Posted July 1, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


References

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

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

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

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


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

Posted August 19, 2014

     The US economic recovery plan of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, conceived at the depths of the Great Depression, included the signing of commercial agreements with Latin America governments, with the intention of increasing access to foreign markets for the industrial and agricultural products of the United States (see “FDR and US mediation in Cuba” 8/7/2014).  The Reciprocal Agreement between Cuba and the United States of 1934 reduced the tariffs on thirty-five articles exported from Cuba to the United States and 400 articles proceeding from the United States to Cuba (Instituto de Cuba 1998:336-39).

     The agreement deepened Cuba’s peripheral role as an exporter of sugar.  It increased the Cuban percentage of US imports of sugar, facilitating a recovery for Cuban sugar producers. However, the recovery was merely partial, because the Cuban share was still only half of what it had been in the period 1925-29, before US sugar producers began to lobby the US government to reduce the Cuban share, in response to the effects of the Great Depression.  The Cuban recovery, moreover, had limited advantages for Cuba, for it was on the base of the historic peripheral role of sugar exportation; sugar comprised four-fifths of Cuban exports (Instituto de Cuba 1998:339-41; see “The peripheralization of Cuba” 6/16/2014). 

    In addition, the 1934 reciprocal trade agreement deepened dependency on the United States.  By the end of the 1930s, Cuban trade with the United States reached three-fourths of Cuban foreign commerce (Instituto de Cuba 1998:341).

    Furthermore, the 1934 trade agreement, by reducing tariffs for US manufactured goods, failed to defend the development of Cuban national industry.  Federico Chang notes that, in this respect, Cuba was different from other Latin American countries of the period, which had a “solidly defined policy of import-substitution,” seeking to develop national industry.  He notes that the Cuban oligarchy delivered “without reserve” the Cuban internal market, thus demonstrating its “complete subordination to the United States”.  Its “most abject servility” was revealed in its declarations that “praised the negotiations with the US government as ‘beneficial for the country’” (Chang 1998:338-39, 342).

      Similarly, Francisco López Segrera (1972:274) maintains that the 1934 commercial agreement frustrated possibilities for industrial development, reinforcing the position of Cuba as a consumer of manufactured products and producer of sugar.  The agreement represented the mutual interests of US imperialism and the Cuban sugar oligarchy.  The agreement deepened the core-peripheral relation between the United States and Cuba, in spite of the formal political independence of the island, thus exemplifying the process of neocolonialism.   

      Since the times of José Martí, the Cuban revolutionary movement sought to break the core-peripheral relation and the neocolonial structures that sustained it.  But in the era of Batista, the revolutionary movement was unable to overcome its divisions, in spite of its considerable advances in theory and practice during the 1920s and 1930s.  At the same time, Batista astutely combined repression of the revolutionary movement with concessions to the masses, adopting rhetoric that “integrated the revolutionary and nationalist protest into a counterrevolutionary and anti-nationalist neo-populism, disguised as democracy and worker concessions” (López Segrera 1972:274).  Thus, neocolonialism in Cuba was moving toward its full expression: superexploitation of labor; access to sugar at low prices; access to needed markets for surplus manufactured goods; maintenance of the system through repression of the revolutionary movements that seek to transform it; and the pretense of democracy. 

     The characteristics of neocolonial Cuba during the era of Batista are integral to the world-system today: super-exploitation of labor; cheap raw materials; markets for the surplus manufactured goods of the core; the pretense to democracy; and revolutionary movements in the neocolonies, seeking to break the neocolonial relation.  Our task today is to expose the fictions of neocolonialism: a “free market” and free-trade agreements create not economic liberty but structures of economic and financial domination; representative government, rather than empowering the people, creates structures that facilitate the manipulation of the people.  The unmasking of the fictions of the neocolonial world-system is a necessary precondition for the taking of power by the people, itself a necessary precondition for the survival of humanity.  The taking of power by the people is well underway in Latin America, a process that began in 1995.  We in the North have the duty to join in this emerging world revolution by humanity in defense of itself.


References

Chang Pon, Federico.  1998.  “Reajustes para la estabilización del sistema neocolonial” in Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

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


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

Posted March 17, 2014

​     We have seen that during the course of the twentieth century, the United States utilized imperialist strategies to impose economic policies that facilitated US economic, commercial, and financial penetration of Latin America and the Caribbean, thus contributing to the establishment of a neocolonial world-system.  And we have seen that the United States developed the Pan-American project, with the intention of obtaining the participation and cooperation of the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean in an inter-American system characterized by U.S. domination (see various posts on U.S. imperialism and Pan-Americanism as well as “US policy in Latin America and Venezuela” 2/28/2014).

      The Declaration of Havana, issued by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) on January 29, 2014 is the most recent expression of the advancing process of Latin American union and integration, initiated by Hugo Chávez in 2001.  The Declaration demonstrates the total collapse of the Pan-American project, a rejection by the 33 governments of Latin America and the Caribbean of US-directed integration of the region and of the objectives and strategies that defined US-directed integration.  As we have seen, the Declaration mentions directly the United States only to condemn its policies in relation to Cuba.  It obliquely criticizes the United States when it invokes the principle of differentiated responsibility and calls upon the nations most responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases to accelerate efforts to control them.  And it adopts positions that are in opposition to U.S. policies: in calling for respect for the patents and knowledge of indigenous peoples; in taking a perspective on development that places the human needs at the center; in insisting that investments be free of conditions; and in affirming the right of all nations to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes (see “The Declaration of Havana 2014” 3/14/2014).

     The evident loss of political influence by the hegemonic nation over its neocolonies is an indication of the erosion of the neocolonial world-system.  Taking into account the various dimensions of neocolonialism (see “The Characteristics of Neocolonialism” 9/16/2013), we can see that some of these characteristics continue to define the US relation with Latin America.  The most important of them, core-peripheral trade on a base of super-exploited peripheral and semi-peripheral labor, remains for the most part intact.  The transformation of the core-peripheral commercial relation is a difficult process, inasmuch as it has been developed on a colonial foundation during the course of 500 years, and existing systems of production, commerce and labor are rooted in it.  And another continuing characteristic of neocolonialism is the fact that the United States has unchallenged military dominance. 

     Nevertheless, there has been erosion with respect to some of the characteristics of neocolonialism.  In the first place, the national bourgeoisies of the neocolonies no longer function as figurehead bourgeoisies in accordance with the requirements of the neocolonial world-system.  Neocolonialism requires that the national bourgeoisie insert itself into the structures of the core-peripheral relation, thus making itself subordinate to transnational capital, and undermining the potential for a bourgeois nationalist project.  But this subordination of the figurehead bourgeoisie must to some extent allow for attention to the economic interests and the political agenda of the figurehead bourgeoisie, for this class plays an important role in maintaining political stability through the channeling of the political objectives of the popular sectors.  This lesson was learned in Cuba in the 1920s, when the interests of Cuban sugar producers and banks were ignored, and high levels of unemployment generated widespread popular unrest, undermining the stability of the neocolonial system.  Adjustments subsequently were made in Cuba in the 1930s, with appropriate attention to the interests of the figurehead bourgeoisie.  But the lesson was forgotten in the 1980s by the core bourgeoisie, which adopted desperate measures in response to the structural crisis of the world-system.  The aggressive imposition by the core bourgeoisie of the neoliberal project in defense of its short-term interests; favoring those sectors of the national bourgeoisies in peripheral and semi-peripheral zones most integrated with international capital, without regard for the interests of the sector of the national bourgeoisie most tied to the national economy, and without concern for the delicate political role of the national bourgeoisie in maintaining social control; has resulted thirty years later in the breakdown of the neocolonial system.  The negative consequences of the neoliberal project with respect to the popular sectors has given rise to popular movements led by charismatic leaders with radical and revolutionary discourses, leading to the political weakening of the national bourgeoisie, which thus could no longer function as a figurehead bourgeoisie, able to manage and control popular demands.

       As a result of the undermining of the role of the national bourgeoisie as a figurehead bourgeoisie, there has been an erosion of the ideological penetration by the neocolonial power, one of the necessary characteristics of neocolonialism.  To be sure, the seductive power of the culture of consumerism and the “American way of life” remains strong, as a consequence of the growing power of the mass media.  But the traditional political parties that represented the interests of the national bourgeoisie have become discredited, such that in many nations even the Right has formed non-traditional parties and has adopted rhetoric similar to the parties of the Left, pretending to be a part of the process of change.  In many nations, representative democracy itself has become discredited, as the people begin to development alternative structures of popular democracy.

     Moreover, in many nations in Latin America today, the military could not possibly play the role assigned to it by the neocolonial system, which is the repression of popular movements when their demands go beyond the accepted limits of the neocolonial system.   Popular rejection of military dictatorships and years of popular mobilizations against the neoliberal project have eliminated repression as a viable option in most of the nations of the region, at least in the present political climate. 

      Thus the neoliberal project has undermined the stability of the neocolonial world-system and has given rise to challenges from below.  But this does not mean that a more enlightened approach by the global elite could have secured the stability of the world-system.  The world-system is based on the superexploitation of vast regions (see “Unequal exchange” 8/5/2013), and thus it necessarily generates opposition from below.  Moreover, it historically has expanded by incorporating more lands and peoples through domination, and this has reached its ecological and geographical limits, inasmuch as there are no more lands and peoples to conquer.  As the result, the world-system has entered a fundamental structural crisis that has given rise to various financial, ecological, social and political crises, revealing its unsustainability.

     Thus, the neoliberal project can be seen as an aggressive attempt by the global elite to sustain an unsustainable neocolonial world-system.  By aggressively seeking short-term profits without regard for the consequences for the world-system, the neoliberal project has deepened the crisis and has increased the probability of (1) a transition to an alternative global neo-fascist and militarist world-system, characterized by forced access to global raw materials and by repressive control of populations in the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions; or (2) the disintegration and regional fragmentation of the world-system, including the emergence of chaos in some areas.

      But while the global elite has acted irresponsibly and has increased the possibility for negative outcomes of the crisis of the world-system, a more positive possibility is emerging from below: the step-by-step construction of a more just and democratic world-system.  The Declaration of Havana and the process of Latin American union and integration are part of this more positive possibility.  We will discuss this theme is subsequent posts.


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, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC, Chávez

     Drawing upon the previous three posts (“Neocolonialism in Africa and Asia” 9/11/2013; “Neocolonialism in Cuba and Latin America” 9/12/2013; “The Neocolonial World System” 9/13/2013), let us summarize the general characteristics of neo-colonialism.

     The general characteristics of neocolonialism are: a core-peripheral economic relation that in essence is a continuation of the economic relation imposed by conquest and force during the colonial era; rule by large and concentrated transnational corporations, transnational banks, and international financial agencies, which control the economic and financial institutions of the neocolony; rule through a figurehead bourgeoisie that inserts itself into the structures of economic penetration and exploitation, conforming to the interests of international capital and benefitting itself at the expense of the majority of people in the nation; social control by the military of the neocolonial state, with necessary training and arms coming from the United States or other core states; ideological penetration to justify the existing political-economic system; and the use of military force directly by the United States and/or other core states when popular resistance provokes political and social instability.  When it functions, the neocolonial system gives the appearance of independence to the neocolony, and the function of ideology is to reinforce this image in order to legitimate the world-system.  
 
      Since the world-system is not organized to protect the sovereignty of the nations nor the human needs of their peoples, neocolonies everywhere are characterized by popular anti-neocolonial movements, and they invariably have periods of instability.  Such instability is a symptom of a fundamental fact: the neocolonial world-system contradicts human rights and democratic values, and for this reason, among others, it is not sustainable in the long run.

     In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the world-system encountered much ideological and popular resistance in all regions of the world.  However, after 1980, with the imposition of the neoliberal project, the core powers were able to move toward the consolidation of the global neocolonial system, taking significant steps on economic, financial, and ideological fronts.  But the system was never fully consolidated, and since 1995, there has occurred a renewal of the popular movements in the Third World, weakening the political and ideological structures of neocolonial domination and establishing an economic, financial, and social alternative.  This formulation of a Third World alternative in theory and practice is occurring at the present time, and it is occurring precisely at a moment when the world-system confronts a profound and general crisis, as a consequence of its internal contradictions and its incompatibility with the ecological needs of the earth.  
 
     Thus there is at the present time a fundamental political conflict between the global North and the global South.  The global powers seek to preserve the neocolonial structures that maintain for the present an unsustainable world-system, while the peoples of the Third World are developing a global anti-neocolonial revolutionary movement.  These issues will be discussed further in future posts.


Bibliography

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo.  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


 

     The United States emerged from World War II as a hegemonic core nation, more advanced than other core nations in military power, productive capacity, levels of capital, and technology.  The emergence of the Cold War doctrine, postulating the impossibility of a lasting peace with the Soviet Union due to its supposedly expansionist tendencies, served as a justification for the strengthening of U.S. military power and a militarism, in which government spending on the military became the stimulus for economic expansion and scientific development.  The doctrine of the Cold War also functioned as a frame of reference for responding to anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements in the Third World, as such movements became defined as manifestations of Soviet and communist expansionism.  As a result, the post-World War II transnationalization of U.S. capital was accompanied by the transnationalization of the U.S. armed forces, and the global neocolonial system of the post-World War II era was developed on a foundation of military power (Arboleya 2008:132-35).

      In addition to military power, the post-World War II neocolonial system was dependent on a cultural and ideological component.  The doctrine of the Cold War was itself an ideological construction that distorted reality in two important respects.  First, in reality, Soviet foreign policy was not expansionistic.  Its basic intention was to create a geopolitical cordon of security in the territory that surrounded its frontiers, while seeking to establish peaceful coexistence with the capitalist powers.  Nor was its policy oriented to the support of Third World revolutions.  It was not based on a theory of a global revolution, but on the premise that revolutions, when they occur, emerge from unique factors in each country.  The Soviet Union sometimes supported Third World revolutions when doing so seemed consistent with its geopolitical strategy, and it refrained from economic exploitation of Third World nations, believing that in the long run this would serve to protect the security of its territory.  But its general orientation was to co-exist with the capitalist nations and to leave the Third World to its fate in the face of the imperialistic intentions of the United States (Arboleya 2008:134-37, 185-88).  
 
      In the second place, the Third World revolutions, although often inspired by the example of the Russian Revolution and influenced in varying degrees by Marxism, were fundamentally anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements, driven principally by an anti-imperialist frame of reference, claiming the right of autonomous economic and cultural development in opposition to the imperialist intentions of the United States and other core powers.  This was not the expansion of communism, in essence, but the expansion of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements, seeking to construct a more just and democratic world-system.  
 
      By virtue of its enormous economic power, the United States was able to disseminate the Cold War ideological construction throughout the world, presenting itself as a defender of democracy, freedom, and liberty in the face of the threat posed by an international conspiracy of totalitarian communism, when in fact the United States itself was the principal undemocratic force in the world, imposing its neocolonial domination (Arboleya 2008:136-37).

       In addition to the diffusion of the Cold War ideological construction, the United States was able to diffuse throughout the world the supposed virtues of the “American way of life” through television and radio programs, films, and comic books, seeking to establish U.S. society as the ideal toward which all nations and individuals should aspire.  The effectiveness of this technological diffusion of culture depended on the extent to which a popular movement in the neocolony could formulate and disseminate an alternative ideology that explained the material abundance of U.S. society as rooted in neocolonial domination (Arboleya 2008:136).  

     Thus the neocolonial world-system generates a fundamental global political conflict between the core nations that benefit from structures of
domination and Third World movements of national liberation that seek to develop alternative structures that would make possible the autonomous economic and cultural development of their nations.  This is the foundation of the conflicts between the United States and Vietnam, Cuba, the Chile of Allende, and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as well as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador today.  The Islamic Revolution also represents a particular manifestation of this Third World quest for autonomous development.


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


 

     In order for a neocolonial relation to be consolidated and to function in a stable form, several conditions must be met: the neocolonial power must have the productive capacity to satisfy the internal market of the neocolony and to process the raw materials exports of the neocolony; the neocolonial power must have absolute commercial and financial control, without competition from other core powers for penetration of the neocolony; the national bourgeoisie must function as a figurehead bourgeoisie, that is, there must be subordinate integration of the national bourgeoisie in the neocolonial relation, without the presence of a sector of the national bourgeoisie that is able to propose an alternative national project that seeks autonomous development; the figurehead bourgeoisie must be capable of establishing relatively stable social and political control of the country; and there must be sufficient ideological and cultural penetration to maintain stability (Arboleya 2008:9).  
 
     During the nineteenth century, the Latin American republics in some respects were neocolonies of Great Britain.  However, Arboleya considers them to have been semi-colonies rather than neocolonies, because not all of the characteristics of neocolonial domination were present. Since capitalism had not yet arrived at the stage of finance capital, British penetration was commercial rather than financial, involving an exchange of manufactured goods for raw materials without control of banking and financial institutions.  In addition, competition from the United States, also seeking economic penetration of Latin America, prevented Briain from consolidating economic control (Arboleya 2008:8-9, 42).

     The first case of neocolonial domination, tied to the expansion of finance capital and involving ideological penetration, was U.S. domination of Cuba, established during the first decades of the twentieth century.  U.S. commercial and financial penetration of Cuba had begun during the period from 1878 to 1895.  Following the U.S. occupation of 1898 and the establishment of the Republic of Cuba in 1902, U.S. commercial, financial, and ideological penetration increased.  U.S. corporations owned the principal enterprises in agriculture, mining, and industry, producing raw materials that were exported to the United States.  The Cuban national bourgeoisie was weakened and became subordinate to and dependent on U.S. capital, in some cases reduced from ownership to management of U.S. owned companies.  U.S. producers dominated the Cuban domestic market. Cuban teachers were educated in the United States, and U.S. textbooks were used in Cuban public schools (Arboleya 2008:64-66, 76, 80).

      The stable functioning of a neocolonial system requires a consensus among principal actors, and this consensus was disrupted in Cuba during the 1920s.  U.S. protectionist policy had undermined Cuban sugar producers and banks, facilitating an even further expansion of U.S. ownership of the sugar industry and banks.  Protectionist policy also led to an increase in unemployment, giving rise to sustained popular protest, which the figurehead bourgeoisie was not able to control.  The need for a readjustment of the Cuban neocolonial system became apparent.

       Significant adjustments were made in the neocolonial system during the period of 1933 to 1959, which had two Batista dictatorships, a Batista presidency characterized by some concessions to popular demands, and two governments characterized by populist rhetoric and high levels of corruption.  The adjustment had two basic components.  First, there was recognition of the need to protect the interests of the figurehead bourgeoisie, in order to give this class a greater stake in the system and to increase its possibility for maintaining social control.  Secondly, there was greater reliance on the Cuban military for purposes of social control, necessary in light of popular opposition to U.S. intervention (Arboleya 2008:100-12).

      With the popular election of Batista as president in 1940, the system appeared to have become a perfect neocolonial system.  However, the improved and more advanced neocolonial system was unable to respond to the needs of the people, based as it was on utilizing the resources of the nation in the service of the interests of international capital and the figurehead bourgeoisie.  The anti-neocolonial popular movement continued, and it created a second major crisis of the system during the 1950s, culminating in the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, which put to an end the neocolonial system in Cuba (Arboleya 2008:114-64).

      First established in Cuba, neocolonial domination became the pattern that defined U.S. relations with Latin America during the twentieth century.  Meanwhile, neocolonial domination by the United States and the European colonial powers became the norm in Africa and South and Southeast Asia following World War II (see “Neocolonialism in Africa and Asia” 9/11/2013).  Thus, during the post-World War II era, a neocolonial world-system evolved, with the United States as the hegemonic core power.  Some nations (such as Vietnam and Cuba) were exceptions to the neocolonial pattern, and both were to be severely punished for their recalcitrance.  
 
      We will discuss the dynamics of the neocolonial world-system 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


 
 

     The Cuban diplomat and scholar Jesus Arboleya notes that colonialism was no longer politically possible by the post-World War II era as a result of the emergence of, first, the socialist bloc headed by the Soviet Union, and secondly, national liberation movements in the Third World (2008:5-6).  These dynamics made necessary the development of new forms of domination.  Since capitalism had developed to the stage of finance and monopoly capital characterized by transnational corporations and transnational banks (see “Lenin on Imperialism” 9/10/2013), the development of such new forms of domination was possible. 
 
      The independence movements in Africa and Asia during the twentieth century, Arboleya notes, were led by the national bourgeoisies within the colonies.  During the struggle for independence, the national bourgeoisie was converted into a representative of the interests of the colony and assumed a position of confrontation with the system of domination. The national bourgeoisie, however, consisted of two sectors.  The progressive sector had an anti-imperialist orientation and embraced a form of nationalism that would involve autonomous development, once independence had been attained.  The majority sector, however, sought a less fundamental change that would reform only those aspects of the colonial system that restricted the direct participation of the national bourgeoisie in the capitalist world market and limited the development of the national bourgeoisie as a class (2008:6-7).  
 
      When the independence of the colonies in Africa and Asia was attained, the majority sector of the national bourgeoisie in most cases controlled the newly independent nations, and it was able to resolve its differences with foreign capital in order to integrate itself into the system of domination and to share in the benefits resulting from the exploitation of the people.  In this new system of neocolonial domination, the national bourgeoisie no longer represented the interests of the emerging nation before the colonial power; rather, it represented the interests of the former colonial power within the newly independent nation (Arboleya 2008:6-7, 11).

       Thus, neocolonialism functions through a national bourgeoisie that is “organically subordinated” to the core power and that is capable of establishing necessary political control in the newly independent nation. Arboleya coins the term “figurehead bourgeoisie” to refer to a national bourgeoisie with these characteristics (2008:8).

      The basic function of colonialism from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century had been to obtain raw materials and to provide a world market for the manufactured products of the core (Arboleya 2008:4). This basic economic function continues under the neocolonial system:  “From an economic point of view, the neocolony is not very different from the colonial states.  Its market, internal as well as external, satisfies the interests of the metropolis and is controlled by transnational corporations….  The neocolony reproduces the colonial condition of dependency with respect to metropolitan interests, and underdevelopment is maintained as a characteristic of the system” (Arboleya 2008:7). 

      However, there is an important difference between the colony and the neocolony.  Whereas the colony depends principally on force to maintain social control, the neocolony depends to a considerable extent on ideological penetration.  Arboleya notes that a penetrating ideology is able to “embrace the entire social fabric, soothing conflicts that result from the neocolonial situation and creating a culture of dependency that weakens the self-esteem of the people, giving rise to consumerist alienation, and that seeks to adulterate national interests” (2008:8).  
 
       But military power continues to play an important role in the neocolony. Military power is “the most evident sign of the superiority of the metropolis,” and it has a psychological impact on the people, especially when it has “the capacity to mobilize with maximum efficiency to those places where, generally, it is not permanently established.” And military power is “the dissuasive force par excellence in opposition to popular resistance when social control escapes temporarily from the hands of the national bourgeoisie” (Arboleya 2008:8).

      We will continue to explore the characteristics of neocolonialism in subsequent posts.


References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo.  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, Africa, Asia