Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground

Sweig shatters the mythology surrounding the Cuban Revolution in a compelling revisionist history that reconsiders the revolutionary roles of Castro and Guevara and restores to a central position the leadership of the Llano.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: History, Mythology, and Revolution 1 1 "Tactics in Politics and Tactics in Revolution Are Not the Same" 12 2 The Sierra Manifesto 29 3 "We Had to Act a Bit Dictatorially" 39 4 Defining Opposition Unity on the Ground 48 5 Fear and Loathing in Miami 59 6 Taming the Politiqueros in Exile 72 7 With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies? 82 8 Total War? 95 9 The Golden Age of the Llano 104 10 The Arms Race 114 11 Politics and Popular Insurrection 120 12 "Bordering on Chaos" 136 13 Picking Up the Pieces 148 14 Unity: "Like a Magic Word" 154 15 The Pact of Caracas 164 16 Hasta La Victoria! 172 Epilogue: Transitions Then and Now 183

About the Author :
Julia E. Sweig is Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Latin America Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Review :
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 20020501 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 20020515 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. Financial Times 20020616 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. Perez Los Angeles Times Book Review 20020721 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 20021101 The sheer volume of material she was able to review is astounding. -- Mark Falcoff Times Literary Supplement 20021213 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 doors closed to other researchers. This valuable and fascinating collection of documents allowed the author to paint a well-documented and nuanced perspective on llano sierra relations as well as how the leaders of the 26th of July Movement related to other anti-Batista figures...Sweig's book is an important and useful contribution for the understanding of the struggle against Batista. -- Luis Martinez-Fernandez The Historian 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