1960: Cuba broke the U.S. domination in our economy

During October 1960 the U.S. carried out economic blockade actions against Cuba and the final preparation of Operation Pluto for the invasion of Bay of Pigs in April 1961, but also in that month the Revolutionary Government broke for good the U.S. domination in our economy, thus thwarting the CIA's plans to use American businessmen on the island to finance and cover its intelligence operations.

That nationalization process, which ended on October 24, 1960, was not due to false speculations about the intentions of the powerful neighbor, which by that date was swiftly carrying out an extensive program of espionage, sabotage and uprisings in rural areas to support the aggression for the Bay of Pigs.

In June of that year, the US refineries owned by Shell, Texaco and Esso refused to process the oil that Cuba was acquiring from the USSR and on July 3, President Dwight D. Eisenhower lowered the sugar quota and later eliminated it, to leave the country without the entry of its main source of foreign currency.

But they were wrong in their assessment of the capacity of resistance and response of the Cuban people and its top leader Fidel Castro.

In response, on Saturday, August 6, 1960, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, in his closing speech at the 1st Latin American Youth Congress in Havana, announced the expropriation of 26 northern companies, three oil refineries, the electricity and telephone monopolies, as well as 36 sugar mills, measures which were carried out in accordance with international law and which included the payment of indemnities in agreement between the parties.

On the instructions of Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, president of the National Bank of Cuba, Law No. 891 referring to the nationalization of the Banks was drafted and proposed, approved by the Council of Ministers on October 13, 1960 "with the objective of definitively wiping out the economic power of the privileged interests that conspired against the people" and to guarantee that the banking service could only be carried out by the State as the only way of exercising the economic sovereignty of the nation.

Subsequently, on October 19, President Eisenhower's administration declared an embargo on U.S. exports to the island.

Consequently, on the 24th of that month, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro ordered the appropriation of 166 companies belonging to persons or firms of the Union that remained in the national territory, in accordance with the powers granted to him by the Law for the Defense of the National Economy.

Among those businesses were Ten Cents, Sears, Coca Cola, Minimax, Hershey Railroads, tobacco companies, hotels and casinos, among others, with which Cuba not only exercised full sovereignty over its economy but also dealt a hard blow to the aggressive plans of the US, which still had those institutions subordinated to its interests.