This post begins is the first of a short series considering the 8th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (VIII Congreso del Partido Comunista Cubano). This Congress is particularly interesting, and potentially important, as a result of the convergence of several factors.
1. Raul Castro appears ready to retire from his role in the all important post of first secretary of the PPC. "Raúl Castro is to stand down as the party’s first secretary, the true source of power on the island, and armed forces commander after serving two five-year terms. He succeeded his brother Fidel, who handed power to him several years before his death in 2016." (Exit of Cuba’s last Castro brings curtain down on revolutionary era). That is a momentous event--from the perspective of history (people love to mark historical events, it is perhaps the way that societies tell time). But is is also important from the perspective of politics as a relatively untested and unknown generation will be given freer (but not free rein) to move the state apparatus forward under considerably stressful times. 2. This marks the first Congress immediately after the roll out of what might be potentially the most significant set of changes to the economic model of the state. The changes include grudging liberalization of the conditions for non state economic activity, a more robust engagement with the contemporary flows of global trade, and the unification of Cuba's currency. That it was done as a technocratic rather than an ideological exercise is also significant. That produces a tension that the 8th Congress may seek to resolve--the development of some sort fo ideologically sound imprimatur, grounded in traditional Cuban Caribbean Marxist ideology--to support the profound changes.
3. The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a series of challenges and opportunities that the Cuban state has sought to exploit (in the one case) and overcome (in the other). This is the moment for the triumph of Cuban medical diplomacy now augmented by a strong tech sector. The success of its COVID-19 vaccine, if handled correctly, will produce a substantial amount of political capital abroad that Cuba might be able to exploit, even if Cuban authorities receive very little by way of financial compensation for the effort. One might expect this sector of the 2030 Economic Plan to be an important element of the pageantry if not the work of the Congress.
4. This set of political and economic changes are occurring at a time of social unrest. While Cuba had been relatively successful in managing its intellectuals since 1961, that efficient management (as brutal as it was some time to time) appears to be breaking down. The Movimiento San Isidro, a collection of artists and others that have captured the imagination of the liberal democratic camp and its intellectuals) is likely the tip of the iceberg. And yet the traditional mechanisms of suppression are likely to be less available than they were. The PCC's ability to meet this challenge in ways that preserve stability will be among the first real tests of the new leadership. Indeed, the incoming leadership's pointed reference to Fidel Castro's 1961 speech and the construction of a propaganda campaign around it suggests the nature of the battles that lie ahead (Cuba President Recalls Fidel Castro’s Historic Speech to Intellectuals :That speech became the founding platform of cultural policy of the Cuban Revolution). An English translation of that speech, well worth reading for its overtones to much of the global conversation about speech today, may be accessed HERE. 5. The theme of the VIII Congress suggests its discursive challenges. "El Partido es el alma de la Revolución"--The Party is the Soul of the Revolution--is a semiotic meadow (perhaps a minefield as well. There is a sense built into the proceedings of both promise and danger. Like elites in the rest of the world, it has become clear that a control of the way in which the masses are led to the understanding of the world is essential for the project of both managing mass behavior and of directing it toward preferred objectives. Guiding ideology remains a powerful weapon and its contestation around the world has posed problems for vanguards from the United States and China to those of Cuba. Each, of course, utilizes quite distinct tools for the construction and maintenance, and for the naturalization of its guiding ideology within their respective political cultures. But especially in periods of transition, control of the guiding ideology (its construction, elaboration, contestation, rejection or replacement) is the key to power among those who seek to assert it, guide it or use it. Here there are two great objects at stake. The first is control of the meaning of the term "Revolution" which had been carefully curated since the 1959 establishment of the current political-economic model. The second is the legitimacy of the naturalization of the product of that control deeply within the way that the masses approach and understand the world. The "soul of the revolution" then suggests both a normative perspective and the legitimization of the mechanics of its development and deliverance. All o this may be up for grabs now.
6. The United States continues to dominate this Congress as it has virtually every other one. It is a pity but hardly to be avoided that even as the PCC declares its autonomy, it does so only by reference to and in the shadow of the United States. That has proven to be in some respects its greatest protection. But increasingly it may become the greatest weakness of this Party and its ideological apparatus. A state cannot control its people on the basis of negatives (e.g., we are not the United States). That effectively gives the other party control over your own destiny, a result that is becoming increasingly apparent int he case of Cuba. Cuba can no longer afford to build its ideologies as a function of its contests with the US). This is a lesson that is hardly ever learned, certainly it remains unlearned in politics that sees in the construction of difference (internally or externally) a quick, dirty, and expedient way to elaborate administrative power in the hands of a controlling group--whatever their political inclinations). Intellectuals, especially, are good are seeking to deride the construction of otherness in power relations but then use it precisely to rearrange the allocation of power among the categories of otherness constructed. A great pity but perhaps the fate of society as currently understood by those with the power to control.
6. The United States continues to dominate this Congress as it has virtually every other one. It is a pity but hardly to be avoided that even as the PCC declares its autonomy, it does so only by reference to and in the shadow of the United States. That has proven to be in some respects its greatest protection. But increasingly it may become the greatest weakness of this Party and its ideological apparatus. A state cannot control its people on the basis of negatives (e.g., we are not the United States). That effectively gives the other party control over your own destiny, a result that is becoming increasingly apparent int he case of Cuba. Cuba can no longer afford to build its ideologies as a function of its contests with the US). This is a lesson that is hardly ever learned, certainly it remains unlearned in politics that sees in the construction of difference (internally or externally) a quick, dirty, and expedient way to elaborate administrative power in the hands of a controlling group--whatever their political inclinations). Intellectuals, especially, are good are seeking to deride the construction of otherness in power relations but then use it precisely to rearrange the allocation of power among the categories of otherness constructed. A great pity but perhaps the fate of society as currently understood by those with the power to control.
7. For all that, the United States does remain a wild card. The Biden administraiton does not yet appear to have developed anything like a robust coherence to policy going forward--it is still working against the shadow of the Trump Administraiton. This also poses dangers and opportunities for the Cubans. This is especially so now in connection with relations to Iran.
8. Yet the VIII Congress does little by way of confronting the real threat to Leninist parties: exclusivity that ultimately provides the greatest contradiction between Marxism and Leninism. The establishment of a communist society (whatever its conceptual gymnastics about the ownership and allocation of capital and the role of planning or markets) ultimately requires that the vanguard and the masses become indistinguishable. That is the success of the establishment of a communist society requires that everyone be a member of the vanguard. But the vanguard as a Leninist revolutionary party (and then a party in power) is grounded in the notion that the masses are not ready, and later that external threats require a Leninist organization to serve as a techno-bureaucratic force to lead the masses toward whatever is defined as victory in any particular era of historical development. But a Leninist party that fails to expand and to embrace an ever growing number of mass elements runs the risk that it will become corrupted. So corrupted it runs the danger of becoming a ruling clique mired in either left or right error. The failures of the PCC to more actively address this issue of working style may in the end pose the greatest threat to its long term survival.
These are the themes that the the object, in the usual discursive tropes of the PCC, that are meant to give meaning to the words elaborated by the Central Committee pf the PCC in its Announcement of the Holding of the VIII Congress (Convocatoria al VIII Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba), the text of which in the original Spanish and with my own crude translation, follows below.
