Today’s post is the third in a series of six posts reflecting on Mitchel Cohen’s concept of direct action, which Mitchel formulates in his 2013 book, What is Direct Action? Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  

     Mitchel maintains that the failure of the Left to provide “direct action communities of resistance and nurturance” has the consequence that people turn to fascist and rights wing groups in order to provide for their social-psychological need for community and for meaning (Cohen 2013: 180, 250-51, 310-16).  “The Left preaches against fascism while providing no coherent framework for activities that could cut into fascism’s appeal” (Cohen 2013: 312).

      I think that this is an important observation by Mitchel.  Drawing upon the work of Leon Trotsky, Mitchel discerns that fascism responds to a need established by anxieties and fears provoked by the dislocations of capitalism.  This is why both fascism and socialism gain in influence as crises occur.

     I am in agreement with Mitchel that the appeal of the Left would be greatly enhanced if it were to organize activities in which people could be involved.  Such activities could include the kind of direct action projects that Mitchel advocates, and it also could include some activities that Mitchel mentions only in passing: sports teams, political groups, alternative discussion groups, community centers and legal counseling (Cohen 2013: 251).

     But addressing the social-psychological needs of the people requires not only involving people directly in activities; it also requires the formulation of a political program that addresses the concrete needs of the people.  If we study triumphant socialist revolutions, we see that leaders were skillful in formulating a proposed program of action that responded to the frustrations that the people experienced in their daily lives.  In the case of Lenin, the slogans that captured the people were peace, land to the peasants, and power to the popular councils (see “The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014).  In the case of Fidel, the concrete proposals included the ceding of land to tenant farmers, the sharing of profits by workers in industry and mining, increasing small farmers’ share of the sugar yield, nationalization of foreign companies that charge exorbitant rates, and just punishment for corrupt government officials (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014 and “Reflections on ‘History will absolve me’” 9/8/2014 in the category Cuban History).  When popular revolutions move forward under the guidance of charismatic leadership, the people become involved in the revolution, providing them with a sense of belonging and meaning in life.

     But the US Left has not formulated a program of action that connects to the needs of the people.  In the first place, that Left has jumped from issue to issue, rather than formulating a coherent plan. Moreover, the Left has framed a number of these issues in ways that are insensitive to the concepts, values, religious sentiments, and patriotism of the people.  From 1967 to the present, the Left has not been creative and sensitive in the formulation of its concepts, and thus it has not demonstrated an affinity with the concerns and aspirations of the people.  And as a result, it has not convinced the people that it is prepared to make any sacrifice necessary in the people’s defense.  It has failed to formulate a national project that can unify our people into a great movement.

     The formulation of a coherent program that connects to the people is precisely the challenge of leadership.  When revolutions take-off, it is because charismatic leaders have emerged to offer a plan of the people, of which the people previously had a sense but were unable to formulate.  When charismatic leaders emerge, a vanguard begins to take shape, educating the people and exhorting the people to sacrifice in their own defense.

     Popular revolutions, therefore, are to some extent top-down.  They involve leaders who teach, exhort, clarify and unify.  But they also are bottom-up.  For the gift of charismatic leaders is precisely their intimacy with the people, their understanding of the people’s needs, their capacity to formulate a plan for addressing the needs of the people, and their boundless commitment to the people; qualities that the people see.

     Yes, as Mitchel argues, we must offer our people the chance to be involved in direct action projects and the creation of communities of resistance, and in doing so, we would undermine the appeal of fascism.  But we also must formulate a program of action, an alternative national project, rooted in the historic values of popular movements in the United States.  This would unify us, overcome our confusion, and lead us forward.  If we study the history of revolutions, we see that the formulation of an alternative national plan is what charismatic leaders do.

      As an old intellectual who has seen the glory of the Third World revolution, I call for the emergence of charismatic leaders in the United States, younger men and women of all classes and colors.  Leaders with the discipline to do the intellectual work necessary for understanding the fundamental dynamics of human history, overcoming the ideological distortions that they have been taught. Leaders with a capacity to explain the dynamics of the nation in a global and historical context, and who can formulate a comprehensive plan of action that connects to the needs of all of the people, voicing the needs of each popular sector with sensitivity to the concerns of other sectors.  Leaders who can unify the people and lead them in the quest for the taking of power and in societal transformation.  I know that such leaders are present, perhaps without fully understanding it, for they are present in all lands.  Your time has come!  

     For further posts on this theme, see “A socialist revolution in the USA” 2/1/2016; “Lessons of socialism for the USA” 1/18/2016; “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016; and “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015.  They can be found in the category Revolution. 

​Reference
 
Cohen, Mitchel, et.al.  2013.  What is Direct Action?  Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  Brooklyn: Red Balloon Collective Publications.

 
 Key words: socialism, fascism, direct action, social psychology, human needs
 

Posted May 12, 2016

     I continue with reflection on Mitchel Cohen’s 2013 book, What is Direct Action? Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street, and I focus today on Mitchel’s criticisms of Herbert Marcuse’s 1964 book, One-Dimensional Man.  The book was frequently mentioned, although not necessarily read, during the student anti-war movement of the late 1960s.  There were commemorations on the fiftieth anniversary of the book, so it can be considered a classic. 

     Mitchel interprets Herbert Marcuse as maintaining that capitalism, by the middle of the twentieth century, had undermined entirely the capacity for revolutionary consciousness to emerge, inasmuch as it had arrived to a stage in which it was able to manufacture a desire for commodities, creating what Marcuse calls “false needs.”  Mitchel finds Marcuse’s position to be overly pessimistic, for it concludes that the working class in Western Europe and the United States is not revolutionary and has become part of a “labor aristocracy” that itself exploits (Cohen 2013:60-63).  In my view, Mitchel does not appreciate that Marcuse was insightfully identifying important emerging tendencies in the core nations of the capitalist world-economy.

      Marcuse, along with Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and Jurgen Habermas, was one of the prominent members of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, even though Marcuse did not return to Frankfurt from exile in the United States following World War II, as did Horkheimer and Adorno (Jay 1973).  The strengths and limitations of the analysis of the Frankfurt School reflect their social location in Western Europe and the United States, at a time in which a consumer society had emerged, the labor movement had become bureaucratized, and the intellectuals of the West were not integrally tied to the twentieth century movements of social and national liberation in the Third World.

      The bureaucratization of the proletarian revolution, and its incorporation into a structure of reform from above, was a dimension of a general twentieth century social phenomenon of bureaucratization.  In Russia, the bureaucratization of the proletarian revolution expressed itself in the form of a petty bourgeois counterrevolution, culminating in Stalinism; in Western Europe, in the form of social democratic political parties that were major parties, often in control of the state bureaucracy; and in the United States, in the form of the New Deal social contract and its corresponding structures of labor-management relations.

     In Western Europe and the United States, the bureaucratization of the labor movement and its accommodation to bourgeois democratic parliamentarianism and reform established a tendency toward the conversion of the upper levels of the working class into a kind of petty bourgeoisie, able to consume the multiple products of the consumer society.  At the same time, with an increase in educational opportunity, many of the worker’s sons and daughters entered into middle class professions, thus increasing the size of the middle class and reducing the working class, and decreasing the influence of labor unions and political parties supported by workers.  The increasingly higher standard of living of the working and middles classes in the core was made possible by the colonial and neocolonial superexploitation of the Third World, which reached its ecological and political limits beginning in the 1960s; and by government deficit spending, which would reach its financial limits in the 1970s.

      The containment of the labor movement in conjunction with the emergence of a consumer society provided a social base from which the Frankfurt School was able formulate a penetrating critique of the culture of capitalism.  The Frankfort School described the eclipse of reason in the twentieth century, making impossible the defense of values and reasonable ends and goals.  It analyzed the creation of false needs through advertising, establishing the foundation for the consumer society.  And it maintained that there is a universal human interest in liberation.  In accordance with this interest in liberation, Marcuse proposed the formation of a “transcendent historical project” that could challenge the established historical project; and Habermas envisioned a “communication community,” consisting of representatives of various particular interests who would seek consensus through dialogue in an environment free of coercion (Horkheimer 1972, 1974; Horkheimer and Adorno 1972; Marcuse 1960, 1964; Habermas 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975). 

     However, the penetrating insights of the Frankford school could not indicate the way toward human liberation, because the formulations of the Frankfort School were not connected to any revolutionary social movement, neither to the classical workers’ movement in Europe, which had become bureaucratized and reformist; nor to the Third World revolutionary movements, which pertained to another social world.  Marcuse was loosely connected to the student anti-war movement and the youth rebellions of the 1960s, but his concept of a transcendent historical project was not based on analysis of what the members of the movement were doing.  Moreover, the student/anti-war movement was not able to sustain itself as a relatively permanent social movement, which would have provided the foundation for a more complete formulation in theory and practice of Marcuse’s concept of a transcendent historical project.   Similarly, Habermas’ concept of a communication community was idealist, for the conditions for dialogue free of coercion do not exist in capitalist society.

      Nevertheless, in spite of their limitations, Marcuse and the Frankfurt School formulated penetrating insights into the structures of domination of the capitalist world-system, insights necessary for discerning the road to human liberation.

​References

Cohen, Mitchel, et.al.  2013.  What is Direct Action?  Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  Brooklyn: Red Balloon Collective Publications.

Horkheimer, Max.  1972.  Critical Theory. New York:  Herder and Herder.
 
__________.  1974.  Eclipse of Reason. New York:  Seabury Press.
 
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno.  1972.  Dialect of Enlightenment. New York:  The Seabury Press, A Continuum Book.
 
Marcuse, Herbert.  1960.  Reason and Revolution. Boston:  Beacon Press.
 
__________.  1964.  One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press.
 
Habermas, Jurgen.  1970.  Toward a Rational Society.  Boston:  Beacon Press.
 
__________.  1971.  Knowledge and Human Interest.  Boston: Beacon Press
 
__________.  1973.  Theory and Practice.  Boston: Beacon Press.
 
__________.  1975.  Legitimation Crisis.  Boston:  Beacon Press.
 
Jay, Martin.  1973.  The Dialectical Imagination:  A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research, 1923-50. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 
 
 
Key words:  Marcuse, Frankfurt School, false needs, transcendent historical project, communication community

Posted May 13, 2016

      Today’s post is the fifth in a series of six posts on Mitchel Cohen’s What is Direct Action? Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  Mitchel calls for direct action strategies, rejecting the formation of top-down vanguard organizations that issue demands and organize protests.  I have maintained that vanguard organizations are necessary for societal transformation, and that, in the context of the United States at the present time, an alternative political party should be formed that educates and organizes the people, with the intention of taking political power through the mechanisms of representative democracy.  This difference in viewpoint with respect to strategy has been a central part of the story of the New Left.  

     The New Left emerged in the 1960s among white students.  It embraced a liberal agenda of defending the political, civil, social and economic rights of all citizens, but it rejected the anti-communism of liberals.  But at the same time, the New Left did not embrace the communism of the Soviet Union, nor did it accept the classical Marxist formulation of a socialist revolution led by a proletarian vanguard. Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, the New Left by the late 1960s had turned to an identification with Third World national liberation struggles, and it became opposed to US imperialism.

     In the late 1960s, in response to the escalation of the US war in Vietnam, the New Left movement divided into three tendencies.  (1) A confrontational strategy of disruptive tactics, hoping to create a situation of political polarization, thus forcing the government to seek the means to end the war.  Most of the confrontational strategies were non-violent, but they did include the bombing of government and corporate buildings.  The tendency was most clearly represented by the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society.     (2) Non-violent mass protest, with the issuance of demands with respect to the war.  The tendency reached its peak in the period 1967 to 1970. A variety of organizations participated in the anti-war mobilization, which attained a scale never before seen in the history of warfare. However, its efforts with respect to popular education were limited, and they were confined to the single issue of ending the war. (3) The formation of alternative political parties, conceived as vanguard parties in the tradition of classical Marxism, with its conception of the industrial working class in the vanguard of the revolution.  The Progressive Labor Party was its best example (Ayers 2009:135-36, 236; Gitlin 1993:288-94, 409-11; Rudd 2009:35-36, 156, 168, 190, 318; Varon 2004:8-10).

      None of the three tendencies were responding to what the historic moment required: the organization of a popular political party that follows a long-term project of education and organization of the people, with the intention of ultimately taking political power and attempting to reconstruct US society and US foreign policy on a basis of respect for universal human values.  (1) The confrontational strategy alienated the people, inasmuch as there was not a popular consensus that the United States ought to withdraw from Vietnam, and there had not been a US political tradition of strategies of this kind.   (2) The mass mobilizations did not create structures for popular education and sustained organization, developing popular consciousness of the fact that the war in Vietnam was a colonialist war that was symptomatic of a general US imperialist policy, in violation of the democratic values that the nation proclaimed and in which the people believed.  (3) The vanguard political parties had the right idea in a general sense, but their conception of a proletarian vanguard was inconsistent with social reality, for it was white students and blacks, and not workers, who were at the forefront of the anti-war movement. The conception of the vanguard parties was rooted in a classic European vision of class exploitation, and it was not sufficiently influenced by the anti-colonial perspective emerging in the Third World.

      The historic moment of the 1960s created an opportunity for social transformation in the United States, as a result of the emergence of the civil rights/black power movement and the tragedy of the Vietnam War, two phenomena that were national manifestations of a world-wide Third World movement in opposition to colonial and neocolonial structures of domination.  But the historic opportunity was lost, in part because of the repression and maneuvers of the established order, but also because of the errors of the movement, particularly its inability to develop the kinds of structures that were required.  The conditions favored the development of permanent popular mass organizations, but we failed to do it.

     Today, another historic moment establishing possibilities for change has arrived.  The present historic moment is defined by a sustained systemic global crisis, which the global elite is unable to resolve (see various posts on the Crisis of the World-System); and by a renewal of the Third World anti-colonial revolution, a phenomenon most clearly advanced in Latin America (see posts on the process of union and integration in Latin America).  

     We need to learn from our errors of the past, and rectify them, so that we can fulfill our duty.  We need to develop vanguard organizations that can educate, unify and lead our people, but they can include direct action strategies, analyzed from a perspective of their repercussions with respect to the sentiments and attitudes of the people.   

    

References
 
Ayers, Bill.  2009.  Fugitive Days: Memoires of an Antiwar Activist.  Boston: Beacon Press.
 
Cohen, Mitchel, et.al.  2013.  What is Direct Action?  Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street.  Brooklyn: Red Balloon Collective Publications.
 
Gitlin, Todd.  1993.  The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, Bantam revised trade edition).
 
Jacobs, Ron.  1997.   The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground.  London and New York: Verso.
 
Rudd, Mark.  2009.  Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen.  New York: Harper.
 
Sale, Kirkpatrick.  1974.  SDS.  New York: Vintage Books, Random House.
 
Jeremy.  2004.  Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies.  Berkeley: University of California Press.
 
 
Key words: direct action, New Left, anti-war movement, Weather Underground

​     In response to my post criticizing Jeffery St. Clair’s article on Bernie Sanders (“What should Bernie Sanders have done?” 5/2/2016), Rich Daniels posted the following comment on the discussion list of the Radical Philosophy Association:

     Revolutionary socialist movements are in essence struggles formed by the people that seek to take power from the bourgeoisie and its political representatives.  They are not defined by the method through which they arrive to power, which is dependent on particular conditions.  When socialist revolutions arrived to power, they did so through the leadership of exceptional persons who mastered the art of politics, and thus discerned the road to power.

      In the cases of the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions, the armed struggles took three different forms.  The Russian Revolution was not exactly an armed struggle, but rather a movement for the formation of soviets (councils of workers, peasants and soldiers), accompanied by the formation of popular militias and the placing of some government military barracks under the authority of the soviets. The Chinese Revolution involved a long guerrilla war in the countryside.  The Cuban Revolution was a short guerrilla struggle that was able to move from the mountains and the countryside to the city. In all three cases, the charismatic leaders adopted intelligent strategies that were appropriate and necessary in the context of the particular conditions.

    Political conditions following the triumph of the three revolutions were sufficiently favorable to enable the revolutionary governments to effect a fundamental reconstruction of political, military and cultural institutions. Nevertheless, the power to which they had arrived was partial.  They confronted powerful internal and international enemies, and the obstacles to economic transformation were enormous. Seeking to construct socialism in a global context shaped by a capitalist world-economy, they were compelled to promote the interests and needs of the people on a step-by-step basis, limited to the possible.  In the case of Russia, the contradictions were such that with the death of Lenin, the revolution fell to a bureaucratic counterrevolution, and it subsequently developed in a distorted form.

      In the case of Cuba, the revolution at the moment of its triumph enjoyed significant political possibilities.  The military dictatorship was totally discredited, as a result of its alliance with US imperialism and its oppression of the people.  Representative democracy also was lacking in legitimacy, as a result of its service of US imperialist interests during the neocolonial republic.  Moreover, the national bourgeoisie emigrated rather than remaining in the country to defend its particular interests.  These factors enabled the Cuban Revolution to develop structures of popular democracy, institutionalized in the Constitution of 1976.  

      But the Cuban Revolution confronted major obstacles.  It was an underdeveloped nation, dependent on the exportation of raw materials to the United States and on the importation of US manufactured goods.  Its national bourgeoisie had been a “figurehead bourgeoisie,” totally subordinate to US capital and incapable of leading an autonomous national project.  And its proposal for independent development and true sovereignty provoked the hostility of the United States, which considered the island to be its possession.

      As the Cuban Revolution sought to construct socialism under these difficult conditions, it took decisive and necessary steps, according to what was possible, and it took further steps and adjustments as the revolution evolved.  Many of the measures are understood generally to be socialist: nationalization of agricultural plantations, industry, education and the mass media.  Other measures in health, education, housing, transportation, tourism and international relations are reformist, involving steps that any progressive government should take, including joint ventures with foreign capital.  But such reformist incrementalism was tied to decisive revolutionary steps, and it was part of a national development plan directed by popular power.  It was very different from reform from above, which involves concessions by the elite to popular sectors in order to pacify them.  Cuban reformist incrementalism was reform from below, constrained only by limitations in real possibilities.  All political decisions have been made by delegates of the people and not by representatives of the bourgeoisie, national or international.  Concessions of the Cuban revolutionary government are made not to powerful classes but to the people and to the possible.    

     The relatively favorable conditions for the taking of power through a guerrilla struggle and the reconstruction of political, military and cultural institutions, which existed in Cuba in the period 1956 to 1963, did not exist in the Latin America of 1995, a region defined at that time by representative democracy, neoliberalism, and corporate control of the media.  In these conditions, fundamentally different from Cuba of 1959, an armed struggle would not have been an effective strategy.  

      In Latin America in 1995, the people were confused by the collapse of a progressive agenda and the imposition of neoliberalism, but they knew enough to know that they were excluded and abandoned.  They began to protest over particular aspects of their situation, such as the high cost of water.  In this context, leaders emerged to direct the people toward a more comprehensive rejection of the neoliberal project, a discrediting of the political representatives that had participated in the implementation of neoliberalism, and the formulation of a more dignified project of national independence.  

      In this changed Latin American political reality at the dawn of the twenty-first century, three charismatic leaders emerged in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.  They formed alternative political parties that took partial political power and led the people in the development of new constitutions, which were more progressive than those of bourgeois democracy, inasmuch as they included protection of the social and economic rights of the people, the sovereignty of the nation and the ecological balance of nature.  However, political conditions have not permitted the establishment of popular democracy as against representative democracy, nor have they permitted structural economic transformations of a kind that would break the neocolonial relation with the United States or destroy the political power of the national bourgeoisie, which remains politically active as a class, cooperating with imperialist interests in projects of political destabilization and the restoration of the Right.  In addition, the media remains for the most part in the hands of private capital.  In spite of these limitation, Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa proclaimed the popular revolutions in their nations to be revolutions of socialism for the twenty-first century, with characteristics different from twentieth century socialism, yet in full solidarity with socialist Cuba.

     What interpretations can we make of the revolutions in Latin American today that have proclaimed themselves to be socialist revolutions for the twenty-first century?  In addressing this question, we should not overlook the context in which they emerged in the 1990s.  It was a time in which the unipolar power had proclaimed the end of history and ideological debates, and that only one model was possible, that of liberal democracy.  It was a time in which the Left was weak, divided and demoralized, and some prominent members of the Left jumped ship.  Indeed, the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization of Third World governments, had abandoned the radical Third World project of national and social liberation in favor of an accommodation to neoliberal assumptions, although Fidel led a minority opposition to the movement’s accommodation.   At that time, no one predicted that in the next fifteen years the politics of Latin America would be completely transformed, with the emergence of self-proclaimed socialist governments in three nations, the electoral victories of progressive governments in other nations, the formation of regional associations that seek to break the neocolonial relation, and the solidarity of the region with socialist Cuba.
 
     The three charismatic leaders played a leading role in this stunning and unanticipated process of change.  They therefore should be appreciated as exceptional persons whose gifts include mastery of the art of politics.  Their leadership has included the formulation of the idea that in the epoch of neoliberal globalization, socialism has been born again, a socialism with different characteristics from before, a socialism that discerns a different road to power and a different vision of the characteristics of the socialist society, but which sees itself as carrying forward the banner of socialism hoisted by socialist revolutions of the past, for like its forebears, it is convinced that the capitalist world-economy is unsustainable.

     Thus, the Latin American revolutions of today signify an evolution in the meaning of revolution and of socialism.  They have followed the example of the socialist revolutions of Russia, China and Cuba, but they have not imitated them.  Practicing the art of politics, they have discerned a road to power adapted to the present epoch of neoliberal globalization and global crisis, in which the world-system is increasingly demonstrating its unsustainability.  

      In the three socialist revolutions in Latin America today, we can see in outline form the characteristics of a socialist revolution in the United States: the formation of an alternative party that proclaims the intention to construct socialism and that unites the various popular sectors; the formulation of specific proposals that respond to the concrete needs of the people; the formulation of constitutional amendments that project the goals of the socialist revolution; and the use of the structures of representative democracy in order to take control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, and to struggle from that position to take control of the judiciary, the military and the mass media, and to establish structures of participatory and popular democracy.

      Rather than analyzing the popular revolution in Latin America today from a perspective shaped by the socialist practice of an earlier epoch, we should appreciate the revolutionary spirit alive today in Latin America and join in the construction of socialism, redefined for the present historic moment, but with understanding of its historic roots. 

     Posts reflecting on the meaning of revolution can be found in the category Revolution.
        

Key words:  revolution, socialism, armed struggle, reform

​     Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch, published his article “Bernie Sanders: the Candidate Who Came in From the Cold” on April 22, 2016 (www.counterpunch.org).  St. Clair maintains that Sanders is a reformist liberal and not a revolutionary socialist, and that he has been oriented to liberal incrementalism his entire political career, in spite of his cultivation of an image of himself as a political cynic and a professional outsider.  During the Sanders presidential campaign, it has become increasingly evident that what had been promoted as a “movement” has turned out to be a “fairly conventional campaign,” in St. Clair’s view.

     What might Sanders have done if he were leading a real movement?  St. Clair writes:

     In maintaining that the Sanders campaign should have organized sustained protest actions with respect to a variety of issues in order to bring an end to neoliberalism, St. Clair mirrors the limited understanding of the Left in the United States.  Although it might appear that such a direct action strategy is more radical and thus in some sense more effective in defending just causes, we really need to ask a series of questions.  How exactly would a campaign of direct action bring down neoliberalism?  What would be the effect of such a campaign on those federal government officials who are responsible for neoliberal policies, whom presumably the campaign would be trying to pressure?  What would be effect of the campaign on the people, whose support would be necessary in order to end neoliberal policies?  Is the goal of a project of revolutionary socialism merely the end of neoliberal policies, or does it have a more fundamental objective?

       If we were to study the revolutions of the twentieth century and today, we would see that revolutions did indeed organize protests with respect to specific issues, and the protests sometimes obtained concessions from the ruling political class.  But fundamental change occurs not by pressuring elites to make concessions to popular demands, but by displacing the elite from power and replacing it with representatives of the people’s interests.   Triumphant revolutions over the past 100 years formed organizations and political parties that had the conscious intention of taking political power, and they astutely analyzed their political contexts in order to figure out how to do so.

     If Bernie Sanders were a revolutionary socialist, he would have formed an alternative political party that would have dedicated itself for years to forming the consciousness of the people, educating them concerning the necessity of the popular taking of power and the characteristics of the alternative society that the empowered people would seek to construct.  The alternative political party would seek the election of candidates to Congress as well as the presidency, so that the alternative political party would control two of the five principal structures of power in the United States (the other three being the judiciary, the military and the mass media).

       But Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary socialist.  He never has been.  And in this respect, St. Clair is right.

      For further reflection on this theme, see “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015 in the category of Revolution and also in the category On the Vanguard.


Key words:  Bernie Sanders, socialism, revolution, reform

Posted April 18, 2016

​     In the aftermath of the visit of US President Barack Obama to Cuba, the moderator of the discussion list of the Association of Black Sociologists, Rodney Coates, posted on the list a number of articles dealing with the issue of race in Cuba.  Coates is Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies and Director of Black World Studies at the Miami University of Ohio.

     One of the posted articles was “Sankofa Cuba: Racism and Revolution in the Afro-Cuban Experience” by Abdul Alkalimat.  The article was published in the Fall 2013 issue of The Black Activist.  

      As the article observes, “every society has a master narrative,” a prevailing consensus that selectively identifies and interprets important events in the history of the society, and that frames contemporary issues.  In the case of the United States, the master narrative has been shaped by the white power elite, and it is full of distortions and omissions.  Indeed, this is unavoidable, because the narrative functions to manipulate the people into support of policies that promote elite interests.  It proclaims the nation to be the most democratic in human history, and thus it must omit or minimize undemocratic components in US history.  Especially important in this regard is the omission of the fundamental truth that the US economic ascent was based on the aggressive acquisition of territory, the commercial connection to slavery in the Caribbean, the development of slavery as a system within its own borders, and the imperialist penetration of all regions of the planet.  Pretending to defend democracy throughout the world, the nation is in fact a global imperial power.

     In contrast, the dominant narrative in socialist Cuba has been created by a multiracial movement formed by professionals, workers, farmers, students and women, which took power from a political class that represented the interests of a subordinate national bourgeoisie, international capital, and US imperialism.  Once it took political power, the leadership of the popular movement took decisive steps in defense of the interest of the popular sectors, thus provoking the hostility powerful actors.  Its best defense against them was the unified support of the people, which required popular understanding of the necessity of the decisive steps as well as the unavoidable hostile reaction.  The Cuban Revolution has had an interest in forging a narrative that educates rather than manipulates the people, and thus it has developed a narrative that is grounded in an advanced integral philosophical historical social science, forged with the active participation of intellectuals and academics.

       Alkalimat describes the formation of autonomous Afro-Cuban political organizations from 1812 to 1912, a phenomenon that is recognized in the dominant Cuban narrative.  He also notes that from 1912 to 1959 autonomous black organization was not the pattern. Rather, there was significant Afro-Cuban leadership and participation in multiracial organizations, which included important organizations that were successful in mobilizing the people and in attaining popular support.  However, the article does not fully appreciate the significance of this experience for the Cuban interpretation of its struggle.

       In popular movements, there are competing strategies being proposed, with internal debates among the leadership concerning what strategies are going to be most effective.  Often, these debates are resolved by the success of some strategies.  This occurred with respect to the internal debates in the Cuban popular revolution concerning whether the guerrilla war in the countryside or strikes and sabotage in the cities would bring down the dictator.  The debate was settled by events.  The military advances by the rebel army in the countryside caused the dictator to flee the country, even though it is of course recognized that the contributions and sacrifices of the urban underground must be appreciated and honored. 

     Something like this occurred with respect to the issue of autonomous black organizations.  The revolution triumphed with multiracial organizations that represented various popular sectors, who were organized according to occupation or function (in the rebel army and in organizations formed by urban professionals, urban workers, agricultural workers, and students) rather than by race or color.  This experience led to the interpretation that multiracial popular organization is ultimately the necessary strategy for prevailing against powerful forces, accompanied by recognition that separate black organizations in some cases constituted a progressive dynamic that in a particular historical moment contributed to the advance of the Cuban project of national liberation.  

     This interpretation shaped the organization of the triumphant revolution, as it faced powerful counterrevolutionary forces.  The people were organized as urban workers (including professionals), agricultural workers, small farmers, students, women and neighborhoods; but not according to race or color.  The dominant revolutionary narrative maintained that to organize the people according to race or color would ignore the lessons learned in the long popular struggle, and it would undermine the necessary unity of the people.  The revolutionary narrative was so overwhelming and so compelling that the renewed formation of separate black political organizations had very few advocates among Afro-Cubans following the triumph of the revolution.

        In the Cuban popular revolutionary struggle of 1868 to the present, something significant occurred, namely, the Cuban peoples became a single people.  Whether African or European blood flowed in their veins, all were actors in an historically and universally significant social process that dislodged from power those who were indifferent to the human needs of the people and who violated the dignity and sovereignty of the nation.  Cubans became, above all, Cuban, determined to defend at any price what they had sacrificed to attain.

       The contrasts of the Cuban experience with the United States are striking.  In reflecting on the contrasts, we ought to perhaps begin with the position of white Cubans, whose historic position was fundamentally different from that of whites in the United States.  Whites in the United States formed a settler society, and the great majority of whites economically benefitted, at least indirectly, from conquest, slavery, and the imperialist penetration of other lands.  But in Cuba, only the national bourgeoisie benefitted from neocolonial economic structures.  The white petit bourgeoisie and white workers and farmers found that the colonial and neocolonial situations restricted possibilities for the protection of their fundamental social and economic rights.  The great majority of Cuban whites, like Cuban blacks, had an economic interest in bringing colonialism and neocolonialism to an end.  Some members of the white middle class were confused by the ideological distortions; they cast their lot with the national bourgeoisie, allied with neocolonialism and international capital.  Some would become infamous as counterrevolutionaries in Miami, greatly influencing the US image of the triumphant Cuban Revolution.  But the colonial and neocolonial conditions of Cuba created something not seen in the United States, namely, a committed and informed radical petit bourgeoisie, which played an important role in leading a multiracial popular revolution against the (white controlled) neocolonial republic. In the United States during the period 1955 to 1972, white allies of the African-American movement turned out to be unreliable; in Cuba, by contrast, white students, professionals, workers and peasants became committed, reliable and even heroic allies of Afro-Cubans.  

    In the black experience in the United States, white racism is always present, either in a blatant or subtle form.  On the basis of this experience, one could look at Cuba with a model of racism, seeing racial inequality and white prejudice.  As with any social scientific model, there is an element of truth in this, and one can see signs of white prejudice and racial inequality, although much less than previously, and much less than in other nations.  But models shape what we see, and they can sometimes cause us to overlook profound truths.  In the black power period of 1966 to 1972 in the United States, black nationalist intellectuals formulated a colonial model, which sees racism as one dimension of colonial and neocolonial structures of domination, characterized by white control of the political, economic and cultural institutions of the communities and nations of the colonized.  The colonial model provides a more multidimensional and global vision of race relations in the United States and the neocolonial situation of Third World nations.  Seen from this colonial perspective, the Cuban Revolution, arriving to power through multiracial organization, and the African-American movement are allies in a common struggle.  Indeed, all of the colonized peoples of the world, including Latin Americans of various colors as well as the people of Ireland, are allies in a common anti-colonial struggle, and they all have formed movements that seek a more just, democratic and sustainable world. 

      The United States government discerns that revolutionary Cuba is a dangerous example and a threat to the neocolonial world-system.  It seeks to undermine the Cuban Revolution with various strategies, including seeking to discredit it with a model of white racism.  The white racist model is a useful tool for the declining hegemonic neocolonial power, for it represents white liberal reformism, as against the revolutionary transformation of fundamental structures of the European-dominated neocolonial world-system, which provides sustenance for racism in its various forms. 

​Key words:  race, Cuba, racism, colonialism, neocolonialism, Black Nationalism, colonial model, political organization

Posted April 19, 2016

     Socialist Cuba has many friends in the world, but it also has powerful enemies.  One of the strategies of Cuba’s enemies is to try to discredit Cuba with claims that the revolution denies the rights of Afro-Cubans or continues to be a racist or white-dominated society.  It is hard for me to imagine that such a campaign could sow division between blacks and whites in Cuba, because Cubans understand and appreciate the full commitment of the revolution to the full rights of Afro-Cubans, African-Americans, and the peoples and nations of Africa.  But it seems to me that the campaign is having some success in sowing doubts about the Cuban Revolution among African-Americans in the United States, who of course are not intimately familiar with the Cuban situation, and who may have a tendency to look at Cuba from the lens of their experiences in the United States and the model of white racism (see “Black political organizations in Cuba” 4/18/2016).

      The discrediting campaign focuses on two issues.  The first is that of independent black agency in the form of separate black institutions. This issue is not debated in Cuba.  It was debated at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, as Abdul Alkalimat observes (see “Black political organizations in Cuba” 4/18/2016).  But it is by now a resolved issue, because the Cuban popular revolution accomplished the taking of power through a strategy of multiracial organizations (see “Black political organizations in Cuba” 4/18/2016).  But one of the strengths of the Cuban Revolution is its ability to listen to the voices of the people.  Accordingly, if this issue were to reemerge in the breast of the people, or of Afro-Cubans, the revolution would certainly seek to address it.  It would do so in a form that would ensure the unity of the people, for it is widely believed in Cuba that the unity of the people is necessary for the continued survival of the revolution.

     The second issue of the discrediting campaign is that of racial inequality, both income inequality and inequality in political power.  In Cuba today, it is well-understood that socialism is a process, and its goals cannot be fully attained overnight.  And there are some goals that are still not attained, fifty-seven years after the triumph of the revolution.  No one in Cuba thinks that socialist Cuba is, or can be, heaven on earth.

      There can be no reasonable doubt that the Cuban Revolution has taken decisive steps in support of the rights of Afro-Cubans.  The education of each Cuban child proceeds on basis of equal funding for all, regardless of race, class or gender; regardless of which urban neighborhood the child lives in; or whether he or she lives in the city or the country.  The historic invidious distinction between private and public education was abolished when the revolutionary government nationalized the Catholic schools, overwhelmingly white upper and middle class, and incorporated them into the public school system. Moreover, the difference that exists in the United States between poorly funded central city schools and suburban schools with higher tax bases does not exist in socialist Cuba.  I repeat, the Cuban revolution invests the same amount in the education of every Cuban child, from pre-school day care center to university graduate programs.  In addition, its system of education at the higher levels is integrally connected to structures of employment, so that as young Cubans earn diplomas and degrees, they can proceed to translate their education into professions and occupations.  And since 1959, there has been a full-fledged campaign calling upon employment without racial or gender discrimination.  No one thinks that old prejudices have completely disappeared, so this may not be fully realized in practice.  But to the extent that discrimination occurs, it is not systemic. 

     With respect to home ownership, the revolution nationalized privately-owned income-generating buildings and converted renters into property owners, allowing payments for the property at low prices and low rates of interest and with favorable terms.  Today, more than 90% of Cubans are home owners.  Some enemies of the revolution have tried to make an issue of the fact that, until recently, Cubans were prohibited from buying and selling property, omitting that most Cubans were homeowners as a result of a home distribution program, and the program was not undertaken with the intention that the beneficiaries sell the properties, thus facilitating the accumulation of property by a few.

      With respect to political power, the entire country is organized into voting districts, and the people nominate and elect candidates for the municipal assemblies, which in turn elect the deputies of the national assembly, which elects the executive branch.  The people also are organized in mass organizations of urban workers and professionals, agricultural workers, students, women and neighborhoods, the leadership of which is elected by the people.  To be sure, there is no black caucusing in this process.  Blacks, whites and mixed-race all participate with one another in this overlapping process of popular organization.  The mass organizations were organized on a multiracial basis in the 1960s, as a result of the overwhelming popular sentiment that this is the most effective strategy for empowering the people.

        All of these decisive revolutionary measures were “color blind.”  They were undertaken to benefit the people, without consideration of the race or color of the beneficiaries.  They clearly benefitted Afro-Cubans more than whites, since at the time of the triumph of the revolution, blacks were disproportionately represented among the poor, the marginally employed, the illiterate and the powerless.

      Fifty-seven years later, the success of this emancipatory educational-economic-political program is clear.  Exactly how successful is hard to measure, in part because racial classification is complex in Cuba, as a result of a high level of biological and cultural mixing.  But some have noted that the revolution perhaps has been more successful with respect to women than with respect to blacks.  As a result, there is beginning to emerge a discussion of the issue of racial inequality.  It may lead to an analysis of the reasons why the approach has not been more successful, and the identification of steps that should be taken to improve the situation.  Such analysis could possibly include reflection on appropriate pedagogical strategies for Afro-Cuban children and youth, perhaps giving even more emphasis to the role of Afro-Cubans in the revolutionary struggles and greater emphasis to African history and culture.  

        But such discussion of racial inequality has not attained a high priority among the Cuban people.  They are more concerned with bread and butter issues, and they do not tend to see these issues in racial terms.  Certain adjustment policies since the collapse of the Soviet Union have created more racial inequality, but it is also the case that they have created more inequality across the board, and that is how Cubans tend to perceive the problem.  Cubans speak of the need to ensure that the state continues to act decisively to protect the social and economic rights of all, and not permit that anyone be abandoned to his or her fate, as occurs in capitalist societies.  My sense is that any social program that supports blacks in need, but excludes whites equally in need, would be perceived in Cuba as unfair, and as therefore undermining the legitimacy of the revolution.

     The survival of the Cuban Revolution is in no sense guaranteed.  It continues to be under attack by powerful forces, including the Obama administration, which is undertaking a strategy of undermining the Cuban Revolution by creating a Cuban middle class with an interest in political change (see “Obama seeks to expand Cuban middle class” 3/24/2016).  The Obama administration also is attacking, using “soft power” imperialist strategies, Latin American revolutionary governments that have come to power in recent years and that have proclaimed “socialism for the twenty-first century” (see various posts in the category Venezuela and the new imperialist strategy).

     The social movements of the various peoples of the United States should be in solidarity with socialist Cuba and with progressive and socialist governments of Latin America and in opposition to US imperialist policies, as an important dimension of a struggle to create of a more just, democratic and sustainable world.  It seems to me that our solidarity could be more effective if, instead of focusing on the imperfections of these revolutions in the South, we were to seek to learn from them, appreciating that the peoples of Latin America are doing something that we in the United States have never been able to do, in that they have taken political power from the elite and have formed governments committed to the protection of the rights and needs of the people.  Inspired by their example, perhaps we could envision a popular coalition in the United States that takes political power and that adopts decisive steps in defense of our peoples, who have been exploited and abused in different ways, but whose dehumanization, in one form or another, is a generalized phenomenon.


Key words: race, Cuba, racism, racial inequality, socialism, imperialism

     Among the articles posted on the list of the Association of Black Sociologists in the aftermath of the visit of President Obama to Cuba was “Race and Sex in Cuba” by Paul D’Amato.  The article was published in the International Socialist Review in 2007; D’Amato is the Editor of the Review.  

     D’Amato maintains that the achievements of the Cuban Revolution are limited.  The Cuban Revolution, he maintains, has achieved national independence, but it is not a socialist revolution, inasmuch as its economic system is based on the exploitation of wage labor. Having not liberated the working class, Cuba is incapable of attaining full liberation with respect to race and gender, he maintains.

      Beyond noting that nationalization is not identical with socialism, D’Amato does not, in this article, explain the characteristics of a system that has eliminated the exploitation of the worker.  He notes that societies that have called themselves socialist are not in reality socialist, and he refers specifically in this regard to the former Soviet Union and the former nations of the socialist bloc of Eastern Europe as well as China and Cuba.  D’Amato maintains, moreover, that Marxism should not be criticized on the grounds that various forms of oppression continue to exist in socialist societies, inasmuch as the self-proclaimed socialist nations are not truly socialist.        

     D’Amato represents a tendency in European and US Marxism, in which there is a fixed idea of the meaning of socialism, on the basis of which the various socialist projects of the world are found lacking. Such a perspective appeared to receive empirical support with the collapse of “real socialism” in Eastern Europe.  But the recent triumph of self-designated socialist revolutions in Latin America provides empirical basis for a reformulation of the meaning and characteristics of socialism.  In this situation, I maintain that all of us who carry the banner of socialism should permit the triumphant revolutions calling themselves socialist to define in practice the characteristics of socialism.  These include the triumphant revolutions in Russia (1917), Vietnam (1945), China (1949), Cuba (1959), Chile (1970), Venezuela (1998), Bolivia (2006), and Ecuador (2007).

      Studying the characteristics of these socialist projects, we can discern that they all involved the taking of political power by an alternative political formation led by a charismatic leader and supported by various popular sectors.  In these cases, the working class was not in the majority, and it was not in the vanguard.  The leaders in the revolutionary processes came overwhelmingly from the radical wing of the petty bourgeoisie; and the popular sectors included peasants, students, workers and women.  Once in power, the triumphant revolutions confronted enormous challenges with respect to the production and distribution of necessary goods and services.  Of necessity, their orientation was not so much toward the emancipation of the worker but the marshalling of labor to provide for the needs of the people.  They relied heavily on nationalization, but they sanctioned various forms of property in addition to state property, including cooperatives, small scale private property, and joint ventures with foreign capital.  They all believed that the state should be the author of a national development project and that the state should be a major actor in the economy.

      As socialism evolved in practice, it assumed characteristics that were different from what was projected by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.  But the formulators of classic Marxism-Leninism understood that their theoretical formulations were tied to observations of particular conditions and social movements, and that revolutionary theory would continue to evolve, connected to practice.  Lenin, confronting immense challenges with respect to providing for the needs of the people in the aftermath of the Civil War, adopted out of necessity the New Economic Policy, which could be interpreted as violating some of the theoretical tenets of Marxism.  Moreover, observing the failure of the proletarian revolution in the West to triumph, and seeing as well the anti-imperialism of the oppressed nations, Lenin discerned that the vanguard of the socialist revolution would move from the Western European working class to the oppressed peoples of the East, which we today call the Third World or the South.

     Marxism-Leninism should be understood as an evolving theoretical project, linked to practice.  It has evolved since the Lenin’s time in the form of revolutions of a dual character in the colonized regions of the world, characterized by a quest, on the one hand, for national liberation from European colonial domination, and on the other hand, for social liberation from class exploitation and related forms of social oppression.  Paradigmatic charismatic leaders that have formulated the evolving theory of Marxism-Leninism include Ho, Mao, Fidel and Chávez.  And it is they who define the characteristics of socialism, an authority that they possess because of their demonstrated capacity to mobilize their own peoples in defense of the national and social liberation that their peoples seek.  The characteristics of socialism cannot possibly be defined by those who are removed from the evolving global popular revolution.

      The current epoch is characterized by a structural and terminal crisis of the world-system and by a turn of the global elite to neoliberalism.  And it is characterized by anti-neoliberal protests and popular movements and revolutions in all regions of the planet, attaining its most advanced expression in Latin America.  To understand the meaning of socialism for our time, we must appreciate that theory is tied to practice, and that the peoples and movements of the Third World have taken the role of the vanguard in revolutionary practice.  We must seek to understand Third World movements and the insights of their charismatic leaders, just as Marx sought to understand human history and modern capitalism from the vantage point of the Western European worker, who constituted the vanguard of revolutionary practice in Marx’s time. 

     In tomorrow’s post, we will discuss D’Amato’s observations concerning race in Cuba.


Key words:  socialism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, theory, practice, Third World

Posted April 21, 2016

​      Paul D’Amato, Editor of the International Socialist Review, in a 2007 article on “Race and Sex in Cuba,” maintains that Cuba does not represent true socialism (see “Who defines socialism?” 4/20/2016).  In accordance with this point of view, he focuses on the imperfections of Cuban society.

     D’Amato presents a portrait of a Cuba as far whiter and far more racist than the Cuba that I know.  He cites the 1981 Cuban census, indicating that the nation at that time was 66% white, 22% mestizo, and 12% black.  These figures are so inconsistent with visual scrutiny that one would think that there was an error, that the figures for whites and mulattos had been inverted.  Regardless of the figures, there is also the fact of the pervasive influence of African culture on the island, as is indicated by the significant extent to which persons of all colors indulge, somewhat superficially, in African religious practices; and by an historical consciousness that identifies slave rebellions (as well as indigenous resistance to the Spanish conquest) as precursors to a revolutionary process that was launched in 1868 when a slaveholder freed his slaves and called upon them to take up arms with him in opposition to Spanish colonialism.  I recall that on one occasion a Cuban leader, who looked more or less white, introduced his nation to my students, who were white, by referring to Cuba as an African-American nation. 

     Even more surprising was a 1995 study of three Havana neighborhoods, cited by D’Amato, that found racist attitudes among whites: 58% believed blacks to be less intelligent; and 68% were opposed to interracial marriage.  I have never heard anyone express such attitudes, and they are completely inconsistent with the prevailing consciousness among the people.  When on rare occasions people made comments that could be interpreted as prejudiced, they were casual cultural and social observations that were not offered as a justification for inequality or as implying that social investments that benefit Afro-Cubans should be eliminated.  In Cuba, it is assumed that the state has a moral obligation to act decisively to protect the social and economic rights of all, regardless of race or color. 

      In the United States, whites repeatedly are saying that their opinions on the role of government and on social issues have nothing to do with race, a denial that comes across as a ploy, conscience or not, for racism in a subtle form.  Cubans, however, truly do not think in racial terms, except as a skin color that is useful for descriptive purposes, similar to height or weight.  Currently there is, for example, public discussion of a lack of discipline at the workplace as well as a lack of revolutionary consciousness and work ethic among some youth.  These issues are not seen in terms of race.  They are understood as issues of popular culture, involving the daily habits and practices of people of all colors, and of the need for revolutionary transformation of certain characteristics of popular culture.

     D’Amato maintains that the Cuban Revolution argues that the issue of race has been completely resolved.  This is not the case.  The 1962 Second Declaration of Havana, which he cites in support of this claim, asserted that racial and gender discrimination in Cuba have been abolished.  The document did not intend to assert that all issues of race and gender had been fully resolved.  Indeed, it would have been absurd to maintain that a declaration could eliminate problems that were centuries in the making.  Let us recall the context of the time.  In the United States, the battles of Birmingham and Selma as well as the rebellions of Watts and Newark lay ahead, and the issue of gender equality was not included in public discourse.  In a world in conflict over these issues, Cuba was proclaiming its political will to fully implement civil, political, social and economic rights for all, regardless of race or gender.  The 1962 Declaration of Havana was not a propaganda ploy or a clever maneuver by a white leadership to bury reflection on the problem of race, as D’Amato implies.  The Declaration was a clear proclamation of commitment to fundamental principles, nothing more and nothing less, an affirmation enthusiastically and proudly supported by the people of all colors.  To treat it otherwise is to indulge in cynicism and to not see the simplicity and decency of the Cuban people; it is to attribute to them a capacity for cynical political manipulation that they do not possess.

    The concepts of institutional discrimination, symbolic racism and laissez-faire racism were developed in the United States in the post-1965 period, after the attainment of significant gains with respect to civil and political rights.  These concepts reflect the US racial context. White society had made concessions, but the great majority of whites did not arrive to understand and appreciate the African-American perspective on the American experience, the meaning of democracy, or the global structures of white domination.  As a result, most whites, although moving away from blatant forms of racism, continued to be racist in subtler ways, as was reflected in the unequivocal rejection by white society of black demands for decisive state action to protect the social and economic rights of all US citizens and for a more democratic foreign policy.  And it is reflected in the fact that the economic inequalities between blacks and whites are roughly the same today as they were prior to the civil rights gains of the 1960s.  But concepts formed in the US context should not be applied to Cuba, which in the same post-1960s era had a fundamentally different experience with respect to race.  

     In revolutionary Cuba, there was full commitment by the government and the people for the protection of the civil, political, social and economic rights of all; and blacks, mulattos and whites were participating together in the development of a national anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-racist project.  No one thought that the issues of race were fully resolved, and no one used a false claim to this effect as a pretext for rejecting separate black organizations, as D’Amato claims.  Separate black organizations were rejected as a strategy because the Cuban experience of struggle had shown that interracial organizations were more effective, inasmuch as interracial organizations, and not separate black organizations, had brought down the dictator and had put power in the hands of the people (see “Black political organizations in Cuba” 4/18/2016); because the separate black organizations that existed at the time of the triumph of the revolution were reactionary rather than progressive, and they did not participate in the overthrow of the dictator; because it seemed unnecessary to have black organizations, given full black participation in the popular organizations and popular power, and given that the revolution already possessed the political will to fully implement the rights of blacks; and because there was concern that separate black organizations would undermine the unity of the people, especially in a context in which powerful external enemies were prepared to exploit any possible division to bring the Cuban Revolution down.

      D’Amato argues that, with hindsight, the “color-blind” approach of the revolution and its emphasis on the unity of the people were erroneous, because problems of race still exist.  But such a claim is reasonable only if it were to be expected that a revolution after fifty years ought to have fully resolved a complex economic and cultural problem that had been centuries in the making.  The Cuban Revolution should be credited for its significant reductions in racial inequality with respect to income, education, and political empowerment.  Complete racial equality has not been attained, and this invites reflection on how a level of racial inequality could persist in the context of a society that is fully committed to the elimination of racial discrimination.  Such reflection is indeed beginning today, although other issues have a higher priority among the people, such as the satisfaction of material needs and the new imperialist strategy of the United States to finally bring the Cuban Revolution to an end.

     D’Amato’s highly selective discussion of race is rooted in his belief that Cuba is not socialist and that the Cuban Revolution does not have the characteristics that a socialist revolution ought to have.  But what should a socialist revolution in a neocolonized underdeveloped Caribbean nation look like?  This will be the subject of our next post.


Key words: race, Cuba, racism, prejudice, racial inequality, socialism

Posted April 22, 2016

     In “Race and Sex in Cuba,” published in the International Socialist Review in 2007, Paul D’Amato maintains that the Cuban revolution is a nationalist revolution but not a socialist revolution.  He finds that racial and gender oppression continues in Cuba, a consequence of the fact that it is not a truly socialist revolution (see “Who defines socialism?” 4/20/2016; “Racial inequality in Cuba” 4/21/2016).

      Imperfect though it is when examined from the viewpoint of classic European socialism, the triumphant Cuban Revolution nonetheless would capture the imagination of the colonized peoples of the world, who see in it a persistent and heroic spirit of independence.  It does not look like anything like the classic Marxist projection.  It would be lead not by a working class vanguard, but by the son of a Spanish immigrant landholder who was educated in Catholic schools; and who believed profoundly in the vision of a free Cuba articulated by the Cuban revolutionary José Martí, a well-read and cultured political exile who had not read Marx.  Fidel read on his own the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, appreciating their insights, but freely appropriating in a form adapted to the Cuban neocolonial situation.  And the Cuban Revolution also would be led by a fiercely committed medical doctor from Argentina, whose sojourn of Latin American lands had taught him of the common suffering and necessary political unity of the peoples who formed La Patria Grande of Bolívar, and whose distrust of imperialist governments was as deep as his love for the suffering people.  The Cuban Revolution would be formed by a humble people, whose very humility compelled them to lift up Fidel and Che, endowing them with a teaching authority surpassing even that of Lenin and Mao, and not known to humanity since Mohammed.  And the Cuban Revolution would come to power, not through the patient educating and organizing practices of the Cuban communist party, but in an unconventional guerrilla war that moved from the country to the city, led by a lawyer and a doctor who were connected, in mind and soul, to the hopes and sufferings of the people.

     Once in power, the Cuban revolutionary leadership took decisive steps in defense of the people and the nation and against the interests of the national bourgeoisie and foreign corporations.  It nationalized agricultural and industrial properties; and it adopted measures that raised workers’ wages and reduced the costs of housing and utilities. It declared the socialist character of the revolution two years after its triumph, as it prepared for a US-backed invasion by a force formed by counterrevolutionaries who had left the country, including members of the national bourgeoisie, the military forces of the deposed dictator, and the reactionary wing of the middle class.  The revolutionary leadership called upon the people to defend with arms their socialist revolution, and the people did so; the counterrevolutionary invasion force surrendered en masse in seventy-two hours.

     The Cuban revolutionary people, now emancipated, would express all of the characteristics that were uniquely theirs.  They would be proud of their coming together as blacks, whites and mulattos in the casting aside of old racial prejudices; but with awareness of the status designations that reign in the world, they would describe themselves as lighter than they actually are.  They would affirm equality between the sexes, but they would cling to traditional gender roles.  They would be inclined to be respectful toward all, but would find homosexuality difficult to understand.  They would be committed to science, and they would participate in the creation of the finest medical system in the world; yet they would be persistent in believing that medical cures require the participation of African saints.  They would possess a tremendous spirit of internationalism and international solidarity; yet they would wave their own Cuban flag with great patriotism, and they would listen to their national anthem with reverence.  They would create symphony orchestras that would play the works of the European masters; but they would spontaneously sing and dance to their own music, in tune with their vibrant sexuality and African rhythms.  They would be committed to work and study, but equally committed to family obligations and to the need for regular celebratory festivities rooted in the family and family-like friendships.  Cuban women would take the lead in forging the new society, claiming for themselves positions in science, education, health, and political leadership; but these same women would teach their sons to be macho, teach their daughters to dress in sexually provocative ways, play verbal sexual games with men, and insist that the management of the home remains their particular domain.  

      They are a modest people, not at all arrogant.  They are aware that they are a poor people of a small nation, and that they have imperfections.  But they are a proud people.  Informed of global dynamics, they are aware that their modest achievements have universal human significance.  They see that the colonized peoples of the world are inspired by their achievements, and they are ready to provide support, when asked.  They hope that the powerful nations of the North will see their good qualities and will trade with them as equals, so that they can continue to develop.  They offer their modest example to the world, with love and solidarity, and with hope for the future of humanity.  They see themselves as participating in a step-by-step process in which the movements formed by humanity are constructing a just, democratic and sustainable world, saving humanity from imminent self-destruction.  They have absolutely no doubt that the revolution they are forging is both a nationalist and a socialist revolution.

      Although the Cuban Revolution does not look like anything that Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky envisioned, it was in a sense foreseen by the great masters.  For they intuitively sensed that the socialist revolution would be forged in practice by the people, and that it would be led by exceptional leaders who were sensitive to the idiosyncrasies of their own people, and who would lead them to new levels of human achievement, with the people moving in their own way, in accordance with their own rhythm and unique characteristics.

       I have come to appreciate the Cuban Revolution as a gift to the world.  Some would say that it is a gift from God, seeking to instruct us in the way, the truth and the light; for like the prophets Moses and Amos, it denounces the pretensions of the global powers, and it defends the rights of the poor.  But it fulfills the prophetic role in an historical epoch in which the peoples of the world have demonstrated their capacity to form movements in their defense, precisely at a time when such movements are necessary to save humanity.  The Cuban Revolution reveals the word of God not by being perfect, for it is full of human imperfections; but in its best sons and daughters, who today, fifty-seven years after its triumph, form an educated and committed vanguard, exemplifying the essential dignity of the human species.

     We who form the peoples of the North can reject the Cuban Revolution as not consistent with a classic vision of Marxism.  We can focus on its imperfections, discrediting it, in service of those powerful forces that seek to destroy this dangerous example and to preserve their privileges in the world-system, unaware that the world-system itself is unsustainable.  Or we can take a different path.  We can appreciate it, learn from it, and permit ourselves to be inspired by it, seeking to develop in our own nations our own versions of it, so that we can participate in what has become a great social movement formed by humanity in defense of itself.


Key words:  Cuba, race, gender, socialism, revolution