Patrick Iber wrote a fascinating history about cultural propaganda during the Cold War and its effects on Latin American politics, U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America, and the leftist movements in the Americas. Ultimately, I think he does a wonderful job in arguing that neither side of the Cold War could reconcile with their contradictions. Due to the nature of a world in which a post-scarcity society had not arrived, no intellectuals in the Cold War could avoid the traps of supporting some sort of exploitation going on in the world. However, it seems impossible to do so considering the economic implications of independent publishing. The amplified voice of the intellectuals were amplified in large part due to their proximity to powerful governments, and the funding those magazines received from those powerful, often-contradictory states. Then Emir Rodriguez Monegal attempted to claim that Mundo Nuevo was an independent magazine due to receiving funds from the Ford Foundation. However, private sector funds can be traced back to state involvement. Furthermore, as we see in our current media climate, private sector funding does not remove ideological impartiality whatsoever. In an era where centrally planned economies existed, how can one say that a magazine funded by the private sector would be free from self-censorship or from benefactor scrutiny?
I also wanted to say that the first chapter was incredibly dramatic even if it didnt fully contextualize the leftist sectarian violence between Stalinists and Trotskyists. I could have read an entire book on leftism in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s.
I agree with your disagreement that Iber's book did not fully cover the violence that occurred in Mexico City during Trotsky's time in exile prior to his death in 1940. However, I came to the conclusion that it was a long introduction to Iber's argument of the ideological conflicts that were going on during the Cold War. What better way to introduce a conflict between Stalinists and Trotskyists to bring a larger conflict for the reader later in the book.
I agree with your comments, Rafael, about the economics that play out in patronage of the arts, whether in Iber’s history of this in Latin America during the Cold War or today as we see in private sector funding used in all sorts of way to push certain political and ideological agendas. It seems that there is always a balance between the art and the economics (and the amplification) especially for any artist who seeks to pay her bills through her art. And looking at that art as — in part, at least — propaganda provides a different lens through which to read/view and analyze that art.
Rafael I really like your analysis and as I have said before I think you are extremely concise and coherent in your analysis of this region as a whole. While I myself chose to critique this book in my own post, I do agree with your analysis here especially s it regards the contradictions of the various intellectuals playing "what-aboutism" throughout the period. I guess what I am saying is I like the cut of your gib good sir!
Patrick Iber’s Neither peace nor freedom can be related to our reading from two weeks ago by Catherine Marino. Just as the latin american women we read about in Marino each had their own definitions of feminism that somewhat coalesced into a Latin American transnational feminism, the intellectuals and political groups short to form their own ideology. both capitalist and communist did rely on the United States and Soviet Union, however short to distinguish themselves from those counterparts similar to how the feminist distinguish themselves from Doris Stevens. The author points to the communist groups being more successful as opposed to the Democratic groups due to the United States interference through the CIA and not helping out leftist democratic nations. An example of how of this transnation “Communism” would be the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution in which Nicaragua Sandinista party short to model what post-war Nicaragua as similar to Mexico and Cuba rather than the Soviet Union. this is a big change since last time we saw on Nicaragua it was trying to modernize true relations with the United States similar to other Latin American nations and European countries. We talked last week about Vanishing points last week in class are we starting to see the United States influence decrease? I understand the United States did overthrow some governments end the Falkland conflict is around this time period, However since reading Marino there has been a shift of power in which Latin American nations will either work together or leverage a situation to a slightly favorable outcome instead of full colonization.
Propaganda is one of the earliest forms of writing, I would argue that it came second after religious verses were written down. It takes many shapes and forms- it can by writing. drawing, or speaking. We have all experienced some propaganda (do not lie to me, you know it to be true) at one point in our lives. Iber takes an approach that the Cold War was the greatest propaganda campaign undertaking by mankind, which plays out in Latin America with disastrous consequences. The question that must be asked is who won? Most historians would argue that capitalism and the United States won the political campaign because the Soviet Union no longer exist on the world stage. However, Iber wrote that the "Pink Tide" movement that occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s were part of a social and economic wave to address issues of economic inequality such in Bolivia and Venezuela. This hints that the US propaganda campaign in Latin America during the Cold War was a Pyrrhic victory because of the "Pink Tide" movement's popularity a decade after the Cold War's conclusion. Then again, to what extend can the "Pink Tide" movement be consider a success or a Pyrrhic victory?
There are so many contradictions in Iber's book that at times I'm finding it difficult to follow, but the framing of peace vs. freedom helps clarify his analysis of the cultural Cold War. This isn't all Iber's fault: the key players in the Cold War were full of contradictions between their messages and practices. The U.S. and the Soviet Union recognized the importance of cultural influence and sought to control the message about their countries and ideologies after WW2. The fact that the U.S. had been influential in Latin America for so long at this point meant that there were many preconceived notions they needed to counter or shift. I was fascinated to read that the artists and intellectuals sometimes countered the side they were supposed to be on, giving more validity to the independence of their art and working against the CCF or WPC goals. In some ways, Iber argues, these artists and intellectuals used the backing of these groups to advance their own agendas. Maybe this means that those creating art were also manipulated by the idealism of the U.S. message for freedom or the Soviet message for peace.
I, too, struggled sometimes to track who was who because of the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach to relationships in this book. I like the idea of the idealism of the United States and the Soviet message of peace manipulating the artists--perhaps they were moved by their own propaganda. At what point does crafting cultural material that challenges your culture to prove you are independent play into the other side's expectations?
I agree in that it was hard to follow based on the constant ideological shifts that occurred depending on world events. It's also apparent in reading this book that many of the artists and intellectuals made their judgments based on the external suffering of a group of people, as many were in exile and were being paid often in order to change the minds of those who were living under repressive conditions, whether that was in a capitalist or socialist system.
I agree, it is hard to keep track of all of the different messages and sources of propaganda being written about in the book. I think it also proves to show how the alliances to certain ideals may have been just as hard to conceptualize as a person inlet America at this time. There are just evolving and ever-changing ideologies that it can be hard to keep track of it.
One of the lines from this book that stayed with me is “Critiques of one empire’s cruelty served to justify cruelty of another” (239). This entire book fascinated me in the intrigue and secretive nature of something seemingly so benign as cultural organizations. That they set people up by allowing them to publicly deny and stake their personal integrity on the CIA not being involved makes it clear that the machine is as callous as the paranoid portray it to be. I kept thinking, “Certainly they are going to give this person some hint of what is happening,” but they did not, even in the face of complete collapse of the shell companies. They knew they were caught, and even then, they did not attempt to save the reputations of some of those who had invested their entire beings in the CIA shills being honest.
This is clearly from a different time period, and as I was reading, I kept thinking about the fall of public intellectualism in American culture. Perhaps it is everywhere—but Martà continues to have more resonance for Cubans than any poet ever will in America (I would like to live in a world where the quoting of “I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice’” makes Americans reverent about what we can never know and never questions the circumstances of in the first place) (It’s Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate if you aren’t familiar https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-chop-some-parsley-while-listening-to-art-blake/). The American intellectual, the Artist, is no longer our guide for the revolution, and perhaps the shifting from Artist and Intellectual and Historial and Cultural Critic to YouTube cat videos says something about America, but more importantly, this book brings home how it shows our shift in relationship to other nations. No one is starting a competing cultural organization to discredit the ideas of American artists and intellectuals. There is no longer a battleground there, and perhaps that is because of YouTube, and maybe it is because the Cold War has ended, but I think it is because America has become deeply cynical about the motives of those who write about things like Art instead of Game of Thrones. Nicaragua’s imposition of rules for art by Cardenal (p. 231) speaks to the way totalitarianism, like colonialism, colonizes the imagination and restricts how people consider what is beautiful, what is desirable, and what is possible.
You bring up a great point about the fall of public intellectualism in American culture. As first reading, I was thinking the same about how the influence of intellectuals has changed since the Cold War. Intellectuals and artists were seen as the cultural leaders who could influence the shifts of society, but I'm not as cynical about the lack of public intellectuals anymore. There are still thinkers influencing our cultural shifts, even though using YouTube as a medium might not seem as elevated as what intellectuals used during the Cold War. But I wonder if part of the rise of cynicism in America is a direct result of the cultural Cold War? We know now the extent to which we must look behind the curtain in every piece of writing or art.
One of the questions you raise is the degree of influence, then or now, that public intellectuals and artists have over cultural development and policy. Is this no longer a battleground because of the lack of existence/influence of American intellectuals/artists, or is this no longer a battleground because American cultural hegemony (through GoT or, even more prosaically, “Friends” or KFC and McDonald’s on every corner) is so worldwide that there is no longer a battle to be fought as citizens of countries around the world choose to/are forced to assimilate US culture into their own cultural narratives?
On page 85ish (in my Kindle edition), Iber writes, “Latin America’s social democrats wanted the United States to share their antidictatorial agenda, not merely their anti-Communist one.” Throughout this book, it seems that Iber illustrates the push and pull as Latin American artists attempt to push their agendas using the economic and other supports provided by the CCF, the WPC, and how the cultural imperialist agendas of both countries were modified in the Latin American context. The U.S.’s obsession with pushing an anti-Communist agenda, in particular, without attempting to take into account Latin American concerns around dictatorship made its focus on “freedom” as an organizing concept for cultural undertakings particularly ironic especially once the CCF was outed as a CIA undertaking.
Yes, I agree that this has been the central crux in America's political posturing in Latin America in the middle of the 20th century. Their focus on anti-communism in order to promote freedom and liberty for everyone was contradictory to their support of the various military regimes that ruled over 80% of Latin American nations at one point of the century. Even worse was during the 1960's where they were funding Cuban exiles with the intent of regime change in Cuba, while getting funding and training from people such a Francisco Franco, Rafael Trujillo, and Anastasio Somoza. Those contradictions only raised the support for the Cuban Revolution within Latin American cultural sphere during the 1960's.
Iber's book tries to unveil the complexities of the Cultural Cold War by looking at several political and artistic angles, which can be difficult to understand because, as we read, there was a myriad of political views in each of those angles. I think one of the main arguments that will stick with me, is the one Iber made about Nuevo Mundo--the CCF/CIA fundend magazine--being one of the major platforms that gave a push, unwillingly, for Latin America's literary "Boom" that had in its ranks left-leaning and/or Marxist writers. However, since the book was in part cultural, I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of La Nueva Trova--a musical movement in Latin America of left-leaning troubadors such as the Cuban Silvio Rodriguez, Argentinians Piero de Benedictis, Facundo Cabral, Chilean Victor Jara, and from the Salsa movement, Ruben Blades, among others. When I first started reading the book I kept having a mental note saying, "I want to know what Iber has to say about … [the artists I just mentioned}." Including them, would have supplemented his argument real well. In his defense, These artist emerged in the mid- nad late-60s which can fall off from his time focus.
Iber wrote a great book and the narrative was both clear and concisely done considering the complexity of the argument and the wealth of archival knowledge from the period. However, I take issue with the assertion that these narrative mostly center around intellectuals debating the merits of empire from different political perspectives. That is what the book is mostly about of course, yet the framing of the thesis is flawed. (Disclaimer: I am not a Stalinist or an apologist for Stalin or his regimes betrayal of the workers revolution, he was and is a mass murderer and high functioning sociopath) However, the USSR was not born out of a bourgeoisie revolution, nor was the immediate clandestine attack by capitalist empires of the period the reaction the US or France received immediately following their own bourgeoisie revolutions. Therefore, in my opinion, to view the actions of the USSR, Cuba, Chile, or Nicaragua outside of the reactionary initial response of both the US and other capitalist powers is a reductive perspective of the formation of these contentious relationships and removes the responsibility of the US for both starting the Cold War and for openly interfering in anything that looks like something that Karl Marx may have once wrote. I think this is damaging to the overall thesis of the book as it appears to posit this see-saw action of the Cold War as a game played on equitable ground between nation states beginning their intellectual arguments from even ground.
Sorry if this is not clear, I hope to clarify in class.
In Patrick Iber’s, Niether Peace nor Freedom many nations felt they had to choose to either the Communism of the Soviet Union or the democratic imperialism of the United States. This political global belief made it impossible when it came to addressing the needs of one’s own home country.
In the book I was amazed about the extent that the United States and the Soviet Union went to infiltrate the infrastructure of Latin America and the Caribbean. The CIA’s efforts to secretly fund publications in order to control what information is released to the public. Their ability to censor the belief in the free press and the freedom of speech violated every belief that the public had in the US support in Latin America.
The Soviet Union took an opposite approach when it came to Latin America. The Soviets attacked the US addiction to commercialism and the lust for materialism. By labeling the American core values as “Cosmopolitanism” and claiming it as, “predatory weapon of U.S. imperialism” Communist supporters in Latin America was able to convince the people that joining as a unified group would repeal the demoralization of nationalism.
By using artist and writing intellectuals both the United States and Russia was hoping to sway the people against the opponents therefore gaining a stronghold on the region.
From Jenn:Patrick Iber’s book is a transnational history of the cultural Cold War in Latin America. Iber uses the history of the CCF and WPC as vehicles for telling this complicated story. I learned a lot from this book. For example, I had no idea that Mexico was a home for radicals and progressives or that art was used as a weapon against communism. This book, like a few others that we have read over the semester illustrate how United States imperialism had unintended consequences in Latin America. In addition, this book brings in the Soviet Union into the mix and showcases how the search for peace in the world led to more repression at home. Iber’s story exemplifies how the Cold War was fought on multiple fronts, not just through clandestine wars, but also through words and images.
Iber's book threw me a little bit after the first chapter as I had a hard time keeping track of what exactly the details of the "cultural cold war" especially when trying to understand the sort of battles through propaganda that were on going. The first chapter pulled me in fairly deeply with the stories about Trotsky and Gorkin as well as the establishment of the US as an already intense influence for the region at this time. However, what did help provide me with a clearer understanding was in the first few pages of the conclusion when Iber compares this cultural cold war to the Black Legend from centuries earlier. Something about re-imagining the different propaganda and philosophical battles from this time frame to be more like a much older tradition of accomplishing one's own national interests through the means of creating a myth about the true behaviors of a competing power helped me to understand at least the larger context of this time frame. More specifically, it helped me understand how this time was more about the individual rather than state goals and agendas motivating social change while still using what is essentially more evolved and developed versions of the same techniques used centuries earlier.
Hello Nick, I also enjoyed genealogy of the black legend and how it was used as propaganda by the United Kingdom. You bring up some interesting points about individual and state goals. I would like to hear the class thoughts on this.
I really liked this book because it illustrates the fight over who owns cuture and who can influence it. The struggle for Latin America between the United State and the Soviet Union and the most prominent sphere of influence is evident in the book. Although from my previously knowledge of Latin America I had some knowledge about how the US would try to infiltrate into a country’s system of government the lengths they took to influence the cultural aspects were surprising. Usually when talking about the fight for influence for Latin America politics and governance is the main point that is stressed, this would be the first time I see the use of cute as a tactic to recruit loyalty to either party
Patrick Iber wrote a fascinating history about cultural propaganda during the Cold War and its effects on Latin American politics, U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America, and the leftist movements in the Americas. Ultimately, I think he does a wonderful job in arguing that neither side of the Cold War could reconcile with their contradictions. Due to the nature of a world in which a post-scarcity society had not arrived, no intellectuals in the Cold War could avoid the traps of supporting some sort of exploitation going on in the world. However, it seems impossible to do so considering the economic implications of independent publishing. The amplified voice of the intellectuals were amplified in large part due to their proximity to powerful governments, and the funding those magazines received from those powerful, often-contradictory states. Then Emir Rodriguez Monegal attempted to claim that Mundo Nuevo was an independent magazine due to receiving funds from the Ford Foundation. However, private sector funds can be traced back to state involvement. Furthermore, as we see in our current media climate, private sector funding does not remove ideological impartiality whatsoever. In an era where centrally planned economies existed, how can one say that a magazine funded by the private sector would be free from self-censorship or from benefactor scrutiny?
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to say that the first chapter was incredibly dramatic even if it didnt fully contextualize the leftist sectarian violence between Stalinists and Trotskyists. I could have read an entire book on leftism in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s.
I agree with your disagreement that Iber's book did not fully cover the violence that occurred in Mexico City during Trotsky's time in exile prior to his death in 1940. However, I came to the conclusion that it was a long introduction to Iber's argument of the ideological conflicts that were going on during the Cold War. What better way to introduce a conflict between Stalinists and Trotskyists to bring a larger conflict for the reader later in the book.
DeleteI agree with your comments, Rafael, about the economics that play out in patronage of the arts, whether in Iber’s history of this in Latin America during the Cold War or today as we see in private sector funding used in all sorts of way to push certain political and ideological agendas. It seems that there is always a balance between the art and the economics (and the amplification) especially for any artist who seeks to pay her bills through her art. And looking at that art as — in part, at least — propaganda provides a different lens through which to read/view and analyze that art.
DeleteRafael I really like your analysis and as I have said before I think you are extremely concise and coherent in your analysis of this region as a whole. While I myself chose to critique this book in my own post, I do agree with your analysis here especially s it regards the contradictions of the various intellectuals playing "what-aboutism" throughout the period. I guess what I am saying is I like the cut of your gib good sir!
DeletePatrick Iber’s Neither peace nor freedom can be related to our reading from two weeks ago by Catherine Marino. Just as the latin american women we read about in Marino each had their own definitions of feminism that somewhat coalesced into a Latin American transnational feminism, the intellectuals and political groups short to form their own ideology. both capitalist and communist did rely on the United States and Soviet Union, however short to distinguish themselves from those counterparts similar to how the feminist distinguish themselves from Doris Stevens. The author points to the communist groups being more successful as opposed to the Democratic groups due to the United States interference through the CIA and not helping out leftist democratic nations. An example of how of this transnation “Communism” would be the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution in which Nicaragua Sandinista party short to model what post-war Nicaragua as similar to Mexico and Cuba rather than the Soviet Union. this is a big change since last time we saw on Nicaragua it was trying to modernize true relations with the United States similar to other Latin American nations and European countries. We talked last week about Vanishing points last week in class are we starting to see the United States influence decrease? I understand the United States did overthrow some governments end the Falkland conflict is around this time period, However since reading Marino there has been a shift of power in which Latin American nations will either work together or leverage a situation to a slightly favorable outcome instead of full colonization.
ReplyDeletePropaganda is one of the earliest forms of writing, I would argue that it came second after religious verses were written down. It takes many shapes and forms- it can by writing. drawing, or speaking. We have all experienced some propaganda (do not lie to me, you know it to be true) at one point in our lives. Iber takes an approach that the Cold War was the greatest propaganda campaign undertaking by mankind, which plays out in Latin America with disastrous consequences. The question that must be asked is who won? Most historians would argue that capitalism and the United States won the political campaign because the Soviet Union no longer exist on the world stage. However, Iber wrote that the "Pink Tide" movement that occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s were part of a social and economic wave to address issues of economic inequality such in Bolivia and Venezuela. This hints that the US propaganda campaign in Latin America during the Cold War was a Pyrrhic victory because of the "Pink Tide" movement's popularity a decade after the Cold War's conclusion. Then again, to what extend can the "Pink Tide" movement be consider a success or a Pyrrhic victory?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many contradictions in Iber's book that at times I'm finding it difficult to follow, but the framing of peace vs. freedom helps clarify his analysis of the cultural Cold War. This isn't all Iber's fault: the key players in the Cold War were full of contradictions between their messages and practices. The U.S. and the Soviet Union recognized the importance of cultural influence and sought to control the message about their countries and ideologies after WW2. The fact that the U.S. had been influential in Latin America for so long at this point meant that there were many preconceived notions they needed to counter or shift. I was fascinated to read that the artists and intellectuals sometimes countered the side they were supposed to be on, giving more validity to the independence of their art and working against the CCF or WPC goals. In some ways, Iber argues, these artists and intellectuals used the backing of these groups to advance their own agendas. Maybe this means that those creating art were also manipulated by the idealism of the U.S. message for freedom or the Soviet message for peace.
ReplyDeleteI, too, struggled sometimes to track who was who because of the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach to relationships in this book. I like the idea of the idealism of the United States and the Soviet message of peace manipulating the artists--perhaps they were moved by their own propaganda. At what point does crafting cultural material that challenges your culture to prove you are independent play into the other side's expectations?
DeleteHi Katie,
DeleteI agree in that it was hard to follow based on the constant ideological shifts that occurred depending on world events. It's also apparent in reading this book that many of the artists and intellectuals made their judgments based on the external suffering of a group of people, as many were in exile and were being paid often in order to change the minds of those who were living under repressive conditions, whether that was in a capitalist or socialist system.
I agree, it is hard to keep track of all of the different messages and sources of propaganda being written about in the book. I think it also proves to show how the alliances to certain ideals may have been just as hard to conceptualize as a person inlet America at this time. There are just evolving and ever-changing ideologies that it can be hard to keep track of it.
Delete-Alexandra
DeletePatrick Iber, Neither Peace Nor Freedom
ReplyDeleteOne of the lines from this book that stayed with me is “Critiques of one empire’s cruelty served to justify cruelty of another” (239). This entire book fascinated me in the intrigue and secretive nature of something seemingly so benign as cultural organizations. That they set people up by allowing them to publicly deny and stake their personal integrity on the CIA not being involved makes it clear that the machine is as callous as the paranoid portray it to be. I kept thinking, “Certainly they are going to give this person some hint of what is happening,” but they did not, even in the face of complete collapse of the shell companies. They knew they were caught, and even then, they did not attempt to save the reputations of some of those who had invested their entire beings in the CIA shills being honest.
This is clearly from a different time period, and as I was reading, I kept thinking about the fall of public intellectualism in American culture. Perhaps it is everywhere—but Martà continues to have more resonance for Cubans than any poet ever will in America (I would like to live in a world where the quoting of “I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice’” makes Americans reverent about what we can never know and never questions the circumstances of in the first place) (It’s Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate if you aren’t familiar https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-chop-some-parsley-while-listening-to-art-blake/). The American intellectual, the Artist, is no longer our guide for the revolution, and perhaps the shifting from Artist and Intellectual and Historial and Cultural Critic to YouTube cat videos says something about America, but more importantly, this book brings home how it shows our shift in relationship to other nations. No one is starting a competing cultural organization to discredit the ideas of American artists and intellectuals. There is no longer a battleground there, and perhaps that is because of YouTube, and maybe it is because the Cold War has ended, but I think it is because America has become deeply cynical about the motives of those who write about things like Art instead of Game of Thrones.
Nicaragua’s imposition of rules for art by Cardenal (p. 231) speaks to the way totalitarianism, like colonialism, colonizes the imagination and restricts how people consider what is beautiful, what is desirable, and what is possible.
You bring up a great point about the fall of public intellectualism in American culture. As first reading, I was thinking the same about how the influence of intellectuals has changed since the Cold War. Intellectuals and artists were seen as the cultural leaders who could influence the shifts of society, but I'm not as cynical about the lack of public intellectuals anymore. There are still thinkers influencing our cultural shifts, even though using YouTube as a medium might not seem as elevated as what intellectuals used during the Cold War. But I wonder if part of the rise of cynicism in America is a direct result of the cultural Cold War? We know now the extent to which we must look behind the curtain in every piece of writing or art.
DeleteOne of the questions you raise is the degree of influence, then or now, that public intellectuals and artists have over cultural development and policy. Is this no longer a battleground because of the lack of existence/influence of American intellectuals/artists, or is this no longer a battleground because American cultural hegemony (through GoT or, even more prosaically, “Friends” or KFC and McDonald’s on every corner) is so worldwide that there is no longer a battle to be fought as citizens of countries around the world choose to/are forced to assimilate US culture into their own cultural narratives?
DeleteOn page 85ish (in my Kindle edition), Iber writes, “Latin America’s social democrats wanted the United States to share their antidictatorial agenda, not merely their anti-Communist one.” Throughout this book, it seems that Iber illustrates the push and pull as Latin American artists attempt to push their agendas using the economic and other supports provided by the CCF, the WPC, and how the cultural imperialist agendas of both countries were modified in the Latin American context. The U.S.’s obsession with pushing an anti-Communist agenda, in particular, without attempting to take into account Latin American concerns around dictatorship made its focus on “freedom” as an organizing concept for cultural undertakings particularly ironic especially once the CCF was outed as a CIA undertaking.
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah,
DeleteYes, I agree that this has been the central crux in America's political posturing in Latin America in the middle of the 20th century. Their focus on anti-communism in order to promote freedom and liberty for everyone was contradictory to their support of the various military regimes that ruled over 80% of Latin American nations at one point of the century. Even worse was during the 1960's where they were funding Cuban exiles with the intent of regime change in Cuba, while getting funding and training from people such a Francisco Franco, Rafael Trujillo, and Anastasio Somoza. Those contradictions only raised the support for the Cuban Revolution within Latin American cultural sphere during the 1960's.
Iber's book tries to unveil the complexities of the Cultural Cold War by looking at several political and artistic angles, which can be difficult to understand because, as we read, there was a myriad of political views in each of those angles. I think one of the main arguments that will stick with me, is the one Iber made about Nuevo Mundo--the CCF/CIA fundend magazine--being one of the major platforms that gave a push, unwillingly, for Latin America's literary "Boom" that had in its ranks left-leaning and/or Marxist writers.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since the book was in part cultural, I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of La Nueva Trova--a musical movement in Latin America of left-leaning troubadors such as the Cuban Silvio Rodriguez, Argentinians Piero de Benedictis, Facundo Cabral, Chilean Victor Jara, and from the Salsa movement, Ruben Blades, among others. When I first started reading the book I kept having a mental note saying, "I want to know what Iber has to say about … [the artists I just mentioned}." Including them, would have supplemented his argument real well. In his defense, These artist emerged in the mid- nad late-60s which can fall off from his time focus.
H
Iber wrote a great book and the narrative was both clear and concisely done considering the complexity of the argument and the wealth of archival knowledge from the period. However, I take issue with the assertion that these narrative mostly center around intellectuals debating the merits of empire from different political perspectives. That is what the book is mostly about of course, yet the framing of the thesis is flawed. (Disclaimer: I am not a Stalinist or an apologist for Stalin or his regimes betrayal of the workers revolution, he was and is a mass murderer and high functioning sociopath) However, the USSR was not born out of a bourgeoisie revolution, nor was the immediate clandestine attack by capitalist empires of the period the reaction the US or France received immediately following their own bourgeoisie revolutions. Therefore, in my opinion, to view the actions of the USSR, Cuba, Chile, or Nicaragua outside of the reactionary initial response of both the US and other capitalist powers is a reductive perspective of the formation of these contentious relationships and removes the responsibility of the US for both starting the Cold War and for openly interfering in anything that looks like something that Karl Marx may have once wrote. I think this is damaging to the overall thesis of the book as it appears to posit this see-saw action of the Cold War as a game played on equitable ground between nation states beginning their intellectual arguments from even ground.
ReplyDeleteSorry if this is not clear, I hope to clarify in class.
In Patrick Iber’s, Niether Peace nor Freedom many nations felt they had to choose to either the Communism of the Soviet Union or the democratic imperialism of the United States. This political global belief made it impossible when it came to addressing the needs of one’s own home country.
ReplyDeleteIn the book I was amazed about the extent that the United States and the Soviet Union went to infiltrate the infrastructure of Latin America and the Caribbean. The CIA’s efforts to secretly fund publications in order to control what information is released to the public. Their ability to censor the belief in the free press and the freedom of speech violated every belief that the public had in the US support in Latin America.
The Soviet Union took an opposite approach when it came to Latin America. The Soviets attacked the US addiction to commercialism and the lust for materialism. By labeling the American core values as “Cosmopolitanism” and claiming it as, “predatory weapon of U.S. imperialism” Communist supporters in Latin America was able to convince the people that joining as a unified group would repeal the demoralization of nationalism.
By using artist and writing intellectuals both the United States and Russia was hoping to sway the people against the opponents therefore gaining a stronghold on the region.
From Jenn:Patrick Iber’s book is a transnational history of the cultural Cold War in Latin America. Iber uses the history of the CCF and WPC as vehicles for telling this complicated story. I learned a lot from this book. For example, I had no idea that Mexico was a home for radicals and progressives or that art was used as a weapon against communism. This book, like a few others that we have read over the semester illustrate how United States imperialism had unintended consequences in Latin America. In addition, this book brings in the Soviet Union into the mix and showcases how the search for peace in the world led to more repression at home. Iber’s story exemplifies how the Cold War was fought on multiple fronts, not just through clandestine wars, but also through words and images.
ReplyDeleteIber's book threw me a little bit after the first chapter as I had a hard time keeping track of what exactly the details of the "cultural cold war" especially when trying to understand the sort of battles through propaganda that were on going. The first chapter pulled me in fairly deeply with the stories about Trotsky and Gorkin as well as the establishment of the US as an already intense influence for the region at this time. However, what did help provide me with a clearer understanding was in the first few pages of the conclusion when Iber compares this cultural cold war to the Black Legend from centuries earlier. Something about re-imagining the different propaganda and philosophical battles from this time frame to be more like a much older tradition of accomplishing one's own national interests through the means of creating a myth about the true behaviors of a competing power helped me to understand at least the larger context of this time frame. More specifically, it helped me understand how this time was more about the individual rather than state goals and agendas motivating social change while still using what is essentially more evolved and developed versions of the same techniques used centuries earlier.
ReplyDeleteHello Nick,
DeleteI also enjoyed genealogy of the black legend and how it was used as propaganda by the United Kingdom. You bring up some interesting points about individual and state goals. I would like to hear the class thoughts on this.
I really liked this book because it illustrates the fight over who owns cuture and who can influence it. The struggle for Latin America between the United State and the Soviet Union and the most prominent sphere of influence is evident in the book. Although from my previously knowledge of Latin America I had some knowledge about how the US would try to infiltrate into a country’s system of government the lengths they took to influence the cultural aspects were surprising. Usually when talking about the fight for influence for Latin America politics and governance is the main point that is stressed, this would be the first time I see the use of cute as a tactic to recruit loyalty to either party
ReplyDelete-Alexandra