Randall Webster

Cuba

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources

Benjamin, Medea, Joseph Collins, and Michael Scott. How the Poor Got More. In The Cuba Reader:

History, Culture, Politics, edited by Aviva Chomsky, Pamela Mara Smorkaloff, and Barry Carr,

Latin America readers:34553. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

Medea, Collins, and Scotts piece looks at the economic policy of the early Castro Regime with special

focus on wealth redistribution. It details the consequences of that policy, the embargo, and capital

flight; the most notable of which being the rationing of scarce goods. This is important to my paper

because the ability to provide goods for its people is a fundamental aspect of both the ideological and

rational-legal legitimacy that the Castro regime maintains.

Benjamin, Medea, Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon. The Literacy Campaign. In

The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Aviva Chomsky, Pamela Mara

Smorkaloff, and Barry Carr, Latin America readers:38994. Durham, NC: Duke University

Press, 2003.

This piece offers up the account of a young girl involved in the Cuban literacy campaign. It was

recorded as part of a oral history that Lewis would later publish. This piece is important because the

literacy campaign, much like the implementation of mandatory military service in many other latin
American countries, was an important part of the nation-building process, and also helped to cement

the ideological legitimacy of the Castro regime by stressing its anti-colonial and marxist foundations.

Blanco, Juan Antonio, and Benjamin Medea. From Utopianism to Institutionalization. In The Cuba

Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Aviva Chomsky, Pamela Mara Smorkaloff, and

Barry Carr, Latin America readers:43342. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

This piece is an exerbt from an interview of Antonio Blanco where he periodizes the changing

ideological atmosphere of the Cuban revolution. Laying the revolution out into three stages, he

describes the socialism of the first part to be creative and non-dogmatic, though this quickly changes as

the government is forced to accept Soviet influence in the second stage of the revolution. This is

important to the paper due to its relevance towards the ideological legitimacy of the state.

Castro, Fidel, and Robert MacNeil. Robert MacNeil Interviews Fidel Castro, February 11, 1985.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america-jan-june85-castro_02-11/.

Ripley, C. Peter. Conversations with Cuba. University of Georgia Press: Athens, c1999.

This is an 1985 interview with Fidel Castro on PBS. In it, Castro elaborates on the nature of his regime,

or at least the appearance he wants it to have. This is important not because its expected to be accurate,

but because the protected nature of the regime is useful for analysis.

Castro, Fidel. History Will Absolve Me. In The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by

Aviva Chomsky, Pamela Mara Smorkaloff, and Barry Carr, Latin America readers:30614.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

Fidels Courtroom speech is of incredible importance to the revolution and its legitimacy. In this work,

he lays out the ideological and rational-legal justifications for attempting revolution against the Batista

Regime, by claiming that the Regime was not for the Cuban people, and had ceased at even attempting

to act in their benefit as a nation-state should.

Castro, Fidel. Brother Obama. Grandma. March 28, 2016. http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2016-03-

28/brother-obama.

This is a more recent work of Castros that critiques the remarks of Obama towards Cuba. I have to say:

I have never actually used an article from the current year as a primary sources before, so I hope this is

okay. It will be useful in contrasting the changing conception of the Cuban revolution from the eyes of

Castro.

Castro, Fidel. Fidel Castros Speech at Charles University. Prauge Rude Pravo, June 21, 1972.

Latin American Network Information Center.

http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1972/19720624.html.

This speech is to Marxism what Fidels earlier History Shall Absolve Me is to anti-imperialism and

nationalism. It lays a (post-hoc) groundwork for the revolution as an endeavor in marxism, as well as

presenting the future as a continued struggle down that path.

Ripley, C. Peter. Conversations with Cuba. University of Georgia Press: Athens, c1999.

Ripleys work will be important to understanding the nature of the Cuban Regime from the grass roots,

as well as how everyday Cubans grapple with their conception of the revolution. As it stands, my
bibliography lacks a good bit of bottom up sources. Hopefully I will be able to come across more,

and this work will follow through in being a good source to lean on.

Secondary

Aguirre, Benigno E. Social Control in Cuba. Latin American Politics & Society 44, no. 2 (2002): 67.

This piece looks at the nature of the relationship between the cuban state and people in a more top

down sense, focusing more on how the Cuban state shapes its people rather than issues of legitimacy.

This is extremely important for fully understanding the nature of the dual state in cuba, specifically

how the perogative state acts to maintain stability when the normative state fails to do so.

Fernandez, Gaston A. The Freedom Flotilla: A Legitimacy Crisis of Cuban Socialism? Journal of

Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 24, no. 2 (May 1982): 183. doi:10.2307/165559.

This piece examines the migration of Cubans to the United States during the Special Period, and how

that reflects on the problems of the Cuban government in maintaining legitimacy. Such a migration is a

huge propaganda defeat for the Castro regime, as it pokes directly at the narrative sustaining his power.

This work, along with the others of similar nature, will help me compare and contrast the different

views of Cuban legitimacy among scholars.

Fuente, Alejandro de la. A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba.

Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

http://proxygsu-geo1.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=312412&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Fuentes monograph will be essential in better grappling with the larger political themes of the Cuban

revolution, specifically how the state and population shape each other respectively.

Guerra, Lillian. Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971.

Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012. http://proxygsu-

geo1.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=464081&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Like Fuentes work, Guerras will help to form the groundwork of knowledge that the paper will reside

upon. More specific works will be contextualized in the larger pictures that both Fuerte and Guerra

present.

Hoffmann, Bert. The International Dimension of Authoritarian Regime Legitimation: Insights from

the Cuban Case. Journal of International Relations and Development 18, no. 4 (2015): 556

574.

Hoffmanns work is a much more direct grapple with the conception of legitimacy in cuba. He lays out

Cuban legitimacy within the context of Webers three forms of authority, describing the transition from

Castro to Raul as a move from Charismatic to Rational-Legal Authority.