Cuba Essay Research Paper The Peasantry and free essay sample

Cuba Essay, Research Paper The Peasantry and the Urban UndergroundIn the Cuban RevolutionThe thought that the Cuban Revolution of 1959 was a # 8220 ; provincial # 8221 ; revolution or had a # 8220 ; provincial # 8221 ; character is a widely held misconception, one which has been propagated by the Rebels # 8217 ; post-revolutionary rhetoric and the wealth of sympathetic scholarship which based itsinterpretation of the revolution upon this propaganda. To delegate an event every bit complex as theCuban Revolution any peculiar # 8220 ; nature # 8221 ; is a drastic simplism and confounds themultitude of factors which led to the revolution and its triumph. Bing the supporters inthe rebellion, the revolutionists themselves understood really clearly that theirrevolution was non the consequence of simply the provincials # 8217 ; support, so they must hold hadparticular grounds for retracing the revolution in the mode they did. The firstelement to analyze is the Reconstruction itself through the post-revolutiona ry propaganda, and to find exactly what sort of a vision the Rebels wished to advance as therevolution. We will write a custom essay sample on Cuba Essay Research Paper The Peasantry and or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Following, ! the existent revolution will be analyzed and compared to the Rebels # 8217 ; imagined revolution. Finally, some of the possible accounts for the Rebels # 8217 ; deviationwill be posited, and the revolution itself will be re-examined in visible radiation of these theories. When Castro and his set reached Cuba aboard the Granma December 2, 1956, their scheme, asthey stated at the clip and admitted subsequently, was to take Santiago with the aid of FrankPais # 8217 ; urban insurrectional organisation, and so assail the remainder of Cuba from there incoordination with a monolithic general work stoppage. ( Bonachea78 ) This portion anarcho-syndicalist, partBlanquist scheme was rapidly put on clasp, nevertheless, as the onslaught upon Santiago failedbilaterally and the guerillas were forced to fly to the Sierra Maestra. The Rebels in themountains rapidly came in contact with the peasant population at that place, and a cooperativerelationship began to develop between the tw o after initial apprehensivenesss on the portion of thepeasants. # 8220 ; The provincials who had to digest the persecution of Batista # 8217 ; s military unitsgradually began to alter their attitude towards us. They fled to us for safety toparticipate in our guerilla units. In this manner our rank and file changed from metropolis peopleto P! easants. # 8221 ; ( Guevara10 ) Out of this practical relationship which Guevara explained inApril 1959 grew the mythology which became the revolution # 8217 ; s bequest. Guevara laterproclaimed # 8220 ; the guerilla and the provincial became joined into a individual mass, so that # 8230 ; webecame portion of the peasants. # 8221 ; ( Thomas154 ) It was this mystical bond, subsequently described evenmore romantically by Jean-Paul Sartre, which was what gave the revolution as a whole itspeasant nature. By populating with the provincials, the Rebels explained, they had come toempathize with their demands, the principal # 8220 ; need # 822 1 ; being land reform. Therefore, as Guevaraexplained, the Rebels put forth their # 8220 ; land reform slogan # 8221 ; which # 8220 ; mobilized the oppressedCuban masses to come frontward to contend and prehend the land. From this clip on the first greatsocial program was determined, and it subsequently became the streamer and primary spearhead of ourmovement. # 8221 ; ( Guevara11 ) The post-revolutionary vision was one in which land reform was thespearhead, and the intel! ligentsia was needfully the spearbearer, for, as Castroexplained in February 1962, # 8220 ; the peasantry is a category which, because of the unculturedstate in which it is kept # 8230 ; needs the radical and political leading of # 8230 ; therevolutionary intellectuals, for without them it would non by itself be able to immerse intothe battle and accomplish triumph, # 8221 ; ( Castro113 ) The peasantry was the monolithic ground forces followingthe vanguard # 8217 ; s lead. From the mountains, this united peasant-rebel force would brush downinto the field ; as Guevara said, # 8220 ; a peasant ground forces # 8230 ; will capture the metropoliss from thecountryside. # 8221 ; ( Guevara33 ) That the full revolution had merely succeeded through # 8220 ; vastcampesino engagement # 8221 ; ( Guevara21 ) the Rebels wanted the universe to believe. The other radical component which the Rebels sharply reconstructed after they took power was the function of the urban opposition. As theirs was a peasant revolution, the metropoliss evidently had to play a minor portion, so much clip was exhausted polemicizing against the metropoliss # 8217 ; radical function and influence. The Rebels # 8217 ; anti-city propaganda took two signifiers, theoretical and practical. Theoretically, Castro stated in 1966, # 8220 ; It is absurd and about condemnable # 8230 ; to seek to direct guerillas from the city. # 8221 ; ( Castro132 ) The urban insurgents, Castro stated, were excessively ready to compromise a nd do armistices, they could non to the full understand the psychological science of the guerilla and therefore would about systematically work to cross-purposes. As a practical fulfilment of this theoretical consideration, the Rebels cited events in the Cuban revolution which necessitated their disclaimer of the urban motion. It was after the failure of the general work stoppage of April 9, 1958, Guevara claimed, that the! Rebels realized that the urban motion could non win. ( Guevara11 ) The urban rebellion # 8220 ; can all excessively easy be smothered # 8221 ; by the authorities, Guevara said, and therefore the countryside was the necessary venue for the revolution. ( AlRoy9 ) The revolution which these work forces have constructed is one with a monolithic extremist provincial base and character, led by a little vanguard clerisy which had gained the peasant class-consciousness through sympathetic contact, and which sweeps over the counterrevolutionary metropoliss on its manner to set uping a authorities which would be the # 8220 ; best friend of the peasants. # 8221 ; ( Castro58 ) The truth of this image is evidently dubious. Although it has its advocates, the earliest possibly being Huberman and Sweezy in their book, Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution, most of the facts upon which they base their analysis are doubtful, in this instance, gleaned from a short visit to Cuba and interviews with high ranking cells. What is of import, nevertheless, is to arouse what of the Rebels # 8217 ; post-facto vision is grounded in fact and what is calculated misinformation, for from there a decision can be reached as to the ground for their historical deformation. The best manner to analyse the revolution is chronologically, get downing with the unfortunate landing of the Granma and following the development of the rebellion from at that place. This brings up the really first deformation of history, that because the Rebel party consisted of simply 82 guerillas, rapidly c ut down to eighteen before they reached the Sierra Maestra, it is assumed that it was through the extraordinary gallantry of this bantam group that the authorities was finally defeated. This ignores that fact that there was already a tenable urban rebellion motion, upon which the guerilla set would depend wholly. The urban M-26-7 group, under the way of Frank Pais, was, as mentioned before, expecting Castro # 8217 ; s reaching to take Santiago. In add-on, there besides existed the Directorio Revolucionario, led by Echevarria, dedicated to violent urban rebellion. These two groups, along with a battalion of other organisations and persons, would for the following few old ages provide support, both fiscal and corporal, which Castro urgently needed and wouldhave perished really rapidly without. ( Bonachea139 ) Quickly after the Granma catastrophe, Fidel and his compatriots regrouped in the Sierra Maestra, the country to which they were to withdraw in instance of failure. ( Bonachea78 ) They did so with the aid of the local peasantry, who led them through the dumbly forested mountains to happen each other. ( Bonachea89 ) The Rebels set up a base from which their operations stemmed. Their operations, nevertheless, shortly came to affect much more than stray military brushs with rural guard barracks ; as they lived in the thick of provincials, they depended on them, non merely for ushers or buying supplies, but on their trueness. The provincials had no understanding for the rural guard, but neither did they for the Rebels ; therefore, they would frequently turn informer on Castro and his work forces. ( Bonachea90 ) In order to antagonize this, Castro instituted a system of highly barbarous, yet merely, radical justness. All betrayers were executed instantly, and the executings were advertised widely throughout the peasantry. At the same clip, nevertheless, the Rebels were highly just in their commercialdealings with the provincials, and Castro established a rigorou s radical codification to maintain hisguerrillas in line, including commissariats specifying colza and other offenses against thepeasantry as capital discourtesies. Although the radical jurisprudence was rough, at least it wasnot arbitrary, and the provincials bit by bit came to see the revolutionists as the jurisprudence of theSierra. The # 8220 ; Sierras # 8217 ; provincials were cognizant that their endurance and security depended mainlyon whether they helped the guerillas or non, # 8221 ; ( Bonachea91 ) wrote one bookman. Thus thepeasants were half-terrorized, half encouraged to back up the guerillas over thebatistianos. The function of the provincials within the motion was non every bit heroic as it was subsequently made out to be. Of the military personnels themselves, figures differ as to the proportion of provincials to urban recruits. Bonachea, for illustration, states that the bulk of the Rebel forces were metropolis people, largely immature, educated, and male. To back up this is the March tierce, 1957, motion of 52 armed and supplied work forces from Santiago to the Sierra. Harmonizing to him, the figure of guerillas continued to turn due to these regular urban inflows, despite regular abandonments of the provincials, who would instead return to their # 8220 ; little, unproductive secret plans of land. # 8221 ; ( Bonachea95 ) Huberman and Sweezy, on the other manus, claim that from three-fourthss to four-fifths of the Rebel forces were provincials. ( Huberman78 ) However, the thought that peasant engagement in the forces, at whatever degree, would give the revolution a # 8220 ; peasant character # 8221 ; is put into uncertainty due to two facts. First, the provincials were non promoted to officers, in fact, most of them were non even soldiers ; their chief responsibilities were transit andcommunication. Since there were no provincials in the leading, it is difficult to conceive of thatthe motion had any sort of a peasant nature. Second, ever y bit late as May 1958, even the mostsympathetic authors put the entire figure of guerillas at around 300. ( Huberman63 ) Even ifthey were all provincials, three hundred provincials barely seems to be a monolithic, popularmovement. As Castro # 8217 ; s motion in the hills began to consolidate his clasp on the land andthe people, Pais began be aftering earnestly for the general work stoppage which was to co-occur withCastro # 8217 ; s outgrowth from the Sierra and assail upon urban centres. ( Bonachea142 ) Bonacheamakes the point here that Pais was still the existent leader of the M-26-7, and that Castro wasstill subordinate to him. The general work stoppage was the existent arm, Castro was merely at that place totake over one time the work stoppage had immobilized Cuba. However, Echevarria, who had been alsoinvolved in be aftering the work stoppage, was killed in March, and Pais was killed in July, so theonly insurrectional leader left was Castro. Desiring to do his base even firm er beforethe work stoppage was to continue, Castro directed all the urban insurrectional motions todedicate their activities to maintaining him good supplied in the Sierra. ( Bonachea146 ) As hewas the lone popular Rebel leader staying, Castro # 8217 ; s power, support and resources grewimmensely. In September, there was an rebellion at the Cayo Loco Naval Base in Cienfuegos which involved coordination between M-26-7 and naval officers. Bing chiefly a secret plan initiated by the armed forces, it did non necessitate Castro # 8217 ; s assist. The rebellion ended in full-scale urban warfare between the M-26-7 forces and the crewmans against Batista # 8217 ; s ground forces military personnels. The deficiency of coordination between metropoliss prevented the motion from turning, and the rebellion was finally put down by Batista and followed by highly barbarous repression. ( Bonachea147 ) But what this event shows, despite its failure, is that there was discord already in the militar y due strictly to gross out with Batista. At this clip besides, the Directorio Revolucionario sent 800 guerillas to the Sierra Escambray in order to set up an # 8220 ; urban and rural # 8221 ; guerilla battle. ( Bonachea184 ) A few months subsequently, Raul Castro was sent to the Sierra Cristal to set up the 2nd forepart # 8220 ; Frank Pais # 8221 ; . Once once more, the development of # 8220 ; the Second Front in Oriente was mostly the consequence of the urban belowground attempts of Mayari, Guantanamo, an vitamin D Santiago de Cuba.† ( Bonachea191 ) It is interesting to compare Raul Castro’s intervention of the peasantry with that of his brother. Raul had a much more classless attitude, he permitted provincials to lift as far up in the rebel officer ranks as their accomplishment would take them, whereas Fidel had no provincials in the officer corps. However, this equalitarianism was non entirely for the peasantry: he besides every bit encouraged the agricultural workers and mineworkers in the country to fall in his forces. This resulted in monolithic popular support for Raul in the encompassing country. ( Bonachea196 ) Therefore during this period from the summer of 1957 until April 1958, the rebellion was turning, in the Sierra Maestra, in the armed forces, and on two new foreparts. However, as Che stated in November 1957, they were all still expecting the general work stoppage. â€Å"The Sierra Maestra is geting at the terminal of its fortress committedness, † he wrote, â€Å" [ and is ] acquiring ready to establish its hosts of battlers across the plains.† Victory was predicated on two things, he said: the â€Å"burning of canefields and the general revolutionist work stoppage which will be the concluding blow. The radical general work stoppage is the unequivocal weapon.† ( Bonachea202 ) At this point the rebellion was still no more of a peasant revolution that it was when the Granma went ashore. The rebellion still consisted of rural guerillas dependant on the urban resistance for military personnels, supplies and, finally, a monolithic general work stoppage among the workers, organized by the urban resistance, to do possible their motion from! the hills. The peasantry had influence merely in the lesser of the two foreparts, and even at that place, it was shared with the labor. The general work stoppage was eventually planned by Castro for April 1958. The grounds for its dramatic failure are controversial, but a twosome of f acts which emerge point towards a sensible account. Fidel called the work stoppage and, against the advice of the urban M-26-7 who said that they were non yet ready, forced the insurgent leaders to follow. Then, he did non present the weaponries he had promised them and without which, the work stoppage was impossible. ( Bonachea214 ) It therefore turned into a slaughter. It was such a catastrophe that any program for a hereafter work stoppage became hopeless. It appears that Castro intended for the work stoppage to be a failure in order to wholly consolidate his power at the caput of the rebellion. His power had grown to the point where he believed that he could get the better of Batista, and he wanted to extinguish the opportunity that the urban insurgents might steal his revolution. This was further confirmed at the meeting of May 3, which Guevara characterized as the official shifting of all power to the countryside, that is, to Castro. ( Bonachea215 ) The other strategic benefit which Castro derived from the failure of the work stoppage was to coerce Batista into confrontation. Castro had house control over the Sierra Maestra, but he could non venture down into the field to contend the regular ground forces at that place. He wanted Batista to direct parade up into the Sierra, where his guerilla tactics would turn out superior. Castro would destruct Batista’s ground forces so move out of the hills. Castro’s program worked, as Batista’s officers, encouraged by the licking of the work stoppage, pushed him to assail the Sierra and stop the full rebellion right so. Batista complied, and on June 28, after heavy recruiting, Batista’s summer offense began. The dry component was that the great bulk of Batista’s recruits were provincials, many from Oriente state. ( Bonachea229 ) However, the Sierra was non the exclusive phase upon which the conflict was taking topographic point ; on April 16, Batista had declared a province of exig ency and began the most barbarous crack-down of his government. ! Partially in protest and partially in support of Castro, the urban rebellion escalated, turning the metropoliss into regular battlefields. ( Bonachea223 ) Another consequence of the increased urban activity was a new, extremely effectual thrust to provide Castro with work forces and weaponries. Due to the highly efficient organisation which he had developed, Castro was victoriousagainst Batista’s run. This was a morale encouragement to the rebellion everyplace. Cellsgrew up in all industries, the five to six thousand urban terrorists runing during thesummer grew even more legion, and resistance in the armed forces escalated. ( Bonachea263 ) The Rebels left the Sierra and marched west, capturing town after town, climaxing in the gaining control of Santa Clara. During this clip, the urban resistance was indispensable to the Rebel triumphs. The Rebels numbered no more than 250, and Batista’s ground forces w as still in the 10s of 1000s. ( Huberman69 ) However, in each town, the army’s morale had been so decimated by the changeless terrorisation of the urban insurrectionaries that the guerillas really seldom had to fire a shooting to accomplish triumph. ( Bonachea297 ) Another likely cause of the troops’ deficiency of morale is merely the surpluss of Batista. The ground forces had no more desire to maintain contending for a adult male who was so viciously oppressing their households and friends. Finally, there was the repute of Castro and his guerillas to be reckoned with: their monolithic, bloody triumph over the regular ground forces was well-known, and few of Batista’s largely badly-trained military personnels had any desire to dispute them. Although the guerillas succeeded without the work stoppage itself, through the urban resistance and the troops’ deficiency of morale, the samesituation was effected in which they could take over urban Cuba despite thei r extremenumerical lower status. So the guerillas took Cuba and declared it a peasant revolution. However, it seems clear that, no affair by what criterion we judge it by, the revolution was surely non characterized by the peasantry. The guerrilla-peasant matrimony was one of convenience, the peasantry was merely the medium in which the guerillas were forced to run. They neer spoke of any particular connexion with the provincials until good afterwards, allow alone help them or swear the provincials any further than they had to to accomplish their ain terminals. And in return, the guerillas neer enjoyed any sort of mass support from the provincials ; they would still fall in Batista’s ground forces with merely as much enthusiasm as before. Even the â€Å"spearhead† of the revolution, agricultural reform, was initiated by the guerillas, and there is great contention as to whether the provincials truly cared about acquiring land that much at all. The preamble of the Land Reform Law stated that its intent was to â€Å"diversify the Cuban economic system and assist the industrialisation of the country.† ( Goldenberg218 ) Beyond their excellentservice as porters, the provincials had about no function in the revolution. The urban resistance, nevertheless, did play a major, though disregarded, function. At every measure of the revolution, their aid was indispensable to the guerillas, and at the clip, until April 1958, the guerillas recognized it. Afterwards, the aid was merely as necessary, possibly even more so during the March due west, but it was subsumed under Castro’s revolution. The inquiry can now be posed: why did the revolutionists, after their triumph, seek so hardto set up their revolution as a provincial revolution? The reply is rooted in Cuba’speculiar category construction at the clip of the revolution. Cuba was non a typical LatinAmerican state: foremost off, its population was 57 % urban and 43 % rural, as opposed to thegeneral rural nature of the remainder of Latin America. ( Draper21 ) It had one of the higheststandards of life in Latin America, and it was besides one of the most middle-class: figuresrange from 22 to 33 per centum of the population as belonging to the in-between category. ( Thomas328 ) This in-between category was besides curious because it was a defeated category, frustrated by theeconomic stagnancy which was impeding their professional and fiscal promotion. Thisfeeling was particularly prevailing among the recent university alumnuss. ( Thomas330 ) AlthoughHuberman and Sweezy claim that the peasantry was the most radical of the categories, a! sit was the most marginalized, ( Huberman80 ) by other criterions it would look that this middleclass was the most radical, as it was a clear campaigner for a revolution of risingexpectations. This seems to be the instance, as the people who made up most of the urbanunderground, and who contributed the most military personnels to the gue rillas, were exactly theseyoung, knowing work forces. Batista’s power was founded in the in-between category, he could havehandled a true provincial rebellion because the peasantry was non strong plenty ; a in-between classrevolt, nevertheless, could do his ruin. The constituency of the Cuban Revolution was madeup of the middle-class. It derived its support from the in-between category by assuring theinstitution of the fundamental law of 1940 with its broad reforms, ( Draper20 ) and it succeededwithout important worker or peasant support. However, after the work stoppage of April 1958, therevolution, antecedently a revolution of the middle-class clerisy, became Castro’s ownrevolution. He made the work stoppage fail so as to consolidate his power, irrespective of thebloodshed it caused among his fellow insurgents. This would look to be one of thereasons why he termed it a peasant revolution. He reversed cause and consequence so as tojustify what had happened: he claimed that the triumph was the triumph of a peasants’revolution, of which he was simply the vanguard, swept into the category consciousness of thepeasantry ; alternatively, he had swept the urban leaders off phase, and in order to conceal the factthat it was simply he and his ain cells wh! O finally seized the authorities, hefabricated the peasant nature of the revolution. Then, following up on this lead, one time hewas in power, he radicalized the agricultural reform jurisprudence by adding socialist co-operatives to itright before it was signed, therefore driving off broad in-between category in the name of thepeasant revolution. ( Draper24 ) His personal appeal was such at that point that he could draw such amaneuver without much battle, therefore, he consolidated his power and based it, unlike hisrevolution, in the peasantry and the workers. The concluding ground why it seems that heconstructed the peasant nature of the revolution was to give the revolution the popularcharacte r it needed to be accepted in the remainder of Latin America. â€Å"Our revolution has set anexample for every other state in Latin America, † said Che Guevara. ( Guevara13 ) However, auniversal in-between category revolution was non rather what Guevara had in head. As mentionedearlier, Cuba was far in front of most of Latin America vitamin E! conomically, and so most of the restof the continent had the potency for a echt provincial revolution. The success of thisstrategy is apparent in the monolithic popularity of Castro among peasant motions in Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. ( Goldenberg313 ) When he eventually took power, Castro did consequence many radicalsocial alterations to better the peasant’s status. Indeed, it does non look that he wentthrough so many substitutions merely to accomplish entire personal power, but that he was lookingultimately to consequence extremist societal alteration every bit good. That the agencies to these two ends, along with the exigencies of foreign policy, all coincided was propitious. That his fellowmiddle-class urban revolutionists had to be removed was simply a Machiavellian necessity.But no affair what the state may look like now, or what the cells have said concerningthe roots of the revolution, it still remains, as Hugh Thomas pointed out, that while theurban opposition likely could non hold defeated Batista without Castro, it is certain thatCastro could non hold defeated Batista without the urban opposition. AlRoy, Gil Carl. # 8220 ; The Peasantry in the Cuban Revolution. # 8221 ; Cuba in Revolution. Ed. RolandoE. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdes. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972. 3-17. Bonachea, Ramon L. , and Marta San Martin. The Cuban Insurrection 1952-1959. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1974. Draper, Theodore. Castro # 8217 ; s Revolution: Myths andRealities. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962. Goldenberg, Joseph. The Cuban Revolution and Latin America. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. Huberman, Leo, and Paul M. Sweezy. Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution. New York: Monthly ReviewPress, 1961. Kenner, Martin, and James Petras, eds. Fidel Castro Speaks. New York: Grove Press, 1969. Lavan, George, erectile dysfunction. Che Guevara Speaks. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1967. Thomas, Hugh. The Cuban Revolution. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977.