"The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong, but we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century." -Fidel Castro, resignation letter, February 19, 2008.
"The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty."
-U. S. President George Bush, responding to news of Castro's resignation, February 19, 2008.
Rack in 1959, a group of us in Grade 11 at Moose Jaw's Riverview Collegiate closely followed the course of the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Our teacher allowed us to make a project out of it, and visuals were posted at the back of the class room: photos, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, and a large map of Cuba on which we recorded the course of the military campaign with pins. We were the egghead geeks-members of the UN Club, the Chess Club, and the Lit Committee (responsible for organizing variety shows, operettas and plays).
But we were not alone. Castro and Guevara were heroes among the young and progressives across North America, Europe, and in what was then called the Third World. They were fighting the good fight-in an exciting military campaign, at that-and Good was winning against Evil embodied by dictator Fulgencio Batista and his backers among the Mafia, the U.S. government, and U.S. capitalists, all of whom treated Cuba like a feudal estate and Batista like their gang enforcer.
My admiration for Fidel Castro and Che Guevara has never wavered over the intervening 50 years. And I think it is fair to say that many of us from that era still feel deep sympathy and support for the Cuban Revolution. Throughout that half century, whenever Fidel Castro came to Canada or the U.S., he was greeted by enthusiastic crowds of supporters. Fidel and Che are today icons in the struggle for social and economic justice among the oppressed and impoverished the world over, and a new generation of progressive leaders in Latin America derive inspiration from their courage and from the beacon of hope provided by the survival of the Cuban Revolution.
In a sense, the victory of Castro on January 8,1959, when his bearded and bedraggled guerrilla army marched into Havana to claim victory, was a defining moment for the rebellious 1960s. Here was an army of youths and teenagers led by 37-year-old Fidel, 31-year-old Che, and 25-year-old Raul, and this armed youth movement had won a heroic battle for progressive change founded on principles of economic equality and social justice. The victory inspired hope and optimism. There were great and good changes coming, and many of us of that era committed ourselves to "the movement."
"The movement" took off in the 1960s-civil rights; the new wave of feminism; ban the bomb; anti-Vietnam war; student power; black power; red power among North American Aboriginals; environmental protection. There was the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, and the rise of Solidarity in Poland. The Third World was swept by change, as new progressive regimes won power in country after country: Lumumba's victory in the Congo and the successes of the left in Chile culminating in Allende's victory in 1970 were among the most inspiring.
Even the staid institutions of the left in Canada began to change. The Waffle movement in the NDP almost succeeded in pushing the party left. The Canadian trade union movement, with a new generation of young leaders in charge, became more militant. The Communist party in Canada-like many around the world-split over the suppression of Czechoslovakia, and the younger militants threw in their lot with "the movement." We believed we were on the threshold of building a new and better world. And the success in Cuba in 1959 proved it was not just a fantasy, but that it could be done.
But the successes of "the movement"-and the survival of the Cuban beacon-set in motion a series of lessons that had to be learned about state power and how it is used and for whom. The ruling classes-the corporations, the wealthy around the world, and the governments they commandedbegan to use the power of the state ruthlessly to stop what they feared might result in an unacceptable restructuring of the world they commanded and from which their privileges flowed.
The gloves came off, and both clandestine and very public military power was unleashed to crush "the movement." Patrice Lumumba was callously murdered, and the Congo fell into the anarchy that continues to plague it to this day. Progressive governments in Latin America and the Middle East were overthrown. Death squads butchered tens of thousands of progressives throughout Latin America. The two Kennedy brothers were assassinated in the U.S., as were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Brutal force was used to suppress "the movement" in the U.S. Protesters were beaten savagely in police riots; Black Panther leaders were gunned down by police; militants of the American Indian Movement were killed in confrontations with the FBI; anti-war students at Kent State were shot down by the U.S. National Guard. Che Guevara, who in 1965 had left high office in the Cuban government to foment revolution in the Congo and Bolivia, was captured and summarily executed by the CIA in Bolivia in 1967.
The biggest blow to "the movement" was the U.S.-planned military coup against democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973. Rather than surrendering and going into exile, Allende resisted to the end and died in his presidential office. The Pinochet dictatorship proceeded to butcher tens of thousands of supporters of the Allende government.
The message to "the movement" was clear: whether you win by bullets or by ballots, we will mercilessly crush you and kill you for daring to defy our power and our privilege.
"The movement" lingered on into the 1970s, dying a slow death in the 1980s. Certainly the great big hopes were not realized, but gains were made. The world had been forever changed, at least around the edges. Gains made by the civil rights movement, both black and Aboriginal, have changed the political landscape in the U.S. and in Canada. The new feminism, fighting for social and economic equality and reproductive choice for women, gained a great deal. The Vietnam War finally ended in ignominious defeat for the U.S.-and we all cheered.
But let's be honest: on the big issues-the fight for structural change leading to social, economic and political justice and equality"the movement" was badly defeated. The poor and powerless of the world today are poorer and more powerless; the rich and powerful of the world today are richer and more powerful. The U.S. Empire now dominates the world and is currently bringing "the blessings of liberty," which Bush promised to Cuba upon Castro's resignation, to Iraq and Afghanistan. These "blessings" include primarilyas they did for Vietnam-bombing the countries into rubble, the deaths of tens of thousands of noncombatants, and the propping up of corrupt regimes composed largely of gangsters and thugs. I am sure the Cuban people can hardly wait.
While my early admiration for Castro and the Cuban Revolution was rooted in youthful idealism and romanticism, my later admiration had to do with Castro's survival skills against the American Behemoth. He outwitted 10 U.S. presidents, and foiled dozens of CIA/Mafia assassination attempts. When he refused to play the tame "revolutionary" and proceeded to implement real structural change, America cut him off in 1961. Did Castro bow? No. Then the U.S. sponsored the invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and Castro crushed it. Did Castro bow? No, he aligned himself with the Soviet Union and inveigled them to install tactical nuclear missiles to protect the revolution. Out of the ensuing missile crisis of 1962, Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles (as long as the U.S. withdrew some from Turkey). Castro also convinced Khrushchev to demand that the U.S. promise never to invade Cuba. President Kennedy made that solemn pledge, and, so far, the U.S. has honoured it.
Castro knew that the biggest threat to the revolution was an invasion by U.S. military forces. With that off the table, the revolution was militarily secure. Castro and Guevara were real revolutionaries. Guevara died for his revolutionary ideals, rather than living out a life of prestige and comfort in Cuba. Castro transformed Cuba, and his revolutionary integrity was never in doubt from the moment he announced the land reform program. The first land holdings he expropriated for the tillers were those of his own wealthy family, something his sister Juanita has never forgiven him for. Today she lives with the 650,00 Cuban exiles in Miami, dreaming of going back to Cuba to claim what she believes is rightfully hers.
Raul Castro has a big job before him: keeping the revolution intact while changing its character to fit the times and the yearnings of the young. He has quickly introduced small but symbolically important reforms: cell phones; personal computers; microwave ovens, DVD players; the right of Cubans to stay in hotels previously reserved for foreigners. Of more importance were his announcements that state workers (about 90% of all workers) will be granted deeds to their homes and apartments upon retirement; that wage caps on state workers are lifted, allowing those who work more to be paid more; and that farmers can produce privately on designated lands.
The Cuban Revolution sits on the cusp of becoming a revolution characterized by growing and fairly distributed prosperity, especially if the U.S. trade embargo can be lifted, opening up the U.S. market. Pressure has mounted in the U.S. to lift the embargo in the wake of Castro's retirement. The U.S. has already allowed a major exception to the embargoallowing $400 million worth of U.S. grain into Cuba in 2007, estimated to grow to $800 million in 2008.
Under Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico sits an estimated 5 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, so an energy boom could happen very soon. Cuba could very quickly become not only energy self-sufficient, but energy-rich.
The question is: can Raul pull if off? Can he add prosperity and an even better life of consumption to the firm egalitarian foundation of the revolution: universal health care, education, housing, food security and employment? Or will, as his brother Fidel always feared, that move open the door to the ultimate destruction of the revolution?
[Sidebar]
"We believed we were on the threshold of building a new and better world-and the success in Cuba in 1959 proved it was not just a fantasy, but that it could be done."
[Sidebar]
"Under Cuban waters sit enormous deposits of oil and natural gas, so Cuba could very quickly become not only energy self-sufficient, but energy-rich."
[Author Affiliation]
(John Conway is a political sociologist at the University of Regina.)
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