Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971 (Envisioning Cuba)

In the tumultuous first decade of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and other leaders saturated the media with altruistic images of themselves in a campaign to win the hearts of Cuba's six million citizens. In Visions of Power in Cuba , Lillian Guerra argues that these visual representations explained rapidly occurring events and encouraged radical change and mutual self-sacrifice. Mass rallies and labor mobilizations of unprecedented scale produced tangible evidence of what Fidel Castro called "unanimous support" for a revolution whose "moral power" defied U.S. control. Yet participation in state-orchestrated spectacles quickly became a requirement for political inclusion in a new Cuba that policed most forms of dissent. Devoted revolutionaries who resisted disastrous economic policies, exposed post-1959 racism, and challenged gender norms set by Cuba's one-party state increasingly found themselves marginalized, silenced, or jailed. Using previously unexplored sources, Guerra focuses on the lived experiences of citizens, including peasants, intellectuals, former prostitutes, black activists, and filmmakers, as they struggled to author their own scripts of revolution by resisting repression, defying state-imposed boundaries, and working for anti-imperial redemption in a truly free Cuba. "In the tumultuous first decade of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and other leaders saturated the media with altruistic images of themselves in a campaign to win the hearts of Cuba's six million citizens. In visions of power in Cuba, Lillian Guerra aruges that these visual representations explained rapidly occurring events and encouraged radical change and mutual self-sacrifice. Mass rallies and labor mobilizations of unprecendented scale produced tangible evidence of what Fidel Castro called "unanimous support" for a revolution whose "moral power" defied U.S. control. Yet participation in state-orchestrated spectacles quickly became a requirement for political inclusion in a new Cuba that policed most forms of dissent. Devoted revolutionaries who resisted disastrous economic policies, exposed post-1959 racism, and challenged gender norms set by Cuba's one-party state increasingly found themselves marginalized, silenced, or jailed. Using previously unexplored sources, Guerra focuses on the lived experiences of citizens, including peasants, intellectuals, former prostitutes, black activists, and filmmakers as they stuggled to author their own scripts of revolution by resisting repression, defying state-imposed boundaries, and working for anti-imperial redemption in a truly free Cuba."--Jacket Introduction : "Today, even Fidel is a counterrevolutionary!" : excavating the grand narrative of the Cuban Revolution The olive green revolution : media, mass rallies, agrarian reform, and the birth of the Fidelista state Good Cubans, bad Cubans, and the trappings of revolutionary faith War of words : laying the groundwork for radicalization Turning the world upside down : Fidelismo as a cultural religion and national crisis as a way of life Resistance, repression, and co-optation among the revolution's chosen people Class war and complicity in a grassroots dictatorship : gusanos, citizen-spies, and the early role of Cuban youth Juventud rebelde : nonconformity, gender, and the struggle to control revolutionary youth Self-styled revolutionaries : forgotten struggles for social change and the problem of unintended dissidence The ofensiva revolucionaria and the zafra de los diez millones : inducing popular euphoria, fraying Fidelismo The reel, real, and hyper-real revolution : self-representation and political performance in everyday life Epilogue : the revolution that might have been and the revolution that was : memory, amnesia, and history. "In the tumultuous first decade of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and other leaders saturated the media with altruistic images of themselves in a campaign to win the hearts of Cuba's six million citizens. In Visions of Power in Cuba, Lillian Guerra argues that these visual representations explained rapidly occurring events and encouraged radical change and mutual self-sacrifice. Guerra focuses on the lived experiences of citizens, including peasants, intellectuals, former prostitutes, black activists, and filmmakers, as they stuggled to author their own scripts of revolution by resisting repression, defying state-imposed boundaries, and working for anti-imperial redemption in a truly free Cuba."--Page 4 de la couverture