Talk: History of Cuba
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- On February 21, 1960 Castro nationalized all businesses in Cuba and undertook other communist reforms.
I've removed this sentence because it does not fit the facts. The first land reform bill was indeed as early as May 1959. The US owned oil refineries were not nationalized until June 29, 1960 (because they refused to refine Soviet crude oil). Other major US enterprises were nationalized on August 17. Small businesses were not nationalized until 1968.
Also, rather than using the provocative phrase "other communist reform", it would be more NPOV to simply list what those reforms were, and let the reader decide. Eclecticology 11:43 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)
Looks like this page needs a lot of work. As it looks now it could have been written by a sitting US president. Sorry :-/ I will fix :-) --BL
- As of now parts of it could have been written by a Cuban government official. The are some fairly bad POV violations now.
- "The United States used this as a final pretext to enter a conflict (see: Spanish-American War), which was practically already won by Cuban revolutionaries."
- A rewriting of history to minimize US involvement. True, Cuban revolutionaries had won an important battle on April 2, 1898 under Colonel J.P. Quijano at Chambas (Morón), Cuba, causing the Spanish Governor General Blanco to temporarily suspend hostilities on April 10, shortly before the USA entered the war, but Admiral Pascual Cervera was being sent from Spain with a large number of reinforcements in order to restart the conflict, which began again at the end of April. The US blockaded Admiral Cervera's ships and destroyed his squadron. "Practically already won" is too strong of a statement, since the fighting resumed and Cervera's reinforcements were so great in number. At the very least, the US involvement certainly hastened the end of the hostilities. At the time of the suspension of hostilities, the Cuban revolutionaries controlled the eastern half of the island (primarily the rural areas), while the Spanish forces controlled the western half. Most historians believe that a stalemate would have continued for some time, especially once Cervera's reinforcements arrived.
- Also, I'm fairly sure that Spain did not send over one million men to the island to supress the rebellion; all other sources I've checked have it at 220,000. I'm a slight bit skeptical of the claim that so many of the Spanish soldiers stayed in Cuba after the war because of povety back home, considering how Cuba was ravaged by the war and was in abject poverty itself. Please look at some of the external links supplied in the Spanish-American War article.
I've removed the following which mixes some fact and some fiction with sweeping generalizations to arrive at a highly POV result. Some of the material was already in other parts of the article, and much of it is not verifiable. ☮ Eclecticology 05:54, 2003 Nov 14 (UTC):===Soviet and Chinese Influence===
- In 1960-61, Castro took over all industries, including those owned by Americans, except for small tobacco farms and other retailers who were allowed to remain independent while under government surveillance. Cuba?s government was state controlled like the Soviet models. Che Guevara was head of the Ministry of Industry and they set up elaborate plans for production. Sugar production was continued so that the profits could be used to pay for the increase of exports. Since these ideal plans were not well thought out they failed due to a severe lack of needed technology and capabilities, as well as, the skilled laborers and professionals to run it. They also did not have the adequate funding and consequently industrial and agricultural production fell. Add to this the amount of debt owed to the Soviet Union and Europe nations and the complete collapse of the economy was inevitable. The scarcity of food led to severe rationing and that was dependant on the stores being able to stock their shelves with the necessary goods. In 1963, Castro realized the extent of the devastated economy and reverted to self-sufficiency and a priority of sugar and tobacco production, but this also failed.
- Castro was determined to be the sole leader of Cuba and was already the head of the government and military and now the economy. To fix the economy, Castro and other Cuban officials turned to the Chinese models. These put the rural society before the urban cities by applying more of a Marxist approach which did not work because this was based on a working class revolution. Cuba was not industrialized to have a proletarian society living in the city slums in overcrowded conditions. They also put an end to all bureaucracy. Literacy was extremely important and he formed a system of educating the rural society and to prove that you could read and write you were expected to write Castro a letter. A change from material or profit incentives to a more moral based reward system was created so that workers gained recognition, acknowledgement and status for their hard work, dedication and production instead of monetary benefits. It was believed that patriotism and nationalism were enough to compel people to work harder. There was no longer any private ownership left except for a small number of tobacco farms. The Cuban government provided many free goods and services, none of which were of good quality, and tried to end the use of money. A goal of 10 million metric tons of sugar was created that needed the entire nation?s effort to complete. Only 8.5 million metric tons were actually produced and even though this is more than was ever produced before, it was also considered a failure and drained the production of other goods, especially food. The economy and the country as a whole was devastated and Castro returned back to the Soviet Union. (Ian Rogozinski)
Plagiarism and distortion exposed
An instance of plagiarism has been brought to my attention:
- Batista's rule fueled increasing popular discontent and the rise of active urban resistance groups, a fertile political environment for Castro's 26th of July Revolutionary Movement.
Compare that sentence to the following, which appears at [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm|http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm]:
- Batista's dictatorial rule fueled increasing popular discontent and the rise of many active urban and rural resistance groups, a fertile political environment for Castro's 26th of July Movement.
Identical but for the words dictatorial, many, and rural, and Revolutionary, which were deleted. Evidently material from the US State Department was not far enough to the right for the purposes of the plagiarist-propagandist who wrote this text.
I am going to restore the original version of the sentence and give a reference.
I hope, but doubt, that the person who stole and modified this sentence is duly ashamed of himself. Shorne 22:53, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Mediation requested
User VeryVerily's intransigence and impossible behaviour have left me no option but to request mediation. People who have anything to add to my request are asked to visit Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. Shorne 11:01, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
