A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class Shaped the Guerrillas’ Victory by Steve Cushion

Steve Cushion’s detailed study explores how segments of Cuba’s organized workers, particularly in the eastern cities of Santiago and Guantánamo, assisted in the overthrow of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1959. Employing documents from local and provincial archives, oral histories of the leaders and of rank-and-file members of the labor and revolutionary organizations, and clandestine and public publications, Cushion’s monograph shows how labor activism supplemented the MR-26–7 movement led by Fidel Castro along with the Communist Party. Cushion argues that because of the corrupt nature of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) and its close relationship with the Batista government, between 1953 and 1959 organized labor in the eastern provinces not only sought to guard and enhance the rights and conditions of industrial and commercial workers, they distanced themselves from the CTC leadership, produced their own agenda and militant worker...