Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Spanish: Comités de Defensa de la Revolución), or CDR, is a network of committees across Cuba. The organizations have been primarily designed to report "counter-revolutionary" activity as well as promoting social projects. CDR claim a membership of 7.6 million.
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History
The CDR system was formed on September 28, 1960, following the 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by the Cuban Revolution. The slogan of the CDR is, "¡En cada barrio, Revolución!" ("In every neighborhood, Revolution!"). Fidel Castro himself proclaimed it as "a collective system of revolutionary vigilance" to report about "Who lives on every block? What does each do, who lives on every block? What relations does each have with tyrants? To what is each dedicated? In what activities is each involved? And, with whom does each meet?".[1]
Work
The CDR officials have the duty to monitor the activities of each person in their respective blocks. There is an individual file kept on each block resident, some of which reveal the internal dynamics of households.
Critics such as A. Rivera Caro, a journalist for El Nuevo Herald, trace Fidel Castro's CDR system's origin to Germany's "committees of territorial vigilance", described as organizations of agents that Adolf Hitler established by 1935 and have likened CDR and the associated "Young Pioneers" to the Hitler Youth.[2] A 2006, Amnesty International report noted CDR involvement in repeated human rights violations that included verbal as well as physical violence.[3] Repressive CDR activity has often been euphemized as "actos de repudio" (acts of repudiation) against those targeted as "counter revolutionary." Other opponents further indict Cuba's CDR system of informants and accompanying control of individuals with the breakdown of the family unit and for widespread human alienation and pervasive interpersonal mistrust.
Its defenders note that CDR have other important responsibilities beyond their function to monitor the individual's political and moral background; these include arranging festivals, administrating many voluntary community projects, and organizing mass rallies. Proponents also emphasize that CDR put medical, educational, or other campaigns into national effect and that, being organized on a geographical basis, they also act as centers for many who do not work in farms or factories and hence include a large proportion of female membership.[4]
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