Trotsky subversivo: ausencias y presencias en el imaginario cubano

Abstract

Leon Trotsky was banned in Cuba until the end of the Soviet Union. Trotsky, however, was linked to Cuban history for several reasons: Eustaquia María Caridad del Río Hernández, mother of Ramón Mercader, Trotsky’s murderer, was of Cuban origin; Mercader also lived his last years in Cuba, from 1974 to 1978. Moreover, Cuba could have been a destination for the exiled Trotsky in 1916. From these historical coincidences, the fictional stories narrated by Frank Delgado in his song of 1997, “Trotsky’s cha-cha-cha” (disc La Habana está de bala), and Leonardo Padura’s novel The Man Who Loved Dogs (2009) are discussed in tandem. My article examines how Padura and Delgado propose a subversive reading of Trotsky from the deconstruction of the historical figures and human presentation of both characters, Mercader and Trotsky.