Harry Targ
I just listened to a one-hour National Public Radio broadcast interview with two “experts” on Cuba about the retirement of Raul Castro from leadership of the Cuban Communist Party. The interview portrait of Cuba since 1959 was a shocking distortion of the Cuban revolution and an extraordinarily limited consideration of the impacts of the 60-year economic blockade by the United States on the Cuban economy. Of course there was no mention of the global solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, the impacts of Cuba’s medical diplomacy, and domestic policies guaranteeing healthcare, nutrition, and education in the face of the brutal blockade.
Below is reference to an upcoming
program that promises to provide a more balanced view of the Cuban revolution.
Below also is a link to a five-part
series of presentations by Cubans organized by various peace and solidarity
groups.
I enclose a short summary of the
first presentation in this series:
We attended a fine, informal
presentation by Cuban economist, Ricardo Torres, on the Cuban economy today.
The webinar was well-attended (about 220 participants) from all around North
America co-sponsored by many groups including Massachusetts Peace Action and
the Center for Cuban Studies.
The presentation was a frank
assessment of the enormous economic problems the Cubans face. Along with
adjusting to currency reform, tourism has declined by 75 percent since Covid,
foreign investments are down, the US empire not only has increased the pain of
the blockade but has increased pressure on other countries and their corporate
and financial institutions to not have any relations with Cuba. Cubans are still
debating market reforms, the lack of productive efficiency in the state sector,
and the inadequacies of food production, Still, according to Torres, the very
basic needs of the people are being met. He pointed out that while the hardships
are great, they are not as great as the early 1990s, the special period.
It was clear from his comments that
the lives of the Cuban people would be enormously improved by ending the
blockade. They sent links so that we can easily write our legislators and they
are raising money to buy syringes so the Cubans could vaccinate their entire population.
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Below is an older co-authored essay on the
history of United States policy toward Cuba:
US
Foreign Policy towards Cuba: Exploring Causes
Raul Rodriguez, Center for Hemispheric and U.S. Studies,
University of Havana
Harry Targ, Department of Political Science, Purdue
University
Presentation for the Latin American Studies
Association, Chicago, May 23, 2014
Revisiting
the Cuban Revolution
In 1992 Harry Targ wrote about the Cuban Revolution (Cuba and the USA: A New World Order? International Publishers, 6):
...the
Cuban revolution (even until this day) has constituted a living experiment that
most progressive forces around the world identify with. Even though each
society has its own history, class structure, level of development, and
revolutionary potential, Cuba’s desire to create a government to serve its
people and at the same time to transform them from a traditional consciousness
to a revolutionary consciousness is shared by progressives everywhere. For
progressives, Cuba is a laboratory, a grand social experiment that will provide
knowledge for others as they seek fundamental change in their own societies...
Cuba’s successes in the years ahead are successes of all progressive forces
and, similarly Cuba’s defeats are defeats for all who wish to create
egalitarian and humane societies.
What has been most fascinating to observe about the
Cuban Revolution is its constantly changing character. Cubans have debated and
made decisions about gradual versus fundamental changes, the need to experiment
with different ways to allocate scarce national resources and, most critical,
how to respond to external economic, political, and military assaults.
Cuban society has been an experimental laboratory,
changing public policies as contexts demand. If one set of policies became
problematic, the Cubans moved in different directions. Usually change came
after heated debate at all levels of society.
For example, after the 26th of July Movement seized
power, the revolutionary regime launched programs to reduce rents for urban
dwellers, established a nationwide literacy campaign, and after a cool U.S.
response to the new government, put in place a large agrarian reform program.
As United States hostility escalated Cuba established diplomatic and economic
relations with the former Soviet Union. From that point U.S./Cuban hostilities
became permanent.
The idea of “revolution” refers to a fundamental transformation
of economic and political structures and peoples’ consciousness of their place
in society and the values that should determine human behavior. Also,
revolution is not a fixed “thing” but a process. That means that changes in
structures, patterns of behavior, and consciousness are changing over time and
in the case of revolution are moving toward, rather than away from, more
complete human fulfillment. Some nations, such as the United States, might see
revolutionary ferment in various places as a threat to its commitment to the
maintenance of a status quo. That hypothesis undergirds the materials presented
below about the root causes of United States foreign policy toward Cuba since
the founding of the United States itself, contrary to many other
interpretations of the causes of
United States/ Cuban conflicts.
The
Reality behind the Historical Relationship between the United States and Cuba
U.S. policymakers believe and/or propagate various
illusions or rationales for United States foreign policy that become part of
common political discourse. In relations with Latin America, and particularly
Cuba, policy has been basically built upon geopolitics, economic interest, and ideology.
In terms of US Cuba policy, the geopolitical rationale
has rested on the fact that due to its size and position, the United States saw
Cuba and its adjacent keys and archipelagos within reach as part of its
expansionist ambitions since the early decades of the 19th century. The
importance of Cuba to the interest of the United States became a central topic
of U.S. geography and diplomacy since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Most
prominently Cuba emerged quite prominently in Jefferson’s expansionist idea of
an “Empire for Liberty” and well into the process of enunciation of the Monroe
Doctrine in 1823 until the end of the 19th Century. President Monroe himself
declared that he considered Cape Florida and Cuba as forming the mouth of the
Mississippi. The geopolitical and geostrategic considerations dominated the
actions of the US ruling elites in the pre-Civil War period.
While John Adams saw the importance of Cuba’s
geographical location, he would also claim the universal application of the
“politico-geographical law of gravity,” This would entail natural ties between
Cuba and the United States and the inevitability of a formal U.S. embrace of Cuba,
as the small island would not be able to stand by itself as a nation on its own.
Inspired by the ideas of Manifest Destiny, Southern
writers, adventurers, and filibusterers, in their quest for new slave states
saw Cuba as an interesting addition. The North would also show interest for
different reasons and for the still prevailing Union, the paramount objective
was to keep Cuba in Spanish hands rather than allow it to slip into British
control. Secretary of State John Clayton was firm in asserting that “our
government [is] resolutely determined that the Island of Cuba should never be
in the possession of any other power than that of Spain or the United States.”
The Ostend Manifesto in 1854, one of the most
elaborated pieces of writing on the geopolitical and geostrategic rationale to
acquire Cuba articulated the national
consensus unequivocally: “Cuba [in its present condition] has thus become to us
an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm.” And to the
larger moral: “The Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security,
as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.”
Economic interest also animated some of the most
important debates and rationales to explain the need for acquiring Cuba. For
the white population in the Mississippi Valley trade with Cuba and maritime
routes was high on the agenda. One well known Cuban history published in 1850
was quick to assert “It is sufficient to
look over the extensive valley of the Mississippi to understand that the natural
direction of its growth, the point of connection of its prodigious European
commerce, and of its rational defense, is Cuba. Situated as it were on the very
path, in other hands, and with different institutions, Cuba is a wall that divides
and interrupts their manifest growth ; commanding as she does the narrow
channels of Yucatan, and Florida from Cape San Antonio and the Mayzi Point”
Beyond proposals to buy Cuba coming from the White House,
the offers directly reflected the interest of the southern planters. The
southerners continuously elaborated and expressed their views to justify an
acquisition of Cuba as concomitant with the strengthening of its security and
their institutions vis-à-vis the North.
In the US post-civil war period especially toward the
last two decades of the 19th century as the United States entered the imperialist
stage seeking markets for its industrial, manufacturing and agricultural surpluses and sources of raw
materials, the commercial necessity came to the forefront in US Cuba Policy.
U.S. economic interests in the Cuban mining and sugar sectors gained prominence
with social and cultural implications for Cuba. One of the architects of Pan Americanism,
the Secretary of State James Blaine would put it quite clearly in his Waterville
Speech of 1890 as he claimed that the United States had reached a point such that
one of its highest duties was to enlarge the area of its foreign trade.
The ideological discourse justifying U.S. hegemony in
the Western Hemisphere can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Its modern
exposition is surprisingly similar to significant declarations by foreign
policy elites during the era of the Cuban war against Spanish colonialism.
For example, the shortly after the U.S. victory in the
Spanish/Cuban/American war, Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge articulated what
was to become the new ideology of American empire linking economics to Godly
purpose: “We will establish trading posts throughout the world as distributing
points for American products.” “Great colonies, governing themselves, flying
our flag and trading with us, will grow about our posts of trade, and American
law, American order, American civilization, and the American flag will plant
themselves on shores hitherto bloody and benighted” (in Greg Jones, Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War
in the Philippines, and the Rise and
Fall of America’s Imperial Dream, 2012, 93).
In a campaign speech in Indianapolis, Beveridge articulated
a spiritual call and rationale for a global policy that transcended mere
economic gain. America’s destiny required the U.S. “…to set the world its
example of right and honor…We cannot retreat from any soil where providence has
unfurled our banner. It is ours to save that soil, for liberty, and civilization"
(in Jones, 96). And speaking before the Senate justifying the colonization of
the Philippines he proclaimed a U.S. mission that transcended politics; “It is
elemental…. it is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and
Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle
self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers
of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit
of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth.”(Congressional Record, 56 Congress, I
Session, pp.704-712).
Within a few years of the U.S. colonization of Cuba
and the Philippines, President Theodore Roosevelt elaborated on the U.S. world
mission. He spoke of the necessity of promoting peace and justice in the world:
a project that required adequate military capabilities both for “securing
respect for itself and of doing good to others.” To those who claim that the
United States seeks material advantage in its activist policy toward the countries
of the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt responded that such claims were untrue. The
U.S., he said, is motivated by altruism: “All that this country desires is to
see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country
whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship.”
Cuba was an example, he said: “If every country washed
by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable and just civilization
which with the aid of the Platt Amendment Cuba has shown since our troops left
the island, and which so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly
and brilliantly showing, all questions of interference by the Nation with their
affairs would be at an end.” He assured Latin Americans in this address to
Congress in 1904 that if “….if they thus obey the primary laws of civilized
society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of
cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them only in the last
resort….” (“Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” President’s Annual
Message to Congress, December 6, 1904).
During a presentation in Norway in 1910 Roosevelt
praised the U.S. for leaving Cuba as promised after the war to return only
temporarily because of “….a disaster…a revolution” such that “….we were obliged
to land troops again.” The President proudly declared that: “And before I left
the Presidency Cuba resumed its career as a separate republic, holding its head
erect as a sovereign state among the other nations of the earth. All that our
people want is just exactly what the Cuban people themselves want—that is, a
continuance of order within the island, and peace and prosperity, so that there
shall be no shadow of an excuse for any outside intervention.” (“the Colonial
Policy of the United States,” An Address Delivered at Christiania, Norway, May
5, 1910).
Earlier on January 18, 1909 to the Methodist Episcopal
Church (“The Expansion of the White Races”) Roosevelt applauded the increasing
presence--he estimated 100 million people—of “European races” throughout the
world. The indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere have been assimilated
with their “intruders” with the end result “that the Indian population of America
is larger today than it was when Columbus discovered the continent, and stands
on a far higher plane of happiness and efficiency.”
And to highlight the missionary message Roosevelt
added: “Of course the best that can happen to any people that has not already a
high civilization of its own is to assimilate and profit by American or
European ideas, the ideas of civilization and Christianity, without submitting
to alien control; but such control, in spite of all its defects, is in a very
large number of cases the prerequisite condition to the moral and material
advance of the peoples who dwell in the darker corners of the earth.”
Before the reader dismisses these simplistic, racist
statements, it is useful to examine more recent proclamations of the motivations
for United States foreign policy particularly toward Latin America. It is worth
remembering that recent U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama, quote
favorably from the words of Theodore Roosevelt on various subjects.
The
Bay of Pigs
Before Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement seized
power in Cuba in January, 1959, the United States had long controlled the
island nation ninety miles from its shores. The country was ruled by dictator,
Fulgencio Batista, a close ally of the United States, who, through repression
and corruption, generated large-scale opposition in the countryside and the
cities. In 1958 the State Department urged Batista to turn control over to a
caretaker government, to forestall the victory of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara,
and Camillo Cienfuegos, and their growing guerrilla armies, who were on the verge
of overthrowing the dictator. Batista rejected the pressure to flee. His U.S.
backed armies and police were defeated. The revolutionaries were victorious.
Before the revolution, United States investors
controlled 80 percent of Cuba’s utilities, 90 percent of its mines, 90 percent
of its cattle ranches, its three oil refineries, half its railroads, and 40 percent
of its sugar. In a land rich with human and natural resources and a modern infrastructure
and a tourist sector second to none in the Hemisphere, 600,000 Cubans were
unemployed, more than half the population lived in slums, and one-half the
population had no access to electricity. Forty percent of the Cuban population
was illiterate; most Cubans spent much of their income on rent, and among
wealthy Cubans, 1.5 percent of landowners owned 46 percent of the land.
When the Castro-led revolutionaries assumed office,
they began to develop a series of policies to alleviate the worst features of
Cuban poverty. The revolutionary government invested in housing, schools, and
public works. Salaries were raised, electrical rates were cut, and rents were
reduced by half. On a visit to the United States in April, 1959, Castro, who
had proposed a large-scale assistance program for the Western Hemisphere to the
Eisenhower Administration, was ignored by the President.
Returning from a hostile visit to Washington, Castro announced
a redistributive program of agrarian reform that generated opposition from
conservative Cuban and American landowners. These policies involved transfers
of land to the Cuban people from the huge estates owned by the wealthy. The
Eisenhower administration responded by reducing the quantity of United States
purchases of Cuban sugar. Cuba then nationalized the industry.
In February, 1960 Cuba signed trade agreements with
the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed to exchange their oil for sugar no longer
purchased by the U.S. When the U.S. owned oil refineries refused to refine the
Soviet oil, the Cuban government nationalized them.
In July, 1960, the U.S. cut all sugar purchases. Over
the next several months the Cuban government nationalized U.S. owned corporations
and banks on the island. Therefore, between the spring of 1960 and January 1961
U.S. and Cuban economic ties came to a halt and the island nation had
established formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Shortly before
Eisenhower left office, the break was made symbolically complete with the U.S.
termination of formal diplomatic relations with Cuba.
As U.S./Cuban economic and diplomatic tensions were
escalating, President Eisenhower made a decision that in the future would lead
the world to the brink of nuclear war. In March, 1960, he ordered the Central
Intelligence Agency to create a Cuban exile force that would invade the island
and depose Fidel Castro. Even the State Department knew at that time that
Castro was enormously popular.
In April, 1961, the newly elected President Kennedy
was presented with an invasion plan by the CIA. The agency claimed that the right-wing
Cubans would be greeted as heroes when they landed at the Bay of Pigs. After
the Castro regime was overthrown, all private assets would be returned, and a
Batista-like government would be reestablished.
The Bay of Pigs invasion, April 17-19, 1961, was
launched by fifteen hundred Cuban exiles. It was an immediate failure: close to 300 invaders were killed and the
rest captured. No uprising against the revolutionary government occurred.
Kennedy was criticized in the United States for not providing sufficient air
support to protect the invading army. The critics ignored the fact that the
revolutionary government had the support of workers and peasants who would
fight to defend it.
After the invasion attempt failed, President Kennedy
warned of the danger of the “menace of external Communist intervention and
domination in Cuba.” He saw a need to respond to Communism, whether in Cuba or
South Vietnam. In the face of perceived Communist danger to the Western Hemisphere
he reserved the right to intervene as needed. The lesson he drew from the Bay
of Pigs was the need for escalated adventurism, not caution.
The
Alliance for Progress: A ‘Non-Communist’ Path to Development
I
have called on all the people of the hemisphere to join in a new Alliance for
Progress - Alianza para Progreso - a vast cooperative effort, unparalleled in
magnitude and nobility of purpose, to satisfy the basic needs of the American
people for homes, work and land, health and schools - techo, trabajo y tierra,
salud y escuela….
To
achieve this goal political freedom must accompany material progress. Our
Alliance for Progress is an alliance of free governments-and it must work to
eliminate tyranny from a hemisphere in which it has no rightful place.
Therefore let us express our special friendship to the people of Cuba and the
Dominican Republic-and the hope they will soon rejoin the society of free men,
uniting with us in our common effort (Address by President
Kennedy at a White House reception for Latin American diplomats and members of
Congress, March 13, 1961).
Those
who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
(Address by President Kennedy to diplomats one year after his Alliance for
Progress speech. March 13, 1962).
The Kennedy Administration initiated a policy of
foreign assistance in Latin America to complement the United States’ historic
use of military force in the region. The President’s economic program was
announced in the aftermath of long-standing complaints from Latin American
dictators and some elected leaders that the United States had supported
European recovery, the celebrated Marshall Plan of the 1940s, but ignored the
Western Hemisphere. Most importantly, the Kennedy Administration and anti-Communist
friends in the Hemisphere became increasingly concerned about the enthusiasm
the Cuban revolution was generating in the region.
In the midst of what was presented to the public as
the “threat of Communism” in Latin America, Kennedy presented his “Alliance for
Progress” aid package to diplomats and Congressmen on March 3, 1961 (about one
month before JFK authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion).
The Alliance, the President promised, would provide
public and private assistance equivalent to $20 billion to Latin American
countries over a ten-year period. The plan projected annual growth rates in
Latin America of 2.5 percent and would lead to the alleviation of malnutrition,
poor housing and health, single-crop economies, and iniquitous landholding
patterns (all campaigns underway in revolutionary Cuba).
Loans were contingent upon the recipient governments,
and their political and economic elites, carrying out basic land reform,
establishing progressive taxation, creating social welfare programs, and expanding
citizenship and opportunities for political participation.
However, the effect of the Alliance, even before
Kennedy’s death, was negative. Problems of poverty, declining growth rates,
inflation, lower prices for export commodities, and the maintenance of
autocratic and corrupt governments persisted. The reality of the Alliance and
most other aid programs was that they were predicated on stabilizing those
corrupt ruling classes that had been the source of underdevelopment in the
first place.
The connections between the Alliance program and the
interests of United States capital were clear. For example, a section of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1962 authorized the president to cut off aid to any
nation which nationalized or placed “excessive” taxes on U.S. corporations or
which terminated contacts with U.S. firms. The act also emphasized monetary
stability and the kinds of austerity programs common to U.S. and International
Monetary Fund aid, requiring nations receiving aid to reduce public services
and to maintain low wage rates to entice foreign investment. Further, Alliance
funds were often to be used to serve the interests of foreign capital; for example
building roads, harbors, and transportation facilities to speed up the movement
of locally produced but foreign-owned goods to international markets.
Finally, the symbolism of the Alliance proclamation by
President Kennedy was designed to promote the idea that U.S. resources, in
collaboration with reformism in Latin America, would create societies that met
the needs of the people and encouraged their political participation. The
Alliance was presented as a response to Fidel Castro, a “non-Communist manifesto”
for development.
The record of poverty and military rule throughout the
Hemisphere suggested that there was no correspondence between symbol and
reality. Kennedy, in a moment of unusual frankness, was reported to have said
that the United States preferred liberal regimes in Latin America, but if they
could not be maintained, it would much prefer a right-wing dictatorship to a
leftist regime. After Kennedy’s death, Thomas Mann, Assistant Secretary of
State for Inter-American Affairs, in the Johnson Administration, told reporters
that U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere was not about economic development
or democratization but fighting Communism and protecting U.S. economic
interests.
In reality, the frankness about the motivations behind
U.S. policy expressed by Kennedy after the Alliance speech and Thomas Mann
after Kennedy’s death clearly showed that the bottom line in terms of U.S.
policy remained support for international capital. The Castros of this world,
the Kennedy Administration believed (as has every administration since), had to
be crushed at all costs. What remained significant over the next sixty years
was that the Cuban revolution could not be defeated.
The
Missile Crisis
In
the missile crisis the Kennedys played their dangerous game skillfully….But all
their skill would have been to no avail if in the end Khrushchev had preferred
his prestige, as they preferred theirs, to the danger of a world war. In this
respect we are all indebted to Khrushchev. (I.F. Stone,
“What If Khrushchev Hadn’t Backed Down?” in In
a Time of Torment, Vintage, 1967).
The period between the failed Bay of Pigs invasion,
the announcement of the Alliance of Progress economic assistance program, and
the Cuban Missile Crisis was one of escalating hostilities. Fidel Castro
declared Cuba a Socialist state. The United States pressured members of the
Organization of American States (OAS) to expel Cuba. The CIA began campaigns to
assassinate the Cuban leader and President Kennedy initiated the complete
economic blockade that exists until today. In addition, Castro warned that the
U.S. was continuing to plan for another invasion. The Soviet Union began
providing more economic and military support to the Cubans, including
anti-aircraft missiles and jet aircraft.
In October, 1962, U.S. spy planes sighted the
construction of Soviet surface-to-air missile installations and the presence of
Soviet medium-range bombers on Cuban soil. These sightings were made after
Republican leaders had begun to attack Kennedy for allowing a Soviet military
presence on the island. Kennedy had warned the Soviets in September not to
install “offensive” military capabilities in Cuba. Photos indicated that the
Soviets had also begun to build ground-to-ground missile installations on the
island, which Kennedy defined as “offensive” and a threat to national security.
After securing the photographs Kennedy assembled a
special team of advisors, known as EXCOM, to discuss various responses the
United States might make. He excluded any strategy that prioritized taking the
issue to the United Nations for resolution.
After much deliberation EXCOM focused on two policy
responses: a strategic air strike against Soviet targets in Cuba or a blockade
of incoming Soviet ships coupled with threats of further action if the Soviet
missiles were not withdrawn. Both options had a high probability of escalating
to nuclear war if the Soviet Union refused to back down.
High drama, much of it televised, followed the
initiation of a naval blockade of Soviet ships heading across the Atlantic to
Cuba. Fortunately, the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, sent
notes to the President that led to a tacit agreement between the two leaders
whereby Soviet missiles would be withdrawn from Cuba and the United States
would promise not to invade Cuba to overthrow the Castro government. In
addition, the President indicated that obsolete U.S. missiles in Turkey would
be disassembled over time.
Most scholars argue that the missile crisis
constituted Kennedy’s finest hour as statesman and diplomat. They agree with
the administration view that the missiles constituted a threat to U.S. security,
despite Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s claim in EXCOM meetings that the
missiles did not change the strategic balance between the United States and the
Soviet Union. Most of these scholars have agreed that the symbolic value of the
installation of Soviet missiles could have had grave consequences for U.S. “credibility.”
Given the importance of the missiles, leading social
scientists have written that the Kennedy team carefully considered a multitude
of policy responses. EXCOM did not ignore competing analyses, as had been done
in the decisional process prior to the Bay of Pigs. The blockade policy that
was adopted, experts believe, constituted a rational application of force that
it was hoped would lead to de-escalation of tensions. All observers agreed that
the United States and the Soviet Union had gone to the brink of nuclear war.
Even the President estimated that there was a fifty percent probability of
full-scale nuclear war.
In the end the Soviets withdrew their missiles.
Analysts said the Soviet Union suffered a propaganda defeat for putting the
missiles on Cuban soil in the first place and then withdrawing them after U.S.
threats. Khrushchev was criticized by the Chinese government and within a year
he was ousted from leadership in the Soviet Union.
In the light of this U.S. “victory,” Kennedy has been
defined as courageous and rational. The real meaning of the Cuban Missile
Crisis, however, is different, even fifty years after the event. The crisis actually suggests that the United
States quest to maintain and enhance its empire would lead it to go to any
extreme, even nuclear war, to defend the interests of capitalism. To avoid
serious losses, whether symbolic or material, for capitalism, any policy was
justified.
Further, in terms of U.S. politics, Kennedy was
calculating the effects of the missiles on the chances for his party to retain
control of Congress in 1962. A second “defeat” over Cuba (the Bay of Pigs was
the first) would have heightened the opposition’s criticisms of his foreign
policy.
In personal terms, Kennedy was driven by the need to
establish a public image as courageous and powerful in confronting the Soviets.
Khrushchev had spoken harshly to him at a summit meeting in Vienna in 1961 and
Castro had been victorious at the Bay of Pigs. The President’s own
“credibility” had been damaged and a show of force in October, 1962, was
necessary for his career.
Because of imperialism, politics, and personal
political fortunes, the world almost went to nuclear war fifty years ago. As
I.F. Stone suggested shortly after the crisis, nuclear war was avoided because
the Soviet Union chose to withdraw from the tense conflict rather than to
engage in it further.
National Security Archives files suggest, “the historical record shows that the
decisions leading to the crisis which almost brought nuclear war have been
repeated over and over again since the early 1960s”
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/). The danger of the unabashed and irresponsible use of
force and the legitimation of the idea that diplomacy can be conducted using
nuclear weapons and other devastating weapons systems still represents a threat
to human survival.
The
Reality of United States Policy toward Cuba: Traditional Scholarship and
Alternative Perspectives
Traditional commentary on the United States/Cuban relationship is shaped by a variety of frames of reference reflected in explanations of the Bay of Pigs, the Alliance for Progress, and the Cuban missile crisis. Pundits have emphasized the ideology of manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, the fear of communism, and the growing influence of the former Soviet Union in the Western Hemisphere as justified or unjustified causes of United States policy toward Cuba. The emphasis in these approaches is on ideological presuppositions held by key decision-makers during critical periods of time. Commonly held explanations of why decision-makers acted the way they did emphasize either the idea that the United States had a special role to play in the world and/or international communism was a threat to U.S. security.
In addition other foreign policy analysts highlight
the idea that containing the Cuban
example and the impact of Cuban
active counter hegemonic foreign policy, especially in Africa and Latin
America, had been an important consideration
guiding US policy. The well-known Baker Memorandum explained in 1989
that ''Cuba continues to engage in military adventurism abroad and to support
subversive movements in the Western Hemisphere to the detriment of peace,
stability and democratic processes”.
Still other theorists, not fundamentally in opposition
to those above but largely reflecting realist
theories of international relations, emphasize decision-maker calculations
such as the strategic balance of forces between the former
Soviet Union and the United States. During the Missile Crisis, Kennedy advisers
debated whether Soviet missiles on Cuban soil constituted a threat to the strategic
balance between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Also, many commentators emphasize domestic politics as the key determinant of United States policy
toward Cuba. These theorists give special consideration to the passionate and
well-organized right-wing Cuban American exile community (primarily in the
swing state of Florida but also in New Jersey) as the primary force shaping
U.S. policy. More recently advocates of this perspective would support an end
to the United States economic blockade of Cuba; arguing that U.S. desired
change on the island would more likely be achieved by economic and political
interaction between the two countries, rather than efforts to isolate the
island.
Finally, some commentators see human rights goals as key guides to U.S. policy toward Cuba. These
analysts prioritize claims that Cuba is a dictatorship (a communist one),
stifles economic competition, promotes destructive revolutionary ideologies at
home and abroad, and imprisons their citizens who criticize the regime. The
traditional “human rights” non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights
Watch and Amnesty International promote these critiques of Cuba and give fuel
to policy-makers who encourage continued isolation of the island.
Many of these “variables” are implied by Julia E.
Sweig, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know,
Oxford Press, 2009, 77-78:
In
short, nationalizations, agrarian reform, expropriations of private property,
Soviet trade delegations, weapons deliveries from the eastern bloc, and Castro’s
vituperative and crowd-pleasing rhetoric all deeply alarmed national security
managers in Cold War-era Washington….But at the height of the Cold War, a
hardened and visceral anti-communism—supported by the clear antipathy of
Eisenhower and later Kennedy toward Cuba’s leaders—reigned supreme.
The
Issue is U.S. Imperialism and Cuba as an Alternative for the Global South
First, as admirably described by Stephen Kinzer in Overthrow (Times Books, 2006) the United
States had been engaging in efforts to undermine and overthrow independent
governments around the world, and particularly in the Western Hemisphere, ever
since it took Hawaii in the 1890s. In fact, the Cuban revolution of 1898
against Spanish colonialism was usurped by U.S. forces followed by a full-scale
occupation of the country, the institutionalization of a protectorate until
1934 and then indirect economic and political domination, lasting until 1959.
Second, as so many accounts of U.S./Cuban relations
suggest, the interests of the Cuban people never figured in U.S. policy toward
the island. The economic blockade and diplomatic embargo of the island has
amounted to a fifty year effort to strangle, not only the regime, but the Cuban
people. Others must be forced to sacrifice for the U.S. imperial agenda.
Third, the Bay of Pigs fiasco suggests that U.S.
foreign policy decision-makers almost always misjudged the will of the people
who would be subjected to military action. Ruling classes, by their very
nature, are unable to understand the interests, passions, and visions of the
great masses of people. The Director of the CIA and other members of the President’s
inner circle were incapable of understanding that the Cuban people supported
their revolution so they ignored State Department polling data.
Finally, as recent policies
toward Venezuela; interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine; and the so-called
Asian pivot all suggest is that the United States since the dawn of the
twentieth century has pursued global hegemony. Any challenge to that hegemony,
such as the Cuban Revolution, is defined as a security issue. It fact, nations
and peoples who seek their independence as reflected in the idea of revolution
referred to at the outset of this paper constitute a threat that must be
undermined. The sorry record of United States policy toward Cuba is an example
of this approach and the United States continues to make these mistakes
virtually everywhere. Even though the variety
of variables highlighted by scholars and pundits to understand United States policy
toward Cuba tell part of the story, the underlying United States perception of
threat and hostility to the spread of revolutionary regimes shapes the
ideology, geopolitical concerns, and domestic political pressures influencing
policy.
******************************
An older essay but one that
bears on the ever-changing Cuban polity and economy in the second decade of the
21 first century is reprinted below:
Revisiting the Cuban revolution
Cuban society has been an experimental laboratory... If one set of policies became problematic, the Cubans moved in different directions. Usually change came after heated debate at all levels of society.
By Harry Targ /The Rag Blog / July 5, 2012
I participated in the 2012 “Seminar on Socialist Renewal and the Capitalist Crisis” co-sponsored by the Radical Philosophy Association and the Institute of Philosophy, University of Havana. More than 40 U.S./Canadian/ Latin American scholars met in conference with at least 75 Cuban scholars in a five-day conference to discuss the political and economic changes occurring in Cuba and the United States.
I purposely entitle this essay “revisiting the Cuban Revolution” because I came away from this exciting conference convinced that the revolution continues. I say this because I saw no reason to revise what I wrote in 1992 about the Cuban Revolution (Cuba and the USA: A New World Order? International Publishers, 6):
...the Cuban revolution (even until this day) has constituted a living experiment that most progressive forces around the world identify with. Even though each society has its own history, class structure, level of development, and revolutionary potential, Cuba’s desire to create a government to serve its people and at the same time to transform them from a traditional consciousness to a revolutionary consciousness is shared by progressives everywhere. For progressives, Cuba is a laboratory, a grand social experiment that will provide knowledge for others as they seek fundamental change in their own societies... Cuba’s successes in the years ahead are successes of all progressive forces and, similarly Cuba’s defeats are defeats for all who wish to create egalitarian and humane societies.
The idea of “revolution” refers to a fundamental transformation of economic and political structures and peoples’ consciousness of their place in society and the values that should determine human behavior. Also, revolution is not a fixed “thing”but a process. That means that changes in structures, patterns of behavior, and consciousness are changing over time and in the case of revolution are moving toward, rather than away from, more complete human fulfillment.
What has been most fascinating to observe about the Cuban Revolution is its constantly changing character. Cubans have debated and made decisions about gradual versus fundamental changes, the need to experiment with different ways to allocate scarce national resources and, most critical, how to respond to external economic, political, and military assaults.
Cuban society has been an experimental laboratory, changing public policies as contexts demand. If one set of policies became problematic, the Cubans moved in different directions. Usually change came after heated debate at all levels of society.
For example, after the 26th of July Movement seized power, the revolutionary regime launched programs to reduce rents for urban dwellers, established a nationwide literacy campaign, and after a cool U.S. response to the new government, put in place a large agrarian reform program. As United States hostility escalated Cuba established diplomatic and economic relations with the former Soviet Union. From that point U.S./Cuban hostilities became permanent.
In the mid-1960s, Cuba engaged in a great debate, to some degree unresolved, between those who wanted to move the Revolution along the path to “moral incentives,” that is creating a society in which people act because of their commitment to communist ideals, versus those who argued that in the short run “material incentives,” wages and benefits, needed to serve as the source of human motivation.
Later, the Cuban government embarked on a campaign to produce more sugar than ever before to earn scarce foreign exchange in order to advance the domestic economy. The 10 million ton sugar campaign failed with negative consequences for the sectors of Cuban society that were ignored. Then Cuba embraced the Soviet model of development, including joining the Eastern European Common Market.
By the 1980s, while the economy grew, Cubans saw a decline in the commitment to the Revolution. This recognition led to a campaign of “Rectification,” to reinstill in society and consciousness, the spirit of the Revolution. When the Socialist Bloc collapsed between 1989 and 1991, once again the Cuban Revolution had to adapt. “The Special Period” was instituted in the face of a decline in the economy of at least 40 percent. The Revolution survived, contrary to the predictions of outside experts.
In the 21st century, despite devastating hurricanes, a global economic crisis, and an escalating United States economic blockade, the Revolution continued. Now, the Cubans are embarking on a new set of policies that are designed to overcome economic stagnation, inadequate agricultural productivity, bureaucracy and corruption in government, and insufficient grassroots participation in decision-making, particularly at the work place.
After extensive debate in the society at large, from the leadership of the Communist Party to virtually every workplace, neighborhood and village, the Cubans have decided on new structures and policies.
The new policy guidelines include the expansion of a market in the production of goods and services. This expansion will include a dramatic shift of employment from the state sector to self-employment. Emphasis will be placed on developing cooperatives in manufacturing and services as well as in agriculture.
In the agricultural sector efforts are being initiated to encourage a dramatic increase in those who can return to the land, increasing domestic food production while reducing the need to import food from abroad. New forms of grassroots participation in addition to revitalizing the mass organizations will occur. And the ration system of food distribution will be replaced by the establishment of a safety net for those still in need of food. And where possible, enterprise autonomy, such as in the renovation of Old Havana, will be encouraged and supported.
The new guidelines, over 300 in all, are designed to renovate economic and political institutions, stimulate local entrepreneurial enterprise, increase political participation, and overcome the continuing economic crisis that a small country such as Cuba finds itself in as a result of natural and political disasters as well as a continued effort by the “Colossus of the North” to overthrow the regime.
Debate within Cuban society (and among our North American delegation) about these new guidelines has been animated. Perhaps most basic is the concern about whether the economic reforms will undermine the Socialist character of Cuban society after over 60 years of struggle. Some worry that the introduction of markets may undermine the spirit of compassion and revolutionary consciousness that was inspired by the heroic Che Guevara and the band of scruffy revolutionaries who overthrew a neocolonial regime in 1959.
Still others debate about whether cooperatives constitute a productive and yet inspirational step in the long history of building Socialism and Communism. And what about youth, people ask. Is the revolution ancient history for young people, a youthful population that has had access to a rich educational experience and live a healthful life. Will they have the same fervor for the Revolution that their elders and foreign friends have had?
And, in fairness to the young, how can the Revolution be preserved while serving the lives of people whose historical experiences are different from their elders?
There are no easy answers to these questions; no guarantees of success; no convincing narratives of a linear development from a contradictory present to a utopian future. But, as I clearly saw in 1990 when I started attending meetings of U.S. and Cuban scholars, there is reason for hope. The Cuban Revolution has survived, given so much to the world, and continued to intrigue progressives everywhere. I returned from my encounter to Cuba in June 2012, with renewed optimism.
