Cuba: The Shaping of Revolutionary Consciousness 9781685858797

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CUBA

CUBA The Shaping of Revolutionary Consciousness

Tzvi Medin translated by Martha Grenzback

Lynne Rienner Publishers

•

Boulder & London

Published in the United States of America in 1990 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London W C 2 E 8LU © 1990 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Medin, Tzvi. Cuba : the shape of revolutionary consciousness / by Tzvi p. cm.

Medin.

Includes bibliographical references. I S B N 1 - 5 5 5 8 7 - 1 8 7 - 9 (alk. paper) 1. C u b a — P o l i t i c s and g o v e r n m e n t — 1 9 5 9 - 2. C u b a — H i s t o r y — Revolution, 1 9 5 9 — I n f l u e n c e . 3. Cuba—Cultural policy. 4 . C u b a — Popular culture. 5. Communism and leadership—Cuba—History—20th century. 6 . N a t i o n a l i s m — C u b a — H i s t o r y — 2 0 t h century. I. T i t l e . 89-39433 F1788.M358 1990 972.9106'4—dc20 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

CIP

In Memory of Amiram Goldstein

Contents Introduction

Part I.

1

Consciousness and the Essence of the Revolutionary Message

1.

On the Necessity of Shaping a Revolutionary Consciousness

2.

The Essential Context: Existence as Confrontation and Heroism

29

3.

The Basic Manicheism of the Revolutionary Message

39

4.

Marxism-Leninism and Cuban Nationalism

53

Part II.

5

Channels of Projection

5.

Education

67

6.

The Cinema

87

7.

Detective Fiction

101

8.

Poetry

111

9.

Popular Music

125

10.

The Theater

131

11.

The Testimonial Genre and Some of Its Artistic Manifestations

139

12.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces

147

13.

Mass Organizations and the Vanguard Party

155

vii

viii

Contents

Part III. Conclusions 14.

Final Reflections

List of Abbreviations References Index About the Book and the Author

167 173 175 181 191

Introduction This book examines the way in which the revolutionary message has influenced the shaping of social consciousness under the Cuban Revolution. Although an active Communist party existed before Castro came to power, the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people were far removed from the conceptual and emotional world of Marxism-Leninism. Today, in contrast, Marxism-Leninism plays a prominent part, not only in projecting specifically political messages but also in conveying cultural, artistic, social, and other messages. The revolutionary message of Cuban leaders evidently has not been universally and completely accepted, but the objectives and methods of its massive transmission constitute essential elements for understanding and characterizing both the revolutionary regime and its self-image. I caution the reader that this study centers on the projection of the revolutionary message and not on the problems of its reception; I examine the attempt to shape social consciousness, not the results of that attempt. Obviously, however, the projection of the message is also linked to the question of to what extent and in what way it is received, and therefore these factors will figure here to some extent. In the first section of the book, I discuss the revolutionary leaders' realization and postulation of the need for express creation of a revolutionary consciousness, as well as the development of appropriate techniques to accomplish that task, the specific content of the message, and the significance of the effort to graft Marxism-Leninism onto Cuban nationalism. Underlying this is the study of the projection of the epicManichean conception of existence as the essential background for all the revolutionary messages. The second section of the book addresses some of the most important and interesting channels of expression used to convey the revolutionary message: education, film, poetry, and so on. I do not explicitly examine the press, television, and radio, as their role is obvious, though the reader will find references to them. In particular, I emphasize the synchronization of the projection of the message through these different channels. This is especially evident when the content of the message is changed, and a new one is again projected in a synchronized fashion.

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Toward the end of the second section, relevant aspects of the Communist party, mass organizations, and the army are examined, considered in their role as transmission channels. These channels, as opposed to those previously mentioned, are not analyzed as specific media, but rather as institutions and frameworks serving to organize the masses and permitting the projection of the revolutionary message. Two final remarks. First, the analysis here of the various media deals exclusively with aspects of those media relating to our subject and is in no way intended as an exhaustive study of the media themselves. Second, in discussing the shaping of the revolutionary consciousness, I describe its evolution, which of course is connected with the general historical development of the revolution; nevertheless, this study concentrates exclusively on a specific subject and makes no pretense of being a general history. There is an immense bibliography on the history of the revolution, and I will point out only that I accept generally Carmelo Mesa Lago's schematic division into five stages up to 1978. Mesa Lago characterizes the first stage, 1959-1960, as the period of the liquidation of prerevolutionary institutions, and, of course, not as yet Marxist. The second stage, 19611963, saw the first attempt to introduce the Soviet system in Cuba. The third, 1963-1966, is the period of discussion and experimentation within the framework of the Marxist conception. The fourth, 1966-1970, which Mesa Lago calls Sino-Guevarist, is characterized by the adoption and radicalization of the system in the midst of ideological confrontation with the Soviet Union. And finally, after 1970, there is the return to pragmatism and to the Soviet system, when Cuba becomes part of the Communist bloc. The stages are also differentiated by other features, but here they are mentioned only in order to keep in mind the fact of changes, obviously relevant to this study, in this historical background. Finally, I wish to thank my good friends and colleagues in the Tel Aviv University Department of History, Professors Miriam Eliav-Feldon and David Katz, for their valuable help in preparing the English version of the book.

I Consciousness and the Essence of the Revolutionary Message

1 On the Necessity of Shaping a Revolutionary Consciousness And we do not fear to meet any adversary on the field of ideas. The truth will always emerge victorious in the end. And the task of the revolutionary is first of all to arm the people's minds, arm their minds! Not even physical weapons can avail them if their minds have not been well armed first.

—Fidel Castro, November 30, 1971 The evolution of the Cuban revolutionary process gradually produced in its leaders an awareness of the urgent necessity to create a revolutionary social consciousness. Initially, the group that formed around Fidel Castro had placed its hopes in the possibility of a spontaneous popular uprising that would accompany the intrepid action of the rebels against tyranny. In his famous speech "History Will Absolve Me," Castro expressed a few ideas on the subject: "With only ten men, I could have taken over a radio station and hurled the people into the struggle. Their courage was beyond all doubt: I had a recording of the last speech given by Eduardo Chibis on CMQ Radio, as well as patriotic poems and war hymns that could have stirred the most indifferent listener, especially with the clamor of battle sounding in his ears." 1 Castro explained that the people of Santiago de Cuba had not risen up in arms because they believed, mistakenly, that the battle was between different groups of soldiers. "Who could doubt the valor, the civic spirit, and the unlimited courage of the rebellious and patriotic people of Santiago de Cuba?" In the same speech, Castro also recalled the dire economic situation of various sectors of Cuban society; but in the final analysis, he was convinced that the subjective conditions necessary for revolution were present in the Cuban people, and all that was needed was a push. 2 Ernesto "Che" Guevara was later to express this idea very clearly: "Before the disembarkation of the Granma, there predominated a mentality that, up to a certain point, could be called subjectivistic: blind confidence in a rapid popular outburst, enthusiasm and faith that Batista's power could be liquidated by a quick uprising combined with spontaneous revolutionary strikes and the subsequent fall of the dictator." 3 It was only in the Sierra Maestra that revolutionary praxis in the form of 5

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guerrilla warfare presented the rebels with the problem of developing a revolutionary consciousness in the masses. In the course of a dialectical interaction between guerrillas and peasants, a new revolutionary consciousness slowly began to form in both. Gone was the expectation of a spontaneous revolution, and in its place, an understanding that revolutionary consciousness would have to be developed gradually in the Cuban people, especially the peasantry, in the midst and by dint of the struggle. On the success of this endeavor depended the guerrillas' very survival in the sierra. It is interesting to note that even at this early stage the guerrillas realized that revolutionary consciousness could not be developed merely by means of propaganda or indoctrination but must arise fundamentally from revolutionary praxis: armed struggle and the restructuring of the land tenure system (that is, agrarian reform); participation in militant action; and change in the living conditions of the peasantry. In this respect, Che Guevara later wrote: "Those long-suffering, loyal inhabitants of the Sierra Maestra have never suspected the role they played as forgers of our revolutionary ideology. . . . We convinced them that once they were armed, organized, and had lost their fear of the enemy, victory was certain. And the peasantry . . . imposed agrarian reform on the revolution." 4 Theorizing about this situation a posteriori and projecting it as a general revolutionary thesis, Castro and Guevara both remarked, in the 1960s, that revolutionary consciousness did not have to be inherent in the masses, it was also possible for a few people to initiate revolutionary action (the guerrillafocus theory). However, it is important to note that one of the basic tasks of the guerrilla focus consisted precisely in the creation of revolutionary consciousness. Guevara was to write in "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba" (Socialism and man in Cuba) that "the guerrilla struggle in Cuba had developed in two different spheres: the still-slumbering masses, who had to be mobilized, and, in their vanguard, the guerrilla band, the driving force behind mobilization, generator of revolutionary consciousness and enthusiasm for combat. This vanguard was the catalyzing agent that created the subjective conditions necessary for victory." 5 But, it was only after the dictator's regime had collapsed, and the revolutionary leaders took power, that they were really forced to face the problem of shaping revolutionary social consciousness on a national level, with all the means attendant on political power at their disposal. This problem did not arise merely as the consequence of taking power, but rather as a corollary to the conception of political power as a means to convert insurrection into socioeconomic revolution—or, at least, given the ambiguous political situation of those first months, to institute a radical reformist populism. If the intention had been merely to reinstate a democratic regime conforming to the Constitution of 1940, the need to reshape the Cubans' conceptual world would not have existed from the beginning. That need became increasingly acute with the gradual creation of a new

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socioeconomic reality within Cuba's historical evolution, at a time when the country was also beginning to occupy a new position on the checkerboard of international relations, moving into open confrontation with the United States and increasingly close contact with the socialist countries. The structural revolution and the close collaboration with the socialist bloc in an atmosphere of U.S. aggression constituted the basis and the indispensable condition for the development of a new social consciousness. However, we must comprehend the process dialectically, with the understanding that the very configuration of the new society and the possibility of its perpetuation were conditioned by the creation of a new revolutionary consciousness. Its creators were the revolutionary leaders, but now they were working from their position of political control and with all the means at their disposal. At this point, too, it is possible to discern a certain evolution in the problem. It was not until April 16, 1961, that Castro declared the revolution to be socialist, and the problem of consciousness then began to be placed in a Marxist-Leninist perspective. But even from the beginning, during the two and a half years that the revolutionaries were in power before the official declaration of socialism, explicit efforts were made to create revolutionary consciousness, reflecting the leaders' very clear view of its importance. Subsequently, Castro was even to recognize that the greatest obstacle he had had to face during that initial stage was "the force of custom, of the way and habits of thinking and looking at things that prevailed in a vast section of the population. The force of custom, that is, a series of prejudices, of ideas instilled and maintained and propagated by the economically dominant classes, by the imperialists and by the capitalists in our country; these prejudices, beyond a doubt, constituted one of the most powerful forces with which the revolution had to contend." 6 Moreover, the July 26 Movement (M26) and the Rebel Army were cause for concern: "The M26, at the time made up basically of the members of the Rebel Army, was a force composed of many comrades who, as revolutionaries, did not yet have a solid political grounding. Out of a sense of vocation, out of sentiment, out of a spirit of rebellion, they had joined the Rebel Army. . . . They had developed as officers, but they had had no opportunity to gain a political grounding. Many of these comrades were apt, in those times, to fall prey to any lie and any confusion." 7 Let us look at a few examples of that early clear awareness of the necessity to create a new consciousness. Cinema: Only a few days after the takeover, the Council of Ministers of the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba passed a law (published on March 24, 1959) that created the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográfica (ICAIC). The reasons for creating this institute, stated the law, were that "the cinema constitutes, by virtue of its characteristics, an instrument of opinion and formation of individual and collective consciousness, and it can contribute to the depth and clarity of the

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revolutionary spirit and help to sustain its creative vitality."8 It went on to affirm the need to carry out "a publicity campaign to reeducate the average citizen's taste, which has been seriously impaired by the production and exhibition of films that, conceived with commercial criteria, are dramatically and ethically objectionable and technically and artistically insipid." That necessity dictated close collaboration with, among others, "the teaching and governing authorities of the cultural work of the revolution and the commanders and specialized departments of the army, the navy, the police, and the Rebel Air Force."9 Literacy campaign: As early as 1960, during the preparations for the 1961 literacy campaign, the methods of Echegoyen and Laubach, used up until that time, were discarded on the grounds that, though they had been convenient from a technical standpoint, they were not adapted to the specific motivating circumstances of the moment, the country, and the Cuban literacy campaign. As the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report on the subject indicates, "there was a need for a text in which the revolutionary and political content was not only adequately motivated from the historical and psychological standpoint but also expressed this motivation in an accessible and comprehensible form, adjusted as much as possible to the language and expressions of the peasantry."10 This report also notes that during the preparation period teachers studied tape-recorded conversation guides, and in this way were able to ascertain "not only the idiom of the illiterate, but also his social and economic viewpoint."11 People's militias and army: In July 1960, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR) and the Dirección Nacional de las Milicias (National Directorate of the Militias) began to train civic instructors who were to "give revolutionary talks in their respective militias, unions, [and] work centers" and "create true revolutionary consciousness in the men and women who form their endless ranks."12 The Departamento de Instrucción del Ministerio de las FAR (MINFAR) also published in 1960 a civic training manual that served as a basic text for the department's courses. The manual included chapter headings such as "The Revolution," "Agrarian Reform," "The Ideas of Marti," and "Morale and Discipline."13 Journalism: The process that militantly aligned the entire Cuban press with the revolutionary leaders culminated in March 1961, when journalists were incorporated in the framework of the Frente Revolucionario del Periodismo (Revolutionary Journalism Front). On that occasion, the general coordinator of the new organization announced that the basic principle of the front would be, "first of all, to incorporate in a true ideological front defending the revolution and its works all those who in some way form or will form part of that machinery we call the profession of journalism." Further, he added, "in the new Cuba, a journalism fully incorporated into the

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revolution must be the most suitable channel for the orientation and instruction of the masses, reflecting the longings and aspirations of the workers, peasants, students, and the people in general in order to assist the Revolutionary Government in the worthy aim of securing the happiness of every Cuban." 14 Right after the victory, Revolución (the M26 organ), began to appear, and freedom of the press was extended to Communist publications (fundamentally, the newspaper Hoy). Under the pressure beginning to develop from the accelerated radicalization of the revolutionary process, the opposition newspapers were disappearing. On March 21, 1959, Luis Aguilar complained in Prensa Libre that any criticism was considered counterrevolutionary, and beginning in January 1960 the opposition newspapers were obliged to print below certain articles or news items a contrary version in the name of the newspaper's workers. On May 10, 1960, Diario de la Marina shut down after having been practically taken over by the workers, and five days later Prensa Libre met the same fate. Excelsior, El Pais, and Diario Nacional had already shut down. I would give innumerable additional examples, such as the pedogogical fidelista speeches that showed that the revolutionary leaders were aware from the beginning of the necessity of shaping revolutionary consciousness, even before the official declaration of socialism. This fact may be interpreted in different ways and adduced in support of different hypotheses, but the one thing clear from the beginning is that Castro conceived his political power in terms of strengthening his base of popular power, and he understood the need to perpetuate that base by developing a revolutionary consciousness in the masses to take the place of merely transitory enthusiasm. This factor was of enormous importance in the entire process of socioeconomic and political reconstruction. Clearly, without socioeconomic restructuring (e.g., nationalizations, cooperatives, state farms), the formation of social consciousness as it was carried out in Cuba would have made no sense at all, but the important point is that social consciousness did not begin to take on its new aspect in reflection of the new socioeconomic structure; rather, it was being molded from above in a process parallel to the development of the new socioeconomic system. It was a case of explicit and conscious development by the revolutionary leader, not a superstructural reflection of economic conditions or the automatic reproduction of a consciousness that already predominated. In the Cuban Revolution, we have a patent illustration of the possible relevance of the political and military elite as determinants in a modem state, not only as regards socioeconomic and political configuration but also in terms of direct influence on the popular consciousness. In 1959, the alternatives of radical reformist populism or socialism remained exclusively in the hands of the revolutionary leaders (and, ultimately, of Fidel Castro), who defined the conflict within the M26. 1 5 It was not only a question of repressing the opposition but rather, fundamentally, of creating

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revolutionary consciousness in the masses by means of a conscious and explicit policy to that effect. Implementation of that policy was not based on Leninist theory (the party was not founded until three years after the revolutionaries took power, and even then it was initially established merely as Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas [ORI]), 16 but it is interesting to note that the entire period up until April 16, 1961, was one of de facto preparation for a possible declaration of the socialist and Marxist-Leninist character of the revolution, and the preparation was conscious and intentional possibly from mid-1960. Gradually, old stereotypes were destroyed and new ones created to replace them, all in an atmosphere of confrontation with the United States that unified the people in the face of imminent danger and converted consensus and unity into a national imperative. Through a process I shall later discuss in detail, the United States ceased to be "the bulwark of the free world" during this period and became instead the automatic equivalent of imperialism and exploitation, while at the same time communism and the Soviet Union lost their satanic image and gradually came to represent a friendly helping hand and model of the ideal society. During this period it was customary to place quotation marks, expressing irony, around the phrase "the voice of liberty" when referring to the United States, whereas references to the iron curtain appeared as "the so-called iron curtain," 17 until the expression finally disappeared completely. These ironic quotation marks initially played an important role; writers found it necessary to use recognized terms but could thus change the original connotation. In fact, from the beginning a real battle was waged over language and the meaning of terms. President Urrutia, for example, in his attacks on Communists, would purport to speak in the name of the free world, while using the term "democracy" (in quotation marks) to refer to the system proposed by Communists. 18 The legitimation of the Soviet Union, and communism with it, began definitively at the end of 1959, as reflected by the publicity that the mass media lavished on the visits of Soviet politicians and the Soviet artists who began to come to Cuba at that time, on the arrival of Soviet ships, and on the Soviet films that began to be screened widely. As early as December 1959, the violinist Leonid Kogan and the Folk Dance Troupe of the USSR arrived in Cuba to take part in the program planned for the Christmas festivities, and in January 1960, when Che Guevara returned from his tour of the socialist countries, his impressions were given extensive coverage on television and in the press. 19 Thus, there was a gradual creation of an emotional ambiance that favored and facilitated the restructuring of the conceptual and axiological world of the Cuban people. During this period, strict Marxist terminology was not yet used, and expressions such as "class struggle" and "proletariat" were not generally

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employed. However, references were made to the struggle of "workers and peasants and other working-class sectors," or to the struggle of los humildes (the humble). Meanwhile, as traditional stereotypes were gradually destroyed, a new terminology and a new vision of the world were slowly introduced. 20 In this context, it is interesting to note the escalation in the projection of the revolutionary message. I call this phenomenon the "Ravelization" of the message, in the sense that, as in Ravel's Bolero, a certain motif begins to creep in and gradually develops into a crescendo through numerous channels (instruments), increasing in volume until it finally dominates the piece completely. The Ravelization of the revolutionary message was expressed in the increasing tempo of its transmission, its ever-wider diffusion through more and more new channels, and the ascending hierarchization of its source. Thus, for example, although Castro himself did not officially announce the socialist character of the revolution until April 1961, Che Guevara had already begun to speak explicitly of the Cuban Revolution as Marxist by mid-1960. 21 Also prior to 1961, the Ministry of Education had published a great number of Marxist works, such as Lecciones de historia de Cuba (Lessons in Cuban history) by Sergio Aguirre and El marxismo y la historia de Cuba (Marxism and the history of Cuba) by Carlos Rafael Rodriguez. And as the time when Castro was to make his declaration drew nearer, the diffusion of the socialist message became wider. In January 1961, Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria (Schools of Revolutionary Instruction) were opened, with the collaboration of the leaders of the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP), headed by one of the most prominent Communist leaders, Leonel Soto. 22 On March 13 of the same year, the Cuban ambassador to the USSR used the phrase "we Communists," and his words were published in the Cuban press. 23 On April 6, the radio news program "Venceremos" (We shall overcome) was inaugurated under the direction of Raul Valdes Vivo, one of the editors of Hoy, while, on the same day, Revolución began to print a section on Marxism. 24 In this Ravelization, a few channels of expression took the lead and set the tone. A salient example is Verde Olivo, the organ of the FAR, which expressed the new positions at all levels, including criticizing the capitalistic nature of Hitchcock's films in 1960 and using terms such as "class struggle." 25 All these examples were not merely instances of propagandistic messages that might not be connected in any way with reality. Rather, they developed basically in the context of escalating confrontation with the United States and increasing Soviet support of Cuba's position. The metamorphosis of stereotypes was thus made possible, fundamentally, through the appeal to the patriotic, nationalistic, and antiimperialistic feelings of the Cuban people. The moment at which Fidel Castro openly and officially proclaimed the revolution as socialist was surely not chosen at random: April 16, 1961,

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during the funeral of the victims of a bombing raid that had occurred the day before, and in the mass presence of the militia. The people were armed, the confrontation with the United States was at its height (the Bay of Pigs invasion began the following day), and the country was burying its dead. Such was the atmosphere in which the revolution was declared socialist, and this brief announcement, hardly more than a passing remark, was expressed and perceived basically as antiimperialism. Let us pause for a cursory analysis of Castro's speech: It contained approximately ninety-five hundred words and began by recounting acts of aggression perpetrated by the United States against revolutionary Cuba. Castro mentioned occasions on which the United States had bombed other Latin American countries and wound up with the air raid of the day before, which had struck three different places on the island. He emphasized U.S. imperialism, contrasting it with the social system that he wanted to see established in Cuba, though he did not as yet speak of socialism: "Yesterday's crime, however, was the crime of imperialist exploiters against a people that wants to liberate itself from exploitation, a people that wants to establish justice. It was a crime by the exploiters of mankind against those who want to abolish the exploitation of mankind!"26 Castro did not choose this apt context to declare the socialist nature of the revolution; instead, he went on to devote some five thousand words—more than half his speech—to a careful analysis of the way in which the U.S. news agencies were spreading lies all over the world, reporting the attack as though it had not been an act of aggression by the United States, but rather the work of supposed deserters from the Cuban air force. Castro quoted various cables word for word and explained categorically that they were clumsy falsifications of the truth by the real aggressor. Next came a concise comparison between the United States, which attacked Cuba, and the technological potential of the Soviet Union, which had sent a man into space a short time previously. After drawing this comparison, in which he exalted Soviet power, Castro said: Because what the imperialists cannot forgive us is that we are here; what the imperialists cannot forgive us is the dignity, the integrity, the courage, the ideological steadfastness, the spirit of sacrifice and the revolutionary spirit of the people of Cuba. That is what they cannot forgive us: that we are here under their very noses, and that we have made a Socialist revolution under the very nose of the United States! We will defend that Socialist revolution with these guns. We will defend that Socialist revolution with the same courage that our antiaircraft gunners showed yesterday when they riddled the attacking airplanes with bullets. 27

There it is: a declaration made almost in passing; he touched on the subject again only briefly, toward the end of his speech.28 In the intense drama of the moment—at the funeral after the air attack and minutes before going out to fight against the invaders—Castro, in the rhetorical turn of a

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sentence, had devoted some one hundred out of ninety-five hundred words to turning the imminent struggle into an epic battle against imperialism, not only for the sake of Cuban sovereignty and liberty but also for the socialist revolution. And that was in fact the impression that was to remain engraved in the consciousness both of future generations and of those who, in the catharsis of the Bay of Pigs, definitively inscribed socialism into the conceptual world of the Cuban Revolution. Thus, for example, in the book Paisaje y pupila, which won first prize in MINFAR's July 26 Competition in 1981, we find the poem "Playa Girón" (the beach where the Bay of Pigs invasion began), which starts with these lines: 29 Playa Girón, en tu arena amaneció el socialismo como un poderoso cismo que derrumbó una honda pena. Playa Girón, on your sands socialism awoke like a mighty cataclysm demolishing a deep sorrow. And an eleventh-grade textbook on labor history included the following passage: "Our fighters marched to battle with the clear consciousness that they were going to Girón to defend not only the country's sovereignty, not only the sacred soil of their homeland, not only their interests, the interests of the workers and the peasants, but also to defend their process, clearly defined as a socialist process. The patriotism demonstrated by men and women ready to die for their country and their ideals was socialistic patriotism. . . . The victory at Girón was won in the name of socialism." 30 Castro was to say, in the same spirit, that "from that date onward, socialism remained forever cemented with the blood of our workers, peasants, and students." 31 Thus Castro expressed it, as he had done on numerous previous occasions, he who had been fully aware of the automatic opposition of the working classes to the words "socialism" and "communism" even when, in his opinion, they in fact identified with the reality behind the words; 32 thus Castro expressed it, the man who orchestrated the socialist Ravelization with the skill of a virtuoso and knew how to give it its brilliant final touch before the invasion. It is clear beyond a doubt that major socialist restructuring had already been carried out, and that the conceptual and emotional world of the Cuban people had also undergone a radical transformation. Yet note the almost offhand way in which the official declaration of the socialist nature of

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the revolution was made, grafted onto the robust body of Cuban antiimperialist nationalism. Awareness of the need to create a revolutionary consciousness implied, then, both awareness of the goal itself and awareness of the obstacles involved and the techniques necessary for its achievement. From that point on, the problem of shaping social consciousness changed radically. More than a few authors rightly observe that all measures taken up until then were in fact of a socialistic nature, and all that ultimately remained was to call them by their correct name. But the problem of shaping the popular consciousness after the declaration of socialism was much more complicated than that. In spite of the progressive process that I have mentioned, when Castro declared himself and, by extension, the revolution as socialist and, shortly afterwards, Marxist-Leninist, he was in fact declaring not only a need for various measures and reforms, but also an adhesion to a certain conception of the world, of society, and of history. Moreover, this declaration implied the projection of a whole new conceptual world and a new nomenclature, a new set of symbols, and even a new syntax. A comparison of the First Declaration of Havana on September 2, 1960, and the Second Declaration on February 4, 1962, patently illustrates this. Whereas in the First Declaration, despite its evident antiimperialist attitude, there was no mention of Marx or explicit expressions such as "proletariat" and "capitalist system," Castro devoted a large part of the Second Declaration to a real historiosophic dissertation based on the Communist Manifesto and describing social struggle from feudal times up to the advent of the capitalist system. This was followed by a Leninistic lecture on imperialism—and all this was spoken before a multitude of people. 33 From that point onward, the shaping of social consciousness implied much more than it had previously, in terms of both the content and the form of the messages sent out by the revolutionary leaders. As regards content, the angle of permissible divergence from the established line was abruptly closed, leaving Marxism-Leninism, joined to Cuban nationalism, in exclusive ascendancy. In a speech delivered in December 1961, Castro declared: "Marxism-Leninism is the only true and revolutionary theory." 34 As for the formal aspect, there can be no doubt that in the linguistic sphere a new Marxist-Leninist terminology was imposed and began to pervade the revolutionary messages almost completely, for MarxismLeninism constitutes a conceptual totality. However, it should also be noted that in most works of artistic expression a great deal of freedom was allowed as to the forms of expression, in keeping with the principle that Castro addressed explicitly to intellectuals and artists: "Within the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing." 35 In the plastic arts especially, Cuban painters, sculptors, and graphic artists, among others, often produce abstract or surrealistic works that would surely be anathema to Soviet realism.

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Castro also expressed his confidence and optimism as to the creation of a new popular consciousness: We may lack many material things, but there is something of which we have a surplus: We have an entire revolutionary doctrine here, one that is scientific, profound, and full of interest, that we can give the masses, teach to the masses; we can give revolutionary theory to the masses. That is why we have schools, that is why we have printing presses: to teach the people. There is one thing there should not be any doubt about, and that is that each day our people will be more revolutionary. . . . The revolution will be better defended. The revolution will have greater prestige because the people assimilate the revolutionary teachings. 36 Did the Cuban revolutionary leaders perhaps envisage merely a simple process of indoctrination? The answer may be no; not initially. Castro noted that "it is not a question of indoctrinating . . . but of teaching people to analyze, to think." And he warned: Do not allow anyone to believe anything that he does not understand. That is the way fanatics are made and mystic, dogmatic, fanatical minds are developed. And when someone does not understand something, keep discussing it with him until he understands. If he does not understand today, he will understand tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, bccause the truths of historical reality are so clear, and so evident, and so palpable that sooner or later every honest mind understands them. . . . We are going to educate, teach to think, teach to analyze, give you elements of judgment so you will understand; we are going to discuss the ideas of the bourgeoisie, the lies of the bourgeoisie, the lies of imperialism, and ideology, so that you will begin to dissect it, analyze it, understand it, and begin, patiently, to understand Marxism-Leninism, secure in the knowledge that it will not be difficult to teach the people the truth. 37 Thus, according to Castro, the aim is not to inculcate but rather to "teach to think," to set the people thinking so that they necessarily come to understand, o n their own, truths that are evident and inescapable to every rational being. Che Guevara expressed this idea very clearly when he asserted "we must be Marxists as naturally as w e must be Newtonians in physics and Pasteurians in biology." 3 8 From this scientific perspective (or "scientific," for those w h o prefer), critical autonomy was obviously conceived of only as the ability to reach the scientific conclusions of Marxism and explain them rationally; it could in no way be considered as the source of a possible qualitative alternative, which was necessarily antiscientific and antirevolutionary. Between those who did not understand and those who agreed with the conclusions o f MarxismLeninism were, then, those who must learn to reason, which was equivalent to being a Marxist.

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However, there was obviously never any question of academic seminars, but rather a struggle for the people's consciousness, which "had been held prisoner by the prerevolutionary news and communication media." At the beginning of 1965, Che Guevara noted that social consciousness was relatively undeveloped, and he distinguished between the ideologically more advanced and the masses, who were still insufficiently acquainted with the new values: "Whereas in the former a qualitative change takes place that permits them to sacrifice themselves in their role of advance guard, the latter go only halfway and must be given inducements and subjected to pressure of a certain intensity; it is the dictatorship of the proletariat exercising itself not only on the defeated class but also, individually, on the conquering class."39 In other words, the shaping of social consciousness was perceived by the revolutionary leaders as their attempt to create a new rational and emotional world while struggling against the encumbrances of the past and the contemporary influences of capitalist ideology. It was, then, a question of integrating that social consciousness into the framework of the revolutionary myth-epic; that is, of attempting to bring the individual to the point where he considered as his own the conceptual, cognitive, emotional, axiological, and terminological world projected by the leaders of the revolution. This conceptualization of the problem has been constant from the very beginning up to the present. Moreover, as the difficulties of achieving a faster economic development became more immediate and the difference between the ideal and the real society was not obliterated, the struggle for consciousness became increasingly important and at times paramount. Fidel Castro expressed this relation clearly at the beginning of 1968, in the middle of the subjectivistic-voluntaristic phase of the revolution: "Of course, with its standard of living, its developed economy, with revenue greater by far than that of any underdeveloped country, imperialism can offer material incentives of many kinds. And against that, what? What is the duty of revolution, if not to strengthen the consciousness and raise the morale of the people?" 40 However, on June 6, 1972, when the revolution was already in the middle of a new, Soviet-oriented phase of orthodoxy, Raul Castro was still pointing to the problem of shaping social consciousness as the most important battle front. In his view, the reverses suffered by the imperialists had led them to consider sowing ideological strife as the policy offering the best prospects in the struggle against communism and the revolutionary movement. Imperialism, he said, "nurses the hope of introducing ideological war into the territory of the socialist countries, through an enoimous network of channels of infiltration, in order to create centers of subversive activity there and gradually prepare the defeat of socialism. They calculate that extensive anti-Communist propaganda will enable them to 'dismantle' socialist society." After a detailed analysis of the means the enemy employed in the ideological struggle, Raul Castro pointed out that the revolution possessed "powerful forces and considerable means to defeat them decisively

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on the ideological field, too." 41 He further noted that in this confrontation, it was the Central Committee of the party that led the struggle and that must direct and organize both the ideological training of its militants and the development of propaganda and counterpropaganda, as well as direct the work of state and mass organizations in those spheres. Listing the revolution's ideological forces, he mentioned the national education system, the workers in the cultural sphere, the writers, the journalists, the artists, the legal system, and others. 42 These ideas were not limited to the voluntaristic 1960s or the orthodox 1970s, but remain constant today. For example, in December 1980, twentytwo years after the triumph of the revolution, Roberto Fernández Retamar, distinguished Cuban intellectual and director of the eminent Casa de las Américas, wrote: The profound deformation implied by the task at which imperialists have worked for decades, using a corrupt press, radio, and television networks that they often managed to make serve their interests, the films they introduced here, the habits, customs, prejudices, etc. with which they infected our country: all this could not but create difficulties, and not only cultural ones. W e know, for example, that years after the triumph of '59, after the victory at Playa Girón, in Cuba we still had to set ourselves the urgent goal of struggling against cultural colonialism, which survived the defeat of political colonialism and economic colonialism. . . . It is a long struggle, and we are still engaged in it. 4 3

Similarly, in the Central Report that Castro delivered to the Second Congress of the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) on December 17, 1980, we find an extensive section under the heading "The Ideological Struggle," in which it is recognized that, despite the enormous revolutionary effort to promote social, economic, and, especially, educational development, there still remains "a social residue left over from the past, individuals with no national roots. To this is added the fact that the socioeconomic conditions of our developing country continue to produce declassed, antisocial, lumpen elements who by nature are receptive to the lures and ideas of imperialism." 44 Castro notes further that "ideology is above all consciousness: Consciousness is a fighting attitude, dignity, principles, and revolutionary morale. . . . For all revolutionaries today, ideological struggle is the front line of combat, the first revolutionary trench." 45 Although the preoccupation with shaping revolutionary consciousness has been constant, some of the central themes on which it focused gradually changed during the different phases of the revolution, in response to the specific strategic requirements and orientations of the revolutionary leaders at the time. The development of revolutionary consciousness must thus also be considered in terms of its relation to various other matters throughout the different periods of the revolution. So it was that in the 1960s the creation of

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revolutionary consciousness took on new and important aspects when it was perceived by the revolutionary leaders as a decisive element in the transition from socialism to communism. In 1965, during a certain chill in relations with the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro permitted himself to express criticism of what he considered to be the traditional, orthodox, schematic distinction between socialism and communism, announcing that "it is all right to use formulae in order to reach understanding, but we must not commit the error of becoming slaves to them, forgetting the dialectical roads that can lead to a new society. . . . Being rather accustomed to manuals, we have not pondered the fact that it is impossible to separate the building of socialism from the building of communism. . . . I believe that we must begin to build that communist society concurrently with the development of the socialist society." 46 Castro points out that no modem society has yet attained communism, and that therefore Cuba can develop its own revolutionary way. How does this relate to the problem of revolutionary consciousness? Socialism establishes the formula "to each according to his work," implying a material incentive, whereas communism stipulates the formula "to each according to his need." Clearly, the possibility of implementing the communist formula will depend on the development of the means of production and on the creation of material goods during the socioeconomic reconstruction of the socialist period. That is the classic view, but Castro has observed that there can be material abundance without communism, communism being in fact "abundance without selfishness." He therefore stipulates that "abundance alone is not enough to achieve communism; it is achieved through education, through a truly communist, truly socialist consciousness." In the zeal to achieve the objectives of socialism, the aims of development and the formation of the "communist man" were to be neither renounced nor compromised. 47 Che Guevara, for his part, considered that, of the two most important factors, production and the development of consciousness, the second could shorten the revolutionary process and accelerate the transition to communism. 48 In other words, according to this conception of the 1960s, the "new man" would not appear upon the achievement of communism but, rather, was necessary in order to build communism. Hence the urgency of creating a new consciousness, in which the moral dimension would predominate and which would express itself in the production process in the form of a readiness to work on a voluntary basis, for moral rather than material incentives. In the Marxist-Leninist view, material incentives will gradually disappear as the increase of goods available for popular consumption makes such incentive unnecessary; but Che Guevara considered material incentives to work against the development of consciousness and retard both it and the development of the socialist ethic. Moreover, he believed that the development of consciousness could, in a short time, do

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more for the development of production than could material incentives. 49 The large-scale mobilizations of voluntary labor, especially for the purposes of the sugar harvest, that reached their peak in the enormous effort of 1970 were based on this view that the subjective element, consciousness, was the vital essence of revolutionary development, indispensable for achieving communism "the Cuban way." However, from 1970 on, with the renewal and strengthening of ties with the USSR, the view that communist consciousness preceded the construction of communism lost strength, and the platform of the Communist party of Cuba published in 1976 noted that in the socialist phase "work is still fundamentally a means of subsistence, and therefore material incentives must be used together with moral ones. . . . The development of the productive forces does not yet permit the full satisfaction of the individual's material and spiritual needs, and society maintains the principle of distribution that guarantees the closest union of social and individual interests: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his work'." 50 Furthermore, the platform stated that the development of the new society during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism and the two phases of the communist society [in addition to the socialist stage] is an objective and inevitable process, and the violation and erroneous interpretation of it may even occasion interruptions and deviations in social progress. The construction of socialism demands strict observance and conscious utilization of these laws. Cuban society is now in the construction period of socialism; therefore the principal and immediate pragmatic objective of the Cuban people is to continue building socialism on the scientific bases of Marxism-Leninism until the first phase of communist society is attained. 51

In 1971, Castro observed that incompatibilities had existed between Cuba and the socialist countries "because of our idealism," and, in 1975, he did not hesitate to classify Cuba's former policy as "a Utopian attitude," going so far as to say that "the germ of the chauvinism and petit bourgeois spirit that commonly afflict those of us who come to the paths of the revolution purely by way of the intellect sometimes unconsciously develops attitudes of what could be called self-sufficiency and overestimation." 52 Without doubt, a radical change took place during the 1970s with respect to the previous subjectivism, but this in no way canceled out the importance placed on shaping revolutionary consciousness; rather, it focused on other issues that had come to the fore. Salient among these were, for example, the international solidarity that attended the dispatch of Cuban forces to Angola and Ethiopia, and the aid of all kinds lent to Nicaragua. The revolutionary message of the 1970s and 1980s up to now has been heavily imbued with this internationalist theme, while, at the same time, the objectives of

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economic development and institutionalization (Communist party and Poder Popular, or "People's Power") have been postulated on the domestic level. It is interesting to note that, though the processes of institutionalization tend to routinization, the revolutionary leaders, desiring the active and conscious involvement of the masses, have introduced significant changes in relation to the Soviet model. This it is that nonparty members vote in the election of candidates to the party, in both urban and agricultural centers. Similarly, nomination of candidates or delegates to Poder Popular is carried out in neighborhood meetings, "where the masses freely and spontaneously realize their proposals," 53 rather than by the revolutionary organizations, as in the USSR. Obviously, all this takes place within the framework of the Leninist one-party system, but it would seem to be an indication of the importance given, even within the process of institutionalization, to the active and conscious participation of the masses. It would appear that, in this period of institutionalization, the shaping of social consciousness also takes on the important function of neutralizing the danger of bureaucratic routinization. Finally, the course of the revolutionary process has been marked by a succession of varying conceptions as to the proper limits to shaping social consciousness. In other words: What is the exclusive province of the revolutionary message, and what is the permissible angle of divergence from that message? First of all, there was a short period of complete permissiveness in January 1959, when the revolutionaries took power. At that time, Castro opened up the angle of permissible divergence to, let us say, 350 degrees, excluding only the batistianos from the national consensus. That was the period in which people spoke of "liberty with bread and without terror," and the angle of divergence was open all the way. The most important value was national unity, and this idea found expression in ambiguous formulae that could be interpreted in any way one liked. And it was in the name of freedom of the press that the Communist newspaper Hoy began publication alongside the reputedly "reactionary" Diario de la Marina and the other newspapers. 54 However, with the radicalization of the revolution, the angle of divergence slowly began to close, almost, one could say, in time to the shutting down of dissident newspapers, until finally Castro declared the revolution to be socialist in April 1961, and Marxist-Leninist in December of the same year. With the beginning of the Marxist-Leninist period, the closing of the angle of divergence was reflected in the cultural sphere by the incidents connected with the banning of the film PM and by Castro's personal intervention in the debate that arose on the subject. That intervention took the form of his famous "Words to the Intellectuals." Setting aside the various ways in which people have tried and still try to interpret the views Castro presented in that address, it is perfectly clear that freedom remained limited to the formal aspect of artistic creation and did not apply to content, which had

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to harmonize with revolutionary objectives. Furthermore, it was clear that the authority of the political leaders was total and extended to all spheres of social life. But what was that revolutionary essence that had to be respected? A brief period in which the old Communists attempted to take over the party came to an end through action by Castro in February 1962, and from then until 1968 we may speak of an indicator oscillating between varying degrees of license within Cuban Marxism-Leninism. In the political arena, the merits of different revolutionary strategies 55 were debated throughout the period 19621966, until the line that Mesa Lago calls Sino-Guevarist triumphed. This line was adhered to until 1970, and it accepted no pro-Soviet deviations such as those of the "microfaction" in 1967. 56 In the intellectual and artistic spheres, except for 1964 when several intellectuals were sent briefly to work camps to be "reeducated," the period up to 1968 can be described as one of a certain degree of tolerance within the framework of a very elastic MarxismLeninism, or what is called the "Cuban way of revolution" as opposed to Soviet orthodoxy. In this period there was an attempt to reject theoretical dogmatism, and at the beginning of 1964 an article appeared in Bohemia attacking charlismo (coined from the Spanish word for "to chatter"), which was defined as "indigestion of theory," and the charlista, who "always goes about with a book under his arm, learns Marxism by contact through his armpit, and tries to raise his political level by switching from book to book and armpit to armpit." 57 Castro, too, said during this period that "there are those who recite Marx, Engels, or Lenin like parrots and are not capable of producing a yam." 58 That was the period when, as Fidel Castro pointed out, the study of Marxism-Leninism declined, and in the university, for example, the economics of socialism was no longer studied. 59 That was also the period in which Régis Debray wrote "Revolution in the Revolution?" systematizing official positions and rejecting Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy in revolutionary strategy; 6 0 and, in the atmosphere created by this antidogmatic position, within the limits of the policy laid down by the revolutionary leaders, the angle of divergence also opened up to a certain degree in the cultural sphere, as reflected in closer cultural ties with Western Europe. In July 1967, for example, the Salon de mai exhibition was brought over from Paris to be shown in Havana, and in the week of January 4-11, 1968, the Cultural Congress of Havana took place with the participation of numerous European writers and intellectuals. They published a declaration in which, calling for a struggle against imperialism, they did not forget to point out their call was launched "from Havana, from the midst of the revolutionary people of Cuba, and after a confrontation of ideas characterized by the freedom of expression that is as indispensable for the battles and elaboration of ideas today as it is for the new society that will arise from them." 61 At the beginning of 1968, one could still read, in an article by Enrique Lihn in Bohemia, that "each time that someone has tried to force those

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necessary relations that art maintains with politics, confusing the social function of art with a political task of immediate practical utility, all that has been achieved is an atmosphere that stifles artistic creation, founded on a series of combined errors, and in short, a cultural policy doomed to failure." Lihn continued: The first error, the fundamental one from which the others derive, lies in considering art . . . as a secondary activity, condemned as such to bend itself to a certain direction that diverges from its own orbit. . . . T h e equivalent of this doctrine of art as an activity ultimately inferior to other disciplines . . . in traditional socialism, or rather, in the dogmatism of certain pseudo-Marxist governing bodies, bespeaks a relation, for its part, with a conception of art as a direct reflection of the economic structure of society. . . . This view thus disregards the relative autonomy of the superstructures; the relative self-sufficiency within the superstructures of art; the specific historical-artistic dialectic. 6 2

In October 1968, an international panel of judges, despite tremendous difficulties, awarded the Unión Nacional de Escritores e Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC) prize to a book of critical poetry by Heberto Padilla, titled Fuera del juego (Out of the game). The poem that gave the book its name satirizes the establishment's drive to rid society of the faultfinding, "wet-blanket" poet who shows no enthusiasm for the revolution or admiration for its miracles but is always criticizing and bad-tempered, unwilling to smile "each time the show begins." The antidogmatism that had been promoted as an alternative to Soviet orthodoxy began to bear rather undesirable fruit on the domestic level, and in that year, 1968, began the precipitate closure of the obtuse and oscillating angle of divergence permitted within the elastic Marxism-Leninism of 19621968. This phenomenon found explicit official expression, definitive to this day, in the First National Congress of Education and Culture held in April 1971. At first it was "the Padilla affair." By the end of 1967, Padilla had already found himself embroiled in a harsh literary polemic when he criticized the novel Pasión de Urbino by Lisandro Otero, a senior cultural official at the time, while warmly praising Tres Tristes Tigres by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. Cabrera Infante had left Cuba nearly three years before, and in August 1968, in Argentina, he excoriated the conditions suffered by Cuban writers in the revolution. When, in October 1968, the international panel of judges awarded the UNEAC prize to Padilla for poetry and to Anton Arrufat's Los siete contra Tebas for theater, the UNEAC governing body raised serious ideological objections to both choices, while the panel's opinion was echoed by the opposing voices in the UNEAC. Verde Olivo, which was once again the spearhead of Ravelization, began to publish a series of articles against both works, which, as even Mario Benedetti recognizes, were "not only

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unfavorable but showed open aggression against Padilla and Arrufat." 63 The "Padilla affair" continued for some time. The writer was imprisoned on March 20, 1971, and held for slightly over a month. Before his release, he signed a disconcerting self-criticism that he later read at a meeting of the UNEAC. Padilla finally left Cuba in 1980, upon finding himself culturally ostracized.64 The First National Congress of Education and Culture in 1971 saw the definitive imposition of a cultural control that closed the angle of divergence almost completely, leaving an opening only for variations of form; and here, too, in certain channels of expression, a documentary realism predominated. Freedom was permitted in the treatment of themes that were more or less neutral from the ideological standpoint. A notable example is the theme of love, which dominated a great many poems and popular songs. At this congress it was stated, for example, that "the congress considers that, in the selection of workers for the superstructural institutions such as universities, the mass media, literary and artistic institutions, et cetcra, the political and ideological qualities of the candidates should be taken into account, since their work directly influences the application of the cultural policy of the revolution." 65 Similarly, in a reference to the "Padilla affair," it is stated that it is impossible to avoid either the revision of the bases of the national and international literary competitions promoted by our national cultural institutions or the analysis of the revolutionary qualities of the people who make up the juries and the criteria on which the prizes are awarded. . . . It is necessary to establish a rigorous system for inviting foreign writers and intellectuals, which will prevent the presence of persons whose works or ideology conflict with the interests of the revolution, especially where the education of new generations is concerned, and who have engaged in activities of overt ideological diverseness, encouraging the coffeehouse malcontents. . . . The cultural media cannot serve as a medium for the proliferation of false intellectuals who try to convert snobbishness, extravagance, homosexuality, and other social aberrations into expressions of revolutionary art, and who are far removed from the masses and from the spirit of our revolution. 66

This tone continued, and reference was made to "the monolithic ideological unity of our people" 67 that was demanded in culture and education, in fashion, and in other spheres that I will discuss in subsequent chapters. The opinions of the congress were immediately echoed by the sounding board of the revolution. Two years previously, a different view had prevailed, but now everyone was ready to support the new policies. Eduardo López Morales, poet and writer, asserted that "the little neodogmatic Mafiosi tried ineffectually to transfer the schemes of the bourgeois intellectual elite (neocolonizers, in short) to our country, forgetting that revolutionary peoples

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reject the clowns and wet nurses of the bourgeoisie. Their only way out is, obviously, to reject the young builders of a society free of cliques and coteries." 68 Since Castro had recognized his idealistic errors and marked the path of reconciliation with the USSR in 1970, there was nothing strange about this rejection of the previous cultural ties with Western Europe, which had been important during the period of estrangement from the USSR. Moreover, just as Castro had, in 1970, blamed the bureaucracy for a large share of previous failures and proposed returning completely to control by the masses, so was this to be the policy in cultural affairs. The revolution as a totality embraced all of society, and so did its oscillations and changes of orientation or strategy. In this respect, López Morales remarked that "as always, the intelligence is in the masses. They are the creators." 69 In the same spirit, Orlando Yanes, painter and director of the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Cubanacán (Cubanacán School of Plastic Arts), observed that "the congress marks the beginning of the revolution in art and culture, making culture and art a problem of the masses rather than of a limited few." 70 And Mario Rodríguez Alemán, a film critic, considered the congress to be a cultural revolution within the revolution, "not only because it lays concrete bases for the upward development of a revolutionary policy on mass culture, but because it destroys forever the masquerade of a decadent intelligentsia that at the expense of the sweat of our workers, peasants, and students thrived in corrupt elitist positions. Its shady dealings have been publicly exposed, along with its ignoble opportunism." 7 1 Thus the reverberations of the 1971 congress resolutions defined the new course of cultural management.

Notes 1. Fidel Castro, "La historia me absolverá," in La Revolución Cubana: 1953-1962 (Mexico City: Editorial ERA, 1972), pp. 31-32. 2. Ibid., pp. 37-38. 3. Ernesto "Che" Guevara, "Notas para el estudio de la ideología de la Revolución Cubana [October I960]," in his Obra revolucionaria (Mexico City: Editorial ERA, 1967), p. 509. The Granma was the ship on which Castro and his compartiots traveled to Cuba from Mexico, in December 1956. The name has become a symbol; it is also the name of the official newspaper. 4. Guevara, "Paisajes de la guerra revolucionaria," in his Obra revolucionaría, p. 157. 5. Guevara, "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba," in his Obra revolucionaria, p. 627. 6. Fidel Castro, "La formación del partido," in La Revolución Cubana, p.

413. 7. Ibid., p. 414. 8. Cine Cubano 23-25, p. 22.

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9. Ibid. 10. UNESCO, Métodos y medios utilizados en Cuba para la supresión del analfabetismo (Havana: Editorial Pedagógica, 1965), p. 18. 11. ¡bid. 12. Verde Olivo (July 1960). 13. Departamento de Instrucción del Ministerio de las FAR, Manual de capacitación cívica (Havana: Imprenta Nacional, 1960). 14. Verde Olivo (March 12, 1961). 15. For details on the internal conflict of this period, see, among others, the following works, which reflect different political positions: Joseph P. Morray, The Second Revolution in Cuba (New York: Monthly R e v i e w Press, 1962). In spite of his intense identification with the Communists of the PSP and "the Bolshevik outside the party," as he calls Castro, Morray's book is interesting and rich in historical detail. Manuel Urrutia Lleó, the president ousted by Castro in mid-1959, expresses his point of view in Fidel Castro and Company, Inc.: Communist Tyranny in Cuba (New York and London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964). S e e also Theodore Draper, Castro's Revolution, Myths and Realities (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962). Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, perhaps number three today in the hierarchy of the Cuban leadership, wrote Cuba en el tránsito al socialismo (1959-1963) (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1978). Carlos Franquí, guerrilla fighter, head of Radio Rebelde and editor of the newspaper Revolución, who left Cuba in 1968, makes extensive reference to this period in his thought-provoking book Retrato de familia (Barcelona: Seix-Barral, 1981). Another useful reference for this period, and in general, is Hugh Thomas's monumental work, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, 1762-1969 (New York: Harper and Row, 1970). 16. T h e ORI c o m p r i s e d the July 26 M o v e m e n t , the D i r e c t o r i o Revolucionario (Revolutionary Directorate), and the People's Socialist party— that is, the Communist party. In 1962, the United party of the Socialist Revolution was created, and in 1965, the Communist party of Cuba, but it did not hold its first congress until 1975. 17. Verde Olivo 1, No. 5, p. 7, gives one example of this usage. 18. Urrutia, Fidel Castro, p. 51, in an interview given by the thenpresident on July 13, 1959. 19. Verde Olivo (January 15, 1960). 20. In July 1959, for example, Castro said the aim of the revolution was to benefit "the humblest and neediest sectors of the country." Castro, La Revolución Cubana, p. 164. In the First Declaration of Havana, Castro came out against "exploitation" by "the capitalists," "the imperialists," "the latifundistas" (large landholders), and "the oligarchies," but he did not use terms such as "class struggle" or "proletariat." S e e the declaration printed in La Revolución Cubana, p. 218. It was a controlled radicalization of language. 21. A s early as August 1960, Che Guevara said in an address at a Congreso Latinoamericano de Juventudes (Latin American Youth Congress), no less, that "should this revolution be a Marxist revolution . . . it would be because it too had discovered by its o w n methods the paths that Marx indicated" (Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 130). Two months later, he wrote

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that one must receive the truths of Marxism "with the naturalness of something that needs no discussion" (ibid., p. 508). 22. See ch. 5 of Richard Fagen's excellent book, The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969). 2 3 . Revolución (March 14, 1961), cited in Andrés Suárez, Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 1959-1966 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969), p. 123. 24. Revolución (April 7, 1961). 25. Verde Olivo (May 22, 1960), p. 16. 26. Castro, La Revolución Cubana, p. 316. 27. Ibid., p. 328. 28. See ibid., p. 329. 29. Rodolfo de la Fuente Escalona, Paisaje y pupila (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982) p. 137. 30. Ministerio de Educación, Historia del movimiento obrero comunista, obrero y de liberación nacional, internacional y cubano (1945-1977), p. 225 (emphasis in the original). 31. Quoted in ibid., pp. 225-227. 32. For this opinion of Castro's see, among others, Verde Olivo (August discursos en el 5, 1962), p. 15; or Fidel Castro, Balance de la revolución: primer congreso (Mexico City: Ediciones de Cultura Popular, 1976), p. 37. 33. Castro, La Revolución Cubana', the First Declaration is found on pp. 218ff; the Second Declaration on pp. 458ff. 34. Verde Olivo (December 10, 1961), p. 74. 35. Castro, "Palabras a los intelectuales," in La Revolución Cubana, p. 356. 36. Ibid., p. 150. 37. Ibid., p. 451. 38. Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 508. 39. Ibid., p. 632 (emphasis added). 40. Speech, March 13, 1968, in Fidel Castro, Socialismo y comunismo: un proceso único (Mexico City: Editorial Diógenes, 1972), p. 125. 41. Verde Olivo (July 23, 1972). 4 2 . Ibid. 43. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 13. 4 4 . Ibid., p. 58. 4 5 . Ibid., p. 59. 46. Castro, Socialismo y comunismo, p. 17. 4 7 . Ibid., p. 22. 48. Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 586. 4 9 . Ibid. 50. Plataforma programática del Partido Comunista de Cuba: Tesis y resolución (Havana: Editora Política, 1978), p. 58. 51. Ibid., p. 58 (emphasis added). 52. For 1971, see, for example, Castro, Cuba-Chile (Havana: Ediciones Políticas, Comité de Orientación Revolucionaria del Comité Central del PCC, 1972), p. 507. For 1975, see Castro, Balance, p. 99. 53. Verde Olivo (January 11, 1976), p. 44.

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54. Castro abolished censorship of, and, at the same time, government subsidies to, the press. 55. See Suárez, Cuba, esp. chs. 8 and 9. 56. Carmelo Mesa Lago, Dialéctica de la Revolución Cubana: del idealismo carismàtico al pragmatismo institucionalista (Madrid: Editorial Playor, 1979), p. 29. 57. Bohemia (February 14, 1964). 58. Ibid. 59. Castro, Balance, p. 103. 60. This essay is included in Régis Debray, Ensayos sobre América Latina (Mexico City: Editorial ERA, 1969). 61. Granma (January 21, 1968), p. 7. 62. Bohemia (1968) (emphasis in the original). 63. Mario Benedetti et al., Literatura y arte nuevo en Cuba ( B a r c e l o n a : Editorial LAIA, 1971), p. 28. 64. Heberto Padilla has had a new book published while in exile: El hombre junto al mar (Barcelona: Seix-Barral, 1981), among others. 65. Unión (May 1, 1971), p. 7. 66. Ibid. 67. Verde Olivo (May 9, 1971), p. 7. 68. Ibid. (May 16, 1971), p. 12. 69. Ibid., p. 13. 70. Ibid., p. 14. 71. Ibid., p. 15.

2 The Essential Context: Existence as Confrontation and Heroism During the war of October or in the days of Cyclone Flora, we witnessed acts of valor and exceptional sacrifices on the part of all our people. Finding the formula to perpetuate this heroic attitude in daily life is one of our fundamental tasks from the ideological standpoint.

—Ernesto Che Guevara Obviously, circumstances permit different interpretations of a single message (a red flag at the beach or at a demonstration); 1 but the circumstance itself is not necessarily a situation that exists outside the communication process and merely conditions it, for the circumstance can itself be conceptualized in different ways, depending on previous messages. I consider existence to constitute that basic circumstance of human beings. It is therefore fundamental, in my eyes, to begin with its conceptualization and projection by the Cuban revolutionary leaders, for that conceptualization has basically conditioned the interpretation of the revolutionary messages and has left its mark on the entire conceptual and emotional world of the Cubans and the specific interpretation of all information received. The very moment the guerrillas came to power saw the establishment of the basic, essential context in which the dialog between the new leaders and the Cuban people would be conducted. Or perhaps I could speak of a primary message that served as a conceptual and emotional framework for all the others: existence as confrontation and heroism. 2 This implies, first of all, complete identification with the guerrilla epic and with Fidel Castro, but it also implies establishing the omnipresence of a constant situation of extremity that imposes self-definition, compromise, militancy, social cohesion cemented by the indispensable national consensus, and mobilization. The alternative in a situation of confrontation is dilettantism, indifference, passivity, disintegration caused by division in the face of the enemy—in a word, betrayal. This conceptualization was also typical of traditional Cuban patriotism—and not of it alone—but in the revolution it obviously took on new dimensions. The image projected is one of a people engaged in combat, not only militarily, but in all spheres. The specific objectives of this struggle may 29

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gradually change to one degree or another, along with the composition of the conflicting forces, but heroism and confrontation remain ever the quintessence of the conceptual and emotional content of the messages designed to shape revolutionary consciousness. The natural corollary of this is the requirement of a constant mobilization of the people, not only for military purposes, but also in aid of education, ideology, art, production, and so on. A hedonistic conception of existence would obviously render all this meaningless; it becomes possible only in the context of the epic conceptualization of existence as confrontation and heroism. To begin with, let me point out that every year opens with the designation of a motto indicating the focus of the general offensive in which principal forces and efforts will be concentrated throughout that year, the objective that is to unify the entire population. This highly explicit presentation of the goal to be attained is of enormous importance educationally and represents an attempt to concentrate the people around a single, simple, clear, governing idea, recurrent in its projection. Thus, for example, 1960 was the Year of Agrarian Reform; 1961, the Year of Education; 1962, the Year of Planning; 1965, the Year of Agriculture; 1970, the Year of Ten Million; and 1971, the Year of Productivity. Obviously, the idea of heroic confrontation was first projected in the front lines of the actual armed struggle, which was also the source of the terminology and images that to a large extent were to pervade the revolutionary messages. From the beginning, the masses were put on their guard against a counterrevolution armed and supported from abroad. By early January 1959, the revolutionaries' first month in power, Che Guevara had said that national recovery would destroy many privileges and provoke aggression backed by the United States (he was surely recalling his experience in Guatemala), and that the entire Cuban people must turn itself into a guerrilla army; the Rebel Army was a growing force, with a capacity limited only by the number (six million) of Cubans in the republic. 3 "Every Cuban will learn to handle arms and when he must use them in his defense. . . . Today the entire Cuban nation is ready to fight, and it must continue thus united so that the victory against the dictatorship will be a lasting one and this will be the first step toward the victory of America." 4 The replacement of the traditional army by the Rebel Army and the speedy creation of the Milicias Populares (People's Militias) in 1959 and, subsequently, the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR) not only provided a concrete framework for the implementation of these ideas, but themselves became familiar symbols that facilitated actual, daily identification with epic values, while promoting a sense of belonging and social integration. The agrarian reform was also conceptualized and projected not only as an important socioeconomic undertaking that would change the face of Cuban society, but as a battle that must be waged and won heroically. Sufficient

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illustration of this point is provided by the ideas Fidel Castro expressed on February 24, 1959, in his closing address to the Primer Congreso Provincial Campesino (First Peasant Provincial Congress): "We have triumphed in the war, but now another kind of battle is at hand, and we will win it, too. I have come to tell you, campesinos, how to win this part of the war. . . . To win it, there must be direction, and every man must be a disciplined soldier." And "if the eternal enemies of the people, the accomplices of the dictatorship, try to trip us up, we will march forward with the people and meet all obstacles head on." 5 The same approach was used with production. Take as an example one of the first editorials in Verde Olivo: "But when we speak of trenches, we must not think only of the trenches of war. There are others we must defend with equal fervor, with equal patriotism and discipline: the trenches of production. The nation's trenches are today its workshops, its mills, its factories, its cooperatives. When we maintain and increase their production, we are also fighting against imperialism. . . . Thus our people fight and will continue to fight from both kinds of trenches." 6 It is not surprising, then, that titles such as "Heroes and Heroines of Labor" and "Heroes of the Sugar Harvest" are conferred, and that the organization of workers for the sugar harvests or construction work, for example, takes the form of brigades. The magnificent literacy campaign was also conceptualized and projected as a heroic confrontation. Castro said: "And we must win this battle against ignorance. What do we do in war? What do we do in combat when hard pressed? We simply redouble our efforts, reinforcements are sent. And in the battle that we are fighting this year, 1961, if it is necessary to send in more reinforcements, we will send them; and if it is necessary to mobilize the entire nation, we will mobilize the entire nation; but we will win the battle." 7 Going beyond the literacy campaign, we find another example in the field of education: School curricula established in 1962 provided that pupils would be taught the duty of defending "la Patria Socialista" (the socialist fatherland) and to die, if need be, for the cause of national independence and the conquests of the revolution. 8 "They will be educated in the revolutionary sense of 'Patria o Muerte' [fatherland or death], 'Venceremos.' In short, educators will accustom our young people to the ceaseless struggle for human dignity and to the firm belief that final victory is theirs if their actions are guided by the humane principle of 'all for man and in honor of the good man'." 9 Artistic creation is also a battle to be waged. In 1969, Cine Cubano, an ICAIC publication, summed up the first ten years of its activity in the film world in part as follows: The cultural traditions of our people are none other than constant struggling and seeking, the history of one hundred years of revolutionary struggle that have forged a lucid, steely consciousness. These traditions

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are, particularly in the field of artistic expression, the antecedents of all new art. It matters not who used a camera or a certain length of unexposed film before; what matters is where we find the base for a medium of expression that only recognizes as its own the recounting of that heroic history and the comprehension of the ideology that has permitted its continuity: a perpetual struggle for liberty and a perpetual drive forward. . . . The balance sheet of ten years of film production indicates that the Cuban cinema, born of the revolution, has been not only its chronicler but also a protagonist, a participant. . . . An inseparable part of our people's struggle these ten years, it has accompanied them in all their battles to build socialism and communism and in their fight to the death against imperialism . . . achieving works of true artistic significance, arms of affirmation and combat. 10

This essential message, the conceptualization of existence as confrontation and heroism in all ambits and on all fronts of life, is projected as absolute both geographically and temporally. Geographically, the message has rapidly become one of global conflict; what had begun as a conflict between Cuba and the United States gradually became, in the conceptual world of the Cubans, a struggle, first, for the liberation of America, then for the liberation of the colonized world from imperialism, and finally for the redemption of humanity. "All our actions," wrote Che Guevara, "are a war cry against imperialism and a clamor for unity between peoples against the great enemy of humankind: the United States of America." 11 In recent years, Cuban intervention in Angola and Ethiopia under the banners of internationalism and antiimperialist solidarity have constituted a concrete expression of this universalization of the conceptualization and projection of confrontation. Temporally, this conceptualization of existence is absolute because the Cuban Revolution is projected as the culmination of a single revolution in which the same struggle for liberation and the same heroic spirit motivated Céspedes, Martí, and Cienfuegos. A new historiography and a new historiosophy put the Cuban nationalist struggle for independence into the perspective of socialism, the latter being considered the highest developmental stage of a single historical process. Fidel Castro's words on this subject have been repeated and quoted often: "For in Cuban there has been only one revolution: the one that Carlos Manuel de Céspedes began on October 10, 1868, and which our people are now carrying forward." 12 What we have here, then, is not the projected image of a localized confrontation taking place here and now, or a particular heroic act, but rather an existence heroic in its totality, an epic conception of existence. An attempt is made to turn the dull daily routine into the stuff of heroism by essentially changing the entire human attitude toward life—obviously no easy task, but that is the objective. Che Guevara expressed it very clearly in his remarks quoted at the head of this chapter. He begins: "In the attitude of

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our fighters w e glimpse the man o f the future." 13 It appears that Guevara conceived the process of dealienation, of creating the "new man," only in the context of constant action and readiness for heroic sacrifice. Sacrifice seems to constitute an important element of the revolutionary message, being inherent in heroic confrontation and an expression of the "new man" that recognizes other transcendental values beyond mere individualism. When Guevara defined the qualities to be looked for in young Communists, he did not forget to mention "a great spirit of sacrifice," not only on heroic occasions but at every moment. "To sacrifice oneself in order to help a comrade with small tasks . . . to be ever attentive to the entire human mass that surrounds one . . . " u While on this subject, I think it appropriate to quote a few highly illustrative, if very abstract, paragraphs from an article by Pedro de Oraa, the Cuban writer and artist, which appeared in Unión in January 1974 (emphases added): The restitution of the essence of sacrifice and of social action is the fundamental task of justice in the revolution; they are the flesh and blood of its existence. Since its emergence from the waters of iniquity and ignominy into which the country was sinking, it has invoked the consciousness of those lost values. Day by day, it has been incorporating into the individual, in ever greater and more absolute circles, the exercise of the right of action and the supreme and transcendental option of sacrifice. The heroic phase of the insurrectional struggle has been continued by the no less heroic stage of the new life and its protection. . . . If an individual undertakes the action, it may be watered down to nothing; if more than one man, a group of men, carry it out, the action will achieve its full potential and meaning, which is of collective origin. In this way, action will liberate the possibility of heroism in every individual, for ensconced within it is sacrifice: The action must be realized in order to produce the sacrifice, which is consubstantial with it. To the idea of sacrifice as an immolation necessary first to bring the fatherland into being and then to safeguard it forever after is added the notion of sacrifice as a constant example to be looked to in the building of the country and the creation of its goods. This entire concept of sacrifice is part of us and helps us to bear the absolute hero's circumstantial inability to rise up; but in the intensity with which we interpret it, we are faithful to the hero. Being a confident, smiling sacrifice, natural to creative triumph and vindication, it is the closest thing to the supreme act of sacrifice. If the action that contains such a sacrifice fulfils us, there is no point in waiting for its elucidation before performing it; it is legitimate. I might mention in passing that I see great s i g n i f i c a n c e in the comparisons that Fidel Castro made on various occasions between true revolutionaries and the early Christians. 15 In this context, I must also point out the status of death in the conceptual world projected by the revolution: It

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is considered part of the heroic struggle—and note that I say "part" and not "end." From the beginning of the struggle against Batista, Castro perceived and presented the possibility of death, not as an ending that would make the struggle preceding it futile and senseless, but rather as a posthumous legacy that would further aggrandize the collective ideals for which the struggle was undertaken. Already, in his defensive speech "History Will Absolve Me," he said, in reference to the comrades who had fallen in the attack on the Moncada barracks or been killed after having been taken prisoner: My comrades, moreover, are neither forgotten nor dead; they are alive today as never before, and their murderers must be stricken with terror at the sight of the victorious specter of their ideas rising from their heroic corpses. Let the Apostle [Marti] speak for me: "There is a limit to the tears shed over the graves of the dead, and it is the infinite love of the country and glory that their bodies reflect and that never fears, never abates, never weakens; for the bodies of the martyrs are the most beautiful altar to honor."

" . . . When one dies In the arms of the grateful fatherland Death ends, prison is broken At last with death, life begins!" 1 6

It is in this spirit that the images of the fallen heroes of the revolution are constantly projected in the press, the arts, radio, television, and so on: as exemplary figures symbolizing both heroic existence and total revolutionary sacrifice. It is not death that has absolute value, but rather heroic struggle that triumphs over death, and it is in that struggle that the ideas of the martyrs ferment. However, death is presented as the only alternative to a revolutionary life in which compromise or the renunciation of ideals is unknown. In other words, a life not punctuated by revolutionary confrontation is senseless and not worth living, whereas revolutionary conflict gives meaning to death itself. In this sense, the supreme and absolute value of revolution stands out above everything. Just before the Granma set off, Castro declared: "In 1956, we will be free or we will be martyrs," and this alternative was constantly present even after the triumph over Batista. The slogan "Patria o Muerte" concludes every revolutionary speech, and children are educated in the same spirit. This epic conceptualization of existence has remained constant to this day, untouched by changes in revolutionary strategy and even in essential aspects of the very ideology on which it is based. The mass mobilizations of voluntary labor and the support for and direct involvement in Latin American guerrilla wars filled many pages of the revolutionary epic in the 1960s. The

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1970s saw the beginning of a new era, characterized to a large extent by the process of institutionalization and the return to individual material incentives in the context of a revised economic strategy and fewer mobilizations of voluntary labor. 17 In the natural way of things, once the nation had begun the humdrum, day-to-day chore of developing the economy in accordance with a more viable, rational, and realistic plan, implying more gradual and less sensational change, the epic element might have been drastically reduced. However, though it has indeed been toned down somewhat—as reflected fundamentally by the terminology used (military terms have been replaced in some spheres by economic and organizational terms)—the revolutionary messages have continued to project the idea of heroic confrontation. This is clear from an analysis of the messages transmitted through a wide variety of channels. Moreover, though in the 1970s the revolutionary leaders abandoned both the idea of the guerrilla focus (conceived on the basis of the Cuban experience) and the plan of beginning immediately to foment revolution in Latin America, in the early years of the decade Cuba had already become a decisive factor in the struggles on the African continent, and that has largely influenced the revolutionary message up to the present time. To this is added the revolutionary convulsion in Central America, with the leftist victory in Nicaragua and the bloody battles in El Salvador and Guatemala. All this not only implies the existence of a situation and emotional atmosphere that make it possible for the epic vision to remain integrated in the revolutionary message, it also underlines the ever-latent possibility, given the general escalation of tension and violence in the region, of aggressive action by the United States. There are many examples to show that the epic conceptualization remains a part of the revolutionary message, but since I will be examining them in the second part of this book, I prefer to skip now to Castro's address to the Second Congress of the Communist party on December 17, 1980. In his words of introduction, he first made clear the coordinates of confrontation and heroism: "This clean, firm, unyielding, heroic, irreproachable political attitude characterizes our revolution[. TJrue Communists from the time of the Paris Commune up to now have been characterized by their heroism. Throughout history, no one has ever suipassed them in their capacity for sacrifice, spirit of solidarity, devotion, renunciation, and determination to give their lives for the cause. Only the early Christians in the days of Imperial Rome can compare with them." 18 In the background, behind the speaker, were the figures of Marx, Engels, and Lenin on the left and Martí, Gómez, and Maceo on the right, with the two "sides" meeting in the middle in the figures of Mella, Camilo, and Che, "the heroic guerrilla." Above was the party symbol: two flags, the Communist and the Cuban, raised above a multitude of rifles and submachine guns. And then there was Fidel himself, leader and guide, the embodiment of

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struggle and heroism, always dressed in his military uniform and usually carrying his pistol: Here was the point of integration and the living personification of the idea of epic existence projected by the revolutionary message. 19 Indeed, the figure of Fidel Castro cannot be ignored as the central symbol of the revolutionary epic. Identifying with ideas always implies a certain degree of abstraction, which in general does not come naturally to wide sectors of the population. Identification with elements symbolizing those ideas makes them more accessible, and this approach was widely used by the revolutionary leaders. However, the greatest possibility of identification with a conceptual, axiological, and emotional world is afforded through identification with the personages, in this case heroic figures, who inspire strongest human empathy. Earlier in this chapter, I quoted a passage on sacrifice and heroism by an intellectual, Pedro de Oraa. How many people can this extremely abstract sort of formulation reach? In contrast, note the communicative power of Fidel's image in a verse from a poem by Indio Naborí, published in Bohemia, April 16, 1965. Asómbrate, Homero, de aquel combatiente que mojó los dedos en su sangre ardiente y antes de morir dejo escrito el nombre de su Primer Comandante queriendo decir este es el camino . . . seguid adelante. Be amazed, Homer, at that combatant who dipped his fingers in his own bright blood and before dying wrote the name of his Commander meaning to say continue onward . . . this is the way. Finally, it must be emphasized that Fidel Castro is fully aware of this whole mechanism of symbolization, and on one occasion said that history is made by peoples, "but men have been symbols because the human mind needs symbols to express an idea, to express a feeling." 20 And Fidel, symbol of the revolution, is also the symbolic personification of its essentially epic character.

Notes 1. This illustrative example is from Umberto Eco, La estructura ausente: introducción a la semiótica (Barcelona: Editorial Lumen, 1978), p. 150.

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2. Richard Fagen has already pointed out in his works the essentialness of conflict in the shaping of the new political culture in Cuba. See, for example, his Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba. 3. Speech delivered in January 1959, printed in Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 292. 4. Ibid. 5. Speech delivered on February 25, 1959, printed in Castro, La Revolución Cubana, pp. 152-153. 6. Verde Olivo (January 15, 1960), p. 13. 7. Ibid. (July 2, 1961). 8. Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, Cuba y la Conferencia de Educación y Desarrollo Económico y Social. Celebrada en Santiago de Chile en marzo de 1962 (Havana: Editorial Nacional de Cuba, 1962) [Año de la Planificación], p. 27. 9. Ibid. 10. Cine Cubano, 54-55 (1969), pp. 114-115, 117. 11. Che Guevara, "Mensaje a la Tricontinental" (May 1967), in Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 650. 12. From a speech on October 10, 1968, printed in Universidad de La Habana (October 1968), p. 1. 13. Che Guevara, "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba," in Obra revolucionaria, p. 628. 14. Ibid., p. 364. 15. See, for example, Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 35, or, in 1971, Castro, Cuba-Chile, p. 267. 16. "La historia me absolverá," printed in Castro, La Revolución Cubana, p. 57. 17. An excellent work on the processes of the 1970s is Mesa Lago, Dialéctica. 18. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 35. 19. Ibid. See the photographs illustrating this issue. 20. Castro, Cuba-Chile, p. 316.

3 The Basic Manicheism of the Revolutionary Message For here historic forces, antagonistic and irreconcilable interests, have met in a fight to the death. —Fidel Castro, July 3, 1962 In the interests of a clearer presentation of my theme, I have so far described only the conceptualization and projection of existence as confrontation and heroism, but this concept is in fact organically and essentially integrated with the Manicheistic, and at times almost apocalyptic, projection of a conflict between forces of good and evil. Indeed, the totalization of confrontation in time and space necessarily implies the Manichean conceptualization, which, in turn, reinforces the totalistic character of the confrontation. In this way, enemies are stigmatized, particularly when the confrontation becomes acute, and everything is seen as either black or white. W h e n Castro declared his Marxist-Leninist creed on December 1, 1961, he asserted that there was no middle way between socialism and capitalism; third positions were, in his opinion, false and Utopian, and "that would amount to quitting, that would be complicity with imperialism." 1 M o r e o v e r , the greater the polarization, the more the e n e m y is stigmatized through the use of stereotypes, which are the scaffolding of the Manichean scheme. Stereotypes speak fundamentally to the emotions rather than to the reason. The projection of a stereotyped Manichean view thus carries, a priori, an axiological and emotional charge that in fact constitutes the content of the message. In the creation of the stereotype, the emotional charge derives from the axiological, that is, from the evaluative element of the judgment implicit in the projected image of the person or object; but in the reception of the stereotype, the emotional element will determine the evaluation of the object prior to any analysis or concrete knowledge of it. As the stereotype is directed toward emotion, its acceptance will depend on the existence of a propitious general ambiance, on the prestige, authority, and credibility of its source, and finally, on its general endorsement and institutionalization as a cultural unit. All this leads m e to speak of a Manichean rather than dialectic view. The 39

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projection of total contradiction between U.S. imperialism and the Cuban Revolution may indeed be the true expression of the relevant historical facts, but it seems obvious that the United States of America is a far cry from the satanic stereotype projected in Cuba, even if only in the measure that Soviet communism and the Soviet Union's world policy are a far cry from the angelic, idyllic stereotype that the Cuban leadership projects of them . . . and the reverse is also true. But when we begin talking about the manipulation and projection of extreme stereotypes, we are in the field of a priori Manicheism rather than dialectics, as the latter analyzes concrete realities. Obviously, however, for some people the raison d'être of the Manichean projection may be pragmatic; the projection corresponds to the urgencies of the moment, serving as a means of creating an axiological and emotional atmosphere conducive to the mobilization and discipline needed to confront enemies and real or imaginary dangers. There is good reason for Adam Schaffs remark that the stereotype is a category that corresponds to the pragmatic level, "a category that is reduced, in short, to human action." 2 Around the positive pole of the Manichean axis are clustered Cuba, the Cuban Revolution, antiimperialism, socialism, communism, the Soviet Union, the socialist bloc, the Third World, and humanity. At the negative pole are counterrevolutionaries, capitalism, imperialism and its local supporters, and the United States. The basic variants of this configuration in the course of the first twentythree years of the revolution have been the transfer of Communist China from the positive to the negative pole in the mid-1960s; the relative chill in relations with the USSR between 1966 and 1969 (a result of differences in ideology and revolutionary political strategy); and, during the same period, differences with certain Latin American Communist parties over revolutionary strategy in Latin America, as in the notable case of the violent confrontation with the Venezuelan Communist party. Let us take the negative pole first. Counterrevolutionaries are gusanos (worms). And that is the image eventually projected of those Cubans who oppose the Communist revolution; the enemy is portrayed as that crawling creature that can be squashed underfoot. This process of animalizing (or the "gusanization" of) the counterrevolutionaries required some time, and initially the term gusano was used in quotation marks; 3 however, it soon lost them. And if the use of ironic quotation marks was significant, as we showed in another context, its discontinuation was equally so. The term is obviously not just another word, a mere semantic fact, but rather an emotionally charged and evaluative expression of total contempt for anyone who is not on the side of the Communist revolution. And given this conceptualization—for it is no mere name—what point can there be, a priori, in discussing or paying any attention to the possible arguments of gusanos? In this respect, we must also understand the encompassing and generalizing nature of the term, which in fact eliminates the specific and differing positions of the

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various elements of the opposition. Batista's henchmen; the supporters of President Urrutia, who as judge at a trial of members of the M26 had called them national heroes; Hubert Matos, who fought in the sierra and was later commander of Camaguey—all these were counterrevolutionaries, or gusanos. And counterrevolutionaries are traitors. Urrutia, the first president of the revolutionary government, was accused by Castro on July 17, 1959, of being "on the brink of treason." On that occasion, Castro made extensive reference to Urrutia's attacks on Communists and pointed out that Batista and Trujillo had also accused him of being a Communist. 4 Urrutia says in his book that, at the time, though he had attacked Communists, he did not consider Castro one. In the same spirit as Castro's accusation against him, it could be argued that if Batista and Trujillo say the world is round, "one is obliged to say the world is square in order to avoid agreeing with them." 5 It is not my intention to enter into a historical analysis of this phase of the revolutionary contention and the degree to which the accusation of communism helped to justify the approaching invasion. I would merely like to point out how stereotypes, by their very nature, lump different positions together, leaving in the Manichean frame they create the sole alternatives, revolution or treason—with us or against us, and when those against us are part of us, that is treason. Hubert Matos, one of the leaders of the M26 who opposed the offensive of the Communist wing within the army, resigned his command in a letter sent to Castro following Castro's attack on Urrutia and the latter's resignation from the presidency. The officers of his command resigned with him. Matos was immediately arrested—he made no resistance—and Castro denounced him as a traitor. He was tried and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, which he served in full. Gusanos are traitors. Debate or contention is projected as dissension, not between Communists and anti-Communists, but between the revolution and traitors; Castro is explicit on this point. Let us take a few illustrative paragraphs from his speech against Matos: And what do traitors do? What is the first thing they do? Repeat the same catchword as Trujillo, repeat the same catchword as the Rosa Blanca, and the war criminals, and the international monopolies that are Cuba's enemies: They accuse the revolutionary government of being Communist. The thing they do before anything else is tell Trujillo: "You were right." They tell the war criminals: "You were right." They tell the Rosa Blanca: "You were right." They tell those who bombed our territory: "You were right." The first thing they do is seize the same flag as the war criminals, the trujillistas, and the Rosa Blanca. But they still don't want to be called traitors. And why? In order to divide and confuse the people, in order to weaken the people. Traitors, because they want to weaken the people when they must be most united, when they must be at their strongest.

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Traitors who want to confuse the people when they must see most clearly, when they must be most aware of where their interests lie and where lie those of the enemies of our people, those who cannot feel with our people. Traitors, those who adopt the catchwords and banner of the Trujillos, the war criminals, and the international interests hostile to Cuba. And traitors, those who sympathize with traitors', traitors, those who at this moment have the effrontery to whitewash treason. Traitors, those who at this moment have the audacity . . . 6

The Manichean division of the world into good and evil with no middle ground, the stigmatization of the enemy through the tireless repetition of the word "traitors," and the identification of the enemy with other enemies already unanimously repudiated as such by the Cuban people—these are a few essential aspects of the Manichean technique, a technique that at times of confrontation has a very special effective and affective value. Manicheism not only totalizes confrontation but also neutralizes any internal heterogeneity. Just as it generalizes the enemy by means of a stereotype, it also imposes an exclusive self-image in its own camp. Moreover, since this self-image is structured around what "ought to be," it in fact categorically neutralizes any potential diversity or heterogeneity and a priori imposes a monolithic unity. It is not my intention here to describe a progression of concrete historical developments and changes, but, since I am describing what 1 believe to be a constant tendency, let us look at a more recent illustration of this point. In April 1980, there were serious disturbances when hundreds of Cubans burst into the Embassy of Peru seeking asylum, and later tens of thousands of Cubans left the country, a large part of them heading for Florida. Many among them were criminals (most of them expelled by the Cuban authorities, who were quick to seize the opportunity), but obviously the majority of the emigrants were not. These dissidents (without quotation marks for many people, "dissidents" for others) were described as antisocial elements. The newspaper Granma applied the adjective "antisocial" to lumpen elements, vagrants, parasites, delinquents or potential delinquents, and reprobates, and also to those who had relatives in the United States and wanted to emigrate. The last-mentioned were not lumpen elements, but, "in general, these are people who lack national feeling and attachment to their country." 7 A contemporary proclamation calling the public to a big May First demonstration stated explicitly: "We are not alarmed by the departure of all the antisocial elements, the idlers, and those who were born in this heroic country by mistake." 8 Castro said that "anyone without revolutionary genes, anyone without revolutionary blood, anyone without a mind that adapts itself to the idea of a revolution, anyone without a heart that adapts itself to the effort and heroism of a revolution, is not needed in our country." 9 At the huge assembly of April 19, which numbered, according to official sources, more than a million participants, the following slogans were heard

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f r o m amid the sea of people: "Que se vayan los gusanos" ( A w a y with the w o r m s ) ; "Pin p o n f u e r a , abajo la gusanera" (Pin p o n out, d o w n with the worms); "El pueblo que venció en Girón repudia la escoria" (The people that won at the Bay of Pigs rejects scum); "Abajo los delinquentes, Cuba para los t r a b a j a d o r e s " ( D o w n w i t h the d e l i n q u e n t s , C u b a f o r the w o r k e r s ) ; "Revolución sí, l u m p e n s y traidores no" (Revolution yes, scum and traitors no); "Mi ciudad m á s limpia y bonita, sin lumpens ni mariquitas" (My city is c l e a n e r and p r e t t i e r w i t h o u t d e g e n e r a t e s and pansies); " C u b a p a r a los C u b a n o s , n o para los gusanos" (Cuba for the Cubans, not for the worms); "Gusanos, ratones, salgan de los rincones" ( W o r m s , rats, c o m e out of the corners); "Arriba el socialismo, abajo la escoria" (Up with socialism, d o w n with scum). 1 0 W i t h i n the M a n i c h e a n polarization of opponents, the axiological and emotional connotations attached to the United States of America are clear, precise, and u n e q u i v o c a l . F o r a l o n g period, the United States has b e e n mentioned always in conjunction with the same adjectives, with the result that the description has b e c o m e the subject itself, or its automatic equivalent. T h e United States is above all the supreme representative of capitalism and i m p e r i a l i s m and h a s t h e r e f o r e c o m e to b e called "the great e n e m y of h u m a n k i n d " 1 1 and "the executioner of nations." 1 2 Its image is satanized: "It does not limit itself to sucking the blood and devouring the flesh of the p e o p l e s that fall victim to its insatiable appetite for w e a l t h " ; 1 3 it is also identified with Nazism. G i v e n the United States' record in Cuba, it is not at all d i f f i c u l t to u n d e r s t a n d w h y it is p r e s e n t e d as the a b s o l u t e antithesis ol C u b a n nationalism and the socialist revolution. It is worth looking at the following passage f r o m the Second Declaration of Havana of February 4, 1962, for it illustrates this antithesis schematically and conclusively: In Punta del Este a great ideological battle took place between the Cuban Revolution and Yankee imperialism. What were they representing, for whom was each side speaking? Cuba represented the people, the United States represented the monopolies. Cuba spoke for the exploited masses of America, the United States for the exploiting and imperialistic oligarchic interests; Cuba for sovereignty, the United States for intervention; Cuba for the nationalization of foreign enterprises, the United States for new investments of foreign capital; Cuba for culture, the United States for ignorance; Cuba for the agrarian reform, the United States for large landholdings; Cuba for the industrialization of America, the United States for underdevelopment; Cuba for productive labor, the United States for the sabotage and counterrevolutionary terrorism practiced by its agents, the destruction of sugar plantations and factories, and bombing attacks by its pirate planes against the work of a peaceable people; Cuba for the murdered literacy teachers, the United States for the murderers; Cuba for bread, the United States for hunger; Cuba for equality,

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the United States for privilege and discrimination; Cuba for truth, the United States for lies; Cuba for liberation, the United States for oppression; Cuba for the bright future of humanity, the United States for the hopeless past; Cuba for the heroes who fell at Giron to save their country from foreign rule, the United States for the mercenaries and traitors who serve the foreigner against their own country; Cuba for peace between nations, the United States for aggression and war; Cuba for socialism, the United States for capitalism. 14

Although the history of U.S. intervention in C u b a from the end of the nineteenth century u p to the Bay of Pigs provided ample material to ensure eager acceptance of the United States' new image, that image represented a radical change from the one current before the revolution. A glance through any prerevolutionary copy of Bohemia, for example, is enough to confirm that "the American way of life" pervaded the values projected by this popular weekly almost completely, and the same was true of the rest of the press and the other mass media. T h e necessity of the change was patently expressed by the extensive use of quotation marks, denoting irony, around what were usual expressions before the revolution. When irony could not be conveyed through the use of quotation marks, the term used was "socialized," in the sense of socialism—as, for example, "socialist Christmas." 1 5 On the global Manichean axis, the United States stands in opposition to the Soviet Union, t h o u g h during the 1 9 6 6 - 1 9 6 9 hiatus in C u b a n - S o v i e t relations the projection of U.S.-Soviet antagonism also underwent a slight change. H o w e v e r , during the early years of the revolution and later, f r o m 1969 until the disintegration of the communist regime in Eastern Europe in 1989, the image of the Soviet Union and the other countries of the socialist bloc was immaculate, in complete contrast with that of the United States. T h e i m a g e projected is not of a struggle between two superpowers for economic, political, ideological, and strategic influence on the international level, but rather a struggle b e t w e e n the war-seeking imperialists on the o n e hand and the p e a c e m a k i n g Soviets on the other, between the aggressors and the defenders of the peoples fighting for liberation. One writer, discussing the t w o s u p e r p o w e r s , r e m a r k s o n "the great d i f f e r e n c e s that s e p a r a t e and characterize decadent capitalism and triumphant socialism, the executioner of nations and the redeemer of humanity," 1 6 and the image of the Soviet Union disinterestedly assisting nations in their struggle for liberation is a constant one. " H o w would the colossal world liberation m o v e m e n t have been possible without the O c t o b e r R e v o l u t i o n , " wondered Castro at a f u n c t i o n held in 1975, without the construction of a powerful Socialist state, without the victory against fascism, without the reconstruction of the Soviet Union after the war and Soviet technical, military, political, and economic power? Would it be possible to conceive of world peace? Would it have been possible to

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prevent new world wars? In the heroic struggles of all the peoples who, at great sacrifice, have had to win their independence during these decades, the solidarity of the Soviet Union and the Socialist camp has always been present. In the heroic struggles of the Arab peoples for their independence, in the heroic struggles of the African peoples, of the former Portuguese colonies for their independence, the solidarity of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp was invariably present. 17

Although this general view of things would surely be questioned by not a few Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Chinese, and Afghans, no doubt if we limit ourselves to the relevance for Cuba of the confrontation between the superpowers, this view is understandable; and in fact, it is ultimately this basic relevance to the specifically Cuban situation that permits and facilitates the projection of Manichean stereotypes on an international level. The national poet of Cuba, Nicolás Guillén, clearly expresses the U.S.Soviet antagonism as seen from a strictly Cuban perspective in his poem "Unión Soviética." 18 He writes that he never saw anywhere in the USSR— whether on a bus, in a cafe, in a bar, at a school, or in love—signs reading "For Whites" and "For Blacks"; he never found in the Caribbean Sea pirates from Moscow or Soviet blockades, marines, or infiltrating spy ships. In fact, the only Soviet ships he sees are oil tankers, fishing boats, and freighters carrying sugar or coffee. And when the U.S. aggressor "gave one more twist to the noose," the USSR stood by Cuba: Juntos asi marchamos libres los dos, frente a un mismo enemigo que habremos de vencer los dos. Together thus we both marched free, against a common enemy whom we will both have to overcome. Guillén's message is clear, obvious, concrete, and very possibly acceptable to many Cuban readers; and this is the real, concrete, particular, and immediate basis for the projection of the Soviet image on a global level, in the context of a Manicheistic view encompassing heterogeneous and distant realities, and problematic situations in which the role played by the Soviet Union is not at all in keeping with its angelic image in Cuba. Within Cuba, the image projected of life and society in the United States, the greatest exponent of the capitalist system, generally combines a series of negative and denigrating aspects: "In the United States Inventors Commit Suicide," 19 "The Corruption of Yankee Boxing;" 20 "Under the Sign of Fascism." 21 The Ku Klux Klan, unemployment, poverty, racism, the squandering of the country's wealth on the arms race—all are current titles and topics indicating the one-sidedness of the view of U.S. society projected in Cuba. In contrast, we have the felicity of life in the USSR as reflected in

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typical titles such as "Achievements of the Soviet People" 22 and "The Active and Happy Life of a Great People," 23 an article on Czechoslovakia. It is interesting to note that even when any phenomenon exists or occurs in both the United States and the Soviet Union, it is automatically seen and evaluated completely differently depending on its position in the Manichean scheme of things. Thus, for example, the arms race in the West is condemned, but there is praise for the growing strength of the Soviet army, the "bulwark of peace and socialism." 24 Similarly, West German rearmament is denounced, but the National People's Army of Communist Germany is described favorably: Heir to "the best humanistic and revolutionary traditions of the German people, from Goethe and Schiller to Marx and Engels, it continues the progressive military traditions of Germany, from the Great Peasants' War of the sixteenth century to the popular uprising for independence against Napoleon." 25 The same thing happens in the case of space travel. Soviet space flights are seen as "a magnificent contribution to the application of science for peaceful purposes," 26 and the apotheosis came in 1980 when a Cuban cosmonaut was included in the team manning the Soviet space station Saliut 6. 27 Raul Valdes Vivo wrote in 1961 in Cuba Socialista that "it seems simply antiscientific to see scientific development unconnected with social development," and with socialism. 28 But when the United States succeeded in putting a man on the moon, cartoons appeared with such captions as, "The other side of the moon: BLACK POWER," and "The Platform," showing an Apollo being launched from a platform of poverty and squalor. 29 All this is typical of the Manichean conception, which establishes the value of a particular fact a priori, on the basis of its location on the Manichean axis. And this, a priori, extends to the selection of facts relative to the two countries, not merely to their interpretation and evaluation. Thus, we find almost no reference to Stalin or to the price the Soviets paid for the process of Stalinist collectivization. Beria never existed. However, what we have here is neither the totalitarianism of a selfimposing Manichean conceptual world nor a leadership enslaved by it and projecting it compulsively. The truth is that Cuba's revolutionary leaders have manipulated the basic Manichean message on the basis and as a reflection of their specific political strategy. This is clearly demonstrated by the changes that have occurred in the projection of the revolutionary message, which correspond to specific political changes. However, though the projection of the message varies in response to changes in political strategy and therefore is realized only after the strategy has been defined, it nonetheless often precedes and prepares the way for the explicit and official presentation of the strategy to the masses. This is the process I have called Ravelization in speaking of the official declaration of socialism in 1961. Among such variations, we should note, first, the change that took place in the attitude toward the USSR between 1965 and 1969. During that period,

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the Soviet image was not explicitly negative, but rather almost nonexistent, which reminds us that omission, too, is a message. Verde Olivo and Bohemia, for example, which previously had often contained more news on the USSR than on any other subject, went for months without making a single reference to the Soviet Union. 30 Similarly, anti-Soviet criticism was often implied, but without any explicit mention of the USSR. 31 However, on a few occasions an openly critical view of the Soviet Union was expressed. For example, on January 12, 1968, Bohemia printed an article that discussed "the giants of space" with a certain impartiality, remarking that "the match continues, without a doubt, but all the signs indicate that in both the USSR and the United States the work related to that trip [to the moon] is no longer done wholeheartedly, and both sides are regretting having launched into competition." This change in the Soviet image in 1965 took place in the context of greater Cuban identification with the Third World and the underdeveloped countries, against the superpowers. At the time when the Soviet image was growing weaker, the Cuban leadership began a very wide, intensive projection of the antiimperialist struggle and the Cuban guerrilla-focus formula for beginning the revolution in Latin American immediately. It was the period of the Tricontinental Conference, of Che Guevara's struggle in Bolivia, of support to Latin American guerrilla wars, of the Vietnam war . . . and of copious articles, news reports, documentaries, poems, and so forth on all these subjects. The Soviet line was rejected, as we can see in the Bohemia editorial titled "Las Guerrillas" (Guerrilla wars): "The Declarations of Havana, which were originally of interest only in regard to Cuba, are becoming historical agents without frontiers. Reality confirms them and the facts rectify them; the way of electoral compromise, collusion between classes and parties of opposing tendencies, and indefinite postponement of liberating insurgency is closed, and the highroad of guerrilla warfare is open." 32 During this same period, all possible channels were used to make attacks on the Latin American Communist parties that followed the orthodox line of the Soviet center. Similarly, wide publicity was given to the internal purge of the PCC when the pro-Soviets, called "the microfaction," were eliminated. The confrontation with the Venezuelan Communist party was especially acute; its image was even projected in such a way as to insinuate that the party was collaborating with the United States. 33 It is illustrative of this entire period that when, in 1977, the PCC published a book of Fidel Castro's speeches on the USSR and the Cuban Revolution between 1959 and 1977, there was absolutely nothing between a speech dated November 7, 1965, and the one following it, dated January 2, 1969. 34 However, 1969 saw the beginning of increasingly frequent references to Soviet topics. On March 2, Verde Olivo published a lengthy article on the Soviet army on the occasion of the fifty-first anniversary of its creation. May

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4 saw the reprinting of Guillén's poem "Unión Soviética," first published in 1964. Writers were only just beginning to praise the USSR again, and it was apparently necessary to fall back on what had been written during the previous honeymoon. In that same month, Verde Olivo printed a long article titled "The Great Victory of the Soviet People" 35 on the struggle against the Nazis. In July, there was an article on the Soviet army and another on the Soviet fleet. On July 20, a photograph of Russian sailors, in Cuba on a visit, appeared on the cover of the magazine, and on the twenty-seventh of the same month, in a return to old times, more than a third of the issue was devoted to the visit of the Soviet sailors. Thus the USSR went back to being a legitimate subject, and its image was again projected extensively and favorably in Verde Olivo. In 1970, Bohemia devoted a great deal a space to quoting Lenin, and the centenary of his birth was lavishly celebrated. 36 On February 6, the Moscow international photography exhibition opened; in April, Cuba received a visit from a Soviet cosmonaut and, in May, from a Soviet naval detachment. In October, Bohemia announced the visit of a famous Soviet pianist, and during the week of November 2-8, a Soviet film festival was held. In short, there was not only a change of strategy, but also a new Ravelization that reestablished an emotional atmosphere favorable to the USSR and replaced the previous ambiguity with a newly positive Soviet image. Another important change was in the attitude toward Communist China, which, together with the Soviet Union, had received so much praise during the early years of the revolution. The Schools of Revolutionary Instruction taught the writings of Mao Tse Tung and the history of the Communist revolution in China, 3 7 and not a few poems were written extravagantly praising the country. 38 But at the end of 1965, economic and political factors caused a rupture between Cuba and China, and in February 1966, Castro accused the Chinese of "joining the Yankee blockade" and of large-scale distribution of Chinese propaganda among the officers of the FAR. 39 Thus, China was pushed toward the negative pole of the Manichean axis. Unlike the Soviet Union, China has remained there; its image grew increasingly dismal, especially from 1970 on, in inverse ratio to the improvement in Cuban-Soviet relations. Later on, such events as the Angolan conflict and the confrontation between Vietnam and China brought about the definitive stigmatization of Communist China, and poems made reference to "the Pekingese lobby" and traitors who collaborated with the murderers of Chile and attacked Angola and Vietnam. 40 I pointed out earlier that in fact there is no question here of a leadership enslaved by a Manichean conception; rather, the conception is implemented by the revolutionary leaders. It should be remembered that the Cuban leaders espoused Marxism-Leninism after having carried out the revolution, and this allowed them a relative independence in their subsequent revolutionary formulations. But, in any case, constant projection of the Manichean scheme,

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when continued over a period of time, may quite naturally impose itself as the exclusive conceptual and emotional frame of reference of the leaders themselves. There began in 1970 the permanent, uniform projection of a sharp division of humanity through a prism shared with the Soviets; but the pragmatism that is indispensable for the defense and advancement of the revolution has made a few cracks in the Manichean image. A case in point is Cuba's relations with Mexico and Canada. The attitude of the Cuban leaders to both is basically pragmatic and friendly, even though both countries are essentially capitalist; but these countries, sharing borders with the United States, have a special interest in maintaining their autonomy and independent positions, and they manifest a cordial and positive attitude toward the Cuban Revolution. In both cases, the Manichean scheme preached and so extensively projected breaks down, though at times bold efforts are made to justify it. For instance, on September 25, 1964, someone wrote in Bohemia that "in reality Mexico's economy is today a thriving one because there was a revolution in Mexico—not a socialist revolution, it cannot be called that, but a social revolution—such as has occurred in only one other country: Cuba." The revolutionary leaders' attitude toward the nonaligned countries is also illustrative. Castro does not miss an opportunity to express opposition to "the doctrine of the two imperialisms" inherited by many countries (others are openly pro-Western); but he always does so within the framework of the nonaligned countries' organization and on the basis of a comprehensive pragmatic strategy. 41 As with the idea of heroic confrontation, it is obvious that the intensity of the image projected through Manichean conceptualization is not always uniform; the image grows weaker or stronger in response to the specific circumstances of the moment—which, since 1970, have been for the most part the same as those of the socialist bloc. Similarly, the most radical formulations—what I call satanization—are especially typical of the formative years when the Manichean image was first imposed, and since then have been in large part implicit in, or may be inferred from, the messages projected. However, the general tendency is constant. I have illustrated it in the course of this chapter with examples taken from different periods, and I will analyze it still more extensively when I look at specific projections made through the various channels of expression. The disintegration of communism in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s forces the Cuban leaders to reconstruct once again the Manichean scheme.

Notes 1. Castro, La Revolución Cubana, p. 435. 2. Adam Schaff, Ensayos sobre filosofía del lenguaje (Barcelona: Ariel, 1973), p. 141.

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3. See, for example, Verde Olivo (January 15, 1960) or Bohemia, which, on January 14, 1964, was still writing about "the tragedy of the gusano" in the "free world." 4. For President Urrutia's version of these events, see ch. 13 of his book Fidel Castro. Carlos Franqui, one of the revolutionaries of the M26, later wrote: "The aspect of the principal offense was incredible. 'On the brink of treason.' It was not only an injustice, it was a dangerous precedent. . . . That false alternative: with Fidel and the revolution or against: with Urrutia the traitor. . . . The method Fidel used was terrible. It left a bitter taste in our mouths. And a bad conscience. The first bitter pill we swallowed was not to be the last." Franqui, Retrato de familia, pp. 82-83. 5. Urrutia, Fidel Castro, p. 64. 6. Verde Olivo 1, No. 5 (April 1960), p. 9 (emphasis added). 7. Granma (April 27, 1980). 8. "Primero de mayo: ¡A la plaza!" in Respuesta del pueblo combatiente (Havana: Editora Política, 1980), p. 83. 9. Speech, May 1, 1980, printed in ibid., p. 96. 10. Ibid., pp. 5 0 - 6 2 . 11. Guevara, " M e n s a j e a la Tricontinental," in Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 650. 12. Verde Olivo (June 14, 1961), p. 7. 13. Ibid. 14. Castro, La Revolución Cubana, pp. 473-474. 15. Bohemia (December 20, 1963). 16. Verde Olivo (June 14, 1961). 17. Speech, May 8, 1975, printed in Castro, La Revolución de Octubre y la Revolución Cubana: discursos 1959-1977 (Havana: Ediciones del Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, 1977), pp. 252-253. 18. Verde Olivo (May 4, 1969), p. 18. The book Tengo, containing this poem, was published in 1964. 19. Verde Olivo (February 12, 1961), p. 88. 20. Ibid. 21. Verde Olivo (June 9, 1961), p. 81. 22. Verde Olivo 28 (1976), p. 5. 23. Ibid. (June 19, 1961). 24. Ibid. (February 25, 1962), p. 8. 25. Ibid. (March 7, 1971), p. 33. 26. Ibid. (August 13, 1961), p. 17. 27. See, for example, Cuba Internacional (November 1980). 28. Cuba Socialista 1, no. 3 (November 1961), p. 11. 29. Verde Olivo, October 10, 1969. 30. Note that I am speaking of the USSR and not of Marxism-Leninism, which continued to be projected in one degree or another. 31. This is the case in Fidel Castro's speeches on the Cuban way toward socialism, which was presented as an alternative to the Soviet way though he never mentioned the USSR explicitly. See, as an example, Castro, Socialismo y comunismo.

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32. Bohemia (August 19, 1966). 33. Verde Olivo (September 10, 1967), pp. 7-8. 34. Castro, La Revolución de Octubre. 35. Verde Olivo (May 18, 1969), p. 18. 36. Bohemia (1970); see especially the first four months. 37. Cuba Socialista 3 (November 1961), p. 33; 12 (August 1962), p. 35. 38. See, for example, Unión (October-December 1965). 39. Cuba Socialista 55 (March 1966), pp. 2-25. Castro's violent speech against the Chinese was widely published; see, for example, Bohemia 6, "Year 58" (February 1966). 40. Verde Olivo 18 (1979), p. 23, and 17 (1979), p. 23. 41. Castro, La Revolución de Octubre, p. 234.

4 Marxism-Leninism and Cuban Nationalism In our country, however, Marxist-Leninist ideas are deeply rooted in the patriotic and heroic traditions of our people. Céspedes, Agramóme, Gómez, Maceo, and Marti are, for us, inseparable from Marx, Engels, and Lenin

—Fidel Castro, November 1980 The Communist party has long been an important factor in the political life of Cuba, and members of the party took part in Batista's cabinet during his first presidential period. But the majority of the Cuban people were far removed from the conceptual and emotional world of Marxism-Leninism. On the contrary, the message propagated by the media was very close to the values characterized by the "American way of life." Cuban revolutionary leaders introduced Marxism-Leninism into the Cuban revolutionary message by grafting it onto the images, symbols, values, and concepts of Cuban nationalism. We have already seen the way in which Castro declared the socialist character of the revolution, using the springboard of antiimperialist nationalism. "This is the great dialectical truth of humanity: imperialism, and opposite imperialism, socialism," Castro said. 1 Antiimperialist nationalism became the vehicle of introduction, but it in turn began to take on a new meaning, like an orange tree onto which grapefruit is grafted: The graft will develop thanks to the orange tree, but in the end the tree will produce grapefruit. However, before I go into the grafting process and the reshaping of the original revolutionary message, I must turn my attention to something that preceded all this: The projection of the heroic and Manicheistic conceptualization of existence, absolute in nature, had already implied the presentation of an image of monolithic national unity that eliminated all such heterogeneous elements as gusanos. This previously existing monolithic unity constituted an extremely important factor that helped make possible the projection of a change, or at least a basic modification, in the self-image of the Cuban people, for in a heterogeneous society, the possibilities of imposing a new and exclusive self-image may vary in inverse ratio to the degree of heterogeneity. The same concept of total unity also anticipated one of the key elements of the Leninist content of the new 53

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revolutionary message. More important, this unity played a decisive role in facilitating change, since it centered on the figure of Fidel Castro. Therefore, when Castro declared, "I am a Marxist-Leninist and I shall be a MarxistLeninist to the last day of my life," being a fidelista became synonymous with being a Marxist-Leninist. "To love Fidel is to love the revolution," 2 wrote one Cuban in 1961, and later, in 1965, we read about "the monolithic unity of our people around its party and its commander in chief." 3 These examples show how "fidelity" was a determining factor in the instrumentation of the existing unity to project a new national self-image. And in those early years, Fidel Castro was the supreme symbol not only of the revolution, but also of Cuban nationalism. Marti fought, strove, set directions, but Castro turned the dream into reality. This idea is explicitly expressed in Guillén's poem "Se acabó" (It's over), 4 which begins: "Te lo prometió Martí / y Fidel to lo cumplió" (Martí promised it to you / and Fidel kept the promise). The image of Fidel Castro, supreme revolutionary and patriot, is the most important of what I call the integrative symbols: those that permitted the integration of Marxism-Leninism and Cuban nationalism because the masses already identified with them and with the conceptual and axiological world they did or could symbolize. Castro, as the primary symbol, constitutes an exemplary figure, and so when he declared himself a MarxistLeninist, the implication was not only that Marxism was a possibility or alternative, but that it was an imperative, the road to follow. This is dramatically illustrated by the verses, quoted in Chapter 2, from a poem by Indio Naborí describing a combatant who, before dying, dipped his fingers in his own blood and "wrote the name of his Commander / meaning to say / continue onward . . . this is the way." Among the integrative symbols, that of Fidel Castro is obvious. To it we must add the exemplary figures of other revolutionary leaders, though not those of PSP leaders; the latter, political or administrative figures, did not have the charisma of the legendary guerrilla fighters who symbolize the integration. Foremost among the guerrillas is Che Guevara, often accompanied by the figure of Camilo Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos, however, perished in an airplane accident at the end of 1959 without as yet having declared himself a Communist, whereas Che Guevara was, until his death, perhaps the most important ideologist of the revolution's Marxist-Leninist phase in the 1960s. In the 1970s, when the Cubans were following the Soviet line, the image of Guevara continued to serve as an integrative symbol, even though he had flatly rejected the Soviet orientation during his lifetime. More complicated and problematic is the case of those exemplary figures of the Cuban conceptual and emotional frame of reference who were not and could never have been Communists. The prime example is José Martí, the "Apostle" whom Castro invoked as intellectually responsible for the attack on the Moneada barracks, an action that, despite later attempts to reinteipret

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it, was not motivated in any way by Marxist ideology. 5 In "History Will Absolve Me," Castro mentioned Marti nine times in connection with heroism, sacrifice, the need to fight for liberty, the vital necessity of education for the masses (especially the peasantry), and the strength of principles against the strength of armies. 6 However, as Castro evolved toward Marxism-Leninism, the image of Marti projected by the revolutionary leaders also evolved. To make Marti into an integrative symbol, it was necessary either to claim he had been a Marxist or emphasize as much as possible the affinities and similarities between Marti and the Marxist-Leninists. The Cuban revolutionaries honorably chose the second alternative, though, ultimately, the projection of Martfs image on the grassroots level strongly implied a primary identification of Marti with Marxism. On the analytic-intellectual level of reinterpretation, we find an emphasis on Marti-related motifs, which are conspicuous by their absence in "History Will Absolve Me" or earlier documents of the M26. Even before the revolution was officially declared socialist, special emphasis was placed on Marti's antiimperialist attitude and his expressions of anti-Americanism. A typical example was the republication of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring's book, Martí, antiimperialista, with a preface in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the publisher) notes that "the continued validity of the struggle against imperialism is expressed by the work of the Cuban Revolution, which, inspired by the philosophy of the Apostle and raising high the banner of rebelliousness against Yankee domination, has achieved for our country the enjoyment of complete national sovereignty." 7 As early as 1960, Che Guevara, speaking of Marti, though without expressly mentioning socialism, recalled a sentence that was beginning to occupy a central position in the projection of Martfs image—"With the poor of the earth I want to cast my lot"—and then commented: "We have been put in power by the people and are ready to continue here for as long as the people want, to destroy all injustices and to instate a new social order." 8 In other words, the accent was placed on the anti-Yankee outlook and the social ideals embodied in Marti and his works. With the introduction of Marxism-Leninism, the affinities brought to the fore were much more varied. We read, for example, that Marti "realized that the working class was the revolutionary force he could rely on to begin and develop the revolution. He said the workers were 'the ark of the covenant where the banner of liberty is kept'." 9 Studying Martfs creation of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Cuban Revolutionary party), some analysts observed "essential similarities to the party conceived and built by the genius of Lenin." 10 Others rejected the claimed resemblance, though stipulating that in both cases "backs were turned on traditional bosses maintained to frustrate the will of the people and ensure the dominion of the more powerful groups and the oppressors." 11 It was also noted that "Martfs leadership was highly personal and inflexible," and that, "as in the case of Lenin, a clear definition

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of objectives was united with a supreme capacity for leadership, strengthened by irreproachable conduct and fervent adhesion." 12 A further comment on the party founded by Marti: "Practice led him to apply principles of organization, some of them similar to those developed by Lenin in the Russian Social Democratic party." 13 In this desperate search for affinities between Marti and MarxismLeninism so that Martí could be used as an integrative symbol, it is clear, at any rate, that Marti was not a Marxist but was valued as an important progressive element in the evolution toward socialism, a man who had "brilliant" and "prophetic visions" relating to the final objective of the revolution. 14 However, all these intellectual efforts were submerged and finally surpassed by a simple, easily grasped formula that in fact implied the identity of Marti and the Marxist-Leninist revolution in the historical process, a formula that expressed both Castro's ability to synthesize and his skill in presenting complex problems to the people in elementary and readily absorbed terms: "Today they would have been like us, and in their day we would have been like them." Moreover, when Martf s likeness appears beside those of Marx, Lenin, and Engels at large assemblies or events, and the expression "socialist patriotism" is impressed upon the people's minds, the final result on the grassroots level is not one of intellectual subtleties and possible affinities. And the world of associations that is gradually created in this way is reinforced by countless messages, explicit or implicit, transmitted through the most numerous and diverse channels. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that Martfs image constitutes, in any case, the expression of a specifically Cuban root of the revolution, and therefore any trend of tolerance reflected in the image of the revolution always derives from the underlying Marti motif. Thus, during the period 1966-1969, the image of Marti was projected even more intensively than before. While the Soviet Union's image weakened, that of Marti was magnified even beyond the considerable proportions of its usual projection before and since then. However, to return to the use of exemplary figures as integrative symbols, let us take as an example—again using Martf—a few lines from Felix Pita Rodriguez's poem "Marti-Ho Chi Minh," published in 1971: 15 En lengua de Ho Chi Minh se dice José Marti y nada hay que traducir si se dice Ho Chi Minh en la lengua de Marti: las palabras son distintas pero es la misma raíz.

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In the language of Ho Chi Minh one says José Martí and nothing need be translated if one says Ho Chi Minh in the language of Marti: the words are different but the root is the same. I content myself with these observations on the use of exemplary figures (obvious or interpreted) as integrative symbols. However, there are also other types of integrative symbols, one type being symbolic actions. One example is the creation of the Communist party in the army, which was a gradual process beginning with a few units and moving on to others in an order that matched the itinerary of the Mambí army (the rebels in the Ten Years' War). 16 Symbolic names, given to places or institutions that are part of the Cuban people's daily life, such as the Karl Marx Theater, Lenin Park, and the Friedrich Engels Vocational School, become familiar and acquire prestige in the eyes of the people, increasing the chances that the messages projected through those names will be accepted. Their omnipresence turns them into a "natural" part of daily life and even language itself, and if in such a context they have no explicit ideological connotations, they do facilitate the reception of ideology when the time comes, or reinforce its messages if they already exist. Similarly, in a highly interesting process, the meaning of various concepts is gradually changed. The key element is the conversion of an adjective or predicate into a substantive; in this way a change in meaning occurs as exclusivity is conferred upon one of the possible adjectives. Accordingly, the original sense of a word can be changed precisely by virtue of the previously known and accepted adjective. Thus, from nationalism we pass to revolutionary nationalism, then on to socialist revolution, and thence to MarxistLeninist socialism. Not only is the one true nationalism revolutionary nationalism, but revolution and only revolution is true nationalism. Next, true revolution is socialist revolution, and socialism and only socialism is true revolution. Finally, true socialism is Marxism-Leninism, and only Marxism-Leninism. Following the same principle, we can also put the two ends of the chain together and state that true nationalism is Marxist-Leninist nationalism, and that alone. We can even take this to its ultimate implication and say that since Marxism-Leninism is internationalist, true nationalism is internationalism. In this way, the exclusive adjective is gradually made into a substantive, permitting the transition from the recognized original concept to completely new connotations or meanings. Moreover, not only does the concept of revolution lead us to socialism, for example, but the word "revolution" itself takes on an exclusively socialist connotation.

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Thus, this process gradually creates equivalences that in fact condition in advance all possible reasoning. Let us take as an e x a m p l e something Castro said in J u n e 1961: " C o u n t e r r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s , that is, the e n e m i e s of the revolution, have no right against the revolution, because the revolution has a right: the right to exist, the right to develop and to conquer; and who could cast doubt on that right of a people who has said: 'Fatherland or death,' which m e a n s the revolution o r death?" 1 7 In these sentences, revolution, country, patriotism, and people are presented as equivalents. Furthermore, the fact that Castro said this a f t e r the a n n o u n c e m e n t of the socialist character of the revolution established a c o r r e s p o n d e n c e a m o n g "revolution," "socialism," "country," "patriotism," and "people," words that could then be used almost immediately with a high degree of equivalence. T h e g r a f t i n g of M a r x i s m - L e n i n i s m onto the revolutionary self-image projected by the C u b a n leaders also implied the projection of a series of messages of a different type. Thus, for example, a new cognitivc-conceptual world was p r o j e c t e d — a l w a y s through the prism of M a r x i s m - L e n i n i s m — i n everything related to the inteipretation of history and the view of society, the e c o n o m y , and politics. But this reshaping of the cognitive-conceptual f r a m e of reference was in essential harmony with pragmatic concerns; that is, the cognitive-conceptual base served to legitimize a certain situation and certain social and political norms. And note that I say "legitimize" rather than "make possible" or "create." T h e emotional and axiological ambiance that allowed the masses to identify with the revolutionary policy of the Cuban leadership already existed before the revolution was declared socialist, but there had as yet been n o projection of a global cognitive-conceptual framework that would theoretically legitimize the socioeconomic and political restructuring. And it was in this respect that the acceptation of Marxism-Leninism took on special importance. First, the existence and the continuance o r permanence in p o w e r of the revolutionary leaders were legitimized in Leninist terms. T h e revolutionaries had arrived in H a v a n a in 1959 p r o m i s i n g , a m o n g o t h e r t h i n g s , the reinstatement of the Constitution of 1940 and, accordingly, elections and a democratic regime. 1 8 But by the end of 1959, b e f o r e the revolutionaries had been in p o w e r a year, Castro had already jettisoned for good the plan of holding elections as dictated by the Constitution of 1940. Leninism, with its theory of the ideological and political vanguard, allowed Castro to project the v i e w of a legitimate delegation of the people's p o w e r , o v e r c o m i n g in this way the dangers and accusations of caudillismo, or caciquismo, such as he had already b e e n obliged to refute, or of military or populist dictatorship. Indeed, when Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist in D e c e m b e r 1961, he mentioned this matter explicitly: For a good while, the revolutionary government was in the hands of one person. That is to say, it was not caudillismo, it was not capricious. Not

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at all. But for a good while, the decisions were decisions made in this way. I repeat again and again, I firmly believe that is a mistake. But I have no reason to reproach myself. It was simply the consequence of the revolutionary process. A revolutionary party leadership should have been created before anything else. That instrument is the best and only valid guarantee of the continuity of power and the revolutionary line. I believe that the ideal, perfect system men have found to govern a country, a system certainly not meant to be eternal, but merely transitional . . . is the s y s t e m of g o v e r n m e n t based on a d e m o c r a t i c a l l y o r g a n i z e d revolutionary party with a collective leadership. I mean that the party must exercise the functions of leadership. 1 9

Castro also made a point of explaining on this occasion that "that was what Marx and Engels envisaged, what Lenin fought for and what all revolutionaries have fought for: for a better life for man, for a happier life for the people, replacing that regime of the oppression of workers by an exploiting class with a workers' democracy, which is what is also called, in Marxist terms, 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'." 20 While the Communists themselves immediately approached the problem of building the party, rapidly falling, along with Anibal Escalante, into what was accusingly termed sectarianism and separation from the masses, 21 Castro took a different line. Identifying the revolution with popular support and feeling the people more in the communion of charismatic contact than in the orthodox context of Leninist elitist institutionalism, he made no move to offer the party a predominant role until the 1970s. In a critical speech, Castro said clearly: "We must rectify this situation [of sectarianism]. That is not interlocking with the masses. Why, though, is there such a great power of mobilization? We were deceiving ourselves. It is not due to that empty shell [the PCC], but rather to the means the revolution has of mobilizing the masses: radio, television, the press." 22 This seems to suggest the idea that the projection of Marxism-Leninism as an integral part of the revolutionary message at the end of 1961 implied the theoretical legitimation, after the fact, of the revolutionary leadership's power, more than it did an attempt to justify the creation of a new political organization. More than an institutional framework (vanguard party), the Leninist revolutionary message in Cuba expressed the legitimation of the Castroist ideological and political vanguard that already existed. It should be noted in this respect that, as Carmelo Mesa Lago, for one, says, in the 1960s there was no clear separation among the functions of the party, the army, and the administration. Castro "conducted a kind of personalized, charismatic government, characterized by the concentration of power in the 'supreme leader' and his intimate circle of faithful followers, and by the lack of institutionalization." 23 It should be remembered that even the PCC's first congress was not held until 1975, fourteen years after the declaration of Marxism-Leninism. And, logically, the Leninist legitimation of the

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revolutionary leadership's power implied a parallel projection of the total rejection of parliamentary democracy, another accomplished fact. Here, a clarification is called for: It should not be supposed from my analysis that Castro adopted Marxism-Leninism for the purpose, or the sole purpose, of legitimizing the revolutionary leadership's power and rejecting parliamentary democracy; my meaning is exactly what I have written: that the legitimation was implicit in the revised revolutionary message. Similarly, Marxism-Leninism was used to legitimize the demand for monolithic national unity. Such unity had also been postulated previously, but in the context of the struggle against imperialism or the need to unify los humildes against counterrevolutionaries. The theory and definitive justification of monolithic unification came only with the projection of the scientific character of Marxism-Leninism and the relation between the vanguard and the masses. The monolithic message is the ideological correlative of the concept of organization of the masses. And, indeed, the ideological revision implied a legitimation of the definitive institutionalization of the mass organizations. But again, this is legitimation after the fact, since these organizations already existed. Castro remarked that "it was not a case of a party making a revolution, but rather a revolution that made a party [and] carried in its wake a mass movement that surpassed the capacities of that political organization." 24 Che Guevara wrote that the revolutionaries had not been acquainted with Marxist theory but had fulfilled Marx's predictions anyway and developed a revolutionary policy suited to the requirements of the Cuban situation. 25 It can also be said that, once in power, the revolutionaries carried out a revolution that destroyed the prerevolutionary state in a way conforming to many of the Leninist precepts even before they recognized themselves as MarxistLeninists. This recognition legitimized their policy fundamentally on the basis of the "scientific"—and therefore necessary and inevitable—character that Marxism-Leninism lent it. The emphasis on the scientific nature of their policy also contributed, perhaps paradoxically, to the reinforcement of the element of mystique in the revolutionary message. "Scientificism" promoted confidence, faith, and belief in the future of the revolution and humanity in general. Indeed, science, monolithic unity, and the revolutionary mystique appear closely united. In this respect, it is interesting to read the words of the Uruguayan writer, Mario Benedetti, a fervent admirer of the Cuban Revolution, on the subject of the "Padilla affair." Benedetti writes that Padilla's poems are of indubitable literary excellence and cannot be considered counterrevolutionary. But, he immediately goes on to say that in order to solve the problem of underdevelopment a tremendous effort is required, and if the people are to mobilize and work voluntarily, it is necessary "to instill in the masses the famous revolutionary mystique, the ethicalness of effort." 2 6 Finally, he remarks that the critical discrepancies in Padilla's work break up that "collective state of mind." 27 In short, in a rather paradoxical cycle, the

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maintenance of the revolutionary mystique was conditioned by the care for ideological unity, and the latter, as I pointed out earlier, was fully justified by the scientific character attributed to the revolutionary ideology and praxis. Fidel Castro expressed this interesting link between scientific ideology and revolutionary mystique in his speech at the First Congress of the PCC in 1975: Marxist-Leninist ideology, the invincible science of the revolution and communism, is one of the most transcendental historical conquests achieved by our people in their titanic, century-long struggle. Where did our people derive the tremendous strength and unanimous decision to conquer or die, which turned them into a colossus capable of defeating all imperialist attacks and subversion, if not from their comprehension of the just ideas of the revolutionary doctrine of the proletariat? What factor, if not the invulnerable revolutionary consciousness that Marxism-Leninism has given our people, has permitted us to rebuff all of imperialism's attempts to penetrate the Cuban Revolution ideologically? But more than that, what, if not the conviction and extraordinary strength that knowledge of the laws of history gave us and the confidence that the just cause of the humble people would inexorably have its way, raised our spirits in all the reverses we suffered in the struggle? . . . It is our ideology that makes us strong and invincible. 28

Here, the scientific character of Marxism-Leninism becomes a source of fortitude and faith, offering assurance of a final victory and the unconquerable strength of the revolutionary movement. I am referring here to the projection of the revolutionary message, of course, since, as regards the historical process itself, I have already mentioned that Fidel Castro was fully aware, before he ever thought of communism, of the fundamental transcendence of antiimperialist nationalism as a means of mobilizing the masses. Moreover, in the same speech before the party congress, Castro observed that, even by 1975, 62 percent of PCC members had attended school only up to the sixth grade or lower, 2 9 so it is very difficult to see how their understanding of Marxism-Leninism could have played any decisive role in the revolutionary struggles. And if it did, it was probably not through any infusion of scientific and inexorable laws, but rather by virtue of the revolutionary mystique that Castro instilled in them. Finally, I point to the grafting of Marxism-Leninism onto the revolutionary message, which obviously implied the projection of the whole change of values inherent in the attempt to develop a socialist society. In an interesting article on this subject, José A. Moreno basically comments on revolutionary egalitarianism and collectivism as opposed to, respectively, hierarchic elitism and individualism. 30 Moreno attempts to detect the change of values in different areas, but there can be no doubt that the change constitutes one of the essential elements of the revolutionary message.

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Egalitarianism is manifested first of all in the projected image of a classless society, but it also shows up in the vindication of rural communities as against urban ones, in the struggle against traditional machismo to achieve equality for women, in the rejection of all racial discrimination against blacks, and in the assignment of equal value to all types of work, both manual and intellectual. There is, however, an important exception to this egalitarianism, since both the Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas (UJC) and the PCC include select elements from vanguard rather than mass organizations. That the selection is made on the basis of moral criteria and revolutionary exemplariness takes nothing away from the fact that, notwithstanding, a hierarchic formulation of revolutionary organization remains ensconced in the revolutionary message. In the party, as Fidel Castro says, "we have not sacrificed, nor will we ever sacrifice, quality for the sake of quantity"; similarly, it is necessary to preserve, above all, "the revolutionary morale, authority, prestige, and example of the Communist militants." 31 In the Leninist perspective, the revolutionary hierarchy that tinges the egalitarian values projected in the revolutionary message is justified precisely through the projection of collectivist values; it is in terms of the surrender and contribution to revolutionary collectivism that the revolutionary hierarchization is presented. It is interesting to note that collectivism, which places the interests of the group above all others, is essentially linked to the concept of sacrifice and thus can be grafted with relative ease to the tradition of Cuban nationalism in the revolutionary message. The struggles of Martí and other Cuban patriots implied their willingness to sacrifice their lives for their country, and the same attitude was later projected and demanded from the people for the sake of the socialist fatherland, the revolution, the party. In this sense, the fundamental epic coordinate, being essentially formal—that is, implying a certain attitude toward life but applicable to different objectives or foci—is a determining factor in the transition from patriotic sacrifice to socialist collectivism. Castro has said: "In our country, however, Marxist-Leninist ideas are deeply rooted in the patriotic and heroic traditions of our people. . . . The foundations of the country socialism is building today were laid by our glorious ancestors with sweat, blood, and heroism. In the fatherland that they forged yesterday, we are doing today the same thing they would be doing." 32 In short, we may speak of the assignment of new foci to existential attitudes that were already part of the spiritual world of Cuban nationalism. And the physiognomy of the new generality, the new "cause," that must fill the mind and heart of the revolutionary nationalist is determined precisely by the second of our basic coordinates, the Manichean view, which defines socialist society and international antiimperialist solidarity in the context of total confrontation.

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Notes 1. Verde Olivo (December 10, 1961), p. 76. 2. Ibid. (July 26, 1961). 3. Ibid. (December 3, 1964). 4. Ibid. 32 (1980). The poem was originally published in July 1960. 5. After Marxism-Leninism was accepted, reinterpretive efforts of all kinds were made. The author of the eleventh-grade textbook Historia del movimiento comunista writes, on p. 228, that "first of all, the socialist revolution was made possible by the existence of a nucleus of leaders who since the time of the Moneada attack had embraced the ideas of socialism and studied Marxist-Leninist theory." With respect to the Moneada attack, Guevara notes that at the time "only germs of socialism existed." See "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba," in Obra revolucionaria, p. 627. Fidel Castro, after becoming a Marxist-Leninist, said that by the time of the Moneada attack "I thought very much as I think today," but for tactical reasons he had not said so openly. He also noted that as early as July 26, 1953, he had already believed in Marxism, though he had understood it differently. 6. Castro, "La historia me absolverá," in La Revolución Cubana, pp. 20-71. 7. Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, Martí, antiimperialista (Havana: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, 1961). 8. Speech to children and youths at a function in honor of José Martí on January 28, 1960, printed in Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria del PCC, Siete enfoques marxistas sobre José Martí (Havana: Editora Política, 1978), p. 75. 9. Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, speech delivered on January 27, 1972, in ibid., p. 92. 10. Juan Marinello, specch delivered on December 5, 1975, in ibid., p. 150. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. See also R. Fernández Retamar, "Martí en su (tercer) mundo," Cuba Socialista 41 (January 1965), pp. 3 8 - 6 6 . For an opposed view of the distortion of M a r t f s image by the revolutionary regime, see Carlos Ripoll, José Martí, the United States and the Marxist Interpretation of Cuban History (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1984). 15. Verde Olivo (May 25, 1971). 16. Ibid. (October 17, 1965). 17. Castro, "Palabras a los intelectuales," in La Revolución Cubana, p. 363. 18. In the "Manifiesto programa del Movimiento 26 de julio" that appears in Enrique Gonzales Pedrero, La Revolución Cubana (Mexico City: Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 1959), Castro speaks of the validity of Jefferson's philosophy and Lincoln's democratic ideals and of the movement's aspiration to "competition of ideas between the political parties." Previously, in "La historia me absolverá," he had postulated the renewal of the

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Constitution of 1940. We find the same thing in many other documents, up to mid-1959. 19. Castro, La Revolución Cubana, p. 453. 20. Ibid., p. 444. 21. See ibid., pp. 487ff and pp. 499ff, for two speeches by Fidel Castro against sectarianism as represented by Anibal Escalante. 22. Ibid., p. 533. 23. Mesa Lago, Dialéctica, pp. 110-111. 24. Castro, Cuba-Chile, p. 523. 25. Guevara, Obra revolucionaria, p. 507. 26. Benedetti et al., Literatura y arte nuevo en Cuba, p. 31. 27. Ibid. 28. Castro, Balance, p. 205 (emphasis added). 29. Ibid., p. 201. 30. José A. Moreno, "From Traditional to Modern Values," in Carmelo Mesa Lago, Revolutionary Change in Cuba (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), p. 471. 31. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 57. 32. Ibid., p. 60.

II Channels of Projection

5 Education The Literacy Campaign, Its Follow-Up, and Continued Education

Programs

When the victorious forces of the rebel army entered Havana, 80 percent of the peasant soldiers were illiterate. According to Armando Hart, they could not even sign their names when the enthused citizenry asked them for autographs. 1 In a move to remedy the situation, an intensive literacy drive was begun at once within the ranks of the Rebel Army, to be complemented later by the national campaign of 1961. According to an official report, one hundred thousand adults were taught to read and write in the years 19591960.2 In March 1959, the Ministry of Education created the Comisión Nacional de Alfabetización y Educación Fundamental (National Commission of Literacy and Basic Education), composed of the Ministry of Education itself, two representatives from the Colegio Nacional de Maestros (National Association of Schoolteachers) and the Colegio Nacional de Pedagogos (National Association of Educators), and three other participants appointed by the ministry. At the same time, provincial and municipal commissions of literacy and basic education were created. In the same month, Castro proclaimed the Agrarian Reform Law, and from its inception the Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (INRA) took an active part in the fight against illiteracy. From the beginning, Castro's thoughts were turned toward the peasants who, he felt, had made his victorious arrival in Havana possible. The literacy campaign was at the same time a fundamental act of social justice and a reinforcement of both his immediate power base (the Rebel Army) and his wider power base, the peasantry. From the first, attention was focused on the problem of widespread illiteracy and on education in general. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that, whereas in the years 1959-1960 total enrollment in municipal schools was 582,198, as early as 1960-1961, fifteen thousand new classes had been opened in rural schools, and the number of pupils had increased to 1,118,942, practically double the old figure.3 However, it was obvious that the problems of illiteracy and lack of education could not be solved by means of the more or less traditional

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methods. Although nine thousand teachers were unemployed when the revolutionaries came to power, only a small proportion agreed to move to the rural zones to teach. The rest refused, either because of their advanced age or because they were unwilling to make what they considered a sacrifice. 4 Accordingly, in April 1960, Fidel Castro appealed to the pupils of the secondary schools, asking them to go out into the country and mountains to teach the peasants to read and write. And his appeal was answered: Three contingents of student volunteers, organized by the INRA and technically oriented by the Ministry of Education, set out for the country. The first contingent was sent to the Minas de Frío camp in the Sierra Maestra, the scene of the guerrilla epic. The symbolism is obvious, and, in truth, from the first the concrete needs of the Cuban people were integrated with the requirements of revolutionary mobilization and achievement of national and social cohesion within the frame of the revolutionary mythcpic. Once again the Sierra Maestra was to be conquered, though in a different kind of battle this time, the heroic guerrillas of the revolution serving as models. In the last months of 1960, a new Comisión Nacional de Alfabetización y Educación Fundamental was organized. Its structure differed from that of the previous commission in that it incorporated representatives of mass organizations and the FAR, precisely those institutions that could in fact facilitate a mass mobilization. Under the direction of the new commission, teacher-training was intensified and studies were made of the active and passive vocabularies of the peasants, for the purpose of developing a "primer" with a revolutionary content. As I have already mentioned in another context, recorded conversation guides were studied, not only to leam the language of the illiterate but also to ascertain his social, economic, and political outlook. 5 While these activities were going on, the structure and technique of the campaign were organized. The entire preparatory stage lasted until April 1961, and then the mobilization of the masses began, culminating in a great Congreso de Alfabetización (Literacy Campaign Congress). The declared objective of the congress was for every illiterate to have a teacher and every teacher to have an illiterate. Eight hundred delegates from mass organizations, headed by Fidel Castro, participated in the congress, which was broadcast to the entire nation by radio and television. Then, finally, came the stage of actual teaching. The literacy campaign teachers studied in training seminars, using primarily the teaching manual "Alfabeticemos" (Let's teach reading and writing). The manual was divided into three sections. The first section was a guide to teaching reading and writing, and the third section contained a vocabulary list of the words used in the manual. The second section provided an elementary exposition of twenty-four different topics of revolutionary orientation: 6

Education

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

The Revolution Fidel is Our Leader The Land is Ours Cooperatives The Right to Housing Cuba Had Riches and Was Poor Nationalization Industrialization The Revolution Turns Barracks into Schools Racial Discrimination Friends and Enemies Imperialism

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

International Trade War and Peace International Unity Democracy Workers and Peasants A United and Alert People Freedom of Worship Health Popular Recreation The Literacy Campaign The Revolution Wins All Battles 24. The Declaration of Havana

Obviously, the literacy campaign was aimed at both those who could not read or write at all and those considered political illiterates—who included the literacy teachers themselves. Illiterates were taught not just a language, but the language of the revolution; and the literacy teachers were taught a new terminology that incorporated them into the conceptual and axiological world of the socialist revolution. It is important to note that radio and television were used exclusively for the purposes of propaganda and persuasion, thought they could also have served didactic and educational ends. The reason for this was that the mobilization of the masses was seen as an end in itself, and the personal participation of teachers and learners afforded them an exceptional experience in the realm of revolutionary action. But more than that, it was a collective experience, and for those who participated in it, it was not just another break in life's routine, but something shared with others, w h o in this case included practically the entire C u b a n population. In this respect, it is clear that the general mobilization gradually produced a common denominator of the individual experiences and different emotional and axiological outlooks, transcending the cultural differences a m o n g the participants. M o b i l i z a t i o n thus not only facilitated the organization and execution of an action intended to achieve a certain goal, but it also helped to equip and unify social consciousness emotionally and axiologically. This was especially true when it assumed an epic aspect, as in the notable c a s e of t h e war, but it should be recalled that the conceptualization of all existence as confrontation and heroism was a constant feature of the revolutionary message and was also inherent in the enormous literacy campaign effort. Moreover, 1961 was the year of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Not only was social consciousness developed in the emotional and axiological aspects, but advances were made on a cognitive level, stemming from the contact of city-dwellers with peasants and the reality of life in the

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interior of the country. In 1961, Fidel Castro told the literacy campaign teachers: "You are going to teach, but at the same time you are going to leam. . . . You are going to teach them [the peasants] what you learned in school, and they are going to teach you what they have learned in the hard life they have led up to now. . . . They are going to teach you how hundreds of thousands of peasants have had to live without highways, without parks, without electric light, without theaters, without cinemas. . . . They are going to teach you that there is a harder life than the life we have led."7 In a similar spirit, the noted Cuban intellectual José Antonio Portuondo wrote: "The victorious battle against illiteracy served not only to open the doors to the most radical and complete educational development of the great Cuban masses, but also to put the younger generations in direct contact with reality: The young literacy teachers discovered their country, and in a year of direct experience, of immediate contact with the oppressed of country and city, they earned their degrees as revolutionaries and were ready to effect a radical transformation in the unjust social order."8 That was in effect one of the basic ideas maintained at the time by the revolutionary leaders: Revolutionary consciousness should arise from revolutionary praxis. This theory reflected their own experience, their ideology having been developed in the course of the struggle. In 1966, while discussing the problem of revolution in Latin America, Castro expressed a series of ideas reflecting his conception of revolution in general: It was the revolution itself, the very revolutionary process, that gradually created revolutionary c o n s c i o u s n e s s . It is a mistake to b e l i e v e that consciousness must c o m e first and struggle afterward. The struggle must c o m e first, and after the struggle will inevitably come, with increasing impetus, revolutionary consciousness! . . . Not even we, the men leading this revolution, have a proper revolutionary consciousness. Revolutionary ideas, revolutionary purposes, revolutionary g o o d intentions; but revolutionary c o n s c i o u s n e s s , a true revolutionary culture, a true revolutionary c o n s c i o u s n e s s — v e r y f e w . And that mass, that mass gradually acquired consciousness in the revolutionary process. 9

The literacy campaign teachers, or what were called las alfabetizadoras, comprised four groups: 10

fuerzas

The Brigadas Conrado Benitez (Conrado Benitez Brigades), made up of secondary school pupils who taught during the vacation months The Brigadas Obreras Patria o Muerte (Fatherland or Death Workers' Brigades), composed of workers whose fellow factory hands tried to fill in for them during their absence. These brigades were organized by the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba Revolucionaria (Confederation of Revolutionary Cuban Workers)

Education

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Ordinary citizens who taught in the cities during time spared from study and work Schoolteachers and professors belonging to the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Enseñanza (National Union of Education Workers) The primer "Venceremos," which was used in the literacy campaign, comprised fifteen lessons: 11 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The OAS 1 2 INRA The Agrarian Reform Cooperative The Land Cuban Fishermen The Village Store Every Cuban Owner of His Home

8. A Healthy People in a Free Cuba 9. EMIT 10. The Militias 11. The Revolution Wins All Battles 12. The People Work 13. Cuba is Not Alone 14. The Year of Education 15. Poetry and Alphabet

The text was accompanied by photographs that illustrated current problems of the Cuban Revolution related to the themes discussed in each specific lesson. The themes presented in the study booklet paralleled the revolutionary undertakings that occupied the government; the literacy campaign offered the p o s s i b i l i t y of r e a c h i n g every C u b a n personally and m a k i n g him conceptualize, assess, understand, and identify with the great reforms that were being effected at the time, such as the agrarian reform, the cooperatives, cooperation with the socialist countries, and so on. Even the language used, both semantics and syntax, not only taught pupils to read and write but also reflected specific information, a specific conceptualization and evaluation. For the final test, the pupil was asked to write his full name and address and then read the following paragraph: "The Revolutionary Government wants to make Cuba into an industrialized country. Many industries will be created. Many workers will work. There will be no more unemployment." 1 3 The pupil was then questioned on the content of the paragraph and required to write it out as it was dictated to him. Finally, he had to be prepared for his last test, which was to write a letter to Fidel Castro. If he passed, he was entitled to receive a book intended to continue his education. There is a revolution and there is a supreme symbol that personifies it: Fidel Castro. And this idea was much in evidence among the objectives of the literacy campaign, the second point of the teachers' manual being "Fidel Is Our Leader." T h e entire campaign was carried out in the context of a more general attempt to reorganize the educational system, the object being to integrate the

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entire population into the educational process. On June 6, 1961, the Law on the Nationalization of Education was proclaimed, making education free of charge. On December 22, 1961, the day that the literacy campaign ended, an extensive scholarship program was announced, and shortly thereafter forty thousand scholarships were granted to children of the laborers and peasants who had worked as teachers in the literacy campaign brigades. 14 The seven hundred thousand people who learned to read and write, the free education, the Law on the Nationalization of Education that put an end to private schools, the one hundred thousand young students and fifteen thousand workers who taught in the literacy campaign—all these constituted the starting point for an educational policy with certain educational and ideological objectives, among them the explicit aim, as stated in an official report, of contributing "to social cohesion and national unity." 15 During those early years, when internal strife had not yet disappeared and the leaders were working very hard to establish definitively their base of popular support, these educational efforts took on a transcending political importance that surpassed even their enormous pedagogical importance. The double significance of the educational effort was also clearly reflected in the educational programs that continued the work undertaken in the literacy campaign: el seguimiento (the follow-up); la superación obrera (worker advancement); and el mínimo técnico (the technical minimum). These new channels of continued education were planned immediately after the literacy campaign, and on February 24, 1962, the follow-up was announced—that is, the continuation of the studies begun during the campaign. Its purpose was to enable adults who had finished first or second grade to continue studying on the elementary level, in mass organizations after work. The worker-peasant advancement program was intended for the five hundred thousand workers who had passed third grade, the average educational level of the working class. The object was to prepare them to teach on the secondary level by giving them the opportunity to study in their places of employment, without having to abandon their jobs. 16 Radio and television also did their part, and the press provided much of the study material. As for the technical minimum program, its purpose was to provide workers with the basics of technical knowledge, enabling them to advance in their work. All this was in fact the beginning of the development of a parallel educational system for adults and the undereducated that, in its first ten years of operation, ending with the school year 1971-1972, graduated more than 530,000 adults on the primary and secondary levels. 17 The generations who were born or grew up during the revolution were incorporated into a systematic educational program that lasted for years, but the necessity of educating the generations of transition while simultaneously trying to develop their revolutionary consciousness seemed to be particularly urgent, in view of the role they were to play in the revolutionary

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confrontation. This sense of urgency at times gave rise to extremes that pushed educational objectives to the background. Let us look at some relevant material published in Verde Olivo on July 22, 1962, beginning with a mathematics lesson. Note the way the concepts ascending and descending are explained: In 1958, the hunger and poverty of the Cuban peasantry was terrible beyond words; the henchmen of tyranny constantly threatened the men and women of the rural areas with eviction and relocation in the towns. The diseases caused by malnutrition wrought great havoc. Typhus, malaria, anemia, parasitism, et cetera, were common ills amount the peasants. Because of this situation, we saw our economy descending. But the revolution came and gave all the people the attentions they deserved. We saw the economy flourish. Today everything is ascending. Do you know the meaning of the words "ascending" and "descending"? Ascending—means increasing. Descending—means decreasing.

This text was accompanied by a drawing of two batistiano soldiers hitting poor, emaciated peasants, in an obvious reinforcement of the affective and axiological element by visual means—especially important in the case of people who are just beginning to read at all. Clearly, the examples used to illustrate the meaning of the above concepts are rather forced, and one might say even inappropriate. Their purpose was rather to create an omnipresent world of associations with the glorification of the revolution as its center. Let us take another example from the field of mathematics: the concept of "multiplication." Double your hours of study and you will be a combatant better prepared to defeat imperialism. We are all interested in hearing or reading the speeches of our Supreme Leader. Many times he has said: We must multiply our efforts. Have you thought about what it means to multiply our efforts? It means to increase them in great number: to study more, work more, et cetera. . . . Only by studying more can we become good military technicians and annihilate the forces that are still trying to oppress us, to carry us back to yesterday, to what belongs to the past, when we are fighting to keep it from returning. By studying more, we multiply our output in the task the revolution imposes on us. 18

Here again, we do not find the precise definition of "multiply," but we do find the associational reinforcement of a whole terminological, conceptual, and emotional world created in the pupil's mind: imperialism, supreme leader, revolution, the struggle against the forces of the past, and so on. If all this is necessary to explain the word "multiply," it seems that the objective is to make this conceptual and axiological world omnipresent in the pupil's mind,

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so that it is with him even while he eats his breakfast, determining his automatic associations. Let us look at another example, a grammar exercise in which the pupil is asked to write sentences using each of the words on a given list. Following are three concepts taken from this vocabulary list and the examples provided to guide the student:

1. Capitalism: Social system based on the exploitation of man by man. Example: W e fight to eliminate capitalism. 2. Congress: Meeting of people who discuss matters of general interest or public utility. Example: I participated in the Congress of Young Communists. 3.

Defense: Protection. To act for the good of something or someone. Example: The defense of the fatherland comes first. 1 9

The first item speaks for itself, and I merely point out the use of the words "we fight" in the example. This represents an interesting and widely used technique: A statement is made with "we" as the substantive, since by describing the action as proper to that "we" it sets up the alternative of either identifying with, and making a commitment in respect of, the action or excluding oneself. I have already analyzed the significance of the latter possibility in discussing the concept of traitors. The second item is interesting in that absolutely no mention is made of one of the most commonly accepted definitions of the word "congress" in Latin America—that is, a legislative body; and in fact, at that time the idea of holding parliamentary elections had already been dropped completely. Instead, the example given refers the reader to the conceptual world of the recently formed Communist political organizations. These examples, chosen from among innumerable others, adequately illustrate how urgently important the government considered the formation of revolutionary consciousness by educational means during those first, critical three years, particularly in the case of the adult population. It is also important to note, in those early years, the establishment of the Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria (EIR) on December 2, 1960, even before the revolution was officially declared to be socialist. The first EIR course was attended by more than seven hundred students, cadres, and revolutionary activists from the M26 and the PSP, each contributing about 50 percent of the student body, and a few from the Directorio Revolucionario 13 de mayo (May 13 Revolutionary Directorate). The directorate attached special, even transcendental, importance to the foundation of the EIR, because they were set up before the different revolutionary political forces came together in a single organization and therefore must be considered the origin of that integration and practically the first truly integrated political organs of the revolution. 20

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The EIR immediately devoted themselves to teaching MarxismLeninism, thought almost right away they came up against serious problems as a consequence of the political crisis in the ORI, which led to the decomposition of these first revolutionary groups. 2 1 The EIR, however, continued their work, and by 1963 were announcing that they had taught 87,036 pupils in courses lasting, on average, two or three months. Lionel Soto noted in those years that thanks to the EIR "the study of Marxism became a mass phenomenon," 2 2 and that the EIR concentrated "all their efforts in the mass dissemination of the brilliant ideas of scientific socialism, of Marxism-Leninism, and in the decision to win over the consciousness of the masses to Socialist ideas." 23 Later, the EIR began adapting their programs to the changing political strategies of the party, but here I limit myself to pointing out the importance attached to them, from the beginning, as an instrument necessary to conquer the social consciousness.

Educational Objectives and Politics Obviously, for the revolutionary leaders politics is education and education is politics. As early as March 1962, a Cuban report presented at an international conference on education stated: "The efficacy of our administration and educational supervision is due precisely to the political orientation of our education system today." 2 4 At the same conference, the Cubans called upon the teachers of Latin America to engage in a bitter struggle against official political intervention in the field of education, claiming that such intervention was negative and used educational resources "for the benefit of privileged minorities or for immoral purposes." "The dominant reactionary class," continued this analysis of Latin American education, "tries to impose its ideology on teachers and intellectuals, and, lacking any moral and scientific basis for its principles, orients the intellectuals toward apoliticism, which in reality is an agent of official policy. Apoliticism maintained by reaction in the cultural and educational spheres is the reactionary state's modus operandi for removing intellectuals from the field of the general struggle for true culture and national progress in the sphere of education." 25 However, while the Cubans decried both apoliticism (considered a masked form of intervention) and overt state political intervention in education in the capitalist countries, in socialist Cuba there was in fact a reaffirmation of a complete political reorientation: "In reality, technical and pedagogical orientations that are removed from politics are worth nothing as either technique or policy." 26 This paradox is explained when we read in the same document that in capitalism the political power stands in opposition to the true interests of society and therefore must not be permitted to interfere in the educational sphere, whereas in socialism there is no such opposition. On

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the contrary, the political power actually represents the true interests of society, and hence its guidance is indispensable. 27 The same spirit and logic are reflected in the attitude toward autonomy of the universities, which was demanded and cherished in Latin America in general but roundly rejected in socialist Cuba. Portuondo wrote: Following the triumph of the social revolution, the university became an important, indispensable part of the revolutionary process that has created a new society and is based on radically new means of production, brandnew production relations, and the crushing of the old n e o c o l o n i a l bourgeoisie. It no longer has to stand up against a government machine— on the contrary, it forms part of it. It does not have to entrench itself in its autonomy or shut itself up in closed academic precincts, in university campuses; instead, the campus bounds join with the national territory, and the integration of students and professors in the great creative process renders the old trenches unnecessary. 2 8

When it is a question of capitalist society, the call is for militant development of all the disintegrative elements that may contribute to its obliteration. When it is a question of socialist society, the goal sought is total integration within the frame of the revolution, implying the elimination of every qualitative alternative to the existing system. This leaves only the possibility of technical alternatives, that is, the possibility of debate as to the most effective means of perfecting and developing the exclusive revolutionary system. It is no wonder then that Utopia and technology should be closely joined and that technological development should become both a keystone in the fortification of the revolutionary system and a central element in educational programs. Thus, the UNESCO report of 1962 in effect distinguished two basic objectives considered essentially united: One was specifically ideological, being the creation of a revolutionary socialist consciousness, and the other was pragmatic, consisting in the training and technical and scientific preparation of workers in order to increase production. Both objectives were considered components of an essential unity that found pedagogical expression in the principle of linking education and productive work, 2 9 a principle that has been maintained in a good part of the educational system to this day. The administrators of the revolutionary education system began to create institutions and develop programs based on these objectives, which, during the second half of the 1960s, were identified specifically with the aspiration to create "the new man." The "escuela al campo" ("school goes to the countryside") program was established, adult education was intensified, boarding schools were set up, emphasis was placed on ideological formation and the projection of moral, collectivist, and egalitarian values, efforts were made to democratize student life and student-teacher relations, battles were

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waged for "the universalization of the university," and so on. All this took place in the context of a constant search for suitable methods and a readiness to accept the necessity of change when projects failed or achievements were not proportionate to the investment they entailed. Such changes in the educational field reflected strategic permutations in the ideology and economic and general policies of the revolutionary leaders. 30 We see this in the evolution of the "escuela al campo" experiment, which sent the pupils of every urban secondary school in the country to do productive work in the provinces for a minimum of seven weeks a year. However, by the end of the decade, encouragement of this program had declined, reflecting a general change in strategy, and the "escuelas al campo" have gradually been replaced by the "escuela en el campo" (school in the countryside): secondary schools comprising the seventh to tenth grades, attended for the most part by urban students who combine work with study. 31 And as another example, at the same time that Castro made his previously mentioned "self-criticism" concerning the idealistic period of the 1960s, he recognized that in that decade the Cuban leadership had committed "an important error" in trying to begin training teachers in the mountains of Oriente in order to adapt them to the difficult conditions of rural life: "We were slow to realize that this system was unrealistic." 32 I shall not describe in detail all the changes and experiments, many of which have become important and definitive achievements of revolutionary education; many excellent works of research have been written about them and are listed in the bibliography. However, I do want to emphasize the allembracing approach of the revolutionary educational plan. The Cuban system is one of total education: total in the quantitative sense, since nearly the entire population partakes of it (those comprising the small minority that does not pass through the educational system or has only brief or partial contact with it absorb the revolutionary message in the army); total in the generational sense; total in the existential sense, in that it embraces practically all spheres of human existence; and finally, total in the sense that it is exclusive. Transcending the various changes in the development of educational strategy during twenty-five years of revolution, this principle of total education has remained essential, decisive, and constant, coherent with monolithic ideological unity and a society and state based fundamentally on mass organizations. It is a total education that implies both quantitative democratization and, in the qualitative aspect, monolithic ideological unity; and therefore both elements together create the possibility of a prolonged and systematic projection of the revolutionary message to the entire Cuban people. This was especially important during the formative years. In 1980, for every 2.83 inhabitants, one person was studying. 33 This quantitative totality, which includes what I call generational totality, reflects the democratization of education and covers both regular students on different levels and participants in other programs: adult education; remedial classes;

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and preschool. In regard to adult education, I have already described the literacy campaign and the programs that immediately followed it—the follow-up, worker advancement, and technical minimum—but the effort continued and is still continuing today. In 1963, workers were given a scholastic achievement test (prueba de escolaridad), which was the most extensive mass survey carried out in the educational field since the literacy campaign, measuring the educational level of 1,102,153 trade union members. The results showed that 53 percent of those tested had the equivalent of a first- or second-grade education, 28.1 percent were on a thirdto sixth-grade level, 5.5 percent were on the level of the first year of secondary school, and only 13.4 percent exceeded these levels. As one writer correctly observed in Cuba Internacional, "the low educational index of the working class as a whole was in itself a statistic almost as dramatic as the million illiterates the country numbered before 1961." 34 In an effort to improve this situation, the number of study halls in work places was increased and workers were encouraged to attend night school, which is now the fundamental institution of the adult-education system. At about this time, the "Battle for Sixth Grade" was begun, and it continued throughout the entire period. By the 1973-1974 school year, 530,713 pupils had completed sixth grade, and from 1974 up to the final year of the battle, the 1978-1979 school year, 724,174 more pupils graduated from primary school, making a total of 1,254,887 workers, peasants, and housewives. By 1981, the "Battle for Ninth Grade" had already begun. 35 The word "battle" nicely expresses that element of confrontation that I described as an essential and constant element of the existential conceptualization implicit in the revolutionary message. At the other end of the generational scale, Marvin Leiner notes, in a study published in 1973, that day nurseries and kindergartens, which increased in number from thirty-seven in 1961 to 430 in 1970, help to shape a collectivist spirit even in mere infants. Playpens are designed to allow at least six small children to play together in an area equivalent to that of a small room, in contrast to the playpens for one or two children common in other countries. This arrangement encourages communal coexistence and group games rather than individual activities. Furthermore, Leiner writes that child-care center aides are also encouraged to plan activities that stimulate group games, and these orient the children toward clear social patterns that help them to develop social activities. 36 By 1980, child-care centers as a group could accommodate no less than eighty-seven thousand children, and 20 percent of their teachers were graduates. 37 It is interesting that, as early as 1963, one could read in Bohemia about Cuban use of educational toys designed in Czechoslovakia as tools for fighting imperialism. 38 In the regular, traditional institutions of education, the number of pupils increased enormously, while the principle of combining study and work came to govern the whole national educational system. To quote a few statistics, the total number of pupils enrolled in the national educational system

Illustrations to a speech of Fidel Castro to children; from Hay que pensar . . . Instituto Cubano del Libro, Editorial Gente Nueva (Havana, 1975).

en el

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increased from 811,345 in 1958 to 3,000,051 in 1974. In sixteen years, primary school enrollments increased 2.7 times over, secondary school enrollments 6.1 times, and university enrollments 5.5 times, making a total increase of more than sixty-seven thousand pupils. The school-attendance rate of children aged six to twelve reached 100 percent. 39 According to Fidel Castro's report to the Second Congress of the PCC in December 1980, during the preceding five-year period 1,293,000 sixth-graders had graduated from the national education system, nearly double the total for the previous five-year period; 575,000 pupils had completed basic secondary school, or 7.2 times the previous figure; 105,000 had completed the preuniversity level, or 4.4 times more; 194,000 were qualified as workers and intermediate technicians, a fivefold increase; and 62,700 had graduated from institutions of higher education, or 3.6 times the previous figure. 40 This quantitative increase was not a regular, balanced progression; rather, as Carnoy and Werthein explain, changes came about in vocational and educational orientations in response to modifications of national economic policy 4 1 —and other factors as well. Thus, enrollment in institutions of higher education actually fell between 1958 and 1966; 42 and Castro remarked in 1971 that the universities had not grown much, and that "the university student body is small." 43 He explained that young people were channeled into jobs in mass or labor organizations or, in a great many cases, into the army to defend the country. And when the technological modernization of the army required better-educated personnel, "the best students left the universities to form part of the units that had to be organized." 44 Moreover, many secondaryschool students were pressed into service as schoolteachers. All these factors together seriously limited the number of university graduates. 45 However, the 1970s witnessed a boom in this respect, too, and in the five-year period 1975-1980, the number of higher-education graduates tripled, reaching a total of 62.700. 46 This came about in the context of the "universalization of the university" effort, which at the same time incorporated university students into work-study programs in industry, hospitals, or schools, according to their professional training, and brought about the enrollment of a great many workers and peasants in university courses. This effort to integrate the entire population into the educational system met with various difficulties and suffered some failures. For the purposes of the literacy campaign, Castro had defined illiterates as those who were at least fourteen years old and thus beyond school age, but many children under age fourteen did not attend school, and they were not taught to read and write. 47 According to Mesa Lago, in 1971, 12 percent of the juvenile population between ages four and sixteen neither went to school nor worked, and the figure for sixteen-year-olds reached 60 percent. 48 In an effort to solve this serious problem, a law against idleness (Ley Contra la Vagancia) was promulgated, making it a crime to neither work nor study, and some one hundred thousand truant adolescents were inducted into compulsory military

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service between 1971 and 1972. The percentages quoted above were the consequence of a very high school-drop-out rate. Mesa Lago notes that 79 percent of those who began primary school in 1965 did not finish in 1971. The problem was most serious in the rural schools, where the ratio of dropouts reached 86 percent during that period, as compared to 66 percent for the urban schools. The drop-out rate in the basic secondary schools was even higher. 49 This study deals primarily with the projection of the revolutionary message and, in this chapter, with the effort to educate the total population, but it is evident that the difficulties faced by the revolutionary leaders were not negligible, even though the educational field is one in which they have made exceptional achievements. Let us now consider the concept of total education in the sense that it is intended to embrace all aspects of human existence. Without a doubt, the revolutionary educational system constitutes a reliable illustration of the enormous effort to achieve what I have termed the integration of social consciousness in the revolutionary myth-epic—that is, the attempt to make the individual adopt as his own the conceptual, cognitive, emotional, axiological, and terminological world projected by the revolutionary leaders. In 1967, for example, a Ministry of Education publication expressed this conception of total education as it related to the development of a new existence: "In Cuba we are building a new life, socialistic and communistic, free of alienation; this supposes a new being, a new knowing, and a new way of dealing with issues and resolving them—that is to say, an ontology, a gnoseology, and a methodology different from those that have existed in our scholastic and educational spheres up to now[.] To develop new cadres with a high scientific, technical, and cultural level who are conscious and active builders of socialism and communism; lovers of the fatherland . . . " 5 0 First of all, education is conceptualized in ideological and political terms. The Declaration of the First Congress of Education and Culture of 1971 states that "the function of the schoolteacher in our socialist society is considered to have an extraordinary significance and hierarchy, since his f u n d a m e n t a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t y is the ideological f o r m a t i o n of new generations." 5 1 Fidel Castro said, at a teachers' graduation ceremony in July 1981, that "it is the teacher who gives concrete substance to the lines drawn by the party, insofar as he succeeds in putting into practice study plans, programs, methodological guides, and normative documents. The educator must also be an activist of our party's revolutionary policy, a defender of our ideology, of our morality, of our political convictions. He must therefore be an exemplary revolutionary." 5 2 And as Castro expressed this demand for ideological militancy, the audience sat facing an enormous poster hanging behind him and dominating the scene with one of his maxims: "We cannot stop fighting to raise the quality of education for even one day." 53 Thus we find yet another expression in the educational field of that constant theme of the revolutionary message, struggle without quarter. This idea was also

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reinforced by the creation of three internationalist contingents of students and teachers: the Che Guevara Internationalist Detachment; the Frank Pais Contingent of Primary School Teachers, with some one thousand members working in Angola; and the Augusto César Sandino Contingent of Primary School Teachers, made up of two thousand teachers who held classes in Nicaragua. By 1981, there were thirty-five hundred Cuban schoolteachers, professors, and advisors rendering international service in twenty countries. 54 Relevant schoolbooks, notable history textbooks, forcefully express the new terminological, cognitive, conceptual, and axiological world projected by the revolutionary leaders, and, often, PCC documents or resolutions are quoted to clarify or illustrate one point or another. 55 The book Universal History, published in 1974, projects the Manichean view I spoke of in Chapter 3. The image projected of North America is a grotesque, bloated imperialist, clutching in his taloned, hairy fist his next hapless victim. The image of the USSR is, of course, glorified. In the confrontation with Nazism, for example, the USSR fought for peace, whereas the policy followed by England, France, and North America encouraged fascism and Nazism. There are barely four lines on the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, 56 and there is no mention at all of the "additional secret protocol" that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, giving Germany Lithuania and western Poland, while the USSR was to have Finland, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Poland, and the Rumanian province of Bessarabia. Nor is there a word about the Soviet advance on Poland in September 1939, almost simultaneously with that of the German troops. Similarly, the negative aspects of the Stalinist period in the USSR itself, recalled at length by Khrushchev, are not brought up or discussed. However, perusal of the Declaration of the Congress of Education and Culture of 1971 confirms the total comprehensiveness of the educational aim, which transcends specific political ideology. Thus, on the subject of fashion, for example, we find the following: "Although it is true that some manifestations of extravagance, exhibitionism, et cetera, need not be matters of concern for the revolution, being confined to minority and generally marginal groups, the need to maintain our people's ideologically monolithic unity and combat any form of deviation among young people determines the necessity of taking the necessary measures to eradicate them." 57 The analysis of the problem is followed by various recommendations. One of them is that "the revolution must take the social phenomenon of fashion into account within the framework of our economic, environmental, and ideological characteristics"; another: "the revolution must lay down a positive, consistent policy on fashion that, through positive action, neutralizes or impedes the introduction of fashion trends that originate in highly developed capitalist countries whose economic, commercial, and ideological base must be kept in mind, and that, accepted indiscriminately, become a factor of cultural dependence"; a final resolution is that, "starting from the fact of the influence

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of certain fashions that are considered to represent forms of youthful rebellion, an information campaign must be carried out to explain the origin, development, assimilation, and exportation of the phenomenon by the decadent societies that transmit, distort, and commercialize it, in an ultimate attempt at cultural colonization." 58 Now let us look at a few paragraphs on love, from the same congress: Finally, emphasis was placed on the need to pay attention to the feelings and opinions of young people, know their points of view, and allow opportunities for discussion and profound analysis, in order to promote a conception of what love means in the formation of the human couple and the motives that must unite it. These motives must not imply a merely biological criterion, but rather an idea of human completeness that includes mutual admiration and profound esteem, based on vital aesthetic values, but fundamentally on social, political, and moral values. 59

Finally, to the objective of total education in the quantitative, generational, and, in general, existential aspects, we must add the element of "monolithic ideological unity." And this brings us to the fourth aspect of total education: Not only does it embrace all spheres, but it leaves no room for any alternative. Let me add in conclusion that the revolutionary educational effort in the different sectors of Cuban society also had indirect repercussions on the interrelation between the various recipients of the revolutionary message. Cira Andres, a young Cuban poetess, beautifully expresses this in a poem describing herself as her "mother's mother," since it is now the young who bring knowledge, news of the revolution, and the message of love to their elders. 60

Notes 1. Speech by Doctor Armando Hart, minister of education, in Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, Cuba y la Conferencia de la Educación, p. 89. 2. Ibid., p. 38. 3. UNESCO, Métodos y medios utilizados en Cuba, p. 16. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., p. 18. On the literacy campaign, see also Fagen, Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba. 6. UNESCO, Métodos y medios utilizados en Cuba, p. 25. 7. Quoted in Graziella Pogolotti, "Hacia una universidad nueva," Universidad de La Habana (July-December 1967), p. 19. 8. José Antonio Portuondo, "La revolución universitaria cubana," Latinoamerica: Anuario de Estudios Latinoamericanos (Mexico) 13 (1980), p. 17. 9. Verde Olivo (August 7, 1966), pp. 13-14.

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10. Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, Cuba y la Conferencia de la Educación, p. 36. 11. UNESCO, Métodos y medios utilizados en Cuba, p. 23. 12. The Organization of American States (OAS) had just expelled Cuba. 13. UNESCO, Métodos y medios utilizados en Cuba, p. 35. 14. Castro, Balance, p. 112. 15. Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, Cuba y la Conferencia de la Educación, p. 47. 16. Ibid., p. 95. 17. Verde Olivo (July 1, 1973), p. 7. 18. Ibid. (July 29, 1962), p. 47. 19. Ibid. (July 22, 1962), p. 56. 20. Lionel Soto, "El quinto aniversario de las EIR," Cuba Socialista 53 (January 1963), p. 73. 21. Ibid. 22. Lionel Soto, "Las EIR en el ciclo político-técnico," Cuba Socialista 41 (January 1965), p. 69. 23. Soto, "El quinto aniversario," p. 79. 24. Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, Cuba y la Conferencia de Educación, p. 42. 25. Ibid., p. 43. 26. Ibid. 27. In reality, these "paradoxes" can be understood only in terms of the Manichean conceptualization discussed in ch. 3. 28. Portuondo, "La revolución universitaria cubana," p. 20. 29. Comisión Nacional Cubana de la UNESCO, Cuba y la Conferencia de Educación, p. 27. 30. These permutations are analyzed by Martin Carnoy and Jorge Werthein in Cuba, cambio económico y reforma educativa: 1955-1978 (Mexico City: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1980). 31 .Ibid., pp. 107ff. 32. Castro, Balance, p. 116. 33. Fidel Castro's Central Report to the Second Congress of the PCC, printed in Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 40. 34. For statistics, see Cuba Internacional 1 (1981), p. 24. 35. Ibid. 36. Marvin Leiner, "Major Developments in Cuban Education," in David Barkin and Nita Manitzas, Cuba: The Logic of the Revolution (Andover, MA: Warner Modular Publications, 1973), pp. 10-11. 37. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 40. 38. Ibid. 39. Castro, Balance, p. 113. 40. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 40. 41. Carnoy and Werthein, Cuban, cambio económico. 42. See statistics in Carl J. Dahlman, "The Nationwide Learning System of Cuba" (Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, July 1973), mimeo, quoted in Carnoy and Werthein, pp. 100-101. 43. Castro, Cuba-Chile, p. 124.

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44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 40. 47. Castro, Cuba-Chile, p. 124. 48. Mesa Lago, Dialéctica, p. 156. 49. Ibid. 50. Ministerio de Educación, Dirrección General, Formación de Personal Docente, Educación en Cuba (Year 1) (Havana: Editorial Pedagógica, JanuaryFebruary 1967), p. 8 (emphasis added). 51. Verde Olivo (May 9, 1971), p. 5. 52. Bohemia (July 17, 1981), p. 53. 53. Ibid.\ see photograph on p. 56. 54. Ibid. 55. See, for example, Ministerio de Educación, Historia del movimiento obrero comunista, pp. 200, 209, 256, passim. This is an eleventh-grade textbook. 56. Ministerio de Educación, Dirección General, Formación de Personal Docente, Historia Universal (11) (Havana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación, 1974), p. 115. 57. Verde Olivo (May 9, 1971), pp. 7-8. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid., p. 9. 60. Granma (December 6, 1981), p. 4.

6 The Cinema Cuban cinema exists, and it exists as a revolutionary art—ever seeking, making real contributions— as an instrument of culture and an arm of combat.

—Alfredo Guevara, 1969 As noted in Chapter 1, from the revolutionaries' first days in power, the cinema was perceived as a fundamental tool for developing revolutionary consciousness. Even before the triumph of the revolution—in 1958, for instance—more cinema tickets were sold annually per capita in Cuba than in any other country in Latin America. 1 Cuban film-makers, organized on March 23, 1959, to form the ICAIC under the direction of Alfredo Guevara, postulated two basic and closely related objectives: first, to create a new film art and industry, and second, "to eliminate gradually the mark left on the public by the cinema of colonial dominion," 2 referring to the period up to 1959. This plan to reeducate the public was seen as highly problematic, for Cuban film-makers recognized "in imperialism a suspect skill for rendering effective films that exalted the repugnant values of the American way of life." 3 The editors of Cine Cubano considered the ideological effectiveness of U.S. films to lie in their ability to compensate the frustrations caused by dependence, helplessness, and injustice with false instigations: "Thus, if injustice engenders indignation, sadism satisfies it, but it also neutralizes it and turns it from its natural end: class struggle. If helplessness causes distress, sex calms it; and if dependence is suffocating, the example of selfsufficient heros, gangsters, cowboys, and FBI hirelings tends to relieve that suffocation. All their skill consists in this: in the art of 'making' people happy in the midst of humiliation." 4 However, there was more to it than that. It was not only the content of the films that permitted the "colonization" of taste; Cine Cubano noted that the quantity and distribution of films were also decisive factors. The great number of films shown "inspires the irrational desire to go to the movies; it levels quality to an average, thus reducing the unequal needs of the public to a common aversion to the effort of thinking and perceiving; it lulls the spirit of criticism to sleep by eliminating comparison; and it 87

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concentrates the distribution of films in the cities, while the country's needs are ignored."5 To counteract this heritage of colonialistic cinematic themes and film production and distribution policies, the ICAIC undertook, first, to diversify film programs in order to give cinema-goers the possibility of making comparisons and critical judgments, and, second, to vary the films offered in terms of quality, allowing the public to choose between what the ICAIC considered to be high-quality films and the type of film to which Cubans were already accustomed. The latter were offered only out of educational considerations, since "taste and the means of educating it do not change at a rate to suit the impatience of the revolution." 6 In addition, the ICAIC began a program of regular film screenings in the most remote rural areas. Thus, the objective was the progressive incorporation of the masses into the cultural life of the revolution, both quantitively (city- and countrydwellers alike) and qualitatively (the new revolutionary messages and the attempt to develop a new critical ability in film-goers). This assessment of the problem and the consciousness of the imperative need to reeducate the Cuban people obviously bespoke an elitist perspective, but the aim was actually to do away with elitism by integrating the masses into the cultural world and the work of artistic creation. In an essay written in 1969, Julio Garcia Espinosa expressed this very idea conclusively and very interestingly, approaching the subject from the perspective of what I call the Communist "Utopian future": "There cannot be any new and genuine qualitative advance in art if we do not put an end, once and for all, to 'elitist' concepts and reality in art." In his opinion, this would be feasible thanks to three basic factors: scientific development; the social participation of the masses; and the potentiality of revolution in the contemporary world. He felt that the aim should not be training the public to appreciate the cultural works of the artistic elite, but, on the contrary, creating conditions so that "everyone can be a creator of artistic culture." He further observed that "art has always been a necessity for everyone; what it has not been is a possibility for everyone in equal conditions." And it was in this context that he pointed to the revolution as the most important factor for developing the cinema and art so greatly desired: It is the revolution that makes an alternative possible, that can offer an authentically new response, that permits us to sweep away, once and for all, minority concepts and practices in art. For the revolution and the revolutionary process are all that can make possible the total, free participation of the masses. For the total, free participation of the masses will mean the final disappearance of the narrow division of labor, of a society divided into classes and sectors. That is why the revolution is, for us, the highest expression of culture, because it will do away with artistic culture as a fragmentary culture of man. 7

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In other words, the elitist perspective, the ambition to reshape and reeducate, in effect aspires to the creation of a reality that will give rise to the obliteration of the elite. However, let us return to historical reality. Although there were fears of falling into what was termed "didacticism," 8 that is, pursuing the educational objective without considering the special nature of the art of film-making, the cinema's function of reeducation was unanimously accepted. Different writers have proposed various classifications of Cuban films, but I prefer to present here the one published by Cine Cubano, as it also reflects the official forni of its conceptualization: 1.

2.

3.

Intentionally educational films: (a) didactic, specifically intended for educational institutions; (b) directly political films (newsreels and documentaries intended for purposes of agitation and propaganda) Films not intentionally educational, but exercising a direct formative influence through the sense of social responsibility they c o n v e y (fictional films, artistic documentaries) Films not intentionally educational, but exercising a direct formative influence (historical films with express ideological messages) 9

Directly or indirectly, the educational intent is always present, and it was this factor that in effect led the Cuban cinema to develop certain themes and to establish different channels permitting the diffusion of the revolutionary message among the entire population. Furthermore, it even influenced the search for and creation of new film styles and techniques. Julianne Burton recently wrote about "a comprehensive national [Cuban] film program whose primary goals are universal film literacy and universal access to the medium." 10 This assessment is undoubtedly correct, but we must also recall the essential link between Cuban revolutionary film-making and the content of the message. The quantitative democratization and egalitarianism postulated are in themselves a part of the revolutionary message, but they are also a basic condition for the latter's universal reception. Let us first discuss the establishment of new channels of diffusion, fundamentally consisting in traveling cinemas and the television program 24 x segundo (twenty-four x second). As early as 1961, with the creation of the ICAIC's Departamento de Divulgación Cinematográfica (Department of Cinematographic Diffusion), the first "Cinemobile" truck began to operate in the province of Havana, serving schools, parks, hospitals, factories, farms, and so on. The experiment was successful, and 1962's total of 4,603 screenings and 1,239,528 spectators increased to 74,980 screenings and 7,284,975 spectators, now distributed throughout the country, in 1969. 11 All films are shown free of charge. During the day, the trucks travel to rural schools, mountain boarding schools on the primary and secondary levels, and other similar institutions. In such

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places, the Cinemobiies usually show didactic documentaries on general subjects or topics related to the learning center's specialization, but, whatever the film, it is always accompanied by the ICAIC's weekly newsreel. In the evenings, the Cinemobiies usually show films in farming areas, occasionally in the framework of the mass mobilizations of labor for the sugar harvest or other purposes. There, as everywhere, the Cinemobiies screen the Latin American ICAIC newsreel, which, according to the ICAIC, "translates the ideological and practical orientations of the revolution each week, making at the same time a lucid analysis of the major international events." 12 As of December 1969, the projectionist also reads the audience a note introducing the film, "by way of an aesthetic and ideological evaluation." 13 In mid-1969, the ICAIC even began to use mules in order to reach remote areas inaccessible to motor traffic, and, by 1975, Cinemobile service was provided by 112 trucks, twenty-two mule trains, and two boats. 14 Another channel created by the ICAIC in an effort to reach the widest public possible is the television program 24 x segundo, which is broadcast weekly by the National Television station. It is devoted mainly to the review of major first-release films and didactic analysis of styles, genres, and filmmakers. One of the explicit objectives of the program is "to warn [the spectators] against the process of cultural colonization, assuming the ideological struggle and confrontation from the revolutionary perspectives, and sustaining them with the amplitude and profundity of our knowledge." 15 The importance of this objective is emphasized by the fact that, though the importation of "films of fascist or pornographic tendencies" is avoided, nevertheless, as the director of 24 x segundo said in 1976, "obvious reasons of quantity, quality, and the need for information . . . compel us to program films from the capitalist sector." 16 Enrique Colina also notes that "'filmic taste', which we are compelled to satisfy, exists in proportion to and in accordance with a country's level of cultural development." And he adds: "Our general level of cultural development has risen significantly in the past seventeen years, but this is a slow and complex process." 17 It is for this reason that the ICAIC is obliged to import "entertainment films" to satisfy the demands of different sectors of the population that, according to Colina, still associate recreation with that sort of "entertainment." However, Colina observes, the imported films, being cultural expressions of the society that produces them, implicitly project the specific values of that society, and it is in this connection that a program such as 24 x segundo comes to serve a vital function. In fact, they [entertainment films] all have an ideological dimension that we must both point out and criticize, since we are part of a society that is trying to transform all inherited values. So we especially emphasize how ideological messages are conveyed directly or indirectly through film. We try to perform a kind of aesthetic and ideological 'de-montage', taking

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apart what the film-maker has assembled in order to reveal the films' inner workings. . . . In film, messages are always conveyed through expressive forms. A film-maker's choice of forms is conditioned by the ideological perspective from which he or she views the reality that he or she wants to reflect in aesthetic terms. So we put great emphasis on filmic language. Some programs, for example, are totally dedicated to camera style, to the way things are conveyed visually, to the expressive means used to create a certain atmosphere in order indirectly to transmit a particular message. We try to raise awareness about cinematic language in order to help people see how these messages are put together and how what is apparently lacking in meaning does, in fact, convey meaning—and an ideological one at that. 18

It is interesting that this ideological counteraction is not conceived in terms of indoctrination but is instead conceptualized in terms of the conviction expressed by Castro that people must be trained to think and thus arrive necessarily at "evident truths." Colina sets as a goal the development of "analytical tools in the reader or the spectator, which will permit them to defend themselves against cultural penetration." 19 In Cine Cubano, he says that the intent is to give the spectator "a good perceptive training that enables him to subject the cinematographic work to careful examination in order to transcend it." 2 0 The idea is not a constant presentation of new rules to memorize, but rather the development of a certain kind of critical reasoning. However, such development obviously takes place in a new conceptual, axiological, and emotional world, presented as exclusive by virtue of its scientific (or "scientific") character, and founded on equivalences, identities, and basic contradictions that determine in advance the course of any reasoning process or critical argumentation. Thus, the reasoning and criticism always necessarily reflect a certain axiological perspective. In One Dimensional Man,21 Herbert Marcuse made a classic analysis of this phenomenon of onedimensionalism that prevails in the capitalistic world of the advanced industrial societies, though it is true that in Western Europe different conceptual worlds obviously coexist, and in some countries the Communist parties receive nearly 50 percent of the vote. In addition to 24 x segundo, which is broadcast every Saturday evening from 8:30 to 9:00, there is another ICAIC television program with the same objectives, Historia del cine (History of the cinema), which is shown on Friday evenings at 10:00. The program screens a film, which is then examined by an analyst "through the prism of certain ideological assumptions." 22 The program 24 x segundo does not limit itself to the ideological "demontage" of capitalist films but rather has a more widely diversified agenda, described in Cine Cubano as being "highly varied within the global framework of the cultural policy on which it is based." 23 It treats subjects along the lines of "cinema in the battle of ideas," "the ABC of cinema," "cinema

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and colonialism," "film language and ideology," and "Latin American cinema: an arm of combat." 24 In other words, here again, heterogeneity is contained within the very definite limits of cultural policy and conforms to the exclusive ideological line. Moving to the subject of fictional films, I begin by quoting a few figures that reflect the radical change in the national origin of the films shown in Cuba. In 1959, 484 films were released or re-released in Cuba. Of these, 266 were from the United States, seventy-nine were Mexican, fortyfour were English, twenty-five Italian, twenty-four French, nineteen Spanish, eight coproductions in which Cuba participated, eight Argentine, three from the Federal Republic of Germany, three Japanese, two Polish, and one Swedish, one Brazilian, and one Soviet. 25 Now, let us compare these statistics from the first year of the revolution with the figures for 1970, eleven years later, when a total of 120 films were released. Of these, twentyfour were from the Soviet Union, seven were Hungarian, six Czechoslovakian, four Polish, two were from the German Democratic Republic, two were Bulgarian, one Rumanian, and one Yugoslavian, making a total of forty-nine films from the socialist bloc, while the remainder broke down as follows: twenty-three Japanese, eleven North American, fourteen French, ten Spanish, eight Italian, three Brazilian, one Swedish, one Mexican, and one Nigerian. 26 By 1975, 50 percent of the films shown in Cuba were produced by the socialist bloc, 27 and this is still the case today. This shift came about in the context of lavish praise of the formerly unknown cinema of the socialist bloc; in 1961, people had already begun to speak of "the high quality" and "human sensitivity" of Soviet films, and Cuba began to hold socialist film festivals. 28 However, it should be pointed out that the change I mention did not mean an automatic preponderance of films from the socialist bloc, but rather a more balanced selection of films from the standpoint of national origin— though always "within the global framework of the cultural policy" and the variations in it that followed changes in the revolutionary leaders' strategy. In 1967, for example, the list of the ten best films of the year published in Bohemia consisted of two English and two French films, one Italo-Algerian coproduction, one Spanish, two Hungarian, and one Lithuanian film. 29 It is interesting, however, that this list, published during the chill in CubanSoviet relations, did not include a single Soviet film. In 1972, in contrast, when friendly relations with the Soviet Union had been reestablished, the list of the ten best films of the year, compiled at the annual meeting of Cuban film critics, named four Soviet films.30 The same list also included one U.S. film, Abraham Polansky's The Valley of the Fugitive, which, in spite of its origin, meshed very well with the objectives of the Cuban revolutionary message, since, as noted in Verde Olivo, it was a film in which "the image of the Indian, always distorted in American films, is redeemed in a positive approach to the reality of this

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social group, which is pushed to the sidelines of capitalist society." 31 The list also named an Italian film, A Commissioner's Commission to a Judge, which denounced the identity of action and interests "that unite the Italian Mafia with the capitalist government structures." 32 Another film on the list was the Franco-Italian coproduction Sacco and Vanzetti, which "firmly and valiently denounces the repression of the labor movement in the United States, and fascism, poorly concealed behind a 'democratic' façade, as a class phenomenon." 3 3 Two Cuban films were mentioned, and, finally, a Bolivian film, El coraje del pueblo (The courage of the people), which condemned the massacres of Bolivian miners. 34 The subjects of fictional films produced in Cuba center almost entirely on the revolutionary epic and the specific problems of the revolution, with special emphasis on change and the revolution of Cuba up to and during the revolution. Moreover, the basic coordinates of heroic confrontation and, to a greater or lesser degree, the Manichean outlook, practically dominate the revolutionary message. An unmistakable early indication of the line that was to be taken was the ICAIC's confiscation of the film P.M. by Saba Cabrera Infante and Orlando Jiménez. This film, focusing on Havana night life, presented an image of the Cuban people that was not considered to reflect the revolutionary struggle. 35 However, the revolutionary struggle is projected in different dimensions and is also expressed in those films that deal with the Cubans' struggle against themselves, against the habits, customs, and mentality inherited from the prerevolutionary period. 36 Initially, Cuban films were influenced by Italian neorealism and the French New Wave. Alfredo Guevara wrote in 1960 that "it would be absurd to start from scratch when we have the benefit of the noteworthy experience and successes of film-makers in Sweden and France, in Czechoslovakia and Italy." 37 With the exception of García Espinosa and Gutiérrez Alea, there were virtually no Cuban directors. Foreign directors were invited to work on Cuban films, and some coproductions were made, but the beginning of really resounding achievements came only in 1968, with films such as Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of underdevelopment), by Gutiérrez Alea, and Lucia, by Humberto Solas. 38 It is worth pausing to appreciate this moment of original film creation, which represented a very interesting conjunction of the revolutionary message and filmic style and technique. To this end, let us take time to examine that magnificent film, Lucia, first noting some professional observations made by John Mraz. Mraz remaries that "what is most characteristic and original in the Cuban stylistic experimentation is what I would call 'formal resonance'—the aesthetic tone created by the juxtaposition of different film forms within a particular work." 39 This use of different styles, says Mraz, is of enormous epistemological importance and implies both the emphasis of dialectic thought and the conviction that it is possible to develop consciousness on the perceptive level, or that consciousness realizes itself on the level of

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perception. 40 Thus, different and conflicting visual styles are used, for example, to represent the perceptions of different individuals from different historical periods or social classes. Used in this way, the different visual styles express different perceptions of reality deriving from the consciousness prevailing at a particular moment in history or among a particular social class. We have here a very interesting example of the way that Marxist historical materialism is expressed, not only in the themes of Cuban films, but also in their style and visual technique, which are used to convey the message of the dialectic of historical change and social conflict. Lucia tells three different stories, set in three different periods of history: 1895, back in the colonial period; 1932, in the heyday of bourgeois industrial society; and the 1960s, in the midst of the revolutionary process. The lower classes are photographed in high contrast, while normal contrast is used for the aristocracy, the class to which Lucia belongs in the first story. Wideangle shots convey a sense of the way that the protagonists are defined by their general sociohistorical context, as well as highlighting the contrast between different contexts. The use of mirror images evokes the alienation inherent in a society in which appearance and false social values are paramount. Close-ups of anonymous people throughout the film have something of a documentary style and suggest the idea that these unknown people are as important as the main characters of the film. This represents an effort to deny the predominating importance that bourgeois films place on "stars" and individual protagonists and to emphasize the constant presence of the masses throughout history. 41 These are merely a few examples from Mraz's article that illustrate the way in which the aim of projecting a certain revolutionary message ends up influencing even the development of artistic styles and techniques in the film. Two years after Lucia was made, the failure of the 10-million-ton sugar cane harvest in 1970 prompted a critical review of policy and social priorities in general, which had repercussions for the ICAIC as well. Castro's criticism of the Cuban bureaucracy and his call for the active, preponderant participation of the masses were echoed in all sectors, and Burton observes that, in the ICAIC, experimentation with form gave way to the production of documentaries. Film-makers began to shoot feature-length documentaries as well, and these eventually even outnumbered fictional films.42 This is a good example of the way in which the channel of cinematic expression immediately reflects changes in the Cuban leadership's revolutionary strategy, projecting them intensively and in unison with other channels of expression. Muerte de un burócrata (Death of a bureaucrat) is an excellent satire of the Cuban bureaucracy, filmed in 1966, just when the Cuban leadership was in the middle of a campaign against bureaucracy.43 Similarly, the release of the film Retrato de Teresa (Portrait of Teresa) in 1978 followed the legislation of the Family Code (Código Familiar) in 1975. Although Lucia, issued in 1968, had an essentially similar theme, the subject of women's roles was

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still relevant, being one of the revolution's most difficult and persistent problems. Before going on to discuss documentary film-making, I would like to point out that films such as Retrato de Teresa and Muerte de un burócrata portrayed the internal conflict suffered by individuals and the society in transition as a result of the change of values implicit in the revolution. There was a certain neutralization of the Manichean view of existence, since there were no "good guys" and "bad guys"; rather, the conflict was internal, peculiar to the individual. Obviously, however, the purpose of the explicit presentation of this conflict in films was not to legitimize it but rather to overcome it; what the revolutionary message projects is in fact the necessity of revolutionary conflict, even with oneself, and the imperative of removing all vestiges of prerevolutionary attitudes. Overall, it would seem that the most important achievement of revolutionary Cuba, both quantitatively and qualitatively, is, today, the development of the documentary genre. According to Burton, both economic and ideological factors favored the production of documentaries. For one thing, budgetary limitations create a preference for producing a type of film that demands much less in the way of material resources than do fictional films. For another, as Burton notes, "in a society based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, it is believed only fitting that creative activity is based on the confrontation with material reality." 44 Nevertheless, this affirmation is not so obvious as it might at first appear, since the artistic confrontation with reality may take different forms; in the 1960s, socialist Cuba saw films such as Muerte de un burócrata, which characteristically conveyed a Brechtian remoteness rather than any sense of immediate identification. Documentary film-making received its definitive impetus at the end of the 1960s with the adoption of a revised political strategy by the revolutionary leaders, and not as an inevitable result of Marxism-Leninism. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that the intensive development of this genre had a solid ideological basis, which even came to be projected in a Utopian light. We find evidence of this in Fernández Retamar's words on revolutionary artistic creation at the end of 1980: Who could have guessed in '58, first, that a great cinema was going to develop in Cuba, and second, that the outstanding film genre par excellence was going to be the documentary? Who could have guessed that for years our most interesting plastic art was going to be posters, fences, and so on? I believe that the most relevant thing that has happened to us in arts and letters is the redrawing of the lines between what is art and what is not art . . . to the point where we achieve what I consider the ideal, complete identification of life with art, and live in beauty. Instead of traversing ugly streets to reach the nest of beauty constituted by a painting exhibition, we will traverse increasingly beautiful streets. There will no longer be any nests of beauty, because the beauty will be a forest,

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it will be the whole city . . . at least as a plan, a dream: that life and art will fuse and blend, and the world of total justice w e are fighting for will also be a world of total beauty. 4 5

Fernández Retamar apparently dreams of immersing us in a beautified reality, or one exalted by an art nourished on such a concept, and it is from that perspective that he views the concrete achievements of Cuban documentary film-making. Let me mention, too, the weekly newsreels produced under the direction of Santiago Alvarez. These newsreels, he points out, are conceived as an organic whole with a single line of discourse, thus achieving a thematic unity that makes it possible to consider them authentic documentaries. The Latin American ICAIC newsreel constitutes an immediate and always current link between the Cuban people and the development of the revolution and everything pertaining thereto. The one thousand newsreels produced up to now have enjoyed enormous popular success. Here again, we see the creation of a new type of newsreel that has developed in the context and as a product of the revolutionary process. Victor Casaus says that the necessities of immediacy and communication emanated from the reality of the revolution, which "urgently sought chroniclers and mobilizers,"46 As for the subjects of these newsreels, Cine Cubano notes that, in addition to the events connected with the development of the revolution in Cuba, the newsreels report on "the most important international events that have coincided with or are otherwise related to our own history, whether the battles of Latin American guerrillas and students, or the actions of American blacks against discrimination and for the cause of Black Power, the murders of Patricio Lubumba and Patricio Ojeda, or the Yankee invasion of Santo Domingo, the Yankee defeat in North Vietnam, or the actions of the people of South Vietnam and their armed vanguard, the NLF, in Saigon itself." 47 There is no doubt that numerous subjects are covered, but there is also no doubt that news items are selected on the basis of what Alvarez terms "a single line of discourse." This in fact implies the presentation of a cognitive (infoimational) world as part of the revolutionary message, since information is selected on the basis of its relevance to that message. Documentaries proper promote revolutionary policy by encouraging the involvement and active participation of the masses in revolutionary enterprises. This has been the case since the very beginning of documentary film production, when the celebrated Joris Ivens arrived in Cuba in 1960 and, while teaching classes, filmed three important documentaries: Carnet de viaje (Travel notebook), Pueblo armado (An armed people), and Historia de una batalla (Story of a battle). Pueblo armado was about the organization of the militias, while Historia de una batalla dealt with the literacy campaign, both processes then at their peak. 48 The year 1960 also saw the production of documentaries such as Escuelas rurales (Rural schools), Cooperativas

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agropecuarias ( F a n n i n g and f i s h i n g c o o p e r a t i v e s ) , Congreso de la juventud (Youth congress), and iPor qué nació el Ejército Rebelde? ( W h y was the Rebel A r m y formed?). Documentaries m a d e in 1961 included, for example, Y me hice maestro (And I became a schoolteacher) and Cada fábrica una escuela (Ever)' factory a school). In 1962, w e have such documentaries as Granjas del Pueblo (Farms of the people) and Héroes del trabajo (Heroes of labor), and, in 1963, Gente de Moscú (People of M o s c o w ) , a m o n g others. 4 9 T h e s e are j u s t a f e w early e x a m p l e s to s h o w h o w , f r o m the b e g i n n i n g , documentaries projected the revolutionary message by focusing on a topic of current interest. T h e C u b a n film industry has also p r o d u c e d historical, international, or specifically cultural documentaries, as well as others meant to introduce the public to technical and scientific subjects. For the most part, h o w e v e r , such films are relevant to the process of revolutionary involvement as defined by t h e C u b a n leaders' current strategy, either directly o r b e c a u s e they enrich the public's revolutionary consciousness in general. As w e have seen, the film m e d i u m o f f e r s d i f f e r e n t m o d e s of p r o j e c t i n g the r e v o l u t i o n a r y m e s s a g e , with special i m p a c t , to m a s s a u d i e n c e s . H o w e v e r , since the constant projection of the revolutionary m e s s a g e to the masses necessarily r e q u i r e s the d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e i r r e c e p t i v e c a p a c i t y v i s - à - v i s the specific channel of expression, the ICAIC has worked to achieve a general cinematic literacy. This labor constitutes both a great cultural undertaking and a revolutionary mission. T h e p e r f o r m a n c e of this mission implies a p r o f o u n d faith in the scientific truths of M a r x i s m - L e n i n i s m , for w e m u s t not forget that, ultimately, o n c e a c i n e m a - g o e r is instructed in the art of ideological " d e - m o n t a g e , " he is then c a p a b l e of a p p l y i n g the t e c h n i q u e to e v e r y f i l m h e sees, w h a t e v e r its t e n d e n c y . T h i s " d e - m o n t a g e " is conditioned, as I have said, by the general intellectual and emotional context, but, in the e n d , the actual tools of film criticism are in the h a n d s of the spectator.

Notes 1. Pan-American Union, America in Figures (Washington, DC, 1960). 2. Cine Cubano 66-67 (1971), p. 62. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Julio García Espinosa, Por un cine imperfecto (emphasis added). 8. Cine Cubano 66-67 (1971), p. 64. In this article, didacticism is considered as "the childish caricature of the educational effectiveness of cinema, and its very negation." 9. Ibid.

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10. Julianne Burton, "Revolutionary Cuban Cinema: Introduction," Jump Cut 19 (1979), p. 19. 11. Hector García Mesa, "Un reportaje sobre el Cine-movil en el ICAIC," Cine Cubano 60-62, p. 108. 12. Ibid., p. 110. 13. Ibid. 14. Castro, Balance, p. 122. 15. Enrique Colina, "24 x segundo," Cine Cubano 73-75, p. 103. Colina is director of the program. 16. Jorge Silva, "Film Criticism in Cuba," Jump Cut 22 (1980), p. 32; interview with Enrique Colina. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., p. 33. 20. See Cine Cubano 73-75, p. 103. 21. Herbert Marcuse, El hombre unidimensional (Mexico City: Editorial Joaquin Mortiz, 1968). 22. Romualdo Santos, "Cine por TV: el experimento cubano," in Cine, literatura y sociedad, ed. Ambrosio Fornet (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), p. 203. 23. Cine Cubano 73-75, p. 104. 24. Ibid. 25. Pastor Vega, "Cuba: el cine, la cultura nacional," Cine Cubano 7 3 75, p. 83. 26. Manuel Pérez and Julio García Espinosa, "El cine y la educación," Cine Cubano 69-70, p. 12. 27. Statistic quoted by Enrique Colina in Silva, "Film Criticism," 1980, p. 32. 28. Verde Olivo (May 14, 1961; August 13, 1961; and others). 29. Bohemia (January 5, 1968). 30. Verde Olivo (January 7, 1973), pp. 58-59. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. See the interesting version of this case presented by Carlos Franqux, then editor of the newspaper Revolución, in his Retrato de familia, pp. 2 6 1 273. 36. This is the case in Retrato de Teresa, for example, which presents the problem of woman's role inherent in traditional Cuban society and the struggle to overcome this problem during the revolutionary period. For an analysis of this film, see B. Ruby Rich, "Double Day, Double Standards," Jump Cut 22 (1980), p. 30. 37. Verde Olivo (July 31, 1960), p. 39. 38. For an account of the development of Cuban cinema, see the previously mentioned Burton, "Revolutionary Cuban Cinema," or Andrés R. Hernández, "Film-Making and Politics: The Cuban Experience," American Behavioral Scientist 17, no. 3 (January-February 1974).

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39. John Mraz, "Lucia: Visual Style and Historical Portrayal," Jump Cut 19 (1979), p. 21. 40. Ibid., pp. 2 1 - 2 2 . 41 .Ibid., pp. 2 1 - 2 7 . 42. Burton, "Revolutionary Cuban Cinema," p. 18. 43. See, for example, the speech in which Castro called for a "battle against bureaucracy," printed in Verde Olivo (March 5, 1967). For an analysis of Muerte de un burócrata, see B. Ruby Rich, "Death of a Bureaucrat: Madcap Comedy Cuban Style," Jump Cut 22 (1980), p. 29. 44. Burton, "Revolutionary Cuban Cinema," p. 19. 45. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 12. 46. Victor Casaus, "El género testimonio y el cine en Cuba," in Fornct, Cine, literatura, sociedad, p. 94 (emphasis added). 47. Cine Cubano 54-55, p. 119. 48. For an account of Joris Ivens' work, see Tom Waugh, "Joris Ivens' Work in Cuba," Jump Cut 22 (1980), p. 25. 49. For a complete summary of Cuban film-making up to 1964, see "Filmografia del cine cubano," Cine Cubano 23-25, pp. 129-144.

7 Detective Fiction Here, the success of this genre is due not to literary factors, but above all to sociopolitical ones.

—Agenor Martí Detective fiction is a genre that has been scarcely developed in Latin America as a whole, but in Cuba it has been flourishing since 1971. The wide popularity of this type of literature is indicated by the fact that best-seller lists are generally headed by detective novels. 1 Very significantly, the thriving condition of Cuban detective fiction is due to the initiative and encouragement of the Dirección Política (Political Directorate) of the Ministerio de Asuntos Internos (MININT), which is in charge of the internal security forces. It was the directorate that instituted the annual Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution competition for detective fiction. The first of these competitions was held in 1971 and won by the novel Enigma para un domingo (Enigma for a Sunday) by Ignacio Cárdenas Acuña. The main character of the book, Juglar Ares, is a cynical, individualistic private detective with other traits common to the police heroes of classic detective novels. This particular novel is remembered by analysts of Cuban detective fiction because it represented a first step, but successive steps in the development of the genre were oriented in other directions. Detective fiction was thenceforth completely contained within the limits of the revolutionary perspective, which determined its objectives and modalities. The Cuban Ciro Bianchi Ross writes of this first novel that "Juglar Ares, private detective, had little or nothing to do in a socialist society where his profession did not exist," and he notes that the principal characteristic of the Cuban detective fiction that began to develop at the time was precisely the incorporation of "the exciting perspective of revolutionary justice" into detective novels. 2 The basic idea of constant, heroic confrontation within the framework defined by the Manichean conceptualization of existence both governed the development of the Cuban detective novel and constituted its fundamental message—and this, let it be remembered, was a genre that began to evolve only in the 1970s after the "heroic" 1960s. As in the other channels of expression I have analyzed, the confrontation consisted in both the revolt 101

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against what was considered the colonial heritage of the genre—the detective novel of the prerevolutionary period—and the opposition to the detective novel of contemporary capitalist society. And in addition to the double threat of the "encumbrances" of the past—perpetuated in the popular taste—and the contemporary enemy from abroad, the writer confronted another twofold problem: projecting a different, revolutionary message while struggling with the difficulties of literary creation in order to develop a new type, the revolutionary detective novel. It is highly interesting to see what motivates the new Cuban writers of detective fiction. Quoted below are a few relevant answers to the question: "What motivates you, as a creator, to write detective fiction?" Rodolfo Pérez Valero: "On the social level, I undertook to find out what type of literature was most read by all sectors of our population and could thus be the most effective channel for projecting an ideological message. One day, I came across the announcement of the competition sponsored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and from that moment on I began to think of detective fiction as the ideal channel for my efforts." Armando Cristóbal Pérez: "It is not, of course, simply a personal challenge, though that is not excluded; rather, from the ideological standpoint, I considered it possible to participate in the work of the revolution in this way, too." Ignacio Cárdenas Acufia notes, first, that the successful works of this genre were characterized by "their ability to lay bare the diseased bourgeois social subworld," and, second, that he "wanted to show the dreamers what was hidden behind the tinsel pomp of our 'great society'. There were many mourning its loss, because the myth that they could 'make it to the top' had not died in them with that society's disappearance." 3 The motivation for writing this sort of fiction, then, consists fundamentally in the desire to take an active part in the revolutionary struggle by projecting a certain revolutionary message through detective novels. But how do these writers conceive of the revolutionary message of their novels in concrete terms? For Pérez Valero, the message must be based on two essential aims: first, "to point out the way counterrevolutionaries and delinquents just wait for a moment of relaxed vigilance in order to carry out their criminal acts, a fact that obliges us to be constantly alert"; and second, "to teach the potential offender that this is not the way, that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is an effective arm against crime, and that the mass organizations are ready for combat in whatever way may be necessary." 4 Cárdenas Acuña, for his part, affirms that his objective is both to offer a new kind of detective fiction to replace "literary trash"—novels such as those of Mickey Spillane—and to counteract the idea propagated by detective novels of the old school "that in the bourgeois system legality and justice function harmoniously, and their agents—private detectives or policemen—

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reestablish the order violated by a delinquent because it is the just thing to do." 5 In other words, his objective is to demonstrate that bourgeois legality is not justice. Nancy Robinson says that, in her book Colmillo de jabalí (Boar tusk), which won MININT's Fourteenth Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution competition, she attempts to lead the reader to the conclusion that it is important to remain constantly alert, as does one of the characters in her novel, Gervasio, a member of a CDR, but that this alone is not enough. One cannot act alone, as Gervasio unsuccessfully tries to do; discipline is indispensable. "Good intentions are not enough in order to collaborate with the organs in charge of security and guarding the progress of our revolution's conquests; there must be coordination and discipline." 6 In the Cuban Revolution, the detective novel is one more arm to be used in the struggle. It is also obvious that, since 1959, the socioeconomic, cultural, and political situation in Cuba has changed radically, and this is perforce specifically reflected in literary works of all kinds and in artistic creation in general. At the same time, however, the Cuban detective novel does not merely project a specific ideological message relating exclusively to the confrontation of the forces of good and evil on the field of crime of one type or another; it also generally expresses the imperative need to create a new society and a "new man." Take, for instance, Eduardo Vásquez Pérez's comments on El cuarto círculo (The fourth circle), which won the Sixteenth Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution competition: One of the most important ideological values of the novel is the attention focused on negligence, which may occur daily and facilitate a considerable number of offenses. If the administration of the trucking enterprise had not kept the payroll money in a simple metal filing cabinet, Erasmo Zuaznábar would not have been murdered. Armando Labrada is indubitably a person unfit to be personnel manager in any enterprise, but who is responsible for his continued employment as such? Let us see. We can know nothing of his life beyond what the novel tells us; but in the middle of it, w e learn that the night watchman surprised him one night trying to remove spare parts from the store. Zuaznábar prevents him, but, acting on his own responsibility, he does not inform the administration. From that moment, the night watchman is responsible for the fact that someone such as Labrada is allowed to direct a group of workers. 7

We have now looked at the objectives, the motivation, and the specific messages of the Cuban revolutionary detective novel; let us next examine its fundamental characteristics. First of all, it should be noted that the Cuban detective novel is a realistic story that takes place in an everyday setting. We do not escape from reality through flights of the imagination into artificial, unusual, or outlandish situations, accepted in an implicit convention between author and

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reader for the sake of enjoyment, pleasure, and surprise. On the contrary, the Cuban detective novel plunges us into the familiar. As we shall see later in detail, neither the h e r o e s n o r the criminals are s u p e r m e n or exceptional individuals; they are rather the sort of people we might b u m p into anywhere. 8 T h e r e a d e r is not to seek s u b l i m a t i o n t h r o u g h an i d e n t i f i c a t i o n with mythological figures, w h i c h compensates, in the world of imagination, his real weaknesses; instead, he is asked to identify with m u n d a n e characters, enabling him to achieve in reality a similar conduct. And it is precisely this fact that allows m e to state that the Cuban detective novel is not simply a r e a l i s t i c n o v e l , f o r t h e p o s i t i v e c h a r a c t e r s in it are t h e o b v i o u s personifications of the categorical imperative, what ideologically "ought to be," of the C u b a n R e v o l u t i o n . F u r t h e r m o r e , the categorical i m p e r a t i v e personified in the familiar characters implies not only a message as to what should be done, but also one as to what can be done, following the example of the protagonists. It is very possible that the widely read detective novel s e r v e s its f u n c t i o n in this s e n s e m u c h m o r e e f f e c t i v e l y than do the theoretical, ideological lucubrations of various leaders. Socialist society does not see or present itself as harboring criminals, since the c h a n g e in s o c i o e c o n o m i c structures and social consciousness is supposed to create a "new m a n " — a constant theme of the Cuban Revolution. Consequently, crimes of theft and murder as well as espionage are considered to be political o f f e n s e s against the regime and against socialism. T h e battle against criminals of all kinds is projected as a battle for the revolution. In this w a y , e v e r y i n t r i n s i c a l l y p o s i t i v e attitude is i n t e g r a t e d into t h e axiological f r a m e of the revolution, receiving its sanction therein. In contrast to the hero of the classic detective novel, w h o is brilliant, daring, erudite, and possessed of outstanding mental and (sometimes) physical abilities, the h e r o of the C u b a n detective story is the collective, the revolutionary people as a whole. Typically, the case is solved by a team of investigators working in full collaboration with the m a s s organizations, and especially the C D R . In "El escondrijo" (The hiding place), m e m b e r s of a C D R play a decisive role in solving the crime, and the criminals themselves f e a r them and take them into account, as w e see in this scene, w h e n the thieves drive by the house they intend to rob. "This job will be a cinch," Cheo commented, with a smile. "Not many people live around here." "Maybe," said Ricardo softly, as if to himself. "But easy things can get complicated. I noticed a couple of neighbors sitting on a porch. They were looking toward the house." Diente leaned toward Ricardo, resting his arms on the back of the front seat, and said, "They're CDR people, I know them, and I suspect they know me. But I'm sure they didn't see me when we passed." "I don't like this," said the driver, turning right again, "Those people interfere in everything."9

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And in this case, the CDR members do indeed play a decisive part in solving the crimes. They inform the investigators of all movements around the scene of the crime, take down the license plate number of the criminals' car, and actively assist in their capture. However, active involvement of neighbors is not limited to CDR members; all citizens, even mere children, are ready to do their part. In a charming story called "La búsqueda" (The search), it is a little boy who makes it possible to solve the mystery and capture an enemy of the revolution, the leader of a gang of saboteurs who tries to escape from Cuba. A State Security lieutenant asks a woman living next to a suspected house to watch it and see if the criminals are in the house or enter it. The little boy, a friend of the little girl next door who fears for her safety, manages to enter the house. Finding the criminals there, he tells his mother, who immediately alerts the security forces. 10 Thus, we find no Sherlock Holmes, no James Bond, in the Cuban detective novel, but rather modest, hard-working security agents, neighbors, children, CDR members, and so on—in short, all Cuban citizens, constantly on the alert, ready to defend the revolution. Moreover, it is the will to protect society and the revolution that prompts the confrontation with the criminals, rather than offers of large sums of money or the interest in an unusual case that arouses the curiosity of the detective and challenges his exceptional abilities. Sense of duty and socialist moral values are the motives for the fight against crime. The criminals generally personify the troublesome vestiges of capitalist society in Cuba. They are often portrayed as older people whose characters and attitudes were formed in the prerevolutionary period. In "El escondrijo," the criminals assault an old man, the banker of an illicit gambling establishment. Fleeing in their victim's car afterward, the assailants reminisce about the crime-filled years before the revolution. And when the police agents check to see if the old man has a police record, indeed he does: "Here it is: Ramón Benavides González, alias M o n g o the Mouse, convicted of fraud in 1946 and drug trafficking in 1951; tried and acquitted several times for illegal gambling . . . " "Whose palm did he grease, to get off all those times?" interrupted Parra. "You should ask, whom did he forget to bribe, to get taken in on a charge like that before the revolution. In those days, there were bookie joints on every corner." 11

In "Crimen en Santiago" (Crime in Santiago), the murderer is an elderly doctor whose two sons and their wives have left for the United States. The portrayal of younger criminals is exemplified by the characterization of Teo in El cuarto círculo, who is driven by the demons of a deeply disturbed childhood. 12 The criminals symbolize negative ideological attitudes that transcend

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mere delinquency. This is in effect the reason for a rather pronounced Manichean demarcation in detective fiction. In "El escondrijo"—I return to this story, since the reader already knows something of the plot—the old man hides the money taken in bets under the base of an altar to Saint Barbara. Just after his assailants rob him of the money and the betting books, as they run away, the sirens of approaching police cars are heard: He was pale and trembling. He had the mystical expression of a lunatic. With short, faltering steps he moved toward the altar. Reaching it, he collapsed, a thin, small figure, and remained on his knees, moving his lips silently, in a real frenzy, very much like a rodent devouring something. His daughter's astonishment turned to derision. "Stop praying to the saint, Papa . . . she's not going to give you the money back." The old man, pressing his weak chin against his chest, stopped whispering for a moment and said in a low voice, "That's not why I'm doing it." "Then why?" asked his son curiously. The old man raised his eyes to the figure on the altar, which, remote from everything, continued to lean lightly on its sword. He looked at it with devotion, like an old lay sister of the church, and murmured, "Think of what will happen to us if they catch those men . . . " "Well?" The old man lowered his eyes again and answered, "I'm thanking the saint and asking her to protect them." And he continued to pray. Thus the combatants of the Ministry of Internal Affairs found him when they entered the hall a few minutes later. 13

Here, ill-gotten gains are associated with religious feelings and prayer for the safety of criminals. In "Pulcritud" (Tidiness), the murder weapon is a mystery until the end, when it turns out to have been a crucifix. And the religious murderess ("It was a punishment from heaven") is opposed by technology and science. The story ends when the lieutenant arrests the murderess and tells her, "You suggested that Gustavo's punishment came from heaven. But I can assure you that yours will come from a simple laboratory analysis. Come with me." 14 In La ronda de los rubíes (The round of rubies), the theft of jewels from a mansion is investigated. The description of the two sisters who live in the mansion presents them, in Maria Rosa Alfonsa's fitting characterization, as: "Fossilized in an arrested time, they personify the envy, jealousy, and lust for wealth that characterize their social class." 15 And it turns out that these sisters, who symbolize an entire social class and its specific values, are connected with an organization that facilitates clandestine emigration from the country. The plot also involves a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. In this way, the remains of the bourgeoisie are automatically identified with counterrevolution and bear all the characteristics considered to be defects of their social class.

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Women in detective fiction are neither presented as sex symbols nor characterized by the traditional "feminine" traits of innate fragility or weakness; they appear on an equal footing with men, sometimes as an observant neighbor, sometimes as president of a CDR, sometimes as the victim, sometimes as the murderer. Various other revolutionary values are also implicitly projected in detective fiction. One example is internationalism. In "La búsqueda," the child who solves the mystery says to his little friend at one point: "I read you one of the letters from Papa, who was working in Vietnam." 16 As we see, Cuban detective novels reflect the values of the revolution and of the new Cuban society being formed, but they also constitute, by reason of their wide diffusion and accessibility, an important tool for shaping that vital part of reality, social consciousness. It is also interesting that this genre, encouraged by the MININT, seems to reflect the same old problems with which the revolution is still struggling after twenty years in power. Sabotage, clandestine escape from the country, murder, robbery, and illegal betting, touched upon in this chapter, are only a few examples from a much longer list. The importance that authors place on the message of their books and the fact that they receive constant encouragement from the MININT seems to indicate that the problems described are not marginal ones, or, at any rate, that we are dealing here with a constant phenomenon that requires unremitting alertness from a population fully alive to its dangers. Nancy Robinson addresses this point when she says: "In the trammeled, scarred, and defective individuals who still exist in our society are the possible executors of criminal acts. Police action will follow the latter, and both ingredients together will provide enough elements for a novel of this genre." 17 She further adds that "it will be possible to write spy novels as long as there exists a sly, cunning enemy able to plague us with the sharp darts of infiltration." 18 However, this awareness that the very existence of detective fiction implies and reflects a real problem that has yet to be solved is a source of doubtfulness, and leads some experts on the subject—the journalist Agenor Martí, for example—to opine that, since the success of detective fiction is proportionate to the crime level and the development of criminological technology, "who can doubt, then, that in a Communist society where crime must disappear, detective fiction will also eventually die out?" 19 The detective novel, though used as a weapon in the revolutionary struggle, is nevertheless something that sticks in the throats of not a few Manicheistically minded Cubans concerned by the subject, as we see clearly in the following remarks by the critic Ambrosio Fornet: Here it is difficult for pure detective fiction to jell in interesting works— literary or otherwise—because the sociological premises that lend the

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crime plausibility and dramatic force, two essential concerns of the plot, do not exist. In capitalist society, greed, competition, the omnipresent sense of danger and helplessness form the social climate, so to speak, that guarantees the authenticity and dynamism of the genre . . . "in a criminal society," said Sade, shrugging his shoulders, "one has to be a criminal." There is no victim of capitalist alienation who does not share this brutal opinion in one way or another, and because of this he always finds in the genre a mixture of pleasure and distress, the affirmation of his own ideology. In our society, on the contrary, criminal acts seem as anachronistic as they are abhorrent. Do we not see this in our daily life? Whenever someone tries—at work, in the street, or even in the home—to impose something that is by any reckoning arbitrary or unjust, there is always someone who confronts him with this categorical argument: "We aren't in a capitalist system any more!" And since we are no longer in a capitalist system, there is no longer the social basis or the predominating ideology that sustains pure detective fiction. 20 Fornet considers that the counterespionage novel, in contrast, "has everything going for it" in the new Cuban society. While films such as Retrato de Teresa focus on internal conflict based on habits, customs, and mentalities, the detective novel deals with concrete crimes against society and the state, committed by contemporary Cubans living under the revolution. The loophole of counterespionage, then, enables some of those concerned with detective fiction to salvage the Manichean scheme. Fornet comments further on this subject: The spy novel, on the other hand—or rather, the counterespionage novel—has everything going for it in a society such as ours. By its very nature it is closer to the epic, because what it really presents is a collective drama, even though it is played out between isolated people. The fight against common crime, however exciting it may be, is never as exciting as the fight against imperialist crime. We must not forget that the interest of the plot is usually proportionate to the magnitude of the danger involved, and we have lived a collective experience. . . . And at the same time, in this fight for life that we had to turn into a fight to the death against an implacable, powerful enemy, we have all forms of heroism, from the kind manifested in broad daylight to the kind that must operate in the dark—that of our secret agents, who have proved themselves better than all the spies and saboteurs infiltrated by the CIA. Therefore, if the detective novel is "the antiepic of capitalism," as someone has called it, the Cuban counterespionage novel could well turn out to be the epic of socialism. 21 Here, evidently, there are no problems, and the epic would flow freely . . . I do not mean to imply an opinion that, after rather more than twenty years, crime should have disappeared from socialist Cuba; what I want to point out is rather the sensitivity of the Manichean string that the detective

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novel causes to vibrate—sometimes and in some quarters—though the detective novel itself clearly projects the revolutionary message.

Notes 1. The following are some recent examples from the list of the top ten best-sellers, published weekly by Bohemia. April 23, 1982: Ignacio Cárdenas Acuña, Preludio para un asesinato (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), number one on the list of best-selling fiction, sixth consecutive week on the list; Luis Rogelio Nogueras, Nosotros los sobrevivientes (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), number two on the same list, third week (the other list is nonfiction); May 21, 1982; Juan Angel Cardí, Viernes en plural (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), number two, seventh week on the list; Luis Adrián Bentancourt, El extraño caso de una mujer desnuda (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), number four, second week on the list. The last two novels also appear on the June 4, 1982, list, in third and fifth places respectively, and many other detective novels enjoyed similar popularity. Novels by Ellery Queen and others also appear on these lists. 2. Ciro Bianchi Ross, "Encuesta sobre la literatura policiaca," Unión 206 (1977), p. 109. 3. ¡bid., pp. 123-124. 4. Ibid., pp. 125-126. 5. Ibid., p. 124. 6. Ibid., p. 125. 7. Eduardo Vázquez Pérez, "Un círculo que no es vicioso," Unión 2 (1977), p. 171. 8. Nancy Robinson has said that the plots of the two stories in her book Colmillo de jabalí were based on true situations, and the characters were people whom she knew and had adapted for her stories. Verde Olivo (March 4, 1973), p. 60. 9. Juan Carlos Reboledo, "El escondrijo," in Crimen en Santiago (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1979), p. 15. 10. Reboledo, "La búsqueda," in Ibid., p. 66. 11. Reboledo, "El escondrijo," in Ibid., p. 25. 12. Ibid., p. 85; Luis Rogelio Nogueras and Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera, El cuarto círculo (The name Teo has a theological, religious connotation.) 13. Reboledo, "El escondrijo," pp. 21-22. 14. Juan Carlos Reboledo, "Pulcritud," in Crimen en Santiago, p. 65. 15. María Rosa Alfonsa, "Contraofensiva cubana de la novela policiaca," Unión 206 (1977), p. 139, discussing Armando Cristóbal Pérez's La ronda de los rubíes (Havana: Editorial de Arte y Literatura, Colección El Dragón, 1973), cowinner of the 1972 MININT prize, together with Nancy Robinson's Colmillo de jabalí. 16. Reboledo, "La búsqueda," p. 70. 17. Ross, "Encuesta sobre la literatura policiaca," p. 130. 18. Ibid.

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19. Ibid., p. 132. 20. Ibid, (emphasis in original). 21. Ibid., p. 133.

8 Poetry Antes de ser Un poema Es Una hoja blanca Y un montón de memorias, Una hoja blanca Y el corazón entusiasmado, Una hoja blanca Y más deseos de vivir. Una hoja blanca Y el pueblo cantando en las calles Una hoja blanca, Y el trueno de la Revolución.

Before being A poem It is A blank sheet of paper And a mass of memories, A blank sheet of paper And excitement in your heart, A blank sheet of paper And such a desire to live, A blank sheet of paper And the people singing in the streets A blank sheet of paper, And the thunder of Revolution.

—Roberto Fernández Retamar, from the poem, "Canciones de pocas palabras" The revolution also set its stamp on Cuban poetry, which has shown a very particular trend since 1959. Although poetry may reach a narrower sector of the public than do films or detective novels, for example, its potential for affective impact is enormous. At the end of 1968, Mario Benedetti pointed out that, whereas the novelist requires temporal distance from his subject to afford him the perspective necessary to turn "the state of harrowed protagonist into that of sere witness," the revolution finds its best expression in poetry, "for the latter is a form that generally feeds on harrowing conflict more than on serenity." 1 Even before the revolution, the works of some poets reflected their concern with social and political problems, and their involvement and militancy came to be generally shared, constituting a fundamental feature of poetry in the revolution. Foremost among the militant prerevolutionary poets who continued to write during the revolution is the man who has been called both "the national poet" and "the greatest Cuban poet of this century," Nicolás Guillén. In his earliest poems, Guillén addressed the theme of the Negro and the African element in Cuba, denouncing racial discrimination with a blend of irony and popular wit that conveyed a strong flavor of authenticity. 2 However, 111

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associated with the Communist press from 1935 on, Guillen expanded his field of interest to include the social environment and socioeconomic, political, and national problems in general. Guillen's books of poetry are the milestones of a constant militancy. 3 Under the revolution, he has published Tengo (1964), Poemas de amor (1964), El grand zoo (1967), El diario que a diario (1972), and La rueda dentada (1972). 4 Identifying completely with the revolution, he conveys his essential messages with radical impact and an immediate, often brilliant simplicity that makes his poems accessible to every reader. In one of them, he describes a dove flying over New York City who sees not a flower nor a star, but only Piedra y humo y humo y plomo y plomo y llama y llama y piedra y plomo y humo siempre hall6 . . . Stone and smoke and smoke and lead and lead and flame and flame and stone and lead and smoke he always found . . . 5 This is not merely a verse of poetry; we actually feel the flight of a dagger in the heat of combat, " n o t . . . a flower nor a star . . . " Guillen applies this militant attitude to every aspect of the revolution, both the minutiae of the quotidian and the red-letter days. On the momentous occasion when a Cuban cosmonaut was sent into space aboard the Soviet spaceship Soyuz 38, Guillen seized the opportunity to settle accounts with God and religious faith, glorying in revolutionary atheism at its purest. The poem he wrote to commemorate the event was sent up in the spaceship along with other symbolic objects. In that poem, the cosmonaut destroys the myth of a God sitting in heaven "in an immense armchair," and Guillen ends with these categorical words: El Cielo. ¿El Cielo? Frio. El vasto cielo frfo. Hay en efecto un butac6n, pero esti vacio. Heaven. Heaven? Cold. Vast, cold heaven. There really is an armchair, but it's empty. 6

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Foremost among the poets who, though published previously, achieved prominence with the triumph of the revolution were Fayad Jamis, Roberto Fernández Retamar, and Heberto Padilla. Their poetry centered on revolutionary themes, not only expressing the revolutionary experience but also projecting the conceptual and emotional frame of reference of the revolution in a way that guaranteed its popular acceptance—that is, they adopted a conversational, colloquial tone and interlarded their verses with vernacular phrases. Fernández Retamar has remarked that a characteristic of this poetry is "the interest in history, the jubilant or dramatic immediacy, the sense of vitality, the rejection of not only affectation, but also the supposed magical powers of the poem."7 Camila Henriquez Urefla considers that, in revolutionary Cuba, poetry has assumed the mission of providing indispensable testimony: "Our poets realize that in their verses they are preserving our revolutionary epic for all time, and they feel it as a moral obligation."8 Although this may be correct, Cuban revolutionary poets are more than mere witnesses; they are essentially involved in the revolutionary struggle and the processes tending to develop their combative consciousness. And though they have never limited themselves to writing exclusively about the revolution, from the first their poems have, in general, expressed the revolutionary perspective. Fernández Retamar wrote in his poem "Madrigal": Había la pequeña burguesía La burguesía compradora Los latifundistas, El proletariado, el campesinado, otras clases, Y tú, Toda temblor, toda ilusión. There was the petite bourgeoisie The buying bourgeoisie The landlords, The proletariat, the peasantry, other classes, And you, All tremor, all illusion.9 The immediacy and intimacy of conversation are expressed in exemplary fashion in another poem by Retamar, "Carta a los Pioneros" (Letter to the pioneers), of which the first part runs as follows:

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Hoy he recibido carta que me habla de ustedes: De que quisieran tener en sus propias letras Las palabras de la poesía que esgrimimos Como herramientas, como armas, como flores, Para hablar del trabajo, de la guerra, del amor, para cantar la poderosa música de la Revolución. Y me he puesto a escribirles de vuelta, y encuentro Que es un poema lo que he estado escribiéndoles: Un poema con las sencillas palabras diarias, Para agradecerles la alegría que su carta me ha traído (Una alegría entre las alegrías de nuestra vida revolucionaria)... Today I received a letter that speaks to me of you: That you would like to have in your own writing The words of poetry that we wield Like tools, like arms, like flowers, To speak of work, of war, of love, To sing the powerful music of the Revolution. And I began to write you back, and I find That it is a poem I have been writing to you: A poem in simple, everyday words, To thank you for the joy your letter has brought me (Another joy among the joys of our revolutionary l i f e ) . . .

10

The poetry of Retamar, Jamis, and others of their school represented a considerable change from the style of poetry that was to a certain extent predominant during the years immediately prior to the revolution. That style, which found its main exponents in the publication Orígenes (1944—1957) and the poems of José Lezama Lima, was considered hermetic, ambiguous, and transcendental. It was a poetry of intuition and mysterious insinuations and situations, written in a baroque style characterized by great richness of image and language. 1 1 With the revolution, the hermetic, elitist style was abandoned, and emphasis was placed on social and political themes and poetic forms that would ensure the widest possible dissemination of the revolutionary message. Of the former contributors to Orígenes, some chose exile, while others continued to write poetry in Cuba, though, as Lourdes Casal correctly points out, a certain linguistic distillation and simplification could be observed in their poems. 12 José Lezama Lima, Eliseo Diego, and Cintio Vitier did remain within the limits imposed by the revolution, and retrospective critical appraisals of their era in Orígenes tell us that, despite their hermetic attitude and the fact that they had no clear social consciousness of the drama that surrounded them, they were nonetheless discontent with the country's situation and sought its "essential Cubaness." 13 This first generation of revolutionary poets was not a homogeneous,

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rigidly defined group; they, too, were, to a large extent, feeling their way. Retamar, discussing this first revolutionary generation, to which he belonged, accurately describes the poet's dilemma and search for new paths within the limits of the revolution: "Poetry sticks to the here and now. That does not mean that it limits itself to speaking of the revolution. Let us say that it speaks from the revolution. Of course, it must be stressed that there is diversity in that poetry. Not only does it express very different successive circumstances—uprooting, new awareness, exaltation of a new reality—but its authors represent different viewpoints." 14 The seeking spirit, the plurality, and the polemics that, within certain limits, were common to the revolution generally during its first years also found expression in poetry. When the revolutionary leaders, failing to define its direction clearly, found themselves embroiled in a debate that lasted from 1962 to 1965 and affected the very essence of the general revolutionary strategy, the degree of permissible divergence from the noim increased automatically in all spheres. During this period, a literary magazine called El Puente was published. It was financed by individuals rather than by the government, and it largely continued the tradition of Orígenes, though the group of poets who contributed to it was a heterogeneous one. These poets, while expressing their identification with the revolution, explicitly rejected the imposition of any particular themes or style. The end of this experiment came in 1965, at a time when the revolution in general was acquiring its definitive orientation for the 1960s. In that year, the founder of El Puente, José Mario, was sent to a labor camp, and he later went into exile along with other members of the El Puente group. Various others, notably Miguel Bamet and Nancy Morejón, adapted to the revolutionary line. 15 The collapse of El Puente came in the midst of a bitter debate with what has been called "the second generation" of revolutionary poets. In March 1966, the first issue of El Caimán Barbudo was published. It featured a manifesto titled "Nos pronunciamos" (We declare), signed by a group of young people who had grown up during the period of insurrection and revolutionary triumph and were now making their public debut through the medium of the cultural monthly Juventud revolucionaria. Rejecting the accusation of "dogmatic terrorism" but cautioning against "liberal hysteria," the poets of El Caimán Barbudo saw the contributors to El Puente as poets who wrote, in the words of Victor Casaus, a signatory of the manifesto, "metaphysical poetry, practicing secondhand escapism . . . They were, in general, not only erratic in the political sphere but deficient in the literary sphere." 16 In the opinion of another of the manifesto's signatories, Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera, "the deepening of the revolution gradually opened up an unbridgeable chasm between it and those who sought to disregard it, to sit on the sidelines; it is not strange, but rather perfectly logical, that the editors of

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El Puente became enemies of the revolution and came to swell the ranks of counterrevolutionary exiles." In contrast to the "metaphysical detachment of El Puente," El Caimán Barbudo claimed to offer "a young expression of our revolutionary reality." 17 In general, this second generation adopted a conversational style and poetic colloquialism that in effect continued the existing trend. The difference between the first and second "generations" was thus essentially chronological more than political. Similarly, the theme that really dominated this generation's poetry was, again, the revolution, even when it was not the poem's explicit subject. Thus, it is not at all surprising that Victor Casaus, though pointing out the thematic variety and heterogeneity of his generation's poetry, notes that the dividing line between "social" and "nonsocial" themes has been erased; in the new poetry there are no "nonsocial" themes. People's most intimate tremors fuse with today's scenery, and today's scenery is not one of laminated swans (nor, certainly, of the thick-necked, supposedly monolithic workers that s o m e posters champion): It is the dynamic scenery of the revolution. Although this has been said again and again (sometimes already as a cold, accepted fact), the constant upheaval of revolutionary reality makes one and all thrill, without distinction. That thrill is in the love and the hate of the new poetry, whether the subject is a demonstration, the death of Van Troi, or a couple making love. 1 8

The conversational tone of this generation's poetry was expressed, in formal terms, through nearly unaltered syntax, economy of style, very clear ideas and messages, and an almost everyday vocabulary. Moreover, despite this generation's polemic stand against El Puente, its members often expressed their rejection of mere mechanistic dogmatism—though we should nevertheless bear in mind that such a rejection accorded perfectly with the line the revolutionary leaders took between 1965 and 1970, which abjured orthodox dogmatism and even postulated a Cuban road to communism. In this line, a poem by Victor Casaus, titled "Sobre el daño que hacen las hostias" (On the damage done by communion hosts), 19 equates dogmatic Marxism with dogmatic Catholicism. In 1970, with the new change in the revolutionary leaders' strategy, some time after the famous "Padilla affair," a new class of poets came to the fore with the publication of Punto de Partida, an anthology of poems and stories. These poets also published work in El Caimán Barbudo, though the latter had ceased to appear for a few months in 1968 as a consequence of the Padilla case. Notable among these poets were Minerva Salado, Waldo Leyva, Mirta Yáñez, Efraín Narderau, Roberto Díaz, and Osvaldo Navarro, all winners of different official competitions. This group of poets introduced no special innovations as to subject, unless we count, as Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera does, an even greater emphasis on patriotism and the development of

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the rural theme, which was previously almost unknown. 2 0 The rural theme, in fact, accorded with the revolutionary policy of concentrating maximum attention on the masses, which was postulated at the beginning of the 1970s. Rodriguez Rivera notes that the forms and structure favored by these poets were diverse, and one cannot speak of any dominant stylistic tendencies. However, his assessment appears to be influenced by a certain inclination to undervalue the formal aspect and emphasize instead the importance of the theme: "The dogmatism of formal tendencies rightly yields to a concern for substance, for content, that outdoes itself in the forms necessary to it." 21 Scarcely had four years passed when observers again began to speak of a new generation of poets, which included people such as Carlos Marti, Norberto Cordina, Alex Fleites, and Eliseo Alberto. The revolution was the essential concern of this generation, too, especially the idea of the revolutionary epic. The epic was associated not only with deeds that were beginning to be regarded more or less as past history, but, in the context of a revolution then beginning to settle into more regular, institutionalized channels, with the activities and events of daily life. Carlos Marti expresses this in "El héroe vivo" (The live hero), writing of "the toil of builders, metal workers / farmers and teachers," as well as of "the history that cannot be compiled / in great tomes / because it goes resolute through the streets." 22 1 must, however, agree with José Prats Sariol that these poets demonstrated a stylistic openness to tropological and metric forms and chose their themes with complete freedom. 23 Consequently, they produced, among others, poems on love or questions of human existence that are eternally and universally relevant. In the 1980s, an atmosphere of constant innovation indicative of unmistakable vitality, together with the activity of the Brigada Literaria Hermanos Saiz (Saiz Brothers Literary Brigade) and literary workshops throughout the country, has encouraged the appearance of poems by new young poets. Although the specific character of their work has yet to be clearly defined, they, too, are united in the perennial effort begun in 1959 to project the revolutionary message through this select artistic channel. And that effort has taken on a new radicalism and aggressiveness as a result of renewed tension in relations with the United States. 24 This leads me to underline the fact that poetry has been a close and constant traveling companion of the revolution in its daily march, both serving a testimonial function and reflecting the new revolutionary orientations set by the Cuban leaders. Cuban poetry pulses with the rhythm of the revolution, transmitting the tempo and any variations in it throughout the entire body of the nation. Let us look at some of the milestones passed by the traveling partnership of poetry and revolution. In mid-1962, many Soviet ships arrived in Cuba, and Cubans heard

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much of an incomprehensible language spoken by people from a very distant land, people who, up to a short time before, had been considered in terms of distorted stereotypes. It was in that atmosphere that Unión published, in its first issue, a poem by Fayad Jamis titled "Los barcos" (The boats) in which he describes "the boats [that] come in / loaded with goods and friendship," their "simple and strange" names reflected in the water, and "the rumble / of the trucks delivering / oil and friendship." 25 In October 1962, a month clouded by the terrifying possibility of a nuclear war triggered by the crisis of the Soviet missile installations in Cuba, Retamar wrote the violently anti-Yankee "Epitafio de un invasor" (Epitaph for an invader), which ends with the lines: Te dispusistes a invadir a Cuba, en el otoflo de 1962. Hoy sirves de abono a las ceibas. You prepared to invade Cuba, in the fall of 1962. Today you serve as fertilizer for the kapok trees. 26 At the end of 1965, poems lauding China, such as Regino Pedroso's "China la hermosa" (China the beautiful), 27 could still be found, but when Cuba broke with Communist China it ceased to be "the beautiful," and its absence from Cuban poetry was one more way of projecting the revolutionary message. The next time that China was used as a subject of poetry, it was as the "angry China" portrayed in poems such as Francisco Otero's "Vietnam," where China is described as the Fierce enemy who "reddens / earth and bamboo with blood." 28 Between 1966 and 1970, during a period of violent exhortations against the danger of falling into a Marxist catechism or religious doctrine and efforts to find an indigenous Cuban form of Marxism-Leninism, many poems such as the one by Victor Casaus mentioned previously were written, ridiculing the dogmatic Marxists who continued to practice a form of religion without thinking for themselves . . . still chewing the communion host. However, 1970 marked a change; Castro gave the signal both to return to a Soviet orientation and to revitalize the mass organization. Revitalization was necessary to counteract the inconveniences of bureaucratic administrative methods, and Castro asked rhetorically, "Who can replace the efficiency and infallibility of mass controls?" 29 The new attitude toward the Soviet Union spurred Verde Olivo to republish the poem "Unión Soviética," which Nicolás Guillén had written in 1964, and 1974 saw the publication of various poems by Ariel Canzani with titles such as "Materialismo histórico y dialéctico" (Historical and dialectical materialism) and "Poema marxista" (Marxist poem). 3 0 And as renewed emphasis was placed on the essential role of the masses in the revolution, Verde Olivo hastened

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to republish in 1971 a poem by César Vallejo titled "Masa" (Mass), previously published in 1965. 31 Obviously, the revolutionary message transmitted by such republished poems reflected the currently dominant trend; and it should be clear that the harmony of poetry and events was not mere coincidence, but rather the product of a general orchestration involving all channels of expression and responding to any change in revolutionary strategy. The search for African roots has been a theme in Cuban poetry for centuries, but in the 1970s, a time of Cuban involvement in armed confrontations on the African continent, a particularly great number of poems were written on the subject. They ranged from poems emphasizing the African essence of Cuba to those recounting the epic of the armed struggle and commemorating the birthday of Agustino Neto. 32 One example is Rafael Esteban Pefia's poem "Internacionalismo" (Internationalism), published by the Ruben Martinez Villena Literary Workshop in Camaguey. It describes the poet's search for the "deepest roots" of his fatherland; he finds them in Africa, saying: ¿Y quién podría decirme en qué distancia brota esta porción de sangre negra que alimenta mi apellido? Angola, tierra hermana: Tuyo es mi enemigo . . . And who could tell me how far distant is the source of that portion of black blood that nourishes my family name? Angola, sister land: Yours is my enemy . . . 3 3 Angola and Ethiopia: To give merely one of innumerable examples, in July 1980 Casa de las Américas published a poem by the young Nelson Herrera Ysla, titled "Días de Etiopía" (Days of Ethiopia), which transports the reader to that distant land where Cubans were fighting and paints a picture of "those men and beautiful women" that is a complete inversion of the stereotype of the "savage African." 34 And at the end of 1981, when the Caribbean crisis was seriously aggravated by the triumph of the sandinistas, and Cuba felt threatened by a possible attack from the United States, Raúl Hernández Novas, one of those known then as "the youngest Cuban poets," wrote a furious poem about Cuban resistance to the U.S. threat, ending:

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contra tu demencia, tenemos ojos que han sabido, y nada pueda tu amenaza que silba fría sobre el mar. against your insanity, we have eyes that have known, and impotent is your threat whistling cold over the sea. 35 The new generations of poets have been educated completely within the revolution, and naturally—I would say—they do their exploring within its limits, beginning their development in one of the many literary workshops. From the 1970s on, the revolution having settled into its grooves, no poems have been written in the manner of some of those by Heberto Padilla, who, incidentally, was already almost thirty years old when the revolutionaries came to power. Nor do I think it probable that, in the foreseeable future, the poets who now work together with the revolution, identifying completely with it, will begin to produce poems such as Padilla's "En tiempos difíciles" (In difficult times): A aquel hombre le pidieron su tiempo para que lo juntara al tiempo de la Historia. Le pidieron sus manos, poique para una época difícil nada hay mejor que un par de buenas manos. Le pidieron sus ojos que alguna vez tuvieron lágrimas para que contemplara el lado claro (especialmente el lado claro de la vida) porque para el horror basta un ojo de asombro. Le pidieron sus labios resecos y cuarteados para afirmar, para erigir, con cada afirmación, un sueño (el alto-sueño); le pidieron las piernas, duras y nudosas, (sus viejas piernas andariegas) porque en tiempos difíciles ¿algo hay mejor que un par de piernas para la construcción y la trinchera? Le pidieron el bosque que lo nutrió de niño, con su árbol obediente. Le pidieron el pecho, el corazón, los hombros. Le dijeron que eso era estrictamente necesario, le explicaron después

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que toda esta donación resultaría inútil sin entregar la lengua, porque en tiempos difíciles nada es tan útil para atajar el odio o la mentira. Y finalmente le rogaron que, por favor, echase a andar porque en tiempos difíciles ésta es, sin duda, la prueba decisiva. They asked that man for his time that he would join it to the time of History. They asked for his hands, because in a difficult age there is nothing better than a good pair of hands. They asked for his eyes that sometimes held tears that he would contemplate the bright side (especially the bright side of life) because for horror an astonished eye is enough. They asked for his lips, parched and cracked, to affirm, to build, with each affirmation, a dream (the lofty dream); they asked for his legs, hard and knotty, (his wanderlusting old legs) because in difficult times is there anything better than a pair of legs for construction and the trenches? They asked for the forest that nurtured him as a child, with its obedient tree. They asked for his chest, his heart, his shoulders. They told him that it was strictly necessary. They explained to him afterward that all this giving would prove to have been in vain if he did not give them his tongue, because in difficult times nothing is so useful for attacking hate or falsehood. And finally they begged him to, please, begin walking because in difficult times this is, without doubt, the decisive proof. 36

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Notes 1. Mario Benedetti, "Situación actual de la cultura cubana," in his Literatura y arte nuevo en Cuba, p. 10. 2. Nicolás Guillén, "Motivos de son" and others in "Sóngoro consongo" (1931), in Obra poética, intro. and annotated by Ángel Augier (Havana: Editorial de Arte y Literatura, 1974). 3. "Sóngoro consongo" (1931), "West Indies, Ltd." (1934), "Cantos para soldados y sones para turistas" (1937), "El son entero" (1947), "Elegías" (1958). See Guillén, Obra poética. 4. See Guillén, Obra poética. 5. Guillén, "Un negro canta en Nueva York," in Tengo (1964). See Obra poética, p. 76. 6. Cuba Internacional 11 (1980), p. 41. 7. Universidad de La Habana (July-December 1967), p. 37. 8. In Salvador Arias, "Literatura cubana," Casa de las Américas 113 (March-April 1979), pp. 2 0 - 2 1 . 9. R o b e r t o Fernández R e t a m a r , Revolución nuestra, amor nuestro (Havana: Editorial de Arte y Literatura, 1976), p. 30. 10. Ibid., pp. 16-18. 11. See, for example, Salvador Arias' opinions on this subject, in "Literatura cubana," p. 16, or those of Lourdes Casal, "Literature and Society," in Mesa Lago, Revolutionary Change in Cuba, p. 448. 12. Casal, "Literature and Society," p. 448. 13. Arias, "Literatura cubana," p. 16. 14. Roberto Fernández Retamar, "Sobre poesía y revolución en Cuba," Universidad de La Habana (July-December 1967), p. 37. 15. For an account of these events, see Casal, "Literature and Society." 16. Victor Casaus, "La más j o v e n poesía: seis comentarios y un prólogo," Unión (July-September 1967), p. 10. 17. Guillermo Rodríguez. Rivera, "En torno a la joven poesía cubana," Unión (June 1978), p. 66. 18. Casaus, "La más joven poesía," p. 7. 19. Ibid., p. 23. 20. Rivera, "En tomo a la joven poesía cubana," p. 74. 21. Ibid., p. 23 (emphasis added). 22. Included in an excellent article by José Prats Sariol, "La más reciente poesía cubana," Universidad de La Habana 209 (1978), p. 92. 23. Ibid. 24. For a discussion of the work of these young poets, see Basilia Papestamatiu, "Exploraciones temáticas y éticas de la más joven poesía cubana," Granma (December 6, 1981), p. 4. 25. Unión 1 (May-June 1962), p. 27. 26. Retamar, Revolución nuestra, p. 18. 27. Unión (October-December 1965), p. 34. 28. Francisco Otero and Santos Hernández, Festival campesino y La perla y el aguila (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982), p. 60.

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29. Marta Harnecker, Cuba ¿dictadura o democracia? (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1975), p. 27. 30. Unión 2 (1975), pp. 80-83. 31. Verde Olivo (June 20, 1971), p. 21. 32. See, for example, the poems in Verde Olivo 27 (1976), 40 (1976), 17 (1976); or in Unión 1 (1976); or Casa de las Américas 126 (May-June 1981). 33. Verde Olivo 15 (1976), p. 19. 34. Casa de las Américas 120 (May-June 1980), pp. 129-132. 35. Granma (December 6, 1981), p. 5. 36. Heberto Padilla, "En tiempos difíciles," in Fuera del juego (Havana: Ediciones UNEAC, 1968).

9 Popular Music I give you a song like a shot like a book a word a guerrilla, as I give love.

Te doy una canción como un disparo como un libro una palabra una guerrilla, como doy el amor.

Silvio Rodriguez, from the song, "Te doy una canción" The revolutionary message is also transmitted through popular music but is far from dominating it; much of the music that Cubans listen and dance to today has no connection at all with the revolutionary message and, in many cases, does not even differ much from prerevolutionary music. Moreover, during the early years of the revolution, the prime influences on juvenile taste, particularly in the capital and other cities, were the Beatles (who had just become popular), "rock 'n' roll," and the twist. 1 Even the late 1960s saw the formation of numerous "combos" that tried to imitate the sort of music then popular internationally. In an article in the magazine Universidad de La Habana, Adolfo Costales wrote that "the competition became unequal when it came to a type of music that arrived with the label 'for young people', composed and performed by young people with new instruments and methods. Our youth recognized themselves in this music and categorized as 'old' the traditional Cuban rhythms, nearly all of which continued to be played, as in previous decades, by musicians older than the great mass of young people who demanded new forms of musical expression." 2 Thus, Cuban music, considered the art form of greatest popular influence and possessing distinctive national characteristics of world fame, was, in the first years of the revolution, dominated for the most part by the rhythms that were all the rage in the West. This is still largely the case today, moreover, and is a source of constant concern in Cuban official circles. Carlos Alvarez V., a young professor of twenty-five with an exemplary revolutionary record, said in an interview in 1978: "Young people really have not received what they need in order to feel comfortable with their dance music, and for that reason, perhaps, they adopt other, international rhythms, rather neglecting

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our own. I think that music, like other art forms, is now undergoing a process of transformation that will lead composers to create their works with an eye to the needs of youth and not former patrons." 3 In 1978, however, this was still wishful thinking. Cuban songs continued to be dominated by romantic themes, and Cuban experts considered them poorly written, in bad taste, and unduly prone to undesirable overtones of machismo. Despite new developments in popular music, in 1978 only "a slight improvement" was as yet discernible. 4 This does not mean that artists did not write and perform highly successful songs in the romantic and traditional genres; one example is Pacho Alonso, who achieved great popularity and in 1982 was honored for his contribution to national culture. 5 The popularity of traditional music is still so strong that, at a tribute to the maestro Jorrfn, inventor of the cha-cha-cha, "the theater was packed and the spectators made it ring with their applause for the performers." 6 However, a socialist society such as the Cuban one, characterized by constant ideological confrontation and a perfectly defined cultural policy that translated into official encouragement and support of the arts, could not fail to develop new musical trends related to the objective of the revolutionary message. A particularly noteworthy development in this respect was the Movimiento de la Nueva Trova (movement of the new ballad, or lay), begun at the beginning of 1968 by various young composers experimenting with new styles and melodies. Some of their songs were based on traditional themes, but the fundamental subject was the revolutionary epic and related events. Initially, the new music was described as the canción de protesta (protest song), 7 but clearly this term had no place in the conceptual world of a revolution that was presented as being the maximum fulfillment of popular aspirations possible at the time, and the name "Nueva Trova" was quickly adopted. Just as there was no need for autonomy in the universities, so there was no need (and for the same reasons) for protest songs within the revolution. The first composers and performers of the Nueva Trova, who today are still the most representative of the movement (for example, Pablo Milanes, Silvio Rodriguez, and Noel Nicola), began working together in activities of the Casa de las Américas. At the same time, the ICAIC established the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora (Sound Experimentation Group) to work on developing a new revolutionary style of popular music. Finally, in June 1972, the Unión Juvenil Comunista (Communist Youth Union) organized a group of young composers and musicians, thenceforth known as the Movimiento de la Nueva Trova. 8 The Nueva Trova is considered the most authentic revolutionary song form. It is characterized generally, though not exclusively, by indigenous rhythms such as the son and the guaracha, while the lyrics are permeated by the revolutionary message. "Campesina" (Peasant woman), "A

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Salvador Allende en su combate por la vida" (To Salvador Allende in his struggle for life), and "Canción para Angela Davis" (Song for Angela Davis) are a few representative titles of ballads by Pablo Milanes. Another leading light of the movement is Silvio Rodriguez, an excellent composer and musician whose "Santiago de Chile" I personally consider particularly good. A good example of his militant songs is "Madre" (Mother), 9 about Cubans working in Vietnam who send their love to "motherland and Mother Revolution." The musicians of the Nueva Trova are not uncritical, though their criticism never exceeds the limits set by the revolutionary leadership. We see this in a description of Noel Nicola's work that appeared in Cuba Internacional: "In his songs, Nicola has lashed out at the extremism and bureaucracy that block the development of revolutionary life. He has reflected the dialectic of daily life, and he has exalted the women who launch themselves into the future, quick to realize the possibilities the revolution has given them to liberate themselves. He has ridiculed the traces of petit bourgeois morality wherever they appear." 10 It is apparent that songs, like films, reflect the critical orientations of the revolutionary leaders, attacking bureaucracy as Muerte de un burócrata does and taking up the struggle for women's liberation, as does the film Retrato de Teresa. In fact, such criticism must be understood as another essential part of the projected revolutionary message—suggestions for the improvement of the existing system rather than for any qualitative alternative to it. At the same time, the Nueva Trova does not at all neglect traditional themes; an example is one of Noel Nicola's most popular songs, "Es más, te perdono" (What's more, I forgive you). Of all his songs, it is perhaps the one most often performed. 11 It practically goes without saying that in popular music, as in the other fields I have discussed, the development of the genre is closely tied to that of revolutionary policy and its synchronized variations in every sphere. The truth of this is more than adequately illustrated by the lyrics of a song composed in revolutionary Managua at the end of 1982 by Vicente Feliu, a member of the Movimiento de la Nueva Trova since its inception and its president since mid-1982: "Un 'hasta siempre' a Silvia desde Nicaragua" (An "until forever" to Silvia from Nicaragua) expresses complete identification with the Nicaraguan revolution—for example, the last stanza: Quería decirte que no me marcho no puedo irme de lo que soy; que aunque otras calles anden mi tiempo, en el camino que lleva el viento de la victoria, estaré con vos.

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I wanted to tell you I'm not leaving I cannot leave what I am; that though other streets may suit my pace, on the road that carries the wind of victory, I will be with you. 12 Recent musical developments other than the Nueva Trova include a number of dance bands—for example, the "Van Van," the "Irakere," and the "Son 14"—that play primarily music based on Cuban rhythms and have achieved great popularity. And lately, it seems, television and radio, which are sometimes blamed for the continued predominance of a popular music that does not reflect the new revolutionary—or, at any rate, national—spirit, have also begun to give more encouragement to artistic endeavor in this sphere. For example, the Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) holds an annual contest for Cuban composers and songwriters in order to "stimulate the development of national music and discover new talent in the difficult field of composing popular music." 13 The contest held at the end of 1981 was won by Andrés Pedroso with "Junto a mi fusil, mi son" (Next to my gun, my melody). In second place was "Tejiendo un rostro en la canción" (Weaving a face in the song), about which Cuba Internacional commented: "Its crescendo of lyricism yields, without sloppy sentimentality, to romantic propositions." Next in order came "Madre mía ¿por qué?" (For goodness' sake, why?) about the generation gap, and "Mi amor, señor amor" (My love, Mr. Love). 14 This order of preference would appear rather to reflect the desired revolutionary taste in Cuban popular music. However, we must not forget the occasionally predominant role of imported music. During the same ICRT contest, the spectators assembled in the Marx Theater gave a hearty ovation to the classic "Rhapsody in Blue" played by the pianist Frank Fernández, and Cuba Internacional commented that "in music there are only two valid objectives: good and bad." 15 It is obvious, however, that if "good" can also be revolutionary, so much the better. This is reflected in the annual awards made by the Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales (Recordings and Music Publication Firm) of the Ministry of Culture. In 1981, for example, Pablo Milanes was chosen as best representative of Latin American song; the best popular music group was "Sierra Maestra"; and Silvio Rodriguez took the prize for the most popular international performer. 16 The great encouragement given to the Movimiento de la Nueva Trova at the beginning of the 1970s was a concrete expression of the conclusions reached by the First Congress on Culture and Education, and, together with the encouragement of indigenous musical composition, it has become an important advance guard of the ideological struggle in a rough field: popular music. Clearly, however, it cannot be said that, compared with other artistic media (films, poetry, literature), Cuban popular music is dominated by the

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revolutionary message, despite efforts—in some measure successful—to this end. Is this perhaps because any Cuban can tune in to a foreign radio station but would find it impossible, for example, to see a film that is not shown in Cuba? I cannot state with any assurance that this is the only reason, but it is evident that the revolutionary leaders are very far from turning popular music to maximum advantage as a medium for transmitting the revolutionary message. Consequently, this highly important realm of Cuban popular culture still remains, for the most part, immune to the monolithic politicization process.

Notes 1.Adolfo Costales, "Dc la musica de hoy," Universidad de La Habana 209 (1978), p. 79. 2. Ibid., p. 80. 3. Fernando Rodriguez Sosa, "De la FEEM a la FEU: ser j6ven hoy: entrevista con Carlos Alvarez V.," Universidad de La Habana 209 (1978), p. 48. 4. Costales, "De la musica de hoy," p. 84. 5. Granma (February 7, 1981), p. 7. 6. Bohemia (June 20, 1980), p. 31. 7. Granma (February 7, 1982), p. 7. 8. Ibid. 9. See, for example, the record that includes this song: Cuba, Nueva Trova, with songs by Pablo Milanes and Silvio Rodriguez, produced by Discos Pueblo (Mexico) and Licensie EGREM (Cuba), DP 1015. 10. Cuba Internacional 3 (1982), p. 85. 11. /bid. 12. Ibid., 5 (1982), p. 64. 13. Ibid., p. 28. 14. ¡bid., p. 31. 15. Ibid., p. 29. 16. Ibid., p. 13.

10 The Theater Since the revolution took power, it has tried to create a theatrical movement of high aesthetic caliber that also defines its specific ideological objectives by our class interests.

—Francisco Garzón Céspedes With the victory of the revolution, the theater, too, together with the other arts, began to be looked upon as a medium for projecting the revolutionary message. Indeed, from very early on, theater reviews published in the everradical Verde Olivo established that a basic criterion for evaluating a work of theater was the extent to which it contributed to the spectator's revolutionary consciousness. 1 Initially, the theater was in fact a center of intense activity, though it had its ups and downs—mainly because of its administrative reorganization in the framework of the Consejo Nacional de Cultura (National Council on Culture). The year 1962 saw the establishment of the Teatro Lírico (Lyric Theater), devoted to opera and zarzuela, the traditional light operetta, and the Teatro Musical (Musical Theater), which featured Cuban and foreign contemporary musicals. 2 By January 1964, fifteen auditoriums and theaters had opened in Havana alone. Seventy percent of them were on the list of the Consejo Nacional de Cultura, a state body, and the rest received assistance of one kind or another from it. The council also paid the salaries of directors, performers, technicians, set designers, and so on. The material privations that had been the daily portion of these people before the revolution were now a thing of the past. Centers for training theater arts teachers were set up, and outstanding students were sent to complete their training in Poland, the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, or other socialist countries. 3 The principal theaters operating in those early years were the Teatro Universitario (University Theater), the Teatro de Estudio (Studio Theater), and the Teatro de Arte de La Habana (Art Theater of Havana). However, in spite of this promising start, the theater was largely inactive throughout most of the 1960s, besides suffering, according to Cuban experts, from a low artistic level. In 1964, for example, José M. Váldez 131

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Rodríguez said: "We are far from an average level of theater sufficient to make it possible to speak of a successful Cuban theater." He noted that the Cuban stage suffered from elemental deficiencies that were unpardonable and inadmissible at such a late phase of development, including such faults as inadequate diction and projection. The actors were barely audible in the back rows. He added that the young playwrights were far from being masters of their craft, saying, "they lack the skill of getting the most out of subjects, situations, characters." 4 Even toward the end of 1967, critics in Havana were still writing comments such as: "There is a lack of order, steadiness, and concern in our quests for a line of expression of our own, and this has been reflected in the anarchy—and, at times, the poverty—of our repertory." 5 And by the end of 1968, Mario Benedetti was writing: "Of all the cultural sectors of Cuba, it is perhaps the theater that is now undergoing a serious crisis." 6 Various possible reasons for this stagnation have been postulated. Rine Leal mentions, in particular, bureaucratic impositions, theatrical demagoguery, and the mental persecution of actors on the assumption that the theater constituted a source of social diseases, particularly as regarded sexual morality. 7 Julio Matas also points out that the majority of theater-goers had, traditionally, belonged to the middle class, a good part of which had left the country after the revolution or were in the process of doing so; and it was difficult to educate the masses to appreciate higher forms of culture in a single decade. 8 I would like to point out the limitations of theater as a medium for projecting the revolutionary message, especially as compared with mass media such as the cinema, which can reach an enormous number of spectators in a short time. This may explain a good measure of the difficulties experienced in developing Cuban theater, especially when we consider that by the end of the 1960s the motion picture industry had already produced excellent films, one of which, Muerte de un burócrata, even denounces the very bureaucracy that Leal cites as one of the reasons for the backwardness of Cuban theater. Official support was important; the detective novel, it will be recalled, developed practically out of nothing thanks to the support of the MININT. However, by the 1970s the situation had slowly begun to change, primarily as a result of the creation of the Grupo Teatral Escambray (Escambray Theatrical Group) in 1968. This change, characterized by a new trend toward experimental and innovative theater, affected both purely artistic aspects and the use of theater as an important medium for the projection of the revolutionary message. Theater offered certain advantages, for, though its audience was relatively limited, it permitted direct contact and dialog with the spectator. Rosa Ileana Boudet writes that the objective of the Teatro Escambray and other theatrical groups formed later was to "make the theater into an effective arm at the service of the development of the revolution— that is, to make the theater express the needs of the revolutionary process and collaborate in its transformation." 9

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It is highly significant, then, that what is called "New Theater" (Teatro Nuevo) began in the Escambray area, which for part of the 1960s was a center of strong discontent and action by counterrevolutionary foci. The Grupo Teatral Escambray initially consisted of eleven people, headed by Sergio Corrieri, later a deputy member of the Central Committee of the party and a delegate to the National Assembly of Poder Popular. In Escambray, the group tried to change the traditional relation between the work presented and the spectators, turning the audience into coparticipants in writing and staging the play. The new works created by this group were, in general, the result of close contact between the actors and a specific social problem. The investigation of the problem was the starting point for the creative process, which ended in a theatrical production. On one occasion, for example, the twenty-four members of the group spent forty-five days in the village of San Pedro de Palmarejo, thirty-one kilometers from Trinidad, in an area that, up until the revolution, had been isolated and devoid of health clinics or schools. The group held meetings and personal interviews with the people of the village, and this experience gave rise to the play De como San Cleto le vendió a San Cleto (How Saint Cleto sold itself to Saint Cleto). The themes presented in the Escambray group's plays were generally defined by the revolutionary needs of the moment. For example, in 1975, when a great effort was being made to increase economic efficiency in the region, the group produced such works as El ladrillo sin mezcla (The unadulterated brick) by Sergio Gonzales, and El patio de maquinarias (The patio of machinery) by Pedro Rentería, which focused on problems involved in proletarianizing the peasant. 1 0 Similarly, the group's prolonged contact with the Escuela para Maestros Manuel Ascunce Domenech (Manuel Ascunce Domenech School for Teachers) produced the play Asamblea de ejemplares (Assembly of exemplary individuals), which represented a collective effort in both script-writing and staging. The play is about an assembly called to choose m o d e l students. The members of the assembly analyze the qualifications of one Orlando, a good student and comrade but not much of a fighter, who takes indifferent and tolerant attitudes toward certain negative manifestations in order to avoid problems. In the course of the play, the audience is asked to participate in the assembly and give their opinions as to whether or not Orlando should be considered a model student. 11 Without a doubt, this play represented an interesting projection of the revolutionary message, criticizing attitudes considered negative and defining the qualities of a model student; but from a specifically artistic standpoint, it seems rather an attempt to blaze new trails and to develop a new concept of theater and art in general. However, it merely made a beginning. A contributor to the Revista de la Universidad de La Habana wrote in 1978 that the aesthetic value of Asamblea de ejemplares was modest, and that the play should be valued less as a work of art than as a medium for the amateur theater movement in the secondary schools. 12

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A full awareness of the theater's specific mission to project the revolutionary message has permeated all the productions of the Escambray group and similar troupes established later, leading them to express a sort of pedagogical remoteness when dealing with traits and conduct considered to be antisocial. Thus, the tone of criticism is sharp but not violent, since, as Rosa Ileana Boudet says, "the battle to overcome these problems is a task of political education, persuasion, and conviction." 13 In other words, there is audience participation, but always with a very clear didactic approach and for specific objectives. By the beginning of 1982, Teatro Escambray had staged twenty-six different plays for adults and children, holding, overall, fifteen hundred performances for a total of about half a million spectators. The group includes a musical septet that performs recitals of Cuban music and has been on tour to Angola and Nicaragua, where it gave special performances for the international contingents, and to Columbia, Venezuela, Panama, and Mexico. 14 The Escambray group represented the beginning of an entire movement called "community theater," which turns the residents of a given community into the actors, critics, and authors of a collectively created theatrical work. The object is to turn the theater into one more agent of social change in the specific communities where it is a constant feature. In 1973, Flora Lauten, a former member of the Grupo Teatral Escambray, moved to La Yaya, a newly established agricultural community, and organized a theater group, using local residents who had had no previous experience of the stage as either actors or spectators. According to Lauten, professional and amateur actors, having seen theatrical productions before, tend, consciously or unconsciously, to imitate established forms. In this new experiment, however, she was working with new actors whose sensitivity to theater had not yet been touched, and who began directly from themselves. Moreover, "the naturalness, the authenticity, and the freshness they achieve in their presentation of the play stem from the fact that they are playing themselves; their acting represents their own lives, their own problems, and their own language." 15 Thus, Cuban theater projects the revolutionary message in a highly special and effective way: It deals with the concrete, specific problems of a given social group, initiating discussion with the people affected by the problems and trying, very pragmatically, to help solve them. In Flora Lauten's words, "the object of this work is to use the highly popular mass medium of theater to help present and solve problems affecting the community. Logically, this requires investigation of those problems and working together with the political and mass organizations." 16 Other theater groups worth noting are the Colectivo Teatral Granma (Granma Theatrical Collective), the Grupo Cubano de Acero (Cuban Steel Group), the Teatrova, and the Teatro de Participación Popular (People's

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Theater), each having its own specific characteristics. The last-mentioned group, established in 1970, uses workers and peasants as actors. In one play, Amante y peñol (Lover and yardarm) by Herminia Sánchez, thirty port workers acted out the struggle of the dockers in the era of the puppet republic. The Teatrova (from a combination of "teatro," theater, and "trova," ballad or lay) incorporates music in its plays and has been particularly successful as a result of the wide popularity of the Nueva Trova. It is a mobile and active theater for both children and adults. 17 Carlos Espinosa Domínguez sums up, in five concise points, the common features of these theatrical efforts, different though they may be in other respects: 1. Selection of a certain zone (rural communities, factories, urban centers) as a stable operational base. This facilitates both prolonged coexistence and investigation of conditions in the area. 2. A search for a new public (students, peasants, workers, CDR members) and the development of a theater-going habit with another orientation. Re-examination of the traditional way of aesthetic adaptation. 3. U s e of highly varied "stages": a dairy, a workshop, a basic secondary school in the country, a CDR. Hence communication is, for this and other reasons, more complete and effective. 4. Writing of original scripts that both draw on the achievements of world theater and arc enriched by the language and other elements of popular culture. Themes are preferably current (La vitrina. Los hermanos. La compañera. La vaquería), but not to the exclusion of historical subjects that contribute to the public's aesthetic and ideological development and their understanding of contemporary problems ( A m a n t e y peñol, hr Mientras más cerca . . . más lejos, La Sierra Chiquita). 5. Training of a new type of actor with a view to his ethical as well as artistic improvement. 1 8

The New Theater introduces a new element of what I have previously called the Utopian perspective, implying a new conception of artistic creation, which involves liberating the potential creative ability of the entire society while eliminating the elitism that hitherto characterized artistic endeavor. We have already come across this idea, reflected in Julio Garcia Espinosa's views on cinema and Fernández Retamar's words on painting and graphic arts. Adolfo Sánchez Vazques, a noted Mexican Marxist philosopher who has influenced the aesthetic attitudes of Cuban artists, has made several apt comments on this essential aspect of Cuban New Theater that I, like Ileana Boudet, think worth quoting. Here again, we find that highly interesting communion between strictly pragmatic concerns (the solution of communal problems) and what I call the "utopian perspective." The real problem of art in our time is, therefore, that which our era presents most generally: abolishing private property, or, where that has

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already been done, achieving true socialization in all spheres. . . . If man is above all a creative being, his creative possibilities must be realized, to a greater or lesser degree, not only in exceptional individuals, but on the social level. Creation means expanding the area of creativity, from which the great masses of the population are excluded in capitalist society. A work of art must be an object not only to contemplate, but also to transform, thus helping to expand the area of creativity. 19

Thus, from the 1970s onward there has been an effort to create a qualitatively and socially different kind of theater in keeping with the revolutionary mission. This effort expresses another dimension of the cultural literacy campaign; it represents a new aspect of that colossal effort to achieve a quantitative cultural democratization, essential for the integration of social consciousness into the spiritual world of the revolution. In the context of an endeavor of this type, the question asked of some artists of the Cuban New Theater, namely, lo what extent their artistic freedom is restricted by the state, can seem to them no less than ridiculous. Leonil Guerra, an actor and producer of television programs for children, says: "Naturally we are part of the state, and we cannot make this separation between artists and the state; there is no opposition between the two. For we were all together in the October Crisis, we were all together at the Bay of Pigs, we all cut sugar cane together." 20 There can be no doubt that, to engage in a theatrical endeavor, or mission, of the type I describe, the members of the Cuban New Theater must identify absolutely with the revolution—that is, with the revolutionary state—and are integrated into every aspect of it. They are soldiers, in the full sense of the word, in the battle to make the revolution succeed. On the occasion of the Havana Theater Festival in 1980, the minister of culture, Armando Hart Davalos, noted that 70 percent of the plays performed at the festival were by Cuban playwrights, and 50 percent of them dealt with current topics. He concluded: "It is evident that there exists in the country a theater movement with a solid political base, which strives to express the interests of the people and direct itself toward the great objectives of socialism." 21

Notes l . S e e , for example, Verde Olivo (February 12, 1961), pp. 64-65. 2. For a summary description of theater in the 1960s, see Julio Matas, "Theater and Cinematography," in Mesa Lago, Revolutionary Change in Cuba. 3. José M. Váldez Rodríguez, "Algo sobre el teatro en Cuba," Universidad de La Habana (November-December 1964), pp. 47-54. 4. Ibid., pp. 56-57.

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5. Magaly Maguercia, "En Cuba: el teatro," Universidad de La Habana (July-December 1967), p. 73. 6. Benedetti et al., Literatura y arte nuevo en Cuba, p. 21. 7. Riñe Leal, "En primera persona, 1954-1966," in Mesa Lago, Revolutionary Change in Cuba, pp. 434-435. 8. Matas, "Theater and Cinematography," p. 435. 9. Rosa Ileana Boudet, "Nuevo teatro cubano," Unión 1 (1978), p. 34. 10. Ibid., p. 45. 11. Carlos Espinosa Domínguez, "Presencia de los jóvenes en el teatro cubano actual," Universidad de La Habana 209 (1978), pp. 74-75. 12. Ibid. 13. Boudet, "Nuevo teatro cubano," p. 45. 14. Granma (January 10, 1982), p. 7. 15. Cuba Review 7, no. 4, p. 18. 16. Ibid. 17. Boudet, "Nuevo teatro cubano," pp. 39-44. 18. Espinosa Domínguez, "Presencia de los jóvenes," pp. 72-73. 19. Adolfo Sánchez Vazques, "¿Socialización de la creación o muerte del arte?" Casa de las Américas 78 (May-June 1973), quoted by Boudet, "Nuevo teatro cubano," p. 35. 20. Cuba Review 7, no. 4, p. 22. 21. Granma (February 14, 1982), p. 6.

11

The Testimonial Genre and Some of Its Artistic Manifestations And we have the obligation and the pleasure of reflecting that revolution in our literary works, recreating the their daily heroism of our people, their epic struggles, yearnings, that whole beautiful reality of children, young people, women, and men as the protagonists of our process, of our works. . . . The testimonial genre is thus the most suitable vehicle for the expression of our realities in a language that everyone can understand.

—Raúl González de Cascorro We have already seen, in the preceding chapters on cinema, poetry, theater, and so on, the explicit emphasis laid on the testimonial function of the artistic media. I have also pointed out that those media do not only reflect revolutionary reality but also, by so doing, help to project the revolutionary message, the object being the formation of that highly important component of reality, social consciousness. This testimonial function is also an essential feature of such art forms as the novel and the short story—so much so that recent years have even seen the development of a literary form known as "the testimonial genre" (el género testimonio). In 1970, Casa de las Américas included this literary genre in its annual competition, and the MINFAR did likewise in its July 26 Competition. For some writers, it was completely new as a genre, having political, anthropological, social, and economic aspects that up until then had not been conceived as essentials of testimonial literature. 1 Casa de las Américas demanded "a book that documents, using direct sources, an aspect of present Latin American reality." 2 This left the field wide open for developing highly varied literary techniques and disciplinary approaches that were to interact in a very interesting way. According to Victor Casaus—whom I mentioned previously as a poet, but whose Girón en la memoria (Girón in memory) has established him as one of the most notable writers of testimonial literature—the flourishing of the genre was determined or influenced by different factors: the need to document revolutionary reality, given the increased intensity of the class struggle and the qualitative advance made in the popular consciousness; the

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need to assess these new and violent facets of reality immediately, without waiting the length of time required to achieve "the aesthetic distance" necessary for writing fiction; the use of the mass media for the puiposes of the revolution; the need to redeem the authentic image of the people and their speech; and, finally, the ethical-revolutionary need felt by many writers for immediate, effective communication with the masses. 3 It is thus not at all surprising that the testimonial genre should have become a direct, immediate expression of the epic essence of the revolution. In this respect, it was similar to other art forms that, in the 1970s when institutionalization was proceeding apace and the danger of routinization reared its head, projected the epic vision of confrontation and heroism as essential features of the existential conception of the revolution. Techniques and approaches may vary, but this epic vision is always present. Let us look at a few examples. Amanecer en Girón (Waking up in Girón), by Rafael del Pino, an FAR pilot who fought against the counterrevolutionary invasion in April 1961, is a direct, personal narrative by the protagonist, who had had no previous professional experience in the literary field. The Girón invasion was also the subject of Victor Casaus' book Girón en la memoria, which combined interviews, personages, documents, press cuttings, songs, and photographs in an effort to create a montage similar in vitality and dynamism to the language of film. In De como los hombres se acercaron al sol (How men approached the sun), Magda Ochoa tells the story of Sergio Fuentes, a peasant of the Sierra Maestra who joins the Rebel Army. She employs two basic literary devices: The story is told as the personal narrative of the protagonist, who expresses himself in his own language; and the background and setting are presented principally as a work of documentary research. In La batalla de Jigüe (The battle of Jigüe), José Quevedo Pérez, who commanded a batallion in Batista's army, describes the creation of his military unit and its development up until the battle of Jigüe against the revolutionary forces. That battle led him to reconsider his moral and political position in the national scheme of things. He also includes a compilation of messages and communiqués from Castro to his military officers, which relate to the development of the events recorded. Miguel Bamet wrote Biografía de un cimarrón (Biography of a runaway slave) as an ethnographic account, told by one character in the first person, that reflects many essential aspects of the history and culture of the country. In a different approach, Raúl González de Cascorro used the direct testimony of more than sixty people who had fought on either side in the Escambray struggle to write his book Aquí se habla de combatientes y bandidos (Here we're talking about fighters and bandits). "The testimonial genre constitutes an ideal means of offering, in this age of intense work, struggle, and plans, a clear, passionate vision of what we were, of what we are, and of what we will be," writes González de Cascorro;

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the testimonial genre reflects that element of epic passion that writers try to bring out in the direct presentation of the revolutionary epic and instill in the reader.4 Moreover, González de Cascorro adds, this genre is an apt vehicle for the expression of reality "in a language that everyone can understand." 5 In other words, it is evident that, here, too, the possibility of mass communication is essential. Casaus, also, remarks that two essential characteristics of the testimonial genre are its immediacy and its zeal for communication. 6 And in 1975, Hector P. Agosti, one of the judges of the Casa de las Américas competition, said that the genre could become a literature "to satisfy the needs of great masses of readers and, in so doing, acquaint them with the realities we are living." He added, significantly, that "it can be an introduction, sometimes as interesting as a suspense novel, to those new realities that Latin America offers in abundance." 7 Immediacy, authenticity, relevance, passion, suspense, identification with an epic vision, with heroism: all these are the basic ingredients of a genre intended to reach the entire population. The testimonial essence has had a determining influence on other literary forms. Miguel Bamet considers his Biografía de un cimarrón and Canción de Rachel(Song of Rachel) to be documentary novels, 8 and the testimonial influence is also distinctly present in short stories. In the preface to an anthology titled El cuento en la Revolución (The short story in the revolution), Feliz Pita Rodriguez writes: "It would be legitimate to consider the short story as the testimonial genre par excellence." And, pointing out the essential epic vision, which seems to manifest itself everywhere and at every moment, he adds that "the thousand heroic deeds that marked the path of the armed struggle and of the defense of the new fatherland, threatened and attacked by imperialism, and the no less heroic daily battles of our people in the common struggle to build a new society, found in the short story the appropriate vehicle for the literary expression of these very rich themes, which, at the same time, expanded the revolutionary arsenal for the great, long battles of the ideological struggle." 9 Nothing could be clearer: The testimony is expressed through the short story and serves as a weapon in the ideological struggle. In the anthology just mentioned, we find the odyssey of the guerrillas in "Los perseguidos" (The pursued) by Enrique Cirules; the heroism of the urban revolutionary underground in "En el ford azul" (In the blue Ford) by Lisandro Otero, and in "Canción militante a tres tiempos" (Militant song in three tempos) by Julio A. Chacón; the moral poverty of those who abandon the fatherland in "Todos juntos" (All together) by Julio Travieso; the demented loneliness of those who reject the revolution and cling to the past in "Casa sitiada" (Besieged house) by César Leante; the tragedy of the peasant soldier who serves in Batista's army and must confront the revolutionaries in "El soldado Eloy" (Soldier Eloy) by Samuel Feijóo. On the one hand, we have the struggle, and on the other, the destitution that justifies it.

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Revolutionary heroism is contrasted with the cowardice of those who abandon a just cause or are afraid to risk their lives for it. The short story is presented not necessarily as a direct documentation of a particular event, but rather as the reflection of many events of the kind described in the story, events that characterize the specific historical period—all, of course, seen from the revolutionary perspective. The influence of the testimonial genre and its basic characteristics can also be detected in the newsreels and documentary films discussed previously. A notable example is the film Girón by Manuel Herrera, which was based essentially on a testimonial work, the previously mentioned Girón en la memoria by Victor Casaus, from which it took its structure and most of its characters. A glance at the best-seller lists published in Bohemia immediately reveals the wide popularity of testimonial literature. Incidently, it should be noted that this genre does not concern itself merely with Cuban affairs, strictly speaking, but encompasses the broader ambit of international revolutionary concerns, especially those directly related to Cuban policy. On May 21, 1982, the five nonfiction best-sellers listed in Bohemia included three works written in the testimonial style and one straight history: ¿Por qué Carlos? (Why, Carlos?) by Luis Adrián Bentancourt, writing about Carlos Muñez Varela; Granada, la nueva joya del Caribe (Grenada, the new jewel of the Caribbean), a testimonial account of the Grenadian revolution by Jorge Luna; Muceques y colonialismo (Muceques and colonialism) by Jorge Fernández Nufiez, a testimonial work on the slum neighborhoods of Angola, a colonial inheritance; and Aula verde (Green classroom) by Marta Rojas, an account of the literacy campaign in Nicaragua. On November 14, 1980, Bohemia's best-seller list was headed by La prisión fecunda (The fertile prison) by Mario Mencia, a book containing historical accounts and documents related to the imprisonment of the young attackers of the Moneada barracks. As we can see, testimonial literature and detective novels are in close competition on best-seller lists. Both project common essential aspects of the revolutionary message. We have seen that heroes in the detective novel are not exceptional individuals, but rather the entire nation; the characters are both familiar figures and the personification of that which, in the revolution, "ought to be." Similarly, works of the testimonial type portray the protagonists of revolutionary reality as epic heroes, identified with by a people who discover themselves through the literary epic as seen from the revolutionary perspective. Thus, what "ought to be" and what "is" turn out to be one and the same. What "is" is projected as the concrete realization of what "ought to be," and what "ought to be" as reality. (Obviously, I am referring to what "ought to be" and what "is" in the revolution's eyes). The position and conduct of the nation at arms as portrayed in testimonial accounts of the epic battle of Playa

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Girón, for example, are those of a people that is as it ought to be. Antirevolutionary elements are merely dead weights from the past, negligible, nothing more than foam in the wake of the ship of history and revolution. Occasionally, one finds testimonial descriptions of complex, conflictive personal situations that avoid a purely Manichean presentation, but it is clear that, even in these cases, what is really being depicted is revolutionary conflict on an individual level: The individual is evaluated completely on the basis of revolutionary criteria and with a view to his improvement as a revolutionary. In general, however, the message is overt and unmistakable, and counterrevolutionaries are presented as the bandits of Escambray or shown in demented solitude or contemptible, cowardly flight. "Todos juntos" opens with this quotation from Dos Passos: "I felt like running and shouting 'wretches' with all the force of my lungs." 10 In this book, I have been discussing the integration of social consciousness in the revolutionary myth-epic, but, as can be seen, this process is highly complex and implies, as well, the integration of different forms of artistic expression and reality itself. The essence of the testimonial genre, as represented by its many and varied forms, is the portrayal of reality; it is the artistic expression of reality, or reality turned into art. But again, this expression of reality reflects the revolutionary conceptual perspective, implying not only the artistic depiction of what "is," but also the presentation of that which "is" in terms of the ideological coordinates of the revolution, as part of the total effort to project the revolutionary message on a massive scale. However, it is interesting to note that, in the testimonial genre, the revolutionary message is not presented either as what "ought to be" as postulated by Cuban leaders or as the orientations of the socially conscious vanguard, but rather as the revolutionary "reality" seen throughout the Cuban past and in the burning present. It is in the masses that the revolutionary essence manifests itself. Thus, works of a testimonial nature, both literature and other forms, permit the partial neutralization of the qualitative differences born of the hierarchy inherent in the revolutionary organizations, which, led by the PCC, constitute the socially conscious vanguard. In this sense, the projection of the revolutionary message in testimonial works redeems the Cuban people's authenticity, asserting the nation's true value as manifested in history and in the present. Marxism-Leninism unites the past, present, and Communist future, and testimonial works gradually reveal the story of the masses, the Cuban people's revolutionary drive in that inevitable historical flow toward communism. History, the present, the Communist future, ideological objectives, testimonial art: all are completely integrated, each implying the others, in total conceptual unity—revolutionary unity. The popular experience is presented in terms of dialectical materialistic theory, in an attempt to turn historical experience and present reality into an ideological consciousness that permits the struggle for the Communist future. Miguel Bamet writes of the documentary novel:

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The testimonial novel, by redeeming that popular pride, by asserting the values that had been spirited away, and by revealing the true social identity of the people, has contributed to the knowledge of the Cuban collective psyche and to its adaptation to the idea of what is authentic, true, essential. For the first time, history has been interpreted in terms of class struggle and not questioned superficially or described in conventional terms or as a basis for myths and schemes of the bourgeois past. This interpretation assumes the function of representing society by itself and shows how, in a perfect historical dialectic, the past has repercussions in the present and will be the platform from which to start on the future.11 He g o e s o n to say "With the use of d i a p h a n o u s , revealing, a c c e s s i b l e language, with a materialistic conception of history, both clearly located at the center of gravity of the c o m m o n m a n , and with the help of a specifically a p p l i c a b l e set of t o o l s , it is p o s s i b l e to c o n t r i b u t e to i d e o l o g i c a l enlightenment and a deepened sense of identity through genres such as the testimonial novel." 1 2 In the testimonial genre, the nation itself b e c o m e s the original, authentic speaker, the actual source of the work, but its voice will necessarily h a v e a Marxist-Leninist timbre. Che Guevara once wrote that the revolutionaries had not b e e n theoreticians but had acted as M a r x i s t s m e r e l y by r e s p o n d i n g correctly to a Marxist reality. Similarly, it would seem that the authors of testimonial works consider that their task is to provide a way for the voice of the people to be heard, and that their language m u s t necessarily be M a r x i s t — not in t e r m i n o l o g y , of course, but in content. O b v i o u s l y , h o w e v e r , that process is not so elemental or neutral as it is m a d e out, and M i g u e l B a m e t s a y s that " o u r w o r k m u s t a l w a y s i n v o l v e an e l e m e n t of i d e o l o g i c a l e n l i g h t e n m e n t and c o m m u n i c a t i o n , m u s t p r o v i d e a b o d y of social and cognoscible formulae." 1 3 This integration of art and reality through the Marxist prism, w h i c h is such a patent feature of the testimonial genre, is o n e of the most interesting indications of the totality of the revolution. Art is created in t e r m s of the revolution, and the reality described by w o r k s of the testimonial genre is significant only in terms of revolutionary categorization. Art and reality are the r e v o l u t i o n , w h i c h i n t e g r a t e s e v e r y t h i n g t h r o u g h a p r o c e s s of signification: All things receive their significance within the context of the revolution.

Notes 1. Juventud Rebelde (February 28, 1975), quoted in Raúl González de Cascorro, "El género testimonio en Cuba," Unión 4 (1978), p. 73. 2. ¡bid.

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3. Casaus, "El género testimonio y el cine en Cuba," in Fomet, Cine, literatura y sociedad, p. 91. 4. González de Cascorro, "El género testimonio," p. 81. 5. Ibid. 6. Casaus, "El género testimonio y el cine," p. 94. 7. In González de Cascorro, "El género testimonio," p. 86. 8. Miguel Barnet, "The Documentary Novel," Cuban Studies!Estudios cubanos 11, no. 1 (January 1981), pp. 19-32. antología, 9. Felix Pita Rodríguez, in El cuento en la Revolución: contemporáneos (Havana: UNEAC, 1975), pp. 9, 11. 10. Pita Rodríguez, in El cuento en ¡a Revolución, p. 343. 11. Miguel Barnet, "Testimonio y comunicación: una vía hacia la identidad," Unión 4 (1980), p. 138. 12. Ibid., p. 142. 13. Ibid.

12 The Revolutionary Armed Forces Among its many duties, the party's principal task in the FAR is the Marxist-Leninist education of the soldiers and noncommissioned and commissioned officers.

—José N. Causse Pérez, commander and head of the FAR Political Directorate The FAR constitute one of the most important channels for transmitting the revolutionary message to the thousands of young men who enlist annually and serve their three years, particularly as many such recruits do not attend school and are sometimes unemployed besides. This means that the aimed forces make it possible to integrate into a revolutionary framework a sizable section of the young population that would otherwise be beyond the effective range of the revolutionary message. Moreover, not only do the FAR expose these youths to the explicit revolutionary message (information, ideas, values, terminology), they also offer youth a concrete sense of identity and belonging to the revolution. Furthermore, they impart discipline, the quality so strongly emphasized in the PCC, a party with which recruits begin to have contact during their military service. Thus, the FAR have become an important complement of the regular educational institutions in the task of integrating Cuban youth into the revolutionary world. "Of the men discharged from the FAR," it was reported in 1975, "more than fifty thousand became UJC militants during their service, whereas most of them had neither worked nor studied when they entered the FAR." 1 From the beginning, the army took an active part in nonmilitary operations such as the sugar harvest and the literacy campaign. Moreover, during early efforts to reorganize the economy, it placed itself almost entirely (except for its finances) under the control of the INRA, in which members of the Rebel Army were prominent; 2 and from 1973, the Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo (Young Army of Labor) made important contributions on many levels of production. 3 At the end of the 1960s, the army's influence and involvement throughout the nation were so evident that even sympathizers with the revolution, such as K. S. Karol and René Dumont, criticized what they considered the militarization of wide, important sectors of society. 4 The FAR, under the ruling influence of Raúl Castro, took an active part in the 147

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internal ideological conflict that characterized the revolutionaries' first two years in power, and the organ of the FAR, Verde Olivo, which began publication in 1960, consistently took the most radical line, involving itself in labor, cultural, and ideological affairs. In this respect, Verde Olivo was the spearhead of the Ravelization that culminated with the official declaration of socialism, and, later on, it was also to be found at the center of the debate that raged around Heberto Padilla. It is not at all surprising, then, that a military nucleus that was conceived and saw itself as one of the most radical supporters of the revolutionary struggle should also have devoted special attention to the revolutionary formation of its own young recruits and soldiers. MINFAR was established on October 16, 1959, and ten days later the Milicias Nacionales Revolucionarias (Revolutionary National Militias) were formed. On July 31, 1960, it was announced that the FAR and the militias were undertaking the preparation of capacitadores cívicos (civic trainers) to give revolutionary talks in their militias, trade unions, and places of work. The objective was to create a true revolutionary consciousness among their compatriots and guide them, "through revolutionary thought, through the correct orientation that the principal leaders of the revolution indicate in each of the measures that they are gradually applying in this liberating process." 5 On November 12, 1963, the minister of the FAR, Commander Raúl Castro, announced a bill of law (No. 1129) establishing compulsory military service. In April 1964 the first contingent of conscripts was called up; however, it is interesting and significant that even before that, on December 2, 1963, the work of developing party nuclei within the framework of the FAR had already begun (at the time the party was still known as the Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista, or United Party of the Socialist Revolution). These party nuclei began to develop on the anniversary of the landing of the Granma and progressively put down roots in the various military units, following the route the Cuban rebels (Mambís) had taken in 1895. 6 The revolutionary leaders' great feeling for symbols led them, in effect, to graft the party into the army, fusing it with the Cuban nationalist tradition and the fidelista revolution. In each unit, soldiers and officers together elected their most exemplary comrades to nuclei from which the party, in turn, selected its members. 7 In Raúl Castro's view, the task of party members in the army was as follows: The party members and political instructors of the FAR will be the guardians of ideals and discipline, the guardians of revolutionary conduct and of the revolutionary's moral conduct. Commanding officers will have, in the party organizations, the solidest pillars for the accomplishment of the most difficult missions. With their contagious example, the

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Communists will help to strengthen discipline and improve readiness for combat and the political and cultural level of the troops.8

The "contagious example" was surely reinforced by the fact that, by 1975, 85 percent of the officers and permanent army personnel in the FAR were PCC or UJC militants. 9 And, of course, the commander in chief of the armed forces, Fidel Castro, is also the first secretary of the PCC, and the minister of the FAR, Raúl Castro, was also the second secretary of the party. 10 Various educational programs were gradually developed in the FAR. Some of them were devoted expressly and exclusively to political education, while others combined political and ideological instruction with military training or general education. Such programs were established either within the military units themselves or in separate, special institutions. As early as May 1961, only a month after the declaration of the socialist character of the revolution, the first course for political instructors was held at the Osvaldo Sánchez School. 11 At the beginning of 1965, the FAR Instituto Elemental del Marxismo-Leninismo (Elemental Institute of Marxism-Leninism) began to hold classes every Saturday afternoon from two to six o'clock, 12 and party leaders in the army regularly attend special short courses, seminars, and so on. 13 Ideological instruction is also included in the curriculum of specifically military educational institutions such as the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School—where camilitos (little Camilos) between the ages of eleven and seventeen combine secondary and preuniversity studies with a course of military instruction—advanced military courses, and secondary-level schools or courses. One indication of the ideological preparation provided in these educational frameworks is the fact that, in 1970, 90 percent of graduating officers belonged to the PCC or the UJC. 14 Ideological training is also provided in institutions of general education. One example is the Escuela de Formación de Maestros Fabricio Ojeda (Fabricio Ojeda Teacher-Training School), where youths receive a ten-month course before doing their compulsory military service, to prepare them to work as teachers in the armed forces. 15 Finally, it should be mentioned that many military academy graduates go on to take military specialization courses in countries of the socialist bloc, especially the USSR. 16 The basic content of the political-training programs carried out in the military units is exemplified by the 1972 program, which lasted six days. The topic of the first day of study was "Life in the FAR," dealing with those aspects of life in a military unit that the program organizers felt all soldiers should know: revolutionary military morale; combat and political training; care of equipment and arms; guard duty; internal regulations; the party and the UJC; and political activities in the FAR. The themes of the five remaining days of the program were "The Origin of the Earth," "Life and Society," "The Birth of Capitalism," "Development of Capitalism," and "Imperialism and Communism." 1 7

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The officers' classes in the 1972 program were divided into three levels, corresponding to the ranks of command, and were intended to give them a series of information on Marxist-Leninist theory and political and party work. On the first level, officers studied elements of political economy, economic, political, and military aspects of contemporary imperialism, and subjects relating to political and party work. Second-level classes taught the economics of capitalism, the manifestations of underdevelopment and development, and themes pertaining to political and party work. On the third level, the officers studied philosophy, especially dialectical materialism, aspccts of Leninist military theory, and articles by Lenin on agitation and propaganda.18 Besides study groups and day-long minicourses such as those mentioned, the PCC and UJC schools give classes that concentrate on the organization and internal life of the party and various subjects of a theoretical nature. As regards the organizational aspect, the military establishment of the 1970s included directors of propaganda, editors of the military press, heads of cinema, musical band directors, and political instructors. This gives us an idea of the different ways in which the revolutionary message was projected. Certain special aspects of the ideological effort should be noted. First among them is the July 26 Competition organized by the FAR, open to works from a wide range of artistic media: poetry, short stories, theater, the testimonial genre, music, history, and others. According to the official rules, works entered must "reflect in their content a stimulus to our people's consciousness and revolutionary activity." 19 As José Cantón Navarro, the 1970 winner of the essay prize, wrote in the June 13, 1971, issue of Verde Olivo, "by its very nature, the 'July 26 Competition' puts our young people on their guard against all signs of literary or artistic narcissism, of unproductive reclusión in 'ivory towers', of indifference or disrespect toward the heroism of our workers and peasants, students and professionals, militiamen and soldiers, men and women, children and elderly in their defense of the socialist fatherland and the construction of a new society." In the July 26 Competition of 1971, for example, the prize for the testimonial genre was won by José Quevedo Pérez's La batalla de Jigüe, which focuses on an episode in the guerrilla war of the recent revolution; the prize for historical research went to La revolución de los 30: sus dos últimos años (The revolution of the thirties: The last two years) by José N. Tabares de Real; the prize for short stories was won by Enrique Cirules' "Los perseguidos," which centers on the epic and problems of the revolution; and the poetry prize went to Limpio fuego el que yace, by Roberto Díaz. That sums up the general themes of the works entered in the MINFAR July 26 Competition. The winners of the competition occasionally receive a trip to the USSR as part of their prize. 20 In this respect, we might recall that during the first years of friendly collaboration with the Soviet Union, Soviet experts also

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lent close cooperation in all aspects of ideological education in the military forces, even training the teaching staff, and this cooperation was renewed in the 1970s. 21 Since then, Verde Olivo has published numerous articles on the armies of the socialist bloc: articles on history (for example, "The Great Victory of the USSR and Falsifiers of History" by the Soviet marshal, Z h u k o v ) ; 2 2 pedagogical articles such as "Convencer significa veneer" (Convince means vanquish) by Colonel Korotkov and Captain Gorrin, which deals with questions of military psychology and education; 23 and ideological articles recommended by teachers and students of the party schools of the FAR, such as "The Expropriation of the Fundamental Means of Production" by Ivan Oleinik. 24 In the historiographic work done in the framework of the FAR, the emphasis is, once again, on ideological objectives, and at the first meeting of FAR historians in 1972 the deputy minister and head of the Political Directorate defined the FAR's historiosophic orientations very plainly: The more profound the historical research and the more clearly it reveals the objective laws that, starting in the past and spanning the present, point toward the future, the more the historian's objectivity coincides with Marxist partisanship, and hence the demands of these laws coincide with the interests of the proletarian class. Partisanship must be a conscious methodological principle for the historian who dedicates his work to promoting the cause of socialism. 25

According to Commander Rigoberto Garcia, the encouragement of historiographic activity is based on the idea that the history of the Cuban people's struggle is "an inexhaustible source of inspiration" for the soldiers, whether for heroic deeds, the art of war, or political confrontation for the sake of principles. "Whoever studies the true history of Cuba in depth will never be able to cross the 'bridges' that imperialism builds." 26 However, though there is a preoccupation with history, the ideological work is always strictly concerned with the immediate events of the revolution, as are all the channels of expression previously analyzed. Thus, the political program for 1976 included the study of the basic documents relating to the process of institutionalization and economic and political development that had been approved that year by the First Congress of the party. 27 In that same year, the struggle in Africa, initially confined to Angola for the most part, began to spread throughout the continent, and the considerable space that Verde Olivo devoted to this subject patently reflects the need that was seen for intensive projection of the values of international solidarity that led Cuban soldiers to fight in Africa. 2 8 Similarly, as I mentioned in the chapter on poetry, the African roots of the Cuban people took on new importance. Naturally, when Cuba reoriented its policy toward the Soviet Union in 1970, the FAR became one of the main promoters and propagators of the

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new position: I have already discussed (Chapter 4) the way in which Verde Olivo began projecting this policy as far back as 1969. One reason is that the FAR were also among the first and principal architects of the reconciliation with the Soviets, whose arms and military advice had always been essential to Cuba's armed forces—even during the period of relatively cold relations. It is not surprising, then, that in November 1969 Marshal Grechko, the Soviet minister of defense, visited Cuba, returning a visit by Raúl Castro. 29 The effort to project the Cuban leadership's orientations or reorientations through the FAR was also visible following the economic policy revision in 1970, which was prompted by the economic and productive imbalances caused by the failure to achieve the production goal of 10 million tons of sugar cane. Thus it was that in February 1971, during the ninth course for FAR political instructors, Commander Antonio Pérez Herrero, deputy minister and head of the FAR Political Directorate, declared "the conflict is increasing between scientific theses and the postulates of Marxism-Leninism on the one hand and bourgeois social pseudoscience on the other," and went on to point out that the course was beginning in the midst of an intense struggle to make up for the reverses suffered and to advance in the construction of socialism. He then emphasized the work that was being done and the work that remained to be done, under the direction of the commander in chief, in order to overcome the obstacles and difficulties inherent in an underdeveloped country, stressing the necessity of "sweeping away all the defects that conspire against productivity, efficiency, and—in short— development." 30 In 1973, the Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo was created. The PCC's activity in the FAR greatly increased in 1964 with the establishment of UJC groups in the army. The process began in the Frontier Unit, in a way somewhat different from that used to establish the PCC. First there was a meeting with the unit's party nucleus to discuss the candidates proposed as Jóvenes Militares Ejemplares (Exemplary Young Soldiers), and then individual interviews were held, followed by Asambleas de Ejemplares (Assemblies of Exemplary Soldiers). The next step was a meeting for purposes of criticism and self-criticism; only after this did the commission make its decision. Finally, there was a meeting for analysis, reports, and the constitution of administrative bodies. The conditions for being elected an Exemplary Young Soldier were less rigorous than those for joining the party; but, like the PCC, the UJC is a selective rather than a mass organization, and a prospective member had to fulfil a series of requirements: "Must set an example in Combative, Political, and Cultural Preparedness. A vanguard worker. A good comrade. Disciplined. Carries out the orders of his superiors without dispute. Is moral and honorable." In contrast, the factors that automatically excluded a candidate were: "Having belonged to the army of batistiano tyranny . . . having belonged to any mujalista (Eusebio Mujal was a prerevolutionary labor leader) administrative body. . . . Having been a professional gambler, a drug

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addict, et cetera." Those who had not joined the party were also excluded, because it was felt that not enough time had passed to allow them to overcome the defects or make up for the errors that had prevented them from becoming party militants before the establishment of the UJC in the FAR. 3 1 Going by the motto of "Estudio, Trabajo, Fusil" (Study, Work, Rifle) the UJC has devoted itself to different kinds of activities. According to the reports of the UJC groups in the FAR, the first priority is ideological work. This includes evaluating the Marxist-Leninist political and ideological level of young people and then systematically teaching and publicizing the history of liberation struggles and the revolutionary process, spreading the internationalist spirit—with special regard for the USSR—and preaching the political line indicated by the party and Fidel Castro. 32 Within its own framework, the UJC raises the educational level of its members, placing special emphasis on the use of criticism and self-criticism and the performance of tasks delegated to members. The UJC also organizes and directs "Red Brigades" made up of young militants such as the camilitos, who join at the age of twelve or thirteen and constitute the UJC's prime source of militants in the military schools. At the age of fourteen they can already be elected as exemplary youths, and then the process of joining the UJC begins. In 1972 there were more than 3,600 brigades comprising more than 77,000 brigadistas,33 Just as university autonomy has no place in a country where the government is perceived as the true representative of popular interests and society in general, while apoliticism in the capitalist world is denounced as a neutralizing strategem employed by the governing class, so, on the military level, we find complete political identification and integration in the image of the military forces projected by the revolutionary state. As certain young officers at a military school put it: "What the capitalists postulate, to suit their convenience, is that the army is apolitical. . . . We do not. We are part of the people, and as a people in uniform we defend our class interests, the interests of the working people." 34

Notes 1. Castro, Balance, p. 174. 2. Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy, El socialismo en Cuba (Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1969), p. 74. 3. The Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo was formed on August 3, 1973, when various military units of production merged with the Columna Juvenil del Centenario (Youth Column of the Centenary), and has actively assisted in such major projects as the sugar harvest, construction, and the building of the Central Railway. 4. K. S. Karol, Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution

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(London: Jonathan Cape, 1970); René Dumont, Cuba ¿es socialista? (Caracas, 1971). 5. Verde Olivo (July 21, 1960). 6. Ibid. (October 17, 1965). 7. Ibid. (January 19, 1964). 8 . I b i d . (August 23, 1964). For a discussion of problems in the party's development in the army, sec Raúl Castro, "Problemas de funcionamiento del partido en las FAR," Cuba Socialista (March 1966). 9. Castro, Balance, p. 177. 10. For a discussion of military men who also hold civil and political posts, see the interesting article by M. L. Vellinga, "The Military and the Dynamics of the Cuban Revolutionary Process," Comparative Politics 8, no. 2 (January 1976). 11. Verde Olivo (December 21, 1961). 12. Ibid. (January 24, 1965). 13. See, for example, Ibid. (January 9, 1971). 14. Granma (August 23, 1970). 15. Verde Olivo (May 28, 1967). 16. Castro, "Informe Central al Segundo Congreso," printed in Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 40. 17. Verde Olivo (February 6, 1972). 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. (July 13, 1971). 20. Verde Olivo (April 22, 1973). 21. Verde Olivo (August 19, 1973). 22. Ibid. (July 4, 1971). 23. Ibid. (1980). 24. Ibid. 22, no. 77. 25. Ibid. (October 10, 1972). 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 5 (1976). 28. In this respect, see nearly all issues of Verde Olivo from vol. 5 (1976) onward. 29. Ibid. (November 16, 1969). 30. Ibid. (December 21, 1971). 31. Ibid. (August 30, 1964). 32. Ibid. (April 9, 1972). 33. Ibid. 34. Marta Harnecker, Cuba ¿dictadura o democracia?, pp. 236-237.

13 Mass Organizations and the Vanguard Party Mass organizations constitute an integral part of the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat and represent the principal links between the party and the different sectors of the population. . . . It is the task of the Communist party of Cuba to be the superior guiding force of society and the Cuban state. —Programmatic

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I have already said that the development of revolutionary social consciousness is influenced by both socioeconomic structures and the constant projection of the revolutionary message by every imaginable means. In this book, I have concentrated on means and content of the projection, but, nevertheless, the development of revolutionary consciousness stands in a dialectical relation to the process of integration in the organizational structures of the revolution and, through them, to the process of active involvement in the work of the revolution. Revolutionary consciousness permits—even implies— organizational integration and active involvement, but at the same time the reverse is true: Organization and involvement are instrumental in shaping consciousness. However, it should be kept in mind that, though the existence of revolutionary consciousness can facilitate the processes of organizational integration and active involvement, they do not necessarily imply the existence or development of revolutionary consciousness, since, theoretically, they may also be the product of other factors, such as social pressure, fear, and so on. We have seen that the monolithic projection of the revolutionary message is exclusive and absolute in the sense that the message permeates practically all channels of expression. In the same way, Cuban mass organizations are also monolithic and absolute in their exclusivity and their aspiration to integrate virtually the entire population. The Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) was founded in 1939, and it is the only one of the mass organizations now in existence that was created before the Revolution of 1959, though it soon came under the aegis of the newly installed revolutionary leadership. 1 The Federación de Mujeres

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Cubanas (FMC) was established on August 23, I960, the CDR on September 28, 1960, and the Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños (ANAP) on May 17, 1961. It is also interesting to note the creation, on October 26, 1959, of the Milicias Armadas Revolucionarias (Revolutionary Armed Militias), prompted, among other reasons, by the leaders' need to organize their base of popular support. The formation of militias neutralized the possible dangers of a regular army and provided a way of resocializing a considerable sector of the population and maintaining it in a state of mobilization. 2 Fidel Castro worked to settle his enormous popular support rapidly in the framework of mass organizations, which increased in number as the revolutionary struggle became more radical. A survey of the dates on which the various organizations were founded shows that they were all created during a period extending from the establishment of the militias during the conflict with Urrutia and Matos up to a month after the official proclamation of socialism. Castro was continually perfecting the instruments of confrontation, and vital among them were the mass organizations. These organizations offer their members the possibility of involvement, active participation, a sense of belonging to a concrete, palpable ambit of the revolution, and, as a result, vital identification with it. The revolutionary leadership has achieved absolute, monolithic unity through totally exclusive organizations that make possible the extensive, varied projection of the revolutionary message. These organizations also permit the control, mobilization, and manipulation of the population, besides serving as barometers for the feelings and opinions of the masses. The mass organizations are particularly important in light of the fact that they all existed before the establishment of the party, which in any case did not play a very consequential role until the 1970s; however, even after the supremacy of the PCC had been established, the mass organizations continued to exercise highly important functions, which Fidel Castro pointed out in his speech before the First Congress of the PCC in 1975: In the mass and social organizations, our revolution has a powerful and inexhaustible flow of political and revolutionary energy. They are the link that assures the closest bond between the party and the masses. They are the guarantee of the party's educational, guiding, and mobilizing i n f l u e n c e . T h e y constitute the great s c h o o l that d e v e l o p s the consciousness of the millions and millions of workers, men and women, old people, young people, and children. They are the forge in which the countless cadres and militants of the revolution are formed. They permit the leaders of the party to learn the feelings, problems, and opinions of each sector of the population, whose specific interests they defend and represent. 3

In Castro's 1980 report, he again emphasized the role of these organizations

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"in revolutionary vigilance; in the ideological combat in the streets and in the factories; in the fomenting of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism; . . . in the struggle to increase production, thrift, and efficiency, and to strengthen our socialist economy."4 Together with social organizations such as the UNEAC and the Unión de Periodistas de Cuba (Union of Journalists of Cuba); such student organizations as the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (University Student Federation) and the Federación de Estudiantes de la Enseñanza Media (Federation of Secondary-School Students); and the PCC, UJC, and the Unión de Pioneros de Cuba (UPC), a children's organization, the mass organizations constitute a network that incorporates the overwhelming majority of the population. As Castro has said, "in our country we are all organized." 5 What is more, a single person may belong to more than one organization; a woman, for example, might belong to the FMC, the CDR, the PCC, and the CTC. This organizational network not only covers the different sectors of social life, it also, to some extent, provides a generational continuity with the UPC, the UJC, and the PCC. The magnitude of the total organizational network is indicated by membership statistics. The CDR had seventy thousand members in April 1961, 6 two million in September 1964,7 the same in September 1967,8 3,222,147 in October 1970,9 and, in December 1975, 4,800,000 10 —no less than 80 percent of the population over age fourteen at the time. By December 1980, the CDR numbered 5,321,000 members.11 This represented an increase of nearly one hundred thousand members per year, made possible by the "natural" inflow of young people attaining the age of fourteen. As we can see, not only did the spiritual world of the revolution become "natural," but, to the new generations, even membership in the revolutionary organizations came to be "natural," necessary, and taken for granted. This might have given rise to a certain indifference, a neutralization of the ideological dimension, but, as I have already mentioned and will discuss in more detail, one of the objectives of the mass organizations—and, in fact, the social and student organizations as well—is precisely the intense, extensive projection of the revolutionary message. The FMC, for its part, has grown from 376,571 members in 1961 to 750,000 in 1967 and 1,132,000 in 1969.12 In 1975, it already numbered 2,127,000 women, or 80 percent of the female population over the age of fourteen. 13 By 1980, its membership totaled 2,420,000, the same percentage of the female population.14 The CTC counted 2,383,000 members in December 1980, representing 97 percent of the active work force (an increase over the 1975 figure of 92.4 percent),15 while the ANAP had 192,646 members in 1980.16 The CDR were established following Fidel Castro's return from the United Nations, when he announced the creation of a revolutionary system of collective vigilance to combat internal counterrevolution. 17 However, the

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committees' functions rapidly expanded, making them a fundamental channel for transmitting the revolutionary message to virtually the entire population. They contribute to ideological development, fostering the study of national struggle and working to strengthen the ties of understanding and friendship with the socialist countries; 18 they promote voluntary labor, which the leaders consider a decisive factor in developing revolutionary consciousness among the masses; 1 9 they instigate the efforts of the CDR-FAR front to further the "patriotic-military" training of young people and their relatives— by 1975 they had provided more than seventy-one thousand teachers for the masses besides supporting educational activity in many other ways; 20 they collaborate with Poder Popular in the electoral process and in organizing Asambleas de Rendición de Cuentas (Reporting Assemblies) of district delegates; and, in general, they circulate propaganda and information on the structure and operation of socialist democracy. 21 Founded in 1960, by 1980 the CDR had become, according to Fidel Castro, the most extensive mass organization, lending unrestricted support to the PCC and the effort to build a socialist society. 22 Originally conceived as instruments of repression to be used against the counterrevolutionary opposition, they rapidly became important tools in the task of integrating the individual into the spiritual and organizational world of the revolution. They thus provide a reliable illustration of the revolutionary leaders' conception that the establishment of their power lies in such successful integration. The FMC too, under the presidency of Vilma Espfn, Sierra veteran and wife of Raúl Castro, dedicated itself from the beginning to "an intense campaign of political and cultural improvement," to quote its president. 23 The organization developed slowly, holding sewing classes and first-aid courses, and eventually set up círculos infantiles (child-care centers) that later formed the Instituto de la Infancia (Children's Institute), devoted to the education of children under the age of six. During those first years, Vilma Espfn remarked that the goal of the círculos infantiles was, ultimately, to create the "new man" "who will yet have to face important tasks in the construction of socialism, of communism." 24 Without a doubt, the FMC has contributed enormously to the active participation of Cuban women in social and political activities by fighting deeply rooted prejudices that have not yet been completely overcome. This problem is a frequently recurring theme in Cuban films, theater, and literature, which try to help eliminate the prejudices by projecting a new set of values featuring egalitarian relations between the sexes. By 1980, the Movimiento de Madres Combatientes por la Educación (Movement of Mothers Fighting for Education) had been formed through the FMC, organizing 1,498,000 women to assist the schools. The same year brought reports of the participation of fifty-five thousand health brigade volunteers in a health program for mothers and children (Programa MatemoInfantil); of more than two hundred thousand housewives who had completed

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the sixth grade; and of the active participation of FMC members in the sugar, coffee, tobacco, and other harvests. 25 By 1980, 32 percent of the work force was female, and women represented 39.4 percent of workers who attended educational courses, 42.7 percent of the elected leaders of trade union sections, and 32.6 percent of other trade union officials. 2 6 On the specifically political level, however, it is recognized that women have made fewer advances. 2 7 Toward 1979, the percentage of female members in the PCC was only 17.5, and the proportion of female members in party cadres on the municipal, regional, and provincial levels was 13. 28 These ratios represent an increase over previous figures, but they have far to go to match the 32 percent that women represent in the work force, for example. Of the new PCC committee members elected in 1980, none of the sixteen permanent members of the Politburo of the party's Central Committee was a woman, and the only woman among the eleven deputy members of the Politburo was Vilma Espfn. The other 117 members of the Central Committee included only seventeen women, and of the seventy-six deputy members only eleven were women. 2 9 However, though the representation and integration of women on the specifically political level are lagging in comparison to women's advances in the economic, social, and cultural spheres, improvement of this situation may be expected, as Cuban leaders are aware of the problem. In fact, in 1980 it was reported that the percentage of women in the party had increased from 14.1 in 1975 to 19.1 in 1980, 30 and that in that same year 27 percent of the FMC cadres had graduated from basic or intermediate courses in the party schools or the FMC-operated Escuela Fe de Valle (Valley Faith School), whose student body also includes women from other Latin American countries, Africa, and Asia. 31 Moving to the trade unions, which make up the CTC and the peasant cooperatives and associations grouped in the ANAP, I may say that they, too, engage in all kinds of activities designed to further what is considered the common revolutionary effort. In this respect, I merely remark that both the CTC and the A N A P have replaced their traditional function of defending the immediate, specific interest of the workers or peasants with the object of defending the collective national interest as defined by the revolutionary leaders—the exponent of national and social interests. 32 In short, even in the definition of their objectives these organizations reflected a new set of values that postulated collectivism rather than individualism or the defense of sectorial interests. This change was also expressed through the medium of socialist emulation, which, as Hernández and Mesa Lago observe, "reinforces the system by rewarding and holding up as examples those workers who act according to the established criterion, and by exerting pressure on those workers who have not realized objectives and maintained expected attitudes, exposing them to public criticism." 33 I will let this conclude my remarks on mass organizations and broach the

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subject of the vanguard party. In the original Marxist-Leninist conception, the vanguard party must, in addition to its other functions, constitute the source of the revolutionary message. However, the lack of institutionalization that was a feature of the Cuban revolutionary process until 1970 gave a merely marginal role to the PCC, which had been established as such in 1965, a continuation of the ORI, which were founded in 1962 and were themselves succeeded by the Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista (United Party of the Socialist Revolution), formed in 1963. Actually, during the initial period of the revolution, the legislative, executive, and judicial functions were dominated by Fidel Castro and a small group of his faithful followers. The army was the only body that developed and professionalized, becoming at the same time a source of top cadres for the different national institutions. In 1965, for example, two-thirds of the members of the PCC Central Committee had come from the ranks of the army. 34 The PCC's chances of constituting a vanguard leadership that would set revolutionary policy for the other institutions, on the Leninist model, were initially practically nil. William M. LeoGrande maintains that the weakness of the PCC in those years was due fundamentally to its very reduced dimensions, the party machine's limited popular range, the poor quality of party cadres owning to their meager education, and the serious lack of organization and internal coordination between the different administrative bodies of the party. 35 LeoGrande correctly points out that the party machine's range of influence in society and, with this, its capacity to provide political orientation and to mobilize the masses, depend on its size. By 1966, however, it would appear that less than half of the Cuban working class worked in places where the PCC was represented, and even where there were party nuclei, only 3.8 percent of the work force belonged to them. 36 Obviously, these are decisive reasons for the PCC's early negligible role, but ultimately they are only the reflection, or the other side of the coin, of the dominance of the small group of leaders headed by Fidel Castro, and of the road he generally chose in open defiance of the Soviet norms of MarxistLeninist orthodoxy. And, in fact, the change in the PCC's status came only in 1970, parallel to Castro's change of general revolutionary strategy. Marta Harnecker, a Chilean writer living in Cuba, states that the first years of the revolution were characterized by deep, radical, and accelerated changes, and therefore "there was a need for a flexible, operative state machine that would exercise a dictatorship on behalf of the working people against the aggressions of internal counterrevolution and imperialism. By concentrating in its hands the legislative, executive, and administrative functions, it could make the rapid decisions that the circumstances warranted." 37 What other researchers see as the transition from Fidel Castro's charismatic caudillismo to institutionalization, prompted by the failures of 1970, 3 8 Harnecker sees as a transition from bureaucratic centralism to democratic centralism. 39

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However, in 1970, a general change began to take place. The PCC was given both the status of a governing, policy-setting vanguard and the means to develop structurally and organizationally, and its image changed radically. But this change was not at all to the detriment of the preeminent positions of Fidel or Raul Castro, or others of their immediate retinue. 40 On the contrary, the process of institutionalization—which included the creation of Poder Popular—was directed by Castro and ultimately served to confer greater efficacy and stability on the regime, which continued to be ruled by the leaders (Fidel and Raul) of the most important institutions: Poder Popular, the PCC, and the army. Nevertheless, the PCC, always under Fidel Castro's leadership, became the primary source of the revolutionary message, and the governing, policysetting vanguard of the other revolutionary institutions and organizations. Furthermore, it legitimized its new status in the revolutionary hierarchy by holding its first congress in 1975, in the midst of a wide survey of popular opinion. 41 Nothing, perhaps, illustrates the change in the PCC's image better than these words spoken by Fidel Castro while making his report to the First Congress of the PCC in 1975: The party sums up everything. In it are synthesized the dreams of all revolutionaries throughout our history; in it, the ideas, principles, and force of the revolution take concrete form; in it, our individuaiisms disappear and we learn to think in collective terms. It is our educator, our teacher, our guide, and our vigilant conscience when we ourselves are incapable of seeing our errors, our defects, and our limitations; in it, we all gather, and between us all we make each one of us into a Spartan soldier for the most just of causes, and all of us together into an invincible giant; in it, the ideas, the experiences, the legacy of the martyrs, the continuity of the work, the interest of the people, the future of the country, and the indestructible ties with the proletarian builders of a new world in every comer of the earth are guaranteed. 42

What can one add or comment? The PCC itself notes in its programmatic platform that its basic function in the revolution is to be a "superior guiding force of society and the Cuban state," responsible for "organizing and orienting the common efforts to build socialism and advance toward communism." 43 Numerically, the party grew significantly, and the 1965 total of fewer than fifty thousand militants and candidates for membership increased to rather more than one hundred thousand in 1970, and to 202,807 in 1975. 44 By July 1980, this figure had almost doubled, bringing the total to 439,143. 45 In 1980 there were also 26,500 party nuclei scattered throughout the country. 46 However, though the PC has expanded its political machine enormously, and with it its national influence, it cannot be considered merely as a

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homogeneous vanguard organization and source of the revolutionary message. The immense differences in the cultural levels of the great majority of party militants and the real leaders make it necessary to adjust our overall view and look upon the party not only as the source of the revolutionary message, but also as a medium for transmitting that message to the vanguard Communists themselves in order to develop their revolutionary consciousness. Let us look at a few relevant official statistics: In 1975, 20 percent of all party militants and candidates for membership had not attended school up to the sixth grade, 42 percent had not gone beyond the sixth grade, 25 percent had reached the worker secondary level, 9 percent had attended high school, and only 4 percent were university graduates.47 Most member of the cadres had only a sixth- or seventh-grade education.48 Fidel Castro has recognized that it is easy to understand the strong limitations on the ability of that 20 percent of comrades with less than a sixth-grade education, or the 42 percent who have not gone beyond that level, however great their will and exemplariness, to analyze and interpret party documents, master theoretical questions, understand, apply, and publicize the revolution's economic policy, acquire indispensable knowledge of our domestic and foreign policy lines, and even improve their skills in their own work. 49

And this remark applied to 62 percent of the vanguard party members. It is not surprising that the leaders should have tried to cope with this problematic situation by creating an extensive network of educational and ideological institutions, intended for candidates for party membership, militants, and cadres of the PCC. By 1975, thirty-seven PCC schools were already in operation, with a total of 6,144 students, in addition to the national and provincial schools of the UJC, the CTC, the FMC, the CDR, and the ANAP, which together taught a total of 1,773 students. October 1975 saw the opening of centros de superación política e ideológica (political-ideological education centers) on basic, intermediate, and advanced levels. Moreover, many party cadres and officials went to study in the USSR, East Germany, and Bulgaria, and some of the cadres were trained to teach in the party schools.50 The PCC also strove to have Marxism-Leninism and the party's programmatic platform taught on the various levels of the national education system. By 1980 the situation had improved somewhat. Seventy-five percent of the party cadres' members had a high school education, as compared to 16 percent in 1975. A total of 80.7 percent of the party militants and candidates for membership had completed the eighth grade or higher. 51 It is rather surprising that this progress should have occurred during a period (19751980) in which party membership doubled. This may partially be explained by the fact that 35.5 percent of those who joined the PCC during those five years were previously UJC militants.52 Another reason might very possibly

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be the improvement in general education on the national level that took place during that period. Between 1975 and 1980, 24,512 people graduated from the party schools, and 519 of them received bachelor's degrees in the social sciences. During that same five-year period, 81,324 party militants and candidates for membership attended courses in Marxism-Leninism, 16,034 completed the basic course of study in the party's provincial schools, and 65,290 graduated from the centros de superación política e ideológica, which have become the fundamental institutions for the study of Marxist-Leninist theory. These centers employ more than two thousand teachers and directors, the majority of whom are party activists. 53 As we have seen, then, the party constitutes both the source of the revolutionary message and an organizational medium for its diffusion among the vanguardistas themselves.

Notes 1.For studies on the CTC during that period of transition and confrontation, see Ralph Lee Woodward, "Urban Labor and Communism: Cuba," Caribbean Studies (October 1963), pp. 17-50; Morray, The Second Revolution, pp. 141ff; and Roberto E. Hernández and Carmelo Mesa Lago, "Labor Organization and Wages," in Mesa Lago, Revolutionary Change in Cuba, pp. 209-249. For documents from the period relating to the fidelistaCommunist triumph in the CTC, see the reports, speeches, interventions, and resolutions of the Eleventh National Congress of the CTC in Obra Revolucionaria 48 (1961). 2. Vellinga, "Military and Dynamics," p. 247. 3. Castro, Balance, p. 155. 4. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 48. 5. Castro, Hay que pensar en el futuro, p. 27. 6. Revolución (September 27, 1965), p. 2. 7. Ibid. (September 29, 1964), p. 2. 8. Verde Olivo (September 24, 1967), p. 8. 9. Ibid. (October 4, 1970), p. 5. 10. Castro, Balance, p. 164. 11. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 83. 12. Moreno, "From Traditional to Modern Values," p. 480. 13. Castro, Balance, p. 163. 14. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 52. 15. Ibid., p. 48. 16. Ibid., p. 49. 17. Revolución (September 29, 1960). 18. Castro, Balance, p. 165. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid.

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21. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 53. 22. Ibid., p. 52. 23. Verde Olivo (September 3, 1972), p. 4. 24. Ibid. p. 5. 25. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 52. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. William M. LeoGrande, "The Communist Party of Cuba Since the First Congress: Part 2," Journal of Latin American Studies 12, pt. 2 (1980), p. 404. 29. These calculations are based on data in Bohemia (December 26, 1980). 30. Ibid., p. 55. 31. Ibid., p. 52. 32. Hernández and Mesa Lago, "Labor Organization and Wages," p. 242. 33. Ibid., p. 243. 34. Mesa Lago, Dialéctica, p. 111. 35. LeoGrande, "Communist Party of Cuba," p. 399. 36. Ibid., p. 400. 37. Hamecker, Cuba ¿dictadura o democracia? p. 35. 38. This is Carmelo Mesa Lago's analysis in Dialéctica, shared by Edward González, Cuba Under Castro: The Limits of Charisma (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). 39. Hamecker, Cuba ¿dictadura o democracia? p. 38. 40. González, too, says, in an article written after Cuba Under Castro was published, that the Castro brothers have maintained their positions in the new political system even though initially it seemed that the process of institutionalization might have hurt their political ascendancy. González, "Castro and Cuba's New Orthodoxy," Problems of Communism 25 (JanuaryFebruary 1976), pp. 1-19. 41. See in this respect Verde Olivo 52 (December 28, 1975), and 1 (January 1976), both devoted to the congress. 42. Castro, Balance, p. 195. 43. PCC, Plataforma programática del Partido Comunista de Cuba (Havana: PCC, 1978), p. 109. 44. Castro, Balance, pp. 196-197. 45. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 55. 4 6 . Ibid. 47. Castro, Balance, p. 201. 4 8 . Ibid. 4 9 . Ibid., p. 202. 50. Ibid., p. 200. 51. Bohemia (December 26, 1980), p. 57. 52. Ibid., p. 55. 53. Ibid., p. 57.

III Conclusions

14 Final Reflections The attempt to shape a revolutionary social consciousness implies both creating new conceptual, axiological, emotional, and lexical worlds and establishing certain basic principles and equivalences—as, for example, the high degree of equivalence assigned to nationalism—revolution—MarxismLeninism—Fidel in Cuba. All these elements together must necessarily condition any possible reasoning process. Such an attempt has been realized in Cuba through socioeconomic restructuring (which obviously has great implications for all spheres) and the explicit and direct efforts of the revolutionary leaders. These leaders consider the existence of a popular revolutionary consciousness to be the keystone of political power, and therefore view the development of such a consciousness as an essential goal. The postulated necessity of developing social consciousness, while restructuring the economic system, created a further necessity: the development of appropriate operating methods and techniques. We are in the realm of manipulation—a manipulation may be considered necessary to attain laudable objectives, but is manipulation nonetheless. It can be seen in the uniformity and exclusivity of the revolutionary messages transmitted through the various channels of expression in an attempt to encompass all spheres of existence—and even more clearly in the controlled synergy of the projection of essential changes in revolutionary strategy through those channels (as, notably, in 1961, 1965, 1970, and perhaps again more recently in the changes taking place all over the Communist world). We have described the process of "Ravelization" in the creation of the new consciousness: the progressive establishment of a certain emotional atmosphere, a controlled terminological change, a hierarchic ascension in the source of the revolutionary message, the establishment of lexical and conceptual equivalences, the legitimization of exclusive connotations, and so forth. We also showed that it is impossible simply to eliminate the existing consciousness and replace it with a new one, and we described the technique used to graft Marxism-Leninism onto Cuban antiimperialist nationalism. The monopoly of the means for disseminating information and mass programming of specific connotations are essential features of the projection of a monolithic message that finds its necessary conceptual counterpart in the idea of "the masses"—a central and omnipresent theme in the revolutionary 167

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message. Obviously, all this represents an effort to lead the entire population to perform a uniform decodification of information based on automatic connotations. The revolution gives its own meaning to everything, and everything takes its meaning from the revolution. For that reason there is no room for protest songs, university autonomy, and so on. In an article published in 1982, John Spicer Nichols distinguished different degrees of divergence among various Cuban publications aimed at different sectors of the population. But such divergence—really different degrees of emphasis, where it exists, always pertains to what we have termed "technical alternatives" within the system. It never presents a qualitative alternative to the system itself. Even Nichols says, "This is not to imply that any Cuban publications criticize or oppose stated national goals." 1 The monolithic character of the revolutionary message does not derive solely from its exclusivity, but is also essentially related to its content. The epic-Manichean conceptualization of human existence implies absolute confrontation as well as internal homogenization and the stigmatization of the enemy by means of stereotypes. Furthermore, the scientific character attributed to the Marxist-Leninist messages to the people automatically invalidates any alternative to them, leaving only the possibility of technical alternatives. Thus, it is permissible to debate the means best suited to perfecting the established system, but not the objectives of that system. This is what has led us to point out a paradoxical conjunction of utopianism and pragmatism, which, in the context of this study, means the development of maximum effectiveness in the diffusion of the monolithic revolutionary message. The scientific character assigned to Marxism-Leninism also contributes greatly to the revolutionary mystique, permitting the projection of the axiological and emotional world of the revolution against the backdrop of a "scientific providence," which imposes absolute faith in the development of that revolutionary world. Since the revolution is identified with the revolutionary state, the projection of a monolithic revolutionary message reflects the intent to politicize completely all dimensions of existence. Hence the projection of the message is related to revolutionary organizations and to mobilization efforts, each deriving support from the others. Not only must the development of the desired revolutionary consciousness necessarily facilitate organizational integration and revolutionary mobilization, but it is indispensable if these are to be founded on something other than indifference, inertia, or fear. It will be recalled that the epic-Manichean view of existence also implies the creation of a world of stereotypes aimed essentially at the pragmatic level of human action. Participation in revolutionary organizations or mass mobilizations contributes to the development and reinforcement of revolutionary consciousness on both the emotional (identification with the revolutionary world, sense of belonging to it) and intellectual levels. But here again, we

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have the unification of the people around the same exclusive principle or message, and that is virtually the raison d'être of the mass organizations and mobilizations. The crucial importance the leadership assigned to the development of a popular social consciousness necessitated the creation of a general intellectual capacity that would allow the people to absorb the monolithic revolutionary message through all possible means—in other words, there was a need for a universal campaign to promote "literacy" in all the media (books and other printed matter, films, theater, et cetera). This campaign has resulted in enormous advances in the general cultural level, and the integration into the cultural world of social groups which hitherto had been ignored. Obviously, the intent was to absorb the masses into the revolutionary culture, but the media, repeatedly transmitting revolutionary terminology and concepts, also developed critical and analytical skills in the public (see the chapter on film, for example)—though this criticism and analysis would of course be based on a series of fundamental revolutionary principles and equivalences that condition reasoning processes. This revolutionary cultural democratization reflects the aspiration to what we will call "monolithic democracy." This term is not employed by the Cuban leadership, but we consider it apt since the revolutionary leaders do make express reference to both the democracy of the revolution and the monolithic character of the revolutionary ideology and political system. The concept of monolithic democracy reflects the ambition to develop a policy not only for the masses, but also o / t h e masses and by the masses. The aim is indeed to emphasize the importance of the involvement of the masses—but masses who are uniform in their revolutionary outlook. In this context, the word "democracy" is quantitative only; the desired monolithic uniformity of the masses automatically eliminates any essential qualitative differences, leaving the possibility of only technical divergence. We are speaking, of course, of the projected image of monolithic democracy, but the process of institutionalization has in fact been accompanied by a parallel process of political stratification under a few leaders, most of whom have been in power ever since the revolution began. The process of institutionalization that began in the 1970s introduced the danger of routinization, but at the same time it would seem to have provided the tools to continue more effectively the effort to develop revolutionary consciousness. Accordingly, it was also in the 1970s that new literary and artistic forms began to be developed as large-scale transmission of the revolutionary message to the masses. In 1970, for example. Casa de las Américas included the literary category of "Testimony" in its annual competition; in 1971 the Ministry of the Interior announced the first annual contest for detective fiction; in 1972 the Unión Juvenil Comunista definitively established the Movimiento de la Nueva Trova; in the period 1975-1980, the number of higher-education graduates doubled, and so on. We

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have here a constant trend, which the process of institutionalization has not weakened, but on the contrary, reinforced. There have been other reasons for the increased efforts to develop revolutionary consciousness. One is the danger of indifference on the part of new generations, for whom the revolution is a natural fact of life. Another is the clear awareness, especially since the sensational events of 1980, that efforts to resolve internal ideological conflict are far from achieving undisputed success (even though ideological divergence is denied public expression). The tens of thousands of Cubans who have emigrated make it clear that the ideological struggle must intensify constantly—especially given the turbulence of the Caribbean in general, which is overshadowed by the possibility of U.S. aggression. Each of the different media projects the monolithic revolutionary message in its own characteristic way, and some lend themselves to this more easily than others. For example, the entire raison d'etre of both the testimonial and the detective novel is the transmission of the revolutionary message; they were created for that specific purpose, and they achieve it. In contrast, it would appear that the particular characteristic of cinema was initially its development of a capacity for critical analysis. This was also apparent in film-related television programs, although there has been an evolution toward the documentary form, a cinematographic variation of the testimonial genre. In poetry there has been, to some extent, an inverse evolution: the strong revolutionary message has been diversified by many other, more traditional themes, and the colloquial style that initially characterized revolutionary poetry is now only one of a variety of styles. In popular music, however, despite the Nueva Trova, the revolutionary message has from the beginning been far from dominating the various expressions of a traditional popular art, which is also strongly influenced by Western music. Recent developments—the move toward greater democracy in the political sphere (though always a move orchestrated from above) and toward greater economic freedom in the Soviet Union, the disintegration of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and the withdrawal of Cuban troops form Angola in the context of the new Soviet global strategy—have clearly established a new situation the Cuban leadership will have to address. We may be witnessing a new orientation, but, as in times past, the enormous importance of moral incentives is prominent. Once again we will be seeing a monolithic change, synchronized from above, in all channels of transmission to the people. Beyond past and future volte-faces in the content of the revolutionary message, one factor has remained constant for thirty years: the revolutionary consciousness. On June 14,1989, Raul Castro noted that the changes in the USSR and other Communist bloc countries have given the United States the impression of "a weak socialist society, disunited and in a state of reversion," a notion that increases U.S. aggressiveness against Cuba. And it is precisely in this context that the ideological struggle

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takes on r e n e w e d importance: "For the enemy to receive a forceful response in the field of ideas as well as o n the battlefield . . . w e m u s t above all b e strong, solid, and invulnerable in the moral and ideological order." 2 Fidel himself said recently that opposite the imperialistic and capitalistic euphoria o v e r the self-criticism being voiced in various socialist countries s t a n d s a C u b a with "total c o n f i d e n c e " in M a r x i s m - L e n i n i s m a n d "revolutionary intransigence," "steadfastness in revolutionary thought." T h e n e w s i t u a t i o n f u r t h e r s h a r p e n s the p r e o c c u p a t i o n w i t h the p o p u l a r r e v o l u t i o n a r y c o n s c i o u s n e s s , and Fidel declares that "there c a n be n o socialism, n o r can a communist society develop, without education, without certain ideas b e c o m i n g irrevocable ethical principles." And, he emphasizes, "We cannot speak of building socialism if we do not give it all the weight of the moral factor and consciousness." 3 Thus, in today's changing c i r c u m s t a n c e s , the existence of a p o p u l a r revolutionary consciousness continues to be for the revolutionary leadership (and p e r h a p s not f o r it alone) o n e of the k e y s to the s u c c e s s of the revolutionary process, to its failure, or to its decline—and, we would add, to Cuba's ability to c o n f r o n t not only the United States but also Soviet glasnost and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. M a n y of the phenomena we have examined in this book are not limited to the C u b a n Revolution, or even to the socialist world. For example, one might think that the M a n i c h e a n outlook, with its inherent invalidation, at the conscious level, of qualitative alternatives, is present in certain Western countries' stigmatization of communists and the rejection of c o m m u n i s m and socialism as qualitative alternatives to the existing system. H o w e v e r , this and other relevant questions raise intellectual issues that are beyond the scope of this study, and so must be reserved for a later work.

Notes 1.John Spicer Nichols, "The Mesa Media: Their Functions in Social Conflict" in Cuba, Internal and International Affairs, ed. Jorge Domingues (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1982). 2. Granma, June 25, 1989. 3. Granma, January 29, 1989.

Abbreviations ANAP CDR CTC EIR FAR FMC ICAIC I CRT INTT INRA M26 MINFAR MLNINT OAS ORI PCC PSP UJC UNEAC UNESCO UPC

Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños (National Association of Small Farmers) Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (Confederation of Cuban Workers) Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria (Schools of Revolutionary Instruction) Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (Revolutionary Armed Forces) Federación de Mujeres Cubanas (Federation of Cuban Women) Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográfica (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry) Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (Cuban Institute of Radio and Television) Instituto Nacional de la Industrie Juristice Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (National Institute of Agrarian Reform) Movimiento 26 de julio (July 26 Movement) Ministerio de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (Ministry of the Revolutionary Aimed Forces) Ministerio de Asuntos Internos (Ministry of Internal Affairs) Organization of American States Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (Integrated Revolutionary Organizations) Partido Comunista de Cuba (Cuban Communist party) Partido Socialista Popular (People's Socialist party) Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas (Union of Young Communists) Unión Nacional de Escritores e Artistas de Cuba (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba) United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization Unión de Pioneros de Cuba (Union of Pioneers of Cuba)

173

References Cuban Newspapers

and

Bohemia El Caimán Barbudo Casa de las Américas Cine Cubano Cuba Internacional Cuba Socialista Granma

Books and

Periodicals Granma Semanal Obra Revolucionaria Prensa Libre Revolución Unión Universidad de La Habana Verde Olivo

Articles

Alfonsa, María Rosa. "Contraofensiva cubana de la novela policiaca." Unión 206 (1977). Arias, Salvador. "Literatura cubana." Casa de las Américas 113 (March-April 1979). Barkin, David, and Nita Manitzas. Cuba: The Logic of the Revolution. Andover, MA: Werner Modular Publications, 1973. Bamet, Miguel. "Testimonio y comunicación: una via hacia la identidad." Unión 4 (1980). . "The Documentary Novel." Cuban Studies! Estudios Cubanos 11, no. 1 (January 1981). Benedetti, Mario et al. Literatura y arte nuevo en Cuba. Barcelona: Editorial LAIA, 1971. Bentancourt, Luis Adrián. El extraño caso de una mujer desnuda. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982. Bianchi Ross, Ciro, "Encuesta sobre la literatura policiaca." Unión 2 0 6 (1977). Boudet, Rosa Ileana. "Nuevo teatro cubano." Unión 1 (1978). Burton, Julianne. "Revolutionary Cuban Cinema: Introduction." Jump Cut 19 (1979). Cárdenas Acuña, Ignacio. Preludio para un asesinato. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982. Cardí, Juan Ángel. Viernes en plural. Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982. Carnoy, Martin, and Jorge Werthein. Cuba, cambio económico y reforma educativa: 1955-1978. México City: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1980. 175

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Index

Adolescents: military training, 8 0 - 8 1 Africa, 151; Cuban roots, 111, 119. See also Angola; Ethiopia Agosti, Hector P., 141 Agrarian reform, 6, 3 0 - 3 1 Agrarian Reform Law, 67 Agriculture, 90. See also Sugar cane Aguilar, Luis, 9 Aguirre, Sergio: Lecciones de historia de Cuba, 11 Aid, 19 Alberto, Eliseo, 117 Alemán, Mario Rodriguez, 24 Alfonso, María Rosa, 106 Alonso, Pacho, 126 Alvarez, Santiago, 96 Alvarez V., Carlos: music by, 125-126 Amanecer en Girón (Pino), 140 Amante y peñol (Sanchez), 135 ANAP. See Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños Andres, Cira, 83 Angola: involvement in, 19, 32, 48, 82, 119, 134, 151, 170 Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution competition, 101, 103 Antiimperialism, 47, 53; Marti's, 5 5 - 5 6 Apoliticism, 7 5 - 7 6 Aquí se habla de combatientes y bandidos (González de Cascorro), 140 Arms race, 46 Army, 2, 8, 30, 57, 151. See also Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Arrufat, Anton: Los siete contra Tebas, 22 Art, 22, 88; contests, 150-151; revolutionary creativity, 95—96; as struggle, 3 1 - 3 2 Art Theater of Havana. See Teatro de Arte

Asambleas de Rendición de Cuentas, 158 Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños (ANAP), 156, 157, 159 Assemblies of Exemplary Soldiers. See Asambleas de Ejemplares Augusto César Sandino Contingent of Primary School Teachers, 82 Aula verde (Rojas), 142 Barnet, Miguel, 115: Biografía de un cimarrón, 140, 141; Canción de Rachel, 141; documentary novels, 143-144 "Barcos, Los" (Jamis), 118 Batalla de Jigüe, La (Quevedo Pérez), 140, 150 Batista, Fulgencio, 41 Bay of Pigs invasion, 12, 13 Bendetti, Mario, 60, 132 Bentancourt, Luis Adrián: ¿Porqué Carlos?, 142 Biografía de un cimarrón (Bamet), 140, 141 Bohemia (publication), 2 1 - 2 2 , 47, 48, 142 Bolivia, 93 Boudet, Rosa Ileana, 132, 134 Brigada Literaria Hermanos Saiz, 117 Brigadas Conrado Benitez, 70 Brigadas Obreras Patria o Muerte, 70 "Búsqueda, La" (novel), 107 Cabrera Infante, Guillermo: Tres Tristes Tigres, 22 Cabrera Infante, Saba, 93 Cada fábrica una escuela, 97 Caimán Barbudo, El, 115, 116 Camilo Cienfuegos Military School, 149 "Campesina" (Milanes), 126 Canada, 49 Canción de Rachel (Bamet), 141 "Canción militante a tres tiempos"

de la Habana Asamblea de ejemplares, 133 Asambleas de Ejemplares, 152

181

182

Index

(Chacón), 141 "Canción para Angela Davis" (Milanes), 127 Cantón Navarro, José, 150 Canzani, Ariel: "Materialismo historico y dialéctico," 118; "Poema marxista," 118 Capitalism, 16 Cárdenas Acuña, Ignacio: detective genre, 102-103; Enigma para un domingo, 101 Carnet de viaje (documentary), 96 Casa de las Américas, 119, 126, 139, 169 "Casa sitiada" (Leante), 141 Casaus, Victor, 115, 118, 141; "Girón en la memoria," 139, 140, 142; "Sobre el daño que hacen las hostias," 116 Castro, Fidel, 5, 9, 21, 24(n3), 50(n3), 158, 160, 161, 162, 164(n40), 170171; agrarian reform, 30—31; on education, 15, 81; leadership, 58-59; literacy campaign, 68, 71; MarxismLeninism, 14, 54; mass organizations, 156-157; revolutionary ideology, 6, 16, 17-18, 25(n20), 33-34, 35, 36, 60, 61, 62, 63-64(nl8), 70; socialism, 11-12, 13, 19; Soviet Union, 24, 118119; on traitors, 41-42 Castro, Raúl, 158, 161, 164(n40), 170, 182; FAR, 147-149; revolutionary ideology, 16-17 CDR. See Comités de Defensa de la Revolución Central de Trabajadores de Cuba Revolucionaria, 70 Centros de superación política e ideólogica, 162 Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de, 32 Chacón, Julio A.: "Canción militante a tres tiempos," 141 Chartismo, 21 Che Guevara Internationalist Detachment, 82 Chibás, Eduardo, 5 Child-care centers, 78 Children's Institute. See Instituto de la Infancia China. See People's Republic of China "China la hermosa" (Pedroso), 118 CIA. See United States Central Intelligence Agency Cienfuegos, Camilo, 32, 54 Cine Cubano, 91, 96; activity, 31-32; on

films, 87-88, 89 Cinema. See Film Cinemobiles, 89-90 Cirules, Enrique: "Los perseguidos," 141, 150 Codigo Familiar, 94 Colectivo Teatral Granma, 134 Colegio Nacionál de Maestros, 67 Colina, Enrique, 90-91 Collectivism, 62 Colmillo de Jabalí (Robinson), 103 Colonization: cultural, 90 Comision Nacional de Alfabetización y Educación Fundamental, 67, 68 Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR), 30, 156, 162; in detective novels, 104-105; role, 157-158 Commissioner's Commission to a Judge, A (film), 93 Communism, 1, 10, 18, 19, 49, 171 Communist party, 2, 20, 21, 25(nl6), 53, 57; Latin American, 40, 47 Communist Youth Union. See Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas Como los hombres se acercaron. De (Ochoa), 140 Como San Cleto le vendió a San Cielo, De (play), 133 Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), 155, 157, 159, 162 Confederation of Revolutionary Cuban Workers. See Central de Trabajadores de Cuba Revolucionaria Confrontation, 29-30, 39; superpowers, 44-45; with United States, 7, 10, 12, 171 Congreso de Alfabetización, 68 Congreso de la juventud (documentary), 97 Conrado Benitez Brigades. See Brigadas Conrado Benitez Consejo Nacional de Cultura, 131 Constitution of 1940, 6, 64(nl8) Cooperativas agropecuarias (documentary), 96-97 Coraje del pueblo. El (film), 93 Cordina, Norberto, 117 Corrieri, Sergio, 133 Costales, Adolfo, 125 Counterpropaganda, 17 Counterrevolutionaries, 60, 106; combatting, 157-158; as evil, 40-41 Crime, 104

Index

Crimen en Santiago (novel), 105 Cristóbal Pérez, Armando, 102: La ronda de los rubíes, 106 CTC. See Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba Cuarto círculo. El (novel), 105 Cuba Internacional (publication), 127, 128 Cubanacan School of Plastic Arts. See Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Cubanacán Cuban Steel Group. See Grupo Cubano de Acero Cuento en la Revolución, El, 141 Culture, 90; artistic, 88-89; in cinema, 91-92 Czechoslovakia, 92, 93 Dance bands, 128 Death, 34 Debray, Régis, 21 Declaration of the First Congress of Education and Culture, 81; political ideology, 82-83 Departamento de Divulgación Cinematográfica, 89 Department of Cinematographic Diffusion. See Departamento de Divulgación Cinematográfica Diario de la Marina, 9, 20 Diario Nacional (newspaper), 9 Diario que a diario, El (Guillén), 112 "Días de Etiopía" (Herrera Ysla), 119 Diaz, Roberto, 116; Limpio fuego el que yace, 150 Dictatorship, 59 Diego, Eliseo, 114 Dirección Nacional de las Milicias, 8 Dirección Política, 101 Directorio Revolucionario, 35(nl6) Directorio Revolucionario 13 de mayo, 13, 74 Directors, 93 Dissidents, 42-43 Documentaries: production of, 94-95, 9697 Dumont, René, 147 Economy, 20, 147 Education, 17, 80, 81, 158; in FAR, 147, 149; higher, 169-170; ideological, 8283, 150-151; Marxist-Leninist, 11, 15, 75, 149, 150, 162, 163; and politics, 79-83; revolutionary, 71-74, 76-77; total, 77-78. See also Reeducation

183

Egalitarianism, 61, 62 EIR. See Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo, 147, 152, 153(n3) Elemental Institute of Marxism-Leninism. See Instituto Elemental del MarxismoLeninismo Elitism, 88-89 El Salvador, 35 Emigrants, 42 Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales, 128 Enigma para un domingo (Cárdenas Acuña), 101 Escalante, Anibal, 59 Escambray Theatrical Group. See Grupo Teatral Escambray "Escondrijo, El" (novel), 104, 106 "Escuela al campo" program, 76, 77 Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Cubanacán, 24 Escuela de Formación de Maestros Fabricio Ojeda, 149 Escuela Fe de Valle, 159 Escuela para Maestros Manuel Ascunce Domenech, 133 Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria (EIR), 11, 48, 74-75 Escuelas rurales (documentary), 96 "Es mas, te perdono" (Nicola), 127 Espín, Vilma, 158, 159 Espinosa Domínguez, Carlos, 135 Ethiopia, 19, 32, 119 Excelsior (newspaper), 9 Exemplary Young Soldiers. See Jóvenes Militares Ejemplares Existence, 29 Fabricio Ojeda Teacher-Training School. See Escuela de Formación de Maestros Fabricio Ojeda Family Code. See Codigo Familiar FAR. See Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Fatherland or Death Workers' Brigades. See Brigadas Obreras Patria o Muerte Federación de Estudiantes de la Enseñanza Media, 157 Federación de Mujeres Cubanas (FMC), 155-156, 157, 158, 159 Federación Estudiantil Universitaria, 157 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), 46 Federation of Secondary-School Students.

184

Index

See Federación de Estudiantes de la Enseñanza Media Feijóo, Samuel: "El soldado Eloy," 141 Feliu, Vicente: "Un 'hasta siempre' a Silvia desde Nicaragua," 127-128 Fernández, Frank, 128 Fernández Nuñez, Jorge: Muceques y colonialismo, 142 Fernández Retamar, Roberto, 17, 135; artistic creation, 9 5 - 9 6 ; poetry, 1 1 3 114, 115, 118 Fiction: detective novels, 101-109; films, 92-94 Film, 1, 142; banning, 2 0 - 2 1 ; and bureaucracy, 9 4 - 9 5 ; creativity in, 3 1 32, 132; cultural policy, 91-92; foreign, 9 2 - 9 3 ; production of, 9 3 - 9 4 ; reeducation through, 87, 88, 89-90; role of, 9 0 - 9 1 ; social consciousness, 7-8 First Declaration of Havana, 14, 25(n20) First National Congress of Education and Culture, 22 Fleites, Alex, 117 FMC. See Federación de Mujeres Cubanas Folk Dance Troupe of the USSR, 10 "Ford azul, En el" (Otero), 141 Fornet, Ambrosio, 107-108 France, 92, 93 Frank Pais Contingent of Primary School Teachers, 82 Frente Revolucionario del Periodismo, 8 FRG. See Federal Republic of Germany Fuera del juego (Padilla), 22 Fuerzas alfabetizadoras, Las, 70 Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR), 8, 11; education, 147, 149-150; organization of, 148-149; Soviet Union, 151-152 Garcia, Rigoberto, 151 García Espinosa, Julio, 88, 93, 135 GDR. See German Democratic Republic Gente de Moscú (documentary), 97 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 46 Girón (film), 142 "Girón en la memoria" (Casaus), 139, 140, 142 González de Cascorro, Raúl, 141; Aquí se habla de combatientes y bandidos, 140 Government, 58, 132 Granjas del Pueblo (documentary), 97 Granma (newspaper), 24(n3), 42

Granma Theatrical Collective. See Colectivo Teatral Granma Grand zoo. El (Guillén), 112 Grechko, Marshal, 152 Grupo Cubano de Acero, 134 Grupo de Experimentación, 126 Grupo Teatral Escambray, 132, 133-134 Guatemala, 35 Guerra, Leonil, 136 Guerrilla warfare, 5 - 6 , 34-35, 47 Guevara, Alfredo, 87, 93 Guevara, Ernesto "Che," 2, 5, 10, 54, 55; heroic sacrifice, 32-33; Marxism, 11, 25-26(n21), 144; revolutionary ideology, 6, 30, 60; scientific revolution, 15-16; social consciousness, 18-19 Guillén, Nicolás, 45, 111; El diario que a diario, 112; El grand zoo, 112; Poemas de amor, 112; La rueda dentada, 112; Tengo, 112; "Unión Soviética," 48, 118 Gusanos, 40, 4 1 - 4 2 Gutiérrez Alea, 93 Harnecker, Marta, 160 Hart Davalos, Armando, 136 Hernández Novas, Raúl, 119-120 Héroes del trabajo (documentary), 97 "Héroe vivo. El" (Martí), 117 Heroism, 29; in artistic creation, 31-32; in agrarian reform, 30-31; in revolution, 35-36; sacrifice and, 3 2 33; testimonials of, 141-142 Herrera, Manuel: Girón (film), 142 Herrera Ysla, Nelson: "Días de Etiopía," 119 Historia del cine, 91 Historia de una batalla (documentary), 96 History, 150: testimonials of, 1 3 9 - 1 4 4 Hoy (newspaper), 9, 20 ICAIC. See Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográfica ICRT. See Instituto Cubano de Radio y Television Ideology, 62; in detective novels, 1 0 2 103; education and, 81-83, 149, 1 5 0 151; in film, 87-88, 90-91; revolutionary, 6 0 - 6 1 Illiteracy, 67, 80 Imperialism, 12-13, 14, 17, 32; United States, 40, 4 3 ^ 4 , 82

Index Independence, 32 Information: manipulation of, 45-48 INRA. See Instituto Nacional de Reforma Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográfica (ICAIC), 7-8, 87, 88, 97; documentaries, 94-95; revolution, 89-90 Instituto Cubano de Radio y Television (ICRT), 128 Instituto de la Infancia, 158 Instituto Elemental del MarxismoLeninismo, 149 Instituto Nacional de Reforma (INRA), 67, 68 "Internacionalismo" (Peña), 119 "Irakere" (dance band), 128 Italy: films, 92, 93 Ivens, Joris, 96 Jamis, Fayad, 113, 114; "Los barcos," 118 Jimenez, Orlando, 93 Journalism, 8-9. See also various journals; papers Jóvenes Militares Ejemplares, 152 July 26 competition, 150-151 July 26 Movement (M26), 7, 9, 25(nl6), 41, 74 "Junto a mi fusil, mi son" (Pedroso), 128 Juventud revolucionaria (journal), 115-116 Karol, K. S., 147 Kindergartens, 78 Kogan, Leonid, 10 Labor: voluntary, 34-35, 90 Ladrillo sin mezola, El (play), 133 Land tenure, 6 Language, 57; socialist, 10-11 Latin America, 75, 76; Communist parties, 40, 47; guerrilla wars, 34—35. See also El Salvador; Guatemala; Nicaragua; Venezuela Lauten, Flora, 134 Law on the Nationalization of Education, 72 Leadership, 169; revolutionary, 58-59 Leal, Rine, 132 Leante, César: "Casa sitiada," 141 Lecciones de historia de Cuba (Aguirre), 11 Legislation, 72, 80-81, 94 Legitimation: of revolution, 59-60 LeoGrande, William M„ 160

185

Ley Contra la Vagancia, 80-81 Ley va, Waldo, 116 Lezama Lima, José, 114 Lihn, Enrique, 21-22 Limpio fuego el que yace (Diaz), 150 Literacy campaign, 8, 31, 78; educational system, 71-72; teachers, 70-71; training, 68-70; volunteers in, 67-68 Literacy Campaign Congress. See Congreso de Alfabetización Literature: contests, 150-151; detective novels, 101-109, 169; testimonial, 139-144, 169 Lucia (film), 93-94 Lyric Theater. See Teatro Lírico Manicheism, 46, 53; film, 93, 95; imagery, 48—49; in literature, 107, 108; polarization in, 43—44; stereotypes in, 39-40, 42, 45 Manuel Ascunce Domenech School for Teachers. See Escuela para Maestros Manuel Ascunce Domenech Mao Tse Tung, 48 Mario, José, 115 Martí, Agenor, 107 Martí, Carlos: "El héroe vivo," 17 Martí, José, 32; antiimperialism, 55-56; as symbol, 54—55, 56-57 "Marti-Ho Chi Minh" (Rodriguez), 56-57 Marxism-Leninism, 1, 21, 25-26(n21), 48, 54, 57, 63(n5), 167, 171; education in, 75, 149, 150, 162, 163; in film, 94, 95, 97; ideology of, 61, 62; language of, 10-11; as legitimation, 59-60; message of, 167, 168; as symbol, 56, 58; testimonial literature, 143-144 Marxismo y la historia de Cuba, El (Rodríguez), 11 "Masa" (Vallejo), 119 "Más, te perdono, Es" (Nicola), 127 Matas, Julio, 132 "Materialismo historico y dialéctico" (Canzani), 118 Matos, Hubert, 41 May 13 Revolutionary Directorate. See Directorio Revolucionario 13 de mayo Media: revolutionary consciousness, 2, 170 Me hice maestro, y (documentary), 97 Memorias del subdesarrollo (film), 93 Mencia, Mario: La prisión fecunda, 142

186

Index

Mexico, 49 Milanes, Pablo: "Campesina," 126; "Canción para Angela Davis," 127; "A Salvador Allende en su combate por la vida," 126-127 Milicias Armadas Revolucionarias, 156 Milicias Nacionales Revolucionarias, 148 Milicias Populares, 30 Militancy, 111, 112 Military: training, 80-81, 158 Militias, 8, 156 MINFAR, 8, 139, 148 Ministerio de Asuntos Internos (MINIT), 101, 107, 132, 169 Ministry of Culture, 128 Ministry of Education, 11, 67, 68 MINIT. See Ministerio de Asuntos Internos Mobilization, 30; literacy campaign, 68, 69-70; voluntary labor, 34, 35, 90 Morales, López, 24 Morejon, Nancy, 115 Moreno, José A., 61 Movement of Mothers fighting for education. See Movimiento de Madres Combatientes por la Educación Movimiento de la Nueva Trova, 165; songs of, 126-128, 170 Movimiento de Madres Combatientes por la Educación, 158-159 M26. See July 26 Movement Muceques y colonialism (Fernandez Nunez), 142 Muerte de un burócrata (film), 94, 95, 132 Music, 134, 150; popular, 125-126, 1 2 8 129, 170; revolutionary, 126-128 Musical Theater. See Teatro Musical Nabori, Indio, 36, 54 Narderau, Efrain, 116 National Association of Teachers. See Colegio Nacional de Maestros National Commission of Literacy and Basic Education. See Comisión Nacional de Alfabetización y Educación Fundamental National Council on Culture. See Consejo Nacional de Cultura National Directorate of the Militias. See Dirección Nacional de las Milicias Nationalism, 32, 57, 167; antiimperialist, 14, 43-44; Cuban. 1, 53, 54, 62 National Union of Education Workers. See Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la

Ensenanza Navarro, Osvaldo, 116 Newpapers, 9, 20, 27(n54), 47^18. See also by name Newsreels, 96 New Theater. See Nueva Trova; Teatro Nuevo Nicaragua, 19, 35, 82, 134 Nicola, Noel, 126: "Es más, te perdono," 127 "Nos pronunciamos," 115 Novels: detective, 101-109, 132, 142, 169; testimonial, 139-144, 169 Nueva Trova, 135-136 Nurseries, 78 Ochoa, Magda: De como los hombres se acercaron, 140 Oraa, Pedro de, 33 Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (ORI), 10, 25(nl6), 75 Organizations: mass, 2, 155, 156-157, 168-169 ORI. See Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas Orígenes (journal), 114 Osvaldo Sanchez School, 149 Otero, Francisco, 118 Otero, Lisandro: "En el ford azul," 141; Pasión de Urbino, 22 Padilla, Heberto, 22-23, 113, 148; Fuerza del juego, 22; "En tiempos difíciles," 120-121 "Padilla affair," 22-23, 60-61, 116 Pais, El (newspaper), 9 Paisaje y pupila, 13 Partido Communista de Cuba (PCC), 17, 62, 149, 150, 152, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160; changes in, 161-162 Partido Socialista Popular (PSP), 11, 74 Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista, 148, 160 Pasión de Urbino (Otero), 22 Patio de maguinarias, El (play), 133 "Patria o Muerte," 34 Patriotism, 13, 29, 116 PCC. See Partido Communista de Cuba Peasants, 6, 67, 68, 72, 73 Pedroso, Andrés: "Junto a mi fusil, mi son," 128 Pedroso, Regino: "China la hermosa," 118 Peña, Rafael Esteban: "Internacionalismo,"

Index

119 People's Militias. See Milicias Populares People's Power. See Poder Popular People's Republic of China, 2, 40, 48, 118

People's Theater. See Teatro Participación Popular Pérez Herrero, Antonio, 152 Pérez Valero, Rodolfo, 102 "Perseguidos, Los" (Cirules), 141, 150 Peru, 42 Pino, Rafael del: Amanecer en Girón, 140 Pita Rodríguez, Feliz, 141 Plays: revolutionary, 133, 134, 135 PM (film), 20, 93 Poder Popular, 20, 158, 161 "Poema marxista" (Canzani), 118 Poemas de amor (Guillén), 112 Poetry, 22, 83, 150, 151: militancy, 111, 112-113; revolutionary, 118-121; themes, 116-117 Polansky, Abraham: The Valley of the Fugitive, 92-93 Politburo, 159 Political Directorate. See Dirección Política Politics: and educational objectives, 7583; training, 149-150 Populism, 6, 9 ¿Porqué Carlos? (Bentancourt), 142 ¿Porqué nació el Ejército Rebelde ?, 97 Portuondo, José Antonio, 70, 76 Power, 20; leadership, 58-59; political, 9, 75-76 Prats Sariol, José, 117 Prensa Libre (newspaper), 9 Prisión fecunda. La (Mencia), 142 Propaganda, 11-12, 17 PSP. See Partido Socialista Popular Pueblo armado (documentary), 96 El Puente (magazine), 115, 116 Pulcritud (novel), 106 Punto de Partida (anthology), 116-117 Quevedao Pérez, José: La batalla de Jigüe, 140, 150 Radio, 11 Rebel Army, 7, 30 Recordings and Music Publication Firm. See Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales

187

"Red Brigades": Brigadistas, 153 Reeducation: through film, 87, 88, 89-90 Refugees, 42 Reporting Assemblies. See Asambleas de Rendición de Cuentas Retrato de Teresa (film), 94, 95, 98(n36), 108 Revista de la Universidad de La Habana, 133 Revolución (newspaper), 9, 11 Revolución de los 30: sus dos últimos años. La (Tabares de Real), 150 Revolution, 21, 22, 24, 25(n20), 32, 40, 70, 93, 167; education, 76-77; as heroic struggle, 33-34, 35—36; ideology of, 17-18, 60-61; institutionalization, 169-170; instruction in, 74—75; internationalism of, 19-20; Latin America, 34-35; legitimation of, 59—60; message of, 10—11, 167-168, 170; participation in, 168-169; and poetry, 117-120; social consciousness of, 1, 2, 6, 9-10, 70; socialist, 13-14, 57, 58; Soviet orthodoxy, 16-17; testimonial literature, 140-144 Revolutionary Armed Militias. See Milicias Armadas Revolucionarias Revolutionary Directorate. See Directorio Revolucionario Revolutionary Journalism Front. See Frente Revolucionario del Periodismo Revolutionary National Militias. See Milicias Nacionales Revolucionarias Robinson, Nancy, 107: Colmillo de Jabalí, 103 Rodríguez, Carlos Rafael: El marxismo y la historia de Cuba, 11 Rodríguez, Felix Pita: "Martí-Ho Chi Minh," 56-57 Rodríguez, Silvio, 126, 128 Rodríguez Rivera, Guillermo, 115-116, 117 Rojas, Marta: Aula verde, 142 Ronda de los rubíes (Cristóbal Pérez), 106 Ross, Ciro Bianchi, 101 Ruben Martinez Villena Literary Workshop, 119 Rueda dentada, La (Guillén), 112 Sacco and Vanzetti (film), 93 Sacrifice: heroic, 33, 34 Saiz Brothers Literary Brigade. See Brigada

188

index

Literaria Hermanos Saiz Salado, Minerva, 116 "Salvador Allende en su combate por la vida, A" (Milanes), 126-127 Sánchez, Hermina: Amante y peñol, 135 Sánchez Vazques, Adolfo, 135-136 Scholastic achievement tests, 78 Schools, 78, 80, 81 Schools of Revolutionary Instruction. See Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria Scientificism, 60, 61 Second Declaration of Havana, 14, 43—44 Sectarianism, 59 Self-image, 42, 53-54, 58 Siena Maestra, 5 - 6 "Sierra Maestra" (musical group), 128 Siete contra Tebas, Los (Arrufat), 22 Sindicato Nacional de trabajadores de la Ensenanza, 71 Sino-Guevarist orthodoxy, 2, 21 "Sobre el daño que hacer las hostias" (Casaus), 116 Social consciousness, 1, 20, 131, 143, 169; development of, 6-10, 14, 15-16, 18-19; literacy campaign, 69—70 Socialism, 7, 18, 50(n31), 57, 58; development of, 9, 13; proclamation of, 11-12, 13-14 Society: militarization of, 147-148 Solas, Humberto, 93 "Soldado Eloy, El" (Feijoo), 141 "Son 14" (dance band), 128 Soto, Leonel, 11 Sound Experimentation Group. See Grupo de Experimentación, 126 Sovereignty, 13 Soviet Union, 2, 12, 92, 171; ideological education, 150-151; perceptions of, 45-46, 47-48, 49, 82; in poetry, 117118; relations, 24, 40, 44, 46-47, 151-152 Space exploration, 46 Speeches, 9, 34: Castro's, 11-12 Stereotypes, 39, 40-41, 168 Struggle: art as, 31-32; as existence, 2 9 30; heroic, 33-34, 44^15; testimonials to, 141-142 Students, 76, 77-78, 80 Studio Theater. See Teatro de Estudio, 131 Sugar cane: harvest of, 94, 147 Superpowers: confrontation, 44-45 Sweden, 92, 93

Symbols: people as, 54-57 Tabares de Real, José N.: La revolución de los 30: sus dos últimos años, 150 Teachers, 77, 81, 82, 131: literacy campaign, 68-69, 70-71 Teatro de Arte de la Habana, 131 Teatro de Estudio, 131 Teatro de Participación Popular, 134-135 Teatro Lírico, 131 Teatro Musical, 131 Teatro Nuevo, 133 Teatro Universitario, 131 Teatrova, 134, 135 Television: revolutionary ideology, 89, 90, 91 Tengo (Guillén), 112 Terminology: socialist, 10-11 Testimonial: as literary genre, 139-144; prizes for, 150, 169 Textbooks, 82 Theater, 150: revolutionary message, 131 — 136 Third World, 47 "Tiernos difíciles, En" (Padilla), 120-121 "Todos juntos" (Travieso), 151 Traitors: counterrevolutionaries as, 41-42 Travieso, Julio: "Todos juntos," 141 Tres Tristes Tigres (Cabrera Infante), 22 24 x segundo, 89, 90; cultural policy, 9 1 92 UJC. See Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas UNEAC. See Unión Nacional de Escritores e Artistas de Cuba "Un 'hasta siempre' a Silvia desde Nicaragua" (Feliu), 127-128 Unión (journal), 118 Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas (UJC), 62, 126, 149, 150, 157, 162, 169; membership, 152-153 Unión Juvenil Comunista, 126 Unión de Periodistas de Cuba, 157 Unión de Pioneros de Cuba (UPC), 157 Unión Nacional de Escritores e Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC), 22, 157 Union of Journalists of Cuba. See Unión de Periodistas de Cuba Unions, 71, 155, 157 "Unión Soviética" (Guillén), 48, 118 United Party of the Socialist Revolution. See Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista United Sutes, 87, 106, 117;

Index

confrontation, 7, 10, 12, 32, 171; films, 92-93; images of, 45, 82; imperialism, 12, 40; opposition to, 43-44 United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 106 Unity, 60; of images, 53-54 Universal History (textbook), 82 Universities, 76, 77, 80 University Student Federation. See Federación Estudiantil Universitaria University Theater. See Teatro Universitario UPC. See Unión de Pioneros de Cuba Ureña, Camila Henriquez, 113 Urrutia, President, 10, 41, 50(n4) USSR. See Soviet Union Váldez Rodríguez, José M., 131— 132 Vallejo, César: "Masa," 119 Valley Faith School. See Escuela Fe de Valle Valley of the Fugitive, The (Polansky), 92-93 Vanguard party, 160, 162 "Van Van" (dance band), 128

189

Vàsquez Pérez, Eduardo, 103 "Venceremos" (primer), 71 "Venceremos" (news program), 11 Venezuela, 40, 47 Verde Olivo (publication), 11, 131, 148; art criticism, 22-23; poetry, 118-119; policy, 151, 152; Soviet information, 47-48 Vietnam, 48 Vitier, Cintio, 114 Vivo, Raùl Valdez, 11, 46 Women, 107; in mass organizations, 158159 Workers: education of, 72, 78 Yanes, Orlando, 24 Yanez, Mirta, 116 Year of Agrarian Reform, 30 Year of Agriculture, 30 Year of Education, 30 Year of Planning, 30 Year of Productivity, 30 Year of Ten Million, 30 Young Army of Labor. See Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo

About the Book and the Author "The evolution of the Cuban revolutionary process gradually produced in its leaders an awareness of the urgent necessity to create a revolutionary social consciousness." Beginning with the premise, Tzvi Medin recounts the efforts of Castro and his closest associates to shape that new consciousness in the first twenty years of the revolution. Although an active Communist party existed in Cuba before Castro came to power, the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people were far removed from the conceptual and emotional world of Marxism-Leninism. Today, in contrast, Marxism-Leninism plays a prominent part in the projection of political, social, and cultural messages. Medin analyzes the techniques used by the leaders of the revolution to develop a revolutionary worldview, the actual content of the revolutionary message, and the efforts to interweave Marxism-Leninism with Cuban nationalism. Ranging from literacy campaigns, to poetry, to popular music and detective fiction, the book explores the various channels that Cuba's leaders have used to convey the ethos of the revolution.

Tzvi Medin is associate professor in the History Department and head of Latin American Studies at Tel Aviv University, he is author of numerous books and articles (in Spanish) on Latin America's intellectual, political, and social history, among them Leopoldo Zea: Ideologia, Historia y Filosofìa de America Latina. This is his first publication in English.

191