User:RobJim/sandbox

= Committees for the Defense of the Revolution =

Origins:
Following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, counterrevolutionary activity in Havana was rampant. There existed popular desire for some form of urban-based civil defense against sabotage particularly after the mysterious explosion of the French freighter La Coubre while dockworkers unloaded ammunitions from the ship.

The final impetus for the creation of such a movement came on the evening of September 28th, 1960 when bomb blasts erupted on the former steps of the Presidential Palace while Fidel Castro gave a speech. Fidel Castro subsequently declared: "“We’re going to set up a system of collective vigilance; we’re going to set up a system of revolutionary collective vigilance. And then we shall see how the lackeys of imperialism manage to operate in our midst. Because one thing is sure, we have people in all parts of the city; there’s not an apartment building in the city, not a corner, not a block, not a neighborhood, that is not amply represented here [in the audience]. In answer to the imperialist campaigns of aggression, we’re going to set up a system of revolutionary collective vigilance so that everybody will know everybody else on his block, what they do, what relationship they had with the tyranny [the Batista government], what they believe in, what people they meet, what activities they participate in. Because if they [the counterrevolutionaries] think they can stand up to the people, they’re going to be tremendously disappointed. Because we’ll confront them with a committee of revolutionary vigilance on every block... When the masses are organized there isn’t a single imperialist, or a lackey of the imperialists, or anybody who has sold out to the imperialist, who can operate”."

Structure:
Joining the committee is not selective; however, the top leadership of the organization is drawn from a select pool of loyalists at the discretion of Castro. The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) is organized into several levels: block, neighborhood, municipal, provincial and national sects, with a total of over 133,000 “nuclei” or postings (like a neighborhood block) around Cuba. Each CDR subdivision has an elected president that manages his/her locale and is subordinate to the CDR president immediately above him/her. Each block president is also charged with collecting and centralizing the information about every citizen in his block, giving such information to local police, investigators for political organizations like the Union of Communist Youths or the Communist Party of Cuba or the investigators for the Department of State Security (G2). Each committee also has one responsible for Vigilance, Ideology, and Community and Service. Those tasked with vigilance write annotations on citizens, monitoring how often people go to their house and how many attend, their whereabouts, family and work history, how many packages they may be receiving or enforcing curfews. Those in charge of Ideology are tasked with spreading political material to orient the people towards the party and recording overall revolutionary moral character. Those responsible for community and service plan various activities on rest days like maintaining optimal hygienic conditions on the block.

Function:
Besides mobilizing society for the defense of the revolution and the triumph of socialism, the CDR also had a role in national literacy and vaccination campaigns. They maintain social hygiene by eradicating the origins of transmission for certain diseases, clean and beatify neighborhoods, schools and social place. They bring attention to the needs of children, the elderly, and the electoral process of Poder Popular. They popularly mobilized people for demonstrations for Elian Gonzalez, the “Five Heroes” spies, or Mariel Boatlift. The CDR is also vital for the National Civil Defense as they evacuate millions of people during hurricanes, they clean up destruction. As a form of grassroots state-enforcement, CDR cadres have enforced revolutionary morality by citing those with imperialist haircuts, foreign music or other subversives.

=Communist Party of Cuba= By far the most important party in Cuba's one-party state is the Communist Party of Cuba. The group has a Start page on Wikipedia and for being a start page it is not bad. The information is definitely somewhat bland but it carries the core information and displays it in a short yet eloquent way that may be sufficient for casual readers but not for serious knowledge seekers. It's overview of the Communist Party's history as well as how it works is adequate but not particularly informative.

Article: Latin American Integration

=Latin American Integration= I went about searching for this page by searching for Latin American unity, pan-americanism and Latin American supranational organizations.

Key words associated with the article are confederation, international trade, pan-Americanism, Integration.

The quality of the coverage is horrendous. Very vague and not a lot of information, the few information given is too loosely put together to give any reader a holistic or general understanding of the subject.