Editing History of Cuba (section)

===Militarization of labor===
{{Further|Freedom Flights|Revolutionary Offensive}}
{{See also|Military Units to Aid Production}}
[[File:Terapia de reorientación sexual en Cuba.jpg|thumb|200px|Sexual reorientation therapy at a Cuban [[Military Units to Aid Production|UMAP camp]]. (1967)]]
[[File:Freedom flight 1971.jpg|thumb|250px|Refugees on a [[Freedom Flights|Freedom Flight]] in 1971.]]
[[Military Units to Aid Production]] or UMAPs (''Unidades Militares para la Ayuda de Producción''){{snd}} in effect, [[forced labor]] [[concentration camp]]s{{snd}} were established in 1965 as a way to eliminate alleged "[[bourgeois]]" and "[[counter-revolutionary]]" values in the Cuban population.<ref name="castrogenocideplan">{{Cite web|url=http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagaq003.php|title=UMAP: Castro's genocide plan|author1=Agustín Blázquez|author2=Jaums Sutton|access-date=27 July 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120721213453/http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagaq003.php|archive-date=21 July 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> The creation of the UMAP camps themselves was initially proposed by [[Fidel Castro]] and implemented by his brother [[Raúl Castro]] after a state visit to the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Bulgaria]], where he learned that the Soviets ran camps for "anti-socials."<ref name="Almendros">Almendros, Néstor, dir. Improper Conduct. 1984. Film.</ref> According to an April 14, 1966 article in ''[[Granma (newspaper)|Granma]]'', the official state newspaper, UMAP camps were proposed at a November 1965 meeting between Fidel Castro and military leaders.<ref name="Ros_155">{{harvp|Ros|2004|p=155}}</ref> Both were concerned over how to handle "misplaced elements."<ref name="Ros_155"/>

On 6 November 1965, Cuba and the United States agreed to an airlift for Cubans who wanted to emigrate to the United States. The first of these so-called [[Freedom Flights]] left Cuba on 1 December 1965.<ref name=Permit2012>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19972026|title=US welcomes Cuba decision to end foreign travel permits|publisher=BBC|date=16 October 2012|access-date=21 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018190553/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19972026|archive-date=18 October 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> Emigrants were often forced to serve in labor camps before departure, and all their property was confiscated before their exit from Cuba.<ref name="Freedom Flights">{{cite book|last1=Philipson|first1=Lorrin|title=Freedom Flights|url=https://archive.org/details/freedomflightscu00phil|url-access=registration|date=1980|publisher=Random House|location=New York|first2=Rafael |last2=Llerena |isbn=9780394511054 }}</ref>

In 1968, the "[[Revolutionary Offensive]]" was announced, as a campaign to nationalize all remaining private small businesses, which at the time totaled to be about 58,000 small enterprises.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.american.edu/centers/latin-american-latino-studies/upload/2015-au-ssrc-henken-vignoli-enterprising-cuba-final.pdf |title=Enterprising Cuba: Citizen Empowerment, State Abandonment, or US Business Opportunity?  |last1=Henken |first1=Ted |last2=Vignoli |first2=Gabriel |date=2015 |website=american.edu |publisher=Center for Latin American and Latino Studies |access-date= August 19, 2020}}</ref> The campaign would spur industrialization in Cuba and focus the economy on sugar production, specifically to a deadline for an annual sugar harvest of 10 million tons by 1970. The economic focus on sugar production involved international volunteers and the mobilization of workers from all sectors of the Cuban economy.<ref name=castro>{{cite journal |last1=Prevost |first1=Grey |date=2007 |title=Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution |url=https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=headwaters |journal=Headwaters |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=25–26 |access-date=August 19, 2020}}</ref> Economic mobilization also coincided with greater militarization of Cuban political structures and the Cuban workforce in general, which was put under military command.<ref name=decade>{{cite book  |date=2018 |title=Cuba's Forgotten Decade How the 1970s Shaped the Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ek1jDwAAQBAJ&dq=revolutionary+offensive+zafra&pg=PA72 |publisher=Lexington Books |pages=72–73 |isbn=9781498568746}}</ref> Some of the small merchants whose enterprises were nationalized in the offensive chose to leave Cuba in the [[Freedom Flights|"Freedom Flights" airlift]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pedraza |first1=Silvia |date=1998 |title=Cuba's Revolution and Exodus |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0005.204/--cuba-s-revolution-and-exodus?rgn=main;view=fulltext |journal=The Journal of the International Institute |volume=5 |issue=2 |access-date=August 19, 2020}}</ref> By 1971, over 250,000 Cubans in general, had flown to the United States in the [[Freedom Flights]].<ref name=Permit2012/>