Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, the U. S.-backed authoritarian ruler from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown during the Cuban Revolution. Batista rose to power as part of the 1933 Revolt of the Sergeants, which overthrew the provisional government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, he appointed himself chief of the armed forces, with the rank of colonel, controlled the five-member "pentarchy" that functioned as the collective head of state. He maintained this control through a string of puppet presidents until 1940, when he was himself elected President of Cuba on a populist platform, he instated the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and served until 1944. After finishing his term he lived in Florida, returning to Cuba to run for president in 1952. Facing certain electoral defeat, he led a military coup against President Carlos Prío Socarrás that preempted the election. Back in power, receiving financial and logistical support from the United States government, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike.
He aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. It reached the point where most of the sugar industry was in U. S. hands, foreigners owned 70% of the arable land. As such, Batista's repressive government began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with both the American Mafia, who controlled the drug and prostitution businesses in Havana, with large U. S.-based multinational companies who were awarded lucrative contracts. To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace—which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and demonstrations—Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while utilizing his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities secret police to carry out wide-scale violence and public executions. Catalyzing the resistance to such tactics, for two years Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement and other nationalist rebelling elements led an urban and rural-based guerrilla uprising against Batista's government, which culminated in his eventual defeat by rebels under the command of Che Guevara at the Battle of Santa Clara on New Year's Day 1959.
Batista fled the island with an amassed personal fortune to the Dominican Republic, where strongman and previous military ally Rafael Trujillo held power. Batista found political asylum in Oliveira Salazar's Portugal, where he first lived on the island of Madeira and in Estoril, outside Lisbon, he was involved in business activities in Spain and was staying there in Guadalmina near Marbella at the time of his death from a heart attack on August 6, 1973. Batista was born in the town of Veguita, located in the municipality of Banes, province of Holguín, in 1901, to Belisario Batista Palermo and Carmela Zaldívar González, who had fought in the Cuban War of Independence, he was of African, Taíno and Chinese descent. His mother gave him her last name, Zaldívar, his father did not want to register him as a Batista. In the registration records of the Banes courthouse, he was Rubén Zaldívar until 1939, when, as Fulgencio Batista, he became a presidential candidate and it was discovered that this name did not exist in the birth certificates.
Both Batista's parents are believed to have been of mixed race and one may have had Indigenous Caribbean blood. Batista was educated at a public school in Banes and attended night classes at an American Quaker school, he left home after the death of his mother. Coming from a humble background, he earned a living as a laborer in the cane fields and railroads, he was a tailor, charcoal vendor and fruit peddler. In 1921, he traveled to Havana, in April joined the army as a private. After learning shorthand and typing, Batista left the army in 1923, working as a teacher of stenography before enlisting in the Guardia Rural, he transferred back to the army as a corporal. In September 1933, he held the rank of sergeant stenographer and as such acted as the secretary of a group of non-commissioned officers who led a "sergeants' conspiracy" for better conditions and improved prospects of promotion. In 1933, Batista led an uprising called the Sergeants' Revolt, as part of the coup that overthrew the government of Gerardo Machado.
Machado was succeeded by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, who lacked a political coalition that could sustain him and was soon replaced. A short-lived five-member presidency, known as the Pentarchy of 1933, was established; the Pentarchy included a representative from each anti-Machado faction. Batista controlled Cuba's armed forces. Within days, the representative for the students and professors of the University of Havana, Ramón Grau San Martín, was made president—and Batista became the Army Chief of Staff, with the rank of colonel putting him in control of the presidency; the majority of the commissioned officer corps were forced to retire or, some speculate, were killed. Grau remained president for just over 100 days before Batista, conspiring with the U. S. envoy Sumner Welles, forced him to resign in January 1934. Grau was replaced
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Raúl Castro
Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is a Cuban politician, serving as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the socialist state, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro in April 2011. He has been a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba, the highest decision-making body since 1975. In February 2008, he was appointed the President of the Council of State and President of the Council of Ministers, he stepped down as President on 19 April 2018, but remains the first secretary of the Communist Party, holding ultimate power and authority over state and government. Previous to being appointed acting President of Cuba in July 2006, he served as the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008, his ministerial tenure made him the longest serving minister of the armed forces. Because of his predecessor's illness, Castro was designated the President of the Council of State in a temporary transfer of power. Castro was made President by the National Assembly on 24 February 2008, after Fidel Castro, still ailing, announced on 19 February 2008 that he would not stand for President again.
Castro was re-elected President on 24 February 2013. Shortly thereafter, Castro announced that his second term would be his final term, that he would not seek re-election in 2018, he announced on state television on 21 December 2017 that he would step down as Cuban president on 19 April 2018 after his successor is elected by the National Assembly following parliamentary elections. However, he retains his position as First Secretary of the Communist Party, Cuba's ruling party, is head of the constitutional reform commission, continues to have a seat representing Santiago de Cuba's Segundo Frente municipality in the National Assembly. Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz was born in Birán, the son of a Spanish immigrant father, Ángel Castro, a Cuban-born mother of Canarian parentage, Lina Ruz. Raúl is the youngest of three brothers: Fidel and himself, he has four sisters: Angela, Juanita and Agustina. Ángel Castro's first wife, Maria Argota raised five half-siblings of Raúl: Pedro Emilio, Maria Lidia, Manuel and Georgina.
As children, the Castro brothers were expelled from the first school. Like Fidel, Raúl attended the Jesuit School of Colegio Dolores in Santiago and Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Havana. Raúl, as an undergraduate, studied social sciences. Whereas Fidel excelled as a student, Raúl turned in mediocre performances. Raúl became a committed socialist and joined the Socialist Youth, an affiliate of the Soviet-oriented Cuban Communist Party, Partido Socialista Popular; the brothers participated in sometimes violent student actions. Raúl Castro's travels and contact with Soviet KGB agent Nikolai Leonov — whom he met in 1953 during a trip to the Soviet-bloc nations and again in 1955 during his exile in Mexico City — facilitated Cuba's close ties with the Soviets after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Leonov would become the USSR's KGB agent in Havana. In 1953, Raúl served as a member of the 26th of July Movement group that attacked the Moncada Barracks. During his exile in Mexico, he participated in the preparations for the expedition of the boat Granma to Cuba.
When the Granma landing failed and the 82 expeditionaries were detected by government troops soon after, Raúl was one of only 12 fighters who managed to reach a safe haven in the Sierra Maestra mountains, forming the core of the nascent rebel army. As Fidel's brother and trusted right-hand man, given his proven leadership abilities during and after the Moncada attack, he was given progressively bigger commands. On 27 February 1958 Raúl was made comandante and assigned the mission to cross the old province of Oriente leading a column of guerrillas to open, to the northeast of that territory, the "Frank País Eastern Front"; as a result of Raúl's "Eastern Front" operations, he was not involved in the pivotal Operation Verano, but Raúl's forces remained active and grew over time. On 26 June 1958, Raúl Castro's rebels kidnapped ten Americans and two Canadians from the property of Moa Bay Mining Company on the north coast of Oriente Province; the next day rebels took hostage 24 US servicemen on leave from the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
This incident brought total kidnapped hostages to 36. US Ambassador Smith and his staff determined the kidnappings had the following objectives: Obtain worldwide publicity, regain M-26-7 prestige lost by general strike call failure, force Batista's Air Force to stop bombing rebel holds, gain public recognition from the US. Two tactical objectives the kidnapping achieved for Castro forces can be discerned from contemporaneous reporting in Time: Batista declaring a ceasefire for negotiations, forcing a reduction in Operation Verano air raids; the hostage-taking caused significant US backlash, including unfavorable public reaction, US consideration to re-establishing military support to Batista and deploying US forces to free the hostages. The hostages were released in small groups, extracting the maximum press attention. After their release, the hostages said they were treated well with some claiming to support the rebel cause. By October 1958, after reinforcement by Fidel, the brothers had about 2,000 fighters and were operating throughout Oriente province.
In December, while Che Guevara and Camilo Cien
United Nations
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization, tasked to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international co-operation and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and The Hague; the organization is financed by voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development and upholding international law; the UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. In 24 October 1945, at the end of World War II, the organization was established with the aim of preventing future wars. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; the UN is the successor of the ineffective League of Nations.
On 25 April 1945, 50 governments met in San Francisco for a conference and started drafting the UN Charter, adopted on 25 June 1945 in the San Francisco Opera House, signed on 26 June 1945 in the Herbst Theatre auditorium in the Veterans War Memorial Building. This charter took effect on 24 October 1945; the UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies. Its missions have consisted of unarmed military observers and armed troops with monitoring and confidence-building roles; the organization's membership grew following widespread decolonization which started in the 1960s. Since 80 former colonies had gained independence, including 11 trust territories, which were monitored by the Trusteeship Council. By the 1970s its budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN shifted and expanded its field operations, undertaking a wide variety of complex tasks.
The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly. The UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, UNICEF; the UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese politician and diplomat António Guterres since 1 January 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work; the organization, its officers and its agencies have won many Nobel Peace Prizes. Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed; some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, biased, or corrupt. In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross was formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.
In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept, in 1918 he included a sketch of the international body in his 14-point proposal to end the war. In November 1918, the Central Powers agreed to an armistice to halt the killing in World War I. Two months the Allies met with Germany and Austria-Hungary at Versailles to hammer out formal peace terms. President Wilson wanted peace, but the United Kingdom and France disagreed, forcing harsh war reparations on their former enemies; the League of Nations was approved, in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the US Senate for ratification.
On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations formally comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect. However, at some point the League became ineffective when it failed to act against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria as in February 1933, 40 nations voted for Japan to withdraw from Manchuria but Japan voted against it and walked out of the League instead of withdrawing from Manchuria, it failed against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War despite trying to talk to Benito Mussolini as he used the time to send an army to Africa, so the League had a plan for Mussolini to just take a part of Ethiopia, but he ignored the League and invaded Ethiopia, the League tried putting sanctions on Italy, but Italy had conquered Ethiopia and the League had failed. After Italy conquered Ethiopia and other nations left the league, but all of them realised that they began to re-arm as fast as possible. During 1938, Britain and France tried negotiating directly with Hitler but this failed in 1939 when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.
When war broke out in 1939, the League closed down and its headquarters in Geneva remained empty throughout the war. The earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the U. S. State Department in 1939; the text of the "Declaration by United Nations" was drafted at the White House on December 29, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins
Cubans
Cubans or Cuban people, are the inhabitants, citizens of Cuba and people born in Cuba. Cuba is home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds; as a result, some Cubans do not treat their nationality as an ethnicity but as a citizenship with various ethnicities and national origins comprising the "Cuban people." The majority of Cubans descend from Spaniards. Despite its multi-ethnic composition, the culture held in common by most Cubans is referred to as mainstream Cuban culture, a Western culture derived from the traditions of Western European migrants, beginning with the early Spanish settlers, along with other Europeans arriving but in much smaller numbers, such as the English and Italians. There is a West African cultural component, somewhat influential, with many Afro-Cubans being of Jamaican or other Afro-Caribbean origin. Results are as follows: The population of Cuba was 11,167,325 inhabitants in 2012; the largest urban populations of Cubans in Cuba are to be found in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey, Holguín, Guantánamo, Santa Clara.
According to Cuba's Oficina Nacional de Estadisticas ONE 2012 Census, the population was 11,167,325 including: 5,570,825 men and 5,596,500 women. In the 2012 Census 64.1% or 7,160,399 self-identified as white. Based on genetic testing the average European and Native American ancestry found in those self-reporting to be “blanco ” 86% were "European", 6.7% had some "African" ancestry and 7.8% had "Native" or Other Ancestry. The majority of the European ancestry comes from Spain. During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century large waves of Canary Islanders, Galicians and Catalans emigrated from Spain to Cuba. Other European nationalities which immigrated include: English, Russians, Portuguese, Italians, French and Irish. Central and Eastern European influence was during the Cold War years and immigration from the British Isles was in Pinar del Rio Province and Havana. There is a small remnant of a Jewish community. There is significant ethnic influx from diverse Levantine peoples Lebanese and Syrians.
Afro-Cubans composed 9.3% of the population in 2012. Just over 1 million Cubans described themselves as Black, while 2.9 million considered themselves to be "mulatto" or "mestizo". Thus a significant proportion of those living on the island affirm some sub-Saharan African ancestry; the matter is further complicated by the fact that a fair number of people still locate their origins in specific African ethnic groups or regions the Akan, Yoruba and Congo, but Arará, Carabalí, Fula and others. Based on genetic testing the average European and Native American ancestry in those self-reporting to those self-reporting to be “negro ” were 29%, 65.5%, 5.5%. Although Afro-Cubans can be found throughout Cuba, Eastern Cuba has a higher concentration of blacks than other parts of the island, Havana has the largest population of blacks of any city in Cuba. Many African immigrants have been coming to Cuba from Angola. Immigrants from Jamaica and Haiti have been settling in Cuba, most of whom settle in the eastern part of the island, due to its proximity to their home countries, further contributing to the high percentage of blacks on that side of the island.
Cubans of East Asian origins made up 1.02% of the population. They are of Chinese, Japanese or Korean origins; the Chinese population in Cuba is descended from indentured laborers who arrived in the 19th century to build railroads and work in mines. After the Industrial Revolution, many of these laborers stayed in Cuba because they could not afford return passage to China. Of the Taínos the number of people claiming descent have not been formally recorded. Most, live on the eastern part of the island. Additionally, many North American Indians living in Spanish missions in Georgia and Florida were evacuated to Spanish Cuba along with the fleeing Spanish settlers following the loss of Spanish Florida; as a result, descendants of the Calusa, Tequesta and other now-extinct indigenous peoples of Florida are now assimilated into the mainstream Cuban population. The total population in the official 1953 Census was 5,829,029 people. Intermarriage between diverse groups is so general. Cuba's birth rate is one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere.
Its overall population has increased continuously from around 7 million in 1961 to over 11 million now, but the rate of increase has stopped in the last few decades, has turned to a decrease, with the Cuban government in 2006 reporting the first drop in the population since the Mariel boatlift. Immigration and emigration have had noticeable effects on the demographic profile of Cuba during the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1930, close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain. Since 1959, over a million Cubans have left the island to Miami, where a vocal, well-educated and economically successful exile community exists. An autosomal study from 2014 has found out the genetic ancestry in Cuba to be 72% European, 20% African and 8% Native American. Results of the study are of Cubans in Cuba, not of the Cuban exile community in Miami or other parts of the United States, who may have different genetic profiles. Cuban genealogy has become a rising interest for Cubans in the last 15 years. A 1995 study done on the population of Pinar del Río, found that
Communist Party of Cuba
The Communist Party of Cuba is the ruling political party in the Republic of Cuba. It is a communist party of the Marxist–Leninist model; the Cuban constitution ascribes the role of the party to be the "leading force of society and of the state". Since April 2011, the First Secretary of the Central Committee has been Raúl Castro, younger brother of the previous First Secretary Fidel Castro, who died on 25 November 2016; the Second Secretary has been José Ramón Machado Ventura. Cuba had a number of communist and anarchist organizations from the early period of the Republic; the original "internationalised" Communist Party of Cuba formed in the 1920s. In 1944, it renamed itself as the Popular Socialist Party for electoral reasons. In July 1961, two years after the successful overthrow of Fulgencio Batista and the creation of a revolutionary government, the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations was formed from the merger of: Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement The Popular Socialist Party led by Blas Roca The student-based Revolutionary Directory led by Faure ChomónOn 26 March 1962, the ORI became the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which in turn became the Communist Party of Cuba on 3 October 1965.
In Article 5 of the Cuban constitution of 1976, the Communist Party is recognized as "the superior guiding force of society and of the State, that organizes and orients common efforts toward the high goals of the construction of socialism and the advancement toward communist society". All parties, including the Communist Party, are prohibited from publicly advertizing their organizations. For the first fifteen years of its formal existence, the Communist Party was completely inactive outside of the Politburo; the 100 person Central Committee met and it was ten years after its founding that the first regular party Congress was held. In 1969, membership of the party was only 55,000 or 0.7% of the population, making the PCC the smallest ruling communist party in the world. In the 1970s, the party's apparatus began to develop. By the time of the first party Congress in 1975, the party had grown to just over two hundred thousand members, the Central Committee was meeting and provided the organizational apparatus giving the party the leading role in society that ruling Communist parties hold.
By 1980, the party had grown to over 430,000 members and it grew further to 520,000 by 1985. Apparatuses of the party had grown to ensure that its leading cadres were appointed to key government positions; the Communist Party of Cuba held its first party Congress in 1975 and has had additional congresses in 1980, 1986, 1991, 1997 and 2011. The Seventh Congress took place from 19 April to 22 April 2016, around the 55th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, concluding with remarks by Fidel Castro. See also: List of members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba The leading bodies of the party were the Politburo and the Secretariat until 1991 when the two bodies were merged into an expanded Politburo with over twenty members. However, the Secretariat was re-introduced in 2002. There is a Central Committee which meets between party congresses. At the Fifth Congress, the size of the Central Committee was reduced to 150 members from the previous membership of 225. Fidel Castro was the party's First Secretary since its inception while Raúl Castro was the Second Secretary.
Upon Fidel Castro's 2008 resignation from the party and Cuban government, Raúl Castro became First Secretary. The 7th Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba was elected by the Central Committee on 19 April 2016 following the 7th Congress; the 6th Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba was elected by the Central Committee on 19 April 2011 following the 6th Congress. The Communist Party of Cuba has a youth wing, the Young Communist League, a member organization of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, it has a children's group, the José Martí Pioneer Organization. Compared with other ruling Communist Parties, such as in Vietnam and Laos, the Communist Party of Cuba retains a stricter adherence to the tradition of Marxism–Leninism and the traditional Soviet model; the party has been more reluctant in engaging in market reforms, though it has been forced to accept some market measures in its economy due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the resultant loss of economic subsidies.
The Communist Party of Cuba has favored supporting revolutions abroad and was active in assisting the ELN in Colombia, the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement in Grenada. Their most significant international role was in the civil war in Angola, where there was Cuban direction of a joint Angolan/Soviet/Cuban force, involved in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale; this led to the withdrawal of intervening forces and in the following peace agreement the independence of Namibia from South African rule. The party maintains a policy of sending thousands of Cuban doctors, agricultural technicians, other professionals to other countries throughout the developing world. More the party has sought to support left-wing leaders such as Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. Raúl Castro is campaigning to "renew" Cuba's socialist economy through incorporating new exchange and distribution systems that have been traditionally seen as "market" oriented.
This has led to some speculation that Cuba may transition towards a model more similar to that of China. List of political parties in Cuba Citations Barry Carr. Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe. "From Caribbean Backwater to Revolutionary Opportunity: Cuba's Evolving Relationship with the Comintern, 1
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