A History of the Cuban Revolution Review
I read A History of the Cuban Revolution by Aviva Chomsky some time in 2015-2017. Shortly after I finished reading it, I wrote the following brief review, which I will re-post here now, 10 years later.
The review:
A book I finished recently was A History of the Cuban Revolution by Aviva Chomsky. This was a very short book that primarily talked about the conditions in Cuba leading up to the Cuban Revolution, and then Cuban society and policy in the decades since. It covered very little of the actual war itself.
I enjoyed this book, as it presented some ideas I had never thought about before. The author began the book by talking about the conditions in Cuba and throughout Latin America prior to the Cuban Revolution. Some of the more interesting concepts in this section were the fact that unlike in the United States, many of the wars for independence in Latin America had a social as well as political element to them, meaning that the more wealthy Europeans (or whites) often lost quite a bit of their wealth in the country’s transition from being a colony. They also frequently abolished slavery in these wars. Whereas in the United States, the transition from being a colony to being an independent country was accomplished without disturbing the economic status quo, and the war for independence was really a war for wealthy landowners; slavery was also not abolished until much later. Additionally, the racial make-up of Latin American countries was very different from the one in the United States because of the heavy mixing of the indigenous and whites to create a mestizo race that became the most common race throughout all of Latin America. In the Caribbean especially, you also had large numbers of blacks that were brought over as part of the slave trade. Despite all that however, it was still generally true throughout Latin America that whites tended to be richer than the indigenous or blacks.
In Cuba specifically, though this was a common story throughout Latin America, the government prior to the revolution was very pro-American, which is to say that the politics, economy, and culture of the island were dominated by the United States, and there was massive inequality between rich and poor. The government at the time, led by Batista, was also very brutal and despotic. Widespread dissatisfaction with the government and the state of things in Cuba, along with the tactical and political prowess of the Cuban revolutionaries, are what allowed them to gain power on the island.
The rest of the book tackles criticisms that are also levied against the Cuban government since the revolution, and does so in a way that I think is rather enlightening. The first is the criticism that Fidel Castro’s government is dictatorial and the Cuban people suffer under a lack of freedoms. The author addresses the fact that concepts of freedom differ between people living in developing nations and those in developed nations. In developing nations, when income inequality is so bad that people have to live their lives working in miserable conditions in order to scrape a living, as was the case for many Cubans prior to the revolution, any talk of having political freedom was hollow and meaningless. Having less political freedom in order to gain the economic freedom to work in better conditions and make a better living for oneself is often seen as a favorable tradeoff, though this is not a point of view that an American might understand.
Other critiques of the revolution that were addressed were Castro’s effect on Cuban culture, such as in literature, film, music, sport, dance, food, and political culture. The gist of it was that many of these arenas of culture were still very active and thriving, in many cases moreso than prior to the revolution, they had just taken on a different nature and were less “anglocentric”.
The book also discusses Cuba’s economic struggles in the decades following the revolution, and how at times Cuba’s government became more and less socialist as the situation required, and how the political landscape within Cuba changed as the Cold War ended and how it has responded to changes in recent years. It also discusses America’s role in attempting to sabotage the early Castro government after realizing that the new government would be socialist, and how that in turn affected how Castro battled American influence within Cuba.
The author also discusses how race relations within Cuba changed after the revolution, granting blacks more rights and reducing racial disparities in the economic and political sector. The book touches on how Cuba did a lot on the international stage to spread its political, social, and economic ideas to other developing countries.
Overall it was a very interesting book, and gives a good, if brief, breakdown of different aspects of how Cuban life was affected after the revolution and the nature of the socialism that took hold on the island. I think it is a must-read for anybody interested in learning more about the most famous, and arguably successful, socialist and anti-imperialist country in the Western hemisphere.