Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War: Transnational Activism, Networks, and Solidarity in the 1930S

Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War: Transnational Activism, Networks, and Solidarity in the 1930s Ariel Mae Lambe Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Ariel Mae Lambe All rights reserved ABSTRACT Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War: Transnational Activism, Networks, and Solidarity in the 1930s Ariel Mae Lambe This dissertation shows that during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) diverse Cubans organized to support the Spanish Second Republic, overcoming differences to coalesce around a movement they defined as antifascism. Hundreds of Cuban volunteers—more than from any other Latin American country—traveled to Spain to fight for the Republic in both the International Brigades and the regular Republican forces, to provide medical care, and to serve in other support roles; children, women, and men back home worked together to raise substantial monetary and material aid for Spanish children during the war; and longstanding groups on the island including black associations, Freemasons, anarchists, and the Communist Party leveraged organizational and publishing resources to raise awareness, garner support, fund, and otherwise assist the cause. The dissertation studies Cuban antifascist individuals, campaigns, organizations, and networks operating transnationally to help the Spanish Republic, contextualizing these efforts in Cuba’s internal struggles of the 1930s. It argues that both transnational solidarity and domestic concerns defined Cuban antifascism. First, Cubans confronting crises of democracy at home and in Spain believed fascism threatened them directly. Citing examples in Ethiopia, China, Europe, and Latin America, Cuban antifascists—like many others—feared a worldwide menace posed by fascism’s spread. Second, despite their recent anticolonial struggle against Spain, Cubans cared deeply about its fate for reasons of personal, familial, and cultural affinity. They interpreted the Republic as a “new” Spain representative of liberation and the Nationalists as seeking return to the “old” Spain of colonial oppression. Third, pro-Republican Cubans defined antifascism in Cuban terms. People of many different backgrounds and views united around a definition of antifascism closely related to their shared domestic political goals: freedom from strongman governance, independence from neocolonial control, and attainment of economic and social justice. Radical, moderate, and even largely nonpolitical individuals and groups in Cuba found in antifascism and support for the Spanish Republic a rallying cry with broad appeal that allowed them to strengthen solidarity at home and abroad. Cubans defined antifascism in both negative and positive terms, as a movement against fascism but also toward unity, democracy, sovereignty, and justice. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations & Tables . ii Acknowledgments . iv Introduction – Transnational Activism, Networks, and Solidarity . 1 Chapter 1 – Personal Resilience, Transnational Movement, Activist Continuity: Pablo de la Torriente Brau and Teresa “Teté” Casuso from Cuban Revolution to the Spanish Civil War . 33 Chapter 2 – Cuban Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War . 73 Chapter 3 – Because Their Blood Runs through Our Veins: The Cuban Campaign to Aid Spanish Children . 159 Chapter 4 – Sons of America, Sons of Spain and of Africa: Black Cuban Antifascism . 219 Chapter 5 – Intemperate Campaigns against Very Respectable Entities: Cuban Freemasons as Antifascists . 276 Chapter 6 – Democracy is a Means, Not an End: Cuban Anarchists as Antifascists . 317 Chapter 7 – Unity against Reactionaries: Cuban Communist Antifascism . 363 Conclusion – Cuban Antifascism after 1939 . 412 Sources . 462 i ILLUSTRATIONS & TABLES Figures 2.1 and 2.2 Photographs by Catalán photojournalist Agustí Centelles, taken in Barcelona in January 1937, depicting a black volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion Figure 2.3 Passengers on the S.S. Champlain voyage of January 1937 Figure 2.4 “Brigadistas cubanos” on the S.S. Champlain voyage of January 1937 Figure 2.5 Cuba Hermosa standing to the left of John Tisa on a donkey Figure 2.6 “Antonio Garcia, Auto Park, 59th Battalion Miguel Lausurica [sic], Darmos Apr 1938” Figure 2.7 Comparison of photograph details showing, from left to right, the original Centelles image, the S.S. Champlain voyage group shot reproduced in Tisa’s memoir, the group shot of Cubans on the S.S. Champlain which I found in Albacete, the image depicting “Cuba Hermosa” from Tisa’s memoir, and the man identified as “Antonio Garcia” whose picture I found in New York Figure 2.8 Henry Glintenkamp, Club Julio A. Mella (Cuban Workers’ Club) (1937) Figure 2.9 Photograph of “some of the Cuban comrades” in the XV Brigade Figure 2.10 Photograph taken at the Club Cubano Julio Antonio Mella in Barcelona Figure 2.11 Cuban activists petition congressmen on the island to assist imprisoned Cuban volunteers Figures 2.12–14 Portraits of Cuban volunteers in Spain published by Facetas de Actualidad Española Figure 2.15 Announcement of event posthumouslycelebrating Pablo de la Torriente Brau Figures 2.16 and 2.17 Cuban volunteer Alberto Sánchez Menéndez Figure 3.1 A.A.N.P.E. Income & Expenses Figure 3.2 Centralized & Grassroots Fundraising, April 1937–October 1938 Figure 3.3 Centralized & Grassroots Fundraising, April 1937–December 1938 Table 3.1 Contributing Groups by Type for October 1937 and October 1938 Table 3.2 Initial Organizations and Groups that Contributed to the A.A.N.P.E. Casa-Escuela Figure 4.1 Photograph published in Mediodía of Langston Hughes, Mikhail Koltsov, Ernest Hemmingway, and Nicolás Guillén in Madrid in November 1937 Figure 4.2 Antifascist illustration of “Roman Culture” in Ethiopia Figure 4.3 Comandante José G. Bridón, black Cuban volunteer in the Spanish Civil War ii Figure 5.1 Solicitation for aid to war victims in Spain addressed to Cuban Freemasons Figure 6.1 Illustration accompanying the article “Democracy is a Means, Not an End” Figure 7.1 Mediodía cover illustration, March 1937 Figure 7.2 Antifascist recruitment advertisement for the Cuban Communist Party Table 8.1 Frente Nacional Antifascista Comité Gestor iii ACKNOWLEGMENTS I begin by expressing my gratitude for the financial support that made this project possible. Columbia University’s Richard Hofstadter Faculty Fellowship and Teaching Scholars Fellowship, as well as a Summer Research Field Grant from the University’s Institute of Latin American Studies, funded my doctoral work. Additionally, the United States Department of Education supported me with a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship and, most significantly, a Javits Fellowship for four years. It is my hope that the U.S. federal government will continue to support graduate work at the level which I enjoyed. Researching in Spain and Cuba, I received helpful assistance from many librarians, archivists, and fellow scholars. I am particularly grateful to Fernando Rovetta Klyver of the Centro de Estudios y Documentación de las Brigadas Internacionales at Universidad de Castilla- La Mancha in Albacete, Spain, and to Ana Suárez Díaz of the Centro Juan Marinello in Havana, Cuba for their extraordinary hospitality and generosity. I am tremendously thankful for the instruction, mentorship, and friendship of my teachers and advisors at Columbia, including Chris Brown, Eric Foner, Natasha Lightfoot, Nara Milanich, and particularly those with whom I worked most closely: John Coatsworth, Jose Moya, Pablo Piccato, and Caterina Pizzigoni. Those from other fields of history were generous enough nonetheless to take an interest in my work and my scholarly development; those in Latin American history made up the most accomplished, supportive, engaging, and fun advising team a graduate student in the field could hope for. To all of them I extend my sincerest thanks. Also at Columbia I was fortunate to be supported in my academic endeavors, professional development, and day-to-day necessities by the dedicated administrative staff of the History Department, excellent librarians, the interdisciplinary Institute of Latin American Studies, an innovative iv teaching center, an effective career services office, and all the other hardworking staff of the university. I appreciate the efforts of all these people. And I am thankful to have been part of a collegial community of graduate students in history and related fields at Columbia. For friendship and mutual aid I am particularly grateful to fellow history graduate students Carolyn Arena, Hannah Barker, Senia Barragán, Eric Frith, Toby Harper, Julia del Palacio, Elizabeth Schwall, and Andy Whitford. I would not have entered a doctoral program in history were it not for the encouragement of three historians during my final undergraduate year and the three years following my graduation from college. During this time I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up and came, comfortably, back to my love of history that had been there all along. Jennifer Klein helped me to connect my academic interests to professional work in activism, and then to bring the valuable experiences of that work back to the academy. Gil Joseph demonstrated to me that academic eminence and sincere kindness need not be mutually exclusive—a realization my mentors at Columbia would later reinforce—and helped coax me back from the brink of law school. It was Seth Fein whose extraordinary commitment to teaching and advising most changed the course of my trajectory. Though I was already a history major when I met Seth at the beginning of my senior year, I did not become an historian until I began to work with him. So compelling was the enthusiasm of his intellectual engagement with history and with his students that I was inspired by his example to pursue a Ph.D. in history. I cannot thank him enough. I wish also to thank all the many supurb teachers I learned with during my primary education. From the earliest age onward, I was fortunate to have teachers who recognized and nurtured my loves of history and of writing, as well as many other endeavors. In particular, I v thank Robin L.

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