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Cuba in the Caribbean Cold War: Exiles, Revolutionaries and Tyrants, 1952–1959

2021; Duke University Press; Volume: 101; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-9367066

1527-1900

Rafael Pedemonte,

Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America

This book opens a unique and pivotal avenue for understanding the Cuban Revolution and the international dynamics that made it possible. Resting on a rich set of overlooked Cuban sources (records from the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar held in the archives of the Instituto de Historia de Cuba and Cuba's foreign ministry), Nicolás Prados Ortiz de Solórzano's book provides a tremendous contribution to disentangling Cuba's hemispheric scenario in the 1950s, without which Fidel Castro would have not been able to attain power. The book compellingly regards as a core (and the most underestimated) reason of revolutionary success the rebels' attachment to a larger Latin American framework favorable to democratic change.Embracing a much-needed transnational approach, this volume resurrects the crucial role of the Caribbean Legion, a group of exiles and activists who gathered in the 1940s with the hope of deposing the clique of Caribbean dictators. Contrary to previous studies that have dismissed the legion's significance during the 1950s, Prados recontextualizes its activities during Cuba's insurrectional years (1952–59). In line with the pathbreaking analyses of Aaron Coy Moulton, Prados shows that the antibatistianos swiftly became embedded in the legion; this included Castro's 26th of July Movement (M-26-7), which benefited from generous funds and arms donation delivered, for instance, by José Figueres's Costa Rica and Rómulo Betancourt's Venezuela (p. 64).Prados's chief hypothesis is that varied Cuban insurgents successfully tapped into a prevailing revolutionary though non-Marxist spirit, which led to some clandestine and cross-hemispheric collaboration. The ultimate goal of these Cuban insurgents was to favor democratic advances against the regional authoritarian alliance of dictators such as Rafael Trujillo, Anastasio Somoza García, and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who were joined by Fulgencio Batista in 1952. This reveals that the Cuban insurrection was not as exceptional as generally believed; rather, it was waged amid a democratic awakening, which also witnessed regime changes in Honduras, Colombia, and Venezuela.By demonstrating how entangled were the Cuban insurrectionists in a broader ideological and militant frame of confrontation between dictatorship and democracy, as well as how much they benefited from this enmeshment, this book successfully forwards a new account of the Cuban Revolution. It proves that, despite the countless studies since the early 1960s, the scholarly community still remains trapped in a romanticized Cold War narrative that overemphasizes both Castro's role in mobilizing the masses and the anti-imperialist drive of the anti-Batista struggle.This book helps devise a more nuanced narrative of the revolution in two major ways. First, Prados astutely questions the Cold War's explanatory potential, asserting instead that the social dissatisfaction that toppled Batista was not merely a regional manifestation of a presumably all-encompassing global conflict between socialism and capitalism. The Cold War framing, which would acquire prominence when Castro later formalized his country's adherence to Marxism-Leninism, has mistakenly been transferred to examinations of the Cuban Revolution's onset. Removing Cold War framings should also push us to reconsider US-centered explanations of the revolution, thereby expanding the “international outlook” on the revolution's causes by incorporating other disregarded dynamics such as inter-American conflicts and mutual revolutionary cooperation (p. 91).Second, this book reminds us that Castro's guerrillas emerged from a myriad of revolutionary factions that established strong linkages with each other. The classical historiography produced in Cuba tends to inflate M-26-7's role and often presents other anti-Batista groups as either fringe actors or opportunists (politiqueros). In addition to the various ties between revolutionaries, particularly the Castro movement and the Auténticos, this volume brings back to light key forgotten protagonists of the anti-Batista struggle such as Carlos Prío Socarrás, Rafael García Bárcena, and Aureliano Sánchez Arango, who were long perceived by Batista's intelligence services as the main threats to his government. They were involved in the Caribbean Legion long before most M-26-7 members, who shrewdly capitalized on the legion's links with the Auténticos to tap into an existing web of support and supply (p. 46).But this observation about Cuba's myriad revolutionary factions leads to my only significant criticism of Prados's book. If M-26-7 was only one of many insurrectional groups that actively engaged in the international plot against Caribbean dictatorships, it is unclear how Castro ultimately managed to position himself as the revolution's leader. How can we explain the series of seemingly irreversible military setbacks experienced by the Auténticos, who were better connected within the Caribbean Legion, while the barbudos successfully established their rebel army in the Sierra Maestra? Which factors should we include in our analytical framework to elucidate the final ascendency of an initially modest faction such as the M-26-7? Understanding the Cuban Revolution's root causes requires addressing Castro's bewildering rise to power, which this book's arguments make even more perplexing. Was it just a matter of chance? Or was it rather the result of Castro's masterful insurrectional strategy? Is human agency an unescapable condition for revolution, or should we instead focus on more intangible structural conditions that might have favored Castro over other actors? Inevitably, any explanation of the Cuban Revolution would remain incomplete without engaging such paramount issues.