ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses ‘peasant wars’ in one of the case studies covered by Wolf in PWTC, namely Cuba. The case study of Cuba is highly significant for our analysis for two primary reasons. First, the 1959 Revolution was the only example in the Americas where ‘peasant’ counter-hegemonic forces succeeded in overthrowing capitalist social-property relations and avoiding either subsequent co-optation into social democratic reformism (national developmentalism) or counter-revolution by capitalist and imperialist interests. Second, developments since the Revolution, most notably the huge strides in the elimination of poverty and social inequality, and, since the ‘Special Period’, the (tendential) transition to agroecology and food sovereignty on the basis of endogenous resources, hold vitally important lessons globally for the high relevance of the ‘peasant way’ vis-à-vis the imperative shift to ‘political’ and ‘ecological’ sustainability.
