(Pix Credit HERE)
In this post and those that follow we will begin to flesh out what we see as the great challenges of democracy in illiberal states, and the methods undertaken by the Caribbean (Cuban) form of Marxism Leninism, to meet those challenges. We will asses the extent to which they might claim success, and more importantly the extent to which the gulf between theory and execution remains a problem. We hope you will join us on this journey and look forward to engagement and discussion over the month. develop an approach. This February series is wrapped around work that Flora Sapio, James Korman and I are undertaking on the Cuban process of constitutional reform.
For Cuba, of course, the development of a viable socialist democracy is essential if it is to survive the passing of its revolutionary generation. And for that reason alone, Cuba provides a quite compelling laboratory for next generation democratic theory built on non-Western liberal assumptions. For these reasons we have chosen this years series theme: Caribbean Marxism's Socialist Democracy, Considering the Cuban Constitutional Project From Communist Party to Popular Plebiscite.
This Post includes Part 4: The Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba and the Origins of the Socialist Plebiscite 1960-1962.
I have been considering the 1st Cuban Communist Party (PCC) Congress of 1975 as the template for the ideological and constitutional changes that followed from the 7th PCC Congress in 2016. As we will see in more detail in future posts, most of the structural elements of the 7th PCC Congress and the forms of constitutional reform that followed were first attempted in the context of the development of the PCC's first comprehensive ideological line, and the transposition of that line into the 1976 Cuban constitution. In both cases, significant ideological work of the PCC was immediately followed by its articulation in the state constitution. More importantly, in both cases, the process included a well managed intervention of popular engagement and validation. This included the solicitation of mass reaction to the circulating drafts of key documents and a popular plebiscite.
What was missing from the 2016-2019 reform effort, including its constitutional dimension was what had been a key element of popular participation--the organization of mass acclamation at a rally called for that purpose. The 1st PCC Congress and the resulting modalities of popular affirmation appeared to mark a turning point in the practice of early Caribbean Marxist socialist democracy. That was the last time that the mechanics of popular affirmation were used, and then only as a supplement to a more conventional use of voting.
Yet mass acclamation played a decisive role in the early stages of post revolutionary Cuba, And it has never been rejected as inimical to the core ideology of the Cuban Leninism. Popular acclamation at large gatherings of the people was a first effort to find a way to produce democratic practice that avoided what was increasingly seen as the ideologically corrupt system of popular voting. It served as the first iteration of a process that sought to do two things. The first was to distinguish ¡the forms of democratic engagement in Leninist states from that of Western liberal democracies. The idea was that conventional voting was itself ideologically contaminated with bourgeois principles of class exploitation and that an alternative mode of democratic expression was needed. The second was to embed principles of class struggle--and of the primacy of the worker-revolutionary axis--into the expression of democratic engagement.
What was missing from the 2016-2019 reform effort, including its constitutional dimension was what had been a key element of popular participation--the organization of mass acclamation at a rally called for that purpose. The 1st PCC Congress and the resulting modalities of popular affirmation appeared to mark a turning point in the practice of early Caribbean Marxist socialist democracy. That was the last time that the mechanics of popular affirmation were used, and then only as a supplement to a more conventional use of voting.
Yet mass acclamation played a decisive role in the early stages of post revolutionary Cuba, And it has never been rejected as inimical to the core ideology of the Cuban Leninism. Popular acclamation at large gatherings of the people was a first effort to find a way to produce democratic practice that avoided what was increasingly seen as the ideologically corrupt system of popular voting. It served as the first iteration of a process that sought to do two things. The first was to distinguish ¡the forms of democratic engagement in Leninist states from that of Western liberal democracies. The idea was that conventional voting was itself ideologically contaminated with bourgeois principles of class exploitation and that an alternative mode of democratic expression was needed. The second was to embed principles of class struggle--and of the primacy of the worker-revolutionary axis--into the expression of democratic engagement.
En la Plaza Cívica (actual Plaza de la Revolución) pronuncia vibrante discurso donde da a conocer la “Primera Declaración de La Habana” donde la Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba, suceso inédito en los anales de Latinoamérica, fue legítimamente constituida como fuente de derecho democrático, 2 de septiembre de 1960. Foto: Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
The solution of the revolutionary government was to attempt an exercise in direct sovereign democracy by constituting a General National Assembly of the Cuban People (Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo Cubano). It was used in two instances between 1960 and 1962, and produced two key ideological instruments that defined Cuba's external relations and the internal structures for the expression of sovereign authority. It appeared in vestigial form at the end of the 1st PCC Congress and then only as part of a arger effort to create the Party-State governance architecture (as the sovereign act of delegating authority to both Party and to its popular expression no longer in general mass assemblies but in the institutionalization of the mass will in the National Assembly of Popular Power. Yet that trasition--which will be discussed briefly in a future post--ought not t take away from the importance of the development of core political principles around the idea of mass assemblies, of the suscision of popular voting, and of the conception of the membership of the politiy that, under the direction of the vanguard, was fit to exercise mass political power.
First Asamblea Gemeral Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba--2 September 1960.
First Asamblea Gemeral Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba--2 September 1960.
The first was produced at the end of a mass assembly on 2 September 1960 in Havana. It marked the rupture of relations with the United States.The event is inscribed in the political consciousness of the post revolutionary government in a quite specific way:
En una plaza repleta de pueblo que demostraba su apoyo incondicional a la Revolución triunfante del 1ero de enero de 1959, se levantaba una voz potente, el entonces primer ministro Fidel Castro Ruz da a conocer la Primera Declaración de La Habana. Una respuesta convincente de la Revolución Cubana a la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA) es aprobada por unanimidad. El pueblo cubano decide enfrentarse a las declaraciones de esta organización que hasta su actualidad responde a los intereses de los Estados Unidos. (Fidel Castro: “¡Cuba es el territorio libre de América!”).
[TRANS: In a plaza filled with the populace all demonstrating their unconditional support for the triumphant Revolution of January 1, 1959, there raised a unified powerful voice, then Prime Minister Fidel Castro Ruz made known the First Declaration of Havana. That convincing response from the Cuban Revolution to the Organization of American States (OAS) was then approved unanimously. The Cuban people decide to confront the declarations of that organization that up to then responds to the interests of the United States.]
But this was no ordinary gathering of supporters. The mass event was quite deliberately framed as a constitutive gathering with sovereign effect as a General National Assembly of the Cuban People "an unprecedented event in the annals of Latin America, [which] was legitimately constituted as a source of democratic power, September 2, 1960" (Original: "Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba, suceso inédito en los anales de Latinoamérica, fue legítimamente constituida como fuente de derecho democrático, 2 de septiembre de 1960") (CubaDebate, Fidel Castro: “¡Cuba es el territorio libre de América!”).
Two fundamentally important premises were articulated around the Havana Declaration of relevance to the issue of democratic accountability in (in this case) an emerging Leninist system. The first touched on the mechanisms of direct democracy in a large modern state. It centered both on the theory of democratic action at a mass event, as well as the mechanics for determining under what conditions such sovereignty exercising events might be understood to exist. This was the immediate problem facing the revolutionary government as it sought to confront the need to act. The second was a longer term concern. This centered on the role and mechanics of voting, of elections, within a revolutionary state suspicious of voting as a technique for class based domination.
The mechanics of direct democracy:
With respect to the first, the premise of a popular assembly was meant to look both backwards to overcome Cuba's past and outward to provide a model for other Latin American (and eventually all developing) states. It was in its own way self consciously universal in its pretensions--at least with respect to the condtions and realities of Latin America.
It looked backwards by interposing a popular assembly against the tradition of what Fidel Castro called the assembly of sergeants (with reference to the recently overthrown Batista dictatorship). It was meant to interpose the performance of democratic and sovereign prerogatives through a public assembly of people acting on instinct--and also guided with respect to the details of its action by and through the leadership of the revolutionary (not yet Marxist Leninist) government. That government, of course, acquired legitimacy through force of arms. And it was important to cement that initial armed legitimacy by an expression of assent by a reunion of a group of people large and potent enough to have rejected and undone that government (at great cost but possible as later experiences in Egypt and Ukraine would make clearer).
To be clear, the object of that characterization was neither to defend or to reject it, but rather to hold it up as an important moment in the development of Caribbean Marxist notions of what in China might eventually be come to be understood as the mass line. But the mass line in Cuba was from the first practiced in an entirely different way. Given the nature of the revolutionary government--revolution first and political self-conception after--it makes sense to understand that the revolutionary government would first draw on Western principles of pure democracy (likely sieved through glimmerings of Rousseau (they they might have understood them).
The notion of popular assembly was then generalized as a basic theory of democratic governance of states in their external relations. To that extent, the ideology began to conflate the notions of popular assent with that of the nature of representation in states. The result was curious in the sense that it suggested that representation on the model of liberal democratic states was no representation at all; and that the revolutionary leadership (e.g., vanguard leadership( model emerging in the post 1959 governance apparatus of Cuba provided a more authentic model of representative and democratic action.
Two fundamentally important premises were articulated around the Havana Declaration of relevance to the issue of democratic accountability in (in this case) an emerging Leninist system. The first touched on the mechanisms of direct democracy in a large modern state. It centered both on the theory of democratic action at a mass event, as well as the mechanics for determining under what conditions such sovereignty exercising events might be understood to exist. This was the immediate problem facing the revolutionary government as it sought to confront the need to act. The second was a longer term concern. This centered on the role and mechanics of voting, of elections, within a revolutionary state suspicious of voting as a technique for class based domination.
The mechanics of direct democracy:
With respect to the first, the premise of a popular assembly was meant to look both backwards to overcome Cuba's past and outward to provide a model for other Latin American (and eventually all developing) states. It was in its own way self consciously universal in its pretensions--at least with respect to the condtions and realities of Latin America.
Nuestra patria pequeña representa hoy intereses que se salen de nuestras fronteras. ¡A nuestra patria pequeña le ha tocado el destino de ser el faro que ilumine a los millones y millones de hombres y mujeres igual que nosotros, que en la América sufren hoy lo mismo que nosotros sufríamos ayer! ¡Nos ha tocado ese destino glorioso y nosotros seremos una luz que no se apagará nunca, una luz que será cada día más brillante y cuyos reflejos llegarán cada día más lejos sobre las tierras de la América hermana! ((DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN LA MAGNA ASAMBLEA POPULAR CELEBRADA POR EL PUEBLO DE CUBA EN LA PLAZA DE LA REPUBLICA, EL 2 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1960)).
[TRANS: Our small homeland today represents interests that go beyond our borders. The destiny of our little homeland isto be the beacon that enlightens the millions and millions of men and women just like us, who in America today suffer the same as we suffered yesterday! This glorious destiny has touched us and we will be a light that will never be extinguished, a light that will become brighter each day and whose reflections will reach farther and farther on the lands of sister America!]
It looked backwards by interposing a popular assembly against the tradition of what Fidel Castro called the assembly of sergeants (with reference to the recently overthrown Batista dictatorship). It was meant to interpose the performance of democratic and sovereign prerogatives through a public assembly of people acting on instinct--and also guided with respect to the details of its action by and through the leadership of the revolutionary (not yet Marxist Leninist) government. That government, of course, acquired legitimacy through force of arms. And it was important to cement that initial armed legitimacy by an expression of assent by a reunion of a group of people large and potent enough to have rejected and undone that government (at great cost but possible as later experiences in Egypt and Ukraine would make clearer).
Era lógico que en cualquier reunión de cancilleres no se fuese a condenar a Cuba; era lógico que en cualquier reunión de cancilleres se condenase a Estados Unidos por sus agresiones a un país pequeño. Lo absurdo era que el país pequeño fuese a ser condenado por los cancilleres, precisamente para servir los designios del poderoso país agresor. Y eso es lo que vamos a discutir hoy en esta asamblea general nacional del pueblo de Cuba.
En primer lugar, ¿por qué es esta una asamblea general del pueblo? ¿Qué quiere decir esto de una asamblea general del pueblo? Quiere decir, en primer lugar, que el pueblo es soberano, es decir que la soberanía radica en el pueblo y que de él dimanan todos los poderes (APLAUSOS). El pueblo de Cuba es soberano. Nadie podría discutir que aquí está representada la mayoría del pueblo; nadie podría discutir que aquí está representado el pueblo. En los anales de la historia de nuestra patria jamás se reunió semejante multitud; en los anales de la historia de nuestra patria jamás se vio un acto semejante; en los anales de la historia de América jamás se reunió semejante multitud; en los anales de la historia de América jamás se vio un acto semejante (APLAUSOS).
Los cubanos podemos hoy hablarle a América; los cubanos podemos hoy hablarle al mundo. Aquí no se ha reunido un grupito de “sargentos” políticos; aquí no se ha reunido un puñadito de mercenarios; ¡aquí se ha reunido hoy el pueblo! (APLAUSOS.) Los que quieran saber lo que es un pueblo reunido, ¡que vengan y vean esto!; los que quieran saber qué es un pueblo democrático, ¡que vengan y vean esto!; los que quieran ver lo que es un pueblo rigiendo sus propios destinos, ¡que vengan y vean esto!; los que quieran saber qué es una democracia, ¡que vengan y vean esto! (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN LA MAGNA ASAMBLEA POPULAR CELEBRADA POR EL PUEBLO DE CUBA EN LA PLAZA DE LA REPUBLICA, EL 2 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1960).
[TRANS: It would have been logical that in any meeting of foreign ministers Cuba would not be condemned; It would have been logical that in any meeting of foreign ministers the United States ought to have been condemned for its aggressions against a small country. The absurdity was that the small country would be condemned by the foreign ministers, precisely to serve the designs of the powerful aggressor country. And that is what we are going to discuss today in this national general assembly of the people of Cuba.And thus the general national assembly of the people was juxtaposed against the assemblies of contemporary democracy and dictatorship--the assemblies of states beholden to a great power, and the assemblies of national actors beholden to a "primus." Against these that mimicked the forms of democracy, Fidel Castro offered the performance of the masses themselves, gathered together in the largest open space in Havana--as the incarnation of the genius of the people and vested by that reason with the full sovereign authority of the political community self constituted as the Cuban Republic.
First, why is this a general assembly of the people? What does this mean about a general assembly of the people? It means, in the first place, that the people are sovereign, that is to say that sovereignty is rooted in the people and that all powers emerge from it (applause). The people of Cuba are sovereign. No one could argue that the majority of the people are represented here; No one could argue that the people are represented here. In the annals of the history of our country such a crowd never met; In the annals of the history of our country, such an act was never seen; in the annals of the history of America such a multitude never met; In the annals of the history of America a similar act was never seen (applause).
We Cubans can speak to America today; We Cubans can speak to the world today. A small group of political "sergeants" has not gathered here; here a handful of mercenaries have not gathered; Here the populace has gathered today! (Applause.) Those who want to know what a united populace, come and see this! Those who want to understand a democratic people, come and see this! those who want to see what a people ruling their own destinies, come and see this !; those who want to know what a democracy is, come and see this!
To be clear, the object of that characterization was neither to defend or to reject it, but rather to hold it up as an important moment in the development of Caribbean Marxist notions of what in China might eventually be come to be understood as the mass line. But the mass line in Cuba was from the first practiced in an entirely different way. Given the nature of the revolutionary government--revolution first and political self-conception after--it makes sense to understand that the revolutionary government would first draw on Western principles of pure democracy (likely sieved through glimmerings of Rousseau (they they might have understood them).
The notion of popular assembly was then generalized as a basic theory of democratic governance of states in their external relations. To that extent, the ideology began to conflate the notions of popular assent with that of the nature of representation in states. The result was curious in the sense that it suggested that representation on the model of liberal democratic states was no representation at all; and that the revolutionary leadership (e.g., vanguard leadership( model emerging in the post 1959 governance apparatus of Cuba provided a more authentic model of representative and democratic action.
Es un principio, es un principio elemental de derecho público, que ningún puede comprometer a su país en actos de derecho internacional, si ese acto no cuenta con la aprobación del pueblo. Un representante de cualquier país no va a una reunión internacional por su propio derecho. Nadie tiene derecho por su propia cuenta a comprometer la conducta internacional de un país, y los que van sin representar a los países, a comprometer la conducta de los países, no comprometen tal conducta. Todo acto que se haga por encima de la voluntad soberana de los pueblos, es un acto nulo, carece de validez. Por tanto, la validez de la declaración de Costa Rica depende no de los cancilleres, depende de los pueblos, y al pueblo de Cuba no le pueden venir con el cuento de que esa declaración tenga validez, porque ellos dicen representar a los pueblos, ¡no!, a nosotros hay que probarnos que ese es el sentimiento de los pueblos (APLAUSOS). Y nosotros le pedimos al gobierno de Venezuela, al gobierno de Perú, al gobierno de Chile, al gobierno de Argentina, al gobierno de Brasil, al gobierno de Ecuador, al gobierno de Costa Rica; es decir, les pedimos, respetuosamente, a los gobiernos de América que convoquen a sus pueblos en asamblea general y les sometan la Declaración de Costa Rica (APLAUSOS). (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN LA MAGNA ASAMBLEA POPULAR CELEBRADA POR EL PUEBLO DE CUBA EN LA PLAZA DE LA REPUBLICA, EL 2 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1960).That theory was then meant to serve not just the Cuban context, but rather, the model for all (small) republic), or at least those who were seeking liberation from the constraints of an international system that from the perspective of the Cuban revolutionary government, were bound in dependency to a master state. "Y el que no reúna al pueblo, el que no reúna al pueblo, ¡ese no es demócrata!; el que no consulte al pueblo, ¡ese no es demócrata! ¡Para ser demócrata hay que consultar al pueblo! (EXCLAMACIONES DE: “¡Eso solo se da en Cuba!”)"(Ibid.) [An he who fails to gather together the people, he is not a democrat; he who does not consult the people, he is not a democrat; to be a democrat one has to consult the people. That only happens in Cuba!]. Notice here the intimate connection between mass assemblies and the guidance of the vanguard, already well developed, though not using the traditional discursive tropes of Soviet Leninism. . . yet.
[TRANS: It is a principle, it is an elementary principle of public law, that no state official can commit his country in acts of international law, if that act does not have the approval of the people. A representative of any country does not go to an international meeting in its own right. Nobody has the right on their own to compromise the international conduct of a country, and those who go without representing the countries, to compromise the behavior of the countries, do not commit such behavior. Any act that is done over the sovereign will of the people, is a null act, it lacks validity. Therefore, the validity of the declaration of Costa Rica does not depend on the will of the foreign ministers, it depends on the will of the people, and one cannot come to the Cuban people with the story that this declaration has any validity merely because they claim to represent the peoples, No! We have to prove to ourselves that this is the feeling of the people. (Applause) And we ask the government of Venezuela, the government of Peru, the government of Chile, the government of Argentina, the government of Brazil, the government of Ecuador, the government of Costa Rica; that is, we ask, respectfully, the governments of America to summon their peoples in a general assembly and submit to them the Declaration of Costa Rica. (Applause)].
The theory of voting in revolutionary governments.
But inherent as well in the notion of popular expression in mass assemblies, were the notions of authentic democracy and of the role of voting and thus of authentic representation). Fidel Castro was at pains to describe this to the Assembly itself in September 1960:
y esta sí que es una representación, porque aquí no hay “pucherazo”, ni hay fraude, ni hay voto comprado, ni hay sargento político, ni hay maquinaria, ni hay botella, ni hay nada; ¡esto sí es puro! (APLAUSOS.) Esta sí que es una democracia limpia de impurezas, limpia de impurezas, es una democracia verdaderamente “pasteurizada” (RISAS Y APLAUSOS). Y que no nos digan que la otra es más democracia que esta; que la democracia del sargento político, del “pucherazo”, de la botella, de la politiquería, del soborno, de la compra de conciencias, de la coacción, de la maquinaria política, es más pura que esta. ¿Puede haber algo más puro que una reunión de todo el pueblo? (EXCLAMACIONES DE: “¡No!”) ¿Alguien trajo al pueblo a la fuerza? (EXCLAMACIONES DE: “¡No!”) ¿Alguien le pagó al pueblo para que viniera? (EXCLAMACIONES DE: “¡No!”) El que vino aquí y está pasando el trabajo que están pasando ustedes, porque nosotros sabemos que en una multitud apretada son muchas las personas que se desmayan, y son muchas las personas... (IBID).
[And this [assembly ]is a representation, because here there is no "pucherazo" [vote management by the principal parties and connected with caciquismo], no fraud, no vote buying, no political sergeant, no machinery, no bottle, and there is nothing; This is pure! (Applause.) This is a democracy free of impurities, free of impurities, it is a truly "pasteurized" democracy (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE). And do not tell us that the other is more democracy than this; that the democracy of the political sergeant, of the "pucherazo", of the bottle, of politicking, of bribery, of the purchase of consciences, of coercion, of the political machinery, is purer than this. Can there be anything more pure than a meeting of the whole people? (EXCLAMATIONS OF: "No!") Did someone bring the town by force? (EXCLAMATIONS FROM: "No!") Did someone pay the town to come? (SHOUTING: "No!") The one who came here and is passing the work that you are going through, because we know that in a crowded crowd there are many people who faint, and there are many people ...]
Again the juxtaposition between what the Cuban government painted as a liberal democracy with elaborate forms but no real substance, against the purity of a direct expression of democratic action through assemblies of the masses at which all of the perceived deficiencies of the liberal order were absent. But of course, this would be possible only because the element of spontaneous assembly (something truly revolutionary in the sense of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine or the Arab Spring in Egypt) was avoided. Spontaneous assemblies were revolutionary in the sense that their project was to replace the ruling order. Castro's nothing of popular assembly could be democratic within a governance order only to the extent it was managed by and functioned under the guidance of the vanguard. In the case of Cuba that vanguard acquired the legitimate mantle of leadership and the authority to guide by virtue of a military triumph.
The text of the Havana Declaration itself elaborated what was to be the initial conceptual position of what would emerge as Caribbean Marxism. It's Sixth paragragh declared:
The text of the Havana Declaration itself elaborated what was to be the initial conceptual position of what would emerge as Caribbean Marxism. It's Sixth paragragh declared:
“La Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba, expresa la convicción cubana de que la democracia no puede consistir sólo en el ejercicio de un voto electoral, que casi siempre es ficticio y está manejado por latifundistas y políticos profesionales, sino en el derecho de los ciudadanos a decidir, como ahora lo hace esta Asamblea General del Pueblo de Cuba, sus propios destinos. La democracia, además, sólo existirá en América cuando los pueblos sean realmente libres para escoger, cuando los humildes no estén reducidos —por el hambre, la desigualdad social, el analfabetismo y los sistemas jurídicos—, a la más ominosa impotencia. (Ibid).[TRANS: "The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba, expresses the Cuban conviction that democracy can not consist only in the exercise of an electoral vote, which is almost always fictitious and is managed by large landowners and professional politicians, but in the right of citizens to decide, as now does this General Assembly of the People of Cuba, their own destinies. Democracy, moreover, will only exist in America when the people are really free to choose, when the humble are not reduced-by hunger, social inequality, illiteracy and legal systems-to the most ominous impotence].
The position reflects what has crystallized into the well known position, first of the Soviet bloc and then of developing states with respect to the realization of human dignity (expressed in the language of rights) and its relationship to the fundamental notion of democratic expression through voting and similar mechanisms developed at the core of theories of Western liberal democracies. That approach is premised on the notion that liberal democracies are inherently corrupt because of the effects of economic subordination on the free will of voters. As a consequence, economic rights are central and paramount to the attainment of political rights. Political rights cannot be bootstrapped into existence through its mechanics, especially the mechanics of elections. As a consequence, centering principles of democracy around voting in the absence of economic rights which liberates individuals form the effective (direct or indirect) control of hierarchs (defined in any number of ways) amounts to a subterfuge and the substitution of political theater for democratic politics.
And, of course, what follows is the need for a focus on economic rights, the centrality of a leading force installed for that purpose, the central objective of government to guide its people toward liberation. Most importantly, it then reconstitutes the people (worthy of exercising sovereignty) to those already committed to the project of economic liberation (understood in the Marxist sense for th emost part); and excluding all other individuals as unsuitable for the exercise of popular sovereignty under the leadership of a "right acting" vanguard.
Second Asamblea Gemeral Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba--4 February 1962.
And, of course, what follows is the need for a focus on economic rights, the centrality of a leading force installed for that purpose, the central objective of government to guide its people toward liberation. Most importantly, it then reconstitutes the people (worthy of exercising sovereignty) to those already committed to the project of economic liberation (understood in the Marxist sense for th emost part); and excluding all other individuals as unsuitable for the exercise of popular sovereignty under the leadership of a "right acting" vanguard.
Second Asamblea Gemeral Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba--4 February 1962.
The Second National General Assembly was organized on 4 February 1962 in response to yet another international rebuff of the Cuban revolutionary government by other Latin American states. Specifically, the trigger was the action taken by the OAS at its January 1962 meeting at which the organization voted additional sanctions against Cuba and the day after U.S. President Kennedy Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 3447, more firmly establishing what then became known as the Cuban Embargo. " Se reúne por segunda vez, con carácter de órgano soberano de la voluntad del pueblo cubano, esta Asamblea General en el día de hoy; y se reúne para dar cabal respuesta a la maniobra, a la conjura, al complot de nuestros enemigos en Punta del Este." (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER SECRETARIO DE LA DIRECCIONA NACIONAL DE LAS ORI Y PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN LA SEGUNDA ASAMBLEA NACIONAL DEL PUEBLO DE CUBA, CELEBRADA EN LA PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCION, EL 4 DE FEBRERO DE 1962; and generally, Segunda Declaración de La Habana: Por su única, verdadera e irrenunciable independencia; Cubadebate 4 Feb. 2017).
The event and its context, then, assumes a fundamental place within the development of the principles and orientations of the Cuban state both internally and in its relationship with its neighbors. Those principles, and the context in which they arose, also resonated with the Cuban leadership and their allies in the Caribbean in the midst of the 7th PCC Congress and the development of the reconcpetualization of the political and economic model along with the constitutional reform that necessarily followed. In 2017, an official Cuban organ noted
más de un millón de cubanos colmaron la Plaza de la Revolución al llamado que hiciera el Gobierno Revolucionario para constituir la Segunda Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo, la cual aprobó la Segunda Declaración de La Habana, que reafirmó nuestra dignidad como nación libre, independiente y soberana, al tiempo que proclamaba la proyección y vocación latinoamericanista de la Revolución Cubana. ((Segunda Declaración de La Habana: Por su única, verdadera e irrenunciable independencia; Cubadebate 4 Feb. 2017).)That was certainly echoed by the friendly elements of the then government of Venezuela through its press organs:
[TRANS: More than a million Cubans filled the Plaza de la Revolución [formerly the Plaza de la República]] answering the call for assembly made by the Revolutionary Government for the purpose of constituting the Second National General Assembly of the People, which approved the Second Declaration of Havana, which reaffirmed our dignity as a free, independent and sovereign nation , while proclaiming the projection and Latin Americanist vocation of the Cuban Revolution.]
Con el pasar de los años la Declaración se convirtió en una verdadera afirmación de principios, a favor de la proyección y vocación latinoamericana de la Revolución Cubana con un profundo respeto al carácter socialista e internacionalista del proceso político cubano. [TRANS: With the pasaage of time the [2nd Declaraiton of Havana] has become a true affirmation of principles advancing Over the years, the Declaration became a true affirmation of principles, in favor of the projection and Latin American character of the Cuban Revolution with a deep respect for the socialist and internationalist character of the Cuban political process.] (La II Declaración de La Habana expone los principios para la proyección hacia los pueblos de Latinoamérica de la Revolución Cubana).
One of the most interesting elements of the Second General National Assembly was the way in which it affirmed the notion of people grounded in class and political solidarity in a way that effectively permitted the reconstitution of "the people" without respect to nationality.
Con nosotros se encuentran numerosos latinoamericanos que visitan a nuestro país o participaron de la Conferencia de los Pueblos en La Habana (APLAUSOS), pero ellos no deben ser solo espectadores. Proponemos a la Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo que los latinoamericanos no sean espectadores, sino que tengan derecho también a votar junto con el pueblo de Cuba la Declaración de La Habana (APLAUSOS PROLONGADOS Y EXCLAMACIONES DE: “¡Fidel, Fidel!”) ((DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER SECRETARIO DE LA DIRECCIONA NACIONAL DE LAS ORI Y PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN LA SEGUNDA ASAMBLEA NACIONAL DEL PUEBLO DE CUBA, CELEBRADA EN LA PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCION, EL 4 DE FEBRERO DE 1962)
[TRANS: With us there are many Latin Americans who visit our country or participated in the Peoples Conference in Havana (applause), but they should not be just spectators. We propose to the National General Assembly of the People that Latin Americans not be spectators, but also have the right to vote along with the people of Cuba, the Declaration of Havana (PROLONGED APPLAUSE AND EXCLAMATIONS OF: "Fidel, Fidel!")]
The focus was not anarchic. Rather it furthered the emerging principles of Latin American solidarity at the heart of Caribbean Marxism. That solidarity posited a common supra-sovereign alignment of Latin American states in opposition to the United States and its purported domination of the hemisphere:
Ningún pueblo de América Latina es débil, porque forma parte de una familia de 200 millones de hermanos que padecen las mismas miserias, albergan los mismos sentimientos, tienen el mismo enemigo, sueñan todos un mismo mejor destino, y cuentan con la solidaridad de todos los hombres y mujeres honrados del mundo entero (APLAUSOS)." (Ibid.)
[TRANS: No Latin American people are weak, because they form part of a family of 200 million brothers who share the same mideries, harbor the same sentiments, and have the same enemy, who all dream of a better destiny, and whi count on the solodarity of all honest men and women worldwide"].
Taken together, the two General National Assemblies produced an ideological urtext from which the PCC would find it difficult to reject. That urtext was grounded in the essential role of popular affirmation as the fundamental device for legitimating the authority of the vanguard. It opened the possibility that this mass popular assembly might one day not approve. But at the same time it pressed the principle of vanguard guidance to constrain the discretion of mass assemblies. And it substantially boxed in the breadth of popular action by limiting its exercise to those who were already committed to the revolutionary enterprise, starting with the objects of class struggle: workers, peasants, and aligned intellectuals.
Para entonces había sido declarado el carácter socialista de la Revolución, se había producido la ruptura de relaciones con Estados Unidos, la invasión de Bahía de Cochinos y la creación del partido único, primero llamado organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (ORI) y luego Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista de Cuba (PURSC). Rafael Rojas, "La Soledad constitucional del socialismo Cubano," Claves de razón práctica, ISSN 1130-3689, Nº 218, 2011, págs. 44-51(p. 48) [TRANS: "From then the socialist character of the Revolution had been declared, there had been a rupture of relations with the United States, the invasion of the Bay of Pigs and the creation of the single [vanguard] party, first called Revolutionary Integrated Organizations (ORI) and then United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (PURSC)"].
But as well, out of the second General Popular Assembly and the 2nd Havana Declaration emerged the kernels of what by 1975 would provide the core structures of Caribbean Leninism, one that marches decisively away from the forms of popular direct democracy while attempting to maintain its ideological legitimacy. The device of the popular mass assembly did not wither on the vine, but was instead the object of experimentation to tame it, to domesticate it, to make it more useful as a mechanism for the legitimization of the leadership and guidance of the vanguard party with respect to operationalization of its political line through state organs. That experimentation reached its most refined point in the construction of Asamblea nacionales prototypes in the provinces after the end of the 1960s. But before then it manifested itself in the revolutionary government's constant efforts to "bottle the genie" of popular affirmation in more pragmatically aligned instruments:
El tránsito acelerado de una breve experiencia de democracia directa a una primera institucionalización de tipo comunista, en la isla, se dio acompañado de la creación de un conjunto de organizaciones de masas –comités vecinales, asociaciones campesinas, juveniles y femeninas, sindicatos…-, que vertebró estatalmente la sociedad civil cubana. Dicha institucionalidad fue todavía precaria durante los años 60 y se vio constantemente emplazada por los giros de la cambiante política económica del gobierno revolucionario en aquella década. (Ibid., Cf. Luis M. Buch, Gobierno Revolucionario Cubano. Génesis y primeros pasos, La Habana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2001
The resulting search for a means of producing representative government along Caribbean Leninist lines would prove to be a longer term project. Connecting the device of General National Assemblies to the popular constitutive actions around the 1st PCC Congress in 1975 and the approval of the 1976 constitution requires the development of devices that were meant to solve the ultimate problem that this mechanism ultimately presented a maturing revolutionary government--a problem that has confronted all government based on popular sovereignty--that of efficiency. Like other similarly constituted states, the Cuban revolutionary government would eventually choose the path of representative mass democracy. But it would be one that required two distinct levels to reconcile its operations to the core postulates of Leninist government. The fist layer would have to consist of the classical Leninist theory of vanguard party power; with the vanguard party understood to incarnate and represent the political will of the nation. At the same time, the masses would have to be reconstituted in representative form so that they might be assembled efficiently and managed effectively. To that end one moves from the assembly of the masses in 1962 to the construction of the national assembly of popular power, a subject which we take up next.
1 comment:
Bien escrito, profe. This post reminds me of a book called "Mexico's Cold War" By Renata Keller. Alot of parallels. Todavia espero una copia del libro tuyo para que yo pueda entender Cuba totalmente. Por favor avisame cuando pueda comprar yo una copia por fin.
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