LOCKING THE CLOSET DOOR: REFORMATION OF THE CUBAN MAN AND THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE HOMOSEXUALITY, 1950-1962
By
ROBERT BRITO
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
2015
To my mother, and everyone else who has put up with me over the last year as I embarked on this endeavor.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank my parents for their unwavering support and willingness to listen to draft after draft, and to put up with me after numerous nights of no sleep. I would also like to thank my advisor Dr. Lillian Guerra, without whose support I would have never been able to embark on a project of this scope. I would also like to thank Lauren Krebs for countless all-nighters working with me to work out the logical framework and argument of this piece. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Abel Sierra for his help and expertise on the history of Queerness in Cuba. Finally, I would like to thank every individual who has listened to me talk about Cuba and homosexuality ad nauseam for without their patience and understanding, I would never have been able to push myself past the finish line.
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 3
LIST OF FIGURES ...... 5
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION ...... 6
1 RECUPERATING A QUEER LIFE IN 1950S HAVANA ...... 8
Introduction ...... 8 Setting the Stage: Night Clubs as Imperialist Centers of Power ...... 10 Development and Decline of the Tourist industry ...... 10 Concentration of Control: Nightclubs ...... 15
2 HARNESSING POPULAR HOMOPHOBIA: TIMELINE OF TERROR 1940-1961 .. 28
Introduction ...... 28 Psychological and Legal Treatment of Homosexuals in Cuba 1936-1958 ...... 30 Popular Press: Education of the Masses ...... 31 Gente de la Semana ...... 32 Don ...... 34 From casual homophobia to arrested development, 1959-1961 ...... 37
3 DE/RE-COLONIZING THE CUBAN MAN, 1959-1965 ...... 44
Introduction ...... 44 Development of the “New Man” ...... 45 Militarization of Everyday Life ...... 49 Machismo as Prerequisite for Commitment to the National Project ...... 52 Queremos Que Sean Como El Che ...... 55
CONCLUSION ...... 62
EPILOGUE ...... 64
4
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure page
1-1 Inside cover of “Cuba: 700 Miles of Playground”, reprinted with permission from Special Collections & University Archives, Green Library, Florida International University ...... 16
1-2 Pamphlet for the Tropicana Nightclub circa 1950s, reprinted with permission from Special Collections & University Archives, Green Library, Florida International University ...... 18
1-3 Cover of the Album de la Revolución Cubana 1952-1959, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida...... 27
2-1 Covers of Gente demonstrating the sexual availability of women, (left) January 6, 1952, and (right) February 24, 1952. Photo Courtesy of the Author...... 33
2-2 Fulgencio Batista sporting a white suit when meeting with then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower (left) and example of a man in white suit from July 1958 issue of Don (right)...... 36
2-3 “Negativo, Compañero ” by Nuez, May, 5, 1961 Revolucion...... 39
2-4 Image from Revolución depicting “a map of Cuba and various cables U.P.I. and A.P. giving information on the development of the invasion. All this is quite ironic since it titled, "The small total war UPIAP"...... 40
3-1 “Drawing in salute of the International Day of the Proletariat by Rafael Landa.” From Con la Guardia en Alto, March 1964...... 53
3-2 Cover of Con la Guardia en Alto, depicting Fidel leading the Cuban people, rifle in hand, January 1969...... 61
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INTRODUCTION
A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.1 -Fidel Castro
As Fidel consolidated power in Havana over the first few years of the Revolution,
it appeared as though life was changing in very real and tangible ways for the Cuban
populace. Revolutions, as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary are, “sudden,
extreme, or complete changes in the way people live, and work.” For homosexuals,
Havana appeared to undergo a series of radical changes between 1958 and 1961.
However, the nature of the shift in attitudes towards queer men in Cuba was not a break
from the past, but rather an intensification of homophobic attitudes. Those attitudes,
were then co-opted by the revolutionary regime, and became a source of bottom-up
support for the initiatives of the revolution. As I will show in this thesis, the development
of Cuban homophobic attitudes is linked to the evolution of the Cuban tourist industry,
and was simultaneously a reaction to U.S. imperialist ventures which sought to
emasculate the machista Cuban nation.
Chapter 1 will focus on the development and subsequent decline of the tourist
industry in Cuba from the end of the 19th century until the 1950s. I will then focus on the
extension of imperial power that manifests in Havana’s nightclubs. After discussing how
nightclubs were crucial to the exercise of imperial control, I will discuss how race and
gender conflated to create distorted perceptions of the Cuban people. Then I will
1 Fidel Castro, “Speech at the Second Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution,” Havana, Cuba, January 5, 1961.
6
discuss the existence of homosocial spaces in which queer men could thrive
economically, relatively speaking.2
Chapter 2 will focus on the period immediately after the revolution until 1961. I
will examine the fundamental legal changes that occurred within the Cuban state
between the 1940s and the early 1960s. I will then re-examine the popular
understanding of homosexuality through the lens of the psychological industry. Then I
will examine the portrayal of sexuality in Cuba’s popular press both before and after the
revolution, specifically how masculinity was portrayed. Finally, I will then discuss the
enshrinement of homophobia into law. I will conclude with an account of the arrest of
Virgilio Piñera during The Night of the Three Ps, and a brief discussion of how the
accounts of the homosexuals served as a source to accumulate power.
Chapter 3 will be an examination of the theoretical framework for how the
revolutionary government sought to reform Cuban men into New Men. The New Man
would serve as functionaries of the vanguard of the revolution. These New Men would
help bring about a shift in collective consciousness and serve as the means for bringing
Cuban society to Communism. I will examine the New Man’s origins in the
enlightenment, and track his movement to the Caribbean. Subsequently I will describe
the New Man as Che Guevara saw him. I will then argue that Che embodied the New
Man during the period of the early-mid 1960s. After that I will then argue that Fidel came
to embody the New Man after the regime fundamentally began taking steps towards
achieving Communism.
2 Lourdes Arguelles and B. Ruby Rich, “Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes towards an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part I,” Signs 9 (1984).
7
RECUPERATING A QUEER LIFE IN 1950S HAVANA
“It’s true, you could not be openly marícon in the daylight but at night everything was different.”3 -José “Pepe” Rodríguez, 2006
Introduction
In the late 1940s, PANAM airlines released a travel almanac of all of the destinations that their fleet of “Flying Clippers” serviced. Each entry describes the locale and the service it provides to tourists. Gambling, one of the “star attractions of Havana” was sold alongside Cuban nightlife which was heralded as “gay as any in the world and as varied.” Allegedly, “everybody dances in Cuba, and the best Afro-American music
can be heard at the little smoky native cafes.”4 However, the reputation garnered by
Havana’s entertainment and tourist industries was not constructed overnight. Rather,
the fabrication of Havana into a paradise for U.S. consumption was part of the last-
ditched efforts of U.S. annexationists to incorporate Cuba into the wider empire of the
United States.
The construction of Havana’s reputation in the 1950s as the “Monaco of North
America,” was a feat that had begun and been reimagined since the early 1820s. As
historian Christine Skwiot describes, the imperialist project begun with John Quincy
Adams’ imagining of Cuba as the metaphoric apple, that due to gravity, would naturally
fall into the U.S.’s orbit of influence after its independence from Spain. 5 However,
failure to intervene in a beneficial way in the Cuban struggle for independence, allowed
3 T.J. English, Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba-- and then Lost It to the Revolution (New York: William Morrow, 2008), 217.
4 New Horizons. Corporate Publication. Pan American World Airways, Inc. Records, Special Collections, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida. (16 December 2014).
5 Christine Skwiot, The Purposes of Paradise: U.S. tourism and empire in Cuba and Hawai’i (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 14.
8
for the growth of a pro-independence movement, which excluded U.S. as well as
European interference in the island’s affairs.
After having failed to prevent the island nation from embarking on a separatist
path during its independence struggle, U.S. politicians and businessmen set out to keep
Cuba within the economic influence of the United States. In order to do so, the United
States pressured Cuban statesmen to adopt the Platt Amendment to the Cuban
constitution under threat of invasion. The Platt Amendment restricted Cuba in the
conduct of foreign policy and commercial relations. Additionally, it outlined the
conditions in which the U.S. could militarily intervene in Cuban affairs. From the
beginning of the Cuban Republic (1902-1959), Cuban affairs were doomed to
subservience to U.S. domination.
With the election of Tomás Estrada Palma in 1902 (a U.S. citizen at the time),
U.S. interests were represented at the highest levels of government. After the collapse
of the Palma regime in the face of armed resistance by independence war veterans in
1906, President Theodore Roosevelt authorized the invasion of the island for a period of
“Pacification.” In 1908, the sovereignty of Cuba was “restored”, but the U.S. remained
ever present in Cuban affairs. Elections and a native government were restored,
however sovereignty remained out of Cuban hands.
This chapter will briefly examine the growth of Cuba’s dependence on the United
States, and the development of the tourism industry in Cuba as a means for catering to white supremacist attitudes from the North. After, I will begin by arguing the importance of Cuba’s nightclubs as Imperial Centers of Power and proceed to lay out the evidence to suggest the existence and flourishing of a network of spaces in which queer
9
individuals were left undisturbed. Finally, I will analyze the impact that the tourism
industry, the U.S. mafia, and these aforementioned queer spaces had on the evolution
of popular Cuban homophobia.
Setting the Stage: Night Clubs as Imperialist Centers of Power
Development and Decline of the Tourist industry
By the 1920s, North American developers capitalized on the mobilization of
resources caused by World War I. Tourism promoters began enticing Americans with
the prospects of becoming an elite aristocratic class in tropical paradises around the
globe. As part of joining that elite class, tourists were encouraged to partake in
decadent practices that were established solely for their enjoyment.6 The perceived
view of Cuban natives as barbaric (a view that had existed since the late 19th century),
had evolved from a justification of U.S. expansion of imperial dominion, to a reprieve
from the civilizing social conditions Americans were feeling at home. Prohibition, which
was passed in 1919 in the United States, not only sent thousands of alcohol-deprived
elite Americans to book charters for Havana, but also pushed U.S. hotel developers to
set their sights on Cuba as well.
American developers feared that Prohibition (passed in 1919) threatened their
growing tourism ventures in the United States. John Bowman for example, (who rose to
the ranks of President of the Biltmore Company) expanded his hotel accommodations
empire to include the Hotel Sevilla in Havana just months after the United States
stopped the flow of alcohol.7 Bowman, was directly responsible for the reinvigoration of
6 Skwiot, Purposes of Paradise, 88.
7 Rosalie Schwartz, Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 44.
10
Cuba’s horse-race betting racket in 1919, and as a result began a process of attracting
wealthy North American tourists and businessmen, interested in partaking in, and
expanding the developing world for aristocratic excess in Havana. One of the major
draws to Cuba, was the seeming continuity of the U.S.’s Jim Crow policies on the
island. U.S. tourists did not need to worry about intermingling with a diverse racially
equal public. Of course, Jim Crow laws did not leak over into Cuban jurisdiction, but in
private, spaces in Cuba’s hotels remained in a state of de facto segregation. During the
First World War, Carlos Miguel de Céspedes, worked tirelessly for the development of
Havana, as tourists stopped going to France and other parts of Europe, and sought to
bring them to Cuba.8
In 1924 Gerardo Machado was elected President, and the country’s subservient
position to the United States was reinforced through expansion of U.S. commercial
interests and entities in Havana. Machado’s Public Works Secretary, de Céspedes
propagated a system in which political connections were rewarded with lucrative public
contracts. Under his directorship, his personal company (Compañía Fomento del
Turismo en Cuba) took over a series of public works projects that sought to upgrade the
cities sanitation services as well as public infrastructure. Machado’s commitment to the
Tourism industry, coupled with de Céspedes’ commercial know-how, resulted in a plan to beautify the city of Havana which included a new Capitol building, a highway that spanned the island, a new library, and a new museum. The corruption in government, and resulting development allowed for the city of Havana to surpass south Florida as the ideal tourist destination. As a result of the measures implemented in the United
8 Ibid. 31.
11
States up to this point, the US mafia was able to begin gaining a foothold in Havana for the purposes of running rum and other alcohols.9Sometime in 1928, Meyer Lansky remarked to one of his associates that the city of Havana had more potential than just being a booze-running outpost.10
In 1933, Lansky, and his associate Charlie Luciano met about making contact with an insider in the Cuban government, who might be interested in establishing relations with the Mafia. Through his dealings with Fulgencio Batista, Lansky was able to secure the rights to operating the Hotel Nacional and other gambling establishments.
Using their relations with U.S. financial institutions, Lansky, and Luciano were able to expand their operations to other aspects of the Tourist industry. By the time the Mafia had gained control of Cuba’s Casino ring, they additionally controlled the flow of alcohol in the city, and could solicit the services of prostitutes from the most expensive of bordellos in the city. The cash that Lansky and his associates controlled in Havana, allowed the mafia to operate without undue interruption from the police at all times.11
The 1930s were a time of tumultuous struggle in which Cubans sought to redefine the nature of Cuba’s status in relation to the United States. In 1933, Machado was overthrown in an upswing of revolutionary fervor which brought to power Dr.
Ramon Grau San Martin. San Martin’s regime attempted to reform Cuba’s place of subservience to the United States as well as to restructure the economic realities on the island. These reforms included the unilateral abrogation of the Platt Amendment,
9 Enrique Cirules, The Mafia in Havana: A Caribbean Mob Story (New York: Ocean Publishers, 2004), 16.
10 English, Havana Nocturne, 13.
11 Ibid. 31-92.
12
suffrage for women, the institution of the 8-hour day, and began taking steps to enact agrarian reform. However, the regime was overthrown in a coup in January 1934, led by
General Fulgencio Batista. For the next three years, the island remained under military rule which was supported by the United States. 12
In 1940, the government allowed for free and fair elections, which Batista
ultimately won. During that period he backed the reforms of 1933, and began to establish the mechanisms that would allow him to control a series of puppet presidents after he “retired” to Daytona Beach, Fl. The 1940s in Cuba represented yet another subversion of Cuban democracy, backed by the United States, as well as the entrenchment of Cuba’s economy in the business of Vice.13
By 1952, after a string of bad breaks for Meyer Lansky, and a series of largely
ineffective presidencies, Batista ran for president. Three months before the elections, he
staged a military coup, which displaced the last elected President of the Cuban republic.
In mid-1952, in the midst of what could have been a political nightmare, Batista
appointed Meyer Lansky to oversee the reforms of Cuba’s gambling establishments. In
a series of months, Lansky was able to reform the practices of the casinos, and remove
all potential opposition to his rule over Havana’s criminal underworld. The attitude that
Batista displayed towards gambling, extended to prostitution and sex-tourism, as like
gambling, sex-tourism brought tourists to the island. Tourists brought cash that could
help keep the state’s coffers, as well as Batista’s pockets full.14
12 Lillian Guerra, “From Batista to Batista, 1933 to 1952” (lecture, Gainesville, Fl, October 23, 2012).
13 Ibid.
14 Peter Moruzzi, Havana Before Castro: When Cuba was a Tropical Playground (Gibbs Smith: Layton, 2008), 127.
13
However, the mid-1950s proved a threatening period for the island dictator. In
1953, a resistance movement had gained the courage to attack the regime, at the
Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. In order to regain the support of the people,
Batista began trying to institute economic reforms, and boost the number of tourists
coming to the island. By 1955, Batista had initiated a series of plans to begin
construction on a series of new hotels, including the Hotel Riviera and the Havana
Hilton in order to facilitate the future need of expected tourists.15
As violence against the regime rose between 1955 and 1959, the threat
perceived by tourists began to rise. However, the first major threat to tourists occurred
when the Revolutionary Directorate attacked one of Batista’s cabinet ministers outside
of the Montmarte hotel, in the tourist district of Vedado. The scene ended with the
assassination of the head of Cuba’s intelligence forces, and the invasion of the Haitian
embassy’s compound.16 As public relations efforts on both sides began to dominate the
captive audience of Cubans and American tourists, Batista began to lose ground.
Herbert Matthew’s interview with Fidel Castro appeared in the New York Times in 1957,
swaying many Americans to Castro’s side.17
Then in March of 1957, the biggest blow to Batista’s image came. When members of the revolutionary directorate stormed the presidential palace, and
attempted to kill the dictator. The area of the city around the presidential palace quickly
turned into a battleground, and tourists were forced to seek cover in their hotels. Two
15 Schwartz, Pleasure Island, 147-154
16 Ibid. 169.
17 Carlos Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution (Viking Adult, 1980).
14
tourists, however, Peter Korenda and Edward Butts were caught in the crosshairs of the
attack. The damage done by returning tourists, who told their families and friends could
not be mitigated. The New York Times suggested taking cover at the first sounds of
gunshots subsequently when news of the attack broke in the U.S. media.18 A series of
other media scandals directly implicated the Batista regime with dealing with U.S.
Mafioso’s, and further pushed the Cuban populace from Batista.
Concentration of Control: Nightclubs
Beginning in the early 1900s, the peoples of the Caribbean were portrayed in ever more sexualized ways. As Puritanical attitudes gripped the United States, travel writers and their counterparts in the Cuban Tourist Commission began a process of describing the island nations where not only could one’s thirst for alcohol be satiated, but so could desires of the flesh. Both men and women of all racial backgrounds were portrayed as available in tourist materials. One such guide book, Cuba… 700 Miles of Playground, begins with an image of 6 black men playing instruments and being looked upon by a white individual. The black men are drawn in such a way as to overemphasize their physiques, and one of the men’s posteriors.19
18 Schwartz, Pleasure Island, 172-173.
19 Edgar Lee Hay. Cuba… 700 Miles of Playground. Travel Brochure. 1931. Cuban Archives, Special Collections, FIU, Miami, Florida.
15
Figure 1-1. Inside cover of “Cuba: 700 Miles of Playground”, reprinted with permission from Special Collections & University Archives, Green Library, Florida International University
The clothing that each of the men wears is interesting as well, for each of the black men wears a loosely fitting shirt that outlines his physique in a manner that
highlights the curvature of the muscles in his body. The men also wear sashes around
their waists and bandanas around their necks. The fact that three of the men’s
bandanas are untied suggests that the men are not working as they perform (which
would suggest the simplicity of their lives), which consequently denotes availability. The
lack of uniformity of their dress suggests that they are not professional musicians, rather
are just a group of black men playing music. Additionally, their attire in contrast with the
onlooker, reifies racist notions of savage simplicity. The onlooker, a white man, appears
in the background of the image. His position in the image is removed enough that his
head is smaller in scale than the other men. His placement suggests a racial
16
delineation, as he is not interacting with the black men other than gazing upon them, or
supervising them. However, considering that his tie knot appears tight, it would not
make sense that he was supervising a group of black men who were dressed so
casually. When coupled with the title, Cuba… 700 miles of Playground, a sexual
element is made apparent. The over-emphasized physiques of the black men, as well
as the sole white man, suggests the availability of those men for the sexual
consumption by the white man.
Images such as this saturates the tourist material of the 1930s through the
1950s. A brochure for the famous Tropicana Nightclub features a Rumba dancer in a
sexualized cabaret costume surrounded by the images of four men gazing upon her as
they play their instruments. Nightclubs such as the Tropicana were renowned for their
daring displays of the flesh, and hyper-sexualized shows. The availability of prostitutes
in the streets, only assisted in the creation of Havana’s reputation as being the City of
Earthly Desires. For every desire, there was a club that catered to that desire. One of
the more popular tropes in Cuban Cabarets were “Authentic Voudou shows” which put
the mulatta on display for the white tourist. The French spelling of the word “Voudou”, suggests a universality of “black-barbarism”. How could these “Authentic Voudou shows,” truly be authentic, if Voudou is part of Haitian culture, as opposed to the Cuban variant of Yoruba religious tradition, Santeria? At the “Zombie Club,” tourists could partake in any number of delights that satisfied their tastes for both alcohol and flesh.
The Zombie Club in particular was known for being a site of sexual accessibility for any
17
and all sexual desires.20 The imagery used to advertise the Zombie club featured a man
walking stylized as a minstrel. Stereotypes and fears of blackness and black sexuality
were exacerbated when blackness was put on display and commodified in nightclubs
for foreign white consumption. Nightclubs became the scenes for living out a series of
fantasies, and tourists knew what to expect when they went to these clubs, they need
only look in the brochures provided in their informational travel packets to find out.
Figure 1-2. Pamphlet for the Tropicana Nightclub circa 1950s, reprinted with permission from Special Collections & University Archives, Green Library, Florida International University
There is an inherent linkage in the relationship of domination and sexuality. The
relationship between the U.S. government and the Cuban can be couched in sexual
terms, and at the time was. As Ada Ferrer describes in Insurgent Cuba, the nation as it
20 Personal communication with Althea Silvera (Department Head of the Special Collections Department in the Green Library at Florida International University), December 17, 2014.
18
formed in the 1890s at the end of the Cuban independence wars was characterized by
a sense of fraternalism. Through the independence struggle, the Cuban nation was
forged through the process of when “blacks and whites became brothers”, and “barefoot
all and naked all, blacks and whites became equal: they embraced and have not
separated since.” For Jose Marti, the mixed-race nation was not born out of
miscegenation but rather emerged out of a “manly union” forged in the war.21 Women
were clearly left out of this racial fraternity of the nation. With this in mind—from the
outset the U.S. underwent a process of trying to emasculate the Cuban nation. Rhetoric by U.S. travel writers characterizing the island as a young mistress suggests this. By constructing the narrative of an untamed, virgin land, populated by unruly savages, writers attempted to incite amongst wealthy protestant white civilizers the urge to assert their dominance over the island and the people.22
The rhetoric of the M-26-7 movement reinscribed the construction of the nation of
Cuba embodied as a woman. However, what the movement (and their political
precedents in the Ortodoxos party) emphasized was the alarming rate U.S. business
interests penetrated the Cuban economy.23 Fidel and his movement saw the island and
its people as being prostituted to the imperialist Yankees to the north. The kind of
prostitution he refers to is the complete domination of U.S. companies in the relative
landholding of arable land in Cuba, the domination of U.S. corporations in the Utilities,
and the total saturation of corruption in the government. As the rebels saw it, Cuba had
21 Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898 (Raleigh: University of North Carolina, 1999), 126.
22 Skwiot, Purposes of Paradise, 168-176.
23 Guerra, “From Batista to Batista, 1933 to 1952” (lecture, Gainesville, Fl, October 23, 2012).
19
finally become the client state that so many annexationists had hoped would occur at
the turn of the 20th century. By juxtaposing the metaphor of the nation to an individual
level, that fantasy becomes a livable one.
The fantasies that were playing out in Nightclubs across Havana were two-fold,
sexual, and imperialist. Havana’s reputation as a “brothelly good time city,”24 is apparent
in the writings of U.S. travel writers for the New York Times. Havana’s fate was sealed
when the Times of Cuba reported that, “[moral bars which were] never so high that they
could not be easily hurdled, have been lowered” and suggested that “Don’t question
hubby too closely when he stumbles back to the hotel at 5 a.m. It wouldn’t do you any
good to confirm your suspicions.”25 Heterosexual and homosexual men alike from the
United States could find whatever tickled their fancy. As historian T.J. English reports in
his book, Havana Nocturne, men from Europe and North America would frequently
solicit the service of prostitutes after being visually stimulated in the numerous cabarets
and burlesque shows popular in the city. One of the great ironies of the dynamic, is that
Southern gentlemen typically sought out prostitutes of African descent, as a prohibited
“luxury” in which they could not indulge in back home.26 This allowed white southern
men the opportunity to be a pre-Civil War, “planter for a day,” indulging in the great
cultural taboo that interracial sex had always been in the U.S. South, but especially
since the rise of Jim Crow in the 1890s.27
24 Skwiot, Purposes of Paradise, 168.
25 “Cuba, Refuge for the Frivolous and the Thirsty;” “Don’ts for Tourists,” Times of Cuba, January 1920, 95; Chapman, A History of the Cuban republic, 603.
26 English, Havana Nocturne, 217.
27 Personal communication with Lillian Guerra, January 12, 2015.
20
Within nightclubs, all sorts of sexual fantasies were being played out. From the
more conservative burlesque shows in which women of all races were on display to
entice their male audience, to the more daring shows which involved full-on pornographic acts, men were frequently invited to act upon their desires. After a couple of drinks, a previously straight-laced Puritanical man from new England might find himself walking through the barrio Colón, where brothels lined the streets, and prostitutes sat on display for the captive male gaze. However, the actual acting out of the sexual fantasy in the nightclubs helped bring to life the view that Cuban women were more sexually aggressive. Cuban women’s sexual aggression was reinforced by the role that prostitutes played within general sexual dynamics. For instance, Cuban
prostitutes were known to cat-call male clients from windows, during the day in the
areas of the city delineated as red zones where sex work was allowed only at night.
Cuban laws banning “public scandal” and regulating prostitution did not allow them to
solicit prior to 9 pm.28 Within this system, nightclubs also served to emasculate Cuban
men. The assumption behind them was that a Cuban woman displayed herself because
Cuban men could simply not satisfy her sexually. Foreign men could almost certainly
serve that appetite, because as previously mentioned, in the nightclubs frequented by
tourists, a system of de facto segregation and real segregation through the use of
bouncers remained in place.29 Through this, the woman, representing the “nation of
Cuba”, needs the protection, and pleasure of company of the man, who represents the
28 Ibid.
29 Guerra, Visions of Power, 280, Personal Communication with Lillian Guerra, February 18,2015.
21
U.S. When this scene is played out nightly, in the minds of thousands of men, imperialist domination becomes a part of the national consciousness.
But how does this relate to imperial domination? Conflation of sexual availability for all Cuban women, in all aspects of daily life, creates negative stereotypes that justifies the domineering control that U.S. men felt was their right to exhibit. One such example of an absurd level of sexual availability was displayed at the Shanghai Theater which was well known for its daring sex shows. Such a show, which played for weeks, involved the use of ejaculated semen as creamer in a woman’s coffee.30 However, the show is not scripted to display the man as the instigator of such a scene. Rather, as part of the act or the fantasy, the woman assumes control of the situation and teases the man to the point of coaxing him to reveal his penis.
One of Havana’s most famous attractions in the 1950s was Superman, a permanent fixture in the Shanghai Theater. Superman was known for having a 14-inch penis, which was frequently incorporated in his acts. In one of the most common acts, the audience would have the ability to direct Superman to perform intercourse with one woman out of a group on stage. The racial dynamics at play suggest an interesting interplay of domination and control. Superman, was a Cuban man of African descent, being directed by white “masters” to sleep with a woman of the crowd’s choosing. With disproportionately sized genitals, superman through acting out an eroticized role, played into U.S. Southern ideas about the “Black Monster” raping white women. These fears were rooted in pre-existing racist logic of the Jim Crow white south, and parodies on the
30 English, Havana Nocturne, 219.
22
absurdity of the relative size of his genitalia or the idea that a black Cuban man could be
“Superman” or Clark Kent.31
Havana’s Mafia syndicate, which operated the Casinos on the island were
implicit in the purveyance of Cuba’s sexual degradation in public spaces at night.32
Cabarets were included in the construction of casinos, which were run by the mafia, and
for a variant price, a sex performer might be available for a curious American audience
members after the curtain had gone down. If she was not particularly available, she or
her co-stars, or other employees in the cabaret might be able to introduce him to someone who was, or bring him to the nearest bordello.
When business associates of the Mafia running the Havana operation came into town, it would not be uncommon for them to be brought to shows that would allow them to dictate the direction of the show for the right price. In an economically disadvantaged country, enough money could make anything happen. Under these conditions, the viewer is thereby acting as the constructor and director of the fantasy. For example, during one of Superman’s shows, Mafia associate Ralph Rubio was accompanied by
Irvine “Niggy” Devine to watch the show. Allegedly, “Nig Devine was a sexual degenerate. He put up 300 dollars extra to see Superman have anal sex with a woman.”33 One’s ability to control the lives, and sexual actions of individuals transcends
sexual fantasy to a fantasy of power. Dreams of empire, operate at a level above sexual
31 Ibid, 219-220.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid. p 220.
23
fantasy, but not so high above as to be separate and unreachable under the right
conditions.
Within the sphere of these heterosexual spaces, queer men often found places to
work. Sexual variance provided Mafia associates with varied acts that could expand
their potential for profits. Lesbian sex shows for example, were one such case in which
queer folk could find work. With the absence of any state prohibition or protection for
queer men in the workplace, queer men were left to the discretion of their employers if
they could find work. For men who were obviously queer, pajaros or maricones, their assumed sexual passivity earned them a public repugnance.34 Men who passed as
straight, or who were not as obviously gay, were accepted, but understood to be gay.
These men might find work, but would not necessarily escape the harassment of
popular sentiments of homophobia. In a society in which the virility of the man is
constantly questioned from within and without, threats to perceived masculinity
represented a threat. First-hand testimonies recount Superman as being homosexual,
despite his nightly performances with women.35 Homosexuality did not prevent a
performer who had talent in performing or choreographing performances for the
nightclubs. For example, one of the most booked piano players of the time, Bola de
Nieve was openly homosexual. However, he is often remembered as heterosexual, suggesting that homosexual men were accepted if their talent gave them an inherent
34 Ian Lumsden, Machos Maricones & Gays: Cuba and Homosexuality (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 29.
35 English, Havana Nocturne, 219.
24
value more than their sexuality detracted from the national masculine construction.36
Rodney Neyra, a homosexual man, was hired as the choreographer for the famed
Tropicana Nightclub. Because of his associations with the Tropicana, and the Mafia
involvement in the club’s management, he was able to navigate between many other
clubs in Havana, and was one of the most sought after burlesque choreographers of the
time. With the absence of a queer community, queer men operated within social
networks in various heterosexual spaces that were accepting of them in order to find a
means to survive.
However, in the shadow of these heterosexual serving spaces, a few queer
establishments indeed existed. The Palette Club, was one such space in which drag
shows were frequently performed.37 Drag serves a unique function in the system of
gender and power dynamics already discussed. Foremost, it provides a place of
employment for obviously homosexual men, who otherwise would be solely relegated to
selling their bodies for living wages. Second, it allows for the viewer to engage in
sentiments that might otherwise be private. Third, for a nominal fee, that viewer can
indulge in homosexual tendencies, but justify the acts as being heterosexual in nature if
the recipient of intercourse remains in drag character. For American tourists who
remained closeted this environment gave them the ability to act to emasculate the
Cuban male like their heterosexual counterparts.
36 Lidia Brito (Grandmother of the author, and former Cuban socialite) in Discussion with the author, December 2014.
37 Moruzzi, Havana Before Castro: When Cuba was a Tropical Playground, 122.
25
Anxieties over what was normal sexuality was frequently expressed in the
popular press. Gente, was one such magazine, which served a similar readership as
Time did in the United States. In February 1951, Gente ran an article which asked,
“Could the Homosexual be cured?” The author of the article concludes that
Homosexuality is a neurotic condition. In order to assist a homosexual person,
professional help was needed to get to the root of what was causing the neurotic
disjunction. According to Gente, homosexuality began in childhood but there is, “no
invariable cause …the child may have been rejected, exploited, over-protected, unloved
or victim of abuse, or treated by their parents in a way that would undermine the inner
feelings of security, self-esteem and confidence in its appeal.”38 This understanding of
homosexuality allows the reader to construct their own understandings, and gives room
for prejudices to grow. These beliefs would prove crucial in the campaign against
homosexual men taken by the revolutionary leadership in the early 1960s.
In addition to the cause of homosexuality being a floating signifier to most
Cubans, homosexual men began to acquire a reputation that associated them with
being untrustworthy because of their work in the tourist sector. As a result, pre-existing
notions of homosexuals as being foreign could be reproduced and expanded because
of their proximity to foreign consumers. As historian Abel Sierra Madero argues,
conflation of dandyism in the 20s and 30s with homosexuality proved damaging to the
Machado regime. Association of the dandies appointed to Machado’s cabinet as
sexually passive because of Cuba’s correctly perceived position of subservience to U.S.
38 Walker, W.A. “La Homosexualidad: Puede Curarse?; Gente de la semana” Havana, 1951. Cuban Heritage Collection, Special Collections, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida. (16 December 2014).
26
interest proved damaging for actually homosexual men.39 Fidel’s regime, as will be
discussed in the next chapter capitalized on a historical process to encode a proper and
acceptable definition of masculinity. Fidel, and the rest of his machista cabinet then
stirred up popular homophobia to serve as a pool of power that could be used in support
of the regimes larger goals. Popular opposition to effeminate men in power manifested
itself in collectible items such as “Album de la Revolución Cubana 1952-1959” in which guerrillas, and other machista images were glorified and served as a visual example of what was appropriately masculine and what was not.
Figure 1-3. Cover of the Album de la Revolución Cubana 1952-1959, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
39 Abel Sierra Madero, “Sexing the nation’s body during Cuba’s republican era,” in The Sexual History of the Global South: Sexual politics in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, ed. Saskia Wieringa and Horacio Sivori (London: Zed books, 2013) 65-81.
27
HARNESSING POPULAR HOMOPHOBIA: TIMELINE OF TERROR 1940-1961
“And what is a revolution Is it, perhaps, a peaceful and tranquil process? Is it, perhaps, a bed of roses? The Revolution is, in all historical events, the most complex and the most troubled. It is an infallible law of all revolutions, and history teaches; no real revolution ceased to be, ever, an extraordinarily convulsive process, or, otherwise, not revolution. When even the foundations of a society are moved, and only the revolution can shake the foundations and columns on which a social order stands, as only a revolution is able to move them, and if those foundations are not moved, the revolution would not take place, because a revolution is like destroying an old building to build a new building, and the new building is not built on the foundations of the old building. Therefore, a revolutionary process must destroy to build.”1 -Fidel Castro
Introduction
On January 2, 1961, Fidel educated the Cuban public in a speech given at
Revolutionary Plaza, on his view of the nature of Revolutions. To him, revolution should seek to completely re-engineer society without the influence nor the structural basis of the previous society. Popular retellings of the Cuban Revolution by Miami Exile Cubans suggests that the Cuban Revolution fulfilled the conditions of Fidel’s views on revolution, which dictated a Revolution must necessarily be a complete break from the past. As a consequence, much of the historiography of the Cuban Revolution operates on that assumption as foundational to understanding the nature of the “Revolution.”
However, some historians, such as Lillian Guerra, and Abel Sierra Madero have countered this point, remarking that aspects of the Cuban revolution were nothing but continuations, if not amalgamations of social conditions from the period before and after
January 1, 1959.
Beginning in the 1860s, with the use of social anthropology in medicine to find the roots of broader sociological issues, homosexuality was a topic frequently
1 Fidel Castro. "Speech by the commander Fidel Castro Ruz, Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government made in the parade in Civic Plaza on 2 January 1961." Cuba, Havana. Speech.
28
demonized and associated with negatively viewed sectors of society.2 In 1867,
prostitution and homosexuality became formerly linked when the Academy of Sciences
published a thesis which suggested that prostitution was a necessary evil for the
prevention of other evils—stemming from suppressed male sexuality, (in order of
precedence) prostitution, masturbation, rape of innocent women and children, and
homosexuality.3 In 1888, Dr. Benjamin de Céspedes became the foremost expert on
prostitution having produced a 700 page book entitled, “La Prostitución en la ciudad de
La Habana,” which blamed external forces for the social plagues of prostitution and
venereal diseases. Additionally de Céspedes blamed the Afro-Cuban population for the
perpetuation of moral decline in Cuba. He stated that the Afro-Cuban prostitutes in the
capital were too lazy to earn a living through honest work, and were also largely
unaware of their spreading of venereal diseases.4 Throughout the Republican Era,
doctors and sociologists attempted not to excise these vices but rather to regulate them.
The late 19th century had many lasting impacts on the 20th century. The failure to do
anything productive in regards to homosexuality and prostitution became crucial to
some of the initial revolutionary forms taken on from 1959-1960. As previously
mentioned in chapter 1, prostitutes were able to find loopholes in the law in order to
prevent a decrease in profits, and still remain in compliance with the law.5
2 Tiffany Sippial, Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic: 1840-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 53.
3 Ibid. 54.
4 Ibid, 89-91.
5 Personal Communication with Lillian Guerra, March 2,2015.
29
In this chapter, I will argue that the Cuban Revolution used existing popular
homophobia as a means for bolstering support for the revolution. Popular
understandings of homosexuality from the period of Cuba’s Republican era continued
into the 1960s and served as the basis for legal and institutional changes that by 1965
resulted in the internment of homosexual men in Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la
Producción (Units for the Aid of Military Production). I will conclude the chapter by
examining the events that between 1959-1961 institutionalized the persecution of
homosexual men.
Psychological and Legal Treatment of Homosexuals in Cuba 1936-1958
Until 1936, the Cuban Penal Code had not been reformed since colonial times.
As a result, the Social Defense code enacted in 1936 was very influenced by the old
Spanish Colonial laws. As it was enshrined in the Social Defense Code of 1936,
homosexuality was viewed as a form of social dangerousness—not a crime. However,
such positivist systems allow for the use of penal measures in defense of the greater good. 6 Under the Social Defense Code, Public spectacle exhibiting either “active or
passive pederasty” was outlawed.7 As a result, the arrest of individuals who exhibited
homosexual tendencies was entirely legal.
As many public officials and public health believed at the time, the disease that
was homosexuality could easily infect inmates in state psychiatric facilities, resulting in
6 The theory that laws are to be understood as social rules, valid because they are enacted by authority or derive logically from existing decisions, and that ideal or moral considerations (e.g., that a rule is unjust) should not limit the scope or operation of the law.
7 Codígo de defensa social, 17 de abril de 1936 [1938], ed. Jesus Montero, Obispo, 127, La Habana, Cuba, Artículos 486-88, 154.
30
the overwhelming tendency to isolate homosexuals from inmate populations.8 In 1948,
the League of Mental Hygiene was reinstituted. With the re-establishment, a series of
social issues that were plaguing Cuban society were defined. Homosexuality was
among one of the issues.9 Interestingly enough, the Republican periodicals grappled
with questions of sexuality rather frequently. Topics in periodicals ranged from the
effects of oppressed female sexuality, how facial morphology affected relationships, and
what the causes of homosexuality were.
However, it was not until 1959 that the concept of social dangerousness
expanded. Previously, the Batista regime did not have the capacity to undergo a
legitimate attempt to police gender, nor was it of any concern to the regime, because
homosexuals did not represent any significant threat to the regime. Beginning in 1953,
with the Attack on the Moncada Barracks, armed resistance to the regime or to the cash
flow (tourism) of the regime, increasingly occupied Batista’s attention. As a result he
underwent a transformation to civilize his image, both in terms of race and class. This
apathy from the state towards homosexuals in general, as historian Lillian Guerra
argues, had far-reaching consequences for homosexuals.10
Popular Press: Education of the Masses
Beginning in the 1930s, the daily press in Cuba began to experience a rapid
period of growth and development. Due to the accumulation of wealth in Havana by the
8 Jennifer Lambe, “Baptism by Fire: The Making and Remaking of Madness in Cuba, 1857-1980” (Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University, 2014 ), 262.
9 Pedro Marqués de Armas, “Psiquiatría para el nuevo Estado (1959-1972),” La Habana Elegante, accessed March 7, 2015, http://www.habanaelegante.com/Panoptico/Panoptico_Psiq_Intro.html
10 Lillian Guerra, Visions of Power: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 245.
31
1950s, Havana as a metropolis did not represent the realities of Cubans across the
island. Uneven development in Cuba as a result of U.S. penetration of the economy,
meant that Havana was in terms of development closer to a metropolitan center in the
U.S. than in the rest of the island.11
By the mid-1950s the city of Havana had more than 90 radio stations, and
54 daily newspapers.12 In the popular press magazines of the time, issues of national
identity and social issues were up for debate by the nation. It was the varied voices of
the press that initially came under fire during the initial period of the Revolutionary
reforms. In order to control the flow of information to re-educate society, it was critical
for Fidel to reign in the press. For the purposes of this project however, two popular
magazines were crucial to understanding how Havana’s society understood the
psychology of sexuality and masculinity, Don and Gente de la Semana.
Gente de la Semana
Gente de la Semana was a weekly magazine that ran from the 1940s into the
1950s. With a readership comprised of middle-upper class Cubans, topics ranged from entertainment to sexuality. Typically, a woman adorned the cover of Gente, and she exuded the sexuality that Cuban women had become known for. Specifically Cuban women were depicted as demanding sexual pleasure. All a tourist would need to do is
11 Lillian Guerra, “Making Revolutionary Cuba, 1952-59” (lecture, Gainesville, Fl, November 1, 2012).
12 Ibid.
32
walk past a newsstand to confirm his own stereotypes.
Figure 2-1. Covers of Gente demonstrating the sexual availability of women, (left) January 6, 1952, and (right) February 24, 1952. Photo Courtesy of the Author.
In the February 25, 1951 edition of Gente, an article ran titled, “La
Homosexualidad: puede curarse,” [Homosexuality: can it be cured]. Within the first
couple of lines, the author suggests, “Nuestra ignorancia, temor y prejuicios, impiden
que miles de hombres y mujeres que sufren los horrors de este mal sepan que la
homosexualidad puede curarse, que es una enfermedad como otra cualquiera.” [“Our
ignorance, fear and prejudice, prevents thousands of men and women suffering the
horrors of this evil knowing that homosexuality can be cured, it is a disease like any
other.”]
The article takes an interesting stand which at times stands with and then
departs from the typical lines taken by psychologists and sociologists in this period, both in the U.S. and Latin America. The article maintains that the condition of homosexuality is a disease. However, the author describes this condition as a symptom of a more deeply rooted anxiety, which usually is instilled in children. According to the journalist
33
the basic anxiety that is at the root of homosexuality, is also at the root of other
conditions. However, the anxiety manifests because of sexualized experiences that
either traumatize the individual, or results from rejection of the opposite sex. The article
concludes with the assertion that homosexuality could be cured, but not through quick- fix types of solutions, such as drugs, suggestion therapy, or hypnosis, but through psychoanalysis in order to figure out the deep rooted cause of the alleged anxiety.
Eight years before the revolution, Gente published an article that modern psychologists would consider progressive compared to the revolutionary beliefs.
Additionally, this article recognizes and respects female homosexuality as equally likely as male homosexuality. Because Gente appealed to a well-educated middle/upper class audience of readers13, the article suggests that Cubans would see homosexuals
not as deranged sex-crazed monsters, but rather as the journalist suggests, victims of
an unfortunate mental illness. This attitude lends credence to Carlos Franqui’s claim in
Family Portrait with Fidel that, “Cuban cruelty allows you to make fun of a homosexual,
but not to imprison or harass him.”14
Don
Don served as a lifestyle, and fashion magazine directed towards men in the
1950s. Every edition included a section called “La Moda Universal” [Universal Fashion].
These sections typically included fashion tips, and general advice on what was “in
season”, and talked about trends around the globe. Don allowed the male reader to put
himself on a par with men throughout the world as equals. The same article cautions
13 Meiyolet Mendez, personal communication to author, December 15, 2014.
14 Carlos Franqui Family Portrait with Fidel (New York: Random House, 1984), 140.
34
that the elegant and distinguished man finds a middle ground, and does not fall victim to
fads,
“Sin embargo, el hombre realmente elegante y distinguido cae en la tendencia universal, no diferenciándose el de Paris del de Londres, New York o La Habana. El hombre que no usa el traje como una expresión de filosofía, o de manifestación ante la vida, acepta los movimientos que va dictando la moda, pero sin exageraciones--le quita lo sensacional. Si la corbata se usa ancha en un país, y en otro se usa estrecha, el hombre distinguido habrá de encontrar un término medio entre ambos estilos de modo que permaneciendo dentro de las tendencias sartoriales del momento, no caerá en extremos ridículos y chabacanos.”15
“[However, the really elegant and distinguished man falls into the universal trend, not differing from that of Paris, London, New York or Havana. The man who does not use the suit as an expression of philosophy, or event to life, accepts the movements that will dictate fashion, but without exaggeration - he removes the sensational. If the tie is used wide in one country and another is used close, the distinguished man must find a middle ground between the two styles while remaining within sartorial trends of the moment, so he shall not fall into ridiculous extremes and cheap fads.]”
In the July 1958 issue, one article, “Tendencias de Verano,” [Trends of Summer]
the journalist writes about the use of all white clothing,
“El cubano siempre ha mostrado preferencia por el traje blanco, sobre todo el traje de dril 100, aunque este no brinda esa sensación de comodidad practica que ofrecen los nuevos tejidos. Ahora, el blanco ha invadido todos los campos y se irá viendo cada vez más en el ropero masculino durante este verano.”16
[The Cuban has always shown a preference for the white suit, especially 100 percent cotton suit, although this does not give the practical feeling of comfort offered by new tissue. White has now invaded all fields and it will increasingly be seen more in the male wardrobe this summer.]”
15 , “La Moda Universal,” Don, October, 1958. Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida.
16 , “Tendencias de Verano,” Don, July, 1958. Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida.
35
Figure 2-2. Fulgencio Batista sporting a white suit when meeting with then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower (left) and example of a man in white suit from July 1958 issue of Don (right).
Whether or not the article is giving a nod to then Cuban President Fulgencio
Batista in one of the worst periods of his reign is not clear. However, Fulgencio Batista became known for wearing suits (particularly white) after his coup cancelled the free elections in 1952. In an attempt to shed himself of the dictatorial image, Batista was rarely seen in his officer’s regalia after this period. In order to distance himself from the violence of his regime, and to ensure international support and financial contributions to his government, Batista quickly underwent a transformation that presented him as a refined gentleman for the rest of the world. Racialized images of Batista frequently depicted him as an ape in his officer’s uniform. To combat these violent images he used the extreme opposite visage to match the image he wanted to present of Cuba to the rest of the world.
As discussed in Chapter 1, sex was so integral to the Cuban economy at the end of the 1950s, as Lillian Guerra points out, the only growing sectors of the economy by
36
the end of 1958 were pornography and licensed brothels.17 These periodicals illustrate
the extent to which sexuality permeated every aspect of daily life. Anxiety over
traditional understandings of gender and sexuality were on display and up for debate in
the world of Havana’s periodicals of the late Republican era. Such anxiety festered and
finally manifested itself in what Cuban literary critic Emilio Bejel deems a homosexual
panic.18 This panic, which will be discussed later, “requires the reinforcement of the borders of accepted sexuality and gender roles.” These examples speak to the desire of the man from Havana to be seen as equal to any other man of the metropolitan world— not the Guajiro. As journalists and politicians (namely Batista) sought to re-engineer the
view of the Cuban man amongst the men of the world, another type of man was fighting
to be heard from the Sierra Maestra.
From casual homophobia to arrested development, 1959-1961
Since the late 19th century, homosexuality and prostitution were viewed as part-
and-parcel of the same problem. Overtime, that problem seemed to have changed from
repressed male sexuality to corrupted morals caused by the capitalist system. As
Rachel Hynson discusses in Sex and Statemaking in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959 – 1968,
the revolutionary state began reforming the laws as they related to prostitution. The
initial reforms under the revolution sought to purge society of vice, hence the closing of
the casinos, the establishment of the Ministry of Ill-Gotten Goods, and crackdowns on
prostitution. The institutionalization of the revolution that began in these early years
resulted in a formal codification of a religiosity in relation to the trials and tribulations of
17 Lillian Guerra, “Making Revolutionary Cuba, 1952-59” (lecture, Gainesville, Fl, November 1, 2012).
18 Emilio Bejel, Gay Cuban Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 201.
37
revolutionary leaders. Ascription to Fidelismo, helped engage the population in Fidel’s personal Moral War.
As Rachel Hynson discusses, the Revolutionary legislature began a process of rewriting portions of the Social Defense Code, which had been in place since 1936. As mentioned before, Social dangerousness was expanded in ways it had never been before. Social Dangerousness as a label eventually became a label to mean anyone who did not toe the party line. By the middle of the 1960s, socially dangerous individuals included youths who wore their hair long or listened to the Beatles. Social dangerousness evolved into ideological diversionism, which was codified into law by
1968.19 However in the early 1960s, Social Dangerousness was expanded into an
umbrella term. Underneath the classification of social dangerousness was the category
of “lumpen.”20 “Lumpen” individuals were denoted to be lazy, but as the term applied to
men, the regime wrote the law specifically to refer to how he made his living. For
example, if a man survived off of the labors of a woman, he was considered “lumpen.”
This distinction simultaneously groups pimps, and homosexuals under the same term.
Because of their segregation in the economy to working in the nightclubs, arguably any
homosexual man owed his wages to the efforts of female entertainers and prostitutes
who drew men into the nightclubs. Additionally, “lumpen” individuals included prostitutes
as their labors were not viewed as being constructive to society as a whole. As a result,
the men who sold their bodies (homosexual and heterosexual alike) were under attack.
Additional changes to the legislation also made the arrest of these individuals a matter
19 Guerra, Visions of Power, 228-230.
20 Rachel Hynson, “Sex and State Making in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1968” (PhD diss, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2014).
38
of national security, which placed them under the jurisdiction of revolutionary tribunals, which allowed the regime to supersede the authority of the courts.21 These measures would be tested in 1961, and implemented regularly by 1965.22
While immediately attacking the sectors of the economy that the regime viewed as morally reprehensible, the state also began a campaign to educate the citizens and change popular attitudes about work and service through example.
Figure 2-3. “Negativo, Compañero ” by Nuez, May, 5, 1961 Revolucion.
Any compañero who was not complicit with the state’s will became enemies of the state and would subsequently be marked by state organizations. Such a negative compañero was also likely to be sentenced to forced labor on a people’s farm.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
39
After restrictions on travel to Cuba were enacted by the U.S. in 1960, prostitution,
and the economy of the nightclubs dwindled quickly. With economic relations
disappearing, political relations were deteriorating quickly as well. Fidel’s proclamations
that the U.S. could invade at any moment were reinforced by cartoons and articles
published in the official organ of the Revolutionary Movement, Revolución. Images such as the following saturated the newspapers, and colored everyday Cubans’ understandings of the world. Such militarization of daily consumption of information coupled with the institutionalization of mass organizations helped Fidel’s goal of reforming the everyday man into a guerrilla prepared to defend “la patria y su revolución!”
Figure 2-4. Image from Revolución depicting “a map of Cuba and various cables U.P.I. and A.P. giving information on the development of the invasion. All this is quite ironic since it titled, "The small total war UPIAP".23
23 Revolución, Official Organ of the Cuban Revolutionary Movement, May 8, 1961.
40
The militarization of everyday life, as well as the ever-prevalent images of what a true man was and was not, provided Cubans a crash course on acceptable masculinity.
This lesson on gender expression, taught Cubans who was proverbially in, and who was out. Individuals who broke from the mold and identified themselves as individuals, would come to pay the price later on. One such example was the prominent Cuban writer was Virgilio Piñera.
Playwright Virgilio Piñera, famously spoke up at the first of a series of meetings held at the National Library to discuss the role of intellectuals and intellectual freedom with top officials. During this time, Revolución and Lunes were brought under attack by the Council of Culture headed up by Edith Garcia Buchaca.24 Carlos Franqui recounts
that Fidel opened the meeting by saying, “Whomever is afraid should speak first.” To
which Virgilio Piñera replied, “Doctor Castro, have you ever asked yourself why any
writer should be afraid of the revolution? And since it seems I’m the one who is most
afraid, let me ask why the revolution is so afraid of writers?”25 The meetings, both
Carlos Franqui and Guillermo Cabrera Infante remember resembled trials more than they did meetings. Cabrera also remembers Piñera as “slightly suspect because he looked frankly queer in spite of his efforts to appear manly.”26
If the “trial” was over the direction of the national culture, with Lunes and
Revolución as defendants, then to those concerned Carlos Franqui, and Guillermo
Cabrera Infante were convicted as accomplices because of their political unreliability.
24 An old-party communist who had been loyal to the party before the revolution’s triumph.
25 Franqui, Family Portrait with Fidel, 130.
26 Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Mea Cuba (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux,1994), 70-71.
41
By association, homosexuals, which were offered employment at Lunes (cultural insert of Revolución) were also guilty. Fidel had finally the excuse to set into motion a series of events which would eventually culminate with the denunciation of homosexuals and their internment in the UMAP camps. After the meetings, Fidel gave his infamous
“Speech to Intellectuals” on July 30, 1961. In this speech Fidel famously gave writers an ultimatum in which they were told that their work, if counterrevolutionary, put them in opposition to the state. Both common, and prominent homosexuals could be found in violation of Revolutionary principles.
On October 11, 1961, members of the escuadrón de scoria or the “Scum Squad”, roved through various sections of the city of Havana, arresting anyone who was known to be a homosexual, pimp, or prostitute. Carlos Franqui, recounts that there was an initial sweep, which arrested anyone without identifying paperwork. And a second
campaign sought out homosexuals, pimps, prostitutes, and other enemies of the state.
The individuals arrested in the second sweep had been denounced by local Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. After their arrest, and processing, prisoners were forced to wear a uniform with the letter “P” on their backs. As the police roamed through the streets, onlookers who looked “a little too refined, or delicate, or just plain guilty,” would also be taken. Ramiro Valdes, one of the top ranking officers of the Police helped to issue the orders for the mass arrest. When confronted by Carlos Franqui, he retorted, accusing Franqui of defending homosexuality, and being against “revolutionary moarliaty.”27
27 Franqui, Family Portrait with Fidel, 138-141.
42
Conclusively, attitudes towards homosexuals from the Republican era into the first years of the Revolution did not drastically change. If nothing, the state capitalized on popular sentiments, and understandings of homosexuality to justify its actions in the first years of the 1960s. Measures taken by the state to glorify Fidel’s masculinity as the model, and the resulting militarization of daily life, made it rather easy to find obvious homosexuals. By altering already existing laws, the regime was able to lay a legal and operational framework that allowed the regime to efficiently intern homosexuals in
UMAP camps by 1965. The confusion of acceptable gender and sexuality of the 1950s proved a malleable tool for the regime, and resulted in additional stigmas being placed upon prostitutes and homosexuals. The precedents established in the established in the early 1960s would have long reaching consequences. In order to remain unscathed by the state’s security apparatus, a “decolonized man required theatrical displays of a hetero-sexual drive.”28 That heterosexual-drive was based on the antics and exuding (to a fault) masculinity of Fidel Castro. As chapter 3 discusses, that would change in the mid-1960s, when the suitable model became el Che himself.
28 Guerra, Visions of Power, 245.
43
DE/RE-COLONIZING THE CUBAN MAN, 1959-1965
Introduction
Since the early modern period, scholars and thinkers have been concerned with man’s nature, and place in correlation to nature, and society. With the advent of the
Enlightenment, political thinkers have thought about man’s place within society, and how his nature either inhibited or became malformed because of social conventions that altered his nature. After the spread of Marxism, and the adoption of Marxist-Leninist ideology by Russian Revolutionaries and subsequently Soviet Statesmen, the question of man’s nature in relation to communism reinvigorated old debates. The Soviet New
Man would be emerge from the fires of revolutionary struggle, strong enough to help carry the international class of proletariats to Communist Utopia. However, as Marxism spread throughout the world, different interpretations and understandings of
Communism, and the New Man began to proliferate. What the New Man became however, was a de facto version of Masculinity that was acceptable and non-threating to autocratic, and totalitarianizing statesmen. To this end, the view of what exactly the New
Man was varied between the formal Soviet Union and the other nations in the Soviet sphere of influence, such as Cuba. Even within Cuba, the high command had variant views on this acceptable form of masculinity. This chapter will explore the Soviet New
Man and his Cuban counterparts. In order to do so, I will begin by examining the construction of the New Man beginning in the 1860s amongst Russian Intelligentsia circles. Then I will examine the ideology for the New Man as explained by the ideologue of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara.
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Development of the “New Man”
Attempts to alter the nature of human nature in relation to the state began under the Jacobin regime of the French Revolution. Maximilien Robespierre envisioned himself as the pedagogue for a new class of citizens based on the ideals of Jean-
Jacque Rousseau and Claude Adrien Helvétius. Under Robespierre, the first attempt to reform individual’s consciousness as citizens on massive levels occurred. However, the brevity of the regime prevented the culmination of the reformed education system from coming to fruition.1
The Russian intelligentsia of the late 19th century, inspired by the ideals of the
French Revolution, and driven forward to incite Marx’s socialist revolution for the total
restructuring of society, coined the term in the 1860s. Grigoryevich Belinsky wrote about
the crucial nature of “sociality” and “humanity” in the arsenal of new citizens of the
world. For Belinsky this meant future society would be socioeconomically homogenous,
and citizens would maintain a commitment to ideals and convictions on behalf to he
collective society. Such rhetoric influenced the writing of another member of the
Russian intelligentsia, Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, whose novel “What is to be Done?
The Story about the New Man”, proved foundational for the establishment of Soviet conceptions of this new man. Chernyshevsky’s character embodies a selfless commitment to the Russian people, and the inevitable revolution. Through a process of self-inflicted torture, as well as grueling labors that allow him to learn the struggles of all
1 Yingchong Cheng, Creating the “New Man”: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2009), 11-13.
45
of the Russian peoples, the New Man comes to possess a materialist worldview2, a
clear view of the future, and the iron will to accomplish the destruction of the old world
order. Additionally as it relates to sexuality, the New Man maintained conservative
sexual practices, which should be guided by the principles of sociality. The inter-
workings of the sexual relationship between the New Man and his wife should not
interfere in the affairs of the revolutionary organ, and his comrade in marriage should
only help him be more capable of taking on the old world order.3
Vladimir Lenin idolized the work of Chernyshevsky, and began designing an educational system that began to foster the growth of the New Man in young Soviets.
By applying Ivan Petrovich Pavlov’s theory of Conditioned Reflection to education in the
Soviet Union, Lenin created the Party School System, which saturated student’s daily intake of knowledge with a political education. In order to inculcate a class consciousness in the workers, the schools developed in this educational system emphasized a fusion of labor, and pedagogy. These schools, Lenin hoped would create an army of professional revolutionaries that could inject revolutionary consciousness into workers across the country that could help replace creative spontaneity with class consciousness. Lenin sought to bring the Soviet Union a step closer to communism by attempting to de-alienate workers from their labors. Marx argued in his earlier works, that through the capitalist structure in place at the time, man was alienated from his
2 Marx argued that economic processes form the material base of society upon which institutions and ideas rest and from which they derive.
3 Cheng, Creating the “New Man” pp. 15-17.
46
labors. That alienation Marx argued, formed the basis of the working man’s
subjugation.4
Using Chernyshevsky’s rhetoric of iron and ore, Lenin was able to rationalize the
intentional reformation of student’s minds by reducing them to “cogs” in the machine
that is society. Joseph Stalin was another heavy proponent of this technique, and
subsequently the view held by the upper echelons of the Communist party of the
workers became clouded by an air of non-individuality in which individuals could be
replaced if their formation did not allow them to correctly fit into their space in the larger
machine.5 Expanding on Lenin’s personal goal for collective society’s consciousness to
conquer spontaneity, Leon Trosky embellished the nature of the New Man, adding,
Man will at last begin to harmonize himself in earnest. He will make it his business to achieve beauty by giving the movement of his own limbs the utmost precision, purposefulness and economy in his own work his walk and his play. He will try to master first the semiconscious and then the subconscious process in his own organism, such as breathing, the circulation of the blood, digestion, reproduction, and within necessary limits, he will try to subordinate them to the control of reason and will. Even purely physiologic life will become subject to collective experiments.6
As the Soviet economy expanded as a result of Stalin’s Five-Year plans, so too
did the conception of the New Man. Numerous New Men emerged in order to serve
propagandistic purposes, including the worker’s heroes, based off of the
accomplishments of Aleksei Stakhanov who managed to mine 102 tons of coal in the
1930s in a 6-hour shift.7 Other supposed New Men emerged throughout Soviet history
4 Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Robert Tucker. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1978). 66-105.
5 Cheng, Creating the “New Man” pp 17-30.
6 Paul Siegel, Leon Trotsky on Literature and Art. (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970). 158.
7 Cheng, Creating the “New Man” p. 34.
47
such as cosmonauts.8 Under Stalin’s regime, reforms were put in place in the Soviet
system which promoted material-based incentives for increases in worker productivity.
Inherently the use of these motivators contradicts the nature of the New Man. Despite
the inherent contradiction, Soviet propagandists still promoted the New Man as an
image. Much like other trends and tendencies within the Soviet bloc, the disjunction
between practicality and party ideology became apparent. As Soviet planners continued
trying to reform the economy into a market-based socialist economy, Cubans were
actively attempting to work through the linear stages towards communism as laid out by
Marx. This persisting contradiction in particular is a point of disjuncture between the
Cuban and Soviet conceptions of the New Man, and resulted in the attempt by the
Cuban revolutionary leadership to try and define their own New Man.
Luckily for Cuban officials, the New Man model they were looking for that
incorporated aspects of daily militarization already existed. Anton Semyonovich
Makarenko a Soviet educator, was known for his use of education camps for delinquent youths in the 1930s. Makarenko’s camps glorified militarist attitudes, rituals, and ceremony in the creation of a new pedagogical environment. The Soviet system in general incorporated aspects of Soviet military tradition into its everyday practices, such as the uniforms which were stylized military uniforms complete with red bandanas tied around the necks of students, in addition to parades, group excursions and group gymnastics.9 Makarenko recalled how he organized the students under his purview,
Our terminology, taken out of military life, included such words as “unit commander” and “guard.” We also incorporated its rituals, such as
8 Slava Gerovitch, “"New Soviet Man" Inside Machine: Human Engineering, Spacecraft Design, and the Construction of Communism,” Osiris 22 (2007): 135-157.
9 Cheng, Creating the New Man, 34.
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banners, drills, uniforms, guard duty and roll calls… I find it necessary to perpetuate this trend since it reinforces the life of the collective and adds beauty to it.10
Militarization therefore, according to Makarenko held an inherent aesthetic value.
Makarenko’s model made the move to Cuba relatively easily, and was adopted on a
societal level.
Militarization of Everyday Life
The first decade of the Cuban revolution saw the necessity for multiple New Men,
in order to meet the needs of the fledgling nation. Within the first couple of years, the
nation came under threat from the United States. For this purpose, the Revolutionary
command deemed it necessary to discipline the masses, so that in the event of an
invasion, the nation could be defended. The state actively began taking steps to
militarize and mobilize daily life.
Before Fidel’s persona as a communist came to light, he was nothing other than
a guerrilla. According to Carlos Franqui, in the initial months and years of the revolution,
it was this image of the guerilla, and more importantly the barbudo that Fidel sought to
hold on to. Franqui remembers an incident when Fidel, having heard the Franqui
shaved his beard, stormed into his office and demanded to know why he would do such
a thing. Fidel accused Franqui of emasculating the general visage of the rebels by doing
such a thing and threatened to undermine the entire operation. When given the
opportunity to respond, Franqui asks Fidel, “Look, Fidel, the whiskers were mine weren’t
they?” To which Fidel responds, “No. No. Nobody’s allowed to shave around here.” In
10 Quoted in Yingchong Cheng, Creating the “New Man”: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2009), 30.
49
an act of great foresight, Franqui remarked, “I’ll tell the future for you: someday there
will only be one set of whiskers around here—yours. Like to bet on it?”11
Fidel’s predictions of acts of violence against the revolution did not take long to
manifest in life. The revolution at first appeared to come under fire in March of 1960 with the explosion of La Coubre in Havana harbor.12 With more than 200 injured, and
approximately 100 dead, a series of events were set into motion that justified Fidel’s
moves towards militarization.
In order to help consolidate national support, as opposed to solely Havanese support, Fidel sought to improve the conditions of the lives of guajiros in order to retain
the support he has built from his time in the Sierra Maestra. The government couched
its actions in a new morality rooted in the campo as Guerra describes.13 During the
process of enacting government initiatives in order to alleviate the conditions in the
campo, the regime introduced the seeds for what would help to foster a culture of
National Crisis. This helped to consolidate regiments of the citizenry that could be
mobilized to defend the nation. One such example is the saturation of militarist
language of the material used in the Literacy Campaigns. For instance, when instructing
peasants, volunteers used materials to teach the alphabet in terms that would associate
letters with militarist ideas. “F” for example, was taught as “El fusil de Fidel es de su
11 Franqui, Family Portrait with Fidel, 15.
12 Phillips, R. Hart (March 5, 1960). "75 DIE IN HAVANA AS MUNITIONS SHIP EXPLODES AT DOCK; Government Said to Suspect Sabotages -- Castro Paper Hints at U.S. Role MORE THAN 200 INJURED Vessel's Stern Sinks -- Many Buildings Are Damaged -- Troops Ring District 75 Killed in Havana Explosion Of French Ammunition Vessel" . The New York Times.
13 Guerra, Visions, 50.
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Isla/ the Rifle of Fidel is his island. La fe afila sus ideas/ Faith Sharpens his ideas. La
Isla se fía de él/The island puts its faith in him.”14
Not only did the reforms of the state become saturated with militarized language, but in the daily press, speeches, and articles constantly cited the imminent threat of invasion by the United States. As shown in figure 2-4, images that showed the island as
a war zone, became common in the press, all in attempts to anticipate the next phase of
the revolution. While they were not wrong per se, the media incited a sense of National
Crisis in which everyday citizens would need to be ready to defend the nation at a
moment’s notice. Coupled with images of Fidel as a barbudo savior, defending the
island became synonymous with defending the kind of New Man that Fidel represented.
Fidel’s prophetic speeches had the nation on edge, and by 1961, the United
States pushed the population into his grip by validating his claims. After the invasion of
the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, Cuba entered a tangible security dilemma in 1962
during the Missile Crisis. At the time, the Revolution which had already done so much
for the vast majority of the Cuban population faced its penultimate threat.
Throughout the early 1960s however, the apparent martyrdom of rebel leaders such as Camilo Cienfuegos (physical martyrdom in October 1961) and Huber Matos
(political martyrdom in October of 1961), began a process of refining the exemplary barbudo in Fidel. With the ascendance of Fidel as the lone surviving savior, and the fall of other saviors, it would become apparent that Fidel was the New Man Cuba needed, and that Cuba’s men needed to idealize.
14 Ibid, 83.
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Fidel’s New Man helped to consolidate national sovereignty in a time of crisis,
when the people had no reason to not defend the revolution. After 1965 however, as the imminent threat of all-out war appeared to dissipate, the revolution was in the midst of another crisis. The economic stagnancy of the 1960s resulted in the theorization of a new-New Man by Che Guevara by approximately 1965.
Machismo as Prerequisite for Commitment to the National Project
Beginning in 1963, the CDRs began producing a magazine entitled, “Con la
Guardia en Alto.” Con la Guardia en Alto, delivered the ideological digest of the CDRs and by extension the communist party. Additionally, they included the directives, goals,
revolutionary advice, and progress made by the CDRs in the name of the Revolution.
Con la Guardia en Alto, frequently employed humor as a means of softening the tactics used to discredit political dissidents.15 The visual designs of the magazine blend a
mixture of contemporary graphic designs in mid-century Mod style with that of the
Cuban interpretation of Socialist Realism. This allowed cederistas the ability to maintain
a fashionable while still revolutionary outward appearance. Nameless proletariats grace
many of the covers of the magazine. However, while some remain nameless, some
appear to be homages to revolutionary heroes such as Fidel. The cover of the March
1964 edition features a stylized guerrilla alongside a trabajadora. What makes the
image distinct is the appearance of the man in the piece. Typically, Socialist Realist
images portray the subject in very modest dress. This image however shows a bearded
rebel, holding a hammer with nothing but the hat of his olive green uniform, and his
military pants. Where usually a military uniform would otherwise be, is the image of a
15 Guerra, Visions of Power, 207.
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man with ripped pectorals and abdominals. The piece was published too soon for there to have been an appropriation of the image of Huber Matos, and the man is not wearing the iconic cowboy hat that Camilo Cienfuegos was frequently recognized by. Which begs the question, of who could the nameless individual be? If he is not a nameless rebel, then the only person that the average Cuban would associate with the figure was
Fidel himself. The cap in the picture is the field cap frequently worn only by Fidel. The image simultaneously emits a dedication to the cause, and attempts to ooze masculine sexuality. The piece is called “A Salute to the International Day of the Proletariat” and very clearly shows the conflation of the machismo embodied by the Cuban rebel, with the ideal of the forward looking proletariat that came to be championed by Che
Guevara.
Figure 3-1. “Drawing in salute of the International Day of the Proletariat by Rafael Landa.” From Con la Guardia en Alto, March 1964.
53
The image illustrated another facet to Fidel’s envisioning of the New Man. His
version of the New Man, as previously argued oozed male sexuality to a point that it
becomes nearly comical. While this appeared to counter the aims of the regime in
restructuring gendered interactions by curbing machista attitudes, this is not the case.
Men, should embody the virility, strength, and power of traditional images of the macho, but should remain within his rank within the larger societal structure being constructed by the regime. Women, though “equal,” still needed to maintain her appearance in a way that would entice her husband or potential suitor. Guerra argues, that female liberation through revolutionary patriarchy rejected the alleged changes in women’s lives that the revolution was supposed to bring.16
Fidel’s gender expression changes dramatically from his time as a lawyer in
Havana in the early 1940s and 1950s until his time in the Sierra and subsequently his
triumph with the Revolution. The triumphant Fidel maintains his beard, and rumpled
military look after descending from Pico Turquino. Much as Fidel’s image and gender
expression had ruptured from its earlier version, so too did he try to rupture men from
the refined construct of masculinity prevalent in the 1950s. Saul Landau’s 1969 film
“Fidel” for example, shows the effects of Fidel’s struggle through the Sierra as it
manifests in his demeanor and personal presentation. One such instance is the
nonchalance Fidel presents when the camera focuses on his dirty fingernails as he
smokes a cigar.
16 Guerra, Visions of Power, 243.
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Queremos Que Sean Como El Che
The development of the Cuban New Man cannot be understood without a brief examination of the general history of the Cuban Revolution. The economic and political history are inherently linked due to the early move to equalize wages, which threw
Cuba’s economy into a tailspin. Such reforms necessitated the reliance of the state on voluntary labor, which required a new approach to national politics. The initial economic
direction of the Revolution after its triumph in January of 1959 appeared to be one of a
democratic/populist leaning. Initial reforms focused on redistribution of land, reclamation
of utilities, and budgetary reforms. As a result of the reforms, the Cuban state began to
operate in a black budget for the first time in its history. By June 1959, the Ministry of Ill-
Gotten Goods announced that the nation was operating with a budget surplus of $34 million.17
While the revolution did not officially announce itself as Marxist initially, steps had
already been taken to awaken a mass consciousness in Cuba. By April 1961, when the
Revolution’s leadership officially announced that it was Marxist in nature, attempts to
saturate society with revolutionary rhetoric were well underway. Early reforms such as
the equalization of wages, and state subsidies planted the seeds for the economic
travesty of the 1960s.18 State control of the market limited the availability of goods for
purchase. Excess capital, and decreased levels of product resulted in a decline in
worker motivation by 1960. Worker de-motivation resulted in general absenteeism
which brought the Cuban economy to a standstill. Economic policies meant to redirect
17 Lillian Guerra, “Making Revolutionary Cuba, 1952-59,” (lecture, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fl, November 1, 2012).
18 Guerra, Visions of Power in Cuba, 174.
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the economy resulted in stagnant rates of growth for most years of the 1960s except for
1964-1965, on average the economy shrunk at a rate of -1.6%.19 As historian Lillian
Guerra asserts, inspiring the Cuban populace to increase production rates through
economic incentive was no longer a valid solution to the ever-increasing issue.
Che Guevara recognized the tainted nature of any person who was born in the
capitalist world. He argued that those individuals could never fully achieve a
revolutionary consciousness because of the long-term effects of their time under
capitalism.20 According to Che, moral incentives, or consciousness building through
labor, had to supplement individual efforts by people born before the revolution.21
Because of the stain that remained on the consciousness of individuals born before the
Revolution, Che argued that the entirety of society must become a school for the creation of consciousness. He argued that as a result of initial exposure to such socialist ideals, individuals would become complicit in a procedure of trying to live up to socialist standards of morality.
As a result of this self-criticism, individuals would begin a process of self- education. In the initial phases of socialist-building, the best workers are chosen for admission to the communist party. The party became the tool for molding the new generation of Cuban men and women and organizing the mass of people and leading
19 Ibid. 228.
20 Che Guevara, “Socialism and man in Cuba,” in Che guevara Reader: Writings on Politics and Revolution, ed. David Deutschmann (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003), 224.
21 Che Guevara, “On the Budgetary Finance system,” in Che guevara Reader: Writings on Politics and Revolution, ed. David Deutschmann (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003), 195.
56
them through the process of self-education.22 It is within the same writings that Che
exhibits deference to Fidel, by calling him specifically the center of the Revolution’s
vanguard. After Che’s “decision” to leave the country in 1966 to help export the
revolution one of the few openly critical members of the high command was
systematically removed. However in what would become one of the greatest ironies of
the revolution, Che was raised to a level of deference by the revolutionary regime.
Che’s imagery and rhetoric became immortalized, and transformed into a political
symbol for the still young revolution after his death. Fidel capitalized on the death of
Che in October of 1967, when he alluded to Che’s embodiment of the New Man when
he said,
Si queremos expresar cómo aspiramos que sean nuestros combatientes revolucionarios, nuestros militantes, nuestros hombres, debemos decir sin vacilación de ninguna índole ¡Que sean como el Che! Si queremos expresar cómo queremos que sean los hombres de las futuras generaciones, debemos decir: ¡Que sean como el Che! Si queremos decir cómo deseamos que se eduquen nuestros niños, debemos decir sin vacilación: ¡Queremos que se eduquen en el espíritu del Che! Si queremos un modelo de hombre, un modelo de hombre que no pertenece a este tiempo, un modelo de hombre que pertenece al futuro, ¡de corazón digo que ese modelo sin una sola mancha en su conducta, sin una sola mancha en su actitud, sin una sola mancha en su actuación, ese modelo es el Che! Si queremos expresar cómo deseamos que sean nuestros hijos, debemos decir con todo el corazón de vehementes revolucionarios: ¡Queremos que sean como el Che!23
If we want to express how to aspire to be our revolutionary fighters, our militants, our men, we must say without hesitation whatsoever: Let them
22 Che Guevara, “Socialism and man in Cuba,” in Che guevara Reader: Writings on Politics and Revolution, ed. David Deutschmann (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003), 224.
23Fidel Castro, “Discurso Pronunciado Por El Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Primer Secretario Del Comite Central Del Partido Comunista De Cuba Y Primer Ministro Del Gobierno Revolucionario, En La Velada Solemne En Memoria Del Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, En La Plaza De La Revolucion, El 18 De Octubre De 1967.” (speech, Havana, Cuba, October 18, 1967).
57
be like Che! If we want to express how we want the men of future generations, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we say how we educate our children, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in the spirit of Che! If we want a male model, a model of man who does not belong to this time, a model of man who belongs to the future, heart I say that this model without a single blemish in its conduct, without a single blemish in its attitude, without a single blemish in its actions, that model is Che! If we want to express how we want our children to be, we must say with all my heart vehement revolutionary: We want you to be like Che!
By recognizing Che’s service to the revolution, and immortalizing him in such a way, Fidel validates all of Che’s claims, including the claims that position Fidel in a messianic light. As a result, if any Cuban citizen began to doubt the rightness of Fidel, they were not only standing in counter to the revolution, they were additionally standing in counter to the first New Man, the first true communist being.
With the death of Che, Fidel became arguably the only living embodiment of the
New Man by the end of the 1960s. Che’s New Man served the purpose of conditioning the masses to be ready to accept Communist economic policy from 1965-forward.
Fidel’s version, as mentioned helped to enshrine a culture of militancy as a way of life.
The two images combined, when in March of 1968, Fidel announced the “Ofensiva
Revolucionaria,” with the intent of pushing Cuban society into Communism in order to prevent the ideological reversal of the citizenry as a result of the economic crises of the
1960s.When Fidel announced the Ofensiva he embodied the militarism of the guerrilla, as well as the communist ideologue in Che.
In order to enforce worker discipline, retain commitment to the revolution, and implement its policy initiatives the leadership continued using its tool of choice for keeping the people behind them. Since the initial triumph in 1959, the state—as extension of the communist party, utilized mass rallies as a means of stirring mass
58
euphoria in order to associate the euphoric feeling of the rallies, with the general
message of the revolution. Mass organizations were formed in order to provide the state
with the necessary apparatus to introduce class consciousness in the general populace.
The first of many mass organizations was the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution (CDR) created in 1960.24 Initially the CDRs were established for the protection of the nation during a period of intense U.S. antagonism to the revolutionary leadership. However, their function evolved over time, and the CDRs became the foremost instrument for the monitoring of Cubans’ attitudes and feelings towards the
Revolution. The CDR became the most enrolled organization of the Revolutionary apparatus, and as Fidel remarked, “it is the organization that permits those citizens who
cannot belong to any other organization to work for the revolution.”25 The non-specific
nature of the membership of the CDRs meant they would be primary sites for the
upbringing of new-men and women.
Youths who were educated by the party were allowed to go into the countryside
and forge an identity of cubanidad that fused the experiences of the campesinos and their own revolutionary experiences. The education imparted during the literacy brigades was intended therefore to be two-fold.26Labor and education continued to be
associated towards the end of the decade with the announcement of the “Revolutionary
Offensive.” Through labor it was believed that Cubans could be enlightened to
consciousness. Labor which had previously been used a vehicle for moral, if not
24 More on the CDR shortly.
25 Richard Fagen, Cuba: the Political Content of Adult Education (Stanford: Hoover Institution,)
26 Cheng, Creating the New Man, 141.
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material reward, became a means for attempting to reform enemies of the state. This labor however, was very clearly framed by the militarized language and imagery established earlier in the decade. The name “Revolutionary Offensive” suggests that the economic and social policy that was being rolled out was entirely an attack against the creeping rot of capitalist forces. For every image of a worker or farmer in Soviet Realist style, there was one of the soldier as well. For every image of the nameless soldier, there was also an aggressive image of Fidel, either rifle in hand, or denouncing enemies of the state at a microphone. The Cuban population was constantly reminded of violent struggle they needed to endure in order to bring society to communism.
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Figure 3-2. Cover of Con la Guardia en Alto, depicting Fidel leading the Cuban people, rifle in hand, January 1969.
Through a gradual process of demonizing homosexuality which had begun early during the regime’s rule (Negative associations of homosexuals as imperialist agents was discussed in chapter 1, chapter 2 discussed the legal changes that took place to codify homophobia into law), the detainment of homosexuals was easily justifiable as they were considered “particularly virulent carriers of ideological diversionism.”27
Cuba’s New Man emerged out of a sense of necessity and need for survival. Che
Guevara theorized that the nature of humanity remained malleable, but the tangible effects of having lived in the capitalist world could not expunge the stain left behind on citizens. Legacies of association with imperial power during the Republican Era, made homosexual Cuban men easy targets for the ideologues of the state. As mentioned in chapter 1, their relegation to the nightclubs for work associated them as corrupted individuals who were willing to serve and cater to the U.S. Penetrability of character of this sort automatically excluded homosexuals from candidacy for formation into new- men.
27 Guerra, Visions of Power in Cuba, 229.
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CONCLUSION
By 1965, camps had been established on the island, for the purposes of reforming men into exemplary “new men.” These Units for the Aid of Military Production were designed to reform homosexuals, religious individuals, and people who were generally, “ideologically divergent.” However, the path to internment of homosexuals in concentration camps was not one to which the Cuban population arrived overnight.
Through a process of intensification, homophobia in Cuba, never went away after the
Revolution. Conclusively, the path that brought gay men to this situation in Cuban history rests on a three-tiered argument.
Pre-existing understandings of homosexuality persisted after 1959, and served as a means for the regime to consolidate its power by taking an issue held in contempt by the general public, and bringing it to the national stage. It was one of the revolutionary initiatives that was brought to the agenda by the people, and not Fidel and his cabinet. Through a process of legal enshrinement, queer men became official enemies of the state, and became targets of the national security apparatus.
Fears of blackness and conflation of queerness helped to emasculate and subjugate the esoteric Cuban man. Throughout the Republican era various permutations on the popular understanding of homosexual men proliferated, and soon gay men were anything from mentally ill, to potential traitors to the nation—neither of which was mutually exclusive. Homosexuals were able to find employment in the various nightclubs around Havana, and became associated with the tourist and prostitution industry in general by the end of the 1950s.
Queer men’s associations with the US mafia, tourist ventures, nightclubs, and prostitution, all helped to justify their subsequent persecution after 1961. Then in
62
October of that year, gay men became the target of the state’s first mass roundup of arrests. Homosexual men were then locked into an institutionalized system of homophobia which would eventually result in an all-out campaign to convert them into not just heterosexual men, but New Men. Homosexuality was viewed as a social ill left over from Cuba’s capitalist period.
The concept of the New Man originated in the enlightenment attempts of the 18th century to challenge man’s place and the nature of his actions in relation to broader society. Marx grappled with the idea of how individuals would act in his post- revolutionary society, and was concerned with the long term effects someone would endure after having lived under the capitalist system. Lenin proposed a solution to
Marx’s dilemma with the institution of a strong party apparatus that would act as the vanguard of the revolution. Che Guevara, imported a nearly literal translation of Marxist-
Leninism, and began pushing for reforms and the institution of organizations and practices that would foster the growth of new men in the generation. By the end of the
1960s homosexual men had been lumped under a series of umbrella terms that could be largely categorized as socially dangerous individuals who threatened the survival of the revolution. It became apparent to Cubans on the island that Fidel was the living embodiment of the New Man and as such should be looked up to as such. This construction of an acceptable mode of masculinity set the stage for later political actions that would further persecute and demonize gay and even simply effeminate men on the island.
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EPILOGUE
In 1964, the Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov released “Soy Cuba,” a film that celebrated the triumph and redemption of the Cuban Revolution. The film is divided into four chapters. The first two show the death of honor for the Cuban woman, and the death of the national character, the guajiro, both as a result of US penetration into
Cuba’s economy. The latter half of the film portrays revolutionary acts and culminates in one peasant’s decision to join the rebels, and ultimately the triumphant revolution. The film, while poorly received in both the Soviet Union and Cuba offers an interesting perspective on the Revolution, and characterizes the nature of gendered relations of the nations of the United States and Cuba. “I am Cuba” exalts the female “Voice of Cuba” upon the audience as the film begins.
The first chapter shows the story of Maria, a woman who embodies the contrast of poverty of the Cuban masses in relation to the extravagance of the tourist industry in
Havana. She finds a job as a dancer in one of the nightclubs, and subsequently is solicited by an American tourist who defiles her body, and the sanctity of her beliefs when he takes her most prized possession, her golden crucifix. Her honor is also tarnished when he tosses money onto her the morning after their rendezvous, and haphazardly calls her by her stage name as her fiancé walks into their home. Maria, is clearly an allegory for the dishonorable relations between the U.S. and Cuba, in which the island itself has been exploited by U.S. business interests and the people exploited for the jolly of Americans.
The second story focuses on Pedro, a farmer who is informed his land has been sold off to United Fruit. When asked what is to be done of the crops, the landowner responds, “You raised them on my land. I’ll let you keep the sweat you put into growing
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them, but that is all.” When Pedro’s family leaves the farm, and he decides to leave, he commits one final act of resistance, and torches the house, as well as all of the crops.
Pedro, very obviously represents the guajiro, and his death suggests the choking oppression of the enemies of the nation. His suffocation symbolizes the destitution of the Cuban masses at a time when the majority of arable land in Cuba was owned by
U.S. companies, and was underutilized.
The third chapter illustrates the suppression of the student movement, through the eyes of Enrique. Enrique plans to assassinate the chief of police, but fails to do so out of an act of compassion when the Chief is surrounded by his children. While he is on his own mission his compatriots are busy organizing, and being infiltrated by
Batista’s intelligence forces. The students however could not be repressed, and eventually come back to lead another charge against the dictator. While protesting at the University of Havana, Enrique is shot, and martyred for the coming Revolution.
Finally, Mariano, a peasant living in the hills of Oriente, decides to take up arms with the rebels after his home has been bombed by Batista’s forces. Here Kalatozov laces messages to the Cuban populace to embrace socialism, by writing into the script, references to the lofty goals of the revolution, such as the education of all Cubans, the reduction in material disparity, as well as the closing of the health gap. Three rebels, are captured by Batista’s forces, and upon being interrogated for the whereabouts of Fidel, all claim, “I am Fidel!”
Each of the four arcs centers on an archetype of Cuban revolutionary society.
The first focuses on women, and also serves as an allegory for the island itself. The second, represents the death of the guajiro and more broadly, the nation. The third
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symbolizes the martyrdom of the Cuban people, and the final represents the redemption
of all of those major tropes through the triumph of the revolution. The redemption is
brought by Fidel, and is reinforced when the nameless soldiers all proclaim themselves
to be Fidel. The act is significant in a number of ways. First, it strips them of their
individuality, harkening to the collective-mind thinking championed by the communists.
Second, the act subjugates them as below Fidel, as they risk their lives to defend his own security. And finally, it is conceivable that those men represent a metaphor for the change in nature that Fidel himself experienced after going to the Sierra. Within the broader scope of the film, the rebel, and by extension Fidel, is equated to something as integral to the national character as the land itself. Fidel’s mission of asserting himself as the penultimate macho, is achieved through this film.
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LIST OF RESOURCES
Primary Sources
Newspapers/Periodicals Con la Guardia en Alto Don Gente de la Semana Revolucion The New York Times Times of Cuba
Legal Documents Codígo De Defensa Social, (1938)
Films Fidel (1969) Soy Cuba (1964)
Personal Correspondence Brito, Robert. 2014. Personal communication with Althea Silvera.
———. 2014. Personal communication with Lidia Brito.
———. 2014. Personal communication with Meiyolet Mendez.
Speeches Fidel Castro, "Discurso Pronunciado Por El Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Primer Secretario Del Comite Central Del Partido Comunista De Cuba Y Primer Ministro Del Gobierno Revolucionario, En La Velada Solemne En Memoria Del Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, En La Plaza De La Revolucion, El 18 De Octubre De 1967." (Speech, Havana, Cuba, 1967).
———. "Speech by the Commander Fidel Castro Ruz, Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government made in the Parade in Civic Plaza on 2 January 1961" (Speech, Havana, Cuba, 1961).
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Bejel, Emilio. 2001. Gay Cuban nation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Cabrera Infante, G., and Kenneth Hall. Mea Cuba. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.
Cheng, Yinghong. Creating the "new man" : From enlightenment ideals to socialist realities. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009.
Cirules, Enrique. The mafia in Havana : A Caribbean mob story. Melbourne ; New York: Ocean Press, 2004.
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Franqui, Carlos. Family portrait with Fidel : A memoir. 1st American ed. ed. New York: Random House, 1984.
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Gerovitch, Slava. 2007. “New soviet man” inside machine: Human engineering, spacecraft design, and the construction of communism. Osiris 22 (1, The Self as Project: Politics and the Human Sciences): 135-57, 2007. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/521746.
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Hynson, Rachel M. Sex and state making in revolutionary cuba, 1959-1968. Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2014. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1548325773?accountid=10920.
Lambe, Jennifer. Baptism by fire: The making and remaking of madness in cuba, 1857- 1980. PhD., Yale University.
Lumsden, Ian. Machos, maricones, and gays : Cuba and homosexuality. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996.
Marqués de Armas, Pedro. Psiquiatría para el nuevo estado (1959-1972). La Habana Elegante, http://www.habanaelegante.com/Panoptico/Panoptico_Psiq_Intro.html.
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Moruzzi, Peter. Havana before castro : When cuba was a tropical playground. 1st ed. ed. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2008. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0811/2008008152-b.html;
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Sierra Madero, Abel. Del otro lado del espejo: La sexualidad en la construcción de la nación cubana. La Habana: Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas, 2006.
———.Sexing the nation's body during the Cuba republican era. In The sexual history of the global south sexual politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America., eds. Saskia Wieringa, Horacio Sivori, 65-82. London: Zed Books, 2013.
Sippial, Tiffany A. Prostitution, modernity, and the making of the Cuban republic, 1840- 1920. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
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