Relations between Cuba and Spain have long been complex and important to both. The good relations that would develop between the governments of Francisco Franco and Fidel Castro met that standard but, seen from the early 1960s, might also have seemed improbable. This book assesses the most contentious period in Spanish-Cuban relations after the Cuban revolutionary victory in 1959. It ranges from Cuba’s expulsion of the Spanish ambassador, Juan Pablo de Lojendio, in late January 1960 until the end of 1962, after the missile crisis. (In 1963, Spanish-Cuban relations would improve significantly; in the new three-year trade treaty, Spain agreed to pay a price for Cuban sugar well above the Soviet and prevailing world market prices.)Spanish-Cuban relations in the early 1960s operated at multiple levels. Relations between the two political regimes were poor. Franco had been an ally of Mussolini and Hitler; his government remained strongly anticommunist. Many Spanish republicans had found refuge in Cuba and worked to persuade the revolutionary government to support the Spanish republic. Relations between the two societies had been dynamic. Spanish immigrants to Cuba had created a network of significant associations; several featured high-quality health services akin to today’s health maintenance organizations. In 1961 they provided health care to about a half-million people (Cuba’s population was about six million). A majority of Roman Catholic priests and nuns in Cuba were Spaniards; in a legacy from the Spanish civil war, many of these clerics remained militantly loyal to Franco’s regime. The Cuban and Spanish states had to sort through this maze of engagements.Manuel de Paz Sánchez explores these themes well, working from documents in Spain’s diplomatic archives. He presents a full picture of the Spanish diaspora in Cuba as seen by Spanish diplomats. He demonstrates how the institutions of this diaspora were weakened first by expropriations of their members’ properties and ultimately by the government’s seizure of their associates’ assets, including the health services, and the subsequent emigration of many to the United States and Spain.He shows with subtlety the twin roles of Spanish diplomats who sought to preserve acceptable state-to-state relations but who also worried about defending the anticommunist and pro-clerical interests of the Spanish regime. He analyzes the politics of Spanish republicans in Cuba, including the split between communists and noncommunists that would make relations with the Cuban government difficult. The book’s best chapter is the account of the confrontation between the Roman Catholic Church and the revolutionary state, including the expulsion or emigration under duress of hundreds of priests and nuns. Most of the existing scholarship published in the United States has been critical or adverse to this church and its Spanish clerics; de Paz Sánchez presents their story well. It is a tribute to the efficacy of officials and diplomats from both states that diplomatic or economic relations were never broken.Two chapters explore the biographies of soldiers from the Spanish Republic who played significant roles in Cuban history. Alberto Bayo helped to train Fidel Castro’s guerrillas prior to their landing in Cuba in 1956 and, after 1959, sought to employ his fame to foster anti-Franco activities. Francisco Ciutat de Miguel, known as Angelito, became a high-ranking officer in Cuba’s armed forces, defending the revolutionary government in the early 1960s.The book is written in a narrative style. Except for a six-page epilogue, there is little interpretation. Readers must supply their own analysis, aided by de Paz Sánchez’s ample documentation and accessible style. The book would have been better, however, if the text between p. 209 and p. 309 had been cut. In these chapters, the author tells again the story of the confrontation between the United States and Cuba as seen through the eyes of Spanish diplomats. Indeed, the only point of these pages seems to be to demonstrate that Spanish diplomats were not asleep at the wheel. For the record, they were not—and that simple sentence would have sufficed. These hundred pages contribute little to our understanding of Cuba, U.S.-Cuban relations, or even Spain’s relations with the United States and Cuba.In this book, Manuel de Paz Sánchez sheds light on topics of great importance for Cuban social history and bilateral Spanish-Cuban relations. His information regarding the Spanish diaspora, church-state relations, the role of Spanish republicans in Cuba, and the behavior of key Spaniards, be they diplomats or revolutionary soldiers, breaks new ground in the study of Cuba and of its relations with Spain. He contributes ably to the historiography of a momentous period.
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Dec 1, 2002
H Van Meijl 
Open Access