Notes for Consolidation and maintenance: Castro's use of force - IB | RevisionDojo
Consolidation and maintenance: Castro's use of force Notes
Use of force
The Revolutionary Tribunals
After Batista’s fall in 1959, Castro used summary trials and executions to consolidate power.
500+ officials executed in the first year, often without due process.
Many Cubans saw this as justified retribution, but international critics condemned it as human rights abuse.
Revolutionary tribunals: Run by military and committees, bypassed legal institutions to suppress dissent.
Targeted counter-revolutionaries, CIA suspects, and Escambray insurgents (1960–66).
Many faced imprisonment, torture, or execution, branded as enemies of the revolution and imperialist agents.
Case study
The Revolutionary Tribunals
Revolutionary tribunals (1959): Set up to punish Batista loyalists (army, police, intelligence) accused of torture, murder, and corruption.
Justification: Framed as revolutionary justice correcting the failures of Batista’s judiciary.
Trials: Public, politicized, broadcast widely; defendants had little protection, with outcomes often predetermined.
Executions: Hundreds executed in first 6 months; condemned abroad but supported by many Cubans as retribution.
By early 1960s: Tribunals became tools of political control, replacing independent courts with a judiciary loyal to revolutionary ideology.
Exile, Dissent, and Forced Labor
MININT (Ministerio del Interior, or Ministry of the Interior in English) & State Security:
Key tools of control; monitored citizens, infiltrated dissidents, managed political prisons.
By the 1970s, thousands of political prisoners faced torture, solitary confinement, and forced labor.
Exile/emigration: Dissidents forced into exile or denied re-entry. Mass emigrations (e.g., Mariel boatlift 1980) used to expel opponents.
Authoritarian vs. Totalitarian: Cuba is seen as authoritarian, with less force than totalitarian states, but still used forced labor camps (UMAPs).
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What was the public portrayal of the UMAPs?
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Note
After the fall of Batista in 1959, Fidel Castro implemented a series of measures to consolidate his power in Cuba. One of the most significant methods was the use of summary trials and executions.
Over 500 officials were executed in the first year of Castro's rule
These executions were often carried out without proper legal procedures
While many Cubans saw this as justified retribution, international critics condemned it as a violation of human rights
DefinitionSummary Trials
Quick legal proceedings that often bypass standard legal procedures and protections.
Analogy
Think of summary trials like a teacher giving detention without hearing the student's side of the story - but with much more severe consequences.
