I read NACLA’s Cuba report (August 1990) with great pleasure. My first comment concerns the evident consensus among the authors in favor of a multi-party system as the only path to the development of democracy in Cuba. I do not share that view.
The Cuban Communist Party enjoys broad legitimacy in contemporary Cuban society, and not only because of the charisma of Fidel Castro. This, of course, does not mean that the PCC exercises its political role in the best way. In fact, the leadership role of the PCC needs renovation to overcome excessive bureaucracy and centralism. But political pluralism could be achieved by renovating the PCC itself — by giving greater autonomy to the social organizations which for decades have functioned merely as transmitters of government policy. The public debates leading up to the fourth party congress could be a first step in this direction.
A second comment: Indeed, the Manichean dichotomy of “revolution/ counterrevolution” does not do justice to the complexity of Cuban society. To try to calculate what percentage of the Cuban population supports the revolution is probably a waste of time. The Cuban Revolution is made up of a range of goals that include social justice, national independence, and democracy. This program is expressed through concrete policies which themselves can generate support or opposition without turning the debate into one of socialism vs. anti-socialism. We have to bear in mind what Rafael Hernández has called the “new civic identity” in Cuba, a mixture of traditional and new values instilled by three decades of intense political socialization. I believe that this new civic spirit has incorporated the socialist ideal. The average Cuban is well aware that the type of capitalism we have known is not the Swedish or Canadian kind, but a far more malignant version, such as in Peru or Guatemala. This identification with socialism, however, does not preclude opposition to certain policies, political apathy, or even the desire to emigrate to the United States.
Again, let me reiterate my satisfaction with the articles NACLA has published, articles whose merits outweigh their weaknesses, and whose weak points are to a fair degree the result of the failures of the Cuban academic community, more concerned with spouting dogma than with illuminating the complex reality of contemporary Cuban society.
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso
Centro de Estudios sobre América
Havana
