Gerardo Machado, Time, 1933

Gerardo Machado (y Morales) (28 September 1871, Camajani – 29 March 1939, Miami Beach, Florida) was a Cuban general of Cuban War of Independence and the 5th president of Cuba. He was from the central provinces and poor background, said to have been a cattle rustler, before he joined the fight for independence. A butcher by trade he had only three fingers on his left hand. He married cousin Elvira Machado Nodal; they had three daughters; Laudelina (Nena), Angela Elvira and Berta [1]. Image File history File links This image is of a scan of a magazine cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the magazine or the individual contributors who worked on the cover depicted. ... Image File history File links This image is of a scan of a magazine cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the magazine or the individual contributors who worked on the cover depicted. ... 1871 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Miami Beach is a city located in Miami-Dade County, Florida. ... Official language(s) English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 22nd 170 451 km² 260 km 800 km 17. ... // Pre-Columbian Cuba The archeological record and evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies indicate that Cuba and the Antilles have been inhabited by peoples ancestral to the indigenous inhabitants for at least several thousand years. ...

War experience

He was one of the youngest Cuban generals of the 1895 to 1898 Cuban War of Independence [2]. Only two other War on Independence generals were younger: Calixto Enamorado (1874-1951) [3] and Enrique Loynaz del Castillo (1871-1963) [4], [5]. Gerardo Machado fought in the middle provinces [6] along with José Miguel Gómez (1858-1921) who also was president on the Liberal Party ticket and José de Jesus Monteagudo who would later defeat the disorganized black separatist forces of Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet win the 1912 Race War [7] and cruelly crush this rebellion [8]. General is a high military rank, used by nearly every country in the world. ... José Miguel Gómez was a general in the Cuban War of Independence who went on to become an important politician. ... The term Race war is a slang term, referring to developing hostilities between ethnic groups divided on the basis of race. ...

Machado, said to the party's War leader in Las Villas province, fought on the defeated Liberal side in the 1917 "Little War of February 1917” La Chambelona (Chambelona War), with José Miguel Gómez, Alfredo Zayas and with Enrique Loynaz del Castillo. Calixto Enamorado fought on the Conservative side. After the initial victories of the Liberals, things turned worse. Yet Machado continued to fight even after the Liberals lost to the machine guns of Colonel Rosendo Collazo at Caicaje [9] once the hacienda of Santiago Saura Orraque [10] and Juan Manuel Perez de la Cruz [11] on 8th of March until his cause was unsustainable and surrendered [12]. José Miguel Gómez was a general in the Cuban War of Independence who went on to become an important politician. ... Alfredo Zayas y Alonso (1861 - 1934) was a Cuban general and political figure. ...

President Mario García Menocal had clearly won. Technically there was no US intervention in this war [13] and Cuban Army Offices notably Julio Sanguilí, in Santiago [14], regained control. Since in this war the Liberals were said to be pro-German, US President Woodrow Wilson, worried about Mexico and Pancho Villa, and the loss of able general, Menocal's friend and Cuba hand Frederick Funston had one less distraction on his hands. Menocal declared war on Germany April 7 of that same year. John J. Pershing, less tactful than Funston, in the Cuban circumstance, would be sent first to Mexico and then Europe. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States (1913–1921). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Brig. ... General John Pershing John Joseph Black Jack Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948) was an officer in the United States Army. ...

Political life

A political figure, he served in the Liberal Party Administration of José Miguel Gómez [15]. Allied with his predecessor outgoing president Alfredo Zayas and Running as a Liberal Party candidate, he defeated Mario Garcia Menocal of the Conservative Party by an overwhelming majority to become Cuba's 5th president. He took office as President of Cuba on May 20, 1925 and left office on August 12, 1933. Elected at the time of a fall in world sugar prices, he was a Cuban industrialist and member of the political elite of the Liberal Party. Machado was an economic reformer who tried to wean Cuba off of its heavy reliance on the sugar industry and resultant dependency on the United States. His presidency saw the passage of the Vejeda Act of 1926, a failed attempt to raise sugar prices by cutting production, and the Customs-Tariff Law of 1927, a successful attempt to encourage the diversification of Cuban industry. A politician is an individual involved in politics, sometimes this may include political scientists. ... Alfredo Zayas y Alonso (1861 - 1934) was a Cuban general and political figure. ... This page contains a list of presidents of Cuba. ... 20 May is the 140th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (141st in leap years). ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Machado was determined to modernize Cuba [16], he constructed the Central Highway [17]. Politically he was less adroit, he determined to make Cuba the "Switzerland of the Americas" he became despotic and forced his way into a second term. By this time Machado had become an equal opportunity tyrant as documented by Walker Evans [18] and had made many enemies of the political left (except for a period of truce with the Cuban Communist Party), the center and the right. He also abused and censored the press [19], [20]. The struggles against Machado have influenced both film [21] and literature. However, to place the matter in international context, during Machado’s rule Mussolini controlled Italy [22], and Hitler was busy in Germany; there was Depression in the US. It was in these turbulent times when Machado ruled that Cuban links to the Stalinist Communist international were made for the first time by Fabio Grobart [23]. [24]. Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer made famous by his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. ... The Communist Party of Cuba (Spanish: Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) is the ruling party of Cuba. ... Look up depression in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Although Machado is said to have ordered the murder of defecting communist Julio Antonio Mella in Mexico this murder is generally conceded to have been carried out by the Stalinist faction of the Communist International who were in death struggle with the followers of Leon Trotsky. The actual assassination was done by action group that included notorious communist assassin Vittorio Vidali. Trotsky was eventually also murdered in that country by communist assassin Ramon Mercader. Julio Antonio Mella (25 March 1903 - 10 January 1929) had been a founder of the Cuban Communist Party [1]. Mella studied law in the University of Havana until he was expelled in 1925 [2] and is considered at hero by the present Cuban Government e. ... The first edition of Communist International, journal of the Comintern published in Moscow and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in May 1919. ... Leon Trotsky (help· info) (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... In sociology and anthropology, an action group or task group is a group of people joined temporarily to accomplish some task or take part in some organised collective action. ... Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ... Vittorio Vidali (b. ... Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río Hernández (February 7, 1914 - October 18, 1978) was a Spanish Communist who served as an foreign agent of the NKVD during Joseph Stalins time as ruler of the USSR. In that role, he became famous as the murderer of Stalins...

Machado loses power

In Cuba, Machado engaged in a long struggle with diverse insurgent groups which varied from the green shirts of the ABC to Blas Hernandez, to the conservative veterans of the Cuban War of Independence to the radical Antonio Guiteras group, and clung on for several years. He was finally toppled in the 1933 by US influence Sumner Welles [25], old Cuban War of Independence Veterans, Army Officers, Civic Leaders in a general strike [26] (Alba, 1968). His regimes' collapse was followed by a revolution led by dissident students, labor activists, and non-commissioned military officers, that left the power in the hands Fulgencio Batista. Machado along with Fidel Castro and Batista is considered to have been a dictator even by Anarchists [27] [28]. Antonio Guiteras Holmes (born 22 November 1906 in Philadelphia – died 8 May 1935) was a leading politician in Cuba during the 1930s. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sumner Welles (October 14, 1892 – 1961) was Under Secretary of State in US 1937-1943 during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. ... Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was the de facto leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1940 and the countrys de jure President from 1940 to 1944 and the countrys unchallenged leader, after a coup, from 1952... Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (pron. ...

References

Memoirs and papers

Machado y Morales, Gerardo (written in 1936 published in 1957 and later) Ocho años de lucha – memorias. Ediciones Universales, [29] and Ediciones Historicas Cubanas. Miami ISBN 0897293282 ISBN 0897293282

A collection Gerardo Machado’s papers have been digitized by the Cuban Heritage Collection Digitizing Project of the University of Miami [30].

General references

• Alba, Víctor 1968 Politics and the labor movement in Latin America. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California . ASIN B0006BNYGK
• Duarte Oropesa, José (1989) Historiología Cubana. Ediciones Universal Miami ISBN 8439925808
• Masó, Calixto (1998) Historia de Cuba 3rd edition. Ediciones Universal, Miami. ISBN 0897298756
• Perez-Stable, Marifeli (1999); The Cuban Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Riera Hernández, Mario. 1953. Cincuenta y dos años de política: Oriente, 1900-1952. La Habana.
• Riera, Mario. 1955. Cuba política, 1899-1955. La Habana: Impresora Modelo, S.A.
• Riera Hernández, Mario. 1968. Cuba libre: 1895-1958. Miami: Colonial Press of Miami, Inc.
• Riera Hernández, Mario. 1974. Cuba repúblicana: 1899-1958. Miami: Editorial AIP.
• Thomas, Hugh (1998) Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom. Da Capo Press; Updated edition (April, 1998) ISBN 0306808277
• Perez-Stable, Marifeli (1999); The Cuban Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chambelona

• Cano Vázquez, F. 1953: La Revolución de la Chambelona. Revista Bohemia. La Habana, May 1st 1953. 45 (19) 82-86, 184, 188.
• González, Reynaldo 1978 Nosotros los liberales nos comimos la lechona. Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Havana
• Waldemar, León Caicaje: Batalla Final de una Revuelta. Bohemia pp. 100-103, 113
• Montaner, Carlos Alberto 1982 Cuba: claves para una conciencia en crisis. [31]
• Montaner, Carlos Alberto 1999 Viaje al Corazón de Cuba. Planes and Janés [32]
• Morales y Morales, Vidal 1959 (printed 1962) Sobre la guerra civil de 1917. Documentos del Siglo XX, Boletín del Archivo Nacional. Volume 58 pp.178-256.
• Parker, William Belmont 1919 Cubans of Today Putnam's Sons, New York,
• Portell Vila, Herminio La Chambelona en Oriente. Bohemia pp. 12-13, 112-125.
• Primelles, L- 1955 Crónica cubana, 1915-1918: La reelección de Menocal y la Revolución de 1917. La danza de los millones - Editorial Lex, Havana.