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6/14/2025, 1:13:13 AM
>>17762460
>Domínguez’ book paints a troubling vision of Cuban political history, both before and after the revolution. Practically all politicians were corrupt, changed party affiliations based on personal convenience, their professed ideological commitments amounted to nothing, the Americans imposed their will forcefully on them, and the Cuban population, even mulattos and blacks, accepted a measure of their inferiority to whites, etc. The list goes on for more than 500 pages. He accepted that some progress was made in Cuba on the economic front, but that progress had certainly nothing to do with politics or with the American companies that exploited economic conditions in the island. It should be noted that if Batista had been presented by Domínguez as a mixed race dictator, then the oppression that Cuba endured during the three Batista regimes (strongman in the 1930s, freely elected president in the 1940s, and dictator in the 1950s) would have been directed or exerted by a non-white person, not just against whites, but also against other mulattos and blacks
>We now move to the views of Hugh Thomas, who wrote a masterpiece on Cuba entitled Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom; 9 even his title is uplifting, since it gives Cubans a positive motivation behind their political mistakes. In reference to Batista’s race, Thomas states that “Both Batista’s parents appear to have been mulatto and one of them may have had some Indian Blood” (p. 636), providing a source which in fact does not document Batista’s race. Later, in the same page, Thomas argues that in his early youth Batista was known as the mulato lindo, an assertion that can be found in several sources. One page later Thomas states that “With his Indian blood, [Batista] was almost red in complexion, with great personal charms.” It is clear that Thomas presents Batista within a positive intellectual framework throughout most of his work
>Domínguez’ book paints a troubling vision of Cuban political history, both before and after the revolution. Practically all politicians were corrupt, changed party affiliations based on personal convenience, their professed ideological commitments amounted to nothing, the Americans imposed their will forcefully on them, and the Cuban population, even mulattos and blacks, accepted a measure of their inferiority to whites, etc. The list goes on for more than 500 pages. He accepted that some progress was made in Cuba on the economic front, but that progress had certainly nothing to do with politics or with the American companies that exploited economic conditions in the island. It should be noted that if Batista had been presented by Domínguez as a mixed race dictator, then the oppression that Cuba endured during the three Batista regimes (strongman in the 1930s, freely elected president in the 1940s, and dictator in the 1950s) would have been directed or exerted by a non-white person, not just against whites, but also against other mulattos and blacks
>We now move to the views of Hugh Thomas, who wrote a masterpiece on Cuba entitled Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom; 9 even his title is uplifting, since it gives Cubans a positive motivation behind their political mistakes. In reference to Batista’s race, Thomas states that “Both Batista’s parents appear to have been mulatto and one of them may have had some Indian Blood” (p. 636), providing a source which in fact does not document Batista’s race. Later, in the same page, Thomas argues that in his early youth Batista was known as the mulato lindo, an assertion that can be found in several sources. One page later Thomas states that “With his Indian blood, [Batista] was almost red in complexion, with great personal charms.” It is clear that Thomas presents Batista within a positive intellectual framework throughout most of his work
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