We have seen in recent posts that Cuba has been developing a new Constitution, with the active participation of the people, the National Assembly, and the Party. See “Constitutional Democracy in Cuba” 1/9/2019; “People’s Constitutional Assembly in Cuba” 1/11/2019; “The Cuban people speak” 1/18/2019; “Cuban Constitutional Commission Reports” 1/21/2019; “The Cuban National Assembly debates” 1/24/2018; “The new Cuban Constitution: Continuity” 1/28/2019; “A more inclusive Cuban Revolution” 2/1/2019; “A more pragmatic Cuban Revolution” 2/7/2019; and “Cuba seeks greater state efficiency” 2/11/2019.
On February 24, 2019, the Cuban people, in a direct and secret vote by each citizen, approved the new Constitution that they have been constructing. Some 84.4% of resident citizens voted, with 86.8% voting “Yes,” 9% voting “No,” 2.5% blank ballots, and 1.6% annulled.
The Preamble to the Cuban Constitution of 2019 states:
On February 24, 2019, the Cuban people, in a direct and secret vote by each citizen, approved the new Constitution that they have been constructing. Some 84.4% of resident citizens voted, with 86.8% voting “Yes,” 9% voting “No,” 2.5% blank ballots, and 1.6% annulled.
The Preamble to the Cuban Constitution of 2019 states:
We the people of Cuba,
inspired . . . by the aboriginals that resisted their submission, by the slaves that rebelled against their masters, . . . by the patriots that beginning in 1868 initiated and participated in the independence struggles against Spanish colonialism, and those that in the final push of 1895 found victory frustrated by the military intervention and occupation of U.S. imperialism in 1898; . . . those that promoted, belonged to, and developed the first organizations of workers, peasants, and students; those that disseminated socialist ideas and founded the first revolutionary Marxist and Leninist movements; . . .
guided by . . . the examples of Martí and Fidel and the emancipatory ideals of Marx, Engels, and Lenin; . . .
convinced that Cuba will never return to capitalism; . . .
identified with the postulates revealed in the concept of Revolution expressed by our comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz on May 1, 2000; . . .
adopt . . . the following Constitution.
The Constitution proceeds to affirm the civil, political, social, and economic rights of all, regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious belief, or disability. It reconfirms that structures of popular democracy that have been evolving since the early 1960s, including the role of the Communist Party as the vanguard party that guides and educates the people. It affirms the right of all nations to sovereignty and self-determination, in resistance to the imperialist policies of the global powers. It defines the role of the state as the author of a development plan and as director and regulator in the economy, necessary for the protection of the rights of the citizens and the nation. It confirms the duty of the nation to protect the natural environment. It maintains that Cuba is and will be socialist.
As we observe the fragmentation, division, and confusion that reigns in many representative democracies of the world, it is difficult to imagine that many of them would be capable of coming close to Cuba in forging a popular consensus with respect to the history of the nation, the concepts and values that ought to guide its development, and its political-economic structures. The problem with the representative democracies, born from the bourgeois revolutions of the last decades of the eighteenth century, is that they pretend to give power to the people, but in reality, power is in the hands of the elite and its representatives; they have the appearance of democracy, but not the substance. As a result, the popular revolutions of the twentieth century have assumed the duty of forging the political and economic processes that would give power to the people and establish their social emancipation. The fruits of that labor are beginning to appear, such that, in the first decades of the twenty-first century, the advantages of popular democracy, with its structures of popular power, its mass organizations, and its vanguard party that is of the people and that educates the people, has become a self-evident truth.
As we observe the fragmentation, division, and confusion that reigns in many representative democracies of the world, it is difficult to imagine that many of them would be capable of coming close to Cuba in forging a popular consensus with respect to the history of the nation, the concepts and values that ought to guide its development, and its political-economic structures. The problem with the representative democracies, born from the bourgeois revolutions of the last decades of the eighteenth century, is that they pretend to give power to the people, but in reality, power is in the hands of the elite and its representatives; they have the appearance of democracy, but not the substance. As a result, the popular revolutions of the twentieth century have assumed the duty of forging the political and economic processes that would give power to the people and establish their social emancipation. The fruits of that labor are beginning to appear, such that, in the first decades of the twenty-first century, the advantages of popular democracy, with its structures of popular power, its mass organizations, and its vanguard party that is of the people and that educates the people, has become a self-evident truth.
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