Doctrina de la Contra Intervención — Luis Conte Agüero

Full Title:Doctrina de la Contra Intervención: Sovietización de la Economía Cubana: Ponencias, Discursos y Otros Escritos
Luis Conte Agüero
Ediciones Cruz del Sur, Montevideo · 1962
First Edition · First Printing

The Book: First edition, first printing published in Montevideo by Ediciones Cruz del Sur in 1962. 141 pages in the original red, white, and blue printed wrappers. The terminal colophon records that printing was completed on May 31, 1962, by Impresora Thau in Montevideo. No earlier edition of the title was located in the bibliographic research conducted for the collection, and no later-edition or reprinting statement appears in the volume.

Condition: Good+. Original wrappers exhibit moderate rubbing, surface soiling, edge and corner wear, small chips, short closed tears, and creasing with localized loss along the spine. The rear hinge and several interior openings show binding strain and exposed sewing, though the wrappers and text block remain substantially assembled. Interior moderately to heavily and uniformly age-toned.

Story Of The Book

Fidel Castro once had a powerful voice in Luis Conte Agüero. Then the voice turned against him.

Conte Agüero had supported and promoted Castro before the Cuban Revolution, but after breaking with the revolutionary government he went into exile and became an outspoken opponent of the new regime. Published in Montevideo in 1962, Doctrina de la Contra Intervención captures that political reversal at one of the most volatile moments of the Cold War.

The volume gathers speeches, position papers, and other writings concerning what Conte Agüero described as the “sovietization” of the Cuban economy. He argued that Soviet influence in Cuba should not be understood merely as an internal Cuban political development, but as a form of aggression with consequences for the entire Western Hemisphere. The book advances a series of doctrines—including incompatibility, legitimate defense, dangerousness, subversion as aggression, and counter-intervention—that Conte Agüero promoted during speaking tours through Latin America and the United States.

The significance of the book lies partly in who was making that argument. Conte Agüero was not an outside critic who had always opposed Castro. He had once helped promote the revolutionary narrative and was now attempting to dismantle it. Published during 1962—the year the confrontation over Cuba and the Soviet Union would culminate in the Cuban Missile Crisis—the book preserves an ideological struggle over what the Cuban Revolution was becoming while its consequences remained unresolved.

Why It’s In The Collection

The collection preserves printed objects that participated in political conflicts rather than merely explaining them after the fact. Doctrina de la contra intervención is particularly valuable in that respect because it represents political defection transformed into publication.

Conte Agüero had once advocated for Castro. From exile, he used speeches, political argument, and print to challenge the government he had previously supported and to persuade audiences throughout the Americas that revolutionary Cuba had become an instrument of Soviet expansion. Whether or not one accepts his deeply partisan interpretation, the book documents the struggle to define Cuba's political meaning while that struggle was still taking place.

The physical circumstances of publication strengthen that significance. This was not a later American history of Castroism or the Cold War, but a Spanish-language book published in Montevideo in 1962 for a broader Latin American audience, preserving the way ideological conflict over Cuba traveled beyond the island through exile networks, political speeches, and independent publication. It therefore expands the collection's treatment of dissent beyond opposition to established authoritarian governments to include the more complicated phenomenon of individuals who participated in political movements and subsequently turned against them.

Collection Categories: Anti-Totalitarianism · Political Dissent · Political History · Political Movements · Exile & Émigré Literature · Publication-Event Object

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Authentication Evidence

• Title page identifies the author as Luis Conte Agüero, establishing the stated authorship of this copy.

• Title page gives the full title Doctrina de la contra intervención: Sovietización de la economía cubana: Ponencias, discursos y otros escritos, matching institutional and bibliographic records for the work.

• Title page identifies Ediciones Cruz del Sur as publisher and Montevideo as the place of publication, confirming the documented Uruguayan edition.

• Title page is dated 1962, confirming the publication year of this copy.

• Terminal colophon states that printing was completed on 31 May 1962 at the Talleres Gráficos de la Impresora Thau in Montevideo, independently corroborating the title-page place and date.

• Pagination reaches page 141, matching institutional descriptions recording 141 pages for the 1962 Ediciones Cruz del Sur publication.

• Original publisher’s printed wrappers are present and carry the same author, title, publisher, place, and date as the title page.

• No later-edition, revised-edition, or reprinting statement is visible in the photographed title page, preliminary matter, terminal text, or colophon.

• Library and bookseller records consistently identify this title as a Montevideo publication issued by Ediciones Cruz del Sur in 1962; no earlier edition of this title was located in the bibliographic research performed.

• The available evidence therefore supports first-edition, first-printing status, but the absence of an explicit “primera edición” statement or a publisher printing history prevents fully conclusive authentication.

• Publisher imprint, printing information, pagination, typography, and wrapper design appear internally consistent throughout.

• No evidence of facsimile production, modern reproduction, later reset typography, or replacement wrappers is visible.