Cuba: An American History

Fidel Castro (1926-2016) was a Cuban revolutionary leader and politician. He was born into a wealthy family in eastern Cuba and studied law at the University of Havana. While there, he became active in student movements opposing corruption and right-wing dictatorships. On July 26, 1953, Castro led a failed attack on the army barracks in Moncada, Cuba, opposing the corrupt Cuban government. He was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment but served only two before being granted amnesty by the dictator Fulgencio Batista. After his release, Castro organized a guerilla war against the Batista regime based out of the Sierra Maestra mountains in eastern Cuba; he named this the 26th of July Movement, after the date when he conducted his first attack. In 1959, Castro’s revolutionary movement defeated Batista and took control of the government. Afterward, Castro served as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and as president until 2006, when he stepped down due to illness. Castro’s regime was defined by its anti-American imperialism, Cuban nationalism, and socialist policies of collectivization, central planning, and equality.

Ferrer paints a largely positive portrait of Castro in Cuba: An American History. In keeping with her overall historiographical inclination to eschew a “great man” mode of history in favor of a “people’s history,” she does not lionize nor criticize Castro; instead, she conveys a nuanced description of his motivations and abilities while emphasizing the role of other historical actors in his rise. She argues that “people […] often make the mistake of thinking too much about Fidel Castro” when they focus on Cuba (289). According to her, there were many factors that led to Castro’s rise to power, rather than just his personality and politics. Ferrer argues that Castro came to be the predominant leader of Cuba in part because he was, quite simply, the last man standing after other prominent revolutionary leaders were killed. The leader of the Revolutionary Directorate, José Antonio Echeverría, was killed in a failed assassination attempt on Batista. Frank País, another anti-Batista organizer, was killed by police on July 30, 1957. Ferrer notes that after this, “momentum shifted—now decisively—to Fidel Castro and the guerilla war in the mountains” (308).

Ferrer grounds Castro within the context of the social movements of his time. For instance, one of Castro’s most famous speeches is the “History Will Absolve Me” speech given as his closing argument during his trial following the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks. Ferrer describes this speech as “a major, if meandering, pronouncement” (281). In noting that the speech was “meandering,” Ferrer wryly acknowledges Castro’s tendency to be long-winded. In large part, however, she eschews subjective judgment in favor of a description of the speech’s content and, critically, its reception by the Cuban people. She notes, for instance, that “Fidel Castro preached a political program thoroughly familiar and appealing to a wide swath of Cuban society” (282). In this way, Ferrer emphasizes that Castro was successful because he connected with what the Cuban people wanted.

Ferrer also argues that Castro’s connection to communism was shrouded in “mystery and circumspection” (286). She contrasts this with his overt “embrace[]” of historical Cuban revolutionary figures like José Martí.

José Martí (1853-1895) was a Cuban writer, political theorist, and hero of the Cuban independence movement. Martí was born in Havana into a working-class family. In 1868, with the outbreak of the Ten Years’ War against Spain in Cuba, Martí joined the Cuban nationalist cause and began publishing political writings along with nationalist poetry. When he was 16, he was imprisoned for his activities and later exiled to Spain, where he continued advocating for Cuban independence. Eventually, Martí ended up in the US, from where he organized opposition to Spain’s colonization of Cuba. On April 13, 1895, Martí returned to Cuba to fight Spanish forces for Cuban independence. He was killed in battle on May 19, 1895.

In Cuba: An American History, Ferrer focuses on how Martí’s struggle against Spanish colonialism was used as a symbol in subsequent revolutionary and anti-imperial movements in Cuba. For instance, she notes that when the US formally relinquished control of Cuba on May 20, 1902, marking the end of a stage of the anti-imperial struggle, there were “pictures of […] Martí” on street corners (185). Similarly, Black Cuban revolutionary Evaristo Estenoz cited Martí in the first declaration of principles of the PIC. A large monument to Martí in Havana’s Central Park served as a rallying point for subsequent movements throughout Cuban history. Most crucially, Ferrer notes how Fidel Castro “quoted—verbatim and at length—from the last letter that Martí wrote” (286). She argues that this is “unexpectedly revealing” of Castro’s dedication to anti-imperialism.

Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973) was a Cuban military officer and dictator. In 1933, Batista was a stenographer in the military. He took part in the Revolt of the Sergeants, which resulted in the coup of Cuban President Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. Following the coup, Batista assumed a position of power, controlling what were widely acknowledged as puppet regimes. In 1940, Batista was elected president. During his time in office, he pursued violent oppression of his opposition while also enacting populist policies to head off popular unrest, such as rent control and crafting a new Constitution. Batista also openly collaborated with the US mafia, leading to a period of “gangsterismo.” He lived in Florida from 1944 to 1952, and he then returned to Cuba to run for office once again. However, facing defeat at the polls, Batista enacted a military coup and assumed power until he was ousted by Castro and the revolutionaries in 1959.

Ferrer focuses on Batista’s close associations with the US and its commercial interests. For instance, she notes that following the 1933 coup, the American ambassadors to Cuba, Welles and Caffery, “saw a potential source of security in Batista” (246). In 1934, Batista collaborated with the US to install a more American-friendly administration with Carlos Mendieta at the helm. Further, Ferrer says that Batista’s 1952 coup was successful in part because the US government recognized the military dictatorship. Batista was committed to protecting US sugar interests in Cuba, so he had American support.

Ferrer also emphasizes Batista’s authoritarianism, describing how “he tried to quash every radical vestige of the 1933 revolution” in an “onslaught” (249). She also states that the 1952 coup was enacted “by dint of surgical repression” (271). His repressive policies made him hugely unpopular among Cubans, and this set the stage for the rise of Fidel Castro and the revolutionaries.