The Cuban Communist Party at the Center of Political and Economic Reform: Current Status and Future Reform in the Shadow of the Chinese Communist Party
Larry Catá Backer
Pennsylvania State University - Dickinson School of Law
July 28, 2014
Abstract:
No consideration of "Cuba's Perplexing Changes," its focus on internal reforms and impact on the Cuban economy, can be complete without a study of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), especially in comparative perspective. The thesis of this essay is that ideology is decisively important in any discussion of “reform” in Cuba. Western analysts have sought to subsume ideological issues within “transition” arguments — that ideological issues will evaporate once Cuba makes the jump from a Marxist-Leninist planned economy model to a Western oriented free market democracy. This essay argues that the inverse provides a more useful way of understanding the situation in Cuba and the choices that it faces. The ideological basis of state organization provides the key to understanding the likelihood of the success of reforms to any of the sectors of state policy. The PCC’s now quite mature ideological framework has helped shape, and constrain, both its approach to the construction and operation of its Party and state apparatus, but also all of its efforts to “reform” or develop its economic, social or political model. Yet the tensions created by these contradictions between PCC ideology and the conditions of Cuba need not lead invariably to a choice between Marxist-Leninist and Western style democratic state organization. The Chinese have provided another model, one that is grounded in a distinct approach to Marxist-Leninist ideology that has served the national context well enough to produce a state as stable as most. After the Introduction, Section II, (A) considers the centrality of ideology to the ‘problem’ of Cuba, (B) examines the consequences for Cuba of the choice, made by its vanguard party, to follow a distinct path toward the articulation and application of Marxism-Leninism in the organization and exercise of power, (C) examines the direct effect of this ideological framework on the structures of the Cuban Party and state, (D) assesses the consequential effects of ideology on the shape and scope of reforms, (E) argues that Marxist-Leninist ideology, like Western style democracy and markets oriented economic ideology, offers more than one path, and considers more directly, the alternatives offered by the Chinese path, and (F) weighs the consequences of the quality of the transition that is coming to Cuba, one that need not lead Cuba away from Marxist-Leninism and a Party-State system. Each is considered in turn in light of the essay’s thesis: Variations in Marxist ideology matter (no monolithic communist ideology), sustainable economic reform is possible within a Marxist Leninist State-Party system, and that ideological systemic ossification in Cuba, as in the United States, can lead to crisis and paralysis. It is in that context that one considers the questions: does the Chinese model provide a framework for Cuba? Is it too late for reform of the Cuba CP? If reform is possible, what should be its objectives and strategies?
Number of Pages in PDF File: 48
Keywords: commiunist party, socilist democracy, foreign direct investment, cooperatives, socialist economics, china, chinese commuinist party, Cuba
