Democracy, Cuban style
By Fernando Ravsberg
From BBC/Mundo
A few years ago, I took part in a debate on a European radio and one of the Cubans on the panel spoke wonders about pre-revolutionary Cuba, its economic and social development and, above all, about its political strength.
What my fellow panelist could never explain was how, in that “paradise,” the first communist revolution in America came about by violent means, and with a massive support of the population, at least during its early years.
Among the many topics that can be heard about Cuba, the one that seems farthest from reality is the one that states that before 1959 the country had reached a high level of political democracy and that the Constitution of 1940 is the best proof of it.
The 57 years before the triumph of the revolution tell us a different story.
Since Cuba is born, and until the 1930s, it exists as a U.S. protectorate, with a constitutional amendment that even allows the Americans to invade the island – “legally.”
Washington does not waste this status, takes over 20 percent of the land, 90 percent of the mines and 40 percent of the sugar industry (1). When Fidel Castro is born, two thirds of all agricultural production are Cuban-owned. (2)
Around that time, President Gerardo Machado decides to skip the elections and hold on to power. He secures that power by fire and sword, represses, imprisons and murders his opponents, while starving most Cubans.
Machado did not understand reason, so people took to the streets and became an ungovernable nation until the dictatorship was toppled. It was perhaps Cuba’s first revolution and, without a doubt, the most spontaneous and massive.
From 1933 to 1936, Cuba had no fewer than eight presidents. Most of them lasted a few months but the record for tenure belonged to Carlos Manuel Márquez, who held the presidency for only a few hours.
Amid this chaos emerges the famous Constitution of 1940, “the most advanced in America,” according to its proud defenders. Maybe it was, but the truth is that it was no more than a document that never regulated the real life of Cubans.
The brand-new Constitution could not prevent President Ramón Grau from negotiating with the groups of gangsters who preyed on the country and integrating them into the police (!), as historian Carlos Márquez Sterling tells us (3).
Corruption was so widespread that the Orthodox Party grew rapidly by promising to combat it. Its president, Eduardo Chivás, had a radio program that was devoted almost exclusively to denouncing corrupt politicians.
In 1952, there is a coup d’état that contains a double paradox. It is headed by Fulgencio Batista, one of the promoters of the 1940 Constitution, who has the support of the Armed Forces, the alleged guarantors of that document.
While Grau’s administration “legalized” the local gangsters, Batista’s internationalized the problem by allowing the U.S. mafia – led by Meyer Lansky and other notables – to take control of casinos and gambling in general.
They had arrived a few years earlier and felt so comfortable in Cuba that in 1946 they held one of his most important meetings there. It was presided by capo Lucky Luciano, enlivened by the voice of Frank Sinatra, and attended by “personalities” such as Anastasia, Costello, Gambino and Genovese.
And while in Havana Cubans built television stations, casinos, hotels, marinas and even heliports, in 1957 only 4 percent of agricultural workers regularly ate meat, fish less than 1 percent, only 2 percent consumed eggs, and 90 percent drank no milk.
The data come from a survey by the University Catholics Group (4), which also recorded that 80 percent of Cubans’ houses were of wood with thatched roof, 90 percent had no electricity and 64 percent did not have bathroom or latrine.
I remember that, at a private party where troubadour Pedro Luis Ferrer sang some of his most critical songs, one of the Cuban participants said enthusiastically: “That’s it, we must rebuild the Cuba we had before that man arrived.”
The singer stopped playing, turned serious and replied: “You already were defeated in 1959. Make no mistake, I look toward the future in search of a better society than this one, and I’m sure that I won’t find it in the past you miss so much.”
(1) Grijalbo encyclopaedia.
(2) Volker Skierka in his biography of Fidel Castro
(3) http://eddosrios.org/obras/historia/bando_5htm
(4) http://www.cubanag.ifas.ufl.edu/pdf/acusp.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mundo/cartas_desde_cuba/2010/09/democracia_a_la_cubana.html
