Preface to Cuba-Nonviolent Resistance

II

 In 2003, Castro, eager to liquidate the opposition movement that was growing in size, launched repression against the opposition and independent journalism, imprisoning 75 opponents and independent journalists. The caviar left and the banana left were silent.

From this raid, a group of women, wives and daughters of those convicted during the Black Spring process, began to gather for the demand for the release of political prisoners. Always dressed in white and carrying flowers in their parades, they became known as the Ladies in White, a remnant of the organization of Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, during the military dictatorship in Argentina.

After that year of 2003, and as a result of the repression ordered by the head of the government and the official party, Fidel Castro, enthusiasm began to decline among the opposition. With the arrival of Raúl Castro to the government of Cuba, replacing Fidel Castro due to illness, some timid reforms were made, among them, allowing Cuban citizens to buy a mobile phone line; the free access of Cubans to hotels; the sale of houses and vehicles among Cubans and; above all,  the concession to travel freely abroad, with the elimination of the so-called "carte blanche" granted by the State to be able to travel abroad.

This moment was taken advantage of by the ultra-right organizations of exile, to, through a policy of clientelism, encourage certain and chosen leaders of opposition groups to travel to the United States and other countries and, in this way, affirm their control over internal dissent. 

The opposition, which declared itself "peaceful opposition", began to transform itself into a "passive opposition", without a determined will to launch the political challenge to the regime and to promote an intelligent work of proselytism within the popular masses, and only return to the outside and to the claim, in international forums, to receive support for its projects and platforms,  totally unknown in Cuba. The internal opposition languished, all hopes were placed in the actions that the US government, especially the Republican administrations, could exercise against the regime imposed in Cuba.

Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully to nail a pike in Flanders, however, the tiny sector of the internal opposition, closely linked to the Republicans of the United States by their close dependence on exile organizations, attacked the Obamist attempt.  With the arrival of Donald Trump, opposition groups were more linked, with honorable exceptions, to pro-Trump Cuban exile organizations. A bid for the digital space of the internet began; with calls and proposals, from that digital space, to motivate an imaginary rebellion inside the island that never became a reality.

Nothing was achieved. The work of political proselytism was set aside, without concrete options in favor of a strategic activism of nonviolent struggle to unleash a civil war without recourse to arms, but adjusted to the nonviolent means, of reason and justice.

However, it is necessary to characterize the type of totalitarian regime existing in Cuba that, in recent times, has become one of a hybrid nature: the fascio-Stalinist system, confirmed in 2003 and reaffirmed in 2021 with the repression and prison sentence of hundreds of the participants in the demonstrations of July 11,  and the promoters of the civic march of November 15.

Since 1959, transformations have taken place within the structures of power over several stages. First: 1959 – 1961, the failed attempt to form a Corporate State ─ under the guise of a liberal democratic government ─, inspired by the fascist doctrine of José Antonio Primo Rivera and Benito Mussolini, characterized by a growth of populism and the nationalist exaltation of a late fascist system of left tendency. Second: 1961 – 1962, alliance with the USSR and the declaration of the "socialist" character of the regime. Third: 1962 – 1968, cooling of political relations with the USSR, following the events of the Missile Crisis. Fourth: Total submission to Soviet imperialism since the recognition of the "Brezhnev doctrine" in 1968; its consolidation in 1974 after the visit to Cuba of Leonid Brezhnev; its development from the first congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (1975) and the promulgation of the Political Constitution of the State, elaborated by the Soviet Constitution (1976), to conclude in 1990. Fifth. Reordering of the totalitarian regime, and its return to the basic principles of late fascism. Validity of the Penal Code with a marked fascist accent, since 1989. Purge within the Ministry of the Interior in 1989, after the trial of General Arnaldo Ochoa and Tony de la Guardia. Creation of instruments of repression in the style of the German SA, such as the so-called Rapid Response Brigades in 1991. Massacre of the tugboat Trece de Marzo (1994). Repression against the attempted coalition of the internal opposition, Cuban Council and the downing of two unarmed planes of Brothers to the Rescue over international waters (1996). Enactment of Law 88 on the Protection of the National Independence and Economy of Cuba in 1999.

The current political situation in Cuba raises the need for a reconditioning of the dissident/opposition sectors of the country. It requires that the opposition decide to launch a political challenge, as a process of "conflict resolution", and, above all, of an acute conflict between the principles of democracy and the hegemonic power of the party and the totalitarian state; a conflict that, at present, cannot be resolved by way of compromise or reformism, but through civil and political confrontation.

It is from 1973 that the sociological theories of nonviolent struggle begin to take shape, with the publication of Gene Sharp's book. The Politics of Nonviolent Action and, subsequently, in 1993 with the publication of the book by the same author.  From Dictatorship to Democracy. A conceptual Framework for Liberation. Two important texts for the elaboration of a resistance movement of strategic nonviolent struggle, which did not become known by the main drivers of the peaceful civic struggle of the Cuban dissidence.

Some of us in exile began to worry about the little activity in Cuba that was being promoted by opposition groups controlled by radical right-wing exile organizations. Something had to be done, to cut off the pernicious influence of the "patriotic grants". We received inspiration from the works of Gene Sharp, and Srdja Popovic's contributions  on nonviolent resistance. It was necessary to arm the opposition groups with that theory, without pretending to set a pattern for them. From here came the idea of this work, which we had already exposed to several friends, some of whom recommended that it would be a good idea to publish this that, provisionally, we had called "Commenting on the resistance in Cuba", and reproduced on Facebook, a set of comments that was weaving in steps, partly about our experiences in the dissident movement and what we were learning from Gene Sharp in his From the Dictatorship to the Democracy, but without much deepening,

The first attempt was the publication, with some editing errors, of a 79-page booklet. in size of 7 x 10 inches, in Amazon's Kindle editions. Some who had read the booklet in its electronic edition were interested in its contents. I considered then that I should publish a new expanded edition, with new chapters and already more focused on the theories of Geme Sharp. In that edition I made a thorough revision of the original text, to include new experiences and to specify more clearly some of the concepts that had been treated superficially. In this new volume I try to highlight a basic element, that the actions of strategic nonviolent struggle represent an antagonism of the democratic opposition against the totalitarian regime, which cannot be left to the enthusiasm of a moment, nor to improvisations.

However, on July 11, 2021, shortly after having published the second edition of Cuba-Nonviolent Resistance, in Cuba, a country that seems to be frozen in the ice of the Cold War, where nothing flows and nothing changes, a phenomenon occurred that, due to its scope and magnitude, was unusual. Hundreds and hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in numerous cities and provinces to express their discontent with the government headed by the Communist Party, in massive and simultaneous demonstrations of popular protests, The world was amazed by those demonstrations that meant the cessation of widespread fear, before the power of a regime centered and closed in on itself,  structured within the narrow frameworks of a one-party and totalitarian system.

These events presented me with new considerations with the contribution of the experiences drawn from the events of July 11 and the subsequent ones of November 15, the failed attempt to promote a civic march in favor of changes.  I considered that I should expand more in the theory of pragmatic nonviolent struggle, with new considerations and adapting them to the characteristics of Cuba,

This new edition, inspired by Gene Sharp's theories of nonviolent resistance, does not intend to set guidelines in opposition work in Cuba; its purpose is to provide criteria and serve as a basis for a deep debate on the procedures, methods and tactics of the nonviolent struggle aimed at the organization of a resistance movement capable of provoking the fall of the totalitarian regime and raising the foundations of a democratic and participatory Republic.

I recognize that some of the themes exposed in this book can be considered controversial, such as block VI referring to the role of exile in nonviolent resistance; block VII on "Plattism"; and block XVIII on the experiences of 11 J; and, not necessarily accepted by some opponents; but I consider that controversy and debate are the basic foundations of democracy.

I have organized the whole exposition of the themes, not in chapters, but in a structure of blocks, because each theme, in them, are like the exposition of a summarized thesis work.