Villegas is one of four generals in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba interviewed in the book. Today Pombo—the nom de guerre taken by Villegas as a volunteer in the internationalist missions led by Ernesto Che Guevara in the Congo and Bolivia in the mid-1960s—serves as executive vice president of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution.

Pathfinder Press first published Making History in English in 1999. Haciendo historia was published in a limited run soon afterward in Spanish by Editora Política, the publishing house of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. In 2001 Pathfinder also published the book in Spanish. The book fair presentation marked the reissue of the book by Editora Política in a run of 5,000 copies, all to be sold in Cuba. The larger-than-usual printing was made possible by the Special Plan of the Cuban Book Institute (ICL), funded by the Ministry of Culture.

“This plan was launched during the Special Period [in the 1990s], when resources were scarce following the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Iraida Aguirrechu, political affairs editor for Editora Política, told the Militant. Publishing houses submit proposals to a council made up of representatives of all publishers affiliated to the ICL, she said. This year the council approved several dozen titles for publishing and distribution under the plan. Prices are heavily subsidized to make the books broadly affordable for the Cuban people. These titles are being sold in each of the 35 cities across Cuba in which the nationwide book fair, which runs through mid-March, will take place.

“Haciendo historia contains interviews with Cuban generals Néstor López Cuba, Enrique Carreras, José Ramón Fernández, and Villegas,” Aguirrechu explained at the book presentation. She noted that the interviewers were leaders of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, including the party’s national secretary, Jack Barnes. “It is a totally new book for all but a few Cuban readers,” she said. “Now with a big press run we can get the book around.”

Through the interviews, the generals recount the experiences that politically changed them under the U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in the 1950s—experiences that led them and many other young people to join the revolutionary movement to overthrow that regime, becoming different people themselves in the process. They discuss how the workers and farmers of Cuba have defended their revolution in the decades since, from repelling the 1961 U.S.-organized mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs (known in Cuba as the victory of Playa Girón), to the October 1962 Cuban “missile” crisis, to today. And they address revolutionary Cuba’s record of internationalist solidarity, including each one’s various experiences, whether in Syria, Vietnam, the Congo, Angola, or Nicaragua.

“The interviews that make up this book are a powerful introduction to the Cuban Revolution for new generations of workers and youth awakening to political struggles of the toilers of the world,” Pathfinder president Mary-Alice Waters said at the meeting. Waters, who was also one of the interviewers, edited the book. (Her remarks appear on page 7.)

“What is told in Haciendo historia shows that anything is possible,” Villegas said in closing. “If the youth that we were at the time could achieve the objectives we set out for ourselves, then today our youth in Cuba can reach even higher goals because they are more educated and more steeped in revolutionary tradition.”

The event also included presentations of two other titles launched by Editora Política at the book fair: Para vivir como tú vives (To live as you live), a book by Mayra Mendoza about Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara that is aimed at young people, and Labradores de sueños (Cultivators of dreams) by Hermes Pérez Caso. A retired colonel who as a youth joined the Rebel Army in the 1956-58 revolutionary war, Pérez Caso was in the first class of 108 cadets in the Rebel Army’s Cadet School established days after Batista’s overthrow and was one of 55 to graduate in October 1960. In the book he tells how that school was established.

“The cadet school was set up under General Order No. 1, signed on Jan. 21, 1959, by Camilo Cienfuegos, who was head of the army general staff,” said Nelson González in an interview with the Militant. González, also one of the school’s 55 graduates, is today one of the principal leaders in Matanzas province of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, a nationwide organization of Cubans who have taken part in revolutionary struggles at home or internationalist missions abroad.

“José Ramón Fernández was appointed head of the school,” González said. “Later he also headed its sister institution, the national School for Militia Heads in Matanzas, whose first course started in the summer of 1960.” Fernández, one of the generals interviewed in Haciendo historia, is today vice president of Cuba’s Council of Ministers.

“The two schools were central to the military training of thousands of people in the early years of the revolution,” González added. “Graduates, both men and women, would be assigned to train others who, in turn, would train a larger number. Many of their skills came from active experience. Several graduates of the cadet school were combatants at Playa Girón.” As chapters in the book explain, many were mobilized at the time of the Cuban “missile” crisis, and others fought in various internationalist combat missions.

“There is no better teacher than setting an example,” said José Ramón Fernández, who wrote the preface to Labradores de sueños and shared the platform at the launching.

Looking out into a crowd checkered with generations ranging from teenagers to veteran combatants of the 1959 revolutionary war, he emphasized, “All of us who fought in the revolution have an obligation to be examples. And there are hundreds, thousands of us.”
 
 
Related articles:
A powerful introduction to Cuban Revolution
A book for new generations awakening to political struggles of world’s toilers
Federal appeals court holds hearing on granting new trial to Cuban 5  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home