1961-1976

1961-1976 External Threats and Consolidation

The Cuban Revolutionary Government alienated many with its curtailment of freedom of expression and its expropriation of private property, including properties owned by US corporations. The US government trained a brigade of exiled Cubans, many of them disillusioned with the regime that they had once supported. That brigade disembarked in Cuba in April 1961 and was defeated.

After this event, Fidel Castro sought protection from the Soviet Union, and obtained the transfer of nuclear missiles to Cuba, which led to a crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union in October 1962. The existence of the Cuban Revolutionary Government was guaranteed by the agreements between the US and the Soviet Union that ended the missile crisis. Although the US government has imposed an economic embargo of Cuba since 1960, the Cuban Revolutionary Government consolidated, and issued a constitution of Cuba in 1976.

During this period, the Cuban Revolutionary Government developed Cuba’s present world-class systems of public education and public health.