Conclusion

Author(s):  
Anna Clayfield

The concluding chapter ties together the analyses of the official language of the Cuban Revolution for over six decades. It reflects on how the discursive perpetuation of the guerrilla ethos therein contributed not only to the survival of the Revolution itself but also to the part it has played in enabling the veterans of the sierra to maintain their political control over the revolutionary project since 1959. The chapter also highlights the different functions of guerrillerismo at different points in the revolutionary trajectory. In so doing, it asks whether a guerrilla rhetoric, which borrows heavily from Che Guevara’s writings, has enabled the Revolution to adapt and transform over time while appearing to remain true to its founding principles. Finally, the historic handover of power to Miguel Díaz-Canel in 2018 raises this question: how long can a guerrilla discourse sustain a Revolution whose leaders did not participate in the armed struggle that brought it to power?

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Manolo De Los Santos ◽  
Vijay Prashad

We are grateful to present this special issue of Monthly Review, carrying forward a tradition established six decades ago. The stance of the magazine reflects Castro’s assertion that criticism should be from within the revolution, mirroring the view of C. Wright Mills. In his Listen, Yankee, Mills wrote that we don’t worry about the Cuban Revolution, we worry with it. This volume is put together in that spirit.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
António Tomás

By the time the anticolonial war started in Guinea-Bissau, in terms of counterinsurgency doctrine Cabral could choose from two major theories. On the one hand, the theory of movement, proposed by the likes of Mao, that involved the massive participation of the peasantry. On the other, the foco theory, espoused by Che Guevara and experimented in the Cuban revolution, that consisted of the incursion in a given territory of a small group of revolutionaries with the mission to start the uprising. The revolution in Guinea is the mix between the two. It counted on the one hand with a significant adherence of the Guinean peasantry, but the party’s leadership was in the hand of a handful of cadres, most of them from Cape Verde.


Author(s):  
Timothy P. Storhoff

Chapter One provides the history and context for the rest of the book. The United States and Cuba had a vibrant musical relationship before the Cuban Revolution. When the United States instituted a trade embargo and travel ban on Cuba, musicians continued to seek opportunities for cultural exchange and pushed the boundaries of what travel policies permitted. The chapter outlines how the US-Cuban relationship has changed under various US Presidents, and how musical exchanges have been both stifled and briefly sanctioned under different administrations.


1988 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Calomiris

The efforts of some American colonials, who complained of monetary scarcity and advocated increased government involvement in supplying paper money, were valid attempts to improve economic welfare and facilitate transactions. The potential for improvement depended crucially on the fiscal and monetary policies of colonial governments. This approach to monetary scarcity is useful for explaining variation in the real supply of money across colonies and over time. The role of fiscal and monetary policies in determining the changing value of the continental, and the consequences for real currency supply during and after the Revolution, are examined in detail.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (136) ◽  
pp. 217-232
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Lambe

Abstract What should be the place of the Cuban Republic in histories of sexuality under the revolution? This essay argues that scholarly accounts of gender and sexuality in post-1959 Cuba want for a fuller engagement with their pre-1959 context. In particular, it seeks to open up a conversation about questions and topics in the history of sexuality that might straddle the 1959 divide, as well as the historiographical (and political) consequences of writing across it.


2013 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Whatley

This article responds to and is designed as a counterweight to recent work on political history in early-modern Scotland in which Jacobitism has been persuasively portrayed as a strongly supported movement over time rather than an episodic cause. Building upon recent research on the Union of 1707 which demonstrated the degree of principled and consistent support there was for closer union with England within a British polity, the paper seeks to show that there was a clearly identifiable ideological basis to anti-Jacobitism in Scotland. The term, however, is best understood as the Revolution or, even better, the Whig interest, not least as the principles upon which anti-Jacobitism were based pre-dated the Revolution of 1688–9 and the emergence of Jacobitism. The Revolution, it is argued, had many more supporters, and from a wider geographical area, than has generally been assumed in accounts which focus largely on the south west of Scotland. Support took various forms, ranging from prayer through public campaigning to the taking up of arms. It is also clear that support for Whig principles was not only long-standing but also grew over the period examined. What is underlined is that Scotland was a deeply fissured nation, the principal divide owing much but not everything to religion and differing perspectives on the nature of monarchical authority and the role of parliament.


1968 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 655
Author(s):  
Holmes Alexander ◽  
Regis Debray ◽  
Bobbye Ortiz

Author(s):  
Marina Gold

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.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Dunja Mihajlovic

Biografía de un cimarrón es el título del testimonio de Esteban Montejo, un esclavo cubano, recopilado y traspuesto a la escritura por Miguel Barnet. En este testimonio, Montejo manifiesta sus ideas sobre la religión católica y las creencias y prácticas religiosas afrocubanas. Este trabajo propone que la ideología de la revolución cubana se encuentra inserta en el texto. Las expresiones de indiferencia acerca de la religión pueden leerse como parte de un mensaje textual acorde con las ideas de la revolución cubana. Biography of a runaway slave is the title of the “testimonio” of Esteban Montejo, a Cuban slave, compiled and written by Miguel Barnet. In this text, Montejo expresses his ideas on the Catholic religion, as well as on Afro-Cuban religious beliefs and practices. It is suggested that the ideology of the Cuban revolution is present in the text. The expressions of indiference towards religion can be read as part of a textual message that agrees with the ideas of the revolution.  


2009 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Rojas

RESUMEN: La Revolución Cubana, como evento ideológico de la izquierda latinoamericana, europea y estadounidense, representó un «espectáculo de ideas» para los intelectuales contemporáneos. El artículo explica cómo este acontecimiento histórico e ideológico marcó el pensamiento intelectual de algunos autores de la época, para lo cual se fundamenta en sus obras escritas sobre la isla. La crítica al régimen opresor es identificada por el autor en textos que en un momento apoyaban la Revolución en algún sentido, el artículo muestra el análisis desde la perspectiva de la descolonización y el subdesarrollo, donde hace latente este antagonismo en las opiniones intelectuales estudiadas.ABSTRACT: The Cuban revolution, as an ideological event from the Latin American, European and American left, represented a «show of ideas» for the contemporary intellectuals. The article explains how this historic and ideological situation made an impact on the intellectual thinking of some authors in the period. This is based on their writings about the island. The criticism to the oppressor regime is identified by the author in texts that sometimes supported the revolution in any way. The article shows the analysis from the decolonization and the underdevelopment perspective in which it becomes latent this antagonism in the studied intellectual opinions.


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