Abstract
In the decades since 1959, whilst Cuba experimented with different forms of economic management and established its role within world affairs, it was also developing a network of political relationships between state and people. Despite the egalitarian instincts of its social philosophy, distinct hierarchies and relationships determined by professional status, economic activity and political identity as well as by gender, ethnicity and sexuality exist in Cuban society. The purpose of this chapter is to offer a commentary on the development of the internal political and social dynamics of the Revolution. I consider how its political evolution has shaped the socialist democracy which the state subscribes to, relations within the political elite and the operation of poder popular (popular power). The state has both instigated and attempted to contain critical discourses and has sometimes responded in an authoritarian and intolerant manner to attempts to debate fundamental issues. It has also had to operate in an international environment where the dominant world power is dedicated to its destruction. In these circumstances, the development of a siege mentality within official circles may not be surprising but it has had unfortunate consequences for the quality of intellectual and cultural life and an adverse impact upon the strengthening of socialist conciencia.
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Notes
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For the next two years, he broadcast Radio Free Dixie to the southern states of his homeland before growing disillusioned with the growing Soviet presence in Cuba and the persistence of racism: ‘I had a choice of remaining in Cuba... but I don’t see any difference in being a socialist Uncle Tom than being an Uncle Tom in capitalist and racist America’ (T. B. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill, NC: University Press of North Carolina, 1999), p. 294). Other militants, including Eldridge Cleaver, would also depart Cuban exile having complained about prejudice.
Smith and Padula, Sex, p. 170. A charge of prevailing homophobia is problematic. Traditionally, gay men were tolerated as long as they kept a low public profile so as not to bring shame to their families. There was contempt for effeminate males; the word used for them — maricón — also means coward. This celebration of aggressive male sexual activity chimes well with the machista devaluation of women. Ian Lumsden, Machos, Maricones and Gays. Cuba and Homosexuality (Philadelphia, Pa: Temple University Press, 1996) offers a fascinating account of the gay experience.
Quoted by D. West, ‘Strawberry and Chocolate, Ice Cream and Tolerance. Interviews with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos TabÃo’, CINEASTE, XXI: 1-2 (1995), 16. Whilst Che was very hostile towards gays, Fidel appears to have been far less judgemental; indeed, Alfredo Guevara, one of his closest friends and the head of the Cuban Film Institute, was openly gay. Despite the strongly homophobic attitudes demonstrated by successive Soviet governments, leading communists Carlos Rafael RodrÃguez and Blas Roca were disturbed by the thought of the Cuban state following suit.
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In his conversations with the radical Catholic Frei Betto, Fidel contended that there was no incongruity in being Marxist and Christian in that both traditions were committed to ending exploitation and fighting for social justice. See Frei Betto, Fidel y la religión: Conversaciones con Frei Betto (Havana: Oficina de Publicaciones de Estado, 1985).
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Quoted in J. Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed: the Latin American Left after the Cold War (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), p. 185.
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Discussed by T. Barnard, ‘Death is not True. Form and History in Cuban Film’ in J. King, A. M. López and M. Alvarado (eds). Mediating Two Worlds. Cinematic Encounters in the Americas (London: British Film Institute, 1993), p. 233.
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Quoted in A. Hennessy and G. Lambie (eds). The Fractured Blockade. West European-Cuban Relations during the Revolution (Basingstoke: Macmillan — now Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), p. 38.
D. J. Fernández, Cuba and the Politics of Passion (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), p. 92.
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© 2004 Geraldine Lievesley
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Lievesley, G. (2004). The Cuban State and the Cuban People. In: The Cuban Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943972_6
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