Transitions produce their own theater. These are meant to translate what might be complex trajectories of change, challenge, resistance, and evolution, into eminently exploitable simplifications that essentialize contests for control (normative, narrative, political, physical, cultural, economic) into simple to digest tidbits suitable for consumption by those mass elements whose action or inaction is vital for the assertion of control and the proclamation of "victory" however that may be defined in the context of a particular set of contests.
Death is always a great trigger for action in contexts of transition. And death is everywhere is Cuba, People die--or at least pass on into a more or less harmless dotage. But they may take institutions down with them. The same applies outside the vanguard. The creative class that in the early 1960s could accept the proposition--within the revolution everything; outside the revolution nothing. . . and the revolution is embodied in and expressed through the vanguard--now declare themselves the new vanguard. Yet it is also a self reflexive vanguard, though one with a ideology and a narrative that is for the moment performance. In Cuba the generation of los históricos is quickly traveling to the end that awaits all human persons. Are they taking the system they built and defended down with them? More potently, will the founding generation be shrouded in the burial cloth of their own ideology which now discarded effectively serves one last purpose--top wrap the dead and bury both?
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In Cuba, then, death and dissonance create the perfect space for challenge--from all quarters. Those challenges become more complicated as both dissident and orthodox camps change internally even as the terrains of their confrontation also change to suit internal and external audiences, potential allies, and the "Norns" of global narrative spinning about Cuba. That is not clear, in part because the system is itself already transitioning in part, even as the society around it transitions but perhaps not in sync. And in a Cuba that has so liked (and controlled) its creative/artistic sector, who better than artists to lead a transitional opposition against a much more slowly transitioning orthodox hierarchy fulled with the dutiful children of the founding generation?
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Expanding free expression and engagement will not feed the hungry but may make the state--even a Leninist state--more responsive. Yet in the form it is offered up all it appears to contribute to is the creation of a vacuum into which it is not clear what will step in. Exuberance and expressions grounded on being wronged is a start, but is only a step, an opening, to the more difficult questions of both guiding ideology and a program of implementation that moves society closer to consensus objectives. On the other hand were the vanguard to take the hint--quite a broad hint considering the thousands in the streets--and actually produce reform now 30 years overdue, they might be able to turn the protests and its focus on expression and engagement into a useful tool for propelling vanguard ideology into the current century. That requires two quite distinct set of objectives. The first is structural and ideological: the mass line and a clever propaganda department could do much to expropriate the central element of popular protestor objectives and make it the Party's own. But ideological rigidity stuck in the 1980s Soviet view of the world will prove a more decisive enemy than thousands of people marching through the street of Cuba. The send is grounded in the central elements of stability and prosperity objectives. Such objectives--especially in the form of grim sacrifice Leninism--cannot remain little more an an "idea." And the Party and its normative basis cannot be reduced to a fetish term (socialism) used to threaten or passify a hungry population. The use of Leninism as a fetish will neither fill the bellies of the people nor provide any proof that 70 or more years of sacrifice have produced much more than the apotheosis of deprivation as the core value of the state and its ideology.
What is clear from all of this is that a reactive state apparatus, and a purely defensive and reactionary posture by the Party vanguard, without change to both ideology and to the forms of active programs that advance ideologically grounded objectives on the ground and in the everyday lives of the population, will almost certainly guarantee that they will lose--eventually, even when it is possible for them to survive and perhaps win. The missed opportunities from that small but important opening in 2016 may in retrospect prove to be the greatest error of the vanguard in this current era of transition--that and the stubborn cultivation of a reactionary Leninism that does not accord with the times. The belief that time stands still and that the heady days of the 1960s can be projected forward, intact, into an endless future, is remarkably delusional, even for an insular and self reflexive ideological community. Yet their opponents are no better, locked in their own ideological-temporal loop.
It is in this context that one might better evaluate the moves that are being made by the state and its opposition in the run up to the next show of protestor strength: the planned popular manifestations of 15 November 2021. This warfare is asymmetric in the sense that on the global stage the odds are greater that whatever the state does to resist the protestors will come at far greater cost than the costs to the protestors of participating in the manifestations. This is the great moment for ideas--as weapons in the hands of the opposition. But for the state the time for words has long passed--what the population expects to see, and what can diffuse the opposition--is more likely based on pro-active action rather then the usual resort to ideology and suppression tactics (though their total absence will also cost the state dearly). Very useful reporting by Dave Sherwood and Marc Frank for Reuters follows (Ahead of planned protests, Cuban government and dissidents wage 'battle of ideas'). More after the 15th. It bears remembering that, in cases where two oppositional forces battle themselves to death or stalemate, invariably a third force will sweep them both to the side--a lesson that both Napoleon and Lenin learned well.
POSTSCRIPT: on 11 November 2021 the leader of the protests in the face of the quite public statements of Cuban officials to anyone who would listen to them that they would not tolerate any demonstrations announced that "he will walk alone, in silence and holding a white rose, the day before
the planned march to show the non-violent nature of the movement." (Dave Sherwood, "Cuban protest leader to march alone, white rose in hand, ahead of rallies" Reuters 11 Nov. 2021)
By Dave Sherwood and Marc Frank
HAVANA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - A war of words fought in the media and rife with espionage - double agents, wire taps and hidden cameras - is raging in Cuba ahead of protests planned for Nov. 15, setting up a showdown between the government and a dissident movement that says its most potent weapon is the cellphone.
Dissidents in September requested permission to conduct a "Civic March for Change" in mid-November, following widespread protests on the island in July. The Communist-run government denied that request last month, but protesters say they plan to go ahead anyway.
The government has since launched a media campaign employing tactics favored by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, leveraging the state security forces to unearth evidence it says proves the organizers are working covertly with the United States to overthrow the government, a charge the protest leaders deny.
Historians and long-time Cuba watchers say Nov. 15 will mark the first real test of the government's Cold War-era strategies against a movement that is younger and more internet savvy than any before it.
"Clearly, they've reverted to their old playbook," said Paul Hare, a former British ambassador to Cuba during the so-called "Black Spring" in 2003 when Castro jailed 75 dissidents.
But with more Cubans online than ever before, it has become more difficult for the government to dominate the airwaves, Hare said. "They've lost the narrative, the battle of ideas, especially with young people."
A Cuban government spokesperson rejected that argument.
"In Cuba, there is another youth, with many other viewpoints, the majority of which are not considered by international media," the spokesperson said.
The stakes for Cuba are high, said historian Michael Bustamante of the University of Miami. Protesters plan to march the same day that Cuba reopens its doors to international tourism after a nearly two-year hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic. Tourist revenue is vital to Cuba's ailing economy.
"This is the moment where the Cuban state is looking to turn the corner on what has been a very bad year... and here you have this group saying 'no, we are choosing this specific moment to press for political change'," said Bustamante.
"I think that explains the intensity of the state's response."
SPYCRAFT
The call for protests is being led by a Facebook group called Archipielago. It said in a Nov. 3 post on the platform that it has 31,501 members, the majority of which are between 25 and 44 years old.
In a barrage of primetime television news programs on state-run channels, Cuba's government has used spycraft to question the motives of Yunior Garcia, a Cuban playwright who is the leader of Archipielago.
In a dramatic TV segment aired last week, a cancer doctor in hospital scrubs revealed he was really 'Agente Fernando,' a double-agent who for 25 years infiltrated the dissident movement and accompanied Garcia to a workshop to discuss the Cuban military's role in promoting a transition to democracy.
"Yunior Garcia Aguilera is looking for a confrontation between the armed forces and the people," Fernando told viewers of the program.
Reuters was unable to reach Fernando, whose real name is Dr. Carlos Leonardo Vazquez, for comment.
Garcia told Reuters he recalls Fernando at the workshop but rejected any suggestion he was seeking to violently overthrow the government.
He said he has never taken U.S. funds.
"It is very difficult for the regime to admit that it has deployed all its forces against a group of young people on phones," Garcia said in an interview at his home in Havana. "They are scared of a public that no longer believes in them and that isn't afraid to say so on social media."
Garcia says Cuban authorities have thus leaned on an age-old strategy: blaming the United States.
In another segment, state-run TV aired a phone call in which Ramon Saul Sanchez, a Miami-based exile whom Cuba accuses of being behind a series of terror attacks decades ago, appears to pledge support to Garcia and asks whether he should send a flotilla of boats into waters near Cuba on the day of the planned protests. Garcia is reluctant.
Garcia confirmed the call took place and said it was recorded without his knowledge.
Sanchez, who has denied the terror attack accusations, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Cuban government has said their evidence points to a movement that is looking to topple the leadership and is backed by outsiders.
Such subterfuge is not without precedent. A 1975 U.S. Senate committee report revealed attempts by U.S. spies to kill Castro using "devices that strain the imagination," including exploding cigars and poison pills. As recently as 2009, the United States backed efforts to create a "Cuban Twitter" to stir unrest on the island.
Nearly half of Archipielago members reside outside of Cuba, according to figures provided by the group. Around one-quarter live in the United States.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment. In late October, a department spokesman said the United States supports the right of Cubans to protest but that the rallies were not a "demonstration... of the desires of the United States government."
The U.S. government has threatened sanctions amid a wave of arrests following the July 11 protests, believed to be the largest since Castro's 1959 revolution. Cuban authorities say those arrested were guilty of crimes including public disorder, resisting arrest, and vandalism.
Many who have publicly advocated for protests say they have been harassed or put on notice by state security and government supporters in a bid to keep them off the streets next Monday.
It is not clear how many plan to march on Nov. 15, either at home or abroad, nor what the Cuban government's response will be.
"I think the question is whether Cuba can put the July 11 genie back in the bottle or not," said Bustamante. "November 15 will be one measure of that."
Reporting by Dave Sherwood and Marc Frank, additional reporting by Nelson Acosta Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O'Brien
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