Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground (review)

This is not a military history, but it is the best book ever written about Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement. As the subtitle indicates, the author focuses on the urban underground in the revolutionary struggle for power in Cuba in the 1950s. As she states in the Introduction, her story gets underway with the establishment by Castro's 26 of July Movement of both a viable underground and a sustainable guerrilla force in Cuba early in 1957; the "climax of the story is the shift in the balance of power within the 26 of July Movement from the llano [underground] to the sierra [guerrillas]" in the aftermath of the disastrous general strike of 9 April 1958. She disclaims any intention of presenting "an in-depth examination of . . . the military battles during the insurgency" (pp. 10–11), the most decisive of which were fought in the last six months of 1958. What she offers is a masterful analysis of the politico-revolutionary process from which evolved the military strategy that produced the triumph of the revolution in January 1959. Unlike the great body of preexisting literature on the subject, Sweig's work is thoroughly professional and based primarily on archival sources in Cuba, to which she had unprecedented and almost unrestricted access.

Sweig finds no significant conflict within the 26 of July Movement between its underground and guerrilla contingents prior to the April 1958 general strike. Both branches operated under the orders of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and agreed with the general-strike strategy that was developed mostly by the underground and approved by the Maximum Leader. Fidelista guerrilla commanders, with the notable exception of Argentine-born Ernesto "Che" Guevara, willingly accepted the secondary role assigned to their forces in the strike plan. In a critique after the debacle, Guevara argued forcefully and tactlessly for guerrilla supremacy—winning Fidel's approval, but also earning El Che the resentment of his underground comrades, which, to some extent, persists to this day. Nevertheless, in mid-1958 the underground leaders dutifully accepted their lesser roles, and thereafter worked diligently and successfully to integrate their militia into the guerrilla army and to provide the unified Fidelista armed forces with the logistical, propaganda, and diplomatic support they needed to overthrow the Batista dictatorship and to outmaneuver all rival revolutionary organizations in the subsequent struggle for power in Cuba in 1959.

Written with style, insight, and clarity, Julia Sweig's landmark study, now available in paperback, cannot be ignored by any serious student of the Cuban Revolution.