Cuba and socialist bloc II
Seeking a more just, democratic, sustainable, and prosperous world
During the last seven decades, the Third World nations plus China have been developing structures of cooperation that are alternatives to the structures of the Western-centered capitalist world-economy. I am calling the phenomenon “socialist bloc II,” based on my interpretation of it as a more advanced manifestation of the Soviet Union-centered socialist bloc of 1945 to 1990.
Both socialist blocs have been shaped by the leading roles played by one or two nations that declared for the construction of socialism in their particular nation. However, in the case of socialist bloc II, most nations have not declared for socialism; rather, most nations are allied with the vanguard socialist nations in the creation of structural alternatives to the capitalist world-economy, alternatives that would permit nations to freely decide for socialism.
Both socialist blocs have been presented by Western elites as authoritarian threats to Western democracy, distorting their actual characteristics for political purposes. Both socialist blocs have been viewed by Western academics and policymakers with an ethnocentric lens, thereby missing their essential characteristics.
Socialist bloc II is more advanced than socialist bloc I. Socialist bloc II emerged as a natural response to the colonialist essence of modern capitalism, and it thereby includes, at least potentially, the great majority of humanity. Socialist bloc II embraces and celebrates diversity in its midst, even as it accurately affirms and clarifies the common interests of all. And with political intelligence, socialist bloc II calls on all nations, including the great but declining capitalist and neocolonial powers, to join in its humanist and emancipatory project.
The historical evolution of Cuba and socialist bloc II, 1955 to the present
Socialist bloc II emerged in a preliminary from the 1950s through the early 1980s, during which time it had a cooperative relation with socialist bloc I. The high moments of this preliminary stage of socialist bloc II include the 1955 Bandung meeting and the subsequent spreading of the “spirit of Bandung” throughout Asia and Africa; the creation and continuous development of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM); the celebration of “African Socialism” and “Arab Socialism;” the adoption by the UN General Assembly of NAM’s proposal for a New International Economic Order in 1974; and the delivery of a remarkable speech at the 1983 New Delhi Summit by outgoing NAM President Fidel Castro, subsequently published as the “Social and Economic Crisis of the World,” at once a scientific analysis, a moral condemnation of the world powers, and a call to the neocolonized peoples for united action.
Significant parallel developments occurred in Cuba, in the form of a triumphant people’s revolution led by Fidel and aimed at transforming the structures of U.S.-directed neocolonialism. The Cuban Revolution’s Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 struck at the heart of the neocolonial relation and resulted in a definitive political rupture with the USA. The U.S. government imposed an economic embargo, with measures that were crude compared to today’s economic sanctions. Needing to avoid international isolation, Cuba integrated into socialist bloc I, with which it was ideologically akin. The 1970s and the early 1980s were practically a paradise in Cuba, standing in contrast to the conditions of the neocolonial republic of 1902 to 1959.
The fifteen-year period of 1983 to 1998, between Fidel’s New Delhi speech and the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela, were years of demoralization and confusion among the forces for progressive social change in the world. The Soviet Union and socialist bloc I disintegrated. The Non-Aligned Movement was highjacked by accommodationists to Western interests. Cuba, having lost its trading partners, fell into extreme economic difficulties, announcing that it was entering a “special period.” The U.S. power elite, hoping for regime change in Cuba, intensified the economic embargo, imposing measures that restricted enterprises in third countries, prompting Cuba to declare that it was not an embargo but a blockade. And the U.S. power elite imposed the neoliberal project on the world.
Cuban socialist ideology always had been driven by a strong dose of practicality, so it was able to make structural adjustments in the context of the extreme economic hardships of the early 1990s. It expanded space for private capitalist enterprises, both domestic and foreign; and it reoriented its economy to tourism and the development of its pharmaceutical industry. The measures were effective; there was a slow but steady improvement in the standard of living in the late 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century.
The remarkably high level of popular support for the Cuban Revolutionary Government in the midst of the hardships of the early 1990s was a consequence of the fact that the revolutionary leadership had delivered on its promises to the people and had earned their trust. However, many of the people did not grasp at the time how deep and how long the hardships would be. As a result, even though the great majority of the people continued to support and participate in revolutionary processes and structures, there occurred gradual erosion in support and increasing dissatisfaction with the material standing of living. Even though the economy was slowly but surely recovering, the expectations of the people were rising at a faster rate, due in part to the impact on popular consciousness of increasing numbers of international tourists and the gradual normalization of emigration.
The Communist Party of Cuba, therefore, responded with the development of a new social and economic model in 2012, with strengthened and expanded the reforms of the early 1990s, especially giving more space to small and medium private enterprises. The new measures were formulated with the extensive participation of the people, and in their final formulation, they were well received by the people. They dovetailed with the short-lived Obama opening, which took the first steps toward relaxing the restrictions of the blockade.
The United States launched unconventional war against Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua in 2015. At that time, Cuba was not targeted, because it had been decided to normalize relations with Cuba and to seek imperialist objectives through support of Cuban small entrepreneurs, who were seen as a potential social base of internal opposition. But this approach to Cuba was aborted. The limited reforms of the Obama opening were rolled back during the Trump and Biden administrations, and Cuba was incorporated as one of the targeted countries in the unconventional war against Latin America.
The Cuban front of the U.S. unconventional war against Latin America has had three dimensions. (1) The intensification of the blockade, such that Cuban financial and commercial transactions with banks and companies in third countries are blocked. The arbitrary and completely unfounded placing of Cuba on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism has been an instrument for the implementation of new measures. The intensification of the blockade has disrupted Cuban supply chains, reducing the importation of petroleum, food items, raw materials, parts, and equipment, causing shortages in transportation and food as well as periodic electricity outages, although nothing like what occurred during the special period. (2) The closing of U.S. embassy services for the emission of visas to Cubans for travel or migration to the USA. This made necessary travel to U.S. embassies in third countries or irregular migration through traffickers in persons. An absurd claim of Cuban sonic attacks against U.S. embassy staff, recently rescinded, was put forth as a pretext for greatly reducing U.S. embassy staff in Havana. (3) With the expectation that these first two measures would increase dissatisfaction among the people, an effort was made to stimulate rebellion in the streets with sophisticated social media techniques. These efforts fizzled. Some people took to the streets to vandalize property, but it occurred only on a couple of days, and it was quickly contained by the revolutionary people and the police.
The unconventional war against Cuba has increased hardships on the people, and thus it has generated increased dissatisfaction with the material standard of living. This has led to a substantial increase in emigration, although in some cases with the intention of returning to Cuba when conditions are better. But the unconventional war has not generated an opposition force or a sustained protest, as had been hoped. Life is difficult in Cuba, but Cuba continues its socialist road, constructing socialism on a foundation of popular legitimacy and high levels of participation and support.
Parallel with Cuban persistence in its socialist road, socialist bloc II has experienced renewal in the last twenty-five years. The phenomenon was rooted in widespread rejection of the neoliberal project imposed by imperialism, and it was signaled by the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 1998. The election of Chávez was followed by the election of progressive leaders and political parties in several Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Honduras.
The new Latin American political reality made possible the creation of various regional associations dedicated to the creation of a Latin American integration that functioned as an alternative to U.S.-imposed integration. The process began with creation in 2004 of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of our America) by Chávez and Fidel and culminated with the creation in 2010 of CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), with the 2014 CELAC Summit in Havana constituting a high point in the definition of principles, concepts, and goals. CELAC consists of all thirty-three governments of Latin America and the Caribbean; it does not include the USA and Canada.
Meanwhile, China, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, has played a leadership role in promoting mutually beneficial trade among nations and forging a pluripolar world through regional integrations. China has established cooperative relations with regional integration processes in Latin America and the Arab world, and it has played a leading role in East Asian and Southeast Asian integration. It has put forth world-wide initiatives that have been well received by the governments of the world, including the Belt and Road, Global Development, and Global Security initiatives.
At the same time, Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin has taken political power from the hands of the Russian mafia; and it has restored dignity to Russian foreign policy, developing mutually beneficial relations with a number of governments of the Third World. The ties of Russia to the Third World and China have accelerated and deepened during the past year, an unintended consequence of U.S./NATO expansionism to Russia’s frontier, causing the Russian military operation in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions against Russia.
Thus, we can see that there has emerged an alternative to the structures of the Western-centered capitalist world economy. It as an alternative in which China and Russia have important economic roles to play, and in which China and Cuba are exercising political leadership. It is an alternative that includes China, Russia, Latin America and the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia, the Arab world, and Africa. It functions like the socialist bloc of the period 1945 to 1990, but it is a more advanced expression, in that it is characterized by diversity with respect to ideology and political-economic systems. Its leading nations share a common commitment to the sovereign equality of nations, the right of nations to control their natural resources and to control over their national economies. In a politically intelligent form, socialist bloc II seeks the gradual construction of an alternative, more just world order.
At the present time, socialist bloc II is coming to the practical support of Cuba, which was not prepared for the intensification of the blockade in conjunction with the effect of the pandemic on its economy. Cuba is currently making adjustments, seeking new suppliers and arrangements for financial transactions to replace those that are being blocked by the new U.S. measures. Cuban President Díaz-Canel recently undertook a trip to Algeria, Turkey, Russia, and China, consolidating arrangements in this regard. I expect that it will take Cuba two years or so to recover from the recent impact of the intensification of the blockade, doing so through the establishment of alternative financial and commercial arrangements. Following the recovery, there should be gradual but steady improvement in the Cuban standard of living for the next ten or fifteen years, as socialist bloc II steadily expands its alternative structures.
As Cuba finds alternative commercial and financial structures, designation of Cuba as a terrorist country and the recent measures imposed on companies and banks in third countries will likely be rescinded by the USA, for its absurdity in the case of the former and their violation of the sovereignty of third countries in the case of the latter. As these measures lose practical effectiveness with respect to Cuba, there will be political incentives to remove them. When this occurs, the U.S. government will likely announce their termination without apology or explanation, as was done with respect to absurd claims about sonic attacks at the U.S. embassy in Havana.
However, restrictions on direct trade with Cuba by U.S. companies and travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens will likely remain in force as permanent measures. The United States does not have a sufficiently mature people’s movement to bring about an end to this policy. However, in spite of the permanence of certain economic sanctions, Cuba will increasingly develop on the basis of mutually beneficial trade relations with many nations of the world who pertain to socialist bloc II, gradually improving its standard of living, and possibly facilitating the return of emigrants to Cuba and a net positive migratory flow.
The principles and concepts of socialist bloc II
China and Cuba have played a leading role in formulating the concepts and principals that ought to guide humanity. They have repeatedly declared, in a variety of international contexts, that every nation has the right to freely decide on the characteristics of its political-economic system, and that no nation should interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. China and Cuba support constitutional democratic processes, be they in accordance with the concepts of people’s democracy or the concepts of representative democracy. They believe that states have the right to intervene in their national economies to promote economic development, including the nationalization of foreign and domestic economic enterprises. They believe that states have the duty to provide for the socioeconomic rights of the people to education, health care, housing, and nutrition, in accordance with sound planning policies. They believe that all states ought to cooperate with one another in the development of mutually beneficial trade. They believe that fidelity to these principles is the necessary foundation to a peaceful and prosperous world.
In addition, China and Cuba view modern epistemological assumptions as necessary; they reject post-modern epistemological tendencies. They believe that there is a difference between true and false and between right and wrong, and they demand that all leaders in the world speak truthfully and not distort news and information for political purposes. They reject cynicism in all its manifestations. They believe that no one has the right to lose faith in the future of humanity.
Socialist bloc II is being constructed by and for the peoples of the Third World plus China, who are an inseparable part of humanity, constituting a strong majority of the world’s peoples. Socialist bloc II is a construction that is an alternative to the capitalist world-economy; and it is fully in accord with the principles formulated by the prophets of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The peoples of the West are by natural endowment fully capable of discerning the construction of socialist bloc II and of cooperating with it. They have distorted understandings of socialist bloc II, because they have been manipulated by elites, which is made possible by elite control of educational structures and the means of communication. Although misled and confused, the peoples of the West are not by nature racist, colonialist, or imperialist.
The construction of socialist bloc II is being led by vanguard nations that have declared that they are constructing socialism in their own nations, in accordance with particular conditions. Most nations in socialist bloc II have not declared for the construction of socialism, but the continuing advance of socialist bloc II will create world conditions favorable to the declaration for socialism in many nations, if the people are able to mobilize the political will. To the extent that socialist bloc II advances, the number of nations in the world declaring for socialism will increase.
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