Introduction

1. The Cuban Press in 1933

6Therefore, the initial evidence in 1932-33 suggests quiet hopes among the reformist Left about FDR’s meaning for Cuba alongside a more radical view of him as just another US president. However, they all shared a confusion between the (domestic) New Deal and the Good Neighbour, a confusion also evident among US commentators: in August 1933, the New Republic wrote of a “New Deal in regard to Latin America” (Gellman, 1973: 105), a 1934 World Affairs Interpreter article argued that “a new deal in our relations with Cuba is required” (Stuart, 1934: 53), and in 1935 Carleton Beals lamented that “[i]n the name of the New Deal in Latin America we have nailed Cuba back on the same old cross” (Beals, 1935: 219).

2. The Cuban Political Scene

7Cubans’ caution reflected Cuban politics by 1932, with even bourgeois elements opposing Machado, sharing fears about US dependence, as reflected in 1931 in both the radical terrorist organisation ABC and failed elite-led rebellions. After years of growing insurrection and opposition, some saw Machado as a bulwark against communism and anarchy, but more saw him as an obstacle to social progress, economic recovery and guarantees against US intervention. By March 1933, that divide had widened, as Machado’s regime neared the end. Hence, Cuban interest in FDR focussed inevitably on the Cuban impact of any US recovery and New Deal protectionism.

8The 100 days revolution reflected those reactions. While it suggested radicalism (Grau seeking to end the Amendment, replace the neo-colonial 1901 Constitution, and enact a postponed nation-building), Grau never fully controlled Cuba in his 134 days. Moreover, the revolution was a fluid state of chaos, with at least five discrete strands. The once radical DEU were the most visible but increasingly moderate, alarmed by “soviets” declared in the sugar mills. The second strand was labour radicalism, although the PCC’s ideological position (that a semi-feudal Cuba made socialist revolution impossible) led them to dismiss the revolution as bourgeois. Meanwhile, Antonio Guiteras (Grau’s radical Minister of War and Minister of the Interior) led an anti-imperialist strand of nationalism, based in the police and soldiers in his charge and some of the old action groups that formed Joven Cuba [Young Cuba] in 1934. The mutinous NCOs (under sergeant Batista) who sparked the revolution on 4 September 1933 showed some radicalism by removing most (and killing many) of the officer class (Kapcia, 2002), but their grievances focussed on pay, conditions, and blocked promotion. The residual armed action groups (a further strand) lacked any clear political position. Meanwhile, the increasingly corporatist ABC opposed the revolution; part of Welles’s failed mediation with Machado, they sided with the army officers and backed Batista’s January 1934 coup, ending the revolution; their own variant of radicalism (firstly in their overt commitment to terrorism and their militant nationalism, but increasingly in their association with more corporatist ideas) led some on the Left to label them Cuba’s fascists, although their profile until 1934 had been much more complex than that.

3. The Cuban Press from 1936

10The press’s change from their 1932-33 caution bore that out. Bohemia greeted FDR’s re-election enthusiastically, but the old confusion of New Deal and Good Neighbour continued: one early editorial (“La política del ‘Buen Vecino’” [The Good Neighbour policy]) used ‘New Deal’ to mean the new Cuba-US relationship (the 1934 Reciprocity Treaty and the quota system) (Bohemia, 28, 44: 56). Politically too, Bohemia was confused: while the editorial denied FDR’s socialism or fascism, concluding, “Roosevelt no es más que un demócrata, un gran demócrata, un demócrata de cuerpo entero” [Roosevelt is nothing but a democrat, a great democrat, a democrat in his whole being] (Ibid: 57), the first of a series of Gustavo Gutiérrez articles on the new Soviet Constitution included the words “Precisamente lo que admiramos de la Rusia Soviética y de la Italia Fascista y de los hombres que las guían es su extraordinaria perspicacia para arrojar las fórmulas fracasadas y adoptar otras nuevas” [What we admire in those leading both Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy is their remarkable vision in rejecting failed formulas and adopting new ones] (Ibid: 17), then seeing Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Roosevelt following the same “socialista” idea (Ibid: 46). Meanwhile, Miguel Coyula’s “República y Democracia” hoped that any new Cuban Constitution would be “ni comunismo ni fascismo” [neither communism nor fascism] (Ibid: 38).

11Confusion continued, Coyula a week later welcoming FDR’s re-election as “La victoria democrática aparece como un venturoso rayo de luz” [the victory for democracy is a welcome ray of light] (Bohemia, 28, 45: 38), and the editor Miguel Angel Quevedo Jr. seeing him as a leader who “manifestaba una tendencia liberal y liberadora a favor de los contingentes labourantes de la nación” [tended towards liberalism and liberation for the nation’s labouring masses] (Ibid: 42). Three weeks later, Coyula praised him as a possible pauta (model) for Cuba (Bohemia, 28, 48: 36). The latter reflected pattern on the reformist Left, as Eddy Chibás (former student radical, now Auténtico) drew implicit personal parallels, seeing FDR as someone who, elected in crisis, representing the poor, and accused of communism, had rebuilt via the New Deal. It was clear that a particular Cuban Left now invested faith in a US model of ‘third way’ socially progressive politics. Chibás himself welcomed FDR as “el campeón de las modernas democracias, como el adalid internacional del nuevo liberalismo consciente” [the champion of modern democracy, the international champion of a new liberal consciousness], adding the slogan, “Ni Roma ni Moscú: Libertad y Democracia” [Neither Rome nor Moscow: Freedom and Democracy]’ (Ibid: 39). That tone continued in later issues, reflecting on FDR’s programme (Bohemia, 28, 50: 14-5) and his meaning for Cuba, Coyula seeing his re-election as “para Cuba cuatro años de posibilidades alentadoras” [four more years of promise for Cuba] (Ibid: 46). Chibás’s stance was especially significant; in 1947, he would create the radical nationalist Cuban People’s Party (Ortodoxos), which would include a young Fidel Castro.

12By the March 1937 inauguration, however, Bohemia’s main focus had become the Spanish Civil War and Grau, both emblematic issues for the Left to redefine itself in a global ideological conflict. That was seen in “Política Americana”, Alejandro Vergara Leonard (of the reformist Partido Agrario Nacional (PAN)) praising FDR’s belief in economic equality, contrasting him with Fascism (Bohemia, 29, 10: 28), and urging the necessary leftward drift of politics and Popular Fronts: “De aquí que todos los partidos de izquierda y el Demócrata, que se ha izquierdizado, hayan formado el potentísimo frente popular que hoy dirige los destinos de Norte-América” [all left parties and the Democrats (who have moved leftwards) have formed a powerful popular front now shaping the US future]. (Ibid: 53). Indeed, across western Europe (even in the new Comintern line) ‘popular fronts’ were the new Left orthodoxy.

14Bandera Roja confirmed that in 1937, silent on FDR (once the imperialist) and stressing popular unity against fascism and Batista: “¡No hay un cambio democrático de las fuerzas batistianas! ¡Su nacionalismo es la defensa descarada de los yankis…..!” [Batista’s forces have not seen any democratic change! Their nationalism is a shameless defence of the Yankees!] (BR, 79, 24: 6). It all reflected PCC ambivalence: as the CPUSA (under Earl Browder) supported a New Deal ‘popular front’ of blacks, labour, the collapsing Socialist Party, and LaFolette Progressives (Leuchtenberg, 1963: 190), the PCC posture was easy to frame. By 1938, BR had been replaced by the daily Noticias de Hoy, under Blas Roca; the party now allied with Batista, Hoy addressed FDR’s opposition to monopolies (Hoy, 30 April 1938: 2) and a supposed fascist threat to his life (Hoy, 1, 1: 10). In October, it cited Roca (on a US visit) praising the Good Neighbour policy as a “tremenda influencia en la dirección que ha tomado el gobierno de Cuba” [a great influence on the policies of the Cuban government] (Hoy, 1, 139: 5). With favourable coverage of Batista’s own US visit, Hoy was proving its democratic and reforming credentials.

15Acción Socialista’s attitude in 1936-37 was equally revealing. Its discourse was now even more reformist and even reactionary: once the Periódico del Proletariado, it was now the Semanario Obrero [Workers’ Weekly], referring to the socialistas (including José Manuel Cortina) around the (questionably) “progressive” President Mariano Gómez (AS, XIV, 501: 1), and, by opposing PCC-led unions, perhaps seeking their own accord with Batista. Hence, it welcomed the re-election of someone seen as taking up Eugene Debs’s socialist project (AS, XIV, 523: 12), a triumph for the people against “los bastardos intereses de la reacción, de la burguesía explotadora, de las tendencias represivas de la libertad y del derecho humano” [the bastard interests of reaction, the exploiting bourgeoisie and the tendencies repressing freedom and human rights] (Ibid). A month later, it hailed FDR’s programme (AS, XV, 530: 5). In May, it asked “¿cuándo en Cuba tendremos un Presidente así?” [when will Cuba have a president like that?] (AS, XV, 537: 2). It now seemed that FDR was at least a yardstick for Batista, his AFL links and the New Deal being a possible basis for Batista’s Plan Trienial (AS, XV, 540: 1), and (in an Arévalo article in September) Batista being “el Jefe de la Revolución” (AS, XV, 544: 1). AS now advocated the “socialismo moderado” (AS, XV, 545: 4) of the new Partido Socialista Independiente (PSI) and a progressive alliance with Batista, not via a popular front (associated with the PCC) but the less radical New Deal, although AS was always vague on its programme.

16Meanwhile, in 1935, a new leftist periodical IR (organ of the small Izquierda Revolucionaria [Revolutionary Left]) had included an article on the New Deal’s reforms, agencies, and benefits for US farmers (IR, 1, 2: 1). Their motives and their political position were clarified by a PAN criticism of the betrayal of the 1933 revolution, repeating the slogan, “CUBA PARA LOS CUBANOS!” [Cuba for the Cubans!] (IR, 1, 2: 3). By nationalistically supporting agrarian interests, it saw the pro-farming New Deal as a model, while AS’s (and the PSI’s) more urban base made the New Deal less important than Roosevelt’s aura of social and democratic progress.

17By 1937, opinion beyond the press still shared the early confusion on the New Deal. José Pérez Cubillas’s Roosevelt, el New Deal y Cuba focussed solely on the financial and trade aspects of FDR’s Cuba policy. Analysing the crisis, unemployment, and poverty behind his election and protectionism (the “bandera del nacionalismo exagerado” [banner of an exaggerated nationalism] (Pérez Cubillas, 1937: 5)), Pérez welcomed the benefits of US stabilisation and recovery, and defended the 1934 Reciprocity Treaty against Cuban critics. In 1938, Cortina’s Franklyn Delano Roosevelt y la Nueva Democracia praised the US history of independence, liberty and the Monroe Doctrine, seeing the 1898 US intervention as the American people fighting alongside Cubans (Cortina, 1938: 9); the Platt Amendment was never mentioned. Cortina equally lauded FDR’s “revolution” of individual liberty, economic reorganisation, social justice, and unity, unlike “otras revoluciones que destruyen, anarquizan o matan” [other revolutions that destroy, bring chaos, and kill] (Cortina, 1938: 17). For him, like others on the centre-left, revolution was a vague concept, neither radical, violent nor communistic. Once again, FDR’s importance for Cuba was non-intervention and cooperation.

18However, in 1940 El ‘New Deal’ Norteamericano, by the centrist, but avidly anti-communist, historian Herminio Portell Vilá, did address FDR’s “nuevo Sistema” and “nueva filosofía” (Portell Vilá, 1940: 1), ignoring the Cuba-US relationship. He argued that Cubans should not expect a new Reciprocity Treaty in 1940 (FDR needing rural protectionist votes) and should see the New Deal as an inspiration and a model: “se ha convertido en [….] empresa humana de progreso social y económico, en régimen de equidad y de libertad, en expresión de democracia muy siglo veinte, nueva, eficiente y renovadora” [it has become […] a human enterprise of socio-economic progress, a system of equity and liberty, a 20^th century expression that is new, effective and reforming] (Portell Vilá, 1940: 24). He at least saw the New Deal legitimising a safe alternative to worrying radicalism.

4. Grau San Martín and Fulgencio Batista

19Given the continuing confusion about the New Deal, we now turn to the two 1933 leaders steadily shaping new political careers. In 1936, a series of Grau’s 1935 speeches in Panama were published as La Revolución Cubana Ante América, where revolución was only defined as: “un proceso que tiende a operar transformaciones profundas en lo económico, en lo político y en lo social, que redunden en beneficio inmediato de las mayorías oprimidas y desposeídas” [a process bringing deep changes in the economic, political, and social spheres of immediate benefit to the oppressed and dispossessed majority] (Grau, 1936: 103). That reflected the Auténtico stance: a new politics in a new Cuba under a new generation, adapting to changes in Cuba and beyond. For Grau, revolución was either a synonym for reform or legitimacy from 1933; he offered what 1933 had promised, enacted, or could have happened with US recognition: nationalisations, social reform, education, health reform, the ‘abolition of the Platt Amendment’ (Ibid. pp.89-96). 1933 was for him a real revolution and the Auténticos made Grau’s revolución part of a longer process from Martí in 1892.

22Overall, therefore, both Grau and Batista after 1938 claimed revolutionary credentials from 1933: Grau laid the basis for a new Constitution and Batista sparked the revolution in September 1933 and then defended it in October and November. The Left might condemn his 1934 seizure of power and 1935 repression, but, by 1938, he enjoyed legitimacy across the spectrum with his populism, nationalism, and Amendment “success”. In 1936, Grau had adopted a more overtly nationalist interpretation of US behaviour, while Batista had been more supportive, but by 1939 they had both shifted. The Auténticos had become a catch-all for disparate radicals and centrists (including Joven Cuba from the nationalist Left and ABC refugees from the nationalist Right) and accepted the New Deal as a possible model for a ‘modern’ reforming and ‘safe’ Cuba. Batista, aware of Comintern shifts, had outflanked Grau on the Left, helped by the Left’s weakness and a less visible US presence, Platt giving way to the 1934 Jones-Costigan Act (and sugar quota) and a new Reciprocity Treaty. When, in 1942, the Soviet Union joined the Allies, Batista could argue US-approved toleration of the Soviet Union.

5. US Attitudes

24That salutary reminder of US neo-colonialism confirmed that Cuba was less a foreign issue for the United States than an extension of domestic concerns, outside Latin America and the Good Neighbour. Indeed, FDR was keen (for US interests) to stimulate Cuba politically and economically (Benjamin, 1977: 59), while those most determining Cuba policy (Hull and Welles) clearly saw Cuba as a domestic issue. Certainly, the principles of the National Recovery Administration and Agricultural Adjustment Act were applied to Cuba for US interests (Ibid.: 59) and a new Reciprocity Treaty aimed to stabilise US exports and limit Cuban imports (Ibid.: 65). Moreover, while (in 1932-33) Cubans had been either suspicious of FDR’s intentions or concerned about his meaning for Cuba, by 1937-40 that tendency had lessened; either more Cubans understood the New Deal, or the 1934 changes had indeed stabilised Cuba, or Cubans now accepted regulation.

6. The Cuban Left after 1933

25The Cuban Left had changed the most since August 1933; then, its discourse had enjoyed dissident hegemony, with centrist and right-wing attitudes to Machado discredited by a growing consensus on insurrection, and with the Left legitimised by radical traditions. It had thus felt no need to seek legitimacy via a progressive US model. Thereafter, however, unity and coherence weakened; by 1936, Left morale had been broken by division and repression. Hence, the PCC began to reassess its strategy, soon coinciding with the Comintern’s new line. Even the non-communist Left agreed; after Guiteras’s 1935 death, Grau’s exile in Mexico, and Batista’s total control, more now saw Batista as most likely to realise the 1933 goals without chaos. Moreover, 1933 had persuaded many reformists that flirting with revolution risked real upheaval, leading to repression, while the Left had a new cause in Spain.

26The two largest forces reacted differently to the dilemma posed by Batista’s popular but authoritarian reformism: while the PCC joined him, the Auténticos led the opposition bloc in the 1939 Constitutional and 1940 presidential and congressional elections. Therefore, the Auténticos now sought different sources of legitimacy; despite their historic roots, they were now less able to find legitimacy in anti-imperialism or revolution. It was now (and not in 1932-33) that the reformist but increasingly moderate Left began to embrace FDR’s model wholeheartedly; what was problematic in 1932-33 now brought legitimacy. For the New Deal’s real significance was not to be a model but to legitimise an emerging social-democratic reformism in Cuba. In 1940, that became explicit, as both major blocs in the Constitutional Assembly chose a charter espousing New Dealist regulation, accepting Batista’s corporatist reforms based on both 1933 and Rooseveltian principles, and equating revolution with socially progressive regulation.

7. The Meaning of the New Deal in Cuba

27Hence, the New Deal ultimately legitimised several things. Firstly, it set the new reformist Left within a radical dissenting tradition, against immorality, betrayal and corruption, thus identifying itself with Martí (Kapcia, 2000: 87-88). As the 1930-33 consensus disappeared, unable to use Platt or even a popular Batista’s “betrayal”, it now focussed on corruption, an issue that had hardly figured in 1933-36 but that now reappeared for the Auténticos, using images of both Martí and the New Deal. Thus, in 1940 Portell Vilá’s picture of the pre-FDR United States reflected growing unease about Cuba (Portell Vilá, 1940: 3), while his view of the New Deal’s logic also applied to Cuba: “los abusos, los errores y los egoísmos habían engendrado el “New Deal” administrativo” [abuses, errors and egoism had spawned the New Deal] (Portell Vilá, 1940: 5).

28Secondly, combining democracy and social reform, the New Deal enabled a reformist Left to challenge both a discredited Right and the CSD: the stronger the CSD, the greater the condemnation of “anti-democratic” communists and Batista, strengthened by association with FDR’s progressive centrism rather than an insipid neutrality: “..reforma, corrección, reoragnización, innovación y experimento que formaron el ‘New Deal’ norteamericano, un conjunto de medidas de las más elementales del socialismo del Estado, pero que al fuerte individualism” [[the] reform, adjustment, reorganisation, innovation and experiment of the US New Deal, combining the basic measures of state socialism with the strength of individualism] (Portell Vilá, 1940: 5).

30Yet, interestingly, neither the Auténticos nor Batista identified themselves explicitly with the New Deal, although Zamora y López made the link with Batista’s 1937 Plan (Zamora y López, 1937). The Auténticos were presumed to be as democratic as FDR, and, by not making that association explicit, their formal nationalism was never questioned. However, their 1934 Programa Constitucional was clearly New Dealist, riddled with references to anti-trust “prácticas cooperativas y corporativas” [cooperativist and corporatist practices] (Pichardo, 1980: 301), echoing FDR in 1932-33 and talking of regulation, rejecting nationalisation, and stressing through laws “la participación más equitativa en el disfrute de los recursos de su propio país” [the most equitable participation in national resources] (Pichardo, 1980: 290). Batista’s successful cooperation (on the Amendment) with a US president was perhaps overlooked given his wide popularity, and, since his regulatory programme was evidently New Dealist, he needed no explicit homage to FDR.

32Furthermore, in 1936-40, New Deal regulation proposed opportunities and a role for the middle-class, whose new inclusive politics proposed modernisation, mitigation of “savage capitalism” through a caring capitalism of protectionism and regulation, greater political incorporation, and the state as a progressive and reforming social and economic actor. In Cuba, that made sense, new opportunities restoring a belief in the state and giving a leading role to a class which, until 1933, been in limbo between the traditional caudillos and the increasingly radical proletariat, between a drive for real independence and a servile pro-US accommodation. 1933-35 had exposed that limbo, bringing many defining moments for the class which, by 1936-37, now welcomed a new definition and a new role as the technocracy of an inclusive reforming state. Thus, the New Deal legitimised the class’s ambitions, allowing either identification with the Auténticos or Batista, or a progressive neutrality that: “se trataba de ilusiones reformistas que fomentaba el New Deal rooseveltiano en las clases medias y en grupos de trabajadores” [was about reformist hopes encouraged by Roosevelt’s New Deal in the middle class and worker groups] (Ibarra Cuesta, 1995: 200). That all helps to explain the many political metamorphoses of Batista from 1933.

33The New Deal’s final significance was that it demonstrated the continuing cultural dependency of Cuban politics. In 1930-33, the anti-Machado struggle and fears of intervention made progressive politics self-referential, but, after 1933, fears of unrest and the changing Left led the middle-class back to the US fold, accommodation now legitimised by FDR. It was thus appropriate that, when the reformist Left sought a new definition, it found it in US models and the 1935 Report. Even the PCC followed Browder’s reformism and model of an inclusive US ‘popular front’.

8. The Changing Meaning of FDR in Cuba

34In both respects, 1940 was a turning point. Thereafter, the overt praise of FDR began to disappear with the 1929-32 crisis that had made him attractive. Cuban politics now had a new yardstick and source of legitimacy, more immediately autochthonous than the New Deal: the 1940 Constitution. Regulatory, socially reforming, economically nationalist, and inclusive, it remained until 1958 (and beyond) the main legitimating force of radical politics. That most clearly explains the New Deal’s real role and significance in 1936-40: not in changing thinking, nor in persuading or heralding a wave of New Dealist reformism, but in bringing short-term legitimation and redefinition to a particular class and political position between the disorienting crisis of 1933-35 and the point when the Cuban system had its own sources of legitimacy. In 1948, the Cold War would force all groups across the spectrum to take sides: only the PCC (by then the PSP) sided with the Soviet Union; the rest openly supported Washington or remained silent. That included the reformist Left: however vociferous their ‘anti-imperialism’ or ‘socialism’, they opposed both revolution and Soviet models, finding a safe rhetorical nationalism and ‘revolution’ within a less destabilising US policy. Therefore, the New Deal became in 1936-40 all things to all people, each political position to the right of the PCC taking out of it appropriate lessons, models, or legitimacy.

Conclusion

35This all feeds into a wider reality: the complexities of decolonisation. Just as any colonialism or neo-colonialism needs the colonised to perceive themselves as ‘the problem’ (their presumed backwardness, racial divisions, inability to develop, and so on) and the coloniser as ‘the solution’, any process of growing nationalism and decolonisation needs the colonised to develop a pride in their own cultural identity, to start questioning the coloniser as solution. That can bring more significant slow steps to reverse the dichotomy, seeing the coloniser as ‘the problem’ and the colonised as ‘the solution’. However, that process is invariably long, haphazard, contested, undermined by self-doubt, and resisted by the coloniser; even after formal independence, it continues, any cultural decolonisation being far from complete after self-rule, leading many to see the outsider (previous coloniser or a new hegemon) as the solution to the inevitable problems of formal independence. In Cuba’s case, four centuries of colonialism and self-doubt, and the reality of the US role as pole of attraction, economic hegemon, determinant of independence, and gatekeeper of limited sovereignty, made some of ‘the Left’ prepared to accept that an affinity with the new hegemon was both pragmatic and a default position to protect Cubans against themselves. That pattern could be glimpsed in many reactions in the Republic’s six decades and would not be addressed fundamentally until a revolutionary questioning accompanied a process of long-delayed nation-building from January 1959.