Harvest of Revolution: Agrarian Reform and the Making of Revolutionary Cuba

Sara Kozameh
History
UC San Diego

The Cuban Revolution was unquestionably among the most radical revolutions of the twentieth century. It destroyed the ruling class, essentially eliminated private property, and, at the height of the Cold War, it challenged U.S. supremacy in its own backyard. At the very center of that process was a sweeping agrarian reform project that, six decades later, remains virtually unknown. Harvest of Revolution is the history of the agrarian reforms that transformed Cuba during the first decade of its 1959 revolution, taking direct aim at the question of sustenance relevant in Cuba to this day. The book centers the actions of regular people immersed in the tumult of revolution to rethink the origins of Cuba’s revolutionary project and deliver a new history of the Cuban Revolution. It makes two related arguments aimed at re-conceptualizing the history of the revolution. First, that the Agrarian Reform of 1959 was the key driver in the twin processes of the consolidation and radicalization of the Cuban Revolution. Second, that the agrarian reform that played so pivotal a role was substantially driven by ordinary Cubans—peasants, women and afro-descended Cubans. Finally, it documents how regular people fought to maintain control over agricultural land decades before the revolution.