ABSTRACT
Fidel Castro's Cuba is the perfect illustration of the notion of "partisanship" and "insurgency" in sociological theory. The Castro regime yielded a devastating outcome for its subjects, and it became a palpable embarrassment for its acolytes. The initial phase of the response to the Castro Revolution, from 1959 through 1962, was characterized by euphoria, a fatuous set of assumptions that Cuba would be the long-lost opportunity for socialism to show its invincible superiority to capitalism. In the second phase, from 1963 through 1968, it became apparent that, for American intellectuals, every ailment Castro inflicted on his people was to be viewed through United States intransigence. The third phase in the parade of academic support for Castro and his regime was characterized more by a wave of pseudo-toughness than criticism. The cult of Castro, mimicking the earlier cult of Stalin, began to reveal the underside of the Cuban Revolution—its totalitarian demands for complete abdication of the skeptical spirit of science.
