Gutierrez steps down as Finance Minister 1955

In the top newspaper photograph one can see from left to right, Marino Lopez Blanco, then Minister of Finance; Minister of State, Dr. Miguel Angel de la Campa and Gustavo Gutierrez, Minister without Portfolio. This photograph must have been taken in the summer of 1952, after Fulgencio Batista's, March 12, 1952, coup d'etat because Gutierrez and Lopez Blanco are wearing white suits and because Gutierrez would replace Lopez Blanco as Minister of Finance the following year. Gutierrez's daughter, Yolanda, remembers this date vividly since she was living with her parents at the time and was awaken by the sound of the telephone at about 4AM. Yolanda recalls her father pacing in the hallway screaming, "This is terrible what Batista has done. We have been forced back 50 years of democratic rule!" An aide to Batista had called asking that Gustavo accept the position of Minister of State. Dr. Gutierrez's daughter stated that Batista had originally wanted Gutierrez for that post but Gutierrez refused. According to his daughter, Gustavo was livid that Batista had violated the 1940 Constitution, which Gutierrez had participated in drafting, by forcing himself into power with the help of the Armed Forces two moths before Cuba's 50th Anniversary of Independence from Spanish rule. At this time Gutierrez was serving under President Carlos Prio as President of the Junta Nacional de la Economia.

The curious thing about this photograph is that Dr. Gutierrez is standing with de la Campa whose post as Minister of State had originally been offered to Gutierrez in March of 1952 and with Lopez Blanco whom Gutierrez replaced as Minister of Finance in 1953, the only post that Gutierrez finally accepted under Batista.

In 1955 Dr. Gutierrez resigned as Minister of Finance. In the bottom newspaper photograph one can see Gutierrez turning over the office to Dr. Justo Garcia Rayneri, standing to the left of Dr. Gutierrez, wearing a dark suit and glasses. Enlarge the photograph by clicking on it.

During his three years as Finance Minister beginning in 1953 Gutierrez discovered irregularities in certain departments resulting in confrontations with President Batista who did not "allow" Dr. Gutierrez to abandon his administration after Gutierrez attempted to resign on two previous occasions. Gutierrez had mentioned on occasion to his daughter Yolanda, and former office administrator, that he would refuse to sign off on documents that required his signature where he saw such irregularities. What finally forced Gutierrez to resign was Batista's lack of initiative regarding an investigative report that Gutierrez had prepared with a private investigator and presented to Batista exposing a certain general of theft at the customs office at Rancho Boyeros airport.

Shortly after Gutierrez resigned and as a bargaining point for staying in Batista's government, Gustavo proposed the creation of a ministry of economy which up until that point had not existed, a ministry which he could head and exercise complete control over. Batista accepted these demands and Gutierrez created El Consejo Nacional de Economía in 1955 and took the title of Ministro-Presidente.

Carlos Marquez-Sterling, in an article he dedicated to Dr. Gutierrez in 1976, please see blog entry "Internationalist...Carlos Marquez-Sterling," June, 2008, stated, "...and later, becoming absolute director of the Department of Economy which drafted and implemented financial and monetary plans, where Gustavo Gutierrez became a great power and one of the most responsible public figures of that time period, where the Cuban economy reached levels never dreamed of, culminating in 1957..."

Regarding his six years in Batista's last Government Gutierrez wrote on Februrary 4, 1959 from exile in Buenos Aires, "Me lei un tiron el articulo de Pino Santos. Creo que ha tergiversado los numeros y los ha hecho aparecer como le ha dado la gana. Seria facil refutar esa parte. Pero tiene razon en los costos de muchas obras y en una serie de negocios escandalosos... Muchos de esos asuntos fueron impugnados por mi y en dos ocasiones presente mi renuncia. Pero pasaron por arriba de mi. De todos modos, como yo no he participado en nada de eso, me siento tranquilo. El pie de grabado bajo mi retrato admite que yo trate de impulsar proyectos en beneficio publico, y es verdad que la mayor parte fueron torpeados o desfigurados."

"La politica economica del régimen (de Batista) fue buena en cuanto aumentó extraordinariamente las recaudaciones, el producto nacional bruto, las inversiones y los niveles de empleo y salario, pero fue mala en la forma en que se empleo el dinero. La responsabilidad es fundamentalmente de Batista y del pequeno grupo de sus priviligiados. De todas las personas citadas en el escrito de Pino Santos, la unica que puede temer es Martinez Sanz. Los demas es injusto cuanto se diga de ellos."

"Lo que yo quiero ver ahora son las maravillas que va a hacer el nuevo regimen. Ojala que se dedique a la tarea constructiva y no a la persecucion sanguinaria que lo esta encenegando ante el mundo y no produce ningun beneficio al pueblo."

Gutierrez addresses workers 1954

On April 29th, 1954 Gustavo Gutierrez addressed a group of workers employed in housing construction and staff members from the Ministries of Finance and Public Works. This is all the information I have regarding these pictures. Dr. Gutierrez was Minister of Finance at the time and was considered pro labor. He created legislation to protect labor as well as Cuban light industry by, among other means, raising tariffs against imports particularly those from the United States. However, he also supported private enterprise. While president of the "Junta Nacional de Economia," in a case where special interests wanted the government to give lands at no cost for the development of low income housing," la Ciudad Ferroviaria de Camagüey," he insisted on no government handouts but instead supported attractive loans to the real estate developers. For more informationplease see blog entry from January 2009, " Press Conference for Housing Construction (Lechuga), 1952." The Minister of Public Works, Dr. Jose Pardo Jimenez appears in the top photograph standing to the right of Dr. Gutiérrez.

Revista de La Habana 1930

            Gustavo Gutierrez published a magazine (quarterly) in 1930 called "La Revista de La Habana." It contained articles by many of the most renowned thinkers of the day including such international luminaries as Albert Einstein, Langston Hughes and Federico Garcia Lorca. One could also say that the Cuban contributers were among Cuba's "best and brightest!" It's subject matter included politics, economics, science, mathematics, literature, poetry, history, painting, sculpture, current events, etc. 

            The top photograph shows the first magazine cover and the bottom photograph shows many of the contributors including; Roig de Leuchsenring, Fernando Ortiz, Hernandez Cata, Manach, Sicre, Chacon y Calvo, Gattorno, Abela, Ichaso, Marinello, Riveron, Massaguer (see blog entries C.W.Massaguer #1 and #2), Wanguemert, Lugo-Vina and others. Plus, one of the contributors from Spain can be identified on the extreme right of the photograph as the celebrated dramaturge and poet, Federico Garcia Lorca.

            In the introduction, the young Gustavo saw Cuba as a natural bridge between the two Americas due to Cuba’s strategic geographical position; aided by the new and modern forms of rapid air travel and tele-communications. He reminded his readers of the neighbor to the north’s centrifugal reach and meddling drive, fearing, as a result, the disintegration of Cuba’s own cultural identity. This was a common concern of the day.

           He lamented, “We Cubans, have a strange habit of looking fondly and romantically towards our colonial and revolutionary past, relentlessly quoting our heroes. We cultivate a frenetic desire for material riches, acting like a slave who’s been put out to dance in front of his master. We’ve become an ostentatious populace that gyrates in cabarets with foreign names, tacky imitations, where tourists of all types satiate their thirst for liquor and lust. Why all this? What greatness does this achieve? What reason for this licentiousness while the people traverse through one of their deepest crises?”

         Gustavo was concerned for Cuba and its people. Culture needed to propagate among the people so they could develop discernment and build good character. He warned his countrymen not to be “duped by professional agitators, oracles acting in their own interest or money lenders from foreign lands.” Nor did he accept the perspective of the idle rich, “who lounge around with their material possessions seeing Cuba through rose-colored glasses.”

          He saw humanity broken as a result of the Great War which divided men into irreconcilable camps, individuals prone to extremes, exaggerations of all sorts, a people capable of deceiving themselves and lying to all those around them.

          In sensing this lack of honesty and integrity he wrote, “In our country we’ve almost completely lost the notion of limits. Everyone’s a genius to his friend and mediocre to his adversaries. To call a politician, artist or poet, notable, is almost a personal offence. One is forced to state that with “so and so” is born a new era in literature, politics or art. Critics are almost always subjective. The work doesn’t really matter resulting in a majority not concerned with real success or achievement, but rather, with favorable publicity and public opinion forged in deceit. There’s a lack of sincerity with one’s vocation or opinions or achievements since the ultimate goal is instant material gratification regardless of the cost. Everything is fabricated and contradictory because the poet writes the laws and the lawyer writes the novels while the doctor is put in charge of foreign policy.” In other words, it was all about the glitz and the glamour with little concern for true artistry in any form.

          “The political, social and economic life of the world, he continued, “is changing dramatically. New systems of government are sweeping into our lives; the Soviet model, fascism and democracy. As life renews itself and advances it gives birth to new problems and defective forms, which in turn renew themselves, and the cycle continues.  All reforms surge forward to eliminate certain defects but new ones materialize, unpredictable, unstoppable."

          The previous generation of Cubans that in 1902 fought and won their independence from their colonial oppressors achieved their goal, freedom from the Spanish Crown. Gustavo’s concern was with his troubled generation and the ones to follow. He considered himself a man of tomorrow, on a path laden with difficulty, warning the reader not to succumb to the past to fix the problems of the present. He said that,  “We must focus our literature, our arts and our sciences with a modern criteria and re-orient and perfect our socio-political character internationally and domestically. It will not be achieved with poems and speeches but through the slow yet indestructible process of education with its ultimate goal being that of culture. We must not poison the soul of a cultured populous with lies nor can we oppress them for very long. Culture nurtured and led our forefathers toward victory and it must do likewise for us today.”

          “We intend on bringing the advances of other cultures to the people of Cuba and those of the Cuban people to the world. This is the purpose of this magazine.  We have gathered Cubans from all stripes, young and enthusiastic intellectuals.  And though we do not all think alike, unsurprisingly, we are progressive, rational and avant-garde. But more than this we are all woven together by an ideology that is pure Cuban with a firm conviction against ignorance, indolence, selfishness and greed. We are guided by one sole purpose: Onward with culture, onward for truth!”

          The public response to the publication of La Revista de La Habana exceeded expectations. Congratulatory letters and telexes arrived from Latin America, the United States and Europe. Naturally, the response was greatest among the intellectual class in Cuba. However, due to a domestic economic downturn as well as the advent of the Great Depression, La Revista de La Habana closed after one year, having published only twelve issues.