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The Cuban Revolution and the American Left

By Ken Brociner

For countless leftists who came of age politically sometime between the late 1950s and the early 1990s, the Cuban Revolution represented a beacon of hope. Cuba symbolized so many inspirational qualities: a serious commitment to economic and social egalitarianism; a fierce opposition to the decadence and inequality of capitalism; and a principled, anti-imperialist solidarity with the Third World.

But while the recent thaw in the U.S.-Cuba relationship has generated widespread support among progressives, there has been a noticeable lack of the kind of romanticism that characterized the way that so much of the left related to Cuba in the past.

The end of the left’s overall romance with Cuba can be traced to a number of things. For some, it came as early as 1959, with the public execution of dozens of alleged supporters of Fulgencio Batista, Cuba’s long-time dictator. For others it resulted from the failure of Fidel Castro to live up to his promises to hold democratic elections. Still others remained true believers until the 1971 show trial of the poet Hernán Padilla.

From the 1970s onward, a significant portion of the left still considered themselves to be supporters of the Cuban Revolution—but with evidence of governmental repression mounting each year, they mostly identified themselves as “critical supporters.”

When Cuba was still standing proud after the domino-like collapse of the entire Soviet bloc in the fall of 1989, many on the left once again rallied around Cuba, pointing out that unlike the governments of Eastern Europe, the Cuban government was the product of a popular revolution. However, since the early ’90s, the steady stream of reports about growing social inequality, widespread corruption and the continuing repression of dissidents have, for the most part, killed off the remaining vestiges of the left’s romance with Cuba.

This widespread disillusionment with the Cuban Revolution signifies a maturing of the American Left. These days, very few of us seek political guidance from Third World revolutions – be it from Cuba, China, Vietnam, or Nicaragua (all of which were extremely popular on the left at one time or another during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s).

While for some on the left Hugo Chavez has become the new Fidel, and Venezuela the new Cuba, most progressives have resisted the temptation of being swept away by yet another romance with a deeply flawed Third World revolution.

Perhaps what this tells us most of all is that the contemporary progressive movement is considerably less utopian and more pragmatic than the progressive movements of previous decades were.

Of course, this trend has both its strengths and weaknesses. Because of the compelling need to defeat conservative politicians, there has been a natural tendency to become so pragmatic in our pursuit of electoral victories that we sometimes lose sight of our long-term goals and visions. Nevertheless, the progressive movement’s overall embrace of political pragmatism has been, on balance, a major plus.

This is not to say that the remarkable shift toward the left now taking place throughout Latin America isn’t highly encouraging. Clearly, it has the potential to be of world-historical importance.

But the difference between the glory days of the Cuban Revolution and today is that the overwhelming majority of progressives nowadays have their sights set on figuring out how to change the U.S. government and American society by pragmatically drawing on the best traditions of our nation’s past rather than by invoking the names of revolutionary heroes from the developing world.

One good example of this is that despite the omnipresent and disgraceful manner in which the global advertising industry has tried to co-opt and exploit Che Guevera’s image, progressives rarely cite Che’s name in the alternative media. After ideologically shooting ourselves in the foot so often in the past, we have learned how critical it is to “speak American.” FDR may not have been a revolutionary, but by repeatedly invoking his legacy, progressives are undoubtedly reaching more Americans than would be the case if we were still spouting the kind of rhetoric that was so prevalent in the past.

Another lesson the American Left has learned is that the most effective way to help the people of the developing world achieve greater economic and social justice is for us to roll up our sleeves and tirelessly organize in the trenches of U.S. domestic politics. By electing more progressives to office, as well as by pushing the president and Congress leftward, we can help transform U.S. foreign policy into one that supports, rather than obstructs, positive changes around the world.

Being disillusioned with the long-term results of the Cuban Revolution shouldn’t prevent us from acknowledging the many real accomplishments that it has achieved – especially in the fields of health and education. But ironically, because the left’s long-standing romance with Cuba and other Third World revolutions is mostly a thing of the past, we have become much better equipped to continue the long journey to bring fundamental change to our own society.

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• Reader Comments

  M aturing of today’s left? Not hardly. What failed support for the revolutions of Cuba and Venezuela signifies is today’s lack of class consciouslness.

  Too many in today’s left expect paradise to exist when right wing tyrants are overthrown. This is both naive and ludicrous. Until a left led government is fully in place, there will always be the threat of counter revolution such as the CIA led overthrowing of the elected government of Chile’s Salvador Allende.

  I would urge today’s leftists to carefully research human rights violations by U.S. supported regimes such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Pakistan, S. Korea., etc

  I would also urge for today’s leftists to stop playing into the hands of U.S. propagandists and become fully aware of the so-called human rights violations in Cuba and Venezuela and ask themselves: What about human rights violations here in the U.S.?

  Posted by Chicano Wobbly on May 2, 2009 at 11:55 AM

  “What failed support for the revolutions of Cuba and Venezuela signifies is today’s lack of class consciouslness.”— “so-called human rights violations in Cuba”—is this a joke?

  Here’s a little story, when my brother was 8 years old, still living in that hell-hole known as Cuba, one day at school, because he would not salute the flag over religious principles, the powers that be took him in the office and threatened to put my parents in jail if he didn’t salute the flag again.

  Here’s another one for you, after my mom had me, the doctors inserted a ring inside of her vagina, obviously against her will, so that she couldn’t have any more kids.

  Gay people used to be placed in concentration camps just for the simple fact that they were gay, you can’t say anything negative about the government without risking inprisonment, and you’re not even allowed to simply leave the country if you don’t agree with the ideals.

  I don’t know what your interpretation of what human rights violations are, exactly, but you have to admit, these come pretty close, right?

  Oh, and by the way, Cubans aren’t allowed inside of any of the hotels where tourists stay at… in their very own country!

  Hooray for the revolution, social equality, and as you so naively and irresponsibly wrote “class consciousness”.

  Posted by dennis velazquez on May 6, 2009 at 4:07 PM

  In my hometown of San Antonio, TX most of us are discourage from going into hotels that only well to do tourists can afford to stay at. If we go in to use the rest room we are asked to leave!

  In the U.S. not long ago people were arrested and never charged for criticizing Bush’s lies regarding 9/11 and Al Qaeda.

  Forced sterilization was prominent up until about 35-40 years ago especially in the south.

  In 1969 I was suspended and lectured to because I refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I informed the principal that I owed no allegiance to the flag, only to the Constitution! Apparently right wing extremists have no use for the Constitution, prefering to use the flag as their symbol of so-called freedom!

  In the U.S. workers are spied on, harassed and fired for attempting to organize unions on the job!

  So please do not attempt to lecture me about so-called human rights violations in Cuba when I have seen the same here in this country, the so-called land of the free!

  Posted by Chicano Wobbly on May 7, 2009 at 4:20 PM

  There’s a big difference between “discouraged” and not being allowed/catching a beat-down.

  Look, maybe I went about my response the wrong way.  I know I came off a bit condecsending but it’s just that you have to understand that when you write something like “so-called human rights violations” about something I’ve seen, first hand, it automatically brings the absolute worst out of me.

  Listen, I’m not some right-winger trolling around this website.  Just like you, I do not belong to any party, and actually never have voted in my life.  And I certainly don’t come from some formerly rich family that was forced out of Cuba by the revolution.  On the contrary, my father was born in 1955 after Fidel’s first failed attempt to overthrow Batista; now, take a wild guess at what my father’s name is….you got it: Fidel.  My grandfather, a farmer, was a supporter of the revolution.  So was my grandmother, on my mother’s side.  Fortunately, though, at some point, common sense started to out-weight naively flawed romanticism.

  Hey, look, I’m not gonna sit here and, as you put it, try to lecture you on human rights.  And I certainly can not tell you that those things you wrote about didn’t happen or weren’t happening back then.  But what I could matter-of-factually say to you is this:  I left Cuba at the age of six and by then I had already experienced the constant fear that is always present in that God-forsaken hell-hole, as I playfully like to call it.  I’ve lived here, in the states for twenty years now, and have never—I repeat—never-ever had to deal with having my basic rights, as a human being, tampered with in any level that is even worth mentioning.

  Posted by dennis velazquez on May 7, 2009 at 5:45 PM

  Oh, and one last thing, I’m sorry but you HAVE NOT seen the same.  If you did, you would have had to migrate via shark-infested waters in a raft made of wood and tires to a foreign country with a completely different language to be able to write the two comments you’ve written in this page.

  Posted by dennis velazquez on May 7, 2009 at 5:52 PM

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