The Cuban Revolution and Latin America

Boris Goldenberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000534726
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, first published in 1965, is a scrupulously fair study of the origins and evolution of Castroism and an assessment of the impact of the Cuban revolution and of Castro's subsequent domestic and foreign policies on the rest of Latin America. In this analysis it takes into account the great differences – social, economic and cultural – between the countries of the area and looks at the foreign policies of Latin American countries as well as the United States and the role of international Communism.

PART I LATIN AMERICA: A CONTINENT IN FERMENT

1. Introduction

There are two Americas: the visible and the invisible. The visible America, that of the presidents and embassies, finds its expression in the official organs of a controlled press. It sends its representatives to the Pan-American Union and it has many voices in the United Nations. But there is also an invisible, suppressed America, and this forms a big reservoir of revolution’

(Germán Arciniegas)

This reservoir of revolution is formed by the people of the twenty republics south of the Rio Grande, collectively referred to here as Latin America.

Even the name of this subcontinent is in dispute: some people prefer South America, Ibero-America or even Indo-America.¹ Close to the small, racially homogeneous Costa Rica, inhabited by Spanish-speaking mestizos, lies the French-speaking, negro republic of Haiti. High in the Andes there is Bolivia, where two-thirds of the rural population, often living in primitive autarchy, still speak Indian dialects; diagonally opposite it, so to speak, across the Andes, lies the small, modern welfare state of Uruguay in which the lives of about 40 per cent of the inhabitants of the vast city of Montevideo are controlled by state capitalism. To the north of Uruguay lies the racial ‘melting pot’ of Portuguese-speaking Brazil where all levels of civilization are represented, from tribal Indians to ultra-modern town dwellers.

Five Latin American countries (Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba and Chile) haveper capita income figures of over $330 a year; two (Haiti and Bolivia) reach barely a third of this. According to official figures in three republics (Argentina, Costa Rica and Uruguay) four-fifths or more of the adult population can read and write; in three others (Guatemala, Bolivia and Haiti) less than 30 per cent are literate. In four states (Panama, Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba) there is one doctor for every 1,000 inhabitants, whereas in the Dominican Republic there is one for every 5,600, in Colombia one for every 9,960 and in Haiti one for over 10,000.²

1The countries of Latin America, according to size of populations, are (the figures are approximate estimates in millions for 1963): Brazil 71, Mexico 38, Argentina 24, Colombia 16, Peru 12, Chile 8.2, Venezuela 8.1, Cuba 7.2, Ecuador 4.6, Guatemala 3.8, Bolivia 4.0, Haiti 3.9, Dominican Republic 3.3, Uruguay 3, Salvador 4, Honduras 2, Paraguay 2, Nicaragua 1.5, Costa Rica 1.2, Panamá 1.1(UN Comisión Económica para América Latina,Boletín Económico de América Latina, Vol. VI, Santiago de Chile, November 1961, Suplemento Estadístico.) 2Statistical Yearbook of the United Nations, 1959.

Nevertheless, Latin America must be regarded as a whole, if only because all its countries have many important problems in common, and because Latin Americans are increasingly aware of these.

This feeling of solidarity is directed against ‘North America᾿ that is to say, the United States. The Latin Americans regard themselves as united by their Catholic and Ibero-Indian traditions against the Protestant Anglo-Saxons. Their countries are dominated by us capital, they all export raw materials and import industrial goods, and each of them can on the face of it regard itself as the victim of foreign capitalist exploitation. They are weak states which nevertheless, in the name of freedom and independence, resist the political pressure of their northern neighbour.

Until well into the twentieth century, America for many people meant the United States. The people south of the Rio Grande were objects rather than agents of world history, and, behind the big landowners and generals, the growing, seething masses, the invisible America, tended to be forgotten. They first made themselves felt in the Mexican revolution of 1910 and, after the revolutions and rebellions of the ‘thirties, finally appeared on the historical scene with the victory of the Cuban revolution. Now the whole subcontinent threatens to become, metaphorically speaking, a chain of erupting volcanoes.

Basically the upheaval is the result of capitalist change which was introduced from outside mainly after the first world war, and has progressed unevenly ever since.

The fast growing, rootless masses are no longer resigned to their poverty; new ideas have reached them, and find expression in the •revolution of growing expectations’. The breath of the Cold War fans the incipient glow.

If the transition to the twentieth-century welfare state, dimly desired by millions and strongly advocated by angry young intellectuals, cannot be achieved by democratic means, these countries will take the totalitarian system of the East as their model.

Like Asia and Africa, Latin America belongs to the underdeveloped world and its protest movements have much in common with the national revolutions of these two continents. But there are features which distinguish the Latin American subcontinent from the rest.

The per capita income figures given above only show the degree of variation in wealth between the different states. In fact they have little meaning: first, because the statistics are unreliable;¹ secondly, because the averages hide the fact that there is great inequality of income inside the various countries; thirdly, because in almost every one of these countries large sections of the population are outside the money economy, and, finally, because income figures have little meaning unless one takes into account the purchasing power of money in each country as well as certain climatic, psychological and cultural factors.

1To give but one example: according to the Informaciones de Venezuela (Oficina Central de Coordinación y Planificación. Caracas, 1963) the 1961 per capita income was $1,115; according to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development {The Economic Development of Venezuela, p. 3, Baltimore, 1961) it was about $1,000, though if account were taken of the high price-level this corresponded rather to $600; according to R. Vekemans and J. L. Segundo’s Essay of a socio-economic typology of the Latin American countries (in unesco Social Aspects of economic Development in Latin America Vol. I, p. 77, Paris, 1963) it was $540.

In general Latin America is much more highly developed than Asia and Africa. No Latin American country is overpopulated. In most of them there has been some economic progress, and the whole area progressed rapidly between 1945 and 1957. But even the richest Latin American states are considerably poorer than the poorest states of the usa. National incomes are rising only slowly, and the majority of the population has no share in the increase. Meanwhile, the population, its political awareness and its expectations are growing rapidly.

True, natural conditions do not favour rapid development. Latin America is full of mountains, deserts and jungles; it is short of roads and railways. Only a small proportion of the whole area is suitable for agriculture.¹ But all such obstacles can be overcome. It is not nature which is responsible for Latin American poverty, but the people. The subcontinent is poor because it is underdeveloped and misdeveloped.

It is underdeveloped because potential wealth is not realized. Much fertile land is not used or is used badly. Millions are unemployed or underemployed. Savings are not converted into capital and capital is used unproductively.

South America is misdeveloped in the sense that everywhere there are super-modern economic enclaves dependent on the world market within backward economies which are not, the conflict between which aggravates divisions inside all its nations. It is misdeveloped in the sense that almost all these countries live from the exports of a few products whose prices fluctuate on the world market. It is misdeveloped in the sense that foreign capital plays a central role everywhere.

1‘Less than 5 per cent of the total land area of Latin America has the combination of climate, topographical and soil conditions necessary for agricultural production. This compares with 37 per cent for Europe and 10 per cent for the us and Canada.’ Problems of Latin American Development, University of Oregon. A study prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations of the us Senate, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, February 11,1960.

These facts require historical explanation. Until recently most African and Asian countries were colonies and in almost all of them there existed deep-rooted traditional cultures and forms of life which stood in the way of modern development. But most Latin American states achieved independence 150 years ago—under the leadership of classes who had come from Western Europe, were influenced by Western Europe, and controlled economic and social life. When they became independent there was little of what today is called imperialism: no external forces seemed to stand in the way of modern development. That stagnation was not inevitable, even later, is shown by the example of Japan where foreign encroachments provoked the Meiji revolution, and the development of a modern, highly industrialized country.

Why was there no comparable development in Latin America? It is possible that misdevelopment was caused by modern imperialism, but the ‘underdevelopment’ which alone made misdevelopment possible can only be understood by examining the history of the individual countries.

2. Underdevelopment

(a) The Iberian Tradition

The Iberian Europeans who, in the name of their kings, advanced into the spacious regions of the continent in the course of the sixteenth century differed completely from the Anglo-Saxons who opened up North America: they were conquistadores— conquerors rather than colonizers. They came from countries where the centuries of Christian reconquista had only just ended—the voyage of Columbus coincides in time with the capture of Granada—and where its values were still alive. They came from countries in which the middle classes of the Middle Ages had been destroyed or weakened, and where absolutism had been established.

During the Middle Ages the Iberian Peninsula had possessed powerful towns with strong ‘fraternities’, had produced the first European ‘parliaments’ (the Cortes of Aragon had been in existence many years before King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta), and had been the birthplace of first-class universities. Its economic life had flourished under the control of the Moors and the Jews. All this came to an end when Castile established its hegemony and the Habsburgs came to the throne of a united Spain. The towns lost their privileges, the Moors and Jews were suppressed, the ‘parliaments’ ceased to exist, and the Inquisition ruled intellectual and social life.

The conquistadores did not come from the middle classes, they were neither traders nor settlers who came to establish new homes in self-administered local communities in the name of religious freedom. They were military leaders acting in the name of their kings, who were filled by greed for precious stones and treasure, and who sought adventure and an existence befitting their station in life. They came accompanied by priests whose task it was to convert the infidel by whatever means were necessary. Manual work to the conquistadores was dishonourable, thrift degrading, a peaceful middle-class way of earning a living despicable. They encountered a sizeable Indian population, partly organized in what had once been highly developed states, which in earlier centuries had produced remarkable cultures. They also found the treasures they desired. They destroyed the Indian states, divided the land between themselves and, with the help of religion, enslaved the natives. Then they began to send home the precious metals which contributed both to the rise of capitalism and the decline of Spain. The new society continued as it had started: as a society of overlords based on the exploitation of unfree labour. Two vast vice-royalties, divided into extensive territories, were ruled by a large number of increasingly greedy officials from Spain and inhabited by a growing number of peninsulares, (whites from Spain), and a minority of creóles (whites born in America). Together, with the peninsulares at the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Table of Contents
• Part I: Latin America: A Continent in Ferment
• Part II: Background of the Revolution in Cuba
• Part III: The Development of the Cuban Revolution
• Part IV: The Struggle For Latin America
• Bibliography
• Index