As always, this is not a picture in Anglo-Saxon black and white, it is painted in the hazy gray of the real world.

Everyone in Cuba knew Batista was a butcher and a killer, allied with the American gangsters who were so heavily invested in the island, the Yankee businessmen who exploited its people and its resources, and the Monroe Doctrinists, Manifest-Destined, Imperialists and Cold Warriors who have always seen Cuba as a coaling station for its squadrons, an outpost for defense of the Canal, intimidation of the Caribbean Basin and protection for the United Fruit Company. But that had always been Cuba's fate, since the days the Spaniards left and the Yankees and the Platt Amendment replaced them. Even the democratically elected Cuban presidents played this role.

Batista was a dictator who took power in a coup d'etat, he ruled by decree and secret death squads, and the Americans looked the other way because he was friendly to US interests. It is a familiar scenario in Latin America. Except for the relative few who owed their positions and wealth directly to Batista and his patronage, (like the Army) he had no constituency. You will recall, my stepfather was in the Army and had to flee Cuba with a price on his head when Castro took over.

Most Cubans despised Batista, but because his policies favored the middle classes, they never rose up against him as a united front. Sure, some fought bravely against him, even joined Castro and other rebels in the bush and in the cities, but most just looked the other way. As I said, fascism is the dictatorship of the middle class, but it doesn't demand their participation, just their acquiescence. If you opposed Batista, you risked torture and death. If you tolerated him, you got to keep your business and run it the way you wanted, or work for the Americans, keep your property, travel abroad, worship as you pleased, keep your money in a US bank, and send your kids to whatever private school you wanted. It is estimated 20,000 people were secretly executed by the Batista regime. His opponents were many, of all political persuasions, but they were poorly organized. Castro was just one of many rebel fronts.

No one knew Castro was a Communist, at least at first. In fact, one of his first acts was to dismantle the Cuban Communist Party and other Socialist groups because he saw them as a threat. The CCP had long ago sold out to Batista, trading tacit support of his dictatorship in return for control of the labor unions and a guarantee they would cause no labor troubles. The Americans looked the other way. Other Socialists and leftists, including Cuba's proud century-old Anarchist movement (which had played a role in the defeat of the Spanish and in the cigar industry strikes of my own home town, Tampa) were decimated. Whether Castro was a Red from the beginning, or if he just went that way when he lost US support because of his Agrarian Reform confiscation of American sugar and cattle interests, is still being debated today. But it is irrelevant, he soon became the only Red in Cuba, all his opposition on the Left was liquidated simultaneously with his rivals on the Right. Only then did he wage war on the Liberals and Moderates. Even many of those anonymous groups that had fought alongside him in the mountains or in urban guerrilla operations found themselves dismantled and persecuted.

I have direct evidence of this. One of the families who sheltered my stepfather (one night, actually hiding him while Fidel came to visit, c. 1960) were CCP, Communists. He often told the story of hiding behind a door, gripping his Luger and making his peace with his Maker, while Castro and his bodyguards made small talk with his terrified hosts in the parlor.

After Castro consolidated power, eliminating other rebel groups which might have challenged his authority,
the true nature of his dictatorship slowly became apparent. In the confusion of the first year of Revolution, no one knew what was going on. To this day, people, particularly Americans, still believe Castro defeated Batista. No. Castro fought Batista, then outmaneuvered and defeated his comrades, on both Left and Right. Everyone was tired of fighting and relieved to see the dictator gone. Fidel was just getting started, his aim was not to depose Batista, it was to seize power.

True, in the first year or so, the exiles who came to Miami were the Batista collaborators, the rich and powerful who owed their power and fortunes to him. Many of the business and professional elite supported Castro at first, but soon saw their civil and economic position erode under the new dictatorship. They came to America in a second wave. Soon, the middle class followed them, and by the mid-sixties, the working class. By the time of the Mariel boatlift, anyone who could make his escape, even the underclass, was getting out, any way they could. There are many who escaped in this diaspora who once fought alongside Castro, or in other groups that were allied with him.

Even some of Castro's staunchest allies and associates, like the American adventurer Morgan, wound up on the wrong side of a firing squad, while others, like Cienfuegos and Guevara, perished as Revolutionary heroes, but under suspicious circumstances.

Americans have a very simplistic view of Cuban history.
We "liberated them from Spanish rule", we established its free institutions, and then Castro went to the Russians. The Cubans fought a century-long struggle against Spain which cost hundreds of thousands of lives, which we jumped into at the last minute, and with the loss of a few hundred Rough Riders. We then took over making the island a virtual economic colony and military outpost for half a century.

Its not surprising we were clueless about the events that followed, and that ignorance persists to this day. In our pathetic, simplistic view of the world, there is no history, just virtuous Americans nobly fighting evil Commies, bringing freedom and free enterprise to the unwashed and unenlightened (and ungrateful) world. If we could get events in a tiny new country on our own doorstep so wrong, is it any wonder we have fucked up so catastrophically in the Middle East?