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Despite an increased interest in the diplomatic history of India – chiefly supplemented by the opening up of Indian diplomatic records – the Latin American region has received marginal attention. Interestingly, the archival sources based in India throw an altogether fresh perspective on diplomatic engagements between India and Latin America during the Cold War period. This Research Note places the Cuban Revolution in perspective to examine how developments in Cuba kept Indian diplomats and leaders engrossed. Through India's understanding of Castro's Cuba, the Note captures ideological and pragmatic considerations defining the responses to each other's overtures during such an important turn in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the phenomena of the so-called "Special Period in Time of Peace" of the 1990s and the influence that these have had on the economic, social, and political crisis of the Cuban Revolution after the outbreak of Covid-19 and the implementation of economic reforms on the island. Likewise, the optics emerged in publications by the Cuban system are presented, as well as the cultural products that reactively explain the Cuban reality. Finally, we emphasize the importance of the historical discipline to analyzes the Cuban present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Bandung: Journal of the Global South is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Cuban Revolution is passing through one of the most complex moments of its history. After more than a decade of profound economic, political, and social reforms, the Cuban socialist project faces enormous challenges, amid difficulties arising from intensified imperialist harassment, the sequels of the pandemic, the global crisis, and internal bureaucratic errors. Cuba's economic and social development model stands at several crossroads. The Caribbean island must deepen its socialism along revolutionary lines and with greater worker and popular control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The destructive obsession of the United States with Cuba persists after six decades, and the blockade continues with as much intensity as the counterrevolutionary plots. The reforms to reverse the stagnant economy have been postponed for fear of undermining the social gains of the revolution. However, a mixture of market and combined forms of accumulation with state protagonism is unavoidable to recover growth. The recent protests reflected these tensions, which the government managed by neutralizing the right-wing exploitation of social unrest. Renewing the political system would allow processing the economic and social mutation underway. The feat of sustaining the Revolution is recognized internationally by the significant regional current of solidarity and ignored by social democracy, which covers imperial harassment with a polite mask. The experience of Eastern Europe has debunked the illusion of a socialist denouement from actions sponsored by the right. Left critiques must offer viable alternatives based on contemporary experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Minister of Industries in Cuba between 1961 and 1965, Che Guevara addressed the challenge of increasing production and labour productivity in conditions of underdevelopment and in transition to socialism, without relying on capitalist mechanisms that undermine the formation of new consciousness and social relations integral to socialism. Under capitalism, Guevara noted, competition for private profit drives the application of science and technology to industrial development, revolutionising the productive forces. Socialist governments must find alternative methods. To these ends, Guevara set up nine research and development institutes, focussing on sugar cane derivatives, minerals and metals, the chemical industries, agricultural by-products, the mechanical industry, technological innovations, and automation. He established an institutional framework to begin experimentation at different ends of the production chain simultaneously. The short-term results were inevitably limited, but more significant than the productive achievements attained was the methodology introduced, the application of science and technology to production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though Ernesto Che Guevara and Mao Zedong were two of the most influential Marxist revolutionaries of the twentieth century, there have been practically no attempts to explore the intellectual relationship between Guevara's Marxism and Maoism. Yet an examination of Guevara's writings, speeches and interviews reveals that several of the assumptions and postulates that constitute the core of Maoist political theory also represent fundamental components of Guevara's theoretical perspective. These include the belief that a society can skip developmental stages on the road to socialism; an emphasis on the importance of remoulding people's values and attitudes; opposition to the conventional division of labour; the prioritization of moral incentives in building socialism and communism; and condemnation of the policy of peaceful coexistence with imperialism. Despite these similarities, it would be an error to consider Guevara a Maoist, given his rejection of some of the theses and practices characteristic of Maoism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cuban Revolution and its historical process are at the centre of Latin American studies in social sciences in Türkiye. This article examines the Cuban 26th of July Movement in the context of Latin American social movements. The study is analysed in three parts. First, the structure of Latin America is examined, followed by the history of colonialism and social opposition. In this section, the 26th of July Movement and Cuba are read from the perspective of 'Latin America'. This section is the section in which the social movements literature is examined and the distinction between old and new social movements is examined. The social movement in Cuba is handled around the concept of social movements. The study argues that the Cuban Revolution is an example that transcends the distinction between old and new social movements. Again, in the same section, social movements in Latin America are examined based on the necessity of reading similar examples to understand the Cuban Revolution and the 26th of July Movement. Here, on the other hand, it is underlined that movements in Latin America were influenced by and influenced the Cuban Revolution. The second part of the study deals with the Cuban Revolution and its subject, the 26th of July Movement, in a historical continuity. Here, it is emphasized that it is necessary to examine the 26th of July Movement with a process-oriented perspective, not a leader-oriented perspective. Otherwise, the historical process will be denied, and it will be moved away from being scientific. In the conclusion part of the study, the Cuban Revolution in international relations and the results of this revolution are examined. In the study, the populist, modernizing and anti-imperialist character of the Cuban Revolution is emphasized before its socialist character. As a method in the study, it is based on literature review and document analysis from qualitative research methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper represents a conversation with Carlos Tablada, a leading contemporary Cuban economist, philosopher and so-ciologist. The interview reveals the peculiarities of the Cuban revolution at different stages. Tablada provides details of the history of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba. He reflects about how he began to study the ideological heritage of Che Guevara, highlighting nuances of his communication with the Soviet academics from the Institute of Latin America of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Tablada interprets Ernesto Guevara's speech delivered in Algeria in 1965 in a specific way, in the context of trade relations between developing countries and countries of the Socialist Bloc. Tablada also covers his experience of work in the Cuban state enterprise EMPROVA during the implementation of the System of direc-tion and planning of the economy proposed by Humberto Pe-rez. Tablada expresses his own critical assessment of the economic khozraschet that Cuba adopted from the USSR after joining the CMEA (1972) and holding the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (1975). He comments on the grave consequences of the aggressive policy of the United States towards revolutionary Cuba. Tablada also reveals the peculiarities of trade relations between Cuba and the USSR and the actualization of Che Guevara's ideological legacy dur-ing the period of "rectification". At that time, Cuba faced a crisis due to changes in the terms of trade with the COME-CON countries and tried to resist a number of negative socio-economic consequences of the introduction of khozraschet. Tablada comments on the specifics of Cuba's plight after the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. The footnotes to the interview provide comments on Tablada's statements, especially on those that are controversial.

The following paper attempts to show that beyond the differences between the Chilean and Cuban paths to socialism, the real differences between the two models were based on the way of sustaining socialist conquests and not on the path taken to achieve them or the way to seize power. Cubans and Chileans, as defenders of sovereignty, defended their line of action, but assumed the legitimacy of the opposite. Fidel Castro's trip is ultimately presented as the culmination of an effort by both countries to foster consensus and ward off possible mistrust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the comparative method used by Italian writer Alba de Céspedes in relation to questions of translatability, and in connection to the role of censorship in the production of historical narratives. It draws on two case studies: an article written on the Cuban Revolution for the magazine Epoca in 1959, and a series of poems portraying the Parisian May 1968, and it examines the history of translation of these poems in the Italian and Cuban contexts. Two types of comparisons emerge from the analysis of these texts: 'vertical comparisons', that is, comparisons that establish a relation between events positioned at different historical times, and 'horizontal comparisons', which connect contemporary, geographically distant events. While horizontal comparisons are necessarily transnational, vertical comparison can involve comparanda based within or beyond the nation. In de Céspedes' works, transnational comparisons issue a desire for translation, but at the same time prevent the translation from taking place, due, in part, to the contentious relationship between comparison and censorship evoked by the text in the target context. In fact, it is precisely the hyper-comparability of the poems themselves that limits their circulation in translation. In turn, untranslatability makes such texts significant for the comparatist precisely because it prompts a reflection on the socio-political factors that limit comparability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US modern dancers Lorna Burdsall and Elfriede Mahler ended up in Cuba for love and vacation respectively, but went on to become important leaders in the revolutionary dance establishment. Cultural bureaucrats tapped them for leadership positions due to their whiteness, femininity, and markers of status in the form of foreign experience. Given the ongoing Cold War tensions between their native and adopted homes, Burdsall and Mahler had to navigate the awkward contradictions of being from the United States (the enemy), collaborating with revolutionary Cubans on national dance projects, and enjoying a distinguished professional career in the process. Undeniably anomalous, Burdsall and Mahler's histories have broader explanatory power by highlighting the basic fact that solidarity is a performance. Additionally, this article contributes to understandings of US-Cuban relations during the Cold War by focusing on the awkwardness of being a Yankee in revolutionary Cuba. More specifically, dancing collaboration was awkward because of the paradoxical privileges they enjoyed, the defensive choreographies they staged to try and belong, and the ambivalent identities they cobbled together as they made a home away from home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La mala memoria, the autobiography of Heberto Padilla published in 1989, has been studied to date as a source of information on the controversy known as "the Padilla case" of 1971. But the work can also be studied as a testimony of the experience of direct contact of Latin American writers with Soviet socialism. That experience is decisive in the concrete ideological evolution of the Cuban poet. From this perspective, the famous "Padilla case" could be analyzed from the Sovietization of the Cuban revolution, which Heberto Padilla discovered early, nine years before the controversy, and which he explains in detail in La mala memoria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Maoism in Latin America is not a linear continuum. On the contrary, it is determined by changing situa-tions at the national, regional and global levels. Among the first, we must highlight the conditions in which capitalism developed, the national dynamics of political history and the history of the left. The regional circumstances are related to the impact of the Cuban revolution and in particular of foquismo, the conflict in Central America and the fate of hik-ing in Peru. Finally, the turns of the Cold War also determined substantial differences in the actions of Latin American Maoism. The article intends, precisely, to analyze the existence of stages in the history of this political current and highlight its differences and its manifestation in debates, organizational forms and methods of struggle.

This paper examines the clashes among leftist Mexican intellectuals at the beginning of the 1970s as a consequence of the Cuban Revolution. The correspondence of Laurette Séjourné, an archeologist of Italian origin based in Mexico, provides a source for identifying the tensions generated between those who had maintained an unconditional loyalty toward die Cuban regime and those who had distanced themselves following its Sovietization. This confrontation shows that the New Left was not an ideologically homogenous group and leads to questioning the use of this category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Cuban-Soviet relations strengthened throughout the 1960s, Havana sent a significant number of becarios (scholarship holders) to the USSR. This was intended to improve Cuba's technical advancement, but it was also part of a broader attempt to build, through education, what Ernesto 'Che' Guevara coined as 'Cuban New Man'. To ensure the students' adherence to socialism and avoid dissatisfaction with the revolution, Cuban leaders asked the students to organise themselves in colectivos, which assembled all students enrolled in the same Soviet institution. Although these organisations were constantly monitored by a state officials, many Cubans eagerly assumed a leading position within colectivos, guaranteeing the observance of strict discipline and contributing to strengthening the bond between the students and the revolution, ultimately reinforcing Cuban socialism's New Man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Cuban–Soviet relations strengthened throughout the 1960s, Havana sent a significant number of becarios (scholarship holders) to the USSR. This was intended to improve Cuba’s technical advancement, but it was also part of a broader attempt to build, through education, what Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara coined as ‘Cuban New Man’. To ensure the students’ adherence to socialism and avoid dissatisfaction with the revolution, Cuban leaders asked the students to organise themselves in colectivos, which assembled all students enrolled in the same Soviet institution. Although these organisations were constantly monitored by a state officials, many Cubans eagerly assumed a leading position within colectivos, guaranteeing the observance of strict discipline and contributing to strengthening the bond between the students and the revolution, ultimately reinforcing Cuban socialism’s New Man.

Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban writer, represents the inquisitorial hell of Castro's Cuba that many homosexuals had to face, turned into dissidents with a perpetual vital and intellectual vicissitudes. For the theorists of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) homosexuality was the result of bourgeois decadence; thus, those who did not follow the heteronorm were relegated to the condition of subordinate subjects, condemned to a kind of death in life or insilement; being, even, destined to the fields of the UMAP (Military Units of Assistance to the Production) to be «reeducated». This work takes as a case study the figure of Arenas through the representation of him in three audiovisual works, in order to identify and analyze the relationship of the Castro regime with homosexuality. A textual analysis is applied, using the methodological tools of Narrative and Queer Theory, on the documentaries Conducta impropia (Mauvaise conduite, Almendros and Jiménez Leal, 1984) and Seres Extravagantes (Zayas, 2004) and on the film Before Night Falls (Schnabel, 2000), based on the last book by Arenas, autobiographical and posthumous. Reinaldo Arenas is undoubtedly an example of the discrimination against homosexuals in Cuba, of which he was a victim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Études Caribéennes is the property of Etudes Caribeennes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Études Caribéennes is the property of Etudes Caribeennes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Études Caribéennes is the property of Etudes Caribeennes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective/Context: This article analyzes several factors that in the first half of the 1960s helped establish the link between Vivian Trías, the outstanding Uruguayan intellectual and politician, who defined himself as a Latin-Americanist and tercerista, and who would get explicitly distant from the communist world and the StB, the Czechoslovak secret service subordinated to the interests of the kgb. Methodology: The analysis is mainly based on sources from the Czechoslovak intelligence archive which are supplemented with texts published by Trías. Originality: Analyzing the specific case of Uruguayan tercerismo, represented by Trías, this research study presents a new look on the challenges brought by the Cuban-Soviet approach within the non-communist Latin-American left. Furthermore, it gives a new value to the role played by the communist secret services in the Latin-American Cold War. Conclusions: While before 1961, terceristas saw in the Soviet Union a way of imperialism, Castro’s declaration on the Marxist-Leninist nature of the Cuban Revolution helped to redefine this view. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (ussr) started to be seen by some sectors of the tercerismo, Trías included, as a power that could defend the third world peoples against the US aggression. Although the Soviet-Cuban relationship was marked by great tensions, the Czechoslovaks were an important ally of the Castro government, and the StB operated as a mediator between the Soviets and the ideologically heterogeneous actors, who, in turn, showed some sympathy for the Cuban Revolution. Under these circumstances, the fact that Trías had been recruited by the StB as its agent in 1964 turned out to be a great coincidence of mutual interests aimed at curbing the influence of the US on Latin America.

Following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, many US reporters, including some of the best-known names in American journalism (such as Barbara Walters and Dan Rather), had the opportunity to interview Fidel Castro. All of the resulting interviews, which range from relatively brief exchanges to book-length texts, served as contributions, to one degree or another, to Americans’ perception of Fidel Castro and, more generally, to Americans’ conception of the Cuban political system and US-Cuba relations. Given the high caliber of many of the journalists who interviewed Fidel, one would naturally assume that said contributions consist, by and large, of well-informed, unbiased, enlightening interviews with the leader of the Cuban Revolution. But is that what we really find in these interviews?A careful analysis of interviews with Fidel Castro by major US journalists reveals that well-informed, unbiased, enlightening interviews are in fact the exception, rather than the rule. Indeed, most of these journalists’ interviews with Castro—such as those of Lisa Howard (1963); Barbara Walters (1977); Robert MacNeil (1985); Maria Shriver (1988); and Tom Brokaw (1995)—follow a surprisingly similar script: the interviewer focuses on alleged human rights abuses in Cuba; treats Cuba’s political institutions and practices with skepticism; insists on knowing what concessions Cuba is prepared to make to the United States; implicitly criticizes Cuba’s foreign policy and—prior to 1990—Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union; neglects to consider the validity of Cuba’s complaints about US policy; and, in general, suggests that the US government’s aggressive attitude toward Cuba is justified in light of the policies pursued by Castro. As a result, in interviewing Fidel many prominent and influential American journalists did little more than justify and perpetuate the attitudes and policies toward Cuba of successive US governments—something that becomes quite apparent when one contrasts these journalists’ endeavors with the major interviews conducted by well-known journalists from other nations who also had the chance to converse with Castro. In sum, far from enhancing the American public’s understanding of Revolutionary Cuba, many high-profile US journalists actually reinforced some of the very misconceptions, distortions and elements of misinformation that have long constituted an important barrier to a healthier relationship between the United States and its Caribbean neighbor.

While the Eisenhower administration had observed the utmost discretion regarding the atrocities committed by the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, it instead voiced its criticism when the new power led by President Manuel Urrutia decided to apply revolutionary justice during the first weeks of 1959 against those who were guilty of “blood” crimes. Washington's position triggered the first diplomatic crisis with Havana, which recalled the White House’s support for the military regime and called into question the sincerity of these accusations. The United States’ objective was different: to discredit the new Cuban authorities.

In May 1959, the revolutionary government promulgated the Agrarian Reform Law. Due to the massive presence of US investments in the Cuban economy, this measure affected the interests of the multinationals, which owned the best land on the island. At the prospect of losing nearly $800 million in assets in the country, Washington expressed reservations about the reform and demanded compensation terms that Cuba could not respond to because of its economic situation. Beyond material loss, the Eisenhower administration was especially concerned about the impact of such a measure in Latin America and around the world, where governments facing similar realities might be tempted to follow the same path.

While the Eisenhower administration had observed the utmost discretion regarding the atrocities committed by the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, it instead voiced its criticism when the new power led by President Manuel Urrutia decided to apply revolutionary justice during the first weeks of 1959 against those who were guilty of blood crimes. Washington's position triggered the first diplomatic crisis with Havana, which recalled the White House’s support for the military regime and called into question the sincerity of these accusations. The United States’ objective was different: to discredit the new Cuban authorities.

The triumph of Fidel Castro's guerrilla was an event that had an enormous impact across the globe. Franco's Spain was by no means unaffected by its consequences, especially its university students, who saw it as a decisive reference in the opening of new frameworks for political and ideological reflection. Therefore, the aim of this article is to analyse the influence of the Cuban Revolution on the Spanish student milieu during the early 1960s. To that end, we will first look at the channels through which that event was received and then focus on university publications as sites of expression of the meanings given by both the Falangist students and the new leftist anti-Franco militancy. Therefore, we can affirm the decisive role played by the Cuban example in the reworking and updating of both sectors' programmes for political transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of state atheism continued throughout the 1980s. Despite this fact, this period is commonly recognized as a moment of dialogue between the Catholic Church and the socialist State until its second half. From then on, the religious institution went on the offensive, believing that the island regime was following the same path of decline that Eastern Europe was going through. In this second part of this article, we deal with this decade with special attention to the Cuban National Ecclesial Meeting (ENEC), which we understand to be the most important event in Catholicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this first part we deal with the introduction to the topic and the 1970s. This decade is commonly understood as a period of reunion between the revolution and the Catholic Church after the turbulent first decade of the revolution. We end this part with the study of Monseñor Francisco Oves as a way of saying that this reunion had well-defined limits. Cuban socialism had not abandoned its Enlightenment heritage and insular Catholicism maintained matrices of Christianity common to the pre-conciliar period. The two parts of this article explores the relationship between the Cuban revolutionary government and the Catholic Church during the 1970s and 1980s. It encompasses the period between the 1960s and 1990s, characterized by the utopian romanticism of olive-clad guerrillas in the first instance, and the severe economic crisis known as the "Special Period" due to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s in the second. We investigate the modes, understandings, and mutual meanings regarding this topic, which appears to be central in the politics of the past two centuries, maintaining its relevance in contemporary times, namely: revolution and religion; left-wing and religion; state and religion; and state and churches. In addition to the pertinent bibliography on the subject, we conducted research in Cuban state and ecclesiastical archives in Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with Aurelio Alonso, a Cuban public intellectual member of the group that founded the Pensamiento Crítico magazine published on the Island between 1967 and 1971, is presented. by the Communist Party of Cuba once constituted as the party of the revolution in 1965. The main topic of the interview is the origin and trajectory of the group, the controversies in which Alonso was involved and the interpretations regarding the closure of the publication. The questions and answers that articulated the conversation in Havana in March 2020 are preceded by a short biography of the interviewee, a contextualization of the experience, and a reference to the mentioned magazine. The footers inform about relevant events, characters or institutions that will allow the reader to follow the trajectory of thought and politics in Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the conception of the Cuban historian Sergio Aguirre regarding the formation of the Cuban nation, based on his essays compiled in the work Eco de Caminos (1974). In addition, it is problematized around the historiographical method from which the author starts to record the different moments of said process. The strong ideological component of Aguirre's work in general and of his conception of the national in particular is demonstrated; and this is the basis of its value and originality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article presents the discussion on excavations of the idiosyncracies and fugitivities of interwoven African and Cuban cultural and spiritual tapestries. Topics include foraging Cuban history for clues to the mysteries and palimpsests of identity; and exercise in intellectual marronage, in the midst of resurgent expressions of latent and overt racism in the contemporary island-nation and the world; and disseminated images on social media serve as stark reminder that ignorance of history.

This brief essay places Rodney in the context of the development of trans-Atlantic African Diaspora consciousness and culture, and the development of non-Western contingent Marxist theories from dependency to his underdevelopment thesis. Rodney's biography and intellectual development are contextualized in their Caribbean, Latin American and Diasporic Black contexts, and in the context of Rodney's engagement with people, pedagogy and political processes in Jamaica, Tanzania, London and Guyana. Specifics of his Cuban sojourns and evolving conceptions of the revolution, his work on a book while there, and his placement within Cuban research and broader Caribbean and Latin American tendencies are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After breaking away from 'Stalin's isolationism', Moscow saw the 1959 Cuban Revolution as an opportunity to expand its influence and granted Cubans numerous scholarships for postgraduate and technical training in the USSR. Facing international hostility, preparing new specialists was crucial to Cuba's development. However, for many uneducated Cuban students, in addition to serious external obstacles (weather, language, depression), studying in the USSR was a highly politicised experience. They formed colectivos and were called on to induce a 'revolutionary morality' through incentives and sanctions; they also received ongoing political orientation from the embassy, shaping a well-entrenched 'culture of militancy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]