In Pursuit of Cuba Libre
Pérez-Stable, Marifeli
"THE FUTURE OF OUR HOMELAND WILL "I be an eternal Baragud!" Radil Castro proclaimed on March 15 in Santiago de Cuba. To announce next year's Communist Party congress, Fidel's younger brother read...
...In 1901, the Constituent Assembly accepted the Platt Amendment, which gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba whenever order was threatened, as the condition for the withdrawal of U.S...
...I do not think so...
...Instead, mass mobilizations for production and defense became the cornerstone of revolutionary politics...
...Consequently, the military leadership began to see sugar interests as antithetical to Cuba libre...
...Earlier this year, for example, the CTC labor federation and the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) held their congresses...
...CUBA LIBRE AS ESPOUSED BY THE MAMBISES -radical, populist and implacable on independence-was forged as much by the struggle against a rival vision held by civilian separatist leaders, as by the struggle against Spain...
...Living legends, especially in a context of weak institutions and scant democratic traditions, are not easily challenged...
...Only conciencia has allowed Cuba to thwart U.S...
...For the first time since the Ej6rcito Libertador, the army stood behind the people...
...The Communist Party formalized its leadership structure 37 37Cuba I (politburo, central committee and secretariat) and ex- panded its membership from 50,000 to 500,000...
...When Batista fled Havana on New Year's Eve 1958, Fidel Castro was the undisputed leader of the revolution which was about to begin...
...Batista to oust the progressive administration...
...Porque en Cuba solo ha habido una revolucidn (Havana: Departamento de Orientaci6n Revolucionaria, 1975) and Jorge Ibarra, Ideologia mambisa (Havana: Instituto Cubano del Libro, 1972...
...As in the late 1920s and early 1930s against Machado, opposition mounted...
...Batista staged a coup d'6tat against the Prio administration and preempted the elections...
...2 Baragui was where mulatto independence leader Gen...
...In 1899, the Ej6rcito Libertador was disbanded and a Rural Guard organized in line with the economic interests of the United States and the Cuban planter class...
...North American designs on Cuba well antedate the revolution...
...Revoluci6n (Havana), Jan...
...Batista used a skillful mix of repression and reform to restore social peace to Cuba...
...Unlike the mambises of the 1890s, many of the revolutionaries of 1933 and important sectors of Cuban society had a clearer program for social and national transformation...
...Granma Weekly Review, March 25 and April 22, 1990...
...Now, as then, argues the Cuban leadership, intransigence and resistance are the only bolsters of Cuba libre...
...Without the channels to express real dissent, even from Fidel, "double morality" is commonplace...
...Without conciencia, a small nation like Cuba has no hope of resisting U.S...
...Three presidents were elected: Batista in 1940, Grau San Martin in 1944, and Carlos Prio Socarris in 1948...
...The old Cuba resisted, but with little effect, as social revolution engulfed the island...
...Many independentistas supported the Platt Amendment, arguing that compro- mised independence was better than none...
...Neither radical nationalism nor the existing models of socialism have emphasized the importance of formal democracy...
...Without the amendment, there would be no independence...
...Despite their failure to take over the army post, their organization, the July 26th Movement (M-26-7), continued to espouse armed struggle...
...3 For others, it became a symbol of the futility of the politics of intransigence...
...Marti likewise made opposition to the United States a central feature of Cuba libre...
...On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro, a leader of the Ortodoxo youth, and his followers attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago...
...Military imperatives have permeated civil society...
...Their Cuba libre implied social change, and pointed implicitly to decreasing sugar's hold on the economy and society...
...intervention...
...Sugar prices collapsed, and the United States erected its highest tariffs since the 1890s...
...Traditional notions of democracy too often appeared to serve U.S...
...Autonomy within the declining Spanish empire or annexation to the United States vied for the loyalties of the liberal civilians, many of them planters more concerned about political stability and secure markets for their sugar than the dream of independence...
...Time and again, concessions had failed to advance the interests of Cuba libre...
...During the renewed struggles of 1895, the, Ej6rcito Libertador used the policy of la tea (the torch) to bring the planters to its cause...
...The zafra gigante, however, was more than an economic goal...
...The economy, moreover, was beginning to stall after a period of growth...
...The students of the Directorio Estudiantil Universitario (DEU) joined the sergeants and formed a government without the approval of the United States...
...But Cuban society is far too complex for patria o muerte and Comandante en jefe ordene to be the sum total of its politics...
...Under the leadership of Jos6 Antonio Echeverria, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil-reminiscent of the student organization of 1933-was founded to mobilize university opposition to Batista...
...relations...
...The Aut6nticos, despite their resonance of Marti and their origins in the 1933 revolution, were particularly notorious for their private profligacy with public funds...
...The new constitution established representative democracy, prohibited reelection, called for agrarian reform and full employment, secured the right to private property, and advocated state intervention in the economy to promote social welfare...
...Cuba libre would at last be redeemed, the mandate of the mambises fulfilled...
...When Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in April 1989, Fidel Castro noted that Cuba would respect the right of socialist countries to construct capitalism...
...However similar in form, socialism in Cuba was notably different in content from that in the Soviet Union...
...Widely attended in the early years, the assemblies have experienced declining participation and increasing apathy...
...I have lived in the monster and know well its entrails -and my slingshot is that of David.'" T HE SECOND CALL TO ARMS FOR CUBA LIBRE quickly proved more successful than the Ten Years' War...
...There is to be no questioning of either the single-party system or the socialist organization of the economy...
...See...
...Nonetheless, the boundaries of this political opening are clearly marked...
...Patria o muerte leaves little room for discussion...
...Welles mediated, Machado left, but the new government lasted less than a month...
...In the 1890s, Josd Martf, a populist and a civilian, succeeded in bridging the schism and brought the two factions-albeit always uneasy with each other-within the multi-class Partido Revolucionario Cubano (PRC...
...Capitalism had NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 5 E .34nearly collapsed...
...The leadership of Fidel Castro coincided with the groundswell of the popular movement for national and social redemption...
...6. Gerald E. Poyo, "With All, and for the Good of All": The Emergence ofPopular Nationalism in the Cuban Communities ofthe United States, 1848-1898 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989...
...In consolidating and surviving, the revolution evoked the Cuban past and seized the alliance with the Soviet Union as a shield against the United States...
...Today's insistence on unity and a single party are not divorced from this experience...
...New orientations underscore the urgency of meaningful discussion and the perniciousness of unanimity...
...He wanted to spare Cuba the ills of caudillismo and military rule which had plagued most of Latin America following independence...
...Moreover, the very process of revolution was liberating and democratizing...
...Granma (Havana), March 24, 1968...
...The revolution was de los humildes,para los humildes, por los humildes (of the poor, for the poor, by the poor...
...Cuba para los cubanos resounded throughout the island...
...John M. Kirk, Josi Mart...
...He never lost faith that a better world was possible...
...Relative decentralization and material incentives were undermining conciencia...
...The Constitution of 1940 was a hallmark of progressive law in Latin America- along with the constitutions of Mexico in 1917 and Bolivia in 1938...
...6 He was as insistent on the preeminence of civilian rule as he was on independence and social justice...
...In 1947, Eduardo Chibis and others split from the party and formed the Partido Ortodoxo-orthodox in its following of the teachings of Martf...
...Cuba was always on his mind and in his heart...
...The Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (MNR) in Bolivia gave evidence of how moderation defuses a revolution...
...2 The ten-million-ton harvest proved elusive...
...Their tenure in office generated widespread cynicism about promises of reform and a better future...
...exports...
...Moreover, U.S...
...Welles remained in Havana throughout the period and eventually obtained the collaboration of by then Col...
...Workercontrolled sugar mills produced nearly a quarter of the 1933-1934 harvest...
...Others who might have contested him and perhaps upstaged him had died in the struggle...
...Granma Weekly Review, Jan...
...Elpueblo cubano was, indeed, making history beyond the confines of their island...
...The established political parties and the U.S...
...Over the next 15 years, the revolution generally proceeded along the institutional paths then established in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe...
...Cuban history has shown that disunity exacts a heavy toll on national independence, and that compromise imposes an equally onerous price...
...Paramilitary grupos de acci6n roamed Havana and other cities and enforced their own order and justice...
...Without the Soviet Union, Cuba would likely have not survived the U.S...
...Comandante enjefe ordene is illustrative of the military discipline of politics in Cuba...
...Moreover, the treaty seriously undercut Cuban efforts to industrialize and diversify the economy by flooding the market with high quality, relatively low-priced U.S...
...Cuba para los cubanos once again resonated from one end of the island to the other...
...Popular effervescence was itself a resource at the disposal of the revolution...
...15, Jan...
...The Cuban leadership considers multi-party politics and market reforms contrary to socialism...
...We shall not imitate...
...This time the revolution is for real...
...DURING THE EARLY YEARS, THE REVOLUtion thrived on the unique relationship between Fidel and the Cuban people...
...Building the Cuban nation and creating new social relations of production have generally sidelined the rules of the political game...
...The Popular Power assemblies, for example -which allowed a modicum of local community supervision over schools, supermarkets, theaters, and some economic enterprises-stalled before the imperviousness of the state bureaucracy...
...29, 1989...
...Its failure would mean the Cuban people would have "to draw in our horns, be more calm, more docile, more submissive-in short, cease being revolutionaries...
...UNTIL 1934, POLITICS IN THE CUBAN REPUBlic transpired under the threat of U.S...
...Their candidate, Roberto Agramonte, was favored to win the elections of 1952...
...Fidel set forth the goal of producing a ten-million-ton sugar harvest in 1970...
...2. Granma Weekly Review (Havana), March 25, 1990...
...History offers some insight...
...Evocations of historical mandates unfulfilled were frequent...
...The more specific agenda of workers and women suffered for the sake of national security...
...The working class, especially sugar workers, played a prominent role in the upheaval...
...intervention...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASSoviet-style reforms are viewed as tantamount to a capitulation to capitalism.' The greater inequalities and political pluralism that perestroika and glasnost imply, it is argued, would undermine the popular resolve which has been the bulwark of Cuban resistance against the United States...
...The U.S...
...The forces of protest were driven underground, but only to reappear in the 1950s and early 1960s, to enact the social reconstruction and claim the national sovereignty frustrated in 1898 and 1933...
...and Frank Pais, who ably displayed leadership and organizational skills in directing the llano until his assassination in July 1957...
...For most, realizing the Cuba libre for which Marti had lived and died motivated their opposition to Machado...
...Cuba has yet to translate the enormously liberating and democratizing consequences of the revolution into institutional practice and democratic ethos...
...Twelve years of constitutional rule proved quite contradictory...
...Fidel Castro, "Criterios de nuestra revoluci6n," Cuba So- cialista V (Sept...
...By 1933, strikes, demonstrations, violent confrontations between government and opposition forces, student unrest and worker take-over of sugar mills underscored an escalating spiral toward revolution...
...Then and now, the Cuban leadCuba's uncritical press:The liberating consequences of the revolution have yet to be translated into a idpmnrntir, PthnVOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990) , 9 ership has insisted on the primacy of conciencia in uprooting capitalist values and promoting a culture of solidarity...
...Ram6n Grau San Martin became president and Antonio Guiteras minister of government...
...Moreover, the revolution's own initial experience underscored the importance of creativity to preserve Cuban distinctiveness...
...3, 1959...
...The revolution again confronted an old dilemma...
...Between 1902 and 1934, the United States undertook three armed interventions in Cuba and countless other interferences in the normal course of Cuban politics...
...Undoubtedly, intransigence and resistance fostered Cuba libre in the nineteenth century, during the 1930s, the 1950s, and in the consolidation of the revolution...
...After such protracted struggles and so much bloodshed, Cuba was somewhat independent...
...Until its abrogation in 1934, the Platt Amendment mediated national sovereignty...
...aggressions...
...Creole property owners changed allegiances to the cause of independence, but not without dismay at the prospects of a republic inaugurated under the aegis of the Ej6rcito Libertador...
...policy toward the revolution has abetted Cuba's rigid insistence on unity and single-mindedness...
...For some, Baragui became the symbol par excellence of inflexibility and resistance on the issue of Cuba libre, a concept which combines national independence and social justice and lies at the heart of radical nationalism...
...The latter two belonged to the Partido Autdntico, which claimed to represent the authentic legacy of Marti's PRC...
...Their current status fuels its implacability...
...Today the Cuban leadership revels in parallels to the late nineteenth century...
...Radical nationalism is pristine and transparent in its guidelines on Cuban independence from the United States...
...The Ten Years' War failed in part because the planters did not want the fight against Spain to extend to the western part of the island, where it would have endangered the zafra (the harvest...
...There may well have been elements of unbridled ambition and aversion to share power in his discarding of elections...
...History and the world context of 1959 rendered socialism a plausible and, because of Soviet support, viable path for the real revolution in Cuba...
...Appealing to the masses to heed the higher callings ofpatria and presiding over a war-ready nation are second nature to Fidel...
...The Cuban Revolution marked one of the beginnings of the 1960s-the decade when the improbable was thought and felt possible...
...I On the road to the 1970 harvest, the revolution sought, in Fidel's words, "our own revolutionary institutions, stemming from our conditions, from our idiosyncracies, from our customs, from our character, from our spirit, from our thought, from our creative imagination...
...4 They invoke the radical nationalism of Maceo to confront a world which is as hostile to Cuba's independence as it was a hundred years ago...
...occupation forces...
...In 1970, with the economy seriously dislocated and significant sectors of the population demoralized, Cuba turned to existing models...
...While the economy recovered from its ebb-point of 1970, the new management and planning system tended to emphasize individual interests and lose sight of the over-arching goal of enhancing a collective conciencia...
...Fidel Castro's strident opposition to reform is perhaps only understood in the broad context of Cuban history, and the lessons radical nationalists like Fidel draw from it...
...Material incentives and less centralized planning replaced the creativity of the late 1960s, which had reaped chaos...
...4. Besides the Ra61l Castro speech on March 15, the pronounce- ments of Fidel Castro on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the revolution are noteworthy...
...Intransigence and resistance upheld the consolidation of the revolution...
...Compromises only doomed the revolution and sidetracked its aspirations of independence and justice...
...The White House and U.S...
...overt and covert aggression...
...The Revolution of 1933 provided the formative memory of the generation that came of age during the late 1940s and the early 1950s...
...The depression likewise abetted the opposition...
...Maceo and his mambises -the guerrillas of the Ej6rcito Libertador (Liberation Army)-refused peace without independence and fought bravely on for ten more weeks before laying down their arms...
...Fidel was still Fidel, and his leadership had no point of reference elsewhere...
...9. Louis A. Pdrez, Jr., Cuba Under the Platt Amendment (Pitts- burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986...
...The Communist Party withheld support and pressed an ultra-left line in continuing strikes and labor unrest...
...Just as importantly, the 1930s dramatically unveiled the fragility of Cuban society...
...Havana extended tariff reductions to the full gamut of U.S...
...Two leaders stood out in the new movement: Fidel, who early on captured the popular imagination with the daring Moncada assault...
...What are the implications of upholding a legacy of inflexibility and resistance in a society so transformed by revolution...
...Over the course of 1959, national and class confrontations defined the galloping pace of transformation...
...After 1959, unity was a flank defended at all costs...
...3 Fidel exalts conciencia, but daily living compels almost every Cuban family to engage at one time or another in the black market...
...8. Radical nationalism was not always intransigent...
...capital, however, ballooned in the first quarter of the twentieth century, and sugar-the quintessential Cuban industry-passed largely into foreign hands...
...Upon entering Santiago on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro told the people of Cuba: "This time Cuba is fortunate: The revolution will truly come to power...
...Control over the public treasury was one of the few avenues of enrichment and mobility under exclusive national jurisdiction...
...The Grau-Guiteras government lasted only four months...
...Pursuit of the peso motivated them more effectively than calls on behalf of the national interest...
...On the other hand, the corruption which had trapped early republican politics under the Platt Amendment became even more entrenched...
...While the leadership extols the virtues of socialism, buying stolen goods is an integral part of life...
...Unfortunately, while holding out the promise of democratization, the post-1970 period quickly generated its own bureaucratic morass...
...The revolutionary leadership faced a stark choice...
...During the late 1960s, Cuba defied reigning orthodoxy and rejected institutionalizing the Soviet model, which held material incentives higher than conciencia...
...Operating in two terrains-the sierra (rural guerrillas) and the llano (urban underground)-it gradually emerged as the spearhead of the opposition...
...While the mambises had no clearly defined social program for the republic, they manifested little reverence for private property and in 1896 enacted an agrarian reform in areas under their control...
...In retrospect, the oft-quoted extract from the letter he wrote to his friend Manuel Mercado the day before he died in battle is all the more prescient: "My duty...is to prevent...-with the independence of Cuba--the United States from spreading throughout the Antilles, and then with this added strength falling on our Latin American countries....Our objective is to close off this route, which we are stemming with our blood, preventing the annexation of the nations of our America by the unruly and brutal North which despises us...
...7. Josd Marti, Obras completas, vol...
...Che focused on economic organization (centralized planning) and the structure of incentives (moral) as the principal levers of this transformation...
...The revolution, nonetheless, did fulfill two of the constitution's central tenets: agrarian reform and full employment...
...besiegement...
...With Fidel at the helm, only the latter was plausible...
...What purposes does radical nationalism fulfill in times so much in flux and so distant from the original struggles for Cuba libre...
...embargo or resisted U.S...
...Spurring it required either greater decentralization and individual incentives, or appealing to "the generosity and solidarity" of the people...
...The end of the Cold War has brought to the fore the historical dimension of Cuban-U.S...
...Besiegement has led Cuba to make national defense and domestic order the highest priorities...
...Ultimately, however, the revolution and socialism were anchored in the Cuban people: their endorsement of the revolution, their support of Fidel, their new sense of power, their feelings of pride in their nation...
...No thieves, no traitors, no interventionists...
...From within the armed forces, there were at least two unsuccessful attempts to unseat Batista, in 1955 and 1957...
...Agrarian reform, rent reductions, wage increases and expanding employment quickly granted palpable benefits to the majority and, just as importantly, altered the revolution's social content...
...relations helped forge the tradition of radical nationalism...
...Aut6nticos and Ortodoxos plotted various and mostly fruitless actions...
...In exchange for legal recognition and control of the newly founded labor federation, Confederaci6n de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), the communists forged an alliance with Batista...
...The army dealt forcefully with the ongoing strike movement and demonstrations...
...Are democracy and economic recovery possible within these limits...
...By the end of 1895, the insurgency had spread throughout the island...
...The administrations which followed the Revolution of 1933, however, seconded many of its measures and enacted legislation favorable to the poor and the middle class...
...aggression...
...New forms of democracy would emerge...
...It was hoped that this could generate sufficient resources to lessen economic dependence on the Soviet Union and its concomitant politico-ideological compliance...
...The deep-seated commitment of radical nationalism to social justice decidedly complements the drive towards equality and the creation of a new culture in the socialist tradition...
...capitalism, but also of Cuba vs...
...The Spanish surrendered to the North Americans...
...Army prevented the mambises from occupying the cities...
...It was, Fidel said, "a point of honor...a yardstick by which to measure the capability of the revolution...
...Supporting Fidel, upholding popular interests, and defending Cuba and the revolution-all became synonymous...
...True, it did not restore the Constitution of 1940-the prime banner against the Batista dictatorship-with its provisions for elected, representative government...
...Antonio Guiteras, who now advocated armed struggle, was assassinated as he fled Cuba to organize opposition abroad and launch an invasion to combat the government-the venerable nineteenth-century Cuban practice that would later inspire Fidel Castro...
...However, there was no reason to expect that compromise would appease the domestic opposition and the United States or secure the goals of revolution...
...support the popular upsurge of empowerment and national dignity, or negotiate with the opposition and the United States...
...On the one hand, civil liberties were generally respected and elections were sufficiently honest to garner credibility...
...To announce next year's Communist Party congress, Fidel's younger brother read a text seeped with historical allusion...
...Mentor of the Cuban Nation (Tampa: University Presses of Florida, 1983...
...imports-from canned foods to cigarettes to spare parts...
...PON FIDEL'S INITIATIVE, CUBA LAUNCHED a process of "rectification" in 1986, to return to the prescriptions of Che and the aspirations of the late 1960s...
...On March 10 of that year, however, by now Gen...
...Confrontation suits him...
...With it, the Cuba libre of the mambises remained a mandate for the future.' VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990)33 VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990) 33Cuba I On May 20, 1902, the Cuban flag was raised over Morro Castle in Havana harbor and the Cuban republic proclaimed...
...Their administration passed measures in favor of workers, the middle class, women, and national interests...
...When they do, they may well discover a new vision for radical nationalism...
...military governors ably maximized these divisions to their advantage and to the detriment of full independence...
...The choice was clear: either support the independentista undertaking or the cane fields would be burnt to the ground...
...It will not be as in 1895 when the Americans intervened at the last minute and appropriated our country....It will not be as in 1933 when the people believed the revolution was in the making and Batista...usurped power....It will not be as in 1944 when the masses were exuberant in the belief that they had at last come to power, but thieves came to power instead...
...The Platt Amendment came to promote the very instability it had sought to avert: Incumbents and opponents squabbled over elections knowing that the United States would intervene and hoping that the intervention would favor them...
...In 1903, Cuba and the United States signed a treaty to regulate their trade...
...167-168...
...It recently halted public discussion of documents for next year's party congress, because the assemblies were not provoking real debate...
...Perhaps personal idiosyncracies prevented Fidel Castro from moderating his stance to accommodate the "better classes" and appease the U.S...
...government acquiesced to the move...
...In Pursuit of Cuba Libre 1. Ram6n Pi y Castella, who died in Tampa in 1988, was in the best sense of Marti un hombre sincere ).Born in Cuba in 1893, he lived all his adult life in the United States, and was a labor activist and supporter of the Cuban Revolution...
...While most Cubans deplored the coup, few mourned the passing of the Aut6nticos...
...Because of his anti-imperialism, Guiteras embodied the radicalism and intransigence of what was now being called the Revolution of 1933...
...In 1898, discreetly encouraged by Cuban planters, the United States intervened to preempt Cuba libre...
...In the past, divisions within revolutionary ranks had spelled their downfall...
...Those who would subsequently attempt to challenge Fidel would face an impenetrable phenomenon-his relationship to the people of Cuba, his extraordinary ability to gain their confidence, his inordinate mastery of VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990) 35Passersby gaze at storefront portraits of Fidel Castro and Soviet president Brezhnev: The alliance provided a shield against the United States, but Cuban socialism remained anchored in Cuba's revolution history, his unrelenting sense of mission...
...The history of Cuba has been the struggle to achieve the Cuba libre of the mambises against the designs of the United States and the Cuban upper classes...
...Aware of the dilemma, Ernesto "Che" Guevara identified the transformation of conciencia (political consciousness) as the central task...
...Compromise and reform are incompatible with either national sovereignty or social justice...
...Guatemala in 1954 highlighted U.S...
...WHILE THE JULY 26TH MOVEMENT NEVER embraced socialism before coming to power, the Cuban Revolution was never really "betrayed...
...Cosme de la Torriente, a veteran from the 1895 war of independence, called for a civic dialogue to persuade the general to hold elections...
...intolerance for reform in its "backyard...
...9 On September 4, 1933, Fulgencio Batista, then an unknown sergeant, led a revolt of non-commissioned officers against the military officialdom...
...As in 1878, divisions between the civilian and military independentistas weakened the movement...
...BETWEEN 1934 AND 1940, BATISTA USHERED in several presidents...
...The revolution had not won, but neither had reaction...
...The 1970 debacle notwithstanding, the Cuban people retained a considerable reservoir of support and enthusiasm for the revolution, which the leadership could engage in new directions...
...Opposition to Machado mounted from all quarters of Cuban society: workers, students, professionals, industrialists, dissidents in the military and among the traditional politicos...
...Elections were always troublesome periods...
...It is much more obscure on how those national guidelines become policy...
...Nearly thirty-two years later, Cuba still confronts the same fundamental challenge: motivating its labor force -highly skilled by Third World standards-to increase and sustain productivity...
...Miami Herald, June 10 and June 19, 1990...
...Participants were dressed in militia uniforms, and national defense occupied a major portion of both events...
...Two reforms may well prove very significant: the institution of direct secret-ballot elections for local leaders of the party and mass organizations, and the inclusion of religious believers in the party...
...The Communist Party has indeed acknowledged the perva- siveness of la doble moral...
...While cringing at mass depoliticization and bureaucratic governance in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Cuban leadership did emulate the Soviet model of vanguard party politics, which fit well with Fidel's charismatic authority and U.S...
...threats and aggression complement well the leadership of Fidel Castro...
...The Revolution of 1933, moreover, had left a legacy of radicalism which would soon buttress the turn toward socialism...
...The most radical lessons drawn from the aborted revolution pointed to the primacy of unity among revolutionaries and the imperative of thwarting U.S...
...It assumes, on the contrary, a widespread consensus which no longer exists...
...market allowed for the reconstruction and expansion of the war-devastated sugar industry...
...Relying only on the past to guide the present could well impair the heritage of radical nationalism for the future...
...His protest was an early expression of Cuban radical nationalism, one of the principal ideologies of the island's politics, which would later inspire the 1959 revolution...
...In Cuba, the matter of conciencia is not just a question of socialism vs...
...That elections and representative democracy had in practice been so tainted in the recent Cuban past undoubtedly contributed to the ease with which both were discarded in 1959-1960 amidst the exhilarating rush of revolution...
...5. See, for example, Granma Weekly Review, Dec...
...Guaranteed access to the U.S...
...Here No One Surrenders-Commander in Chief, Give Us Our Orders": A society too complex for slogans to sum up its politics NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS E (U 38Havana street art: "Twenty million Cubans"--the ten who walk the streets and the other ten who live at home Without a doubt, U.S...
...The present demands a civilian outlook on politics and citizenship, in line with Jos6 Martf's radical vision of Cuba libre...
...Alarmed at the prospect but guarded about sending in the marines, the United States designated Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles ambassador to Cuba with instructions to mediate the May Day 1990: Fidel Castro embodies nationalism conflict, convince Machado to leave, and install an acceptable government...
...Washington conceded Cuban sugar preferential tariffs, guaranteed prices and secure markets...
...Moreover, Cuban history did not endorse the benefits of compromise...
...government...
...In March 1957, Echeverria died in a frustrated assault on the presidential palace...
...People often allude to the "twenty million Cubans"-the ten who walk the streets and the other ten who live at home...
...and upper class interests...
...New generations of Cubans have yet to speak and leave their mark on the quest for Cuba libre which the mambises launched more than 120 years ago...
...There was much poignancy and no small bitterness on the occasion...
...17, 1989, March 4 and March 18, 1990...
...4 (Havana: Editorial Nacional de Cuba, 1963), pp...
...Cubans served valiantly in Angola, but were less inspired on the home front...
...Spain no longer provided the planter class with its much needed security...
...people say one thing in public and another in private...
...Divisions within the revolutionary forces likewise undermined the nationalist government...
...In 1944, Batista considerably strengthened the new order when he ceded power to the Autdnticos upon the defeat of his own candidate...
...For the first time, socialism erupted into the realm of national consciousness...
...Antonio Maceo met with his Spanish adversary in 1878 to discuss the Pact of Zanj6n, a compromise negotiated by the civilian, mostly propertied wing of the separatist movement to end the Ten Years' War (1868-1878...
...Comandante en jefe ordene (Commander in chief, give us our orders) and patria o muerte (homeland NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASor death) embodied the consensus of the majority of Cubans...
...The liberal and popular visions within the independence movement, rooted in conflicting class perspectives, also entailed different emphases on the relationship between civilians and the military...
...The revolution, indeed, developed out of the repeated and frustrated attempts to establish Cuba libre, and only since Cuba attained full independence from the United States has social justice become a reality...
...He had, nonetheless, subverted the legitimacy which he himself helped create with the Constitution of 1940 and his 1940-1944 elected administration...
...Quickly, however, the enthusiasm of revolution appeared to wane before the exigencies of everyday life...
...He is considerably less adept at governing a polity where citizens might express diverse opinions and his policies might be contested...
...The theme of cien aiios de lucha goes back to the 1960s...
...Grannma Weekly Review, April 9, 1989...
...People were afraid to speak out...
...In 1928, President Gerardo Machado violated the Constitution and extended his term in office for another six years...
...3. See, Louis A. Pdrez, Jr., Cuba Between Empires 1878-1902 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983...
...Over the past several months, the Communist Party has called for a process of "perfecting" the political system...
...The history of Cuban-U.S...
...the United States...
...Within two years, however, Spain was nearly defeated...
...Even if he were otherwise inclined, his very presence poorly serves democracy...
...Corruption and violence increasingly undermined their administrations...
...Incumbents were reticent to give up power, opponents eager to assume it...
...The Platt Amendment, however, was not the only bridle on Cuban independence...
...Spain responded by mobilizing a 250,000-man army and enforcing a policy of reconcentraci6n-an attempt to sever the mambises from their base of support among the rural population-later to be emulated in Mexico by Victoriano Huerta in his campaign against Emiliano Zapata, and by the United States Army with its strategic hamlets in Vietnam...
...The insurgents controlled the countryside, and much of it lay in ruins...
...Radical nationalism has nothing concrete to say about interminable queues, shoddy services, and growing scarcity...
...1965), p. 26...
...The Ortodoxos were primarily known for the flamboyant leadership of Chibis and their commitment to eliminate corruption from the government...
...22, and Jan...
...Like Maceo's refusal to accept less than full independence, Fidel's stance is more than mere intransigence...
...The Communist Party, now renamed the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP), displayed impressive activity in the CTC, the national legislature, and numerous local governments...
...refusal to extend diplomatic recognition certainly contributed to its short tenure...
...For the moment, in 1952 Batista promised stability and progress...
...That, after all, is precisely what Fidel Castro did when the Cuban Revolution of 1959 turned to socialism and thus fulfilled the legacy born with Maceo at Baragui...
Vol. 24 • August 1990 • No. 2
