Lillian Guerra has written another major contribution to Cuban history, drawing on her extensive knowledge of Cuban archives, other primary sources, and personal interviews that shed new light on a decisive period of Cuban history.For too long most work on the Cuban Revolution has accepted false claims or misleading myths about its origins and development.One is the mistaken notion that a small group of guerrillas, under Fidel Castro, embodied the revolutionary struggle and that urban activists played only a supporting role.Yet anyone who has spent time with veterans knows that the historical record does not confirm this view.Guerra's book is the most recent attempt to correct the historical record, showing how Cuba's democracy underwent a crisis, which ended in dictatorship.Especially significant is the way Guerra highlights the role of men and women who participated in mass mobilizations, civic activism, and a wide range of organizations that fought for social justice and democracy.Equally important, she returns Cuba's most popular politician of the time, Eduardo Chibás, to his rightful place as the most important leader who challenged corruption.Between 1946 and his suicide in 1951, Chibás embodied Cubans' desire for national dignity and democracy.Even after his death, his long shadow over all opposition groups (including Castro and his followers) shaped the moralistic discourse of the resistance to Batista.The figure of Chibás has almost disappeared from official histories of the Revolution, despite the fact that (to my knowledge) no veteran of the Revolution, on or off the island, would deny his historical importance.Guerra's argument is twofold.First, the Cuban Revolution before the late 1950s was conducted by grass roots civic activism and not armed struggle in the mountains.By the second half of the 1950s, Castro's 26th of July Movement was part of the larger network of resistance groups, but the guerrilla forces in the mountains were by no means the vanguard of the struggle.It is true that after 1957 the inability of the Cuban army to defeat the guerrillas meant that Castro's star within the revolutionary leadership rose rapidly.But what brought Batista down were the combined efforts of civic organizations throughout the island and the guerrillas, not simply the latter.The second argument Guerra makes is that between 1946 and 1959 Cubans clamored for a messianic leader who could lead them toward a more democratic and socially just future.Chibás served that role well before 1951.Yet during the most intense and violent years of the struggle against Batista, there was no single leader who could replace him.According to Guerra, Castro understood this problem well, and he and his clos-
