redditmademeregister

redditmademeregister t1_ix57n1j wrote

Reply to comment by redditmademeregister in The trials of the Cuban revolution. Interesting facts about them as well as the roles of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara and the historical forces that drove these events. by Anglicanpolitics123

>Both Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolutionaries were driven by the pressures of public opinion

This is a completely misleading narrative. The narrative here seems to suggest that the trials we only instituted because the public wanted them. The trials were started by the revolutionaries and then public opinion fed them:

>... the trials led by the new revolutionary authorities wove together legal and honorary justice in a way that garnered mass support and laid the foundations for the consolidation of the new regime.

From the same source (A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America’s Long Cold War (American Encounters/Global Interactions)):

>Perhaps solemn, "rational," privately conducted executions might have been acceptable to U.S. critics, but the Cuban newspapers' daily gloating over the Batistianos' comeuppance and the circus-like atmosphere of the trials (the "popcorn-munching atmosphere," as described by Time Magazine) seemed suffused with vengeful relish. As two journalists wrote, "To those accustomed to Anglo-Saxon justice, it was repulsive to see a defendant tried in a sports arena." Yet many Cubans insisted it was not revenge, it was simply justice. If Batista's men fell before firing squads, they had been condemned "without the spirit of revenge"

Jon Lee Anderson's book gives a little more context about this event:

>in late January Fidel had decided to hold some high-profile public trials—of Major Sosa Blanca and several other ranking officers accused of multiple acts of murder and torture—in Havana’s sports stadium. The plan backfired, however. Attending foreign reporters were nauseated by the spectacle of jeering crowds and hysterical cries for blood.

This is nearly identical to the public executions in England and Europe during Medieval or Early Modern time periods.

There seems to be a romanticization of the Cuban revolution and lionizing the main actors:

There are other lesser known people from that time like Huber Matos:

  • In January 1959, he rode into Havana atop a tank in a victory parade alongside Castro and other revolutionaries.
  • In July 1959, Matos denounced the direction the revolution was taking by giving openly anti-communist speeches in Camagüey.
  • In September 1959, Matos wrote: "Communist influence in the government has continued to grow. I have to leave power as soon as possible. I have to alert the Cuban people as to what is happening."
  • Convicted of treason and sedition by the revolutionary government, he spent 20 years in prison (1959–1979) before being released in 1979.

Much can be said about the revolution in Cuba and the events after that. This isn't something that happened over 200 years ago. People that were alive then are still alive now. Before we go lionizing these people from academic works we could simply ask them what their thoughts are. You'd be surprised what you hear.

Full sources:

1

redditmademeregister t1_ix56qvu wrote

Reply to The trials of the Cuban revolution. Interesting facts about them as well as the roles of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara and the historical forces that drove these events. by Anglicanpolitics123

>According to analysis done by various groups, including the CIA at the time, "It [was] estimated that roughly 20,000 politically inspired murders and deaths during revolutionary action occurred during Batista's last term in office--March 1952 to 31 December 1958"(Political murders in Cuba--Batista Era Compared with Castro Regime, January 1963 CIA memorandum)

The only source here is the aforementioned CIA memorandum. There is a lot of context missing.

>This background is itself important because according to studies done on this period <snip> Ramon Treto Gomez (Thirty Years of Cuban Revolutionary Penal Law, pg 115-116)

This is on JSTOR and other similarly gated sites.

Something to note about the author: Raúl Gómez Treto, a lawyer who received his doctor of law degree from the University of Havana in 1954, is a senior legal advisor to the Cuban Ministry of Justice. (emphasis mine)

In the second paragraph of this work he writes:

>In a democratic society such as Cuba, the law governs the behavior of every citizen, the ruler as well as the ruled.

Cuba is not a democracy and referencing a source that seems to be biased should be explicitly pointed out.

>Che Guevara surprisingly by contrast did not presided over bombastic, show trial like judgements. According to scholars analysing this period, "He went over the cases with the judges and reached his final verdicts coldly and neutrally, on the basis of evidence alone. According to Borrego, Che too great care in selecting judges and prosecutors. For instance, rebels who had been mistreated were not allowed to pass judgement on their former torturers. <snip>

Scholars is disingenuous here. The only source here is Jon Lee Anderson's Che: A Revolutionary Life (likely the first edition). The updated edition can be found online or can be purchased from your favorite book reseller. Here again things are taken out of context. From the revised edition of the book:

>“There were over a thousand prisoners of war,” explained Miguel Ángel Duque de Estrada, who had been put in charge of the Cleansing Commission. “Many didn’t have dossiers.
>
>We didn’t even know all of their names. But we had a job to do, which was to cleanse the defeated army.”
>
>The twenty-one-year-old accountant Orlando Borrego, who administered La Cabaña’s finances, was also a tribunal president. “It was very difficult because most of us had no judicial training,” Borrego recalled. “Our paramount concern was to ensure that revolutionary morality and justice prevailed. Che was very careful. Nobody was shot for hitting a prisoner, but if there was extreme torture and killings and deaths, then yes—they were condemned to death. ... The whole case was analyzed, all the witnesses seen, and the relatives of the dead or tortured person came, or the tortured person himself.”
>
>Che told some hostile Cuban television interviewers that he never attended the trials or met with defendants himself. He went over the cases with the judges and reached his final verdicts coldly and neutrally, on the basis of the evidence alone. According to Borrego, Che took great care in selecting judges and prosecutors. When it came to the executions themselves, however, Che evidently overcame his earlier reservations about the American volunteer Herman Marks, who had been a problem in Camagüey. Marks reappeared at La Cabaña, where he took an active role in the firing squads.

4