The Two Cuban Revolutions

Three essays and three long appendices make up this pretentiously titled and somewhat garbled book. The six selections overlap frequently and slight many important issues, but two principal messages emerge, illuminated by occasional insight and cogency. First, virtually all other words on the Cuban revolution are misleading, largely because they do not recognize or will not admit the second message, that Castro initiated and carried through not one revolution but two.

According to Draper, Castro's attack of July 26, 1953, on the Moncada barracks launched the first revolution, which was led from the start by upper and middle class Cubans. They organized and comprised most of the membership of the principal revolutionary organization, the 26th of July Movement. Their program was radical, but democratic, pledging the restoration of the 1940 Constitution. The armed bands in the mountains from 1957 to 1959 were neither a peasant nor a proletarian army. They never totaled more than a few hundred men, who goaded Batista into initiating a campaign of arbitrary terror that turned virtually the entire population against him. In the fighting which followed, the urban middle classes suffered more casualties than any other group. Castro's first cabinet consisted entirely of upper and middle class professionals and intellectuals

The second revolution was launch-almost immediately upon Castro's coming to power. Draper classifies it as a member of the Communist family of revolutions, since it turned against the middle class democrats who had overthrown Batista and began to regiment the proletariat and peasantry. It proceeded so far during Castro's first year in power that the Hubert Matos affair late in 1959 signaled the "point of no return."

Matos had fought alongside Castro in the mountains and after the victory was assigned the military leadership of Camaguey province. In October, 1959, he resigned to protest Communists replacing 26th of July members in leading local government jobs and in the rebel army. Matos was arrested, charged with treason, tried, and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment.

Draper cites other early indications of the second revolution's progress. At the congress of the Cuban Confederation of Labor in November, 1959, the 26th of July Movement could have "scored an overwhelming victory over the Communists." It failed to do so because Castro appeared unexpectedly and intervened on behalf of the Communists. By 1960 the Confederation of Labor was completely controlled by Communists. In early February, 1960, the President of the PSP (Partido Socialista Popular) publically equated anti-Communism and treason. The same month Soviet Deputy Premier Mikoyan signed the first Soviet-Cuban agreement in Havana, "amidst an official reception that betokened more than trade relations."

Why did the second revolution occur? Draper denies that United States policy towards Cuba was "the "causative, operative factor.... The decision to turn Cuba into a Communist state was of such fundamental magnitude that it cannot be ascribed to a mere reactive response." In Draper's view, the second revolution resulted from Castro's refusal to permit any reductions or restrictions of his personal power.

Castro had fought without the support of a large, disciplined army, a well-organized political party, or an ideology. He realized early that he did not need these props, if the populace would support him. To appeal to the largest possible number of Cubans, he "progressively moderated his program and propaganda." By 1958 he was voicing "little more than the traditional aspirations of the socially conscious, democratic-minded Cuban middle and working classes."

These promises served the 26th of July movement well, but they were incompatible with the undivided, unconstrained power which fell to Castro when Batista and entourage fled the country. Rather than honor the pre-victory democratic pledges, Castro turned to the Cuban and Russian Communists because they had the "disciplined and experienced cadres, the ideology, and the international support" to guarantee his leadership indefinitely. The Communists agreed to collaborate with Castro because they realized that otherwise they could have no hopes of seizing power.

Draper scoffs at the attempts to determine Castro's motivations and intentions: "... more to the point is what [Castro] said and what he did." But the author himself quietly makes a crucial character judgement of Castro which shapes the book's entire analysis of the Cuban revolution. Consider this passage: "... once power came into [Castro's] hands, he refused to permit anything that might lessen or restrict it. He would not tolerate the functioning of a government that was not the facade of his personal rule or of a party that might develop a life of its own." Although Draper admits that the "inner history" of Castro's regime is yet to be written, he insists that this much of it has become "increasingly clear." He apparently considers the quoted lines an objective statement of historical fact, but the book reveals, in various ways, that Draper's view of these facts is warped by an inexplicit, unadmitted appraisal of Castro's motives.

Since the book claims to be an analysis of Castro's actions, it never quite says that Castro wanted to secure complete personal power. Occasionally, however, the choice of words and the method of argument indicate that Draper thinks Castro did deceive his democratic followers. An author's personal opinions need not impair an academic analysis, but in this book they do. Draper is so convinced of Castro's commitment to personal hegemony that he never even considers whether Castro might have been satisfied with less. Some leaders of nationalistic revolutions have clung desperately to power, others have not. Therefore, political analysts cannot assume that any new leader will protect his personal position at all costs.

Other writers have suggested that Castro turned to the Communists not because he cared first for his personal position, but because he tried to implement the 1940 Constitution. The land reform provisions especially were so radical that no previous government had sought to carry them out. The argument is that Castro attempted to realize them, lost middle class support as a result, and had to call in the Communists or forfeit his entire revolutionary effort. Draper does not comment on this analysis, or upon any of the arguments citing Cuba's economic problems at the time Castro assumed power.

He does talk about the role of the United States in Castro's turn to Communism and decides it was very small. This conclusion may be correct, but it is not too convincing, since Draper reaches it by slighting Cuban nationalism and America antagonism. Draper clarifies the extent of United States aid to Batista and touches upon the effect which this and American actions over the years have had on Cuban attitudes toward the "Yanquis." Yet, he ignores anti-American nationalism when analyzing Castro's relations with this country. He sees the famous visit and aid dispute, for instance, solely as evidence of Castro's catering to the Communists.

In April, 1959, three months after reaching power, Castro came to the United States, without an official invitation from this government. Draper believes that Castro did not want an invitation and that Eisenhower did not want to offer him one. For a leader from a small country harboring considerable hostility and suspicion toward the United States, there is probably an important difference between being offered an invitation and having to ask for one. Once here, similar complications arise in maneuvering for aid. Castro apparently told his entourage not to discuss the issue, even with American officials who might be offering assistance. Castro himself said to an audience of newsmen, "I wish to explain that we did not come here for money...." In a letter to the New York Times printed shortly after the book was released, Draper explained the apparent inconsistency between this behavior and Castro's proposals a few days later at an inter-American economic conference. There Castro called for a $30 million aid program, similar to the subsequent Alliance for Progress. Draper says this proposal was just propaganda. At least one writer has reported Castro's worries that his trip to the U.S. would make the Cubans think he had sold out. If this is true, then Castro must have thought that asking for aid, or simply accepting it, would confirm many of their suspicions. Draper does not even consider whether Castro might have seen any difference between the roles of supplicant and partner in an aid plan.

The author's view of American attitudes and their effect on relations with Cuba also neglects some issues damaging to his thesis. Draper says that the collaboration between the Communists and Castro began in 1959, "long before any overt American action was taken against the Castro regime." This matter of overt governmental hostility appears more than once in the book, but other sources of grumbling, complaint, and denunciation are never mentioned. Draper obviously has read almost everything written on Cuba since Castro. He certainly knows the reports of bewilderment and anger in Cuba over the steady criticism from certain quarters and over the more spectacular assaults, like Senator Morse's diatribes against the 1959 executions. The author should at least have explained his decision not to discuss these non-governmental, but very overt, unfriendly acts.

These substantive shortcomings are compounded by further ailments in method and data. Draper has a subtle and insidious way of making speeches and proclamations from Cuba illustrate his thesis only, when they could do the same for other theses as well. He occasionally uses his opponents' weakest arguments to prove by invidious comparison his most difficult points. He uses lightly loaded words to hedge his way through some difficult arguments. And some of his data simply do not agree with that in other works on the revolution.

Nevertheless, this is one of the best written and most stimulating books on the subject. The detailed history which Draper is reportedly working on should be a signal work when it is issued. In the meantime this short collection of essays and appendices deserves reading, but, as Draper says of C. Wright Wills' Listen Yankee, it is a "particularly useful and exasperating book.