When did Cuba become communist?

Question: When did Cuba become communist!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

New Years Eve, December 31, 1959!. The day Castro seized power!. Although he at first denied being a communist, saying that American gangsters and capitalist were saying that to besmirch his revolution, by the end of 1960 he had openly admitted the Marxist Leninist inspiration of his government and his alliance with the Soviets!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

In October 1959 Castro openly declared himself to be friendly toward communism!. However, Castro did not declare Cuba a socialist country until May 1961 and himself a Marxist-Leninist until December 1961Www@QuestionHome@Com

1959!.!.!.I lived in Miami at the time!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

1959Www@QuestionHome@Com

A long time ago :)Www@QuestionHome@Com

in the 1950'sWww@QuestionHome@Com

The Republic of Cuba (IPA: /?kju?b?/, Spanish: Cuba (help·info) or República de Cuba (help·info) Spanish pronunciation: [re?puβlika ee ?kuβa]), consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous island of the Greater Antilles), Isla de la Juventud and several adjacent small islands!. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean!. Cuba is south of the eastern United States and The Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti and east of Mexico!. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south!. The national flower is Hedychium coronarium J!. Koenig, most often known as "flor de mariposa" (Butterfly Flower) and the national bird is "Tocororo" or Cuban Trogon from the family of Trogonidae!.[8]

Cuba is the most populous insular nation in the Caribbean!. Its people, culture and customs draw from several sources including the aboriginal Taíno and Ciboney peoples, the period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of African slaves, and its proximity to the United States!. The name "Cuba" comes from the Taíno language the exact meaning of which is unclear, but may be translated either "where fertile land is abundant" (cubao[9]) or "great place" (coabana[10])!. The island has a tropical climate that is moderated by the surrounding waters; however, the warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that the island of Cuba sits across the access to the Gulf of Mexico combine to make Cuba prone to frequent hurricanes!. Cuba's main island, at 766 miles (1,233 km) long, is the world's 17th largest!.

Contents [hide]
1 History
1!.1 Colonial Cuba
1!.2 The Maine incident
1!.3 Independence
1!.4 1912 Race War
1!.5 World War I
1!.6 After World War I
1!.7 Batista's control ends with democratic rule
1!.8 World War II
1!.9 After World War II
1!.10 From Batista to Castro
1!.11 Cuba following revolution
1!.12 Marxist-Leninist Cuba
1!.13 Post Cold War Cuba
1!.14 Transfer of presidency from Fidel Castro to Raúl Castro
2 Government and politics
2!.1 Domestic politics
3 Cuban Internationalism / Foreign relations
3!.1 Latin America
3!.2 Africa
3!.3 Cuba-United States relations
4 Human rights
4!.1 Freedom of information in Cuba
4!.2 Trade unions
4!.3 International Intrigue in Cuba
4!.4 Soviet advisers
5 Provinces and municipalities
6 Geography
6!.1 Climate
6!.2 Natural resources
6!.2!.1 Education
6!.2!.2 Public health
7 Demographics
7!.1 Exodus
8 Religion
9 Culture
10 Economy
11 Military
12 See also
13 References
14 External links

History

The first voyage of ColumbusMain articles: History of Cuba and Timeline of Cuban history
The recorded history of Cuba began on 12 October 1492, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his first voyage of discovery and claimed it for Spain!.[11] Columbus named the island Isla Juana in reference to Prince Juan, the heir apparent!.[12] The island had been inhabited by Native American peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney whose ancestors had come from South America and possibly North and Central America in a complex series of migrations at least several centuries before, and perhaps 6,000 to 8,000 years ago!.[13] The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney (far more commonly written Siboney in neo-Taino nations) were both farmers and hunter-gatherers; some have suggested that copper trade was significant and mainland artifacts[14] have been found!.

The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by Sebastián de Ocampo in 1511, and in that year the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa!. Other towns including the future capital of the island San Cristobal de la Habana (founded in 1515) soon followed!. The Spanish, as they did throughout the Americas, oppressed and enslaved the approximately 100,000 indigenous people that resisted conversion to Christianity on the island!. Within a century they had all but disappeared as a distinct nation as a result of the combined effects of European-introduced disease, forced labor and other mistreatment, though aspects of the region's aboriginal heritage have survived!. Most scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, infectious disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the indigenous people!.[15][16]

Colonial Cuba
Cuba was in Spanish possession for almost 400 years (circa 1511-1898)!. Its economy was based on plantation agriculture, mining and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe and later to North America!. Havana was seized by the British in 1762, but restored to Spain the following year!. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to France!. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, the small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, supported by a population of Spaniards born on the island and called Criollos by the Iberian born Spaniards, other Europeans and African-descended slaves!.

In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence!. Due to Cuba's loyalty to the Spanish government, the Spanish Crown gave the following motto to the island government "La Siempre Fidelisima Isla" (The Always Most Faithful Island)!. This was partly because the prosperity of Cuban settlers depended on trade with Europe, partly through fears of a slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew, and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish rule!.

An additional factor was the continuous migration of Spaniards to Cuba from all social strata, a trend that had ceased in other Spanish possessions decades earlier and which contributed to the slow development of a Cuban national identity!. Pirates were also still a problem and defense against them depended heavily on the presence of Spanish troops!.[17]

Cuba's proximity to the U!.S!. has been a powerful influence on its history!. Throughout the 19th century, Southern politicians in the U!.S!. plotted the island's annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U!.S!., and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy!. In 1848, a pro-annexation rebellion was defeated and there were several attempts by annexation forces to invade the island from Florida!. There were also regular proposals in the U!.S!. to buy Cuba from Spain!. During the summer of 1848, President James K!. Polk quietly authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba and offer Spain up to $100 million!. While an astonishing sum at the time for one territory, trade in sugar and molasses from Cuba exceeded $18,000,000 in 1838 alone!.[18] Spain, however, refused to consider ceding one of its last possessions in the Americas!.

Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro (Morro Castle (fortress), built in 1589 to guard the eastern entrance to Havana bay)!.After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexation, agitation for Cuban independence from Spain revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a wealthy lawyer landowner from Oriente province who freed his slaves, proclaimed a war and was named president of the Cuban Republic-in-arms!. This resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish army, allied with local supporters!. There was much sympathy in the U!.S!. for the independence cause, but the U!.S!. declined to intervene militarily or to recognize the legitimacy of the Cuban government in arms, even though many European and Latin American nations had done so!.[19] In 1878, the Pact of Zanjón ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba!.

The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down!. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there were further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U!.S!. would step in and annex the island!. In 1879-1880, Cuban patriot Calixto Garcia attempted to start another war, known in Cuban history as the Little War, but received little support!.[20] Partly in response to U!.S!. pressure, slavery was abolished in 1886, although the African-descended minority remained socially and economically oppressed, despite formal civic equality granted in 1893!. During this period, rural poverty in Spain provoked by the Spanish Revolution of 1868 and its aftermath led to even greater Spanish emigration to Cuba!.

During the 1890s, pro-independence agitation revived, fueled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain's increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba!. Few of the promises for economic reform made by the Spanish government in the Pact of Zanjon were kept!. In April 1895, a new war was declared, led by the writer and poet José Martí who had organized the war over 10 years while in exile in the U!.S!. and proclaimed Cuba an independent republic — Martí was killed at Dos Rios shortly after landing in Cuba with the eastern expeditionary force!. His death immortalized him and he has become Cuba's national hero!.

The Spanish armed forces totaled about 200,000 troops against a much smaller rebel army which relied mostly on guerilla and sabotage tactics to fight battles, and the Spaniards retaliated with a campaign of suppression!. General Valeriano Weyler was appointed military governor of Cuba, and as a repressive measure he herded the rural population into what he called reconcentrados, described by international observers as "fortified tWww@QuestionHome@Com