Harry Targ
And
yet Americans are more ignorant of the nature of the Cuban Revolution and
U.S.-Cuban relations than are the people of almost any other country in the
world. Except for those few Americans with access to a handful of liberal and
radical publications the people of this country have been subjected to an
unrelieved campaign of distortion, or outright slander of Fidel Castro and the
revolution he leads. The determined hostility of American leaders to the Cuban
Revolution, the implementation of a system of economic harassment, and the
threat of military intervention, not only endanger the Cuban Revolution, but
increase the tempo of the cold war at home and abroad (Editors, “The Cuban Revolution: The New Crisis in Cold War
Ideology,” Studies on the Left,
Volume 1, Number, 1960, 1).
This statement was published in the
summer of 1960! Fifty-six years later the same assessment of the Cuban revolution
is still widely believed in the United States, even by those who support the
ending of United States hostility to the island nation.
The story of the Cuban revolution
needs to be retold as we move ahead to establish a new United States/Cuban
relationship.
Cuba was a colony of the Spanish for
400 years, an economic vassal of the British and the United States for more than
100 years, and a slave state from the fifteenth century to the end of the
nineteenth century.
The domination of the island by
foreigners, juxtaposed with a culture enriched by African roots (the indigenous
people were largely obliterated by the Spanish), led to repeated efforts to
resist colonialism before 1898 and neo-colonialism after that. Slaves,
Afro/Cubans, and Spanish born landowners seeking freedom from the Spanish crown
often rose up to overthrow the yoke of imperialism.
Cuban Revolutionaries, inspired by
visionary poet Jose Marti, were on the verge of defeating Spanish colonialism
in the 1890s. The United States sent armies to the island to defeat the Spanish
and establish a puppet government to insure its economic and political control. To secure support for the war at home the
American media and popular music were filled with images of Cuba as the “damsel
in distress” and bungling Afro/Cuban revolutionaries. The dominant ideology of
the United States, manifest destiny and white Christian duty, drove the
argument for war on Spain.
After the 1898 war, the United
States military, with the support of small numbers of compliant Cubans, created
a government that would open the door completely for United States investments,
commercial penetration, an externally-controlled tourist sector, and North
American gangsters. The U.S. neo-colonial regime on the island stimulated
pockets of economic development in a sea of human misery. Responding to
grotesque economic suffering in the 1950s a band of revolutionaries (led by
Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Celia Sanchez, and Haydee
Santamaria) defeated the U.S. backed military regime of Fulgencio Batista.
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 began
in the nineteenth century and was driven by 400 years of nationalism, a vision
of democracy, and a passion for economic justice. This vision was articulated
in Fidel Castro’s famous “History Will Absolve Me” speech presented before
being sentenced to prison after a failed military action against Batista in 1953.
He spoke of five goals of his revolution: returning power to the people; giving
land to the people who work it; providing workers a significant share of
profits from corporations; granting sugar planters a quota of the value of the
crop they produce; and confiscating lands acquired through fraud. Then he said,
the Revolution would carry out agrarian reform, nationalize key sectors of the
economy, institute educational reforms, and provide a decent livelihood for
manual and intellectual labor.
The
problem of the land, the problem of industrialization, the problem of housing,
the problem of unemployment, the problem of education and the problem of the
people’s health: these are the six problems we would take immediate steps to
solve, along with restoration of civil liberties and political democracy (Fidel Castro, “ History Will Absolve Me,” Castro Internet
Archive, www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953).
Almost immediately the
revolutionaries who had seized power in January, 1959 began to implement the
program envisioned by the Castro speech. Over the next fifty years, with heated
debates inside Cuba, experiments--some successful, some failed--were carried
out. Despite international pressures and the changing global political economy,
much of the program has been institutionalized to the benefit of most
Cubans.
Education and health care are free
to all Cubans. Basic, but modest, nutritional needs have been met. Cubans have
participated in significant political discussion about public policy. And Cuban
society has been a laboratory for experimentation. In the 1960s Cubans
discussed whether there was a need for monetary incentives to motivate work or
whether revolutionary enthusiasm was sufficient to maintain production. Debates
occurred over the years also about whether a state-directed economy, a mixed
one, or some combination would best promote development; how to engage in
international solidarity; and whether there was a need to affiliate with super
powers such as the former Soviet Union. Central to the Cuban model is the
proposition that when policies work they get institutionalized; when they fail
they get changed.
The United States reaction to the
Cuban Revolution has been as the Studies
on the Left article warned in 1960. U.S. policy has included military
invasions, sabotage, assassination attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, an
economic blockade, subversion including beaming propaganda radio and television
broadcasts to the island, efforts to isolate Cuba from the international
system, restrictions on United States travelers to the island, listing Cuba as
a state sponsor of terrorism, and in the long-run most importantly portraying
in government statements and the mass media the image of Cuba as a totalitarian
state that oppresses its people.
On December 17, 2014 President Raul
Castro and Barack Obama announced that the U.S./Cuban relationship would
change. The United States and Cuba,
President Obama said, would begin negotiations to reestablish diplomatic
relations, open embassies, and move to eliminate the U.S. economic blockade and
restrictions on American travel to the island. This announcement was broadly celebrated
by nations everywhere, the Pope who had lobbied Washington for the policy
change, and Americans and Cubans alike. Of course, in both countries there were
skeptics and the strong and vocal Cuban-American lobby immediately condemned
the announced policy changes.
Since December, 2014 the United
States and Cuba have been negotiating the announced normalization of relations
and several steps have been taken by both countries including:
-freeing the last three of the Cuban Five by
the United States and the release by Cuba of U.S. agents Roland Sarraff
Trujillo and Alan Gross from Cuban prisons
-easing restrictions on remittances
from Cuban/American families to relatives on the island
-using executive action in the
United States to loosen restrictions on American travel to Cuba and
reestablishing the capacity for banking connections with the island
-authorizing flights from the United
States to Cuba by multiple airlines
-giving authority to some companies
to invest in small businesses in Cuba and the increase in trade of selected
U.S. commodities, primarily agricultural products and building materials
-taking Cuba off the State
Department list of sponsors of terrorism
And President Obama deliberated with
President Raul Castro at the April, 2015 meeting of the Summit of the Americas
in Panama, communicating the image of the return to normal diplomatic
relations.
Finally, Presidents Obama and Raul
Castro reestablished formal diplomatic relations in the spring, 2016.
However, much needs to be done to
complete the normalization of diplomatic relations. The U.S. economic embargo has not been
lifted. The Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits foreign companies from having
commercial relations with the island and then the United States, has not been
repealed. And in 2015 the House of Representatives passed a resolution that
challenges President Obama’s executive authority to expand the categories of
U.S. citizens who can travel to Cuba without applying for a license from the
Treasury Department. In addition, many issues of relevance to the two countries
such as those involving immigration, control of drug trafficking, and
cooperation on disaster relief are yet to be resolved.
Most Americans, including
Cuban/Americans, support the full normalization of relations. But a small
number of politicians from both political parties who oppose normalization of
relations are using their legislative and public political leverage to reverse
the will of the American and Cuban people. One example is the misrepresentation
of the case of Assata Shakur, who has lived in Cuba for over thirty years.
Shakur, a former member of the Black Panther Party was tried and convicted on
dubious grounds of murdering a police officer in New Jersey and who fled to
Cuba in 1984, is being used by anti-Cuban activists to resist the normalization
of relations, claiming that Cuba is harboring “terrorists.”
The dramatic gestures by Presidents
Obama and Castro have set the stage for the normalization of diplomatic
relations, but more work needs to be done.
First, activists must continue to
pressure their legislators to repeal the Helms-Burton Act and oppose any
efforts by their peers to re-impose legislation that will stop the process of change.
Lobbying should be complemented by rallies and marches. Support should be given
to those organizations which have been in the front lines of Cuba Solidarity
for years such as Pastors for Peace. In addition, people to people exchanges,
community to community outreach, and high school and university study abroad
programs should be encouraged.
Second, those in solidarity with the
Cuban Revolution should support economic reforms being introduced on the island
that reflect the best principles of the Cuban Revolution: independence,
democracy, and human well-being. The clearest manifestation of these principles
is reflected in the development of work place cooperatives in both cities and
the countryside. Cubans are being encouraged to engage in work that produces
goods and services for their communities in ways that empower workers and
decentralize production and decision-making. Educating the American public to
the fact that Cuba is embarking on new economic arrangements that encourage
work place democracy contradict the media image that the people are embracing
entrepreneurial capitalism.
Third, the solidarity movement
should continue the process of public education about Cuba, explaining the
realities of Cuban history, celebrating Cuban accomplishments in health care
and education, and recognizing the richness and diversity of Cuban culture.
Ironically, despite the long and often painful relationship the Cuban people
have had with the United States, the diversity of the two nation’s cultures are
inextricably connected. That shared experience should be celebrated.
Finally, solidarity with the Cuban
people provides an opportunity to educate Americans to the reality that the
United States is not “the indispensable nation,” but one among many with
virtues and flaws. Cubans have celebrated their own history and culture but
have done so without disrespecting the experiences of other nations and
peoples. We in the United States could learn from that perspective.
(Revised from a June
19, 2015 essay to celebrate the 90th birthday of Fidel Castro).
