cuba 1959: The Second Front


  • Photographer
    ALINKA ECHEVERRIA
  • Prize
    2nd Place / Editorial/Photo Essay and Feature Story
  • Date of Photograph
    2009-10
  • Technical Info
    C PRINT

Fifty five years ago, young men from impoverished rural areas in the highlands of Cuba rose up against the dictator, Batista to join Fidel Castro’s rebel army. They had no weapons, supplies, nor guarantees of survival. Triumph seemed like a distant possibility, yet many claim they had nothing to lose. My project revisits the history of this remarkable revolution through the personal biographies of men, who despite dedicating their lives to their leaders, have remained anonymous, humble and completely dependant on the communist system. These men live in the town of Segundo Frente, a strategic operational centre and battleground during the war. It remains a military zone, closed to tourists. Isolated in the mountains and far from the city, it survives like a stubborn bubble of quasi-religious devotion to Castro and his utopic revolution, seemingly oblivious to the external world and the prevailing ideological crisis in the rest of the country. Powerful propaganda fuels the belief in sovereignty and socialism, and the conviction to fight without rest against the enemy – capitalism, the USA and traitors of the revolution.

Story

Fifty five years ago, young men from impoverished rural areas in the highlands of Cuba rose up against the dictator, Batista to join Fidel Castro’s rebel army. They had no weapons, supplies, nor guarantees of survival. Triumph seemed like a distant possibility, yet many claim they had nothing to lose. My project revisits the history of this remarkable revolution through the personal biographies of men, who despite dedicating their lives to their leaders, have remained anonymous, humble and completely dependant on the communist system. These men live in the town of Segundo Frente, a strategic operational centre and battleground during the war. It remains a military zone, closed to tourists. Isolated in the mountains and far from the city, it survives like a stubborn bubble of quasi-religious devotion to Castro and his utopic revolution, seemingly oblivious to the external world and the prevailing ideological crisis in the rest of the country. Powerful propaganda fuels the belief in sovereignty and socialism, and the conviction to fight without rest against the enemy – capitalism, the USA and traitors of the revolution.

The men of Segundo Frente embody the ideology that is being implicitly questioned by the current political and economic survival strategy of Castro’s government. Like it, they have aged. Since I started the project in 2009, several of the 86 veterans that live in the area have died. For this reason, and its contemporary relevance in light of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis in October 2012, I feel a great urgency to return and to create a lasting historical document - by revisiting, in today’s context, these last vestiges of a remarkable revolution that has withstood consistent attack from its larger neighbor to the north.

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