The Revolution from Within: Cuba, 1959–1980

Abstract

As memory studies (that discipline occupying the hinterland between history, archaeology, and cultural studies) continues its onward march, it reminds us of historians' constant need to address the invention of tradition with E. H. Carr's 1961 question in mind: What is history? If that question is relevant for all historians, it is especially so in the case of Cuba, about which history has long been a battleground: between opposing ideologies, partisan interpretations, and government stances. The post-1959 Cuban project's reliance for legitimation and identity on a defined historical narrative has always been countered by an opposite narrative of legitimating exile and resistance, but often both narratives are based on identical material. Hence, we can be grateful to the editors of this volume and to the 2014 conference (New Histories of the Cuban Revolution) that engendered it, which addresses both the writing and uses of histories of Cuba and the wider issues of historical memory: contested historiography, memorialization, silences, canons, and sources.Like any conference-based collection, the resulting volume varies in quality, focal points, and perspectives. However, that makes it work well, its scope (including histories written and commemorated both inside and outside Cuba) contributing fruitfully to wider debates and our better understanding while (mostly) avoiding the pitfalls of familiar a priori position taking. Addressing both historiography and historical silences, it is a refreshing, honest, and valuable addition to the highly contested field of Cuban studies.The introductory essay and the concluding section function as bookends, locating the rest of the chapters within wider debates and framing them well. The opening chapter by the editors gives us one of the most comprehensive, astute, and objective surveys of the evolving, variable, and always argumentative literature on post-1959 Cuba. A godsend to students at any level, it includes a wide-ranging discussion of (and possible alternatives to) the perennial problem of Cuban sources' inaccessibility for external researchers. The section “Concluding Reflections” consists of three thoughtful and excellent essays. Ada Ferrer discusses some often-overlooked dimensions to C. L. R. James's comparison of the wider significance of the years 1804 in Haiti and 1959 in Cuba, the years when the respective revolutions in these countries culminated, including the role and influence of their diasporas. In his appeal for more broad-mindedness on all sides, Alejandro de la Fuente also identifies some key silences needing attention at last, including the nature of the state, often assumed but rarely if ever defined. Jennifer Lambe gives us a timely reminder of the elephant in the room: the US dimension of everything Cuban (past, present, and future), remarkably overlooked by most contributors to the volume.Between those bookends, several contributions stand out for their scope, insight, or novelty, especially those from Cuba. Jorge Macle Cruz's honest and revealing exposition of the problems of Cuba's archival policies—problems that often accidentally arise from bureaucratic structures or insufficient resources—also works as a useful survey of the national archives. Reinaldo Funes Monzote, through a discussion of the significance of Antonio Núñez Jiménez's many roles before and after 1959, also gives us a fascinating picture of the evolution and transformation of geography as a discipline in Cuba. María del Pilar Díaz Castañón makes an honest reappraisal of the political shifts of 1959 as seen through the movement from “demands” (mostly shaped by the pre-1959 parties and institutions) to “giving”; the latter term surprisingly refers not to the revolutionary state's giving but to the Cuban population's donation campaigns, an alternative to simply participating and volunteering. In one of the most fascinating chapters, Michael Bustamante perceptively addresses “memory fatigue,” or the Cuban system's pattern of overwhelming celebration of anniversaries, by examining the culture of the institutionalized 1970s. Culture in the 1970s, a period that prioritized material satisfaction over commitment, is also the focus of María A. Cabrera Arús's unexpectedly revealing study of images of formally encouraged consumption; although she perhaps overstates the nature of the Soviet models, Cabrera Arús nonetheless provides a rich picture of this topic. Christabelle Peters's characteristically imaginative essay uses an imagined encounter between Che Guevara and Julius Nyerere to trace Guevara's (and Cuba's) difficulty in grappling with Africa and race. Finally, Lillian Guerra's eloquent and detailed account of Andrew St. George, the curious reporter and former US intelligence agent who effectively established Fidel Castro in the pre-1959 Cuban imagination, is a jewel of historical detail.No less interesting are the contributions from Elizabeth Schwall (who uses cabaret and ballet, low and high culture, to dissect official cultural attitudes in the 1960s), Abel Sierra Madero (who reflects on sexuality, the Mariel exodus, and the evolution of organized “repudiation”), and Rafael Rojas (who offers a disappointingly short but familiarly caustic critique of external perspectives of Cuba). Overall, then, this volume adds much to our understanding of history in and about Cuba.