Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was elected President of the Council of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba by the 605 deputies of the National Assembly on April 19, 2018. 
 
      What is the National Assembly, and how is it formed?  The deputies of the National Assembly were elected by the people on March 11, 2018, with a voter participation rate of 86%.  The ballots listed a single slate of candidates, who had previously been nominated by the delegates of the 169 municipal assemblies that comprise the national territory.  These municipal delegates voted on recommendations made by candidacy commissions formed by six mass organizations of workers, students, farmers, women, and neighborhoods, with the active participation of their members; between 85% and 99% of the people in each sector are members of the relevant mass organization.  In the National Assembly constituted on April 18, 53% are women; 41% are blacks and mestizos, which is roughly equal to their proportion in the population; 13% are between the ages of 18 and 35, with the median age of the Assembly being 49 years; and 86% have at least some level of higher education.
 
     Who are the delegates of the municipal assemblies that elected the deputies of the National Assembly?  The Delegates of the 169 municipal assemblies were elected in 12,515 voting districts, which held elections with two or more competing candidates, with run-off elections when no candidate received an absolute majority.  The voting is secret, and 89% of the people of voting age participated.  The candidates emerged from a series of neighborhood nomination assemblies, open to all the citizens residing in the neighborhood, held from September 4 to October 30.  The 169 Municipal Assemblies were constituted on December 17, 2017. 
 
       With the election of Miguel Díaz-Canel, fifty-seven years old at the time of his election, the Cuban Revolution takes a further step toward the passing of authority to a new generation.  This passing of authority has been unfolding as an intentional process for many years.  Key moments include the formation of the Communist Party in the 1960s, established with the intention of ultimately replacing the charismatic authority of Fidel with the authority of a vanguard political power; and the Cuban Constitution of 1976, which established structures for the popular election of deputies to the highest positions of the state, with the participation of mass organizations.  Thus, the passing of authority to a new generation has long been understood as a gradual process that, if managed with intelligence, would be characterized by continuity, rather than rupture.  Although many people outside of Cuba for many years engaged in baseless speculation concerning what would happen with the passing of Fidel, in reality, the Cuban Revolution has been preparing itself for the passing of Fidel for five decades.
 
      The intentional continuity in the passing of authority to a new generation is evident in the emergence to the presidency of Díaz-Canel.  Born in 1961, Díaz-Canel is originally from the central province of Villa Clara, and he earned a degree in Electrical Engineering at the Central University of Las Villas.  After a period working in that profession and in military service, he served for a time as professor in the department of Electrical Engineering at his alma mater.  He was designated for full time party work in the province of Villa Clara, and he was one of twelve youths selected for a program of preparation for leadership at the national level.  He was named to the Central Committee of the Party in 1991; to its Politburo in 2003; Minister of Higher Education in 2009; and Vice-President of the Council of Ministers in 2012, responsible for attention to organs tied to education, science, sport, and culture.  In 2013, he was elected First Vice-President of the Council of State, and he had been visible representing the revolutionary government in the nation as well as internationally in the period 2013-2017. 
 
      Although Raúl Castro has stepped down as President of the Council of State, he continues to serve as head of the Party as its First Secretary.  The Cuban Constitution of 1976 establishes the National Assembly has the highest authority of the state; and it establishes the Communist Party of Cuba as the vanguard party charged with leading the Cuban nation.  As the vanguard, the Party educates, exhorts, and leads; and the National Assembly of Popular Power, as a body constituted by the elected deputies of the people and endowed with the highest constitutional authority, decides and governs.  (For a description of this dual structure of leadership and authority, including an explanation of its democratic and functional logic for a neocolonized nation, see “The Party and the Parliament in Cuba” 6/19/2018). 
 
      In his first address to the National Assembly following his election, Diaz-Canel assured the nation of the continuity of the revolutionary process, even as it continues to evolve and improve. 

      Marx defined exploitation as paying the workers less than the value of what they produce.  It is integral to private property and to capitalism, in that from the surplus value comes the capitalist’s profit.  In Cuba, following the triumph of the revolution, large-scale private property was eliminated through the nationalization of large-scale enterprises, foreign and domestic.  This important revolutionary step, however, did not eliminate exploitation.  In state enterprises, the workers had to be paid less than the value of what they produce, so that the state could use the surplus to satisfy the economic and social needs of the people.  Some intellectuals of the Left have referred to such a system as “state capitalism,” stressing its similarity to capitalist forms of production with respect to the appropriation of surplus value and the division of labor in the workplace. 
 
     However, the Cuban system is fundamentally different from capitalism.  The decision-making process is in the hands of delegates of the people, rather than politicians with obligations to capitalists.  And as a consequence, the surplus is used for the well-being of the people and the nation, and not in accordance with the particular interests of a small minority of capitalists.  But in classic Marxist terms, the system continues to exploit the worker, paying the worker less than the value of what he or she produces; and it tends to be accompanied by exhortations to work hard for the good of the nation and the people.
 
      In order to eliminate exploitation, both private and state ownership would have to be abolished, replacing it with collective ownership by the workers themselves.  Although collective ownership in a cooperative organization has been a central to socialist projects, it is not always practical.  The situation of agriculture in Cuba at the time of the triumph of the revolution in 1959 illustrates this.  The revolutionary government distributed land to tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and land occupiers, and it provided support for them and independent farmers in the formation of (non-compulsory) cooperatives.  The agricultural cooperatives that were formed in the early 1960s, with the active support of the state, is one of the most successful sectors of the Cuban economy today.  However, the situation was entirely different with respect to the large foreign-owned sugar plantations and refining mills.  The workers lived in repressive and dehumanizing conditions, and had little education or training.  In addition, many managers and technicians, both foreign and national, abandoned the country.  Under these conditions, the revolutionary leadership believed that the most practical strategy was state ownership of the plantations, with the state appointing the managers and technicians with the necessary skills.  It was not until the early 1990s, confronting the challenges associated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, that these state-owned farmed were converted into cooperatives, with a strong contractual relation with the state.
 
     Similar obstacles were faced with respect to industry.  As an underdeveloped country with a peripheral role in the capitalist world-economy, Cuban industrial and scientific development was limited, and many of the few with technical skills abandoned the country, in spite of revolutionary exhortations that they stay and participate in the development of the society.  In this situation, the revolutionary government turned to state ownership and management of industrial and scientific enterprises, as the best option for the promotion of industrial and scientific development, which was one of the most fundamental revolutionary goals.
 
      Although left by its own national history with no option but nationalization and state ownership of its principal industries, the Cuban Revolution did not consider that this should be a top-down process.  The workers in industry, science, and agriculture were organized.  An extensive process of unionization occurred, with 99% of workers incorporated.  Moreover, it was and is a highly democratic process, with the workers electing their own leaders at the local level, who in turn elect delegates for provincial and national representation and political participation.  At every place of work, in industry, agriculture, and science, the elected delegates of the workers co-manage the enterprises with the state-appointed managers, so that a constant dialogue from above and from below emerges as the norm.
 
       As this system evolved from 1959 to 1990, popular participation in the revolution, and commitment to the revolutionary process, was exceptionally high, which was explained by Fidel as a phenomenon that emerges in those rare instances in which the people has the possibility to shape for itself its own destiny.  Important gains were registered in health, education, science, culture, and sport, and an alternative political system of popular democracy was institutionalized. The popular commitment to the Revolution was so great that, with the collapse of the economy in the wake of the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the East European socialist bloc, the people could be asked to sacrifice in defense of the revolution.  The people endured shortages of human needs, and they continued to participate in the structures of popular democracy.
 
      However, the enormous sacrifice gradually took its toll on the spirit of the people.  By the beginning of the twenty-first century, although the economy had slowly but surely recovered, there had emerged among the people a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction with the low material conditions of life.  Recognizing that there was no miraculous solution to the problem, the revolutionary leadership nonetheless committed itself to search for ways and means, within the context of the objective limitations of the nation, to improve its productive capacity.
 
      This process of improvement in the productive capacities of the nation began more or less around 2010, and it has gone through different stages, always accompanied by extensive popular consultations.  Key moments have been the formulation and implementation of new “Guidelines;” and the formulation of a new constitution, which is presently being debated in local assemblies of the people, in places of work and neighborhoods.
 
      The changes that are being developed and proposed represent, in some respects, movement toward a socialist ideal, but in other respects, they appear to be a turn to capitalism.  This may seem paradoxical, but the key to its logic is the intention improve production, in order to better satisfy the material needs and desires of the people.  The goal is to keep the people on board as active subjects in the revolutionary process, and to reverse the slight erosion of socialist values that has occurred during the course of the last quarter century.  The changes include, in a socialist direction, a significant expansion in cooperatives, and they are being developed in urban areas and in non-agricultural sectors for the first time.  On the other hand, there is an expansion of the role of the market in the socialist economy, including a significant expansion in self-employment, and this includes the possibility of employing other workers.  In addition, the rules governing foreign investment have become more flexible, and it includes for the first time the possibility of direct employment of Cubans by foreign enterprises. 
 
    The measures that expand the role of the market were not adopted as concessions to a capitalist class, foreign or domestic; they are concessions to the people.  Moreover, the new forms of non-state property are seen as dimensions of a socialist economy, in which the socialist state is the principal subject in the economy and is the regulator of the economy.  In addition, foreign investment remains strongly regulated, and joint ventures with the Cuban state continue as the norm for foreign investment.
 
            The changes are not intended to address the issue of the exploitation of the workers in the classic Marxist sense.  As a consequence of the measures, workers converted from state employees to cooperativists will be liberated from exploitation, in strict Marxist theoretical terms; but many others will become employees in small-scale privately-owned enterprises and foreign joint venture companies. In Cuban public discourse, there has been some mention of the issue of permitting the self-employed to employ others, and that this goes against the Cuban revolutionary abolition of exploitation by private capital.  However, the overriding concern among the leadership and the people is the need to expand production, and there is a pervasive belief that the employment of persons by small-scale private capital will increase production.  So the orientation is to go with it, but keep it small, with respect to the size of the enterprises and its weight in the economy.
 
     Of greater concern than the issue of exploitation is the fact that the changes are leading to an increase in income inequality.  For the great majority of Cubans, the problem is not that the employees of private capital will be exploited in the classic Marxist sense, but that the employees of private capital will be earning more than the employees in the state sector, because of the more limited resources of the state.  This concern is related to the fact that since the early 1990s, many informal traders and service providers have earned considerably more than workers in the formal economy.  It is a question of unequal pay for equal work, and neither the people nor the leadership consider it just; but the correction of the problem will require the long-term development of the productive capacities of the economy and the resources of the state.
 
     Although the people and the leadership stand against unequal pay for equal work, they endorse the concept that workers who produce more should be paid more.  As the process of change has moved forward, the revolutionary government has endorsed the principle of “to each according to work.”  This departs from the classic formulation of Marx, “from each according to ability, and to each according to need.”  The Cuban Revolution has long debated the issue of “material incentives” versus “moral incentives,” and in the context of the current challenges, the Revolution is clearly moving to the former.  In the state sector, salaries are now tied, in part, to the fulfillment of productive goals. 
 
     In observing the process of change in Cuba today, one can discern the extent to which the Cuban revolutionary process takes seriously the voice and the sentiments of the people. 
In some respects, the changes now being introduced involve a formal recognition of the informal economic activities of the people, incorporating them into the formal economy through taxing and social security, and including these productive and service activities in the economic planning of the state.  In effect, the Revolution integrated self-employment and small scale private property, concepts formulated implicitly by the people in practice, into the revolutionary understanding of the construction of a socialist society.  Similarly, the concept of “to each according to work,” although driven by the state’s goals in relation to production, is fully consistent with the voice of the people, who are saying that without higher pay for better work, less than full dedication to work will continue to be common.
 
     This capacity to take the people seriously is a historic tendency of the Revolution.  One aspect of the exceptional political astuteness of Fidel in the first stage of the Revolution, from 1953 to 1961, was his capacity to discern the hopes and concerns of the people, and to incorporate them into his vision of revolution and the socialist society, departing from the classic concepts and strategies of Marxism-Leninism.  In the 1970s, the Cuban Revolution institutionalized structures of popular power, establishing the delegates of the people as the highest authority in the nation.  In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the adjustments were carried out on the basis of a massive popular consultation, similar to what is going on today with respect to the project of the new constitution.
 
      On the basis of this attention to and respect for the people, Cuban socialism has evolved since it took power in 1959.  Many of the revolutionary vanguard (but not including Fidel) initially had notions of the total abolition of private property, even on a small scale, and with payment according to need.  But they learned from experience.  The people were developing in practice, on the side, capitalist activities of a small scale, even as they continued to identify with and actively participate in the construction of a socialist society.  Ultimately, the revolutionary vanguard incorporated this implicit theory and practice into their concept of socialism.  Thus, now it is proclaimed that Cuban socialism contains multiple forms of property, although state property is the principal; and it is proclaimed that people are rewarded according to their work, in order to ensure that people are motivated to work, and that socialism thus can be “prosperous.”
 
     In an ideal world, all workers would be the collective owners of the productive and service enterprises of the society.  Workers in all fields would work diligently, driven above all by a sense of satisfaction in having fulfilled one’s duty.  And all would receive in accordance with their needs, ignoring their differing productive capacities.  But in the context of the current economic and ideological conditions of the world-economy, this is not a real possibility.  Even in nations that have forged sustained socialist projects, consumerism and individualism, central to the ideology of the capitalist world-economy, penetrate.  Many people place limits on their work time and commitment, if they believe that the material rewards are insufficient.  The state thus finds it necessary to provide material incentives, in order to increase production and to respond to the pressing needs of the people.  In the context of the pressure to increase production, the state sanctions various forms of property, rather than being driven by a preference for cooperatives on the basis of a theory formulated in a social context removed from evolving revolutionary practice.  Thus, it can be see that, the construction of socialism is an evolving process, and that, even in the best of ideological and political circumstances, the construction of socialism will be partially but not fully achieved, at least in the present stage of human social and political evolution.
 
      For those of us whose understanding is formed in the context of nations in which socialist movements are divided and weak, our orientation should be to learn from those socialist movements that have been able to actually, albeit partially, construct socialism.  Not only with respect to the characteristics of socialism, but also concerning the strategies for the taking of political power.  We Marxist intellectuals have the duty to reflect on the evolution of the socialist project in various nations, permitting their practical experiences and their theoretical evolution to influence our understanding of socialism.  It is a question of appreciating the necessity of the evolution of Marxist-Leninist concepts, of the basis of the practice of the socialist revolutions of the world. 
 
      This will be the theme of my next post, “After Marx.”

       In the socialist movements in the world, there is a tendency for idealist criticisms of socialist governments, formulated from a supposedly socialist perspective.  The criticisms maintain that the governments have failed to fulfill the promise of socialism.  They argue, for example, that the political process is not sufficiently democratic, and the political and economic institutions are directed from above.  In addition, they maintain that there are unacceptable levels of income inequality as well as forms of racial and ethnic and gender discrimination.   In general, I view their claims as exaggerations of existing problems, and in addition, their descriptions of the conditions in nations that are attempting to construct socialism often have many omissions and distortions.
 
     Since the late 1990s, with the renewal of the Third World project of national and social liberation (see various posts in the category Third World), humanity has been in the midst of the Third World War.  It is a war between two competing global civilizational projects.  On the one side, there is the imperialist project, which entered in the 1980s its neoliberal stage.  It is led by the United States, the major nations of Western Europe, and Japan; the transnational corporations; and the international finance agencies.  It places profits over people, and it promotes the concept of limited states, maintaining that the market should rule.  It seeks to preserve the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system, with its material benefits for a small proportion of humanity.  On the other side is the project of popular socialism, led by socialist and progressive governments of the Third World, including Cuba, with the cooperation of China and Russia.  Its leading nations are in the vanguard not of a proletarian revolution, as envisioned in classical Marxism, but of a popular revolution, in which leaders and mass participation emerge from all popular classes and sectors.  The popular socialist project maintains, in opposition to the limited-state thesis of neoliberal imperialism, that the state must play a central role in the economy, by formulating plans for the economic and social development of the nation, by regulating the economy, and as owner of major economic enterprises.  Popular socialism believes that all governments have the obligation, first, to defend the social and economic rights of all of its citizens, regardless of class background, race or ethnicity, or gender; and secondly, to protect the natural environment and to seek a sustainable form of development.  The popular socialist project further maintains that all nations have a sacred right to sovereignty, thus standing against the imperialist project and the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system.  For the last twenty years, the governments that have been leading the socialist/progressive initiative have been trying to construct in practice an alternative world-system based on cooperation and mutually beneficial trade among nations and on solidarity among peoples. 
 
        The Third World War is not a nuclear war, as we often imagined it would be.  It is principally a battle of ideas, and Fidel declared it such a few years ago.  But the conflict also includes the use of economic sanctions, military actions, and violent local gangs.  The future of humanity depends on the outcome of this global conflict.
 
     In the midst of the unfolding Third World War, the above-mentioned critical socialist current is an enemy within socialism, undermining the capacity of the socialist nations to offer their examples as the basis of a viable possible future for humanity.  By distorting the reality of developing socialist projects, the critical current seeds confusion and division among peoples everywhere.  I imagine that in most cases these “critical socialists” are sincere victims of idealist conceptions of socialism, which lead them to imagine that the harmonious world that socialism envisions can be constructed in a generation, even though the socialist governments must pursue the fulfillment of the socialist promise in the context of a capitalist world-economy.  However, in other cases, the advocates of critical socialism may be indulging in egoism, oriented to attracting attention to themselves in the ongoing debates.   In still other cases, they may be deliberately attempting, for whatever motive, to undermine the global socialist project.  But regardless of why it emerges, the critical socialist current is a menacing threat to the socialist project.
 
      The other day, I had a conversation with a young Cuban, who appears to me to pertain to the critical socialist tendency.  Among the various points with which we disagreed, one had to do with the Cuban Constitution of 1976.  I maintained that the Cuban Constitution establishes the National Assembly of Popular Power as the highest authority in the nation.  He, on the other hand, citing Article 5 of the Constitution, maintained that the Constitution establishes the Communist Party of Cuba as the highest authority in the nation.  This is not a minor point, for the resolution of the question is central to an understanding of another question, namely, is Cuba democratic?
 
      I would like to provide the reader with some context for the debate.  The Cuban political process has been developing in a form integral to the evolving praxis of the Cuban Revolution.  Its current political structure is based in the insight and moral commitment of a charismatic leader, who possessed authority because of his exceptional gifts, recognized among the people.  With awareness of the ultimate limitations of rule by one person, there emerged in the 1960s an effort to form and educate a vanguard, a group of informed and committed revolutionaries comprising perhaps 15% to 25% of the people, which would lead the people in the development of the socialist project.  The vanguard was institutionalized in the Communist Party of Cuba, formally named as such in 1965, culminating a process of unifying the various revolutionary organizations that had begun during the revolutionary war of 1957-58.  Even though the Party comes from the people, it is not elected by the people, because it is a vanguard party, and the members are recruited by the Party itself.  So other structures had to be developed to represent the people.
 
      During the 1960s and 1970s, the Cuban Revolution developed two kinds of structures to ensure the representation of the people.  The first was the creation or expansion of mass organizations of workers (in all fields, including professional and agricultural), students, women, farmers, and neighborhoods.  Among other things, these organizations elect at the base delegates to higher levels, who elect in turn delegates to even higher levels, so that through a series of indirect elections the provincial and national leaders of each of the mass organization are chosen.   The second structure is Popular Power, which constitutes the actual structures of the state.  In local elections in voting districts of 1000 to 1500, the voters elect from among two or three competing candidates that have been nominated by neighborhood residents in a series of nomination assemblies.  The elected delegates form 169 municipal assemblies, which in turn elect both the delegates of the fourteen provincial assemblies and the deputies of the national assembly.  The national assembly is the highest legislative organ, and it elects the thirty-one members of the Council of State, which is the executive branch of the government. 
 
       There are links between the mass organizations and Popular Power in important moments.   When the municipal delegates elect delegates and deputies to the higher assemblies, candidacy commissions submit proposals of candidates.  Similarly, when the deputies of the national assembly elect the Council of State, proposals are presented by the candidacy commissions.  Who are the members of the candidacy commissions?  They consist of representatives of the mass organizations, chosen by the mass organizations themselves to fulfill this function.  So in the indirect elections to the higher assemblies, both the elected delegates of the municipal assemblies and the representatives of mass organizations play central roles.  There is another important link between Popular Power and the mass organizations.  Namely, in the debates with respect to any legislation, the committees of the national assemblies are required to invite spokespersons for the mass organizations.
 
     The Cuban Constitution of 1976 establishes the constitutional foundation for this Cuban revolutionary approach to the decision making process, involving the Party, assemblies of Popular Power, and mass organizations.  The Constitution establishes the Party as the leader of the nation and the people and their socialist revolution.  At the same time, it establishes structures for the popular election of delegates and deputies to the assemblies, which have full constitutional authority to elect the executive branches and to enact legislation.  The Constitution establishes a fundamental duality: the Party leads, and the delegates of the people decide. 
 
     Accordingly, Article 5 of the Constitution affirms the Communist Party of Cuba as the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation and as the highest directing force of the society and the state, organizing and orientating the common efforts toward the high ends of the construction of socialism (Lezcano 2003:47).  It may appear at first glance that this article grants to the Party the highest authority.  But let us look further.  It does not give the Party the authority to nominate candidates or to elect delegates, deputies, and members of the Council of state; nor does it give the Party the authority to pass laws or to elect the executive branches.  These functions are given specifically to the people and to the delegates of the people.  Article 5 recognizes the authority of the Party as the nation’s vanguard, which has the duty of organizing, orienting, educating, persuading, and convincing, through the power of the spoken work and of example.
 
      Meanwhile, a host of articles grants specific areas of authority to the National Assembly.  Among them are:

​Reference
 
Lezcano Pérez, Jorge.  2003.  Elecciones, Parlamento y Democracia en Cuba.  Brasilia: Casa Editora de la Embajada de Cuba en Brasil.

​      The peoples of Vietnam and Cuba have a special relationship of solidarity, forged in their long struggles for sovereignty against U.S. imperialism.  The relationship was commemorated with the visit to Cuba of a Vietnamese delegation headed by Nguyen Phu Trong, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam, from March 28 to March 30, 2018.
 
      The Vietnamese struggle against French colonialism was initiated in the late nineteenth century by the scholar-gentry class.  Ho Chi Minh was born in 1890, and he was the son of a Confucian scholar.  Forced to flee Vietnam because of his anti-colonial political activities, Ho encountered French socialism in Paris.  Attracted to the teachings of Lenin for their clear and just formulations on the importance of the anti-colonial struggles in the European colonies, Ho participated in the founding of the French Communist Party in 1920.  He later was educated in the Soviet Union, and he developed an understanding that was a synthesis of the traditions of Confucian nationalism and Marxism-Leninism.  He was the central figure in the founding in 1930 of the Indochinese Communist Party, which formed and led a popular coalition known as the Viet Minh.  It organized armed struggle against the Japanese occupation, and it formulated a program of Vietnamese independence, the distribution of land to peasants, and the formation of a worker-peasant government.  Its courageous resistance to foreign occupation and its politically intelligent program enabled the Viet Minh to attain the support of the people. 
     
     Immediately following the Japanese surrender, armed militias of the people began to take control of the structures of local government, doing so in the name of the Viet Minh.  In this context, Ho’s forces entered Hanoi, and on September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  France, however, refused to accept Vietnamese independence, and it undertook the reconquest of Vietnam.  The French initiative included the establishment of a puppet government in the southern region of Cochin China, a zone of extensive French-owned rubber plantations, declaring a state separate from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  The Vietnamese, however, sought the independences of Vietnam, with unification of the territory of the pre-colonial Vietnamese Kingdom.  As a result of the contradictory interests and the impossibility of reaching an accord, the French Indochina War began in 1946.  The Vietnamese nationalist forces were forced to abandon the capital city of Hanoi, and the French established a puppet government, headed by former Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai.  However, the nationalists waged an effective armed struggle, culminating in a shocking defeat of the French forces in the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu.  The 1954 peace agreement recognized the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, located north of the seventeenth parallel and led by Ho Chi Minh, and the government of the emperor Bao Dai, located south of the parallel.  The peace talks and accompanying documents led to the understanding by all parties that the division of the county would be temporary, and that the elections would be held in 1956 to unify the country. 
 
     That Ho Chi Minh would win the elections called for in the 1954 Paris documents was recognized by all parties, so the United States encouraged the Dai government to consider itself as the permanent government of South Vietnam, albeit a government under U.S. tutelage and support.  With little possibilities for a peaceful transition to a unified and independent Vietnam, the Indochinese Communist Party organized the National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam, a military-political coalition of popular organizations, formally established on December 20, 1960.  It was successful in winning the support of the people, such that by 1964, the NLF controlled 80% of the territory of South Vietnam.  The war against the NLF, carried out by the government of South Vietnam with U.S. support, had been lost by 1964.  Meanwhile, in the North, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam initiated a transition to socialism in 1964, with the redistribution of land and the development of state and cooperative ownership of industry.
 
     The United States, however, was politically unable to accept an NLF victory.  As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote years later, U.S. leaders were concerned with the emergence of communist and progressive governments in China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Indonesia, and they considered the implications for the decline of U.S. economic presence and political influence to be unacceptable.  Up to that point, the U.S. strategy had been to support South Vietnam, with the understanding that the South Vietnamese would have to win the struggle in their own right.  In 1965, the USA abandoned this strategy and turned to direct military intervention.  The United States moved from 23,000 military advisers at the beginning of 1965 to 180,000 troops by the end of the year and to 280,000 by the end of 1966, culminating in 550,000 U.S. troops by 1968.  In addition, from 1965 to 1968, the USA engaged in an extensive bombing campaign, with targets in both the North and South.  During the three-year bombing campaign, three times as many tons of bombs were dropped than in all the combat zones of World War II.  The ground war and the bombing campaign resulted in the death of four million Vietnamese, nearly half of them civilians.
 
     The U.S. military escalation of 1965-1968 could not shore up the government of South Vietnam.  The increased U.S. military presence exposed the South Vietnam government as a puppet regime, undermining its claims to be representing a nationalist force and further delegitimizing the government.  NLF troops, increasingly organized as a regular army, repeatedly engaged U.S. troops successfully, choosing the time and location of the battles.  In addition, the South Vietnamese army had become unreliable as a fighting force, as a result of repeated defeats and desertions.  Moreover, the political will of the government of Ho Chi Minh in the North to provide support for the NLF in the South remained unbroken, in spite of the extensive bombing.  On January 30, 1968, the NLF launched attacks on various cities.  The “Tet offensive” was politically effective, for it demonstrated the vulnerability of the South Vietnamese governments in zones under its control.  As a result, the U.S. government agreed to peace negotiations and began a gradual reduction of U.S. troops.  The negotiated peace accord called for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops, which was carried out by March 1973.  In 1975, the government of South Vietnam collapsed, in the face of the united military action by the government of the North and the NLF.  The nation was unified, and a constitutional assembly established the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.  (For various posts on Vietnam, the Vietnamese Revolution, and Ho Chi Minh, see the category Vietnam). 
 
      The Vietnamese struggle for its right to be a sovereign nation surely stands as one of the most heroic struggles in human history.  As it was reaching culmination, a heroic popular struggle on the other side of the earth was passing through its decisive historic moments.  The Cuban Revolution was initiated in 1868, but internal divisions frustrated the attainment of its goals of independence and abolition.  In the 1880s and 1890s, Jose Martí brought a greater clarity of vision, calling for a unified struggle of the popular classes against Spanish colonialism, U.S. neocolonial pretensions, and the Cuban national bourgeoisie.  However, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution again was frustrated, this time by the U.S. military intervention of 1898.  In the 1920s, the popular revolution was renewed, forged by a synthesis of the nationalism and ethical vision of Martí with Marxism-Leninism.  It culminated in the Revolution of 1930 and the government of 100 days in 1933.  However, the Revolution again was frustrated, as a consequence of U.S. interference, which brought Batista to power. 
 
      But the hopes of the Cuban people for a more just and dignified nation could not be permanently denied.  The July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks galvanized the people to heroic action again, culminating in the revolutionary war of 1957-1958 and the taking of power by the revolutionary movement led by Fidel, in spite of U.S. maneuverings to prevent it.  The Revolution in power took decisive revolutionary steps in 1959 and 1960, most notably a redistribution of agricultural lands and nationalization of properties owned by U.S. corporations.  These steps revealed the essentially anti-neocolonial character of the Cuban Revolution.  The global elite, with consciousness of the implications of such decisive revolutionary steps for the transformation of the neocolonial order, could not let the Cuban Revolution stand.  Thus began the commercial and financial blockade of Cuba, which continues to this day.  However, from 1961 to the present day, the Cuban revolutionary vanguard has led the people in a remarkable demonstration of persistence in its socialist project and in its right to be a sovereign nation, which decides for itself the character of its political-economic system.  (For various posts on the Cuban Revolution from 1868 to 1962, see the category Cuban History).
 
     The Cuban revolutionary government, from the beginning, consistently supported the Vietnamese struggle to establish a unified and socialist nation.  On December 2, 1960, Fidel declared Cuba’s intention to establish diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  On September 25, 1963, the Cuban Committee for Solidarity with South Vietnam was founded, directed by Melba Hernández, hero of the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks.  In 1966, a Cuban delegation, headed by Cuban President Dorticos and Raul Castro, visited Vietnam.  During the visit, Dorticos declared:

     In 1973, four years after the death of Ho Chi Minh and a little more than a year before the final collapse of the government of South Vietnam, Fidel visited Vietnam.  He declared:

      With the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, its efforts at first were dedicated to rebuilding the infrastructure in the wake of the immense destruction caused by the war.  Subsequently, Vietnamese socialism has evolved into pragmatic socialism, consistent with the intelligent flexibility that Ho Chi Minh persistently demonstrated.  Vietnamese socialism finds space for private capital and investment by foreign capitalistic enterprises, but in accordance with a state plan, and with regulation and control by the state.  Its decisive turn toward pragmatic socialism was taken in 1986, with its policy of “renovation,” which has focused on industrialization and the diversification of the economy and its insertion in the world-economy.  It has concentrated on the development of human resources, in order to improve competitiveness in a world permeated by technology. 
                                                                                              
     Similar to what we have seen with respect to China (see various posts in the category China), the pragmatic approach to socialism in Vietnam since 1986 has resulted in significant economic growth. From being a net importer of rice, Vietnam has become the second largest exporter of rice in the world.  And it has become the world’s largest exporter of coffee, rubber, textiles, and footwear.  In the last two decades, more than twenty million persons have been lifted out of poverty.  The percentage of children of primary school age attending school has reached nearly 100% percent, and life expectancy has reached seventy years. 
 
      In spite of the evident economic and social gains, the Vietnamese Revolution recognizes that there have been social costs of the Renovation.  In addressing this issue, the present emphasis is on the total eradication of poverty, the reduction of infant mortality, the reduction of the gap between the rich and the poor, the lending of greater attention to the mountainous zones, the generation of greater opportunities for the most disadvantaged, and environmental sustainability. 
 
      In a manner paralleling Vietnam, Cuba also has developed a pragmatic approach to socialism, with fidelity to principles but not with ideological rigidity or ultra-Leftist idealism.  From the beginning, the Cuban approach to socialism was adapted to particular national conditions, not copying models from Eastern European, in spite of its economically necessary insertion into the socialist bloc.  In the early 1990s, with the collapse of Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism, Cuba expanded space for small-scale private capital and for joint ventures with foreign capital.  In 2012, Cuba adopted a social and economic model that seeks to improve productivity by further expanding space for small-scale private capital, cooperatives, and foreign investment, always regulated by the state and developed in accordance with state planning.  At the same time, Cuba seeks to further develop its capacities with respect to high value added goods and services, such as biotechnology.  Cuba seeks to develop an economy that is capable to responding to the basic needs of the people and to provide a modest level of prosperity, in the context of a socialist principles and a socialist political-economic system.
 
      Vietnam has become the second commercial trading parting of Cuba from Southeast Asia, after China.  There are a growing number of Vietnamese companies doing business with Cuba as well as increasing Vietnamese investments in such areas as construction, renewable energy, industry, tourism, and the development of infrastructure.
 
     The commemoration of March 28 to March 30 included various events.  They included the granting to Raúl Castro by the Vietnamese Communist Party of its highest award; the signing of an agreement of cooperation by the youth organizations of the two countries; a business forum to identify new opportunities; and a visit to a monument to Ho Chi Minh in the City of Havana.
 
     At the closing ceremony of the Encounter of Solidarity between the youth of Vietnam and the youth of Cuba, Nguyen Phu Trong, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam, pronounced the following words.

​      For more on the Cuban Revolution and on the Vietnamese Revolution, see The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
                                                   

     On Sunday, March 11, 2018, Cuba held elections for the National Assembly of Popular Power.  Some 85.65% of the more than 8 million eligible voters, citizens sixteen year of age or older, cast their ballots, electing 605 deputies.  The national assembly is the highest political authority in the nation.  In addition to enacting legislation, it elects the executive branch of the government, which consists of the thirty-one members of the Council of State, including the President.

      The process began on June 15, 2017, with the designation of the National Electoral Commission by the Council of State.  On June 15, members of the provincial and municipal electoral commissions also were designated.  The national, provincial, and municipal electoral commissions are responsible for supervising and conducting the elections, including the recruitment and training of some 200,000 volunteers.  

     From September 4 to October 30, neighborhood nomination assemblies were held, several in each voting district.  In these local assemblies, the people put forth the names of persons and describe their qualities as citizens; a show of hands assesses the level of support for each person named.  In accordance with the popular will expressed in the nomination assemblies, two or three candidates from each voting district were included on the ballot as candidates for deputy in the municipal assembly.  One page biographies and photos of the candidates were displayed in public places from November 1 to November 26.  A secret vote, in which the voter selects one of the two or three candidates, was held on November 26, with a voter turnout of 85%.  Run-off elections, for voting districts in which no candidate received a majority, were held on December 3.  The elected delegates from 12,515 voting districts formed 169 municipal assemblies throughout the nation, which were constituted on December 17.  These 169 municipal assemblies, elected by the people in elections involving two or three candidates but not involving electoral campaigns or the participation of political parties, play an important role in nominating candidates for provincial and national assemblies, on the basis of proposals presented to the municipal assemblies by candidacy commissions.

      The candidacy commissions are composed of representatives of mass organizations of women, workers, university students, secondary students, small farmers, and neighborhoods.  (The mass organizations are independent of the government, and members elect leaders at the base, who it turn elect leaders to higher levels).  The formation of the candidacy commissions began on June 16, when the National Electoral Commission solicited mass organizations to propose persons for integration into the candidacy commissions at the municipal, national, and provincial levels.  The candidacy commissions were constituted from June 30 to July 4, 2017.  

       The candidacy commissions have responsibility for developing slates of candidates for the provincial and national assemblies.  By constitutional requirement, no more than half of the candidates for the provincial and national assemblies can be delegates of the municipal assemblies.  The other half are from the mass organizations and other social organizations.  They often are persons who have made contributions in such fields as health, education, science, and culture, but who do not necessarily emerge from the process of neighborhood nominations, because of their life style of dedication to their professions.  The candidacy commissions also try to ensure that all interests in the society have representation in the assemblies.

     In early January 2018, the candidacy commissions distributed their proposed slates of candidates.  On January 21, the candidacy commissions presented their proposed slates to extraordinary sessions of the 169 municipal assemblies of the country.  At these sessions, the delegates of the municipal assemblies approved or rejected each of the proposed candidates that pertain to their territories.  

     Therefore, on January 21, the slates of candidates for the fifteen provincial assemblies and the National Assembly were completed.  As can be seen, the candidates were proposed by commissions formed by mass organizations, and subsequently approved by municipal assemblies, which had been elected by the people two months earlier, on November 26 and December 3.

     From January 22 to March 11, one-page biographies and photos of the candidates were displayed in public places, and they were presented on national television.  During this time, the candidates visited communities and centers of work and study, joined by members of the electoral commissions and leaders of mass organizations.  The candidates do not make campaign promises.  They make commentaries of a general nature, and they listen to what the people may want to say.  In addition, the visits and the dissemination of biographies are financed the electoral commissions, so the candidates do not need to finance campaigns.  As expressed by Cuban journalist José Alejandro Rodríguez, in an editorial published on Election Day, “The Cuban electoral system is not based on the power of money and compromising campaign financing; nor does it promote political ambition and the buying of influence.”

      In the March 11 elections, voters were presented ballots with a list of those candidates that pertain to their geographical area, one ballot for the provincial assembly and another for the national assembly.  To be elected, a candidate must receive a majority of the valid votes cast.  Some 85.65% percent of the eligible citizens voted, and all of the candidates were elected.  

     Of the 605 deputies to the National Assembly elected on May 11, some 53% are women; 41% are blacks or mulattos; 13% are young, between eighteen and thirty-five years of age; 86% are college graduates; and 56% are first-term deputies, and 24% have completed only one term.  They represent all areas of work.  One hundred thirty-three work full time in the municipal, provincial, and national assemblies of popular power, on leave of absence from their regular employment.  Eighty-three are employed in some capacity in the production of goods and the distribution of services.  Forty-seven work in education.  Forty-six work on a full-time basis for the Communist Party at the national, provincial, or local level.  Forty-five work in the state ministries or other organs of the state.  Thirty-nine are writers or artists.  Thirty-nine are employed on a full time basis as administrators of the mass organizations.  Thirty-four work in the health sector.  Twenty-eight are farmers or members of farmers’ cooperatives.  Twenty-four are scientific researchers.  Twenty-two are military.  Twelve are tied to sport.  Eleven represent social organizations, distinct from the mass organizations.  Nine are student leaders.  Seven work in the criminal justice system.  Four represent religious institutions.  Four are self-employed in the private sector.  

      The nearly 86% voter turnout is high by world standards, even though it is slightly less than the Cuban elections in the past, in which voter participation of 89% to 95% was attained.  Some 94.42% percent of the votes were valid, and 80.44% of them were votes for all of the candidates.  Some 4.32% of the ballots were blank; and 1.26% were annulled, as a result of writing on the ballot, which is not permitted by the rules.  Thus, the nullified and blank ballots comprised 5.58% of the ballots cast; in the past, this figure has been higher, around 10%.  The entire process was carried forward without conflict, division, controversy, or scandal, and with dignity.  

     The assemblies elected on March 11 will convene on March 25, in the case of the provincial assemblies; and on April 19, in the case of the National Assembly.  They are elected to five-year terms.  Most delegates to the provincial assemblies and deputies to the National Assembly will not serve full-time, but will continue to work in their jobs.  Some, however, will be elected as officers of the assemblies, and others will be designated to work in commissions that investigate pending laws and regulations.  These officers and commission delegates and deputies will take leaves of absence from their employment, receiving the same salary that they receive in their regular jobs.

      The National Assembly of Popular Power has the duty of electing the thirty-one members of the Council of State.  This includes electing the President of the Council of State and Ministers, a position currently held by Raúl Castro.  There are not term limits, but at age 88, Raúl has stated publicly that the completion of his current term of office constitutes the fulfillment of his final duty.

      The Cuban system of popular democracy is an alternative to the system of representative democracy that exists in many nations of the world.  Established by the Constitution of 1976, the Cuban political system was developed consciously as a rejection of the representative democracy of the neocolonial Republic of 1902 to 1959, in which office-seeking electoral political parties were formed, campaign promises were made to the people, the interests of the national oligarchy and foreign capital were served, and corruption was rampant.  The Cuban system of popular democracy and popular power enjoys a high level of legitimacy among the Cuban people, who are conscious not only of their own history, but also of the fact that, in the world as a whole, representative democracy is falling into decadence.

     For further description of the Cuban political process, please see pages 130-42 of my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

     Raúl Castro has been a loyal second in command in the Revolution led by Fidel.  At the age of eighty-eight, he is near the completion of his final task in the fulfillment of that duty.
      
      Fidel was an educator of the people.  His long discourses were dedicated to the formation of historical, political, and social consciousness with respect to Cuba, its conflict with the United States, the meaning of socialism and revolution, and the structures and dynamics of a neocolonized world.  His teachings were central to the formation of a vanguard from the people, formalized in the Communist Party of Cuba, which has the duty of educating and leading the people, and exemplifying revolutionary conduct.  In addition, it has the duty of listening to the people, responding to their needs and aspirations, and to accomplish this, it must live and work among the people, never constituting itself as a separate social class.

      The vanguard formed by Fidel is impressive.  Its members are dedicated professionals and workers, who live and work among the people, from which they emerged and took their first steps in revolutionary consciousness.  Regardless of area of specialization or work, they are broadly and well informed about the historic struggle of the nation for true sovereignty and social transformation, and they are knowledgeable with respect to global structures of imperialism and neocolonialism.  They are committed to the revolution, and they have dedicated their lives to it.  They comprise perhaps fifteen to twenty-five percent of the people.

     The people, unlike the vanguard, have less internalized their teachers’ lessons.  Many do not have mastery of the historical developments and theoretical concepts that they have been taught in school.  They therefore are less likely to understand the factors that gave rise to the material hardships of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism.  And they are less likely do understand the causes of the economic difficulties today, which exist in spite of the remarkable economic recovery of the last twenty-five years.  For example, they do not always understand why Cubans cannot have material comforts on a level equal to the consumer societies of North, which are very visible to them through tourism, the emigration of family members, and the internet.  The dynamics of economic crisis combined with a recovery fueled in part by tourism and family remittances create a challenging environment for the formation of revolutionary consciousness, and confusion is more likely for those who are less armed with knowledge.  So there has emerged in Cuba during the past twenty-five years a more clearly visible distinction between the vanguard and the people.  

     But the people, in spite of their limitations, understand enough to appreciate the excellent and universally accessible systems of education, health, culture, and sport; the legitimacy of the Cuban political system of popular power and popular democracy, an alternative to the undignified spectacle of representative “democracy” in other nations; the exceptional understanding and commitment of Fidel; and the outstanding qualities of most members of the Cuban Communist Party as hardworking, committed, and responsible citizens.  And they understand that the powerful forces of imperialism in the world, in spite of their claims of support for the Cuban people, do not have the slightest concern with their needs or welfare.  These qualities of the people are the reason for the persistence of the Cuban socialist project, a phenomenon that has been recognized by the peoples and governments of Latin America.

      Whereas Fidel was the exceptional popular educator that has formed a revolutionary vanguard and a revolutionary people, Raúl has assumed a different role.  He served as second in command for many years, and when Fidel stepped down for health reasons, Raúl was named President of the Council of State.  Declaring it to be his final task, Raúl has led the nation in the final steps of a transition from a revolution led by a charismatic leader to a revolution led by a vanguard party.  The transition was initiated in the 1960s, with the first steps in the formation of a vanguard party through the uniting of revolutionary organizations.  In the future, there possibly could emerge in Cuba another charismatic leader, who would lead the revolution to a more advanced stage, on the basis of new international and national developments, with a new direction that would nonetheless be based on the foundation established by the unfolding revolutionary process from 1868 to the present.  However, at the present time, rather than expecting or anticipating another charismatic leader, Cuba is moving toward collective rule by the Party, with the support and participation of the people, institutionalized in the form of various popular mass organizations.  This political system of popular democracy and popular power was established by the Cuban Constitution of 1976, and it is an alternative to representative democracy, which is increasingly falling into decadence.

     His speech at the Fifteenth Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA for its initials in Spanish) was vintage Rául.  Reading from a prepared text, he succinctly and clearly condemned the imperialist and interventionist policies of the United States against Venezuela and progressive governments in Latin America, and he affirmed Cuba’s unequivocal support for the Bolivarian Revolution and for the government of Venezuela and its president Nicolás Maduro.  The full text of his discourse can be found at Raul Castro Speech on ALBA, March 5, 2018.

      Cuba is presently celebrating its 2017-18 General Elections of Popular Power.  The third round of elections in the process will be held on this coming Sunday, March 11, when the delegates of the fifteen Provincial Assemblies of Popular Power and the deputies of the National Assembly of Popular Power will be elected.  The National Assembly of Popular Power will convene on April 19, and it will elect the thirty-one members of the Council of State and Ministers, including its President.  Raúl has publically stated that he will not continue as President of the Council of State following the completion of his current term.

      Raúl can retire with the satisfaction that he has completed his final task and revolutionary duty. In leading the people in the final moments of transition to collective leadership, Raúl has completed the final steps in the fulfillment of the promise by Fidel to the people.  He leaves the continued evolution of the revolutionary project in the hands of the vanguard and the people, who have been formed as a revolutionary vanguard and revolutionary people by Fidel.

     On the first anniversary of his death, Cubans have been reflecting on the meaning of the life and work of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution.

     Fidel Castro Ruz was born in Belen, in the then Eastern province of Oriente, in 1926.  The son of a Spanish peasant immigrant who became a landholder, Fidel was educated in private Catholic schools, where he came to appreciate the Christian personal ethic of his teachers, without ever being convinced of the existence of God.  During the years of his secondary education, he was formed in the nationalist tradition forged by the nineteenth century Cuban revolutionary José Martí, and he read all the published works on the Cuban wars of independence. At the University of Havana, he was influenced by progressive professors and by participation in student organizations and protests, and he read on his own the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.  By the time of his graduation from the university in 1950 (with a bachelor’s in Diplomatic and Administrative Law and a Doctor of Law), he had formulated a plan for a Cuban popular revolution, based on a synthesis of Cuban revolutionary nationalism and Marxism-Leninism.  (See “Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014; “Fidel’s social roots” 9/10/2014; “Fidel becomes revolutionary at the university” 9/11/2014).

       He organized and led a political vanguard dedicated to the taking of power through guerrilla war and, with control of the state, to the implementation of the necessary changes to protect the economic, social, and political rights of the majority, previously denied on a massive scale.  It was a revolution of, by, and for the humble.  It was a masterful political construction that broke the neocolonial model based on dependency and subordination to the United States; and that was an exemplary realization of the Latin American process of decolonization and independence, initiated in the nineteenth century.  He guided the revolution through imperialist aggressions, an interminable economic blockade, and the economic crisis resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist bloc.  At the dawn of the twenty-first century, with the emergence of new emancipatory movements that embraced Cuba as a model of Latin American dignity, he played a leadership role, along with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, in forging Latin American and Caribbean unity, integration, solidarity, and cooperation.  This alternative model for international relations has been endorsed unambiguously by the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization of 120 governments of the Third World established in 1961.  (See various posts in the categories Cuban history, neocolonialism, and Third World).

      On May 1, 2000, Fidel expressed to the people a definition of revolution, thus providing a political testament to guide the people in the coming times.  For Fidel, revolution is a sense of the historic moment and a capacity to change all that ought to be changed, in ourselves as persons, in the society, and in the world.  It is to treat all persons with respect, providing them with access to the work, education, health, and culture that they need to develop their capacities, their sentiments, and their spirituality.  It is based in an unshakable faith in victory, a permanent spirit of optimism, and a belief that nothing is impossible.  It is fed by ideas, which are nurtured by an accumulated culture and a permanent study of the history of humanity and of the forging of the nation.  Its most important arm and shield is the truth.

     The people of Cuba are a revolutionary people that Fidel taught to be revolutionary.  He remains alive in their memories, their hearts, their minds, and their convictions.  Led by the vanguard that he formed and by the most Fidelist of Cubans, Raúl, they continue to strive to construct a nation that is sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous, and sustainable.

     The people of Cuba have revolutionary faith in the future of humanity.   They believe that the peoples of the world in solidarity can build a world that is a just, democratic, and sustainable.  They believe that decisive and intelligent revolutionary political action by the world’s peoples is necessary to save humanity, inasmuch as the capitalist world-economy has entered a stage of savagery, in which the global elite responds with aggressions and violence to contradictions that it cannot understand.  They see their own revolution as a modest but important step in building an alternative and more just world, for it demonstrates the possibility of the fulfillment of impossible dreams.

​      Following his presentation to the United Nations in defense of the Cuban resolution against the U.S. blockade on November 1 (see “The USA lies and isolates itself” 11/2/2017), Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations Bruno Rodríguez traveled to Washington.  During two days in the nation’s capital, he met with the National Press Club, members of Congress, and U.S. business leaders, and he visited academic centers.

      At the November 2 press conference at the National Press Club, the theme of the alleged acoustic attacks against U.S. diplomatic staff in Havana dominated Rodríguez’s prepared statement and the questions from the press.  The affair has had a negative effect on the relations between Cuba and the United States during the last six weeks.  The United States has accused Cuba of possibly being the author of the attacks, or at least of not taking adequate measures to protect U.S. diplomatic staff.  The United States has reduced significantly its diplomatic staff in Cuba; it has ordered the departure from Washington of seventeen members of the Cuban embassy staff in Washington; and it has advised U.S. travelers that travel to Cuba has potential health risks.  At the beginning of the affair, Cuba denied any knowledge of the health incidents involving U.S. embassy staff, and it formed a committee of Cuban specialists and scientists to investigate the affair.  The committee has concluded that the accusations of acoustic attacks are nonsensible in technical terms, and that the affair is politically motivated, taking into account the unwillingness of the United States to provide specific information and in other ways to cooperate in the investigation (see “Cuba denies acoustic attacks” 10/12/2017; “Cuba denies acoustic attacks (P.S.)” 10/20/2017).

     In his prepared comments, Rodríguez observed that there has been a significant backward movement in the relations between the governments of the United States and Cuba.  The first manifestation was the directive issued by President Donald Trump on June 16, when he announced a hardening of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba.  Since that date, a number of steps have been taken that have negative consequences for bilateral relations; the USA has reduced substantially its embassy staff in Havana; it has expelled seventeen Cuban diplomats from Washington, without justification, with the pretext of alleged incidents with its diplomats in Havana; and it has emitted a warning to travelers in order to dissuade them from visiting Cuba.  In addition, a technical meeting on agriculture has been suspended; plans of cooperation in health has been postponed; cultural, sports, and student events have been cancelled, as have trips by dozens of groups of U.S. visitors.  “These steps have been accompanied by repeated disrespectful and offensive statements with respect to Cuba by the U.S. President, retaking the hostile rhetoric of the moments of greatest confrontation.”  

     Concerning the alleged acoustic attacks, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations declared: 

     Rodríguez notes that, in spite of the lack of cooperation of the United States in investigating the alleged incidents, the Cuban interdisciplinary committee of experts and scientists has arrived to a preliminary conclusion, to wit: “There does not exist any evidence of the occurrence of the alleged incidents nor of the causes and the origin of the health symptoms. . . .  Neither are there proofs that these health problems have been caused by an attack of any nature.”  He further states: “The United States continues speaking of ‘attacks’ and ‘acoustic attacks,’ . . . even though it is demonstrated by experts that this is not possible, because the diversity of the reported symptoms cannot be due to a single cause, and because there does not exist a known technology that would be able to direct a sonic source selectively against specific persons without affecting others.”

     Following the prepared statement by the Cuban Minister, Serena Marshall of ABC News asked, “Are you accusing the United States of inventing these attacks for political purposes?”  Rodríguez responded, “I am saying that no attack has occurred, that no deliberate act has occurred, that no specific incident has occurred.  If the government of the United States has a contrary opinion, I invite it to present evidence. . . .  The possibility that someone has committed deliberate acts against North American personnel accredited in Havana or their families can be excluded absolutely.”

     In response to a similar question by Lucía Leal (EFE), the Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations declared:

     The political objective of U.S. policy with respect to Cuba since 1959 has been the collapse of the revolutionary government, a goal that we today call “regime change.”  The strategy has been to suffocate the Cuban economy by means of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade, thus provoking opposition among the people to the revolutionary government.  The Obama administration concluded that the strategy had failed, and that it would be more effective to support an expanding middle class and small-scale private enterprises in Cuba, with the expectation that this sector would constitute itself as a political force that would push for changes that would be consistent with U.S. economic interests.  Trump wants to return to the strategy of the blockade and the aggressive rhetoric of the worst moments of the USA-Cuba relation. 

     In spite of the fact that many believe that the blockade has failed and/or that it is not morally justifiable, the return to the blockade strategy by Trump has a certain political logic.  A hard line strategy against Cuba is consistent with the hard line against Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran; and with an attitude of disdain toward international organizations and the opinions of other governments of the world, especially those of the Third World.  In taking a consistent hard line against Cuba and other “rogue” nations and against international opinion, Trump seeks to forge an alliance of the extreme Right of the Republic Party, the military-industrial complex, and right-wing populism.  The “make American strong again” approach has a degree of credibility among a sector of the U.S. public, which also may accept as true the sonic attack allegations against Cuba, as a consequence of the distorted image of Cuba as an authoritarian society that stands opposed to the United States.  

       The unsubstantiated allegations of acoustic attacks are nonsensical from a technical point of view.  In addition, they make no sense from a political point of view, in that Cuba has an interest in the normalization of relations, and it has no reason to engage in such attacks or to tolerate attacks by third parties.  They also stand against Cuba’s long-standing pattern of protecting the security of diplomatic personnel, in according with international norms.  Therefore, the allegations verge on the absurd, appearing to Cubans to be science fiction, in spite of their possessing a certain logic in a U.S. political context.

     Some media of communication in the United States have reported on the alleged sonic attacks as fact, and Senator Marco Rubio has demanded reprisals against Cuba.  As a result, the affair reminds some Cuban journalists of the reaction of the United States to the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana bay in 1898, which killed 266 sailors and officers.  Subsequent investigations of the Maine explosion concluded that it was internal, either accidental or an act of sabotage by an unknown person or group.  The U.S. government, however, claimed that the explosion was provoked from the exterior of the ship, and it was either an act of Spanish aggression or an act of Cuban sabotage intended to provoke U.S. intervention.  The explosion caused an escalation of the bellicose rhetoric in the press, and it was a pretext for initiating military action against Spain, which was a decisive step toward the establishment of a neocolonial republic in Cuba under U.S. domination.  Cuban journalists see a similarity between these events of 1898 and today: they both involve an escalation of hostile rhetoric and a justification of aggressive action on the basis of an event of uncertain origin, with the intention of establishing U.S. domination, or at least the appearance of U.S. reassertion of power.  Accordingly, Cuban journalists call the affair the “sonic Maine.” 
​​

     For twenty-six consecutive years, Cuba has submitted the above resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations.  In 1992, the first year of vote, a majority of nations voted for it, with many abstaining.  Over the years, the number of affirmative votes has grown, such that it has now become a virtually unanimous call by the governments of the world.  In 2016, there were no votes opposed; the United States and Israel abstained for the first time, taking into account the opening toward normalization of the Obama administration.  This year, the Trump administration reverses Obama, and the USA and Israel again vote against the resolution.

     The annual vote on the Cuban resolution to end the blockade has become something of a day of celebration in Cuba, inasmuch as it is a day in which the world affirms its support for Cuba in its nearly six-decade political and ideological war with its powerful neighbor to the North.  The debates on the resolution in the General Assembly were covered live on Cuban television, preceded by interviews with student leaders at the University of Havana and the University of Oriente in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.  The speech before the General Assembly by Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, was rebroadcast several times during the next twenty-four hours, and it was printed in its entirety in Cuban newspapers.  The Mesa Redonda, a daily hour-long program of news analysis, devoted two days to the General Assembly debate and vote.

     The debate began with declarations of support for the resolution by regional and international associations of governments.  A representative of Equatorial Guinea, speaking on behalf of the Union of African States, initiated the deliberations.  He noted that the blockade has been condemned by the African states.  He noted the positive contribution of Cuba in international affairs during the blockade of more than fifty-five years, including medical support of African countries.

     A representative of Ecuador spoke on behalf of the G-77 plus China.  He maintained that fundamental international principles require ending the blockade.  He noted that Cuba is an example of solidarity, having provided medical assistance to many nations in all regions.  He argued that the blockade is a significant obstacle that hinders Cuban efforts in sustainable economic development.

      Singapur spoke in the name of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.  Its representative maintained that the end of the blockade would enable Cuba to proceed in its project of sustainable economic development.

      The representative of El Salvador spoke on behalf of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).  He maintains that CELAC supported the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the USA, and it supported the initial steps toward the normalization of relations.  CELAC laments the turn of the new administration toward a strengthening of the blockade.  He maintained that the blockade has negative consequences for the Cuban people, and that it violates the UN Charter.  He also noted that CELAC has called upon the United States to return to Cuba the territory of the naval base in Guantanamo.

     The states of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) joined with the G-77, CELAC, and the Non-Aligned Movement in calling for an end to the blockade.  Its representative noted that the English-speaking Caribbean nations, upon becoming independent from colonial rule, established diplomatic relations with the revolutionary government of Cuba.  There has been cooperation in many areas, especially health.  He maintained that the development of the Caribbean nations requires the common development of all of the nations of the Caribbean, and that the blockade against Cuba is an act against the entire Caribbean. He further sustained that the blockade violates fundamental principles of the United Nations, including the right of sovereignty and the principal of non-interference in the affairs of other nations.  

     A representative of the Ivory Coast spoke in the name of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.  He noted that the establishment of diplomatic relations and the US abstention in 2016 had lifted hopes, but the sanctions against Cuba continue.  He maintained that the blockade is an obstacle to the economic and social development of Cuba.

     Venezuela spoke of behalf of the 120 nations of the Third World who are members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).  He noted that at its 2016 meeting, held in Venezuela, NAM declared against the blockade.  He maintained that the blockade has enormous costs for Cuba, and it restricts access to markets and to technology.  He sustained that the blockade violates the principles of the sovereignty of nations and non-interference in the affairs of nations.  He described it as a barbarous act by the most powerful nation on the planet against a nation that has a sustained record of solidarity with the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 
     
     The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, took her turn in the list of speakers, but speaking only in the name of the United States and not any regional or international organization.  She uttered a series of falsehoods: the Cuban regime violates human rights; the Cuban regime is responsible for the suffering of the Cuban people; there are more than 10,000 political detentions in Cuba; the future of Cuba, unfortunately, is not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of Cuban dictators; and in Venezuela, the people do not have rights.

      Several nations took the floor to support the Cuban Revolution, speaking as particular nations and not as members of regional and international associations of states.  They included Vietnam, Paraguay, India, Bolivia, Egypt, Algeria, Russia, Colombia, South Africa, China, Mexico, and Panama.  The comments of the representative of Bolivia were particularly strong: the blockade is a unilateral action that is a violation of the principles of sovereignty and non-interference, and it has a major effect on commerce and foreign investment; it is immoral and illegal.  He asked, Who interferes in the affairs of nations, who has clandestine prisons throughout the world, who does not believe in science and global warming, yet wants to give lessons in human rights?  In contrast, Cuba has persistently demonstrated solidarity.  The Bolivian representative cited Nelson Mendela:  “when I was in prison, Cuba was an inspiration, because only Cuba took steps against apartheid.”  The government of Bolivia, he concluded, demands the immediate cessation of the blockade. 

      The Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs took the floor amidst strong applause.  He was blunt in denouncing the false claims of the US Ambassador with respect to Cuba and Venezuela, characterizing them as disrespectful and offensive to all humanity.  She speaks in the name of the chief of an empire, he stated, and she lies, just as that empire historically has justified its efforts to dominate the politics, economy, and people of Cuba with false pretexts.  She should recognize and respect, he argued, the complete rejection of the U.S. blockade of Cuba by the governments and peoples of the world, a comment that provoked the applause of the assembly.

     Rodríguez maintained that the United States has absolutely no moral authority to question Cuba.  The USA is responsible for global instability and for wars in which innocent persons are killed.  In the United States, the political process has been hijacked by so-called “special interests” that above all are corporate interests.  There are no guarantees of health and education, and there are restrictions on unionization.  There is the racially differentiated use of the death penalty, the assassination of African-Americans by police, and the repression of immigrants.  There is the use of torture in clandestine prisons in various places in the world.  Trump “presides over a government of millionaires that intends to apply savage measures against families of less income and the poor, the minorities, and immigrants.  He follows a program that feeds hate and division.”  He takes a direction that is influenced by the extreme sectors of the Right, but he does not have a popular mandate for doing so, inasmuch as he lost the popular vote.  The conditions in the United States stand in contrast to the dream of Martin Luther King, whose famous speech, “I have a dream,” was quoted by Rodríguez, bringing applause.  

     Rodríguez affirmed the democratic character of the Cuban political process, which has elections without financial campaigns and rhetorical manipulations.  At the present moment, Cuba is celebrating its elections, in a dignified political process established by its people and its Constitution of 1976.  “We are in the middle of a clean constitutional electoral process in Cuba, where legislative seats are not bought, nor do special interests prevail; where there are not dishonest campaigns ruled by money; where elections do not manipulate the political will of the people; and where elections do not stir up division and hate.”

      Rodríguez observed that the conflict between the United States and Cuba began much more than 26 years ago, when Cuba first introduced the resolution on the blockade.  It began even before Cuba became a nation, when U.S. political leaders and intellectuals expressed a desire to annex the island.  It continued in 1898, when the United States began a military occupation, preventing the fulfillment of Cuban aspirations for independence and resulting in the establishment of a neocolonial republic under U.S. domination.  After 1959, with the Cuban revolutionary government seeking to establish the definitive sovereignty of the nation, the United States imposed the blockade, with the intention of provoking hunger and popular dissatisfaction that would lead to the fall of the government.  The United States also undertook a systematic campaign of terrorism and subversion, including efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro, a story well known and documented in Cuba, with more information coming to light with the declassification of documents related to the Kennedy assassination.   This historic pattern of domination and aggression, always justified with fabricated pretexts, was ignored in the commentary of the U.S. ambassador.  

      Barack Obama, Rodríguez noted, recognized that the blockade had failed, and that it was useless for the attainment of U.S. objectives.  However, he did not recognize the blockade as a massive and systematic violation of the human rights of the Cuban people or as a violation of international law.  Nevertheless, he did declare his intention to work toward its end; although the reforms under Obama were very limited, they were in a positive direction.

     Trump announces a strengthening of the blockade with a discourse that Rodríguez characterizes as antiquated and hostile.  Trump speaks of human rights violations of Cuba, a misrepresentation echoed this morning by the U.S. ambassador.  He has introduced further restrictions on commerce and on travel and new measures that result in the suspension of the emission of visas by the USA to Cubans.  The new measures were justified on the grounds of a supposed sonic attack on the U.S. diplomatic staff in Havana, for which neither sensible evidence nor reasonable cooperation was provided.  On the basis of the supposed sonic attack, the U.S. Department of State has issued an unfounded travel warning to U.S. citizens, with the intention of damaging tourism.  Trump has reiterated on four different occasions that the USA will not end the blockade until Cuba makes internal changes, but Cuba has never and will never accept conditions for the normalization of relations, even though Cuba has persistently expressed its interest in normalization.

     Rodríguez maintains that the blockade is the principal obstacle to Cuban social and economic development and for the implementation of its current national plan.  This past year, the losses resulting from the blockade were 4.3 billion dollars, which is double the level of annual foreign investment that Cuba has defined as necessary to implement specific plans for development that have been formulated.  He maintains that every Cuban family and all social services suffer from it.  For example, the Cuban company dedicated to the importation and exportation of medical products has encountered various obstacles, as a result of the blockade, in its negotiations with pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the USA.  In addition, because of the extraterritoriality of the blockade, banks and companies of other countries have been sanctioned, in violation of their rights.  

     Rodríguez concludes with the declaration that the Cuban people will never renounce its efforts to construct a sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous, and sustainable nation.  Cuba will continue with the consensus of the people, and especially the patriotic commitment of young Cubans, with the anti-imperialist struggle for independence, with eternal loyalty to the legacy of Martí and Fidel.  This conclusion was interrupted by applause, and it was followed by sustained applause.

     Following the address by the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, the United States again took the floor.  This time the spokesperson was not the Ambassador, but another member of the US diplomatic team.  She repeated the false claims: Cuba has a dictatorial regime that violates the rights of the Cuban people.  She maintained that the Cuban economy will not prosper until the Cuban economy permits economic freedom, leaving aside the sovereign rights of all nation to decide on their economic system.  The representative of Nicaragua offered a rejoinder:  Cuba continues being the symbol of resistance and defense of sovereignty and self-determination; we call upon the USA to leave our peoples in peace, without interference; Nicaragua will vote with much pride, as always, in support of the resolution.

     In her comments to the General Assembly, the US ambassador to the United Nations displayed a dismissive attitude toward the neocolonized peoples of the earth and the perspective that emerges from the neocolonial situation.  She characterized the arguments of the representatives of international associations of Third World governments to be “ridiculous declarations.”  She considered the General Assembly vote on the US blockade of Cuba all these years to be “political theater.”  She acknowledged that the United States stands alone in believing that the blockade is the right thing to do, but the resolution of the General Assembly does not have weight, because it does not have the authority to end the U.S. blockade, only the U.S. government can do so.  She implies with these words that the understandings and values of humanity are of no importance.

       A dismissive attitude toward the government, movements, and peoples of the Third World, although prevalent in a subtle form in U.S. political discourse, is exactly the opposite of what is required in the context of the sustained global crisis.  The crisis has been unfolding since the 1970s, and it is a multi-dimensional economic, commercial, financial, political, and ecological crisis.  The political leaders and academics of the North do not understand the global crisis, and they therefore cannot intelligently respond to it.  But if they were to encounter the popular movements of the Third World and the governments brought to power by the movements, they would discover an alternative way of looking at the world-system, from below, from the vantage point of the colonized and neocolonized.  This would lead them to insights that, up to know, are beyond their capacity to understand.  Encounter with the Third World movements of national and social liberation is the key to developing an understanding of problems that is tied to action (see various posts on this theme in the category Knowledge).  

     The Trump administration is demonstrating its moral and intellectual incapacity to lead the nation.  Such incapacity has been a characteristic of U.S. political leaders since the turn to imperialist foreign policies in the late nineteenth century, but with the Trump administration, it attains a higher level.  Trump represents a turn from liberalism to neofascism, in response to the profound and sustained systemic global crisis and the relative decline of the United States (see various posts in the category Trump).  The U.S. political leadership does not understand the causes of these dynamics, and thus it cannot formulate solutions and political directions that are positive for the nation and for humanity.  Feeling threatened by political processes and economic dynamics that it does not understand, it turns to naked power.

     Major media outlets in the North have published articles concerning the U.S. claim of attacks against U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana (see “Cuba denies acoustic attacks” 10/12/2017).  In an article published on October 5 in The New York Times, Carl Zimmer writes that “scientists doubt a hidden ultrasound weapon can explain what happened in Cuba.”  Similarly, in an October 12 article in The Guardian, Julian Borger and Philip Jaekl assert that “many acoustics experts have said that it is highly unlikely that the range of symptoms reported could have been caused by any kind of sonic weapon.”

     Zimmer maintains that the U.S. military has investigated the possibility of using sound as a non-lethal weapon, and such weapons have been used by the Navy to ward off pirates and by police for crowd control.  “But these weapons work because they are insufferably loud, and if one were used against diplomats in Cuba, there would be no mystery about it.”

      Therefore, speculation has turned to the use of a device that produces ultrasound, which is sound outside the range of human hearing, because its frequencies are too high.  But there are various difficulties with an ultrasound device explanation of the events at the U.S. embassy in Cuba.  Ultrasound cannot travel long distances, and it would not be able to penetrate the walls at the U.S. embassy.  These difficulties could be overcome by using a big weapon, “a massive vehicle topped with a giant sound cannon,” but this would be easy to detect.  If a smaller devise were placed inside the building, the interior walls would block the waves.  Moreover, ultrasound would not produce the mild brain injury that is among the various reported symptoms.  The ultrasound devise explanation does not make sense, given the facts that have been presented.

      As a result of the lack of plausibility of an ultrasound device, Borger and Jaekl suggest the possibility of a psychogenic explanation, also known as mass hysteria.  They quote Robert Bartholomew, author of books on mass hysteria: “None of this makes sense until you consider the psychogenic explanation.”  And they cite Mark Hallett, the head of the human motor control section of the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and president of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology:  “From an objective point of view, it’s more like mass hysteria than anything else. . . .   There are a very large number of individuals that have relatively vague complaints. . . .  If it is mass hysteria, that would clarify all the mystery. . . .  These people are all clustered together in a somewhat anxious environment, and that is exactly the situation that precipitates something like this. Anxiety may be one of the critical factors.”  They also cite Jon Stone, a neurologist at the University of Edinburgh, who observed that the outbreak may have started with one or two people with headaches or hearing problems, and it spread to others in a high-stress atmosphere.

     No one should think that Cuba is a hostile environment for U.S. diplomats in Cuba.  Neither the Cuban leadership nor the Cuban people is hostile to people from other countries, including diplomats from the United States.  To be sure, there is tension, as a result of the fact that some members of the U.S. diplomatic staff have been directly involved in supporting “dissidents” in Cuba, in violation of Cuban laws.  But even with respect to this situation, Cuba protests such interference in Cuban affairs and calls for respect of international diplomatic norms, but it has not taken action against those engaged in such activities, even though Cuban intelligence services know which diplomats are involved.  

     However, inasmuch as Cuba is a focal point of confrontation between savage neoliberal capitalism and the Third World project of national and socialist liberation, and given that the U.S. blockade of Cuba has been condemned by the world, a post in Cuba is possibly one of the more stressful assignments for U.S. diplomatic personnel.  And the election of Trump may have created a more stressful situation.  For U.S. diplomats in Cuba, there emerged with Trump’s election a number of questions, for which there was no immediate answer.  What would the policy of the new president be with respect to Cuba?  What posture should a staff member adopt with respect to Cuba before representatives of the new administration?  What does the election of Trump mean for one’s diplomatic career?  There are reasons for thinking that the U.S. embassy in Havana has been a stressful environment since November 2016, which is when the State Department first heard of the “attacks.”
       
     The positing in The Guardian article of a psychogenic explanation emerges from the fact the sonic weapon claim is viewed as nonsensical.  But rather than a psychogenic phenomenon, there is the possibility that the entire affair is a politically-motivated construction.  Inasmuch as disinformation campaigns generally include truth in some details, we would suspect that the story was not constructed out of nothing.  Perhaps there were a few cases of a mysterious illness, and the construction of the sonic attack story was convenient politically.  As Cubans would say, they made a storm out of a glass of water.

     Perhaps we will learn more about this strange affair in the future; perhaps not.  But we can be sure that there is no reason to doubt Cuban insistence that it has no responsibility in the affair.