No Barrier Can Contain It: Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War (Envisioning Cuba)

Vividly recasting Cuba's politics in the 1930s as transnational, Ariel Mae Lambe has produced an unprecendented reimagining of Cuban activism during an era previously regarded as a lengthy, defeated lull. In this period, many Cuban activists began to look at their fight against strongman rule and neocolonial control at home as part of the international antifascism movement that exploded with the Spanish Civil War. Frustrated by multiple domestic setbacks, including Colonel Fulgencio Batista's violent crushing of a massive general strike, activists found strength in the face of repression by refusing to view their political goals as confined to the island. As individuals and in groups, Cubans from diverse backgrounds and political stances self-identified as antifascists and moved, both physically and symbolically, across borders and oceans, cultivating networks and building solidarity for a New Spain and a New Cuba. They believed that it was through these ostensibly foreign fights that they would achieve economic and social progress for their nation. Indeed, Cuban antifascism was such a strong movement, Lambe argues, that it helps to explain the surprisingly progressive turn that Batista and the Cuban government took at the end of the decade, including the establishment of a new constitution and presidential elections. Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 12 Abbreviations in the Text 16 Introduction. Antifascism for a New Cuba 20 1. Hope and Despair: The Fight for a New Cuba, 1920–1935 42 2. Support the Brother People of Ethiopia: The Italo-Ethiopian War and Development of Antifascism in Cuba, 1935–1936 73 3. Cuba’s Revolutionary Spirit and the Hopes of Free Spain: Cuban Martyrs for the Spanish Republic 95 4. The Blood of These Children . . . Runs through Our Veins: The Cuban Campaign to Aid Republican Children 120 5. Cuba Can Be Proud of Her Sons: Transnational Work by Cuban Antifascists 150 6. Factionalism, Solidarity, Unity: The Antifascism of the Cuban Left 181 Conclusion: What Was Cuban Antifascism For? 204 Postscript: Memory and Forgetting: Activist Continuity in the Cuban Revolution and Beyond 226 Notes 240 Bibliography 290 Index 308 A 308 B 311 C 312 D 316 E 317 F 317 G 319 H 320 I 320 J 321 K 321 L 321 M 322 N 323 O 324 P 324 Q 325 R 325 S 326 T 327 U 328 V 329 W 329 Y 329 Z 329