Abstract
In Cuba there is a peculiar arrangement of relations between society and politics which is distinct from those in the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. This is not surprising as relations between society and politics, between the social and the political systems reflect the specific historical development and structural arrangements of a particular social formation. The question is really, how specific are those relations?
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Notes
Nikki Miller and Laurence Whitehead, ‘The Soviet Interest in Latin America’, in Robert Cassen (ed.), Soviet Interests in the Third World (London: Sage, 1985), pp. 114–39.
The nationalist troops following Carlos Manuel de Céspedes after his 1868 call for independence from Spain became known as mambises, originally a pejorative term used by the Spaniards, but one the insurgents adopted with pride. Jose Martí launched in 1895 another insurrection, from exile in the US, helped by two mambí generals, Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez. See Fernando Portuondo, Estudios de Historia de Cuba (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1973), pp. 71–150
Julio Le Riverend, José Martí: Pensamiento y Actión (Havana: Editora Política, 1982), pp. 129–48.
The Communist Party was known as Partido Socialista Popular (PSP) until 1961 when it merged with the Movimiento 26 de Julio and Directorio Revolucionario to form the Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas. On PSP and Batista’s control of the unions see Hugh Thomas, Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971), pp. 972–88
Peter Marshall, Cuba Libre (London: Victor Gollancz, 1987), p. 41.
Sergio Aguirre, Eco de Caminos (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1974), pp. 291–306
Julio Le Riverend, Historia Económica de Cuba (Havana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación, 1974), pp. 445–6
Hortensia Pichardo, Documentos para la Historia de Cuba (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1973), Vol. I, pp. 422–91
Eduardo Dimas, ‘La Imprenta y el Movimiento Obrero Gráfico en Cuba’, in Los Obreros Hacen y Escriben su Historia (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975), pp. 181–222
Gerald Poyo ‘The Anarchist Challenge to the Cuban Independence Movement’, in Cuban Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1985), pp. 29–42.
Aguirre, op. cit.; Dimas, op. cit.; Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), Panorámica de la Historia del Movimiento Obrero Cubano (Havana: CTC, 1977); Sergio Guerra, Cronología del Movimiento Obrero y de las Luchas por la Revolutión Socialista en America Latina (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 1979).
This is well-documented in the literature, but an original interpretation is provided by Miller and Whitehead, op. cit. See also Tad Szulc, Fidel: a Critical Portrait (London: Hutchinson, 1987), pp. 407–30.
M. Márquez Sterling, La Diplomácia en Nuestra História (Havana: Instituto del Libro, 1967)
Lynn-Darrell Bender, Cuba vs United States (San Juan: Inter American University Press, 1981), pp. 1–4
Arthur Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 851.
Thomas, op. cit., p.1467; Philip Brenner, From Confrontation to Negotiation (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 13–16
Peter Bourne, Fidel (New York: Dodd Mead, 1986), pp. 212–14.
Bender, op. cit., pp.55-6; William LeoGrande, ‘Cuban-Soviet Relations and Cuban policy in Africa’, in Carmelo Mesa-Lago and June Belkin (eds), Cuba in Africa (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1982), pp. 13–50
Edward Gonzalez, ‘Institutionalisation, Political Elites and Foreign Policies’, in Cole Blasier and Carmelo Mesa-Lago (eds), Cuba in the World (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979), pp. 22–3
In Angola, Cuban troops prevented a pro-Moscow faction of the MPLA from staging a coup against President Agostinho Neto. In Ethiopia, Havana refused to allow its troops directly to participate in the Soviet-backed campaign against the Eritrean and Tigrean liberation movements; indirectly, though, Cuban pilots on air patrols over the Ogaden freed Ethiopian manpower to be used against the rebels. See Caria Anne Robbins, The Cuban Threat (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1985), pp. 231–2
LAWR-88-48 (8 December 1988), p. 5; LARC-88-10 (8 December 1988), pp. 4–5 and LARC-89-10 (19 January 1989), p. 2. Also Nicola Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin America 1959–1987 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1989), pp. 124–5.
Until 1959, blacks constituted 13 per cent of Cuban migrants to the US, since that date they represent 5 per cent of Cuban migration and remain, on the whole, outside the exile community; see Susan Greenbaum, ‘Afro-Cubans in Exile’, Cuban Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1985), pp. 59–72.
Geoffrey Fox, ‘Race and Class in Contemporary Cuba’, in Irving Horowitz (ed.), Cuban Communism (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1981), pp. 309–30.
Carollee Bengelsdorf, ‘On the Problem of Studying Women in Cuba’, in Andrew Zimbalist (ed.), Cuban Political Economy (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 119–36.
‘Revolutionary merits’ is a factor which has weighed heavily in elections to leading positions or in promotions within the government, to the advantage of those who can claim a background as a guerrilla. See Max Azicri, Cuba: Politics, Economics and Society (London: Pinter, 1988), p. 54.
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© 1991 Colin Clarke
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Espíndola, R. (1991). Politics and Society in Cuba. In: Clarke, C. (eds) Society and Politics in the Caribbean. St Antony’s. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11987-5_10
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