[Marxism] LA JORNADA: Cuban Marxism and Change

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Cuban Marxism and change
February 14, 2008
La Jornada

By: Ãngel Guerra Cabrera
aguerra_123@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/02/14/index.php?section=opinion&article=026a1mun

The broad debate today in Cuba and the transcendent changes can't be
explained without paying attention to both the revolution's history
and Cuban Marxist thought, which remains safe and sound despite the
Soviet reductionist version of Marxism's great influence reached at
that time. The frequent ignorance of this antecedent, the stereotypes
of the dominant culture and the distorted image projected by the
imperialist press, make rapid assimilation of that process difficult
outside the island.

Some exceptionally relevant contributions toward reducing that lack of
knowledge have recently been made in Cuba. The most important item is
undoubtedly Ignacio Ramonet's book-length interview with Fidel Castro,
particularly the last edition, revised and corrected by Fidel.
Without devaluing other valuable efforts, I found En el borde de todo,
el hoy y el maÃana de la revoluciÃn cubana (At the Edge of Everything;
today and tomorrow of the Cuban Revolution) (Ocean Sur,
www.oceansur.com) a work essential to understand the fundamentals of
the "revolution in the revolution," which leads the great social
transformation of the largest of the Antilles. Justly described as a
great work in Alfonso Sastre's prologue, its author, journalist and
historian Julio CÃsar Guanche, was born on the island more than a
decade after establishment of the blockade. He has managed to gather,
with notable efficiency, a chorus of Cuban voices of exceptional
intellectual value to discuss Fidel's central approach 60 years after
his entering the University of Havana: "This revolution can't be
destroyed by them (the imperialists) but by our defects and our
inequalities."

Guanche has created a great  report that manages to gives pedagogical
coherence to the collected pieces , among them Fidel's speech
mentioned above, one by RaÃl Castro and another by Foreign Minister
PÃrez Roque referring to the revolution's continuity.

From there he turns to interviews, which in the second section, allow
him to assemble a symposium in which a group of outstanding Cuban
thinkers from different eras -- Aurelio Alonso, JesÃs Arboleya, Juan
ValdÃs Paz, Luis SuÃrez Salazar, Fernando Rojas and Julio Antonio
FernÃndezâcontributed enlightened and, at times, diverging analyses
about Fidel's approach, the dangers that threaten the revolution and
the necessary changes to exorcise them. Later, Roberto FernÃndez
Retamar, Alfredo Guevara, Graziela Pogolotti and Ana Cairo developed
valuable reflections about history, socialism and culture, the
ideological struggle in the intellectual sphere both within and
outside of the country, the cancer of dogmatism and the permanence of
ethics and truth as inseparable elements in the politics of the Cuban
revolution.

The account of Baptist pastor RaÃl SuÃrez shows how the prophetic
testimony of an inspired, evangelical believer is inserted naturally
into the perspective of a more radical Cuban socialism, and in the
formation of the Guevarist "new man." Interviews with sociologist
Mayra Espina, educator Esther PÃrez and the young journalist Milena
Recio emphasize the vital need to open doors to the exhilarating
diversity of today's Cuba to replace the homogeneity that in other
times was explicable and even justified. It is the discovery of the
break and continuity in the future of the revolution, a context that
substantially differentiates the Cuban debate from recent liquidating
experiences socialism has gone though.

Fernando MartÃnez Herediaâperhaps the deepest of the thinkers to come
after 1959â contributes an overall evaluation of the beneficial excess
of the island's project and the intellectual adventure of developing
an indigenous Marxism. The common denominator in the pieces is the
determinate role of consciousness and will to struggle for the
socialist transition, the need of systematizing the debate and
"socializing the agenda of change" in a society more and more democratic.

Although it is not proposed to be, nor is, representative of the
entire range of Cuban thought, En el bordeâ does find some of the
fundamental concepts in the current debate, exponentially expanded
with RaÃl Castro's call: unyielding adherence to social justice and
ethics; support of the communist and international ideal; and
nonconformity and permanent renewal as conditions in the continuity of
the socialist revolution in Cuba.

Translated by Dana Lubow, March 15, 2008
Edited by Robert Sandels

=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

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