Download Abstract: This paper uses the case of political instability

Why were Cuban politics so unstable between 1902 and 1933?
Abstract: This paper uses the case of political instability in Cuba between 1902 and 1933 to
demonstrate the dynamic between the United States and Cuba that must be considered
whenever attempting to understand early Republican politics. Specifically, it seeks to reconcile
two predominate trends within the current literature. The first of these sees the United States as
culpable for the shortcomings of Cuban politics (Pérez, 1986; Benjamin, 1977; Fermoselle,
1987); the other emphasises Cuban agency in the way its politics evolved (Speck, 2011;
Hernández, 1993). To do so, the paper examines the manner by which the Cuban government,
the United States and Cuban extra-governmental political groups contributed to the
destabilisation of Cuban politics.
This paper finds that the cause of political instability in Cuba was neither entirely
internal nor entirely external. Instead, it appears that it was the combination of the inherent
problems within the Cuban political system with the effects of the ‘restraints from above and
without’ and the ensuing ‘pressure from below and within’ (Pérez, 1986: 66) that fermented
political instability in Cuba between 1902 and 1933.
Thus, the case of political instability during the early Cuban Republic reveals the
dynamic that one must always consider when examining the Platt years: one of interaction and
response between two countries, each with their own agency, and within a divided and vibrant
country; not of a passive colony and its ruler. This conclusion calls for re-evaluations of other
realities within the early Cuban Republic so that a fuller understanding of the causes and
processes at work during the period can be achieved.
Keywords: Cuba; Political instability; United States; Platt Amendment; Radical groups.
1
Cuban politics are anything but an open book. There is little, if any, agreement on how
to understand the politics that developed after the American occupation ended in 1902. While
some historians like Louis A. Pérez Jr., Jules R. Benjamin and Rafael Fermoselle see the
United States as entirely culpable for the shortcomings of Cuban politics, others like Mary
Speck and José Hernández emphasise Cuban agency in the way its politics developed.
However, the causation of such a fragmented reality cannot be traced to a single root. As a
result, the truth lies somewhere in between. The two culprits – the United States and Cuba – did
not act independently of each other. The actions of one inherently both responded to and
influenced the actions of the other. Additionally, the results of those mutually informed actions
in turn perpetuated a scenario to which each was required to respond. As one of the few
generally accepted notions about early republican Cuba, the case of political instability
provides a perfect representative of this dynamic. Indeed, there can be no doubt that Cuba was
politically unstable during the early republic, between 1902 and 1933, when political stability is
based on the record of peaceful transitions of power, ability of a government to stay in office
and carry out its policies in relation to the risk of government collapse and the amount of
threats that endanger that stability, including coups, domestic violence, economic instability
and terrorism.1
The cause of political instability in Cuba was neither entirely internal nor entirely
external. It was the combination of the inherent problems within the Cuban political system
with the effects of the ‘restraints from above and without’ and the ensuing ‘pressure from
below and within’2 that fermented political instability in Cuba between 1902 and 1933. That is
not to say that politics were any more stable before or after that period, but that the early Cuban
Republic endured a unique experience under the Platt Amendment and must be considered
separately.
Denise Y. Coleman, ‘Political Stability Index’, Montenegro Country Review (2012), p. 42.
Louis A. Pérez Jr., ‘Aspects of Hegemony: Labor, State, and Capital in Plattist Cuba’, Cuban Studies, 16 (1986),
p. 66.
1
2
2
The idea that the United States was to blame for Cuba’s political instability rests on the
understanding that, if it were not for United States interference, Cuba would have established a
stable democratic government.3 That this premise is flawed engenders its conclusion
necessarily false. Cuban politics after the occupation did not truly aspire to democracy and thus
its instability cannot be held to be a result of the failure of democracy. The corruption that is so
often blamed for Cuba’s political instability was not a corruption of a democratic system. In
fact, the system of pervasive graft, sinecures and personal use of the national lottery were
themselves political institutions that actually helped to stabilise politics during Presidential
incumbency.4
Instead, it was the incompatibility of caudillismo politics with governmental
consistency that generated political instability. Because caudillismo is based on the protection
of a caudillo’s supporters – mostly financially in Cuba’s case, because of the volatile sugar
economy – in return for loyalty, government positions were filled only with the demographic
that supported the incumbent caudillo.5 The composition of the electorate itself reflected the
narrow aim of government. Besides for age, eligibility to vote was based on literacy and wealth
– one had to own at least $250 worth of property – representing the Conservatives’
constituency, or on ‘honourable’ service in the Liberation Army prior to 18 July 1898: the
embodiment of the Liberals’ supporters.6 No other constituency was represented in
government. Out of a population of 3.5 million people,7 only around five per cent was included
in the electorate.8 That government employment was so lucrative – a result of the system of
graft, sinecures and corruption of the national lottery – mandated that there be some sort of
Mary Speck, ‘Democracy in Cuba: Principles and Practice, 1902–1952’, in M. Font (ed.), Cuba Futures:
Historical Perspectives (New York, 2011), pp. 1-28.
4
Julia Sweig, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2009), p. 13.
5
Robert Whitney, State and Revolution in Cuba: Mass Mobilization and Political Change, 1920-1940 (Chapel
Hill, 2001), p. 18.
6
Steven Hewitt, ‘Republican Ideals and the Reality of Patronage: A Study of the Veterans’ Movement in Cuba,
1900-1924’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Wolverhampton (Wolverhampton, 2009), p. 102.
7
Mary Speck, ‘Prosperity, Progress, and Wealth: Cuban Enterprise during the Early Republic, 1902-1927’, Cuban
Studies, 36, (2005), p. 51.
8
Louis A. Pérez Jr., Cuba Under the Platt Amendment, 1902–1934 (Pittsburgh, 1986), p. 38.
3
3
“free market” in regard to its circulation and availability. However, within the caudillo system,
the availability of government positions was choked by the incumbent caudillo and his network
of supporters. As Jorge I. Domínguez asserts, ‘incumbents altered the ordinary pattern of
circulation of elites, freezing the pattern of office holding and making it impossible for new
individuals to come to power’.9 Thus, ‘the politics of incumbency’10 became the supreme
concern. Since ‘no incumbent President failed to elect his chosen candidate (often himself) to
the presidency’,11 the losing party had no choice but to instigate armed rebellion in order to get
their turn.
What made the competition between political parties, or rather opposing caudillo
networks, even more precarious were the lines along which their divisions were set. The
Conservatives’ base was found in ‘the civilian wing of the independence movement’: mostly
professionals and educated people who had spent the War of Independence in exile and who
expected a high return on their investment in learning new skills and English and gaining
political connections. The Liberals’ found their base in the destitute veterans of the
independence army who believed that they should be rewarded for their military service and
personal sacrifice.12 This socio-economic chasm between the Conservatives and Liberals and
their respective sense of superiority intensified their political dissent and their determination to
see their opponent fall from power. Thus, there was no understanding that transfers of power
should occur so that political, and therefore economic, power was evenly shared. Rather, there
prevailed a keen sense of being wronged when one caudillo prevailed over the other. In a
system with this kind of winner-take-all dynamic, there was no chance for the kind of
bipartisan cooperation that makes party politics work. Because of the insurmountable divisions
between individual caudillos and their supporters, ‘Cuban politics [was] characterised
9
Jorge I. Domínguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge, 1978), p. 12.
Ibid, p. 2.
11
Ibid, p. 40.
12
Whitney, State and Revolution in Cuba, p. 19.
10
4
by…low-level political violence, and zero-sum rivalries’,13 rather than by consolidation,
inclusion and, therefore, stability.
As evident from the structure and purpose of the Cuban government, legitimacy was
based on a caudillo’s role in the War of Independence and the degree of economic security he
provided. Rather than unconditionally supporting the government, these two sources of
legitimacy proved to be seriously manipulative. Though the role a leader played in the War of
Independence could not be changed, his dedication to Cuba Libré – the extent to which he
represented and promoted the goals of the War of Independence – could be questioned. When
the policies or actions of a government were perceived as contradicting the aims of Cuba Libré
, such as Gómez’s massacre of Afro-Cubans in the 1912 “race war”, the opposition could use
that to delegitimise the incumbent.14 Even more dangerous was the role of the economy in
determining legitimacy, due to the volatility of the sugar industry. Tying the government’s
legitimacy to the country’s economic welfare guaranteed political instability, as evident in the
disastrous political chaos that ensued from the economic devastation of the ‘Dance of the
Millions’ after World War One and the Great Depression, which hit Cuba harder than most due
to its monoculture economy.
Not only did this system create a situation in which political transitions were rarely
peaceful and governments were so readily overthrown, putting political stability beyond reach,
but it also led to mutability of the very institutions of government. As is common in other
countries in which caudillismo politics is the norm, Cuban caudillos were able to change the
political institution in order to match their interests.15 The most infamous case of institutional
adjustment was when President Gerardo Machado changed the Cuban constitution to lengthen
the Presidential term so that he could legally continue in office without contradicting his
13
Sweig, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, p. 13.
Whitney, State and Revolution in Cuba, p. 21.
15
Charles E. Chapman, ‘The Age of the Caudillos: A Chapter in Hispanic American History’, The Hispanic
American Historical Review, 12 (1932), p. 283.
14
5
promise to not pursue re-election. Another less known, but equally consequential institutional
alteration was the placement of the portfolio of the Army and Navy under the purview of the
Secretaría de Gobernación during the Menocal administration.16 This administrative change in
1920, though it may seem insignificant compared to the drastic augmentation of power by
President Machado in 1928, was arguably responsible for more political instability than
Machado’s political continuance. While the continuity of Machado’s presidency sparked one of
the biggest political upheavals in Cuba’s twentieth century history – the 1933 Revolution – the
imbedding of the military’s role into politics from the 1920 election onwards equipped the
political system with a volatile instrument. The military could either serve to guarantee
electoral victory for the incumbent administration, thus incurring the retaliation of the losing
party, or it could throw its heavily weighted support behind a new authority that promised
better reward as it did in September 1933.
Nevertheless, a consideration of what happened in 1933 cannot fail to include the role
of the United States and this is no less true for contemplation of Cuba’s previous political
upheavals. From even before the birth of the new Republic, the United States clearly had more
than one finger in the Cuban pie. Though it eventually evolved to include Cuban politics,
United States involvement in Cuba was at first limited to its economy. As Cubans became more
involved in fighting for independence, more room opened up to American capital. Indeed,
concern for US investments in Cuba accounted for three out of the four ‘elements of danger’
that President McKinley invoked when beseeching congress to ‘empower the President to take
measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain
and the people of Cuba…’17 The lengths to which the United States went to secure its economic
Louis A. Pérez Jr., ‘The Military and Electoral Politics: The Cuban Election of 1920’, Military Affairs, 37
(1973), p. 6.
17
William McKinley, ‘Message of President William McKinley to Congress, April 11, 1898’ in James D.
Richardson (ed.), A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington, 1899), v. 10, pp. 13950, reprinted in Russell H. Fitzgibbon, Cuba and the United States: 1900-1935 (New York, 1935), p. 268.
16
6
interests in Cuba – going to war against one of the major colonial powers of the day18 – proves
that those interests were the foremost priority of United States policy in Cuba. The trend of
intervening militarily and politically in Cuba to protect American ‘life, property, and individual
liberty’19 was thus set early.
In legalising that impulse by passing the Platt Amendment in the American Congress
and forcing it into the Cuban Constitution, the United States unwittingly created a situation in
which their goal of Cuban political stability was unachievable. The availability of a powerful
referee of sorts provided the Conservatives and Liberals a formidable tool for getting their turn
in government. A prime example of the Cuban agency that Speck and Hernandez espouse, this
use of the United States as a pawn for their own political games reveals how the Cuban factions
guaranteed their continued political instability. ‘Virtually every inter-elite conflict between
1901 and 1933 was characterized by political factions trying to curry favor with the United
States while blaming their adversaries for political chaos’.20
However, the ability of the Conservatives and Liberals to use the United States against
one another finds its root in American actions. When the 1905 vote resulted in the re-election
of President Thomas Estrada Palma and the Liberals instigated an armed revolt in response,
President Roosevelt was more concerned with ‘establish[ing] peace and order’21 in order to
protect his countrymen’s economic interests than in developing a strong reaction against the
illegal activities of the insurgents, as he was called upon to do by the Cuban President. As a
result, as Enrique José Varona described it in October 1906, ‘The delegates sent by the
President of the United States…accepted the basis for compromise to the de jure government of
As Piero Gleijeses discusses in ‘1898: The Opposition to the Spanish-American War’, Journal of Latin
American Studies, 35 (2003), pp. 681-719, Spain was considered a very powerful adversary before the SpanishAmerican War; neither the American military leaders nor the public were aware of the depths to which Spain’s
military and navy prowess had sunk.
19
Article III of the Platt Amendment to ‘An Act Making Appropriation for the Support of the Army for the Fiscal
Year ending June Thirtieth, Nineteen Hundred and Two’, reprinted in Fitzgibbon, Cuba and the United States, p.
272.
20
Whitney, State and Revolution in Cuba, p. 21.
21
Allan R. Millett, The Politics of Intervention (Columbus, 1968), p. 146.
18
7
the Republic. The government of the United States, in other words, demanded that the Cuban
Government, which was officially recognized as the legal government of the country, surrender
to an armed insurrection’.22 In her haste to end the violence, the United States created a
precedent that encouraged further violent insurrections by the losing side of elections for years
to come. Not only did the Liberals achieve their goal in removing the Conservatives from
power, but when the United States took up the role of occupier once more from 1906 to 1909,
the miguelista insurgents were also pardoned, accepted into the occupation government and
then took up governance after the Americans left.23 Consequently, though both Cuban political
factions are greatly at fault for inducing political instability through their manipulation of the
Platt Amendment to obtain American intervention, the United States maintains a degree of
liability for making that manipulation so rewarding to the perpetrators.
However, since the United States’ primary concern in Cuba was American property and
economic interests, it was never clear on whose side she would come down in order to protect
those interests. As was the case in 1906, the insurgents sometimes gained the benefits of
American intervention. But in other cases, as in the 1917 intervention, it was the incumbent
government that was bolstered in the face of opposition forces. This uncertainty exacerbated
Cuban political instability. If the outcome was pre-determined, then the use of American
intervention could have acted as a control mechanism, ensuring that each political group
received its opportunity to govern. However, that was not the case.
Moreover, the inconsistency of American policy was augmented by the plurality of
sources of American authority. The various arbiters of American policy – the President, the
American consul, the Navy and the State Department – compounded the precariousness of the
political situation within Cuba. For example, the U.S. support of the incumbent government in
1917 was not unequivocal or coherent. While President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing
22
23
Rafael Fermoselle, The Evolution of the Cuban Military: 1492-1986 (Miami, 1987), p. 110.
Ibid, p. 111.
8
instructed the minister to Cuba William Gonzales to give vocal support for President Menocal
and instructed the War Department to send physical support in the form of 10,000 rifles and 2
million rounds of ammunition, the Navy embarked on a different policy. Guided by its interests
in Oriente, the Navy blocked government ships from entering the Liberal-held Santiago
Harbour in an attempt to prevent a damaging battle from ensuing. They then brokered a treaty
between government and opposition forces,24 thereby recognising the belligerency of the
Liberal faction, contrary to the President and State Department’s actions. Neither the Cuban
government nor its opposition could rely on a stable, consistent American reaction, making
every entreaty for intervention a gamble for both sides.
This highly insecure dynamic – within the Cuban government and between it and the
United States – incurred yet another destabilising blow: the ‘pressure from below and within’25
in the form of radical extra-governmental political groups. Unable to assert their voice in
government without proper representation and frustrated by American dominance, students,
Afro-Cubans and workers sought their outlet through radical activism. Growing discontent and
disenchantment with the political, social and economic situation into which they were placed,
these demographic groups established associations such as the Partido Independiente de Color
(PIC), the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (FEU) and the Directorio Estudiantil
Universitaria (DEU), the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP), the ABC terrorist organisation and
multiple trade unions. These new organisations further destabilised Cuban politics by
increasing the pluralisation of political pressure as well as by directly instigating instability
through outright violent challenges to the state and to American interests.
Perhaps the clearest instance of radical activism destabilising Cuban politics was the
September 1933 Revolution against the Céspedes government installed by the mediation of
emissary Sumner Welles. Although it began as an intra-military mutiny, the DEU turned the
24
25
Domínguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution, p. 16-17.
Pérez, ‘Aspects of Hegemony’, p. 66.
9
movement into a political coup d’état and established a new government. As discussed above,
this was only possible because of the role given to the military as an arbiter of political
incumbency, but it was also only possible because of the radicalisation of extra-governmental
opposition groups. Though the most dramatic and self-evident, this explicit overthrow of the
incumbent government by radical groups previously excluded from government was not the
only way that political activists destabilised Cuban politics in the early republic.
Like the government factions, many of the new radical groups utilised America’s
fixation on property in order to invite American intervention, hoping the result would be in
their favour. Just as the Liberals did in 1906, in 1912 the outlawed PIC instigated an uprising of
Afro-Cubans, frustrated by their lack of political voice and social justice. However, although
the protest did incur American intervention, it was not beneficial to the black Cuban activists.
While the Gómez government massacred Cuban blacks, the American marines sailed to Cuba’s
harbours to protect not the lives of the Afro-Cubans, but the endangered American business
interests. While the 1912 uprising obviously did not accomplish its aims, it did serve to disrupt
Cuban politics by inviting American intervention once more and promoting Menocal’s
challenge of President Gómez in the 1913 election.26
Radical political groups also created a quagmire for the Cuban government by pushing
for goals in exact opposition to those of the United States. For instance, because of the
increased militarism and power of labour unions, in 1925 there was a concerted effort to pass
the Lombard Bill, a nationalisation law that would have enforced a seventy-five per cent Cuban
quota on apprenticeship positions. However, because it was deemed ‘generally detrimental to
American business interests and in some respects confiscatory’,27 it was opposed by the United
States. This put the government in an insecure, lose-lose situation. Passing the bill would
assuage a great deal of the unions’ complaints but provoke a dangerous American response,
26
27
Whitney, State and Revolution in Cuba, p. 21.
Pérez, ‘Aspects of Hegemony’, p. 62.
10
and dismissing it would further radicalise the trade unions. In the end the bill failed,
augmenting the cause for labour activism and perpetuating the cycle of radical action and
American response that rocked the Cuban government throughout the early republic.
Incontrovertibly, the combination of inherent problems within the Cuban political
system, the effects of the United States hegemony and the rise of radical popular politics
produced rampant political instability in Cuba between 1902 and 1933. While the very purpose
and structure of the Cuban government undermined its stability, the United States pluralised the
sources of authority and policy. As a result, the demographic elements theretofore kept out of
politics sought ways of voicing their frustration and obtaining their goals that both directly and
indirectly compromised political stability. It is debatable whether any of these realities on its
own would have maintained the degree of instability Cuba experienced during the First
Republic. But the mixture of so many sources of instability makes it difficult to see a way that
Cuba could have produced a stable government in those years. Indeed, the record shows hardly
a single peaceful transition of power, nor a government that was able to stay in office and carry
out its policies without facing the high risk of collapse due to threats such as military coups,
domestic violent uprisings, economic instability or terrorism. Thus, the case of political
instability during the early Cuban Republic reveals the dynamic that one must always consider
when examining the Platt years: one of interaction and response between two countries, each
with their own agency, and within a divided and vibrant country; not of a passive colony and its
ruler.
11
Bibliography
Aguilar, Luis E., ‘Cuba, c. 1860-1930’, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), Cuba: A Short History
(Cambridge, 1993), pp. 21-55.
Benjamin, Jules R., The United States and Cuba: Hegemony and Dependent Development,
1880-1934 (Pittsburgh, 1977).
Chapman, Charles E., ‘The Age of the Caudillos: A Chapter in Hispanic American History’,
The Hispanic American Historical Review, 12 (1932), pp. 281-300.
Coleman, Denise Y., ‘Political Stability Index’, Montenegro Country Review (2012), pp. 42-51.
Domínguez, Jorge I., Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge, 1978).
Fermoselle, Rafael, The Evolution of the Cuban Military: 1492-1986 (Miami, 1987).
Fitzgibbon, Russell H., Cuba and the United States: 1900-1935 (New York, 1935).
Gott, Richard, Cuba: A New History (New Haven, 2004).
Hernández, José, Cuba and the United States: Intervention and Militarism, 1868-1933 (Austin,
1993).
Hewitt, Steven, ‘Republican Ideals and the Reality of Patronage: A Study of the Veterans’
Movement in Cuba, 1900-1924’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Wolverhampton
(Wolverhampton, 2009).
Millett, Allan R., The Politics of Intervention (Columbus, 1968).
Pérez, Louis A. Jr., ‘Aspects of Hegemony: Labor, State, and Capital in Plattist Cuba’, Cuban
Studies, 16 (1986), pp. 49-69.
Pérez, Louis A. Jr., Cuba Under the Platt Amendment, 1902–1934 (Pittsburgh, 1986).
Pérez, Louis A. Jr., Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba, 1913-1921 (Pittsburgh,
1978).
Pérez, Louis A. Jr., ‘The Military and Electoral Politics: The Cuban Election of 1920’, Military
Affairs, 37 (1973), pp. 5-8.
Speck, Mary, ‘Democracy in Cuba: Principles and Practice, 1902–1952’, in M. Font (ed.),
Cuba Futures: Historical Perspectives (New York, 2011), pp. 1-28.
Speck, Mary, ‘Prosperity, Progress, and Wealth: Cuban Enterprise during the Early Republic,
1902-1927’, Cuban Studies, 36, (2005), pp. 50-86
Sweig, Julia, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2009).
Whitney, Robert, State and Revolution in Cuba: Mass Mobilization and Political Change,
1920-1940 (Chapel Hill, 2001).
12