Читать книгу A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution - Stephen Cushion - Страница 8

INTRODUCTION

The fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, in 2009, was marked by the appearance of two films: Che and Ciudad en Rojo.¹ The first, described as “a grand Hollywood war movie,” depicts the revolution as the work of a band of heroic guerrillas with little or no reference to the ordinary people of the island.² The second, a Cuban production, shows a day in the life of Santiago de Cuba during the final days of the Batista dictatorship. It portrays the brutal state terror, the organization of the underground resistance and its relationship with the rebel army, as well as the political disagreements and class tensions within the revolutionary movement. These two films represent divergent views of the Cuban insurrection: that of the heroic guerrilla struggle, which is the one most widely held, and that of the middle-class urban underground resistance, which has more recently come to the fore. However, archival research has revealed an additional dimension to the struggle that has been almost universally ignored, the participation of militant organized labor.

Over the years, the Instituto de Historia de Cuba (IHC) in Havana has painstakingly amassed a collection of leaflets, pamphlets, clandestine newspapers, and similar agitational material from the 1950s, most of which were produced by typing directly on thin paper stencils for duplication by a mimeograph machine such as a Gestetner or Roneo. These evoke images of small groups of militant workers, perhaps aided by revolutionary students, meeting in the home of one of their number, secretly producing a few hundred copies of a leaflet to be passed from hand to hand at work, scattered from the windows of passing cars, or left on the seats of public transport. The written content shows a lively working-class political milieu, where the way forward was hotly debated between different tendencies, where strikes and demonstrations were commonplace, and where ordinary workers played an active part in shaping their own destiny. The number of leaflets to have survived is in itself astonishing, given that such material could be a death sentence if discovered during a police raid or at an army checkpoint. As yet no one had made a systematic examination of this remarkable collection.

The center of such action was in all likelihood not Havana, but rather Oriente Province, which was distant from the seat of power and the heartland of the guerrilla struggle. I chose, therefore, to explore in particular detail the provincial archives in Manzanillo, Guantánamo, and Santiago de Cuba. These largely untapped reservoirs of locally produced material testify to a revolutionary process far from the capital in which party political lines often counted for less than workplace and neighborhood solidarity. The written documents from these and other holdings form the bedrock of this study, yet they required contextualizing, and this came from interviewing surviving veterans in different parts of the country. It was an honor to speak to these remarkable men and women; I hope I have done justice to their story.

This book will examine the activities of the organized working class in the period leading to the victory of the Cuban revolutionary forces in 1959. An analysis of these activities in the Cuban case can add to the wider debate about the relationship between working-class mass action and the armed struggle in the context of opposition to an authoritarian regime. The political economy of Cuba in the 1950s will be examined to determine the extent to which economic considerations affected the course of the revolution. The book will analyze why some groups of workers supported the rebels from an early stage, while others stayed loyal to their official leaders or to the Communist Party. The role of the Communist Party has been shrouded in an ideological mist arising from the Cold War. An examination of the party’s public statements and details from primary sources about the manner in which party members applied these policies paint a more nuanced picture than is usually given.

It is not my intention here to deny the importance of the guerrillas or the middle-class underground in the fight to overthrow Batista, but rather to argue that neither view presents a complete picture, that there was a third arm to the rebel forces, a revolutionary labor movement. The findings of my research clearly suggest there has been a silencing of this third dimension, intentional or otherwise. One obvious reason for this is that the story of a few heroic guerrillas overcoming seemingly impossible odds makes for a romantic story, whereas the recounting of dogged labor activity does not have the same appeal. In the early days of revolutionary Cuba, this romance was a weapon in the hands of the more radical elements in the leadership in their battles with those, often associated with the urban underground, who wished to slow the pace of change. From the other end of the political spectrum, the idea that the Cuban Revolution was the work of a few individuals without mass support also suited its enemies in the United States, and this helps explain their apparent belief that the death of Fidel Castro was all that was required to reverse the changes.

This book therefore challenges the notion that the revolution emerged from a rural guerrilla struggle in which the organized working class played no role and that the workers who did participate did so as individual citizens rather than as part of an organized labor movement. It will document substantial labor organizing, which played a pivotal role in key places and times in the 1950s, especially outside Havana and markedly in eastern Cuba. It is my intention to give organized labor its due credit for the role it played in the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship.

By focusing on the period from 1952 to 1959, my emphasis is on the insurrection rather than the outcome of the Cuban Revolution and thus the eventual effect on the structure of the state, the economy, and society. Nevertheless, understanding the social forces involved in the insurrection phase of a revolution is essential to an understanding of the subsequent changes in the structure of society. It is a question of examining the level of participation of workers in the events of the time, acting collectively rather than as individual citizens, and analyzing how workers’ class interests fitted into the wider class structure, national politics and the economy.

A picture emerges of a vibrant clandestine milieu in which working-class militants debated, collaborated, and competed for influence, but always in the context of organizing active opposition to the dictatorship. In order to recount the events considered vital to the analysis of the role of the Cuban working class in the insurrection, this narrative is organized on a chronological basis. Such an approach requires a periodization in order to be intelligible and, in terms of working-class politics and activity, we can divide the Batista years into distinct periods, divided by qualitative changes in the level of state repression. Tony Kapcia, writing about fifty years of the Cuban Revolution, punctuates this account by the various crises affecting Cuban society.³ This approach also proved useful as a method of dividing the period leading up to the rebel victory. Of course, it may be argued that the period was one of continual crisis, but within this, there were peaks and troughs that provoked changes and turns in the tactics of both the government and the rebels.

From Batista’s coup in March 1952 until the fraudulent elections of November 1954, little changed from the days of Batista’s predecessor, President Carlos Prío Socarrás. The fall in the price of sugar caused a crisis in the economy, and from the end of 1954 until the end of 1956, there was a concerted effort by the government and the employers to increase productivity by reducing workers’ wages and decreasing staffing levels. This was achieved by a combination of collaboration with the trade union bureaucracy and relatively low levels of state repression, with police habitually beating workers with clubs and dousing them with fire hoses but with very few deaths. The arrival of the Granma and the start of the rebel insurgency was a crisis for the regime, whose approach changed in early 1957 as the forces of the state began to confront the armed guerrillas in the mountains. From this point in time, the regime used death squads, routine torture, and “disappearances” in an attempt to make organized resistance cower to its rule. April 1958 proved to be a crisis point for the rebels as their attempt at a general strike failed disastrously. This crisis caused both the Movimiento Revolucionario 26 de Julio (MR-26-7, Revolutionary Movement 26 of July) and the communist Partido Socialista Popular (PSP, Popular Socialist Party) to rethink their tactics and their relationship with each other. It also gave increased confidence to the government and, during the summer and autumn of 1958, Batista launched a full-scale military attack on the rebels in their mountain strongholds. The failure to destroy the rebel army was the regime’s final crisis and created a situation in which a successful general strike would force the dictator from office. The chapter structure follows this periodization, with chapters 1 and 2 forming an introductory background, chapters 3 and 4 examining the period 1954 to 1956, chapters 5 and 6 dealing with 1957 to mid-1958, chapter 7 the second half of 1958, and chapter 8 taking the history into the first year of the revolutionary government.

Chapter 1 examines the nature and history of the Cuban working class, its political and industrial organization, informed by a discussion of the historical role of the trade union bureaucracy.

Chapter 2 considers the state of the Cuban economy in this period. Given the overwhelming importance of sugar in the national economy, the falling price on the world market led to an economic crisis. This in turn led Cuban employers to seek to maintain their profit margins by means of a productivity drive, which, given the strength of the trade unions, could only be achieved under an authoritarian regime. This is offered as an explanation for the support from business interests for the 1952 coup and subsequent dictatorship.

Chapter 3 recounts the history of the class struggles of the year 1955 and stresses the importance of these strikes for the relationship between militant workers and the July 26 Movement. In particular the battles of that year are analyzed in terms of the success or failure of the employers’ productivity drive.

Chapter 4 argues that the defeat in most of the 1955 disputes led some militant workers to draw the conclusion that they needed armed support if they were to be able to resist the government and their employers in order to defend their wages and conditions. In particular, a group of experienced trade union militants from Guantánamo in eastern Cuba started to build a clandestine cell structure in support of their aims. This network had its first real test at the end of 1956 when it was able to organize significant action in support of the Granma landing, when Fidel Castro returned from Mexico.

Chapter 5 examines working-class responses to the government’s increased use of arbitrary arrest, torture, disappearances and death squads. This campaign of state terror affected both the July 26th Movement and the communists. The political and organizational response of both organizations is outlined and analyzed, with particular emphasis on the way in which local activists interpreted their own group’s line, and how this new situation affected their relationship.

Chapter 6 subsequently examines two general strikes, August 1957 and April 1958, the first a success, the second a failure. It analyzes the reasons for the different outcomes and shows how these outcomes affected the politics of the PSP and MR-26-7. These two strikes are reassessed in the light of the process of convergence between the two groups.

Chapter 7 continues this theme of convergence and traces its organizational form. In particular it gives details of workers’ congresses in territory under the control of the rebel forces. These two congresses show the true level of working-class organization in support of the revolution and refute the arguments of those who say that such support was merely passive. In the process, it becomes clear that the trade union bureaucracy was marginalized by the activity of the rebel army and by grassroots trade union activists.

A revolution does not succeed with the seizure of power, but with its consolidation. In the first year of the new Cuba, organized labor played an important role in that process of consolidation and in the final triumph of the more radical wing of the revolutionary forces. Chapter 8 therefore returns to the theme of trade union bureaucracy, as the disputes within the rebel leadership on the future course of the revolution are fought inside the trade union federation.

A concluding section draws together the main themes of the book and answers the question of what exactly the role was of the organized working class in the Cuban insurrection of the 1950s.

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK Kate Quinn and Jean Stubbs for their help, support, encouragement, and constructive engagement. I am also extremely grateful to Angelina Rojas and Jorge Ibarra Guitart of the Instituto de Historia de Cuba, my mentors in Cuba and the source of much encouragement and advice. I also acknowledge the generous help of Alcibíades Poveda Díaz, Alejandra Lopez, Alejandra Serpente, Alex Ostmann, Alfredo Menéndez, Barry Carr, Beatriz Rajland, Belkis Quesada, Bill Booth, Brian Pollitt, Camillia Cowling, Carrie Gibson, Clem Seecharan, Colin Lewis, Daniel Kersffeld, Delio Orozco and the staff of the Manzanillo Archives, Fernando Carcases and the staff of the Library of the University of Oriente, Dylan Vernon, Emily Morris, Erin Clermont, Felipe Pérez, Francis Velázquez Fuentes, Francisco Monserrat Iser, Gary Tennant, Gloria García, Hal Klepak, Ian Birchall, Inés Enoa Castillo, James Dunkerley, Jana Lipman, Jerry Hagelberg, Jon Curry-Machado, Jorge Giovanetti, Jorge Ibarra Cuesta, José Puello Socarrás, José Sanchez Guerra and the staff of the Guantánamo provincial archive, Juan Carlos Gomez, Juan Venegas, Julio Garcia, Liz Dore, Ken Fuller, Kevin Middlebrook, Kristine Hatzky, Leonie Jordan, Luis Figures, Luis Suarez, Maily Acosta and the staff of the Archivo Historico Provincial de Las Villas, Maku Veloz, Mandy Banton, Margarita Canseco, María Celia Cotarelo, María Victoria Antúnez Salto, Maritza Mendez and the staff of the IHC archives, Martin Paddio, Mary Turner, Maxine Molyneux, Michael Yates, Mildred de la Torre Molina, Murray Glickman, Natividad Alfaro, Nicolás Iñigo Carrera, Olivia Saunders, Oscar Zanetti, Paulo Drinot, Pedro Machado, Philip Mansfield, Rafael Duharte and the staff of the Oficina del Historiador de Santago de Cuba, Reinaldo Suárez, Robert Whitney, Robin Blackburn, Servando Valdés Sánchez, Silvia Blanca-Nogales, Shirley Pemberton, Sue Thomas, Tony Kapcia, Vicente Perez, and Victor Bulmer-Thomas.

Without their help, this study would not have materialized. The responsibility for amassing and interpreting the material, however, lies with me.