Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba (review)

A number of scholars have commented previously on the relative lack of literature for the pre-revolutionary period in Cuba, particularly regarding the labor movement, which is surprising given its importance in the island's history. By providing a new perspective on working-class issues and complementing recent studies that explore the formation of Cuban national identity, Kirwin Shaffer's book is a welcome addition to the historiography of early republican Cuba. Readers seeking a detailed narrative of Cuban anarchism and its relation to labor and politics, however, will not find it here. Instead, the author offers a more focused, thematic analysis of the cultural dimensions of the anarchist challenge to their "unholy trinity" (pp. 31, 160) of industrial capitalism, electoral politics, and Christianity.

After an initial chapter which discusses the theoretical and comparative influences that provide the rationale for studying anarchism as a counter-cultural social movement, Shaffer examines three main "sites of cultural conflict": internationalism versus nationalism; health and safety; and education and gender. He does an admirable job of mining the anarchist press and other writings from leading figures in the movement, especially the fiction of Adrián del Valle and Antonio Penichet, while emphasizing attitudes and ideas over actions. Although tension existed between Cuban nationalism and anarchist internationalism, local anarchist commentators contributed to key debates regarding the nature of Cuban identity after 1898, including the meaning of the war for independence, immigration, and race relations. While anarchists attempted to mediate between native Cuban workers and Spanish immigrants, they largely ignored the plight of Afro-Caribbean laborers on the island and remained rather silent regarding racial discrimination (and apparently attracted few Cubans of African descent to their ranks). They decried the unsanitary conditions that prevailed in urban and rural settings alike, and anarcho-naturists in particular promoted alternative health care, vegetarian diets, and living in harmony with nature as a counterbalance to the alienation and exploitation of an increasingly industrialized Cuba. Anarchists also rejected state-run as well as Church-run schools, in some cases by opening their own rationalist schools, more notably by attempting to educate their audiences through newspapers, literature, theater, and other types of public performances. By uncovering these viewpoints, Shaffer sheds light on important aspects of the island's leftist heritage, especially on the topics of health and education.

Even as this study offers a fresh perspective on post-colonial Cuba, its close focus on cultural history presents certain limitations. As depicted in this book, Cuban anarchists seem largely marginalized from the main political events and processes of the early twentieth century, despite their prominence in the country's organized labor movement. The decision to end the study around 1925—prior to the popular mobilizations that toppled the Machado regime—reflects this approach. Shaffer suggests that Cuban anarchists enjoyed only limited success because they worked with the "most depoliticized segments" (p. 229) of the island's population, yet recent works by Robert Whitney (State and Revolution in Cuba: Mass Mobilization and Political Change, 1920-1940 [2004]) and Lillian Guerra (The Myth of José Martí: Conflicting Nationalisms in Early Twentieth Century Cuba [2005]), among others, demonstrate that the popular classes played critical roles in national politics as well as the construction of national identity during this time. Shaffer's decision to largely eschew archival sources (despite having conducted research in Havana) contributes to the portrayal of anarchism as a movement removed from the mainstream of Cuban political life. Similarly, he pays scant attention to other key figures linked (at some point in their lives) to anarchism in Cuba, including labor leaders Alfredo López and Carlos Baliño, as well as Carlos Loveira, whose novels feature many of the same themes covered in the fiction of Del Valle and Penichet.

While not intended to be a comprehensive study of Cuban anarchism, then, this book nicely complements existing studies by Frank Fernández and Sam Dolgoff that look at the...