El Ciudadano
Original article: Cuba, Revolución y Contrato Social: ¿Un eje incómodo?
By Ricardo Ronquillo Bello
Cuba has officially approved radical transformations to its economic and social model, which are now well-known to the public. However, the critical discussions surrounding these changes remain unresolved and are likely to continue for a long time, particularly as there are still outstanding issues and the outcomes remain uncertain.
One only needs to peer into the seismic gaps in the physical infrastructure of the archipelago or the volcanic outbursts on the internet to confirm that what is definitively established is the ‘what,’ having gone through all the filters of the country’s collective leadership.
It makes perfect sense that every citizen, family, institution —whether national or international with interests in Cuba— currently experiences an adaptation syndrome. It reflects the challenge of aligning mental frameworks with the abrupt structural changes we face.
As the fog begins to clear over time, different opinions will permeate as tensions rise between outdated assumptions and emerging realities. This reaction is largely dictated by a collective perception of common sense —which isn’t always the most common— and by where we find ourselves in the social hierarchy due to the ongoing process.
Such a transformation is profound and multi-faceted. Given its potential impact on the lives of individuals, communities, and institutions, it is reasonable to assume that the architects of these changes could not foresee how each variable would interact with the stubborn realities, exacerbated by external collective punishment. Hence, flexibility in all decisions and the proposed public participation, oversight, and control will determine its success.
No one who cares about Cuba’s future can deny that the scope and magnitude of these changes position us at the threshold of a significant social contract, arguably the most fluid and perplexing conceived in recent years.
It is demonstrable from the fields of philosophy, political science, sociology, law, and particularly from the Enlightenment perspective of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that following the majority approval of the 2019 Constitution —reinforced by recent decisions— we are witnessing the third major social contract since the Revolution’s triumph in January 1959.
As I noted previously, the first of these extraordinary contracts emerged with the promulgation of the Fundamental Law of the Republic in early February 1959, which was deeply rooted in the progressive Constitution of 1940. This initiated a series of revolutionary measures that dismantled the chaotic, twisted, and submissive bourgeois institutional order, paving the way for a new revolutionary and just order, and a radical shift in perceptions regarding socialist ideals.
Even without a formal referendum at that time —although large supportive mobilizations could be considered equivalent— it was evident that Cuba was entering a new and volcanic social contract that would last until 1976.
In that year —following an extended period where political dominance overshadowed legal structures, though without the latter disappearing, as revolutions are sources of law— Cubans would approve their second major social contract of the Socialist period in a referendum, as the nature of the Revolution had already been proclaimed on April 16, 1961.
The socialist state of workers, independent and sovereign, organized for the common good as a unitary and democratic republic, to enjoy political freedom, social justice, individual and collective well-being, and human solidarity was overwhelmingly supported, with 98 percent of the electorate voting in favor and only one percent against, reflecting the strong levels of consensus that always characterized the political project of the Revolution.
From that initial declaration —with a particularly class-oriented emphasis— unmistakable signals of the era could be perceived. The Constitution then proclaimed drew heavily from the fundamental principles of similar documents from socialist countries, particularly the Soviet Union, yet was also marked by the unique creative imprint of Cuban revolutionaries.
With the disappearance of the world that sustained it, alongside internal rectifying analyses that anticipated the ensuing political calamity, a new social contract in 21st-century Cuba was deemed necessary to provide legal viability and institutional and constitutional grounding to the new conceptualization of the socialist development model that emerged from extensive debates starting at the 6th Congress of the Communist Party.
From the first chapter and article of the Constitution approved in 2019, we can clearly see the signs of the new times ahead of us. From its outset, the document demonstrates a less classist, more inclusive character, declaring the intention to build a «socialist state of law and social justice, democratic, independent, and sovereign, organized for the common good as a unitary and indivisible republic founded on work, dignity, humanism, and ethics for the enjoyment of freedom, equity, equality, solidarity, well-being, and prosperity for all.»
From this same article, three particularly renewing aspects stand out, reflecting a political will expressed throughout this Constitution. The first is the centrality of the law, emphasized for its socialist nature. Following is the prominence of social justice and the democratic character of the state.
It is no coincidence that among the new proposals, the one that raises the most suspicion is the effect that these transformations may have on the character and nature of the state and its implications for social justice that define it.
Even those who are most firmly in favor of these changes cannot escape concerns —despite retaining the established pillars of social justice in their formulation; real dangers arise from the expansion of private property, the exacerbation of social inequality through wealth accumulation, rising corruption, the lack of rigor in enforcing the law, including alarming tax indiscipline and illegal collusion between public and private actors, among other existing distortions.
This is a Socialist State that must incentivize and promote wealth, and with that end in mind, legally acceptable wealth accumulation, but which must never overlook poverty and marginalization that are becoming painfully visible.
It is a state that embraces wealth but must remain completely incompatible with injustice or the erosion of human dignity. The Revolution, as reaffirmed to me by a Jesuit priest from Santiago, has taught us to view as justice what was previously conceived as charity. We can envision and design a society grounded in solidarity and social responsibility, but the goal remains justice and not public charity.
We cannot ignore that in a more unequal society the dangers, as Fidel warned, grow that equality before the law does not equate to equality of opportunity.
To overlook this would be to feed theories from opposing factions to the Revolution, or even to attempt to defend the current rectifications and transformations, building a strange wall between the interests of citizens and those of the State that they chose to represent the sovereignty of their interests and that of their country.
Thus, it is crucial that the dramatic economic and social updates underway allow us to overcome such delicate issues that erode civic spirit and governance, as analysts indicate. In the harmonious country we seek to create —balancing social contributions, incomes, and well-being— the laws must be such that they can be enforced, as Montesquieu reminds us.
Equally noteworthy is the emphasis on the reconfiguration of the projected State and its democratic aspirations. We had already pointed out that merely discussing whether that term —with all its meanings— should appear in the model sparked abundant debate. Many argued its mention was superfluous when socialism was the topic since a model that is not democratic ceases to be socialist.
However, coherence and honesty prevailed, recognizing that not all models proclaimed under such ideals were genuinely so, and that countless sins were committed in the name of systems that claimed to embrace them, although we must recall Lenin’s notion that revolutions, as processes, are wise and unmistakable; it is the revolutionaries who can err.
On this subject, it is worth repeating that the true edifice we must inhabit in our socialist democracy must honor Article 3 of the 1976 Constitution, which remains in the same place and meaning as that of 2019: «In the Republic of Cuba, sovereignty resides in the people, from whom all state power emanates.»
Consequently, we must continue reconciling our political, state, and governmental institutions with the principles of popular sovereignty, which should notably shape socialism’s aspirations in this century.
This particular aspect highlights that the new structure of the State and its territorial organization, with significant decentralization, along with the nature of the People’s Power organs, the breadth of property forms, rights, and guarantees, underscore, as never before in the Cuban socialist experience, the importance of checks and balances, a topic that has yet to receive the necessary depth and introspection.
What we are outlining with these recent and surprising steps is the fate of the most important social and political contract of 21st-century Cuba. Let us agree with the Apostle of all our dreams that nothing is more just for achieving it than democracy in action.
Cuba is witnessing the most dramatic reconfiguration of the social contract of the Revolution during the socialist period. Just as the first Constitution after 1959, that of 1976, dismantled the bourgeois order in the country to initiate the construction of a socialist society —rallying the aspirations of a homeland in freedom and social justice, for all and by all, as José Martí proposed— the Constitution of February 24, 2019, and the transformations based on it seek to transcend 20th-century socialism, which, despite its corrosive and deficient nature as evidenced by the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe, proved functional for Cuba during a lengthy period.
Recognizing the lesson that among the most serious errors of idealism —acknowledged by Fidel— was the belief that anyone knew how to construct socialism, the Cuban model today attempts to carve its own path, under the Marxist and Latin American premise established by José Carlos Mariátegui, that it must be a heroic creation.
However, above all, it should not be the creation of any enlightened elite, but of a people committed to a destiny for which they have fought for centuries. Thus, we must be cautious that in adjusting the twists of the path, it does not play out like the character of Juan in a fable: «No doubt about it, doubt never, it was the path that killed Juan, yes, it was the path that killed him, I assert it and I assert it again…».
As Graziella Pogolotti fiercely warns, the most significant struggle of our time occurs between technocracy and humanism. This is also the tremendous Cuban struggle: to successfully reposition its model of socialism in the tumultuous 21st century with the human being at the center of every decision and as the true protagonist. To liberate humanity from all forms of alienation, as the Che Guevara anticipated in «Socialism and Man in Cuba.»
The Cuban Revolution is challenged to implement appropriate and wise technical measures that are also perfectly aligned with its humanistic vocation. In that equation, whether adding, subtracting, dividing, or multiplying, it must always yield the correct result. So that the social element in these new transformations does not become the uncomfortable axis.
Ricardo Ronquillo Bello
La entrada Cuba’s Revolution and Social Contract: An Uncomfortable Axis? se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.
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