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“Cuba, Nicaragua, Unidas Vencerán”: Official Collaborations between the Sandinista and Cuban Revolutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

Emily Snyder
Emily Snyder*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, [email protected]
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Abstract

The Cuban and Sandinista Revolutions stand together as Latin America's two socialist revolutions achieved through guerrilla insurgency in the latter half of the twentieth century. But beyond studies that demonstrate that Cuba militarily trained and supported the Sandinistas before, during, and after their guerrilla phase, and observations that the two countries were connected by the bonds of socialist revolution, the nature of Cuba and Nicaragua's revolutionary relationship remains little explored. This article traces exchanges of people and expertise between each revolutionary state's Ministry of Foreign Relations and Ministry of Culture. It employs diplomatic and institutional archives, personal collections, and oral interviews to demonstrate the deep involvement of Cuban experts in building the Sandinista state. Yet, Cuban advice may have exacerbated tensions within Nicaragua. This article also shows that tensions marked the day-to-day realities of Cubans and Nicaraguans tasked with carrying out collaborations, revealing their layered and often contradictory nature. Illuminating high-level policy in terms of Cuban-Nicaraguan exchanges and how they unfolded on the ground contributes to new international histories of the Sandinista and Cuban revolutions by shifting away from North-South perspectives to focus instead on how the Sandinistas navigated collaboration with their most important regional ally.

Keywords

Sandinista RevolutionCuban RevolutionNicaraguainternational historytransnational history
Type
Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 78 , Special Issue 4: Internationalizing Revolution , October 2021 , pp. 609 - 637
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Academy of American Franciscan History

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Footnotes

Many thanks to the fall 2019 “HISTORY QUA history” workshop members, Jesse Horst, Jacqueline Ly, and Naomi Sussman for their comments on drafts of this article. I am grateful to the issue editors, Tanya Harmer and Eline Van Ommen, for their excellent suggestions and support throughout the revision process; to the anonymous reviewers; and to The Americas editors.

References

1. Informe sobre un viaje a la Habana, May 20–22, 1983, 1, Archivo General de la Nación, Managua, Nicaragua [hereafter AGN], Cultura, Box 5, Folder 12.

2. Informe sobre un viaje a la Habana, May 20–22, 1983, 2.

3. Informe sobre el viaje a la Habana, May 21, 1983, 1, AGN, Cultura, Box 5, Folder 12.

4. Informe sobre el viaje a la Habana, May 21, 1983, 2.

5. Commentary, January 26, 1981, 7, The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom [hereafter (TNA], FCO 99, Folder 707.

6. Bustamante, Michael, “Anniversary Overload? Memory Fatigue at Cuba's Socialist Apex,” in The Revolution from Within: Cuba, 1959–1980, Bustamante, and Lambe, Jennifer, eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019), 218–234Google Scholar.

7. Commentary, January 26, 1981, 7.

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12. Political scientist Gary Prevost first questioned the relationship between Cuba and Nicaragua. He documented the origins of Cuban-Nicaraguan collaboration, detailed categories of Cuban aid to Nicaragua after 1979, and considered how the revolutions influenced each other. See Prevost, “Cuba and Nicaragua: A Special Relationship?” Latin American Perspectives 17:3 (1990), 120–137; Anderson, K. Cheasty, “Doctors within Borders: Cuban Medical Diplomacy to Sandinista Nicaragua, 1979–1990”; Miller, Valerie, Between Struggle and Hope: The Nicaraguan Literacy Crusade (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Kruijt, Dirk, Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America: An Oral History (London: Zed Books, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Salazar and Kruijt, La Revolución Cubana en nuestra América.

13. Authors of new scholarship using the ACMINREX include Renata Keller, Mexico's Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Aaron Coy Moulton, “Building Their Own Cold War in Their Own Backyard: The Transnational, International Conflicts in the Greater Caribbean Basin, 1944–1954,” Cold War History, 15:2 (2015): 135–154; Jarquín, “A Latin American Revolution.”

14. The region is geographically on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua and today consists of the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN), and the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCS).

15. Reunión celebrada en las oficinas de la Secretaria Ejecutiva del FSLN con el Comandante Bayardo Arce, February 6, 1980, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1980.

16. Reunión celebrada en las oficinas de la Secretaria Ejecutiva del FSLN.

17. Reunión celebrada en las oficinas de la Secretaria Ejecutiva del FSLN, 2.

18. Reunión efectuada entre los compañeros Sergio José Martínez, encargado de la Valija Diplomática en el MINREX, y la compañera María Dolores Matamoros, Supervisora, Oficina Control de la Información, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1980.

19. Reunión efectuada entre los compañeros Martínez y Matamoros, 1–2.

20. Ángel Reigosa and Alberto Méndez to Roberto Meléndez, July 30, 1981, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1981.

21. Reigosa and Méndez to Meléndez, 2.

22. The fact that the present-day MINREX archivists have not removed the record of Reigosa and Méndez's trip from its folder means that the archivists did not consider this sensitive information. They deemed the instructions that these relatively low-level Cuban officials gave to their Nicaraguan counterparts on correct protocol unimportant enough for me to consult, after all.

23. Plan de trabajo del convenio de colaboración entre el Ministerio del Exterior de la República de Nicaragua y el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la República de Cuba correspondiente a 1983, 3–4, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1983.

24. Dulce María Pérez Verde to Antonio Bosque Abru, June 19, 1984, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1984.

25. Pérez Verde to Bosque Abru, 2.

26. Informe resumen de la visita efectuada a Nicaragua en el periodo comprendido del 27 de mayo al 3 de junio de 1983, June 14, 1983, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1983.

27. Informe resumen de la visita efectuada a Nicaragua, 6.

28. Plan de colaboración entre el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la República de Cuba y el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la República de Nicaragua, para 1979–1980, 1–2, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1980.

29. Plan de colaboración, 2.

30. Resultados de las conversaciones sobre la formación de estudiantes, 1, February 11, 1980, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1980. ISSE (Instituto Superior del Servicio Exterior ) became ISRI (Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales) in June 1981.

31. Resultados de las conversaciones sobre la formación de estudiantes, 2; Lista de compañeros que recibirán clases en la Habana, September 5, 1980, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1980.

32. Nicolás Rodríguez to Ricardo Alarcón, May 17, 1984, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1984.

33. Ángel Fernández-Rubio to Héctor Ayala Castro, December 16, 1985, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1985.

34. Fernández-Rubio to Ayala Castro, 2; Olga Mirada to Lázaro Mora, December 25, 1985, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1985.

35. Nelson Restano to Ricardo Alarcón, April 7, 1983, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1983.

36. Eduardo Montoya to Lázaro Mora Secades, 1, April 20, 1985, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 4, Folder 1985. For broader discussion of nervousness and its relationship to political change and individual lives, see Jennifer Lambe, Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 198–230.

37. For analysis on Nicaraguan students in Cuba in the 1980s, see Snyder, “Entangled Revolutions: Cuba, Nicaragua, and the United States in the Cold War Caribbean, 1979–1990” (PhD diss.: Yale University, 2021).

38. Conversación sostenida el 6-4-82 con el Embajador de Nicaragua, Marco Antonio Valle, sobre actividades de tipo social que él está organizando en su residencia, April 7 1982, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1982.

39. Matthew Cherneski, “Sociolismo (Cuba),” in Global Encyclopedia of Informality, vol. 1, Alena Ledeneva, Anna Bailey, Sheelagh Barron, Costanza Curro, and Elizabeth Teague, eds. (London: University College of London [UCL] Press, 2018), 46.

40. Conversación sostenida el 6-4-82 con el Embajador de Nicaragua, 2.

41. Rolando Conde to Roberto Meléndez, July 3, 1986, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 4, Folder 1986.

42. Toilet paper had been a hot black-market item since the early days of the revolution. See Guerra, Visions of Power, 179, 209.

43. In February 1980, planners implemented the parallel market, which included farmers’ markets and state stores stocked with foodstuffs and goods available in limited quantities and at higher prices. Alexis Baldacci, “Consumer Culture and Everyday Life in Revolutionary Cuba, 1971–1986” (PhD diss.: University of Florida, 2018), 314–330.

44. Vázquez Montes de Oca interview by author, December 16, 2017.

45. Denise Mary Holt, President Ortega's Visit to Cuba: 27–30 June 1988, 1–2, TNA, FCO 99, Folder 2759.

46. Michael J. Bustamante, “Cultural Politics and Political Cultures of the Cuban Revolution: New Directions in Scholarship,” Cuban Studies 47 (2019): 5.

47. Institutionalization occurred over the course of the 1970s. It included joining the Soviet trade bloc, which meant embracing material incentives over moral ones and relying on subsidies to fuel the economy. Leaders overhauled legal, judicial, and party structures; these efforts culminated in a new constitution in 1976. See Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the 1970s: Pragmatism and Institutionalization (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1978); and Marifeli Pérez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 121–152.

48. “The Historic Program of the FSLN,” in Bruce Mars, ed., Sandinistas Speak: Speeches, Writings, and Interviews with Leaders of Nicaragua's Revolution (New York and London: Pathfinder Press, 1982), 17–18.

49. Centros Populares de Cultura, 1, Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica, Managua, Nicaragua [hereafter IHNCA], Ernesto Cardenal Collection, Box 1, Folder 15.

50. Centros Populares de Cultura, 1.

51. Organización Cultural de Nicaragua, 2, IHNCA, Cardenal Collection, Box 1, Folder 1. This document appears authorless, but likely represents the perspective of Ernesto Cardenal.

52. During all but the last year of the insurrection phase, the FSLN was made up of three factions, each holding different ideologies and espousing different revolutionary strategies. The Prolonged People's War (Guerra Popular Prolongada) subscribed to foco theory, which held the mountains as the primary area of struggle. The Proletarian Tendency, comprised of doctrinal Marxists, held that organizing urban workers would eventually lead to a dictatorship of the proletariat. Finally, the Terceristas promoted mass mobilization and alliance with the bourgeoisie. Under Fidel Castro's purview, the factions united in February 1979 and created a nine-person directorate, with three representatives from each faction.

53. Organización Cultural de Nicaragua, 3.

54. Organización Cultural de Nicaragua, 2.

55. Ernesto Cardenal to Armando Hart, October 12, 1979, IHNCA, Cardenal Collection, Box 1, Folder 24.

56. Juan González to José A. Orta, January 22, 1980, 1, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 2, Folder 1980.

57. Juan González to José A. Orta, 2–3.

58. Organización Cultural de Nicaragua, 6.

59. Mass organizations involved included the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC, Rural Workers Association), Juventud Sandinista (JS, Sandinista Youth), Central Sandinista de Trabajadores (CST, Sandinista Workers Federation), Comités de Defensa Sandinista (CDS, Sandinista Defense Committees), Asociación de Mujeres Nicaragüenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza, (AMNLAE, Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women), and the Ejercito Popular Sandinista (EPS, Sandinista People's Army).

60. Organización Cultural de Nicaragua, 8; Centros Populares de Cultura: instrumentos culturales de las mases, 4, IHNCA, Cardenal Collection, Box 1, Folder 15.

61. Resolución 8/78 del Ministerio de Cultura de Cuba, AGN, Collection Cultura, Box 5, Folder 12.

62. Centros Populares de Cultura, 3.

63. Protocolo de Colaboración Cultural entre la República de Cuba y la República de Nicaragua, ACMINREX, Nicaragua, Box 3, Folder 1985.

64. Protocolo de Colaboración Cultural, 11.

65. Protocolo de Colaboración Cultural, 4–6.

66. Ligio Barrera Kohli, interview with author, October 15, 2018, Matanzas, Cuba.

67. Barrera Kohli, interview with author.

68. Caridad Chao to Lupe Veliz, May 27, 1980, Biblioteca Juan Marinello, Archivo General del Ministerio de Cultura, Havana, Cuba [hereafter BJM-AGMC], Folder: Convenios y Protocolos 1980–1982.

69. Proyecto 1985, BJ-AGMC Folder: Convenio Nicaragua 1985–86, BJM-AGMC.

70. De Ministerio de Cultura de Nicaragua, Gobierno de Reconstrucción Nacional, IHNCA, Cardenal Collection, Box 1, Folder 40.

71. Juliet Hooker, “Race and the Space of Citizenship: The Mosquito Coast and the Place of Blackness and Indigeneity in Nicaragua,” in Blacks and Blackness in Central America: Between Race and Place, Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe, eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 246–278; Manuel Ortega Hegg, “Problemática étnica, región y autonomía,” in Antología del pensamiento crítico nicaragüense contemporáneo, edited by Juan Pablo Gómez y Camilo Antillón, 373–394 (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2016).

72. Juliet Hooker, “‘Beloved Enemies’: Race and Official Mestizo Nationalism in Nicaragua,” Latin American Research Review 40:3 (2005): 14–39.

73. Charles Hale, Resistance and Contradiction: Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan State, 1894–1987 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994): 92–94.

74. Resumen sobre algunas ideas en relación con el trabajo de la Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua, November 27, 1980, BJM-AGMC, Folder: Convenios Culturales 1981–82.

75. Hooker, “Race and the Space of Citizenship.”

76. For a discussion of Cuba's Conjunto Folklórico Nacional, see Elizabeth Schwall, “The Footsteps of Nieves Fresneda: Cuban Folkloric Dance and Cultural Policy, 1959–1979,” Cuban Studies 47 (2019): 35–56.

77. Susan Hawley, “Protestantism and Indigenous Mobilization: The Moravian Church among the Miskitu Indians of Nicaragua,” Journal of Latin American Studies 29 (1997): 111–129.

78. Philippe Bourgois and Jorge Grunburg, La Mosquita y la Revolución: informe de una investigación rural en la Costa Atlántica Norte 1980 (Managua: CIDCA,1980).

79. “Protesta anticubana paraliza Bluefields,” La Prensa, October 1, 1980.

80. Mateo Jarquín, “Red Christmases: The Sandinistas, Indigenous Rebellion, and the Origins of the Nicaraguan Civil War, 1981–82,” Cold War History 18:1 (2018): 102–105. Conflict between the Miskitu and FSLN began before the Reagan administration approved covert CIA action in 1981.

81. See Jarquín's contribution to this dossier about regional responses to the Sandinista revolution.

82. Protocolo de Colaboración Cultural, 1–2.

83. Charles Hale, interview with author, July 30, 2020.

84. See Benson, Devyn Spence, Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85. Charles Hale interview, July 30, 2020.