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 5: From the Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba to the Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular; Situating Popular Assent Within an Institutional Cage.
Series Content Links.
Viewed in this way, even at this stage, as the Cuban revolutionary government was feeling its way toward Leninist governance principles and Marxist political principles grounded in class struggle in which the only people who mattered were the proletarian and the revolutionary worker cadres (the Cuban "militantes" nodding toward the military focus of the initial success), it was clear that a sort of corporatist "active-passive" principle had been embraced. That is, the principle of popular mass action could not be self invoked, it acquired its constitutive character only as a result of the call to assembly by the vanguard. And that call could only be understood as effective when exercised only by the people, which were understood, in turn to include only those leading forces of society in solidarity with the principles of the revolution and the leadership of the revolutionary government. The circle is complete.
But more than that, the early invocation of the mass assembly was the foil against which the PCC could begin to develop its theory of democratic action. That theory started from the core proposition that the modalities of elections that formed the core element of the principle expression of liberal democracy were illegitimate. Rejecting the value of elections produced two immediate results. The first was that the ideal of representation produced by elections were as suspect as the modalities of elections themselves. The second was that popular engagement had to be undertaken in some other way. That last point was important in one key respect--it served as an acknowledgement, even early in the revolutionary development process, that the vanguard's legitimacy was tied to some sort of express of popular consent.
But the model of mass assemblies, especially on an Island the configuration of Cuba posed problems of representation as well. It was subtly acquired by Fidel Castro during the First Assembly in his praise of the event in which he identified people who had managed to attend from the Western and Central provinces. But it would have been impossible for those of the Eastern provinces to attend--and that problem, already of historic significance (marginalization of the Eastern provinces by the Havana metropolis and ironically the tradition of starting successful revolution against Havana in the Eastern provinces)--eventually might cause a problem of imbalance. That imbalance, in turn, would bring back the core problem of representation itself--the problem the assembly was meant to overcome. Or, in the hands of the ideological enemies of the revolutionary government, a deliciously ironic argument that such assemblies were as empty of substance as were the elections that Castro criticized in the liberal democracies.
(Pix Credit HERE)
It is against this ideological backdrop that the revolutionary government slowly confronted the issue of its institutionalization.Like all revolutionary governments was brought face to face with the contradictions of its principles as a revolutionary party against the realities of running a state. And like the Soviet Union, the Cuban revolutionary government made a number of choices that brought into tension its earlier core ideologies and the allurements of an ideology, not of nomenklatura (for that had already progressed prodigiously between 1962 and 1976) but of the vessel for popular affirmation of vanguard policy to then be sent back to the vanguards cadres placed startegically within the administrative apparatus of the state.
For the revolutionary government that required a progression from revolutionary government to socialist state, with respect to which Fidel Castro sought to cast in as good a light as possible.
"En este acto trascendental e histórico, del cual todos somos testigos vivientes, cesa el período de provisionalidad del Gobierno Revolucionario y adopta nuestro Estado socialista formas institucionales definitivas. La Asamblea Nacional se constituye en órgano supremo del Estado y asume las funciones que le asigna la Constitución. Era un deber y es a la vez un gran triunfo de nuestra generación arribar a esta meta." (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENTE DE LA REPÚBLICA DE CUBA, EN LA SESION SOLEMNE DE CONSTITUCION DE LA ASAMBLEA NACIONAL DEL PODER POPULAR, CELEBRADA EN EL TEATRO "CARLOS MARX", EL 2 DE DICIEMBRE DE 1976, "AÑO DEL XX ANIVERSARIO DEL GRANMA") [TRANS: "In this transcendental and historical act, of which we are all living witnesses, the provisional period of the Revolutionary Government ceases and our definitive institutional forms are adopted by our socialist State. The National Assembly is constituted as the supreme organ of the State and assumes the functions assigned to it by the Constitution. It was a duty and it is at the same time a great triumph of our generation to reach this goal"].
The official history suggests an organic progress from a revolutionary state in which all authority had to be concentrated in the hands of a single vanguard to a position of stability that at last permitted the revolutionary vanguard to seek to institutionalize its governance through representative organs under its leadership. The necessities of dismantling the structures and operations of U.S. (primarily) colonialism (as they characterized the relationship) and the need to develop new structures created a context in which the revolutionary gobvernment took for itself all of the powers of state
"dictó las leyes revolucionarias, expropió a los explotadores, desarrolló básicas mutaciones sociales, llevó a cabo con éxito la lucha política frente a las agresiones externas e internas. Apoyado masivamente por el pueblo, el gobierno revolucionario impulsó en este período vastas y hondas transformaciones políticas, económicas, sociales y culturales en la vida cubana." (Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular)) [TRANS: "decreed revolutionary laws, expropriated the exploiters property, developed basic social mutations, successfully carried out the political struggle against external and internal aggression. Supported overwhelmingly by the people, the revolutionary government promoted in this period vast and deep political, economic, social and cultural transformations in Cuban life."].But, of course, it was not clear that it was either a duty or a triumph; or if it was, whether it was to a large extent a fulfilled of the ideological promises of the earliest period of revolutionary governance. More importantly, it was not entirely true--as the revolutionary government used that period to develop and apply principles of mass popular approval as the fundamental modality for ratification of their actions.
Yet that process of democratic ratification was actually undertaken only twice; the rhetoric of ratification remained far more potent than its application. And that augured another conundrum for the government: it could not abandon its core ideological notion of popular ratification at mass events; such undertakings, however, had been reserved for extraordinarily events; that left unanswered questions about the scope of any obligation to seek popular (mass) acclamation. If the scope of mandatory popular affirmation was broad, then a mechanism would have to be developed for the institutionalized invocation of the popular will (its affirmation power); however to the extent that this would require devolving that popular power to an institution, it would raise the issue of popular representation in such a body. But to approach that question was also to confront the companion ideological constraint made explicit in the two Havana Declarations--specifically the ideological line that traditional voting mechanisms were corrupted by the ideology of liberal democracies and would tend to lead to systemic corruption in the sense that it would create incentives towards class based dominance.
Moreover, even if one could solve that problem, the fundamental problem of the relationship of this mechanism for popular assent to the leadership responsibilities of the PCC would have to be theorized and also operationalized within the institutions structures created. That relationship, in turn, might be based on principles of active versus passive power already inherent in the relationship between the revolutionary government and the Asambleas General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba. And yet, it might also require something more than a simple affirmation of work done elsewhere. It was necessary, then, also to consider the extent to which such an institutionalized voice of popular affirmation might also be avenue for review and interaction (here with an institutionalized voice of the people) of the legislative and policy guidance received from the PCC.
By the early 1970s, a determination was made that there was a need to streamline the process of popular approval of fundamental acts not otherwise reserved to the administrative machinery. The constitution of mass assemblies like the Asambleas General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba of the early 1960s was ideologically ideal but practically impossible for the business of acquiring a constant and uniform and predictable approval of leadership guidance by the PCC. At the same time, the idea of engagement was thought useful--the idea that popular deep engagement in the formulation of the actions to be affirmed doubled the instance of popular investment in the work of the state and cemented the theoretical requirement of popular involvement in the operation of the state. To that end, the PCC developed a new model for reform that was to have a substantial impact on the way in which it understood and practiced what was to become Caribbean Marxist Socialist democracy.
There were models and templates available to the revolutionary government. The Chinese Communist Party's revolutionary government established its large National People's Congress system at the national, provincial and local levels in 1954 at the time it first sought to institutionalize its revolutionary organs and give structure to an expression of its mass line ("from the people to the people) and it served as the conduit for the consideration and approval of the Chinese 18954 Constitution. But as important, perhaps, was that even as the Cuban revolutionary government was working through issue of institutionalization, the Chinese were experiencing the full force of their Cultural Revolution, an important point of which was the passage of a transformed Chinese Constitution adopted January 17, 1975 by the 4th National People's Congress. Both the 1954 and the 1975 Chinese constitutions constituted the people--and popular participation in the administrative functions of the state, through their system of National People's Congresses.
All power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people. The Organs through which the people exercise power are the National People's Congress and the local people's congresses.These might resonate more with the early Cuban model (at least in broadest theory), but would represent something of a break from past practice. But by the mid 1970s the rupture between Fidel Castro and the Chinese was very much in evidence, one that survived almost to the day that Mr. Castro died (here), which remained unchanged from the time of the Cultural Revolution and through the period of Reform and Opening up, and which complicated Cuban-Chinese relations for a generation. The source, ironically enough, was characterized by the Cuban leader as one of the deleterious effects of cults of personality and personal dictatorship.
The National People's Congress, the local people's congresses and other organs of state practice democratic centralism. (1954 Chinese Constitution Art. 2).
All power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the People. The organs through which the people exercise power are the people's congresses at all levels, with deputies of workers, peasants and soldiers as their main body.The people's congresses at all levels and all other organs of state practice democratic centralism (1975 Constitution, art. 3).
De que las cosas más absurdas pueden ocurrir aún en el seno de la familia socialista y en países que iniciaron ese glorioso y revolucionario camino, si los principios se descuidan, si los conceptos se pierden, si los hombres se hacen dioses, si el internacionalismo se abandona, es la historia reciente de China. Ese país, cuya heroica y abnegada victoria revolucionaria constituyó, después de la gloriosa Revolución de Octubre, una de las más grandes y alentadoras esperanzas para todos los pueblos de la Tierra, ha sido escenario de la más brutal traición al movimiento revolucionario mundial.. . .Todo eso puede ocurrir cuando una camarilla corrompida y endiosada puede hacerse dueña del Partido, destruir, humillar y aplastar a los mejores militantes e imponer su voluntad a toda la nación, apoyada en la fuerza y el prestigio que emana de una profunda revolución social. (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, supra, 2 Dec. 1976) (TRANS: "That the most absurd things can happen even in the bosom of the socialist family and in countries that started that glorious and revolutionary path, if the principles are neglected, if the concepts are lost, if men become gods, if internationalism is abandons, that is the recent history of China. That country, whose heroic and self-sacrificing revolutionary victory constituted, after the glorious October Revolution, one of the greatest and most encouraging hopes for all the peoples of the Earth, has been the scene of the most brutal betrayal of the world revolutionary movement. . . . All this can happen when a corrupted and deified clique can take over the Party, destroy, humiliate and crush the best militants and impose its will on the entire nation, supported by the strength and prestige that emanates from a profound social revolution.")
A more likely model was supplied by the rich cornucopia of ideas and practice generated by Soviet intellectual hegemons in the period from 1917, and whose forms as they emerged through the 1970s proved appealing. "Cuando los procesos revolucionarios se institucionalizan y se consolidan através de instituciones realmente adecuadas —como ocurrió con la Revolución Bolchevique, que tiene ya más de 50 años, que avanza ininterrumpidamente, y sabemos que seguirá avanzando—, vemos qué gran estabilidad le da a esos pueblos. (Discurso pronunciado por el Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz,primer secretario del Comite Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba yprimer ministro del gobierno revolucionario, en el acto en que lefueran entregados los compromisos del pueblo en saludo al PrimerCongreso del Partido por parte de los dirigentes de las organizacionesde masas, en el Palacio de la Revolucion, el 29 de mayo de 1975, "AÑODEL PRIMER CONGRESO")[TRANS: "When the revolutionary processes are institutionalized and consolidated through truly adequate institutions - as was the case with the Bolshevik Revolution, which is now more than 50 years old, which is progressing uninterruptedly, and we know that it will continue to advance - we see what great stability it gives these people"].
The ideological forms of the Soviets were likely much more compatible with what was coming to be embraced as ideology. The old Soviets were embedded in the early efforts to develop structures of democratic dictatorship which limited the "franchise" along class struggle principles (excluding "reactionaries and capitalist elements however these might be defined). It was democratic in the sense that at least in theory these were meant to incarnate working class participation in government. It was a dictatorship in the sense that it excluded reactionary elements and sought the guidance of the political vanguard. It's nostalgia for and efforts to connect with at least the theories of the Paris Commune was also appealing from a theoretical perspective. But even here, the shadow of Stalinism hung heavy (on Stalinism, Leszek Kolalowski, Main Currents of Marxism (OUP 1978), p. 789-92 ("the personification of a system which irresistibly sought to be personalized" 792)
More importantly, in the construction of institutionalized Soviets was an ideological position that legitimated practical politics as an important instrument in the sort of class struggle at the heart of the Soviet and Cuban political experiment.
From the point of view of practical politics the idea that the Soviets are necessary as combat organisations but must not be transformed into state organisations is infinitely more absurd than from the point of view of theory. Even in peacetime, when there is no revolutionary situation, the mass struggle of the workers against the capitalists—for instance, the mass strike—gives rise to great bitterness on both sides, to fierce passions in the struggle, the bourgeoisie constantly insisting that they remain and mean to remain “masters in their own house”, etc. And in time of revolution, when political life reaches boiling point, an organisation like the Soviets, which embraces all the workers in all branches of industry, all the soldiers, and all the working and poorest sections of the rural population—such an organisation, of its own accord, with the development of the struggle, by the simple “logic” of attack and defence, comes inevitably to pose the question point-blank. The attempt to take up a middle position and to “reconcile” the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is sheer stupidity and doomed to miserable failure. That is what happened in Russia to the preachings of Martov and other Mensheviks, and that will inevitably happen in Germany and other countries if the Soviets succeed in developing on any wide scale, manage to unite and strengthen. To say to the Soviets: fight, but don’t take all state power into your hands, don’t become state organisations—is tantamount to preaching class collaboration and “social peace” between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is ridiculous even to think that such a position in the midst of fierce struggle could lead to anything but ignominious failure. But it is Kautsky’s everlasting fate to sit between two stools. He pretends to disagree with the opportunists on everything in theory, but in practice he agrees with them on everything essential (i.e., on everything pertaining to revolution). (Vladimir Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (The Soviets Dare Not Become State Organisations)(Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 28, 1974, pages 227-325 (Nov. 1918))And here is the crux of the problem for which the Cuban Revolutionary government sought a solution through the theater and structural changes memorialized in and around the 1ts PCC Congress. The problem was easy enough to state: irrespective of the model chosen, none would fit comfortably within the practices of Cuban politics, even that of the then current revolutionary government. How might such a transposition of model be justified? Justification could not come easily from a Chinese model which at the time seemed too remote and too culturally specific to be of use. Rather, the more culturally appealing Soviet model was much more compatible with Cuban intellectual sensibilities (so deeply embedded in European intellectual and political movements) to which the leaders of the revolutionary government presumed to be heirs. Soviet theory provided too objectives that the revolutionary government sought--a theoretical discourse on worker democracy, and a means of tying worker democracy to the discipline of vanguard leadership. An example:
The Soviets are the direct organisation of the working and exploited people themselves, which helps them to organise and administer their own state in every possible way. And in this it is the vanguard of the working and exploited people, the urban proletariat, that enjoys the advantage of being best united by the large enterprises; it is easier for it than for all others to elect and exercise control over those elected. The Soviet form of organisation automatically helps to unite all the working and exploited people around their vanguard, the proletariat. (Vladimir Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, supra (Bourgeois And Proletarian Democracy)).But there is a large chasm between the revolutionary Russia of 19818 and that of Cuba after 1959. How might the revolutionary government draw on these strains of thinking, and these toolkits of structuring the enterprise of state that could still retain some connection with the revolutionary ideology they had been practicing through the device of mass affirmation under the guidance of the revolutionary leadership? To see that evolution is to understand the way the Cuban leadership constructed the conceptual and institutional structures of the 1st PCC Congress and its 1976 Constitution, and as well, the structural basis from which Socialist Democratic practice might emerge a generation later.
One starts with the unity of power (a rejection of liberal democratic notions of separation of powers within state organs) in favor of the unity of power from the sovereign element of the national population (its workers, peasants, etc.) exercised under the guidance of the revolutionary vanguard toward a specific end (the triumph of the proletariat (eventually) and the protection of the worker state.
Hay división de funciones, pero no hay división de poderes. El poder es uno, el del pueblo trabajador, que se ejerce a través de la Asamblea Nacional y de los organismos del Estado que de ella dependen. Nuestra forma de Estado toma en cuenta la experiencia acumulada por otros pueblos que han transitado el camino del socialismo y nuestra propia práctica. Como corresponde a una verdadera concepción revolucionaria aplicamos a nuestras condiciones concretas los principios esenciales del marxismo-leninismo. (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, supra, 2 Dec. 1976) (TRANS: There is division of functions, but there is no division of powers. Power is undivided, that of the working people, exercised through the National Assembly and the State agencies that depend on it. Our form of State takes into account the experience accumulated by other peoples who have traveled the path of socialism and our own practice. As befits a true revolutionary conception, we apply the essential principles of Marxism-Leninism to our concrete conditions. ).One draws on the theories and practices within the Communist International (by then of course defunct institutionally though Communist internationalism was embraced strongly by the Cuban revolutionary government). "Nuestra forma de Estado toma en cuenta la experiencia acumulada por otros pueblos que han transitado el camino del socialismo y nuestra propia práctica. Como corresponde a una verdadera concepción revolucionaria aplicamos a nuestras condiciones concretas los principios esenciales del marxismo-leninismo."
And one bends these organs to the institutionalization of revolutionary objectives. That requires the creation of a political institution (the PCC) and a means of incarnating popular power (the Asamblea nacional). And one places these changes within a structure of historical progress.
Como se puede apreciar, en breve espacio de tiempo han tenido lugar profundas transformaciones institucionales. Con la constitución de esta Asamblea Nacional, la elección del Consejo de Estado, su Presidente y vicepresidentes, y la designación del Consejo de Ministros, concluye en lo fundamental este histórico proceso de institucionalización de nuestra Revolución. (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, supra, 2 Dec. 1976) [TRANS: "As one can appreciate, profound institutional transformations have taken place in a short space of time. With the constitution of this National Assembly, the election of the Council of State, its President and vice-presidents, and the appointment of the Council of Ministers, this historic process of institutionalization of our Revolution has been concluded"].But one is aware of the problems of personality in representation. And one declares (though it is less clear how the modalities of organization contribute toward the realization of the declaration) of a fiduciary element inherent in representation both within the PCC and the popular assembly.
Trabajan en el Partido y en el Estado no aquellos que aspiren a un cargo sino a los que los militantes y el pueblo asignen una tarea. En el socialismo los cargos no se aspiran, los ciudadanos no se postulan. Ni las riquezas, ni las relaciones sociales, ni la familia, ni la publicidad o la propaganda, como ocurre en la sociedad burguesa, deciden ni pueden decidir para nada el papel de un hombre en la sociedad. (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, supra, 2 Dec. 1976) [TRANS: Those who work in the Party and in the State are not people who aspire to a position but those who to whom tasks are assigned by PCC cadres [militantes] and the people. In socialism one does not aspire to responsibility and citizens do not apply for positions. Neither riches, nor social relations, nor family, nor advertising or propaganda, as occurs in bourgeois society, determine nor can they determine at all the role of a person in society.].
Again the Chinese experience is not very far from view.
Hay hoy una nueva dirección política en China. . . . Se señalan cosas increíbles sobre la forma en que un grupo de aventureros se apoderó virtualmente de la dirección del Partido. Lo que no está claro todavía en las explicaciones oficiales procedentes de China, es mediante qué mecanismos ese grupo pudo dirigir a su antojo la política china durante muchos años, y cómo la viuda de Mao Tsetung pudo en vida de Mao Tsetung, en el seno de un partido comunista y dentro de un Estado socialista, cometer esos crímenes. La experiencia que de ello se derive tiene que ser forzosamente útil al movimiento revolucionario mundial. (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, supra, 2 Dec. 1976) [TRANS: "There is a new political direction in China today. . . . Incredible things are revealed about the way in which a group of adventurers seized virtually the entire direction of the Party. What is not clear yet in the official explanations from China, is by what mechanisms that group could guide Chinese politics at will for many years, and how the widow of Mao Tsetung could in Mao Tsetung's lifetime, in the bosom of a communist party and within a socialist state, commit those crimes. The experience derived therefrom must necessarily be useful to the global revolutionary movement."].
And in the end, Fidel Castro could look at the institutionalization of revolutionary political power in the PCC, and popular power in the Nacional Assemble and see the perpetuation of a singular popular authority. "Nuestro proceso revolucionario fue, desde el principio, profundamente popular y estuvo sólidamente enraizado en las masas. El primer acto soberano del pueblo fue la revolución misma." (Ibid.) [TRANS: Our revolutionary process was, from the beginning, profoundly popular and solifdly rooted in the masses. The first sovereign act of the people was the revolution itself"].
But these institutions did not spring forward fully formed from the theoretical droppings of Leninist theory applied elsewhere (though those might prove useful post hoc). We have already encountered the challenge perceived by the Cuban revolutionary government after the 2nd Havana Declaration respecting the modalities of mass approval assemblies and the beginnings of efforts to change the model without endangering(at least at a general level) its theoretical (and ideological) premises (Part 4: The Asamblea General Nacional del Pueblo de Cuba and the Origins of the Socialist Plebiscite 1960-1962). Those experiments reached a threshold of success in the years immediately before they were nationalized through during the 1st PCC Congress and then memorialized in the 1976 Constitution. Fidel Castro noted their importance in key speeches from 1974, referencing for example, the Poderes Populares experiment in Matanzas Province ("Y otra razón muy importante: el énfasis que la Revolución le quiere dar a este importantísimo experimento revolucionario que se lleva a cabo en la provincia de Matanzas con la constitución de los Poderes Populares, que ustedes los matanceros han acogido con tanto entusiasmo y han apoyado tan calurosamente. " (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE EN JEFE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER SECRETARIO DEL COMITE CENTRAL DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CUBA Y PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN EL ACTO CENTRAL EN CONMEMORACION DEL XXI ANIVERSARIO DEL ATAQUE AL CUARTEL MONCADA, EFECTUADO EN LA EXPLANADA FRENTE AL ESTADO MAYOR DEL EJERCITO CENTRAL, EN MATANZAS, EL 26 DE JULIO DE 1974, "AÑO DEL XV ANIVERSARIO") [TRANS: And another important reason, the emphasis that the Revolution desires to give this most important revolutionary experiment that is being realized in Matanzas Province with the constitution of the Poderes Populares, that you people of Matanzas have embraced with such enthusiasm and have supported so warmly"]).
That experiment was to produce the template for the creation of local, provincial and national popular assemblies, and in the process replace the mechanism of mass affirmation of the people physically present in a large space with a representative body. But that movement also triggered the fundamental contradiction of representative assemblies--the notion that they could not in form or operation, replicate the corruption and class exploitation principles of the form which the revolutionary government had attacked with such force in the course of the genesis of the two Havana declarations. And thus the need for experiment--in its pragmatic but also its fundamental ideological dimensions.
Part of that also involved the so called rationalization of the provinces, a process that required the subdivision of the traditional provinces. The object in part was to make more practical the division of provincial popular assemblies in the service of locality, state and PCC.
That sovereign affirmation could then be utilized to reconstitute itself pragmatically along institutional lines, but one in which sovereign power remains undivided. "El poder es uno, el del pueblo trabajador, que se ejerce a través de la Asamblea Nacional y de los organismos del Estado que de ella dependen." (Ibid.) [TRANS: Power is unified, that of the the workers, which is exercised through the National Assembly and the state organs which depend on it"]).
And there it is. All of these centripetal forces, the experimentation in large part in reaction to outside and internal challenges, produced a long term process of solidification the contours of which might have been evident early on, but the character of which eventually also represented the cululation of reactionary political calculus. Note here that this is not to suggest ideological reaction; rather the focus is on the nature of the relational dynamics between the revolutionary apparatus and the challenges which it confronted in its formative years. Those dynamics were politically reactionary (one responds pragmatically to political challenges) even as they became, in political reaction, ideologically the opposite.
That experiment was to produce the template for the creation of local, provincial and national popular assemblies, and in the process replace the mechanism of mass affirmation of the people physically present in a large space with a representative body. But that movement also triggered the fundamental contradiction of representative assemblies--the notion that they could not in form or operation, replicate the corruption and class exploitation principles of the form which the revolutionary government had attacked with such force in the course of the genesis of the two Havana declarations. And thus the need for experiment--in its pragmatic but also its fundamental ideological dimensions.
Como ustedes saben, se decidió llevar a cabo en esta provincia ese experimento. Experimento en un sentido, no en cuanto a la decisión ni a la seguridad de nuestro Partido de llevar adelante estas ideas en todo el país; el experimento es precisamente para poner a prueba los métodos, los mecanismos, las regulaciones y todo lo que concierne a la constitución de los Poderes Populares antes de aplicarlo nacionalmente. Es decir, el experimento nos enseñará a perfeccionar la idea; pero la idea es aplicar estos principios a todo el país. ((DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE EN JEFE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, 26 July 1974, supra) [TRANS: As you know, a decision was taken to undertake this experiment in this province [Matanzas]. It was an experiment in a sense, but not one respecting the decision [to proceed itself] or [respecting the] security of our Party to carry forward these ideas throughout the country; the experiment is precisely to put to the test the methods, the mechanisms, the regulations and everything that concerns the constitution of the Popular Powers before applying it nationally. That is, the experiment will teach us to perfect the idea; but the idea is to apply these principles to the entire country.]
Part of that also involved the so called rationalization of the provinces, a process that required the subdivision of the traditional provinces. The object in part was to make more practical the division of provincial popular assemblies in the service of locality, state and PCC.
Siempre nos toca un poco el sentimentalismo cuando pensamos si vamos a dividir algunas provincias; pero como unido a esto está la cuestión de la organización de los Poderes Populares (APLAUSOS), para un adecuado establecimiento de los Poderes Populares es necesario que el tamaño y la extensión de las provincias sean más racionales. (DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL COMANDANTE EN JEFE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRIMER SECRETARIO DEL COMITE CENTRAL DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CUBA Y PRIMER MINISTRO DEL GOBIERNO REVOLUCIONARIO, EN EL ACTO CENTRAL EN CONMEMORACION DEL XXII ANIVERSARIO DEL ATAQUE AL CUARTEL MONCADA, EFECTUADO EN LA CIUDAD DE SANTA CLARA, LAS VILLAS, EL 26 DE JULIO DE 1975, "AÑO DEL PRIMER CONGRESO") [TRANS: One becomes a little sentimental when one thinks about dividing some of the provinces, but tied to that issue is the question of the organization of Poderes Populares [popular assemblies]. For the adequate establishment of the Poderes Populares it is necessary for the size and extent of provinces to be more rational"]Implicit in that rationalization were two insights with political effect. The first was that mass assemblies could not be relied on for the exercise of popular affirmation of PCC leadership. The second was that such assemblies would have to be institutionalized if they were to serve the PCC and the administrative apparus in an ideologically useful way.
That sovereign affirmation could then be utilized to reconstitute itself pragmatically along institutional lines, but one in which sovereign power remains undivided. "El poder es uno, el del pueblo trabajador, que se ejerce a través de la Asamblea Nacional y de los organismos del Estado que de ella dependen." (Ibid.) [TRANS: Power is unified, that of the the workers, which is exercised through the National Assembly and the state organs which depend on it"]).
And there it is. All of these centripetal forces, the experimentation in large part in reaction to outside and internal challenges, produced a long term process of solidification the contours of which might have been evident early on, but the character of which eventually also represented the cululation of reactionary political calculus. Note here that this is not to suggest ideological reaction; rather the focus is on the nature of the relational dynamics between the revolutionary apparatus and the challenges which it confronted in its formative years. Those dynamics were politically reactionary (one responds pragmatically to political challenges) even as they became, in political reaction, ideologically the opposite.
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