Introduction: The Cuban Revolution and Latin Amer­i­ca xv
Demo­cratic Action (Acción Democrática, AD) strug­gled to create new socie­
ties with a place for the downtrodden. Leaders such as Nicaragua’s
Augusto César Sandino and Colombia’s Jorge Eliécer Gaitán fought with
arms or with their po­liti­cal skills for the same goals. Bolivia experienced
Latin Amer­i­ca’s second social revolution in 1952 when the Indian peas-
ants seized much of the country’s agricultural land; the government nation-
alized the country’s basic industry, tin mining; and the enactment of
universal suffrage gave the Indian majority a voice in national politics for
the first time.
Despite two revolutions and the unstinting efforts of reformist parties
and leaders, Latin Amer­ i ­ ca on the ­ whole moved only slowly and tentatively ­
toward the goals of po­liti­cal and social democracy and national liberation.
The power and resilience of Latin Amer­i­ca’s elites, ingrained attitudes of
obedience and resignation among the masses, and U.S. opposition to
change combined repeatedly to thwart the forces of pro­gress. With Castro’s
rise to power in Cuba, however, the ­waters of revolution poured over the
dam, submerging Latin Amer­ i ­ ca in po­liti­cal and social ferment that threat-
ened the very foundations of the established order.
Compared with the Mexican and Bolivian revolutions and the few
reformist governments that had held power in Latin Amer­i­ca up to 1959,
the Cuban Revolution had far greater ramifications for Latin Amer­ i ­ ca. ­ There ­
were several reasons for the potency of Castro’s revolution outside of Cuba.
It provided an explicit blueprint for successful insurrection by reducing
the overthrow of governments to a ­simple ­ matter of faithfully following
Che Guevara’s handbook on guerrilla warfare. Cuba went far beyond the
previous revolutions, carry­ing out Latin Amer­i­ca’s most thorough social
transformation and becoming the hemi­sphere’s first, and only, country to
break completely from U.S. domination. The Cuban Revolution also had a
dynamic, charismatic leader who symbolized the revolution and elicited
popu­lar sympathy and support throughout the hemi­sphere. Rejecting ter-
ritorial limits to his revolution, Castro actively promoted insurrection
against established governments and bourgeois power throughout Latin
Amer­ i ­ ca.
The im­mense popularity of the Cuban Revolution, especially in the years
of the ­great transformation from 1959 through the early 1960s, is easy to
understand. During ­these years Castro constantly made headlines with
his social reforms and his mea­sures to throw off what many Latin Ameri-
cans regarded as the yoke of Yankee imperialism. The abortive 1961 Bay
of Pigs invasion—­the improbable victory of a Cuban David over a Yankee
Goliath—­cemented Castro’s hold over the Latin American masses. ­After
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