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Republic of CubaRepública de Cuba
Flag Coat of arms of Cuba Coat of arms
Motto: Spanish: Patria y Libertad (English: "Homeland and Freedom")
Anthem: La Bayamesa (The Bayamo Song)
Capitaland largest city	Havana
Official languages	Spanish
Government	Republic
Independence
• Water (%)	negligible
Population
• 2005 estimate	11,345,670 (70th)
• 2002 census	11,177,743
GDP (PPP)	2004 estimate
• Total	$33.9 billion (89th)
• Per capita	$3,000 (126th)
HDI (2005)	0.817 very high (52nd)
Currency	Peso (CUP) Convertible peso (CUC)
Time zone	UTC-5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 ((Starts April 1, end date varies))
Calling code	53
ISO 3166 code	CU
Internet TLD	.cu
1993–2004, the U.S. dollar was used in addition to the peso until the dollar was replaced by the convertible peso.

Template:Totallydisputed

The Republic of Cuba (Spanish: República de Cuba, IPA: ) is a country consisting of the island of Cuba (the largest of the Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and adjacent small islands. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern United States, and the Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti, and east of Mexico. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica are south of eastern Cuba.

Cuba is a socialist republic, in which the Communist Party of Cuba is the sole legal political party It is claimed Cuba is the only state in the western hemisphere that is not a democracy . This is however, disputed.

History

The recorded history of Cuba began on 28 October 1492, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his first voyage of discovery and claimed it for Spain. The island had been inhabited for at least several thousand years by Amerindian peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney were hunter-gatherers. The name Cuba is derived from the Taíno word cubanacán, meaning "a central place."

The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by Sebastian de Ocampo in 1511, and in that year Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded the first Spanish settlement at Baracoa. Others towns, including Havana (founded in 1515), soon followed. The Spanish, as they did everywhere in the Americas, oppressed and enslaved the indigenous population, who soon died out as a result of the combined effects of disease and mistreatment. The settlers then introduced African slaves, who soon made up a significant proportion of the population.

Colonial Cuba

Cuba was a Spanish possession for 388 years, ruled by a governor in Havana, with an economy based on plantation agriculture and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe, and later to North America. It was seized by the British in 1762 but restored to Spain the following month. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to France. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, a small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, served by a mixed-race population of small farmers, labourers and slaves.

In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain’s empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence. This was partly because the prosperity of the Cuban settlers depended on their export trade to Europe, partly through fears of a slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew, and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial rule.

Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island’s annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S. throughout the 19th century, and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848 a pro-annexationist rebellion was defeated, and there were several attempts by annexationist forces to invade the island from Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain, but Spain always refused to consider ceding its last possession in the Americas.

After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexationism, agitation for independence revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868. This led to a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish and their local allies. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, and some unofficial aid was sent, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily. In 1878 the Peace of Zanjon ended the conflict, with Spanish promises of greater autonomy.

The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there was further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U.S. would step in and annex the island. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, slavery was abolished in 1886, although the African-descended minority remained socially and economically oppressed, despite formal civic equality granted in 1893. During this period, rural poverty in Spain led to a substantial Spanish emigration to Cuba – among those arriving were the parents of Fidel Castro.

During the 1890s pro-independence agitation revived, fuelled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain’s increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba. On 15 July 1895 rebellion broke out, and the independence party, led by Tomás Estrada Palma and the poet José Martí, proclaimed Cuba an independent republic – Martí was killed shortly after and has become Cuba’s undisputed national hero. The Spanish retaliated with a campaign of ruthless suppression, herding the rural population into concentration camps where hundreds died. In Europe and the U.S., there were fierce protests against Spain’s behaviour.

In 1897, fearing U.S. intervention, Spain moved to a more conciliatory policy, promising home rule with an elected legislature. The rebels rejected this offer and the war for independence continued. Shortly after, on 15 February 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was mysteriously blown up in Havana harbour, killing 266 men. Forces in the U.S. favouring intervention in Cuba seized on this incident to accuse Spain of blowing up the ship (although Spain had no motive for doing so, and there was no evidence of Spanish culpability). Swept along on a wave of nationalist sentiment, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention, and President William McKinley was quick to comply.

The result was the Spanish-American War, in which U.S. forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and quickly overcame Spanish resistance. In August a peace treaty was signed under which Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba. Some advocates in the U.S. supported Cuban independence, while others argued for outright annexation. As a compromise, the McKinley administration placed Cuba under a 20-year U.S. trusteeship. The Cuban independence movement bitterly opposed this arrangement, but unlike in the Philippines, where events had followed a similar course, there was no outbreak of armed resistance.

Independent Cuba

Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War in Cuba and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year trusteeship proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on 20 May 1902, with the independence leader Tomás Estrada Palma becoming the country’s first president. Under the new Cuban constitution, however, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

Independent Cuba soon ran into difficulties, as a result of factional disputes and corruption among the small educated elite and the failure of the government to deal with the deep social problems left behind by the Spanish. In 1906, following disputed elections to choose Estrada Palma’s successor, an armed revolt broke out, and the U.S. exercised its right of intervention. The country was placed under U.S. occupation and a U.S. governor took charge for two years. In 1908 self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. retained its supervision of Cuban affairs. Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, however, constitutional government was maintained until 1925, when Gerardo Machado y Morales, having been elected President, suspended the constitution and made himself Cuba’s first dictator.

Machado was a Cuban nationalist, and his regime had considerable local support despite its violent suppression of critics. During his tenure Cubans gained greater control over their own economy and some important national development projects were undertaken. His hold on power was weakened by the Great Depression, which drove down the price of Cuba’s agricultural exports and caused widespread poverty. In August 1933 elements of the Cuban army staged a coup which deposed Machado and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes as President. In September, however, a second coup led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista overthrew Céspedes and replaced him with Carlos Mendieta y Montefur.

One of the objectives of the “sergeants’ revolt” was to restore Cuban sovereignty, and in 1934 the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to end the formal U.S. role in Cuban affairs as part of its Good Neighbor Policy towards Latin America. Batista and the army became the real centre of power in Cuba, behind a series of transient presidents. In 1940 Batista decided to run for President himself. The leader of the constitutional liberals, Ramón Grau San Martín, refused to support him, so he turned instead to the Communist Party of Cuba, which had grown in size and influence during the 1930s.

With the support of the Communist-controlled labour unions, Batista was elected President, and his administration carried out major social reforms and introduced a new progressive constitution. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. At the end of his term in 1944, in accordance with the constitution, Batista stood down and Ramón Grau was elected to succeed him. Grau’s administration took Cuba into World War II as a U.S. ally, and he used his wartime powers to increase government spending on health, education and housing. But Grau’s liberals were bitter enemies of the Communists, and Batista opposed most of Grau’s programme.

In 1948 Grau was succeeded by another liberal, Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau’s minister of labour and was particularly hated by the Communists. Prío was a less principled liberal than Grau, and under his administration corruption increased. This was partly a result of the postwar revival of U.S. wealth and the consequent influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a centre of mafia operations. Nevertheless Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilising the Cuban currency. The influx of North American money fuelled a boom which did much to raise living standards, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.

From Batista to Castro

The 1952 election was contested between Roberto Agramonte of the liberals and Batista, who was seeking a return to office. When it became apparent that Batista had no chance of winning, he staged a coup on 10 March 1952, and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army, and of the Communists, as a “provisional president” for the next two years. In 1954, under pressure from the U.S., he agreed to elections. The liberals put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance. Batista could now claim to be an elected President, and his regime tolerated a considerable amount of dissent. By Latin American standards, Batista was a very mild dictator.

This changed in 1956, when a party of rebels, mostly idealistic young nationalists, and including Fidel Castro, landed in a boat from Mexico and tried to start a resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra mountains. (Castro had gone to Mexico after being released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for his part in a 1953 rebel attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.) Batista’s forces killed most of the rebels, but enough survived to maintain a low-level insurgency in the mountains. In response, Batista made the mistake of launching a campaign of repression against the opposition, which only served to increase support for the insurgency.

Through 1957 and 1958 opposition to Batista grew, among the middle class and the students, in the Catholic Church and in the rural areas. The United States government imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government on March 14, 1958. The urban trade unions, however, were under the control of either Communists or the mafia, both strong supporters (for different reasons) of Batista’s regime, and attempts to organise general strikes against Batista always failed. By late 1958 the rebels had succeeded in breaking out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general insurrection, joined by hundreds of students and others fleeing Batista’s crackdown on dissent in the cities. When the rebels captured Santa Clara, east of Havana, Batista decided the struggle was futile and fled the country to exile in Portugal and Spain. Castro’s rebel forces entered the capital on 1 January 1959.

Castro and Communism

Fidel Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba in February 1959, and has held effective power in the country ever since. (By 2006 he was the world’s longest-ruling head of government.) So far as was known, he was a constitutional liberal and nationalist, even if a radical one, and his victory was generally welcomed both in Cuba and in the U.S., although the summary execution of about 500 police officers and other agents of the Batista regime aroused immediate disquiet. During 1959 Castro’s government carried out popular measures such as land reform, the nationalization of public utilities, the ruthless suppression of corruption, including closing down the gambling industry and evicting the American mafiosi.

Unbeknown to most outsiders, however, was the powerful influence within Castro’s government of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentinian Communist and one of Castro’s closest advisers. Guevara formed an alliance with Castro’s ambitious brother, Raúl Castro, to persuade Fidel Castro to align himself with the Communists and thus with the Soviet Union. Guevara also played the key role in persuading the Cuban Communist leader, Blas Roca Calderío, to abandon his hostility to Castro and work instead to gain control of the revolutionary government from within. Roca was persuaded, and he informed the Soviet leadership of the possibility of winning Castro over. The Soviets at once seized the chance of gaining a political foothold in the Americas and promised unlimited aid and support if Castro declared himself for Communism.

Meanwhile, attitudes towards the Cuban revolution in the U.S. were changing rapidly. While the Eisenhower administration had initially welcomed Batista’s fall, the nationalization of U.S. owned companies (to an estimated value of US$1 billion) and the expulsion of many political conservatives with influential friends in the U.S. aroused immediate hostility, and the Cuban exiles soon became the powerful lobby group in the U.S. that they have been ever since. Although Castro himself was not believed to be a Communist, the U.S. was well informed about the role of Guevara and the rapid warming of relations between Castro and the Cuban Communists. Thus the U.S. became increasingly hostile to Castro during 1959. This in turn served to drive Castro away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and into the arms of the Communists.

In October 1959 Castro declared himself to be friendly towards communism, though not yet a Communist himself, and the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged, with many who had initially supported the revolution fleeing the country to join the growing exile community in Miami. In March 1960 the first aid agreements were signed with the Soviet Union. In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. saw the establishment of a Soviet base of influence in the Americas as intolerable, and plans were approved to remove Castro from power (see The Cuban Project). In late 1960 a trade embargo was imposed, which naturally drove Castro further towards the Soviet alliance. At the same time the administration authorized plans for an invasion of Cuba by Florida-based exiles, timed to coincide with an anti-Castro rising. The result was the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961 – the rising did not take place and the invasion force was routed. This gave Castro all the excuse he needed to establish a full-blown Communist state, which he did in May 1961.

Communist Cuba

The immediate result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the Soviet decision to place intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, during which President John F. Kennedy threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear war unless the missiles were withdrawn. Eventually the Soviets backed down. In the aftermath of this there was a resumption of contacts between the U.S. and Castro, resulting in the release of the anti-Castro fighters captured at the Bay of Pigs in exchange for a package of aid. But during 1963 relations deteriorated again as Castro moved Cuba towards a fully-fledged Communist system modelled on the Soviet Union. The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba. At this time U.S. influence in Latin America was strong enough to make the embargo very effective, and Cuba was forced to direct virtually all its trade to the Soviet Union and its allies.

In 1965 Castro merged his revolutionary organisations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with Blas Roca as Second Secretary – later to be succeeded by Raúl Castro, who as Defence Minister and Fidel’s closest confidante became and has remained the second most powerful figure in the government. Raúl Castro’s position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch an unsuccessful attempt at an insurrectionary movement in Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967. Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, President of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, was always regarded by many outside observers as a figurehead of little importance. Castro introduced a new constitution in 1976 under which he became President himself, while remaining chairman of the Council of Ministers.

During the 1970s Castro moved onto the world stage as a leading spokesperson for Third World “anti-imperialist” governments and anti-Americanism generally. On a more concrete level, he provided invaluable military assistance to pro-Soviet forces in Angola, Ethiopia, Yemen and other African and Middle East trouble spots. Cuban forces were decisive in helping the MPLA forces win the Angolan civil war in 1975. Although the bills for these expeditionary forces were paid by the Soviets, they placed a considerable strain on Cuba’s economy and manpower resources. Cuba was also hampered by its continuing dependency on sugar exports. The Soviets were forced to buy the entire Cuban sugar crop to provide further economic assistance to Cuba, even though the Soviet Union grew enough sugar beet to meet its own needs. In exchange the Soviets had to supply Cuba with all its oil, since it could not import oil from any other source.

Cuba’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union was deepened by Castro’s determination to build his vision of a socialist society in Cuba. This entailed the provision of free health care and education for the entire population. Through the 1970s and ‘80s the Soviets were prepared to subsidise all this in exchange for the rather dubious strategic asset of an ally under the noses of the United States and the undoubted propaganda value of Castro’s considerable prestige in the developing world.

By the 1970s the ability of the U.S. to keep Cuba isolated was declining. Cuba had been expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962, and the OAS had co-operated with the U.S. trade boycott for the next decade, but in 1975 the OAS lifted all sanctions against Cuba, and both Mexico and Canada defied the U.S. by developing closer relations with Cuba. Both countries said that they hoped to foster liberalization in Cuba by allowing trade, cultural and diplomatic contacts to resume – in this they were disappointed, since there was no appreciable easing of repression against domestic opposition. Castro did stop openly supporting insurrectionary movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries.

In the five years after 1959 around one million (about 10% of the population) Cubans migrated to the U.S., and there was a further surge of emigration in 1980 when Castro temporarily lifted restrictions on emigration (see Mariel Boatlift). Altogether about 2 million Cubans have emigrated since 1959. The Cuban exile community in the U.S. grew in size, wealth and power, and became a potent force preventing any liberalization of U.S. policy towards Cuba, particularly when the Republican Party is in office. But the efforts of the exiles to foment an anti-Castro movement inside Cuba, let alone a revolution there, were consistently unsuccessful. Although many Cubans depended on money sent home by exile relatives in the U.S., Cubans in Cuba appeared to have little liking for the anti-Castro exiles, even if they also opposed Castro. The powerful personality of the Cuban leader, his successful exploitation of anti-American sentiment, and the material benefits which the Cuban version of socialism brought to the Cuban people, particularly the poor, maintained his personal popularity.

Post-Soviet Cuba

After two decades of government without elections, repetitive failures of economic experiments, lack of freedom and respect for basic human rights made discontent among Cuban population to grow. In April 1980 over 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. In response to this, Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel. Under the Mariel boatlift, over 125,000 Cubans migrated to the United States. Eventually the United States stopped the flow of vessels and Cuba ended the uncontrolled exodus.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic blow. This led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the United States in 1994, which was slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a year by the U.S.-Cuban accords. Now it is increasing again although at a far slower rate than before Castro’s popularity was severely tested by the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This led to a cutoff in aid, the loss of a guaranteed export market for Cuban sugar, and the loss of a source of cheap imported oil. It also caused, as in all Communist countries, a crisis in confidence for those who believed that the Soviet Union was successfully “building socialism” and provided a model that other countries should follow. In Cuba, however, this crisis was not sufficient to persuade Cuban Communists that they should voluntarily give up power, nor was the economic crisis grave enough to bring about the fall of the government.

This was a grave disappointment for the anti-Castro exiles, who in the early 1990s believed that their return to Cuba, and (as they hoped) to power, was imminent. By the later 1990s the situation in Cuba had stabilised. By then Cuba had more or less normal economic relations with most Latin American countries and had improved relations with the European Union, which began providing aid and loans to the island. China also emerged as a new source of aid and support, even though Cuba had sided with the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Cuba also found a new ally in President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a major oil exporter. Nevertheless, the economic situation remained precarious, and Cuba’s ability to go on maintaining its elaborate system of state-provided health care and education from its own resources was doubted by many economists.

In other ways Castro was more isolated than ever. In the 1960s and ‘70s defenders of his government had been able to claim that although Cuba might not be a democracy, nor were most other countries in Latin America, and the Cuban model at least combined authoritarianism with social justice. On this argument, Castro compared well with such figures as Augusto Pinochet of Chile or the military rulers of Brazil and Argentina. By the turn of the century, however, critics say that this argument had lost its force, since every other country in Latin America had become a democracy (the only partial exception being Haiti), and many were electing moderate left-wingers such as Ricardo Lagos, Nestor Kirchner and Luis Inácio da Silva, who were promising social reform without the need for political repression. With the disappearance of the right-wing dictator as a feature of Latin American politics, Castro seemed to some as an increasingly anachronistic figure.

Government and politics

Cuba has a one-party political system where the Communist Party of Cuba holds the monopoly of political power, under the aegis of First Secretary, Fidel Castro. Under the current political system, Castro, concurrently is President of the country, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC), Head of the Council of Ministers and Head of the Council of State. Thus, Castro simultaneously is Head of State and Head of Government.

The Cuban constitution states that, "the Communist Party of Cuba...is the superior guiding force of society and the state." No other political parties are permitted. The Party leadership profess that Cuba is a centralized democracy, meaning that decision-making and popular participation occurs within mass organizations, institutionalized by the state. The Constitution and the Penal Code allow for severe sanctions against activities deemed “counter-revolutionary” and a "threat to national security". Political dissidents are pursued by the authorities.

Cuba elects a national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power (Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular), which has 609 members, every five years in elections. Municipal assemblies are elected every two and a half years. No political party, including the Communist Party of Cuba, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any candidate. Candidates are nominated at local levels by the local population at small "Town Hall" type meetings. Suffrage is afforded to Cuban citizens resident for two years on the island who are aged over sixteen years and who have not been found guilty of a criminal offence. In later years independent candidates have been nominally allowed to participate. Involvement in decision-making and implementation through non-political actors has been institutionalised through national organisations, linked to the Communist Party, representing farmers, youth groups, students, women, industrial workers, etc.

There is much speculation in Cuba and abroad over what will happen to the revolution when Castro dies. Officially, there is a line of succession in place, and the Cuban government repeatedly proclaims that the transition will be smooth. Cuban dissidents in Cuba and Florida warn that there will be tremendous unrest and bloodshed. The Bush administration has appointed Caleb McCarry "transition coordinator" for Cuba, and given him a budget of $59 million, with the task of overthrowing the Communist regime after Castro's death. Official Cuban news service Granma alleges that these transition plans were created at the behest of the Miami Mafia, and that McCarry is responsible for engineering the overthrow of the Aristide government in Haiti.

Human rights

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Cuba is a one-party state in which the rights of the individual are subordinated to the interests of the state, which is turn subordinate to the Communist Party. The government restricts freedom of speech, association, assembly, press, and movement. Cuba's constitution makes human rights subservient to the state's political aims. Article 62 states:

None of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to what is established in the Constitution and by law, or contrary to the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism. Violations of this principle can be punished by law.

Another clause in the 1976 Cuban constitution states that anyone suspected of being prone to commit a crime in the future, as a preventive measure, can be sent to jail indefinitely.

From the age of 16 every citizen must carry an identity card. This includes a complete personal history, showing present and past addresses, work history, marital status, and number of children. Permission from the government is required to move to another home. Jobs are also subject to state control. Travel abroad is highly restricted - almost impossible - for workers in some fields (healthcare, schools, government) as well as for dissidents. Castro opposition leader Oswaldo Payá has been allowed to travel abroad to receive his Sakharov Prize, while independent journalist Yndamiro Restano, permitted to leave Cuba to receive an award, has not been allowed to return.

Organizations such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Women's Federation, the Young Pioneers, and various student organizations, coerce adults and youth into participating. Many of these organizations require their members to perform "voluntary work" in the fields, to take up sentry duties, and to attend political meetings and rallies.

Cuba placed a moratorium on the use of capital punishment in 2001 but an exception was made after three years when, in 2003, three Cubans were executed for a ferry hijacking using automatic weapons in which Cuban families and two young French female tourists were held at gunpoint. The incident resulted in no injuries, but was broadcast on national television to wide condemnation; the decision to execute was allegedly taken in order to deter a supposed US plot to start a wave of hijackings.

In the years following the Communist takeover, the Roman Catholic Church suffered persecution. Not only did Castro severely limit its activities, but in 1961 he confiscated, without compensation, all property held by religious organizations. Hundreds of members of the clergy, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the country. Cuba was officially atheist until 1992 when the Communist Party agreed to allow religious followers to join the party. In 1998, Pope John Paul II visited the island and was allowed to conduct large outdoor masses. During his visit, the Pope asked Fidel Castro for more openness and religious tolerance but encouraged reconciliation and an end to the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba.

Main article Gay rights in Cuba. See also Socialism and sexual orientation'