Fidel!

Castro's Political And Social Thought

Sheldon B. Liss

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429723148
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

The author of this book takes a highly original approach to understanding the past three decades of Cuban history–he offers an analysis and interpretation of the prolific writings and speeches of Fidel Castro and of numerous interviews with him. Through Castro's own words, Sheldon Liss examines the evolution of the Cuban leader's political and soci

1
The Revolutionary Leader

Aristotle said that a man is a social being, and it seems I belong to that species.

—Fidel Castro

“Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” chant a million people gathered in Havana’s José Marti Revolution Square to hear Castro speak. Cuba’s citizens engage in a onesided dialogue with the man who has guided their nation for over three decades and has attracted more attention than any other Latin American leader of the twentieth century. As loved and respected in Cuba as he is loathed and suspected in the United States, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz engenders debate and controversy in many quarters. To the million approving voices he epitomizes revolutionary legitimacy. Although he denies that he is synonymous with the Revolution, his political and social philosophy pervade contemporary Cuba.

Cuba has a long tradition of radicalism expressed through trade unions, mass participation in cooperative actions, and worker uprisings.¹ The rhetoric of dissent, at which Fidel excels, has been an integral part of Latin American politics. His strong personality and political dominance make it difficult to deal with him dispassionately. Even his critics are often beguiled by this man who can be simultaneously enchanting and manipulative. Using sociologist Max Weber’s categories, we find that his charisma evolves from personal qualities, as opposed to the charisma of office, which arises from some sacred nature ascribed to the position.

Castro is constantly in demand. At times he has on his desk as many as three hundred requests for interviews. He likes to talk and repeatedly tells his revolutionary story to interviewers. One of his friends, novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, insists that he rests from talking by talking.² Despite a fragile voice that sometimes sounds uncertain, he has great oratorical powers. He frequently uses the words “let us analyze it,” indicating that to him socioanalysis is the highest form of communication. He speaks Spanish with impeccable syntax and avoids using English, which he reads but speaks haltingly. Those who converse with him receive undivided attention. Interviewers find that what he says has been thought out in advance and is presented logically. He is forthcoming, controls interviews, and prefers to deal with reality, not theory. One can irritate him by constantly couching questions in terms of Marxist doctrine. In writing his speeches he has a knack for shifting the burden of proof to his adversaries. Foreign interviewers who cast questions in the ethnocentric vein of their own nation frustrate Fidel, who, for example, does not like to see European suppositions injected into interviews about Cuba.³ He refuses to get pinned down unless he so desires, evading answers by delivering long-winded diatribes.

Castro, a master of mass psychology, designs his speeches to be heard. They tend to be repetitious, often lack literary quality, and are tedious when read. Unlike V. I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky, who wrote speeches for party cadres, Fidel writes both speeches and articles for the masses. Seventy to 75 percent of his hundreds of writings and speeches are pep talks with little theoretical content. He refers to his speeches as conversations or exchanges with the public and adapts them to specific audiences. His comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara said that one had to witness Fidel in action in big public meetings to appreciate how he integrated with the masses. Che drew an analogy to “two tuning forks whose vibrations summon forth new vibrations each in the other. Fidel and the masses begin to vibrate in a dialogue of growing intensity which reaches its culminating point in an abrupt ending crowned by our victorious battle cry.”⁴ His charisma seems to be absorbed by the people, who in return grant him authority. From another vantage point, one might call his public dialogues monologues wherein he asks and answers questions.

Fidel has delivered hundreds of orations sprinkled with historical allusions to previous Cuban struggles like the 1868 uprising against Spain. His speeches reveal broad literary and classical interests and always reflect a Cuban point of view. He uses the language of his generation, often more positivist in nature than Marxist, and does not continuously invoke class analysis.⁵ Those who listen to him feel that he inspires dignity. His extemporaneous remarks respond to the mood of the audience. Although he improvises some speeches, his major talks are usually written out. He spends hours correcting and rewriting them, putting new meanings in the margins, striving to use language artfully.⁶ When not working from a script, he has the basic ideas and the order of presentation in mind. He rarely deals with ideas or situations he does not fully comprehend.

Fidel’s speeches have a didactic quality. His orations put greater emphasis on historical description than analysis, whereas his interviews have greater conceptual depth. He feels obligated not to use abstract or highly technical terms when addressing the masses, but he does use polysyllabic words. In demagogic fashion, he encourages his followers, raises civic and revolutionary consciousness, and criticizes his enemies. He also contradicts himself occasionally.

The Jefe Máximo

Fidel Castro, the unifying force of the Cuban Revolution and its political and ideological leader, stands as a constant reminder of the military victory over bourgeois dictatorship and imperialism. Holding the rank of comandante en jefe (commander in chief), he almost always wears battle dress as a reminder of the ongoing revolution. He mixes Latin America’s revolutionary tradition with Marxist ideology to produce “Fidelismo, ” or “Castroism.” Fidelismo reflects his personal mysticism, not the impersonal aura of the Communist party. His followers, or fidelistas, deviate from traditional Communist adherence to a narrow and inflexible party. Instead, they represent broad national interests.

With the overthrow of Paraguay’s Alfredo Stroessner in February 1989, Castro became the longest-ruling head of state in the Americas. Following the Latin tradition of strong chief executives, Fidel has presided over Cuba with a dynamic style of personal governance and has built close ties to the masses. His relationship to the people in some ways approximates that of China’s Mao Zedong, whom Fidel saw as a sincere and brilliant revolutionary and thinker, but one who lacked humility and created a cult of personality.⁷

Everyone in Cuba calls him Fidel. Some others, including opponents in the United States, refer to him as Castro. Throughout this book I use Fidel and Castro interchangeably. To a few he is “Fifo,” or el caballo (the horse), a name connoting indestructibility. Those who recall his missives from the guerrilla days in the Sierra Maestra remember him by the pseudonym Alex. Whether acting as Cuba’s jefe supremo (supreme chief), ltder mdximo (maximum leader), president of Cuba’s Council of Ministers, head of the National Assembly and Council of State, first secretary of the Communist party, or commander in chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, he responds toward his compatriots as a concerned father or family head. Most Cubans react positively to that relationship and look upon him as a benevolent, sometimes puritanical, patriarch. Hero worship and wishful thinking have led many Cubans to regard Castro as infallible, an attribute that even during the early years of the Revolution he denied vehemendy.

Those who know Fidel see him as a tireless worker, a man of iron discipline, someone with wonderful political instincts, but also as someone at times unable to delegate authority and with a propensity to interfere in well-designed plans made by others. Garcia Marquez has said that what Castro hates most is to lose; thus in most situations he struggles vehemently to get the upper hand.⁸ In order to do so, he feels a great need to be well informed, and Garcia Marquez noted that Fidel breakfasts with two hundred pages of world news.⁹

He probably has detailed knowledge of more facets of life in his country than has any other moderm national leader. He recites correct harvest yields, describes school curricula, or tells you how much toilet paper Cuba produces annually. He believes that no two people are alike; thus he allows for individual differences. In order to attain flexibility, he believes it necessary to stress the practical aspects of revolutionary thought, eschewing dogma. He talks about individual worth and dignity more than collective duties.

He characterizes himself as a “revolutionary politician,”¹⁰ or a “professional revolutionary,” meaning that he cannot stand injustice.¹¹ He primarily thinks politically, not militarily. He sees himself as an internationalist whose blood is that of all others. According to one biographer, Tad Szulc, he displays Latin mysticism, believing it his destiny to play a major role in public affairs.¹² Considering himself a teacher of the Cuban people, he rarely misses an opportunity to explain and expound upon his views.¹³ Ever since his days fighting in the Sierra Maestra, he has never issued orders in a military way, preferring to be pedagogical and to give reasons for his directives.¹⁴ To him, it is unimportant who leads; what counts is how well one governs.¹⁵ Szulc, a kindred spirit of Fidel’s Miami opponents, admits that Castro likes José Marti’s expression “all the glory in the world fits inside a kernel of corn,” meaning that the revolutionary does not fight for personal ambition.¹⁶ Fidel has always resented the phrase “Castro’s regime,” rejecting the idea that he is a “strong man” in the classical sense of making all decisions.¹⁷ He repeatedly notes, “We have never preached a personality cult. You will not see a statue of me anywhere, nor a school with my name, nor a street, nor a little town, nor any type of personality cult because we have not taught our people to believe, but to think, to reason out.”¹⁸

In Cuba, he says, people think, but in the United States they believe things.¹⁹ Disclaiming omnipotence, he insists that more checks on his power exist than on that of the president of the United States, who can enter thermonuclear war without congressional approval.²⁰ To charges that he is a dictator, he replies, “A dictator is someone who makes unilateral arbitrary decisions, one who is above all institutions and the law.” He says that no one would call the pope a dictator, yet he makes unilateral decisions and governs by decree²¹ He asserts that decisions are made collectively in Cuba but is not so naïve as to think that his authority, granted collectively, and his prestige do not give him extra clout.²² He opposes the idea that one small faction should have disproportionate power in any sector of society and even stopped publication of the newspaper Lunes de Revolution in 1961 because its editors were acquiring too much power.²³ Naturally, his critics can claim that he closed the paper because it vied with him for power and contradicted his wishes. He as serts that the distribution of power in society must favor the working-class majority. To him a genuine revolution requires the support of the masses. When confronted with the fact that the military phase of the Revolution was conducted by a minority, he responds that the latter had majority support or approval. He says that from the early 1950s on, he never intended to seize power with a handful of men but by mobilizing the masses.²⁴ When Gabriel Garcia Marquez implied that Fidel operated on his own and referred to his “solitude of power,” he disagreed: “I don’t know what loneliness is when I can be with the people and that’s what I always try to do.”²⁵

Fidel understands the nature of power, and from his extensive reading of history he has learned that it is easier to win power than to retain it and govern. He also feels that as one gets older, one gains experience and can be more useful to society.²⁶

Even critical supporters who feel that it is time for Fidel to prepare successors concede that he has been a courageous, morally and physically strong, creative, and audacious hero who accomplished what seemed impossible by overthrowing tyranny, breaking dependence on the United States, and instituting socialism ninety miles from the world’s most powerful capitalist state.

Some have claimed that Fidel’s road to power was based on tactics, not ideas.²⁷ Subsequent pages should enable the reader to determine if that is so and to what extent independent leadership and thinking can develop in a nation dominated by one man for over three decades. Readers will eventually have better answers to the following questions raised by Cubanologist Max Azicri: How democratic are political institutions in Cuba? Is the populace well served? And who wields power, Fidel alone, the Political Bureau, or the National Assembly of People’s Power?²⁸ The readers should be able to discern whether these questions represent universal concerns or merely bourgeois-democratic ones. We might also determine whether Fidel fears institutionalization, which would strip him of some power and limit his capacity for action, a question posed by his severe critic Carlos Montaner, who claimed that Castro rules by conducting public dialogues with the people and accepting their acquiescence as a note of confidence.²⁹ Montaner and other opponents concluded that Fidel suffers from a messiah complex. Supporters see nothing wrong with his desire to save Latin America from capitalist exploitation and foreign domination. Some scholars have accused Fidel of Bonapartism, Karl Marx’s idea that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte exercised power on behalf of the masses, who were too factionalized and disengaged to do it themselves, and strove to protect them from the ravages of other classes. Political scientist Samuel Farber labeled Fidel a Bonapartist because he ...