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In 1955 Cuban president Fulgencio Batista was feeling confident. He had won a (fraudulent) election the previous year, and had the full support of the United States. The economy was looking up: hotels and luxury apartment buildings were under construction throughout Havana. There were still sporadic bombings, organized largely by friends of former president Prio Socarras, but Batista was clearly in control. He therefore felt strong enough to agree to a law providing a general amnesty for political prisoners--including Fidel and Raul Castro and the other remaining prisoners serving time for the 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks. (Fidel had been sentenced to fifteen years, Raul to thirteen.)

Suppose Batista had refused to pardon the Castro brothers, or in any event Fidel? Admittedly the pressure to pardon them was great, for the following reason: Batista could be brutal at times, but unlike (say) a Trujillo, he wanted "respectability," he wanted there to be opposition parties (so long as he could be sure they wouldn't actually *win*), he wanted there to be a free press (until it "went too far" and he would re-impose censorship), he wanted for Cuba to have at least a democratic facade. And one demand that all democratic elements in Cuba were insisting on was a general amnesty for political prisoners. In October 1954 when former President Grau San Martin was campaigning against Batista at a rally in Santiago, the crowd started chanting Fidel's name; Grau's response was that as soon as he was elected he would declare a full amnesty, including for the "boys of Moncada." Grau soon pulled out of the race, realizing he could not defeat Batista's electoral machine; but the demand for amnesty for all political prisoners remained strong, and Batista could resist it only by giving up all hopes of political reconciliation and reverting to outright dictatorship. But suppose he was willing to do this?

I do not suggest that with Castro remaining in jail, the Batista regime would last forever. But the question of who would overthrow it was significant; Castro always feared that there would be a military coup against Batista, restoring the old politicians (and there were in fact attempts at such a coup). Or even if younger and less conservative elements would overthrow Batista, their politics might still be quite different from Castro's: see my discussion of Jose Antonio Echeverria and the Revolutionary Directorate at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rectorate-as-an-alternative-to-castro.339383/
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