«These times are not for going to lay down with a scarf on your head but with weapons on your pillow»: Cuba and the uruguayan student movement (1958-1964)

Abstract

The article refers to one of the dimensions of the impact of the so-called «Cu­ban question» in Uruguay between the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and the breaking of relations with the revolutionary government decreed in September 1964, a measure intensely and loudly questioned by the Uruguayan student who occupied the public University and resisted from its central building the violent police siege of several days ordered by the government. This zealous attitude of defense of the Cuban Revolution by Uruguayan students has been poorly attended to and, therefore, the text seeks to intertwine these positions with the transnational circulations of the Uruguayan student movement in the broader framework of the Cold War in Latin American. This happened at an important moment in regional history when universities became significant places of dispute. Finally, the work incorporates a large set of primary sour­ces from public and private collections from eleven countries. Among them, the documentation produced by the Cuban embassy in Montevideo, by the Uruguayan Student Federation, university minutes, government documents, diplomatic documents, periodical press, parliamentary debates, interviews with protagonists and police intelligence sources deserve special mention.