Vol. 77/No. 11      March 25, 2013

“I’m certain that in the future your stories will be recorded too, maybe even in books like we’re presenting today.”

Acosta, general secretary of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) in Santiago de Cuba province, was referring to Women in Cuba: The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution, published by Pathfinder Press.

In a Feb. 28 event sponsored by the FMC, the book was presented here along with a new companion title, Women and Revolution: The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution. Both are published in English and Spanish.

A few days earlier in Havana, 70 people participated in a similar book presentation sponsored by the FMC.

The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution contains interviews with Vilma Espín, a central leader of the July 26 Movement and a Rebel Army combatant in the struggle that brought down the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in 1959; Asela de los Santos, a lifelong comrade-in-arms of Espín with an exemplary record of her own; and Yolanda Ferrer, who served 22 years as general secretary of the FMC, of which Espín was the central leader for some five decades.

The book was first launched at the 2012 Havana book fair. The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution is a booklet bringing together the talks given by the four panelists at the 2012 meeting: de los Santos, FMC Second Secretary Arelys Santana, Union of Young Communists leader Leira Sánchez, and Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the books and a member of the Socialist Workers Party’s National Committee.

The meeting here was held at Espín’s family home in central Santiago. The house served as headquarters of the underground July 26 Movement during a crucial stage of the revolutionary struggle in the 1950s. It is now a community center and museum.

In the audience were a dozen veterans of the Santiago underground and Rebel Army who had worked with Espín and de los Santos, along with numerous FMC cadres and representatives of other mass organizations.

“We want to thank you for this presentation,” said museum director Margiola Sánchez, turning to Waters. After learning about the book launch last year in Havana, residents of Santiago kept hearing it might be repeated here, Sánchez said with a smile. “And finally we have it in Santiago de Cuba. And where? Here at Vilma’s home!”

‘Revolutions are work of millions’

In concrete detail, she said, they recount how Rebel Army combatants and landless farmers and agricultural workers—fighting shoulder to shoulder in the liberated territory of the Rebel Army’s Second Front, a vast area in eastern Cuba—initiated a profound social revolution that transformed them all.

A decisive factor in the unprecedented involvement of women in the day-to-day leadership of the Cuban Revolution, Waters said, “was the political clarity and unwavering line of the leadership of Fidel Castro above all, but not only Fidel.”

The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution, she concluded, is a “powerful weapon in our battle to help working people in the U.S. and elsewhere understand what a socialist revolution is, and why it is not only necessary—now more than ever—but possible.”

Acosta shared the platform with Waters. In addition to her leadership responsibilities in the FMC, she is a deputy in Cuba’s National Assembly, and just completed a five-year term on the country’s highest state body, the 31-member Council of State. Trained as a livestock specialist, Acosta worked for a number of years on a cattle-raising cooperative.

She thanked Pathfinder for producing “something new and impressive.” The book, Acosta said, shows how women have been “a major political force in building a socialist revolution,” recounting women’s role in “defense, in the literacy campaign, in creating child care centers, in training for nontraditional jobs, in their active participation in leadership.”

Acosta quoted Ferrer’s remark that from the first day of the revolution, as women—and men—went through these experiences, “what it meant to be female began to change” and “prejudice began to lose ground.”

During the discussion period, Roxana Robert, 15, took the floor. She said she and other students are members of the Vilma Espín Interest Circle, or club. They volunteer at the museum and study the history Espín was part of. After the meeting, the FMC organized to give each of the young women a copy of The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution.

Several members of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution talked about experiences they had in working with Espín and de los Santos in the Santiago underground.

After the event, Acosta invited Waters and the other international participants to come back to Santiago soon, so the FMC can take them to meet and share experiences with community groups in some of the city’s working-class neighborhoods, which is a regular part of the organization’s political work.

The meeting was covered by Santiago radio and newspapers and reported on the national TV news.

Book presentation in Havana

Joining Waters on the platform were Yanira Kúper, the FMC’s director of international relations, and Isabel Moya, director of the FMC’s publishing house. Present in the front row was Teresa Amarelle Boué, the organization’s general secretary. Among the 70 men and women attending the event were some 40 female high school students and many provincial leaders of the FMC.

The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution, Kúper said, shows how “Cuban women have been present in every battle, at every moment” in Cuba’s revolutionary history, “from the armed struggle to the revolutionary triumph to the subsequent battle to transform society and break old patterns.”

Kúper pointed to the political clarity of Cuba’s revolutionary leadership. She quoted a 1974 statement by Espín that the leadership understood from the start that the battle to end women’s oppression “is indissolubly linked to the struggle of the entire people for liberation.”

Moya said these and other Pathfinder titles “help bring the truth about Cuba to the United States” and worldwide, combating the capitalist media’s lies about the revolution.

She highlighted the significance of the political battle led by Fidel Castro against the anti-woman prejudices held by many of the best Rebel Army combatants during the revolutionary war. Insisting that women could fight as well as men, Fidel organized the Mariana Grajales Women’s Platoon in the Rebel Army and gave them weapons.

At the end of the event, the FMC leaders arranged—as they did in Santiago—to give a copy of Women and Revolution: The Living Example of the Cuban Revolution to each of the 40 high school students. All the young women are either 14, or turning 14 this year, and planning to join the Federation of Cuban Women at a celebration of International Women’s Day in March.
 
 
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