The historiography of the Cuban Revolution includes numerous accounts which detail the responses to Batista's coup. The fact that anti-Batista sentiments were very popular in Cuba, and that several revolutionary groups existed has also been highly documented. Nonetheless, the most highly recognized insurrectional organization remains Castro's M-26-7. The goal of my thesis is to explain the steps which Castro took in order to remove all competition, allowing him to remain the only figure left in power. The process in which Castro came to power will be analyzed in order to gain a better understanding of how he orchestrated the removal of other revolutionary groups. My thesis will show that Castro purposely aided some groups, when it was to his benefit, but also denied aid to these same groups when he knew that he could gain an advantage over them. An analysis of the manifestos will reveal that most anti-Batista groups had their own agendas and that often times they were attempting to work together in order to coordinate Cuba's future. I will focus on primary source materials such as eye witness accounts, historical publications, diaries and newspapers. I intend on analyzing Castro's M-26-7, from the time of his attack of the Moncada Barracks, through the course of the insurrection itself, and his final actions as Batista fled Cuba in 1959. By investigating the actions that were taken by Castro and his followers, in light of how those actions affected the other revolutionaries groups, will shed light on why certain decisions were made by the M-26-7. The outcome of this research will show that the M-26-7 orchestrated their actions with the sole purpose of bringing Castro to power when the insurrection war was over.

The political ideologies that Martí envisioned of an America free from the inherited yoke of European ideals were taken by Fidel Castro as an anti-imperialist discourse. Therefore, Marti’s political vision on the power that the United States began to carry out at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was an excellent strategy to establish the anti-imperialist character of the Cuban revolution. Since 1961, Castro set Martí as the face of his Marxist-Leninist ideology to institute his anti-American philosophy; Castro created a myth of Marti’s persona, and converted him into the bastion of his political ideology. As a result, Castro distorted the revolutionary ideas of Marti’s. Castro proposed his ideas out of context and portrayed the incorrect idea of this great thinker and poet. Martí’s human ethic and love for the independence of Cuba placed Martí as a liberator of revolutionary and progressive ideas of his generation. Martí was not thought as a dictator and never was a man who lacked democratic values. The expressed analytical assimilation of Martí on his sociopolitical and economic juncture that was presented in America and Cuba was used to trace the political anti-imperialist propaganda by the dictatorial regime lead by Castro. This thesis will emphasize the persona of Jose Martí as a revolutionary, visionary and educator of his generation, then it will present the incorrect interpretation of Marti’s ideology by Fidel Castro, as an ideal to embark his revolution. Finally, the differences of his ideas in contrast to the political and social ideology of the Cuban revolution will be explained.

(in English): The topic of the present thesis is the image of Castro's Cuba in the work of dissident writers. The theoretical part is dedicated to the historical and political circumstances of Cuba in the second half of the 20th century, it briefly outlines the origins and evolution of the Cuban dissent and, most importantly, it pays attention to the literary dissent. The main part of the present thesis concentrates on to the dissident Generation Mariel and its main characterics, and especially on life and literary work of his most important member, Reinaldo Arenas. The theoretical background serves as the basis for the practical part of the thesis, in which the image of Castro's government in the work of Reinaldo Arenas, Before night falls and The color of summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights, is examined.

This thesis explores the effect that nationalism had on the spread of communism to Vietnam and Cuba during the first half of the twentieth century. Using a case studies approach to analyze the revolution of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Fidel Castro in Cuba, the thesis seeks to determine the extent to which nationalism directed these revolutions and their turn to communism once assuming power. The study examines the conditions that existed in each country that allowed for a nationalist revolution to be successful, and the beliefs and rhetoric of Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, the primary figures of each revolution. The thesis seeks to add to the research conducted on the power that nationalism had in the Third World from the early 1900s to 1960, and it wishes to contribute to the factors that must be considered by foreign policy makers when pursuing military action or nation-building abroad. The research shows that nationalism played a significant role in bringing communism to Vietnam and Cuba, yet due to the difficulty in measuring a core human feeling like nationalism, other factors cannot be discounted. / Master of Arts

Les relations entre Cuba et les Etats-Unis sont conflictuelles depuis plus d’un demi-siècle, plus précisément depuis l’arrivée de Fidel Castro au pouvoir le 1er janvier 1959. Cette étude porte sur le régime du général Fulgencio Batista (1952-1958) et plus particulièrement sur la guerre civile cubaine – période de vingt-cinq mois allant du débarquement des révolutionnaires cubains menés par Castro le 2 décembre 1956 à la fuite de Batista le 1er janvier 1959. L’analyse de cette période est cruciale pour comprendre les raisons de l’émergence d’un puissant mouvement à Cuba et de la transformation politique, économique et sociale la plus radicale de l’histoire de l’Amérique latine, mettant ainsi un terme à près de soixante ans d’hégémonie étasunienne sur l’île des Caraïbes (1898-1958). Elle permet également de saisir les enjeux actuels du conflit bilatéral qui oppose Washington et La Havane. L’interventionnisme des Etats-Unis, tant politique que militaire, dans les affaires internes cubaines en vue de protéger leurs propres intérêts économiques et stratégiques était une norme qui était de mise durant toute la période républicaine (1902-1958). L’objectif de cette étude consiste à analyser en profondeur la politique étrangère de l’administration Eisenhower vis-à-vis de Cuba durant toute la guerre civile cubaine qui opposa principalement le Mouvement 26 Juillet de Castro et ses alliés au régime de Batista. L’hostilité persistante de Washington à l’égard de Cuba vingt ans après la disparition de l’Union soviétique illustre le constat que les rapports bilatéraux entre les deux nations ne peuvent être analysés seulement à l’aune de la Guerre Froide. / Relations between Cuba and the United States have been troubled for more than half a century, more precisely since Fidel Castro's arrival to power on January 1, 1959. This study concerns the regime of General Fulgencio Batista (1952-1958) and particularly the Cuban civil war - the twenty-five month period from the landing of Cuban revolutionaries led by Castro on December 2, 1956 to the flight of Batista on January 1, 1959. The analysis of this period is crucial to understanding the reasons for the emergence of a powerful movement in Cuba and the most radical political, economic and social transformation in the history of Latin America, which ended nearly sixty years of American hegemony over the Caribbean island (1898-1958). It also provides an understanding of the essence of the current bilateral conflict between Washington and Havana. U.S. intervention, both politically and militarily, in Cuban internal affairs in order to protect its own strategic and economic interests was the norm throughout Cuba's Republican era (1902-1958). The aim of this study is an in depth analysis of the foreign policy of the Eisenhower administration towards Cuba throughout the Cuban civil war, which primarily pitted Castro's 26th of July Movement and his allies against the Batista regime. Washington's persistent hostility towards Cuba twenty years after the demise of the Soviet Union illustrates the finding that bilateral relations between both nations can not be analyzed only through the framework of the Cold War.

L’un des sujets historiques latino-américains les plus abordés par la littérature scientifique, est celui de la révolution cubaine de 1959. Les réformes sociales, la projection internationale du nouveau régime havanais, la répression politique intérieure, l’opposition des États-Unis ont entraîné un vaste débat politique et intellectuel. Pour montrer l’échec ou la réussite de la nouvelle politique menée, les auteurs ont tenté de nombreuses comparaisons avec le gouvernement de Fulgencio Batista sans, pour autant, étudier attentivement ses mécanismes, ses contradictions internes, ses différences et ses similitudes avec les régimes voisins. De faux documents ont même été produits pour justifier la vision de l’un ou l’autre des camps.57 ans après l’entrée des révolutionnaires à La Havane, il convient de s’interroger sur ce que fut le régime du 10 mars. L’objet de cette thèse estde réussir à comprendre, à partir du plus large corpus possible et à travers la relation entre l’État et les médias, quelle était la nature du gouvernement de Fulgencio Batista. Il s’agit de replacer au centre de la compréhension les actions des acteurs politiques et médiatiques. / One of the Latin American historical subjects most approached by scientific literature is the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Social reforms, the international projection of the new Havanese regime, internal political repression, led to extensive political and intellectual debate. In order to show the failure or the success of the new policy, the authors have attempted many comparisons with the government of Fulgencio Batista without, however, carefully examining its mechanisms, internal contradictions, differences and similarities with neighboring regimes. False documents were even produced to justify the vision of one or the other of the camps.57 years after the revolutionaries entered Havana, it is necessary to question what the regime of March 10 was. The aim of this thesis is to understand the nature of the government of Fulgencio Batista through the relationship between the state and the media and to reposition it in the center of the understanding of the period the actions of political and media actors.

The goal of this project is to investigate the way in which various representations of Fidel Castro, between the years 1957-1965, have left an indelible mark on Cuba, transforming its landscape, I argue, through gendered means and conscious strategies. Thus it is less concerned with Fidel as an historical person than with examining with a gendered lens the ways in which he has been represented in foundational photographs, interviews, songs, and texts (both narrative and poetry as well as blogs). Drawing from theories of masculinity, which conceive masculinity as both a social construction and material body, my dissertation explores the ways in which these representations make visible a gendered body, mapping definitions of masculinity on Fidel, which are intimately linked to power. These constructions of Fidel’s masculinity, which are portrayed as hegemonic and a legitimating feature of patriarchal control, are a central feature of Fidel’s political authority and the Revolution’s hegemonizing project to shape Revolutionary men and women. I argue that representations of Fidel frequently invite a gendered encounter between the Comandante and his followers, resulting in the production of gendered Revolutionary subjects. The present study adds to current scholarship by shedding light on the ways in which gender foregrounds politics by problematizing the ways in which men are often at the center of political discourse. By decoding the foundations of Fidel’s “gendered” power, we find it to be a construction whose maintenance depends on the body’s ability to conform to hegemonic definitions of masculinity, thus reinforcing rather than Revolutionizing masculine paradigms of authority.

[pt] A história política da Espanha franquista caracterizou-se por paradoxos e por contradições. A sua Política Externa foi um dos maiores e talvez o mais notável desses paradoxos, pois aponta para compromissos que contradiziam a ideologia do regime e a sua política interna. Esse foi o caso das relações que a Espanha manteve com Cuba após a revolução liderada por Fidel Castro. Este trabalho objetiva explicar as razões dessa relação especial contrapondo duas variáveis, sendo a primeira de caráter cultural e identitário, e a segunda, de natureza econômica. Procura, por fim, demonstrar que a explicação mais adequada é aquela que conjuga as duas variáveis. / [en] The political history of Franco s Spain was characterized by paradoxes and contradictions. Its Foreign Policy was one of the major and perhaps the most remarkable of these paradoxes, because it points out to commitments which contradict the ideology of Franco s regime and its internal politics. This was the case of the relationship between Franco s Spain and Cuba under Fidel Castro. This work seeks to explain this special relationship opposing two variables, one from cultural and identity nature, and the other from economic kind. Finally, it tries to demonstrate that the most appropriate explanation is the one that combines both variables.

I denna studie undersöks hur tre rikstäckande svenska dagstidningar med varierande ideologisk grund gestaltat ett urval av politiska händelser på Kuba under Fidel Castros kommunistiska styre 1962–1994. De politiska händelserna på Kuba som granskats är Kubakrisen 1962, Olof Palmes Statsbesök 1975 samt Specialperioden 1990–1994. Frågeställningarnas fokus har dels legat på hur gestaltningarna av Kubas politik bibehållits eller förändrats under den undersökta perioden, och dels hur tidningarna förhållit sig till sin politiska grundideologi över tid. Avslut- ningsvis har detta resultat ställts mot Francis Fukuyamas tes om ”Historiens slut”. Gransk- ningen av materialet har skett med ett gestaltningsteoretiskt ramverk där en kvalitativ aspekt granskat gestaltningens perspektiv och urval, samt en kvantitativ aspekt som fokuserat på jour- nalistikens värdeomdömen mot Kubas politik. Resultat visar att det fanns betydande skillnader mellan tidningarnas gestaltningar och värdeomdömen under 1960- och 1970-talet. Under Spe- cialperioden på 1990-talet förenades dock samtliga tidningar i en samstämmig kritik mot Fidel Castros kommunistiska styre på Kuba. Detta tycks dels vara ett resultat av tidningarna i allt högre grad blivit nyhetsstyrda snarare än idéstyrda. Ideologiska nyanser skiljer tidningarnas gestaltningar åt, dessa perspektiv överskuggas dock på 1990-talet av att tidningarna samlas i en typ av liberaldemokratisk mittfåra som enhälligt fördömer kommunismen på Kuba. / This study examines how three nationwide newspapers in Sweden framed a sample of political events on Cuba during Fidel Castro's communist rule during the period 1962–1994. The news- papers are all linked to different political ideologies. The political events examined were the Cuban missile crisis 1962, Olof Palme's state visit 1975 and the Special Period 1990–1994. The purpose of the study was on one hand to examine if the framing of Cuba’s politics was main- tained or changed during this period, and on the other hand how the newspapers adhered to their political ideology over time. In conclusion these results are discussed in relation to Francis Fukuyamas thesis “The End of History?”. The study uses a frame analysis as a theoretical framework which has a qualitative aspect that examines the salient perspectives and selections, and a quantitative aspect which focus on value judgments towards Cuba's political leadership. The study shows that there were significant differences between the newspaper framing and value judgements during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1990s there were a substantial shift, as the newspapers now united in a unanimous condemnation of the communist rule on Cuba. This seems to be a result of the newspapers becoming more news-driven rather than idea-driven. Although some ideological nuances persisted during the 1990s, overall the ideologies expressed by the newspapers seem to converge in the support of political and economic liberalism. Based on the results of this study, the major ideological battle of the 20th century was replaced by minor ideological disputes in the 1990s.

Diploma thesis analyses mutual relations between Cuba and Soviet Union between 1959 (victory of the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro) and 1991 (the dissolution of Soviet Union). The thesis is divided into five chapters, first of which deals with the historical development of the island. The rest of the chapters describe circumstances leading to establishing, deepening, or worsening mutual relations and explains the causes of such development. Motivation factors leading both countries to cooperation are object of the work. This thesis intends to find out whether geographical location of Cuba was the main reason for Soviet Union to cooperate and support financially the Caribbean island. The role of Marxism-Leninism ideology in mutual relations is also clarified.