Critical currents in Cuban political culture

On gender, race, Marx, and elections

     In an anthology on political culture published by the University of Havana in 2023, Carlos Cabrera Rodríguez describes the political culture of a nation as the concentrated expression of the entire set of actions, objectives, and functions of the political system, serving as a fundamental link in the political process. 

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Cuban political culture

     I would maintain that the Cuban political culture is formed by the reasoning and ideology tied to a revolutionary political practice.  And I see four dimensions of the Cuban political culture. 

     First, there is the political process of people’s democracy, consisting of direct and indirect elections that are central to its democratic character; neighborhood nomination assemblies that ground the political process in local spaces; people’s assemblies with legal political authority at national and municipal levels; mass organizations that strengthen the participatory role of the people; and a vanguard political party that plays primarily a pedagogical role.  People’s democracies are more advanced than representative democracies, in that people’s democracies tilt the political process in favor of the people as against an economic or bureaucratic elite.

     Secondly, the Cuban political culture includes an evolving economic model, which in the current stage is characterized by a mixed economy directed and regulated by the people’s state in accordance with a formulated social and economic plan for development.  The model emphasizes improving agricultural and industrial productivity, with state ownership as the principal form of property.  The model includes commitment to free public health and public education as well as state subsidies for food, housing, and transportation, with special attention to persons and families in the most vulnerable economic situation.

     Thirdly, Cuban political practice includes a public media, with state, Party, and NGO ownership and management of the principal television and radio stations, newspapers, and magazines.  Public ownership prevents the capturing of the media and the distortion of news by internal or external private interests.  It favors the development of media that are educational.  

     Fourth, Cuba has a foreign policy of cooperation with anti-imperialist governments in the construction of a New International Economic Order.  The emerging new order is characterized by regional multipolarity as well as respect for the principles of the equal sovereignty of nations and non-interference in the internal affairs of states.  Cuban foreign policy is oriented to cooperation with the nations of the South and East and toward the development of mutually beneficial trade among nations.  At the same time, Cuba is open to North-South cooperation, under conditions of equality and without impositions.

     Cuba has attained consensus with respect to these four basic concepts and principles of revolutionary socialist construction.  There is dissatisfaction among the people with respect to the material standard of living, a phenomenon that has been expressed to a greater or lesser degree since the collapse of the Soviet-led Eastern European socialist bloc and the onslaught of the “Special Period” in the early 1990s.  The current economic model has been developed during the last two decades in response to the dissatisfaction of the people.  Consensus with respect to the new economic model has been attained, codified in law and in the new Constitution of 2019. 

     Therefore, expressions of dissatisfaction in Cuba today do not challenge the four dimensions of Cuban political culture outlined above.  The most extreme expressions of dissatisfaction are, on the one hand, crime, delinquency, and anti-social behavior; and on the other hand, emigration, although leaving the country is sometimes seen as a temporary strategy to provide support to families from abroad in the context of current economic difficulties.

     There is not, therefore, an internal counterrevolutionary movement in Cuba.  The United States is using the methods of the unconventional war to try to foment political destabilization through the criminal and anti-social element, but its scope and influence are limited.  The individuals of the criminal and anti-social sector lack moral authority before the people, and they come up against the force of Cuban political culture among the people.

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Critical currents in the Cuban political culture

     Although there is not an internal counterrevolutionary movement, four critical currents within the Cuban (revolutionary socialist) political culture can be identified: gay and transgender rights; racial inequality; an ultra-leftist classic Marxist critique; and direct elections to the highest offices.

     (1) The call for attention to gay and transgender rights has been the most successful of the critical tendencies, attaining influence in the Party and in the National Assembly of People’s Power and achieving the constitutional and legal recognition of the rights of all, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. 

     In the United States, the movement for gay and transgender rights is rooted in the post-modern belief that individuals ought to have the freedom to construct and perform their definitions of themselves in relation to sexuality and gender, rather than conforming to biological assignment or social definitions.  This premise is in tension with the religious and philosophical teachings that form the cultural legacy of humanity, which stress the duty of individuals toward the family and society.  And the premise is inconsistent with the longstanding scientific view with respect to the binary nature of humans and other species. 

     The emphasis on individual freedom of construction and performance is also in tension with the Third World socialist revolutions that emerged in the twentieth century, which have claimed rights on the basis of universal moral principles rooted in the essential nature of the human being, such as the rights of persons to health, education, nutrition, housing, and transportation.  And they have proclaimed, as a foundation to the protection of these individual rights, the need and the rights of nations to sovereignty, economic development, and non-intervention in their internal affairs.  The primary focus in the Third World revolutions is on the fulfillment of moral duty in the collective quest for the attainment of personal and national rights, and not on individual self-expression and performance.  The natural rights that have been proclaimed by the Third World revolutions, it should be recognized, have been affirmed by the United Nations and its related organizations, and they are the foundation of the ongoing anti-imperialist revolutions and movements of the peoples and states of the global South and East. 

     With implicit recognition of the epistemological tension between gay/transgender rights and natural rights proclaimed by the Third World socialist revolutions, the Cuban movement in support of gay and transgender rights has unfolded with attention to the Cuban political culture and its expectations.  Gay/transgender activists have for the most part made clear their commitment to the Cuban Revolution and their patriotism, and their demands have been focused on aspects of the international gay/transgender movement that are most consistent with Cuban revolutionary consciousness, such as equal rights for all and the right to live free of violence and discrimination.  The movement calls for tolerance, without implying that ultimate human freedom requires rethinking and redefining sexuality and gender.  Moreover, it has not put forth proposals for pediatric “gender affirming care” or for the participation of transgender biological men in women’s sports. 

     As a result of this attention to the political environment in which it has been expressing itself, the movement for gay/transgender rights in Cuba has provoked far less division than what has occurred in the capitalist political economies of the North, although movement proposals did provoke some division during the extensive people’s participation in the formulation of the 2019 Constitution and in the debate with respect to a new family code.  However, with the support of the Party, the Constitutional protection of the rights of all, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, was attained; and gay marriage has been legalized.

     In the aftermath of the constitutional and legal gains of recent years, the movement for gay and transgender rights in Cuba stresses the importance of the full implementation of the new laws in all spheres of society, on the basis of the widespread internalization of relevant values in the society.  The movement today celebrates its constitutional and legal gains and calls for the deepening in the society of the values of equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, with freedom from violence and discrimination.  And it continues to affirm its revolutionary and patriotic consciousness and its commitment to the modern revolutionary principles of the rights of nations to sovereignty and to development as well as the rights of persons to health, education, housing, and nutrition. 

     (2) Some Cuban academics and social activists participate in a Latin American and Caribbean social movement of Afro-descendants, which culminated in the UN declaration of an International Decade for People of African Descent from 2015-2024.  The movements of Afro-Descendants identified such problems as the persistence of racist speech, racist images, and racial prejudices, facilitated by the social reproduction of racist perceptions; disproportionate levels of poverty; inequality in employment, income, and resources; and the unpreparedness of universities to address the particular needs of Afro-descendant students.  They maintain that there is a difference between equality and equity, that is, between formal equality before the law and an equal distribution with respect to employment, income, and resources.

     The Cuban participants in the movement maintain that the gains of the Cuban Revolution with respect to race have to be acknowledged.  They affirm that, because of these gains, the situation of Afro-Cubans is significantly better than that of Afro-descendants in other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and it is completely different from the situation of Afro-descendants in the United States.  However, the Cuban participants maintain, the Cuban story must not be romanticized.  The Cuban Revolution has not attained the full liberation of blacks, in that equity in employment, income, and resources has not been attained; and in addition, a certain level of racial prejudice persists in Cuba.

     The Cuban participants in the Latin American and Caribbean movement of Afro-descendants have described various difficulties that they confront in increasing their visibility and influence in Cuba.  First, the movement in Cuba consists of a few academics and social activists, and it has not attained an institutionalized presence in public discourse.  It does not have a high level of recognition in Cuban society, from the Party and the government, or among the people, including Cuban Afro-descendants.  Secondly, the movement has not been able to establish clearly that it has a revolutionary discourse that seeks to improve the revolution, and not a counterrevolutionary discourse that seeks to undermine the revolution.  This is in part a consequence of the fact that counterrevolutionary strategies that have emerged from the United States have included claims that there are in Cuba systemic forms of racial discrimination and racial inequality.  Thirdly, in Cuba, there has been considerable race mixing, such that the issue of racial identity is complex.  Fourthly, there is a major ideological obstacle, in that the longstanding revolutionary orientation, beginning with Martí and reinforced by Fidel, has been to address in a race-neutral manner the interests of peasants, workers, women, students, professionals, businesspersons, and neighborhoods, with consciousness that Afro-Cubans would have equal opportunity as constituent members of these sectors.  Fifthly, the movement is in tension with increasing scientific evidence that skin color is a superficial human characteristic, with the classification of race imposed on a gradual variation.  And it is inconsistent with objective social scientific analysis, which shows that observable correlations between race and socioeconomic factors are explained by historical, social, and cultural factors, and not by race per se.

     In Cuba, systemic equality of educational and employment opportunity has been attained, as a result of its historic revolutionary strategy of overcoming racial discrimination through free, universal, and integrated education.  The Cuban situation of structural equality of opportunity is very different from the situations found in the other countries of the Americas, and especially the United States, in which there is unequal funding of public schools as well as an invidious distinction between private and public education.  The Cuban situation of systemic equality of opportunity has created a situation in which racial inequality in social status and income is often perceived as occurring as a result of class differences that are rooted in historic pre-revolutionary racial discrimination and exclusion, and not as a consequence of racial inequality of opportunity in the revolutionary context. 

     Cubans today are far more concerned with inequality in general, and especially with the fact that some persons have difficulty purchasing necessities with respect to nutrition and housing.  The present prevailing political will in Cuba, among the people and in the Party and the government, is to provide greater support for people in need, be they black, white, or mixed race. 

     Reflecting these difficulties, the Cuban movement in defense of Afro-descendants has not been able to formulate specific proposals and demands to the Party, the government, or the organizations of civil society.  The movement had limited visibility in the great people’s constitutional and legal debates of the years 2018 to 2023, unlike the movement for gay and transgender rights.  In fact, there has been pushback, with some institutions declaring that, although Cuba has residual forms of racism, Cuba has not had “systemic racism” since 1959, inasmuch as Cuban legal, political, economic, educational, social, and cultural institutions have operated explicitly on the principle of equality of opportunity without considerations of race. 

     Personal identification with a particular racial or ethnic group can be the basis of personal meaning, and therefore it is a good thing.  This applies to all races and ethnic groups, including for example, Irish Americans.  But such meaningful personal identification is not appropriate for public discourse, where attention must be paid to the common interests of the people of the nation, as workers, peasants, women, professionals, and businesspersons.

     (3) There are some Cuban academics and intellectuals who indulge in an idealist overapplication of classical Marxist concepts, not sufficiently taking into account Cuban reality.  In the context of the economic crisis of 2019 to the present, provoked by the launching of unconventional war and the intensification of the U.S. blockade, Cuba cannot avoid the emergence of “wise men” who put forth solutions that presumably are recommendations concerning what economic policies the government ought to adopt, which often are disconnected from actual conditions, and thus they function as individual expressions of self-importance. 

     An example of this appeared in the second part of “Vagabonds in their own land: A look at the phenomenon of ambulant persons in Cuba,” published in Cubadebate on April 26.  In responding to questions from the Cubadebate team of journalists, the sociologist Luis Emilio Aybar Toledo, Director of the Juan Marinello Cuban Institute of Cultural Investigation, stressed the socio-economic factors that give rise to an increase in ambulatory behavior, without denying that individual pathology and family dysfunctionality play a role.  He cited, for example, inefficient practices that have led to disruptions and delays in the delivery of the food basket.

     Aybar Toledo maintains that improvement depends on recuperating control of the economy, with recognition that increasing the role of the market and the formulas of privatization has had a social cost.  Especially important is recognition of the importance of the timing of such policies; “we are suffering the social cost of those policies that were being adopted in moments that were not suitable.” 

     We must rethink the scheme, Aybar Toledo maintains.  Although the market has an inevitable role to play, we must recognize that the context in which we now live is not an appropriate time for exploring multiple forms of property, because such measures have a marked tendency to increase inequality and the concentration of wealth, thus leaving other groups more vulnerable.  We must rethink the issue and persist in the approach of “the socialization of property, the socialization of power, and the socialization of wealth, that have always been the principles of the Marxist socialist paradigm, in which we ought to persist and deepen.”

     My good friend and colleague, University of Havana Professor Juan Azahares, calls this type of reasoning “speaking nonsense from theory.”  The increased role of the market and private enterprises in the new social and economic model of the government has involved primarily the expansion of small and medium private enterprises as well as foreign investment in joint ventures with the state.  The measures are designed, in the short term, to increase importation of needed consumer goods and to increase national production of necessary goods.  Thus, the measures should lead to the increase of the supply of goods, so that they do not in themselves provoke inflation.  They therefore do not adversely affect the low-income sector, even though they increase inequality by elevating the income of those sectors directly tied to retail importation and national production.  Moreover, in all cases, new measures are accompanied by measures of attention to those most in need.  Indeed, the article on vagabonds in Cuba makes evident the impressive effort being made by the government to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable during the past decade, as reported by those working in this field of social service.

     In addition, it should be noted that the government has acknowledged that an error was made with respect to a policy that permitted the free setting of currency exchange prices by vendors, believing that this would enable Cuban retailers to import more goods, but it actually had the effect of permitting retailers to engage in inflationary price speculation.  Although this erroneous policy did indeed involve reduced state regulation of the market, it was a temporary measure that was abandoned when its consequences were observed, and in any event, it did not involve less social ownership.  The new social and economic model approved by the National Assembly in 2012, reinforced by the Cuban Constitution of 2019, permits space for the market and private enterprise, but under continuous observation and regulation by the state, which intervenes in the economy when necessary. 

     (4) There have been calls by a few for the use of direct elections to the highest levels of government.  This is a proposal that is based on the erroneous, infantile belief that direct elections are more democratic, leaving aside the fact that direct elections to high office invariably lead—at least up to now in representative democracies—to giving money a central role in electoral processes.   This is a proposal that has very little traction in Cuba, because the people are well satisfied with the systems of direct and indirect elections that are the foundation of the assemblies of people’s power and the mass organizations.  The people recognize and appreciate the political stability that Cuba enjoys through its structures and processes of people’s democracy.  There is scant belief that those in high political office are not chosen by the people themselves.  The dissatisfaction of the people overwhelmingly pertains to the issue of the productivity of the economy and the material standard of living. 

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Further considerations

     What can we expect with respect to the further evolution of the Cuban political culture?  I suspect that the gains of the movement for gay and transgender rights will be consolidated as Cuban revolutionary values, without advancing to the more extreme manifestations found in the United States, because of the epistemological tension with Cuban revolutionary culture. 

     And I expect that questions of critical reform with respect to race, ultraleftism, and direct elections of high officials will not advance.  They have limited ideological capacity in the context of the force among the people of the Cuban revolutionary socialist culture.

     Much depends on how the economy develops, because the issue of material hardships has been the weak point of the Cuban Revolution.  Here one cannot avoid observing that the Cuban Revolutionary Government and the Communist Party of Cuba have repeatedly demonstrated a capacity to respond intelligently to economic problems provoked primarily by external events.  The vanguard political party is leading the people toward the only possible road, which suggests that the government will attain its long-term objectives and aspirations.

     The decadence of the United States and its incapacity to understand and attend to national and international problems stands in contrast to the Cuban revolutionary leadership.  In addition to being a destructive force in the world, with its imposition of self-interested economic policies and its endless wars, the United States likely will continue with its perverse and hypocritical attempt to destroy the Cuban Revolution.

     With a politically intelligent leadership, and with a reason based political culture having force among the people, it is reasonable to expect that Cuba will persist and prevail, arriving to the construction of a prosperous socialism, depending of course, on what happens in the world as a whole.

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