THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
The Cuban Revolution
Some Whys and Wherefores
Andrew Guilder Frank
Did the Cuban Revolution grow out of the dictatorial repression of Batista ?
repression of Batista generated no more cause for revolt than that of Trujillo in
ot Jimenez in Venezuela,
Is it a movement to liberate Cuba from
other Carribean countries, like Guatemala and
economic
life.
American
Honduras,
Yes, certainly,
the Dominican
but the
Republic
domination
of its economy ?
Undoubtedly,
but
are no less famed for American influence in their
Does the Cuban Revolution represent a battle against poverty, hunger
disease and illiteracy ? Certainly', but poverty in Haiti is much more severe than in Cuba.
Indeed per capita income in Cuba- is higher
than almost anywhere else in Latin America.
similarly
The absence of indigenous Indians perhaps facilitates
has no Indians, nor does Uruguay.
the
success
of
the
Revolution,
but
Costa
Rica
The author does not attempt to describe or explain the Cuban Revolution exhaustively.
He merely
wants to expose for inspection the background and the sources of the developments that Cuba and the world
now witness.
He
leaves
it
to
the
understanding and
research
of
others
to
explore
the
many
questions
only
raised
here.
C U B A N S p r o c l a i m themselves the
f i r s t free
country i n
Latin
America. What do
they m e a n ?
W h y d i d the revolution w h i c h i s
developing in Cuba take place precisely
there and not
elsewhere?
W h y does the Cuban
Revolution
take the f o r m it does rather than
the f o r m , for instance, of our of
the
L a t i n A m e r i c a n revolutions
w h i c h preceded it ?
Several causes of the Cuban Rev o l u t i o n i m m e d i a t e l y suggest themsolves, but none of them singly or
in c o m b i n a t i o n
appear to offer a
satisfactory
explanation of
the
t i m e and place of the Revolution.
D i d the Revolution grow out of the
d i c t a t o r i a l repression of Batista ?
Yes. certainly it d i d . B u t the repression of
Batista generated no
more cause, for revolt than that of
T r u j i l l o i n the D o m i n i c a n R e p u b l i c
or that of Jimenez in Venezuela ;
yet the
Dominican
Republic has
witnessed no revolution at a l l , and
Venezeula one w h i c h has taken a
f o r m quite
different
f r o m the
Cuban R e v o l u t i o n .
Is the C u b a n Revolution a movement to liberate Cuba f r o m A m e r i can d o m i n a t i o n of its economy in
the fields of sugar, p u b l i c utilities,
a n d large parts of commerce? U n doubtedly. B u t
other Carribean
countries, l i k e Guatemala and H o n duras, are no less famed for Amer i c a n influence i n t h e i r
economic
l i f e , Honduras has witnessed no
revolution
and
Guatemala
one
w h i c h took a different f o r m .
Does the Cuban
Revolution represent a battle
against
poverty,
against hunger, disease and illiteracy ?
Certainly. But poverty in
H a i t i is much
more severe than
in Cuba. Indeed, per capita income
in Culm is higher than almost anywhere else in L a t i n America. M a r
be it is this very
relative wealth
w h i c h has given Cuba the a b i l i t y
and the
strength to make so farreaching a r e v o l u t i o n .
But
such
resources are available in concentrated f o r m also in the Montevideo
of U r u g u a y or the Rio de Janeiro
and Sao Paula regions of B r a z i l .
The
absence
of
indigenous
Indians
probably
facilitates the
success of the Cuban R e v o l u t i o n .
But Cost a Rica s i m i l a r l y has no
Indians, nor does U r u g u a y .
M a y b e it is less the absence of
Indiana
than the presence of a
middle class and of a pool of
potential
intellectual
leadership
w h i c h has
facilitated the
Cuban
R e v o l u t i o n . But B r a z i l , A r g e n t i n a ,
and Chile have s i m i l a r sources of
potential
leadership; and there is
evidence that in M e x i c o , w h i c h
witnessed its o w n
revolution fifty
years ago, it is precisely the m i d dle class w h i c h is the source of the
increasing
conservatism
which
militate
against the extension of
economic
development
into
the
M e x i c a n countryside. Thus, w i t h o u t
1101
i n v o k i n g the charisma of Fidel, an
exhaustive causative explanation of
the Cuban Revolution may not be
possible.
At
any rate. I cannot
provide one.
Historical Source
However a Iess ambitious explanation
should not be beyond o u r
reach, Every resolution is a reaction to the past, and that past is
certainly
open to our
inspection.
Indeed, today's revolution is a p r o duct as well of past reactions, that
is.
of earlier
revolutionary
attempts. By l o o k i n g at the earlier attempts
to
deal
with
similar
problems, p a r t i c u l a r l y by p r i o r revolutions in L a t i n America, we
should be able to suggest how some
alternative forms of the Cuban Revolution may have come to be
excluded. F u r t h e r m o r e , no revolution can
change e v e r y t h i n g . Paradoxically, a revolution must r e l y on
well-entrenched social
forms, such
as paternalism in Cuba, to effect a
radical change i n other forms o f
social relations. Thus, a study of
social and c u l t u r a l forms w h i c h d i d
a n d d i d not exist in the Cuba of
o l d should y i e l d
some indications
of the r e v o l u t i o n a r y possibilities
f o r the Cuba of
t o m o r r o w . The
present paper, then, is an attempt
to explore
these three sources of
explanation of the
Cuban Revolut i o n : the historical source of t h e
r e v o l u t i o n , alternative solutions- to
Latin
American problems which
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
have been f o u n d w a n t i n g , and the
socio-cultural
forms which
determine
not o n l y the
revolutionary
necessities, but also the revolutiona r y possibilities. In p u r s u i n g these
e x p l o r a t i o n s , we
should not however expect to find i m p o r t a n t answers as instead we find i m p o r t a n t
new questions.
T h e history o f
Latin
America
m i g h t be
summed up by saying
that the
Spanish came to e x p l o i t
and their successors remained to
exploit.
The m a i n social features
of large parts of
Latin
America
w e r e well k n o w n : the consolidat i o n of
a g r i c u l t u r a l lands
under
l a t i f u n d i s l a ownership, the role of
the c h u r c h in keeping people quiet
and of the a r m y if they were not,
the role of the rising m i d d l e classes
based in commerce and the professions
w h i c h account for the
very
one-sided
economic
development
that does
occur, the alliance of
American
capital with all
these
groups, the r i g h t - w i n g dictatorships
that are the capstone w h i c h ties the
social f a b r i c together by force and
terror.
P r o b a b l y more than total
mass poverty and ignorance, it has
been the exclusion of the vast maj o r i t y o f L a t i n A m e r i c a n s f r o m the
social, p o l i t i c a l , and economic benefits enjoyed
by
some
people
in
these societies w h i c h has resulted in
the many sporadic social upheavals
r a n g i n g f r o m changes in the palace
guard
to
full
scale
social
revolutions.
Structure of Latin American
Society
T h e Cuban R e v o l u t i o n has its
roots in this general s t r u c t u r e of
Latin
American
society, i n this
same L a t i n A m e r i c a n social movement to w h i c h that social structure
has given risie
(indeed,
in the
t w e n t i e t h century w o r l d
revolution
as a w h o l e ) but it has its own hist o r y as well, in the peculiar C u b a n
conditions arid the long h i s t o r y of
r e v o l u t i o n a r y and l i b e r a t i o n movemerits w h i c h have t i m e and again
attempted but
failed to alter substantially the
structure of
Cuban
society.
Nearly a century ago, in
1 8 ' 8 , Cuba revolts
against S p a i n .
T h e r e v o l u t i o n is intellectually i n spired and led, t h o u g h it has some
measure of p o p u l a r s u p p o r t .
The
revolution f a i l s and
S p a i n retains
its
political
supremacy.
In
the
years w h i c h f o l l o w , A m e r i c a n capit a l begins
seriously to be invested
in C u b a n sugar.
Indeed,, a U S
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
consular r e p o r t of 1878 notes that
" c o m m e r c i a l l y C u b a has become a
dependency of the
United
States
although
p o l i t i c a l l y it remains a
dependency of
Spain."
By
1895
Cuba is ready to wage a f u l l scale
r e v o l u t i o n a r y war of independence
against S p a i n . T h r e e years later, in
1808, the U n i t e d States enters the
w a r against
S p a i n on the side of
Cuba.
V i e w e d in the context of a
h u n d r e d years of U S and Confederate designs on Cuba, combined
w i t h more recently a c q u i r e d direct
economic
interests,
the
Platt
A m e n d m e n t of 1902 w h i c h reserves the r i g h t to the United States
to intervene at its pleasure in the
domestic affairs of the
supposedly
sovereign Cuba
need come as no
surprise, Cuba, exhausted by its
war of l i b e r a t i o n against S p a i n , is
faced w i t h the
choice of o u t r i g h t
a n n e x a t i o n by the U n i t e d States as
befell P i e r t o Rico and the P h i l i ppines or p r e s u m p t i v e sovereignty
with
American
intervention.
It
chooses
the latter and is visited
by American military intervention
three times u n t i l the repeal of the
Piatt
A m e n d m e n t in 1933 and by
other f o r m s of intervention u n t i l
this day.
In the meantime the i n t r o d u c t i o n
of
railroads and electricity
into
Cuba
r a d i c a l l y increases the distance over w h i c h sugar cane could
bo transported and the size of the
m i l l s in w h i c h it could be processed.
As a result, the e a r l i e r small
holdings o f land and l i t t l e m i l l s i n creasingly become consolidated into large-scale
l a t i f u n d i s l a holdings
of land and of large sugar centrales
which
r e i g n over the
landscape
like feudal castles. As elsewhere in
L a t i n A m e r i c a to this day, this fertile g r o u n d f o r r i g h t - w i n g dictatorships easily produces and supports
the dictatorship of M a c h a d o d u r i n g
the nineteen twenties.
W h e n this
dictatorship is o v e r t h r o w n in 1 9 3 1 ,
the r e f o r m movement w h i c h seeks
to remove some of the social, p o l i t i c a l , and economic sources of such
dictatorships fails, a n d , let it be
noted, fails w i t h the a i d and intervention of the U S D e p a r t m e n t of
Stat? and Embassy in the person of
Sumner
Welles w h o supports the
conservatives, a n d o n l y a moderate
r e f o r m prevails.
W h e n the
effects of the depression and the decline of Cuba's
sugar f o r t u n e s were c o m b i n e d w i t h
the substantial continuance of the
1102
o l d regime and after the t e m p o r a r y
r u i n o f t h e second w a r has a g a i n
disappeared, the t i m e is r i p e f o r a
renewed dictatorship of the M a chado type. A f t e r years of v a r y i n g
amounts of influence, Batista takes
power in the coup of M a r c h 10,
1952.
In the years of his p o w e r ,
he k i l l s and often tortures t w e n t y
thousand people. As a nutshell i n dex of the fortunes of Cuba d u r i n g
these years past, one m i g h t observe
that f o l l o w i n g the 1895 w a r of liberation the literacy rate grew mark e d l y ; d u r i n g the years of M a chado's dictatorship the literacy rate
a g a i n d e c l i n e d ; it rose s l o w l y duri n g the years after Maehado's exit
a n d before
Batista's
entry;
and
literacy declined again d u r i n g the
six years of Batista's government.
Not
Made in
a Day
T h e c u r r e n t r e v o l u t i o n i n Cuba
was not made in a day.
It was
b o r n out of three h u n d r e d years of
h i s t o r y and at least a h u n d r e d years
of prior revolutionary activity. But
even as the r e v o l u t i o n was b o r n in
the decade of the 1 9 5 0 s it d i d not,
like A t h e n a , emerge full g r o w n out
of Fidel Castro's head. Indeed, the
f o r m s w h i c h the r e v o l u t i o n was to
take and still w i l l take in the f u t u r e
grew out of its o w n eight-year history in Cuba a n d the r e v o l u t i o n a r y
experience elsewhere i n L a t i n A m erica. To understand even in the
most
superficial sense the
nature
and causes of the r a d i c a l i s m w h i c h
characterizes the C u b a n R e v o l u t i o n
today, it is
necessary to e x a m i n e
the Revolution in the l i g h t of this
recent h i s t o r y w h i c h has made it
what it is. But as we do so, it w i l l
again he possible to do no more
t h a n raise questions as to h o w and
w h y certain
circumstances led to
the decisions that were taken. In a
sense what the f o l l o w i n g explorat i o n can do is r o u g h l y to m a p the
r o a d of the r e v o l u t i o n i n d i c a t i n g
some of the road f o r k s at w h i c h
choices had to be made to g u i d e it
one way or another.
M u c h closer
acquaintance w i t h circumstances o f
the times w o u l d be neceteary to assign serious
explanations to these
choices.
Elections were scheduled f o r the
s p r i n g o f 1952. W h e n i t became
clear that the i m p e n d i n g vote w o u l d
not b r i n g h i m i n t o office, Batista assumed power by a m i l i t a r y coup on
M a r c h 10, 1952. Soon thereafter,
F i d e l Castro, then a l a w y e r , filed a
b r i e f i n t h e courts changing Batista
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
w i t h several count a of v i o l a t i o n of
the Cuban Constitution of 1940.
T h i s b r i e f represents F i d e l Castro's
first p u b l i c challenge. But as an
attack on the i l l e g a l i t y of the
Batista dictatorship rather than as
an attempt to i n i t i a t e a far-reaching
social revolution, this first challenge
of the statua-quo was a far cry f r o m
the revolution w h i c h Fidel's name
has become associated. T h i s revolut i o n was to assume its present f o r m
o n l y as a result of many events
still to come in the six years
following.
Weapons for Legal Arguments
The first further development in
the direction of radicalism was to
substitute
weapons
where
legal
arguments had failed. On July 26,
1953, Fidel led 125 men in an attack on F o r t Moncada in the hope
of c a p t u r i n g the weapons and supplies w h i c h m i g h t be used in an
attack on the a r m y , the real source
of Batista's power. The attack was
unsuccessful.
Most of the attackers
were k i l l e d , not so much in battle as
after becoming prisoners. T h r o u g h
a series of fortunate accidents.
Fidel's l i f e was spared and he was
brought to t r i a l . A c t i n g as his own
attorney for
defense, Fidel spoke
four hours in defense of his attack
against an unconstitutional government.
H i s defense ended w i t h the
words, " C o n d e m n me. I don't care.
History will
absolve me.'' Under
that title his
defense plea has become famous as an i m p o r t a n t document of the R e v o l u t i o n . Most of
Fidel's
discussion was devoted to
the circumstances i m m e d i a t e l y surr o u n d i n g the ill-fated attack of
July 26. But a p a r t of his defense
was devoted to the r e f o r m programme f o r w h i c h he had fought
and the measures he w o u l d have
i n i t i a t e d had his rebellion been
successful.
Fidel listed five revolutionary
laws w h i c h w o u l d have been immediately p r o c l a i m e d . They dealt w i t h
the re-institution of the Constitution
of
1940 and the
assumption of
legislative, executive and j u d i c i a l
powers by the revolutionary movement, the g r a n t i n g of property in
land to those who w o r k , two profitsharing measures, and confiscation
of ill-gotten gain. He went on in five
pages out of eighty to outline the
six m a j o r problems w i t h w h i c h a
Cuban Revolution would have to
deal : l a n d r e f o r m ,
industrializat i o n , housing, unemployment, edu-
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
cation, and health, "along w i t h the
restoration of p u b l i c liberties and
political
democracy." He offered
solutions to o n l y two of these—
land :
expropriation,
redistribut i o n and a g r i c u l t u r a l co-operatives;
and housing : c u t t i n g rents in half
and financing new housing. I emphasize this revolutionary document because it is today widely
claimed in Cuba that " H i s t o r y W i l l
Absolve M e " represents the bluep r i n t of the revolution we are now
witnessing.
I suggest that this
widespread Cuban view is mistaken.
It does not
appear that the f o r m
the Cuban
Revolution takes today
was conceived in 1953. Examination of the document w i t h this quest i o n in
m i n d — the emphasis on
recourse to legality, the relative
moderation of the five immediate
laws, the f a i l u r e to indicate, much
less to spell out. any programme of
attack on the six major p r o b l e m s w i l l , I believe,
demonstrate
that
"History W i l l
Absolve M e " may
have contained some, goals and
directional signposts, but that it certainly was not a b l u e p r i n t , platf o r m , or programme, written in
1953, of the revolution which was
to take place after 1959. To say so
does not. and is not meant; to condemn either Fidel's 195 3 position
or his I 9 6 0 action. It is only to
say that to find the roots of today's
revolution we must look a good
deal further.
Landing in Oriente
The next step in the development
of
the
r e v o l u t i o n a r y movement,
w h i c h by then had taken the 26th
of July as its name, was s t i l l further to radicalize the means of
revolution. F i d e l
had, of course,
been condemned by the court, but
had regained his
freedom shortly
thereafter as a result of a
general
amnesty w h i c h Batista declared to
reduce the g r o w i n g pressure against
his regime.
Fidel used his freed o m to
plan a well-conceived coordinated m i l i t a r y attack on the
Batista government.
On December
2, 1956, he landed w i t h eighty-two
men on a beach in Oriente Province. The
l a n d i n g was to have
coincided w i t h an u p r i s i n g in Santiago. O r i e n t e s largest city. Bad
weather delayed the ship's a r r i v a l
from Mexico, the u p r i s i n g alerted
the government, and the
landing
force was all but w i p e d out. Twelve
men
escaped death and
reached
the protection of the Sierra Maestre Mountains. It is probable that,
1103
had this 1956
rebellion succeeded,
Cuba
would not be experiencing
the radical and p r o f o u n d social
revolution w h i c h the world is w i t nessing today.
For even then the
revolutionary
movement had
not
developed and
matured
into the
radicalism and profundity w h i c h i t
was to have
more than two years
later.
Still other events had to
transpire, experiences had to arise,
before the revolution could assume
its present f o r m .
Fidel had selected his l a n d i n g
place in Oriente not only because
of the tactical advantage that the
mountains could afford. There are
mountains as well elsewhere in
Cuba. However, Oriente has long
been at once the poorest and the
most m i l i t a n t l y rebellious province
in Cuba. Possibly due. in part, to
the much greater
prevalence of
small p r i v a t e holdings in the coffee
and tobacco country of Oriente, its
peasants and its intellectuals at the
p r o v i n c i a l University of Oriente
had been more active supporters of
the revolutionary movement of the
hundred
years
preceding.
Fidel
counted on their support.
E a r l y in 1957 Fidel and his eleven companions sought to initiate
guerilla
warfare against
Batista's
a r m y from their m o u n t a i n hideouts.
Batista had sometimes fifteen thousand,
sometimes twenty
thousand
men under arms: Fidel had twelve.
W h a t were the sources of the support
Fidel needed to fight such
odds? The Communist Party, w i t h
a membership of possibly
ten
thousand, mostly in Havana, offered no support whatever. Not surprisingly, it regarded F i d e l as a
romantic. latter-day version of a
L o r d B y r o n or Robin Hood. N o r
d i d the peasants of the Sierra, on
whose account Fidel had landed
there, support h i m or his movement.
If they were
interested at
a l l . they regarded Fidel w i t h susp i c i o n and his movement as another
intellectual
and
middle-class ref o r m , not u n l i k e that of 1933,
w h i c h would promise no improvement in the lives of the large peasant m a j o r i t y . W h o , then, d i d lend
support to Fidel ? Students mostly
in
Santiago, rather than
Havana,
and members of the middle-class in
Havana.
Not u n l i k e the peasants,
they thought that Fidel's movement
was one of middle-class r e f o r m . T h e
middle-class
supplied the
money
for
weapons,
and
the students
THE
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
1104
ECONOMIC
WEEKLY
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
of Santiago
supplied
the
comm i t m e n t and courage to smuggle
t h e m i n t o the mountains.
Movement Rallies Support
D u r i n g 1957 a n d 1958 Fidel's
group waged g u e r i l l a w a r f a r e i n
the mountains and sent an expedition across the plains of Camaugey.
W i t h the m a t u r a t i o n and attendant
repression of the
Batista dictatorship and its combattal by Fidel's
g r o u p , the Movement of the 26th of
J u l y increasingly r a l l i e d support to
its side.
Seeing some peasants and
Fidel's men fighting side by side,
other peasants came to gain confidence in Fidel
and his cause.
Havana Negroes had lent some support to Batista, apparently because
the c o m b i n a t i o n of his M u l l a t o
blood w i t h his rise to power bad
appealed to them, as a symbol of
their own ascendance and recognit i o n in the society. In the meantime, in Oriente (the only other province in w h i c h Negroes l i v e in large
numbers),
Negroes came to sense
that Fidel's movement represented
so
t h o r o u g h a movement t o w a r d
social
equality that
it augured
emancipation f o r them as w e l l . The
g r o w i n g popular support for Fidel's
movement, combined w i t h the complete f a i l u r e of the M a r c h 1959
general strike
w h i c h represented
the capstone of their earlier tactics
against Batista, resulted in the supp o r t of and subsequent collaborat i o n w i t h the 26th of July movement of the
C o m m u n i s t Party of
Cuba i n A p r i l 1959.
A d d i t i o n a l sources of support,
campaigns against urban m i l i t a r y
garrisons w i t h gun in one hand and
m i c r o p h o n e in the other; demoral i z i n g Batista's a r m y b y d i s a r m i n g
prisoners and then setting them
free, that is, treating them as fellow
v i c t i m s of Batista rather than as
his defenders, increasingly facilitated
Castro's
m i l i t a r y campaign.
Late in 1958, three hundred men
under arms withstood and event u a l l y destroyed the arms of twenty thousand men w h i c h sent a single
expeditionary force of twelve
thousand men to crush the rebellion
once and f o r a l l .
Peasants Influence
Movement
B u t for the long r u n of Cuba
and o f L a t i n A m e r i c a , possibly
more i m p o r t a n t than Castro's i n fluence on the peasants and others
was the
influence of the peasants
on Castro and his movement. Notwithstanding
Fidel's emphasis on
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
l a n d r e f o r m in 1953 and his select i o n of r u r a l Oriente as the place
f r o m w h i c h to wage his war, the
t w o years he and his men spent
fighting a n d
living
among
the
peasants in the mountains undoubtedly resulted in an empathy and a
depth of understanding of the pea
sants and their problems w h i c h they
would have lacked had the 1956
attempt, to say n o t h i n g of the 1953
attempt, been immediately successf u l . The events and experiences of
the years 1957 and 1958 thus became c r u c i a l l y
i m p o r t a n t in shapi n g the f o r m that the. revolution
eventually was to take, and, to anticipate an argument below, for the
lesson that L a t i n Americans have
undoubtedly learned about the difference between a resolution fought
in ihe city and a revolution fought
in the country.
No
Reliance on Professional
Army
On New Year's eve of 1958
Batista flees the country, and on
January 1, 1959
Fidel Castro and
his forces take control of the government. The rebellion against the
dictatorship of Batisla w h i c h grew
out of 1952. 1953 and 1956 had
ended in 1958. But the Revolution,
whose antecedants were 1492. 1808,
1895 and 1933 had only just begun
on that same day. In a sense, the
six year rebellion was only the labour w h i c h made possible the b i r t h
of a revolution conceived in 1492.
H o w w o u l d the new-born revolution
develop, what f o r m would it take ?
Its period of pregnancy and indeed
its period of labour
would determ i n e the form it w o u l d take, but
so w o u l d the environment into
w h i c h it was born and into w h i c h
it must g r o w . The first act of the
revolutionary
movement was to
establish a government headed by a
president, a p r i m e minister, and
important ambassadors.
What
f o r m might the
Cuban
Revolution take ? In a sense, any
of a large variety of forms. W h y
does it take precisely the f o r m that
it does ? It is probably impossible
to say.
But the foregoing sections
have
pointed to
the
nature of
Cuban society (it must be left to
the reader to f a m i l i a r i z e
himself
w i t h the themes and details of
Cuban and L a t i n A m e r i c a n society),
and they have sketched the development of response to these conditions. We have
seen that some
reforms
have been relied upon in
1105
the past and have been found wanti n g . Cubans have seen it too, a n d
it should not be s u r p r i s i n g if they
w o u l d geek not to make the same
mistakes again. A r o u g h and ready
classification of some other alternative forms the revolution m i g h t
take can be gleaned f r o m the experience of other L a t i n
American
countries in their attempts to face
in part similar problems. An outsider cannot, of course, c l a i m that
this experience elsewhere Mas steered the Cuban Revolution precisely
into the course it has taken.
But
it is certain that the leaders of the
Cuban Revolution, and in a less
sophisticated way
large masses of
the Cuban people, have f a m i l i a r i z e d
themselves w i t h this L a t i n A m e r i can revolutionary experience and
that they have sought to avoid its
mistakes. We
may thus briefly
review this L a t i n A m e r i c a n experience and
suggest some
lessons
which, from the
Cuban point of
view, this experience has to offer.
It is common knowledge that in
recent decades the largest part of
r a p i d political change i n L a t i n
America has taken the f o r m of
intra-army changes in the palace
g u a r d . It is as obvious as it is
f a m i l i a r that such rebellions are
s t i l l b o r n and in no way further the
revolutionary
reform
movement
w h i c h Cuba has harboured all these
years. Moreover,
given the role
that the L a t i n A m e r i c a n a r m y t y p i cally plays in safeguarding the conservatism of the .society,
keeping
the professional army intact means
that a major road block to social
change has failed to be
removed.
Exiling the o l d leadership, as is so
customary in L a t i n America, s i m i l a r l y maintains or provides a nucleus for the resurgence of the o l d
regime. A n alternative, i m p o r t a n t
if the rebellion has been l o n g and
violent, is that the o l d leadership is
mobbed by the a n g r y people, in
French Revolution style.
But this
alternative is also costly to the people themselves.
Thus reliance on
r e v o l u t i o n a r y courts.
even though
they
may
look
like
kangaroo
courts and conviction and execution hold i m p o r t a n t benefits over
the other two l i k e l y alternatives. So
does r e h a b i l i t a t i o n of lower echelon
leadership where it is possible. In
this context, Cuban reliance for the
rebellion on m i l i t a r y forces outside of the professional a r m y , and
its subsequent
destruction and elim i n a t i o n of the dictatorial leaders
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
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1106
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seems a plausible course f o r the
p u r s u i t of the reforms already intended by generations of Cuban
revolutionaries.
Shift from City to Country
T o the extent that L a t i n A m e r i can rebellions have involved largescale f i g h t i n g , this f i g h t i n g has,
w i t h the notable exception of the
M e x i c a n and B o l i v i a n cases, occurred p r i n c i p a l l y in the major city or
c i t i e a T h i s m i l i t a r y action i n the
cities has been at the same time
s y m p t o m and cause of the u r b a n
rebellions w h i c h have so w i d e l y
characterized the r u r a l societies of
L a t i n A m e r i c a . These u r b a n rebellions have in t u r n resulted p r i m a r i ly in u r b a n reforms. Where they
have led to
changes in the r u r a l
society as w e l l , these changes have
been largely brought to, if not forced on, the countryside. Even the
most
cursory
acquaintance
with
u r b a n - r u r a l conflict, denied t h o u g h
it may be by generations of Soviet
and Western writers, w i l l forbode
u n h a p p y consequences for this process.
T h e more intensive and extensive
changes in the r u r a l and
r u r a l - u r b a n social relations w h i c h
have been associated w i t h the p a r t i c i p a t i o n of Zapata's peasants in the
M e x i c a n revolution of 1910 and the
t w o years of guerilla
warfare by
Castro's forces in the mountains of
Cuba foreshadow a shift in the locus and
nature of rebellion and
revolution f r o m c i t y to country in
the
Latin
American
upheavals
w h i c h arc soon to come.
Argentina and Venezuela
An alternative f o r m for the Cuban Revolution, more radical than
the clearly
inadequate changes of
the palace
guard
considered and
rejected above, may be represented
by recent reforms in A r g e n t i n a and
Venezuela.
Peron's government in
A r g e n t i n a adopted the course of a
welfare state. In facing Argentina's
economic problems, Peron sought to
rely on the
re-distribution of the
income pie i m p l i c i t i n the welfare
state, w i t h h a r d l y any concern f o r
increasing the size of that pie. U r b a n workers were favoured, and in
the meantime a g r i c u l t u r a l productivity
declined. T o continue t o
enforce the d i s t r i b u t i o n his government desired, Peron became increassingly d i c t a t o r i a l and his government increasingly repressive. In the
mean t i m e farther n o r t h , Jimenez
dealt w i t h Venezuela's economic
problems by resorting neither to red i s t r i b u t i o n , nor to investment in
g r o w t h , w i t h the exception of the
petroleum industry w h i c h filled the
coffers of his treasury, but whose
benefits h a r d l y t r i c k l e d i n t o the
countryside beyond Caracas' l u x u r y housing and l u x u r y highways.
In both countries, but p a r t i c u l a r l y
in Venezuela, socio-political inequality was felt us repression by
the r u r a l majorities. Both dictators
were overthrown after the m i d 1950's. Both dictatorships were replaced by substantially middle-class
based holders of power w h i c h have,
p a r t i c u l a r l y in the United States,
been widely hailed as "Democratic
Reform Governments." "Free elections" and parliamentary coalitions
have accompanied the F r o n d i z i government in Argentina and the
Bentacourt government in Venezuela.
Note that the first step of the Cuban
R e v o l u t i o n also resulted in
filling the h i g h
government offices
with
similar
h i g h l y respectable
middle-class personnel.
In several
years of office, neither the Frondizi
nor the Bentacourt government have
brought any notable r e f o r m to the
countryside, neither socially, p o l i t i cally, nor economically; not land
r e f o r m , not education, not investment, nor, in the case of Venezuela,
channelling the large income f r o m
its petroleum industry into diversified economic development.
From
where
the Cubans sit,
h a v i n g failed to introduce any ref o r m in the structure, p a r t i c u l a r l y
in the r u r a l structure of these
societies, the pressures w h i c h L a t i n
A m e r i c a n .social structure exerts on
governments to become increasingly
r i g h t - w i n g dictatorships ( o r to put
it the other way around, the conditions which permit these dictatorships to
flower have reasserted
themselves), and both countries already find themselves again threatened w i t h i m m i n e n t return to
Peron-Jimenez type dictatorships —
just as Batista i n e v i t a b l y grew out
of the undisturbed roots of the
Machado regime in Cuba. F r o m the
Cuban p o i n t of view and f r o m that
of this w r i t e r , the fact that as these
pages are being w r i t t e n , Bentacourt
is p a t r o l l i n g the city w i t h tanks
and shooting students in the streets
is not an accident. Such are the
fruits of r e l y i n g on the o u t w a r d
trappings of
democracy w i t h o u t
any attempt to r e f o r m , never m i n d
democratize, the society. It should
1107
come as l i t t l e surprise to discover
that the Frondizi Bentacourt f o r m of
revolution or type of r e f o r m is
what the U n i t e d States and, indeed,
the m i d d l e and upper class elements i n Cuba and L a t i n A m e r i c a
w o u l d like to have seen as the f o r m
of the Cuban Revolution. But it
should come as no less of a surprise
that the leaders of the
Movement
of the 2 6 t h of July should have
interpreted Argentine and Venezuelan experience as a sign that
more radical and more wide-spread
social change must be w r o u g h t in
Cuba if the sacrifices of the rebellion and the past are not to have
been made in v a i n .
Guatemala and Bolivia
A model of the f o r m more r a d i cal than that discussed above may
be found in the revolutions of
(Guatemala in 1944 and B o l i v i a in
1952. Both revolutions were in part
r u r a l in character, in socio-political
and economic change in the countryside. Yet, as is well k n o w n , both
revolutions failed. The Bolivian
one never even really got off the
g r o u n d . The governments of Arevalo and later Arbenz in Guatemala
d i d introduce social change to the
countryside. but they d i d so gradually and on a catch-as-catch-can
basis. The revolution d i d call for
some popular p a r t i c i p a t i o n , though
not in the f o r m of m i l i t a r y defense
by the armed populace; and when
the counter-revolution attacked in
1954. the reform governments and
w i t h them ten years of work were
an easy pushover.
(As a sidelight,
some Cubans have observed that
the presence at the time of the revolutions of the American ambassador
Bonsial in
Bolivia and
in
Guatemala and then again in Cuba
may not have been altogether coincidental.)
F i n a l l y , if none of the foregoing
models for a L a t i n A m e r i c a n revol u t i o n appear to promise the results
w h i c h r e v o l u t i o n a r y Cubans desire
and require, the example of Mexico,
w i t h the oldest, longest, and most
far-reaching r e v o l u t i o n w h i c h L a t i n
A m e r i c a has- witnessed, still remains
available
for
examination.. The
M e x i c a n R e v o l u t i o n of 1910 came
on the heels of the
Diaz dictatorship
of
the preceding
century
w h i c h has universally been characterized as an alliance between p r i vate l a n d owners, the Church, and
American
investment interests in
M e x i c o . T h e rebellion was fought
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THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
SPECIAL
l o n g a n d h a r d b y various factions,
some of w h i c h represented the peasants; it resulted in a revolution
w h i c h made sweeping land r e f o r m s ;
eventually, t h o u g h not u n t i l decades
later, conducted a widespread and
successful
literacy c a m p a i g n ; i n creased e d u c a t i o n ; expropriated a l l
p r i v a t e and foreign holdings of
subterranean
m i n e r a l and
petrol e u m resources in 1936; began the
i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n of the c o u n t r y ; and,
has raised the investment rate to a
respectable 10 per cent per annum.
Yet, per capita income in M e x i c o
remained one-haIf of what it is in
Cuba, the peasantry seems to have
been a l l but bypassed by economic
development, and every government
since that of Cardenas in the m i d thirties have moved increasingly to
the r i g h t u n t i l the middle-class i n dustrial and commercial government of Lopez Mateos is today
regarded as
excessively conservative, even by Time magazine.
Forced
into
More
Radical
Forms
W i t h o u t going i n t o the details of
the r e f o r m measures undertaken by
the revolutions reviewed above and
the revolution now u n f o l d i n g in
Cuba, it appears clear to this w r i t e r
that, if the Cuban Revolution is no
also to be either s t i l l b o r n or to die
in infancy, Cuba is forced into s t i l l
more radical forms of
revolution
than any of those yet seen in L a t h
A m e r i c a . The haste w i t h w h i c h rev o l u t i o n a r y reforms are being under
taken; the e x p r o p r i a t i o n of l a t i
fundista ownership
of sugar am
grazing lands; the d i s t r i b u t i o n of
land and a g r i c u l t u r a l credit to small
holders; f o r m a t i o n o f a g r i c u l t u r a l
co-operatives for diversification of
crops and employment of the. eight
to twelve month unemployed r u r a l
proletariat
which
characterize
Cuba's
p o p u l a t i o n as it does
no
those of many of the countries exa
mined above; the immediate drive
for
industrialization, small and
large, l i g h t and heavy, the establishment o f I N R A ( N a t i o n a l Institute
of A g r a r i a n R e f o r m ) as a sort of
super T V A ; 64 per cent increase of
primlary school enrolment and the
three-fold
increase
of first-grade
enrolment in the very first year of
the r e v o l u t i o n ; the d i s t r i b u t i o n of
fire-arms to the n e a r l y one m i l l i o n
m i l i t i a ( n a t i o n a l g u a r d ) members;
the asceticism of those active in
the
r e v o l u t i o n f r o m the
smallest
r u r a l c o m m u n i t y to the office of the
p r i m e m i n i s t e r ; a l l these distin-
guished the Cuban
Revolution as
one more radical, more serious,
more active, than any p r i o r L a t i n
A m e r i c a n revolution w h i c h Cuba
m i g h t use as its mode).
Thus, the very experience of so
r i a l r e f o r m movements elsewhere in
L a t i n A m e r i c a and in Cuba's own
history itself, which has led Cuba
to adopt revolutionary forms more
radical than those for which models
are available also
leaves Cuba in
the position of having to make and
find her way in revolutionary t e r r i tory unchartered by earlier experience in L a t i n America. The radicalisrn of the Cuban Revolution, induced p a r t l y by necessity and p a r t l y
by design, has already set Cuba on
a path for which history can no
longer serve as a guide. It is implicit in the preceding discussion
that the Cuban Revolution finds itself at this p o i n t w i t h o u t a pre-formulated
procedure
which might
guide the revolution along its way
Moreover beyond the design for reb e l l i o n against the o l d dictatorship
and the general intent for land ref o r m and other reforms announced
in " H i s t o r y W i l l Absolve Me ', the
r e v o l u t i o n lacked
these guides as
w e l l d u r i n g the recent years that it
has already traversed.
Finds its Own Way
Not. unlike other social move
ments.
and probably more
than
many, the Cuban Revolution
mus
and does find its way substantially
in the dark as it goes along its
way. Under the circumstances, i
should not be surprising if
many
Cubans seek, and some yearn, for a
model that might serve them as a
guide. Quite
obviously the West,
and p a r t i c u l a r l y the United Slates,
can offer it no such model. Even
where some
American
experience
m i g h t serve as a guide, the United
States has sought to close the channels of transmittal of such
experience by w i t h d r a w i n g technical and
material aid and trade, while particular
American
measures
which
m i g h t of themselves be
inoffensive
have come to be associated w i t h the
offensiveness of A m e r i c a n imperialism in L a t i n A m e r i c a as a whole.
In the meantime, the U n i t e d States,
far f r o m m a k i n g an effort to isolate
the acceptable f r o m the
offensive,
insists on c o n t i n u i n g to sell the
A m e r i c a n way as a package deal.
it
L o o k i n g between East and West,
is possible to find a
"Third
1109
NUMBER JULY 1961
F o r c e " or a
t h i r d or f o u r t h w a y .
But; to the extent to w h i c h they
exist, these models and sources of
possible alignment are largely in the
field of international p o l i t i c s . I n d i a ,
B u r m a , the United A r a b Republic,
the new A f r i c a n
states may offer
alternatives in the United Nations,
but they have no economic programme that Cuba
might make its
o w n . To this observer, among countries which are not aligned on either
side of the cold war, only Y u g o slavia appears as a
source of any
potential guide to a country l i k e
Cuba.
The presence of a substantial number of Yugoslavian technicians in
Cuba suggests that Cuba
may yet come to look in that direction.
West Offers No Guide
There remain, then, only two other
places for Cuba to look for guidance to its f u t u r e ; one is
toward
Russia-China, and the
other is at
home. The model of the Socialist
camp, of
course, holds
profound
attraction for any country or people
who, like Cuba, have only just become determined to shape their own
future. Even if the West were not
so intimately
associated w i t h I m perialism, be it of the BritishFrench or the American variety, the
Western and p a r t i c u l a r l y American
programmer would suffer seriously
f r o m their heavy emphasis on economic
problems alone, But f r o m
the Cuban, and in genera] the L a t i n
Amercian-African-Southeast-A s i a n
point of view, the problems they
fare are in the first instance and
probably most importantly problems of social and political change.
But it is to precisely these problems that the West offers no guide
and
Western supported
elements
in the "emergent" societies offer no
programme.
It is commonplace among Western
economists to miss the boat even on
economic
problems. T h o u g h they
r i g h t l y p o i n t out that only increases and not changes in the d i s t r i b u tion of the economic
pie can ultimately serve to meet the problems
of economic development, they are
f r o m this led to conclude and advise that the w o r l d - w i d e attempts at
re-distribution are
misplaced. But
f r o m the p o i n t of view of Cuba, or
any other semi-Feudal country, it is
clear that r e - d i s t r i b u t i o n of wealth
and t h e r e w i t h power are
necessary
to render possibly the
increase in
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
output w h i c h Western economises
prescribe. It is thus not s u r p r i s i n g
if Cubans look
t o w a r d Russia and
China as the o n l y sources of models
for f u r t h e r i n g social, p o l i t i c a l and
economic change.
Most Important Solutions
Home Grown
T h o u g h the Cubans m a y look in
p a r t t o w a r d Russia and China, they
w o r k at home and the largest and
most i m p o r t a n t
solutions to their
r e v o l u t i o n a r y problems are met w i t h
solutions home-grown on the spot.
Even a casual observer can r e a d i l y
note how Cuba is r e l y i n g on varied
solutions to the problems of g u i d i n g
their r e v o l u t i o n t h r o u g h unchartered
t e r r i t o r y , a n d how these solutions in
t u r n give rise to v a r i e d new problems. T h a t is their revolutionary programme, and its procedure is largely devised where and when occasion
demands. V i e w e d f r o m the perspective of a place of s t a b i l i t y , the Cuban Revolution appears as a tangle
of confusion, of people r u n n i n g off
in a l l different directions, of many
projects started and few concluded
of changes in d i r e c t i o n . But viewed
f r o m the standpoint of the revolut i o n a r y , these are the very marks of
v i t a l i t y ; they are the marks not of
weakness, but of strength. Yet, not
e v e r y t h i n g can be changed.
In his
analysis of the A n a t o m y of Revolut i o n , Crane B r i n t o n suggested that
no r e v o l u t i o n can change everything,
that the new must be b u i l t upon the
old.
B u t for a r e v o l u t i o n , the old is
not only a legacy and a base, it is
also an i n s t r u m e n t
Paradoxically,
it is the very radicalness of change
to be i n t r o d u c e d in Cuba w h i c h
necessitates reliance on the o l d wellentrenched a n d thus r e l i a b l e social
arid c u l t u r a l forms as vehicles for
the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f that change. A n
attempt at wholesale substitution of
a new society and
culture for the
o l d w o u l d surely result in no society,
new or
o l d . Thus, still
another
source of understanding of the Cuban Revolution lies in an examinat i o n of the old and existing socioc u l t u r a l forms w h i c h serve as vehic l e f o r the Revolution, and w h i c h
thereby help to define the possibilities and l i m i t a t i o n s of social change
t h r o u g h the Cuban R e v o l u t i o n .
Family and Kinship
N o w , as before, in Cuba as in
most other parts of the
world,
f a m i l y and k i n s h i p relations serve
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
as the
most i m p o r t a n t
bond and
channel of c o m m u n i c a t i o n between
people. M a n y things are necessary to
w o r k a far-reaching change in a society, but one of them surely is to
communicate the new, the changes in
social relationship that have already
occurred, the new opportunities and
responsibilities,
the s p i r i t of the
revolution — to the people. A n y
visit to Cuba's
countryside, to its
villages and towns, and if one looks
more closely, to its cities, w i l l show
that television and other mass media, commercial and w o r k relations
n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g , the extended f a m i l y
serves as the Revolution's most i m portant medium of communication.
It is the f a m i l y w h i c h reaches f r o m
the countryside to the t o w n , f r o m
one region to
another, f r o m
the
provinces to the capital, in short
f r o m one p o i n t of contact w i t h revolutionary
experience to another.
A n d the experience w i t h the revolut i o n w h i c h is meaningful and i m portant, w h i c h permits a sense of
p a r t i c i p a t i o n a n d produces a feeling
of empathy, that experience is the
one w h i c h is communicated between
one member of a f a m i l y and another.
The Patron Relationship
It is the experience of the son in
a new school, the cousin in a new cooperative f a r m , the uncle in Havana, much more than Fidel's T V
speeches,
newspapers, mass rallies,
or even
cracker-barrel
discussions
w h i c h lend meaning to the revolut i o n . At the same t i m e it is existi n g f a m i l y relations w h i c h continue
in many
instances to serve as the
vehicles for the d i s t r i b u t i o n of the
new opportunities and responsibilities arising o u t of the r e v o l u t i o n in
land ownership, education, and out
of the new tasks created in the revol u t i o n in general. T h u s an acquaintance w i t h the Cuban f a m i l y can
afford much
understanding of the
points at w h i c h change is or must
be introduced, how it can be communicated and accepted or rejected,
in short, of the possibilities f o r revolution
and
the limitations
on
change w h i c h
Cuba's most i m p o r tant i n s t i t u t i o n bodes f o r the Revolution.
Probably
the
most i m p o r t a n t
social relationship i n L a t i n A m e r i can and Cuban society, b o t h inside
the f a m i l y a n d out is the a u t h o r i t y of
the father, paternalism or the "patr o n " relationship. I n the absence o f
this time-tested f o r m o f social i n -
1110
tercourse, it w o u l d be
impossible
for Cuba to organize the construct i o n of the new schools, roads, factories, and most i m p o r t a n t , to i n troduce any new forms of enterprise
like a g r i c u l t u r a l cooperatives. Despite, may be because of, the less
" i n d i g e n o u s " nature of Cuba compared w i t h other Carribean society,
paternalism has in Cuba played an
even more pervasive role than elsewhere. However, a
colleague of
mine suggests that Cuban paternal
relations
have been
less regularized and reciprocal than those of
feudalism or heavily I n d i a n populated societies like B o l i v i a . Thus,
Cubans have often had to approach
their patron w i t h
requests rather
than r e l y i n g only on his fulfilment
of already specified reciprocal o b l i gations.
Administrators Run Cooperative
Farms
Consider
agriculture.
As
one
strolls t h r o u g h cities and towns almost anywhere in the w o r l d , A m e r i ca, Russia, Europe, A f r i c a , other
Carribean countries, one encounters
outdoor markets in w h i c h
'nearby
farmers sell
vegetables and often
meat of t h e i r own p r o d u c t i o n . Not
so in Cuba. And the reason is
s i m p l e : much less than other r u r a l
countries does Cuba have small
holders who are In a position to
raise and market such produce on
their o w n .
Such small holders as
there are tend to be isolated in the
mountains, where they raise coffee
and tobacco as cash crops and produce f o r
subsistence.
Most other
Cuban
peasants, if one may even
call them that.
have long
been
landless a g r i c u l t u r a l labourers, a
veritable r u r a l
proletariat. They
worked ( o n l y part of the year) on
large and m e d i u m size landholdings,
and the relationship between them
and employers and supervisory personnel was substantially paternal i s t i c . B u t in large part many peasants were not therefore
automatically totally cared f o r . The term
" g u a j e r o " , now generalized to refer
to all peasants, developed as the
name of peasants
who b u i l t their
shacks along the roadside, for lack
of any other l a n d on w h i c h to l i v e .
W h e n Castro moved to establish
cooperative
farms, for sugar
and
other produce as w e l l , the w o r l d
expected a repetition of the collect i v i z a t i o n problems w h i c h had plagued Russia, Eastern Europe and
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
China,
They
need
have
had
neither fear nor d e l i g h t . I N R A ( N a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f A g r i a r i a n Ref o r m ) a p p o i n t e d administrators f o r
each cooperative f a r m , and i n i m p o r t a n t ways Cuba proceeded w i t h
business as usual.
The c o m m u n i t y
elders who pointed to the p i c t u r e of
ex-sugar m i l l administrator h a n g i n g
in
their
company-provided
club
house and w h o noted w i t h salisfac
l i o n that, t h o u g h the p i c t u r e is larger than that of Fidel Castro on the
other w a l l , they have no reason to
remove i t , were saying just that. I n
many ways, the Revolution has, at
least for the present, passed m u c h
of the i n i t i a t i v e in the paternalistic
relationship to the patron. In sugar
lands
already in p r o d u c t i o n ,
the
co-op members elect a " c o o r d i n a t o r "
f r o m among their members, b u t the
a u t h o r i t y is vested in the I N R A a p p o i n t e d , non-member,
"administ r a t o r " for the first live years or
u n t i l the membership has learned
itself to assume responsibility. In
the new a g r i c u l t u r a l co-ops, w h i c h
are largely breaking new lands and
o n l y just b e g i n n i n g construction,
membership has generally not been
established yet.
individual
peasants a n d the
new
agricultural
extension and
credit
agencies, the new "stores of the
p e o p l e " w h i c h supplement and replace
the private and company
stores in r u r a l areas. Paternalism
a n d conversely lack of i n d i v i d u a l
responsibility remain evident in student-teacher
relationships in the
many new schools. B u t at the same
time the youth and non-professionalism of many of the new teachers
and the i n d i v i d u a l initiative which
underlies the very school attendance
on the p a r t of many teenagers and
y o u n g adults, undoubtedly attenuate
the paternalism
in the student-teacher relationship. The 20-hour t r i p
by three
friends of mine, 18, 19,
and 20 years of age. f r o m isolated
Sagua de Tanamo to
previously
strange and distant Havana to see
the M i n i s t e r of Education and ask
h i m to b u i l d a technical h i g h school
in their town
was
undoubtedly
visualized by both
parties in the
context of
paternalism, but the
same event w o u l d not have occurred
before the R e v o l u t i o n .
Continued Paternalism
The establishment of the f a r m is
under the a u t h o r i t y of the a d m i n i s
trator, who in t u r n is under the
d i r e c t i o n of the chief of his a g r i c u l t u r a l zone; and the w o r k is done
by a g r i c u l t u r a l labourers h i r e d by
the
day.
Indeed, some of
these
farms, the
largest, w i l l
never be
transformed into
cooperatives b u t
w i l l be maintained as "Granjas del
Puelbo" w i t h employed workers reminiscent of Soviet state farms. F o r
the t i m e being, none of these farms
are really cooperatives in the sense
thai
responsibility, and t h e r e w i t h
benefits and
costs residually
rest
w i t h the participants. Even casual
conversation
w i t h either the peasants or the supervisory
personnel
easily
demonstrates that their experience in the
past has been
of
paternalism and that they continue
to r e l y on it for the present. T h e
government has not tried to substitute cooperatives for small
private
landholdings
where it does exist,
and it is no accident that Cuba is
p r o b a b l y the o n l y
country in the
w o r l d i n w h i c h serious land r e f o r m
has not resulted in an i n i t i a l decline
in agricultural output.
There is. thus, a difference in the
q u a l i t y of the paternalism then and
now. T h o u g h the
a u t h o r i t y and
mutual
responsibility and respect
largely remain the basis of organizi n g the tasks of the Kevolution as
they d i d the tasks of o l d , both
" f a t h e r " and " s o n " appear to sense
a difference in the
source of that
authority and respect. This change
in source or base may be traceable
in part to the very deep and widespread sense of p a r t i c i p a t i o n in the
Revolution and the new Cuba, and
it m i g h t be due in part to the unusual y o u t h of all at the top of much
of the local leadership in the Revolution.
The new
Cuban paternal i s m has a q u a l i t y of fraternalism.
A n d this already represents and
forebodes a p r o f o u n d social revolution.
Obligations Particular and Personal
Thus, a closer e x a m i n a t i o n of
paternalism in
Cuban society can
increase our understanding of how
the new can come to be introduced
and accepted, how real cooperatives
w i t h the i n d i v i d u a l and
collective
responsibility they i m p l y can come
i n t o being, w i t h w o r k e r participat i o n in management, maybe on the
Yugoslavian style, can and w i l l be
introduced, what
f r u i t s the educat i o n a l r e f o r m w i l l bear.
T h e continued
paternalism exhi
bits i t s e l f in the relation
between
Another q u a l i t y o f L a t i n and
Cuban social relations, not unrela-
1111
ted to paternalism, is
their p a r t i c u l a r i s m and personalism. I n Cathol i c societies more than in Protestant
ones, o b l i g a t i o n s are p a r t i c u l a r and
to persons rather than universal and
to p r i n c i p l e s . Glance at any newspaper p h o t o g r a p h of the r e v o l u t i o n ary leadership, listen to any statement by "defectors who were close
to Castro', and the intense personal
q u a l i t y of the r e c r u i t m e n t i n t o positions of leadership
and a u t h o r i t y
and of
the c o n t i n u i n g
relations
among those so recruited is immediately evident. The same personalism is the source as well of m a n y
of the social contacts between top
leaders
and
other
revolutionary
actives and among the latter themselves.
In the absence of such
strong personal ties and their i m portance, how w o u l d people in entirely
new and often
continually
changing
r e v o l u t i o n a r y roles and
incumbencies relate
to each other,
how could the r e v o l u t i o n a r y leadership coordinate its activities at all?
A n d yet, at least in practice if
not in design, the leadership of the
Cuban
Revolution
scrupulously
practices the dictates of t w o ultrauniversalistic values:
honesty and
asceticism; no charges of f r a u d or
financial self-aggrandizement
have
come to my ears — even f r o m the
lips of those most u n f r i e n d l y to the
government, and the spartan existence and hard w o r k of those active
in the Revolution is common knowledge. W h a t the source and appeal
of this behaviour in L a t i n A m e r i c a
is, I do not k n o w . Possibly, and
paradoxically, it is to be traced in
part to the much stronger influence
that N o r t h
A m e r i c a n culture has
exerted in Cuba than anywhere else
i n L a t i n A m e r i c a . C e r t a i n l y the
early days of the
M e x i c a n revolut i o n were not famed for honesty or
asceticism.
Northerners have long
regarded
L a t i n s as a u t h o r i t a r i a n and yet as
i n d i v i d u a l i s t i c , free-wheeling and
rebellious as w e l l . No revolution
can change national
character, if
that is w h a t the above
represents,
o v e r n i g h t ; and if the r e v o l u t i o n is
to i n t r o d u c e
and change, it must
r e l y on existing c u l t u r a l forms as
vehicles
of that change.
A n d so
one m a y encounter cooperative f a r m
administrators who w i l l
tell you
that he w i l l plant where and how
the agronomist (there he sits, fresh
out of school) tells h i m to. because
o n l y he has the necessary knowledge,
SPECIAL NUMBER JULY 1961
w h i l e another administrator, o r i n deed the same one, w i l l p o i n t w i t h
p r i d e to the new b r i c k w o r k s or new
f u r n i t u r e factory he has established
entirely on his own i n i t i a t i v e and
w i t h o u t the advice or consent of
a n y b o d y ; and if someone
doesn't
l i k e it. they can go to h e l l . So much
of the old serves to shape, and also
to b r i n g f o r t h , the new.
Pragmatic and
Personalised
The pragmatism of the Cuban
Revolution in its development and
the variety of its current forms suggests that, as I argued earlier, the
Revolution has no ideology. But as
the past gives way to the future, as
the focus of attention and as the
variety of attempted
revolutionary
f o r m s seems
increasingly to dissi
pate the
revolutionary force, pres
sures w i l l surely f o r m to create and
adopt an ideology for the
Cuban
Revolution. M a y b e that time is already here. To serve its purpose,
that ideology must be widely communicated, and to be communicated
it must be r e a d i l y symbolized. W h a
then are the existing forms of symb o l i c i s m and
imagery w h i c h
can
serve to carry the ideology and there-
THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY
w i t h the Revolution?
One answer,
but only one, is personalism again.
Significant L a t i n images, as w e l l as
social relations, tend to be h i g h l y
personal. Thus, p r o b a b l y more than
the social movements of
northern
countries w h i c h tend to be more
idealistically symbolized, the Cuban
Revolution may become increasingly
associated w i t h the
leadership and
personality of F i d e l . " W e are a l l
Fidelistas," Cubans say. If the Revolution is so personalized, how
w o u l d Fidel's death affect the RevoIution's course?
The foregoing discussion has not
been an attempt to describe or exp l a i n the Cuban Revolution exhaustively. Its intent has been o n l y to
expose for inspection three sources
of background and explanation for
the developments that Cuba and the
world
now witness: The Cuban
ancien regime and the development
of the r e v o l u t i o n a r y movement w i t h in i t , the
experience elsewhere in
L a t i n America w i t h attempts to
handle s i m i l a r problems, and some
socio-cultural factors in Cuban life
which i n e v i t a b l y must influence the
course of the Revolution. It must
1112
be left to the understanding and research of others to explore the m a n y
questions o n l y raised here.
Tube Factory
T H E Commonwealth Development
Finance Company w i l l provide
a loan of £ 175,000 for the manufacture of non-ferrous tubes, pipes,
rods, and sections in I n d i a .
The loan w i l l provide the foreign-exchange requirements for a
factory being erected in Bombay by
K a m a n i Tubes Private L t d , in collaboration w i t h Y o r k s h i r e I m p e r i a l
Metals L t d . an associate of I m p e r i a l
Chemical
Industries, w h i c h
has
arranged the procurement of plant
in the United K i n g d o m , and w i l l
assist in the early period of runn i n g , under a 10- year technical
collaboration agreement.
The Y o r k s h i r e I m p e r i a l Metals'
part in the scheme is largely one
of s u p p l y i n g know-how. They also
hope to provide assistance, f r o m
t i m e to time by means of short
visits to I n d i a by technicians f r o m
Leeds.