Cuba 1952: Press Association Mediation Offer

Cuba History Timeline Events
May 20, 1952
The Bloque Cubano de Prensa [Cuban National Association of Newspaper and Magazine Publishers] mediates in the political crisis. They urged the regime to make political concessions to the opposition and to convince the opposition to accept them in order to achieve a peaceful solution. The negotiations soon broke down. Both camps were recalcitrant. The opposition demanded extreme and unrealistic concessions: Batista and his cabinet had to resign in toto and be replaced by nonpolitical figures unequivocally neutral followed by general elections. For the following five years this recalcitrant revolutionary opposition wouldn’t modify the core of these demands and sabotaged any compromises advocated by the electoralists.

based on Manuel Márquez-Sterling's Cuba 1952-1959 and
Cuba 1952-1959 Interactive Timeline

Cuba 1952: Student anti-government demonstrations

Cuba History Timeline Events
May 20, 1952
Student anti-Batista protests started at the University of Havana in April and grew to a massive demonstration held by the students on May 20 (Independence Day) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cuban independence, affirming loyalty to the 1940 Constitution, calling for Batista’s ouster or resignation, and urging Cubans to reject his modified constitution and demand a return to the 1940 Constitution. The University was under law an autonomous entity, so the students could protest with impunity since the police and other government authorities could not lawfully enter the campus.

University of Havana Student Demonstration (Bohemia)

extract from the graphical version of the Cuba 1952-1959 History Timeline
by Manuel Márquez-Sterling

Cuba 1952: Anti-Batista views broadcast on TV

Cuba History Timeline Events
April 13, 1952
Upon restoration of Bill of Rights freedoms, the CMQ National Broadcasting Company resumed broadcasting its popular television program Ante la Prensa, Cuba's equivalent to Meet the Press. Its first guest was Carlos Márquez-Sterling, former President of the Constitutional Convention of 1940. Deploring and condemning Batista’s coup, Márquez-Sterling urged the nation to resolve the political crisis through peaceful political channels conducive to a compromise that preserved the Constitution.

Batista’s political opposition split into two camps: the electoralists seeking to engage the regime and forge political solutions, and the revolutionaries and abstencionistas bent on overthrowing Batista by violent methods with the slogan: “Hay que castigar a Batista” ["Batista must be punished."] The lines within the new regime mirrored those of the opposition: a faction in favor of building bridges to the opposition, and the tanquistas opposed to any overtures or concessions.

There was a third short-lived opposition group that sought to remove Batista through judicial means, filing a case with the Supreme Court. This effort was led by the widely respected Revolutionary War veteran Don Cosme de la Torriente, with legal support from attorney and law professor Ramón Zaydin y Márquez-Sterling. This was a long and unsuccessful endeavor, finally coming to trial over a year later. Zaydin argued the case on a fateful day for Cuba, 26 July 1953, the day Castro through his Moncada Attack brought public attention to the revolutionary violence path.

based on Manuel Márquez-Sterling's Cuba 1952-1959 and
Cuba 1952-1959 Interactive Timeline

Cuba 1952: Batista Presidential proclamation

Cuba History Timeline Events
April 4, 1952
After governing as a de facto Prime Minister for about three weeks Batista declared himself President, disbanded the legislature, put in its place an advisory council and by proclamation enacted a constitutional law based on the 1940 Constitution. The Bill of Rights with its protection of basic freedoms was also restored. The national elections scheduled for June of that year were cancelled. Batista offered to hold general elections in 1953. The opposition rejected this offer outright, and refused to politically engage the Batista regime in any way.

based on Manuel Márquez-Sterling's Cuba 1952-1959 and
Cuba 1952-1959 Interactive Timeline

Cuba History Timeline 1952 (Text version)

(extract from the graphical version of the Cuba 1952-1959 History Timeline by Manuel Márquez-Sterling)








































date	event
10 March 1952	Batista Coup
27 March 1952	Batista government recognized
4 April 1952	Batista Presidential proclamation, Bill of Rights restored
13 April 1952	Anti-Batista views broadcast on TV
20 May 1952	Student anti-government demonstrations
20 May 1952	Press Association Mediation Offer







Cuba 1952: Batista Coup

Cuba History Timeline Events
March 10, 1952
Fulgencio Batista leads a group of disaffected military officers and a handful of political activists to overthrow President Carlos Prío Socarrás [1948-1952] in a bloodless coup. The coup plotters encountered almost no resistance, exploiting public revulsion against a government that had lost public respect and confidence being widely regarded as corrupt and incompetent, and incapable of dealing with increasing civil unrest and violent crime.

Batista had been involved in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado’s dictatorship in 1933, and by 1934 had become a power and king maker in Cuban politics. Over 1938-1939, realizing that he had to compromise with strong civic opposition, Batista supported return to constitutional rule and drafting of the Constitution of 1940. Batista was then elected president for the term of 1940-1944. Honoring constitutional term-limits and his candidate’s electoral defeat in 1944 to Ramón Grau, Batista moved to Florida. He returned to Cuban politics and was elected senator in 1948, and in 1952 ran as a presidential candidate. The polls before the election indicated he was running a distant third behind the Auténtico and the Ortodoxo candidates.

Batista’s 1952 coup provoked immediate and strong political opposition. The opposition had two major wings: revolutionaries who saw violent overthrow of Batista as the solution; and electoralists/constitutionalists who sought to remove Batista through political means.

The Batista government was swiftly recognized by most free world countries, including the US on 27 Mar 1952.

Fulgencio Batista Coup, Camp Columbia Press Conference, 10-Mar-1952

based on Manuel Márquez-Sterling's Cuba 1952-1959 and
Cuba 1952-1959 Interactive Timeline

Cuba History 1952-1959 Timeline (Text version)

We have been pleased to see the popularity of Manuel Márquez-Sterling’s Cuba 1952-1959 timeline with key events in Cuban history from Fulgencio Batista’s March 1952 coup through the seizure of power by Fidel Castro’s forces and the establishment of the Castros’ dictatorship.

As a companion to that interactive graphical timeline, beginning this week we’ll be publishing a version in text form, as a series of posts each containing the events for a calendar year over the period of 1952-1959. We’ll update these with links to posts about these events as they are published. We hope this will be useful both as an alternative to those who would like to see this information in textual form, and as a navigational aid to blog posts about these events.

The timeline gives particular attention to the activities of the two wings of Batista’s opposition: the constitutionalist/electoralist; and the revolutionary, which included student militant groups (DRE, FEU) and Castro’s 26th of July Movement. The timeline includes events within Cuba and related events in other countries, particularly those concerning US-Cuba policy, Cuban revolutionaries in exile, and international press coverage of Castro and his forces.