If we define actors (social, political, economic) as groups having a distinctive public profile and defined interests vis-à-vis the system they seek to preserve, replace, or simply change, then it is extremely difficult to speak of actors in Cuba. Because of the way in which Cuban society has evolved over the past several decades and the unique characteristics of its political system, the emergent actors referred to here (those that have appeared in the past decade as a result of a changing society) are all larval, with little or no organization, and scripts so surreptitious as to be incomprehensible to the uninitiated. As larval actors, these groups cannot be expected to maintain their integrity under different circumstances. Their affinity is always greater when critiquing than when articulating proposals, and the latter, with the exception of strictly trade union affairs, has yet to become the focal point of the public profile of such groups.
The current political system in Cuba is the end result of successive institutional crystallizations of the basic social alliance that brought about the Revolution. It has, from the outset, been a markedly asymmetrical alliance between the masses and the political class that emerged from the insurrection. This alliance functioned with remarkable effectiveness for decades, consolidating a stable, unique relationship in which the political class ensured national independence and the social mobility of the masses in exchange for absolute loyalty to the programmatic foundations of the revolutionary process and to each and every policy. It was an alliance, however, that was called upon to function under three very specific conditions: a largely unskilled population base, a relative abundance of economic resources and a unified political class. These conditions began to change in the mid-1980s. The social mobility fostered by the Revolution had created a more educated population—including a professional and intellectual class—while new generations of Cubans entered public life. In the early 1990s, external support evaporated, taking with it substantial Soviet economic subsidies and military assistance, along with the teleological paradigms of an irreversible, expansionist socialism that had informed ideological production for decades. Ultimately, the political class was exposed to extraordinarily harsh external conditions at a moment when internal conditions were unusually adverse.
Despite the call for a “rectification process” (1986-1990) united around the ambitious aim of finding the “correct path” and the liberalizing breeze that swept through Cuba from 1990 to 1995, there was no indication that the government planned to open up its political system to accommodate the diverse opinions incubating in society or to offer everyday Cubans the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes affecting the future of their national community. What occurred was simply a relaxing of controls, which I call “tolerance by omission,” that paved the way for certain legal-political and economic reforms and for the emergence of diverse actors who enjoyed a five-year window in which to act in a brief but attractive context of political opportunity.1
Bemused by this new state of affairs, the political class had no choice but to retreat, opening up less restricted spaces that were occupied by other actors; in some cases this was done as part of existing policies, and in others simply by omission. Internal fractures were visible: unusual instability in the composition of the political elite, uncharacteristically public disagreements over the best course of action and the removal of prominent members of the party and state apparatus. But the political elite instinctively did not retreat past the boundaries of its blueprint for power, thereby reserving the possibility, at least mathematically speaking, of re-conquering lost terrain.
The point of no return was 1996 when, spurred by scant economic recovery and the internal adjustments emanating from the Fifth Party Congress of 1997, the political class launched an offensive against the political opening of the preceding five years. For our purposes, this translated into the dissolution of influential opinion-making groups in society, the suspension of registrations of new nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the imposition of additional controls on existing ones, public condemnation of external funding sources, and the presumptuous creation, by decree, of a “socialist civil society” strictly aligned with the political status quo.
Fortunately for Cuban society and the legacy of its spirited Revolution, it was impossible for the situation to regress to the dismal levels of the 1980s. Vigorous intellectual groups inside the country introduced courageous and incisive ideas and critiques into the panorama. Some NGOs have managed to survive; they have paid the price of invisibility, but they exist. The organized communities of the 1990s produced leaders and activists who represent a valuable resource for the country’s future and for the defense of grassroots interests. But the emergent actors in Cuban civil society are fragmented and have limited ability to create public opinion.
Social and Grassroots Organizations
Social and grassroots organizations largely comprise what the Cuban government refers to as “socialist civil society,” constituting an indistinct threshold between civil society and the state—not because of their common political objectives but rather due to the little autonomy they have demonstrated in their public profiles. To their credit, these organizations occasionally have adopted autonomous positions on specific problems affecting their spheres of action. And while they regularly blend into the government or party decision-making bodies where they have representation, they also exhibit a certain degree of dynamic autonomy particularly at the grassroots level where their capacity for leadership and collective action has matured.
This autonomous trend was accentuated during the first half of the 1990s, as evidenced by the activities of trade unions and certain professional associations, particularly the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC). It is likely that official adjustment policies and economic reforms will affect the constituencies of these organizations in the future. Therefore, the extent to which they are able to effectively represent the interests of grassroots sectors under these new circumstances—even when it entails substantial differences with specific policies—may turn into a test-case scenario they will have to confront in the future.
Intellectual Sectors
During the first half of the 1990s, intellectuals played a crucial role in attempts to generate autonomous political communication and develop proposals for change. Particularly interesting are the developments in the artistic sector, which has produced the most sustained and influential criticism, as well as early attempts at autonomous organization. But although these sectors clearly have more latitude to criticize than other intellectual groups, they have had to respect the strict organizational limits of the para-state UNEAC and confine their messages to the traditional function of art, once defined by Carpentier as the technique of showing without revealing. Conversely, intellectuals and artists associated with UNEAC have found it to be sensitive to their demands and a progressive force in terms of cultural policy and opportunities for professional and economic fulfillment.
Apart from the art world, the Cuban professional and intellectual sphere is organized into various associations, which cannot be compared to UNEAC in terms of scope, autonomy or privileges. In the social sciences in particular—the other area from which one might expect a critical posture—the situation has been less promising. This is largely because the fields in this area are subject to harsh scrutiny by the ideological apparatus, which is inextricably linked to the fact that, unlike artists, social scientists have the professional obligation to demonstrate, as well as the temptation to solve.
If it were possible to single out particular actors in this field, one would have to look for research and academic institutions that have played a significant role in the production of ideas, usually thanks to their connections with some political sector. This is the case, for example, with the Superior School of the Party, which has consistently served as an academic sounding board for the most conservative sectors of the party and state apparatus. It also played a prominent role in laying the foundations for the 1996 bureaucratic offensive against the emerging civil society. Another example is the ousted Center for American Studies, the chief advocate of taking advantage of the political opportunities in the first half of the 1990s and net producer of proposals for socialist renewal.
Nongovernmental Organizations
From 1989 to 1995, non-state entities proliferated in the country at unprecedented levels, numbering over 2,000 by 1993. Most were small, individual associations with no public profile whatsoever, while others were fronts for government agencies seeking international funding. Still others—and these are the ones I wish to discuss more in depth—were public action NGOs that efficiently took advantage of the political opportunities presented by “tolerance by omission.”
Cuban NGOs had their moment of glory from 1992 to 1996. Inspired (and well funded) by their hemispheric and European counterparts, these organizations tried to build a civil society based on a new relationship between the state and society, but with a strong dose of elitism due to legal limitations on their relationships with emergent community movements as well as to the social backgrounds and ideological beliefs of their protagonists.
Although NGOs report the existence of around 50 such organizations, the actual number is probably no more than 20. From 1990 to 1992, these organizations received and channeled about $7 million; this figure rose to $42 million for the subsequent three-year period. In 1994, 108 development projects were registered based on agreements with 66 foreign NGOs. Approximately half of these projects were administered by Cuban NGOs, only three of which administered most of the projects and funding. These projects were implemented in six priority areas: alternative energy, community development, environment, popular education, promotion of women and institution building.
Cuban NGOs displayed an uncharacteristic belligerence in response to the bureaucratic red tape and political controls imposed by the Cuban government that hampered their activities. They explicitly criticized the restrictions placed on the creation of new NGOs and excessive state supervision of their actions, and they advocated for greater autonomy in project administration and coordination. The Cuban NGOs also expressed the need for improved coordination with foreign NGOs and additional training. At the same time, they unanimously declared their opposition to the imposition of any foreign projects that would buttress U.S. policy against Cuba.
Neither the latter position nor their adherence to socialism saved the Cuban NGOs from the 1996 bureaucratic offensive. Most of them were reduced to very discreet, virtually expendable roles, while others were shut down with the justification that their functions would be taken over directly by the state. NGO registrations were frozen and several that were in the formation process were informed that they were not relevant.
Community-Based Organizations
The community-based organizations that emerged during the five-year window deserve special mention. These groups are unique in that they grew out of community programs implemented by technical entities (extended neighborhood transformation workshops in the capital); local professionals or officials developing more comprehensive leadership roles (community doctors, agricultural technicians, cultural activists); or sub-municipal government entities moving toward more participatory processes outside of their official purviews (circunscripciones, popular councils).
From such origins, these organizations succeeded in broadening their leadership base and agendas to have a considerable impact at the neighborhood and community levels. Around 1996, an empirical survey (conducted by the author and limited to the central and western provinces) indicated the existence of 74 community projects, 25 of which had matured into formal organizations. Beginning in 1997, the government tendency was to assimilate such projects into official municipal and sub-municipal structures. Thus, while many of these projects still exist and have an impact, they have become bogged down in the bureaucratic structure of control, further limiting their initiatives.
Market-Based Actors
Economic reforms have led to the emergence of new actors operating primarily in the marketplace, even though they may have government affiliations. The most prominent of these is the new technocratic-business sector, particularly the foreign business sector (considered internal because of their involvement in actions that affect national society) and their national partners, which have entrenched themselves in the many hundreds of firms established throughout the country. Because of their unique position in the social spectrum, actors in this sector maintain very fluid communication among themselves and with their government interlocutors and this is transforming them into incipient actors of civil society.
The technocratic-business sector’s relevance in society lies in several of its unique qualities, foremost of which is that it is the only actor capable of ideological production with no political authorization other than that permitting its existence. It need do nothing more than carry out, before the eyes of an impoverished population, a satisfactory daily life in relation to the market. At the same time, it is the only emergent actor with a certain guarantee of longevity, since it is essential for economic growth.
This sector’s main weaknesses lie in the political fragmentation of markets, which acts as an effective barrier between its components. Although there are individuals and institutions in the political arena that favor increased market liberalization, the emerging business sector does not have direct political representation. Its growth as a sector, therefore, depends on the political class’ willingness to collaborate.
The Organized Opposition
Another distinct actor is the group of organizations espousing diverse creeds, issues, and positions that comprises the opposition to the Cuban political regime and, in contrast to the antiestablishment groups of the 1960s, is characterized by its nonviolent positions. This actor is also extremely fragmented, heavily infiltrated by the Cuban state security apparatus and has an international profile that far surpasses its political influence inside the country.
The organized opposition has achieved indisputable successes including the formation of coalitions and public support in the form of 25,000 signatures for the Varela Project, a petition calling for legal reforms. Nonetheless, it has been incapable of channeling the growing discontent among Cubans.
Foreign and expatriate analysts insist that the opposition remains in a larval state because it is harshly repressed and reviled by the Cuban government, and there is no doubt that repression hampers the public influence of this actor. Yet, at the same time, it could be argued that if the Cuban government is able to successfully repress opposition groups it is because the cost of doing so is lower than the cost of tolerance, even when factoring international repercussions into the cost-benefit analysis.
The Cuban government, for its part, asserts that these groups lack legitimacy because of their international links with countries and organizations hostile not only to the Cuban government, but to the historic process of revolutionary change. And while that argument could be reasonably applied to some of these groups, it hardly explains the repression of other groups and individuals who do not have such ties and whose proposals are more socialist than those of the government itself. If these groups exist and are able to survive in a repressive environment, it is because thousands of people, for whatever reason, believe that systemic change is necessary. This is evident in (or at least suggested by) the findings of the few reliable surveys conducted in Cuba and the outcome of the general elections.
The Expatriate Community
The Cuban diaspora comprises nearly two million people and has acquired a prominent profile in its host societies. The remittances sent back to Cuba, which economists estimate at between $500 million and $1 billion annually, is a cornerstone of governance in Cuba and the primary extra-governmental palliative to the impoverishment of the population. This fact, and the attendant strengthening of ties between the two communities, situates the Cuban expatriate community as a discernable actor on the contemporary national scene. Its role will likely increase if Cuban migration policies are liberalized, if there is continued relaxation of the blockade, and if opportunities for investment in small and medium-sized enterprises are provided. At the same time, it is important to recall that this community is overwhelmingly antiestablishment and will use its power of economic and cultural cooptation for political change on the island, although maybe not in the same way that the traditional right-wing sectors and speculators in exile dreamed.
Up to now, we have been describing, implicitly or explicitly, a transition process whose final destination should be discussed with a view toward a better understanding the role these actors are likely to play in the medium term. Some have described this transition as a passage from the imperfect socialism that flourished in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s toward a superior version. This is a frankly attractive interpretation, albeit one that is difficult to confirm empirically. Others emphasize a transition model securely anchored in the Eastern European experiences with a democratic endpoint, which is no easier to verify than the first theory. These hypotheses probably reflect two ideological positions rather than two different perceptions of reality.
In my view, Cuba is moving from a statist, centralized, bureaucratic socialist system toward a peripheral capitalist system. Describing this transition as a move toward democracy is simply naïve. The transition to capitalism will undoubtedly involve the emergence of a liberal political structure, but one that is subject to demands for accumulation of wealth that are hardly in keeping with a democratic system in which everyday people make, rather than simply consume, policy. To believe that this outcome can be altered to obtain a “superior socialism” is no more realistic. The possibility of a socialist alternative is severely curtailed both by an international climate that seems to remind us of the Marxist premise that socialism cannot exist in just one country, and by Cuban government policies that, although they are formulated in the name of socialism, have obliterated any alternative in that direction.
The potential for this future system to be more democratic and equitable despite the logic of peripheral capitalism, or even the possibility that new socialist alternatives will be proposed in the political arena, will depend in large part on the maturity and vocation of the actors currently emerging (or transforming themselves) in Cuban society. But several systemic challenges remain.
The first challenge is found in the economic sphere. Without significant economic growth, the cumulative deficit in consumption could become explosive, making it very difficult to maintain current social spending levels. While the adverse international context—marked by the U.S. blockade—is an aggravating factor in this regard, in strictly technical terms the Cuban government has at its disposal a considerable stock of domestic actions to shore up the economy that would have a positive effect on production, services and employment. These actions include further decentralization of large government enterprises based on expansion of the business “streamlining” program designed by the government, legalizing small and medium-sized businesses and granting genuine autonomy to the rural cooperative system.
Nonetheless, the Cuban government has exhibited a stubborn reticence to implement this type of action. It has argued for ideological considerations (their pro-capitalist implications) while overlooking the fact that any of these measures could be accompanied by other approaches (such as co-management and worker-participation models, cooperatives and so on) that would strengthen socialist spaces and the participating actors in ways that would ultimately be more socialist than their state-centered counterparts. The Cuban government’s hesitation to move in this direction does not stem from anti-capitalist sentiment, but rather from its corporate survival instinct, to the extent that any step forward would generate an autonomous social dynamic and a unification of currently fragmented markets, the latter being essential for monitoring the emergent technocratic-business sector. Consequently, the Cuban leadership finds itself at a complex crossroads in which the only path toward increased economic growth implies the weakening of its own power.
A second challenge is found in the international arena. U.S. aggression toward Cuba follows a Monroe-style approach and reflects its interest in bringing down an internal political protagonist. The United States wants surrender, not negotiation. But it is equally clear that the Cuban government has known how to use this variable to consolidate internal support. In fact, after four decades of practice in the art of confrontation, it is hard to imagine Cuban policy without it, or consensus on the island absent the perception (real or contrived) of a foreign threat. Yet even though the White House is currently under the control of an irrationally unilateralist and ultra-right sector, the U.S. blockade is continuing its march toward extinction. The key issue here is the extent to which a normalization of relations with the United States, or at least a substantial reduction in tensions, would weaken a political discourse based largely on nationalistic considerations. Is it possible, in a more relaxed scenario, to maintain bureaucratic controls over the expression of the various actors, and particularly over the political opposition? This represents yet another advance that is plainly contradictory for the Cuban leadership.
The third area of contradiction centers on the political leadership itself. The crisis has accentuated markedly the personalized approach to politics revolving around the figure of Fidel Castro. The Cuban President has been a pillar in maintaining the essential stream of active support and preserving the unity of the political class. With his accustomed dexterity, Castro has succeeded in repressing or taming dissent within the post-revolutionary elite, overseeing the recruitment of new members and simultaneously persuading much of the population that the critical present is better than the panoply of potential futures available in the political market.
It is easy to see that this extreme centralism will become an unsolvable dilemma when the Cuban President disappears completely or partially from the political scene, particularly since the system lacks internal reconciliation and negotiation mechanisms. This could lead to schisms between active Fidelistas—people whose political motivations are intimately linked to the figure of the Cuban president—or within a political class whose alleged unanimity is contingent upon the vigilant care of a person of retirement age.
If the assertion regarding an inevitable liberalization of the Cuban political system is not to remain wholly pessimistic, then one would have to believe that new opportunities will open up to these actors and that they will fill the Cuban political system with the many hues required by a liberal political market. Evidence ex post facto of the ideological and cultural strength of the Cuban Revolution will lie precisely in the extent to which socialist values and goals can survive as genuine alternatives rather than just as bitter references by converts or the wistful outpourings of the nostalgic.
About the Author
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso is research coordinator at FLACSO, Dominican Republic. He is editor of Los Recursos de la Gobernabilidad en la Cuenca del Caribe (Nueva Sociedad, 2002), and author of numerous other books and articles on decentralization, civil society, and social movements in Cuba and the Caribbean.
Notes
A more extensive version of this article first appeared under the title “Larval Actors, Uncertain Scenarios, and Cryptic Scripts: Where is Cuban Society Headed?” in Changes in Cuban Society since the Nineties, Joseph S. Tulchin et al, eds. Woodrow Wilson Center Reports on the Americas #15 (Washington: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2005).
1. Haroldo Dilla, “Cuba: los escenarios cambiantes de la gobernabilidad,” in Los recursos de la gobernabilidad en la Cuenca del Caribe, ed. H. Dilla. (Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 2002).
