https://socialistaction.org/2019/03/22/the-hidden-history-of-the-cuban-revolution/
The Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution
/ 23 hours ago
March 2019 Fidel workers
Fidel Castro addresses a crowd of several hundred thousand persons in
the park in front of the presidential palace in Havana, Cuba, in January
1959. (AP Photo/Harold Valentine)
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE
“A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the working class shaped
the guerrillas’ victory,” by Steve Cushion. (New York: Monthly Review
Press, 2016.)
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. Given its
durability, revolutionaries should pay close attention to both its
successes and failures. This is not always easy to do, given the deluge
of propaganda we in North America have been exposed to over the last 60
years.
The same people who purvey the disinformation are the same people who
have fought a 60-year war against the revolution: the U.S. ruling class
and the U.S. government. This war against the revolution included an
invasion with a proxy army at the Bay of Pigs, numerous acts of economic
sabotage, assassination attempts, and a 55-year economic blockade
against Cuba that has yet to end. Under the Trump administration this
war has escalated. Rolling back some of the policies of the Obama
administration, the Trump administration has targeted Cuba, Nicaragua,
and Venezuela as the “troika of tyranny.” (1)
The hatred of the U.S. ruling class stems from two factors: first, the
centrality that Cuba played in the U.S. empire from 1898 to 1959;
second, the Cuban Revolution as a “proof of concept” that revolution is
possible in the Latin America.
After the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the rising U.S. empire
defeated the declining Spanish empire in Latin America and the Pacific,
the U.S. restructured the Cuban economy to fit imperialist needs. Under
the Platt Amendment, the U.S. converted Cuba into a colony that could be
ruled indirectly by the U.S. It was a new form of colonialism that the
U.S. pioneered and perfected in Cuba. Cuba became a source of great
profits for the U.S. (along with Central America) in the first half of
the 20th century. (2)
The second reason for the hatred of the U.S. ruling class is that the
Cuban Revolution and Cuba today are a proof of concept—a demonstration
that successful revolution is possible within the U.S. empire and that
socialism is possible for the countries of Latin America. While the
Cuban Revolution has been crippled by U.S. imperialism over the last 60
years, and while it had been distorted by the influence of Stalinism, it
was a genuine socialist revolution made by the Cuban people, and Cuba
remains to this day a workers’ state. For how much longer, though, is
anyone’s guess.
Steve Cushion is an activist worker and scholar from London. He worked
as a bus driver in London for 20 years, earned a Ph.D. in Caribbean
Labor History, and has been active in labor and socialist struggles his
entire life. He enjoyed unprecedented access to Cuban historical
archives and received the help of numerous Cuban and non-Cuban
historians. The result is a profound re-telling of the Cuban Revolution
that transforms prior misunderstanding of the process. What follows is a
brief synopsis based on Cushion’s history.
The Cuban working class
By the 1950s Cuba had developed a relatively large urban and rural
working class, as Cushion points out. This working class was also highly
unionized, with “the highest percentage of unionized workers in Latin
America” (Cushion, p. 22). These workers were organized in a single
labor confederation, the CTC (Confederacion de Trabajadores de Cuba),
that was state sponsored and initially influenced by the PSP (Partido
Socialista Popular), the Stalinist Communist Party of Cuba. The CTC
developed in 1935 after a failed general strike led by an earlier
national labor federation.
March 2019 Cuba gen strike 1933
The Cuban general strike of 1933. Another general strike followed in 1935.
Batista, representing the interests of the U.S., used the military to
defeat the 1935 general strike and ruled indirectly until 1940, when he
won the presidential elections with the support of the PSP. The CTC and
PSP declared a class truce during World War II and tried to enforce a
no-strike and wage freeze deal on the workers. When Batista’s
hand-picked successor ran in 1944 supported by the Stalinists, he lost
(Cushion, p. 21).
The no-strike and wage freeze deal was met with resistance by
rank-and-file labor activists. Perhaps the most dramatic and successful
resistance occurred in Guantanamo in 1943, where railroad workers were
led by Trotskyists in a strike in which they demanded payment of a 15
percent wage increase that had already been agreed to by the railroad.
The Trotskyists were members of the POR (Partido Obrero Revolucionario,
the Revolutionary Workers Party in English), which since the 1930s had
their center of activity among the workers and peasants of eastern Cuba.
These workers later formed an important network of support for the July
26 Movement led by Fidel Castro (Cushion, p 33).
The international context changed at the end of World War II, when the
U.S. adopted new anti-communist policies both at home and in its empire.
The Communists were purged from the CTC national leadership in 1947, and
Eusebio Mujal, a loyal Batista supporter with connections to both the
AFL and the CIA, became the general secretary of the CTC. After the
March 1952 coup in which Batista took power permanently, Mujal became an
important supporter of the dictatorship.
In addition to the political changes brought about in the 1950s by the
Batista dictatorship and the pro-capitalist policies of the Mujal
trade-union leadership, the Cuban working class experienced important
economic changes. In the 1950s, sugar accounted for 80% of Cuba’s
exports (Cushion, p. 43). Sugar production produced enormous profits for
the U.S.; for instance, “between 1948 and 1955, $637 million in profits
from sugar alone were repatriated to the U.S.” (Cushion, p. 45), and
closely tied the Cuban ruling class to U.S. capitalism. When the price
of sugar on the world market collapsed in 1952 because of
overproduction, Cuba experienced an economic crisis.
The still young United Nations responded by calling an international
conference of sugar producing nations in London. The London Sugar
Agreement of 1953 established quotas for each nation in an effort to
maintain prices. Not all nations participated, however, and individual
countries had an incentive to break the quota to increase their own
sales on the world market; the agreement was a failure and sugar prices
stayed low.
The U.S. and Cuban capitalists responded with an effort to increase
their profits on the backs of the workers by increasing productivity.
Specifically, they sought to increase mechanization in harvesting,
processing, and transporting sugar, thereby reducing both the number of
workers needed and their labor costs. They also sought to break the
unions and reduce wages and benefits. It was in the context of the
economic crisis and the war on the working class that Batista seized
power a second time in 1952.
On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro and 135 others seized the Moncada army
barracks with the aim of starting a mass insurrection against Batista.
The attempt failed and Castro and others were tried and convicted.
Castro’s courtroom defense, “History will absolve me,” was a stirring
critique of the dictatorship. At the same time, the PSP turned away from
its policy of peaceful coexistence with the capitalists and support for
the government and turned “toward the working class” (Cushion, p. 113)
and a strategy of mass action, especially strikes and strike support.
A turning point in the war on the working class took place in 1955 when
Batista and the ruling elite aggressively imposed their program of wage
cuts and mechanization. Cushion details the resulting wave of strikes in
Chapter 3. He highlights the brutal nature of the attacks, along with
the important role of women and students in the strikes. In 1955 there
were 13 major strikes outside the sugar industry and 14 major strikes
within the sugar industry along with numerous other smaller strikes and
labor actions. In addition, a massive amnesty campaign succeeded in
freeing Castro and other participants in the attack in 1955. Castro and
his followers regrouped in exile, forming the July 26th Movement
(Movimiento Revolucionario 26 de julio).
The strike wave met with both successes and failures, with both the PSP
and the July 26th Movement gaining adherents. Their involvement in the
mass struggles also placed the two groups in closer proximity, with the
PSP slowly coming to realize the significance of Castro’s group as a
potential ally or competitor. After a number of defeats in the 1955-56
strike wave, workers took stock and re-assessed their strategies and
tactics.
Workers adapted in two ways. First, they started to combine strikes with
industrial sabotage. Second, they formed clandestine cell structures
within their unions and communities. This clandestine cell structure
later formed the basis for the July 26th Movement’s workers’ section
[sección obrera]. Meanwhile, militants and leaders in the PSP moved
toward embracing the general strike as a way to bring down the dictatorship.
Into this pre-revolutionary crisis stepped Fidel Castro, who arrived
with other militants of the July 26th Movement on the boat Granma near
the end of November 1956. Supported by workers who helped prepare the
way by stockpiling food and arms, as well as engaging in supporting
strikes, Castro and his militants set up bases in the Sierra Maestra, in
Eastern Cuba.
The Batista regime responded with a reign of terror against workers and
domestic political opponents, as Cushion details in Chapter 5. Activists
and political leaders of all strips were arrested, tortured, and
sometimes killed, constitutional rights were suspended, and press
censorship was enforced. This did not curtail the activism, however, and
1957 saw another wave of strikes, albeit mainly defensive in nature. At
the same time, activists in local areas from both the PSP and the July
26th Movement, along with activists from other political tendencies came
together in local areas and cooperated with one another, a kind of
political convergence at the base.
The general strikes
The most successful political action against the dictatorship was a
general strike in August 1957 (described in Chapter 6). The August
general strike in eastern Cuba started when Frank Pais, the leader of
the July 26th Movement underground in Santiago, was captured and
executed at the end of July. The strike is often described as
spontaneous, a term Cushion notes is often used by historians when they
don’t know who organized an event. Cushion shows that the strike was
organized by the network of militant trade-union activists who were
“able to react quickly and seize an opportunity without requiring orders
to do so” (Cushion, p. 157).
The strike did not spread beyond eastern Cuba but did paralyze a number
of towns and factories in the east. The strike was most successful in
places where the July 26th Movement and the PSP cooperated with one
another and where there were clandestine workers’ cells. Women played a
crucial role in this strike, as did a number of Trotskyists who had
joined the July 26th Movement.
The August 1957 strike led to increased cooperation at the base between
the July 26th Movement and the PSP. The leadership of the two
organizations drew different conclusions from the strike. The PSP saw
the strike as evidence of the strength of their mass-struggle approach
and emphasized a 20% wage increase as a crucial part of their program.
The July 26th Movement, on the other hand, felt that the dictatorship
was on the verge of collapse, and that a single push from a general
strike combined with a guerrilla offensive would end the dictatorship.
The July 26th Movement called for a general strike on April 9, 1958.
Workers had not prepared for the strike—the call came as a surprise to
most workers but not the government, who was expecting a strike at any time.
While the strike activities in Havana and outside of the capital (see
Cushion, pp. 167-168 for a list of the strikes outside of the capital)
were impressive, the July 26th Movement had not done the hard work and
careful preparation needed for success. The strike ended in defeat and
was considered a disaster by both the PSP and the July 26th Movement.
The failure of the strike produced a tactical convergence between the
July 26th Movement and the PSP. Castro and his leadership team realized
the importance of careful preparation, economic demands, and
collaboration with the PSP. The PSP realized the importance of
insurrection (of which the armed struggle in the mountains, the focos,
was an important part), armed support for the strikers, and of
cooperation with the July 26th Movement, which they now viewed as the
leadership of the revolutionary struggle. While the April 9 general
strike had failed, it laid the foundation for the defeat of Batista and
the success of the revolution.
Chapter 7 details the rapid developments that took place after the
failed April 9, 1958, strike. These developments produced the defeat of
Batista at the end of the year. The guerrillas adopted a policy of
leniency and fair treatment to captured enemy soldiers (in contrast to
the extreme brutality and torture used by Batista’s troops). This
encouraged many of the troops to surrender or change sides. The July
26th Movement and the PSP decided to form a united front of all workers
organizations and created a joint organization, the FONU (Frente Obrero
Unido Nacional/United National Workers Front, in English).
FONU very quickly started organizing united-front groups of workers in
all areas of the country and in all industries. FONU planned for a
national strike to start in January 1959, in conjunction with the start
of the sugar harvest. In preparation for the strike, FONU organized two
democratic national workers conferences (in July 26th Movement
controlled territory) of rank-and-file militants.
As a consequence of these national workers conferences (which Cushion
argues have been generally ignored by historians), FONU undermined the
last vestiges of authority of the pro-capitalist labor movement. Equally
important, the July 26th Movement gained enormous status as the
leadership of the working class. While the FONU never really existed as
a single united organization at the national level (there simply was not
enough time to merge the national leadership of the two groups), it was
a potent symbol and, more importantly, there were united-front actions
among workers in various industries, cities, and regions.
Chapter 7 describes the end of the Batista dictatorship, which happened
quickly. Batista was not able to maintain the conditions for normal
economic activity, and the economy ground to a halt. The capitalist
class abandoned him, hoping to replace him with someone who could drive
down wages and defeat the July 26th Movement. In May 1958, Batista’s
forces launched an offensive against the guerrillas; the offensive
failed completely. By August, two columns of guerrilla forces were
marching west. The July 26th Movement seized Santiago de Cuba on New
Year’s Day when they heard the news that Batista had fled the country.
The revolutionary process was now at a crucial turning point. A number
of capitalist politicians sought to seize control of the government in a
coup. Castro addressed the country by radio from Santiago, calling for
the start of the general strike. The strike paralyzed the country,
prevented any pro-capitalist coup, and guaranteed the victory of the
July 26th Movement. Castro himself acknowledged the importance of the
general strike, which “was decisive in delivering the fortresses of the
capital of the republic, in defeating the final maneuvers of the enemies
of the people, and in giving all power to the revolution” (Cushion, p. 198).
Cushion ends his analysis with Chapter 8, on the first year of the Cuban
Revolution, and with a final concluding chapter. The united front
between the PSP and the July 26th Movement broke down almost
immediately, with internal divisions and realignments in both groups.
Eventually, both groups split, and then the left wing of both groups
merged to form the Cuban Communist Party. The conclusion is especially
worth reading, as it provides a succinct summary of the historical
lessons of the Cuban Revolution.
The myth of the foco
The Cuban Revolution has generally been understood, or rather
misunderstood, on the basis of two myths. The first is the myth of the
foco, the small band of revolutionaries fighting in the mountains that
makes the revolution. The other is the myth of the middle class in
revolt, bringing down the hated dictator Batista, only to have their
democratic revolution highjacked by Castro and the radicals. Cushion
alludes to both of these portrayals of the revolution at the very
beginning of his book in the form of two contrasting movies: Che, a
movie about the heroic revolutionaries fighting in the mountains, and
Cuidad en Rojo, a Cuban film about the urban, middle-class opposition to
Batista in the final days of the dictatorship.
Cushion’s invaluable work shows that it was the working class, led by
the vanguard MR 26-7 and Fidel Castro, that made the revolution. The
isolated focos fighting in the mountains, as Cushion shows, could not
have survived without the active support of networks of urban and rural
workers who supplied them with food, weapons, logistical support, and
information. In many respects, the Cuban Revolution followed the basic
pattern of the Russian Revolution, although more by accident than
because of a grounding in Marxist theory.
The portrayal of the revolution as a consequence of heroic
revolutionaries fighting in the mountains is in part a creation myth
created after the fact, just as the portrayal of the revolution as a
middle-class struggle (many in the middle class did oppose Batista,
especially at the very end) hijacked by Castro is also a myth.
The origin of both myths is complex, and they are embraced by very
different groups. The foco myth owes much to a book by Regis Debray, a
French philosopher who taught at the University of Havana in the 1960s
and who was a friend of Che Guevara. In 1967 Debray published
“Revolution in the Revolution,” which soon became a type of handbook for
revolutionaries throughout Latin America. (3)
Cushion does not address the foco strategy of guerrilla warfare but his
historical research is directly relevant to questions of revolutionary
strategy. Cushion’s pathbreaking historical research should put to rest
any question about how revolutions are made. Revolutions are not made by
small groups, but by the working-class masses. These masses need a
revolutionary vanguard, but this vanguard is itself made up of the most
advanced members of the working class.
Armed struggle may be an important or necessary tactic, but it is the
use of strikes and protests, including the general strike, which will
ultimately bring about a mass insurrection. The way ahead, for
revolutionaries everywhere, is what is generally thought of as the
Leninist strategy.
“Socialism in one country”
Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky all envisioned socialist revolution as
a world revolution, starting perhaps in one or a few countries and then
spreading in both the capitalist core and the capitalist periphery. None
of them believed that socialism could survive in one country, let alone
a country in the underdeveloped and neo-colonial periphery of the
capitalist world system. The abominable Stalinist doctrine of “socialism
in one country” made a virtue of a grim necessity and was used to
justify the reactionary policies of the Soviet bureaucracy.
The leaders of the Cuban Revolution knew better. In an article in the
January 2019 issue of Monthly Review, journalist Ron Augustin has
offered a timely analysis of the Cuban Revolution and the problem of
socialism in one country. (4) Augustin focuses on the views of Che
Guevara and other members of the Cuban revolutionary leadership. Guevara
knew that socialism in one country replaced “internationalism with
chauvinism” (Augustin, p. 42). In the early years, Cuban leaders also
believed that the development of socialism in Cuba depended on socialist
revolutions happening elsewhere in Latin America (Augustin, p. 43).
Given the weakness of the Cuban state in the face of the imperialist
juggernaut, Cuba did not have a lot of room to maneuver. While Cuba gave
extensive support to revolutionaries throughout Latin America and
Africa, especially before the demise of the Soviet Union, the main
policy—at least in the past—was to convince by example, or as the Cubans
say, to “send out moral missiles” (Augustin, p. 43).
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the hardships that ensued
during what is known as the Special Period, Cuba has been forced to
reintegrate its economy into the capitalist world system. This has
placed enormous pressure on the Cuban state and economy, creating new
tensions and problems. Augustin’s conclusions are very relevant to our
current political moment:
The fact remains that maintaining and transforming the country’s
socialist development does not depend on internal conditions alone. As
long as Cuba has to go against the tide of present-day international
realities, its process of socialist development will continue to be an
extremely complex and difficult one.
Thus, the question is not so much whether the Cuban Revolution can
survive but whether its isolation in a capitalist world will be broken
by other social revolutions. Instead of making that tourist trip “before
it’s too late,” it might be good to ask ourselves how we can help create
two, three, many Cubas (Augustin, p. 47).
Endnotes
(1) See the speech by Trump National Security advisor John Bolton on
November 1, 2018 at a forum at Miami Dade College. During the speech
Bolton announced new sanctions against all three countries.
(2) See “The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of
American Empire,” by Stephen Kinzer. (New York: Henry Holt and Comp., 2017).
(3) “Revolution in the Revolution,” by Regis Debray and Bobbye Ortiz.
(New York and London: Verso, 2017.) Originally published in the U.S. by
Grove Press in 1967.
(4) “Cuba, Che Guevara, and the Problem of “Socialism in One Country,”
by Ron Augustin. Monthly Review, January 2019, pp. 37-48.
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March 22, 2019 in Cuba, Latin America.
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Carl Sagan
“ The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be
counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be
consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not
determine what's true. ”
― Carl Sagan