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The Twilight of
Castroism A ghost predicted to Macbeth: "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until/ Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill/ Shall come against him." Macbeth was vanquished. Ceausescu said he would certainly be in power until the poplar trees of Transylvania no longer bloomed. He was brutally dismissed. Castro has proclaimed that he would prefer to see the island sink into the sea than retreat one millimeter from his Marxist-Leninist principles. It is highly unlikely that the other inhabitants will choose to go down in the flood--or even to resign themselves to such a fate; but Castro does not want to change anything, and affirms again and again that he will not make the "smallest concession." He calls for the "rigidity" necessary for the defense of his revolutionary principles and condemns "the flexibility which submits to the ideas and dictates of imperialism."1 But the question of the evolution of his regime and of its collapse is raised everywhere, especially since the fall of Ceausescu. Belief in the survival of Castroism lingers on perhaps only in Le Monde--and even there only in the columns of Jean-Pierre Clerc--and is based on one simple observation: all of the founding fathers of Communism--Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Tito--died natural deaths; it is their "heirs" who have been dethroned in Eastern and Central Europe.2 Is the status of founder enough to save Castro? Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who prior to exile in 1965 took measure of the widespread poverty that existed in Cuba and attested to the strangling of all cultural life there, was, on the contrary, persuaded that Castro would not die a peaceful death, and would instead come to a terrible end, as did Mussolini, Hitler and Ceausescu.3 But what chiefly concerns the observers is not so much Castro's personal end but rather the future of the regime he established and the conditions under which this regime can change. Violence is very much feared: "How to Avoid a Bloodbath in Cuba" was the title of an article by Carlos Alberto Montaner in El Mundo.4 A number of factors will render a peaceful transition difficult. First, Castro's obstinacy. Prominent exiled Cubans supported by a number of intellectuals in various countries twice have asked Castro to "put before Cuba a referendum whereby the people can decide, by saying yes or no, and by means of a secret ballot, whether he should remain in power."5 (Let us remember that Castro occupies the functions of President of the Republic, President of the Council of Ministers, President of the Council of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.) After the first request for a plebiscite, in December of 1988, Granma commented at length on this "vile operation."6 The second time, Castro took jabs at the signers of the request, calling them "sons of bitches" and "pigs of imperialist agents" and reproached them for being silent about the intervention of North America in the affairs of General Noriega and the "criminal imperialist blockade" against Cuba. . . .7 To the request for democracy Castro always replies, "Marxist-Leninism or death!" The cruelty he has always shown, his constant resort to repression and, what's more, to "preventive" repression, prove that this threat must be taken seriously. The United Nations Commission that went to Cuba in September, 1988 (the first on-site inquiry) produced a report characterized as "overwhelming" by Le Monde.8 Indeed, the report referred to tortures, assassinations, disappearances, executions and simulations of executions. . . . A Society Under Surveillance From its birth, the regime has undertaken to become a powerful machine of repression, consisting of an army, political police, and a "people's" force called the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. The Cuban Armed Forces (320,000 men) has long been the strongest force in Latin America. The disillusionment that has accompanied the current demobilization (the withdrawal from Angola) could lead certain military commanders to disassociate their future from that of the regime rather than blindly obey Castro in the event of an uprising. On the occasion of General Arnaldo Ochoa's arrest, Raúl Castro affirmed that, among other weaknesses, General Ochoa had that of "unburdening himself to practically anyone, and playing the victim because he was sent to fight a lost war so that he would bear the blame for defeat."9 It is impossible to know how many officers, upset by the retreat from Angola and angered by the execution of Ochoa and his co-defendants on July 13, 1989, cannot be counted on to support the regime. What is certain, however, is that members of Castro's military enjoy considerable privileges. Meanwhile, until such time as the army is faced with the possibility of civil turmoil, the population continues to be hemmed in, spied upon, and pushed about by the government, while it is paralyzed by the political police and its secular arm: the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. These neighborhood committees are not content to be merely the omnipresent eye of the "Revolution": they also act on its behalf. Since the beginning of March, 1990, Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, Secretary General of the Cuban Committee of Human Rights, has been sequestered in his home, surrounded by a fierce "crowd" armed with rocks and various projectiles. The CDRs act on orders, and, here again, no one knows how they would align themselves in the event of turmoil. Among their members few are misguided enthusiastic "revolutionaries," but rather opportunists and marginal or simply frightened people. When exiles reveal their motivations for leaving, they frequently cite their refusal to rat on others, the restrictions forced on them by the CDRs and their own refusal to submit to their permanent prying and interventions. "They have complete power over you," said Reinaldo Arenas in one of the first interviews he gave to a French newspaper after he went into exile.10 Surely, many of those in its ranks will, at the first sign of a changing tide, cease to act on behalf of the revolution, and will turn against it. But for the time being, the repression machine is working, and fear reigns. The writer Carlos Victoria, in exile since 1980, responds appropriately: "many North Americans, as well as Latin Americans and Europeans . . . always ask the same questions, either naively, or with malicious incredulity. They ask: 'If the situation down there is as bad as you describe, why is nothing happening? Why doesn't someone organize a movement from within the country to bring down the government? . . . Why do people flee rather than revolt? If, after so many years, nothing has changed for the better, why?' Why indeed? At the risk of being overly simplistic, I simply respond, 'Fear.'"11 This feeling is aggravated by the fact that Cuba is an island. Even with its borders tightened, Romania remained in contact with other countries. In Cuba, in the case of the crushing of a demonstration or protest, where could one flee? Therefore, everyone is afraid, on his guard, waiting. . . .Who is to begin the revolt? If I evoke, straight off, the conditions for an uprising by the people against the regime, it is because it is now largely accepted that this is desired, awaited and even inevitable. Everyone now knows what is wrong in Cuba: to the defeats, deprivations and sufferings of Marxist-Leninist regimes are added the sufferings and losses brought about by the egotism of the caudillo. The figure of a million exiles provides a strong, irrefutable indication of the rejection of this kind of society. We should ask rather: a million people have fled, but how many more want to leave? One is reminded of the Mariel exodus in 1980, when over a period of five weeks nearly 126,000 people fled a dictatorship characterized by Reinaldo Arenas as "total, systematic and scientific." "Tyrannies sometimes allow," he added, "spaces of liberty through which you can slip." Not Castroism, however. Everything is controlled: home, street and work."12 Cabrera Infante returned to Cuba in 1965. He knew, he later explained, that he would not be able to write there, and seemed resigned to this. Very soon, however, he understood--he sensed--that neither he nor anyone else could live there.13 It does not take a great deal of imagination to envision the constraints that confront Cubans: a single political party; one labor union; obligatory teaching of Marxism-Leninism; absence of freedom of expression (not only political or religious, but of any opinion), including, for a writer, the right to remain silent;14 total rejection of the right to be different (black, homosexual, a hippie, an intellectual, or even, less radically, to walk with one's shirt wide open). We have lately seen with what fervor, and innocence even, entire populations have rejected the Marxist-Leninist mold and have reclaimed liberty. Nothing tells us that the Cuban people are any less drawn toward liberty. 1 | 2
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