A few what-ifs about changing the start of the Castro regime

raharris1973

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Having recently reviewed the OTL timeline of Castro's attempts to overthrow Batista and key dates of his early years in power, I thought it would be interesting to consider, not so much what if his revolution happened, but what if it happened earlier or later, because in OTL the most dramatic Cuban crises for the US, Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis had some interesting and sensitive interactions with other contemporary world events. If the revolution had succeeded earlier or later, any US-Castro troubles would happen contemporaneously with a somewhat different world situation, and this could have had interesting short, medium and long-term impacts.

To start, let's review OTL's dates of interest:

1953 - Moncada barracks attack, Castro's arrest

1955 May - Castro released in a general amnesty and goes to Mexico.

1956 November - Castro's attack on Cuba, and retreat to the Sierra Maestra

1957-58 - Castro builds guerrilla army

1959 - 1 January Batista flees Cuba, Castro takes power

1959 - 270 executions

1959 - May, agrarian reform law

1960 - January, Castro's failed trip to Washington, where Eisenhower refuses to meet

1961 - 3 January, US breaks diplomatic ties with Cuba

1960 - February - Anastas Mikoyan makes first senior Soviet visit to Cuba, economic and political aid begins

1960 - August - Cuba nationalizes American property

1960 - September - informant Committees for the Defense of the Revolution organized

1961 - 3 January, US breaks diplomatic ties with Cuba

1961 - Cuba nationalizes church property, expels Bishop

1961 - 16 April - Castro declares his revolution socialist.

1961 - 19 April - failed Bay of Pigs invasion

1962 - October-November, Cuban Missile Crisis.

1965 - Castro's 26th of July Movement formally becomes the new Communist Party of Cuba

....Now on to the what-ifs:

PoD 1. What if Castro's attack on Moncada Barracks, 26 July 1953 succeeded and put him in power?

David Tenner has posted some nice details on how the attack could have succeeded and possibly led to a successful overthrow of Batista. David also cited a comment from either Castro or a close associate that, if rebellion succeeded then, "the imperialists would have crushed us"

Still it would have been interesting to see how Cuban-American and potential Soviet relations would have played out.

Imagine after a successful seizure of Moncada, establishment of control over eastern Cuba is secured, and Castro's territory becomes a rally point for a rebellion spreading westward, expelling Batista and ensconcing Castro by 1 October 1953.

Cuban agrarian reform law occurs 5 months later, Feb 1954

Are the Soviets ready to send a senior visitor by November 1954? They were still in a rather cautious crouch after Stalin's death, and in a collective leadership phase, without a clear leading role by Khrushchev.

In the meantime, the US operation to overthrow the Guatemalan government occurred in June 1954. Could Cuba be involved in any way?

Would the US be thinking about covert overthrow of the Castro regime (still not formally Communist and not visibly allied with the USSR) by June 1954.

Will the Eisenhower administration outright invade Cuba by January '56 (27 months after the revolution, at a similar distance from takeover in OTL, the Bay of Pigs invasion was attempted) or by May 57 (at a similar distance from the takeover in OTL, the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred...not that the USSR would have had missiles ready in the ATL).

Or would the USA be harrying the Castro regime with a sustained "Contra" style movement?

What are the further knock-on consequences for any of this on international events like the 54 Geneva Conference on Indochina, the 55 Bandung Nonaligned Summit and the Autumn 1956 events in Hungary and Suez?


PoD 2. What if Castro was kept in jail another two years?

Say he's not released from prison till May 1957, and this sets back his whole timetable so that his movement takes over Cuba from Batista in January 1961 -

There's no Soviet visit till Feb 62 and no nationalization of US property till August 62, no breakage of US diplomatic relations till at least January 63.

How does this knock-on to affect Kennedy administration foreign policy before, during and after 1962? How does it affect in particular any situations over Berlin, US reactions to Southeast Asia and Latin America, and the Sino-Indian War, which in OTL occurred contemporaneously with the Cuban missile crisis?


PoD 3. What if Castro's 20 November, 1956 invasion of Cuba succeeded, panicked Batista and put Castro in power?

PoD 4. What if Castro's guerrilla movement from the Sierra Maestra, started 20 November, accelerated faster, resulting in his takeover of the country by by January 1 1958 instead of January 1 1959?
 
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