Rebel Lands Of Cuba

The book is a comparative history of twentieth-century Cuban campesinos in two regions in Cuba marked by extreme differences in race, gender, and land tenure: Oriente and Escambray. It explores the ways these differences articulated with state formation from the pre-revolutionary period of 1934-1959 and then 1959-1974 and seeks to explain why campesinos in Escambray, having been active in the insurrection against Batista, later turned to stage a massive counter-revolution against the government headed by Fidel Castro. Although campesinos in both regions had been equally ignored by pre-1959 governments for different reasons, they developed two distinct understandings of what the role of the state should be in response to political neglect. Rich archival sources—many of which have not been accessed previously—document the unique shape of land struggles in each region in the 1930s through the 1950s. The author argues that because of the way race and gender and a collectivist land tenure tradition in Oriente mapped nicely onto the goals of the 1959 Revolution, Oriente became a kind of revolutionary showcase. In Escambray, on the other hand, a construct of white masculinity, tied to private property ownership, directly contravened the goals of the Revolution, which fueled the counter-revolution and also led to brutal state repression in the area.

This book is a rare and important study on the people and many of the groups and activist regions involved in the Cuban insurrection of the 1950s. It addresses the insurgent movement, how people were drawn into the struggle, the structure of the movement, including its different activist groups and how rebels operated effectively, and the role women played in this struggle. It sheds light on the localized and social aspects of the struggle, a topic that relatively little has been written on. The cultural, relational, emotional, and experiential factors that affected activists value formation and recruitment are also investigated."

This book examines a rarely studied yet crucial group of insurgents who fought for Cuban independence from Spain during the 19th century: rebel women known as mambisas. Coming from a wide variety of backgrounds--rich and poor, black and white, rural and urban, young and old--these women determinedly and passionately helped forge Cuba's new national identity. They wrote political pamphlets, carried military correspondence across enemy lines, raised money in New York and raised their families in rebel camps, served as nurses, and fought on the rebel army's front lines. In defeat or victory, imprisonment or exile, their stories are fascinating and compelling. Parallel to the evolution of the Cuban nationalist process, another social phenomenon was occurring--the growth of feminist consciousness. The rebel women's participation in the anticolonial struggle encouraged many of these women to question their role and position within their families and society. In a dramatic shift of cultural attitudes, many women began to view themselves as equal partners with men. This is the first work that explores how women shaped the war and were in turn shaped by it. Mambisas puts a human face on the Cuban struggle for independence, while at the same time examining the connection between nationalism and feminism in 19th-century Cuba.

Authorities in postrevolutionary Cuba worked to establish a binary society in which citizens were either patriots or traitors. This all-or-nothing approach reflected in the familiar slogan “patria o muerte” (fatherland or death) has recently been challenged in protests that have adopted the theme song “patria y vida” (fatherland and life), a collaboration by exiles that, predictably, has been banned in Cuba itself. Lillian Guerra excavates the rise of a Soviet-advised Communist culture controlled by state institutions and the creation of a multidimensional system of state security whose functions embedded themselves into daily activities and individual consciousness and reinforced these binaries. But despite public performance of patriotism, the life experience of many Cubans was somewhere in between. Guerra explores these in-between spaces and looks at Cuban citizens’ complicity with authoritarianism, leaders’ exploitation of an earnest anti-imperialist nationalism, and the duality of an existence that contains elements of both support and betrayal of a nation and of an ideology.

After his four-year hitch in the marines was up in 1957, Richard Sanderlin met another Norfolk, Virginia native, Frank Sturgis, Marine Corps veteran, Army Intelligence Officer, and future Watergate burglar. Richard, and Frank relocated to Miami, Florida where they ran an arms and munition smuggling operation into Cuba, bound for the rebels of Fidel Castro. During the summer of 1958, Richard Sanderlin traveled to the Sierra Maestra Mountains in Oriente Province Cuba, where he trained the rebels of Fidel, and Raul Castro, in military strategy, tactics, weapon handling, and hand to hand fighting. After completing the training of Raul Castros Second Front, Richard led a guerrilla band into ten combat operations against the Batista army. This is the story an idealistic young warrior who fought against the tyranny of dictatorship only to be betrayed by a communist conspiracy led by Fidel Castro.