History Reading Report Essay

Read the following extracts from Fidel Castro’s “Second Declaration of Havana,” delivered in Havana, Cuba, on February 4 1962, and write a three-page essay answering the following questions:

1.  How does Castro situate the political crisis in Latin America—including the development of the Cuban Revolution—in terms of economics and politics on a global scale?

2.  How does Castro explain the economic exploitation of Latin America by the United States? How is it structured?

3.  What solution does Castro propose to the exploitation and oppression of the Americas?

4. This speech, delivered in February 1962, came three years after the initial victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and it marks the point at which Castro proclaimed himself to be a Marxist. What echoes of Marx’s writing are contained in this speech?