The history of Bolivia, an impoverished land-locked country in the mountains of South America, with a population in which 61% are self-identified as indigenous, follows the patterns of the peripheralized regions of the Third World in the modern world-economy (see various posts on the origin and development of the modern world-system). 

 Following the conquest of the Inca Empire by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, systems of forced labor were imposed, for the purpose of supplying raw materials integral to the development of the world-economy. With respect to Bolivia, these raw materials were first silver, then tin, then natural gas and petroleum. For decades in Bolivia, the peripheral function in the world-economy co-existed with autonomous indigenous communities, agricultural societies with communal forms of land ownership. But as the world-economy expanded and developed, it increasingly encroached on indigenous land and autonomy. By 1930, the indigenous lands comprised only one-third of national territory, and the numbers of landless peasants exceeded the number of persons living in indigenous communities.

 During the twentieth century, Bolivian mine workers, peasants, and factory workers formed unions that were the base of a popular movement, which resulted in a developmentalist project of the government from 1930 to 1985. This project, typical of Latin America in the period, was forged through an alliance between the popular sectors and the national bourgeoisie. It makes some concessions to popular demands and provides some protection for national industry, without threatening the interests of foreign corporations. The high point of the Bolivian popular movement was the Bolivian Revolution of 1952, when the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement took control of the government, nationalized tin mines, and distributed land to peasants. But this occurred at a time when the tin mines had reached exhaustion, so that the economic and social transformations envisioned by the movement were not attained. 

 As the signs of the terminal structural crisis of the world-system began to appear in the 1970s, a consequence of the fact the system had reached and overextended the geographical and ecological limits of the earth, the global elite turned to the Right, aggressively pursuing its interests. Beginning in 1980, the neoliberal project was imposed on the world, culminating today in a world-system characterized by financial speculation, military interventionism, ideological manipulation, the declining sovereignty of nations, growing inequality, overreach of vital natural resources, increasing threats to the ecological balance of the earth, political instability, and interferences in the affairs of those nations that seek an alternative road.

 In the case of Bolivia, the neoliberal project was imposed in 1985, resulting in the elimination of the protective measures for the people and for national industry that were put in place during the developmentalist period. This gave rise to a revitalization of popular movements during the 1990s, in the form of mass mobilizations protesting specific measures that were part of the neoliberal package. In the period 2000-2006, the popular movement intensified. Mass mobilizations, road blockings, general strikes, work stoppages, and hunger strikes culminated in the resignation of the president in 2005 in the midst of a generalized chaos.

 As the renewed popular movement unfolded in the period 1990-2005, new political parties were formed, and they were effective in taking popular electoral backing away from the traditional political parties that had cooperated with the imposition of the neoliberal project. One of the parties was the Movement toward Socialism (MAS), a federation of social movement organizations and unions, founded in 1995. Its principal leader was Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer who had been born and raised in a poor town in the Bolivian high plains and who emerged as a leader in the coca farmers’ union. Proposing a constitutional assembly and the nationalization of the natural gas and petroleum companies, Morales finished second in the 2002 elections, in which a traditional party with its neoliberal commitment prevailed. But in the next elections, held on December 18, 2005, Morales and MAS won the presidential elections with 54% of the vote, obtaining an absolute majority in the first round. 

 The government of Morales has sought to put into practice an alternative economic model based on control of the natural resources of the nation and the establishment of national sovereignty. It has attempted to break with a political-economic system in which the transnational corporations, the international finance agencies, the national elite, and the United States are the principal political actors in the country. It has followed a vision of endogenous development tied to the demands of the popular movement, in which the social actors include indigenous organizations, peasant organizations, unions of workers in the petroleum and gas industries, professionals, and small and medium sized businesses.

 In accordance with his campaign promise and a fundamental popular demand, Morales convoked a Constitutional Assembly, which was convened on August 6, 2006, and which led to a new Constitution, approved on January 25, 2009 in a popular referendum, with 61.4% of the vote. The new Constitution recognizes the autonomy of the indigenous communities, and thus it established the Plurinational State of Bolivia. The Constitution establishes a maximum extension of land of 5000 hectares for personal property; it guarantees access to health services, education, employment, and potable water as constitutional rights; and it prohibits the establishment of a foreign military base in the country.

 The government of Morales renegotiated contracts with natural gas and petroleum companies, resulting in a great increase in state revenues, which are used to develop a variety of social programs, including programs in literacy and credit for small farmers. The Morales government has initiated a land-reform program, beginning with the appropriation of land that was unproductive or that was fraudulently obtained, a common practice during the era of the neoliberal governments. And Bolivia became the third member of the Boliviarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), joining Venezuela and Cuba. Today, Bolivia’s membership in ALBA enables it to negotiate mutually beneficial economic and social relations with Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, and several Caribbean nations.

 By 2007, a counterrevolution had taken shape, formed by the owners of the large estates, large-scale businesspersons, leaders of the traditional political parties that benefitted from the previous political-economic order, and transnational corporations. The US government has provided financial support to the counterrevolution.

 In 2009, Evo Morales was re-elected president of Bolivia with 64.22% of the popular vote. MAS won a majority in the National Assembly, including a two/thirds majority in the Senate. MAS won control of six of the nine departments of the country and 228 of the 337 municipalities.

 Along with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales has emerged as one of the charismatic leaders in the new political reality that has been forged in Latin America, which has challenged not only the neoliberal project but the structures of the neocolonial world-system. Reflecting this reality, Bolivia was named this year as the President of the G-77 plus China, and Morales led an anniversary commemoration in which the presidents adopted a declaration, “Toward a New World Order for Living Well.” (See the Address by Evo Morales on the occasion of the transfer of the presidency of the G77 plus China to Bolivia on January 8, 2014; for more on the phenomenon of charismatic leadership in revolutionary processes, see “On charismatic leaders” in the Blog Index).

 In his address at the 69th Morales expressed a perspective on global affairs that reflects an understanding and moral evaluation that is typical of the charismatic leaders, movements, and governments of the Third World. He affirms the need to live in harmony with Mother Earth; the social and economic rights of all persons, including the rights of access to water, electricity, telecommunication, nutrition, education and health services; the right of the nations of the Third World to sovereignty and true independence; and the right of Third World nations to control their natural resources. He maintains that capitalism undermines these rights of persons and nations, and he calls upon the world to combat the “omnipresent power of banks.” He calls for a fundamental reconstruction of the global financial architecture, maintaining that the principal global financial institutions must no longer be controlled by the developed countries. He proposes the development of mutually beneficial relations among nations, based in the principle of solidarity; and he applauds the steps taken to this end in Latin America and the Third World.

 Morales expressed opposition to the wars launched by the “great powers and corporations” in pursuit of “imperial and neocolonial interests.” He condemned US interference in Iraq, maintaining that the US war in Iraq created the present crisis. He rejected the present policy of waging war against war, which he labeled a perverse formula, maintaining that war should be attacked at its structural causes, which include “marginality; poverty; the absence of opportunity; cultural, political and social exclusion; discrimination; inequality; the seizure and robbery of territory; ruthless capitalism; and the dictatorship of transnational interests.”

 Morales also condemned the “barbarous and cruel genocidal action of Israel against the civil population of Palestine” as well as the US economic and financial blockade of Cuba.

 Evo Morales concluded his address to the General Assembly with the following words:

An English translation of Evo Morales' address to the United Nations can be found at: “Address by Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, at the 69th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 24, 2014.”

Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Evo Morales, UN General Assembly, Bolivia

Posted June 12, 2014

     A fundamental tendency in human societies since the agricultural revolution has been the formation of world-empires and world-economies, with accompanying advances in civilization, on a foundation of conquest.  I have called this principle of human social dynamics “the dialectic of domination and development” (see “Dialectic of domination and development” 10/30/2013).  Jared Diamond (1999) has maintained that the societies that were able to conquer others were those that, driven by necessity provoked by population growth and environmental factors, had turned earliest to food production, thereby enabling them to maintain fulltime specialists, such as soldiers, state administrators, craftsmen, and priests, who played important roles in wars of conquest (see “What enables conquest?” 8/9/2013; “Food production and conquest” 8/12/2013).  

     The dialectic of domination and development received advanced expression with the modern nation-state, which is characterized by centralization of political authority and by unity established on the basis of common ethnic identification.  Centralization was a significant force in Western Europe from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, pushed by monarchs and merchants as a consequence of their common interest in overcoming the local power of feudal lords.  National ethnic identification took shape in Spain, England and France, as a result of wars of conquest reinforced by natural geographical boundaries.   In the case of Spain, it was a matter of reconquest in reaction to the Moorish conquest; whereas England and France had continuous wars with one another.  The common ethnic identification of the modern nation-state became a unifying force, replacing religion, which had functioned as the central unifying force in the traditional state.  This ultimately gave rise to the differentiation of political leaders from religious leaders, reducing the role of the latter.  Common ethnic identification made possible the unifying of peoples of diverse cultural-religious traditions in a territory governed by a single state (see “European feudalism” 8/13/2013; “The modern nation-state” 8/14/2013; Cristóbal 2008).

     Modern nation-states were the central actors in the formation of the modern world-system.  The modern world-system came into being as a result of the Spanish conquest of America, which, in addition to the factors that had forged the Spanish nation-state, also was aided by the lack of horses and iron and the limited resistance to disease among the indigenous kingdoms and societies of America.   The Spanish conquest of America was the foundation for the forced acquisition of gold and silver, which was utilized by Spain to maintain its army and expanding state bureaucracy and to sustain the life-style of the expanding upper and middle classes.  The Spanish, however, did not manufacture the goods required for these needs; rather, they purchased necessary manufactured goods from northwestern Europe.  Therefore, the Spanish purchase of manufactured goods promoted the economic development of Northwestern Europe, stimulating the modernization of agriculture (including centralization of land and conversion from feudal obligations to rent payments), the conversion of land use from agriculture to pasture, and the expansion of industry.  And it caused the peripheralization of Eastern Europe, where landholders converted a decayed feudalism into capitalist agriculture that supplied Western Europe with grains and timber.  Thus, during the sixteenth century, a European-centered world-economy took shape, with Western Europe as the core and Spanish America and Eastern Europe as the periphery.  The peripheral regions functioned to provide cheap raw materials on a foundation of forced labor to the core and to provide markets for the surplus goods of the core, thus facilitating the economic development of the core and strengthening the nation-states of England and France and their capacity for conquest (see “The origin of the modern world-economy” 8/6/2013; “Modernization of the West” 8/7/2013; “Conquest, gold, and Western development” 8/8/2013; Wallerstein 1974).

      During the period of 1750 to 1914, seven Western European nation-states, led by Britain and France, conquered, colonized, and peripheralized vast regions of Africa and Asia, converting them into suppliers of raw materials, on a foundation of forced labor, for the modernizing industries of Western Europe.  The conquered regions also functioned to purchase surplus manufactured goods of the core. Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the capitalist world-economy had become global, with Western Europe and the European settler societies of North America as the core, and with the periphery formed by Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, except for China and Japan; South America (except Bolivia) and Eastern Europe had ascended to semi-peripheral status, having developed limited levels of industry.  A world-system characterized by extreme levels of inequality, in which the majority of persons and peoples on the planet were denied the democratic rights proclaimed by the ideology of the world-system, had taken shape (see “New peripheralization, 1750-1850” 8/20/2013; “The world-economy becomes global, 1815-1914” 8/21/2013; Wallerstein 1989; Frank 1979).

     At the end of the nineteenth century, the capitalist world-economy entered its imperialist phase.  Lenin provided a penetrating description of the characteristics of imperialism.  In Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, published in 1917, Lenin writes that imperialism is characterized by the concentration of industry and banking, so that a small number of large firms dominate industry and banking.  The large corporations and banks turn to the investment of capital in the peripheralized zones, where the price of land and labor is low, and profits are high (see “Lenin on imperialism” 9/10/2013).  Thus, in the twentieth century, the axis of super-exploitation, in which labor received less compensation than is necessary for life, shifts from the industrial factories of the core to the plantations, haciendas, and mines of the peripheralized zones.  

     The reaping of high profits during the twentieth century through the super-exploitation of the peripheralized regions made possible concessions by transnational corporations to workers in the core, so that there occurred a significant improvement in the standard of living of core workers, such that their social and economic rights were protected, for the most part, at least prior to the emergence of the terminal structural crisis of the world-system.  Concessions to core workers made possible the cooptation of the workers’ movement and its transformation from a revolutionary movement to a reform movement. 

     Thus, once the capitalist world-economy entered the imperialist phase, the force of the revolution no longer is located in the working-class organizations of the core but in the peripheralized zones.  Because the peripheralized zones were historically peripheralized through the conquest and colonization by European nation-states, the revolutions in the periphery have taken an anti-colonial character, consisting of nationalist revolutions that seek national liberation and independence from colonial domination (Arboleya 2008: 4, 10-11, 21-23). 

        From the period of 1919 to the 1960s, Third World national liberation movements developed a significant challenge to the world structures of colonial domination.  The core powers responded to this threat by seeking to coopt the national liberation movements, through a strategy of obtaining the cooperation of the national bourgeoisies in the perpetuation of the core-peripheral relation following a transition to political independence.  The overall success of this strategy led to a transition from colonialism to neocolonialism and the consolidation of a neocolonial world-system.  With respect to radical national liberation governments in the Third World that could be not coopted, the strategy of the global powers has been to overthrow them and replace them with a moderate and more cooperative government, or failing that, to economically and diplomatically isolate the government, so that its autonomous path will have limited impact on the neocolonial world-system.

      Third World national liberation movements have a component of social transformation, involving a class struggle within the colony/neocolony that pits the popular classes against the national bourgeoisie.  In most cases, this class struggle takes the form of peasants, agricultural workers, and their allies from other popular sectors in opposition to an estate bourgeoisie or agricultural bourgeoisie.  This is rooted in the objective conditions of the peripheralized colony/neocolony.  The agricultural elite profits from the trading of its products with transnational corporations, over a base of low-waged labor, and thus it has an objective interest in the preservation of the core-peripheral relation.  In opposition to the particular interests of the agricultural elite, the sovereignty of the nation requires the formulation of a national development plan by and in the interests of the popular sectors, on the basis of which the use of land and human labor is decided.  This requires that the agricultural bourgeoisie be dislodged from its position of control over the decision-making process. 

     Thus, within national liberation movements conflict emerges between the interests of the agricultural elite and the interests of the popular sectors.  Moderate national liberation movements are those in which the interests of the agricultural elite shape the direction of the movement, and they cooperate with the global powers.  But radical national liberation movements are those in which the popular sectors take control.  They cannot be coopted by the neocolonial system, and they must be destroyed or marginalized by the global powers.

     In the colonies and neocolonies of the world-system, there are particular factors and conditions that shape whether the national liberation movement will emerges as a moderate or radical movement.  In the case of Cuba, various factors led to a situation in which its national liberation movement would become radical and indeed would become one of the most advanced revolutionary movements of national liberation, placing it in an epic battle with its neighbor to the North, the hegemonic neocolonial world power.  We will be exploring various components of this story in subsequent posts.


References

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

Diamond, Jared.  1999.  Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.  New York: W.W. Norton.

Cristóbal Pérez, Armando.  2008.  El Estado-Nación: Su Origen y Construcción.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Frank, Andre Gunder.  1979.  Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment.  New York:  Monthly Review Press.

Lenin, V.I.  1996. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.  Introduction by Norman Lewis and James Malone.  Chicago: Pluto Press.

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1974.  The Modern World System, Vol. I.  New York:  Academic Press. 

__________.  1989.  The Modern World System, Vol. III.  New York:  Academic Press.

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

June 13, 2014

     The conflict between Cuba and the United States is in not an accident.  It is the logical expression of central historic tendencies in the modern world-system.

       On the one hand, there is the tendency for a single core nation to emerge as hegemonic.  The United States was the third hegemonic nation in the history of the world-system, following Holland, which passed through a cycle of hegemony during the seventeenth century and attained hegemonic maturity from 1620 to 1650; and Great Britain, whose movement through the cycle of hegemony occurred during the nineteenth century, attaining hegemonic maturity from 1850 to 1873. The spectacular ascent of the United States occurred as a result of its expansionist conquest of new territories that were incorporated into its national political boundaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; its accumulation of capital as a result of lucrative trade relations with the slaveholding societies of the Caribbean and  the US South from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries; its investment in the highly profitable industries of textile in the nineteenth century and steel and auto in the twentieth century; and its development of imperialist policies during the twentieth century, enabling it to have access to the raw materials, cheap labor, and markets of the world. The height of its hegemony was from 1945 to 1968.

      On the other hand, there is the tendency of the resistance of the colonized.  The resistance is permanent and self-renewing, as a result of a human need and desire for social justice.  Resistance can be repressed for a time, but it will express itself again.  And the resistance is cumulative, in that it learns from the experiences of the past struggles in the nation and those of other lands.  Like the capacity of a nation-state for conquest, the capacity for resistance by the people is driven by various factors.  Accordingly, although all colonized nations and peoples will develop resistance struggles, some movements of national liberation will be more advanced than others.

     We will see in subsequent posts on the Cuban Revolution that various factors have made the Cuban movement of national liberation advanced: the historic plantation economy of Cuba, thus creating a tradition and culture of rebellion typical of slave societies; the development of core-like activities, represented by middle class tobacco farmers, tobacco manufacturing, and the role of Havana as an international port, giving rise to a significant working class and middle class that were politically repressed and economically exploited by the colonial and neocolonial situation; the tendency, typical of slave societies in Latin America, toward the emergence of a significant mixed-race population and for blurred racial boundaries, giving rise to tendencies toward cultural and social integration among the popular sectors; the failure of the war of independence of 1868, leading to the control of the movement by the radical sector of the petit bourgeoisie by the 1890s; the lateness of Cuban independence, and the early arrival of neocolonialism, with the result that the movement developed for decades in a neocolonial context; and the influence of the Russian Revolution on the movement.  Because of the advanced character of the Cuban movement, its charismatic leaders formulated penetrating insights, more advanced than those of the charismatic leaders of other lands.  In the 1890s, for example, José Martí had forged in theory and practice the integration of anti-colonial and class struggles, and he had discerned the imperialist intentions of the United States.  In the 1920s, Julio Antonio Mella introduced Marxist-Leninist concepts to the national liberation and class struggle, and in the same rebellious decade, women’s organizations emerged to call for the incorporation of issues of gender in the anti-imperialist and social struggle.  All of these tendencies influenced Fidel Castro, who would develop them further in exercising charismatic authority from July 26, 1953 to January 2009.  Fidel’s formation also was influenced by the ethical example of his father, a landholder who had not been socialized in bourgeois culture, and by the private Catholic elementary and high schools that Fidel attended.

    Thus, there has emerged during the last half century an epic battle between the world-system’s most advanced neocolonial power and its most advanced revolution of national liberation.  It is a battle that the United States has lost.  Overspending in military forces and in consumption, rather than investing in economic production, the United States has experienced economic, commercial and financial decline since 1968.   Although it continues to be the world’s dominant force militarily and ideologically, it no longer is able to impose its political project on the Third World, which has begun to assert its independence, particularly in Latin America.  The US blockade of Cuba has been condemned by the nations of the world, and thus the blockade is beginning to hamper the conduct of US foreign policy and the attainment of its imperialist goals.  For this reason, key political actors in the United States have called for an end to the US embargo of Cuba.  Such a change would not imply, of course, that the United States would cease its efforts to destroy the Cuban Revolution.  It would mean that US strategies in opposition to the Cuban Revolution would be more consistent with the accepted rules of the neocolonial world-system.  But any adjustment in US policy that involves an end of the blockade would strengthen the Cuban Revolution and its capacity to resist US efforts to destroy it. 

     The US blockade has had a significant effect on Cuba, and it has resulted in many hardships for the people.  However, during the last fifty years, Cuba has developed excellent systems of health and education, and it has formed committed leaders with advanced understanding at national and local levels and at upper and middle levels of authority.  It has won the respect and admiration of the peoples of the world.  Although there has been an erosion of revolutionary values since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the “Special Period,” there remains nevertheless an enormous revolutionary fund among the people.  The Cuban Revolution continues to confront its challenges with intelligence, vitality, energy, and hope.  

     The decline of the United States and the continuing vitality of the Cuban Revolution is an indication of the state of the world.  The world-system is in decadence: since 1970, it has entered a terminal structural crisis (see “The terminal crisis of the world-system” 3/28/2014), and the response of the global elite has been, since 1980, to wage economic war against the poor, and in more recent years, to launch interventionist wars and to stimulate fascist popular violence, on the basis of distortions and lies, directed against governments that seek an alternative world-system.  On the other hand, since 1995, the revolution of the Third World has renewed, and it has reached its most advanced stage.  Various socialist and progressive governments, Cuba among them, are cooperating with one another in the development of an alternative more just and democratic world-system.  Based on the well-spring of human thirst for social justice, they have faith in the future of humanity.

       For those of us in the North, let us encounter the movements of the Third World, so that we may understand (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013).  Let us set aside cynicism and ethnocentrism, and let us cast our lot with faith, hope, and social justice.  I will in subsequent posts endeavor to aid understanding of Cuba, the Cuban Revolution, and the charismatic leader who formed the Cuban people into a revolutionary people.


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

Posted June 16, 2014

     We have seen that the conquest, colonization, and peripheralization of vast regions of the world by seven European nation-states from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries involved the imposition of systems of forced labor for the production of raw materials, thus establishing a world-system in which the core nations have access to cheap labor and cheap raw materials as well as markets for their surplus manufactured goods (see “The modern world-economy” 8/2/2013; “Unequal exchange” 8/5/2013; “The origin of the modern world-economy” 8/6/2013; “Modernization of the West” 8/7/2013; “Conquest, gold, and Western development” 8/8/2013; “New peripheralization, 1750-1850” 8/20/2013; “The world-economy becomes global, 1815-1914” 8/21/2013; “Cuba in historical and global context” 6/12/2014). 

     In the case of Cuba, the raw materials products were sugar, tobacco, coffee, gold, and cattle products.  The forced labor included African slave labor, indigenous slave labor, and the Spanish colonial labor systems of the encomienda and the repartimiento. 

     Gold.  Using indigenous slave labor, gold nuggets were extracted from riverbed sand immediately following Spanish conquest of Cuba in 1511 and 1512.  Father Bartolomé de las Casas, who would become famous as Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, and as defender of indigenous peoples, documented the brutal treatment of the indigenous slaves, who toiled in the riverbeds from dawn to dusk.  The exploitation of the gold ended in 1542, with the exhaustion of the gold and the near total extermination of the indigenous population, as a result of the harsh conditions of labor, the effects of disease, and the disruption of indigenous systems of production (López Segrera 1972:35-49; Pérez 2006:18-22; Foner 1962:20-32).

      Cattle products.  The exportation of cattle products to Spain, or to other European nations via contraband trade, was the principal economic activity in Cuba in the period 1550 to 1700.  It was ideal for the conditions of limited supplies of labor and capital that existed in Cuba during the period (López Segrera 1972:36, 60-87).

     Sugar.  Sugar plantations were developed utilizing imported African slaves.  They were first developed in Cuba at the end of the sixteenth century, and they continued to expand, especially after 1750, in conjunction with the expansion of the capitalist world-economy (see “New peripheralization, 1750-1850” 8/20/2013; “The world-economy becomes global, 1815-1914” 8/21/2013).  Sugar plantations and slavery dominated the economy and defined the Cuban political-economic system during the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century (López Segrera 1972:87-158; Pérez 2006:32-33, 40, 48, 54-65; Barcía, García, and Torres-Cuevas:259-60).

     Coffee.  Like sugar, coffee production was developed using African slave labor.  It was never developed on the scale of sugar, but it was a significant part of the economy of colonial Cuba.  It expanded following 1750, and it received a boost in Cuba as a result of the arrival of slaveholders and their slaves from Haiti following the Haitian revolution.

     Tobacco.  Whereas sugar, coffee, gold, and cattle products were developed in Cuba in accordance with a classical peripheral role, tobacco production in Cuba was developed with some core-like characteristics.  Tobacco production for export emerged in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and it was produced not by forced low-waged laborers but by middle class farmers.  By the first half of the eighteenth century, some tobacco growers had accumulated sufficient capital to develop tobacco manufacturing.  Tobacco production and manufacturing represented a potential for the development of Cuba that was different from the peripheral role represented by sugar, coffee, and slavery.  During the first half of the eighteenth century, there was a possibility that Cuba would emerge as a semi-peripheral nation, with a degree of manufacturing and economic and commercial diversity.  Contributing to this possibility was the diversity of economic activities found in the city of Havana, as a consequence of its role as a major international port.  But with the expansion of sugar production after 1750, the peripheral role defined by sugar and coffee became predominant, although tobacco production by middle class farmers and tobacco manufacturing continued to exist (López Segrera 1972:75-76, 90-91; Pérez 2006:33, 40).

     Consistent with the general patterns of the world-system, the peripheralization of Cuba created its underdevelopment.   There were high levels of poverty and low levels of manufacturing.  The vast majority of people lacked access to education, adequate nutrition and housing, and health care.  Relatively privileged sectors, such as tobacco farmers, tobacco manufacturers, and the urban middle class, found their interests constrained by the peripheral role and by the structures of Spanish colonialism.  Only owners of sugar and coffee plantations benefitted from the peripheralization of the island, and even they were constrained by Spanish colonialism.  During the nineteenth century, these dynamics gave rise to a movement of national liberation, which we will discuss in the next post.

      For further discussion of the peripheralization of Cuba, see “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context.”


References

Barcía, María del Carmen, Gloria García and Eduardo Torres-Cuevas.  1994.  Historia de Cuba: La Colonia: Evolución Socioeconómica y formación nacional de los orígenes hasta 1867.   La Habana: Editora Política. 

Foner, Philip S.  1962.   A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, Vol. I.  New York: International Publishers. 

López Segrera, Francisco.  1972.  Cuba: Capitalismo Dependiente y Subdesarrollo (1510-1959).  La Habana: Casa de las Américas.

Pérez, Jr., Louis A.  2006.  Cuba:  Between Reform and Revolution, 3rd edition.  New York: Oxford University Press. 


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

Posted June 17, 2014

     Prior to the development of an anti-colonial movement in Cuba, slave rebellions and other forms of slave resistance were an important part of the political landscape of Cuba (Pérez 2006: 55, 72-74; Foner 1962: 48-50).  The conditions during slavery of extreme and brutal repression made impossible the development of a social movement, able to form organizations and formulate programs and ideologies. Nevertheless, slave resistance and rebellion was an important expression of a spirit of rebellion that emerged as an integral part of Afro-Cuban culture.  And because of the high degree of cultural and ethnic integration in Cuba, the Afro-Cuban cultural characteristic of courage and audacious rebellion would become an important influence on the Cuban movement of national liberation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

     In the first decades of the nineteenth century, there emerged in Cuba a number of intellectuals whose writings and teachings provided the foundation for Cuban national consciousness and identity, which as it evolved would unite two critical ideas: the independence of Cuba and the abolition of slavery.  The most outstanding of these intellectuals was Father Felix Varela, a professor at San Carlos Seminary in Havana (Vitier 2006:5-41; Barcía, García, and Torres-Cuevas 1996:12-14).  

     The emerging Cuban nation, however, did not join in the Latin American independence movements of the early nineteenth century.  Cuban landholders feared that an independence movement would unleash uncontrollable forces from below, as had occurred in Haiti from 1789 to 1805 (Castro 1990:5; see “Slave rebellion in Haiti” 12/9/2013; “Toussaint L’Ouverture” 12/10/2013; “The problem of dependency” 12/11/2013; “Toussaint seeks North-South cooperation” 12/12/2013; “Toussaint and racial conciliation” 12/13/2013; “Toussaint and revolutionary terror” 12/16/2013; “The isolation and poverty of Haiti” 12/17/2013; and “Lessons from the Haitian Revolution” 12/18/2013).

     But a Cuban ethic, integrally tied to social and political movement and economic development, continued to evolve, an ethic that sought Cuban autonomy in accordance with universal human values.  On this moral and spiritual foundation, the Cuban Revolution was launched on October 10, 1868, when Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a landholder and slave-owner in the Eastern province of Oriente, declared, at his plantation La Demajagua, the independence of Cuba and the freedom of his slaves, a gesture followed by other slave-holders present.  Seeking to enlist the support of Western landholders to the independence cause, Céspedes called for the gradual and compensated, rather than immediate, abolition of slavery. Subsequently, landholders from the central provinces of Camaguey and Las Tunas joined the insurrection.  On April 10, 1869, the Republic of Cuba in Arms was established in the town of Guáimaro in Camaguey.  Its constitution declared the abolition of slavery (Barcía, García, and Torres-Cuevas 1996:25-52; Vitier 2006:42-45).

     Thus, the independence war of 1868 was a revolution of national liberation and a democratic anti-slavery revolution.  Although it was led by Eastern landholders, it inspired the popular sectors to active participation, including the rural and urban middle classes; revolutionary  intellectuals; an emerging proletariat; craftsmen; slaves in the liberated zones; and free white, black, and mulatto farmers.  It forged a common struggle, uniting popular sectors, overcoming divisions of class and race (Barcía, García, and Torres-Cuevas 1996:2-3; Castro 1990:6).

      But in 1878, the Pact of Zanjón ended the war without conceding the independence of Cuba, and it granted liberty only to those slaves who had fought in the insurrectionist ranks.   Various factors contributed to the failure of the Ten Years’ War to attain nationalist goals: the opposition to the struggle on the part of the Western landholders, who feared that the unfolding forces would unleash an uncontrollable revolution from below; divisions between the executive and legislative branches of the Republic in Arms, which led to the destitution of Céspedes as president in 1873; the deaths of Céspedes in 1874 and Ignacio Agramonte in 1873, the two principal leaders of the revolution; and a tendency toward regionalism and caudillismo in the revolutionary army (Barcía, García, and Torres-Cuevas 1996:94-96, 140; Vitier 2006:5-8, 45-69; Arboleya 2008:49-51; López Segrera 1972:112-15, 126-29; Pérez 2006:86-93).

     José Martí, who had been imprisoned for his revolutionary sentiments in 1869 at the age of 16, and subsequently deported to Spain, learned from the divisions that had caused the failure of the Ten Years’ War.  He led the national liberation movement in a second war of independence, launched in 1895, in which the unity being forged in practice by the popular sectors would be matched by the ideological clarity of the leadership.  In this new phase, the Cuban Revolution would be led not by the Eastern estate bourgeoisie but by the revolutionary sector of the petit bourgeoisie.  We will discuss this evolution of the Cuban Revolution in the subsequent posts.


References

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

Barcía, María del Carmen, Gloria García and Eduardo Torres-Cuevas.  1994.  Historia de Cuba: La Colonia: Evolución Socioeconómica y formación nacional de los orígenes hasta 1867.   La Habana: Editora Política. 

Castro Ruz, Fidel.  1990.  Informe Central: I, II y III Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

Foner, Philip S.  1962.   A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, Vol. I.  New York: International Publishers. 

López Segrera, Francisco.  1972.  Cuba: Capitalismo Dependiente y Subdesarrollo (1510-1959).  La Habana: Casa de las Américas.

Pérez, Jr., Louis A.  2006.  Cuba:  Between Reform and Revolution, 3rd edition.  New York: Oxford University Press. 

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


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, 1868, Ten Years’ War

Posted June 26, 2014

     José Martí, the son of Spanish immigrants from Valencia and the Canary Islands, was born in 1853 in Havana.  His father worked as a bureaucrat in the Spanish colonial administration.  The young Martí was greatly influenced by his teacher, the Cuban patriot Rafael María de Mendive, through whom he internalized the teachings of Cuban nationalist thought and its concepts of Cuban independence and the abolition of slavery (see “The Cuban war of independence of 1868” 6/17/2014).  Martí was imprisoned in 1869 at the age of 16 for his activities in support of Cuban independence, and he was deported to Spain a year later.  He subsequently lived in Madrid, Guatemala, Mexico, and New York City, spending fourteen years in the United States from 1881 to 1895.  He played a central role in the further development of the Cuban nationalist ethic, seeking to overcome the divisions and ideological limitations that had led to the failure of the independence war of 1868-78 and the “Guerra Chiquita” of   1879-80. Seeking to establish in political practice the necessary unity and ideological clarity, he formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892. He died in combat in 1895, shortly after the beginning of the third Cuban war of independence (de Armas and Rodríguez 1994:391).

      Martí was profoundly impacted by the injustice of colonial domination in Cuba and by the violence and brutality to which the Cuban black population was subjected.  He synthesized a wide variety of intellectual and moral tendencies, including naturalism, positivism, and the perspective of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America.  He sought to form a common consciousness that would be the basis for political action and for the forging of a popular democratic revolution by all, regardless of race or class.  He envisioned not only independence from colonial Spain but also from the imperialist intentions of the United States.  And he envisioned a republic by and for the good of all, regardless of race or class (Vitier 2006:74-78; de Armas and Rodríguez 1994:387-90).

      Martí formulated this vision at a time in which the public discourse in Cuba was dominated by conservatism and reformism.  Even in its most progressive expressions, reformism did not advocate independence, much less an independent republic characterized by inclusion and social equality.  Thus, what Martí proposed seemed impossible.  But Martí believed that the task of Cuban patriots was to make possible the impossible.  And this is attained through a commitment to integrity and duty, which involves above all the seeking of truth, thereby overcoming distortions and confusions.  For Martí, such incapacitating of the distortions that emerge from colonialism, slavery, and domination constitutes the necessary foundation of a struggle for liberation, for “the first task of humanity is to reconquer itself” (quoted in Vitier 2006:89)   He believed that heroes emerge that lead the way, heroes that are dedicated to the “redeeming transformation of the world” (Vitier 2006:91) through sacrifice and the seeking of the truth (Vitier 2006:78-91).

      Because of the confusion dominating the public discourse in Cuba as well as restrictions imposed by the colonial situation, Martí focused his efforts on the Cuban émigré community.  But even the Cuban emigration was characterized by many divisions: class divisions between the petit bourgeoisie and the factory workers (concentrated in tobacco factories in Florida); racist attitudes among white Cubans; various currents of conservative and reformist thought among the petit bourgeoisie; and currents of socialist and anarchist thought that disdained nationalist patriotic struggles among factory workers.  Accordingly, Martí formed in 1892 the Cuban Revolutionary Party in order to unify the struggle.  The purpose was not control from above, inasmuch as the Cuban émigré clubs that joined the Cuban Revolutionary Party were permitted substantial authority in local affairs.  The goal was unity in support of fundamental principles: the independence of Cuba; the formation of an independent republic not controlled by colonial or imperialist powers; the development of an inclusive republic by all and for the good of all, regardless of race or class; and identification with the oppressed and the poor (Vitier 2006:92-97; Arboleya 2008:55-57; de Armas and Rodríguez 1994:403-11).  

     As a result of his fourteen years in the United States, Martí was aware that capitalism was entering a phase of monopoly capital, of large and concentrated industries and banks, and that this made possible an imperialist penetration by the global powers in nations that are formally politically independent, a phenomenon that we today call neocolonialism.  He thus considered anti-imperialism to be a necessary component of a genuine struggle for national liberation.  He believed that imperialism has a psychological base in disdain for the peoples of the world and an ideological base in the belief in the superiority of whites over blacks and of Anglo-Saxons over Latinos.  He believed that the Cuban struggle for national liberation was part of a global struggle against US imperialism that would not only establish the sovereignty of the colonized peoples but also would save the dignity of the people of the United States (Vitier 2006:98-102; Arboleya 2008:58; de Armas and Rodríguez 1994:392-99).

    Vitier considers the work of Martí to have been an “historic creation” (2006:85).  The work of Martí was both intellectual and political, and it brought the Cuban Revolution to a more advanced stage.  It was rooted in an evolving Cuban nationalist ethic that had been based on the principles of Cuban independence and the abolition of slavery.  Advancing these two principles further, Martí discerned the imperialist and neocolonialist obstacles to true independence, and he advocated the formation of an inclusive republic by all and for the good of all.  And he formed a political party that unified the various social sectors and intellectual currents.  We have seen in previous posts the importance of charismatic leaders in the development of revolutionary processes (see “Toussaint L’Ouverture” 12/10/2013; “The isolation and poverty of Haiti” 12/17/2013; “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 1/29/2014; “Lessons of the Mexican Revolution” 2/19/2014; “The dream renewed” 3/6/2014; “Is Marx today fulfilled?” 3/20/2014; “On the charismatic leader” 4/30/2014; “Ho’s practical theoretical synthesis” 5/9/2014).  José Martí was one such charismatic leader.  His premature death in 1895 was an important factor in the successful imposition of neocolonial structures on Cuba by the United States beginning in 1898, which we will observe in future posts.

     Speaking at the first Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 1974, Fidel Castro noted that Martí, like Lenin, saw the importance of a political party in order to unify the various popular social sectors and currents of thought, thus establishing a force capable of challenging and overcoming the global power of imperialism (Castro 1990:7-8). Fidel considered Martí to be the foundation of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel would forge a synthesis of the integral national liberation perspective of Martí and Marxism-Leninism, as we will see in future posts.

      We today can learn an important lesson from José Martí.  In the United States today, as well as in other societies of the North, there is considerable ideological confusion, even among tendencies of the Left.  This situation makes impossible a popular revolution that could take power and take decisive steps toward the construction of a just and democratic nation and world-system.  But we should be aware that this situation is similar to what Cuban revolutionaries confronted between 1878 and 1895.  We should be inspired by the example of Martí.  He sought to make possible the impossible, through commitment to integrity and duty, which involves seeking to understand what is true in order to formulate the basic principles for united collective political action on a foundation of universal human values.  In our time, the attainment of the impossible is aided by important global developments: the reemergence of popular revolution in Latin America (see “A change of epoch?” 3/18/2014) and the terminal structural crisis of the world-system (see “The terminal crisis of the world-system” 3/28/2014). I have maintained in previous posts that the key to commitment to the search for truth is cross-horizon encounter (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013).


References

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

Castro Ruz, Fidel.  1990.  Informe Central: I, II y III Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

de Armas, Ramon, y Pedro Pablo Rodrúguez.  1994.   “El pensamiento de José Martí y la creación del Partido Revolucionario Cubano” en María del Carmen Barcía, Gloria García and Eduardo Torres-Cuevas, Eds., Historia de Cuba: La Colonia: Evolución Socioeconómica y formación nacional de los orígenes hasta 1867.   La Habana: Editora Política. 

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


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

Posted June 28, 2014

     With the death in combat of José Martí in 1895, Tomás Estrada Palma assumed the direction of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which during the independence war of 1895-98 functioned as a government outside the country parallel to the revolutionary forces in Cuba.  Estrada Palma is described by Jesús Arboleya as having been an “obscure but respected figure” who had participated in the independence struggle since 1868.  However, he did not share the anti-imperialist perspective of Martí (see “José Martí” 6/26/2014), and he considered that once the Cuban people attained its independence, annexation by the United States would be an acceptable democratic option (Arboleya 2008:61).

     During the war, the revolutionary forces, directed by Generals Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, adopted a strategy of burning the sugar fields in order to destroy the production and commerce that sustained the colonial regime.  Responding to this strategy, the colonial government placed the rural population in concentration camps in towns and cities, with the result that 200,000 persons died from malnutrition and disease.  It was a bloody war, resulting in the death of one-third of the Spanish soldiers and one-fifth of the revolutionary troops.  The war was unsustainable for Spain, as a result of popular opposition in Spain, provoked by the high level of casualties; escalating government debts caused by the war; and the destruction of the Cuban economy.  By 1898, Cuban revolutionary forces controlled the countryside and the Spanish army controlled the most important population centers, which were under siege by Cuban forces.  The revolution was approaching triumph (Arboleya 2008:59-60, 63).  

     Although Martí had believed that the Cuban national bourgeoisie would join the independence struggle as the best option in defense of its “diminished interests,” in fact the national bourgeoisie came to the support of the counterrevolution, and it did not abandon the colonialist cause until 1898, when the military incapacity of Spain and the impossibility of its restoring the Cuban economy became evident.  Many members of the Cuban national bourgeoisie abandoned the country and pressured Estrada Palma to support a US military intervention, which was being proposed by some sectors in the United States, because of the threat that a popular revolutionary triumph posed to US imperialist intentions.  Estrada Palma came to support US intervention, without insisting upon any guarantees of representation of the Cuban people or the Cuban revolutionary military forces in an independent Cuba (Arboleya 2008:60-63; Barcia, García and Torres-Cuevas 1996:519-23).

     Cuban scholars call the Spanish-Cuban-American War what US historians have called the Spanish-American War.  Cuban historians emphasize that the support provided by Cuban revolutionary forces was indispensable for the US taking of Santiago de Cuba, the only bastion of importance in which US interventionist forces were able to attain control.  The United States proceeded to negotiate a peace treaty with Spain without the participation of the Cubans.  The agreement ceded Cuba to the United States; it prohibited the entrance of Cuban revolutionary forces into the cities, and it contained no terms for the transfer of power to the Cuban revolutionary forces.  Estrada Palma supported the treaty and persuaded the revolutionary military chiefs to accept it, presenting the United States as an ally of the Cuban revolutionary movement (Arboleya 2008:262-64; Instituto de Historia de Cuba 1998:3).

     In this historic moment of US maneuvers in pursuit of imperialist interests, with the collusion of Estrada Palma and the Cuban national bourgeoisie, the absence of the advanced understanding of Martí was a critical factor.  Máximo Gómez wrote in his diary, “It is a difficult moment, the most difficult since the Revolution was initiated.  Now Martí would have been able to serve the country; this was his moment” (quoted in Arboleya 2008:63).  Also critical was the death in combat in 1898 of Antonio Maceo.  Maceo unified the most radical sectors of the Revolution as a result of the enormous prestige in which he was held by the popular sectors, rooted in his refusal to accept the Pact of Zanjón, which ended the first Cuban war of independence of 1868-78 without recognizing Cuban independence and freeing only those slaves who had fought in the war of independence (see “The Cuban war of independence of 1868” 6/17/2014).  Maceo had organized in 1878 a continued political-military resistance in the eastern territory that sought to attain independence and the total abolition of slavery, which came to be known as the Protest of Baraguá (Arboleya 2008:59, 61, 63, 68; Barcia, García and Torres-Cuevas 1996:140-49, 503-4).   

     The US interventionist government was established on January 1, 1899 under the command of Major General John Rutter Brooke.  It proceeded to dismantle the Cuban revolutionary army and revolutionary institutions, in spite of the opposition of Gómez; establish structures of representative democracy based on the US model, ignoring the alternative vision of Martí; and facilitate US commercial, financial, and ideological penetration of the island, displacing the English, Spanish and Cuban bourgeoisie.  We will discuss these first steps in the establishment of a neocolonial republic under US domination in the following posts.


References

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

Barcia, María del Carmen, Gloria García and Eduardo Torres-Cuevas, Eds.  1996.  Historia de Cuba: La Colonia: Evolución Socioeconómica y formación nacional de los orígenes hasta 1867.   La Habana: Editora Política. 

Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, US intervention, 1898

Posted June 30, 2014

     A necessary precondition for the establishment of a republic in Cuba under US control was the dismantling of Cuban revolutionary institutions.  Tomás Estrada Palma had dissolved the Cuban Revolutionary Party that had been established by Martí (see “José Martí” 6/26/2014) on December 21, 1898.  A Representative Assembly, elected in zones controlled by the Government in Arms, constituted the civil authority of the revolution.  But its authority was not recognized by the US military government, and it lost the confidence of the people by seeking to dismiss Máximo Gómez from his position of Chief of the Liberator Army.  The Representative Assembly dissolved itself on April 4, 1899.  Rather than demobilizing, Máximo Gómez kept the revolutionary army quartered, maintaining that Cuba had not yet attained independence.  Gómez considered the possibility of mobilizing the Cuban revolutionary forces, in spite of possible negative repercussions, such as an expanded US occupation and possibly US annexation of the island.  However, in light of divisions and distrust between Gómez and the civilian leaders and the absence of a consensus to continue the armed struggle, he recognized that this was not possible.  The revolutionary army was demobilized, and the soldiers were compensated with funds donated by the US government. Thus, during 1898 and 1899, the political party, representative government and the army, which constituted the three principal revolutionary institutions, were dismantled (Arboleya 2008:66-68; Instituto de Cuba 1998:7-11).

     On July 25, 1900, the US military governor convoked elections for a Constitutional Assembly.  Suffrage was limited to men who had financial resources or were literate or who had served in the liberation army, thus excluding all women and two-thirds of adult men (Pérez 182).  The elections were held on September 15, 1900; thirty-one delegates from three recently formed political parties were elected.  Inasmuch as the revolutionary institutions had ceased to exist, the development of a revolutionary plan of action with respect to the Constitutional Assembly was not possible.  Political games were played, and candidates without commitment to Cuban self-determination vis-à-vis US imperialist intentions presented themselves as independentistas.  The Constitutional Assembly was a confusing mix, with ideological divisions within parties and alliances across parties.  And there was the pressure established by the continuous US threat of a permanent military presence, if the results were not in accordance with US interests (Arboleya 2008:67-69; Instituto de Cuba 1998:24-27; Pérez 1995:182).  Because of these dynamics, the Constitution did not reflect the experiences of the Cuban national liberation struggle, and it had a “made in the USA” character.  As Arboleya writes,

     The US government, however, was not satisfied with the results.  It insisted that the Constitutional Assembly approve an amendment that would grant the United States the right to intervene in Cuba.  The United States insisted upon the Platt Amendment, as it would be called, in order to demonstrate to European powers, especially Great Britain, its determination to establish economic control over Latin America, and to show to US corporations its political will to protect their investments from foreign competition.  Under threat of continuous US military occupation, the Constitutional Assembly approved the Platt Amendment on June 12, 1901 by a vote of 16 to 11, with four abstentions (Arboleya 2008:70-71; Instituto de Cuba 1998:28-34). 

     The political dynamics in Cuba in the period 1898 to 1901 reflect a problem that is still with us.  The bourgeoisie has particular interests, and it makes assumptions and formulates concepts with respect to national and global reality in a form that is profoundly influenced by its particular interests.  At the same time, the bourgeoisie has substantial impact on the public discourse, influencing the understandings of the popular sectors, and distorting popular understanding in a form that is functional for bourgeois interests.  In the case of Cuba, the national bourgeoisie consisted principally of the sugar-producing bourgeoisie, the commercial bourgeoisie, and the large landholders, who had an interest in developing a core-peripheral relation with the United States. They played a pernicious role in generating confusions and distortions in the public discourse, functioning to support the maneuvers of the US interventionist military government in establishing structures that provide the foundation for US neocolonial domination (Instituto de Cuba 1998:3-5). 

     In order for the people to overcome the distorting influences of the bourgeoisie, charismatic leaders are essential.   Charismatic leaders are able to discern what is true and right in relation to the needs of the people and the sovereignty of the nation, and they are able to politically unify the people in defense of its interests.  In the critical period of 1898 to 1901 in Cuba, José Martí and Antonio Maceo, who together could have played an important role in forging a political-military struggle in opposition to US imperialism, were gone. Committed revolutionary leaders, such as Máximo Gómez, did their best in a difficult situation, but it was more than they could manage.

      Thus, the newly independent Cuban nation was established on a Constitution that reflected the political experience of the United States and the interests of the US national elite, not on a constitution based in the historic Cuban struggle for national liberation.  The basic political structures were in place for the emergence of a neocolonial republic.(For discussion of the limitations of the US Constitution with respect to popular democracy in the United States, see “American counterrevolution, 1777-87” 11/4/2013 and “Balance of power” 11/5/2013). 


References

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

Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Pérez, Jr., Louis A.  1995.  Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, 2nd edition.  New York:  Oxford University Press. 


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, Constitution of 1901, Platt Amendment

Posted July 1, 2014

     Following the approval of the Cuban Constitution of 1901, mechanisms were established for elections.   Máximo Gómez, always sensitive to the fact that he was Dominican, declined to be a candidate for president, in spite of popular clamor in support of the Chief of the Liberation Army.  Tomás Estrada Palma and Bartolomé Masó emerged as the leading candidates.  Both had been involved in the independence struggle since 1868.  Estrada Palma was a believer in limited government and laissez faire economics, and he was an admirer of the United States.  As we have seen, he assumed the leadership of the Cuban Revolutionary Party upon the death of Martí in 1895, and he dissolved this important revolutionary institution on December 21, 1898 (“The ‘democratic’ constitution of 1901” 6/30/2014).  In contrast, Masó was an opponent of the Pact of Zanjón of 1878 and the Platt Amendment.  He was suspicious of US intentions, and he demanded the absolute independence of Cuba.  US military governor Leonard Wood, acting in accordance with US interests, supported Estrada Palma.  He filled the electoral commission with Estrada supporters and took other steps that created suspicion of electoral fraud.  In light of this situation, Masó withdrew, with the result that the only candidate on the ballot was Estrada Palma, who received votes from 47% of the electorate (Instituto de Cuba 1998:37-41).   

     Jesus Arboleya maintains that the election of Estrada Palma was a reflection of the political vacuum that resulted from the dismantling of revolutionary institutions and the emergence of amorphous groups that formed alliances on the basis of particular interests, personal loyalties, or interests of a local character.  These dynamics made impossible the formation of political parties with clearly defined analyses and programs of action, and they facilitated a political fragmentation that the United States was able to exploit in order to attain its imperialist interests.  And he maintains that this became the norm of Cuban politics during the following fifty years, and it is “the key element in understanding the intrinsic limitations of the representative democracy of the neocolonial state in Cuba” (2008:75).

     Tomás Estrada Palma was inaugurated as president of the formally politically independent republic of Cuba on May 20, 1902.  His administration rejected government interference in the economy.  It followed a program of low taxes, limited spending, and limited social programs.  There was no support for small farmers, as was demanded by the people.  The government did not adopt laws restricting foreign ownership of land, as was proposed by Senator Manuel Sanguily (Instituto de Cuba 1998:46-49; Arboleya 2008:76).   

     During the government of Estrada Palma, a Treaty of Reciprocal Commerce with the United States was signed.  The Treaty reduced US customs taxes on Cuban sugar, tobacco, and other products by 20%, and it reduced Cuban tariffs on many US manufactured products by up to 40%.  The treaty increased the organic integration of the Cuban export of crude sugar and tobacco leaf with the sugar refineries and tobacco factories of the United States.  And by expanding the access of US manufacturers to the Cuban market, it undermined the development of Cuban manufacturing, and thus contributed to the “denationalization” of the Cuban economy (Arboleya 2008as:76; Instituto de Cuba 1998:59-65).

     With the establishment of the neocolonial republic, US corporations became owners of sugar, railroad, mining, and tobacco companies in Cuba, displacing Cuban as well as Spanish and English owners.  The rapid entrance of US capitalists was made possible by the ruin of many proprietors in Cuba, caused by the establishment of the dollar as the currency of exchange in the Cuban domestic market, provoking the automatic devaluation of other currencies; and by the denial of credit to US competitors.  In the first decade of the Republic, US investments in Cuba multiplied five times.  By 1920, US corporations directly controlled 54% of sugar production, and US ownership reached 80% of the sugar exportation companies and mining industries.  Thus, we can see that in the early years of the republic, the Cuban government promoted the interests of US corporations, rather than protecting the interests of Cuban capitalists through such measures as the protection of the national currency, the providing of credit, and establishing restrictions on foreign ownership (Arboleya 2008:65-66, 80; Instituto de Cuba 1998:110).

      Because of extensive US ownership, the Cuban bourgeoisie was reduced to what Arboleya calls a “figurehead bourgeoisie.”  Its role is to administer foreign companies and provide them with legal and financial advice.  In addition, the role of the figurehead bourgeoisie is to control the population and ensure political stability (Arboleya 2008:80-81; see “Neocolonialism in Africa and Asia” 9/11/2013; “Neocolonialism in Cuba and Latin America” 9/12/2013).

      US neocolonial domination also had an ideological component. More than one thousand Cuban school teachers received scholarships to study in the United States, and US textbooks were used in Cuban schools.  North American secondary schools emerged to compete with Catholic schools in the education of the Cuban bourgeoisie and middle class.  Large US companies created cultural enclaves, and North American social clubs provided social space for interchange between the Cuban bourgeoisie and representatives of US companies.  Cuban architecture imitated the great buildings of the United States; North American films appeared in Cuban cinemas; Cuban newspapers provided news from the Associated Press and the United Press International; and Cuba became a favorite destination for US tourists (Arboleya 2008:65, 91-92). 

     The neocolonial situation made corruption endemic, as personal enrichment through the state became the principal means of individual upward mobility (Arboleya 2008:77-78).  The government could not respond to the common good as demanded by popular movements, but it could provide a career in public life for officeholders.  Inasmuch as governments have significant revenues that are distributed in various public service and public works projects, they provide opportunities for economic enrichment for many who have relations with the officeholders.  And this situation of economic opportunity connected to the state occurs in a political context that is devoid of a meaningful social project.  Pérez's description (1995:214-20) of the distortions of the political process as facilitating corruption in the early years of the republic provides insight into the social sources of corruption in neocolonized Third World countries.   

      Thus, we see that in the early years of the republic of Cuba the basic structures of  neocolonial domination were established: a political process that is unable to respond to the interests and needs of the people; the preservation of the core-peripheral economic and commercial relation that was established during the colonial era; the reduction of the national bourgeoisie to a figurehead bourgeoisie that is unable to lead the nation in the development of an autonomous national project; ideological penetration of the neocolony by the culture and political concepts of the neocolonial power; and endemic corruption, as a consequence of its being an available strategy for upward mobility.  (For further discussion of the characteristics of neocolonialism, see “The neocolonial world-system” 9/13/2013 and  “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013). 

     The neocolony is the survival of the colony in a new form.  And the neocolony lives on a foundation of fiction, for it pretends to be democratic.  As the Cuban poet, essayist and novelist Cintio Vitier has written, “The colony was an injustice; it was not a deceit.  The Yankee neocolony was both” (2006:122-23).

     The establishment of the neocolonial republic under US control was a devastating blow to those who had sacrificed much in defense of the Cuban Revolution.  It was the shattering of hope.  However, hope would be renewed, and the popular revolution would continue.  It is one of many examples of the endurance of the people in its quest for social justice in opposition to global structures of colonial and neocolonial domination.  We will discuss the continuation of the Cuban popular movement in the context of the neocolonial republic in the next post.    


References

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

Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

Pérez, Jr., Louis A.  1995.  Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, 2nd edition.  New York:  Oxford University Press. 

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


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

Posted July 2, 2014

     We have seen that in the period of 1901 to 1920, a neocolonial republic under US domination was established in Cuba (“A neocolonial republic is born” 7/1/2014), in which a Cuban figurehead bourgeoisie, totally subordinate to US corporations, has the function of maintaining social control and providing political stability to the neocolony.  

     But in order for a neocolony to be stable, two conditions must be met.  The first is economic.  The neocolony and the neocolonial world-system must have sufficient resources to make concessions to popular demands, in order that the state in the neocolony can use a combination of concessions and political repression to contain the popular movement, eliminating and nullifying the influence of the radical sector of the movement leadership, which seeks a revolutionary transformation of the neocolony.  The second condition is political.  There must be commitment by the core neocolonial power to satisfy the material interests of the figurehead bourgeoisie, so that it will have sufficient motivation and credibility to mobilize political and ideological resources in defense of the neocolonial system. 

     These two conditions are intertwined.  When global economic resources are reduced, the political commitment of the core neocolonial power to support the figurehead bourgeoisie is weakened.  Within the neocolony, when national resources are reduced, the figurehead bourgeoisie has less capacity to carry out its political and ideological role of social control and containment of popular movements.

        The necessary conditions for neocolonial political stability did not exist in Cuba in the period of 1920 to 1933, because of economic and political developments both in Cuba and in the world-system.  The result was that advanced social movements under revolutionary leadership, beyond the capacity of the figurehead bourgeoisie to contain, emerged in Cuba from 1923 to 1935 (Vitier 2006:111-46).  The neocolonial republic had entered crisis. 

     The first sign of the crisis in Cuba was the “crack” of 1920.  The situation was provoked by the abrupt fall of sugar prices during the second half of 1920.  The vulnerability of a peripheralized economy to the boom and bust cycles in raw materials is a normal tendency, because of its dependency on one or two raw materials for export. Prior to 1920, Cuban sugar producers expanded production in response to high prices, utilizing loans obtained from Cuban banks.  However, with the sharp fall in prices, Cuban producers were unable to meet debt payments to Cuban banks.  But the Cuban banks had been functioning as intermediaries, borrowing from North American banks in order to make loans to Cuban producers.  Thus, the fall of prices placed Cuban banks in a position of being unable to make debt payments to North American banks (Arboleya 2008:91; Instituto de Cuba 1998:194).

     Initially, the Cuban government protected the Cuban banks by decreeing a moratorium on debt payments by Cuban banks.  But North American companies located in Cuba and Enoch Crowder, personal envoy of the president of the United States who was acting on behalf of the interests of North American banks, pressured the Cuban congress to enact laws in 1921 that ended the moratorium, established procedures for the liquidation of banks, and reorganized the banking system of the country.  As a result, twenty Cuban banks were liquidated.  At the end of 1920, 80% of deposits in banks operating in Cuba had been in Cuban banks; but by the end of 1921, 69% of Cuban bank deposits were in foreign banks operating in Cuba, led by the National City Bank of New York and the Royal Bank of Canada. At the end of 1920, Cuban banks had been the owners of 71% of bank loans, but by the end of 1921 foreign banks operating in Cuba held 82% of bank loans (Instituto de Cuba 1998:194-97).  As Jesus Arboleya has written, “North American financial capital became the proprietor of the national wealth as well as the monopolist of the system of commerce and credit, which meant the nearly total denationalization of the sugar industry and banking of the country” (2008:91).

     Thus, US banks, US companies in Cuba, and the government of the United States took advantage of the 1920 fall in sugar prices to increase their control over the economic and financial resources of the island, ignoring the interests of the Cuban national bourgeoisie, which by 1920 already had been converted into a figurehead bourgeoisie.  In addition, responding to the lower price of sugar, US sugar producers pressured the US congress to modify the Reciprocal Trade treaty of 1903 and to increase the customs duties on Cuban sugar during 1921 and 1922, with negative consequences for Cuba.  Here there was a conflict of interest between sugar producers in the United States and US sugar producers operating in Cuba, with the interests of former prevailing during 1921 and 1922, at the expense of sugar producers in Cuba, both US and Cuban.  

    These political decisions by sectors of the US elite had the effect of reducing the power and authority of the Cuban figurehead bourgeoisie, reducing its capacity to fulfill the ideological and political functions assigned to it by the neocolonial world-system.  And this would occur precisely at a time when the declining price and market for sugar would have negative consequences for Cuban popular sectors, reducing income and increasing unemployment.  The deteriorating social and economic situation of the popular sectors gave rise to the emergence of leaders who could channel popular discontent into popular protest.  They established organizations that were able to analyze the negation of popular needs as rooted in the neocolonial situation; that named the national bourgeoisie as collaborators in a world-system that did not respect the sovereignty of the nation; and that could mobilize the people to collective social action.  

     Thus, a Cuban radical revolutionary movement emerged at a time in which the Cuban figurehead bourgeoisie had been weakened, abandoned and ignored by its senior partners in the neocolonial world-system.  And just as this occurred with respect to Cuba in the period of 1920 to 1935, it would occur on a global scale with the neoliberal project following 1980, as the core elite, driven by a blinded pursuit of particular interests, would abandon the national bourgeoisies in the neocolonies.  The inherent political instability of neocolonialism, first revealed in the neocolony of Cuba, has now become apparent with respect to the neocolonial world-system, as we will discuss in future posts (see “The neocolonial world-system” 9/13/2013 and  “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013). 

      The emergence of a renewed popular movement from 1918 to 1935 that would revitalize the vision of Martí and would forge a synthesis of the Cuban national liberation perspective and Marxism-Leninism will be the subject of our next post. 


References

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

Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

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


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