A revolution with global repercussions  

Dr. Jonathan Brown’s masterpiece, Cuba’s Revolutionary World (2017) makes the case that some social revolutions have tremendous disruptive power, provoking profound and lasting changes in transnational relations. The French Revolution of 1789 plunged all of Europe into warfare, sent the Portuguese court into exile in its own colony, provoked a slave revolt in Haiti, motivated the sale of the Louisiana territory to the United States and vacated the Spanish throne opening the way for the independence of Spanish colonies in the New World, (8). The Cuban Revolution of 1959, Brown argues, does not pale by comparison. It reconfigured US-Soviet relations by way of a near brush with thermonuclear war, inspired revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, motivated the Alliance for Progress, and provoked CIA covert operations in support of the extreme right in almost every country in the region. As it announced the inevitability of universal social justice through the historical necessity of revolution, it sparked, not popular uprisings against powerful oppressors, but a paranoid backlash that plunged three quarters of the continent into military rule with the excuse of keeping it safe from the communists. The return of the Mann Doctrine, (a.k.a. the “our-son-of-a-bitch” school of foreign policy) in 1964, is unthinkable without the victory of Fidel and the M26 guerrillas on New Year’s Day of 1959. 

In a memo to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy in March of 1964, his aid Gordon Chase writes, “We must make the case for the democratic alternative. An IMF stabilization program and foreign investment are not good  enough: they do not capture the imagination.”  Brown observes that it was not the American Dream had captured the imagination of Latin American youth, but the Caribbean revolution, (452). Even as local attempts at repeating the Cuban experience failed, the bearded ones monopolized they mythscape and consolidated anti-American feeling from Matamoros to Punta Arenas.

As Washington imposed the “rules of the game” (Eichengreen, Golden Fetters), the hegemon squandered its moral authority. As the CIA fought communists through proxies, it lost all credibility as a beacon of human rights. The Anti-Americanism of the 60’s and 70’s (226) had been hard-earned and well-deserved. Brown correctly calls gusano counterrevolutionary bad boy, Manuel Artime, a “propaganda gift” to the Cuban revolution, (191). The School of the Americas (265) made friends of foreign military men, normalized the violence of gloves-off Machiavellian counter-insurgency methods, as it supplied arms to dictators (267) while washing its hands of all consequences. The paradox of the age of Kissinger (see Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century, 2007) comes home in the final quotation, “If given the choice between social justice and order, I would always choose order,” (456). 

The Alliance for Progress deserves some attention. For a time, it seemed like the other option to CIA black ops and state honors for military dictators, the way to regain the prestige lost at the Bay of Pigs. To overcome the allure of Marxism, the West had to become better at resolving the issues of extreme poverty. In the words of Kennedy, “if the only alternatives for Latin America are the status quo and communism, they will inevitably choose communism.”  At an address to Latin American diplomats on the first anniversary of the Alliance, he remarked, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”  The LBJ White House had a more pragmatic approach. After ’64, Alliance money stopped funding grass-roots development and started servicing foreign debt. Young Chileans with acid wit began to shift the emphasis, la Alianza para el progreso, (the Alliance stops progress).  Thomas Mann, chief critic of the Alliance, became its administrator. His belief was that unfulfilled Alliance promises would lead frustrated youth to seek answers in revolutionary groups, so he gutted it. 

Brown observes the importance of “having enemies” to perpetuate oneself in power, (45, 134, 158, 162). According to C.A. Bayley, (The Birth of the Modern World, 2004), the “nation” as a powerful idea was often the product of military service. Patriotism was often a consequence of military conflict, (Bayley, 204, 228). Fidel seems to have been well-versed in Bayly’s playbook. In particular, service in Fidel’s militia to overcome the bandido counterrevolution at home gave many ordinary Cubans the opportunity to hold an AK-47, put on an olive-green uniform, and feel like a genuine participant.

Exporting the revolution emerged as “a calling” (195), but it was counterproductive when beginners tried to repeat the Granma experience. The myth that the revolutionary spark was all it would take to ignite a continent was delusional. But the training camps in Cuba were great fun. Getting chosen to go was an honor. Reproducing the training camps back home was prestigious (and everybody got laid, comrade). Though none would ever create a second Cuba anywhere, the disruptive power of “trained revolutionaries” marked a half-century of street agitation, south of the border.

While Washington shunted millions into arms, insurgents learned techniques that didn’t cost a dime. They learned to make Molotov cocktails, “miguelitos” (which could pop all the tires of any vehicle), and how to operate underground in anonymous “cells”. They learned to create neighborhood blackouts using iron rods requisitioned from construction sites. They learned to always have on two different colored shirts. The boys in the red shirts were throwing rocks. I shed my red shirt. Underneath, I am wearing black, so it wasn’t me.

The final reflection is on the real reason for the success or failure of revolutions. Historical necessity be damned, foquismo only works when you are lucky. Ask Ernesto about the Bolivian campaign. The fall of Batista had less to do with Fidel’s impressive rhetoric than it did with the support of middle-class backers. Pinochet stepped down when rich people got tired of him and the Soviet Union crumbled, not because Ronald Reagan said, tear down this wall, but because Soviet leaders themselves couldn’t believe their own BS anymore. 

Young Fidel. 

Young Fidel on the basketball team at Colegio Belen.