Cuba: The Shaping of Revolutionary Consciousness

"The evolution of the Cuban revolutionary process gradually produced in its leaders an awareness of the urgent necessity to create a revolutionary social consciousness". Beginning with this premise, Tzvi Medin recounts the efforts of Castro and his closest associates to shape that new consciousness in the first twenty years of the revolution. Although an active Communist party existed in Cuba before Castro came to power, the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people were far removed from the conceptual and emotional world of Marxism-Leninism. Today, in contrast, Marxism-Leninism plays a prominent part in the projection of political, social and cultural messages. Medin analyzes the techniques used by the leaders of the revolution to develop a revolutionary worldview, the actual content of the revolutionary message, and the efforts to interweave Marxism-Leninism with Cuban nationalism. Ranging from literacy campaigns, to poetry, to popular music and detective fiction, he explores the various chanels that Cuba's leaders have used to convey the ethos of the revolution.