Posted August 29, 2014

     Cuban poet, critic, and essayist Cintio Vitier writes that there were three periods of disillusionment and fatalism during the Cuban revolutionary process that began in 1868.   The first followed the Pact of Zanjón of 1878, which ended the first Cuban war of independence without the attainment of independence or the abolition of slavery (see “The Cuban war of independence of 1868” 6/17/2014).  The second followed the US intervention of 1898, which ended the second war of independence with US imposition of the structures of the neocolonial republic (“The US intervention in Cuba of 1898” 6/28/2014).  And the third followed the fall on January 15, 1934 of the only independent government during the neocolonial republic, leading to the consolidation of power by Batista and the deepening of the core-peripheral neocolonial relation with the United States (see “Guiteras & the ‘government of 100 days’” 8/11/2014; “The US-Cuba neocolonial relation deepens” 8/19/2014).  Each period of disillusionment lasted approximately twenty years, and they were characterized by a fatalistic belief that the transformation of unjust structures of domination through heroic action was impossible (2008:151).

     Following the fall of the 1933 “government of 100 days,” the popular movement with its internal conflicts and lack of unity continued to struggle, and these efforts culminated in the Constitution of 1940.  But with the election of Batista as president in 1940, Cuba had evolved to be a “perfect neocolonial system” (Arboleya 2008:112).  The fictions of the neocolonial republic prevailed.  The Reciprocity Treaty of 1934 deepened the historic core-peripheral axis of capitalist exploitation, reinforcing conditions of underdevelopment and massive poverty, yet it was presented as a progressive policy of the “Good Neighbor” to the north.  Politicians elected on false promises robbed the public treasury and pretended to be public officials with legitimate authority in a system of representative democracy.   The materialist consumerism of the “American way of life” pervaded the island, provoking distorted and unrealistic expectations among the people.  The country was empty and hollow (Vitier 2008:152).

     But the soul of the nation was alive.  “It lived in the quiet suffering of the poor or middle class family, in its capacity for resistance and hope, in its irrepressible popular laugh, in its unbeatable music, in the lamp of the intellectual, in poetry” (Vitier 2008:152).  The nation that Martí had envisioned lived, hidden in the quiet sufferings and hopes of the people.

     Vitier maintains that intellectuals kept the soul of the nation alive during the period 1933 to 1953 with various forms of intellectual work. Many sought “to discover and show the true face of the nation” in different ways, but united in “the common faith in education and culture as the road to national salvation” (2008:153).  Some, for example, sought to discover and exalt the ethical values that formed the foundation of Cuban nationality in the nineteenth century (Vitier 2008:153-57).

     Considerable intellectual work during the period was dedicated to analysis of the complex work of José Martí.  Various works focused on particular dimensions of Martí’s thought, including the ethical, political-social, literary, journalistic, philosophical, and educational dimensions. Juan Marinello made a presentation at the Union of Writers and the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, demonstrating the anti-imperialist character of Martí’s political thought and its opposition to the Cuban neocolonial regime.  Marinello and others also placed the work of Martí in the context of Latin American thought (Vitier 2008:157-62).

    The anthropologist Fernando Ortiz described the saving virtues of Cuban culture, with particular emphasis on the immense contribution of the population with African roots to the Cuban social conglomerate.  His works also attacked racial discrimination.  The Cuban historian Julio Le Riverend described the work of Ortiz as pointing to a de-colonization of Cuban culture (Vitier 2008:162-63).

     Nicolás Guillen, a member of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1937, represents a style of militant writing.  His work gave voice to the people, the concrete, exploited, and suffering people of the frustrated republic.  He and other communist intellectuals believed that literary and artistic expression was a form of struggling for liberty and justice (Vitier 2008:164-67).

     The frustrations of the neocolonial republic also gave rise to a form of poetic expression that affirmed the possibility of the impossible. Rejecting an interpretation of the impossible as meaning “not possible,” this poetry sustained that the impossible possesses a light that most people cannot see, and a force that the prevailing attitude does not know.  But the hidden light of the impossible can be made visible, and its unknown force felt.  Human hopes can experience incarnation.  In the depths of the national soul is found a thirst for the historical coming, for the incarnation of poetry in reality (Virtier 2008:170-71). 

     Thus, during the period of disillusionment from 1933 to 1953, Cuban intellectuals kept hope and faith in a dignified Cuban nation alive.  They affirmed an ethical attitude in the face of corruption and the pursuit of personal gain and particular interests.  They prevented the country from falling into a corruption so pervasive that the soul of the nation was corrupted.

    The ethical attitude expressed and sustained in the works of the intellectual class provided the foundation for heroic action in 1953, a year that marked the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Martí. We will see that heroic action in 1953 would break the prevailing popular mood of fatalism and disillusionment and would establish a new period of popular struggle.
  

References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Martí, Marinello, Ortiz, Guillen

Posted September 1, 2014

     In La Edad de Oro, a collection of stories written for children, José Martí wrote, “liberty is the right of all men to be honest, and to think and speak without hypocrisy.” Any person who obeys a bad government or unjust laws is not an honest person.  Many people, he wrote, do not think about what is happening in their surroundings; they are content to live, without asking if they are living honestly.  They are living without dignity (Marti 2006:10). 

      But some persons are not content to live without honesty and dignity.

     Martí identified three such “heroes,” in whom human dignity and the dignity of the people are expressed.  All were leaders in the independence movements of Latin America in the early decades of the nineteenth century: Bolívar of Venezuela, San Martín of Río de la Plata, and Hidalgo of Mexico.  Martí describes them as men who fought for the right of America to be free, and who protested the enslavement of blacks and the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples.  They read the philosophers of the eighteenth century, observes Martí, and they explained the right of all to be honest and to think and to speak without hypocrisy (Martí 2006:9-16).

     Cintio Vitier maintains that Martí considered truth to be the highest duty of the human being.  Accordingly, he believed that there can be no political liberty without spiritual liberty, and that “the first task of humanity is to reconquer itself,” to know the essence of human life at its roots.  He believed that the impossible is possible, and that it can be attained through truth, honesty, and integrity (Vitier 2006:87-88).

      Martí believed that the world is divided between “those who love and found, and those who hate and destroy” (quoted in Vitier 2006:96).  In this conflict of the world between good and evil, our duty is to stand on the side of the good, through the constant practice of generosity, service, and sacrifice; and through the cultivation of knowledge and the prudent exercise of reason.  And reason must be accompanied by heart, by universal love, which brings us to identify with the weak and the oppressed and to cast our fate with the poor of the earth.  Together, reason and heart provide human redemption (Vitier 2006:96-97).

      Martí profoundly influenced the development of the Cuban revolutionary movement, establishing a fundamental moral perspective.  Thus, Julio Antonio Mella, who founded the Communist Party of Cuba in 1925, would embrace the notion of the need to sacrifice in defense of the great ideals.  “All of the great ideas,” Mella wrote, “have their Nazareth” (quoted in Vitier 2006:132). 

     The central concept of heroic sacrifice in defense of the moral world was kept alive by the intellectual class during the period of cynicism and fatalism of 1934-53 (see “The Republic of Martí lives, hidden” 8/29/2014).  As a result, the idea of heroic sacrifice would be central to the generation of the centenarians, young men and women who emerged as decisive political actors in the aftermath of the March 10, 1952 Batista coup, a young generation that possessed a sense of justice and believed that the world promised by the heroes and martyrs was in their hands to attain.  Fidel emerged as a leader among these young activists, who recognized his exceptional capacities.  He understood the attack on Moncada barracks of July 26, 1953 as a heroic act in defense of noble ideas and in response to the prevailing cynicism that had been created by the neocolonial political-economic system (Vitier 2006:186-90).

     Thus, the new stage of the Cuban Revolution that was launched on July 26, 1953 was understood by those who led it as a collective act of heroic sacrifice in defense of noble ideas, in defense of human dignity and the dignity of the nation, and in the memory of the heroes and martyrs who had come before, whose names they invoked as they established legitimacy in the eyes of the people.  

     Sixty-one years later, on July 26, 2014, the Cuban evening television news program Mesa Redonda was dedicated to the theme of heroism.  One of the panelists was Arsenio García, who was among the 82 members of the expeditionary force that arrived with Fidel on December 2, 1956, to launch the guerrilla struggle.  He maintained that heroes are simply those who do heroic things and carry out heroic acts out of a sense of duty.  They believe it is their duty to do these things, and they do them not for themselves but for others, all of the others who form the people of the nation; and they do them from a sense of love and commitment to noble ideas.  Heroism, Arsenio maintained, is above all self-sacrifice for an ideal. 

     In the sixty-four years since the heroic attack on the Moncada Barracks, the Cuban Revolution has formed a people that believes that there are heroes; a people that defends universal human values with sacrifice; a people that stands as a dignified alternative to the cynicism, skepticism, consumerism, and individualism cultivated by the ideology of the neocolonial world-system.


References

Martí, José.  2009.  La Edad de Oro.  La Habana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación. 

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Martí, heroism

Posted September 2, 2014

      As we have seen, the Cuban intellectual class fulfilled an important historic task in the period 1934 to 1953 by keeping alive an ethical attitude in the face of the cynicism and fatalism generated by the neocolonial republic and the inability of the popular movement to transform it (see “The Republic of Martí lives, hidden” 8/29/2014). Nevertheless, by 1952, there had emerged among the people the sentiment that an ethical attitude is not enough; one must act. Therefore, the attack on the Moncada military garrison of July 26, 1953, led by Fidel Castro, can be interpreted as a great act, which broke the barriers that were confining the movement to the verbal expression of an attitude, an act that opened the possibility for a new stage in the Cuban Revolution.

     But Moncada was not only an act, it also was a heroic act, and thus it called into being a new stage of struggle for human and national dignity that would advance through personal courage and sacrifice.  In his address at his trial for the attack, which later came to be known as “History Will Absolve Me,” Fidel expressed the significance of the emergence of a young generation of Cubans prepared to sacrifice in defense of the nation.

     Thus, the Moncada assault was significant in two ways.  First, it was an act of heroic sacrifice, in which young Cubans risked and sacrificed their lives, in a social and political environment defined by generalized skepticism.  It thereby revitalized the Cuban tradition of personal and collective sacrifice in defense of national dignity (Vitier 2008:182). Secondly, it was a collective act, advancing rejection of the established order from ethical attitude to revolutionary practice (Vitier 2008:189). Moncada was an “enormous, ripping and creative new force that would project itself over the future of Cuba in an irresistible form” (Vitier 2008:186). 

      The power of Moncada lay in the fact that it provided the people and the revolution with exactly what they needed in that historic moment.  It provided an example of heroic struggle that the people were able to understand and were ready to support.   As a result, Moncada launched a new stage in the Cuban revolutionary struggle, and it lifted Fidel, the organizer and leader of the Moncada attack, to the position of the charismatic leader of the new stage, a role assumed in earlier historical moments by Martí, Mella, and Guiteras.

     Revolutionary processes can be aided by a Moncada, some dramatic action or event that galvanizes the energy of the people and renews its faith in the possibility of a more just and democratic nation, and that lifts up a charismatic leader.  It can be a dramatic action undertaken by the popular forces from below, such as the failed coup d’état led by Lieutenant Coronel Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1992, an event that converted him into “the most popular man in the country, venerated in the popular barrios, glorified in the walls of the cities,” as described by the well-known French academic, journalist and activist Ignacio Ramonet (2014:23).  Or a Moncada can be created by the conduct of the forces of domination: the police brutality in Birmingham in 1963; or the barbarous brutality of the US war in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973.  The bail-out of finance capital by the United States and Western European governments during the financial crisis of 2008 provided an opportunity for the mobilization of popular energy, but the popular organizations of the United States and Western Europe did not have the capacity to use it to educate and mobilize the people for a sustained revolutionary process, a theme we will address in future posts. 

     The Moncada event itself is not enough; the energy that it galvanizes must be captured and creatively channeled and sustained. And here the role of the charismatic leader is vital, for a discourse rooted in a deep understanding of the sources of the problems must be formulated, and practical solutions to the problems must be proposed; and these formulations and proposals must be expressed in a form that connects to the people.  The channeling of the energy generated by a Moncada event into a sustained popular revolution requires the presence of a person with exceptional qualities.


References

Castro, Fidel.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Ramonet, Ignacio.  2014.  “Introducción” in Hugo Chávez, Mi primera vida: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet. La Habana: Editorial José Martí.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada

Posted September 4, 2014

     The intention of the assault on the Moncada military garrison in Santiago de Cuba of July 26, 1953 was to seize weapons for the launching of a guerrilla struggle in the mountains.  The assault failed, and 70 of the 126 assailants were killed, 95% of them murdered after capture by Batista’s solders in a four-day period following the assault.  But in spite of its failure as a military action, the attack galvanized the people, and it marked the beginning of a new stage in the Cuban Revolution (see “Moncada: a great and heroic act” 9/2/2014). 

     In a manifesto released three days before the assault, Fidel called upon the people to “continue the unfinished revolution that Céspedes initiated in 1869, Martí continued in 1895, and Guiteras and Chibás made current in the republican epoch” (quoted in Vitier 2006:181). The revolution, he maintained, was the revolution of Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Martí, Mella, Guiteras, and Chibás.  Accordingly, Fidel understood the revolution to be entering a “new period of war” within a single revolution that had evolved through different stages (quoted in Vitier 2006:181).

     Following the failed assault, Fidel himself was able to regroup with 18 followers, and they proceeded to the mountains to attempt to continue the struggle.  As the army pursued them, Fidel divided them into smaller groups.  He and two of his companions were surprised in their sleep at dawn on August 1, and they were arrested.  A trial en masse of more than 100 persons, most of whom had not been involved in the attack, began on September 21, and journalists from all over the island were present.  On the first day, Fidel testified for two hours, responding to the questions of the prosecutor and twenty defense attorneys.  Saying that he had nothing to hide, he described the financing of the attack, showing that it was not financed by ex-President Prío, as Batista had alleged in a radio broadcast of July 27.  And he testified to the non-involvement of those who were falsely accused. After his testimony, Fidel, a lawyer by profession, was given permission to sit among the counsel for the defense rather than in the prisoner’s dock.  During the second session of the trial, on September 22, Fidel cross-examined witnesses in a form that exposed the murderous conduct of the army in the days following the attack.  After the second session of the trial, he was barred from the trial, placed in solitary confinement without access to books.  Following the completion of the trial of his comrades and their sentencing to prison on the Isle of Pines, Fidel was brought to trial in a separate procedure that was held in a hospital rather than in the Palace of Justice, and which was not open to the public.  He was permitted to address the court, and his address of October 16 was delivered from memory.  A written version of the address was smuggled out of his prison cell, and it subsequently was distributed clandestinely.  Fidel concluded the address by saying, “History Will Absolve Me,” and the underground document became known by that phrase (Castro 2014).

      In his October 16 address to the tribunal, Fidel described the organization and the carrying out of the assault, its intentions, the reasons for its failure, and his capture (Castro 2014:15-21).  He condemned the soldiers who had tortured and murdered captured revolutionaries, maintaining that they had degraded the uniform of the army (2014:22-24, 50-51, 56-61).  He harshly criticized the career of Batista and his deceitful message to the people on July 27 (2014:44-49).  He praised the courage and heroism of the young insurrectionists who had carried out the attack (2014:42, 51-52, 61-62).    

     Fidel argued that the assault of the Moncada garrison was legal.  He maintained that in early 1952, although the people were not satisfied with government officials, they had the power to elect new officials, and they were in the process of doing so.  They were engaged actively and enthusiastically in public debates in anticipation of elections.  The Batista coup of March 10, 1952 ended this process. Fidel referred to the writ that he had submitted to the Court on March 12, maintaining that the coup was a criminal act that violated several laws of the Social Defense Code, and asking that Batista and his seventeen accomplices be sentenced to 108 years of imprisonment, in accordance with the Social Defense Code.  But, he notes, the Court took no action, and the criminal strides up and down the country like a great lord.  The assault on the Moncada garrison, he maintained, was an attempt “to overthrow an illegal regime and to restore the legitimate Constitution” (2014:62-66).

     Fidel notes that Batista established the so-called “Constitutional Statutes” to function as a replacement to the 1940 Constitution, and in this Batista was supported by the Court of Social and Constitutional Rights, which was established by the 1940 Constitution.  But, Fidel argues, said Court violated the Constitutional article that established it, and thus its ruling is not valid or constitutional.  Fidel maintained that the 1940 Constitution remains in force, including Article 40, which affirms the right of insurrection against tyranny (2014:67, 72-76).

     And the Batista regime, he maintains, is tyrannical.  It has eliminated civil liberties and suffrage, and it has uprooted democratic institutions. In “using tanks and soldiers to take over the Presidential Palace, the national treasury, and other governmental offices, and aiming guns at the heart of the people,” Batista has established “Might makes right” as the supreme law of the land.  As soon as it took power, the regime engaged in repression against popular organizations, cultural institutions, and journalists, including arbitrary arrests, beatings, torture, and murder.  Furthermore, the regime has placed in top positions the most corrupt members of the traditional political parties. The previous regime was guilty of plunder of the public treasury and disrespect for human life, but the Batista regime has increased pillage tenfold, and disrespect for human life a hundredfold.  It has served the great financial interests, and it has redistributed loot to the Batista clique (2014:67-70).

     Fidel proceeds to remind the tribunal that the right of the people to revolt against tyranny was recognized by the theocratic monarchies of Ancient China, the city-states of Greece, and Republican Rome, and it was affirmed by the philosophers of Ancient India.  In the Middle Ages, the right of the people to violently overthrow a tyrant was confirmed by John Salisbury, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther.  In the early modern era, it was sustained by the Spanish Jesuit Juan Mariana, the Scottish reformers John Knox and John Poynet, and the German jurist John Althus.  The right of the people to overthrow despotic kings was the foundation of the English Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1775, and the French Revolution of 1789, and it was affirmed by John Milton, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, the US Declaration of Independence, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man.  Fidel provided succinct summaries or quotations from these mentioned sources, with the most extensive quotation being from the US Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 (2014:71, 77-82).

     Fidel expresses the patriotism of the young people who assaulted the Moncada garrison.

As we have seen, patriotism was an integral part of the Third World revolutions of the twentieth century, and it continues to be important in the revolutions of the present moment (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013).

    Fidel concludes not by asking for freedom.  He requests to be sent to the prison on the Isle of Pines, where he would be able to join his comrades and share their fate.  “It is understandable,” he proclaimed, “that honest men should be dead or in prison in a Republic where the President is a criminal and a thief. . . .  Condemn me.  It does not matter.  History will absolve me” (2014:83-84; 2007:69-70). 

      Fidel was sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years on the Isle of Pines.  He and his companions were released on May 15, 1955, as a result of a popular amnesty campaign. 

     An English translation of “History will absolve me” can be found in Fidel Castro Reader (Deutschmann and Shnookal 2007).


References

Castro, Fidel.  2007.  “La historia me absolverá” in Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 

__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal, Eds.  2007.  Fidel Castro Reader.  Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada

Posted September 5, 2014

      In his address to the court on October 16, 1953 (see “Fidel: ‘History will absolve me’” 9/4/2014), Fidel Castro maintained that if the assault had succeeded, the revolutionaries would have had the support of the people.  He described the people in the following terms.

He described the sectors that comprise the people: 600,000 unemployed; 500,000 agricultural workers who work only four months of the year and who live in miserable shacks; 400,000 industrial workers without adequate salary, pension, or housing; 100,000 tenant farmers, working on land that is not theirs; 30,000 teachers and professors who are poorly paid; 20,000 small businessmen who are weighed down by debt and plagued by graft imposed by corrupt public officials; and ten thousand young professionals in health, education, engineering, law, and journalism, who find that their recently attained degrees do not enable them to find work (2014:30-31).

     Fidel maintained that if the Moncada garrison had been successfully taken, five revolutionary laws would have been immediately broadcast by radio.  (1)  The re-establishment of the Constitution of 1940, with the executive, legislative, and judicial functions assumed by the revolutionary government, in order that the government would be able to implement the popular will and true justice, until these governmental structures, presently distorted by dictatorship and corruption, can be restored legitimately.  (2) The ceding of land to tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and squatters who occupy parcels of land of five caballerías or less, with compensation for the former owners.  (3)  The granting of the right of workers and employees in commercial, industrial, and commercial enterprises to 30% of the profits.  (4)  The granting of the right of tenant farmers to 55% of the yield of sugar production, and a guarantee to small tenant farmers of their participation in the sugar commerce.  (5) The confiscation of property that was fraudulently obtained as a result of government corruption, with the establishment of special tribunals with full powers to investigate and to solicit the extradition of persons from foreign governments (2014:32-33; 2007:28-29).

     Fidel further explained that these five revolutionary laws would have been proclaimed immediately, and they would have been followed by other laws, in which the specific measures would be based on previous study.  These further laws would include such areas as agrarian reform, the integral reform of education, the nationalization of (US-owned) electric and telephone companies, the return to the people of the excessive money that these companies have collected through high rates, and the payment to the government of taxes that have been evaded (2014:33; 2007:29-30).

     Fidel explained the structural roots of the social problems of Cuba.  Cuba is an agricultural country, an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured goods; it has limited industrial capacity.  More than half of the productive land is foreign-owned.  Eighty-five percent of small farmers pay rent, and many peasant families do not have land to use for the production of food for their families.  These economic conditions generate inadequate housing, low levels of education, and high levels of employment (2014:34-36).

      The solution to these problems, Fidel maintained, cannot be based in strategies that protect the interests of the economic and financial elite.  A revolutionary government would ignore such interests and would act decisively in defense of the needs of the people.  It would mobilize capital to develop industry; distribute land to peasants; stimulate the development of agricultural cooperatives; establish limits to the amount of land that can be owned by an agricultural enterprise, expropriating the excess acreage; reduce rents; expand and reform the educational system (2014:34-41).

     In formulating a program for the next stage of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro did not mention US imperialism, nor did he cite Marxist thinkers or mention Lenin or the Russian Revolution.  Jesus Arobelya writes of “History will absolve me:”

     Given the ideological distortions that are integral to the subjective conditions of the neocolonial situation, to speak of socialism or to speak in Marxist terminology would have generated confusion, and it thus would have been less effective in communicating the motivation and the goals of the revolutionary leadership, and it would have generated division within the popular movement.  Thus, Fidel focused on the unjust conditions that are experienced by the people in their everyday lives and on the concrete steps to be taken to resolve these problems.  Only later, more than two years after the triumph of the revolution, having implemented concrete steps in defense of the people, did Fidel proclaim that the Cuban Revolution was a socialist revolution.  So Fidel used an intelligent strategy for educating the people concerning the meaning of revolution and of socialism, focusing first on practice and later on theory.

     Fidel’s capacity to develop an effective strategy of popular education, moving from practice to theory, was a consequence of his unusual capacity to think both theoretically and concretely, which will be the subject of our next post.

     An English translation of “History will absolve me” can be found in Fidel Castro Reader (Deutschmann and Shnookal 2007).


References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Castro, Fidel.  2007.  “La historia me absolverá” in Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 

__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal, Eds.  2007.  Fidel Castro Reader.  Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada

Posted September 8, 2014

     We have seen that on October 16, 1953, during the trial for the assault on the Moncada garrison, Fidel Castro made a statement, later distributed clandestinely as “History will absolve me,” that formulated concrete steps that would have been taken by a revolutionary government that had seized power.  And we have seen that this formulation reflected a concept of a revolutionary process that included the political and cultural formation of the people, beginning with practice and moving to theory (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014).

      The key to Fidel’s exceptional capacity to imagine a revolutionary political-theoretical process lies in his form of thinking: he understands issues in historical and theoretical terms, and thus he possesses a solid grasping of the structural roots of problems and the steps necessary for solution.  But he does not explain to the people in historical and theoretical terminology, except briefly and succinctly.  He primarily explains in concrete language that connects to the world-view of the people.  He possesses not only understanding of the historical development of social dynamics, but he also has what the philosopher Bernard Lonergan had called the intelligence of “common sense.”

      Fidel’s common sense intelligence is rooted in his appreciation that the perspective of the people is based on their experience of problems: “subsistence, rent, the education of the children and their future” (2014:22).  The solutions proposed in “History will absolve me” respond to these concrete problems: the ceding of land to tenant farmers, the sharing of profits by workers in industry and mining, and increasing the small farmer’s share of the sugar yield.  When the proposal goes beyond addressing concrete popular needs, its steps are tapping in on resentments that are felt and expressed by the people: nationalization of foreign companies that charge exorbitant rates, and just punishment for corrupt government officials.  And the proposal that the revolutionary government assume executive, legislative, and judicial functions, in order to act decisively to implement the popular will, is fully consistent with the frustrations of the people, who have experienced that governments, except in revolutionary circumstances (such as the Grau-Guiteras government of 1933), do not respond to popular will but to the interests of the powerful.  The Moncada program was a proposal that was full of common sense intelligence, and as such, it was connected to the sentiments and the understanding of the people.

     But the Moncada program was not only connected to popular sentiment.  It was based in an understanding of the objective conditions of the neocolonial republic and a philosophical concept of social justice.  It was rooted, accordingly, in an understanding of the structural roots of the problems of the nation and the kinds of concrete measures that would be necessary in order to transform the neocolonial reality into an alternative more just and democratic reality. Fidel understood what the most advanced intellectuals of the time understood: the historical development on a global scale of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism; and the emergence of revolutions that must necessarily be socialist, if they are to transform unjust structures. This advanced understanding is revealed in his explanation of the structural roots of the problems of Cuba (2014:34-36; see “Fidel: History will absolve me” 9/5/2014).  But his explanation was succinct. He understood that one does not begin with a lecture in philosophical historical social science.  That would come later in the reconstruction of the society and the cultural formation of the people, a process of transformation that was proposed in “History will absolve me” simply as a proposal for the “integral reform of education.” 

      In my life experiences in the United States, I have observed a schism between the academic world and the world of activists.  Most academics, as a result of the segmentation and the bureaucratization of knowledge (see “Reunified historical social science” 4/1/2014), do not have an advanced understanding of the historical and structural roots of the problems of the world-system.  But some do have an advanced understanding, as a result of their encounter with the social movements that have emerged from below (see “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013).  However, even those academics and intellectuals with advanced understanding think in historical and theoretical terms that are alien to the language of the people, who think in concrete terms.  Activists, aware of the disconnection of academic knowledge from their concerns, tend to disdain intellectual work.  They do not develop a deep understanding of the historical and structural roots of problems, and thus their solutions tend to be superficial and partial.  Activists are connected to the people, but they do not have an adequate understanding of the structural roots of the concrete problems that the people confront.  

     Fidel, however, combines the best characteristics of both academics and social activists.  He combines theoretical and historical understanding with a connection to the people, and thus he has been able to express proposals in concrete terms, in the context of a revolutionary process that is continually unfolding and that includes the theoretical and practical education of the people.  Fidel’s exceptional qualities reflect unique personal characteristics, but they also were formed in a social context shaped by Latin American popular movements.  In Latin America, higher education has been less fragmented than in the United States, and the popular movements have been more connected to the academic world and intellectual work.  Moreover, Cuban social and political thought and the Cuban revolutionary movement have been the most advanced in Latin America.  Indeed, a central thesis in the insightful book by the Cuban poet and essayist Citrio Vitrier is that Fidel inherited, appropriated, and drove to a more advanced stage a social ethic that had been developing in Cuba since the beginning of the nineteenth century.  The advanced character of the Cuban popular movement is a result of various factors, including the twin pillars of domination of colonialism and slavery; the social and cultural mixing of the African and European populations; and the emergence of a relatively developed petit bourgeoisie and working class as a result of the role of Havana as a major international port and the emergence of tobacco manufacturing (see “Cuba and the United States” 6/13/2014; “The peripheralization of Cuba” 6/16/2014). 

     Thus, as of result of personal characteristics and social dynamics that shaped his development, the author of “History will absolve me” is a person of exceptional intellectual qualities, who combines historical and theoretical understanding of social dynamics with a concrete common sense understanding.  But he also is a person of exceptional moral qualities, who analyzes social dynamics from a vantage point rooted in the conditions of the exploited and the oppressed, and who has been committed without compromise to justice for the oppressed.  Like his intellectual perspective, these moral qualities also were formed by Latin American and Cuban popular movements, and in addition, they were a consequence of family influences and of the impact of his education in private Catholic primary and secondary schools, as we will discuss in subsequent posts.

     We will see in future posts that the Moncada program, in essence, was implemented after the triumph of the revolution.  The people would defend and participate in the revolutionary project, many calling themselves Fidelistas.  And the Cuban national bourgeoisie and US imperialism would never forgive the audacity. 

     An English translation of “History will absolve me” can be found in Fidel Castro Reader (Deutschmann and Shnookal 2007).

References

Castro, Fidel.  2007.  “La historia me absolverá” in Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 

__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal, Eds.  2007.  Fidel Castro Reader.  Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.

Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada

Posted September 9, 2014

    We have seen in previous posts that there is a tradition in Marxism-Leninism of interpreting the popular revolution as a proletarian revolution or as led by a proletarian vanguard (see posts on The Vanguard).  In “History will absolve me,” there is no notion of a proletarian revolution or a proletarian vanguard.  Instead, we find a concept of a people prepared to support a revolution, a people coming from various social classes (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014).   . 

      As he explained in an extensive interview in 1985 with the Brazilian Dominican priest Frei Betto, Fidel already had a Marxist-Leninist formation at the time of “History will absolve me.” During his third year at the University of Havana, he had begun to study the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, using books obtained at the library of the Communist Party.  In his study of Marxist literature, The Communist Manifesto had the most impact on him, because of its simplicity and clarity, and particularly important was its understanding that human societies are characterized by class division.  Fidel’s life experiences, in which he had “seen up close the contrasts between wealth and poverty, between a family that possessed extensive land and those that have absolutely nothing,” (Castro 1985:161), confirmed the truth of Marx’s insight into class division.  And the insight, for Fidel, had explanatory power, for it made clear that social phenomena are not consequences of the evil or immorality of men, but of factors established by class interests (Castro 1985:157-70). 

     In this description of his reading of The Communist Manifesto, we can see that Fidel was making immediately a Cuban interpretation of Marx.  In confirming the validity of Marx’s insight for the reality of Cuba, Fidel was focusing not on the exploitation of the industrial workers, which was the social context in which Marx formulated the concept, but on the unequal distribution of land, rooted in the colonial and neocolonial situation of Cuba.  Thus, Fidel was beginning to appropriate from Marx in a form that reflected the neocolonial conditions of Cuba. 

      Fidel was not studying the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin as an academic exercise.  He was seeking to understand how to further develop the Cuban Revolution and the revolutionary theory and practice that was the heritage of Céspedes, Martí, Mella, and Guiteras. As a result of this intellectual work and political practice, Fidel had formulated, even before the Batista coup, a revolutionary strategy for bringing about a profound social revolution in Cuba.  Having observed the isolation of the Communist Party, in spite of its considerable influence among urban workers, and the dissemination of anti-socialist and anti-communist ideas, he concluded that it would be necessary for the revolution to develop in stages.  The first stage would involve a mass rebellion by the majority of people, focusing on concrete demands that would respond to the sources of popular discontent; and a subsequent stage would be characterized by the formation of the political consciousness of the people, during which the socialist character of the revolution would be understood (Castro 1985:164-65).

      Thus, Fidel had become a Marxist-Leninist by 1950, the year of his graduation from the university.  But his understanding of Marxism-Leninism was shaped by Cuban revolutionary practice, and it adapted the key insights of Marx and Lenin to Cuban reality. Accordingly, he did not speak of a proletarian revolution, but a popular revolution formed by various classes and social sectors, including the unemployed, agricultural workers, industrial workers, tenant farmers, teachers and professors, small businessmen, and young professionals.  He did not refer to a proletarian vanguard, but instead implied that the popular revolution would be led by members of the various popular classes who possess the courage to act in defense of the revolutionary ideals defined by José Martí.  And he conceived and envisioned a socialist revolution in stages.  Based on an appreciation of the insights of Marx as well as observation of Cuban reality in a context of political practice, Fidel’s formulation represented a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism with the Cuban revolutionary struggle for national liberation. 

     Fidel’s formulation was an important theoretical advance in the evolution of Marxism-Leninism.  But Fidel did not present it as such.  He did not offer a theoretical analysis of the development of the concept of a proletarian vanguard, describing the social context in which the concept emerged and explaining why a reformulation is necessary. Rather than making a theoretical defense of his reformulation from proletarian to popular revolution, he simply presented the new formulation.  And this creative formulation made sense to the people, for it described what they already knew in experience, and it included concrete solutions.

     An English translation of “History will absolve me” can be found in Fidel Castro Reader (Deutschmann and Shnookal 2007).

References

Castro, Fidel. 1985.  Fidel y La Religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado. [English translation: Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology.  Melbourne: Ocean Press].

__________.  2007.  “La historia me absolverá” in Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 

__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal, Eds.  2007.  Fidel Castro Reader.  Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada

Posted September 10, 2014

     Fidel Castro’s father, Angel Castro, was a poor peasant from Galacia, Spain, who migrated to Cuba at the beginning of the twentieth century.  He began as a worker for the United Fruit Company, and later he became a contractor who organized groups of workers.  The earnings enabled him to acquire property, and he became a landholder who owned significant extensions of land.  His plantation in the eastern province of Oriente was dedicated primarily to the cultivation of sugar and secondarily to cattle and to the exploitation of wood.  A variety of fruits and vegetables also were produced.  Near the family house, there was a dairy, butchery, bakery, and store, all owned by Angel; there also was a public school, post office, and telegraph.  By the 1930s, there were about 1000 people living on the plantation (Castro 1985:89-100, 2006:52-53).

     Although he was the son of a landholder, Fidel was not socialized into bourgeois culture.  His father had peasant roots, and his mother, Lina Ruz González, had been born into a poor Cuban peasant family.  Neither parent had formal education; both had taught themselves how to read.  The couple lived on the plantation, and they had no social contact with members of the bourgeois class (Castro 1985:138, 153-54; 2006:65-67).

     Fidel’s first social world as a child was formed by the poor workers of his father’s plantation.  They were mostly Haitian immigrants, and they lived in huts of palm leaves with dirt floors.  The children of these families were Fidel’s first playmates, and they continued to be his friends and companions of Christmas and summer vacations throughout his childhood and adolescence (Castro 1985:97-104, 114, 153-54, 161; 2006:66-67, 105).  

     Although the workers were poor, the plantation of Angel Castro was an oasis among the US plantations in the region, which were characterized by absentee ownership and total neglect of worker’s needs during the so-called “dead time.”  Angel always was generous with respect to any request for assistance, and he employed more persons than the plantation required, in response to requests for employment.  Later in life, Fidel believed that the conduct of his father with respect to his workers was an important ethical example in his formation (Castro 1985:160-61). 

     At the age of four, Fidel began attending the primary school on his father’s plantation, a small school with fifteen or twenty children.  The schoolteacher advised his parents that Fidel had an advanced aptitude, and she recommended that he be sent to school in the city of Santiago de Cuba.  At first Fidel was sent to live in the house of a tutor.  Subsequently, he was enrolled in the Colegio de LaSalle, of the Salesian Brothers, from the first through the fourth grades; and in the Jesuit Colegio de Dolores in Santiago de Cuba for the last two years of primary school and the first two years of high school.  In his third year of high school, he transferred to the prestigious Jesuit institution, the Colegio de Belén, in Havana, from which he graduated in 1945 at the age of 18.  These schools were private Catholic boarding schools for boys, whose students for the most part were the sons of the bourgeoisie (Castro 1985:108-42; 2006:66). 

      Fidel believes that he learned from his family at an early age an ethical sensitivity and certain ethical values, an awareness that there is difference between right and wrong and between what is just and unjust, and that that one has the duty to do what is right and just.  This ethical sensitivity, he maintains, was reinforced by his education in Catholic schools, particularly the education of the Jesuits.  The Jesuits preached and practiced the virtues of good character, honesty, sacrifice, and discipline.  A developed ethical sensitivity, he maintains, is the foundation for political consciousness and for a commitment to social justice.  The religious martyr and the revolutionary hero, he asserts, are made from the same mold (Castro 1985:154-57; 1998:56; 2006:92).

      At the Colegio de Belén, Fidel’s main interests were the Explorer Scouts, including hikes of several days to the mountains, and sports.  He often did not pay attention to teachers in class, and his attendance was erratic.  But he was driven by a sense of pride and honor to earn good grades.  So he learned on his own from books, studying intensely in the days before exams.  Thus, he “developed a certain capacity to decipher the mysteries of physics, geometry, mathematics, botany, and chemistry simply with texts” (Castro 1985:143-46; 1998:54-55; 2006:93-94, 117).  This approach to learning would serve him later in life.

      Fortunate to have attended the finest schools for the bourgeoisie, and fortunate to not be burdened by the prejudices of bourgeois culture, Fidel Castro possessed a solid ethical and intellectual foundation when he entered the University of Havana, where he would become a revolutionary, as we will discuss in the next post.


References

Castro, Fidel. 1985.  Fidel y La Religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado. [English translation: Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology.  Melbourne: Ocean Press].

__________.  1998.  “Días de Universidad” in Fidel en la memoria del joven que es.  Edited by Deborah Shnookal and Pedro Albarez Tabío.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.

__________.  2006.  Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.  [English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio.  2009.  Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography.  Scribner. 


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel

Posted September 11, 2014

     Fidel Castro arrived at the University of Havana in 1945 with a basic concept of justice that had been formed in his family and in Catholic primary and secondary schools (see “Fidel’s social roots” 9/10/2014).  And he arrived as a “profound and devoted admirer of the heroic struggles of our people for independence in the nineteenth century,” and as an admirer and follower of Martí, as a result of “the enormous attraction of Martí’s thought for all of us.”  This formation in the heritage of Martí and of national liberation was deepened by the fact that he had read “practically all the books that were published” on the two Cuban wars of independence of 1868-78 and 1895-98 (Castro 1985:158-59; 1998:69; 2006:116, 122).

      But he arrived with little political consciousness.  He would later describe himself as a “political illiterate” at that time.  He had possessed a basic concept of justice; he had seen extreme inequality; and he had knowledge of and identification with the historic Cuban struggle for independence.  But he had limited understanding of political economy and class divisions and conflicts, and he had not been involved in any way in political activities.  His thinking and his life would be transformed during his five years at the University of Havana (Castro 1998:51; 2006:115-17).

     In 1945, the University of Havana was an educational institution for the rich and the middle class, a social place where there was mixing of the relatively privileged sector of the popular classes and the bourgeoisie, in an environment that included some professors of the Left.  In the 1920s and the 1930s, in the epoch of Mella and Martínez Villena, anti-imperialism was the dominant tendency among student leaders.  However, student consciousness had become confused as a result of the emergence of the anti-communist reformism of Grau, and many students had been influenced by this tendency, leading to a decline of anti-imperialism.  With the election of Grau as president of Cuba in 1944, the university administration and the student leadership was controlled by the government of Grau. By 1945, there had emerged a reaction to Grau reformism among students.  This tendency would ultimately be expressed in the establishment in 1946 of the Orthodox Party of the Cuban People, which beginning in 1948 would be led by Eduardo Chibás.  Fidel, as a consequence of his personal tendency toward rebelliousness and his ethical sense of justice, immediately identified with the emerging anti-Grau tendency at the university, which protested the corruption of the Grau government; and he became actively involved immediately with the political activities of this tendency among university students (Castro (1985:162; 1998:60-61; 2006:114, 116; “Julio A. Mella and the student movement” 7/8/2014; “The Cuban popular revolution of 1930-33; Rubén Martínez Villena” 8/5/2014; “The failure of ‘democracy,’ 1940-52” 8/25/2014; “Grau and reformism” 8/26/2014).

     Fidel’s studies during his first two years at the university led him to become what he would later call a “utopian communist.”  Especially important was a course taken during his first year, taught by a professor of political economy, Delio Portela.  The course, which included 900 pages of mimeographed material, discussed the laws of capitalism and the various economic theories.  His study led Fidel to question the capitalist system, and he arrived at the conclusion that the capitalist system was absurd.  However, his interpretation was utopian, in that it was not based in a scientific analysis of human history.  It was simply recognition that capitalism is bad, that it does not work, and that it generates poverty, injustice, and inequality (Castro 1998:51; 2006:117, 122).

     Other courses that influenced Fidel’s development included the “History of Political Ideas,” taught by Raúl Roa García, and “Worker Legislation,” taught by Aureliano Sánchez Arango.  Roa had been a prominent member of the student revolutionary movement in the 1920s.  After the triumph of the revolution, he would become the Minister of Foreign Relations of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba.  As a result of his passionate and eloquent defenses of the Cuban Revolution before international organizations, he came to be called the “Chancellor of Dignity” (Castro 1998:69; 2006:122, 642).

     During his third year at the university, Fidel began to avidly read the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.  Drawing upon his good relations with party leaders in the university, he had access to books of the library of the Communist Party.  The Communist Manifesto was one of the first that he read, and it had the most impact.  It made clear to him the role of class divisions and class interests in human history, thus enabling him to understand why politicians in Cuba behave so badly: they make promises to the people, in order to obtain the political support of the majority; but they are financially supported by the bourgeoisie, and thus they respond to its interests.  This period of self-directed reading was the culmination of an intellectual and moral development that had included, as we have noted, an ethical formation in Christian values, socialization and reading with respect to the Cuban heritage of struggle for national liberation, and a study of bourgeois political economy that had led him to utopian communism.  As a result of this period of new reading, Fidel would become a Marxist-Leninist by the time he graduated from the university in 1950.  But since it was a form of Marxism-Leninism that was synthesized with the Cuban tradition of national liberation, he “would not have been able to convince a communist militant that [his] theories were correct” (Castro 1985:157-59, 161, 167-68; 1998:69-70; 2006:123).

     By 1951, Fidel had developed a complete revolutionary conception and a plan for putting it into practice, taking into account the conditions of the country, which included the confusion of the people resulting from the dissemination of anti-communist ideology.

The first stage involved focusing on the discontent of the masses with respect to concrete problems (unemployment, poverty, and the lack of hospitals and housing) by proposing concrete solutions.  The masses attributed these problems to government corruption and to the perversity of the politicians, but from a scientific Marxist-Leninist perspective, one could see that these problems are rooted in the capitalist system, and that their solution requires a transformation to socialism.  However, the political education of the masses pertained to the second stage (Castro 1985:162, 164-65, 169; 1998:70-71).

     The Batista coup d’état of March 10, 1952 changed the political context, but it did not change the conditions that made necessary and possible the revolution as conceived by Fidel.  The plan was put into action with the assault on the Moncada garrison of July 26, 1953, and the revolutionary program was announced in “History will absolve me” (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014; “Reflections on “History will absolve me” 9/8/2014).

    Like Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro was first a nationalist (see various posts on Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh).  When he arrived at a moment of encounter with Marxism-Leninism, his formation in and commitment to national liberation enabled him to see its insights.  He thus proceeded to formulate and put into practice a revolutionary project based on a synthesis of national liberation and Marxism-Leninism.  As Fidel would express in 1985:   “I believe that my contribution to the Cuban Revolution consists in having realized a synthesis of the ideas of Martí and of Marxism-Leninism, and having consequently applied it in our struggle” (1985:163-64).


References

Castro, Fidel. 1985.  Fidel y La Religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado. [English translation: Fidel and Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism and Liberation Theology.  Melbourne: Ocean Press].

__________.  1998.  “Días de Universidad” in Fidel en la memoria del joven que es.  Edited by Deborah Shnookal and Pedro Albarez Tabío.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.

__________.  2006.  Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.  [English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio.  2009.  Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography.  Scribner. 


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, University of Havana

Posted September 15, 2014

     On December 2, 1956, Fidel Castro and 81 armed guerrillas, having trained in Mexico and having traveled by sea for seven days, disembarked from the yacht Granma in a remote area of eastern Cuba, with the intention of establishing an armed struggle in the mountains known as the Sierra Maestra.  It was a total disaster.  The Granma arrived two days behind schedule, thus undermining the strategy of a simultaneous uprising in Santiago de Cuba, intended to distract Batista’s army.  As the rebels disembarked, they encountered swampland so difficult that they had to abandon most of their weapons.  Three days later, they were surprised and routed by Batista’s army, dispersing in small groups and in different directions. When twelve of them were able to regroup under the protection of a local peasant, Fidel was jubilant.  “We will win the war,” he declared. “Let us begin the struggle!”  As described Universo Sanchez, one of the twelve, it was “faith that moves mountains” (Vitier 2006:195-97).

     The faith of Fidel is not, observes Cintio Virtier, “a religious faith in supernatural powers, but a revolutionary faith in the potentialities of the human being.”  It is an “uncontainable force” that “sees in history what is not yet visible” (2006:197).

     Virtier maintains that such faith proceeds from and is fed by three sources: “a moral conviction that defends the cause of justice; profound confidence in the human being; and the highest examples in human history.”  And such faith is integrally tied to a dynamic view of human history and human being: “for the revolutionary, it is not a matter of history been but of history being, where the highest examples continue acting; not of a stagnant and fixed human being but of the human being becoming, in evolution.”  And this becoming is above all “oriented toward duty” (2006:198; italics in original).

      The unshakable faith of Fidel, “contagious, irradiating and attracting with the moral magnetism of heroism, . . . became a live experience in the terrain of the struggle itself.”  Whereas the skepticism of the theoreticians could see only the objective conditions and the correlation of forces, revolutionary faith sees the possibility of changing the objective conditions and the correlation of forces, following the highest examples in human history.  And this faith would be fed by the evolving social dynamics in which it was acting: the rebel army in the mountains and the clandestine struggle in the cities were creating new objective conditions (Vitier 2006:197-98).

      Vitier believes that the revolutionary faith of Fidel saved the revolution from falling once again into the abyss of the impossible, in which its fulfillment seemed impossible.  Fidel was driven by a faith that was “nurtured by analysis” and that therefore could discern the reality hidden by the perception of the impossibility of things, and it could discern that what appeared to be impossible was, in reality, possible and attainable (2006:198).

     After the imposition of the neoliberal project on the world, the collapse of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe, and the advent of the “special period” in Cuba, Fidel would frequently proclaim: “No one has the right to be indifferent to the suffering of others;” and “No one has the right to lose faith in the future of humanity.”  These declarations go against bourgeois democratic concepts of freedom of thought and freedom of expression.  Fidel believes that people do not have the right to think and say anything they want.  The freedoms of thought and expression, for Fidel, are intertwined with duty: a duty to be concerned with the well-being of others, and a duty to have faith in the possibility of constructing a better world.  To live any other way is not really to live; it is a debasement of our humanity.  For Fidel, conformity to duty is the essence of human life and human fulfillment, not the possession of property, material things, and consumer goods.  In his view, the kind of human being that capitalism seeks to create is a degradation of the human being; socialism, in contrast, seeks to create a new kind of person, who lives in solidarity with others, a kind of person that up to now has been exemplified by a minority and has existed in the majority in the form of human potentiality. 

     We have seen in previous posts that revolutionary processes are characterized by the emergence of charismatic leaders (see various posts on charismatic leaders).  These charismatic leaders possess gifts that are recognized by the people.  In the case of Fidel, we have seen that these gifts include an extraordinary intellectual capacity and exceptional moral commitment, which enabled him to formulate, on a basis of intellectual work and political practice, a dynamic perspective that possesses both general theoretical understanding and concrete common sense understanding and that discerns the movement of the revolution through stages (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014; “Reflections on “History will absolve me” 9/8/2014).  We can now add the gift of an unshakable revolutionary faith that, based on observation of the unfolding correlation of forces, sees the possibilities for the creation of new objective conditions, on a foundation of courageous action, in the tradition of the highest examples in human history.  The “highest examples in human history” are the charismatic leaders of the past, who are still present, for their teachings, their example, and their spirit of struggle are an integral part of our reality.  In this sense, Fidel will be with us always. 


References

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, University of Havana