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ANATOMY of a REVOLUTION Leo Huberman Paul M.Sweezy

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ANATOMY of a REVOLUTION Leo Huberman Paul M.Sweezy CUBA ANATOMY OF A REVOLUTION Leo Huberman Paul M. Sweezy (@ MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS, New York 1960 Copyright © 1960 by Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy Manufactured in the U.S.A. Library of Congress catalog card number 60-14686 ~357 CUBA .•-,r-t. ISLE OF PINES ~.,. ". -.," PICO TURQUINO The people must be given something more than liberty and democ- racy in abstract terms. -FIDEL CASTRO What is going on in Cuba today is no mere palace revolution at the top, in which one oligarchy has ousted another. This is a social revolution inuoloing the masses of the Cuban people, and its aim is not to install a new set of zulers but to work out a new social order. -WALTER LIPPMANN In my thirty years on The New York Times I have never seen a big story so misunderstood, so badly handled, and so misinterpreted as the Cuban Revolution. -HERBERT MATTHEWS CONTENTS Prejace Xl PART I BACKGROUND OF THE REVOLUTION 1 Rich Land I 2 Poor People 3 3 Foreign Domination 11 PART IT MAKING THE REVOLUTION 4 The Assault on Moncada 25 5 "History Will Absolve Me" 30 6 Invasion from Mexico 48 7 The Conquest of Power 56 PART m THE REVOLUTION IN POWER 8 The Revolutionary Regime 77 9 The Revolution in Action 88 10 Structural Reform 108 11 The Cuban Economy in 1959 134 12 Capitalism, Socialism, Communism? 145 13 The Future of the Revolution 158 References 175 Preface In this work we have attempted to combine the methods of journalism and scholarship to produce a rounded analysis of one of the most original and important social transformations of our time. Since journalism implies speed and scholarship deliberation, the combination necessarily involves a compromise, and we must leave it to the reader to judge whether we have managed to achieve a fruitful one. We spent approximately three weeks in Cuba, in March 1960. We were received with warm hospitality and given every assistance we asked for. In the course of our inquiries we traveled from one end of Cuba to the other and talked with a large number of people from all walks of life. Some of these encounters and discussions are specifically cited in the text. We refrain from singling out par- ticular individuals in this preface, however, lest we give a mis- leading impression that they are responsible for or share the views which we have expressed. The interpretation of the Cuban Revolu- tion embodied in this work is our own, and we simply do not know to what extent our Cuban friends may agree with it. We await their comments and criticisms with the greatest interest, in the meanwhile expressing to all of them our heartfelt thanks for their never-failing kindness and patience. Among the published works on Cuba which we have relied upon for historical facts, background information, and statistical data we would like specially to mention the following: Ray Brennan, Castro, Cuba and Justice (New York, Double- day & Company, 1959); Fidel Castro, History Will Absolve Me (New York, Liberal Press, 1959); Jules Dubois, Fidel Castro (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1959); Foreign Policy Association, Problems ot the New Cuba (New York, Foreign Policy Associa- tion, 1935); Waldo Frank, South of Us (New York, Garden City Publishing Co., 1940); International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Report on Cuba (Washington, D.C., 1950); Leland H. Jenks, Our Cuban Colony (New York, Vanguard Press, 1928); Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman, Dollar Diplomacy (New York, B. W. Huebsch and Viking Press, 1925); Lowry Nelson, Rural Cuba (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1950); U.S. Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1956). We have drawn freely on these works as well as on standard newspaper and periodical sources. Where we have quoted directly, we have either given the appropriate citation in the text or, where this would have unduly impeded the flow of the narrative, in a special list of "References" beginning on page 175. We are well aware that it is too early to attempt to pass definitive judgments on the Cuban Revolution and its leaders. And yet no thinking person can turn this undoubted fact into an excuse for failing to take a position on a development of such enormous historical interest and importance. In what follows we have taken our position and tried to explain why. We hope that readers will be both encouraged and assisted to do likewise. Leo Huberman Paul M. Sweezy New York City, June 5, 1960 PART I BACKGROUND OF THE REVOLUTION CHAPTER 1 Rich Land When Columbus discovered Cuba on Sunday, October 28, 1492, he was so struck with its charm that he called it "the most beautiful land human eyes have even seen." If he had had time to explore the island he would have learned it was much more than that-s-Cuba is a rich as well as a beautiful land. It is the largest island in the West Indies with a total area of 44,218 square miles. Long and narrow, it stretches 745 miles from its western to its eastern tip; in width, it ranges from 125 miles to 22 miles with an average of about 60 miles. It is only 90 miles south of Key West, 112 miles from continental United States, and about 130 miles from Mexico across the Yucatan Channel. Cuba lies just south of the Tropic of Cancer but its climate is more semi-tropical than tropical with the temperature averaging 75° F. for the year, ranging normally from 70° in the winter to 81 o in the summer. Though the humidity is fairly high in both winter and summer, cooling breezes help to make even unpleasant- ly hot summer days bearable, and at no time is the weather ex- tremely cold. The Cuban farmer never needs to worry about his crops being killed by frost. What does worry him, on occasion, is lack of rain. Severe droughts do occur, though they are not common. Three fourths of Cuba's annual total rainfall of 54 inches comes down in the wet season from May through October, but only rarely is any month in the dry season, from November through April, without some rain. Given an equable climate and adequate rainfall, only fertile soil is needed to raise an abundance of crops. Cuba's soil is ex- tremely fertile. More than half of its area is arable land, suitable for growing a diversity of crops. Compared to most other countries this is a very high ratio, and Cuba's land is good not only in terms 2 BACKGROUND OF THE REVOLUTION of its fertility but also in terms of its being level-about three fifths of the island is either flat or gently rolling. The rest is mountains and hills. Much of the nonarable land is suitable for grazing. The highest and most rugged mountains are the Sierra Maestra, in the easternmost province of Oriente. The Pico Real de Turquino, the highest mountain in this range, rises to a height of 6,496 feet. On the south coast of the province of Las Villas, in the center of the island, are the Trinidad-Sancti Spiritus High- lands which reach a maximum elevation of 3,792 feet; and in Pinar Del Rio, the westernmost province, lies the Sierra de Los Organos, a range of highlands paralleling the northern coast for about 112 miles and reaching a maximum elevation of 2,532 feet. The short narrow rivers that flow down from these moun- tain ranges are generally too shallow to be navigated. But Cuba has 2,175 miles of coastline along which are found excellent fish- ing grounds and many large pouch-shaped bays forming superb well-protected harbors. The island has no coal and, to date, very little oil has been discovered. But extensive deposits of iron and nickel exist-s-so large as to be considered among the most important potential sources in the world. Chrome, manganese, and copper are also found in large quantities. Four and a half centuries after Columbus, a different type of explorer, after a year's intensive study of Cuba, wrote that it is "without question one of the most favorable spots for human existence on the earth's surface." So it is. The "Pearl of the Antilles," as the island has been known since the time of Colum- bus, could have become a paradise. But Cuba, in the middle of the 20th century was not a paradise. Far from it. CHAPTER 2 Poor People There were, in 1957, only about 6.4 million Cubans-less than the population of New York City-in an area larger than Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands combined. With so few people in a country so rich in natural resources, you would expect them to be well off. But they weren't. Most of the people of Cuba. were desperately poor. In the United States, the section of the country where living conditions are most miserable is the South. And the poorest state in the South is Mississippi. In the years 1950-1954, while the average per capita income for Delaware, the richest state in the nation, was $2,279 it was only $829 for Mississippi. But average per capita income for Cuba, in those same years, was not nearly half as much as Mississippi's---only 312 pesos. (The exchange rate between the peso and the dollar is one-for-one, and the two are used interchangeably throughout this work.) Three hundred twelve pesos means $6 a week. That's what the average person had to live on in Cuba in those years.
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