Frances Peace Sullivan, Simmons University, “The Negro Question in Cuba, 1928-1936”

This chapter addresses the evolving position of the Partido Comunista de Cubas (PCC, Communist Party of Cuba) on the “Negro Question” between the late 1920s and mid-1930s. During the Comintern’s Third Period, The PCC became a forceful advocate for Black liberation. In the aftermath of Cuba’s Revolution of 1933, the PCC defended Black Caribbean immigrants laboring on US-run sugar plantations in the face of anti-immigrant hostility, a rare position in the Americas. By the dawn of the Popular Front, however, defense of afro-antillanos clashed with Cuban nationalism, and the PCC reversed course on foreign workers and reframed Black rights in national terms. The PCC’s shifting approach to the “Negro Question” reflects larger attempts to balance international imperatives with local realities and Cubanize a transnational communist agenda.

Keywords: Cuba; Cuban Communist Party (PCC); Afro-Caribbean migration; Negro Question; Scottsboro Nine; Cuban Revolution of 1933; Sandalio Junco; Blas Roca; Third Period; Popular Front