To Defend the Revolution Is to Defend Culture by Jorge Fornet

Author:Jorge Fornet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2015-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Jury of the 1964 Casa de las Américas Prize: Lisandro Otero, Camila Henríquez Ureña, Italo Calvino, Fernando Benítez, Ángel Rama. Courtesy of the Archive of Casa de las Américas.

In a final reflection on the spat with Roca that remained unpublished at the time, Guevara commended Fidel’s stance of refraining from excommunicating people, engendering a climate of suspicion or prescribing ‘artistic formulae’, opting instead to create a spirit of communication and clarity about the role of party and government in the field of culture.55 And, while ICAIC and its leaders studied and accepted his ‘Words’, rather than applying them mechanically, Cuban intellectuals understood that the party and government would continue to orient the cultural movement rather than anybody else appropriating so delicate a task. However, he warned, it would still be possible for the concrete objectives of the Revolution to be deformed if the field of thought was restricted or Cuba’s citizens underestimated. Rejecting the cult of spontaneity as inimical to Marxism, Guevara refuted the idea of holding up mythical workers as a source of knowledge while simultaneously denigrating their ability to understand art. As we shall see, this debate would remain unresolved for a while longer.

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