Talk:Cuban Revolution of 1933

Original needs rewrite

This article should be rewritten from scratch, since it's a translation of a poorly written original.

The original version of this article is a faithful translation of the Spanish one, but since the Spanish article is short and confused or even misleading, so is this one. For starters, who did Batista replace? (A: Céspedes y Quesada, not Grau and not Machado.) Most of the article doesn't even talk about the revolt, but the events leading up to it, so that the very last sentence of the article seems like the intro to the event itself, which is not described at all. Who fought who, and where, and what happened?

In addition, there were a lot of things going on in 1933 in Cuba, and the Sergeants' Revolt was just a brief episode that requires additional context to place it in perspective. A good place to start would be the articles on Ramón Grau and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, as well as the Pentarchy of 1933 and History of Cuba articles, not to mention the major role played by U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles. Mathglot (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Greetings Mathglot and Kaldari and thank you for your work on this and related articles. Having some good sources lined up for this period I'm interesting on expanding the coverage. (Starting with new article ABC (Cuba) which perhaps other edits could look over.) Like both of you I see there are a lot of related events, which might be grouped along these lines:

• Anti-Machado opposition starting in the late 1920's
• Active opposition movement with US (Sumner Welles) involvement; formation of ABC (1931)
• Machado yields to the Céspedes coalition government
• Sergeant's Revolt, September 4, 1933
• One Hundred Days Government (Grau)
• Transition of power to Carlos Mendieta (apparently Hevia and then this guy Márquez were presidents for a two-day interval, but they are not much discussed)

I have a sense that this sequence of events should be covered in one place—books and articles discuss them together and there is continuity of the major players which cuts across the existing Wikipedia articles—but I don't know how to do it. A few options:

1. Somehow expand this page to include the other events, with a section on the Sergeant's Revolt. (Possibly by renaming it "Cuban Revolution of 1933"? However this term seems most often to refer to the September 4 event rather than to the general current of political change.)
2. Create a new article (Cuban regime change, 1931–1934? something else?)
3. Try to fit everything in at Republic of Cuba (1902–59).

What do people think is the best course? Thanks, groupuscule (talk) 02:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

PS, Mathglot, perhaps you could comment on the image in the article? I included it because it seems quite appropriate but I'd like to know what you think. Thanks, groupuscule (talk) 04:41, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Article title

I've seen various sources that refer to these events either as the Coup d'etat of 1933 (as the Spanish article does for example, and so does the Portuguese one, as well as some English sources), the "Cuban Revolution of 1933", and even the "Failed Revolution of 1933". Mathglot (talk) 09:46, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: There are really 2 different related events here. There was a student and worker revolution in 1933 (putting Grau in charge nominally). And then there was a coup d'etat in January 1934 where Batista forced Grau to resign (thus the "failed revolution"). The major power shift in 1933 was driven by the student movement and workers. The only reason the military carried out the overthrow of Céspedes y Quesada was self-preservation, as they could clearly see that Céspedes y Quesada's government was on the verge of collapsing under social revolt and they didn't want to end up on the losing side. This is also evidenced by the appointment of Grau as the new president, as he was a leader of the student movement, not the military. As often happens, however, the military was still the actual power-holder after the revolution, and when Grau started pushing for reforms that challenged U.S. colonial control of Cuba, the U.S. convinced Batista (behind the scenes) to depose Grau and seize power. "Cuban coup d'etat of 1933" probably isn't the best title. It should probably either be "Cuban coup d'etat of 1934" (which did actually depose Ramon Grau) or either "Cuban Revolution of 1933" or "Sergeants' Revolt" (which put Grau in power). The current article seems to be a confusing mix of the two events. For good background reading, I recommend pages 66–71 of The History of Cuba. Kaldari (talk) 23:15, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, I think I've fixed the article somewhat. It is now limited to the coup that removed Céspedes y Quesada from power. Kaldari (talk) 05:25, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Infobox

Just a passing comment, but it seems to be that the current infobox (Military Conflict) seems unsuitable for an article of this scope. Not only is this not really a "conflict" per se, but its parameters (strength, casulaties etc.) are not ideal. I would suggest that Template:Infobox event be used instead, as in French Revolution for example.—Brigade Piron (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. Mathglot (talk) 16:24, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Or perhaps, Template:Infobox military operation, which doesn't necessarily imply combat? Mathglot (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2017 (UTC)