Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground

Julia Sweig shatters the mythology surrounding the Cuban Revolution in a compelling revisionist history that reconsiders the revolutionary roles of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and restores to a central position the leadership of the Cuban urban underground, the Llano. Granted unprecedented access to the classified records of Castro's 26th of July Movement's underground operatives - the only scholar inside or outside of Cuba allowed access to the complete collection in the Cuban Council of State's Office of Historic Affairs - she details the ideological, political, and strategic debates between Castro's mountain-based guerrilla movement and the urban revolutionaries in Havana, Santiago, and other cities. In a close study of the 15 months from November 1956 to July 1958, when the urban underground leadership was dominant, Sweig examines the debate between the two groups over whether to wage guerrilla warfare in the countryside or armed insurrection in the cities, and is the first to document the extent of Castro's cooperation with the Llano. She unveils the essential role of the urban underground, led by such figures as Frank Pa s, Armando Hart, Hayd e Santamaria, Enrique Oltuski, and Faustino P rez, in controlling critical decisions on tactics, strategy, allocation of resources, and relations with opposition forces, political parties, Cuban exiles, even the United States-contradicting the standard view of Castro as the primary decision maker during the revolution. In revealing the true relationship between Castro and the urban underground, Sweig redefines the history of the Cuban Revolution, offering guideposts for understanding Cuban politics in the 1960s and raising intriguing questions for the future transition of power in Cuba.

Review :
In a thoughtfully argued and carefully researched book, Sweig...provides what will almost certainly be the standard account of the Cuban insurrection for years to come. Using a wide range of archival records and manuscript sources, including important Cuban materials, Sweig successfully explores the complex and often contradictory relations between the Ilano and the sierra. She pays attention more to similarities than to differences and, by emphasizing collaboration and coordination, provides a coherent and cogent explanation of the astonishing success of Castro's movement. Keenly aware of the larger historical context which gives her tale meaning, Sweig shows how Castro held together the disparate elements of his often-fractious movement while providing considerable insight into his personality and the politics that often divided his followers.--Louis A. P?rez"Los Angeles Times Book Review" (07/21/2002) In this book, Julia E. Sweig attempts to debunk one of the many pillars of the mythology surrounding the Revolution, namely that Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and a few other guerilla fighters stationed in the Sierra Maestra were the primary force that brought down Batista and had a dominant influence over revolutionary activities beyond the Sierra Maestra, including the urban settings...The picture produced by this book is one in which 26th of July leaders, operating outside the Sierra Maestra, played protagonist roles within the insurrection and that much of the initiative and many of the key actions emerged from the "llano" (lowlands)...[S]he supports this thesis with documentary sources heretofore unavailable to scholars. The bulk of the documentary evidence sustaining the book consists of hundreds of documents housed at the Cuban Council of State's Office of Historic Affairs, which the Cuban government made available to Sweig while keeping the archive's do Julia Sweig's book, the result of eight years of research with access to newly declassified documents, exposes the myth that the Cuban revolution was imposed by a dozen middle-class, bearded rebels in the mountains and challenges three pieces of conventional wisdom...This book is vital for anyone interested in understanding the Cuban revolution, and it destroys the arguments of those British Trotskyists who deny its working class character.--Helen Yaffe"Fight Racism and Fight Imperialism" (11/01/2002) The recent opening of Cuban historical archives to non-Cuban scholars has changed traditionally accepted views of the Cuban revolution of 1959. Using documents housed in the Cuban Council of State's Office of Historic Affairs, Sweig...argues that in its early days the revolution was influenced more by the Cuban middle class and less by Fidel Castor or Che Guevara than historians have suggested...By giving this period context and highlighting its importance, Sweig shows that all the elements of the revolution were in place prior to 1959...[It is] convincingly argued and now backed by documentary evidence. A valuable discussion.--Mark L. Gover"Library Journal" (05/15/2002) The sheer volume of material she was able to review is astounding.--Mark Falcoff"Times Literary Supplement" (12/13/2002) This is not a military history, but it is the best book ever written about Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement...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...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.--Neill Macaulay "Military History " Using original documentary sources from Cuban government archives, Sweig shows how the largely middle-class Cubans in the urban underground laid the groundwork for Castro's Rebel Army victory...Sweig claims that the full history of the revolution has yet to be written, but her book makes an impressive contribution to this effort by painting a new and more realistic picture of the process that produced Castro's Cuba.--Susan Kaufman Purcell"Foreign Affairs" (05/01/2002) and challenges three pieces of conventional wisdom...This book is vital for anyone interested in understanding the Cuban revolution, and it destroys the arguments of those British Trotskyists who deny its working class character. figures... Sweig's book is an important and useful contribution for the understanding of the struggle against Batista. full history of the revolution has yet to be written, but her book makes an impressive contribution to this effort by painting a new and more realistic picture of the process that produced Castro's Cuba. held together the disparate elements of his often-fractious movement while providing considerable insight into his personality and the politics that often divided his followers. ignored by any serious student of the Cuban Revolution. its importance, Sweig shows that all the elements of the revolution were in place prior to 1959...[It is] convincingly argued and now backed by documentary evidence. A valuable discussion. on original interviews and previously inaccessible records of the 26th July Movement--the revolutionary nationalist organization created by Castro. Julia Sweig has written a carefully crafted account of the urban underground campaign against Fulgencio Batista, the dictator toppled from power in 1959. The main interest of the book is that it is primarily based on original interviews and previously inaccessible records of the 26th July Movement--the revolutionary nationalist organization created by Castro.