Barry Carr

The Cuba reader : history, culture, politics

Cuba is often perceived in starkly black and white terms—either as the site of one of Latin America’s most successful revolutions or as the bastion of the world’s last communist regime. The Cuba Reader multiplies perspectives on the nation many times over, presenting more than one hundred selections about Cuba’s history, culture, and politics. Beginning with the first written account of the island, penned by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the selections assembled here track Cuban history from the colonial period through the ascendancy of Fidel Castro to the present. The Cuba Reader combines songs, paintings, photographs, poems, short stories, speeches, cartoons, government reports and proclamations, and pieces by historians, journalists, and others. Most of these are by Cubans, and many appear for the first time in English. The writings and speeches of Jose Marti, Fernando Ortiz, Fidel Castro, Alejo Carpentier, Che Guevera, and Reinaldo Arenas appear alongside the testimonies of slaves, prostitutes, doctors, travelers, and activists. Some selections examine health, education, Catholicism, and santeria; others celebrate Cuba’s vibrant dance, music, film, and literary cultures. The pieces are grouped into chronological sections. Each section and individual selection is preceded by a brief introduction by the editors. The volume presents a number of pieces about twentieth-century Cuba, including the events leading up to and following Castro’s January 1959 announcement of revolution. It provides a look at Cuba in relation to the rest of the world: the effect of its revolution on Latin America and the Caribbean, its alliance with the Soviet Union from the 1960s until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, and its tumultuous relationship with the United States. The Cuba Reader also describes life in the periodo especial following the cutoff of Soviet aid and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. For students, travelers, and all those who want to know more about the island nation just ninety miles south of Florida, The Cuba Reader is an invaluable introduction.

Mill Occupations and Soviets: The Mobilisation of Sugar Workers in Cuba 1917–1933

In August, September and October 1933 Cuban sugar workers seized several dozen mills and estates and, in a number of cases, inaugurated soviets. This major worker uprising coincided with the collapse of the regime of Gerardo Machado and the early stages of the reformist administration of Grau San Martin. An examination of the roots of labour organisation among sugar workers and of the dynamic of the insurgency reveals the strengths and the limitations of the role played by the Cuban Communist Party. The collapse of the institutional and coercive structures of the state apparatus greatly facilitated the worker actions.

Mexican Communism 1968–1981: Eurocommunism in the Americas?

In November 1981 the oldest political party in Mexico, the Mexican Communist Party (partido Comunista Mexicano or PCM) dissolved itself and together with four other left parties established the United Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM).1 This was the culmination of more than ten years of debate and internal transformation during which the PCM had come to reject many of the traditional assumptions of Latin American communist parties. The most important change within the PCM in the 1970S was a new openness to the broad left seen in the creation of the Left Coalition (Coalicion de Izquierda) in 1977 and in the establishment of electoral alliances with Trotskyist parties like the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT). These moves signalled the PCMs abandonment of its claim to be the sole interpreter of revolutionary marxism in Mexico. Almost as important was the PCMs growing independence of the Soviet Union and the CPSU, demonstrated in the partys condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. We can also note the PCMs rejection of simple two-stage theories of revolution and its reassessment and then rejection of claims for the continuing democratic potential of the Mexican Revolution. This development, along with parallel developments in Venezuela which resulted in the establishment of the Movement Towards Socialism

Sweating for a T-Shirt

Abstract The New International Division of Labour is a rather abstract concept which embraces such issues as runaway shops; the deindustrialisation of ‘first world economies’; the explosion of off-shore assembly and manufacturing plants (maquiladoras) in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean; the accentuation of sweated labour and coercion of (mostly) womens labour; and virtually everything else connected with that buzz word of the 1990—globalisation.

Latin America: Changing political realities and trends 2000–2014

With this striking headline Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira began his opinion editorial published in mid-June 2011 in the solidly respectable and centrist Brazilian newspaper O Folha de São Paulo. Bresser Pereira was commenting on a news story supplied by the newspaper’s Washington correspondent, suggesting that President Barack Obama intended to ‘create a bank similar to the BNDES [Brazilian Economic and Social Development Bank]’ in order to finance transportation, energy and sanitation projects in the United States. Bresser Pereira continued:

The April events in Venezuela: A forum

Abstract With this forum on Venezuela JILAS˜ launches a new section of our journal. From time to time we will publish dossiers on current issues that are ‘in the news’—consisting of short essays written by protagonists and commentators covering a wide spectrum of opinions. With the introduction of our forums, the JILAS˜ editorial team demonstrates its commitment to occasionally providing vivid and immediate commentary by recognised authorities on important political, social, economic and cultural developments.