Introduction: The Cuban Revolution and Latin Amer­i­ca xvii
catalyst to the spread and the intensification of social and po­liti­cal con-
flict to unpre­ce­dented levels.
Likewise, the Cuban Revolution was not the only cause of the extreme
reaction of the 1970s and 1980s. With rare exceptions, Latin Amer­ i ­ ca’s mil-
itary establishments ­were historically conservative, and thus the generals
and admirals normally supported the elites’ re­sis­tance to revolution and
reform. But the threat posed by the Cuban Revolution was an unpre­ce­
dented challenge to the status quo that threatened both the elites’ privi-
leged way of life and their very survival. Moreover, military leaders ­ were
acutely aware that upon coming to power with his guerrillas, Fidel Castro
dissolved Cuba’s national armed forces and replaced them with his own
rebel army. As a result, the Latin American militaries, with U.S. encour-
agement and support, rarely hesitated to use the full extent of their power
to quash the forces of revolution unleashed by developments in Cuba.
Thus the Cuban Revolution was paramount in setting the general terms
of po­liti­cal debate in Latin Amer­i­ca. The heightening of demands for
change, the pan–­Latin American scope of the ferment, and the transcen-
dence of the issues—­the very survival of existing economic, social, and
po­liti­cal systems was at stake—­made the years ­ after 1959 the period of
greatest po­liti­cal upheaval in Latin American history. ­ These same forces
drove the wave of extreme reaction that swept over Latin Amer­i­ca in the
1970s and 1980s. This overarching influence of the Cuban Revolution—­
sometimes explicit, often implicit, but never absent—is what distinguishes
the period from 1959 to 1990.
Rather than taking a country-­by-­country approach, this study synthe-
sizes the broad trends and phases of the Cuban Revolution’s impact on
Latin Amer­i­ca. Chapters 1 and 2 cover the Cuban Revolution itself. They
are not intended to provide an exhaustive history of the revolution; rather,
they are designed to emphasize ­those features of Castro’s revolution that
made Cuba so influential in Latin Amer­i­ca during three de­cades of revo-
lution and reaction. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the Cuban Revolution’s
destabilizing impact on Latin Amer­i­ca and the United States’ responses to
the threat of the spread of Communist revolution beyond the island. Chap-
ters 5 and 6 focus on guerrilla warfare, first on rural guerrilla warfare as
practiced in Cuba and pop­u­lar­ized by Che Guevara, then on the urban
variant that emerged following Che’s 1967 death. Chapters 7 through 9
analyze revolutions in Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua. Although differing
greatly in provenance and policies, ­ these revolutions experienced similar
outcomes: all ended prematurely before completing their missions. Chap-
ters 10 and 11 examine the reaction, focusing on state terrorism in South
Amer­i­ca and Central Amer­i­ca, respectively. The final chapter deals with
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