CASTRO'S REVOLUTION: Myths and Realities

by Theodore Draper ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 10, 1962

The three Theodore Draper essays collected here, which caused a furor amidst the New Left of London and New York when they appeared in Encounter a year ago, were then-and are now-the best gung-ho assault form yet leashed by the intellectual front against Castro, his successive siwtcheroos, current ""consolidations"". According to Draper, contrary to Mills' Pape-one-note sociology, Sartre's Marxian mythology, Monthly Review's singsong socialism, what happened in Cuba was not a peasant but a middle class revolt ultimately used to destroy that same class, resulting in Castro's betrayal of his own pre-war pledges, with the 26 July liberal-democratic programs degenerating into political absolutism, nationalized pogroms. Against such a schizophrenic turnabout, author Draper pinpoints the ill-fated April invasion, in which the CIA, Nixon-Kennedy debates, the White Paper and K's rocket-rattling, all crazy-quilted with Cuban emigrees, disillusioned Fidelistas, old guard whoopee makers, the FRD and MRP- in short, factional fights, crypto conflicts equalling a headlined debacle. For Draper Castro belongs with demonic nihilists Hitler and Stalin, sugarcoaters of totalitarianism as either a historical or humanistic ""necessity"". Fully compelling, controversial, compact.

Pub Date: June 10, 1962

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Praeger

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1962

Categories: NONFICTION