Charles D. Ameringer. The Cuban Democratic Experience: the Autentico Years, 1944-1952.(Book Review)

Gainesville: U P of Florida, 2000. 230 pp. ISBN: 0-8130-1755-6 (alk. Paper).

In this book, winner of the 2001 MACLAS Whitaker Prize, Charles D. Ameringer brings a full scholarly apparatus to bear on an important eight-year period of Cuban history. His well-written, analytical study should interest both the general and the specialist reader. Branching out in references to anterior and posterior developments to the autentico years, Ameringer gives readers a good idea of the development of Cuba in the twentieth century. His research includes newspaper articles and radio broadcasts, government reports both from Cuba and the United States (State Department, Armed Forces, etc.), documents of the Organization of American States and of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Labor-International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, documents of the Autentico Party, interviews with government and business leaders, as well as exhaustive incorporation of secondary sources (the work previously done on Cuba). The book is divided into ten chapters, inclusive of conclusion, and 21 pages of Notes, tires pages of Bibliography, and an Index of ten pages.

Professor Ameringer points out that the traditional division of Cuban history into the Plattist Republic (1902-1933), the Batista dictatorship (1933-1958), and the ascension of Fidel Castro (since 1959) fails to take into account these eight years of democratic rule when Ramon Grau San Martin and Carlos Prio Socarros occupied the presidency as candidates supported by the Cuban Revolutionary Party-Autentico (PRC-A). The Autenticos were criticized for giving too many benefits to sugarcane workers, benefits sometimes resulting in featherbedding and in stagnation of the industry. They also failed to carry through on educational reforms in rural areas, primarily because of extreme centralization of the educational system from Havana. Although their governments supported the arts and spent more than one quarter of the national budget on education, Cuba still had an illitracy rate of 23.6% at the end of the autentico period.

Grau was generally perceived as a man who made many promises but kept few of them. His one virtue seems to have been to respect individual liberties, including freedom of speech, inefficiency, compounded by graft, resulted in little progress for the Cuban economy during his four years in office. His most glaring fault was inertia in his apologetic acceptance of the unfavorable terms in the U.S. Sugar Act of 1948: his "failure to press Cuba's legitimate claim to a larger sugar quota in recognition of its contribution to victory over the Axis powers in World War II was irresponsible" (p. 73).

Fidel Castro ...