Abstract In 1933, the Cuban Communist Party experienced a change in leadership from the white poet and lawyer Rubén Martínez Villena to a black former shoe repairman from Manzanillo, Blas Roca. This shift marked the beginning of a new era in Cuban politics. This thesis argues that the Communist Party was an unparalleled space for black political activism in Cuba’s late republic period due to the unique convergence of black actors within its ranks. The Party reflected a singular intersection of labor leaders, members of black fraternal organizations, and black intelligencia. This group of black political actors fought for an end to racial discrimination throughout the history of the Party and successfully reintroduced a public engagement with race in Cuban political rhetoric during the 1940 Constitutional Assembly. Unlike other contemporary political parties, the Communist Party created a space for simultaneous expressions of blackness and Cubanness that drew black Cubans into its ranks. The Party’s decades long struggle for anti- discrimination legislation ultimately failed, but their prolonged struggle for greater equity on the island disrupted domestic politics and distinguished the Cuban Party from other contemporary Communist parties. ¬ Copyright by Kaitlyn D. Henderson, 2018 All Rights Reserved. Acknowledgements This work is the result of years of reading and editing and writing and patience and the vast majority of that began with the first person to fight for me and support me at Tulane, Justin Wolfe. Thank you for being the greatest adviser anyone could have asked for. Thank you for helping me to see my struggles through the lens of humor and for your unending curiosity in the world. Guadalupe García mentored me from my first day and gave me an inspiring example of strength and perseverance. Thank you for walking with me through this journey and allowing me the space to vent and grow, you have been an invaluable teacher. L. Roseanne Adderley, thank you for challenging me and helping me to laugh at the absurdities of all we do, while demonstrating how to navigate this life with grace. Your work and knowledge have pushed me to be better. The St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott once said, “Break a vase, and the love that reassembles its fragments is greater than the love that took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.” I want to thank Erin Miller for helping me reassemble, with love and care, my broken fragments as I sought to write this dissertation. Her patience, kindness, and solidity are invaluable and cannot truly be captured through words alone. John and Carol Shottes gave me a home and a family in Washington D.C. where I had none, and later Nicolás Hernández Guillén and Maria Virginia Bellón adopted me into their family and showed me a Cuba I never could have known. The love and guidance of these two families helped me through my research and created a foundation when I needed it most. Thank you, I love you. Similarly, this dissertation could not have been possible without the immense guidance of Angelina Rojas Blaquier who helped me navigate the intricacies of the Partido Socialista Popular and the Instituto de Historia. Henry Heredia and the Instituto Cubano de ii Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello gave me an academic home while in Havana, and Anabel Sixto Pérez helped guide me through the complexities of research in Cuba. I must also thank Ana Paula Cecon Calegari for being a wonderful partner in the madness of research in Cuba and for being so willing to exchange ideas and materials. I was raised by a village, many of them women, and all of them fiercely strong and wondrously intelligent. So much of who I am came from that miraculous place where intelligence of all kinds and especially creativity are considered gifts to be shared. Thank you to my beautiful, kind friends who held me up, laughed and cried with me, listened to all my stories and shared their own, and moved me through these many years. They gave me a home when I felt unmoored, and helped me feel connected even from far away. I carry them with me always, and their love and support cannot be captured or quantified. I love you all immensely. No person has ever believed in me or supported me as unconditionally as my brother. He is, and has always been, my hero and protector, and I work every day to reflect his kindness, compassion, and creativity. Thank you for forging a path through hard work and humility through this life we’ve shared. But most importantly, this work could not have been done without the unfailing, constant love and support of my parents. Thank you for my foundation. Thank you for celebrating my successes and my failures with me, for being the source of my strength, I am because of you both. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to Whitney DeMorales Hendrickson and Armando Alters Montaño. I love you both forever. Thank you for your laughter, your light, and the wondrous lives you led. And most of all, thank you for continuing to walk and laugh with me in my dreams. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations v Introduction 1 Chapter One 14 Intersecting Activisms: The Convergence of Black Political Actors in the Communist Party Chapter Two 54 Race, Discrimination, and the Constitution of 1940 Chapter Three 97 Tactical Failures and Ascending Auténticos Chapter Four 132 Anti-Communism and Revolution: The Communist Party Navigates the 1950s Chapter Five 169 The Party’s Final Fight for Racial Equality Epilogue 200 Bibliography 208 iv Abbreviations CNOC Confederación National de Obreros Cubanos, National Confederation of Cuban Workers CTC Confederación de Trabajadores Cubanos, Confederation of Cuban Workers CTK Communist coined nickname for the CTC under the Auténticos DR Directorio Revolutionario, Revolutionary Directorate FNOC Federación Nacional de Obreros Azucareros Cubanos, National Federation of Cuban Sugar Workers FPCC Fair Play for Cuba Committee ICAIC Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos, National Cuban Film Institute M-26-7 Movimiento 26 de julio, 26 of July Movement OAS Organization of American States OLAS Organization of Latin American Solidarity ORI Organización Revolucionaria Integrada, Integrated Revolutionary Organization PCC Partido Comunista de Cuba, Cuban Communist Party, Post-Revolution Communist Party PSP Partido Socialista Popular, Popular Socialist Party, Republic era Communist Party UNEAC Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas Cubanas, National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists UNIA United Negro Improvement Association v Introduction In 1944, famed Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén gave an impassioned speech in front of an assembly of the Cuban Communist Party, then named the Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party, PSP). Reflecting on what he referred to as “The problem of the black Cuban and national unity.” Guillén spoke against the and perpetual use of the metaphor of the two great Cuban fathers of independence, the white poet and politician José Martí, and the black army general, Antonio Maceo. Guillén challenged the assumptions that these two great historic actors began a legacy of interracial cooperation. Instead, Guillén argued that Cubans “need to understand that Maceo and Martí were not the cause of this unity but rather its effect; which is to say, they came together because whites and blacks were united in the formation of our country since the beginning of our history.”1 While this speech reflects the political and nationalistic beliefs Guillén held throughout his prolific career, it also represents the importance of the Communist Party for racial politics and black participation in the Republic period. During the mid-twentieth century, the Communist Party was one of the most important spaces for black political participation and leadership in Cuba. From its inception, the Communist Party worked closely with labor organizations representing the most important sectors of the Cuban economy, notably dock workers, sugar harvesters, and those associated with the production of tobacco. This, in conjunction with the Party’s decision to not “draw the color line” or exclude black Cubans as many other political parties in Cuba did, resulted in a high participation of Cuban blacks, who also comprised a large percentage of labor unions and their 1 Nicolás Guillén, “El Problema del Negro y la Unidad Nacional,” in Los Socialistas y la Realidad Cubana: Informes, Resoluciones y Discursos. II Asamblea Nacional del Partido Socialista Popular (La Habana: Ediciones del P.S.P., 1944), pp. 43-44. 1 leadership. On the eve of the 1940 Constitutional Assembly various Cuban sources reported to U.S. government officials that black membership of the Communist Party ranged anywhere from seventy-five to ninety-five percent.2 While the party remained small in number, never exceeding 200,000 registered members, the party maintained notable strength and prestige if only for its close association with the island’s laborers, representation of the black vote, and often disproportionate representation in Congress. Indeed, in the 1940 election when Communist affiliates totaled around 100,000, roughly two percent of the island’s population, they nonetheless secured eight congressional seats out of a total of thirty-six and the titular head of the Communist Party, Juan Marinello, became a member of President Batista’s cabinet.3 The majority of those who secured congressional seats were themselves black, notably among them Blas Roca, Secretary General of the party, Lázaro Peña, the secretary of the Worker’s Confederation of Cuba (Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba, CTC), and Salvador García Agüero, a member of the black fraternal organization Club Atenas and noted intellectual. The emergence of the Communist Party onto the national political scene as a legal entity coincided with the preparations for the 1940 Constitution Assembly. The resulting document was Cuba’s most liberal constitution to date.