In August, September and October 1933 Cuban sugar workers seized several dozen mills and estates and, in a number of cases, inaugurated Soviets. This major worker uprising coincided with the collapse of the regime of Gerardo Machado and the early stages of the reformist administration of Grau San Martin. An examination of the roots of labour organisation among sugar workers and of the dynamic of the insurgency reveals the strengths and the limitations of the role played by the Cuban Communist Party. The collapse of the institutional and coercive structures of the state apparatus greatly facilitated the worker actions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.