Posted September 23, 2014

     At the end of the second Cuban war of independence (1895-98), Cuban sugar plantations were in ruin, as a result of the revolutionary army’s successful military strategy of destroying the Cuban economy by means of the tactic of the “incendiary torch.”  At the same time, the US military intervention of 1898 established the conditions for US control of the Cuban political-economic system, leading to the establishment of the US dollar as the currency of exchange and the corresponding devaluation of Cuban currency and the denial of loans to Cuban proprietors.  As a result of this combination of devastation and foreign control, many Cuban proprietors lost land, which led to a sharp decline in the value of land.  Taking advantage of the situation, US investors, able to get loans from US banks, purchased land in great quantities.  By 1920, US corporations directly controlled 54% of sugar production, and US ownership reached 80% of the sugar exportation companies (Arboleya 2008:65-66, 80; Buch and Suarez 2009:102-3; see “A neocolonial republic is born” 7/1/2014).

      Thus was established the foundation for a system of land tenure characterized by high levels of concentration and foreign ownership, such that on October 16, 1953, Fidel could observe correctly in his address to the court that more than half of Cuban productive land is foreign-owned, and eight-five percent of small farmers are tenants who do not own the land on which they work, creating a situation of poverty, miserable housing conditions, and limited or no access to schools and health services.  In that same address, Fidel proposed a number of concrete measures, including agrarian reform.  In this way, the promise of agrarian reform became an integral part of the revolutionary struggle against the Batista dictatorship (see “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2015).  The promise was reinforced by the fact that on October 10, 1958, the General Command of the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra promulgated a law giving ownership to tenant farmers and sharecroppers working on land of less than 5 caballerías (67 hectares or 165 acres) (Buch and Suarez 2009:103-4).   

     Following the triumph of the revolution, Fidel prepared the country for an agrarian reform law that would change the social and economic base of the country.  He repeatedly committed to agrarian reform in his statements to the press and the media of communication and in his meetings with political groups and the people.  At the same time, he met discretely with a small group in the house of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in order to formulate an agrarian reform proposal.  In addition to Fidel and Che, the group of seven persons included Vilma Espín, the wife of Raúl Castro who would later become the founding president of the Federation of Cuban Women; and Antonio Núñez Jiménez, who later would become a well-known and respected adventurer, ecologist and writer.  The group did not include any members of the Council of Ministers, other than Fidel.  On February 10, the Council of Ministers had formed a Commission for agrarian reform under the direction of the Minster of Agriculture, Humberto Sorí Marín, one of the conservative members of the Council and an ally of the landholding sector, but the Commission never functioned (Buch and Suarez 2009:104, 198).

     The Agrarian Reform Plan that was developed by Fidel’s group was presented to the Council of Ministers on April 28 by Acting Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Augusto Martínez, inasmuch as Fidel was on a twenty-one day trip to Canada, the United States, and Argentina.  The Council, still presided by Martínez, ratified the proposal on May 5.  In a session of the Council on May 12, presided by Fidel, the proposal was considered further.  It was agreed that the next session of the Council would be held on May 17 in the Sierra Maestra, for the purpose of promulgating the Agrarian Reform Law.  The date was chosen in order commemorate the 1946 assassination of Niceto Pérez, a peasant who had defied the government of Ramón Grau by occupying and cultivating land that belonged to the state.  May 17 later would be proclaimed as the Day of the Peasant (Buch and Suarez 2009:104-7).

      In the May 17 ceremony in the wooden shack that had been Command Headquarters of the guerrilla army in the Sierra Maestra, Fidel declared that the agrarian reform law “will give the country a new economic and social order, creating and developing new sources of work to the benefit of the poorest and dispossessed social classes, of the peasant and working class, forgotten by previous governments” (quoted in Buch and Suarez 2009:108).  During the ceremony, the proposed law was approved unanimously by the Council of Ministers.  In addition, the Council created the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, and it named Antonio Núñez Jiménez, one of Fidel’s small group, as its Executive Director.  Following the ceremony, Fidel addressed the nation via Radio Rebelde, proclaiming that the law “initiates an entirely new stage in our economic life” (quoted in Buch and Suarez 2009:109).  Minister of Agriculture Sorí, who as noted was an ally of the landholding sector, was not in agreement with the new law, but he agreed to sign it (Buch and Suarez 2009:110), apparently deferring to the prevailing political mood of the country.

     A Forum on the Agrarian Reform Law, convoked by the 26th of July Movement, was held in the National Capitol from June 28 to July 12, 1959.  Seventy-eight national delegates participated, representing intellectuals of various tendencies, workers and peasants, and including sectors opposed to it.  In addition, there were representatives of fifteen Latin American nations, the United States, Canada, and the Organization of American States.  In an address to the opening session of the Forum, Raúl Castro proclaimed that the first and highest objective of the Cuban Revolution is the definitive establishment of Cuban sovereignty.  He noted that the Revolutionary Government has listened with respect to the criticisms of the Agrarian Reform Law by the US Department of State, but the principle of sovereignty requires that “we decide, in accordance with our interests, the needs of Cuba, and the interests of the Cuban people” (Buch and Suarez 2009:112-13). Addressing the closing session of the Forum, Fidel maintained that the revolution adopts measures that defend the interests of the poorest sectors and the interests of the nation, even when these measures are in opposition to the interests of some national sectors and to foreign interests.  He noted that the Agrarian Reform Law seeks to promote the welfare of “that sector of the country that has suffered the most and is the most forgotten and abandoned,” and he described the Agrarian Reform Law as an “essential economic measure, if the people are to be freed from underdevelopment and are to attain a higher standard of living” (Buch and Suarez 2009:113-14).

     The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 abolished large-scale landholdings, tenant farming, and sharecropping.  It established a maximum limit of 100 caballerías (1,340 hectares or 3,311 acres) for sugar or rice plantations or cattle estates.  In accordance with the law, the government subsequently would confiscate the land of 4,423 plantations, distributing approximately one-third of it to peasants who worked on it as tenant farmers or sharecroppers, and establishing state-managed farms and cooperatives with the rest.  The former owners were offered compensation, based on the assessed value of the land for tax purposes, and with payment in the form of twenty-year bonds.  Inasmuch as some US-owned plantations covered land of 200,000 hectares, the law had a significant effect on the Cuban structure of land ownership and distribution.  It provided the foundation for a fundamental transformation in the quality of life of the rural population that endures to this day (Buch and Suarez 2009:114; Pérez 2006:241-44; Arboleya 2008:145; Castro 2006:244).  

     The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 symbolized faithful fulfillment of the promise made to the people in the Moncada program of 1953, presented by Fidel in “History will absolve me.”  And it marked the definitive break with the bourgeoisie, as we will discuss in the next post.


References

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

Buch Rodríguez, Luis M. and Reinald Suárez Suárez.  2009.  Gobierno Revolucionario Cubano: Primeros pasos.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Castro, Fidel.  2006.  Cien Horas con Fidel: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.  [English translation: Ramonet, Ignacio.  2009.  Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography.  Scribner. 

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


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, Fidel, Agrarian Reform Law of 1959

Posted September 24, 2014

     Beginning in May 1958, Fidel had begun to take steps toward the establishment of an anti-Batista coalition of organizations and parties. On July 20 in Miami, representatives of the 26th of July Movement established the Civic Revolutionary Front, which was a coalition of various parties and organization that publicly affirmed their opposition to Batista and their support of his overthrow by means of armed struggle. Aside, however, from this common commitment to armed struggle against Batista, the coalition included personalities and organizations representing a variety of views.  They included, for example, those that were committed to the preservation of the neocolonial order, who wanted to restore representative democracy but did not have an interest in breaking the core-peripheral economic relation that was at the heart of US neocolonial domination of the island.

     With the triumph of the revolution, the strategy of coalition with anti-Batista forces continued.  In spite of the political and moral authority that Fidel held at the time of the triumph, he opted not to take power and not to establish political control by the 26th of July Movement. Instead, he formed a coalition government of anti-Batista forces that included conservative lawyers who were organically tied to the national bourgeoisie (see “The Provisional Revolutionary Government of 1959” 9/19/2014). 

      Fidel’s strategy was to attain a transition to a new government in which the 26th of July Movement had oversight, but not direct power, and with a composition that would calm the bourgeoisie and the United States, thus giving the 26th of July Movement time.  Fidel used this time, from January through early May of 1959, to meet with the people, deepening his understanding of their concerns and hopes; to feel out representatives of various Cuban political parties and currents of thought; to assess the reaction of the United States; to travel internationally and to test the international climate of opinion; to promise the people that decisive steps in their interests were soon to come, and to warn them that they should be ready to defend their interests; and to formulate the specifics of the agrarian reform plan.

     Fidel understood the fundamental facts of the neocolonial order. He understood that the attainment of true Cuban sovereignty and the protection of the social and economic rights of the people would require a deep social and economic transformation, which inevitably would provoke the hostile reaction of national and international interests that benefitted from the established order.  And he understood that such a transformation required an agrarian reform and land redistribution program of substance.  In the first months of 1959, he was preparing himself, his party, and his people for the inevitable confrontation with the powers that be.  He understood the negative reaction that an agrarian reform program with substance would provoke, but he nonetheless was committed to this necessary and decisive step.  Ever mindful of Cuban history and the frustration of the Cuban Revolution in 1878, and again in 1898, and again in 1933, he was determined that, this time, the aspirations and hopes of the Cuban people will be attained.

     By the end of April, Fidel was ready with the Agrarian Reform Plan, and it was presented to the Council of Ministers of the Provisional Revolutionary Government on April 28 (see “The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959” 9/23/2014).  And the plan was promulgated with the kind symbolism that would characterize Fidel’s political actions throughout his long career: it was promulgated on a date that commemorated the martyrdom of a heroic peasant who had struggled for land, and it was signed in the headquarters of the guerrilla movement that was victorious only because of the participation, support, and heroic sacrifices of peasants.  No one could miss the message:  “Let the world know that this is a revolution by and for the humble.”

     The enactment of the law in such symbolic manner was followed with another action that also would characterize Fidel’s career.  An international forum was convoked, seeking to explain to the United States, Canada, and Latin America that revolutionary Cuba desires positive relations with all and respects the opinions of all. Nevertheless, the Agrarian Reform Law must be adopted, because the Cuban nation can no longer surrender its sovereignty to foreign interests, nor can the Cuban national leadership continue to be indifferent to the suffering of the dispossessed.

     The agrarian reform law was a radical step that constituted a definitive break with the bourgeoisie, both Cuban and international. But it was a necessary step.   In a neocolonial situation, any government that seeks to overcome underdevelopment and poverty must bring to an end two patterns that are integral to the neocolonial world-system: the unequal distribution of land, and the use of land to provide cheap raw materials for the core of the world-economy (see various posts on the origin and development of the modern world-system and on neocolonialism).   A government committed to the people must take land from the estate bourgeoisie and transnational corporations and establish alternative land-use patterns and alternative patterns of land distribution that are able to promote and sustain national development. 

     The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 was and is the defining moment of the Cuban Revolution.  From that date forward, the radical anti-neocolonial character of the Cuban Revolution was made manifest.  As Cuban scholar and diplomat Jesus Arboleya would write nearly a half century later, the Agrarian Reform Law “showed that the balance was inclined irremediably toward the most radical sectors,” and it “defined the anti-neocolonial character of the revolution” (2008:144).  The triumphant revolution was not seeking a return to representative democracy in a neocolonial context, but a transformation of the neocolonial structures that had defined the Cuban situation since 1902.

     With the anti-neocolonial character of the revolution made manifest, the stage was set for the mobilization of powerful national and international forces that had an interest in defending the neocolonial world system.  From the point of view of the beneficiaries of the neocolonial order, the Cuban Revolution was a dangerous example.  It struck with courage and insight at an essential dimension of the neocolonial world-system.  If a small island nation with limited natural resources could challenge the world-system in this way with impunity, what lessons would be drawn by the people of large neocolonized nations that possessed important natural resources for manufacturing and energy and significant markets for surplus manufactured goods?The world must know that any nation that seeks genuine sovereignty will be made to suffer.

      From the vantage point of the Cuban Revolution, the manifestation of its essential anti-neocolonial character and the mobilization of powerful forces against it meant that the coalition government no longer was functional.  In the battle with powerful actors, the most important arm of the revolution is the support of the people, and maintaining the support of the people requires responding effectively to their needs.  Thus, the Council of Ministers replaced conservative ministers with radicals more committed to structuring their ministries to respond to the needs of the people, as we will discuss in the next post. 


References

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


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, Fidel, Agrarian Reform Law of 1959

Posted September 25, 2014

    With the decisive step of the revolution in support of agrarian reform, the anti-neocolonial character of the revolution was defined (see “The defining moment of the Cuban Revolution” 9/24/2014).  The revolution was now headed toward confrontation with the national bourgeoisie and the United States.  This situation required replacement of some government ministers who were less than enthusiastic about the agrarian reform, and who, in the view of the eight “vanguard ministers,” were not developing their ministries in an effective and dynamic manner.  On June 11 and 12, five ministers (State, Agriculture, Government, Health and Social Assistance, and Social Welfare) were replaced (Buch and Suarez 2009:117-21, 198-99).

     The President of the Republic, Manuel Urrutia, was out of step with the radicalized Council of Ministers.  The vanguard ministers had been unsatisfied with the conduct of the President from the beginning.  He possessed what they considered an “absurd radicalism,” which expressed itself with respect to three issues.  First, his refusal to conclude his taking of the oath of office with the phrase “so help me God,” thus provoking criticism of the revolution from religious groups, who mistakenly believed that the removal of the Supreme Being from the Cuban constitutional process was ordered by Fidel.  Secondly, he was opposed to the granting of safe-conduct to hundreds of persons who had entered Latin American embassies seeking political asylum, thus provoking problems for the Cuban revolutionary government in its diplomatic relations with Latin American governments.  Thirdly, he made public statements calling for a full and immediate suppression of gambling, in spite of the effects that such a measure would have on employment.  Although an extreme radical on these matters, he was conservative or opportunistic concerning important issues, including agrarian reform.  In addition, he invoked a clause of presidential exemption from the reduction in salaries for ministers, and thus received the same excessive salary as Batista.  In conjunction with his pension as a retired judge, this enabled him to purchase a new house in an exclusive neighborhood.  And, after the promulgation of the Agrarian Reform Law, he delayed in signing laws and measures that were approved by the Council of Ministers (Buch and Suarez 2009:66-67, 124-30, 141, 202, 205, & 216).

      But the issue that provoked a governmental crisis was Urrutia’s anti-communist rhetoric.  After the passage of the Agrarian Reform Law on May 17 (see “The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959” 9/23/2014), the phantom of communism was invoked by the United States and the counterrevolution, as we will discuss in the next post.  In this context, anti-communist declarations by the President, expressing concerns for communist infiltration in the revolutionary government, were undermining the revolutionary process.  Urrutia, for example, declared to the press, “I believe that the communists are doing terrible damage to Cuba, and I openly declare here that they want to create a second front in the revolution.  Therefore, I always have said that I reject the support the communists, and I believe that true Cuban revolutionaries ought to reject it openly also” (quoted in Buch and Suárez 2009:210).   

     The anti-communist public declarations of Urrutia placed Fidel in a difficult position, inasmuch as Fidel was engaged in ideological battle with the maneuver of the communist phantom.  As Prime Minister, Fidel was under the formal authority of the President; indeed, the Prime Minister was appointed by the President.  On the other hand, with the real power that Fidel possessed, it would not have been difficult to have the President removed from office.  But any such display of power would be viewed by the world as a coup d’état, yet another example of political intrigues and conflicts in Latin American politics.  At the same time, if Fidel, as Prime Minister, had criticized the President publically, such criticism of a higher official would have been disloyal and not proper.  In this situation, Fidel on July 16 submitted his resignation from the position of Prime Minister.  He explained his reasons to the people in a television address on the evening of July 17, describing his disagreements with the president with respect to the issues noted above, and giving particular emphasis to the anti-communist public statements of the President.  The reaction of the people was overwhelming: the President should resign, and the Council of Ministers should not accept Fidel’s resignation.  In the face of this public reaction, Urrutia immediately resigned, and the Council of Ministers quickly named Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado as President.  Prior to his television statement, Fidel had communicated secretly to three Council members that, if Urrutia resigns, Dorticós should be named to take his place as president (Buch and Suarez 2009:124-46, 201-19).

     Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, at the time of his call to serve as President, was a member of the Council of Ministers, holding the position of Minister in Charge of Review and Study of Revolutionary Laws.  A lawyer by profession, he was responsible for ensuring the legal validity of the new laws and measures proposed by the ministers. He had been born in a middle class family in the city of Cienfuegos.  His father was a well-known surgeon, and his mother was a teacher.  He attended private Catholic schools in Cienfuegos and Santa Clara, and he later studied law at the University of Havana.  He became a leader in the revolutionary student movement in Cienfuegos in the 1930s, but with the turn to representative democracy in the late 1930s and the subsequent emergence of the politics of corruption, his revolutionary hopes were dashed.  He settled in to a career in law in Cienfuegos; he continued to read widely, but without political participation.  He became a prestigious lawyer, respected for his studious nature and his well-developed knowledge of law and culture.  With the attack on the Moncada military garrison on July 26, 1953, his submerged revolutionary fervor was awakened, and he began to read Marxist-Leninist works.  Beginning at the end of 1956, he became actively involved in clandestine activities, and he became coordinator of Civic Resistance Movement in Cienfuegos in July 1957.  Following the failure in April 1958 of the July 26 Movement (M-26/7) general strike (see “Unifying the Cuban revolutionary process” 9/17/2014), Dorticós was named coordinator of the M-26/7 in Cienfuegos.  He was arrested and tortured in December 1958.  The chief of the provincial military forces of Batista negotiated an agreement with M-26/7, in which Dorticós would be released, if he left the country.  He was transported to Miami; denied entry by the US government, the M-26/7 arranged for his transport to Mexico, where he was granted political asylum.  With the triumph of the Revolution a short time later, he immediately returned to Havana.  He was named to the Council of Ministers on January 5 (Buch and Suarez 2009:221-42).

       Upon assuming the office of president on July 17, Dorticós joined with the people in calling for Fidel to return to the position of Prime Minister.  Fidel’s resignation never had been accepted by the Council, so technically he was still Prime Minister.  But Fidel had made the resignation publically, and he was reluctant to return.  The popular demand for Fidel’s return continued for days, including work stoppages and the suspension of the chiming of church bells.  The popular call culminated in a mass act on July 26 in the José Martí Civic Plaza (today the Plaza of the Revolution), in which one million peasants arrived to defend the Agrarian Reform Law and support the revolution.  During the act, speakers and the assembly repeatedly called for the return of Fidel to the government, including Dorticós, who declared, “the people order Fidel to comply with his duty.”  Later in the act, Dorticós took the microphone from Raúl Castro in order to proclaim, “In the most emotional moment of my life, I am able to announce that today our companion Fidel, before our mandate, has agreed to return to the office of prime minister” (Buch and Suarez 2009:146-50, 244-55).

     With the reincorporation of Fidel as Prime Minister, the designation of Osvaldo Dorticós as President, and the replacement of five conservative ministers with radicals, the Provisional Revolutionary Government was now prepared to push forward with the revolutionary transformation of the neocolonial order and to wage battle with the national and international forces that were mobilizing to defend that order.


References

Buch Rodríguez, Luis M. and Reinald Suárez Suárez.  2009.  Gobierno Revolucionario Cubano: Primeros pasos.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.


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

Posted September 26, 2014

      A specter is a threat, a real possibility.  A phantom is a ghost, an apparition, a spirit.  Specters pertain to the real world, but phantoms do not; phantoms enter the real world only in the form of fear of them.  As an ideological maneuver in response to the threat embodied by communism, the powers-that-be converted the specter of communism into a phantom, everywhere present, seeking to destroy all that is good.

      The specter of communism was discerned by Marx on the basis of his encounter with the movement of workers, artisans, and socialist intellectuals that sought to defend the interests of the working class (see “Marx illustrates cross-horizon encounter” 1/7/14).  The specter was a real threat to the established order; it was expressed most strongly in France and Germany, and it culminated in the Revolution of 1848.  The threat emerged again at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the form of movement by workers and peasants in Russia, including the formation of councils or soviets (“The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014).  Later, in the middle of the twentieth century, the specter would be translated to the colonized peoples, who from 1919 to 1979 would form movements of national liberation against European colonial rule, which also included class struggle against the national bourgeoisies in the colonies.  The anti-colonial popular impulse also would be expressed in Latin America, as popular anti-imperialist movements and revolutions challenged neocolonial structures from 1919 to 1979.  Accordingly, theoretical reflection on political praxis, embodied in the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, came to be reformulated by the charismatic leaders of the twentieth century, who synthesized Marxism-Leninism with traditions of anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial revolutions, a dynamic most advanced in the cases of Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro (see various posts on Marxism-Leninism and its evolution).  The specter appeared to have died in the period of 1980 to 1995, but since 1995, it has been reborn and has proclaimed socialism for the twenty-first century.  A new generation of charismatic leaders has been lifted up by the movement of the peoples: Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and others.

       Thus, the specter of communism has been a real threat, although it has not always been known by this name.  It has been continually evolving, reformulating its understanding, integrally connected to the movements of the people, and in the process, establishing structures that can provide the foundation for a more just and democratic alternative world-system. 

     Since the 1840s, the global powers sought to contain the specter emerging from below.  Their most powerful weapon was political repression.  But also important was ideological manipulation, that is, the generation and dissemination of ideas that distort reality and confuse the people, for the purpose of defending the interests of the powerful.

      A central ideological weapon during the course of the twentieth century was the conversion of the specter of communism into a phantom.  It became a ghost, with evil intentions and ominous powers, that appeared everywhere.

     A fundamental step in the ideological maneuver of the communist phantom was to distort the image of the specter of communism, to present it as something that it was not.  It was portrayed as totalitarian; as denying human rights; as negating freedoms of speech, press, and association; as a repressive system in the same league with fascism; and as repressing religion.  In disseminating this distortion, the maneuver preyed upon the ignorance of the people: efforts to construct the alternative electoral structures of popular democracy were presented as denying the right of the people to vote; the quest to free the press from bourgeois control by restricting bourgeois ownership of the media of communication was presented as the violation of freedom of the press; and political conflicts with the church, allied with the wealthy, were presented as negations of freedom of religion.  The fall of Leninism to Stalinism in the Soviet Union in 1924 was not analyzed, thus facilitating the presentation of a totalitarian image of communism.  And the manifestations of communism in the colonized regions were presented in a form that downplayed their nationalist character, thus establishing an image of an international conspiracy directed by a totalitarian state.  In an Orwellian ideological maneuver, the neocolonial powers presented themselves as defenders of democracy, while presenting the movements seeking liberation from colonial and neocolonial domination as threats to democracy, and as threats that were everywhere.  In reality, what emerged was a movement for human and national liberation from the structures of colonial and neocolonial domination that had been imposed through conquest and force by Western European powers from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.  This global anti-colonial movement indeed has been and is present everywhere, because humanity possesses a tremendous thirst for social justice.

     Being a neocolony with significant US cultural and ideological penetration, the communist phantom appeared in full force as an important dimension of Cuban political culture from the period 1946 to 1962.  With the adoption of the agrarian reform plan, and the clear identification of the Cuban revolution as a radical anti-neocolonial revolution (see “The defining moment of the Cuban Revolution” 9/24/2014), the ideological maneuver of the Communist phantom became a key component of the subversive counterrevolutionary plan of the United States (Buch and Suarez 2009:204), which we will discuss further in the next post.

     The phantom of communism is still with us today.  Because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, the phantom has a different appearance.  Today, the phantom, everywhere present, violates human rights and supports terrorism, making necessary the military intervention of the global powers. 

      In any nation in the world-system today, the key to nullifying the ideological phantom of our time may lie in learning important lessons from the triumphant Cuban revolution and its charismatic leader: understand the concrete needs of the people; formulate a program for addressing these concrete needs; develop a plan to take power; implement the program with decisive action; and promote the political education of the people for the long term.  This is possible, if we think and act with intelligence, creativity, and commitment.  It appears to be impossible, but it is possible, because the global elite is demonstrating its inability to intelligently and morally guide the development of the world-system, and because the specter from below today emerges with more force, understanding, and commitment than ever.


References

Buch Rodríguez, Luis M. and Reinald Suárez Suárez.  2009.  Gobierno Revolucionario Cubano: Primeros pasos.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.


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

Posted September 29, 2014

     We have made a distinction between a specter and a phantom. And we have seen that that the phantom of communism was used as an ideological weapon against the Cuban Revolution, seeking to portray it not as a specter, that is, as a threat to the interests of the powerful, which in fact it was; but as a uncontrollable social process that included sinister and evil forces that would negate all that is good (see “The phantom of communism” 9/26/2014).

      Let us try to disentangle the specter from the phantom in the case of Cuba.  There is no doubt that communism in Cuba was and is real and a threat to the established order, but because of the ideological maneuver of the phantom of communism, there is much confusion in the world concerning what communism actually is, and with respect to the relation between communism and revolution at the time of its triumph.

     In the months following the promulgation of the Agrarian Reform Law, there were two specific charges made with respect to communist influence in the Cuban Revolution.  First, it was proclaimed that the most radical members of the revolution, leaders like Raúl and Che, were communists (Buch and Suarez 2009:203).  In fact, Raúl and Che were not communists in the sense of being members of the Cuban communist party or in being part of the international communist movement, formed by communist parties in many nations.  But they were communists in the sense of being part of the evolving threat to the established order emerging from below.  That is to say, they were Marxist-Leninists, developing a form of Marxism-Leninism integrated into Cuban and Latin American anti-imperialist and anti-neocolonial movements for independence and genuine sovereignty.  They and other radicals in the Cuban revolution sought to develop in theory and practice a revolution that ensured the sovereignty of formerly colonized nations and that protected the social and economic rights of the people, a project that necessarily involved negation of imperialist and bourgeois interests.  This effort to negate the interests of the powerful was the reason that they were a threat to the established order.  However, most people had limited understanding of the evolving Third World Marxism-Leninism specter, and it was not what generally was meant by “communist.”  Thus, in labeling them “communist,” the radicals in the Cuban Revolution were being portrayed in a way that distorted their views and their purposes, converting their efforts to create true sovereignty and a deeper form of democracy into a movement for undemocratic and totalitarian structures.  Therefore, the accusation that radicals in the Cuban Revolution were communists was a distortion.

       The second charge was that the Popular Socialist Party (the Cuban communist party) had influence in the revolutionary government (Buch and Suarez 2009:203).  In fact, the PSP had played a marginal role in the triumph of the revolution.  Favoring the strategy of the organization and education of workers and peasants, it did not support the armed struggle against Batista until it was approaching triumph. The communist party to a considerable extent was isolated from the people, as a result of the anti-communist ideology as well as its strategic errors, although it continued to have significant influence among urban workers. 

      The Provisional Revolutionary Government that was formed in January 1959 contained no members of the Cuban communist party. On the other hand, it did include persons who were tied to the national bourgeoisie (Buch and Suarez 2009:191-96).  Thus, there was in fact in the early months of 1959 a stronger case for criticizing bourgeois infiltration in the revolution, and such bourgeois influence historically had been a serious problem for the Cuban Revolution. 

     But it spite of its representation in the Provisional Revolutionary Government, the national bourgeoisie did not to seek to forge an alliance with the revolution.  Such an alliance theoretically was possible, although it would have been full of practical obstacles, particularly in the long term.  But an alliance could have been attempted on the basis of an independent capitalist development that would break the core-peripheral economic relation, in which the Cuban national bourgeoisie would function as a buffer to the imperialist intentions of the United States.  However, far from seeking such an alliance with the revolution, the national bourgeoisie cooperated with the United States in the counterrevolution, thus making apparent its weakness as a truly national bourgeoisie and its character as a figurehead bourgeoisie (see “Neocolonialism in Africa and Asia” 9/11/2013; “Neocolonialism in Cuba and Latin America” 9/12/2013). 

     As a result of the inability of the Cuban bourgeoisie to act politically in any form other than counterrevolution, it was cast aside by the revolution, which increasingly embraced the communist party, taking into account its historic role in the Cuban Revolution, the high levels of political consciousness and revolutionary commitment of its militants, and its capacity to organize urban workers.  Thus, in the early 1960s, an alliance emerged between the 26th of July Movement and the communist party, in support of the revolution and its question for national sovereignty and social transformation, and in opposition to the national bourgeoisie, allied with the imperialist United States in the counterrevolution.

      So there was a real connection between the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and communism, The Cuban Revolution represented the most advanced expression of the specter haunting Europe that had been identified by Marx.  And the triumphant revolution had political relations with the communist political party, which became stronger following the betrayal of the nation by the Cuban national bourgeoisie after the triumph of the Revolution.  But the Cuban Revolution was never communist in the sense of the phantom, an evil and sinister force, denying the democratic rights of the people.  This charge of “communism” was a counterrevolutionary ideological maneuver by the reactionary forces of the Cuban national bourgeoisie and US imperialism, designed to confuse the people and to undermine support for the revolutionary process.

     The Cuban revolutionary leadership was able to overcome the maneuver of the communist phantom by acting decisively in defense of the interests of the people, addressing the concrete needs of the people, thus demonstrating to the people that the radicals were not promoting something evil but were seeking a fulfillment of the historic hopes of the people.  With time, the revolution was able to educate the people, so that the belief in the phantom lost credibility.

      But the conflict between the triumphant revolution and the forces of reaction would intensify and escalate, as we will see in subsequent posts.


References

Buch Rodríguez, Luis M. and Reinald Suárez Suárez.  2009.  Gobierno Revolucionario Cubano: Primeros pasos.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.


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