Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

Charismatic Leaders of the global revolution

2/25/2019

0 Comments

 
  December 18, 2015 (Revised February 25, 2019)
 
      During the 1990s, I began a process of encounter with the Cuban revolutionary project, living among the people, listening to the commentaries of Cuban journalists on television, reading the works of Cuban academics and intellectuals, and reading the speeches and writings of Fidel Castro.  I soon came to learn that Fidel is a man of exceptional qualities, possessing a high level of understanding of the structures of colonial and neocolonial domination and of the strategies that are necessary for national liberation.  And I came to appreciate that he has a high level of commitment to the Cuban nation and people.  Fidel is loved by the Cuban people, who appreciate his exceptional qualities.
 
      As a pre-university student, Fidel was formed in the tradition of the Cuban struggle for national liberation.  He was a great admirer of the Cuban nineteenth century nationalist José Martí, as were many Cuban youth, and he read all of the books that had been written on the two Cuban wars of independence.  During his third year at the University of Havana, he began to read the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, using the library of the communist party.  He appropriated their concepts from the vantage point of the Cuban situation, thus forging a creative synthesis of the Cuban struggle for national liberation with Marxism-Leninism.  In accordance with this creative adaptation, he conceived a revolution of the people rather than a proletarian revolution. 
 
      Fidel possessed an instinctive exceptional capacity for the art of politics.  He grasped that the bold attack on the Moncada Barracks of July 26, 1956 was the kind of action that was needed to galvanize the people.  In calling the people to revolution, he understood the necessity of making declarations that take into account the perceptions and values of the people.  He realized that the Cuban people of the 1950s were rebellious, but they had not yet developed revolutionary consciousness; so it was necessary to focus on concrete problems.  In addition, during the revolutionary war and after its triumph, he discerned the need for the unity of the diverse revolutionary forces, and he possessed the capacity to forge it.  During his many years as the Cuban chief of state, he also demonstrated an exceptional understanding of global dynamics, and he became an important voice defending a radical Third World agenda in the international arena.  In the 1980s, in a series of speeches on the causes and the consequences of the Third World debt, he showed a greater understanding of the world-economy than the great majority of economists.
 
      Fidel also has possessed a remarkable faith in the ultimate triumph of the socialist revolution.  It is a faith that is rooted in the conviction of the justice of the socialist cause, and it is inspired by the examples of the great revolutionaries in human history.  In contrast to the skepticism of the intellectual who can see only the objective conditions and the subjective correlation of forces, Fidel’s revolutionary faith sees the possibility of changing these conditions and forces, through analysis that discerns hidden possibilities within the existing conditions and forces.
 
       The phenomenon of the charismatic gifts of Fidel brings to mind the concept of charismatic authority, formulated in the early twentieth century by the German sociologist Max Weber.  For Weber, persons can possess authority, defined as the capacity to influence others, because of an office that they hold in a bureaucratic structure, such as the president of a country; or a position that they hold in a traditional system, such as a king.  But there are others who hold no office, yet they possess authority because of their exceptional gifts.  Often they are innovators who reform tradition.
 
     In addition to encountering the Cuban revolutionary project, I also have been reading of revolutions in other lands.  I found that other revolutions possessed charismatic leaders, not merely persons who led the revolutions, but persons with exceptional gifts, whose leadership was a necessary and decisive factor in the gains of the revolution.  As a result of this study of various revolutions, I have come to the conclusion that the emergence of charismatic leaders is a general characteristic of revolutionary processes.
 
     In Haiti, Toussaint L’Ouverture was a military genius who also mastered the art of politics, gifts that enabled him to command a black army and control nearly all of the territory.  As a result, he was recognized as Governor of the French colony of San Domingo, as it was then known.  As Governor, he maintained the sugar plantations, converting the slaves into free wage workers.  He stabilized the economy and enjoyed support among blacks, whites and mulattos.  He correctly understood that, as a result of the legacy of slavery, the development of the nation needed French support and cooperation, on the basis of Jacobin principles.  But this vision was not realized.  The Jacobins lost power in France, and the revolution in San Domingo that had been led by Toussaint was brought to an end by the invasion of Napoleon.  Toussaint was arrested, and he died in prison shortly afterward.  Napoleon tried to restore slavery in San Domingo, without success, due to the revolutionary resistance of the people.  An independent nation of Haiti, without slavery, was declared.  But independent Haiti was not the Haiti that Toussaint envisioned.  It went in a different direction: ties with France were severed, whites were massacred, and the plantations were divided into subsistence plots.  It endured isolation and poverty for decades, a legacy from which it still suffers.
 
      In the Mexican Revolution, a charismatic leader capable of unifying the revolution on the basis of a national plan that united the forces of peasants, workers, and the petit bourgeoisie did not emerge.  Zapata and Villa possessed charismatic gifts, but their vision was limited to the perspective of the peasant and the countryside, and not the nation as a whole.  Ricardo Flores Magón was able to envision the necessary national plan, but he did not master the art of politics.  The Mexican Revolution triumphed not as a popular revolution but as a revolution by a rising petit bourgeoisie, based in the military.
 
      In the case of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lenin adapted Marxism to the conditions of Russia, discerning that the unfolding revolution was not precisely a proletarian revolution, but a peasant and proletarian revolution, led by a proletarian vanguard.  Appreciating the need for the support of the peasantry, Lenin put forth a slogan for the distribution of land to peasants.  In addition, Lenin discerned the importance of the soviets (workers,’ peasants’ and soldiers’ councils), as the expression of an advanced form of democracy and as an indication that the Russian Revolution represented a transition to socialism.
 
     Lenin understood that the consolidation and development of the Russian Revolution would require the triumph of the proletarian revolution in Western Europe, in order that Western European governments would provide necessary technical support, inasmuch as Russia was relatively underdeveloped.  The failure of the proletarian revolution in Western Europe doomed the Russian Revolution.  Instead of support from the West, it was victimized by Western military invasion and support for counterrevolutionary opposition sectors.  With the death of Lenin, the Russian Revolution fell to a petit bourgeois bureaucratic class, so that it was no longer a peasant-worker revolution.  Subsequently, the bureaucratic class ruled with repression under Stalin.
 
     Lenin possessed an exceptional understanding of global dynamics.  He discerned that with the failure of the proletariat revolution in the Western Europe, the vanguard of the revolution would move to the East, that is, to the colonized and oppressed peoples of the world. 
 
     The Haitian, Mexican and Russian revolutions inspired the world.  But none of them ultimately triumphed as revolutions of the people guided by charismatic leadership.  In contrast, popular revolutions in the colonized and peripheralized regions of the Third World would triumph and would sustain themselves, thus placing themselves in the vanguard of the global socialist revolution, as Lenin had anticipated.  During the twentieth century, the two most important expressions of this were the revolutions led by Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh.
 
     Ho Chi Minh adapted Marxism-Leninism to the conditions of Vietnam.  He forged in practice a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and the political-intellectual tradition of Vietnamese nationalism, which had been developed by Confucian scholars, and in which he had been formed as a young man.  He understood that national liberation of the colonized peoples could not be attained without socialism, and that socialism in the West could not be attained without the liberation of the colonized peoples.  He thus saw the dual character of the revolution as both a social and class revolution and an anti-colonial revolution of national liberation.  He discerned the revolutionary spontaneity of the peasant, setting aside the distrust of the peasantry that had been a strong component of the tradition of Marxism-Leninism.  Moreover, he mastered the art of politics, knowing when to implement revolutionary measures.  These exceptional qualities enabled him to lead the Vietnamese people through two long wars against French colonialism and US imperialism, ultimately leading to the establishment of an independent nation that to this day follows an autonomous socialist path to economic, political and cultural development.
 
      During the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century, in reaction to the imposition of the neoliberal project by the global powers, popular movements in Latin America assumed the vanguard in the global socialist movement.  Charismatic leaders emerged, calling the people in various nations to autonomous national projects that sought definitive independence from the neocolonial powers, and discerning the objective possibilities for Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration.  Especially important in the new Latin America have been Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
 
      There are charismatic leaders who directed movements that could not take and consolidate power, such as Simon Bolívar and José Martí, the two giants of the nineteenth century Latin American struggles for independence; and Julio Antonio Mella and Antonio Guiteras, leaders of the Cuban popular movement in the 1920s and early 1930s.  There are, in addition, charismatic leaders who led movements that took power for a relatively short period of time, such as Salvador Allende in Chile.  And there are charismatic leaders whose charisma is a consequence of a connection with a charismatic leader, as is the case with Raúl Castro in Cuba and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.  All of these leaders have had exceptional capacities to understand and to formulate courses of action, qualities that have been discerned by the people, who have lifted them up, thus providing them with political and teaching authority.
 
      The lack of understanding in the North of the necessary role of charismatic leaders in revolutionary processes leads us to misinterpretations.  We tend to think that the long-term presence of a single leader is a result of a move of the leader toward authoritarian control, thus confirming that “power corrupts.”  And we tend to think that the people support the authoritarian leader, because they have limited education, and because they are manipulated and/or fearful.  With this false assumption, we cannot see that the charismatic leader is an indispensable resource in the ongoing struggle against the global powers.  And we are not aware that the most educated and informed of the people are among the most fervent supporters of the charismatic leader, on the basis of their understanding of the essential role of the charismatic leader in sustaining a revolutionary process under continuous attack by powerful enemies.  When people in the North, in the name of democracy, call upon Third World governments to establish “term limits,” they are proposing a structure that is alien to revolutionary processes.  In order for revolutionary processes to sustain themselves, the continuing wisdom and unifying presence of the charismatic leader is indispensable.  When we propose “term limits,” we are suggesting to the poor and the colonized that they not use their most powerful weapon, as they struggle to survive the onslaught of hostile actions by the global powers.
 
      In the case of Cuba and Fidel, the charismatic authority of Fidel has been institutionalized in two ways.  First, when Fidel was named Prime Minister in the Revolutionary Government on February 13, 1959, his political authority was converted from charismatic to legal authority.  Subsequently, the Cuban Constitution of 1976 established structures of Popular Power, which include popular election of the National Assembly to five-year terms, which elects the Council of State and Ministers, including the President of the Council of State.  This represented a reorganization of the structures of legal authority.  Fidel was President of the Council of State through 2008, when he stepped down for reasons of health.  This office is currently held by Raúl Castro, who also possesses charismatic authority.  When Raúl no longer holds the office, others will be elected to five-year terms.  The long-term institutionalization of charismatic authority could involve the election of persons to the office of President of the Council of State who possess charismatic authority, exceptional gifts to analyze and explain, discerned by the people.  Such charismatic leaders would be among the people, because they are called forth by revolutionary process.  Our charismatic leaders are gifts from God, in that they are born with exceptional qualities.  But the revolutionary process nourishes them, and calls them to fulfillment of their potential and their duty.
 
     Secondly, the teaching authority of Fidel has been institutionalized through the creation of the Cuban Communist Party.  The charismatic authority of Fidel, in addition to political authority, included teaching authority, and in fulfillment of this function, Fidel in his speeches was constantly educating the people.  The Party, which consists of approximately 15% of the people, plays the role of forming the consciousness of the people and developing the political culture of the nation, rooted in the teachings of Fidel.  The transferring of Fidel’s teaching authority to the Party has been a slow process, because every time that Fidel spoke with insight, the authority to teach stayed with him, rather than being transferred to the Party.  But since his retirement in 2008, the process of institutionalization has accelerated.  The new social and economic model submitted to the National Assembly in 2012 was initiated by the Party, which led a mass popular consultation; Fidel played a minor, although supportive, role.
 
       A number of the blog posts that I have written on revolutionary processes in various nations have discussed the phenomenon of charismatic leaders.  These posts, in addition to being categorized in particular revolutions, also have been placed in the separate category of Charismatic Leaders.
 
      The posts in the category of Charismatic Leaders are as follows:
 
“A tribute to Fidel” 08/13/2017;
           
“Nicolás Maduro” 06/07/2017;
           
“Fidel speaks on the global crisis, 1983” 07/25/2016;
“Fidel proposes new global structures, 1983” 07/27/2016;
           
“Thank you, Fidel” 08/13/2016;
           
“Hugo Chávez Frías” 08/04/2016;
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” 08/05/2016;
“The Movement toward Socialism in Bolivia” 08/11/2016;
“The citizen revolution in Ecuador” 09/19/2016;
“The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua” 09/20/2016;
“Latin American and Caribbean unity” 09/21/2016;
           
“The Cuban tradition of heroism” 09/01/2014;
“Moncada: a great and heroic act” 09/02/2014;
“Fidel: ‘History will absolve me’” 09/04/2014;
“The Moncada program for the people” 09/05/2014;
“Reflections on “History will absolve me” 09/08/2014;
“Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 09/09/2014;
“Fidel’s social roots” 09/10/2014;
“Fidel becomes revolutionary at the university” 09/11/2014;
“The revolutionary faith of Fidel” 09/15/2014;
“Unifying the Cuban revolutionary process”            09/17/2014;
“The pluralism of revolutionary unity” 09/18/2014;
“The defining moment of the Cuban Revolution” 09/24/2014;
“Radicalization of the revolutionary government” 09/25/2014;
           
“On the charismatic leader” 04/30/2014;
“Ho’s practical theoretical synthesis” 05/09/2014;
           
“The dream renewed” 03/06/2014;
“Is Marx today fulfilled?” 03/20/2014;
           
“Zapata” 02/06/2014;
“Lessons of the Mexican Revolution” 02/19/2014;
           
“Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 01/29/2014;
           
“Toussaint L’Ouverture” 12/10/2013;
“The problem of dependency” 12/11/2013;
“Toussaint seeks North-South cooperation” 12/12/2013;
“The isolation and poverty of Haiti” 12/17/2013.
 
To find the posts, scroll down.
​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation