In various declarations, governments and organizations representing the nations and peoples of humanity have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to certain values.  Some of these values pertain to social and economic rights, such as the rights of all persons to adequate nutrition and housing and to access to education and health care.  Others pertain to nations, and they include the rights of all nations to sovereignty, self-determination and development.   Inasmuch as these values have been affirmed by the representatives of many cultures and religions, they are of a universal human character.  Therefore, I refer to them as universal human values (see “Universal human values” 4/16/2014).

     I have observed a tendency in Cuba to refer to such values as spiritual values, and the practice of them as spirituality.  It seems to me valid and valuable to perceive spirituality in this broad sense.  The universal human values are indeed spiritual, for they are proclaiming a moral duty of all of us toward humanity as a whole.  Let us look, for example, at the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence:  “All men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”  This is a spiritual proclamation, not because of its reference to God, but because it affirms that human beings possess intrinsic worth, and that the human species, in its essence, possesses goodness and nobleness.  

     Such affirmation of the essential dignity of humanity implies a projection toward the future: humanity can never destroy itself through malicious and unreasonable behavior, for this would be contrary to its nature.  Therefore, although at the present historic moment the elite is leading humanity to self-destruction, the path of collective self-destruction will not prevail, because we who form humanity understand our worth.  In accordance with this spiritual affirmation, the peoples of the world have created a movement for a just, democratic and sustainable world-system, a movement by humanity in defense of itself. The world’s peoples in movement are affirming the essential goodness of the human species, and in the process, they are proclaiming that the self-destruction of humanity is not its destiny.

     The spiritual attitude, then, is above all consciousness that the good exists, and that one has a duty toward it.  Revolutionaries possess the spiritual attitude; indeed, they are driven by it. 

     The elite, however, has been conducting itself in a form that is profoundly anti-spiritual.  Since the beginning of the twentieth century, it has seduced the people with consumer goods, converting citizens into consumers and creating a consumer society.  It has fashioned a society that places material possessions above all else, and that cynically views as impossible the creation of a world-system in which the social and economic rights of all persons and the sovereignty of all nations are respected.

       Helping this transformation to consumerism and cynicism has been the custom of destroying our heroes.  Intellectuals of the Left, for example, note that Thomas Jefferson, although penning the eloquent words “All men are created equal,” himself owned slaves.  And they point out that Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not actually liberate any slaves, because it proclaimed liberty only for slaves in the territory that the union did not control; and that Lincoln’s public discourses did not express belief in equality between blacks and whites or full citizenship rights for blacks.  These observations ignore the complex political reality in which both worked, and that both were masters of the art of politics.  And they are in effect saying, “We have been told that they were exceptional and virtuous men, but don’t believe it.”  The heroes of the people have been taken away, leaving the people with the belief that there are no heroes.

      In Cuba, it is widely believed that there are heroes, people who make self-sacrificing contributions to the good of the nation or the world (see “The Cuban tradition of heroism” 9/1/2014).  Important figures in the history of the revolutionary struggle since 1868 are among them: Céspedes, Martí, Mella and Guiteras.  In addition, people who have made exceptional contributions in the service of the nation can be formally designated as “Hero of the Republic of Cuba.”  The five Cuban men who endured in a dignified and patriotic manner years of unjust imprisonment for anti-terrorist espionage in Miami are the most famous of them, but there are others as well.  

     One of the reasons that Cubans believe that there are heroes is that Cuban intellectuals do not destroy the heroes of Cuban history.  It is not that the intellectuals overlook the limitations of historic figures in Cuba.  But they evaluate historic figures in the political and cultural context of their time, and taking this approach, they recognize that a number of historic figures made important contributions to the development of the revolutionary project for a dignified and sovereign nation.  Accordingly, they have provided the foundation on which the Cuban revolutionary project today stands.  They indeed are heroes. Rev. Jesse Jackson captured something of this spirit at his address to the Democratic National Convention in 1988, when he proclaimed, “We stand on the shoulders of giants,” and then introduced Rosa Parks, “The mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”

     There is a spiritual component to our heroes; they are strongly committed to universal human values and to the development of a just world-system on their foundation.  On the basis of this commitment, they are prepared to dedicate their lives and their energies.  Their commitment and dedication was expressed by Nelson Mandela, when he proclaimed at his 1963 trial: 

 
In the United States, heroes with such spiritual qualities should be held up as an example and inspiration to all, as is done in Cuba. 

    In the world-wide movement for a just, democratic and sustainable world-system, the people are setting aside cynicism and affirming a positive future for humanity.  In contrast to the cynicism of the North, to some extent kindled by academics, revolutionaries of the Third World possess a revolutionary faith in the future of humanity (see “The revolutionary faith of Fidel” 9/15/2014).  In order to develop a revolutionary popular coalition in the United States, we must break free from cynicism and affirm our commitment to universal human values and to the future of humanity, discerning the objective possibilities for human emancipation hidden beneath the appearance of things.

     I offer these thoughts on patriotism as part of a series of posts on the need in the United States for a popular coalition that would seek to take power and effect structural transformations in all institutions, in defense of the needs and rights of the people.  These reflections on popular coalition seek to adapt to the United States lessons from popular revolutions in Latin America.  See “A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2016; “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016; “Race and Revolution” 1/19/2016; “Gender and revolution” 1/21/2016; “Gay rights and revolution” 1/22/2016; “Race, the university and revolution” 1/25/2016; & “Ecology in an integral form” 1/24/2016 (scroll down).

     Western European modern nation-states were founded on a basis of ethnic identity, forged in conflict with one another (see “The modern nation-state” 8/14/2013).  Popular identification with the nation and popular sentiments of affection and loyalty to the nation were exploited by the elite to obtain popular participation in wars that were in its interests.  Because of this shameful exploitation of patriotic sentiments, European Marxist and Leftist movements sought to replace patriotism with a sentiment of international solidarity among all workers of the world (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013).

      In contrast to Europe, the United States was founded not on ethnic identification but on a common political philosophy of democracy and on the concept that all citizens have equal rights.  In spite of this difference, the US Left inherited from Europe a skepticism toward patriotic sentiments, believing that the people should not blindly march to war in the name of patriotism.

     In contrast to the European and US Left, the Latin American Left considers patriotism a virtue, and it views the symbols of the nation as sacred.  In moving toward the taking of power in the wake of the popular rejection of the neoliberal project, popular movement leaders accused the national elite of being unpatriotic, as having betrayed the nation by cooperating with the international corporations in the implementation of the neoliberal project, instead of defending the sovereignty and dignity of the nation.  As Chávez proclaimed with much effect, “They are on their knees before the neocolonial power.”

      The Latin American approach to patriotic sentiments is part of a general Third World phenomenon, in which anti-colonial movements have appropriated the Western theory and practice of the nation-state, but in contrast to the West, envisioning nation-states as the pillar of a world-system composed of equal and sovereign nations.  In this transformation of the concept of the nation-state, the meaning of patriotism also was transformed.  In the West, patriotism legitimates conquest, military interventions, and imperialist policies.  In the Third World, patriotic sentiments are invoked in the defense of the genuine sovereignty of the nation, and it is coupled with international solidarity in support of the sovereignty and dignity of all nations and peoples (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013). 

     What if the US Left defined patriotism as a virtue, and called upon the people to be patriotic and to defend the values upon which the nation was founded?  On this premise, the Left could denounce the elite for being unpatriotic and for betraying the nation when it led the people in an expansionist project of aggression against the indigenous nations; when it legitimated African-American slavery; when it sanctioned the system of Jim Crow in the South; when it launched an imperialist project at the beginning of the twentieth century, seeking markets, raw materials, and cheap labor in other lands; when it created a Cold War in the post-World War II era, seeking to expand the military-industrial complex; when it created a consumer society, converting citizens into consumers; and when it launch the neoliberal economic war against the poor after 1980, placing profit over people. All of these policies were violations of the democratic values on which the nations is founded, and as such they have wounded the soul and undermined the spiritual wellbeing of the nation.

       I will reflect further on this theme of spirituality in the next post.


Key words: patriotism, nation-state, revolution, Left, nationalism

      A central component of the movement of the peoples of the Third World since 1994 has been the concept of sustainable development. The concept comes from the ecology movement, which emerged in the West in the 1960s and 1970s.  In that period, the ecology movement called for constraints on production, for it saw continued economic growth as a threat to the ecological stability of the planet.  As the idea of ecology was disseminated internationally, movement leaders in the Third World appreciated the importance of protecting the environment, and they recognized that the prevailing global patterns of production and consumption were a threat to nature.  However, they also understood that constraints on economic development were not practical for the Third World, because it suffered from underdevelopment, a consequence of historic colonial domination and current neocolonial structures of domination.  So the nations of the Third World formulated the notion of sustainable development, in which the goal would be continued expansion in production, but characterized by the continuous quest for forms of production that conserve the environment, thus constituting an ecologically sustainable development (see “Sustainable development” 11/12/13).

     In spite of the universalization of the phrase “sustainable development,” there remains a tendency in the North to see the issue of ecology in a form that is isolated from the neocolonial reality of the Third World.  This is a consequence of two factors.  (1) The historic segmentation of popular movements in the United States, retarding the development of integral forms of thinking.  (2) The pervasive “colonial denial” of the cultures of the North (see “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013).  In contrast, in the Third World, anti-colonial popular movements have been formed that integrate issues that emerge from the excluded vantage points of various popular sectors, including workers, peasants, students, women, blacks and indigenous persons.  This gives rise to integral forms of thinking, in which the understanding of ecological issues is intertwined with other issues.  At the same time, Third World governments that have been captured by popular movements must struggle to transform structures of neocolonial productive, commercial, and financial penetration in order to address the social and economic rights of the people, thus giving rise to the view that ecological needs must be balanced with other overwhelming needs of the population.

     An example of the segmented thinking of the North may be the position taken by Mitchel Cohen, who in 2013 called upon Cuba to abandon its experiments in genetically-modified agriculture.  Mitchel has impressive left-wing credentials.  In 1967, at the age of 18, was a leader in the student anti-war movement at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  He was one of the founders of the Red Balloon Collective in 1969, and he has written numerous political pamphlets.  He currently is a member of a number of organizations of the Left, and he hosts a weekly internet radio show.  

     In his criticism of the Cuban experiments in genetically-modified agriculture, Mitchel cited a Cuban scientist who stated that in Cuba the needs of the people must take priority over the environment.  Mitchel considered this to be “a surprisingly un-dialectical view.”  But in my view, it is a common and necessarily balanced view, a reflection of neocolonial reality.

     Following Mitchel’s presentation at a conference in Cuba, he and I had a brief debate on the theme in the discussion list of the Radical Philosophy Association.  I maintained that Cuba sees its approach as a centrist position between two extremes in the North.  On the one side, there are the large corporations that engage in genetically engineered agriculture for the sake of profit, without concern for ecological consequences.  On the other side, there are the ecologists, who call for the abandonment of genetically-modified agriculture, concerned for its ecological consequences.  Cuba, seeing the enormous benefits of genetically-modified agriculture with respect to food production, is conducting experiments under carefully controlled conditions, ensuring that the genetically modified seeds do not mix with conventional crops (which of course also have been modified from natural plants for ten thousand years by virtue of human participation in the process of natural selection).

      From my apartment terrace, I have a wonderful view of the city of Havana.  I can see across the bay a smokestack, which every morning spews smoke into the air to mingle with the clouds.  The smokestack is part of the infrastructure of an oil refinery.  The national assembly, the highest authority in the land, has enacted laws with respect to environmental protection, and the oil refinery every month is in violation of the law.  But no state entity takes action against the state company that owns the refinery.  The reason, of course, is that the state petroleum company has a contractual obligation to manufacture a given quantity of oil each month in order to respond to the productive and transportation needs of the nation, and enforcement of the law would mean that the productive quota could not be met.  So the smokestack does its thing, in contradiction to the expressed political will of the people, and in conformity with the needs of the people.

     It is not that the city of Havana suffers from air pollution.  The air of the city is in far better shape than many metropolitan areas of the North.  The reason for the relatively clean air is that there are fewer cars.  The great majority of people use public transportation in the form of city buses and collective taxis, which are cars that follow regular routes on major avenues, collecting and discharging passengers, carrying up to five passengers at a time.  It is an ecological approach to urban transportation, born of necessity.

     I enjoy looking every morning at that smokestack on the other side of the bay, for it is a daily affirmation of the common-sense intelligence of the Cuban Revolution.
​

     Rodney Coates, Director of Black World Studies at Miami University of Ohio, has distributed on the Critical Sociological Discourse list an article by Lisa Brock, “Rage Against the Narrative: ‘I don't do diversity, I do triage.’”  Brock is the Senior Editor of Praxis Center and Academic Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College.  The article has stimulated my reflection on race and the university in relation to a revolutionary popular coalition. This blog post is part of a series of posts on the need for popular coalition in the United States, the possibility for which is being demonstrated in Latin America today.  See “A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2016; “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016; “Race and Revolution” 1/19/2016; “Gender and revolution” 1/21/2016; “Gay rights and revolution” 1/22/2016.

     Brock maintains that at Historically White Colleges and Universities (HWCUs), also known as Predominately White Institutions (PWIs), students of color experience a variety of psychic hurts from the “micro-aggressions,” so called because they are not intended to hurt, of white students in dining rooms, dorms, and classrooms.  This dynamic among students occurs in the context of an institutional “white blindness,” in which the curriculum is Eurocentric, and peoples of color are invisible.  The white culture of the PWIs has not changed in essence since integration; knowledge of the history and lived realities of peoples of color is not an integral part of its social world.  Students of color are expected to assimilate to the institution, rather than the institution transforming its racist assumptions and practices.  

     The hurt, frustration and anger of students of color at PWIs has been a problem for years, and the universities have launched diversity initiatives.  Brock observes that the diversity initiatives have had limited impact, and this has been a source of frustration for all those who cast their hope in them.  The diversity initiatives do not respond to the roots of the problem; they are more oriented to presenting an image of the university as characterized by diversity rather than a transformation of racist practices.  As a result of the failure of diversity initiatives during the last twenty years, the narrative of diversity has become bankrupt, Brock maintains.

     I would argue that, in order to transform the racist foundation of PWIs, white faculty, administrators and students would have to experience a transformation in understanding.  The possibility for white transformation was provided by the African-American movement, with its alternative system of values and of the selection and organization of historical facts, insofar as whites personally encountered the movement and took seriously its insights.  A few whites, including myself, were transformed by the movement in its Black Nationalist stage of 1966-72.  But the great majority of whites did not encounter the movement; white society merely made concessions to the black movement.  

     Let us review the basic facts.  In 1964 and 1965, white society conceded the granting of political and civil rights, responding to the Civil Rights stage of the movement from 1955 to 1965, but it did so with equivocation and with tolerance of violence by white extremists. In the period 1966-72, white society rejected movement demands for the protection of the social and economic rights of all citizens and for special attention to the social and economic needs of popular sectors that had been historically excluded.  And it ignored the anti-imperialist critique by the movement of US imperialist foreign policy.  The African-American movement was brought to an end in the early 1970s through systemic police repression of Black Nationalist leaders and organizations.  As an epilogue, white society rejected the presidential candidacies of Jesse Jackson, whose proposed “Rainbow Coalition” was exactly what the nation needed to redeem its soul.  The concept of the Rainbow Coalition was a more advanced reformulation of Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign, and Jackson’s proposed foreign policy of “North-South cooperation” was a diplomatic reformulation of the Black Nationalist anti-imperialist critique (see McKelvey 1994).

     As a result of the lost historic opportunity for a transformation of white understanding, today it is the university that must fulfill the role of enabling a transformation of white understanding, in fulfillment of its central mission of education.  But Historically White Colleges and Universities are structurally unable to do more than diversity as image. They are unable to educate in a form that emancipates from false assumptions, limited values, and distorted collective memory. Transformative education is an interdisciplinary and integral project written from below, whereas the structures of higher education provide fragmented disciplines sanctioned from above.  The segmentation of knowledge of society into the distinct disciplines of history, economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology occurred in the aftermath, and as a rejection, of Marx’s reformulation of the science of history as a synthesis of German philosophy and British political economy, written from the vantage point of the worker (see McKelvey 1991).  Marx’s formulation was a highly advanced integral approach to the knowledge of society, but it represented a challenge to the elite, so it had to be cast aside.  In the United States, the consolidation of the segmentation of knowledge coincided with significant donations to universities from the “robber barons,” as they were consolidating their control over concentrated industry and banking (Josephson 2011:315-16, 324-25).  Later, during the tumultuous period of 1955-72, interdisciplinary majors, such as black studies and women’s studies, were developed, but the new programs were compelled to adapt to the segmentation of the bureaucratized university.  If the pursuit of knowledge in the university reflects the perspective of white society, shaped by the interests of the few powerful whites, then there is no reasonable possibility for a transformation of white understanding in the universities.  White blindness is entrenched; PWIs, as they presently are structured, are unredeemable.  We will continue indefinitely with white insensitivity and failure to understand, with protests by black students and their few white supporters, and with diversity initiatives that only seek to present an image of diversity.  (On the limitations of the structures and epistemological assumptions of the university, see Wallerstein 1999a; 1999b; 2006:59-65).

       Given the impossibility of meaningful change in the universities as they are presently structured, we can only conclude that a revolutionary transformation of the structures of US society is necessary, through the coming to power of an alternative political party that acts for the interests of the people.  Once in power, a political party of the people can adopt measures that would create an environment that would give support to those university faculty and students who understand the need for an integral education written from below.  Such enlightened faculty and students presently exist in significant numbers in US colleges and universities, but their efforts to change the university are constrained by the mentality of white blindness, by the weight of the bureaucracy, and by the awareness of what the powers-that-be are prepared to support.  But an alternative direction from above, supported by the people, would enable progressive faculty and students to lead their colleagues in a transformation of the university.

      Initial steps toward the transformation of the university can begin now, prior to the triumph of the popular revolution, but anticipating its triumph.  Faculty and students can become members of an alternative popular revolutionary party.  They can develop study groups and people’s universities, providing readings that succinctly explain fundamental historical facts, understanding of which is necessary for responsible citizenship, including: (1) the historical development of the world-economy, enabling understanding of slavery, US ascent and decline, and immigration in a global context; (2) the popular revolutions of the world, including Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador; (3) the movements of peoples of color, women and workers in the United States; (4) the need for changes in patterns of production and consumption in order to sustain the natural environment; and (5) the formulation of universal human values by the peoples and nations of the world, which are codified in the declarations of the United Nations and various international organizations.   And faculty and students can organize actions.  The actions should include the demands of black faculty and students for more faculty members of color and for the transformation of the Eurocentric curriculum, not with the expectation that such demands would be meaningfully addressed, but in order to educate the people concerning the character of a truly democratic university.  But they also should include protests with respect to issues beyond the university: police violence; immigration; neoliberalism; wars of aggression and US military bases; and support for particular nations under siege, such as Cuba, Palestine, and Venezuela.  In general, the tactics should not be disruptive; they should involve activities such as demonstrations or community service.  Disruptive tactics, such as strikes or road blockages, should only be used when they can mobilize the support of the majority, because disruptive activities by a few are viewed by the people as a few undisciplined malcontents behaving badly.  In the context of the political culture of the United States, actions should always be non-violent, without exception.  The participation together by white and black students and faculty in study groups and actions would help black students overcome the psychic scars resulting from white blindness, and it would enable white students to overcome alienation from their true selves.  

     Such revolutionary transformation of the university has occurred in Cuba.  In the 1920s and 1930s, and again in the 1950s, students and student organizations were actively involved in protests calling for reform of the university and an end to the corruption of the neocolonial republic.  They protested US imperialism, and they called for a literacy campaign in Cuba, like those that had been established by the Russian and Mexican revolutions.  In 1995, on the fiftieth anniversary of his entrance into the University of Havana, Fidel declared that he became revolutionary at the university.  Fidel’s transformation at the university was a combination of different influences: the courses and reading materials of a few progressive professors; his active involvement in political activities of student organizations; and his reading of the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin at the library of the Cuban communist party (see “Julio A. Mella and the student movement” 7/8/2014; “Fidel becomes revolutionary at the university” 9/11/2014).

      After the triumph of the revolution, the University of Havana reformed itself, with the support of the revolutionary government, but carried out by the professors themselves, committed to the revolution. It redesigned the curricula in history and philosophy, providing an integral and global view of human history and the history of the nation, describing structures of domination and popular movements seeking social transformation.  It established various interdisciplinary research centers, such as the Center for the Study of the United States and the Center for the Study of the International Economy.  It encouraged each center and each department to hold an annual colloquium, so that there was interdisciplinary dialogue among faculty on a regular basis. Rather than stressing publications in reviews, the university gave priority to faculty participation in the colloquia of the centers and departments.  After fifty years, the results are impressive.  At international conferences, the advanced understanding of Cuban professors is evident.  

      For their part, Cuban students continue the tradition of revolutionary activism.  The University Student Federation (FEU for its initials in Spanish), established by Julio Antonio Mella in 1922, is a very active organization.  Nearly all university students in Cuba are members, and each department elects their delegates, who in turn elect leaders at higher levels.  Recently, Cuban television aired an hour-long interview with the President of FEU, Jennifer Bello Martínez, who comes from the eastern province of Holguin.  She professed her commitment and that of FEU to the revolution.  She described her deep admiration for Mella, and she expressed wonder that he had accomplished so much in his short life (he was 25 when he was assassinated).  When asked of her reaction to the charge by some that the young generation today lacks revolutionary values, she responded, “Inasmuch as the generation of the revolution has repeatedly expressed its confidence in the youth of Cuba, we have no option but to respond faithfully to the confidence that they have placed in us.”

      A university transformed.  A university system designed to accommodate the interests of the global elite and their national accomplices now has a different intellectual, social and political environment.  This transformation was one dimension of a social transformation of all of the institutions of the society.  It was a transformation rooted in the historic struggles of the people, which enabled the formation of leaders.  When those leaders proposed to the people a project of revolutionary transformation, the people authorized them to speak and act on its behalf and supported them in all necessary forms.  The leaders, in the name of the people, took power, and they have delivered on the promises made.    

       Revolutionary change is possible.  We, the people of the United States, must cast aside the cynicism that serves the interests of the elite.  We must have faith in the essential goodness of our people and in the future of humanity.  We have our own history of popular movements, which provides our foundation.  And we live in an historic moment in which the unsustainability of the established world-system is each day more evident.  We must form an alternative revolutionary political party of the people that seeks to take power and effect social transformation, in the university and in other institutions.

​References
 
Josephson, Matthew.  2011.  The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901.  New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.  Originally published in 1934 by Harcourt, Brace, and Company.

McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press. 
 
__________.  1994.  The African-American Movement:  From Pan-Africanism to the Rainbow Coalition. Bayside, New York: General Hall.
 
Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1999a.  “Eurocentrism and its Avatars: The Dilemmas of Social Science” in The End of the World as We Know It:  Social Science for the Twenty-First Century.  Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.  

__________.  1999b.  “Social Science and the Quest for a Just Society” in The End of the World as We Know It:  Social Science for the Twenty-First Century.  Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. 

__________.  2006.  European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power.  New York: The New Press.

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Key words: race, diversity, university, revolution

     I have been reflecting in various posts on the renewed popular and socialist revolutions that have emerged since 1995 in the Third World, particularly advanced in Latin America, and on the lessons that they provide for the possibility of a popular socialist coalition in the United States.  These reflections have included explorations of the limitations of the discourse of the US Left, including its management of the issues of race and gender, contrasting its approach with that of the Latin American popular movements (“A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2016; “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016; “Race and Revolution” 1/19/2016; “Gender and revolution” 1/21/2016).  In today’s post, I would like to reflect on the issue of gay rights.

     Lesbianism is one of the issues in which Latin American feminists have been cautious.  They have not wanted to get too far ahead of the people or to provoke a negative popular reaction.  In 1998 interviews that I had with founders of women’s organizations in Honduras, the women leaders maintained that lesbianism was an issue that they could not possibly embrace without significant negative political repercussions, and they considered it Eurocentric for European feminists to take them to task for not engaging the issue (see “The rights of women” 11/11/13).

      I have not found a great difference between Latin America and the North with respect to attitudes toward homosexuality.  In both cultural contexts, there are many people who consider it unnatural and/or sinful.  But public discourse toward the issue has unfolded in different ways.  In Latin America, there is a much greater cultural tendency to accept people as they are, which leads to a cultural tendency toward tolerance, and much less of a tendency toward hate crimes, violence, and aggression.  Nonetheless, taking into account popular definitions of homosexuality as sinful or unnatural, women’s organizations have not embraced the issue of gay rights.  As a result, leaders of the popular movements in Latin America have tended to avoid the issue, without speaking for or against gay rights.  In contrast, progressive movements in the North have embraced the issue of gay rights with little concern for the values of significant sectors among the people or for the negative political consequences of such a position for the progressive movements. 

     In Cuba, organizations have been formed recently with an agenda of gay rights, and the daughter of Raúl Castro is playing a leading role. Listening to the public discussion that has emerged, I have observed that gay rights advocates speak in a tone that is sensitive to the values of the people, hoping not to provoke a negative reaction.  In discussion, for example, of the unfairness of laws of property ownership with respect to homosexual couples, gay rights advocates make explicit that they are not advocating “gay marriage.” Rather, their goal is to establish laws that are fair to all.  

      In contrast, in the progressive movements of the North, there is advocacy of “gay marriage.”  We should reflect on the meaning of such a proposal.  Marriage is a religious ceremony, and it is a ceremony that gives the union a sacred character.  To propose gay marriage is to ask for popular blessing of gay unions, and not merely acceptance of it as a legally-sanctioned option for those who desire it.  To advocate gay marriage is overly provocative, and it is asking of the people more than is necessary.

     The progressive movements in the United States cannot afford to have the people divided over gay marriage, and they must search for a centrist position that could be the basis for common ground.  Perhaps the key would be to propose that the state get out of the marriage business altogether, inasmuch as marriage is a religious ceremony, and it should not be an affair of the state.  Rather than regulating marriage, the state should regulate domestic partnerships, in which two adults living together freely enter into an economic contract that designates common property.  As with existing marriage laws, a domestic partnership law can regulate what ought to occur with the common property when the union is dissolved by the death of one of the partners, or by the desire to dissolve the partnership of one of the two.  A new domestic partnership law would not only protect the property rights of both partners with respect to gay unions, it also would open up possibilities for a wide range of unions involving two adults living together, facilitating a diversity of legally sanctioned life styles, in which the state would never inquire concerning the personal or sexual relation between the two.  The state would not sanctify any of the unions; it would legally recognize them.  With a new domestic partnership law, the state would not be blessing gay marriage, but would be recognizing the diversity of life styles among the people.

      We should appreciate that the issue of gay rights is not like other issues.  The right of all persons to adequate nutrition and housing or the right of all nations to sovereignty are rights that no person can reasonably deny, and for this reason, popular revolutionary movements affirm consistently and clearly, without compromise or equivocation, that these rights must be protected.  But the morality of homosexuality is a matter concerning which reasonable people can disagree.  All human societies have norms and values with respect to sexuality, defining some forms of sexual behavior as unacceptable; as a consequence, we are all expected to control and channel sexual desires.  In many societies at present, reflecting an uneven transition from traditional to modern to post-modern thought, there is no consensus among the people concerning what forms of sexual behavior are appropriate.  And for this reason, a proposal for the blessing of homosexual unions divides the people.

      Revolutionary processes should not enter this kind of cultural conflict among the people, and the triumphant revolutions of the world have not done so.  Revolutions seek the protection of those rights that have been affirmed by humanity in a wide variety of official declarations of an international character, in representation of the diverse nations, cultures, and peoples of the world (see “Universal human values” 4/16/2014).  But the quest by popular revolutionary movements for the protection of universally recognized rights provokes powerful enemies whose agenda is the maximization of corporate profits and the protection of the political and economic interests of elites.  All of the people must be united and mobilized against these formidable forces, and the worst thing the movement can do is put forth a proposal that is inconsistent with the cultural values of many of the people and thus considerably reduces popular support for the revolutionary project.

      Ideally, revolutionary processes should not take a position with respect to cultural debates among the people, other than to make clear that the revolutionary project will establish structures of popular democracy, thus facilitating a process of sustained popular discussion free of the distortion of particular interests, enabling the people to arrive at consensus.  If such a position of deferral to the future is not politically possible, the revolution should seek a middle ground: affirming the dignity of all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, and affirming that all persons should be treated with respect and civility; and proposing a new law of domestic partnerships that would seek to legally protect the rights of all persons with respect to the distribution of common property that emerges during unions.  It is a question of affirming the diversity of the people while seeking to forge the unity of the people.

      In a series of posts on the possibility of a popular coalition that would seek to take power and effect structural change in the United States, I am maintaining that social movements in the United States have much to learn from the popular movements in Latin America (“A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2016; “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016; “Race and Revolution” 1/19/2016).  In this post, I reflect on lessons to be learned from Latin American popular movements with respect to the form in which they have managed the issue of the rights of women. 

     The women’s movement emerged in the United States in the 1840’s, and until the 1860s it offered a critique of fundamental cultural assumptions with respect to gender, and it advocated full legal, political, economic and social rights for women.  Beginning in the 1870s, the nation became more conservative with respect to the rights of blacks, workers, and the peoples of color in the world.  Adjusting to this ideological environment, the women’s movement narrowed its focus to the single issue of the right of women to vote, which it attained at a national level through constitutional amendment in 1919.  As a result of the increasing occupational attainment of women during the twentieth century, and with the eruption of the black power and student/anti-war movements in the late 1960s, the women’s movement rediscovered its radical roots, and it provided a broad critique of patriarchy.  During the 1960s and 1970s, it accomplished a transformation of ideas and practices with respect to gender, establishing the fundamental principle of the full political and civil rights of women in all social institutions.  At the same time, reflecting the segmentation of the various popular movements in the United States, the women’s movement never became integrated with other movements formed by the people (see “The rights of women” 11/11/13).

     The US women’s movement stimulated the emergence of a women’s movement in Cuba in the 1920s, in Mexico in the 1970s, and in Central America in the 1980s.  However, in contrast to the United States, as a consequence of the integrationist tendencies of the popular movements in these Latin American nations, the women’s movement was integrated into the general social struggle for the sovereignty of the nation and for the social and economic rights of the people.   In the process of integration, the women’s movement was transformed, as it adjusted its discourse to the requirements of the general social struggle, and accordingly, it was careful to avoid formulations and proposals that would offend the people active in the social struggle (see “The rights of women” 11/11/13 and “The Cuban women’s movement of the 1920s” 7/11/2014.  

      There are cultural differences between the North and Latin America with respect to gender, which have caused some to describe Latin America as macho.  However, I believe that this interpretation is superficial.  In comparison to the North, Latin American culture has: a much more strongly entrenched gender division of labor in the home, but much less so in the workplace; a much higher level of verbal sexual play between men and women, indulged in by both sexes; a much greater tendency for men to turn heads and to make “catcalls” to women in the street, which women often receive as compliments; and a profound mutual respect between men and women.  This last point should not be underestimated.  And it should not be forgotten that managing a household is a much more time consuming task in Latin America, so that the fact that women cook and men drive and repair cars and make house repairs has a degree of functionality.  And perhaps the games between men and women simply reflect that men and women enjoy each other and enjoy life.

     In addition to gender dynamics, there also has been a tendency in the Latin American left in recent years for political discussions to be carried out in a tone of mutual respect.  It is not uncommon for political disagreements to be expressed indirectly, in order to avoid conflict. This dynamic may be driven by a desire to avoid the divisive sectarianism of the 1960s, widely acknowledged today as an error of the popular movements.

       As a result of all of these historical and cultural factors, feminism in Latin America is less conflictual than is white feminism in the North. The Latin American women’s movement has been more diplomatic and more sensitive toward the sentiments of men, even while affirming fundamental principles with respect to the rights of women.  This was to some extent driven by movement politics: many of the male movement leaders had earned prestige with their courage and commitment to the people, and women who sought to put the issue of gender on the table did not want to undermine the movement by creating disunity, nor did they want to provoke a popular backlash against them.  It also was in part driven by the integrationist tendency of the popular Latin American movements, so that women could see the possibility of including the issue of gender on the agenda of the popular movement, if the matter were to be managed with intelligent tactics.  And it was driven by a culture in which mutual respect in difference rather than antagonism is the norm.  

     The agenda of the Latin American feminists, with their own form of feminism adapted to their particular political and cultural conditions, has been attained.  Fundamental principles of the women’s movement have been incorporated into the general social struggle of the people, such as the advocacy of the full participation of women in the social and economic development of the society, including having positions of authority in political and economic institutions; and programs for the elimination of all forms of violence against women.  These demands have become standard themes in the Third World popular movement for a just, democratic and sustainable world-system; and they are being implemented in those progressive nations in Latin America, where movements of the Left have come to power.

     We are reflecting in a series of posts on the need for and the possibility of a popular coalition in the United States that would seek revolutionary transformation, involving the taking the political power and making structural changes in various institutions of the nation, so that they would respond to the needs, rights and interests of the popular sectors (“A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2016; “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016).  In this post, I would like to reflect on the issue of race in this context.

     The granting of political and civil rights to Africa descendants in the 1960s occurred in a form in which white society did not encounter and come to understand the African-American perspective.  There was not a move toward understanding, but merely the making of concessions. White society did not grasp that the granting of these rights came 100 years too late with respect to the possibilities for the economic development of the black community, and specific government policies would have to be developed to compensate for this fact.  Nor did white society grasp the implications of the anti-imperialist components of the black power discourse, which pointed to the need for a world-system in which the sovereign rights of Third World nations would be respected, if the promise of democracy were to prevail in the world as a whole. Continuing to look at race and the world from a limited white-centered perspective, subtle forms of racism endured and have had various manifestations up to the present day.

     But beyond the survival of white racism in a less blatant form, the issue of race has not been managed well by the movement itself.  To proclaim that white society is characterized by subtle racism, although entirely true, has not been an effective political strategy in the post-1965 era.  Since racism has become more subtle, most whites are not aware that they are infected by it, and they receive the proclamation as an unjust accusation.  It therefore provokes negative reaction, resentment, and hostility.  A far more effective strategy would be to leave the question of subtle racism aside and to seek political alliance on the basis of common interests that both whites and blacks have, as professionals, businesspersons, workers, farmers, persons who are fearful of unemployment or experience intermittent unemployment, or persons who find it difficult to pay for necessities.  As a result of the fact that blatant racism is no longer socially acceptable, such political alliance is much more possible today than in the past.  And in the context of working together on common interests, a process of personal encounter may often arise, and whites would begin to move beyond subtle racism.  

     A word on affirmative action.  When I first heard, in the late 1960s, about a program of affirmative action to ensure equal treatment of blacks and women who possess equal qualifications for employment and education, I was taken aback at its limited intentions.  It does nothing to address the social and economic conditions that limit opportunities to attain credentials for employment.  In spite of its limitations, I defended affirmative action for years in my classroom teaching in conservative church-related colleges in the South and Midwest.  I found a strong resistance to it among my white students, even white women, who displayed in their arguments subtle forms of racism.  But the subtle racism aside, they also argued against special treatment for any group, maintaining that equal treatment is the foundation of democracy.  It seems to me that a difficulty with affirmative action is the absence of other new initiatives that protect the working class and the poor, who have been abandoned since the 1970s.  In such a political context, affirmative action is going to be perceived as unfair by whites, especially white workers who are living below the poverty line.  Promoting a program of affirmative action in the absence of a comprehensive project to protect the social and economic rights of all is exactly what you would want to do if your goal is to increase white resentment.  But our goal should be to reduce subtle forms of white racism, and to protect the social and economic rights of all.

     Like the United States, Cuba has a long history of African slavery, abolition, and decades of racial segregation.  But there is a basic difference between Cuba and the United States with respect to race.  In the late nineteenth century, Cuban blacks and whites were coming together in a popular movement in opposition to the Cuban bourgeoisie, Spanish colonialism, and emerging US imperialism, a unity that continued in the popular struggles during the neocolonial republic; in contrast, in the United States during the late nineteenth century, the political-economic-social system of Jim Crow was being established and constitutionally affirmed.  So Cuba for decades, before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, had been more advanced than the United States with respect to race.  Nevertheless, the Cuban revolutionary leadership discerned that race was a potentially divisive issue, and they above all desired the unity of the people, so that the revolution could effectively struggle against powerful domestic and international enemies.  So rather than affirmative action for blacks and women, they adopted a policy of aggressive state action in the protection of the social and economic rights of all, with the intention that this strategy would ultimately overcome inequalities between blacks and whites and between men and women.  Since the 1960s, Cuba has not eliminated all forms of racial and gender inequality, but they have done far better on these issues than has the United States, and one does not find in Cuba an iota of resentment toward the attainments of women and blacks, for the revolution has meant advances not only for these popular sectors, but for all.

       An anecdote on affirmative action.  A couple of years ago a retired Cuban woman professor was giving a presentation on “Women in Cuba” to an international group of professors that I had organized for educational activities.  She was describing the phenomenon in Cuba of the “feminization of education,” where more women than men were entering higher education as administrators, professors and students. She noted that with respect to admissions for medical education, a highly prestigious field in Cuba, an affirmative action program was developed in the 1980s in order to give support to men, whose admission rate was lower.  But the women protested, saying that the men have the same opportunity to study and prepare themselves for admission, and they should be admitted on the same basis as women, without any consideration for gender enrollment.  And so the revolutionary government, conceding to the perception of the women that it was unfair, eliminated the affirmative action program after only one year.  Now I ask, if young Cuban women, socialized all their lives in the socialist values of social consciousness, perceive affirmative action as unfair, how are white men in the United States, who have not been formed in values of social consciousness, going to feel?

    In the late 1960s, there were those who were advocating an approach to social change based on class.  In their view, white and blacks should come together on the basis of common class interests, mostly conceived as a working class.  But this was not a sound conception.  Firstly, the class analysis of the 1960s was rooted in a classic Marxist view that gave priority to class exploitation over colonial domination.  As such, it was divisive, for it was perceived correctly by blacks as diminishing the significance of centuries of colonial domination and as ignoring Third World struggles for national liberation.  It was a view, moreover, that tended to reduce racial difference to insignificance, when in fact in the United States blacks and whites live in different social worlds and have different perceptions, values, languages and cultures.  

     In contrast to the class analysis advocated by some Leftist organizations in the 1960s, today there are some who advocate a species of identity politics, based on one’s identity as a women, black, Latino(a), Native American, Asian American, or gay or lesbian.  But this formulation excludes people who do not pertain to or do not desire to identify with any of the groups, and thus it has limited appeal, and it plants divisions among the people.  It is an approach that underestimates the importance of unity among all of the people, in light of powerful enemies whose interests are opposed to a project that protects the rights of the people.  It is an approach that one would advocate if one wanted to sow differences among our people and undermine the unity of the people.
     
       What I am suggesting is neither the priority of class over race; nor the priority of racial, ethnic, or gender identity.  What I am suggesting is the formation of popular coalition, a political alliance of different sectors of the popular classes, sectors that include workers, professionals, businesspersons, merchants, farmers, women, blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.  Any one of these can be the basis of distinct ethnic, gender, class and occupational identities and cultures.  Such identities are fine and good, if people have them, and they can actively participate in the activities that are organized by and for such groups.  But the forming of a popular coalition is another matter.  It is a political alliance among the different popular sectors, constructed on the foundation of common interests and needs.  The popular coalition must be based on mutual respect, in spite of cultural differences and differences in life-styles and beliefs. Such mutual respect is likely to be more formal at first, but it will become more genuine as the coalition becomes a political force and attains concrete gains in defense of the needs of the people.

      A socialist project in the United States should advocate cultural pluralism and the preservation of cultural diversity, including languages and unique philosophies, as well as special attention to the just treatment of members of racial and ethnic groups that have been historically excluded and especially impacted by the neoliberal project. It can maintain affirmative action programs for racial and ethnic groups and women as a component of this commitment to a multicultural society with full equality.  But such an approach to race and ethnicity should be part of a comprehensive program that is clearly and fully committed to the social and economic rights of all, so that all will feel that the unfolding popular national project has their needs in mind.

     We have seen that, if we take as our basis of observation triumphant socialist revolutions of the world, we can understand socialist revolution as a process of a popular movement taking control of the political institutions of the nation and subsequently seeking, in conflict with counterrevolutionary sectors with opposed interests, to transform economic, financial, educational, media and health service institutions.  Socialist revolutions also seek to develop structures of popular democracy and popular power, in order to nullify the ideological manipulations and maneuverings of the deposed elite (“The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 12/15/2016).

     In viewing my recent posts on socialism in the Third World, perhaps many readers will find themselves distrustful toward a process that is led by charismatic leaders and vanguard political parties, believing such a process to be undemocratic, or at least potentially so.  Indeed, in the case of Russia, the Soviet government became totalitarian under Stalin, violating the principles of Lenin, even as it invoked his name.  As a result, the communist parties affiliated with the Third International became instruments of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, not able to develop strategies in accordance with particular national conditions. But these dynamics occurred because of particular conditions in Russia and the Soviet Union, and they should not be understood as general phenomena.  In fact, the evolution of the triumphant revolutions has different dynamics in the different nations.  In the case of Cuba, a charismatic leader continued to be faithful to the revolution and to the people for decades, during which time his charismatic authority was institutionalized as a vanguard political party, which today effectively functions as the leadership of the revolution, with very little participation by the now elderly, but still lucid, Fidel.  

     Our conceptions of democracy, socialism and revolution should be based on real popular democratic socialist revolutions.  The emergence of charismatic leaders and vanguard political parties may be inconsistent with our idealist conceptions in the North, but it is in fact the general pattern in triumphant revolutions of the world.  We should learn from the revolutions of other lands, and permit their experiences to influence our conceptions, so that our understanding, even if optimistic and rooted in faith in the future, would not be idealist, because it would be connected to real historical social processes.

     I would like to turn to reflection on the lessons of the popular socialist revolutions of the world for the United States.  But before doing so, I should clarify how the American Revolution can be understood with respect to the popular revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The American Revolution was not a popular revolution but a bourgeois revolution with significant popular participation.  It was initiated and led by the American elite, a wealthy educated class composed primarily of merchants and large planters.  The popular sectors were active from the beginning, and they took control of the movement from 1775 to 1777, when they were most needed by the elite in its conflict with England.  But the American elite was able to reestablish control, its victory consolidated by the Constitution of 1787 (see “The US popular movement of 1775-77” 11/1/13; “American counterrevolution, 1777-87” 11/4/13).

     We also should be aware of a significant history of popular movements in the United States.  Progressive movements for social change had very important gains from the period of 1860 to 1972, including: the abolition of slavery; the establishment of the right of workers to organize and a decent wage for workers; the protection of the political and civil rights of women and African descendants, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans; and bringing the Vietnam War to an end.  

      However, at the end of the 1970s, the nation took a sharp and unexpected turn to the Right.  As a result, from 1980 to the present, Leftist voices have been marginalized, and public discourse is really a debate between moderate and extremist forms of conservativism.  

     This state of affairs is in part a result of the confusion of our people, who have been manipulated by the ideological distortions of the elite, aided by its control over a stunningly penetrative media infrastructure.  But I believe that the marginality of the Left is to a considerable extent a result of our own weaknesses.  We should be able to attain a better hearing for the project of the Left, inasmuch as it is fully consistent with scientific knowledge, human reason and common sense.  It calls for: the protection of the rights of all persons to live in decency and with full equality, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender; the rights of all nations to be sovereign and all peoples of the earth to live in dignity; and the protection of nature.  It is a project that is not only good and decent but also necessary, and this necessity should enhance its possibilities for realization.  Although there are ideological obstacles, even considerable ones, we should be able to participate effectively in public discourse.

      Our internal limitations were apparent at our zenith of the 1960s.  We were guilty of excesses of all kinds.  The white student anti-war movement adopted disruptive and/or violent strategies that were offensive to most of our people, and it sometimes converted political demonstrations into parties with pot-smoking and nudity.  By the early 1970s, most people disliked the war, but they disliked the anti-war movement even more.  With respect to race, Dr. King tried to teach us that “black power,” although a sound and important concept, was a frightening slogan to whites.  But young blacks were too angry, and young white radicals to impulsive, to listen.  By the 1970s, the nation turned to much greater racial civility, with the protection of basic political and civil rights regardless of race, but a profound racial social and cultural divide, rooted in 250 years of slavery and legal segregation, remained central to post-1980 US society.

      The tumultuous period came to an end with the election of Jimmy Carter, a good and decent man who wanted to take steps toward the protection of the environment and to develop a more humane form of imperialism, in which governments allied with our nation did not abuse the “human rights” of their citizens.  But Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan in the elections of 1980, in part because of Carter’s inability to manage a political situation created by the taking of hostages at the US embassy in Iran.  So the modest steps taken by Carter did not turn out to be the beginning of a reasonable and sane response to the emerging global crisis.  Instead, there emerged a period of the placing of the market above people, and of military interventions and wars of aggression.  The Left became marginal to public discourse.

     In spite of the prevailing right-wing mood, there are indications in the social consciousness of our people of a readiness to embrace a progressive alternative.  There is a profound alienation among our people.  They do not believe that their Congressmen and Senators are genuinely concerned with the well-being of ordinary people; they believe that politicians are more responsive to corporate interests than to the needs of people.  This general distrust of politicians is evident in low-voter turnout in elections, and in the low prestige in which the Congress is held.  And the alienation from the political-economic system extends to the corporate elite, which in the eyes of the people is interested only in corporate profits and not in the common good.  This is an historic popular attitude, as is indicated by the term “robber barons” to refer to John Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and others who came to dominate the emerging system of concentrated capital in the second half of the nineteenth century.

      If we take the experience of the Third World popular and socialist movements as a guide, it is reasonable to think that we of the Left should be able to take advantage of the alienation of our people and to effectively present to them a reasonable alternative project.  But today, as in the 1960s, are limitations are painfully evident.  We have jumped from issue to issue, without formulating a comprehensive national project.  We appear at demonstrations, where we shout and chant, but we do not provide explanations of the causes of the problems that we seek to remedy.  Specialists in communication know that in political persuasion, the credibility of the source is important.  But we do not present ourselves in a form that gives us credibility.  

     Having observed first hand popular movements in Latin America as well as the ongoing socialist project in Cuba for the last twenty-five years, I have been from the outset far more impressed with Latin American popular movements and discourse.  Public discourses are informed, and the speakers have an image of credibility, by virtue of their knowledge and background as well as the seriousness and the manner of their presentations.  In one-on-one conversations, I have encountered leaders who have a deep and expansive understanding of a number of issues, and who are committed to the cause of the people, as is evident in their manner of speaking and also in the fact that, in their political reality, their involvement as a movement leader implies risks to their own personal safety.  Perhaps this last fact is a reason for their seriousness; in Latin America, no one plays this game lightly.

       I have seen a very clear contrast between popular movements in Latin America and in the United States with respect to the tone of the discourse.  In general, there is in Latin America audacity with respect to the political authorities and the ruling class, but caution with respect to the people.  The movement leaders want to move the people in a new direction, but they are careful to avoid alienating themselves from the people.  They are respectful toward the values of the people, and they frame issues in ways that are less likely to offend.  When the people are confused, they take it as given that they as leaders must be more effective in persuading.

       Over the years I have reflected on this difference in sensitivity and tone between the movements of the Left in Latin America and those in the North.  And it seems to me that there are several issues that we in the US Left manage poorly.  Although we are essentially right in what we are saying with respect to these issues, we say it in a form that is insensitive to our people, giving them reason to reject what we are saying.  In subsequent posts, I will discuss issues and themes that I think we should manage better: race, gender, gay rights, ecology, patriotism, and faith.  

     In the last two posts, we have seen during the last twenty years Third World popular movements have emerged to demand “a just, democratic and sustainable world-system.”  And we have seen that during the last eighty years, socialist revolutions have triumphed in the Third World, and that today socialist governments, in addition to making internal structural transformations, are cooperating with progressive governments to develop relations that are based on mutual respect and solidarity, seeking to sidestep the world-system’s network of international relations based on domination and the pursuit of particular interests.  This alternative system of international relations can be interpreted as the first steps in the development of a socialist world-system, in which the twelve practices of socialism would be the norm (see “A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2016; “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016).

       In order for the transition to a socialist world-system to advance, the people in the nations of the core must take power away from the elite and put it in the hands of persons who are morally and intellectually prepared to defend the rights of the people, the wellbeing of the nation, and the sustainability of the world-system and the earth. Nation-states are principal actors in the world-system, and thus the transition to a socialist-world system would require that popular revolutions triumph in various nations, and especially important are the more powerful, wealthier, and larger nations.  The transition to a socialist world-system would occur through cooperation among socialist and progressive governments of the world, just as the transformation of Latin American political reality has occurred through cooperation among socialist and progressive governments in the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and just as BRICS is developing an alternative through the cooperation of governments that are mostly socialist and progressive.

     How can socialist revolutions triumph in the core?  To address this question, we should observe what triumphant socialist revolutions have done.  Such observation should not be based in an ethnocentric pejorative evaluation, in which we assume that the poverty of their nations makes it evident that they have made fundamental errors, a false assumption that leads us to invent or magnify limitations.  Rather, our observation should be based on recognition that the peoples of the Third World have accomplished something that the peoples of the North have not accomplished, namely, the development of sustained popular movements that, in some important cases, have taken power from the elite.  Our observation should be based on appreciation that we the peoples of the North have much to learn from the movements of the Third World.  

     Let us, then, first seek to understand what the popular and socialist movements of the Third World have done, and how they have done it, including also the historically significant case of the Russian Revolution, viewed as important by the Third World socialist revolutions.  Then we can proceed to analysis, in which we adapt their insights to the conditions of the nations of the North, so the peoples of the North also can attain popular power. 

      The taking of political power.  In the change to socialism in particular nations, popular movements have emerged that have sought to take control of the political institutions of the nation, and to use political power to also take control of economic, financial, media, educational, and health care institutions.  The taking of power by the people is necessary.  Popular movements mobilize protests and issue demands, but they alone are not enough; they must be seen as strategies that facilitate the goal of the taking of power.  Elites make concessions to protests and demands, but always in a form in which it maintains control of the political-economic system.  It is idealistic to think that, in the context of the crisis of the world-system, a just and sustainable world-system can be created without the taking of power by the people in various nations.  The taking of political power must be an explicit goal of the popular movements of the North.

     A popular movement.  The movements that have taken power are popular movements and not proletarian or industrial working-class movements.  The emphasis on proletarian revolutions has been central to the Marxist intellectual tradition.  But in fact, from the beginning, the revolutions were formed by social subjects of various popular classes.  Marx emphasized the industrial working class, because he discerned that it would become increasingly important as capitalism developed.  But the movement to which he was tied was in fact formed by artisans and intellectuals as well as industrial workers. The Russian Revolution was actually a revolution of peasants and workers.  Trotsky emphasized the industrial working-class, because of his understanding of the particular conditions of Russian industry, and Trotsky’s interpretation influenced Trotskyite parties to adopt a classic Marxist formulation of a revolution of the industrial working class. Lenin, on the other, adapted Marx to Russia by formulating the concept of a worker-peasant revolution, led by a working-class vanguard.  In Vietnam, the revolution was formed principally by the petit bourgeoisie and peasants.  Ho Chi Minh adopted the orthodox formulation of a working-class revolution, but he placed professionals and peasants in the category of workers, for they would become workers during the process of socialist transformation.  Unlike Ho, who studied in the Soviet Union, Fidel studied Marx, Engels and Lenin on his own, and he rather freely adapted Marxist concepts to the Cuban situation.  He understood the revolution to be a popular revolution, formed by various sectors of the people, including agricultural workers, industrial workers, tenant farmers, small businessmen, teachers, professors and professionals.  With the emergence of new social subjects in Latin America in the 1980s (women and indigenous persons), the example of Fidel to view the people, composed of various popular sectors, as the revolutionary subject was taken by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and Evo Morales in Bolivia.  We can today arrive at the formulation that the socialist movements of the world have been popular movements, formed by various sectors of the people.  We also should be aware that the great majority of the leaders of the popular movements, but not all, have come from the petit bourgeoisie.

      Charismatic leaders.  The popular movements have lifted up charismatic leaders.  At first, responding to some injustice, popular protests emerge.  But during the mobilization, charismatic leaders appear.  Charismatic leaders have studied intellectuals and leaders of their own nations and other lands, especially those who were connected to popular movements.  They have developed exceptional gifts for understanding the structures of domination and exploitation and the strategies that should be adopted.  And they possess an exceptional capacity to explain to the people and to connect to the concerns and hopes of the people.  They also are highly committed to the people and the nation.  Many gifted leaders spontaneously emerge in the movement.  But one or two leaders with exceptional gifts emerge to be a symbol of the movement of the people.  Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel, and Hugo Chávez are emblematic (see various posts on Charismatic Leaders).  

     Charismatic leaders are a product of the movement, nurtured and formed by it.  As they mature, and the movement recognizes their gifts, they are lifted up by the movement to speak on its behalf.  Speaking with charismatic authority, they denounce the global powers and the structures of the established system, and they speak in defense of the poor, the oppressed, the exploited, and the excluded.  They lead the movement to a more advanced stage, and they play the important role of unifying the movement, which invariably is divided into different tendencies.  Their presence is indispensable for the triumph and subsequent gains of the revolution, once it attains power.  

     Charismatic leaders are the prophets of our time, and their speeches and writings are sacred texts, like the texts of the words and the teachings of the prophets of ancient Israel, Jesus, and Muhammad.  They are the teachers of all of us, transcending the culture and the nation in which they spoke.  They are the most important part of the universal culture of humanity, and their teachings constitute important advances in human understanding of social dynamics.  We need to study them all, regardless of the particular nations any one of us is from, if we are to understand what is true and do what is right.  

     An alternative political party.  During the movement, an alternative party emerges, led by the charismatic leader.  It is an alternative to the traditional political parties that represent the established power.  And it is an alternative also to other parties of the movement, whose understanding is flawed in some aspect or other.  The party is only secondarily concerned with elections.  Its principle role is to educate the people, to develop their political and social consciousness, and to call the people to action, even heroic action.  The members of the party are well informed about the history of the nation, the structures of domination, the possibilities for emancipation and liberation, and the international situation.  And they have complete loyalty to the charismatic leader, as a result of their personal awareness of his exceptional gifts.  The charismatic leader cannot be everywhere at the same time, but the party can be.  The party members are the voice of the charismatic leader in every place of work and study, in every factory, field, university classroom, and neighborhood.  The party is indispensable for the education of the people and for the united and mass action of the people.  

     A manifesto.  Popular revolutions have issued manifestos, which explain the present situation of the nation and the popular struggle in historical and global context.  They denounce the structures of domination and exploitation, and they explain the necessity of the taking of power by the people.  The Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels during the Western European popular movement of the 1840s, is the most famous popular manifesto.  History Will Absolve Me, the testimony of Fidel at his 1953 trial for the attack on Moncada Barracks, functioned as the manifesto of the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s.  It galvanized the people and announced a new stage of the Cuban Revolution, which had begun in 1868; it put Fidel and the July 26 Movement at the head of the Cuban Revolution.

     A platform.  The popular revolution has a platform, a set of concrete proposals that address the most pressing injustices that the people confront.  The platform of Lenin involved the transfer of power from the parliament to the popular councils (soviets), the withdrawal of Russia from the World War I, and the distribution of land to the peasants.  The call for power to the soviets, peace and land galvanized the people, and it put Lenin and the Bolshevik Party at the head of the Russian Revolution.  

     The platform of the Cuban Revolution was contained in History Will Absolve Me.  Its concrete proposals included the restoration of the Constitution of 1940, agrarian reform, profit-sharing for workers and employees, educational reform, nationalization of US-owned utilities companies, and the confiscation of property that had been fraudulently obtained through government corruption.  All of these proposals responded to abuses and injustices that the people experienced, which were provoking disgust with the Batista regime and alienation from the neocolonial republic. They were proposals that Fidel and the July 26 Movement promised to implement when they arrive to power, a promise that was delivered. 

     The institutionalization of charismatic authority.  After the charismatic leader is gone, the party and its leaders continue to lead the people, on the basis of the teachings of the charismatic leader, in a constantly evolving national and international situation.  The party must be organically tied to the people.  Its members must be from and of the people, living among them, and not living apart.  It must listen to the concerns of the people, which was one of the most important gifts of the charismatic leader.

     Thus, if we observe the revolutions of the world, we see that the people have taken control of political and other institutions of the nation through the formation of popular movements that have lifted up charismatic leaders, have formed alternative political parties, and have issued manifestos and platforms.  We may have other conceptions concerning how revolutions ought to occur, but we should be guided by the general process through which the elite has been dislodged from power in other lands.  If human experience is to be our guide, we should understand these revolutionary dynamics and take them into account, as we reflect on what needs to be done by the people in the nations of the North.  

      The adaption of these lessons from the revolutions of the world to the particular conditions of the United States will be the subject of our next posts.

      The peoples of the Third World are today in movement calling for a just, democratic and sustainable world system (see “A just, democratic & sustainable world-system” 1/12/2015).  The most advanced of these movements understand that the development of such an alternative world-system requires a transition from a capitalist world-economy to a socialist world-system.  These advanced movements have proclaimed “Socialism for the XXI Century.”

      What is socialism?  The principles and characteristics of socialism cannot be formulated idealistically, on the basis of the abstract concepts isolated from real social movements and from the practice of socialism in nations where socialist revolutions have triumphed.  If we observe popular movements and socialist nations through encounter, with a listening that seeks understanding, we learn that the meaning of socialism has evolved over the last two centuries, and that there are a diversity and plurality of socialist practices.  But we also can discern that there are common practices in socialist nations.  Twelve such practices can be identified, on the basis of observation of two nations that once were socialist (Russia in the time of Lenin and Chile under Allende) and six nations that continue to develop socialist projects (China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador).  These twelve practices have not been fully developed in all eight cases, but they can be identified as general patterns.

     (1)    Power is in the hands of delegates of the people.  Socialist nations seek to develop a political process that is an alternative to representative democracy, which is a type of government originally created by Western bourgeois revolutions and subsequently developed by the Western powers.  Representative democracy is susceptible to elite control, for it is able to impose a debt on elected officials through its capacity to finance election campaigns, and it is able to frame and manipulate public discourse by virtue of its ownership of the media of communication and as a result of its capacity to fund think tanks.  As an alternative to representative democracy, socialist nations have developed popular democracy, which is established on a foundation of a multitude of small popular assemblies. The people meet in numerous local assemblies in order to discuss problems and issues and to make recommendations, and this structure of face-to-face dialogue weakens the capacity for ideological manipulation by a wealthy class.  The popular assemblies also meet to select delegates to serve in a higher level of popular power.  The elected delegates in turn select delegates to serve in a still higher level, until ultimately the highest political authority of the nation is established.  In socialist nations, citizens who serve in the highest levels tend to have the same demographic characteristics as the people: they are professionals, workers, peasants, students, women, and members of ethnic groups.  Political parties tend not to participate in the selection of those who hold political authority.  Political parties play more of a role of educating, disseminating ideas, and participating in the public discourse.  Citizens who hold political authority are selected by the people without mediation by political parties, and they are selected on the basis of personal characteristics that they possess. In some socialist countries, like Cuba, representative democracy has been eliminated, and the country is governed through structures of popular power; in others, like Venezuela, structures of representative democracy and popular democracy exist side-by-side.

     (2)  Sovereignty.  The nations of the Third World are historically colonized.  Their most important economic, political, and cultural institutions were under the control of the colonizers.  They successfully struggled to attain political independence, but the independence that they achieved was not a true independence, as a result of the fact that the colonial powers were able to preserve important economic and commercial structures established during colonialism.  The transition to neocolonialism was accomplished with the help of the collusion of the national bourgeoisie in the newly independent nations, and neocolonial control is reinforced by financial and ideological penetration and political maneuvering of the neocolonial power(s).  When neocolonial control breaks down, the global powers turn to military intervention, under any pretext.  Responding to this neocolonial situation, socialist nations of the Third World affirm the true sovereignty of the nation as a fundamental principle.  They maintain that each nation has the right to decide on its type of government and form of development, and the right to control over its natural resources and the cultural formation of its people.  In their quest for definitive independence, the socialist nations have played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement and in the processes of South-South cooperation.  (See various posts in the categories of Neocolonialism, Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration, and South-South cooperation).

     (3)  Cooperation among nations.  The socialist nations of the Third World maintain that the world-system should be guided by the principle of cooperation among nations, and they have tried to develop cooperative relations with other nations.  This has not always been possible, because the global powers have adopted a policy of conflict toward the socialist nations.  But the socialist governments have historically welcomed opportunities of cooperation with other governments.  Today, as the crisis of the world-system deepens, and as the incapacity of the global powers to respond constructively to the crisis becomes manifest, many progressive governments are taking the road of cooperation with the socialist governments.  This can been seen with respect to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC for its initials in Spanish) and the BRICS, which are multi-national associations that seek to develop mutually beneficially commerce as well as social and cultural exchanges.  These associations are establishing in practice an alternative model for humanity: the development of a world-system based on cooperation and mutual respect rather than conflict and domination.  (See declarations emitted by CELAC and BRICS).

     (4) Solidarity among peoples.   Parallel with the principle of cooperation among nations, socialism has practiced solidarity among peoples.  There are numerous examples of persons who, driven by commitment to social justice, have gone to other countries to join in a political struggle for liberation.  Socialism calls for international support for any people confronting hardship, whether its roots be political, commercial, or climatic.  Socialist governments participate in solidarity among peoples, by fostering cultural, academic and sports exchange among peoples; as well as by coming to the support of another nation in difficulty, as is illustrated by the support of the Cuban government for the government of Angola in the 1980s, and by the sending of medical missions to Africa by Cuba in response to the Ebola epidemic of 2015.

      (5)  Social and economic rights.  The concept that democratic rights include the social and economic rights is one of the most important principles of socialism, and socialist governments have invested considerable resources to national projects that seek to provide a minimal standard of living, adequate nutrition and housing, access to education, and health services.  Socialism maintains that these goods and services, necessary for living well and in dignity, should never be distributed solely on the basis of market principles, and it maintains that decisive state action is necessary to ensure that the economic and social rights of all persons are protected.    

     (6)  State directed economic development plans and various forms of property.  There has been some tendency to think that the nationalization of the means of production is the defining characteristic of socialism.  It is true that nationalization of the major means of production has been an important feature of socialist nations. However, socialist nations in practice have sanctioned other forms of property as well, giving varying degrees of emphasis to them in accordance with productive and commercial needs under particular conditions.  These forms of property, in addition to state ownership, include joint ventures with foreign capital, cooperatives, medium and small-scale capitalist enterprises, and private entrepreneurship.  What has distinguished the socialist nations is the central role of the state as an economic actor and as the author of a national plan for economic development.  In socialist nations, economic development is not left to market demands, nor do capitalists’ interests shape economic policy. Economic policies are developed by the state in representation of the interests of the majority of the people.  When socialist states grant space to private capitalist enterprises, they have made the judgment that such a policy can contribute to the production and distribution of goods and services, always a pressing concern, and as such it is beneficial to the people and to the long-term development of the nation.  It is an error to think that when a socialist nation grants space to foreign or domestic capital, it is no longer socialist.  

     (7)  Diversity in production.  Most socialist revolutions came to power in conditions in which the economy of the nation was characterized by the exportation of two or three raw materials and the importation of a variety manufactured goods and food products.  This created a situation of economic and political dependency on the international market and on one or two core nations that were the destiny of its exports and the source of its imports.  In order to facilitate true independence, the socialist nations have tried to strengthen and diversify their manufacturing and agricultural productivity.  This is often a difficult challenge, as a result of limited capital.

     (8) Public media.  Socialist governments have sought to place the media of information under public control.  Socialism does not believe that state ownership of the media restricts freedom of speech.  To the contrary, it maintains that private ownership of the media limits and distorts the awareness of the people, and this places constraints on their capacity to freely develop as persons.  When there is state ownership of the media, the directorship of the various networks and outlets of the media are appointed by ministers of the state, which are appointed by political authorities that are directly and indirectly elected by the people.  This implies that editorial judgements, rather than being guided by the particular interests of corporations and the powerful, ultimately must respond to the political leaders of the people, thus increasing the possibility that the media will serve the public good. Some socialist nations, like Cuba, have entirely eliminated private ownership of the media; others, like Venezuela, have invested in the expansion of the public media at the international, national and local levels, which exists alongside a regulated privately-owned media.

     (9)  Gender equality.  Socialist nations have been at the forefront of the struggle for the rights of women.  They have been guided by the principle of the full participation of women in the construction of a socialist society, including positions of authority in political and economic institutions.  This has been accomplished in a form that has not been conflictive.  In Cuba, for example, the struggle for gender equality has been consistently presented as “a women’s revolution within the socialist revolution,” and it has been supported from the beginning by the highest levels of leadership of the socialist revolution.

     (10) Ecological sustainability.  Socialist nations were not at the forefront of the ecology movement prior to 1990.  However, beginning in 1992, the socialist nations began to integrate the issue of the protection of the environment into its comprehensive project for the creation of an alternative, more just and sustainable world-system.  It has recognized and proclaimed that the current patterns of production and consumption of the world-system are unsustainable, and that they are likely to lead to climatic and ecological consequences that could threaten the survival of the human species.  While they recognize that all nations have a responsibility toward nature, they also insist on a “differentiated responsibility,” in which the industrialized nations of the North, which are primarily responsible for environmental degradation and have greater resources, take a particular responsibility for responding to the environmental crisis that threatens all of humanity. Within their own nations, socialist nations seek to protect the environment, to the extent that their resources permit, and taking into account that they must balance ecological issues with the need to provide for the basic necessities of the people (see “Sustainable development” 11/12/13).

     (11)  Patriotism.  Inasmuch as the popular struggles in the Third World were struggles for the sovereignty of the nations, their charismatic leaders were great patriots, and they called the people to patriotic service of their nation.  Ho Chin Minh, for example, formed in the tradition of Confucian nationalism, at the age of 29 took the name of Nguyen the Patriot.  Fidel Castro, educated in the nationalist tradition formed by the Cuban revolutionary José Martí, constantly invoked patriotic symbols in his discourses.  Revolutionary patriotism in the Third World, however, is completely unlike patriotism in the North, where politicians manipulate the patriotic sentiments of the people in order to induce them to support unjust and imperialist wars. In the Third World, the patriotic sentiments of the people are invoked in order to defend the sovereignty and the dignity of the nation against imperialist interventions.  The meaning and context of patriotism varies greatly, depending on which side of the colonial divide it is found (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013).

     (12)  Spirituality and revolutionary faith.  Third World socialist revolutions have been guided by spirituality.  Revolutionary spirituality draws from and is influenced by religious traditions.  Ho Chi Minh, for example, was formed by Confucian scholars; and Fidel was educated in Catholic schools.  But revolutionary spirituality re-expresses religious spirituality.  It proclaims the essential dignity of the human species, and it calls upon all to live in accordance with human dignity and to fulfill duties toward humanity as a whole and to nature.  Revolutionary spirituality sets aside the cynicism of the North, and it is based on faith in the future of humanity.  As the Cuban essayist Cintio Virtier has observed, it is “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).  This faith is the source of revolutionary sacrifice.  When it looks at the structures of domination and exploitation in our world, it does not escape to other-worldliness or to personal acquisitions; rather, it proclaims that “a better world is possible.”  (See “Universal human values” 4/16/2014 and “The revolutionary faith of Fidel” 9/15/2014).    

     Socialism cannot be implemented from above.  The global elite has demonstrated, particularly since 1980, its indifference to the long-term wellbeing of their own nations and of the peoples of the earth as well as to the sustainability of the earth itself.  In the countries of the North, where socialism has not triumphed, the people must take political and economic power away from the global elite.  How can this be done? We should form an understanding of the answer to this question by observing how Third World socialist movements were able to do it. This will be the subject of our next post.


Reference

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