Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 00:22:48 -0400
Subject: M-I: "Cuba: The One-Party State Continues" by Sam Farber
From: jschulman-AT-juno.com (Jason A Schulman)



Cuba: The One-Party State Continues

Samuel Farber

[from New Politics, vol. 5, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 19, Summer
1995]




Samuel Farber was born and grew up in Cuba. He is ther author of
Revolution and Reaction in Cuba 1933-1960 (Wesleyan University Press,
1976) and numerous articles dealing with that country. He teaches
political science at Brooklyn College and is a member of the editorial
board of Against the Current. 

IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM in Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union, some leftists are willing to take a more critical
look at the socio-economic and political system that has prevailed in
Cuba for more than 35 years. Among them is Carollee Bengelsdorf, a
professor of politics at Hampshire College. Unlike many pro-Castro
leftists, who substitute Third Worldist clichés for their scant knowledge
of Cuban society and history, Bengelsdorf is intimately acquainted with
Cuba. She must also be given credit for affirming the need for democracy
as a central element of the necessary transformation of the Cuban polity
and society.

But in spite of its virtues, The Problem of Democracy in Cuba is a deeply
flawed book.* Bengelsdorf's narrative often appears to be a history
without subjects making choices and taking decisions. This is
particularly true of her treatment of Fidel Castro, the most powerful
actor in the Cuban drama. Thus, Bengelsdorf advocates a democratization
of Cuban society and at least implicitly recognizes that neither Castro
nor the Cuban Communist Party shares her inclinations. Yet, she fails to
follow through on her analysis and confront the issue of whether the
democratization she recommends is compatible with the continuing rule of
Fidel Castro and his Communist Party, or whether it will have to be
accomplished in opposition to these forces. 

Moreover, she evades the issue of the continuing one-party state
suggesting, with little logic but a good deal of equivocation, that this
state in and of itself, does not spell doom for any movement toward
democratization, just as the existence of two or more parties in other
countries does not guarantee it. Rather, what is critical in this regard
is the Party's continuing effort to confiscate the political arena. (p.
171) Bengelsdorf tiptoes around the question of Castro's leading role, or
addresses it with euphemisms and circumlocutions. A case in point is her
characterization of Castro's regime as paternalism, which she defines as
the practice of treating people as children instead of self-reliant
adults capable of making decisions. This approach captures an aspect of
Castroism but deflects attention from the major role repression has
played in almost four decades of rule. While the right-wing incorrectly
claims that Castro does not enjoy any popular support and that his regime
rules only on the basis of repression, it is disturbing that Bengelsdorf
downplays the role of State Security (Seguridad del Estado) and the
neighborhood vigilance carried out by the Committees for the Defense of
the Revolution (CDRs), resulting in systematic violations of civil and
political liberties.

SIMILARLY, BENGELSDORF ACCEPTS AT FACE VALUE Castro's espousal of the
values of national unity as a justification for his suppression of any
expression of political opinion potentially threatening his monopoly of
power. She also accepts Castro's claim that his approach is based on the
views of Cuba's Founding Father, Jose Marti. When Marti -- a Freemason
with views deeply rooted in 19th century traditions of progressive
liberalism and nationalism -- spoke about unity he was trying to overcome
the petty jealousies of the insurgent caudillos in order to bring about a
united military campaign against Spanish control of the island. Marti
attempted to accomplish this through political means: persuasion,
education, and the creation of a united organization to achieve Cuban
independence. He did not advocate forceful suppression, imprisonment or
the execution of those who resisted his efforts. Furthermore, Marti's
views pertaining to "unity" in the struggle against Spain had no
relevance to the different issue of the social, political and
constitutional arrangements of the Cuban Republic to be established after
victory. 

For Castro, the word unity has been a euphemism for monolithism and
autocratic power. As early as 1954 he wrote to Luis Conte Aguero, then
his close friend: Conditions which are indispensable for the integration
of a truly civic moment: ideology, discipline and chieftainship. The
three are essential but chieftainship is basic...The apparatus of
propaganda and organization must be such and so powerful that it will
implacably destroy him who will create tendencies, cliques, or schisms,
or will rise against the movement. Thirty-eight years later, in a lengthy
interview with Sandinista leader Tomas Borge, Castro criticized Stalin on
a number of grounds including the invasion of Finland and the
Stalin-Hitler Pact. But when Borge asked him "What do you believe were
Stalin's merits?" the first thing that Castro mentioned was the
following: "He [Stalin] established unity in the Soviet Union. He
consolidated what Lenin had begun: party unity." 



Some leftists have ruled out any analysis that locates Castro and his
close associates as part of the Stalinist tradition, on the basis that
Castro's political current did not come out of the old pro-Moscow parties
in Latin America. However, the history of the left is littered with
independent Stalinists unaffiliated with Moscow franchise-holders and
while it is necessary to understand the Stalinist tradition in order to
understand Fidelista politics, it is not sufficient. The challenge posed
by the Fidelista tradition is to establish how and why a wing of the
revolutionary petty bourgeoisie and declassed elements discovered, as it
became successful beyond even its highest expectations, its strong
elective affinity with Stalinism.

The Stalinist and Fidelista traditions in Cuba fused under the aegis of
Castro while maintaining some of the original characteristics of
Fidelismo, particularly in the area of political and cultural style. For
example, one of the significant but little noticed contributions of
Fidelismo to Cuban Communism was the dropping of the old Communist form
of address "camarada" (comrade) and its replacement by the much broader
political term companero(a), the term historically used in the Cuban
student and trade union movements. This is of some significance because,
in the Cuban context, the words convey either a sense of inclusion
[companero(a)] or sectarian exclusion (camarada).

Many on the left tend to write about Cuba purely in national and
sometimes in Latin American or Third World terms without addressing the
strong systemic similarities between Cuban and Asian and East European
Communism. In part, this is due to the embarrassment caused by the decay,
bureaucratic stodginess and atrocities associated with old-style
Communism long before its collapse in the 80s and 90s. No sense can be
made of Cuban Communism without understanding Cuban radical nationalism
but most forms of radical nationalism in Latin America and elsewhere have
not historically evolved into Communism, while a Cuban variety of it did.
This alone should suggest that there is something more than radical
nationalism involved in Cuba.

Radical Cuban nationalism had nothing to say about how to reorganize and
restructure a capitalist society into a "socialist" society. Thus, it was
not just the dependence on massive aid from the USSR that pulled Cuba in
a particular direction. There were also political and ideological
factors. For one, the authoritarian caudillismo of Castro. But also the
paucity of alternatives to both capitalism and Communism. Little wonder
then that whatever cultural and stylistic distinctiveness Cuban Communism
undoubtedly retained, when it came to the historically much more decisive
question of political and socio-economic organization, the Cuban
government faithfully copied, and with remarkably little originality, the
then existing Communist models in Asia and Europe. This produced a
structural assimilation of Cuba to European and Asian Communism. After
all, even presumably original Guevarist policies had many more
similarities than differences with Maoism, Third Period Stalinism and the
policies of "War Communism" during the Civil War in Russia.



Bengelsdorf is among those who pay attention only to Cuba's national
peculiarities. Thus, in analyzing the Cuban 60s, she insists in finding
only "transitory political forms," "avoidance of structure," and
"flexibility." (p. 67). Her avoidance of the larger question of Cuba
becoming Communist produces an analysis which misses the forest for the
trees. What was important about the Cuban 60s were not the differences
with Asian and European Communism but the dramatic transformation of what
had been originally a democratic and, shortly after the successful
overthrow of Batista, a radically reformist and anti-imperialist
revolution into a member of the Communist family. By the end of 1960, the
trend was fairly clear: the commanding heights of the Cuban economy had
been nationalized; the trade unions had come under state control after a
thorough purge of the democratically elected leadership; the press and
other media had been cleansed of opposition voices; and political
opposition, even if loyal, had been effectively placed beyond the pale. 

The remainder of the 60s witnessed what was essentially a consolidation
and mopping up operation -- most of the remaining privately owned land
was nationalized as were practically all urban enterprises, even tiny
ones. The unified Communist Party was created in 1965 after a four-year
gestation period. Finally, after all opposition groups had been
eliminated, independent and critical voices within government circles
were also silenced (e.g. in 1961, the influential literary supplement of
the government newspaper Revolucion and in 1968, the so-called
micro-faction of old-line Communist Party members, whose members were
imprisoned). 

Granted, there was a good deal of improvisation on the part of young
political leaders and administrators who lacked any previous government
experience. But this improvisation took place within well established
systemic boundaries developed elsewhere long before the Cuban Revolution.
How could these improvisations, or the political differences between Che
Guevara and Moscow, as real as they were, compare with the momentous and
indeed historic overall transformation just described? 

While the Cuban 60s constituted the decade of political and economic
consolidation, the 70s became the decade of "institutionalization," that
is, the decade of routinization after the tremendous revolutionary
upheaval of the 60s. In this period, the Cuban government introduced a
significant degree of decentralization primarily to alleviate the
considerable administrative inefficiencies generated by the
over-centralization of the previous revolutionary decade. Again, it is to
Bengelsdorf's credit that, unlike a number of apologists for the Cuban
regime, she distinguishes decentralization from democratization. Still,
her analysis of the Cuban 70s is limited by her "national" focus. If we
look at the Cuban 60s, 70s and 80s through the lens of comparative
Communism, the presumed uniqueness of Cuban developments disappear almost
completely. Communist economies in the past have tended to oscillate
between statification offensives and pragmatic adaptations to political
reality which resulted in the relaxation of state controls. Thus, for
example, the Chinese Revolution fluctuated between land distribution in
the period immediately after the 1949 victory, to the collectivization
offensive in the latter 50s of "The Great Leap Forward," and back again
to a relaxation of state economic controls. 

While Bengelsdorf's analysis is limited and even parochial in its refusal
to place Cuba in the context of comparative Communism, the book is
extremely ambitious and anything but parochial in its attempt to root the
problem of the lack of democracy in Cuba in the thought and practices of
Marx and Lenin. There is no doubt that Bengelsdorf is well acquainted
with the critical literature on Marxism and Leninism. Unfortunately, her
attempt to connect the lack of democracy in Castro's Cuba with Marx and
Lenin can only be carried out by seriously distorting what Lenin and
especially Marx stood for, while granting too much credit to Castro's
claim to Marxism and even Leninism.



LET US FIRST TAKE THE ISSUE OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY. Bengelsdorf
leaves little doubt that she sees the Cuban regime, particularly in the
60s, as encouraging "participatory democracy" since it was only through
practicing it, "that the problems of underdevelopment, resource scarcity,
and constant external threat could be overcome." (p. 8). Although Marx
did not use this term, a strong case can be made that his conception of
democracy was highly participatory as seen in his praise for the
institutions developed by the Paris Commune in 1871. But Marx took it for
granted that this participation was to be an advance over the political
freedoms already gained in the struggle against feudal rule and royal
absolutism, not a denial of those freedoms. Furthermore, participation
was intended to enrich and secure the political power acquired by the
workers' movement and its allies, not to be an alternative to that power.


While Marx was not confronted with anything like the Fidelista
phenomenon, the idea that he would have endorsed participation without
independent popular power or without political freedoms is absurd on the
face of it. Indeed, a strong case can be made that participation without
power or political freedom is a regressive practice that has more in
common with political systems such as Gaullism and fascism than with
socialism. Finally, we should keep in mind that there exists by now an
extensive "tradition" of both capitalist and Communist power-holders
utilizing participation to derail the development of power and democracy
from below. As the slogan of the 1968 French movement put it so well: "I
participate, you participate, they control." 

Like so many on the left, Bengelsdorf utilizes the distinction between
formal and substantive democracy in a manner detrimental to democracy
which she falsely attributes to Marx. The distinction is useful to the
extent that it identifies those regimes that pretend to be democratic
because they use certain ostensibly democratic formal mechanisms which
are nevertheless devoid of significant democratic content. However, it
does not follow that there can be a substantive democracy that is not
also formal. Thus, for example, the Paris Commune established mechanisms
for election and recall of delegates. Similarly, the Russian soviets
(before they lost their democratic character in mid-1918) established
mechanisms for the allocation of representatives and for elections which
had to take place at least every three months. The notion that formal
democracy can be ignored means nothing less than the very undemocratic
idea that the mass of the population can somehow have "democratic"
leaders without voting and without protections for minority views. The
motivation behind this obfuscation is rather plain; to make it appear
that Castro's rule has been substantively, although not formally,
democratic despite the Cuban people's total lack of independent political
power.

For Marx, even the purest form of democracy signified coercion, i.e.,
majority rule of a still existing state implementing the decisions of the
majority over the obviously dissenting wishes of the minority, and of
course with the forceful suppression of any violent resistance to
majority rule. Thus, he looked forward to the higher stage of communism
where any kind of rule or coercion, even that of the democratically
elected workers' government, would altogether disappear. It is quite
legitimate to wonder whether the "higher stage of communism" could ever
be attained. What is not legitimate is to take comments Marx made about
the democratic workers' state (first or lower stage of communism) from
the perspective of the higher stage of stateless communism, and make it
appear that these comments represent a Marxian defense of
authoritarianism. 

Thus, Bengelsdorf suggests that Marx and Engels' rejection of the term
"free people's state" for the post-revolutionary system signified an
endorsement of authoritarianism in the usual, invidious sense of the
term. However, what Marx and Engels claimed was that it was nonsense to
speak of a "free people's state" since the state by definition implied
coercion and could not therefore be free. By calling the
post-revolutionary state "authoritarian," Marx and Engels were not
wavering in their commitment to democracy, but were arguing instead that
post-revolutionary democracy was not yet as free as stateless communism
and was therefore "authoritarian." In decontextualizing Marx and Engels'
statements on the state and freedom and calling them authoritarian in the
normal, non-democratic sense of the term (p. 21), Bengelsdorf is creating
a spurious link between Marx and Castro in order to legitimize Fidel's
ideological credentials.



IN REVIEWING THE EXTENSIVE LITERATURE ON MARX, Bengelsdorf finds a number
of problem areas in Marx's political thought which deserve serious
discussion. Among these are the apparent inconsistencies between Marx's
centralizing and decentralizing views of socialism and whether he was
correct in thinking that politics as such could eventually disappear into
mere administration. But whatever views one may have on these important
questions, it cannot be denied that Marx put forward a democratic vision
of the socialist revolution, and took it for granted that a variety of
views would contend for hegemony within the revolutionary camp. In this
context, it is worth noting that as critical as Marx was of the Paris
Commune leadership's failure to take decisive actions against the enemy,
it did not occur to him to attribute this failure to the diversity of
views among the Communards, which is precisely the kind of argument
favored by Castro and the Stalinist tradition in general. 

To analyze the relevance of Lenin and Leninism (not the same thing) to
the politics of the Fidelista leadership would require a more extensive
discussion of the relationship of Lenin to Stalinism than would be
appropriate here. The interested reader is invited to examine my book,
Before Stalinism (Verso, 1990) which contains a discussion and materials
relevant to the question. Nevertheless, I would like to note some major
features of Lenin's politics which seriously call into question Castro's
Leninist claims. Lenin was the first among equals in the Bolshevik
leadership. It is quite inconceivable that Castro could tolerate -- let
alone collaborate with --other party leaders of the caliber of a Trotsky
or a Bukharin. It is also inconceivable that Castro could tolerate as
factionalized a party as the Bolsheviks were before and after the seizure
of power. Whatever may have been wrong with Lenin or the Bolshevik Party,
the fact remains that until the Civil War, any comparison between the
Bolsheviks and other political parties would show that the Bolsheviks had
more internal democracy, a clearer ideology and program, and a firmer
class commitment. 

While investing considerable intellectual effort in discussing Marx and
Lenin and their possible impact on Fidelismo, Bengelsdorf pays much less
attention to the influence of Stalinism on Cuban events. Yet, I would
contend that it is the latter that is really important. While Lenin's
"Leninism" had meant different things at different times and therefore
constituted an ambiguous legacy, Stalinism presented itself to the world
as a finished system for all times and places. Similarly, while Lenin, in
the early 20s, had come to justify repression and lack of democracy as a
virtue rather than as an unavoidable necessity, the political and
economic regime established under Lenin never quite lost its provisional
and historically conditioned flavor. By the 30s there was nothing
provisional left in Stalin's system which was characterized by such
structural features as full nationalization of the means of production, a
one-party state and statified unions, the absence of the right to strike
or any other civil and political liberties, and an all-embracing secret
police to help maintain the regime in power. By this time, the newly
predominant Stalinist system had made the strong claim that it was only
those influenced by bourgeois thought who would worry about such
insignificant matters as freedom and democracy. For these new recruits to
Communism, the history of Marxism previous to Stalin's rule was the
caricature provided by Soviet manuals distorting socialist history. 

Nowhere was this more evident than in Cuba. By the time Fidel Castro
became a student activist at the University of Havana in the mid- and
late 40s, the very word and meaning of socialism had become coterminous
with the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), Moscow's franchise in Cuba. The
once important anarchist movement had disappeared from the scene by the
20s, and the small but at one time influential Cuban Trotskyists had
dissolved into the Autentico nationalist-populist camp and had become
virtually invisible as a distinct political tendency. Yet, while the
Cuban followers of Moscow were by then the only significant tendency
espousing socialism, the PSP was organizationally very sectarian and
compromised by its betrayals of populist-nationalist causes and by
unscrupulous political deals. In one notorious instance, the Cuban
Communists exchanged political support for Batista for control of the
trade union movement during the years 1938-1944. Thus, the peculiarities
of the Cuban PSP left open a niche for an independent non-sectarian
Stalinism untainted by the PSP's betrayals, a niche that was eventually
filled by Fidelismo after the revolution. 

It is difficult to assess the political significance of The Problem of
Democracy in Cuba. Does it portend a more politically and intellectually
respectable stance for non-Communist supporters of the Cuban regime
during this era of right-wing political pressures? My hope is that it is
part of a perhaps unfinished but genuine democratic-socialist process of
reconsideration of the Cuban experience.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




Note




* The Problem of Democracy in Cuba by Carollee Bengelsdorf. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994. return






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