Understanding Fidel Castro

Too often critics ave charged Castro with being erratic and without ideology. Such assumptions lead thinkers to many understanding the most influential person in Latin American politics. To understand Fidel Castro, Americans ought to turn to his purported influence and basis of is ideology: Jose Martí.

Martí and Fidel: The Creator and the Applicator

Marcus Eagan

“La inteligencia tiene dos fases distintas: la de creación y la de aplicación: cuando aquélla no se une a ésta, hace desventurados y mártires, enfermos incurables del dolor perpetuo de la vida: la de aplicación, con ser menos noble, es más adecuada y necesaria a la existencia: una y otra mezcladas, son el germen escondidos del bienestar de un país.” – José Martí, Bolitines de Orestes, 1875

With his successful revolution, Fidel Castro imbued discontent Latin Americans with the sense of hope he received from reading Cuban patriot José Martí. Consequently, Castro influenced a litany of similar guerilla struggles throughout Latin America from 1959 through the present day.<ref name="Wright2001" /> A more complicated relationship exists between Castro and his purported influence, José Martí. Castro’s importance to the ideological fabric of Latin America at-large implies the importance of understanding Martí. Misunderstanding Castro has led to out-of-date and ineffective policies like the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba, and Castro has been discredited in the U.S., based a highly politicized image given to us by Cuban-American exiles. Since Castro has claimed that Martí provided him the impetus for his revolutionary insurrections, readers often assume that Mart must have been a Marxist. This view is often taken because Cuba’s shift to a Marxist-Lennist economic model contradicted the hegemonic U.S. model, shook the global geopolitical climate and it made the small island a major world player. Yet neither Martí’s own works nor the literature about him suggest that he endorsed Marx’s model of political economy, though he did not necessarily take a strong position against socialistic policies either. Martí’s ideological ambiguity on Marxism has led scholars like John M. Kirk on the (Revolutionary) left, and Carlos Ripoll on the (Traditional) right to argue Martí’s stance on Marxism. Their squabbles overlook the points of connection between Martí and Castro, which run deeper than Marxism. What rhetoric scholar Donald Rice calls the “Teleological School” seems to elucidate a more important connection between Martí and Castro: both Martí and Castro desired Cuban independence most, and they would both go on to risk their lives to lead revolutionary movements fueled by their romanticized language. Rafael Rojas, also of the Teleological school, articulates a central point of connection between Martí and Fidel in an “Essay on the First Cuban Republic”: “Martí’s political literature is in good measure an argument in favor of the moral capacity of late nineteenth century Cuban society to constitute itself as a modern citizenship.” Although the debate on Martí and Fidel tends to focus on the issue of Marxism, the real connection between the two relates to their desire to protect Cuba from American colonial ambition, to maintain Cuban autonomy, and to garner popular support through the rhetorical technique of romantic transcendence. North American Neo-Colonialism

Both Castro and Martí fought against the North American colonial threat, but some Traditionalist scholars argue that Martí loved the United States and viewed it favorably.  If those scholars’ argument were true, Castro’s anti-Americanism would be a major contradiction to Martí’s writing. Traditionalist exile José Solis juxtaposes two statements to suggest that Martí was not anti-American when he writes, “José Martí era antimperialista, pero ¿era Martí antinorteamericano?”  Yet Martí’s major works suggest that he viewed the United States as an empire, and that he only admired the idea North American freedom early on. Consequently, Solís can only cite excerpts from the beginning of Martí’s stay in the U.S. like, "un país, prendado, sí, de la libertad," because Martí stopped writing of that “libertad” when he realized the law did not apply to everyone.   This assumption might also be taken by less-politically charged readers who are unaware of Martí’s extensive travels in Spain, various countries in Latin America and the United States. Given Martí’s professional and governmental experiences as a printer in Mexico, an Uruguayan ambassador to the United States, and as a Cuban delegate and Latin American correspondent in New York City, Martí had more first-hand exposure to American neo-colonial ambitions than Fidel Castro, the most formidable and influential anti-American in the years following the Cuban revolution. Martí’s most important writing criticized the United harshly and warned Latin America, made evident by titles like En Las Entrañas del Monstruo (the U.S.) and “Nuestra América”.  Even though many Traditionalists demonstrate that Martí did praise the United States for some its attributes in his first year’s in New York in order to prove how Castro contradicts Martí’s writing on the North America and economy, the suspicious perceptions of colonial ambitions, like mineral exploitation, that appear in Martí’s work from Mexico early in his adult life and the socially critical journalism he produced later from the U.S. link him to Castro’s resistance to the superpower and its racist culture.

While living in Mexico from 1875 to 1878 Martí wrote poetry and published prose in Mexican newspapers, but much of the work from this period had been traditionally ignored by scholars because Martí declared in 1895, just before his death, that all the poetry he wrote before Ismaellios (1882) was worthless and should be ignored. None of these works should be ignored because they exist and, therefore, were at the behest of a young Fidel Castro, searching for ideological direction. The similarities between the two thinkers become apparent when readers review a period where Martí wrote for Revista Universal (Mexico) known as Bolitines de Orestes (late 1870s). Ottmar Ette summarizes the hard-to-find bulletins: “[H]e paints for his readers an outline of the incipient industrial development of Mexico, mentioning the country’s woods, its mineral resources as they were beginning to be exploited (in several occasions Martí pointed to the need for Latin American countries to avoid basing future economic development on the deceptive wealth of mines, which he associated with the most characteristic component of colonial economic system)[.]”

Martí presciently associates mining wealth and colonialism. His work charged Castro and other leaders beware of foreign mining operations. Readers see that even in his nascent years, Martí was both cognizant of the U.S.’s exploitative tendencies in the region and of the historical exploitation of Latin America mineral wealth. In 1960, Fidel Castro reacted to the warnings of Martí, and the most important difference between the men on the issue of mining became political power not ideology; Castro had the authority to implement their similar beliefs. Castro’s early speeches and revolutionary policies reflect Martí’s wariness of the mineral wealth and foreign development. In September of 1960, Castro told the United Nations: “Cuba produce…mucho níquel; todo el níquel era explotado por intereses norteamericanos. Y [antes de la revolución], bajo la tiranía de Batista, una compañía norteamericana, la Moa Bay, había obtenido concesión tan jugosa que en cinco años solamente…iba a amortizar una inversión de 120 millones de dólares; 120 millones de dólares de inversión, amortizable en cinco años.” Though characteristically more inflamed in his critique than Martí, Castro actively highlighted the relationship between mineral wealth and colonialism, too, like Martí. Due to political powers he wielded that Martí did not, he also had the authority to go on “Meet the Press” days later to tell the American mining companies that they either needed to pay a 25% tax for all Cuban nickel exported or leave the island. Eventually he expropriated the North American holdings and nationalized the nickel mines. Castro reasoned that Cuban citizens could not be denied the profits of a metal commodity in their land precisely if they collectively owned the operation. This example of Castro’s desire to empower the Cuban nation demonstrates a clear link between Castro’s policy and Marti’s writing. Based on his actions, Castro probably read this little known excerpt from Martí’s Mexican writings, where he warns Mexicans of foreign mining companies’ exploitative practices: Su riqueza minera comenzará a ser útil al país, cuando pueda aplicarse en beneficio de él mismo, y no haya de llevarse fuera de la patria en pago de las más sencillas necesidades materiales y domésticas. Las minas no son hoy un alimento de la riqueza nacional: sus productos se exportan, en pago de los efectos de consumo que se importan a México y que por su naturaleza y la actual constitución social, han menester renovación pronta y constante.

Fuerza es ante todo alentar y premiar, aun de manera extraña y desusada, todos los ramos de la industria nacional.

Martí asked for force (fuerza), and Castro clearly responded with force. Progressive racial discourse further underscores the connection that exists between Castro and Martí because both men opined reparations for the disinherited descendants of African slaves. Martí sought to deemphasize race, but our privileged historical viewpoint has shown it took more than just racial blindness to alleviate Cuban racial inequities. In “Mi Raza” Martí writes: “[un] hombre es más que blanco, más que mulato y más que negro.” He added that “[t]odo lo que divide a los hombres, todo lo que especifica, aparta o acorrala es un pecado contra la humanidad.” North Americans fixation on race confused Martí. Even though legal slavery lasted longer in Cuba than any other country in the West, the racial politics of nineteenth-century New York City disgusted him, so he criticized New Yorkers. A civil war reunion in Gettysburg on July 4, 1887 pushed him further to suggest reparations. Oscar Montero quoted Martí saying of Afrodescent Cubans, “they are owed, of course they are owed, reparation for the offense.” Castro followed his purported influence because after he took power he offered every Afrodescent literacy, health insurance and housing. Of course, everyone in Cuba received these benefits. It is noteworthy here, though, because through this reform, Castro significantly leveled the Cuban playing field as it relates to race. In a bias but informative portrayal of Fidel Castro in Commandante, Oliver Stone asks Fidel about how his revolution affected the social welfare of Cuba’s “black population.” Fidel responded in saying, “La población negro fue más pobre; ellos mas beneficiaron por la revolución.” An Afrodescent Cuban in the next frame then quoted Nicolás Guillen’s famous phrase about Fidel’s gift of revolution to Afrodescents—“Gracias a él, tengo lo que tengo.” His support of Afrodescents in Cuba and abroad starkly contrasted the American realities at the same time. Castro knew the situation in the United States and he made the joust for racial equality public when he accepted the fugitive Black Panther William Lee Brent in 1969. Castro and Martí seem like-minded on the issue of race, but race just signifies one cultural way in which Castro and Martí resisted the cultural hegemony of the United States. Cuban Autonomy Martí only ever saw Cuba the island colony, and he died before a Cuban ever governed the island. Yet Cuban autonomy was a consistent objective of his ideology. When Cuban finally did win independence from Spain with the aid of the United States, the U.S. quickly extended its hand to Cuban nationals expecting reciprocity. Given the subsequent growth of the North American presence on the island, in the forms of corporations, military bases and gangsters, one might have argued that Martí, who died for Cuban autonomy, actually died in vain. Many of Cuba’s subsequent leaders seemed more attached or even loyal to the U.S. than Cuba—four out of the first ten elected presidents left Cuba after their terms ended and died abroad: Gerardo Machado, José Miguel Gomez, Carlos Prío Socarrás and Fulgencio Batista. While almost all scholars agree that Bautista was an Americam puppet, some Traditionalists still assert that Castro contradicted Martí’s vision of Cuban autonomy in engaging in armed struggle to depose another Cuban because subsequently he instituted communism. They speculate that Martí would have rejected the resultant relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union. Revolutionary theorists, though, speciously argue that Martí embraced Marxism in order to justify Castro’s rhetorical use of Martí. Yet Castro’s decision to create a strong geopolitical rift between Cuba and the United States by adopting Communism in alliance with the Soviet Union, demonstrates that he followed Martí’s guidance in finally establishing a Cuba ideologically aloof Washington, its policy makers and the Consensus. Therefore, while the issue of Marxism pre-occupies domestic policy debates comparing Martí to Castro, both revolutionaries saw the United States as hindering a Cuban struggle for freedom and are linked in their devotion to armed struggle and a trincheria (barricade) de ideas. Martí wrote a manifesto known as El Manifiesto de Montecristi where he urges Cubans to rise up against the colonial powers to protect the patria. Softening for readers the tone of his decree with the rhetorical technique explained in next last section of this essay, Martí clearly outlines his own intentions to stage a violent revolt. Readers are even able to see, if a few proper nouns like Batisita and Los Estados Unidos are added, the narrative of Castro’s struggle to depose an American puppet fits right into Martí’s original decree. An excerpt from the document co-written by General Máximo Gómez reads: “En las formas que se dé la revolución, conocedora [del] de su desinterés, [de sus hijos] no hallará sin duda pretexto de reproche la vigilante [timidez] cobardía, que en los errores formales del [la patria] país naciente, o en [la] su poca suma visible de república, [buscase] pudiese procurar razón [para] con que negarle la sangre que le adeuda… La guerra sana y [robusta] vigorosa desde el nacer con que hoy reanuda Cuba, con todas las ventajas de su experiencia, y la victoria asegurada a las determinaciones finales, el esfuerzo excelso, jamás recordado sin unión, de [los primeros] sus inmarcesibles héroes, no es sólo hoy el piadoso anhelo de dar vida plena al pueblo que, [en] bajo la inmoralidad y ocupación crecientes de un amo inepto [Los Estados Unidos], [y codioso] desmigaja o pierde su fuerza superior en la patria sofocada o en [el] los destierros esparcidos.”

To readers familiar with Castro and the Bautista regime that he claims provoked him, the Martí excerpt anticipates Fidel’s actions. Martí died at the beginning of the independence war between the Cuban nationalists and the Spanish loyalists (integristas). Based on the manifesto, other documents and his own fate, Martí thought he was fighting for a land which he owed his blood and that others should do the same. So Castro staged an attack against Batista in 1953, following Martí’s direction. The year is significant here because it signifies Castro’s love for Martí, as Martí was born 100 years before. It is well known that Castro said Martí was the “intellectual author” of the plan of attack on the Moncada Barracks in his defense speech, La Historía Me Absolverá. Less known, though, in various parts of the speech, including where he outlines what would have been his revolutionary reforms, Castro declares that many foreign holdings are rightfully Cuban. He, too, like Martí, charged Cubans to rise up against a new tyrant: “[S]omos cubanos, y ser cubano implica un deber, no cumplirlo es un crimen y es traición. Vivimos orgullosos de la historia de nuestra patria... Se nos enseñó a venerar desde temprano el ejemplo glorioso de nuestros héroes y de nuestros mártires… [por ejemplo] Martí.” The parallels between the men’s thoughts and actions are clear, as they both fought to inch Cuba closer to autonomy. Martí and Castro both also knew that Cuba could not force the U.S. to leave on its own. In “Nuestra América”, probably Martí’s most widely read work during his lifetime, Martí charged Latin Americans to block themselves from the US domination with ideas, and Castro did just that in shifting the Cuban economic system to Communism. In the last sentence of the first paragraph, Martí wrote, “Trincherias de ideas valen más que trincheras de piedra.” Seventy years later, in 1961, Castro saw an opportunity to establish the barricade of ideas when he realized that transforming Cuba into a communist state would align him with the USSR, the U.S.’s greatest enemy. In reaction, President John F. Kennedy codified a symbolic barricade when he declared in 1962 that “the present Government of Cuba is incompatible with the principles and objectives of the Inter-American system… [I] hereby proclaim an embargo upon trade between the United States and Cuba.” In other words, Castro’s switch in ideas, consequently allying Cuba with the Soviet Union, parted the waters between the island and North America—along ideological lines. And though Castro may have made some neo-colonialist concessions to the Soviets in welcoming a Soviet military presence and committing to a Soviet sugar quota, the resultant relationship made the Cuban Communist system viable without any North American presence whatsoever. Castro realized Martí’s most disseminated writing when he instituted communism and linked Cuba geopolitically to the Soviets, thereby establishing a blockade of ideas against the United States. Still, many scholars that oppose the Marxist revolutionary regime have claimed that Castro simply replaced North American colonialism with Soviet colonialism, in contradiction to Martí. This critique seems to ignore the central goals of Martí, those of Castro, and the reality of the Cuban-Soviet relationship. The two Cubans wanted to free the island of American domination. And the Soviets, who desperately needed a Western Hemispheric vantage point, wanted an ally of the Cubans. Historian Samuel Farber best depicts the global political climate at the time: “To explain the Soviet Union’s willingness to make a substantial commitment to the unfolding Cuban Revolution, it is necessary to understand the causes of the prevailing perception that the international balance of power was shifting in favor of the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s.” He goes on to write that powerful groups worldwide thought the United States could be surpassed by the Soviet Union. The Communist revolution of the late 1950s physically drove the U.S. off the island, and it also brought the Soviets to prop up the would-be failing economy. Had Castro faced a different political climate, he might have acted differently, but the barricade of ideas he established through a Soviet-communist framework do not contradict Martí as many have claimed. Romantic Transcendence Many revolutionary and exile scholars focus on rhetoric when discussing whether or not a link exists between Martí, Marxism and Castro. A focus on rhetoric is obviously important when studying a figure like Martí or Castro, and Castro certainly did link Martí to Marxism in early speeches during the revolutionary period. Yet a more helpful analytical triangle might be Martí, el espiritú, and Castro. Given the fact that most Cubans did not know much about Marx during Martí’s life, linking Marx and Martí is speculative. Martí and Castro share a greater connection in their romanticized rhetorical appeals to Cubans’ spirits, the discursive technique of romantic transcendence. Martí and Castro targeted the Cuban soul, and gained much of their support through explicitly religious language. The other context of their appeals, though not completely separate from religion, is the body. Non-Spanish readers often lose that sense of spirituality in translation, so I have returned to the primary texts. Although scholars from the revolutionary and exile schools both debate the legitimacy of Castro’s tendency to link Marxism to Martí as a rhetorical means of justification, the revolutionaries are more significantly linked through their attempts to deify themselves in Cubans’ spirits through romantic transcendence. Martí garnered support for his revolution thanks to his romanticized poetics and Christ-like self-characterization. Romantic transcendence may be defined as using a romanticized or religious lexicon to elevate oneself in the spirits of listeners. Martí left a lasting impression on everyday Cuban consciousness, so much that when walking through Havana on any given day, one can still hear, “Yo soy un hombre sincero/ De donde crece la palma/ y antes de morrirme/ quiero echar mis versos del alma.” Those are the first versos of the versos sencillos, and, with allusions to “la palma,” the anticipation of his own death, and “el alma,” they sound like a promise from a Christ-like figure. Martí struck a spiritual chord of Cuban hatred, too, when he used “mortifique” (from mortificar) to describe what the United States had been doing to Latin America. Even though “to mortify” does not strike the American English reader as especially religious, mortificar bares religious connotations to most Latin American readers and—presumably—Martí. Martí even said in one letter to Maximo Gomez that he held, “la honda de David.” Marí utilized the David versus Goliath ethos in much of his work; its subsequent adoration, often emphasizing the underdog, reflects this ethos. Thus, Martí successfully elevated himself to the pedestal necessary to mobilize a people that might opt to sit on the Malécon with El Ron de Cuba without a dynamic like Martí. In his own revolution, Castro used the same tool of Romantic Transcendence to mobilize the Cuban people. Castro often invoked religious language in secular arguments in order to gain popular support, too. In his speech La Historia Me Absolverá, readers see countless examples of Romantic Transcendence. The title of the speech, though, speaks volumes. In Cuban slave societies, like others, the slave’s immediate goal was manumission, but their masters instilled in them the ultimate goal, salvation. It made the masters more money. To express the possibility of salvation, many slave owners used the term “absolver.” The soul of the Cuban carries the heavy legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, and it makes sense because much of the North American slave trade depended on the island for slaves. Here, readers see Castro making a very specific religious appeal, targeted at the sort of people that would believe in the ideas of the appeal to the point that they would rise up in arms to defend its progenitor. Castro and Martí also created images of Romantic Transcendence with the compliment of foreign revolutionaries committed to the Cuban Revolution. Martí brought in a Dominican in Gomez, and Castro brought in Guevara, the Argentine. In garnering strong support from men born outside of Cuba, Martí and Castro compelled Cubans to stand up for their country, as prominent others from the outside were willing to do. Martí created the ultimate image of Romantic Transcendence when he charged ahead of his revolutionary fighters in Battle, only to be fatally shot off his horse in Cauto, near a river of the same name, which means careful or wary in Spanish. The symbolism is remarkable, and a wary young Castro exercised more caution than his inspiration. Since Martí was the first “fase” referred to in the opening quote of this essay, Castro needed to stay alive to implement “la creación.” Yet one time he tested the deep end when he jumped off a Cuban navy boat to free himself from custody and swam through miles of shark infested Cuban waters. Castro’s most romantically transcendental moment was when, on September 30th of 1959, he walked up to a podium to address to a crowd of more than 100,00 Cubans in Havana, and, before he spoke, two of a dozen doves released by someone in the crowd landed on his shoulder. A Cuban woman told me this symbolized peace in a Efik-Christian Cuban system of beliefs we North Americans call Santería. Castro’s comparable moments deserve mention because of their similarity to Martí. Conclusion When readers think beyond Marxism and to the challenges against establishing an autonomous Cuba, we see similar challenges confronting José Martí and Fidel Castro, and a link between the former’s writing and the latter’s policies becomes clear. Using this analytical exercise is not an idea of my own, but comes from Enrico Mario Santí, one of the earliest members of the Teoleogical School. Scholars have called his school of thought “teleological” because it asks readers to think about the ultimate end or goal Martí and Castro sought. To borrow a phrase from Santí’s polemic published in the Miami Herald, readers ought to “pensar a Martí,” or think through Martí. In doing so, readers find the Cuban nation in danger of exploitation and foreign domination. Castro faced the same reality. In a sense, Martí laid out the ideas for resisting such pressures, and Castro had the authority to implement them. If readers truly want to understand Fidel Castro, they ought to understand Martí. The connections between one’s literature and the other’s policies offer interesting insight on a very influential force in America. Policy makers and other thinkers will find that insight helpful. Fidel’s Cuban Revolution still inspires and influences a number of leaders in Latin America. Very recently, the whistle-blower website Wikileaks.org released a diplomatic cable supporting this claim. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s ex-wife, common law, told diplomats that he was deeply influenced by Castro and Guevara. Bolivian President Evo Morales and other prominent Latin American politicians have made similar statements. It is very important that we elucidate the connection between Martí’s vast written record and Castro’s radical revolutionary policies. Through subsequent discoveries, readers might learn a lot about a new era of Latin American politics because many Latin America countries and their Romantic leaders are asserting agency through radical ideas (la trincheria), but even by force, as Martí begged for in “Nuestra América”, as Castro did with the Cuban revolutionary state, and as both men were willing to die for—Castro was just really lucky. The broader implications of re-reading Martí to improve the reader’s understanding are limitless. Martí’s connection to Castro has been proved, and sources are emerging that connect Castro to present-day, radical, Latin American leadership. Understanding these three connected forces—Martí, Castro and the present era of anti-U.S. Latin American politics— is imperative if people from all nations of the America hope to normalize the North-South relations. The Cuban-American conflict is one of many strained relations between the United States and the Latin American republics. In ignoring an objective anthology literature, we perpetuate the strains. Yet we Latin Americans and North Americans would be better off if we maintained a healthier political relationship and more vibrant cultural exchange. Forget Marxism; understanding Martí’s creations and Castro’s applications will contribute to much required, long overdue, hemispheric reconciliation.

I will edit and improve this in a few hours.

--Marcus 15:48, 6 January 2011 (CST)