http://themilitant.com/2017/8106/810649.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 6 February 13, 2017
(Books of the Month column)
Cuban women wanted to participate in a
genuine revolution
Women in Cuba: The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution by
Vilma Espín, Asela de los Santos and Yolanda Ferrer is one of
Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for February. The excerpt is from the
chapter “With No Preconceived Structure or Agenda,” a 1987 interview
with Espín, a leader of the Cuban Revolution for more than 50 years and
the president and principal leader of the Federation of Cuban Women from
its founding in 1960 to her death in 2007. Copyright © 2012 by
Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY VILMA ESPÍN
The Federation of Cuban Women was launched on August 23, 1960. In
reality, however, we had been laying the foundations for more than a year.
In 1959, the first year after the triumph, women wanted to organize to
participate more effectively in the tasks of the revolution, and we
responded to this pressure. I remember being struck, in the first months
after the January 1 victory, by the large number of women, some carrying
babies, who took part in demonstrations and street actions. There was
strong support for the revolution, even before it had demonstrated its
full meaning.
Women who were already organized in various small groups approached me.
They wrote letters; they asked to meet. These included people from the
women’s sections of the political parties that supported the revolution.
Others came from religious organizations, such as groups of Catholic and
Baptist women. There were trade union members — from the garment union,
for example. There were peasant women. And, of course, there were women
who had taken part in the war.
As you might expect, those of us who had participated in the war —
whether in the urban underground or in the mountains — were approached
by women who wanted to do precisely what we had done, to take part in
the revolution. They looked to us for leadership.
“What can we do?” they asked.
“How can we show our support for the revolution?”
“What’s needed most?”
They asked to be trained in emergency medical care, because of the
threats and attacks from imperialism. So that became one of our first
tasks, even before we organized the Federation of Cuban Women. It was
these classes, in fact, along with the sewing classes we organized, that
gave birth to the federation — not the other way around. …
When I talk about how the federation was created, I always emphasize
that at the time we didn’t talk about women’s liberation. We didn’t talk
about women’s emancipation, or the struggle for equality. We didn’t use
those terms then. What we did talk about was participation. Women wanted
to participate. This included women who had taken an active part in the
struggle, who had been in the mountains. They, like other women across
the country, wanted to help in this new stage that was dawning, which
was a genuine revolution. …
Women had confidence in the revolution — because there was real proof,
every day, that the revolution wasn’t just hot air, it wasn’t empty
phrases of the kind people were used to hearing from politicians in the
past. This was the genuine thing. And women wanted to be part of it, to
do something. The more the revolutionary laws strengthened this
conviction, the more women demanded a chance to contribute — and the
more they saw how necessary their contribution was.
Sometimes I’m asked to give a one-word definition of the Cuban
Revolution. I reply that it’s about participation —the participation of
the entire people in everything. Together, the population went through
difficult years. For women, this had an impact right from the beginning.
They began to understand the point Lenin emphasized over and over — that
for a revolution to move forward, to develop, women had to participate.
This was the beginning of political consciousness for women. When Fidel
on August 23, 1960, officially gave a name to this organization — an
organization that was already functioning and carrying out work related
to public health, education, sewing, teaching jobs skills, and emergency
medical training — and when he gave it new responsibilities such as
setting up child care centers, women were already convinced they had a
growing opportunity to help push forward the revolution.
As we organized the local units, especially in 1960, we focused on the
most urgent responsibilities, those that emerged with the revolution. As
I mentioned earlier, one of the federation’s first tasks was to provide
crash courses to women who had more than a sixth grade education so they
could become teachers. Before the revolution there were ten thousand
unemployed teachers. They weren’t working in any school. But immediately
after January 1, these ten thousand teachers weren’t nearly enough to
meet our needs.
As we organized medical aid and sewing classes and began establishing
more local units, it became clear that we had to take on more
responsibilities in education and public health programs as well. We
organized campaigns to eliminate unhealthy neighborhoods, “barrios
insalubres,” as they were known, where people lived in crowded shacks
without water, electricity, or sewage disposal. We organized to wipe out
malaria and gastroenteritis, to get rid of flies and mosquitoes, and to
raise sanitation standards in general. For example, we needed to teach
women how to boil milk and water — not just tell them to do it, but
explain how, in detail.
Toward the end of 1959, planes from Miami started to bomb cane fields
and sugar mills. Counterrevolutionaries began to sabotage factories. So
in 1960, we instituted the Emergency Medical Response Brigades. These
were more than just classes on a massive scale. They were intended for
women who wanted to take an active part in defense. …
All this work helped women believe even more in their capabilities,
because they had to take on new responsibilities, without having any
idea beforehand what their particular tasks would be. This willingness
to take on whatever had to be done was what drove all the campaigns,
including health and education. Those were truly heroic years, beautiful
years, in which women grew tremendously.
Related articles:
‘Revolution made health care a right,’ Cuban doctors say
Regional summit calls for end to US embargo of Cuba
Washington ends ‘wet-foot, dry-foot’ Cuba program
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home