The Medium is the Message: The Screen Life of the Cuban Revolution, 1959–1962*

2020 ◽  
Vol 246 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-267
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lambe
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Interactive Drama ◽  
Conversion Experience ◽  
Iconic Image ◽  
Small Screen ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract For decades, the iconic image of the Cuban Revolution has been set in Havana's ‘Revolution Square’, with thousands of Cubans thronging to hear Fidel Castro speak. This portrait undergirds a primary assumption about the Revolution: that many Cubans came to embrace it by basking in the euphoria of Fidel's live presence. For the Revolution's crucial early years, this article proposes that we should reimagine this archetypal conversion experience, setting it not only under Cuba's hot sun in an hours-long rally but also in front of a television (or radio) set. From 1959 to 1962 and beyond, the interactive drama of revolutionary conversion would be constantly staged and actualized on the small screen. The early years of the Cuban Revolution thus offer a compelling window onto political life lived with and through television.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing Change in the Cuban Revolution

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-111
Author(s):  
Marina Gold
Keyword(s):  
Life Histories ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Perspective Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Generational Conflicts ◽  
The Revolution

AbstractThis paper will consider two levels within the study of the Cuban revolution: the meta-narratives of change and continuity that determine the academic literature on Cuba and inform political positioning in relation to the revolution, and the methodological challenges in understanding how people in Cuba experience change and continuity in their daily life. Transformation and continuity have been the two dominant analytical tropes used to interpret Cuban social and political life since the overthrow of the Batista regime in 1959. For Cuban scholars and politicians, a focus on change in reference to what was Cuba’s reality before the Revolution is a continuous concern and a powerful discursive mechanism in redefining and reinvigorating the revolutionary project. Simultaneously, in periods of crisis throughout the 62 years since the revolution, the capacity to demonstrate continuity with revolutionary principles while developing new mechanisms to redefine the political project has ensured the revolution’s subsistence. Conversely, continuity and change are also harnessed by critics of Cuba’s current regime to articulate the ever-imminent collapse of socialism in the region. Change has been their main focus of concern during critical historic moments that affected the trajectory of the Cuban revolutionary project. From this perspective, change embodies a promise of progress and implies a movement toward liberal democracy and a pro-US foreign policy, while continuity denotes failure, stagnation, and repression. At the core of the analysis of change in Cuba lies a concern with the nature of the state. Ethnographic data reveals the partialities and contradictions people experience in their daily life and across time. Two elements of ethnographic experience are particularly informative: life histories that span across the revolutionary period, and generational conflicts surrounding political issues. I will focus on the life history of key informants and the generational conflicts that surround their experience, a well as their material contexts (their neighborhood, their house, their job), all of which help to elucidate the complexities of studying change within a permanent revolution.

Postscript

2019 ◽  
pp. 207-220
Author(s):  
Ariel Mae Lambe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
The 1950S

Taking a longer-term view, the postscript examines the legacy of antifascism and the Spanish Civil War in Cuban politics and historical memory during the early years of the Cuban Revolution that triumphed in 1959. The postscript returns to Teté Casuso during the struggle of the 1950s, when she helped Fidel Castro, and afterward, when she broke with the Revolution and left once again for exile in the United States. It addresses selective memory and forgetting of Cuban antifascists such as Casuso in revolutionary Cuba’s official accounts of antifascism and the Generation of the Thirties. Also, it connects Cuban antifascism to the present by discussing the Antifa movement across time and space.

The Application and Practice of Physical Anthropology in Cuba

1995 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-31
Author(s):  
Curtis Wienker ◽  
Antonio Fuentes
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Physical Anthropology ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

In many ways the development of physical anthropology in Cuba paralleled the history of the discipline in other countries—until the successful Cuban revolution of the late 1950s. The overthrow of the Batista regime by forces led by Fidel Castro had little immediate academic effect because reform was initially concentrated on social, economic, and political spheres. Eventually, however, the revolution greatly influenced the direction of higher education and of science in Cuba.

scholarly journals The radicalization process of the Cuban Revolution 1959-1961

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-184
Author(s):  
Paula Ortiz Guilián ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
The People ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Sense Of Justice ◽  
The Revolution

The present work carries out an analysis of the radicalization process of the Cuban Revolution and its causes during the years from 1959 to 1961t. This process was possible in such a short time due to the con-junction of several elements: the fulfillment of the Moncada Program; the leadership of the Revolution; the position of the United States be-fore the advance of the Revolution; the aid provided by the Soviet Un-ion, as well as the correlation of forces in the world, and the position of support and endorsement of the Revolution by the people. This process was not peaceful; it was carried out in the midst of a violent class struggle and external aggression on the part of the great interests and US government, which tried to destroy the Revolution using all possi-ble means, including armed aggression. In this brief period, the revolu-tion in power managed to put an end to imperialist rule and, fundamen-tally, to capitalist exploitation, strengthening the political system of society and raising the revolutionary consciousness, as well as the po-litical culture of the people. The obtained success was largely the result of the political teaching of Fidel Castro, as well as his extraordinary personality. Fidel knew how to enhance the people's self-confidence, sense of justice, solidarity, dignity, and revolutionary firmness.

The Dynamics of Racial Discrimination in Cuba Past and Present

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esteban Morales ◽  
August Nimtz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Unfinished Business ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
The North ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Revolution

Knowing Cuba’s past is crucial in making sense of the present; that’s especially true when it comes to the question of race. Racial slavery, with its peculiar Latin American characteristics, set the stage upon which the 1959 revolution began. All of the practices and ideas associated with the institution that disadvantaged Cubans of African origin had to be challenged. That task was combined with the overriding one of making Cuban sovereignty a reality for the first time. Important gains were made for Afro-Cubans that proved qualitatively favorable in comparison not only with their pre-1959 status but also with that of their cohorts in the United States. As Cold War realities intervened, conscious and explicit attention to the issue began to fade, often in the name of unity in the face of the threat from the north. And when those continuing gains began to be undermined owing to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies in 1989, the race question was forced back onto the national agenda. Fidel Castro, as was so often the case during the revolution, took the lead in addressing the issue. For the first time since the early years of the revolution, conscious attention began to be paid to race, the all-important unfinished business that had begun in 1959. Not all Cubans began on an equal footing in the commencement of that project, thus special attention now needs to be paid to those of African origin to fulfill its egalitarian quest. It should be acknowledged that while progress has been made, much remains to be done.

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) and Ernesto “Che” Guevara (1928–1967)

2020 ◽  
pp. 170-204
Author(s):  
Larry Ceplair
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Che Guevara ◽  
The Revolution

These two men, from different countries, became very close friends and revolutionists. Like Lenin and Trotsky, they fused into a dynamic pair, working together on every aspect of the revolution and the revolutionary state. Fidel was the planner and overseer of the movement; Che was the inspired implementer. Che, however, had little patience with administration, and for him the Cuban revolution was to be a catalyst for third-world revolutions. He left Cuba to oversee unsuccessful revolutions in Congo and Bolivia. Che died young, in Bolivia; Fidel rule Cuba for over fifty years.

The Cuban Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bustamante
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Political Event ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Revolution

The Cuban Revolution transformed the largest island nation of the Caribbean into a flashpoint of the Cold War. After overthrowing US-backed ruler Fulgencio Batista in early 1959, Fidel Castro established a socialist, anti-imperialist government that defied the island’s history as a dependent and dependable ally of the United States. But the Cuban Revolution is not only significant for its challenge to US interests and foreign policy prerogatives. For Cubans, it fundamentally reordered their lives, inspiring multitudes yet also driving thousands of others to migrate to Miami and other points north. Sixty years later, Fidel Castro may be dead and the Soviet Union may be long gone. Cuban socialism has become more hybrid in economic structure, and in 2014 the Cuban and US governments moved to restore diplomatic ties. But Cuba’s leaders continue to insist that “the Revolution,” far from a terminal political event, is still alive. Today, as the founding generation of Cuban leaders passes from the scene, “the Revolution” faces another important crossroads of uncertainty and reform.

Cuba on our minds

2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 305-311
Author(s):  
Charles Rutheiser
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
University Of Georgia ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
American Left ◽  
The Revolution

[First paragraph]Conversatons with Cuba. C. PETER RIPLEY. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999. xxvi + 243 pp. (Cloth US$ 24.95)Real Life in Castro's Cuba. CATHERINE MOSES. Wilmington DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000. xi + 184 pp. (Paper US$ 18.95)The Cuban Way: Capitalism, Communism, and Confrontation. ANA JULIA JATAR-HAUSMANN. West Hartford CT: Kumarian Press, 1999. xvii + 161 pp. (Paper US$21.95)Castro and the Cuban Revolution. THOMAS M. LEONARD. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. xxv + 188 pp. (Cloth US$ 45.00)Cuba has attracted a great deal of attention from both scholarly and popular authors since 1959. The literature that they have produced has generated much heat, but has shed a considerably smaller amount of light. Most accounts have been situated at the polar extremes of ideology, either condemning or celebrating the island's revolutionary experiment and its maximum leader (for the former is often virtually totally collapsed into the personage of Fidel Castro) with the same degrees of vociferous, simplistic certitude. However, neither the fulminating diatribes of the anti-Castro Right nor the fulsome paeans of the Euro-American Left have done much justice to making sense of the complex, confounding, and contradictory realities of Cuban society before, during, and after the Revolution. Indeed, contemporary developments have only magnified the distortions rendered by the astigmatic lenses of cold war intellectualism.

C. Wright Mills and the Cuban Revolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Javier Treviño
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Singular Event ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

In C. Wright Mills and the Cuban Revolution, A. Javier Treviño reconsiders the opinions, perspectives, and insights of the Cubans that sociologist C. Wright Mills interviewed during his visit to the island in 1960. On returning to the United States, the esteemed and controversial sociologist wrote a small paperback on much of what he had heard and seen, which he published as Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba. Those interviews--now transcribed and translated--are interwoven here with extensive annotations to explain and contextualize their content. Readers will be able to “hear” Mills as an expert interviewer and ascertain how he used what he learned from his informants. Treviño also recounts the experiences of four central figures whose lives became inextricably intertwined during that fateful summer of 1960: C. Wright Mills, Fidel Castro, Juan Arcocha, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The singular event that compelled their biographies to intersect at a decisive moment in the history of Cold War geopolitics--with its attendant animosities and intrigues--was the Cuban Revolution.

Looking Back on Fidel

Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 20-22
Author(s):  
Maurice Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Commander In Chief ◽  
Looking Back

With the transformation of Cuba into an obedient Soviet satellite, the Cuban Revolution no longerexcites the imagination of romantic rebels and Utopian dreamers. For the student of politics, however, the early years of the Cuban Revolution remains an intriguing phenomenon, and especially the figure of Fidel Castro, its creator and guiding genius. Castro remains Cuba's Commander-in-Chief, Prime Minister, and First Secretary of the Communist Party. His leadership still plays a role in molding Cuban institutions into the Soviet pattern and promoting Soviet foreign policy, but his charisma is now circumscribed by Soviet-style bureaucratic rationality and the Kremlin's surveillance. Fidel Castro before his domestication was something else.

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