Upstream - Cuba Pt. 1: Before the Revolution w/ Manolo De Los Santos

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

In this episode, part 1 of our new series on Cuba, Manolo De Los Santos joins us to explore Cuba before the Cuban revolution. Manolo De Los Santos is a founder of the People's Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is the co-editor Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War, Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro, and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez. The conversation opens with an exploration of Cuba's Indigenous peoples and their culture and practice of resistance to European colonialism which continues to this day. We then talk about the early history of the Caribbean and Cuba's position in the Atlantic slave trade and early industrial plantation capitalism as well as some of the many rebellions led by enslaved Africans on the island of Cuba. Manolo also tells us about Cuba's "independence" in 1902, or what he refers to as a false independence and the imposition of US imperialism on the island. We then introduce Fulgencio Batista and the period of dictatorship beginning in the 1930s which inaugurated an era of "paradise" in Cuba—paradise for US corporations and for the political and military elites surrounding Batista. We talk about the social inequality and repression in Cuba during this period as well as the development of the tourism industry which was a model that was later exported across the world. We conclude with the lead up to the Cuban Revolution and the material conditions which led to it. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, ¡Viva la Revolución, where we'll take a deep dive into Cuba's revolution. Further resources: The People's Forum Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro Related episodes: Listen to our ongoing series on Venezuela Alliance of Sahel States Pt. 3: Hyperimperialism and the Fight for Sovereignty w/ Mikaela Nhondo Erskog Listen to our ongoing series on Mexico Intermission music: "Que Salgo el Sol" by El Guajiro Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Cuba was a paradise. Cuba was a paradise for U.S. corporations, for the United Fruit Company, now known as Dole. It was a paradise for companies like what is now known as AT&T, for a lot of utilities companies. It was a paradise for the sugar magnets, the large landowners, most of them U.S.-based. It was a paradise for the political and military elites,

military elites surrounding Batista, who essentially lived in a bubble of what they would call first world conditions on a third world dialogue. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you.

I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. We hear a lot from the Gusano community about how terrible Cuba is under communism, but we don't hear a whole lot from these same people about what Cuba was like before the revolution. And that's very much on purpose, because the truth is that before the revolution, Cuba was essentially a colony of the United States, with the majority of its population living lives of immiseration and fear. In this episode, part one of our new series on Cuba, We're joined by Manolo Delos Santos for an exploration of Cuba before the Cuban Revolution.

Manolo Delos Santos is a founder of the People's Forum and a researcher at Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research. He's the co-editor of Vibiramos, Venezuela v. Hybrid War, Comrade of the Revolution, selected speeches of Fidel Castro, and our own path to socialism, selected speeches of Hugo Chavez. And before we get started, Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tours.

Through your support, you'll be helping keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going. Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now, here's Della in conversation with Manolo Delos Santos. Welcome to Upstream. So happy to have you. And we always start with an introduction from our guests. So can you introduce yourself for us and share your connection with Cuba? Well, first, it's an honor to join this podcast. My name is Manolo. and I am originally from Dominican Republic. I've been an organizer in the U.S. for 15 plus years now,

working in the immigrant rights movement, doing political education, now leading the People's Forum, which is a project for political education and organizing in the city. But my connection to Cuba, I would say, goes to my womb. My parents had a deep connection to Cuba. and I think as a Caribbean person, as a Latin American, I always grew up with a great admiration of Cuba. And later on in life, I was lucky enough to be able to live there for about six years or so. Wonderful.

And maybe scholastically, I know some of your books are related to Cuba. You want to share about those? Well, I think as much of an admirer I've been of Cuba, I've had the opportunity to, I think, both studying in Cuba, to study its history, but also to do, I would say, a lot of contemporary research on both what is the ideology of the Cuban Revolution, seeing that as a trajectory that goes even beyond or before 1959, seeing that in its origins and its abolitionists and its anti-colonial struggles, which have a huge imprint, I think, on the politics of the rest of Latin America and the region as a whole. but also a lot of research into the thought of Fidel Castro, his speeches, his writings,

as well as other elements about current politics in Cuba, geopolitics, the state of U.S. Cuba relations, which is always, always a dynamic thing to research. Yes, always a dynamic thing to research and especially pertinent right now. There's some really intense things happening, both in terms of U.S. aggression towards Cuba, and not letting oil coming from Venezuela and Mexico to Cuba, strengthening the blockade, and then also the response of the Cuban people and even the remembering and the uplifting of the ideals

and the ideology of the Cuban Revolution. So very pertinent right now. So, you know, this is our first episode on a series in Cuba this year. So happy to have you as my first guest and to speak about, like you said, the roots of the revolution and the roots of the resistance to U.S. imperialism, to capitalism, etc. So why do you think it's important and timely to study and talk about Cuba right now? Well, one could immediately make reference to what you've talked about,

which is that the decades-old, over 65 years campaign of the United States government to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, to destroy Cuban sovereignty. has reached a new level of aggression. If there's been a blockade and economic war against Cuba in place for all these years, it's reached fever pitch status in the last years in particular with the new levels of sanctions and others. But just in the last few months, we've seen how that aggression has taken new scale

when U.S. strategy in the region, I would say in all of Latin America, is geared in many ways to both destroy any possibility of progressive processes taking place in the region, but to actively isolate and create the conditions for the Cuban Revolution to fall. That makes the question of Cuba actually more urgent to discuss within the U.S.

Because there is, on one hand, a major campaign that demonizes Cuba on a daily basis so that the majority of people in this country have really, I would say, low awareness or consciousness about what, actually is taking place in Cuba or what Cuba is, in fact. Is it an enemy? Is it a friend?

Is it a country that's attempting to destroy our values as a country? Is it, in fact, a country where there are human rights abuses and violations every day? What is there to believe? But also, I think it's pertinent because to talk about Cuba in these times is to actually talk about resistance. It's to actually also talk about the desire of. the majority of the people of this planet, including the people of the United States, to want to live in a world without empires, without blockades, without sanctions, without fascist governments that determine the future and direction of our lives and our countries.

Absolutely. Yeah, well put. And so in this episode, we're going before the revolution and looking at those roots, but also understanding the history of Cuba, both in terms of how it's unique and also how it's similar, right, to other Caribbean, but also Latin American and even global nations. So let's begin with the indigenous peoples of Cuba. So what is some of their story, their legacy, and their presence today? I always like to start by actually providing a small context, which is that I think for a lot of people from the Caribbean, not just those who've studied it, but those who've lived it, who come from this place to make sense of why we're in the center of all this dynamic, of constantly having to fight against imperialism,

of having to fight against colonialism. I always look back to this phrase by one of our historians, Juan Bosch, who wrote a fantastic book on the history of the Caribbean, that's literally titled from Christopher Columbus to Fidel Castro in our time, that the history of the Caribbean is It's precisely the history of empires fighting among each other to control both the land, the resources, and the people of the region, as well as the struggle of the people of the region to reclaim those very things. And when we look at the history of the indigenous people of the Caribbean, but in Kuh in particular, a history that goes way before the Europeans ever arrived, there's an

amazing history of migration that comes from the Amazon and settles across the island of Cuba. Multiple ethnic and different tribes that develop on the island of Cuba. You have the Cibonayas, you have the Guanaoayas, you have the Daena people, who all represent different forms of development and civilizations that are taking place in Cuba. At the peak, they had a population of about some estimates say about 300,000 people spread across different parts of the island. The largest group among them, the Tainos, concentrated in eastern Cuba, in a community that was essentially highly organized in a system of casigascos or under the leadership of casiques,

but really, I would say, forms of organization that were both collective and hierarchical in a way, but strongly rooted in meeting the needs of their communities, and that were in constant trade and communication with people not just in the other islands of the Caribbean, but also in the rest of the Caribbean basin. I mean, there's documentation, there's oral history that confirms the level of interaction between the indigenous people in Cuba with the indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin,

still hundreds of years after their migration. But that history comes into, I would say, a major clash with the arrival of European colonialism in 1492. Because it's a political, economic, religious project of colonialism that has clearly as its objective, the total destruction of the existing peoples and world in what is now known as the Americas. For the indigenous people living in Cuba, it meant extermination through disease, extermination through war, and extermination through forced labor. Immediately, and I think this is the determining factor, which I would say almost determines the rest of the history of Cuba, 500 plus years later, is one of resistance.

The indigenous people throughout the island did not accept colonial rule passively. They did not accept colonialism as a de facto reality. On the contrary, they fought with every means at their disposal against the European colonialism. One of the historic figures of this resistance, which is a hero in the culture of Cuba and the history of Cuba to this day, is the leader Hatweig, who is originally from one of the Casigascos on what is now Haiti in the Dominican Republic. He leads the resistance there,

leaves by ship, you know, travels over the seas to Cuba and helps to organize the resistance there, leading massive battles against the Spanish colonialists, is captured and is famously known to have, said when he's being essentially tortured to death, he's being burned at the stake, he's asked by the Spanish friars who are there, if he would like to be baptized and would he like to confess his faith in Christianity before he goes to heaven? And Hathwa's only response is, are there Spaniards in heaven? To which the Spanish fire says, of course, heaven is filled of Spaniards. We are good

people. Then Hathwa says that I don't want to go to heaven. I don't want to confess to your Christianity. And that spirit of resistance of Hathway is the resistance that I would say informs the rest of Cuban history to the point that in the Cuban constitution formulated by the Cuban Revolution, originally in 1976, but reaffirmed in 2019, the preamble, you know, I don't know how many Americans know the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, but in Cuba, many people know that the preamble of their constitution starts. We are inspired by the indigenous people who refuse submission. I don't know actually of any other constitution in Latin America or any other political order in Latin America, or I would say in the rest of the world, that begins to think about its political process by honoring the indigenous people. Wow. Yeah, absolutely. I really hear that threat of resistance and happy to hear about its presence in the Constitution. And then I understand as well today, it's presence in a lot of the genetic makeup of people today. A lot of people are mixed. And so anything else you want to say about the threat of the indigenous presence until today in Cuba?

Well, I think, you know, one of the most disabused myths that we are confronted with constantly is that of the total extermination of indigenous people, not just in Cuba, but in the Caribbean. And it's a myth that was in many ways propagated by Spanish colonialism itself, but also by, I would say, sadly, the range of so-called academics and lazy intellectuals that we are plagued with around the world. but the reality could not be, there's a completely different distant reality, which is that believe it or not, because of the Encomienda system, the system of forced labor that actually was implanted by the Spaniards and also the transition to African slave labor, there was a period

in which essentially free communities of indigenous people were allowed to exist in particularly the eastern part of Cuba, central and eastern part of Cuba. And you have to this day, for example, in El Cane, you know, near Santiago, Cuba, in Oriente province, you have, you know, communities that still strongly identify with this identity and who genetically clearly represent a survival of the indigenous peoples of Cuba. I have met them. I have not just met them, but also seeing how they continue to make. maintain cultural practices that are aligned with their indigenous heritage.

And that, you know, despite this myth in a way still being so prevalent in the world, and to certain extent, even within some sectors of the Cuban cultural establishment, there has been incredible space. Like I work closely with Casillas Americas, one of the cultural institutions of Cuba, that actively every year does this incredible work to rescue and to build upon this indigenous. culture. And most importantly, it's not uncommon for Cubans who don't necessarily share the genetic makeup of the indigenous people, of the Tainos, or the Cibonaires, or Juanares, or Juana Tavaez, to call up as an act of resistance their connection to this indigenous past.

As they face the threats of a U.S. invasion right now, I can't admit the number of people who constantly say, you know, they're going to have to deal with a hatway in us is remarkable. It's a very interesting line, historical line that has been unbroken for centuries. And so just as there's the indigenous history of Cuba and the, like you said, the enslavement, the forced labor, the disease, the genocide, the land dispossession, you also brought in that there is also similarly to the other Caribbean nations, the human trafficking and slavery of African peoples to Cuba. So let's go there. And I know this could be an entire episode on its own, but how might you introduce the history of slavery in Cuba? And particularly maybe how it's

similar, but also different to its neighboring nations. Like I'm thinking of Haiti, you know, for example, there's similarities and differences. So what might we explore there? There are certainly a lot of differences as well as similarities. I would say that the common element that they all share is that the Caribbean, for many reasons, is in a sense a laboratory for the racialization of slavery and for the industrialization of slavery, of seeing slavery not simply as the force captivity of people into labor, but the active. full degradation of humanity, the total exploitation and its full meaning of the word of enslaved Africans. That was a phenomenon that existed throughout the Caribbean and that after its full use and application of the Caribbean, particularly starting in the Dominican Republic and what is now known Haiti, was extended across the Caribbean eventually to the rest of Latin

America and the United States. Some people today like to say, you know, go into debates about whether Spanish forms of slavery were better or worse than French forms of slavery or American forms of slavery or English forms of slavery. But that is a silly debate in my opinion. They all shared these aspects of major degradation and exploitation. Now, in Cuba, you know, colonialism, which starts in the 16th century in Cuba, when it introduces slavery into the island, it doesn't actually develop at the fast pace that it would in the case of Haiti. I mean, Haiti became the economic powerhouse of the whole region. It had an industrial plantation system that required the presence of over half a million slaves enslaved people at any given time.

You know, Haiti by itself was producing over 60% of all the sugar that Europe was consuming at that point. In the case of Cuba, the production, which at this point was small amounts of sugar, small amounts of cacao, coffee, etc. Never reached a high scale of production in any way shape or form comparable to that of, of, of, Haiti or any of the other colonies, in fact. What did change that, though, is the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian Revolution had, I would say, an outsized impact on all of humanity, on the trajectory of all humanity, and many different ways. On one hand, it created the first Black Republic, it abolished slavery, it created a precedent

for the rest of the region. But it also, in a sense, created a retrenchment of the white supremacist and colonialist and slavever and planter forces across the region. It's estimated that at least 30,000 French planters fled to Cuba from Haiti. And they brought with them this highly industrialized plantation system that barely existed in Cuba at that point, or hadn't been formally organized in the same ways at the scale of what had been seen in Haiti. So with the triumph of the Haitian Revolution,

the arrival of these planters, actually there's a huge sugar boom in Cuba. Cuba becomes the sugar island that in a way replaces Haiti. But this meant what? A major increase in the trafficking of human bodies from Africa. The same, we see a parallel in the numbers of enslaved people who were brought to Haiti.

now those numbers are brought to Cuba. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people. Under degradating conditions, the survival rate of enslaved Africans in Cuba after the sugar boom was of about seven years at most after arrival on the island. And Cuba itself became a hub, a major transportation hub for the arrival of enslaved Africans

into the rest of the continent. So the Spanish slave trade essentially used Havana primarily but also other ports across the island as the shipping point to ship slaves and slave Africans to the United States, to the 13 colonies, to Brazil,

where the Portuguese colonies were, and to other Spanish colonial ports across the region. But as I said also with the history of because I think this informs my own thinking is that it's clearly a trajectory in which this level of degradation and exploitation

immediately created a burst of major resistance by enslaved Africans across the island of Cuba. I mean, a history of massive rebellions. I mean, there's famous ones that more people know about, like the Trunvirato Rebellion in 1844, led by a Lukumi, woman from the Lukumi people in southern and central Africa named Kablota, who, you know, led a rebellion where they went out and strike at the main plantations in the province of Matanzas

and burned it to the ground and killed as many slavers and plantation owners as possible before themselves being caught and killed. There was the rebellion of Aponte, which was betrayed, it was infiltrated, but that sought it in 1812 to also rebel against this disgusting system of slavery on the island of Cuba. And these rebellions in a way, led by enslaved Africans, had an interesting effect on the consciousness of Cuban people as a whole. While the rest of Latin America is moving towards independence at the same time, Simon Bolivar leads armies across South America that generate independence. Cuba becomes the stranglehold of Spanish colonialism in the region.

And yet at the same time, because of those same conditions, the Cubans begin to connect more and more the question of the need for independence with the question to abolish slavery. almost unique to Latin America. Boliva took on the question of abolition only because the Haitians demanded it of him in exchange for support. On the contrary,

revolutionaries in Cuba who begin to form on the idea of a nation, of independence, of national liberation, almost from an early period at the beginning of the 19th century, formulate that there can be no independence without abolition and vice versa. This is a significant ideological and political step in the formation of Cuban consciousness and independence movements.

Yeah, and I love that you're tracing the resistance piece. That's wonderful. So let's talk more about Cuba's independence. So it was in 1902, and when I was researching this, I found that some folks would call it a managed independence or a change of masters referring to the transition from Spanish colonial rule to U.S. imperial domination. So really fascinating of whether it was a true independence and also what the dynamic was of the U.S. that was set up then. So tell us about that Cuba independence and what happened there, and particularly about the U.S. as well.

Well, I always think it's funny that the only people who would call it Cuba's independence in 1902 are the Americans. I think it's like the U.S. government still affirms that it was Cuba's independence in 1902, but no one in Cuba thinks it was their independence. In fact, you cannot talk about what happened in 1902 or what happened in 1898 without talking about what happened in 1868, which is that in 1868, there was a massive uprising. in eastern Cuba that started their wars of independence. Precisely led by a combination of both a section of the planter class that had been really moved and inspired by the ideals, the liberal ideas of the era, primarily coming from Europe, had been really deepened in their thought by the experiments in democracy in the United States, and therefore saw a major clash with Spanish colonialism

and needed to make a break, because Spanish colonialism was the most backward of all colonialism in a sense, economically speaking. It was extremely backward. It was strangling the possibility of middle sectors or small planters to really develop economically. But there was another major factor in this combination, which was that the way,

A war of independence, 90% of its army are formerly enslaved Africans who rebel, who run away, become maroons, and fight back against Spanish colonialism as a way for fighting for the abolition of slavery. Now these wars of independence are brutal, massive wars that overtake the whole country. The first one lasts for 10 years. is a war of, you know, blood and death everywhere you go. It's a black army, majority black army, with black generals, by the way, of the type of Antonio Maceo,

who lead fierce battles, along with other generals like Maximo Gomez, destroying the infrastructure of Spanish colonialism, primarily the sugar plantations. It becomes their first task. They then restart that war multiple times over the next decades. And by 1895, now led by a most important figure, I think, in Cuba's political history, Jose Marti, started a new war of independence, the definitive battle for independence, which rages on for three years against Spanish colonialism.

And at the point in which the Spanish empire is the weakest, At the point in which the Cuban Revolutionary Forces, a Cuban independence army, is at its closest proximity to winning and to taking power, we have the so-called Spanish-American War, which is a big misnomer. Because the war is a war of independence of the Cuban people for which they sacrifice tens of thousands of lives. the result of the U.S. intervention in this war, which is, you know, is framed always in American history as a heroic intervention by the U.S. to save the poor keeping people from Spanish colonialism. Colonialism is essentially then transformed into a war for U.S. occupation. Sounds familiar. Actually, I would say that this is the blueprint. Cuba is the blueprint. Cuba is Cuba in Puerto Rico. and Guam are in the Philippines are the blueprint for Trump's gangster imperialism of today, of Trump's hyper-imperialism of today.

We cannot understand that today without looking at how this developed. At this point, you know, the U.S. intervenes in the war, defeats Spain, of course, with the overwhelming role of the Cuban Liberation armies, And as part of the agreement with Spain, they gain new colonies. But they create a situation with Cuba in which they would not leave Cuba unless the Cubans agreed to sign the Platt Amendment, which was literally forced in the Cleveland Constitution that if at any point U.S. interest in Cuba were hurt or damage or at risk, the U.S. had a right to intervene immediately. This was forced on the Cubans.

It was not a free choice of the Cuban people. In fact, it's the reason why the U.S. still holds onto Guantanamo base today. It was part of these agreements that were forced through as part of the Platt Amendment. And when you ask Cubans, ordinary Cubans, what do you think about 1902? They will refer to it as the E. era of the pseudo-republic, or pseudo-independence, a false independence. What independence? Cubans weren't free to decide anything on their own. Yeah, wow, just to underscore that. So that the birth of the country, you know, birth of its nationhood, it's quote-unquote independence

that U.S. imperialism and U.S.A in its organizing of its own country was baked in from the beginning. And so in some ways we can see that that unresolved betrayal of sovereignty is one of the reasons why the revolution, which will come to, was not just anti-dictorial, but anti-imperialist, right? It starts at the beginning. And also to underscore what you said about, that's when the U.S. began its lease in Guantanamo Bay. Because I have to say, you know, before knowing more about Cuba, it's like, that's bizarre, right? That we have this base in Cuba, which is, you know, seen to be one of the U.S. enemies. So, yeah, anything else you might say about that,

just that, like, interesting, forced, you know, clause at the beginning of its countryhood. I mean, one thing I want to underscore about this because it ties in, again, with the history of the region, of the U.S. relationship to the region, is that the U.S. propaganda, when you look at U.S. media from that time, when you look at the yellow journalism of the period,

one of the great concerns that the U.S. public opinion had about Cuba being truly independent at that point was that if the Cuban Liberation Army were to triumph on its own, this army, which again was 90% black, had black generals, it was the threat that Cuba would become another Haiti, the threat of another black republic. And they, in fact, used this propaganda heavily to even create a wedge or disunity among the Cuban ranks. The planter class, which had momentarily kind of allied itself with this majority of enslaved Africans fighting for their freedom, for their own economic interests, realized their own class consciousness again and we're like, okay, we actually can't allow a black republic.

That would be against our economic interests. So they allied essentially with the U.S. I mean, there's a famous figure, Thomas Estrada Palma, who is one of Jose Martiz lieutenants, one of his fellow revolutionaries, who, in light of this new situation, sides with the U.S. to prevent this black republic. They make agreements like the lease of Guantanamo,

and not just Guantanamo. Initially, there were multiple U.S. spaces. across Cuba. Totally out of the sense of there has to be a way to guarantee that the U.S. has direct ability to intervene, not just in Cuba, but across Latin America. Guantanamo, but Cuba,

just like Puerto Rico is today, would essentially become a base for U.S. interventions later on in Dominican Republic, in Haiti, in Nicaragua, in Colombia, in Mexico, across the region. So that's why when we look at what's happening today, it doesn't come out of the blue. It cannot come out of the blue, actually.

This is actually a pattern that the U.S. has historically developed, where it uses concepts of democracy. It will even use the words independence and sovereignty and hollow them out of any. serious meaning in order to impose their political, economic, and ideological interest. Can you say more about Jose Marti, as you said, a very prominent figure in Cuban history? Part of that independence, and today many things are named after him. And so what's the sentiment of him and what's kind of the legacy of him in history and today? I get emotional answering this question because I am a great

admired Jose Marti because he was a revolutionary. He was a journalist. He was a poet. He was a real organic intellectual in the Gramshian sense who at an early age, he was he was a son of actually a Spanish colonial officer, the child of the system of Spanish colonialism in Cuba. Yet he yearned deeply for the liberation of his homeland. And at an early age, he developed a consciousness of both how evil colonialism was and the need for independence, but he also developed an early consciousness about the evils of both slavery and racism and fought against us for the rest of his life.

He's imprisoned in his teenage years for handing out, for writing newspapers against Spanish colonialism, and begins to write some of the most beautiful poetry in prison, being, well, having to do forced labor under Spanish colonialism, ends up having to go into exile and spends actually most of his life traveling the world, spends years living in New York City, living in Mexico, in Venezuela, and other parts of Latin America, becomes a prolific writer, but more importantly, he becomes a prolific organizer, And he, having seen the challenges of the Cuban independence process and the failures, the setbacks, the defeats, the constant disunity among the revolutionary forces, he kind of decides to organize something that was quite unique for his time and still stands out to us today, which is the need for a single party to lead the Cuban people towards independence.

you know, when people ask today, why is there one single party in Cuba? It's not actually out of a sense of like communists can only have one party. It's not actually, that's a, I think a propagandized myth that the U.S. always likes to impose. The reason for why Cubans have one party is rooted in their history of fighting for independence going back 200 years. It's the party that Marti founded in the 1890s. the party, the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the Party for the Independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico, a party that would unite Cubans across serious differences towards a common goal of independence. And what makes Martin even greater is that despite being the ideological leader of this political project of the party,

he insists on going into battle. All the generals said, Marti, don't go into battle. You are too precious. you're too important as a political leader. Don't go into battle. Marti refuses to believe that he could be a man of his word, of the word, and somehow not do the deed. And he gets killed in battle.

But his body of thought becomes the foundation, the layer for every Cuban revolutionary moving forward. generations of Cubans after him, the most important being the generation of his centennial, which is the generation of Fidel, of Camilo, of Raul, and so many of the Cuban revolutionaries, take up the banner of Marti as a way of reclaiming their country. And to this day, I mean, every year,

on the eve of his birth, January 28th, tens of thousands of Cubans march in the streets of Havana and a torch-like march to honor his memory. His bust or his statue could be seen at every corner of the island, from the most renowned school in the mountains to a simple office in the city. His words are not just inscribe on the walls, but every Cuban can probably recite at least 100 quotes by Jose Mardi. Most of them real and some of them even invented.

But Marti has just become like ingrained part of the popular consciousness of resistance, rebellion, independent, sovereignty, and even of an extreme profound sense of social justice, which precedes the Cuban movement for socialism, but that clearly informs it later on. Do you have any quotes of his, you want to? uplift? I have a fake quote that I love and a real quote that I love too. My favorite fake quote of Martí is Marti would supposedly often said that to steal a book is not to steal. He loved the idea

of learning. So that gets propagated so much. But one of the most beautiful quotes that I enjoy of Marti is also the sense that Patriot is Humanidad. Our homeland is humanity. This idea that Cubans have really taken in that the struggle for justice doesn't fit within the borders of a country. When Cubans are asked, why were they willing to go fight tens of thousands of miles away in Angola for the freedom of the Angolan people, the Namibians, and South Africans?

What is their answer? Patriot Humanidad. Our homeland is humanity. You're listening to an upstream conversation with Manolo, Los Santos. We'll be right back. Let's get to the sun, that's That's, that's That's all the sun

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with violence and robos That's all the sun Poverse, racism and discrimination insupportable They salga the sun Some people that help They support and amables We Salca the sun

We've done a long voyage To get, we've got families, and our raids That's all the sun I'm waiting That was Ke Salga the Son. With the Amos of my family and all my Cés,

That was Ke Salga El Sol, El Guajiro, Della's father in love. Now back to our conversation with Manolo Delos Santos. So let's go from Jose Marti and the quote-unquote independence or managed independence to the reign of Batista. So what happened there? What was going on in those first few years of the Republic of Cuba leading up to the Batista regime? Well, going to 1902 moving forward into the history of the pseudo-republic or this fake republic, the false republic in Cuba,

is a history marked by massive political corruption, by gangsterism at the center of Cuban politics, like literal gangs dominating Cuban politics, major social inequality because as Cuba becomes in a way a major site for U.S. investment and U.S. capital, it also becomes a site of all the consequences of that capital investment, which is huge inequality anywhere it goes.

And as a result of that, also of major cycles of political protest against all that corruption, against that fraudulent regime that was imposed by the United States. Almost immediately from the start of the fake republic in Cuba, there are major rebellions or political protests across the island.

One of the first ones is in 1912 by actual veterans of the Wars of Independence. Again, majority black, who start a political party called the Partido Independent of Color, or the party of independence of color, the first black political party in all of the hemisphere, that clearly makes a stand,

not just for the rights of black people in Cuba, but that makes a major stand for the need for real independence from U.S. imperialism. And the U.S. response, or the government's response, is to massacre them. In fact, the U.S. ships are there literally waiting in the Bay as the Cuban military massacre these black activists, I mean, by the thousands. The U.S. essentially continues to impose political heads over Cuba. One of the most hated ones was Machado, who ran the country in the period of the 1920s up to 1933, who is possibly,

known as possibly the most corrupt of all Cuban leaders within the Sula Republic. He would engage in massive construction projects in which he would skim more than half of the budget, essentially for himself and his allies and his cronies. And the Communist Party, the massive labor movement in Cuba at the time, leads a major strike in the summer of 1933. It's like one of the pivotal moments in Cuban history. Again, unique to Cuba among all of Latin American countries, there's a robust communist movement at this time.

A robust labor movement that has its roots in the independence movement of the previous century. The founders of the Communist Party, among them, are the fighters for independence who fought alongside Jose Marti, leaders like Carlos Balino, but also new generations like Julian Antonio Mayer, who rescued the legacy of Martia as well. This popular, massive general strike in the country brings the country to a halt, and it creates a political scenario

in which essentially Machado has to leave. The U.S. imposes another caretaker government, and in that, all that confusion, all that chaos, a group of sergeants, they call themselves, leads a revolt to sort of restore democracy. And this is where an unbelievable, An unlikely hero shows up, Fulgencio Batista, who's a low-level officer of color,

who rises through the ranks, essentially, through this revolt, and becomes in the coming period almost like the new kingmaker, or the new proxy of the U.S. to kind of determine the political scene in the country. He decides who rules as the head of the country. In a way, in an initial period, some people saw him as a progressive figure, because it's during this tame time, for example, that Cuba, but actually through the struggle of the working people, through these massive movements on the island,

passes one of the most progressive constitutions in Latin American history, the Constitution of 1940, which had major labor laws, kind of like a New Deal type of constitution for the Cuban context. But precisely because of the level of corruption, because of figures like Batista, this constitution has never really applied. And in this period of intense chaos of continued exploitation of the Cuban people by the United States and their cronies on the island, there's continued resistance. There's massive protests, there's massive rebellions across the island at different points in history. It then leads to the election of 1952, elections in which a progressive candidate is expected to win,

Batista, who at that point actually had been living in exile or had been living in Florida, of all places, comes back to the island and organizes a coup and takes power in 1952, leading to what is then known as a period of essentially a dictatorship imposed by Batista on the Cuban people. Let's go into who Felencio Vautista was a little bit more and how he came to power. One thing I learned as I was doing some research was, as you said, he was a person of color. So he was the first and only non-white person to be president of Cuba.

You actually had indigenous, Chinese, African, and Spanish ancestry. and also even that he went to a Quaker school, a part-time went to a Quaker school in the U.S. So really interesting how he rose to power. Can you share a little bit more about his story and how he became the dictator? It's a dynamic and very complex process because, again, sort of the same scenario

that has played consistently throughout the history of Cuba, which is the U.S. is essentially trying to prevent in the 1930s, a possible takeover of the island by these robust communist party and revolutionary forces across the island. I mean, it's a period of intense political struggle. A communist leader, black sugar cane worker,

Jesus Menendez is leading powerful strikes in the sugar industry, bringing almost to a halt the U.S. majority-owned sugar industry on the island. You have elected, in which the masses of working people in Cuba are electing communists to Congress, to the Senate. Like, it's unlike anything we have seen actually in the U.S. It was a very complex and chaotic moment in Cuban history.

And the threat, I don't actually know if the Cuban communists or revolutionaries were that close to actually taking power, but the threat of it was very palpable to U.S. interest. And again, in one of their many interventions, like they did across Latin America, with other figures like Trujillo or Duvalier or Marcus Pere Jimenez in Venezuela, there's a litany of expansibles, Somoosa in Nicaragua. They kind of handpick this unlikely figure who, like you mentioned, is not white. He's a low-level officer, but who most well serve their place. political interests as the right puppet in this period to guarantee that U.S. interests would not be harmed.

That was the key element. And it's funny because Batista becomes this powerful figure. He becomes dictator in 1952. He is immensely wealthy off the corruption and the stealing of Cubans people's resources. Yet because he's not white, he's not allowed into the social clubs of Havana. You know, he's good enough to dictate on behalf of the U.S., but not good enough to actually spend time with Cuba's white elites. So you have these complexities, and you have essentially in this response of the U.S. to try to circumvent or prevent a social crisis in the island, this pot from boiling over, the imposition of this figure. But it was a highly unstable situation.

And the same reasons that motivated this instability, which is the high level of corruption, the high level of social inequality, the high level of misery and poverty across the island, all dominated by U.S. capital, basically create a scenario which the pot keeps boiling again and again and again. So, you know, before Fidel, before the, 26th of July, there were, in that period of the pseudo-republic, there is a constant political

upheaval that even Batista struggles with to fully contain. The student movement is active, women's movements are active, black movements are active. Sometimes people don't even know that, for example, Cuba throughout this period had one of the largest presences or the largest branches of Marcus Garvey's UNAIA, Universal Negro Improvement Association. It's like insane. It's like there's a lot of intense political culture

taking place in Cuba at that time. Well, one thing that I'm hearing in the history of Cuba is the power of the general strike. So just want to uplift that parallel to today. They work. But, you know, what I also am feeling is the portrayal of Cuba before 1959. It really was portrayed as this paradise, this destination for tourists, this place of leisure.

And we can think about a lot of the Cuban poster art from around this time, one of which were used as the cover art for today. So this very beautiful paradise tropical land, right? And yet, of course, that was not the reality for everyone. So tell us a little bit about the portrayal of Cuba and then the reality of what it was really like. Well, Cuba was a paradise. Cuba was a paradise for U.S. corporations, for the United Fruit Company, now known as Dole. It was a paradise for companies like what is now known as AT&T for a lot of utilities companies. It was a paradise for the sugar magnets, the large landowners, most of them U.S. based. It was a paradise for the political and military elites surrounding Batista, who essentially lived in a bubble of what they would call first world conditions on a third world island.

It was a paradise. You know, during that time, you know, reaction. Cuban-American reactioneys today will say, well, oh, during those times, Havana had more movie theaters than New York City. Or Cubans, on average ate more beef than people in the U.S. Or more Cubans had access to television than other developed countries in the world. But that paradise has to be flipped on its head when you look at the reality of the majority of people on the island. For a majority of people who are landless peasants, landless campesinos, urban workers, unemployed, blacks, indigenous, mixed race, peoples, there is nothing but misery on the island.

In fact, Cuba presents in all the statistics one of the most backward visions or backward developments of a country or the lack of development. There was no sense of prosperity, even for sectors of the middle class, who were honestly, even the middle class felt stifled by the level of corruption that existed in the country. How could you possibly run a business in a country where you're basically expected to pay everyone off all the time? The country was a huge mafia scam. And this sense of paradise is often created because U.S. and foreign investors basically owned like 75% of all arable land in Cuba. Like, I kind of have to say that loudly because it's like, it's bizarre to think, to like take that seriously now. But yes, the Americans own 75% of all arable land

in Cuba. They own like 90% of all basic services in Cuba. But the statistics are crazy. They owned 40% of all the sugar production. Like, I think in today's numbers, they had about $11 billion invested across Cuba. Yet, high sections of the population faced chronic unemployment. Millions, I think about 3 million Cubans

lacked electricity and access to clean water. I think actually 85% of all Cubans lacked access to clean water. High levels of my nutrition. I always look, if you want to look at a good indictment of this Cuban paradise, Reed, history will absolve me by Fidel, which is his defense in court after the Monkala attack in 1953. Fidel's defense in court is twofold. One, the ideas for this rebel. are the ideas of Jose-Martin.

And secondly, look at the country, man. Look at what's happening in the country. Look at the level of poverty that we have to live under. The level of corruption and inequality that we live in. And you will find the reasons for why we were built. Yeah, Cuba really was a playground for U.S. elites, organized crime and tourists. And just to highlight some things that you said, the U.S. owns 75% of arable land in Cuba and had $11 billion invested.

To me, that really speaks to the anger and frustration of the upset after the revolution, right? Like that you can really see the seeds of the anger towards the revolution from those numbers. And another thing just to, again, highlight is the level of inequality. And so tell us more about the reality for most Cubans and the levels of inequality that people were experiencing before the revolution. I mean, think about the fact that in 1953, only half of Cuban children were enrolled in school. We're talking about millions of children, no access to education. You have millions of people who have no right to work. In fact, because of the U.S. imposed sugar plantation system

in which work is essentially seasonal, you have large segments of the population who are chronically unemployed, who are only essentially brought into work for three or four months of the year and are forced to live the rest of the year in extreme poverty. You have a situation in which essentially you have a small elite that in Havana and in certain cities has access to the latest developments.

And U.S. technology has access to very high standards of living. But the gap between them and the rest of society is massive. is massive. I mean, the malnutrition rate among Cuban workers in the countryside was upwards of 90%

before 1959. That is, people who live in the countryside who work the land are incapable or not allowed, basically, to live a life in which they can eat regularly or eat healthily.

That is the expression of inequality that actually is the stuff that makes revolutions happen. This is the stuff that forces people over the edge, because it's a reality in which how long can you continue to live this way? And one day people wake up and say, I don't want to live like this anymore. Where were people living if the U.S. owned 75% of arable land and we had these sugar plantations and these U.S. corporations, these resorts, where were everyday people living, both in the rural areas and in the urban ones? Well, for most people in the countryside, in the rural communities, people were living, I would say, in conditions of absolute misery to

not say poverty, often renting land from major landowners, from these major landowners, from these major landowners. That was a condition for a majority of people. And in many places, under a kind of interesting U.S. model, a lot of these plantations would create sort of villages in which the agricultural workers or people who work the sugar plantations would be forced to live. And they would not be paid in actual money. They would be paid in coupons that could only be redeemed at these stores owned by the landowners, which is the same model that the U.S. industrialization process developed

at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century in the U.S. It's the same model of all these industrial villages that existed throughout the northeast, throughout the rust belt, and it created major cycles of poverty. In the cities, most people rented at immense rates, at huge rates.

People would sacrifice over 60% of their salaries to cover rent. Often in conditions, you know, Havana was a city of shantytowns. It never came out in the postcards, but it was a city of shanty towns. Many of the sections of the city were literally dominated by migrants from other parts of the country living in the worst possible conditions. All right. So before the revolution, we had poverty in the rural area, right? We had hundreds of thousands of rural families who were landless, right, the landless Campesinos. We had workers and urban poor, so unemployment, underemployment, unions being repressed, wages being

low and unstable, housing being overcrowded, insecure, and high rent, as you articulated. We also had, for the Afro-Cubans, we had deep segregation. We had a lot of jobs that were restricted to whites. We had Afro-Cubans, as you mentioned, who were restricted. or excluded from hotels, beaches, clubs, and university, we very much had the racialization of poverty. And then we also had for women. Women before 1959 had limited access to education, formal employment. Many were pushed to domestic work or sex work, and political participation was minimal.

Plus, we have what you mentioned about children as well in education. One area I want to go into more was the economics of tourism. So tourism was a huge part of the economy. And part of the connection with tourism was sexual exploitation, and particularly of women and particularly of Afro-Cuban women. So tell us a little bit more about that economic system or that economic reality of tourism before the revolution. I mean, I actually, again, this is a topic of its own, really. The tourism industry, the U.S. really pioneered its tourism models for the rest of the world with Cuba.

Like the whole concept of resorts tied to sex tourism, tied to gambling, the model of making it so cheap that any ordinary American can travel to Cuba and, you know, do whatever they want, like that's been exported to Thailand, has been exported to the rest of the world, to Africa, to the rest of Latin America. In this period, only really hit it off in Cuba. This is where the U.S. really tested out this model. And it was a model that in many ways was dominated by U.S. mafias, like actual mafias and, you know, well-known and documented. movies, home movies that make reference to this.

If you've never seen The Godfather, I recommend you watch it. The other element of this is the sexual exploitation of women, not just African-Cuban women, but women overall, of which we have to say that poverty is always racialized in Latin America. There is no misery without the racialization of it in Latin America. and in the Caribbean and in Cuba in particular, it had a huge role. Afro-Cuban people and Afro-Cuban women in particular are the face of that exploitation, are the most severely exploited. And the sex industry, which becomes prevalent in Cuba,

is centered actually around the idea that if you're a man in the U.S., there are literally endless number of flights. coming out of the US. You could even take your car on a ferry from Miami to Havana, go for the weekend, do as you wish, no consequences for as least money as possible, and get away with it and not look back. And this is a model that was tested in Cuba,

but exported to the rest of the world. And when the Cuba Revolution happens, that this is sort of definitively put an end to, the U.S. has to find new markets for both sexual exploitation, but also this highly exploitative tourism industry. Jamaica, Dominican Republic, and others in the 60s and 70s begin to become the replacements for Cuba. This is, you know, again, a deep study could be done on this.

There are researchers and scholars who have worked worked on this more intensely, but it is something that cannot be ignored, actually. So the, yeah, the inequality and the misery that we're describing before the revolution, it really just reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the revolution, which is, this revolution is de los humilde and for those humilde. And it means this revolution is from the humble and for the humble. And just a little teaser, but, you know, talking about the inequality, before the revolution really will lead to the differentiation, right, the comparison to what life is like for rural people, children, Afro-Cuban people, women, students after the revolution. So

excited to go more into that. And another thing, though, that we have to talk about is the repression, right? So Batista was a dictator, right? So how did Batista maintain power, right? And what role did the U.S. play in supporting or sustaining his regime? So talk about the repression that ordinary Cubans were living under during this time. Well, Batista essentially led a massive system of repression across the island that was based on three key elements. One of them, a massive military and secret police system. Back then, it was known as the SIM, the Seim, the Service of Intelligencia Militiano

or the Military Intelligence Service, that tortured, assassinated, terrorized, harassed, forcibly exiled, anyone who was in opposition. Mostly under the premise, you know, particularly because this is the Cold War, a period of the height of McCarthyism in the United States, you know, there's even a bureau within the seam

that focuses on anti-communist witch hunting. But the easiest way to target any dissidents was to say they were communist, whether they were actually one or not. But it was honestly the repression of anyone. I mean, you had even, you could say, liberal, progressive forces that couldn't express themselves politically,

in the island. I mean, when you look at the history of the King Revolution, when you look at why Fidel and his generation went to the Moncada in 1953, why they went into the Sierra Maestra, it's not because they had a desire for armed struggle. It's not because they firmly believe that armed struggle was the only way to achieve changing Cuba. It's because Batista closed the door to any other way of transformation on the island. I mean, there was no possibility of elections. There was zero space for political organizing. Unions were busted up and tightly controlled by bureaucrats imposed by the dictatorship.

There was no ability for the Cuban people to organize it any other way that would have allowed them to end this dictatorship. But another key element that Batista had, had in his favor was a massive corruption network, which kept essentially a system of loyalty across the island by a range of bureaucrats and political figures who, as long as they receive their cut, would be willing to do everything to maintain their system. And sometimes Americans will look at this and say, oh, the third world corruption, oh, how horrible. That never happens here in the U.S. Bullshin.

This patronage system is what we call the non-profit industrial complex in the U.S. It's the ways in which systems, through funding, through the use of money, essentially maintain ideological and political control over large sections of society and mobilize them for what they see fit and demobilize them for what they see fit as well. But the third key element with which no patronage network could have survived, with which no repressive military service would have allowed to exist in Cuba, under Batista, was the massive U.S. military and political aid. I mean, the U.S. essentially took the attitude,

in line with, consistent with its own foreign policy, that it's better to have as many anti-communist leaders in the region, regardless of whether they are Democrats or dictators at all costs. And if Batista can keep the communists down, we can overlook anything he does or says, and we'll keep funding it to the tune of millions. So Batista received massive economic military aid. The Cuban army was being trained by the U.S. military.

The repressive services of the seam were being trained, and, you know, actually received, like, direct advisory from the United States on how to torture, on how to assassinate, on how to kill Cubans. And essentially, up to the last minute, until the last days of 1958, the U.S. was full in in support of Batista. Full in. That is, those are the things that really sustained the Batista dictatorship at the end of the day. So following this vein, what would you say that the history of pre-revolutionary Cuba teaches us about the true nature of U.S. imperialism?

I would say that it bears the soul and the practice of U.S. imperialism for us to see. It makes clear what the interest of the United States have actually always been. The U.S. doesn't care about democracy. The U.S. doesn't care about human rights. It doesn't care about ending poverty. If it did, it would have done something about it before 1959. In fact, it had plenty opportunity to affect those type of changes because they were running the show.

They were running Cuba. Cuba was a neo-colony of the United States, despite having its so-called independence. I think it came to the point where even U.S. money, I mean, Cuban money was being printed in the U.S. I mean, everything about Cuba was being decided in Washington. So if the U.S. really cared about the Cuban people, it could have done something about it a long time ago. It forfeited that right, actually,

because the Cuban people had a sense of dignity, a sense of self-determination to decide that they wanted better for their country. And ultimately, I think the greatest lesson which is the lesson not just of the Cuba Revolution since 1959, but it's the history of the Cuban people and resistance, going back to 1492, is of continuous resistance against all forces that try to dominate Cuba. In these days, the Cubans constantly repeat to themselves,

and they say to the U.S. and to the world, that anyone who attempts to take Cuba by force will perish in the battle or would at least be left with nothing but the blood-soaked soil of the Cuban people. That is a quote of their black general, Antonio Maceo. Cubans repeat this all the time. They will resist to the very end.

They have nothing to lose. They have everything to give in the battle against U.S. imperialism. And that is a lesson that the peoples of the people, the world, I think, have to take seriously in these times in which Trump's gangster imperialism threatens us all. We have to resist with all our might if we want to have even the hope of independence in our future. And this is so pertinent today because I'm thinking about the mass demonstrations happening in Cuba right now against U.S. intervention in Venezuela. And then, of course,

the blockade on Cuba being intensified. And so, yeah, thank you for weaving in this strand throughout Cuba's history of resistance and also of U.S. intervention, right? These both are true. And we can see them throughout the history. And I want to go back to something you said about the revolution kind of being inevitable, right? The material conditions really leading to revolution. So tell us a little bit more about what were the material conditions in 1959, right, right before the revolution, that made revolution not only possible but inevitable. I mean, to be more plain spoken, we have to say that the Cuban Revolution was not a process of ideas. It was not an ideological revolution. It wasn't that the Cubans, that Fidel told the Cubans,

what to believe and therefore people rose up against Batista. It was a social and political explosion. In a country where you have mass poverty, where you have hunger as a phenomenon, a constant phenomenon in society, a society where you have massive unemployment and underemployment. A country where there are non-existent or very low, basic social services from health to education.

And where at the same time, you have the visibility of an obscene, disgustingly rich elite backed by the United States that lives leagues above the rest of society, and that on top of that, steals elections, kills its opposition, and leaves no space for reform, you get to the point where how could there not be a revolution?

How could there not be a process by which the country as a whole moved to shake its chains? And the history of that process in itself, particularly that period from 1953 to 1959, is not a simple or linear process. it's a highly dynamic one with many upsets and setbacks with many twists and turns Fidel goes to the Moncala barracks and is defeated

but doesn't accept that defeat and goes into exile after a time in prison they return and in this whole process it's not like the whole country is just waiting for Fidel there's actually labor movements that are beginning again to take a leading role in the country and lead general strikes in this period against the Batista dictatorship in coordination with the

armed struggle. There is the growth of a student movement that plays a radical role on campuses across the country. There's a growing movement of women in urban centers that begins to fight for democratic rights against the Batita. antistead dictatorship. All these factors, basically, when put together with the vanguard role or the leadership role, which wasn't self-ascribed, but I would say historically given to the 26th of July movement led by Fidel and others, made it possible for the most important revolutionary process of the 20th century in Latin America, if not the third world.

that you had the U.S.'s model neocolony shift towards the base for the construction of socialism in the Western atmosphere. It's one of the greatest upsets for U.S. imperialism to this day, which is why, at the end of the day, Cuba has no oil, Cuba has no massive natural resources.

What is the U.S. bothered by? it's bothered by the fact that it lost its paradise. The U.S. wants to reclaim its Cuban paradise so that it's rich, its mafia, can continue to enjoy like they did in the old times. Maga, make America great again. This desire to go back 80 years in time before black people had rights

is also about going back to the period when Cuba was theirs. That's what they want. So I love that we're ending this episode on a little bit of a cliffhanger, right? We have these general strikes and labor trying to reorganize despite being, you know, unions being busted and so much repression. We have student groups. We have women's organizing and activism happening. We have black organizing and activism happening.

And we have Fidel heading for the Sierra Maestra Mountains. right? And that's where we'll leave the end of this episode so that we could then begin with part two, the revolution. But I do want to ask one more question before we depart, because I'm just really feeling into this time that you're describing, this time before the revolution, 1952 to 1959, this dictatorship, this repression, this U.S. imperialism, this high inequality, right? So in your view, what parallels do you see between Cuba before 1959 and the experience in any countries today? I want to answer with a quote from the Cuban Revolution, which is that the history of Cuba, the history of Cuba before 1959, is the history of Latin America, it's the history of Africa, is the history of Asia, is the history of the third world. The clearest parallel of Cuba is precisely the global self,

in which the majority of the peoples are forced by U.S. imperialism into relationships of domination, forced by U.S. capital to live lives of exploitation and misery. I would have to make such a long list. I would have to read the U.N. roll call to talk to you about all the parallels. of what pre-59 Cuba was like compared to today's world. And what about the U.S.? Any parallels there?

That is a very powerful point, because I actually, in the political sphere, I actually see major parallels. Because I do believe American politics, like the Cuba of Batista, has become dominated by gangsterism, has become dominated by gangsterism, has become dominated by a reckless maverick type of politician

who manages society through a real patronage of corruption and who dominates more and more, not through the so-called rules-based order or the constitutional order that has been in place for years, which is not the result of any democratic advances. It's the result of the development of capitalism, in this country. But nonetheless, it's a type of gangster politician who even discards those things in order to impose the no rule, the rule according to who is the strongest and who has

power. And similar to Cuba in 1959, powerful movements are developing in this country, that in many ways have created the elements of a perfect storm. when you have different sectors of society, mobilizing over what they understand to be real threats to their existence and where people begin to ask themselves, can we continue to live this way? You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Manolo Delos Santos, founder of the People's Forum and a researcher at Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research.

He's the co-editor of Vivi Ramos, Venezuela, versus hybrid war, comrade of the revolution, selected speeches of Fidel Castro, and our own path to socialism, selected speeches of Hugo Chautilis. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you to Al Guajiro for the intermission music. The cover art for today's episode is an old travel poster for Kiva from before the revolution. Upstream theme music was composed by me, Robbie. Stream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations.

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