Social movements of Afro-descendants in various countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have resulted in the UN declaration of the decade of Afro-descendants.  The movements have identified such problems as the persistence of racist speech, racist images, and racial prejudices, facilitated by the social reproduction of racist perceptions; disproportionate levels of poverty; inequality in employment, income, and resources; and the unpreparedness of universities to address the particular needs of Afro-descendant students.  They maintain that there is a difference between equality and equity, that is, between formal equality before the law and an equal distribution with respect to employment, income, and resources. They have lifted up demands such as the defense of culture and the providing of social services.  They see Afro-descendants in each nation as a people and as a subject. 
 
     Some Cuban academics and social activists participate in the Latin American and Caribbean social movement of Afro-descendants.  The Cuban participants maintain that the gains of the Cuban Revolution with respect to race have to be acknowledged (see “Fidel, Martin, and Malcolm” 10/26/2018).  They affirm that, because of these gains, the situation of Afro-Cubans is significantly better than that of Afro-descendants in other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and it is completely different from the situation of Afro-descendants in the United States.  However, the Cuban participants maintain, the Cuban story must not be romanticized.  The Cuban Revolution has not attained the full liberation of blacks, in that equity in employment, income, and resources has not been attained; and in addition, a certain level of racial prejudices persist in Cuba.
 
     The Cuban participants in the Latin American and Caribbean movement of Afro-descendants would like to increase their visibility in Cuba.  However, they recognize that they confront various difficulties in doing so.  First, the movement in Cuba consists of a few academics and social activists, and it has not attained an institutionalized participation in public discourse; nor does it have a high level of recognition in Cuban society, from the Party and the government; or among the people, including Cuban Afro-descendants.  Secondly, the movement has not been able to establish clearly that it has a revolutionary discourse that seeks to improve the revolution; and not a counterrevolutionary discourse that seeks to undermine the revolution.  This is in part a consequence of the fact that counterrevolutionary strategies emerging from the United States include claims that there are in Cuba systemic forms of racial discrimination and racial inequality.  Thirdly, in Cuba, there has been considerable race mixing, such some that persons that appear to be white are Afro-descendants.  It could be argued that the great majority of Cubans are Afro-descendants, taking into account race mixing on the island and the prior Moorish colonization of Spain.  Fourthly, systemic equality of educational and employment opportunity has been attained in Cuba, as a result of its historic revolutionary strategy of overcoming racial discrimination through free, universal, and integrated education (see “The teachings of Fidel on race” 10/22/2018).  The Cuban situation of structural equality of opportunity is very different from the situations found in the other countries of the Americas, and especially the United States, in which there is unequal funding of public schools as well as an invidious distinction between private and public schools.  The Cuban situation of systemic equality of opportunity limits the reach of the movement, because racial inequality in social status and income it is often perceived as occurring as a result of class differences that are rooted in historic pre-revolutionary racial discrimination and exclusion, and not as consequence of racial inequality of opportunity in the current political and social context.  Fifthly, Cubans today are far more concerned with inequality in general, and especially with the fact that some persons have difficulty purchasing necessities with respect to nutrition, housing, and clothing.  The present prevailing political will, among the people and in the Party and the government, is to provide greater support for people in need, be they black, white, or mixed race.  Sixthly, perhaps as a reflection of these five difficulties, the movement has not been able to formulate specific proposals and demands to the party, the government, or the organizations of civil society.
 
     So where do we go from here in Cuba?  I imagine that the movement of Afro-descendants will continue to evolve, and that it will eventually find an institutionalized place in socialist Cuba.  The development of academic centers dedicated to the theme seems to be a logical next step in its evolution, so that social scientific research can identify the causes of the remaining socioeconomic inequities, and practical strategies and programs could be proposed on this foundation. 
 
     The Cuban counterrevolution, based in Miami, has sought to fabricate a race problem with respect to Cuba.  This is a clever maneuver, because it is able to exploit the actual situation, in which racial equity has not been fully attained, and remnants of racial prejudice remain.  Thus, it is able to obscure the fact that, although Cuba has not attained perfection, it has registered exemplary gains, as a consequence of the formulation and implementation of revolutionary teachings and programs in 1959.  Cuba has established systemic equality of opportunity, on the basis of universal, free, public, and racially integrated education, in which there is equal investment, in money and human resources, in the education of every Cuban child, regardless of that child’s race or social class; and for all schools, whether they are located in the city or the country.  In addition, it has established the unambiguous message, disseminated in all institutions, that racism and racial prejudice have no place in the socialist society that the people and the Party are seeking to construct.  On this foundation, Cuba has established a society that in its fundamentals is different from the other societies of the Americas with respect to race, even though its people are human, subject to all the imperfections that are known to the human condition.
 
     A few Cubans give support to this counterrevolutionary conversion of the issue of race into a social problem.  Some do so as counterrevolutionaries of the Right; others as ultra-leftist critics of the Revolution (see “The Party and the Parliament in Cuba” 6/19/2018).  I have observed that some U.S. academics and activists, both whites and blacks, have been confused by the distortions and exaggerations of this ideological campaign with respect to race in Cuba. 
 
      In seeking to understand what is true, we always should endeavor to keep the fundamentals clearly and consistently in mind.  The issue of race remains in Cuba, but it expresses itself in a social context structurally different from Latin America and especially the United States.  Reflection on the theme of race in Cuba best proceeds with consciousness of the alternative social and political context that the Cuban Revolution has forged for the past six decades.  In Cuba today, race is an issue but not a social problem, thanks to the decades-long commitment of the Cuban Revolution to the needs of the people.
 
      For posts on the issue of race in Cuba written in 2016, see “Black political organizations in Cuba” 4/18/2016; “Using race to discredit Cuba” 4/19/2016; “Racial inequality in Cuba” 4/21/2016.

     As we have seen, Fidel Castro gave emphasis to seeking popular unity in the necessary struggle against international capital and its subordinate allies in the national bourgeoisie; he avoided giving unnecessary emphasis to race in calling the people to support the revolutionary platform (see “The teachings of Fidel on race” 10/22/2018).  The approach was politically successful.  The Movement that was launched on July 26, 1953 attained widespread popular support, such that it was able to take political power in less than six years.  Once in power, the Revolution that he directed for five decades was able to register significant and important gains with respect to race.  To be sure, racial prejudices were not entirely erased, and some level of social and economic inequality on the basis of race remains, a legacy of pre-revolutionary structures of discrimination and exclusion.  Nevertheless, Cuba has broken new ground in the Americas in establishing a norm of social integration, in enormously expanding social and economic opportunities for Afro-descendant Cubans of all classes, and in forging an unchallenged political will in support of the concept that racism in all its forms is an irrational legacy of a colonial past that must be fully overcome.
 
     As the Cuban Revolution took power and consolidated itself, the black revolution was raging in the United States.  At first glance, it would appear that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the apostle of non-violence, and Fidel Castro, the commander-in-chief of a guerrilla army, would have little in common.  However, this obvious difference between these two exceptional personalities is to a considerable extent a reflection of the different social and political contexts of the movements that they led.  In Cuba, armed struggle was a politically intelligent and effective strategy for the popular taking of political power, but such a strategy would never be politically effective in the United States, for various reasons.  Moreover, the U.S. ideological context gave emphasis to reform, the pressuring of elites for change; rather than popular revolution, the taking of political power by the people.  During the 1960s, Dr. King evolved to become a Third World revolutionary in every respect, except for one: he did not arrive to the conclusion that the movement must seek to take political power.  King’s reformist approach was a reflection of his social context, yet he was continually evolving, deepening his understanding of the structures of domination and of the possibilities for the movement.  I believe that, had his life not been tragically cut short at the age of 39, Dr. King would have arrived to understand the need for him to lead a multiracial popular movement that sought to take political power. 
 
      So there were evident differences between Martin and Fidel, reflecting their different social contexts.  However, this being acknowledged, we also should be aware that Martin’s proposals in the period 1966-1968 concerning race and poverty were similar to the revolutionary project forged and led by Fidel.  By that time, the movement had attained, on the basis of the mass struggle of 1955 to 1965, legal and political recognition of fundamental civil and political rights and the elimination of de jure segregation.  But Martin was aware of the limitations of the movement and its gains.  The support of white allies in those achievements had been equivocating, and they for the most part were not prepared to support the movement in its next stage of struggle, which King understood as a quest for the protection of social and economic rights of blacks.  This required a more fundamental structural transformation, inasmuch as the continuing denial of social and economic rights was rooted in social structures established in the previous era of blatant discrimination, segregation, and exclusion.   
 
      In this context, Martin advocated integrated education, and with respect to large cities, he proposed the development of “educational parks” to bring pupils together from various sections of the city.  As we have seen, this was the approach of revolutionary Cuba, which, in addition to developing universal, integrated public education, also developed in some zones educational parks, which it called “school cities.”  Martin, of course, could only propose; his movement had not brought revolutionary leadership to power.  Revolutionary Cuba, in contrast, could implement its vision in practice.  And political events would enable it to go even further than initially planned.  Taking advantage of the fact that the Cuban Catholic Church discredited itself by its association with counterrevolutionary, unpatriotic, and terrorist activities, the Cuban Revolution was able to eliminate the structurally racist distinction between public and private schools by nationalizing the private schools and incorporating their personnel and their physical plants into the system of public education.
 
      For both Martin and Fidel, integrated education was strategy for uprooting racial prejudices.  However, it also was a strategy for expanding educational and occupational opportunities and raising the socioeconomic status of African descendants.  Moreover, both conceived this goal of protecting the social and economic rights of blacks as a dimension of a larger vision of social and economic transformation, which was proposed in universal terms.  Martin developed the “Poor People’s Campaign,” forged by the poor, including blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and whites; seeking programs for all who were poor, regardless of race or ethnicity.  Similarly, revolutionary Cuba, as we have seen, developed programs, strategies, and laws that sought to benefit all whose social and economic rights were denied, without reference to race, even though the majority of the beneficiaries were black and mixed race. 
 
     There was, to be sure, a difference between reformist context in the USA and revolutionary context of Cuba.  The “Poor People’s Campaign” was designed to apply political pressure on the government with respect to its “War on Poverty;” whereas Fidel, before the taking of power, promised that the programs would be implemented when the Movement takes power, and once in power, the he led the government in delivering on the promises.  Nonetheless, both Martin and Fidel were formulating a program of social and economic transformation that would involve the protection of the social and economic rights of all, regardless of race and ethnicity, and that would disproportionately benefit Afro-descendants.
 
      Even though both Martin and Fidel wanted to attend to the social and economic needs of blacks, both wanted to downplay the racial character of the proposal, not wanting to undermine necessary white support.  Martin, for example, considered the slogan “black power” to be politically unwise, even though he viewed it as an important concept, pointing to the need for black empowerment.  But he considered the slogan frightening and confusing to whites, with whom a popular movement must be formed.    Fidel, as we have seen, made his proposals for economic and social transformation with minimal mentioning of race, not wanting to inflame racist sentiments that he knew were beneath the surface among the white population, including humble persons of modest means who had economic interests in supporting progressive change. 
 
      So we see, then, important parallels between Martin and Fidel: integration education; attention to social and economic rights of all, regardless of race and ethnicity; and politically intelligent sensitivity to the anxieties that change is bound to produce among whites. 
 
     Malcolm X proposed in a different direction, reflecting Malcolm’s social base in the urban North, where there existed large segregated black communities.  Rather than integration, Malcolm called for black community control.  The problem, for Malcolm, was not that blacks and whites were separated, but that whites controlled the institutions of the black community.  Malcolm’s central concept in 1964-1965 was black control of the institutions of the black community.  Declaring himself a Black Nationalist, he proclaimed that “Black nationalism only means that you will control the politics and the economic and social institutions of your community.  Black nationalism only means that all the institutions of your community will be under your control.”
 
     Malcolm’s formulation was aggressive.  It reflected the bitter experience of a family victimized by white violence and callousness.  But Malcolm, like Martin, was evolving.  He increasingly came to appreciate the global context of the African-American experience, and he increasingly reflected on the universal implications of his understanding, with respect to Africa and the Third World, with which he identified; and with respect to white society, with which he more and more was oriented toward dialogue.
 
      The different visions of Malcolm and Martin were not contradictory.  Rather, they reflected different social bases, and as such, they were complementary.  Indeed, the concept of integrated education, so central to the transforming visions of Martin and Fidel, confronted various practical problems in the context of the de facto housing segregation of the urban North.  Malcom’s vision of black community control made good practical sense in the urban North.
 
      The concept of black community control need not be formulated in a hostile way that implies rejection of the larger society or its values, even though it necessarily would include critique of the negative consequences of white intervention in the black community.  It could be developed as universal proposal for greater local control of schools, with less state bureaucratic interference, always with the provision that all schools must educate with respect to the fundamental values of the nation, including the rejection of racial prejudices.  The idea of local control has had historic resonance among whites, and it would give space for black control of black schools (as well as police). 
 
       Thus, Malcolm and Martin formulated complementary proposals, which could be synthesized into a comprehensive vision.  Local community control of schools, with integrated schooling in zones characterized by integrated housing, or adjacent segregated housing.  National commitment to extensive funding for education in all zones, seeking to expand opportunities for all.  Programs for the protection of the social and economic rights of all, regardless of race.  And projections of a foreign policy of cooperation with the nations of the Third World, seeking to overcome underdevelopment and poverty in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, in order to expand world commerce and to develop a more politically stable world.
 
     The Martin/Malcom vision had the basis for universal appeal, that is, the possibility of obtaining support among whites, because it promised benefits to whites, including greater protection of their social and economic rights, greater control over the education of their children, and greater possibilities economic development and for a more stable world.  White majority support for such a project is politically attainable, even as whites continue to be prejudiced. 
 
     There can be no doubt that during the 1960s, the great majority of whites continued to have racial prejudices.  This is evident in their reluctant and ambivalent embracement of the laws for the protection of political and civil rights, their tolerance of violence against black movement leaders, and their refusal to engage the next stage of the movement, announced by Dr. King, toward the protection of the social and economic rights of all, regardless of race.  This parallels the situation that Fidel faced in 1959, at the time of the triumph of the Revolution, in that significant numbers of white Cubans continued to have racial prejudices.  Fidel’s approach was, in the short run, to work around the problem, by presenting programs as benefitting all Cubans in need, regardless of race; and in the long run, through integrated universal public education and political education.
 
     But things developed differently in the United States, in a context in which the two exceptional African-American leaders had been assassinated, Malcom in 1965, and Dr. King in 1968.  With white resistance to the new stage of struggle announced by Dr. King, and angry with the unreliability and inconsistency of white allies in the struggle for political and civil rights, the African-American movement turned to black power. 
 
     Without question, there were many positive aspects of black power and Black Nationalism.  They invoked Malcolm’s concept of black control of the black community.  They discerned the colonial foundation of the modern global order, thus conceiving the U.S. black movement as part of a global movement, allied with anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia and anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America.
 
      However, in strategic terms, the turn to black power as a slogan was a political error. Martin was right, it was a slogan that frightened and confused whites.  It undermined the attaining of the popular unity necessary for the taking of political power by the people.  In contrast, the complementary Martin-Malcolm vision, if reasonably and intelligently developed and explained, could have provided the theoretical foundation for popular unity, working around and eventually undermining surviving white racism, eventually culminating in a scientifically informed and politically mature formulation.  But the black power slogan had an exclusionist messages with respect to whites, and it could only deepen the already deep divide between whites and blacks.
 
     Ultimately, black power and Black Nationalism waned, to considerable extent brought to an end by the combined repression of national and local law enforcement agencies.  The focus in the 1970s turned to black political participation, taking advantage of the gains of the previous decade with respect to political and civil rights.  Inasmuch as this political activity was not based on an alternative vision and was developed within the context of established, elite dominated structures, it involved an implicit accommodation to the established political-economic order.
 
     In the 1980s, Jesse Jackson synthesized the insights of King’s Poor People’s Campaign and Black Nationalism, thus forging the politically intelligent concept of the Rainbow Coalition.  Jackson’s presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988 had important political gains.  But more work needed to be done after 1988.  To wit, the development of the Rainbow Coalition as a mass organization in cities and towns throughout the nation, with candidates for local offices and for the federal congress.  But the Rainbow Coalition lack the capacity and the political will to assume a leadership role in the next necessary stage of struggle.
 
      Meanwhile, black academics have focused on what Fidel called “subjective discrimination,” that is, the survival of prejudicial attitudes among whites, even though mainstream political discourse and civil rights law affirm the formal political and civil rights of all, regardless of race.  Concepts like institutional discrimination and laissez-faire racism emerged.  This focus has relatively limited implications, in that it does not propose programs for the protection of social and economic rights, for local control of community institutions, or for an anti-imperialist projection in foreign policy.  It focuses on the unfortunate fact that many whites have racist perceptions and assumptions, without formulating a program for a new stage of struggle for structural change and subjective transformation.  In the final analysis, the focus of black academics on surviving forms of racism is a retreat from the complementary Martin-Malcolm vision for a more just world; it implicitly embraces a narrow program in defense of the interests of the black middle class, which fits in well with the turn in progressive political discourse to identity politics.
 
     With the retreat from the vision of the charismatic leaders of the 1960s, black socioeconomic gains have been minimal.   The basic national indicators of socioeconomic inequalities with respect to race are essentially the same today as they were in 1965, even as some black individuals have attained prominence and celebrity status in politics, entertainment, and news broadcasting.  This reflects that fact that, except for the Rainbow Coalition of the 1980s, which failed to develop itself as a mass organization, the focus of black leaders and intellectuals has been on diversity, surviving forms of racism, and affirmative action, thus promoting a project of particular interest to the black middle class.
 
     There is need today to recapture and reformulate the complementary vision of Martin and Malcolm, our lost charismatic leaders.  We need to forge a popular coalition, in which all actively participate as a united revolutionary subject, in spite of cultural differences.  A popular coalition that seeks to take political power on the basis of a program for the protection of social and economic rights of all; and for a foreign policy that cooperates with the peoples and nations of the world in the quest for a just and sustainable world-system.
 
      As black progress and the progressive movement in the United States stagnated after 1972, revolutionary Cuba moved forward, registering significant gains with respect to the social integration of the races, forging a single united people, whose unity enabled the people to resist the multiple efforts of the global powers to derail its revolution.  Revolutionary Cuba was able to significantly reduce racial inequality, and to enormously expand the educational and occupational opportunities for all, such that the children and grandchildren of sugar workers, dockworkers, and maids would become professionals in a variety of fields.  In no small measure, these gains were made possible by the constant political presence and insights of a charismatic leader.  We should appreciate the universal value of his teachings, and study them.  And we should study as well the teachings of Martin and Malcolm.  It might help us to rediscover our lost road.

Sources
 
Castro, Fidel.  2006.  Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.  [English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio.  2009.  Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography.  Scribner. 
 
__________.  2007. Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 
 
__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.
 
__________.  2016. Un Objetivo, Un Pensamiento, Tomo I.  La Habana: Editora Política.
 
Clarke, John Henrik. Ed.  1969.  Malcolm X: The Man and His Times.  Toronto: Collier.
 
King, Martin Luther, Jr.  1958.  Stride toward Freedom.  New York:  Harper & Row.
 
__________.  1964.  Why We Can’t Wait.  New York:  Harper & Row. 
 
__________.  1967.  “Beyond Vietnam.”  Speech to Clergy and Laity Concerned About the War in Vietnam, Riverside Church, April 4.  The King Papers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Non-Violent Social Change, Atlanta, Georgia.
 
__________.  1968.  Where Do We Go from Here?  New York:  Bantan Books.
 
Malcolm X.  1965.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  With the assistance of Alex Haley.  New York:  Grove Press.

       We are in a position to understand today that racism was not the historic cause of colonialism, but the reverse.  European colonial domination of the world did not originate as a racist impulse.  It began in the sixteenth century as a modern manifestation of the historic tendency of empires, kingdoms, and civilizations to build themselves on a foundation of conquest.  When the European conquest of the world began with the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the indigenous empires, nations, and societies of America, the justification was not on racial grounds, but on religious grounds, with labels of peoples that were not Christian as “heathen.”  But the bourgeois revolutions of the eighteenth century undermined justification of domination on the basis of religious beliefs.  The bourgeoisie, in its struggle with the nobility, which whom the Church was allied, found it politically necessary to unify and strengthen its forces through the secularization of society, the separation of Church and State, and the principle of freedom of religion.  
 
     In addition, the bourgeois revolution, standing against the privileges of the nobility, proclaimed the principle of the equality of all citizens as a new philosophical foundation for society, and as a political strategy to obtain the support of the popular sectors.  It was necessary, however, to exclude from citizenship those whose inclusion was not convenient for bourgeois interests.  Such inconvenient persons included slaves of African descent in the Americas, the indigenous peoples beyond the territories of the English and French settlements in North America, the peoples of the Spanish and Portuguese American colonies, and the soon to be conquered peoples of Africa and Asia.   Their exclusion on religious grounds was no longer ideological functional, in light of the new principal of separation of religion and state.  However, the ideological basis for the exclusion of these peoples was found.  Taking advantage of the fact that the peoples of Northern and Western Europe had light skin coloring, as consequence of less exposure to sunlight, scientists invented racial classifications within the human species, portraying the “white race” as superior with respect to important human qualities, such as intelligence.  So racism emerged as a justification for the unfolding European global conquest, which itself was a reflection of the ancient human impulse toward conquest for economic gain.
 
     The anti-colonial movements forged by peoples of color were able to discredit racism during the course of the twentieth century.  But racism remained ideologically necessary, in order to justify European domination in the neocolonial stage.  Racism thus took a more subtle form, in which the basic political and civil rights of all persons and the sovereign equality of all nations are recognized, but it takes as given that the underdevelopment and poverty of the peoples of color is the normal state of affairs.  It recognizes that some persons of the world of color have high capacities, but it assumes that most people of color, in general, for cultural and/or genetic reasons, are less intelligent and hardworking, which explains their condition of underdevelopment and poverty.
 
      From this perspective of subtle racism, it could not be imagined that exceptional leaders and intellectuals of the world of color would have insight from which all of humanity could learn.  Subtle racism therefore is blind to the emergence of exceptional Third World leaders, whose capacities were formed by their vantage point from below and their moral commitment of justice for their peoples, and were demonstrated by their abilities to mobilize their peoples in social movements.  Thus, subtle racist assumptions prevent the peoples of the North from discerning a duty to study the speeches and writings of exceptional leaders of the Third World, in which are explained the colonial structural foundation of the present-day neocolonial world-system.  Unable to understand the true historical and social the sources of the underdevelopment and poverty of vast regions of the world, the peoples of North are content to assume that it is the natural order of things.
 
      Thus, both racism and colonialism are alive today in a new form.  Neocolonialism is an objective economic and political reality, in which the colonial peripheral economic role is preserved in the neocolony, ensuring its deepening underdevelopment and impoverishment; and in which the global powers adopt various policies and strategies to effectively deny the true sovereignty of supposedly independent nations.  Subtle racism is the subjective expression of this neocolonial reality.  It is subtle from of racism, in that everyone denies begin racist, that is, being someone who would argue that people should be denied rights on the basis of their color.  But everyone has racist assumptions, which permit them to tolerate underdevelopment and poverty in vast regions of the world; and to accept ideological, economic, and military attacks on those governments and movements of the world of color that seek to challenge and transform the neocolonial world order.
 
      In seeking to transform the neocolonial republic of Cuba, Fidel Castro’s strategy was to call to revolution all of the humble people, and all who did not pertain to the national bourgeoisie, whether they be black, white, or mulatto.  He called the people to an anti-neocolonial revolution, seeking to transform structures established on a foundation of white conquest of peoples of color.  Fidel forged a revolution that was profoundly anti-racist, because it sought to dismantle the structural sources of racism in both its blatant and subtle forms; yet it minimized mention of race, discerning the need to avoid arousing racist passions (see “The teachings of Fidel on race” 10/22/2018).  Here we have an example of the exceptional political intelligence of Fidel. 
 
     Perhaps those of us from societies in which racism is on the rise have something to learn from such political wisdom that has emerged in the revolutions from below, from the Third World.  I will discuss this theme further in the following post.

     In our last post, we saw that the Republican Party, from Nixon to Trump, has invoked a subtle form of racism in order to tap white resentment and insecurity; and that the Democratic Party has done the inverse, emphasizing identity politics.  The political strategies of the two parties deepen racial, ethnic, and cultural divisions among the people, undermining the popular unity necessary for a governing consensus of support for a social and economic program that has the backing of a strong majority.  See “The white strategy” 10/19/2018.
 
      As we struggle to respond to this situation, it might be helpful to reflect on the teachings of Fidel Castro, arguably the greatest revolutionary of the twentieth century, with respect to the question of race and politics.  The teachings of Fidel, on race and other matters, have guided the Cuban Revolution since 1953.  Study of his teachings has emerged as a significant activity among Cuban academics and intellectuals in recent years, and academic centers dedicated to his thought are being established.
 
     Fidel persistently taught that discrimination against persons for motive of race has no place in a truly revolutionary process.  As merely one example, at a press conference on January 22, 1959, three weeks following the triumph of the revolution, Fidel stated:  “In our revolutionary struggle, we have shown total identification and brotherhood among persons of different skin colors.  In this sense, we are followers of the thought of Martí, the apostle of our independence.  We would not be revolutionaries, and we would not be democratic, if we were not divested of all forms of discrimination” (Castro 2016:73).
 
       Fidel considered that it ought not be necessary to dictate a law defining the rights of blacks, because the revolution is based on the principle that all persons have rights, by virtue of their being human and members of the society.  He considered it impossible to fight prejudices with laws, because you could not impose penal sanctions on anyone for having them; you are not going to eliminate erroneous thinking with a law. Rather, he called for the public condemnation of all persons that possess the absurd prejudices of the past.  Sadly, he observed, there are humble persons, such as workers and tenant farmers, who have prejudices and discriminate.  You have you have to speak to them, he taught, persuading and demonstrating, with faith that the people are intelligent, reasonable, and capable of listening.  
 
      Persuasion was not the only strategy.  Fidel maintained that one of the historic sources of prejudice in Cuba is racial separation in schools.  Beginning in 1959, he called for the development of free, public, and integrated schools, not only as a strategy to universalize access to higher levels of education and to open economic opportunity, but also to provide an atmosphere in which children of different colors will study and play together, and they therefore will develop unprejudiced attitudes.  (Fidel himself, as a child, began his schooling in such an environment).  He promised that the revolution would create public schools for all, with all the necessary funding for the schools, including clothes and meals, where necessary.  And the schools will develop recreation centers, providing an atmosphere of play with adult supervision.    
 
      Analyzing the issue in 1959, Fidel considered that the most serious problem that blacks confront is the denial of employment and discrimination in employment.  He noted that in colonial times, slaves had been forced to work fifteen hours a day.  After the abolition of slavery and during the neocolonial republic, blacks were liberated from forced work, but they were denied the opportunity to work and to earn a decent standard of living. As a result, Afro-Cubans were disproportionately represented among the 700,000 unemployed Cubans in 1959.  The Revolution pronounced the need to find employment for those without a work, and everyone is in agreement, Fidel observed.  “And when everyone says that employment must be found for 700,000 Cubans without work, no one is saying that employment must be found for the whites only, or for such-and-such only; we are speaking of the need to find employment for the 700,000 without work, be they black or white” (Castro 2016:76).
 
      Let us reflect on what Fidel said here from the point of view of a political strategy.  First, we should note that what Fidel was saying in 1959 was consistent with what Fidel had proclaimed in his 1953 trial, in a speech that was subsequently printed and distributed clandestinely as “History Will Absolve Me.”  He spoke at that time of the problem of unemployment, without mentioning the racial distribution of unemployment.  Similarly, he spoke of the problems of inadequate land for peasants, woefully inadequate rural and urban housing, insufficiently and highly priced electricity, and the lack of health care, without mentioning their impact by race; and he proposed specific policies for the resolution of each these problems, without regard for race.  That is, his strategy was a political discourse of commitment to the providing of land, housing, electricity, and health for all those who need it, be they black or white.
 
     Fidel was aware, as we have noted, that among the people with modest means are those with the absurd racial prejudices of the past.  The revolution intended to overcome such prejudices in time, through persuading and educating the adults and providing high quality, free, and integrated education for the children.  But for the moment, Fidel saw the political necessity of including persons with absurd racial prejudices in the emerging revolutionary subject.  He anticipated that decisive revolutionary steps in defense of the rights of the people would provoke an aggressive reaction by powerful actors; and accordingly, he discerned that a unifying consensus among the majority of the humble was indispensable.  So his political strategy was to call both blacks and whites to revolutionary action by committing to resolve the common problems that both had, without mentioning the racial distribution of these common problems. 
 
     Fidel could have pointed out that the plan would benefit more blacks than whites.  But he did not do so.  Why did he not?  Because politically, it made no sense to do so.  What would be the advantage of doing so?  Everybody knew it to be true, but to mention it, or even worse, to give emphasis to it, would risk inflaming the racist passions of the whites with modest means, which could provoke serious divisions between whites and blacks, undermining the necessary unity of the revolution.  The trick was to keep the racist passions from boiling over, not by compromising with a racist mentality, but by attending to the problems that all had, without unnecessarily mentioning racism as one of the sources of these problems.  The unity of the people must be forged and maintained.
 
     And the necessary unity of the people was indeed a theme to which Fidel turned in a speech on March 29, 1959.  “We, who are one people, in which are included persons of all colors and of no color; we, who are one people constituted by different racial components; how are we going to commit the stupidity and the absurdity of giving shelter to the virus of discrimination?  Here in this multitude I see whites and I see blacks, because that is the people, the people is integrated by whites, by blacks, by mulattos, and by persons of all colors!”
 
     In 1959, Fidel viewed racial prejudice as an absurd legacy of the past.  He considered it especially absurd in the case of Cuba, inasmuch as few in “whites” in Cuba could claim to belong to a “pure race,” as a result of the Moorish colonization of Spain prior to the Spanish colonization of Cuba.  However, even though absurd, Fidel discerned that racism could not be eliminated easily, and he considered racial discrimination to be one of the most complex problems that the revolution had to confront.
 
     On the basis of this understanding, Fidel led the revolution to a program of comprehensive action involving universal, free, fully funded, and integrated public education; patient and persistent persuasion and reasoning; and condemnation of racial discrimination in employment as counterrevolutionary.  The comprehensive program of action was combined with a discourse that stressed the necessary unity of the people and that gave emphasis to the universal benefits of the program of action. 
 
     Fidel emerged to a position of charismatic authority by proclaiming fundamental truths to the people, standing in contrast to the politicians of the past, who had to speak in half-truths and distortions in order to represent covertly the interests of the powerful and the wealthy.  Fidel’s capacity to proclaim fundamental truths reflected an ability to understand social dynamics and a moral commitment to social justice and to the humble.  But Fidel also possessed the political intelligence to understand that some truths should not be stated too frequently, not until the people are more politically mature.
 
     In an extensive interview in 2006 with Ignacio Ramonet, a well-known French intellectual of the Left, Fidel reflected on the gains and limitations of the Revolution with respect to race since 1959.  First, he noted that scientific investigation since 1959 has shown irrefutably that the differences among ethnic groups are minimal, and they have absolutely nothing to do with ability or intelligence.  However, in spite of the fact that science now has come to the aid of the struggle against racism, discrimination survives.
 
     The persistence of discrimination is found even in a society like Cuba, in which the struggle against racial discrimination has been a sacred principle of the Revolution.  In analyzing this situation, Fidel distinguishes between the subjective dimension, pertaining to the attitudes of the people; and the objective dimension, having to do with social and economic conditions.  He maintains that, because of the revolutionary education of the people, what he calls “subjective discrimination,” rooted in absurd ideas of the unequal abilities of ethnic groups, has been eliminated in great part.  However, discrimination still exists today in the form of “objective discrimination,” which is a phenomenon associated with poverty and with the unequal distribution of knowledge.  Accordingly, even though the Revolution has attained full rights and guarantees for citizens of all ethnic groups, it has not had the same level of success in eradicating the differences in social and economic status between blacks and whites.  Blacks do not live in the best houses, they are disproportionately represented in the poorer neighborhoods, and they receive less than their white compatriots in remittances sent by family members resident in other countries.  These are racial inequalities in social status that are a consequence of historic discrimination, in that they have historic roots in the slavery of the colonial era and in other forms of exclusion and discrimination of the neocolonial Republic.
 
      Although the Revolution has been able for the most part to eliminate subjective discrimination, prejudicial attitudes persist among the people.  Fidel cited an example of a Cuban television program that wanted to promote confidence in the efficiency of the police.  In the first place, the program focused on the street crimes of the poor rather than the white-collar crimes of the managers.  In addition, the great majority of the delinquents were blacks and mixed race, with very few whites.  To associate crime with a particular ethnic group serves no purpose, Fidel maintained, and it functions to enflame the population.  But in spite of the survival a level of prejudicial attitudes and assumptions among the people, Fidel maintains that the Revolution has attained much with respect to race, and there remains very little subjective discrimination.  What exists in Cuba today is objective discrimination, in Fidel’s terminology, rooted in historic and systematic patterns of exclusion and denial of rights during the colonial period and the pre-revolutionary neocolonial Republic.
 
     Fidel observed in 2006 that he and the other revolutionary leaders were naïve back in 1959 to have believed that the total and absolute equality before the law would end discrimination.  Since that time, we have learned that prejudicial attitudes can be eliminated for the most part, through integrated public schools and political education.  But the elimination of socio-economic inequality, reflecting the historic association between race and poverty and between race and education, is a more complex challenge.
 
       There is some tendency for leftists in the United States to castigate Cuba, or to consider its revolutionary example tarnished, because it has not completely eliminated what Fidel calls “objective discrimination,” or racial inequalities with respect to socio-economic status resulting from previous historical patterns of domination and discrimination.  The International Socialist Review, for example, argues that the colorblind strategy of the Revolution, in which the revolution addressed the social problems that the people confronted without consideration of their race, is to blame for the persistence of a level, although much reduced from pre-revolutionary levels, of racial inequality in income and status.
 
       I think the U.S. Left should approach Cuba with more humility.  Revolutionary practice is the basis of our understanding, and we all learn from the ongoing practical experiences of revolutionary projects.  And revolutionary practice is far more advanced in Cuba than in the United States, with respect to race as well as other issues pertaining to revolutionary social transformation.  We in the United States have not been able to develop a sustained popular movement that has influence in our society, even less have we been able to take political power and to test our ideas in practice.  The social foundation of our thought is limited, and therefore we have a less developed revolutionary understanding.  This should give us humility with respect to Cuba, guiding us to a listening mode, trying to understand how Cuban leftists were able to get the support of their people and take political power, thus providing the political foundation for beginning the socialist transformation in practice in accordance with their ideas.  We should not be criticizing from our more limited social base; we should be listening to what Cubans are learning, so that we can improve our own revolutionary thought, practice, and strategies.
 
      From a more humble vantage point, listening rather than opinionating, we could not fail to observe the significant achievements of the “colorblind” strategy of attending to the social and economic rights of all, regardless of race.  It was central to the taking of political power and subsequent significant reduction in socio-economic inequality and in prejudicial attitudes.  The colorblind strategy was certainly the right road, taking into account all that it has attained.  At the same time, it can be seen today that the colorblind strategy has not accomplished the complete elimination of racial prejudice or of a structural discrimination that is intertwined with class.  This invites reflection on what steps should be taken now, and such reflection appropriately occurs in each national context, taking into account particular historical, political, and social conditions.  There is an international dimension to this conversation, but such international dialogue must be based on recognition of the particularity of each context and on respect for the achievements of revolutionary projects in lands beyond one’s own nation.
 
      In the next three posts, I will be reflecting further on race, with respect to the world, the USA, and Cuba.

References
 
Castro, Fidel.  2006.  Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.  [English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio.  2009.  Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography.  Scribner. 
 
__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.
 
__________.  2016. Un Objetivo, Un Pensamiento, Tomo I.  La Habana: Editora Política.

      On August 11, 2018 in The New York Times, there appeared and insightful article by Ross Douthat on “The White Strategy.”  Drawing upon a new Pew analysis, which relies on voter files rather than exit poles, Douthat notes that Trump was able to attract votes, more so than was previously understood, from white working class voters who had not voted in the 2012 Obama-Romney presidential elections.  Trump successfully used a “double down on white voters” strategy with a “mix of economic populism and deliberate racial polarization.”
 
      However, in spite of the unanticipated 2016 success of Trump, Douthat maintains that the white strategy has limitations, and it cannot be the basis for forging a governing majority.  He notes that Trump’s electoral victories in the Midwestern states were thin, and Trump lost voters among women and the educated that the Republican Party previously had been able to attract.  He maintains that the “white-identitarian rhetoric . . . cost Republicans not only minority votes but white votes as well, repelling anti-racist white suburbanites even as they mobilize some share of racially resentful whites.”
 
      Douthat maintains that, instead of a white strategy, it would be more politically effective for the Republican Party to “pursue a populist strategy shorn of white-identity appeals. . . .  Pursue E-Verify but forgo the child-separating cruelties; be tough on China but stop vilifying black athletes; embrace nationalism but stiff-arm Confederate nostalgia.”  He predicts that if the Republican Party does not do so, it will suffer defeats in future elections.
 
      Here we arrive to the limitations of Douthat’s reflections.  It seems to me that it would not be possible for the Republican Party to attain a governing majority on the basis of a populist economic agenda, whether it be a progressive economic agenda or merely a populist rhetoric.  Its “Southern strategy,” in operation since the 1970s, of appealing to white resentment and to subtle forms of white racism is a legacy that cannot easily be overcome.  A reformulated Republican Party message would continue to be rejected by too many blacks, Latins, and progressively minded whites.  It would at best attain narrow electoral victories in the context of a deeply divided nation, which is not the foundation for a governing consensus.
 
       But neither is the Democratic Party in a position to forge a governing consensus on the basis of a progressive agenda.  In turning since the late 1960s to an identity politics that emphasizes the rights and the agenda of blacks, women, Latinos, and gays, it has alienated a considerable part of white society, including significant numbers of white women as well as greater numbers of white men.  With a greater emphasis on the kind of economic populism that Douthat proposes and less emphasis on identity politics, it probably would be able at attain electoral majorities, capturing some Republican voters.  But the nation would remain deeply divided, and governance would continue to be beset with conflicts and difficulties.
 
      Both political parties are entrenched in their respective grass-roots bases.  In addition, there is the overwhelming problem that both parties are controlled by the national power elite, which has two basic tendencies, sometimes in conflict with each other, namely, global neoliberalism and militarism.  Having to make concessions to its base and at least sectors of the elite, neither party is in a position to forge a national consensus that would make effective government possible.         
 
     At the root of this state of affairs is the failure of the Left to be effectively present to offer a politically viable progressive alternative.  The Left has failed to formulate a historically and scientifically informed narrative and program with a progressive social and economic agenda, identifying the particular issues for blacks, women, Latinos, and gays in this frame, without burying the frame in unreflective slogans and actions with respect to the identity issues.  It has failed to formulate a critique of imperialism and neoliberalism, demonstrating that these policies contradict fundamental democratic values and direct the nation away from the principles upon which the republic is founded.  And it has not articulated a critique of electoral laws, structures, and customs in order to formulate an alternative concept of popular democracy.  Such an alternative narrative and critique would be able to bring on board high percentages of blacks, women, Latinos, and gays, without alienating a majority of whites with conservative social conceptions and values.
 
     Forging a governing consensus on the basis of a progressive social and economic agenda would involve bringing on board a majority of white men, albeit a thin majority, a larger majority of white women, and overwhelming majorities of blacks and Latinos.  In order to do this, we have to free ourselves from the political constraints of both political parties.  When we study the political processes in other nations that have had triumphant popular revolutions, we see that they offered new narratives on the nation and the world, which included a strong identification with the history and destiny of the nation, even when it included a concept of diverse peoples within the nation.  They formulated a comprehensive and integrated list of particular social and economic proposals, addressing the daily concerns of the great majority.  Moreover, they simply bypassed the established political parties and associations, forming their own.
 
      It is often said that third parties do not work in the political context of the United States.  We need to reflect on this claim.  The limitations of third parties during the twentieth century were rooted in their over-identification with one sector of the people and their incapacity to formulate a narrative for the nation that connected to the concerns and aspirations of the majority of the people.
 
     The nation is in the midst of a profound political-cultural crisis, which is occurring in the midst of the sustained structural crisis of the world-system.  We need to ask not how our party, be it the Republican or Democratic, could attain electoral majorities.  We need to ask how a governing consensus among of people could be formed, so that the nation and its peoples can respond constructively to the challenges that it and humanity confront.  This requires moving beyond the framework of debate and political strategies defined by the two major parties; and moving beyond the concepts of third parties to date.  It requires creating a third party that redefines what a third party is, a redefinition forged by creative and committed reflection on the national and global crisis in which we find ourselves.

     In “Donald Trump y la nueve Estrategia Cibernética Nacional de EE.UU.” (Donald Trump and the new U.S. National Cybernetic Strategy), the Cuban journalist Raúl Antonio Capote reports that John Bolton, National Security Advisor of the United States, has announced that President Donald Trump had signed a plan for a National Cybernetic Strategy that authorizes the U.S. government to carry out offensive cyberattacks.   The article appeared in the Cuban daily newspaper Granma, the Official Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.  Its slant on the issue of cyberattacks is different from that of the major corporate-owned international media of communication, in that it takes seriously the denials of governments that are accused by the USA of cyberattacking.
 
      Capote notes that the Trump cybernetic strategy overturns a directive issued by Barack Obama in 2013, which was emitted following the release of archives dealing with U.S. espionage programs by the ex-NSA analyst Edward Snowden.  Reacting to the revelations contained in those archives, the Obama directive required intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to obtain the approval of other governmental departments before launching a cyberattack.  The Trump strategy not only eliminates these checks, but also legalizes offensive cyberattacks against other nations. 
 
     Capote explains Bolton’s justification for the new strategy:  offensive cyberattacks are necessary in response to hostile cyberattacks that have been perpetuated and that are being planned against the United States, and offensive cyberattacks by the USA will deter future attacks by demonstrating to U.S. adversaries that the cost of cyberattacking is too high.  A document emitted by the NSA specifically named Iran, Russia, China, and the Democratic Popular Republic of Korea, among others, as having used cyberspace as a means of aggression against the United States.
 
      Capote notes that other U.S. entities are making claims similar to those of Bolton and the NSA.  The Associated Press reports that Russian hackers have obtained U.S. military secrets.  And the U.S. Office of Personnel Administration has communicated that hackers have carried out various attacks against important web pages of the United States, including the informational network of the Pentagon; and that pirates have robbed the access data of millions of functionaries of the United Sates, including employees of the Department of Defense. 
 
       Capote emphases that Moscow refutes accusations of cyberattacks against the United States.  The Russian government has said repeatedly that such accusations are absurd, and they are intended to detract attention from U.S. domestic issues and from U.S. cyberattacks against companies, military units, and public services in Russia, Iran, the Democratic Popular Republic of Korea, and China.  The Russian foreign minister has called for a Russian-USA work commission of specialists to examine the issue of cybersecurity. 
 
      In articles published in the USA, denials by governments of such U.S. accusations of cyberattacking, if they are mentioned at all, have a dismissive tone.  Capote, however, takes the Russian denial and counteraccusation of U.S. cyberattacks seriously.  In fact, he buttresses Russian denials with the observation that the U.S. government, through its intelligence service and companies tied to the military-industrial complex, has carried out for a decade an offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Capote cites the example of a U.S. cyberattack carried out against an Iranian electronuclear plant, with the intention of sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program.
 
     Capote asserts, in addition, that FireEye, a cybernetic security company with numerous contracts with the CIA, has been named as possibly responsible for the fabrication of false attacks, with the objective of pointing to Russia and Iran as cyber-delinquent countries.  Both the USA and the UK accused Russia in 2017 of a cyberattack that caused millions of dollars of damage in Europe, Asia, and America, but Russia maintains that the source of the virus in that attack was the intelligence services of the United States.  Capote notes that Microsoft has confirmed that the event occurred was caused by a virus produced by the National Security Agency that wound up in the hands of pirates. 
 
       With accusations and counter-accusations among various nations, what are citizens to believe?  My orientation is to view the contrasting claims and counterclaims in a broader context.  The United States is accusing four nations that it has been trying to demonize in recent years.  False accusations of cyberattacks is fully consistent with U.S. efforts to distort reality in order to demonize nations that it cannot control through economic or military force or through cooptation (see “Freedom of the press and socialism” 10/15/2018).  In addition, such false accusations are fully consistent with the history of fabrication of pretexts to justify the U.S. interventionism and interference in the affairs of nations, as U.S. imperialist policy unfolded during the course of the twentieth century (see various posts in the category U.S. imperialism).  This history tendency has increased since 1980, as economic, military, and ideological aggression toward other nations increasingly has defined the U.S. approach to foreign affairs. 
 
     In contrast to the U.S. legacy of distortions, interventions, and interferences, the four accused nations in recent decades have been trying to improve their economic and political status by seeking cooperation and mutually beneficial trade with other nations of the world.  They are accused of actions that are inconsistent with the approach that they have been taking with respect to foreign affairs (see various posts in the categories Third World, Latin American unity and integration, and South-South cooperation).
 
      The U.S. accusations lack credibility, for anyone who understands the essentially imperialist character of U.S. foreign policy and its legacy of generating misinformation in pursuit of its objectives, and who is informed about the actual foreign policies of the accused four nations.  Incredulity was indeed the response of Capote, who concludes his article by asking what more could be expected from those who are experts in fabricating pretexts, and by expressing concern that these incredulous accusations may have the goal of attaining some dark purpose.
 
      The people of the United States are not well informed about the foreign policies of other nations, and as a result, the U.S. accusations of cybernetic attacks by foreign governments may have credibility among the people.  Therefore, they could effectively function to attain popular support for any kind of aggressive measure, economic or military, against nations that supposedly are carrying out cyberattacks against the United States.  In the face of this danger, the people of the United States and the peoples of the world have the right to demand a comprehensive, open, and scientifically informed international commission on cybernetic security.

​     In a previous post, I mentioned that many people in the United States and other countries of the North believe that there is not freedom of the press in Cuba (see “Human rights and Cuba’s reasons” 10/10/2018).  Let us reflect on this question of the freedom of the press.
 
     First, we need to understand that freedom of the press does not exist in capitalist societies.  The “free press” is owned directly and indirectly by major global corporations, and as a result, news reporting is distorted to promote the interests of the owners.
 
     Julio César Martínez (1945-2011) was a Uruguayan journalist with more than thirty years of experience in the profession, traveling for years to various countries.  He described the process of “filtering” a news story as it goes from its source to the reading public.  As it passes through the filters, the account undergoes a metamorphosis, such that when it is emitted, it has little or nothing in common with what really occurred.  “The information is chewed, digested, and deprived of all elements that the broadcaster considers inappropriate and reinforced with all the elements that the broadcaster considers should be added for its own interests, or those of its political, advertising, economic, or religious sponsors” (2014:25-26).
 
       The peons in the process, Martínez maintains, are the professional journalists, who have to accept the censorship of the editors, if they desire to maintain their work in the profession.  Many cut and makeover their notes with a motive of survival.  Some do so with pleasure, saying that they know what the bosses want, even though they also know that what they have submitted is opposed to what really has happened or is contrary to what they themselves think about the matter.  On the other hand, there are journalists who refuse to cut and groom their information.  But most of these “true social communicators” end up unemployed, marginalized by the mainstream companies, and even slandered.  Accordingly, Martínez concludes that “‘freedom of the press’ is only a myth, a utopia, a wonderful phrase, but something non-existent in reality” (2014:26).
 
      Martínez describes an example of a distorted news story, by the U.S. news agency REUTERS, concerning a speech on October 26, 2005, by Mahmud Ahmadineyad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  As reported by the Iranian news agency IRNA, Ahmadineyad stated: “Let us erase from the regional map the exclusive Jewish state, replacing it with a single state for all citizens, Jewish or not.  The right to govern pertains to the whole people of Palestine, be they Muslim, Christians, or Jews.”  The REUTERS report on the speech, issued on the same date, is as follows:

     In changing “let us erase from the map an exclusive Jewish state, replacing it with a single state for all citizens, Jewish or not” to “Israel ought be erased from the map,” the meaning of the declaration was completely changed from a declaration with progressive, inclusive, and conflict resolution implications into one with an aggressive and divisive posture.  And the REUTERS transformed declaration was disseminated by the mass media of the entire world, without verifying the REUTERS interpretation by looking at the report issued by the Iranian news agency IRNA. 
 
      Subsequently, editorialists entered the game, lamenting the fact that Iran was under the control of a group of crazy fanatics.  International public opinion was appropriately shocked at the belligerency of Iran.  Israeli political actors soon took part, with calls before the UN Security Council for an increase in sanctions against Iran and for the expulsion of Iran from the United Nations, basing their declarations in the REUTERS account and not in the original report by the Iranian news agency (Martínez 2014:29). 
 
     Efforts by the government of Iran to explain, including sending to the UN a video of the speech, had no effect.  Martínez maintains that, in general, when disinformation maneuvers are underway, subsequent efforts by aggrieved parties to deny the false allegations are not published or are published in a marginalized place with little visibility (Martínez 2014:30).
 
      The REUTERS distortion of the Ahmadineyad speech was not the result of sloppy journalism.  The distortion was intended, and Mártinez notes that the writers of the story were skilled in the art of distorting news, which was reflected in their mentioning of the Iranian news agency, thus giving greater credibility to their distortion.  They were journalists with experience in defense of a cause, which was, in this case, the cause of the demonization of Ahmadineyad and Iran (Martínez 2014:28-29).
 
      Similar distortions have been underway with respect to Venezuela.  In Bad News From Venezuela, Alan MacLeod analyzes news stories about Venezuela published in the USA and the UK from 1998-2014.  He notes that the news media recruit local journalists tied to the Venezuelan opposition, and they present news accounts produced by anti-government activists as objective reporting.  Accordingly, the articles were overwhelmingly opposed to the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.  In addition, he recounted three specific distortions.  (1) The articles ignored or dismissed claims that the United States was involved in supporting opposition groups in Venezuela, in spite of clear evidence that it was involved.  (2)  The articles outlandishly claimed that the Venezuelan government controls the media in the country, when in fact there are constant attacks of the government and distortions of its programs and policies disseminated by the Venezuelan private media.  (3) The news stories made estimates of the number of people emigrating from Venezuela that are five times UN estimates, without offering any explanation of their exaggerated figures (Emerberger 2018).
 
       MacLeod’s observations dovetail with what I have observed here in Cuba, where I am not able to overlook a stunning contrast between the descriptions of Venezuela by Cuban journalists and those of The New York Times.  Of course, Cuban news outlets are owned by the state and the Party, so they could not possibly be considered objective sources, right?
 
     In addition to distortions about Iran and Venezuela, there also are media distortions about Cuba, which have been disseminated for so long that they are now part of the general (mis)understanding of the peoples of the world.  Central to the ideological maneuver is the observation, “there is only one political party in Cuba.”  This is a true statement, for indeed, the Cuban Constitution names the Communist Party of Cuba as the leader and guide of the Revolution.  The catch is that the Party in Cuba does not have the same functions as political parties in representative democracies.  Therefore, for anyone who has representative democracy as a frame of references and a source of definitions, the statement is misleading, because in Cuba there do not exist any political parties, as they function and are defined in representative democracy.  In Cuba, the party leads, educates, and exhorts, but it does not participate in elections.  In Cuba, the Party does not nominate candidates or support or endorse candidates; whereas in representative democracies, the nomination of candidates and support for them is the most important and essential function of political parties.
 
     So simply saying that there is only one political party in Cuba, without an explanation of the function of the one party, constitutes a strategy for misinforming, even though it is technically true.  At the same time, many important details are not mentioned at all, thus providing a portrait that is fundamentally erroneous.  Such important ignored details include: elections of delegates in local voting districts, with two or more candidates nominated by the people in neighborhood nomination assemblies; the election of deputies to the national assembly by the municipal delegates, with the active participation of mass organizations; the authority of the legislative branch over the executive; among others.  Taken together, these details form the elements of an accurate portrait of a democratic political process, characterized by high levels of political participation (See “Human rights and Cuba’s reasons” 10/10/2018).
 
      So we see that there are media driven distortions with respect to Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba.  What are the reasons for such media distortions with respect to these countries, as well as similar distortions with respect to China, Russia, Nicaragua, and Bolivia?  Central to addressing this question is that fact that all of these countries have forged projects that challenge the U.S. and European dominated neocolonial world-system, and accordingly, they are a threat to transnational corporations, among which are found owners of the media.  This gives rise to a dynamic in which the news reporting agencies filter information, leading to a delegitimizing portrait of these nations, in which they are presented as threats.  In reality, they are threats not to a just and sustainable world-system, but to the corporate-dominated world-system, and as a result, the corporations have a vested interest in demonizing and delegitimizing them.  As Joe Emerberger (2018), drawing upon the work of Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky, observes, there are “‘filters’ that distort news coverage in ways that serve the rich and powerful.”  He maintains that “it matters who pays the bills,” and that “corporate-owned, ad-dependent media will tend to serve the agenda of wealthy owners and corporate customers who provide the bulk of the ad dollars.”
 
     It would be possible for corporate owners of the media to take an enlightened approach to the news reporting.  It would be possible for them to believe that distorting the news to promote their own particular interests would undermine the legitimacy and credibility of the media in the long run, which could lead to political instability and to the delegitimation of political and social institutions.  Apparently, however, the corporate elite considers the threat to its long-range interests by the maverick nations to be so great that it is prepared to sacrifice the credibility of major news agencies, in spite of the importance of such credibility in maintaining political and social stability. 
 
     The irresponsible and unenlightened approach of the corporate elite with respect to its ownership of the news media is becoming increasingly evident.  Therefore, it is time for us who form the peoples of the world to recognize that private ownership of the media undermines the essential and necessary social functions of the media, including the need for accurate and credible news reporting, and we have to search for alternatives to private ownership of the media.
 
     The people of the United States has partially understood this need for alternatives to private ownership of the media, as is indicated by support for public television and public radio among the more progressive sectors of the people.  But such sentiments need to be more fully and clearly articulated.  In the first place, by fully documenting the fact that news reporting today is distorted in order to promote corporate interests.  And secondly, by formulating a vision of news reporting that is based in objective reality and in the quest by committed professional journalists not only for truth in a narrow technical sense but for a comprehensive understanding. 
 
      In imagining such possibilities, perhaps the Cuban approach to the mass media is instructive.  In Cuba, the basic principle is state ownership of the principal media of communication.  But let us unpack what this means, free of distorting images that we have been taught.  In Cuba, television and radio stations are under the jurisdiction of the national and provincial assemblies, which are elected directly and indirectly by the people, as noted above.  The assemblies do not directly manage the stations, but they are the ultimate authority.  The assemblies name the ministers, who name the directors of the companies, who are all professionals in their fields.  But everyone understands that the television and radio stations must ultimately answer to the popular assemblies and to the people.  Accordingly, the directors and the media professionals are strongly influenced by their perceptions of the orientation of the popular assemblies.
 
      For the most part, the newspapers and magazines funded and supervised in a similar way by the mass organizations and the Party.  The major daily newspaper, Granma, is an organ of the Central Committee of the Party, and it is one of the principle ways that the Party carries out its educational mission.
 
     Thus, Cuba has established an alternative to the structures of private ownership of the media.  It has established a system in which the principal media are public, with the result that it is shaped by the prevailing sentiments of the needs of the nation and the people.  I think that a general principle can be formulated on the basis of the Cuban practice, to wit: when there is state ownership of the media, to the extent that the state is democratic, the media will be less likely to be guided by private interests and more likely to be directed by prevailing sentiments of the common good.
 
      In explaining the Cuban approach to the media, Fidel once observed that in the Western democracies there is confusion of the issue of freedom of the press with the rights of property.  The transnational corporations are not merely claiming the right of the press to express itself without government interference.  They also are claiming a right to ownership of the media, which is not so much a question of freedom of expression but of the rights of property and its limits.  The Cuban Revolution maintains that the right of property does not extend to the media of communication, because communication, knowledge, and information are public goods, and they should not be in private hands.  They should be placed in the hands of the popular assemblies, elected directly and indirectly by the people; or mass organizations, constituted by the various sectors of the people; or an organization like the Party, which is dedicated to the education of the people for the good of the nation.  In Cuba, the structures of authority with respect to the media, combined with the flight of the Cuban national bourgeoisie in the early 1960s, have prevented the media from developing in a form that serves particular interests, as occurs in capitalist societies.
 
     Not that establishing public and social ownership resolves all issues.  As in any well-integrated society, there is in Cuba broad consensual agreement with respect to a number of issues, including the view that the press ought to play an educational role and it ought to contribute positively to the continuing development of a socialist society.  However, there are debates over many issues.  To what extent should the press report daily problems, and to what extent should it be critical of particular governmental policies and initiatives?  To what extent can new strategies be developed to aid in communication?  Nevertheless, there is in Cuba a broad societal consensus that the people have a right to a press that does not serve particular interests; and that the members of the press have a duty to serve the nation and the common good.  Moreover, there is broad consensus that the press in Cuba does not distort news in service of corporate interests and powerful nations, as occurs in the major media of information of the world.
 
     As can be seen, the accusation that the Cuban government does not respect freedom of the press misses an important point.  Namely, that Cuba has developed public media that does not distort news, that presents national and international news in a responsible manner, that is oriented to the education rather than the manipulation of the people, and that responds to the popular assemblies elected directly and indirectly by the people and to the mass organizations formed by the people.  In a world in which the major media of communication distort news to accommodate to corporate interests and function to convert citizens into consumers, the dignified example of Cuba with respect to the media ought to be studied.
 
     The issue of “freedom of the press” frames discussion in a form that implicitly limits the debate to the issue of government censorship of a press that ought to be at liberty to criticize the government.  To be sure, government censorship of the press always can emerge as a problem in a particular context.  In socialist Cuba, if such a problem were to emerge, it would be the responsibility of the deputies and delegates of the popular assemblies to criticize any unwarranted and unjustified restraint on the press, and to take appropriate action.  However, in today’s world, government censorship is not the most basic problem with respect to the press.  Rather, the fundamental problem is corporate control and filtering of the news in service of its particular interests, denying to the people its right to a press that is guided by the quest for truth, by scientific knowledge, and by the long-range interests of the people, the nation, and humanity.
 
     By restricting private ownership of the means of communication, Cuba has avoided the distortions of news content as well as distortion in the formation of professionals that occur when the media is in private hands.  Its intentions has not been to restrict freedom of the press.  Rather, it has proceeded on the basis of the principle that the right to own property is not without limit, and it is not extended to include ownership of the principle means of communication, which belong to the people as a whole.
 
      The case of Cuba illustrates that the press can most freely operate when it has a political environment in which power is in the hands of the people, so that the press can form itself in accordance with the needs, will, and interests of the people, and not in accordance with the interests of the corporations.

References
 
Emerberger, Joe.  2018.  “Why Venezuela Reporting Is So Bad.”  (www.fair.org; June 27)
 
Martínez, Julio César.  2014.  Irán, el país que Estados Unidos quiere destruir: Retrato urgente de un “condenado a muerte,” Segunda edición.  Qom, República Islámica de Irán.  (Fundación Cultural Oriente; www.islamoriente.com)

      The U.S. Left has a superficial and limited understanding of U.S. history, of historical and contemporary global dynamics, of Marxist-Leninist thought, of the Third World revolution of national and social liberation, of the meaning of revolution, and of the characteristics of socialism (see various posts in the category Critique of the Left).  Reflecting this superficiality, the U.S. Left has not formulated a narrative that explains national dynamics in global context; nor has it formulated a comprehensive plan of action.  At the same time, it tends to express its feelings without political intelligence, without reflection on the impact of its action, slogans, and demands on the people, who in the final analysis must be persuaded to support the program of the Left.  As a result of these characteristics, the Left attains limited popular support, and it is unable to lead a popular movement that would seek to take political power in the United States, and to use a position of political power to struggle for democratic changes.  Yet such a popular movement in the United States is necessary for the future of humanity. 
 
        When members of the U.S. Left travel to Cuba, said limitations are evident.  For the most part, they arrive with a superficial understanding of Cuban history and the Cuban political-economic system.  For the most part, they express great admiration for Fidel, without having studied his speeches.  Diplomacy requires a polite silence by the Cuban side with respect to these shortcomings.  However, although diplomacy is appropriate for discussions with representatives of the U.S. government and of U.S. businesses, it should not define the demeanor of the Cuban Revolution with respect to the U.S. Left, which ostensibly presents itself as an advocate of social change and as a defender of social justice.
 
      Historically, the Cuban Revolution has not been so reticent with respect to its relations with Leftist movements in the Third World.  Cuba has given concrete support and/or developed strong relations with socialist or leftist governments in Algeria, Ethiopia, Angola, Chile, Grenada, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina.  Inasmuch as revolutionary Cuba has considered the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of nations to be necessary for justice and sustainability in the world-system, it has not provided concrete aid to socialist movements that had not yet attained power.  It nevertheless did have relations with them, as can be seen in the case of Cuban participation in the Forum of Sao Paulo. 
 
     The Forum of Sao Paulo was initiated in 1990, when the Workers’ Party of Brazil convoked a Meeting of Parties and Organizations of the Latin American and Caribbean Left in Sao Paulo.  The idea for the forum had emerged in a meeting between Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, head of the Brazilian Workers’ Party, and Fidel, during a visit of Lula to Cuba.  The initial draft of the First Declaration of Sao Paulo was developed by a commission composed of representatives of the Workers’ Party of Brazil, the Communist Party of Cuba, the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) of El Salvador, and the Mariateguista Unified Party of Peru.  For the next twenty years, Leftist parties and organization from various Latin American countries participated, with twelve subsequent meetings being held in Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador, Brazil, Guatemala, and Uruguay.   The initiative enabled ongoing dialogue among political parties and organizations of the Latin American Left, in order to exchange ideas and discuss possible strategies (Regalado 2008).  Cuba played a leading and active role, constantly reiterating its message of the necessary unity of the various sectors of the Left, seeking to take power with strategies that were intelligently adapted to the political, economic, and cultural conditions in each particular nation. 
 
      The Forum of Sao Paulo played an important role in establishing the foundation for the arrival to power of Leftist political parties throughout the region during the first decade of the twenty-first century.  In the Sao Paulo Forum, the Cuban Revolution was playing an educating role.  It was helping the political parties of the Left, some of which were socialist and others that were not, to assess their own national situations and to arrive to an understanding of what ought to be done.
 
       The Left in the United States needs such help and guidance.   It is confused and divided, and it has scant understanding of the dynamics of a popular or socialist revolution.  Confronting the stunningly low level of historical and political consciousness of the U.S. Left and its subtle ethnocentrism, the Cuban Revolution appears uncertain of itself.  It tends to express appreciation for U.S. popular advocacy for an end to the blockade; and also for the earlier support by U.S. activists of the five Cuban anti-terrorist agents unjustly incarcerated in the United States, released and returned to Cuba during the Obama opening.  But the Cuban Revolution does not seem to know how to engage the U.S. Left in reflection on the meaning of revolution and of socialism.  It does not seem to know how to challenge the U.S. Left to deepen its understanding of revolution and socialism, moving toward greater insight on the basis of socialist revolutionary projects in the world, creatively adapting such insights to the conditions of the United States.  The Cuban Revolution does not seem to know how to play an educating role with respect to the U.S. Left, in the way that it has known with respect to the Latin American Left.
 
      The Cuban Revolution needs to give serious consideration concerning how it could draw upon its considerable experience in socialist revolution to educate the U.S. Left concerning the meaning of revolution and of socialism, so that the U.S. Left could benefit from the Cuban socialist experience.  To be sure, the U.S. Left must arrive to its own conclusions and strategies that are appropriate for a U.S. context, and it is responsible for forging its own popular revolution (which would be the fourth popular revolution in U.S. history).   However, it cannot do so without understanding the basic concepts of revolution and the basic structures and processes of socialist revolutions in Cuba, China, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela and of anti-imperialist revolutions in Latin America.  It needs the benefits of honest, in-depth, mutually respectful, and sustained dialogue with Cuban revolutionaries.

​Reference
 
Regalado, Roberto.  2008.  Encuentros y desencuentros de la izquierda latinoamericana: Una mirada desde el Foro de São Paulo.  México D.F.: Ocean Sur.

       Cuban President Miguel Díez-Canal recently spent a week in New York City in order to attend meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  During his stay in New York, he was received warmly by various political and popular sectors of the United States, which indicate that the rapprochement between Cuba and the people of the United States is continuing, in spite of the Trump reversal of the Obama opening.  For its part, Cuba welcomes the rapprochement, reiterating that it favors the normalization of relations on a basis of equality and mutual respect, without the acceptance of any conditions or the compromising of its principles or its sovereignty.  It recognizes that that there are differences, for Cuba is a socialist system, and not a capitalist system; it calls for a civilized acceptance of these differences, with neither side demanding change in the other as a precondition for establishing mutually beneficial commerce and cultural interchanges.  It points to the historic relations of affection between the two peoples. 
 
       Something is lacking, however, in the rapprochement between our two peoples.  Cuba affirms that it is socialist, and that it is and has been constructing socialism based on democratic principles.  However, it does not explain the character of democracy in its socialist society, as a political system that puts power in the hand of the delegates and deputies of the people, and not in the hands of political representatives and political parties that are under the influence of corporations and elite foundations (“Human rights and Cuba’s reasons” 10/8/2018).  In the evolving rapprochement, Cubans explain and defend many aspects of their society, including their gains in such areas as health, education, sport, and culture; but there is a strong tendency among Cubans to avoid the theme of their alternative structures of popular democracy. 
 
      I think that Cubans are not fully aware of the extent that they avoid the theme, for they do indeed endeavor to explain their principles and many features of their society, insisting on their right to sovereignty.  The avoidance, conscious or not, is rooted, in my view, in a desire not to offend.  There is, after all, a certain indelicacy for a Cuban to say to persons from the representative democracies, “our Cuban system is more democratic and more advanced than yours, because it was forged by the people and not by the elite and their surrogates.”  Indeed, it is hard to avoid this indelicacy, inasmuch as the socialist structures of popular democracy cannot be explained without invoking a contrast with the bourgeois structures of representative democracy, from which popular democracy evolved. 
 
     Meanwhile, North Americans tend to avoid the subject.  Even the supporters of Cuba, including those of the Left, have been influenced by many of the distortions about Cuba, and they assume that Cuba has some deficits when it comes to political and civil rights.  So they too are reticent about discussing such political themes, not wanting to offend. 
 
     But we must move beyond this impasse.  Even though no political system in a particular country can function as a model that should be replicated elsewhere, the Cuban political system is an exceptional example that has many insights to teach the world.  In order to offer its wisdom accumulated from its practical experience, Cuba must explain its system, if there is to be a meaningful conversation.  Exchanges of ideas on the meaning of democracy could be the most fruitful benefit of the emerging historic reconciliation between the peoples of the United States and Cuba.  It would occur in a historic moment in which socialist nations like Cuba, China, Vietnam, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are finding their way; and the representative democracies, not able to defend their nations and peoples nor to resolve the contradictions of the unsustainable world-system, are experiencing a crisis of delegitimation.
 
        During the Obama opening, an educational program was developed in the United States, in which Cuban youths were brought to the USA for a few weeks to be educated with respect to U.S. “democratic” values.  Members of the Cuban press criticized the program, implying that it was an interference in Cuban affairs.  I was not in agreement with this criticism by the Cuban press.  I think that the United States has the right to offer programs to youth from other nations, educating them is its values.  To be sure, the United States does not have the right to employ Cubans to engage in political activities in Cuba, as it has been doing for many years; such comportment indeed is interference in Cuban affairs, and Cuba consistently demands its cessation.  However, the United States does have the right to offer scholarships and education to Cuban youth, and to send them back to their native country more enhanced by the experience.
 
       Furthermore, Cuba has every right to do the same, to educate youth from the United States concerning Cuban history, the Cuban political-economic system, Cuban culture, and Cuban values.  Cuba would not have a right to finance and politically support a Cuban-inspired vanguard political party in the United States.  But Cuba does have the right to exchange ideas with U.S. youth who are admirers of Cuba.  Such an exchange could appropriately include the characteristics of a vanguard popular political party, discuss and the characteristics that such a vanguard political party might have in the United States. And it could include exhortations that the U.S. youths return to their native country to try to form a vanguard political party, with best wishes from Cuba.  In accordance with its respect for the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other nations, Cuba would send with the U.S. youths only its best wishes, and not money, political advisors, or arms.
 
       Such educational programs in the two countries competing for the hearts and minds of youth from Cuba and the USA could be a dimension of the normalization of relations.  Each country would create educational programs for the youth of the other.  And as part of the financial settlement for the damage caused to Cuba by the U.S. blockade, the USA could agree to pay for scholarships for programs in Cuba for U.S. youth, with the number of scholarships proportionate to (taking into account the different sizes of the two nations) the number of Cuban youth being educated in the United States.   It would be a civilized conclusion to the economic and sometimes military attack of the United States against Cuba for a half century, transforming the conflict to the battle of ideas.  I have no doubt, having lived in the heart of the two nations, that Cuba would emerge with greater strength and prestige in such a battle of ideas, because Cuba’s reasons are much more scientifically informed and much more in accordance with the values that humanity has proclaimed.  But let the USA try to prove otherwise.
 
         In any Cuban effort to explain its political system, it ought not necessarily focus on the Congresspersons and businesspersons that travel to Cuba seeking commercial possibilities.  In relating to such representatives of U.S. society, the current Cuban approach of diplomacy, but firmness in principles, is the politically intelligent road to ending the blockade and normalizing relations.  However, with respect to its relations with U.S. youth, the Cuban Revolution ought to rethink its approach.  This is especially true with respect to the U.S. Left, as will be the subject of my next post.
 
 
P.S.  Today marks the 150th anniversary of the initiation of the first Cuban war of independence, which the Cuban Revolution understands as the initiation of its revolutionary struggle, a continuous struggle from October 10, 1868 to the present.  Cuban television in recent days and weeks has been full of educational programming commemorating the event, stressing the heroism of the patriots of the War of 1868-1878 as well as the historic continuity of the revolutionary struggle.  For more on the Cuban Revolution, understood in historical and global context, please see “The Cuban war of independence of 1868” 6/17/2014; as well as my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

      On September 26, 2018, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed the UN General Assembly (see “Cuba is still Cuba: Continuity, not rupture” 10/4/2018).  Near the conclusion of his address, he observed that the Cuban people continues with the work initiated with the triumph of the Revolution nearly sixty years ago.  And in accordance with this determination, Cuba “began a process of reform of the Constitution, a truly participatory and democratic exercise, characterized by popular discussion of the draft that eventually will be approved in a referendum.”  He was referring to the most recent development in an ongoing process of developing structures of popular democracy, an alternative to structures of representative democracy, which are practiced widely in the world, and which increasingly are losing legitimacy.  It is likely, however, that few listeners understood very well the process to which he was referring. 
 
      Díaz-Canel’s discourse before the General Assembly of the United Nations was not necessarily the appropriate place to for it, but the Cuban Revolution should give much more emphasis to explaining its alternative structures of popular democracy.  About ten years ago, I asked Jorge Lezcano, then administrative assistant to the President of the National Assembly of Popular Power and author of a book and several pamphlets on the Cuban system of popular democracy, why there was not more emphasis in Cuba on explaining the Cuban political system, as he himself was doing in his book and pamphlets.  He responded that it was because of sensitivity to the charge of exporting the Revolution; Cuba did not want to appear to be trying to disseminate its particular political system.  The Cuban approach is: you have your system, we have ours; we should accept this difference and treat each other with mutual respect.
 
      However, what I have in mind here is not trying to persuade others to adopt the Cuban system.  Rather, I am proposing a fuller explanation of what the Cuban political system is, in response to the distortions and misinformation that proliferate.  If the world were to understand the Cuban political system, it would recognize its essentially democratic character, and it would be able to discern that Cuba is a threat only in the sense that its example is so powerful and compelling that it might inspire others to follow it in some form.  But Cuba should hardly be sanctioned for that.
 
        I have observed a tendency when Cubans converse with persons of other nations.  The international visitor, not well informed about Cuban reality and influenced by the distortions that abound in the world, raises questions or makes declarations to the effect that Cuba violates human rights.  Often times, Cubans respond by referring to its excellent health and educational systems, and by directly or indirectly making the case that Cuba has a comprehensive and ample view of human rights, such that its approach includes the social and economic rights.  Thus, the Cuban argument runs, Cuba has a strong record in the protection of human rights, which can be seen when the issue of human rights is amply and fully understood.
 
       This response is entirely true, but it is ineffective in persuading.  The reason is that for the international visitor, human rights may or may not include social and economic rights.  For the most part, when folks from the countries of the North are inquiring about human rights, they are talking about political and civil rights, such as the right to vote, to freedom of expression, to freedom of association, and to freedom of the press.  Influenced by the distortions, they often believe that Cuba systematically violates these rights.  When international visitors raise this question, and Cubans begin talking about the excellent health system, visitors tend to think that Cubans are changing the subject, which appears to be an implicit recognition that Cuba does indeed violate political and civil rights.  When Obama was in Cuba, he reacted to Cubans talking about the health system in response to questions concerning human rights, observing, “I have great respect and admiration for the Cuban health system.  But strength in one area does not compensate for shortcomings in another.”
 
       The defenders of Cuba should be constantly explaining the Cuban system of popular democracy.  They should repeatedly affirm that political power in Cuba is not concentrated in the executive branch, but in the National Assembly of Popular Power.  The concentrated power of the National Assembly, established by the Cuban Constitution of 1976, is evident in the constitutional and legal authority that it possesses.  It elects the President and the other members of Council of State and Ministers, which is the executive branch.  In addition, it enacts laws; it names highest members of the judicial branch; and it has the authority to revise the Constitution.  In concentrating power in the legislative branch, the Cuban Constitution of 1976 is like the constitutions of the thirteen colonies of 1776.  Those constitutions, reformed or written during the popular revolution of 1774-1775, concentrated power in the legislatures, which were elected in voting districts not extensive in size. 
 
       The Cuban concentration of power in the legislature, however, is unlike the system instituted by the U.S. Constitution of 1789, which established a balance of powers among the branches of government.  The U.S. principle of balance of powers reflected the interests of the 1780s counterrevolution forged by the American educated and landholding elite, which was reacting to the popular revolution of the 1770s.  The structure of a balance of powers makes difficult any effective and decisive action that reflects the political will of the majority, which indeed was the intention of Madison, Hamilton, and other leaders of the Federalist Party (see blog posts in the category American Revolution).
 
     In Cuba, therefore, power is concentrated in the National Assembly, including the authority to elect the President of the Council of State to a five-year term.  But who are the deputies that form the National Assembly?  They are elected by the delegates of the 169 municipal assemblies, on the basis of recommendations made to them by candidacy commissions in each of the 169 municipalities.  These commissions are constituted by representatives of the mass organizations of workers, peasants, students, and women in each municipality.   
 
     So our question now becomes, how are the members of the 169 municipal assemblies elected?  Again, parallels with the smallness and locality of the American colonies of 1774 and 1775 are striking.  The delegates of the 169 municipal assemblies in Cuba are elected by the people, in voting districts of 1000 to 1500 voters, in elections with two or three candidates, all of whom are nominated by the people in a series of popular nomination assemblies.  No political parties nominate candidates.  The candidates do not conduct political campaigns, and thus there is no campaign financing.  In cycles of two and one-half years for municipal elections and five years for elections to the National Assembly, Cuban voter participation since 1976 in the various stages of the process has ranged from 85% to 95%. 
 
         So here we have the essential structures of the Cuban political system.  The deputies of the National Assembly have full authority to elect and remove the members of the executive branch, to make and repeal laws, to name and dismiss court justices, and to amend the Constitution.  They have been sent to such a position of concentrated political power by the elected delegates of the people, who themselves became municipal delegates without the financial support of wealthy donors or associations that represent elite interests.  Both delegates and deputies arrive to political power without a financial, political, or moral debt or obligation to anyone, other than the people. 
 
     The Cuban political system was forged by the Revolution in the period of 1959 to 1976, with full consciousness of the limitations of representative democracy, which were clearly in evidence during the neocolonial republic of 1902 to 1958.  During that neocolonial period, politicians promised to defend the people, but when they arrived to power, they represented the economic and political interests of the national elite as well as those of the United States, while pretending to defend the interests of the people and the nation.  With consciousness of the limitations of this structure, Cubans during the 1960s and 1970s forged a political structure that places political power is in the hands of delegates and deputies of the people, freely elected by the people in local nomination assemblies and voting districts, without the distorting influence of campaign promises and campaign financing.
 
     Therefore, the defenders of Cuba, when presenting arguments against the U.S. blockade of Cuba, have no reason to avoid talking about the Cuban political system.  Once we understand the basic structures of the Cuban political system, we can see that a reasonable case could be made that Cuba has developed an advanced system of democracy that is more democratic than the structures of representative democracy.  Apart from what position one might take in such a debate in political philosophy, the imposition of a blockade on Cuba, on the grounds that it does not have a democratic political system, can be seen to be lacking in any reasonable justification.  We may or may not agree with the structures of the Cuban political system, but it cannot be reasonably denied that Cuba has developed a form of democracy.  In criticizing the U.S. blockade of Cuba, explanation of the basic structures of the Cuban political system ought to be integral to the critique. 
 
     Moreover, in a historic movement in which the world-system is confronting a crisis of political delegitimation, the example of Cuba’s political system ought to stimulate international dialogue on the characteristics of democratic political structures.  The Cuban system is the result of a number of particular historical, political, economic, and cultural factors, and its features cannot be replicated unreflectively elsewhere.  However, it has many insights to teach the world concerning the development of processes of popular participation and of structures that put power in the hands of delegates of the people.  Cuba has the duty to engage in dialogue with the peoples of the earth concerning the meaning of democracy, drawing upon its concept of democracy forged through its revolution, which does not constitute the same thing as “exporting the revolution.”