Cuba

CUBA – MACHADO ERA – TERRORISM – EXPLOSIVESBiblio.com

An Official Account of the Bombing Campaign against the Machado Regime by the Cuban Army’s Inspector General of Explosives with a Day-by-Day Chronicle of Attacks Expert Reports on the Bombs at the Presidential Palace and the Royal Bank of Canada Field Tests of Seized Grenades Statistics of Bombs Victims and Seized Explosives and Photographs of Bomb Factories Devices Bomb Sites and Victims. Fernandez Prieto F. “Terrorismo” i.e. Terrorism. Havana: Imprenta de P. Fernández y Compañía 1931-1932.

réf. RF5883334 pp.: ills. 235x155 cm. In original publisher’s cloth binding with lettering on the front cover. With the binder’s ticket of the printer P. Fernández y Co. “Capitolio” on the front pastedown. With the piece of original dust-jacket tipped in showing the illustration on the front side of the wrapper. Binding slightly worn piece of dust-jacket with tears but otherwise a very good copy. Scarce. First edition. Text in Spanish. Dedicated to General Alberto Herrera y Franch 1874-1954 Chief of the Army General Staff. A rare imprint of Cuban propaganda and apparently the earliest official record of the wave of bombings that swept Cuba under President Gerardo Machado 1871-1939 from October 1930 to November 1931. The book was compiled by Florindo L. Fernández Prieto First Lieutenant of Coast Artillery and Inspector General of Explosives in an attempt to attribute the bombings to foreign influence. The title page also identifies him as a doctor of pharmacy and of the natural and physical-chemical sciences a professor of explosives and war gases at army schools and a member of the American Chemical Society. Gerardo Machado was elected President of Cuba in 1924 and secured re-election in 1928 after extending his mandate through constitutional reform. The Great Depression and falling sugar prices deepened economic hardship and opposition to his regime. Tensions escalated on 30 September 1930 when police violently suppressed a student demonstration at the University of Havana mortally wounding Rafael Trejo 1910-1930. Bombings soon spread across the island followed by sabotage an armed uprising in August 1931 and increasingly brutal government repression. Machado’s rule ended on 12 August 1933 when a general strike army defections and US pressure forced him to resign and flee Cuba. The volume opens with a prologue by Ramiro Cabrera dated Havana November 1931. In the text Cabrera denies that the bombings could be a native Cuban phenomenon blaming instead “a breath of communism that comes from abroad” linked to Russia Spain “the great organizations created in the United States” China India and England. The introductory chapters survey Spanish and Cuban explosives legislation from 1894 to 1931 the history of bombs and grenades and the composition and handling of explosives detonators and fuses. The main section provides a day-by-day chronicle of attacks across the island from October 1930 to November 1931 targeting schools churches theatres banks cafés transport networks government offices and foreign legations. It documents the evolution of devices from paper petards to shrapnel bombs and factory-made fragmentation grenades as well as clandestine workshops discovered in Havana Trinidad and Santiago de Cuba. Importantly the edition features detailed expert reports on the bombings of the Presidential Palace and the Royal Bank of Canada co-signed by the author. The account also records foreign connections imported German shotgun cartridges American-made explosives and detonators and dynamite found alongside communist and anarchist pamphlets. Especially interesting are photographs of Fernández's field tests of seized grenades at the National Explosives Factory in Santiago de las Vegas and Castillo de Atarés together with images of the detonations and official witnesses. The book is supplemented with numerous extremely rare black-and-white photographs showing seized bombs grenades tear-gas and phosphorus ampoules bomb-makers’ tools and the bomb sites children victims with the identification of names etc. The volume concludes with statistical tables recording 562 bombs exploded 627 bombs and 1755 grenades seized lists of casualties inventories of confiscated explosives by town including nearly 89000 detonators and over 12000 lb of potassium chlorate and a province-by-province list of prosecutions under the explosives law. Overall a rare piece of propaganda and vivid record of political violence in Cuba on the eve of the 1933 Revolution compiled by the officer charged with defusing it. Excerpts from the book: “¡Es comunismo es anarquismo es lo que se quiera!. pero no es local…” p. 12 “It is communism it is anarchism it is whatever you like!… but it is not local…” “Esto es simplemente un soplo de comunismo que viene de afuera; la máscara que informa de la libertad de la constitución pisoteada; de la crisis económica; de los desaciertos de un gobierno descarriado sirve de pretexto y se está urdiendo con ella un movimiento tendencioso análogo al que se está agitando en otros países lejanos por parte de Rusia de España; del fondo de las grandes organizaciones creadas en los Estados Unidos…” p. 12 “This is simply a breath of communism that comes from abroad; the mask of liberty of the trampled constitution of the economic crisis of the blunders of a misguided government serves as a pretext and with it a tendentious movement is being woven like the one stirring in other distant countries on the part of Russia of Spain from the depths of the great organisations created in the United States…” “La existencia en la Habana de estas bombas y máquinas infernales no pueden ser producto de una elucubración genuinamente nativa. Estamos a no dudarlo frente a un fenómeno de índole distinta. La Habana es campo escogido de actividades que se agitan en otros países.” p. 10 “The existence in Havana of these bombs and infernal machines cannot be the product of a genuinely native invention. We are without doubt facing a phenomenon of a different kind. Havana is the chosen field of activities stirring in other countries.” Extremely Rare. Not found in the Worldcat hardcover

Globus Rare Books & Archives · États-Unis1 500,00 $US≈ 1 340,12 €

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