Thanks for this resumé, Charles! I will be sharing it widely, as I was similarly stumped when I first started learning about the way the elections and political system in Cuba functions. I recall asking a Communist Part rep in a hospital that we visited with the Che Guevera Brigade in eastern Cuba what it was exactly that she did and what the role of the CPC was. She and the nurses and doctors standing with us kind of stared at me blankly, clearly not understanding my question, or perhaps not understanding what the root of my confusion was. The root is of course, that we in the West can't conceive of any other form of "democracy" other than one in which there are parties at daggers drawn with each other. A non-adversarial model is beyond imagination of a consciousness, left or right, which was hatched in the petri dish of capitalist society, or perhaps more generically in class society. Furthermore, I think it is a misnomer for the Cubans to call the organization which is the Communist Party of Cuba a "party". That term comes out of Western "democratic" tradition, where a "party" is indeed only a "part" which implicitly means there are other "parts" out there vying for their interests. This is a term born out of an adversarial system, a system of clashing class interests. As you describe in this piece:
"in eliminating a situation of competing political parties that must win elections to survive, people’s democracy removes the conflictive tendency of representative democracies, and empowers elected officials to concentrate on the seeking of consensus for the common good. "
I think there should be some other term to name the organization which is the Cuban Communist Party because this institution does not function like political parties in Western "democracies" .
Thanks for this resumé, Charles! I will be sharing it widely, as I was similarly stumped when I first started learning about the way the elections and political system in Cuba functions. I recall asking a Communist Part rep in a hospital that we visited with the Che Guevera Brigade in eastern Cuba what it was exactly that she did and what the role of the CPC was. She and the nurses and doctors standing with us kind of stared at me blankly, clearly not understanding my question, or perhaps not understanding what the root of my confusion was. The root is of course, that we in the West can't conceive of any other form of "democracy" other than one in which there are parties at daggers drawn with each other. A non-adversarial model is beyond imagination of a consciousness, left or right, which was hatched in the petri dish of capitalist society, or perhaps more generically in class society. Furthermore, I think it is a misnomer for the Cubans to call the organization which is the Communist Party of Cuba a "party". That term comes out of Western "democratic" tradition, where a "party" is indeed only a "part" which implicitly means there are other "parts" out there vying for their interests. This is a term born out of an adversarial system, a system of clashing class interests. As you describe in this piece:
"in eliminating a situation of competing political parties that must win elections to survive, people’s democracy removes the conflictive tendency of representative democracies, and empowers elected officials to concentrate on the seeking of consensus for the common good. "
I think there should be some other term to name the organization which is the Cuban Communist Party because this institution does not function like political parties in Western "democracies" .