Teo Ballvé’s essay “Is Venezuela the New Cuba?” [July/August] is one more musing from the “left” that seeks to denigrate and diminish the crucial role the Cuban Revolution has played and continues to play in the world, in general, and Latin America, in particular.
Ballvé writes of Chávez’s call to construct “a socialism for the twenty-first century,” asserting that this “socialism” is “presumably opposed to Cuba’s.” Ballvé also relegates the Cuban Revolution to irrelevancy by characterizing it as a relic of the Cold War. He contrasts Venezuela, the new wave of regional social movements and rich debates that have erupted in their wake with “the stagnation of the Cuban predicament.” This establishes a false dichotomy between Venezuela and the new upsurge of Latin American struggles, on the one hand, and Cuba, on the other.
It was Cuba—and Cuba alone—that launched a series of initiatives in the mid-1990s challenging the present world economic and political order. The Cuban government, various mass organizations and professional associations have convened numerous international symposia to discuss, debate and oppose the consequences of neoliberal globalization. This is a continuation of the Cuban struggle for a New International Economic Order that was carried out in the 1970s and 1980s.
The launching of these initiatives preceded Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Indeed, it was Cuba that first recognized the significance of Venezuelan developments. This is reflected in Cuba’s commitment to the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), which is a direct challenge to U.S. regional hegemony.
The Venezuelan Revolution, while driven by its own internal dynamics, has been and continues to be greatly assisted by Cuba. The more than 25,000 Cuban volunteers working in Venezuela have made not only a crucial contribution to Venezuelan social and human development, but critically augmented the revolutionary consciousness and culture that have been the essential basis for the political advances that are being made in the South American nation.
Chávez has never described the Bolivarian Revolution and the “socialism of the twenty-first century” as a project that is conceived as a counter-project or alternative to Cuban socialism. What he asserts is that Venezuelans are creating a new society on their own terms; a revolution that, while drawing on the accumulated historical experience and thinking of others, is firmly based on its own authentic thought material. However, Chávez also envisions a Latin American-wide project: a project in which the Cuban Revolution is not an anachronism but a vital element. Indeed, he has emphatically declared: “The Cuban and Venezuelan peoples and revolutions are one and the same.”
Cubans have never held up their Revolution and their socialist project as a template for others, always insisting that “revolution cannot be exported” and can only be constructed within the concrete conditions of each country. In fact, long before Chávez’s declaration of the need to build the “socialism of the twenty-first century,” Cuba hosted several conferences whose aim was to deliberate on the contours of twenty-first century socialism.
While it is doubling and re-doubling its efforts to undermine the Venezuelan Revolution, the U.S. ruling class understands that the Cuban Revolution has been both the symbolic and concrete anchor for the development of this new wave of Latin American struggles. If U.S. imperialism had been successful in crushing the Cuban Revolution in the 1990s, then the present upshot of liberatory and emancipatory movements would not have been able to attain their present potencies and dimensions. Just as the very existence of the Russian Revolution triggered revolutionary activity across Europe and the world, the Cuban Revolution’s survival was an objective force against imperialism. Moreover, the Cuban Revolution was doing more than “just surviving,” it was also a very active agent in carrying on the anti-imperialist ideological and political struggle: Cuba was the most active force for unity of awareness, unity of consciousness and what now seems to be the beginning of unity in action.
The Cuban Revolution does not stand outside Latin American struggles; it is an integral and organic part. Attempts to isolate it by setting up false dichotomies—with Cuban socialism on one side and the Venezuelan Revolution on the other—are refuted by the history and the reality of what is transpiring before our very eyes.
Isaac Saney
Halifax, Canada
Author, Cuba: A Revolution in Motion (Zed Books, 2004)
Ballvé Replies:
I hope that with a careful read of my brief article, readers would agree that it is not an attempt to “denigrate and dismiss” the role of the Cuban Revolution. That was never my intention. Secondly, I did not write that Chávez’s call to construct “a socialism for the twenty-first century” is “presumably opposed to Cuba’s [sic]”; I wrote, “presumably as opposed to Cuba’s.” This is a statement of distinction, not one of antagonism between opposing poles. Still, when Chávez speaks of his “socialism,” it is always with an adage that what he proposes is something new and different. Since he has not nationalized any industries, implemented an expansive program of agrarian reform or instituted a centrally planned economy, I think it is fair to say that it is indeed different than what Cuban socialism has accomplished. Although space limitations are always a problem, perhaps I could have stated this more clearly.
The more substantive point that Saney brings up, I think, is Cuba’s role in opposing neoliberalism. The anti-neoliberal symposia organized by Havana should be applauded, and Cuba’s role as a beacon and holdout of anti-imperialism will continue to have implications throughout the region and beyond, as Saney rightly acknowledges. However, Cuba fortunately never implemented destructive neoliberal policies and therefore is on the outside looking in with regard to constructing tangible, transnational projects from the ruins left by these policies. Havana does sign on to these efforts but it does not design them. Saney cites ALBA as an example of Cuba’s role in such anti-neoliberal struggles, but ALBA—an effort conceived and pioneered by Chávez—supports the point of my article that Venezuela is the region’s “progressive locomotive” challenging U.S. hegemony [See, “Venezuela: Defying Globalization’s Logic,” p. 20]. There are other examples of Venezuela’s protagonist role throughout the region: PetroSur, PetroCaribe, PetroAndina, TeleSur, the World Social Forum and World Youth Festival—Caracas is hosting the latter two. Thanks for reading.
