The 'Populist' Batista

Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (1901–73), who was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959, is usually portrayed by historians as little more than a counterrevolutionary and reactionary figure. Overlooked, however, is Batista’s "populist phase," notes Whitney, an associate fellow at McGill University’s Centre for Developing Area Studies.

In the summer of 1933, Cuba "exploded in social revolution," he recalls. Joining a loose coalition of radical activists, students, intellectuals, and disgruntled soldiers, Batista, then a young army sergeant, organized a mutiny of noncommissioned officers, which toppled the Havana government. A provisional revolutionary government was formed, led by Ramón Grau San Martín, a popular university professor. Promising social justice for all classes, and the annulment of the Platt Amendment (which permitted U.S. intervention in Cuba), the Grau government gave women the right to vote, decreed an eight-hour workday, established a minimum wage for sugar cane cutters, and assured peasants of legal title to their lands.

#### To continue reading, please click Download PDF, above.