New Paper Posted: "The Cuban Communist Party at the Center of Political and Economic Reform: Current Status and Future Reform in the Shadow of the Chinese Communist Party"

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

I will be presenting a paper at the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) 24th annual meeting. Information about the ASCE meeting may be found HERE. The presentation will be made for a plenary panel discussing "Cuba's Reforms: Status and Prospects."

The paper, The Cuban Communist Party at the Center of Political and Economic Reform: Current Status and Future Reform in the Shadow of the Chinese Communist Party, entitled, will focus on the issue of the ideological constraints on economic reform. But it will consider ideological issues from within the Marxist-Leninist foundations of the Cuban state rather than from a perspective, all too common, that uses economic analysis of Cuba to advance "transition to democratic free market government" objectives.

The thesis, though, is no less critical: (1) Variations in Marxist ideology matter (no monolithic communist ideology), (2) sustainable economic reform is possible within a Marxist Leninist State-Party system, and (3) ideological systemic ossification in Cuba, as in the United States, can lead to crisis and paralysis. It is in that context that one considers the questions: does the Chinese model provide a framework for Cuba? Is it too late for reform of the Cuba CP? If reform is possible, what should be its objectives and strategies? To answer these questions Cuba might do well to consider the Chinese path toward constructing Socialist Democracy and Socialist modernization. The argument I will advance is that Cuban economic reforms have not been as successfully implemented as they might be not because the Cuban government is too Marxist-Leninist, but instead because the Cuban government and its Communist Party is not Marxist enough. My suggestion is for correction by considering the application of the Chinese socialist path to the conditions of Cuba if Cuba means to open up while retaining its Marxist-Leninist political organization.

The Abstract and Introduction follow.

The paper may be accessed HERE.

The PowerPoint may be accessed HERE.



The Cuban Communist Party at the Center of Political and Economic Reform: Current Status and Future Reform in the Shadow of the Chinese Communist Party

Larry Catá Backer[1]

Abstract: No consideration of "Cuba's Perplexing Changes," its focus on internal reforms and impact on the Cuban economy, can be complete without a study of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), especially in comparative perspective. The thesis of this essay is that ideology is decisively important in any discussion of “reform” in Cuba. Western analysts have sought to subsume ideological issues within “transition” arguments—that ideological issues will evaporate once Cuba makes the jump from a Marxist-Leninist planned economy model to a Western oriented free market democracy. This essay argues that the inverse provides a more useful way of understanding the situation in Cuba and the choices that it faces. The ideological basis of state organization provides the key to understanding the likelihood of the success of reforms to any of the sectors of state policy. The PCC’s now quite mature ideological framework has helped shape, and constrain, both its approach to the construction and operation of its Party and state apparatus, but also all of its efforts to “reform” or develop its economic, social or political model. Yet the tensions created by these contradictions between PCC ideology and the conditions of Cuba need not lead invariably to a choice between Marxist-Leninist and Western style democratic state organization. The Chinese have provided another model, one that is grounded in a distinct approach to Marxist-Leninist ideology that has served the national context well enough to produce a state as stable as most. After the Introduction, Section II, (A) considers the centrality of ideology to the ‘problem’ of Cuba, (B) examines the consequences for Cuba of the choice, made by its vanguard party, to follow a distinct path toward the articulation and application of Marxism-Leninism in the organization and exercise of power, (C) examines the direct effect of this ideological framework on the structures of the Cuban Party and state, (D) assesses the consequential effects of ideology on the shape and scope of reforms, (E) argues that Marxist-Leninist ideology, like Western style democracy and markets oriented economic ideology, offers more than one path, and considers more directly, the alternatives offered by the Chinese path, and (F) weighs the consequences of the quality of the transition that is coming to Cuba, one that need not lead Cuba away from Marxist-Leninism and a Party-State system. Each is considered in turn in light of the essay’s thesis: Variations in Marxist ideology matter (no monolithic communist ideology), sustainable economic reform is possible within a Marxist Leninist State-Party system, and that ideological systemic ossification in Cuba, as in the United States, can lead to crisis and paralysis. It is in that context that one considers the questions: does the Chinese model provide a framework for Cuba? Is it too late for reform of the Cuba CP? If reform is possible, what should be its objectives and strategies?

__________

I. Introduction.



In the Spring of 2014 the Cuban State announced the adoption, by the Cuban legislature, the Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular de Cubana (ANPP), of a new foreign direct investment law.[2] Many of the details implementing the new regulatory regime were published almost contemporaneously with the adoption of Ley 118, something unusual suggesting the importance of the measure and the intent of the state in seeing it implemented.[3] The return to the project of facilitating foreign investment came on the heels of a fear of the collapse of the project of socialist regionalism that was founded on Venezuelan oil and regional solidarity by states that sought to develop an integrated state based economy.[4] It was reported in the blogs originating in Cuba[5] that there might well have been an element of necessity at the instance of one of Cuba’s new protector states—Brazil.[6] And there is fear from other side, that as Cuba’s economic desperation grows, its willingness to prostitute its labor force to foreign enterprise will grow with it—to the profit of the Cuban state—even as it continues to refuse to open the non-state sector to Cuban citizens.[7] News of Ley 118 was greeted with guarded praise, and some skepticism, [8] much of which was centered on the approach to implementation.[9] “Will the government establish an investment climate that attracts foreign investments, and a truly transparent bureaucratic process that vets proposals in a prompt timeframe competitive with international standards?”[10]

If history is our guide, the answer will not be wholly positive. Administrative discretion may essentially gut any rule of law aspects of Ley 118, focusing all attention on the discretionary requirements of multiple levels of approval. The vagaries of state policy and its genesis in the somewhat opaque relations between the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and the state apparatus may substantially affect the application of Ley 118 and its implementation regulations depending on state sectors or the ministries to which approval may be required. The inability of the non-state sector to participate in this influx of capital may substantially weaken efforts to wean the population from dependence on state sector employment. Yet the old central planning template may find a way of re-emerging in the form of oversight rules for the activities of foreign capital.

Blame for these anticipated failings will be placed on the usual suspects—inept and corrupt administration, a nomenklatura jealous of its privileges and power, and the failures of rule of law systems to be respected by a state grounded on the allocation of personal power through fiefdoms, a sort of socialist feudal state where allegiance is personal rather than institutional. Sympathetic critics may be tempted to argue that if only this or that reform were instituted in the structuring of the state apparatus and its operational habits, there would be real progress. This approach suggests that the basic tension lies somewhere in failures of administration. Less sympathetic critics will point to the ideological structures of state organization—its Marxist-Leninist foundation—and argue that the failures of Ley 118, like those of its several predecessor attempts at extracting investment from foreigners, are evidence of the bankruptcy of the Cuban political system. Those failures might only be corrected by the abandonment of the Marxist-Leninist organization of the Cuban state and its embrace of democracy and a variation of free markets ideology currently palatable to the global community.

Both camps would be right—and wrong. The limitations and likely deficiencies of Ley 118 as applied are substantial evidence of systemic failure, failure at the most basic ideological level. This failure reflects the contradictions and tensions inherent in an ideological theory that has now become so disconnected from facts that it cannot produce positive objectives even in the face of crucial need. The system, in effect, is consuming itself. Yet, those ideological failures do not in any way require the abandonment of the Marxist-Leninist foundations of the Cuban state, or the embrace of principles of Western style democratic state organization, much as we in the United States might find this desirable for our own purposes. The problem that the likely failures of Ley 118 highlight are not those of Marxist-Leninist theory or with the viability of a legitimate and democratic (in accordance with its own terms) Party-State system in which political authority remains vested in a “party in power”. Rather they are the problems of a Marxist-Leninist organization has, in its own way, failed to mature and to develop a Marxist-Leninist theory appropriate to its circumstances. The theoretical ossification of Cuban Marxism-Leninism, even with the addition of a half-century of Castro Theory,[11]

No consideration of "Cuba's Perplexing Changes," its focus on internal reforms and impact on the Cuban economy, then, can be complete without a study of the PCC, especially in comparative perspective. The thesis of this essay is that ideology is decisively important in any discussion of “reform” in Cuba. Western analysts have sought to subsume ideological issues within “transition” arguments—that ideological issues will evaporate once Cuba makes the jump from a Marxist-Leninist planned economy model to a Western oriented free market democracy. This essay argues that the inverse provides a more useful way of understanding the situation in Cuba and the choices that it faces. The ideological basis of state organization provides the key to understanding the likelihood of the success of reforms to any of the sectors of state policy. The PCC’s now quite mature ideological framework has helped shape, and constrain, both its approach to the construction and operation of its Party and state apparatus, but also all of its efforts to “reform” or develop its economic, social or political model.

Yet the tensions created by these contradictions between PCC ideology and the conditions of Cuba need not lead invariably to a choice between Marxist-Leninist and Western style democratic state organization. The Chinese have provided another model, one that is grounded in a distinct approach to Marxist-Leninist ideology that has served the national context well enough to produce a state as stable as most. The essay suggests that while it makes no sense for the PCC to blindly copy the CCP model in Cuba, it does make sense for the PCC to consider the Chinese path to Marxist-Leninist state organization and policy and a means of providing a coherent structure to its own reforms compatible with Cuban conditions—that means adopting a quite distinct form of Marxist-Leninist ideology than that which has been the mainstay of the PCC since the 1960s.

After this Introduction, Part II considers the critical role of Marxist Leninist ideology on the formation of Cuban and Chinese Party-State systems and of its importance in constraining the analytical framework within which reform or development is possible. This essay makes six principle points around which it is organized. The focus of the analysis will be on the way in which each organization, and its relationship to the state apparatus is affected by the development of distinct foundational theories of state organization and the role of the Communist Party.

Section II, Part A considers the centrality of ideology to the ‘problem’ of Cuba. In Part B, the essay examines the consequences for Cuba of the choice, made by its vanguard party, to follow a distinct path toward the articulation and application of Marxism-Leninism in the organization and exercise of power. Part C then examines the direct effect of this ideological framework on the structures of the Cuban Party and state. Part D then assesses the consequential effects of ideology on the shape and scope of reforms. Part E then argues that Marxist-Leninist ideology, like Western style democracy and markets oriented economic ideology, offers more than one path, and considers more directly, the alternatives offered by the Chinese path. Lastly, Part F weighs the consequences of the quality of the transition that is coming to Cuba, one that need not lead Cuba away from Marxist-Leninism and a Party-State system. Each is considered in turn in light of the essay’s thesis: Variations in Marxist ideology matter (no monolithic communist ideology), sustainable economic reform is possible within a Marxist Leninist State-Party system, and that ideological systemic ossification in Cuba, as in the United States, can lead to crisis and paralysis. It is in that context that one considers the questions: does the Chinese model provide a framework for Cuba? Is it too late for reform of the Cuba CP? If reform is possible, what should be its objectives and strategies? These question point to a plausible conclusion—Cuba will be undergoing transition—but that transition need not be toward Western style democratic free markets state organization. Instead, Cuba might more easily transition to a more dynamic Marxist-Leninist socialist Markets framework. Either transition will be hard, but the later will be least disruptive.

NOTES:


[1] W. Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar & Professor of Law, Professor of International Affairs, Pennsylvania State University. The author may be contacted at lcb911gmail.com. I thank my research assistants, Shaoming Zhu (Penn State University SJD expected) and Shan Gao (Penn State University SJD expected) for their excellent work on this essay. The paper was first presented at Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy 24th Annual Meeting, "Cuba's Perplexing Changes", Miami Florida, July 31, 2014. My thanks to the conference organizers.

[2] Ley No. 118 (Ley de la Inversión Extranjera, April 2014, published in Granma, Tabloide Especial, April 2014 (hereafter “Ley 118”), officially published in the Gaceta Oficial, Gaceta Oficial No. 20 Extraordinaria de 16 de Abril de 2014, pp. 177-189. Available http://www.cubadebate.cu/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GO_X_20_2014_gaceta-ley-de-inversion-extranjera.pdf.

[3] Ley 118 provided that detailed regulations would be published within 90 days. The Cuban state has tended to treat these deadlines as guidelines. Yet in this case and underlining the importance of this measure, a substantial part of the regulations were in fact published with the law in the Gaceta Oficial in which Ley 118 itself appeared. See Consejo de Ministros, Decreto No. 325, Reglamento de la Ley de la Inversión Extranjera, Gaceta Oficial, Gaceta Oficial No. 20 Extraordinaria de 16 de Abril de 2014, pp. 189-202. Available http://www.cubadebate.cu/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GO_X_20_2014_gaceta-ley-de-inversion-extranjera.pdf; Banco Central de Cuba Resolución No. 46/2014, Gaceta Oficial, supra, pp. 202-204; Banco Central de Cuba, Resolución 47/2014, Gaceta Oficial supra, pp. 204; Comercio Exterior y la Inversión Extranjera, Resolución 128 de 2014, Gaceta Oficial, supra, pp. 204-240.

[4] Discussed in Larry Catá Backer and Augusto Molina, Cuba and the Construction of Alternative Global Trade Systems: ALBA and Free Trade in the Americas, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 31(3):679-752 (2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1407705.

[5] On the importance of these sources in Staliniust states, see, Slavoj Zizek, Stalinism, Lacan.com (1997/2007). Available http://www.lacan.com/zizstalin.htm. (“Critics of such hearsay-scholarship had a point. But what few people seem to realize, even now, is that the salient issue might not be the reliability in Stalin's Soviet Union of word of mouth and political divination, but its pervasiveness. Kremlinology arose not at Harvard, but in and around the Kremlin. . . and it was what everyone in the Soviet Union did to a degree, the more so the higher up.”).

[6] It was reported in Cubanet that:

It is rumored that the recent visit of José Ignacio Lula Da Silva to Cuba , concerned about the risk of elevated investments from Brazil and the delay of the government of the Island in updating the Foreign Investment Law, was the definitive touch that made the Cuban cupola decide to push its approval, postponed several times. There are also unofficial rumors about the freezing the Brazilian investments in the Mariel Special Development Zone, and the approval of new credit to the Cuban side, until there are adequate legal safeguards. The agreements are no longer based in solidarity, but rather on purely capitalist financial and commercial relations.

Miriam Celaya, Cuba for Foreigners, Translating Cuba: English Translations of Cuban Bloggers, Havana, March 31, 2014, available http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-for-foreigners-miriam-celaya/ (originally published in the blog Sin Evación, through Cubanet, March 28, 2014) and available http://www.cubanet.org/destacados/cuba-para-los-extranjeros/.

[7] Ibid.

[8] See, e.g., Richard Feinberg, Cuba’s New Investment Law: Open for Business, Brookiungs, April 1, 2014. Available http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/04/01-cuba-foreign-direct-investment-feinberg.

[9] Ibid (The proof will be in the pudding, and investors will be watching closing for the fine print in the new regulations and, most importantly, for the implementation of the approval process.”).

[10] Ibid.

[11] As used in this paper, Castro Theory refers to the ideological work of Fidel Castro Ruz, and its incorporation into the ruling ideology of the PCC. That Theory would be understood as supplementing Marxist-Leninist Theory as adopted and practiced by Cuba’s mentor state—the Soviet Union. It is thus to be understood as a contextually manifested form of Marxist-Leninist Stalinism, which is the way that it is likely that Castro understood the grounding ideology of the state. Cf., e.g., Larry Catá Backer, Fidel Castro on Deng Xiaoping and Erich Honecker--Understanding the Foundations of Cuban Political and Economic Policy, Law at the End of the Day, Aug. 19, 2012. Available http://lcbackerblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/fidel-castro-on-deng-xiaoping-and-erich.html.