Anarchism as a social movement in Cuba held
great influence with the working classes during
the 19th and early 20th century.
The movement was particularly strong following
the abolition of slavery in 1886, until it
was repressed first in 1925 by President Gerardo
Machado, and finally by Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist
government following the Cuban Revolution
in the late 1950s.
Cuban anarchism mainly took the form of anarcho-collectivism
based on the works of Mikhail Bakunin and,
later, anarcho-syndicalism.
The Latin American labor and by extension
the Cuban labor movement itself was at first
more influenced by anarchism than Marxism.
== History ==
=== Colonial era ===
In the mid-19th century, Cuban society was
highly stratified, consisting of a Spanish
creole ruling class of tobacco, sugar, and
coffee plantation owners, a middle class of
black and Spanish plantation workers, and
an underclass of black slaves.
The upper echelons of society were also deeply
divided between the creoles and Spaniards
(known as peninsulares), with the Spaniards
benefiting greatly from the colonial regime.
Cuba was a colony of Spain, although there
were movements for independence, integration
into the U.S., and integration with Spain.
The roots of anarchism were first seen in
1857, when a Proudhonian mutualist society
was founded.
After being introduced to the ideas of Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon by José de Jesus Márquez, Saturnino
Martínez (an Asturian immigrant to Cuba)
founded the periodical La Aurora in 1865.
Directed at tobacco workers, it included the
earliest advocation of cooperative societies
in Cuba.
By the Ten Years' War, the insurgents against
Spain included expatriates from the Paris
Commune, and others influenced by Proudhon,
including Salvador Cisneros Betancourt and
Vicente García.
==== Early development of the movement ====
By the 1880s, the first explicitly anarchist
influence had manifested when José C. Campos
established links between Cuba and Spanish
anarchists operating in Barcelona by importing
anarchist pamphlets and newspapers.
At the same time, many Spanish anarchists
emigrated to Cuba, and it became very common
for workers to read anarchist literature aloud
in the tobacco factories, thereby greatly
helping the dissemination of anarchist ideas
amongst the workers.
During the 1880s, and up through the early
1890s, Cuban anarchists favored an anarcho-collectivist
method of organizing and action similar to
that of Spain's Federación de Trabajadores
de la Región Española (Workers' Federation
of the Spanish Region, FTRE), following an
"each to his contribution" line, as opposed
to the "each to his need" line of the anarcho-communists.Enrique
Roig San Martín founded the Centro de Instrucción
y Recreo de Santiago de Las Vegas in 1882,
to advocate the organization of labor and
distribute literature from anarcho-collectivists
in Spain.
The Centro had a strict policy accepting all
Cubans, "regardless of their social position,
political tendency, and differences of color."
The same year, the Junta Central de Artesanos
(Central Group of Artisans) was founded following
Roig San Martín's statement that "no guild
or working class organization should be tied
to the feet of capital".
Roig San Martín wrote for El Boletín del
Gremio de Obreros, and for the first explicitly
anarchist periodical in Cuba, El Obrero, which
was founded in 1883 by republican-democrats
but quickly turned into a mouthpiece for anarchists
when Roig San Martín took over as editor.
He then founded El Productor in 1887.
In addition to San Martín, El Productor had
writers in the Cuban cities of Santiago de
Las Vegas and Guanabacoa, and the cities of
Tampa and Key West in Florida, and published
reprinted articles from the French-language
Le Revolté and Barcelona's La Acracia.Founded
in 1885, the Círculo de Trabajadores organization
concentrated on educational and cultural activities,
hosting a secular school for 500 poor students
and meetings for workers' groups.
The next year, leaders of the Círculo (with
Enrique Creci at the head) formed an aid committee
to raise funds for the legal troubles of eight
Chicago anarchists who had been charged with
murder in connection with the Haymarket affair.
Within a month and a half, the committee had
raised approximately US$1,500 for the cause.
In addition, a few days prior to the anarchists
executions, the Círculo organized a demonstration
of 2,000 people in Havana to protest the state's
decision to execute the Americans.
The Círculo and El Productor were both fined
- the paper for an editorial written by Roig
San Martín about the executions, and the
Círculo for displaying a painting that commemorated
the execution.
The colonial government also prohibited the
demonstrations that would be held every year
on anniversary of the execution.
==== Strengthening organization and action
====
The first explicitly anarchist organization,
the Alianza Obrera (Workers' Alliance), was
founded in 1887.
This organization participated along with
the Federacíon de Trabajadores de la Habana
(Havana Workers' Federation) and El Productor
in the first Congreso Obrero de Cuba (Cuban
Workers' Congress), which took place on October
1, 1887.
The congress was mostly attended by tobacco
workers, though not exclusively.
It issued a "dictum" encompassing six points:
opposition to all vestiges of authority, unity
among workers' organizations through a federative
pact, complete freedom of action among all
groups, mutual cooperation, solidarity among
all groups,
and the prohibition within the federation
of all political and religious doctrines.
Satunino Martínez looked disapprovingly on
the outcome of the congress, favoring more
reformist ideas of organizing.
This led to a rivalry between him and Roig
San Martín and the splitting of the unions
into two camps.Soon after the congress, tobacco
workers initiated a series of strikes at three
factories, one of which lasted through to
the end of November.
Later, in the summer of 1888, strikes by tobacco
workers led to a lockout by factory owners
in more than 100 factories.
The Círculo de Trabajadores organized a collection
drive to support the locked out workers, going
so far as to send representatives to Key West,
Florida to solicit donations from American
tobacco workers.
By October, the lockout was ended by factory
owners agreeing to meet with workers in negotiations.
The outcome of this situation was so favorable
to the Alianza Obrera that the union saw its
membership jump from 3,000 to 5,000 in the
subsequent six months, making it the most
powerful union in Cuba.
The following year, Roig San Martín died
at age 46, just days after his release from
jail by the Spanish colonial government; his
funeral was reportedly attended by 10,000
mourners.
Just a few months later, in response to a
lockout/strike in the tobacco industry, the
colonial head Manuel Salamanca y Negrete closed
the manufacturer's union, the Alianza Obrera
and the Círculo de Trabajadores, although
the four schools maintained by the Círculo
were allowed to remain open, and the Círculo
as a whole was allowed to reopen the following
year by the new administration.
==== Government response and the War of Independence
====
The first May Day demonstration in Cuba was
held in 1890, and consisted of a march followed
by a meeting addressed by 18 anarchist speakers.
In the following days, strikes by workers
in many industries led to the colonial government
once again closing the Círculo de Trabajadores,
only to rescind the decision when faced with
a manifesto issued in protest by 2,300 workers.
Later that year, 11 anarchists were tried
for the murder of Menéndez Areces, a director
of the moderate Uníon Obrera (Workers' Union).
Though all 11 were found innocent, Captain-General
Camilo García Polavieja used the situation
as pretext for shutting down production of
El Productor, and repression of anarchists
in general.
In 1892, another labor congress was held in
which it reconfirmed its revolutionary syndicalist
principles and expressing solidarity with
the women in the working class (a new idea
for a predominantly male working class that
felt competed against by women in the workplace),
declaring, "It is an urgent necessity not
to forget women, who are beginning to fill
the workshops of several industries.
They are driven by necessity and by bourgeois
greed to compete with us.
We cannot oppose it; let us help them."
However, the outcome of this was government
suppression of the movement by means of deportation,
imprisonment, the suspension of the right
to free assembly, and closing of organizations'
headquarters to quell organizing efforts.During
the war of independence from Spain, anarchists
joined others in the labor movement in distributing
propaganda to Spanish soldiers, urging them
not to oppose the separatists, and to join
the anarchist cause.
A few years previously, anarchists had embraced
the ideas espoused by Spanish anarchists of
organizing not just in unions, but also forming
specifically anarchist groups to educate people
and commit violent anti-state acts known as
"propaganda of the deed", which carried on
into the war of independence.
Anarchists placed bombs that blew up bridges
and gas pipelines, and contributed to the
failed separatist attempt to assassinate the
colonial head Captain General Valeriano Weyler
in 1896.
This led to the government further repressing
of anarchists, closing the Sociedad General
de Trabajadores (which grew out of the Círculo),
mass deportations of activists, and even the
forbidding of the lectura in the workplace.
=== The early 20th century ===
Following the Spanish–American War, which
gave Cuba its independence from Spain, many
anarchists were dissatisfied with the conditions
that persisted after independence.
They cited conditions that were perpetuated
by the new government, like suppression of
labor movements, US occupations, and dissatisfaction
with the school systems.
By 1899, anarchist workers had reorganized
themselves, under the Alianza de Trabajadores
(Worker's Alliance).
By September of this year, five of the groups
organizers had been arrested, following a
mason's strike which spread to all of the
construction trade.
Around this time, anarchist organizer Errico
Malatesta visited Cuba, giving speeches, and
interviews to several periodicals, but was
soon barred from further speaking engagements
by civil governor Emilio Nuñez.
Around 1902-03, anarchists and other labor
organizers began to attempt to organize the
sugar industry, then the largest industry
in Cuba.
But owners responded quickly, and two workers
were murdered, and the crimes never solved.As
well, anarchist activists focussed much of
their energy towards preparing society for
social revolution through education.
Anarchists ran schools for children to run
counter to the Catholic schools and public
schools, believing that religious schools
were anathema to their ideas of freedom, and
that public schools were too often used to
instill ideas of "patriotic nationalism" and
discourage free thought in children.
In issues of ¡Tierra!, a weekly anarchist
newspaper (published from 1899 through 1915,
putting out more than 600 issues), writers
denounced the public school requirement to
pay allegiance to the Cuban flag, and encouraged
teaching children that the flag was a symbol
of "closed mindedness and divisiveness."
Anarchists claimed that students enrolled
in such schooling would become "cannon fodder"
for a conflict of Liberal and Conservative
Party leaders in 1906, which caused the US
to intervene and occupy Cuba through 1909.
Though anarchists had been running schools
since that of the Círculo de Trabajadores,
it wasn't until 1906 that the schools began
to take on a less traditional flavor.
In 1908, anarchists included a manifesto in
issues of ¡Tierra! and La Voz del Dependiente,
calling for the establishment of schools modeled
after Francesc Ferrer's Escuela Moderna (Modern
School).
==== Repression and syndicalist activity ====
In 1911, following an unsuccessful strike
by tobacco workers, bakers, and teamsters,
all supported by ¡Tierra!, the new Governmental
Secretary, Gerardo Machado had many Spanish
anarchists deported and Cuban anarchists jailed.
The repressive policies instituted at this
time would continue for 20 years.
After García Menocal seized control of the
Cuban government in 1917, several general
strikes were met with violence from the state.
Several anarchist organizers were killed by
the state, including Robustiano Fernández
and Luis Díaz Blanco.
However, anarchists responded in kind with
their own violent acts.
In time, a group of 77 that the government
labeled an "anarcho-syndicalist mob" were
deported to Spain.
As well, anarchist publications were outlawed
(¡Tierra! having been shut down in 1915),
and the anarchist Centro Obrero (Worker's
Center) was forced to close.
Following the anarchist Congress of 1920 in
Havana, several bombings took place, including
that of the Teatro Nacional while Enrico Caruso
was performing, earning 15 to 20 times the
yearly salary of an average Cuban worker for
the single performance.
The following year, Menocal lost control of
the government to Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso,
leading to a proliferation of anarchist activity.
The ¡Tierra! group began to publish books
and pamphlets, and at least six other regular
anarchist periodicals were publishing.At this
time, the anarcho-syndicalists were still
at the head of the labor movement in Cuba.
However, despite the maritime, railway, restaurant
and tobacco industries being controlled by
organized anarchists, it wasn't until 1925
that a major anarchist federation was successfully
organized by workers.
Similar to the Confederación Nacional del
Trabajo of Spain, non-anarchist members of
the Confederación Nacional Obrera Cubana
(National Cuban Workers Confederation), eventually
formed the Communist Party of Cuba in August
1925.
By this time, many anarchists (including Alfredo
López and Carlos Baliño) had become swept
up in the excitement about the Russian Revolution,
and had become party to more authoritarian
forms of organizing.
Many strikes occurred in the fall of 1925,
and the government, once again under the leadership
of Machado, was quick to suppress the labor
movement.
Several labor leaders were shot, and several
hundred Spanish anarchists were deported in
one month.
Machado stated "You are right - I don't know
what anarchism is, what socialism is, what
communism is.
For me they are all the same.
All bad patriots."
Alfredo López, then secretary-general of
the CNOC, was arrested first in October 1925,
and encouraged to join the government, followed
by a second arrest in July 1926.
He was "disappeared" at this point, only to
have his body found in 1933, after the fall
of the Machado government.
==== Reorganization after the departure of
López and the Spaniards ====
With López gone, control of the CNOC was
now fought over by anarchists and Communists.
By 1930-1, CNOC had been taken over by the
Communists, with anarchists being turned over
to the police, still under the control of
Machado.
Many of the Spanish anarchists involved decided
to go back to Spain.
Following the new government's passage of
a law dictating that at least half of an employer's
employees be Cuban-born, a large number of
Cuba's Spanish-born anarchists were forced
by economic necessity to return to Spain,
which greatly diminished the clout of the
anarchist movement in Cuba.
However, soon the Juventud Libertaria (Libertarian
Youth) was founded by a younger generation
of anarchists, and by 1936, after the start
of the Spanish Civil War, Cuban anarchists
had founded the Solidaridad Internacional
Antifascista (SIA), to help send money and
arms to the CNT and FAI.
Many Cuban-born anarchists went to Spain to
join the fight, alongside many Spanish-born
anarchists exiled from Cuba.With the rights
guaranteed by the 1940 Constitution, anarchists
could once again organize themselves with
less risk of death or deportation.
The SIA and the Federacíon de Grupos Anarquistas
de Cuba dissolved themselves, their thousands
of members forming the Asociacíon Libertaria
de Cuba (Cuban Libertarian Association).
The ALC held the Primer Congreso Nacional
Libertario (First National Libertarian Congress)
in 1944, electing a Secretary General, and
an Organizational Secretary.
This was followed in 1948 by a second congress,
which featured the German anarchist Augustin
Souchy delivering the opening address.
Also, an official propaganda organ for the
ALC was chosen, Solideridad Gastronómica,
which was published monthly up until it was
shut down by the Castro government in December
1960.
A third congress was held in 1950, with a
heavy focus on keeping the labor movement
apolitical and free of interference from politicians
and bureaucrats.
By the mid-1950s, Fulgencio Batista was once
again in power after a successful coup d'état.
Many anarchists joined guerrilla groups fighting
the Batista government, including that of
Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, which
led to Batista's fleeing Cuba on the last
day of 1958.
=== Post-revolutionary period ===
==== 1960–1961 ====
In the first days after taking power, Castro
expelled known anarcho-syndicalists from the
Confederacíon de Trabajadores de Cuba (Cuban
Workers Confederation, CTC).
Because of this, and a general suspicion towards
governments, the ALC's national council issued
a manifesto denouncing the Castro government
and its actions.
The periodical Solidaridad Gastronómica also
announced their displeasure with the government,
saying that it was impossible for a government
to be "revolutionary".
In January 1960, the ALC convened an assembly,
calling for support of the Cuban Revolution,
while also declaring opposition to totalitarianism
and dictatorships.
By the end of the year, the group's journal
(Solidaridad Gastronómica) would be shut
down by the government.
The final issue of the journal commemorated
the death of Spanish anarchist Buenaventura
Durruti, and contained an editorial declaring
that "dictatorships of the proletariat" were
impossible, opining that no dictatorship could
be of the proletariat, only dominate it.In
the summer of that year, the German anarchist
Augustin Souchy was invited by the Castro
government to survey the agrarian sector.
He was not impressed with what he found, and
declared in his pamphlet Testimonios sobre
la Revolución Cubana that the system was
too close to the Soviet model.
Three days after Souchy departed Cuba, the
entire print run was seized by the government,
and destroyed.
However, an Argentinian anarchist publisher
republished the pamphlet the following December.
Around the same time, the ALC, alarmed at
the movement of the Castro government towards
a Marxist–Leninist form of rule, issued
a declaration, under the name Grupo de Sindicalistas
Libertarios to prevent reaction against the
ALC's membership.
The document declared opposition to the centralism,
authoritarian tendencies, and militarism of
the new government.
After a denunciation of the document by the
Secretary General of the Partido Comunista
Cubano (PCC), anarchists failed in their search
for a printer who would publish a reaction
to the denunciation.
The publication El Libertario published its
last edition that summer.Following these actions,
many anarchists chose to go underground, resorting
to "clandestine direct action" as their only
means of struggle.
According to Cuban anarchist Casto Moscú,
"An infinity of manifestos were written denouncing
the false postulates of the Castro revolution
and calling the populace to oppose it... plans
were put into effect to sabotage the basic
things sustaining the state."
After Manuel Gaona Sousa, one of the founders
of the ALC and a former anarchist, issued
a manifesto in support of the government,
declaring all those opposing the government
to be "traitors", Moscú and another anarchist,
Manuel González were arrested in Havana.
When they were freed, they both immediately
went to the Mexican Embassy, where they were
accepted.
Both eventually made their way from Mexico
to Miami, Florida, where they would reunite
with many of their Cuban associates.
==== Exile ====
Beginning in mid–1960, but greatly accelerating
in the summer of 1961, great numbers of Cuban
anarchists migrated to the United States.
That summer, in New York, the Movimiento Libertario
Cubano en el Exilio (Cuban Libertarian Movement
in Exile [MLCE]) was formed by some of these
exiles, making contact with Spanish anarchists
exiled following the Spanish Civil War, who
were also living in New York.
They also made contact with Sam Dolgoff and
the New York-based Libertarian League.
"A Clarification and a Declaration of the
Cuban Libertarians", a document by Gaona and
signed by several other prominent anarchists,
excoriated the libertarian press and advocated
for the adoption of Castroism.
In response to the widespread effect of the
manifesto, the MLCE issued the Boletín de
Información Libertaria with support from
the Libertarian League, and the paper of the
Federación Libertaria Argentina (FLA).
Among many others, the FLA printed an essay
by Abelardo Iglesias titled Revolución y
Contrarevolución which stated the differences
the Cuban anarchists saw between Marxist and
anarchist revolution: "To expropriate capitalist
enterprises, handing them over to the workers
and technicians, THIS IS REVOLUTION.
But to convert them into state monopolies
in which the only right of the producer is
to obey, THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION."While
Cubans exiled in the U.S. were trying to raise
money to support anarchists imprisoned in
Cuba, the MLCE was being denounced by anarchists
in the U.S. and other countries as puppets
of the CIA, and "mere anti-communists".
The anarcho-pacifist periodical Liberation
printed pro-Castro articles, leading to a
protest at their offices by the MLCE and Libertarian
League.
But in 1965, the MLCE sent Iglesias to Italy
to present the case against Castro to the
Federazione Anarchica Italiana (FAIT).
The FAIT was convinced, and published condemnations
in Italian anarchist periodicals such as Umanità
Nova, and collected signatures to the condemnation
from the Federación Libertaria Argentina,
the Federación Libertaria Mexicana, the Anarchist
Federation of London, the Sveriges Arbetares
Central-Organisation, the French Anarchist
Federation, and the Movimiento Libertario
Español.Despite the denunciations from the
anarchist organizations and periodicals around
the world, opinion began to change in 1976,
when Sam Dolgoff published his book The Cuban
Revolution: A Critical Perspective.[1] As
well, in 1979, the MLCE began publishing a
new magazine titled Guángara Libertaria,
reprinting Alfredo Gómez' article The Cuban
Anarchists, or the Bad Conscience of Anarchism.
In 1980, the MLCE and Guángara Libertaria
supported the mass evacuation of Cubans from
Cuba after many Cuban dissidents occupied
the Peruvian embassy in Havana.
Many of those who left Cuba at this time joined
the editorial collective of Guángara.
By 1985, the collective had correspondents
around the world, including Mexico, Hawaii,
Spain, and Venezuela.
The magazine reached a press run of 5000 copies
in 1987, making it the largest circulation
anarchist periodical in the U.S.
However, in 1992, the collective ceased publication
of GL, though many of its members continued
to publish writings.
By 2008, the MLCE was structured as an affinity
group and coordinating network for Cuban anarchists
of diverse tendencies.
==== 21st Century ====
A dissident Cuban libertarian party formed
in early 2017 in response to the arrest of
two libertarian activists.
However, the party advocates right-libertarian
policies, and is not an anarchist organization
by the conventional definition.
== See also ==
History of Cuba
Timeline of Cuban history
Timeline of the Cuban Revolution
== References ==
== Sources ==
== External links ==
Cuban Libertarian Movement (Movimiento Libertario
Cubano)
Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement
by Frank Fernández
The Cuban Revolution by Sam Dolgoff entry
at the Anarchy Archives
Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in
Early Twentieth-Century Cuba.
By KIRWIN R. SHAFFER
Women and Anarchism in Cuba by Kirwin Shaffer
http://democraciaparticipativa.net/documentos/DeclPrinciplesCubanLibertarians.htm
