Theorizing the Cuban Revolution

Author(s): John Foran

Source: Latin American Perspectives , Mar., 2009, Vol. 36, No. 2, Cuba: Interpreting a
Half Century of Revolution and Resistance, Part 2 (Mar., 2009), pp. 16-30
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

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 Theorizing the Cuban Revolution
by
John F or an

An assessment of the outcomes of the Cuban Revolution in terms of theories of both

the causes and outcomes of revolutions in general reveals that that the revolution has
been spectacularly successful in terms of ensuring the well-being of the vast majority of
Cubans, while at the same time failing to deliver fully democratic institutions and
freedoms. The success of the revolution in maintaining itself against U.S. hostility and
the deepening of neoliberal global capitalism is attributed to the strength of the political
culture that the revolution has forged and carried forward across the generations. The
future of the revolution looks bright, especially if the Cuban people find a way to secure
deeper democratic gains to match their social and economic ones.

Keywords: Cuban Revolution, Causes, Outcomes, Political culture, Future

At the start of the twenty-first century, Cuba remains the one indisputably
revolutionary society on the planet. Having survived the hostility of the
United States at the height of the cold war and the harsh impact of the demise
of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the country now faces the imminent passing
of its only head of state in a world characterized by reckless U.S. militarism
and savage global capitalism.
Knowing the future of this longest-lived of all Third World revolutions is
impossible, but one can imagine various futures as more or less probable. To
do so requires some understanding of Cuba's past as well as its present, and
theories about revolution, as well as sociological imagination, can come in
handy In this essay, I draw freely (and very immodestly) on work I have done
over the years on how to theorize Third World revolutions in an effort to sig
nal what this might mean for understanding the Cuban Revolution.

THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION: 1953-1959

A MODEL OF HOW THIRD WORLD REVOLUTIONS COME ABOUT

Much of my scholarly life has been devoted to a search for patterns in the
origins of the great revolutions that have shaped the Third World, from
Mexico and China in 1911 to Iran and Nicaragua in 1979. Most tellingly, only
Cuba remains a revolutionary society today.
My own particular synthesis (see Foran, 2005: 18-24; 1993; 1997b) insists
on balancing attention to such perennial (and all too often reified) dichoto
mies as structure and agency, political economy and culture, state and social

John Foran is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the
author of several books and edited collections on revolutions.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 165, Vol. 36 No. 2, March 2009 16-30
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X09331938
? 2009 Latin American Perspectives

16

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 Foran / THEORIZING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION 17

structure, internal and external factors. I have argued that five interrelated
causal factors must combine in a given conjuncture to produce a social revo
lution (see Figure 1):
1. Dependent development (Cardoso and Faletto, 1979; Evans, 1979), essen
tially a process of growth within limits set by a country's insertion into the
capitalist world economy, which creates social and economic grievances
among diverse sectors of the population.
2. A repressive, exclusionary, personalist state, led by a dictator or colonial
power who provides a solid target for social movements from below, often
alienating even the middle and upper classes.
3. The elaboration of effective and powerful political cultures of resistance1 among
a broad array of actors, drawing upon formal ideologies such as socialism, folk
traditions such as memories of past struggles (so salient in Cuba), and popular
idioms such as nationalism, social justice, or an end to dictatorship.
4. A revolutionary crisis produced by the combination of an economic down
turn, which may even be created by revolutionaries in the course of the strug
gle, as Castro's July 26th Movement managed to do by disrupting the 1958
sugar harvest.
5. A world-systemic opening or let-up of external controls, originating in dis
ruption of the core economies by world war or depression, rivalries between
core powers, mixed messages sent to Third World dictators, or a divided for
eign policy when faced with an insurrection.
The coming together in a single place of all five factors has led to the forma
tion of the broad revolutionary coalitions that succeeded in gaining power in
Mexico, China, Cuba, Iran, and Nicaragua.
What are some of the lessons we might cull from the revolutionary record
in light of this theory of causes? Let me try stating a few in propositional terms
(see Foran, 2003):
Revolutions have typically been directed against two types of states at
opposite ends of the democratic spectrum: exclusionary, personalist dictators
or colonial regimes and?paradoxically?truly open societies in which the left
had a fair chance in elections, as in Chile in 1970.
They have usually been driven by economic and social inequalities caused
by both the short-term and the medium-run consequences of "dependent
development"?a process of aggregate growth by which a handful of the
privileged have prospered, leaving the majority of the population to suffer
innumerable hardships.
They have had a significant cultural component in the sense that no revolution
has been made and sustained without a vibrant set of political cultures of resist
ance and opposition that found significant common ground, at least for a time.
They have occurred when the moment was favorable on the world scene?
that is, when powers that would oppose revolution have been distracted,
confused, or ineffective in preventing them.
Finally, they have always involved broad, cross-class alliances of subaltern
groups, middle classes, and elites, to an increasing extent women as well as
men, and to a lesser degree racial or ethnic minorities as well as majorities.
Such broad coalitions will have the best chances for success in terms of
attaining state power.

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18 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Economic
downturn
Political Revolutionary
Exclusionary outbreak/
Dependent personalist cultures
state or of Multi-class,
development -race,
Open polity opposition
-gender alliance

World
systemic
opening

Figure 1. A Model of Third World Social Revolutions

CUBA AMIDST THE FIVE FACTORS

The Cuban Revolution presents the appearance of an almost wholly

"willed" revolution: a small band of idealistic young revolutionaries over
turning a military dictatorship through determination, bravery, and luck. And
in good measure this is true, but it is not the whole story, even if it is an aspect
we should not lose sight of (see Foran, 2005: 57-65).
Underlying the revolution was an almost textbook case of dependent devel
opment. It is not always recognized that Cuba in the 1950s ranked as "one of
the four or five most developed nations in Latin America, and the most devel
oped tropical nation in the entire world" (Wickham-Crowley, 1992: 166). The
key to this growth, of course, was sugar: Cuba had been the world's largest
producer since the early 1900s and provided more than half the world market
in sugar, amounting to 80 percent of Cuba's exports (Benjamin, Collins, and
Scott, 1986: 9). At the same time it housed a society marked by enormous dis
parities of wealth and power, for behind the positive statistics lay the dependent
aspects of Cuban development. The United States had US$1 billion invested
in Cuba in 1958 (up from US$657 million in 1952), second only to its invest
ments in the Venezuelan oil industry and representing one-eighth of all U.S.
investments in Latin America.2 The internal impact of this dependent develop
ment was dramatic. Estimates of income inequality suggest that the poorest 20
percent got between 2 and 6 percent of income, the richest 20 percent taking
55 percent. In terms of land tenure, the largest 9 percent of landowners had 62
percent of the land, while the bottom two-thirds had only 7 percent.3 While
Cuba had more millionaires per capita than any other country of Latin
America and "more Cadillacs were sold in Havana than any other city in the
world in 1954" (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott, 1986: 5), during the "dead sea
son" in the countryside, which could stretch to eight or nine months, "families
ate roots and bark to stay alive, hunted locusts, lived in woods, in caves"
(Cannon, 1981:41). In between lay a large middle class?one-fifth of the work
ing population?consisting of merchants, professionals, and civil servants and
a somewhat smaller urban working class that was better-off (and more politi
cized) than its more numerous counterpart in the rural sector (see Foran,
Klouzal, and Rivera, 1997).
Holding this political economy together through various means was the
state of Fulgencio Batista, who seized power on March 10,1952, after lagging

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 Foran / THEORIZING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION 19

in the polls during that year's presidential campaign. Propped up by the vast
patronage and corruption networks open to him and severe repression of
opponents, Batista's exclusionary, personalized control had weakened his
military and alienated civil society, undermining the bases of his rule.
The deep currents of oppositional culture at work in the Cuban Revolution
included a long history of rebellions, a tradition of nationalism, and the loose,
radical amalgam ultimately fashioned by Fidel Castro's July 26th Movement.
The growth of U.S. influence and the seeming inability of Cuban politicians to
withstand it made both nationalism and democracy appealing to diverse
social strata. Unity of purpose was provided by the message of the July 26th
Movement, toned down but clear enough in its promises of elementary social
justice and an end to imperialist domination.4
The world-systemic opening that facilitated the success of the Cuban
Revolution came before the internal economic downturn. Batista, never par
ticularly popular with the U.S. State Department, was still supported well into
his reign as the only force that could hold Cuba together, thereby safeguarding
U.S. interests there. By mid-1957, however, a perception was growing that
Batista was losing legitimacy in Cuba and might have to be abandoned. In the
absence of a third alternative to Batista and Castro, U.S. policy floundered:
Some wanted to see free elections under Batista (increasingly viewed as an
impossibility); U.S. Ambassador Earl Smith sought a renewal of arms to him,
while others favored a military junta and still others felt he could not be sup
ported without losing all credibility in Cuba and the United States. Smith
cabled home in late March 1958: "At this time it would appear to me that we
are in the position of a spectator watching the third act of a Greek tragedy."5
The internal economic downturn came suddenly. While 1956 had been the
best year for the economy since 1952, the progress of the guerrilla war in 1958
threw it into an irreversible free fall as the rebels opened new fronts; by
December, economic activity outside Havana had come to a virtual standstill
and the coming sugar harvest was in serious jeopardy. Auspiciously enough,
the revolutionary forces swept triumphantly into Havana on New Year's Day
1959. Almost uniquely in the annals of revolutions, the rebels had created the
downturn needed to destabilize the government and enlist the population in a
struggle for change. Further surprises would follow, as the Cuban Revolution
has proven uniquely deep and durable in any comparative perspective.

THE OUTCOME TO DATE

A THEORY OF OUTCOMES

In a 1993 study of Iran and Nicaragua, Jeff Goodwin and I concluded that
"the comparative study of the actual outcomes of social revolutions . . .
remains in its infancy" (1993: 209). I (and, I am willing to bet, Jeff) believe that
this remains true today. Once in power, revolutionaries have typically run into
a series of related difficulties resulting from the continued significance of the
same patterns for revolutionary transformation (see Foran, 2005: 268-269):
Truly democratic structures have been difficult to construct following
revolutions against dictators, while democratically elected revolutionaries
have been vulnerable to nondemocratic opponents, internal and external (it

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20 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

is important to note that "democracy" can have a range of meanings, from

competitive multiparty elections to freedoms of expression and dissent to
participation in decision making, all of which are valuable goals).
Dependent development has deep historical roots that are recalcitrant to
sustained reversal, however much the material situation of the majority can be
improved in the short and medium run.
The challenge of forging a revolutionary political culture to construct a new
society has generally foundered rapidly on the diversity of subcurrents that
contributed to the initial victory, compounded by the structural obstacles all
revolutions have faced.
Few revolutions have been able to withstand the renewed counterrevolu
tionary attention of dominant outside powers and their regional allies.
Given the above, the broad coalitions that have been so effective in making
revolutions are notoriously difficult to keep together because of divergent
visions of how to remake society and unequal capacities to make those visions
prevail; meanwhile women and ethnic minorities have consistently seen at
best limited reversal of patriarchy and racism after revolutions.
In addition to these linked causal and outcome issues, there seem to be recur
rent trade-offs or contradictions in the revolutionary record. For example, the
participation of massive numbers runs up against the leadership's need to take
decisive measures to deal with all kinds of problems once in power; this in part
explains the often bloody narrowing of substantively democratic spaces even as
many previously disenfranchised members of society are gaining new rights and
opportunities. When movements have been radically democratic, as in France in
1968 and Chile in the early 1970s, they have had trouble articulating a program
acceptable to all the progressive forces that made them up and withstanding
illegal subversion from the right. Similarly, a series of economic trade-offs is
associated with many revolutions, particularly in the Third World: impressive
gains in employment, wages, health, housing, and education have after short
periods been eroded by internal economic contradictions (demand-driven infla
tion, limited human and material resources, labor imbalances) and powerful
international counterthrusts (boycotts and embargoes on trade, equipment,
loans). As if these political and economic contradictions were not daunting
enough, massive external violence, whether covert or openly military in nature,
has often also been applied, further undermining prospects for democracy and
development.
These patterned realities have produced disappointing outcomes, includ
ing authoritarian (in the sense of real power being concentrated in very few
hands) and relatively poor socialisms in Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam
(the only revolutions to last much longer than a generation, except for Iran,
where the degree of economic change has been limited); violent overthrows of
revolutionaries in Guatemala, Chile, and Grenada; slow strangling of change
leading to political reversals in Mexico (by 1940), Bolivia (by 1960), Michael
Manley's Jamaica, and Sandinista Nicaragua; and a blocking of the path to
power altogether in France in 1968, El Salvador in the 1980s, China in 1989,
and Iraq in 1991, among many other places.
Once a measure of power is achieved, broad, heterogeneous coalitions
tend to fragment, as their constituent elements begin to struggle among
themselves over the shape of the new order (in the case of a protracted

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 Foran / THEORIZING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION 21

revolutionary struggle, as in Mexico from 1910 to 1920, this process begins

even earlier). The persisting limits of dependency and the probability of
renewed external pressures and intervention put further pressure on the coa
lition to fragment, which can lead to counterrevolutionary coups as in Iran
(1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), and Grenada (1983) or to a strong but
undemocratic state as in postrevolutionary Mexico, Cuba, China, and Iran to
various degrees. The democratic route is the hardest to follow; Sandinista
Nicaragua tried this, despite the odds, and its wonderful revolution lasted
less than a dozen years. It is worth noting that of the four poor authoritarian
socialisms on the list, all but Cuba have seen their situation reversed; Russia,
China, and Vietnam are no longer socialist but remain authoritarian, and only
China has raised itself further out of poverty.
No revolutionary movement of the twentieth century has come close to
delivering on the common dreams of so many of its makers: a more inclusive,
participatory form of political rule, a more egalitarian, humane economic sys
tem, and a cultural atmosphere in which individuals and local communities
may not only reach full self-creative expression but thereby contribute unex
pected solutions to the dilemmas faced by society. In this sense Walter
Benjamin's oft-invoked image of the angel of history being swept forward by
the storm of progress willy-nilly into the future, its face turned to the cata
strophic debris of the past, appears an apt one. Yet the past may hold other
messages for the future if we know how to read them.

WHAT CUBA HAS ACHIEVED

Interpreting the pluses and minuses of Cuba's revolutionary experience can

be controversial, because Cuba is an inherently politicized topic. For example,
some see food rationing as proof of a just society (as Fidel says, "Everyone eats
the same . . ."), while others see the need for rationing as proof that Cuba is
an economic basket case. As Benjamin, Collins, and Scott (1986: xi) write in a
book on the food situation in Cuba entitled No Free Lunch, "For some, the
revolution has made Cuba paradise on earth and its leader, Fidel Castro, a
heroic symbol of hope. For others, Cuba has become hell on earth, its leader a
ruthless dictator." My own view is that Cuba's revolution has been the most
thoroughgoing in world history. At the same time, it is not without flaws,
some of them very deep.
The achievements (see Keen and Haynes, 2000: 447-448) are very impres
sive and very real: By 1990, unemployment had been virtually wiped out;
Cuba's rate was the lowest in Latin America. Income distribution is also the
fairest in Latin America. Rents were limited right after the revolution to 10
percent of one's income. There are virtually no beggars, almost no slum
housing (with 80 percent of Cubans owning their own homes), no starvation
or chronic hunger. Medical care and education are free, with the most doc
tors per capita and the best health care system in all of Latin America. Seven
percent of the budget goes to education, the highest in Latin America, and
literacy is high. As Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes conclude (2000: 448),
"Undoubtedly, most Cubans have benefited from the revolution, which
explains their extraordinary support for it, almost forty years later in the
midst of its deepest economic crisis."

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22 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

No Free Lunch focuses on quality-of-life indicators. Writing in the 1980s,

Benjamin and colleagues could report that Cubans consumed more food on
the average than the people of any country in Latin America except Argentina.
Infant mortality was 16.8 per thousand, compared with 126.9 in Haiti, and
lower than the 18.1 among African-Americans in the United States. Life
expectancy had risen from 57 years in 1958 to 73.5 years in 1983. A U.S.
Congressional report admitted that health care is "superior in the third world
and rivals that of numerous developed countries"?not to mention that it is
free. In the estimation of these researchers, "Cuba is now the most racially
harmonious society we have ever experienced" (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott,
1986: 189).6 Until quite recently, it had one of the lowest crime rates in the
world and safe streets at all hours, with rape reportedly very rare. They con
cluded that Cubans were characterized by a "pervasive sense of dignity and
confidence in the future?a sharp contrast from the shame and hopelessness
one finds in much of the third world" (190). Johnetta Cole, then president of
Spellman College, who was passed over for a cabinet appointment in the
Clinton administration in December 1992 because of her ties to an American
group in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, has shown that the revolution
has improved women's lives dramatically, as well as discussing the limits to
this process, which she attributes to the overall scarcity of material goods in a
poor country and the continuation of attitudes of machismo that are not easily
done away with (Cole, 1993). Men, for example, are required by law to help
with the housework, a practice honored more often in the breach, as in the rest
of the world.7
More recent, comparative economic, social, and political indicators from
Latin America show the degree of well-being that the Cuban Revolution has
delivered and sustained into the twenty-first century. The United Nations'
Human Development Index ranks Cuba fifty-first among the world's nations,
fifth among Latin America and the Caribbean's 33 nations, behind Argentina
(38), Chile (40), Uruguay (46), and Costa Rica (UNDP, 2007), including it in the
category of high human development. On many measures, Cuba fares even
better than this (Table 1).
Cuba's levels of infant mortality, infants born with low birth weight, per
centage of children enrolled in secondary school, adult literacy, undernourish
ment, and degree of public expenditure on education and health rank first in
Latin America, while its life expectancy and percentage of women in parlia
ment are a close third behind only Chile and Costa Rica on the first measure
and Argentina and Costa Rica on the second. In fact, Cuba's quality-of-life
indicators are on a par with those for the United States and in terms of par
ticipation of women in the government far surpass them.
On the whole, these facts suggest that there have been tremendous accom
plishments in terms of where Cuba was in 1959, and I would judge them
unprecedented in the history of Latin America, the Third World, or the world.

THE DOWNSIDE

On the negative side, there is criticism that the political system is con
strained, whether one equates democracy with fairly contested multiparty

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 %of 9.312.79.738.617.125.016.728.6 8.26.3 13.6
16.79.6
Women in 14.6 21.518.5 29.210.8 18.6
36.811.9 23.4 25.4 36.016.3*14.2
Parliament

4.32.74.14.82.96.75.11.92.23.55.0 2.9 2.83.03.95.22.61.93.61.4 25.56.9*2.5

2.3 4.0

Spent Health
on
% of GDP

3.85.46.4 3.5 1.0 5.2*1.7*1.1*4.05.35.43.13.84.32.4 4.2 9.85.9*4.4

4.4 4.84.91.8 2.8 2.6 n.a

SpentEducation
% of GDP on

% People 34
23
74
13
5
29
6 7
224623 9 527231512 21018 2 210
11
Undernourished

%of
Adults n.a.
94.9 91.0 n.a.
76.7
91.6
Literate 97.2 86.788.695.792.8 87.0 80.6 69.1n.a. 80.079.9 91.993.587.996.898.493.099.8n.a. 89.9

velopment Data on Latin

in SchoolAmerica 52537934n.a. 2178654364*5170*716963878968
TABLE 1
% Enrolled
79717378 55 53
Secondary n.a. *51

% Infants
with

Low
Birth Weight
8678697
11
16
78
12211410
8
1210 911 823

Mortality Rate
Live Births
15155231 81711 26222317328431172230 19202314 1718 6 626
Infant per 1,000

Life
Expectancy
in Years Source: UNDP (2007) except that starred items co
USA 77.9

Dominican Republic 71.5 All Latin America 72.8

n.a. = not available

Guatemala 69.7 Venezuela 73.2

El Salvador 71.3
Uruguay 75.9
Argentina 74.8
Grenada 68.2 Jamaica 72.2
Paraguay 71.3
Honduras 69.4
Chile 78.3
Belize 75.9 Bolivia 64.7 Ecuador 74.7 Trinidad 69.2
Country Costa Rica 78.5 Haiti 59.5 Nicaragua 71.9 Cuba 77.7
Brazil 71.7 Colombia 72.3 Mexico 75.6 Panama 75.1
Peru 70.7

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24 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

elections or with human rights such as freedom of speech, the press, or

religion. Until 1992, elections were directly held only for the municipal assem
blies, which then chose the provincial assemblies, which in turn chose the
members of the National Assembly of People's Power; the reforms of that
year made direct election the case at all levels. Supporters of the revolution,
both inside and outside Cuba, argue that multiparty elections are not a
measure of deep democracy, which involves people's participation in grass
roots decision making. By this criterion, Cubans do enjoy a certain measure
of democracy. The influence of the Communist party, the Young Communist
League, the Confederation of Cuban Workers, the Cuban Federation of
Women, and the Federation of Cuban Students in the political process mark
both the extent and the limits of popular participation.
For 48 years, at the top of the system, power was concentrated in the hands
of Fidel Castro, who simultaneously held the titles of Head of the Government,
First Secretary of the Communist Party, and President of the Council of State,
and it has now passed only as far as his brother Ra?l. To this may be added the
government's fear of and harsh sanctions against dissenters, the lack of any
opposition parties, a press that is controlled and rather uncritical, the limited
degree of tolerance for gay people, and an aversion to the too-open practice of
religion. Criticism is tolerated if it goes through approved channels; problems
arise when it does not.
Foreign relations have proven another controversial area of the revolution.
Critics argue that Cuba exchanged its historic dependence on the United States
for a new dependency on the Soviet Union after 1960. The fact that 80 percent
of its trade was with the Soviet Union and there was a yearly subsidy of US$3-5
billion that was used to keep Cuba going, they charge, required Cuba to keep in
the good graces of the Soviets, proving a burden for real independence in
foreign policy, especially its African involvements in Ethiopia and Angola. But
was the Soviet Union exploiting Cuba in the way we usually mean when we
speak of dependency? It was not making a profit in Cuba. One could argue that
a subsidy that entails paying a better price for a country's products is a "fair"
price for the goods of a Third World country. The authors of No Free Lunch
contrast the Soviet subsidy with the massive aid the United States gives to El
Salvador, the Philippines, and Pakistan, which have little in the way of accom
plishments in providing basic needs to show for it. Again, Puerto Rico, which
gets four times the aid of Cuba in per capita terms, is badly off economically in
many ways (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott, 1986: 191-193). And it must be
pointed out that Cuba has shown enormous solidarity with Third World
nations by sending its doctors, teachers, and technicians abroad for little or no
compensation.
Nevertheless, the degree of Cuba's economic reliance on the Soviet Union
was exposed when communism collapsed there after 1990. In what would
become known as the Special Period, Cuba's gross national product plum
meted by as much as 40 percent between 1989 and 1992. In 1989 Cuba was able
to import US$8.1 billion in goods but in 1992 only US$2.4 billion and in 1993
US$1.7 billion. In addition to a US$20 billion debt to Russia from the Soviet
era, by 2005 Cuba's hard-currency debt was over US$13 billion (USAID, 2005;
U.S. Department of State, 2003). Oil imports dropped from 13 million tons in
1989 to 6 million in 1992. All of this meant less use of fertilizer and tractors in

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 Foran / THEORIZING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION 25

agriculture and regular electricity shortages causing planned blackouts of up

to eight hours a day. Beef and pork all but disappeared from the diet; the
chicken ration fell to 12 ounces per person per month. Hospitals had fewer
medicines, schools fewer books and supplies. There were the first signs of
official unemployment since 1959 (although the government paid up to 60
percent of the salaries of state employees without work), and underemploy
ment deepened as well.
By the late 1990s, the economy had regained its footing on a new basis
without Soviet aid, a remarkable feat. Strong new economic sectors were cre
ated as resources were directed toward foreign tourism, biotechnology, and oil
exploration. New trade partners emerged in China and Latin America, a trend
reinforced of late by the "pink tide" of left-of-center governments throughout
the continent. Measures to revive the economy have included legalizing dol
lars (and encouraging Cubans in the United States to send money to their
relatives on the island) and allowing a certain amount of private enterprise
(bicycle repair shops, beauty salons, etc.). These steps may help ease life for
some, but it is doubtful that they will solve the problems posed now by the
onslaught of globalization, and in any case they lead to increased inequality
between those with access to dollars and those who lack this. In the twenty
first century, people make ends meet by helping out family members, going to
the black market, working extra jobs, and in some cases engaging in crime and
prostitution (eliminated after the revolution came to power).
Meanwhile, the U.S. embargo drags on. The second Bush administration's
terms for lifting the embargo, interestingly, were the adoption not just of democ
racy but also of a free-market economy. Is the embargo in place because the
United States still considers the Caribbean and Central America to be its "back
yard" and feels an obligation "to save these countries from themselves"? I
would suggest that there has been a fear on the part of U.S. administrations
historically (especially the Kennedy and Reagan ones) that the Cuban model
would be found attractive elsewhere in the world, which might explain U.S.
actions to make the country as poor as possible. The contradiction that succes
sive U.S. administrations forged extensive trade and diplomatic relations with
the Soviet Union and China at the height of the cold war and normalized rela
tions with Vietnam in 1994 suggests that the reasons for the embargo are not the
stated ones. Time will tell if the administration of Barack Obama possesses the
vision and will to abandon the embargo. Should this happen, the willingness of
the Cuban government to open toward the United States and the terms on
which this is agreed will tell us much about Cuba's path to the future.
Defenders and detractors of the revolution have long argued whether it is
the drawbacks of Cuban socialism or the aggressive imperialist tactics of the
United States that best explain the historical evolution and present state of
the Cuban Revolution. But is there an inevitable trade-off between expanding
human rights at home and successfully defending the revolution against its
powerful enemies abroad? Whatever the answer to this question, the theory
of outcomes traced at the start of this section suggests that the continuing
effects of dependency (now expressed in the context of global capitalism) and
the refusal of the Cuban leadership to open itself politically go farther than
the polarized polemics of the diplomatic or academic worlds. Locating Cuba
in the comparative record of revolutionary outcomes traced earlier, we can

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26 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

say that it has fallen prey to the closing of some democratic windows and the
hostile pressures of a capitalist world economy but has broken from the
limitations of all previous social revolutions in forging a strong and enduring
revolutionary culture, withstanding the counterrevolutionary thrusts of the
world's hegemonic power, and keeping a broad and diverse coalition together
that has brought real gains to the poorest members of society and to the
island's women and its Afro-Cuban population. By any comparative criteria,
the cup is closer to full than to empty in 2009.

POSSIBLE FUTURES

In the mid-1990s, in a survey of revolutions of the late twentieth century

(Foran, 1997a: 11), I made a number of observations about Cuba's future in
comparative perspective:

If Iran and (to a lesser extent) Egypt look reasonably secure, Cuba in 1996 repre
sents an even more unlikely site of revolution. . . .
Castro remains rather securely in place despite the presence of [several of the
factors that cause revolutions]. The explanation would seem to rest very heavily
on the resilience of the political culture of the Cuban revolution as a substantial
legitimating vehicle for the regime and the gains of the revolution. . . .
Cuba surely represents one of the most successful cases in the history of revo
lutions of revolutionaries working within their pre-existing ideological horizons,
but also going beyond and outside them, in the process elaborating new, re-visioned
cultures of opposition to try to keep a revolutionary coalition together through a
skillful process of consolidation. . . .
The question today, and the one on which the future of the Cuban revolution
would seem to hinge, is how much remains of this effervescent support for
Castro and Cuban socialism inside the country? Somehow, Castro retains a level
of public support, though how much is difficult to say. As one grocer put it: "To
put up with things is a national custom." And as Castro himself said at the depth
of the economic downturn in 1993: "It is an epic struggle in which we find our
selves. We have had to give up many of the things in which we were involved,
but what we will never give up is hope."8
Cuba to date, and for the foreseeable future, thus showcases the advantages
of political culture for sustaining revolutions (and thereby preventing counter
revolution) in a globalizing world.

A table that accompanied this 1997 article ranked Cuba, along with Iran,
Peru, and China, in the category of countries least likely to experience a
change in regime (high-likelihood countries included Zaire (now the Congo
again) and Mexico (which would soon witness the fall of the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional). This assessment of Cuba's relative stability
seems as accurate today as it was in 1996. The revolution has weathered the
crash of the Special Period, the militarized foreign policy of the second Bush
administration, the arrival of globalization on its shores, and now the passing
of the reins of power from the hands of Fidel Castro.
Will it be so a dozen years from now, say, in 2020? Since social forecasting
does not have 20/20 vision, it is hard to see the future clearly. As Zhou En-lai
said of the outcome of the French Revolution, "It's too early to say." The sce
nario I would most like to see runs something like this: Cuba maintains its
high spending on education and health and embarks on a visionary plan to

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 Foran / THEORIZING THE CUBAN REVOLUTION 27

green its economy, with less reliance on petrochemical inputs, massive invest
ment in public transportation and solar and other renewable energy sources,
turns its economy even further in the direction of providing essential services
to other Third World countries, including inexpensive medicines generated
by its biotechnology sector, and continues to expand tourism of all kinds?
ecological, political, and traditional. Politically, diplomatic and economic ties
have been reestablished with the United States during Barack Obama's first
term, and technology, people, and ideas have flowed both ways with positive
effects. When Ra?l Castro passed from the scene, a younger generation of
leaders guaranteed popular participation at all levels of government, no
longer tied to membership in the Communist party and allied organizations.
A variety of parties emerged with the new legislation on political parties, and
Cuba is governed by a popularly elected coalition of left and ecological par
ties, which have expanded religious, cultural, literary, and media freedoms.
Cubans remain characterized by a "pervasive sense of dignity and confidence
in the future?a sharp contrast from the shame and hopelessness one finds in
much of the third world" (Benjamin, Collins, and Scott, 1986: 190).

CONCLUSIONS

I want to close with an anecdote from the one trip I made to Cuba, in 1993,
at the height (or trough) of the Special Period. I will never forget the Cuban
scholars' gentle critique of my presentation of the causes of the revolution,
because I have never experienced this kind of critique in the United States.
They appreciated my effort to speak in Spanish, unlike most of the U.S. soci
ologists in the delegation I came with. They were eager to engage our ideas
and to learn from us. They also urged me to read more Cuban scholarship on
the situation in the 1950s and generously shared books and references with
me. I came away from the encounter refreshed by the culture of the Cuban
Revolution as embodied in these wonderful human beings. If I have been
critical as well as complimentary here, and if I have insisted that theory can
help us see some things about the nature and future of the revolution, with
immodest reference to the history of my own evolving understanding of the
revolution, I hope that I have continued in some way the conversation started
on that day. ?Que viva la revoluci?n cubana!

NOTES

1.1 first coined this term in my 1981 Master's thesis. It is fully employed in Fragile Resistance
(1993), further theorized in "Discourses and Social Forces: The Role of Culture and Cultural
Studies in Understanding Revolutions" (1997c), and most extensively discussed and illustrated
in Reed and Foran (2002). In formulating it, I have drawn greatly on the work of A. Sivanandan
(1980), James Scott (1990), Farideh Farhi (1990), Stuart Hall (1978a; 1978b; 1986), Ann Swidler
(1986), Raymond Williams (1960), Clifford Geertz (1973), E. P. Thompson (1966 [1963]), and
Antonio Gramsci (1971), among many others.
2. On U.S. interests in Cuba, see Benjamin, Collins, and Scott (1986: 10-11); FRUS (1987: 870),
Gonzalez (1974: 18, 31); P?rez-Stable (1993: 15), and Wolf (1969: 256).

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28 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

3. Data on inequality are drawn from Benjamin, Collins, and Scott (1986: 2-6, 12); United
States National Archives (hereafter USNA), 837.00/2-1056, Foreign Service Despatch 560,
Boonstra, Havana, to State Department (February 10,1956); and 837.00/7-1356, Foreign Service
Despatch 28, Price, Havana, to State Department (July 13,1956). See also Thomas (1971: 746) and
P?rez-Stable (1993: 20).
4. On Castro's views and the July 26th Movement's positions, see Foran, Klouzal, and Rivera
(1997: 54-57, 97); USNA, 737.00/8-458, Foreign Service Despatch 5, Park Wollam, Santiago de
Cuba, to State Department (August 4, 1958), 11; "Ideario Econ?mico del Veinte y Seis de Julio/'
USNA, 837.00/3-959, Foreign Service Despatch 982, Gilmore, Havana, to State Department
(March 9,1959); and Wickham-Crowley (1992:176-178). For comprehensive treatments, see Liss
(1994) and Quirk (1993).
5. USNA, 737.00/3-3058, Telegram 613, from Smith, Havana, to Secretary of State (March
30, 1958). For support of elections, see USNA, 737.00/9-2658, Foreign Service Despatch 320,
Braddock, Havana, to State Department (September 26, 1958); for arms renewal, 737.00/7
1658, Telegram 79, Smith, Havana, to Secretary of State (July 16, 1958), and 737.00/10-2158,
Telegram 386, Smith, Havana, to Secretary of State (October 21,1958); for guarded intimations
of support for a military coup, 737.00/8-758, William G. Bowdler, Political Officer, Havana,
Memorandum of Conversation with Sr. Vasco T. L. Da Cunha, Brazilian ambassador to Cuba
(Confidential) (August 7, 1958); and for State Department doubts about continued support,
737.00/7-2458, Office Memorandum from C. A. Stewart to Mr. Snow (Secret) (July 24, 1958).
6. Of course, this must be nuanced and has been by many scholars of the revolution and
race.

7. "[A] 1988 survey showed that men worked only 4.52 hours per week at home while wom
worked 22.28 hours" (Keen and Haynes, 2000: 448). The contradictions of the revolution from
feminist perspective are well-explored by Margaret Randall (1993).
8. The quotes are from the New York Times, January 11 and 12,1993.

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