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A review by mburnamfink
Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground by Julia E. Sweig
4.0
Inside the Cuban Revolution is a detailed, practically month by month political account of the Cuban Revolution. It's also very much Sweig's dissertation, which is a double-edged blade. On the positive side is an obsessive focus with the minutia of newly open archives that a journalist or more senior scholar would elide. On the negative side is a desire to advance scholarship by pushing against the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom, at least as I understand it, is very much driven by Cold War ideologies, Cuban exiles, and the self-aware mythmaking of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. And yet, in looking for a new story about the relationship between the urban llano and the rural sierra components of the 26th of July Movement, Sweig perhaps misses the forest for the trees.
But first those trees, and they are quite impressive. Inside the Cuban Revolution brings forward lesser known figures of the Revolution, such as Frank Pais, Armando Hart, and Celia Sánchez. Rather than a unitary and inevitably victorious war, Sweig shows the Revolution as constantly backfooted, debating strategy and organization, and very unsure of where to go next. The main object of focus was a general strike, a broad coordinate rebellion across Cuban society that would shut down industry and transport, aligning ordinary workers, radical activists, and the staid conservatives of the civic groups in an anti-Baptista rising, out of which a new constitutional order would arise.
Of course, it didn't work out like that at all. Several attempts at a general strike failed due to organizational lapses, as the 26th of July Movement lacked the deep basis to pull it off, and these failures were accompanied by high casualties. The 26th of July Movement was one faction in the opposition, which included politiqueria exiles who threatened a return to traditional corruption. Coordination between Castro in the mountains, activists at the literal other end of the island in Havana, and members overseas charged with raising money, arms, and diplomatic support was always spotty at best.
Yet somehow Castro's ragtag but motivated guerrilla columns defeated Batista's army in battle, showing that superior firepower doesn't always win. A strongman cannot ever afford to look weak, and Batista fled, letting the 26th of July Movement seize power in a triumphal march.
But first those trees, and they are quite impressive. Inside the Cuban Revolution brings forward lesser known figures of the Revolution, such as Frank Pais, Armando Hart, and Celia Sánchez. Rather than a unitary and inevitably victorious war, Sweig shows the Revolution as constantly backfooted, debating strategy and organization, and very unsure of where to go next. The main object of focus was a general strike, a broad coordinate rebellion across Cuban society that would shut down industry and transport, aligning ordinary workers, radical activists, and the staid conservatives of the civic groups in an anti-Baptista rising, out of which a new constitutional order would arise.
Of course, it didn't work out like that at all. Several attempts at a general strike failed due to organizational lapses, as the 26th of July Movement lacked the deep basis to pull it off, and these failures were accompanied by high casualties. The 26th of July Movement was one faction in the opposition, which included politiqueria exiles who threatened a return to traditional corruption. Coordination between Castro in the mountains, activists at the literal other end of the island in Havana, and members overseas charged with raising money, arms, and diplomatic support was always spotty at best.
Yet somehow Castro's ragtag but motivated guerrilla columns defeated Batista's army in battle, showing that superior firepower doesn't always win. A strongman cannot ever afford to look weak, and Batista fled, letting the 26th of July Movement seize power in a triumphal march.