1959–1991: From the Victory of the Revolution to the Fall of the Soviet Union

The Revolution triumphed on January 1, 1959. The very brief period—of three years (1956–1958)—during which the guerrilla war developed is to be compared to that, much more extensive, of maturation of popular struggles during the preceding centuries, as we have seen. For, it is in the perspective of this long, centuries-old period that the support of the Cuban people for the communist project should be understood. There had certainly been other revolutions in Latin America and the Caribbean before 1959: that of the slaves of Haiti (1791–1804) raised by the hougan Duty Boukman and placed in battle order by Toussaint Louverture from 1791 on, then the immense wave of independence, driven in 1810 with the struggle for the national emancipation of Mexico led by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, continued in the southern cone and generalized by the Libertador Simón Bolívar, before 1910 and the emergence of the Revolución Mexicana and the slogan of “tierra y liberdad” (land and freedom) launched by Emiliano Zapata and José Arango Arámbula (alias Francisco Villa). These events, which profoundly modified the historical trajectory of the continent, nevertheless found themselves absorbed by capitalism. All.