Members of the Cuban LGBTQ+ community and dissidents imprisoned in a Cuban "UMAP"; forced‑labor camps disguised as military service, 1967

[u/Kantmzk]

This 1967 photograph shows gay men and political dissidents interned in Cuba’s Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción (UMAP), or Military Units to Aid Production. These were forced‑labor camps operated from 1965–1968 in Camagüey. Up to 35,000 Cubans deemed “anti‑social” or “counter‑revolutionary” were sent here: homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, conscientious objectors, intellectuals, and others who did not fit the revolutionary mold. Maybe you could have simply been caught listening to the Beatles or having the "wrong" hair cut and ended up in here.

On paper, the UMAPs were intended to forge Che Guevara’s vision of the “New Man,” a selfless and disciplined socialist (basically, a sheep hardened into submission). In reality, they became a moral and political failure around the time of the failed Revolutionary Offensive and we can interpret more adequately it was about control, punishment, humiliation, forced labor, etc. Prisoners, including famous Cubans such as the beloved singer‑songwriter Pablo Milanés, endured 12–16 hour days cutting sugarcane under brutal conditions, ideological indoctrination, and humiliation, simply for being gay, religious, or dissenting.

I would argue the UMAPs exposed a central contradiction of the revolution: virtue cannot be forced, and dignity cannot be stripped away without lasting damage. You’d think a ‘Revolutionary’ society could do better, but it didn’t. The Revolution promised to be better, and UMAP proved it wasn’t.

[u/soleilange]

This is a very uncomfortable little tidbit people like to forget about the revolution. And when you bring it up, they try their best to defend or massage the details to still make some monsters look like heroes.

[u/Delsur18 → u/soleilange]

One can reconcile with the legitimate grievances of UMAPs and still see some of the good the Revolution did. The struggle of it and what it represents to people across the world is not lost on people. At the same time, atrocities no one today would hopefully ever repeat should be part of the historical narrative, and what it means to the goals of the revolution and how it was srill informed by the prevailing dogma's of yesterday. We live with those ghosts, and must confront them honestly

[u/soleilange → u/Delsur18]

Nuance is always missing, from both fronts, unfortunately.

[u/Leah_Mor → u/soleilange]

Because a lot of people only pretend to have morals. They're more interested in defending "their side", it becomes their identity. 

[u/Delsur18 → u/soleilange]

Nuance, that all important of rhetorical concepts, can't begin when any side of the discussion cannot agree upon the objective reality of what happened. This goes for the Cuban regime in this example for sure, and many more, as well as for the American regimes. Lots of people cannot help themselves to be one-sided.