Political Science from the South
Cuban scholars forge unified social thought tied to political practice
On November 15-17, 2023, the Cuban Society for Philosophical Investigations held its annual conference on “Political Science from the South.” The Conference included two simultaneous Commissions. One on Political Science from the South, consisting of seven panels during the three days. And the other on “Philosophy for Emancipation,” consisting of five panels. The participants in the conference included nine delegates from Mexico, three from Puerto Rico, two from Chile, and one each from Syria, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Ecuador, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Cuban Society of Philosophical Investigations was founded in 1983 by Dr. Thalía Fung and Cuban scholars associated with her writings. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Dr. Thalía and others considered that it may have been caused in part by inattention to Lenin’s teaching on the need to study political science. Undertaking study of Western political science, the Cuban scholars learned that it was ethnocentric and essentially useless for the task of constructing a political culture that would provide a foundation for the development of a politically stable society. They thus decided to convoke scholars of all disciplines and all lands to construct a “political science from the South.”
The work of Thalía Fung has importance for a world in multidimensional crisis. She formulated the fundamental principles and concepts of an integrated political science by and for the South, encompassing what the Western academic world delimits as philosophy, history, political science, economics, sociology, and anthropology. It is based in Marxism-Leninism, but at the same time it is based in the struggles and experiences of the peoples and nations of the Third World. Moreover, it seeks the integration of theory and practice. If and when a more just, democratic, pluripolar world emerges, the political science from the South could serve as the foundation for a universal and integral political science.
The conference began with an inaugural meeting of the delegates that were presenting papers in the two commissions, initiated with a video of a fragment of a speech by Fidel and the playing of the Cuban national anthem. The first item on the agenda was the presentation of a declaration of solidarity with the people of Palestine. It made an urgent call to action toward a peaceful resolution, noting that Cuba always supports dialogue and negotiation and not war. It made reference to Fidel’s words on Palestine in his historic address to the United Nations as president of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979. (See “Fidel on Palestine at UN in 1979: Cuba, G77, and UN support Palestine and two-state solution,” October 31, 2023). The declaration of solidarity noted that the context of the Israeli war against Gaza is Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation of its territories. It lamented that the United Nations is ineffective in stopping the genocidal attack on Palestine. And it affirmed that the Palestinian people have the right of self-determination.
Alicia Morffi García, President of the Society and Professor at the University of Havana, expressed her deep appreciation for the legacy of the work of Dr. Thalía Fung, who was unable to attend the conference for health reasons. Morffi noted that the Society seeks to forge a unified social thought that contributes to the construction of a humanist, inclusive, prosperous, and sustainable socialism. She acknowledged and gave welcome to international participants from eight countries of the Global South.
Dr. Daniel Rufuls Pineda, Professor at the University of Havana, presented a paper entitled “The ‘freedom’ of liberalism: The great scam!” He noted that the Western powers and especially the United States are continually accusing Cuba of violating the liberal principles of freedom of the press and expression. They make this accusation, he noted, without any analysis of the origin of the Western concept of individual liberty and its association with the right of property. They criticize the absence of multiple parties in Cuba, without understanding the role of the Communist Party of Cuba in promoting the real participation of the people. In the USA, he observed, political parties today do not carry out their essential function of mobilizing the participation of the people on the basis of their differing interests; and at the same time, social inequality has a profound influence on who is able to mobilize a manipulated participation of the people.
Dr. Jorge Hernández, Professor at the Center for the Study of the United States and the Hemisphere of the University of Havana, observed that a number of years ago a Time magazine cover story was devoted to Marx, and it included quotations from the outstanding Cuban intellectuals Izabel Monal and Thalía Fung. It is an indication, he said, that Marx is seeded in bourgeois thought.
In a paper entitled “The United States and imperialist domination from the Marxist-Leninist point of view,” Hernández noted that liberals and conservatives in the USA, although they have divisive conflicts with respect to some questions, are on common ground with respect to imperialism, which is a system of economic, ideological, and cultural domination that promotes the interests of the North American power elite. Imperialism is continually evolving, Hernández maintains, such that at an earlier stage imperialism was oriented to the exportation of capital, whereas today it imports capital. The constant is the pursuit of its interests, manipulating rules and democratic values that they themselves have formulated. Imperialism uses war in its various forms to attain its market objectives, which is why the Cold War is never-ending.
Parenthetically, I would submit that the current importation of capital is an indication of the decadence of the U.S. economy, the productive capacity of which has declined relative to that of the emerging economies, making necessary the use of international financial institutions and mechanisms to transfer capital from the peripheral and semi-peripheral zones to the center. The relative economic decline of the USA also provokes a greater dependency on war to attain its objectives, thereby exposing its “defense of democracy” as a charade.
Indira López Arguelles is a member of the diplomatic corps of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations. A former Cuban ambassador to India, she currently is assigned to the ministry’s section on Asia and Oceania. She presented a paper on the utilization by the Western powers of international associations to maintain control of the colonized peoples. Following the First World War, the League of Nations attended to the colonial question in the creation of its structures, but the League collapsed in the face of contradictions among the imperialist powers. Following the Second World War, the objective of the international associations created by the Western powers was to break the advance of socialism and the Third World, with the intention of continued domination of the world system.
López observes that when China emerged as a power, the U.S. plan was to invest in China, in order to reduce the influence of the Communist Party of China over the process of economic growth. But the plan failed, and China emerged to take a different approach. China has expanded the concept of sovereignty to include the questions of economic development and security.
Vincent Mutomb Tshibal is the Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Cuba. He presented a paper on the efforts in the Congo to develop alternative structures of political participation to attain social stability. Political parties, he noted, are dysfunctional. Most political parties are opportunist, and they place in the public domain actors whose purpose is to destabilize. In presenting his thesis, the ambassador reviewed the political dynamics of the Congo from the times of Lumumba, the subsequent period of Mobuto from 1965 to 1997, and up to the current times.
In response to a question and commentary concerning the assassination of Lumumba, the ambassador noted that the forces in support of Lumumba did not have the possibility to unify the people and define goals well. We did not have time, he stated, to create an independent political culture, and we were not able to develop a vanguard political party. These dimensions, of course, are necessary for the maintenance of a triumphant revolution in power.
Ali Abass, a political science master’s degree student at the University of Havana from Syria, was invited by the conference organizers to say a few words with respect to the war in Palestine. He emphasized that the United States supports Israeli policy toward Palestine. He made reference to Article 51 of the UN Charter, which declares that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” Inasmuch as the United Nations has not taken effective steps to stop the Israeli occupation and settlement of Palestinian territory as well as periodic attacks on the people of Gaza, Palestine has the right to adopt measures of armed self-defense.
Antonio Ramón Barreiro Vázquez is a retired colonel, now professor and researcher at the Institute of Philosophy in Havana. He has published articles on non-conventional war in Verde Olivo, a review published by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, and this was the subject of his presentation. He noted that the characteristics of the non-conventional war have been formulated by the U.S. Department of Defense, and that the non-conventional war has been implemented by the USA since 2015. It is a war that uses a variety of economic and ideological strategies, and it is a war that can be won without firing a shot and without using armed forces.
Barreiro stated that the dissemination by the U.S. political establishment and mainstream press of an image of an attack by Hamas on Israel, isolated from the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and previous Israeli attacks on Gaza, is an illustration of unconventional war.
As I have noted in previous commentaries, the unconventional war includes ideological campaigns, economic war, financing and strategic support for opposition candidates, false claims of electoral fraud, and financing violent gangs to create an image of popular discontent.
Carlos Cabrera Rodríguez, Professor at the University of Havana, presented a paper on “The struggle of ideas and ideological work.” He noted that the principal task of revolutionary, socialist ideology is to give continuity to the historic process of struggle. He reported that the Communist Party at the present time is seeking to improve its ideological work. In this task, it is working in different areas, including (1) study of the classic definitions of ideological work by Marx and Engels; (2) reflection on the production and communication of ideas; and (3) analysis of capitalist ideological production, including the recent influence of post-modern ideas.
A number of papers dealt with various aspects of the Cuban political process, including the role of the elected delegates of people’s power. They included: “The role of the voting district delegates as political actor in citizen political participation in the province of Artemisa,” by Gloria Márquez Fernández, Professor at the University of Artemisa; “Municipal People’s Power: The municipal delegate,” by Regla Mercédez Cárdenas Cintado, Professor at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana; “Premises for the study of the social function of community organizations in Cuba,” by Juan Luis Castro Pérez, Professor at the University of Medical Sciences of the Province of Holguin; “Political communication in community self-management from the perspective of the South,” by Yamilet Suárez Alonso, Professor of the School of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC for its initials in Spanish) of the Province of Holguin. Dr. Clovis Otega Castañeda, Professor of the School of the PCC in the Province of Matanzas, who served as a delegate for twenty years, also made important contributions to the conversation.
The presentations expressed the centrality of the municipal delegate in the Cuban political process. The delegates are elected in 12,427 voting districts to 169 municipalities across the nation. They elect the 470 deputies of the National Assembly, which is the highest authority in the nation, having the authority to enact legislation and to elect the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and the other ministers of the government. In addition, they also elect the administrative authorities of the municipalities. They are, in essence, elected delegates who also elect.
The new Constitution of 2019 gave greater autonomy for municipalities to address their social problems, within the context of laws and policies adopted at the national level. The delegates have the responsibility to understand the practical difficulties that the people in their voting district confront, and to intervene on behalf of the people in the ministries of the municipal government. In this role, however, the delegate does not have the authority to decide. Rather, the delegate consults with the municipal authorities in the various ministries, who have been vested with authority to decide, with accountability to the municipal assembly. The delegates of the 12,427 voting districts, therefore, are in a challenging and important position.
The Cuban political process is an integral process with various dimensions, not well understood outside of Cuba. These dimensions include: direct nomination and direct elections of municipal delegates; the formation of assemblies of people’s power through second level nominations and direct elections; third level elections by the National Assembly of People’s Power of the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and other ministers of the State; appointment by the elected members of the State of directors of organs of the press and media; formation of a vanguard political party, which is constitutionally authorized to guide but not to decide; and development of mass organizations of neighborhoods, workers, farmers, women, and students, which have a constitutionally defined role in electoral and legislative processes.
Two papers focused on the exceptional leadership and thought of Fidel Castro: “The contributions of Fidel Castro to the political science of the Third World,” by Romelia Pino Freyre, Professor and Researcher of the Institute of Philosophy in Havana, and former Director of the Institute; and “The communicative practice of Fidel Castro toward the masses,” by Madelin Marrero Rodríguez, Professor of the School of the PCC of the Province of Holguin.
Pino noted that Fidel identified with the underdeveloped countries of Latin America and the Third World. In Fidel’s interpretation, colonialism is the principal cause of underdevelopment, such that liberation requires a unified struggle among colonized peoples for sovereignty against a world organized for the benefit of transnational corporations. With these formulations from the perspective of the Third World, Fidel was giving expression to the fundamental principles of a scientific analysis beyond the terrain of the assumptions of the modern West. In addition, Fidel taught that priority must be given to the education of the masses, in order that they would have access to new forms of production.
Marrero spoke of the extraordinary capacity of Fidel for practical communication with the masses, characterized by direct communication between the leader and the mass. This was especially important during the sixteen years following the triumph of the revolution, when a socialist revolutionary political culture was still in formation, when structures of people’s assemblies and people’s power had not yet been developed, and when a vanguard political party was still under construction. During this initial period, Fidel was expressing a practical synthesis of Martí and Marxism-Leninism, connected to the ideas, sentiments, and concrete needs of the Cuban people.
In the interchange following the panel, Marrero concurred with the view expressed by some of the need for expansion of the study of Fidel’s teachings and political practice in three directions. (1) A systematic analysis and organization of the pedagogical approaches and strategies used by Fidel during the fulfillment of his mission as leader of the revolution and the revolutionary vanguard party. (2) The development of an explanation of the place of Fidel’s teachings as one dimension among others in Cuba’s integral process of people’s democracy, which includes the structures of people’s power and people’s assemblies; a vanguard political party; and mass organizations of neighborhoods, workers, farmers, women, and students. (3) An analysis of the phenomenon of Fidel in Cuba as an illustration of the general phenomenon of the emergence of exceptional leaders in modern anti-colonial revolutions. Examples include Toussaint, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Xi Jinping.
Each year, the Cuban Society for Philosophical Investigations holds an event in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana in celebration of International Philosophy Day. This year, the event was dedicated to honoring the contributions of the Founder and Honorary President of the Society, Dr. Thalía Fung. Camilo Rodríguez Noriega, Professor of the School of the PCC in Havana, presented a panorama of Dr. Fung’s career. Antonio Ramón Barreiro Vázquez, retired colonel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, spoke of Dr. Thalía’s long history of involvement in the education of the officers of the Cuban armed forces. And Alicia Morffi García, President of the Society, presented “Memories of Thalía,” speaking of their relation of twenty-five years. A certificate of appreciation to the Honorary President was received by her granddaughter, Karen Rodríguez Fung.
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