Cuban Democracy in the Speeches of Fidel Castro, 1959–1976

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.11.2.0332
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Pages: 332-356
• Author: Juan Carlos Medel
• Subject Matter: democracy,revolution,Cuban masses,political participation,popular power,elections

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 11.2 WInter 2019

ACADEMIC ARTICLE

CUBAN DEMOCRACY IN THE SPEECHES OF

FIDEL CASTRO, 1959–1976

Juan Carlos Medel1

Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Fidel Castro developed an idea of democracy as a legitimate alternative to American

democracy. At the dawn of the Cuban revolution Castro was careful enough to avoid

Marxist concepts in his speeches, but after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 Castro

embraced socialism as the ideology of the revolution. Then the concept of dictatorship

of the proletariat became the core of Castro’s idea of democracy. In this context, the

opposition between democracy and dictatorship disappeared. The dictatorship of the

proletariat became working class democracy. Thus, according to Castro, the political

participation of Cuban masses in the revolutionary process gave the Cuban project an

inescapable democratic character. In 1976 the revolutionary government reinforced the

socialist character of the Cuban state through the promulgation of a new constitution.

Through this constitution the Cuban state embraced formal elections. Paradoxically,

after embracing formal elections in 1976, the revolution lost popular power from below

and actually became less democratic.

Keywords: democracy, revolution, Cuban masses, political participation, popular

power, elections

1 Juan Carlos Medel holds a PhD in History with Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory

from the University of California (2017), a MA in History from the Universidad de

Concepcion (2009) and a BA from the Universidad del Bio-Bio (2006). He is lecturer

in Caribbean History and Global History in the School of History of the Universidad

Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile.

CUBAN DEMOCRACY IN THE SPEECHES OF FIDEL CASTRO, 1959–1976 333

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Introduction

Democracy is a concept constantly present in Fidel Castro’s speeches. Right

from the start, the question of democracy in Cuba was a source of tension and

comparison between Cuba and the United States. As early as 1959 American

politicians questioned the young revolutionaries’ political plans and their com-

mitment to democratic values; Cubans responded, arguing that Cuba would

have democracy, but its own democracy, completely revolutionary and different

from the bourgeois democracy predominant in United States.2 This disagreement

has continued ever since.

Most recently, in 2006 Fidel Castro addressed allegations that Cuba was un-

democratic and that he himself was a dictator in an extended interview with the

Spanish author and journalist Ignacio Ramonet. Asserting that a dictator ‘is

someone who makes arbitrary, unilateral decisions, who acts over and above

institutions, over and above the laws, who is under no restraint but his own

desires and whims’, he went on to defend himself and the Cuban system:

This isn’t even a presidential government. We have a Council of State. My

functions as leader exist within a collective. In our country, the important

decisions, the fundamental decisions are always studied, discussed and made

collectively. I can’t appoint ministers or ambassadors. I don’t appoint the lowest

public official in this country. I have authority, of course, I have influence, for

historical reasons, but I don’t give orders or rule by decree.

(Castro and Ramonet 2008: 572)

2 Democracy in revolutionary Cuba has been an important topic in a group of studies

about the history of the revolution. For instance, the work of Peter Roman (1999,

2007) is a significant contribution to the topic, however it is not completely perti-

nent to our study due to the temporal framework of his study (1987 to 1992), being

this article from 1959 to 1976. Among other things, Roman develops an interesting

analysis of ‘the merging of civil and political society’ in Cuba. In addition, his field-

work-based study provides new information about the electoral process in the island.

For our analysis, the most relevant contribution of Roman’s book is in his theoretical

analysis of the concept of democracy in the Marxist tradition, since Rousseau to Marx

and Lenin and beyond (see his chapters I and II). Arnold August (1999) also wrote an

important book about elections in Cuba, analysing the historical ‘rendering’ of democ-

racy in the island. One of his contributions is his analysis of the effects of US style

democracy in pre-revolutionary Cuba and its consequences for the future of democ-

racy in the country. Even though we recognise the significant contribution of both