA became more hostile when Castro started trading with the Soviet Union and brought in thousands of Soviet technicians. America began to believe that Cuba was communist, which was not yet the case. America started secretly planning to invade Cuba and to overthrow Fidel Castro. This event of the new regime which was conducted after the Cuban

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the early 1960s, Cuba had become a Communist state and was led by Fidel Castro. Cuba began to develop close ties with the USSR and this caused problems for the new USA President. Kennedy and his military advisors planned an invasion of Cuba involving Cuban exiles living in the USA. This took place at the Bay of Pigs but was a complete disaster for the USA. As a result of this, Castro began to develop even closer economic and military links with the USSR and its leader, Khrushchev.…

    • 285 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the year of 1959 Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista government in Cuba and began ruling over the nation. This is when the relationship between the U.S and Cuba became…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    To what extent was the Cuban missile crisis a factor in Nikita Khrushchev being deposed as leader of the Soviet Union?…

    • 2341 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cuban MIssile crisis

    • 1992 Words
    • 5 Pages

    On the eve of Kennedy’s inauguration on January 20th, 1961, it appeared the two countries were finally heading towards a détente. Soviet Premier Khrushchev was the new face of the Soviet Union. He was responsible for de-Stalinization and for several liberal reforms in domestic policy. Khrushchev was actually delighted to have Kennedy elected—a young, inexperienced president who could be taken advantage of during negotiations. “I was very glad Kennedy won the election,”2 he remarked in his memoirs. But while relations began to settle, another dimension of the Cold War arose due to the Cuban revolution in 1959, led by Fidel Castro and his Federalist party.…

    • 1992 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    February 3, 1962, the United States imposed an embargo against Cuba. President John F. Kennedy established this embargo to reduce “the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers.” The embargo prevents trade between the two countries and would hopefully encourage Cuba to take steps toward “democratization and greater respect for human rights.”…

    • 397 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In one of his aims, Castro hoped to see Cuba become independent. In order to become less dependent on foreign countries, Castro implemented an economic reform that would allow Cuba to become less dependent on the foreign countries. He wanted to create a more centralized economy by confiscating businesses, many of which were American-owned. The U.S. saw this attempt of nationalization as a direct challenge to their interests, thus they removed the sugar quota placed an embargo on Cuba, threatening to destroy the base of the Cuban economy. Cuba had now become independent from U.S. trade, but with no means self-sufficiency, Cuba turned to another group–the socialist/communist nations in the eastern hemisphere. Cuba had increased their sugar production tremendously because of Castro’s speech, “The Year of Decisive Endeavor,” in 1963 which set a production goal of 10 million tons of sugar by 1970 so that Cuba could industrialize and become more self-reliant. USSR began buying this Cuban sugar in return for industrial equipment and machinery which…

    • 1448 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    During the year of 1952 the Cuban revolution began, due to the bad intentions of the person who was president during the time. Fulgencio Batista want to re-elect again for head of state, but soon the elections statistics was brought to the one’s attention and they were not favoring Batista. The one decide to overrun power throughout the elections. In spite of this, Cubans citizens were optimistic that someone was willing to sacrifice itself and get their territory back, this person was Fidel Castro. Castro wanted to end Sergeant Batista governing by any intents. Since Batista had a negative effect in the lives of Cubans. After the overthrown of Batista, Fidel became very influential among Cuba society. As Fidel became the leader and had absolute control over everything in Cuba, many of people started to support his administration in many ways.…

    • 175 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cold War Effect on Mexico

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Cuban Revolution in 1959 and Fidel Castro’s conversion to communism brought issues to the forefront of Mexican politics. The Cuban Revolution put the Mexican government between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The rock was the United States, whose determined, public opposition to the Cuban Revolution and Castro government helped shape a decade of United States - Latin American relations. The hard place was Mexican public opinion that saw in the Cuban events something akin to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917, and thus something positive and worthy of support. After Castro allied himself with the Soviet Union, the United States attempted to isolate Cuba from the community of nations. Mexico refused to sever ties with Cuba despite much pressure from and repeated efforts by the United States to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States. A 1964 vote imposed sanctions against Cuba and required all member states to comply. Mexico’s ruling party, seeking to avoid confrontation, refused.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cuban Revolution Themes

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Cuba was a country in Latin America that had a long struggle with gaining full independence. The final fight for independence was fought in the 1950’s. This revolution was recapped in the documentary Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution. With the main focus being on the 1950’s revolution, the documentary looked at the key players of the revolution, including José Antonio, Frank País, Ernesto Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro. All of these revolutionaries’ main goal was to break away from the current dictator Fulgencio Batista. The revolutionaries’ issue with Batista was his close relation with the United States of America. Keeping him in power meant keeping American imperialism as the prominent source for…

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bay of Pigs

    • 1172 Words
    • 5 Pages

    With friction between the U.S. government and Castro 's leftist communist regime increasing, President Dwight Eisenhower was led to take away diplomatic relations with Cuba. The fact that the United States’ government had a growing dislike of Fidel Castro’s communist led to the idea of an invasion attack on Cuba.…

    • 1172 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cuban Missile Crisis

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages

    4) Right after the Cuban Missile Crisis the trade relations between the US and Cuba begin to deteriorate. The then president, John F. Kennedy, decided to ban trade with any item with Cuba except for non-subsidized food and medicine. And then a year later ban financial transaction with US citizens to Cuban citizens. It was basically an embargo that surprisingly still stands to this day. In 1980 an event happened that 10,000 Cubans ran into the Peruvian embassy, and then requested political asylum. Castro then said that any of those people wish to leave and are in political asylum, they could do so. 125,000 Cubans went to the United States, including political and economic refugees and also criminals and mental patients.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    People of Cuba wanted to be free from the U.S. Imperialism and followed Castro because he was also against the U.S.…

    • 225 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Fidel Castro took control of Cuba he needed to adopt an ideology that would unite a people and a country, and place him in the role of sole leader and head of Cuba. While it is his millitant actions that gave him power, it was his adoption of communism which has kept Castro in power for so long. There have been many goverment’s overthrown in Latin America, but few if any coups have had the impact on world affairs than Castro coming into power in Cuba did. By bringing communism to the western hemisphere this small latin american country was presenting a challenge to the United States that only such “superpowers” as Russia and Germany had done in the past.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Cuban Revolution

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages

    During World War 1 Cuba’s economy sky rocketed after sugar production increased in Europe, but this boom was short lived by the crazy fluctuation of prices. This collapse only lead to more suffering after the collapse elections began to become rigid and administrators began to become corrupt. In 1933 a new era of relations with the United States of America under the leadership of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldiva with Franklin D. Roosevelt. But economic problems continued due to the American ownership of the sugar mills even though the tariff rulings were changed to Cuba’s…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cuban Missile Crisis

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, tension and problematic situations have arose between the United States and Cuba (US-Cuba Relations 1). Before America helped Cuba fight of the Spanish for their independence, the Americans had strong political and economical affairs within the island (US-Cuba Relations 1). But, since the Cubans created a nation of their own, they blocked the Americans from many freedoms within Cuba (US-Cuba Relations 1). Although there are many examples of the tension between America and Cuba, the Cuban Missile Crisis had the most crucial effect on their long lasting feud.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays