The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy.

• Author: Falcoff, Mark

When the soviet empire imploded some six years ago, most observers -- East and West -- assumed that the disappearance of the Castro regime in Cuba was but a matter of time. After all, no member of the socialist family of nations had received such generous economic subsidies from Moscow; none was more culturally vulnerable to outside influences or more geographically exposed; none had made so heavy an ideological investment in Lenin's vision of the future. Having bet on the wrong horse, Castro's Cuba was therefore destined -- to borrow Trotsky's durable phrase -- for the dustbin of history.

So far, at least, those predictions seem to have proven excessively deterministic. True, in the absence of Soviet oil, machinery, food-stuffs and other consumer products, Cuban living standards have fallen catastrophically, and may not yet have touched bottom. True as well, ordinary Cubans, particularly young people, are deeply alienated from the regime. (Cuban walls now bear such pungent inscriptions as "Down with You-Know-Who!") Finally, until the recent immigration agreement, unprecedented numbers of Cubans were attempting to leave the island on makeshift boats.

Nonetheless, Castro has never seemed more firmly ensconced in power. Those who have been bold enough over the years to declare themselves his enemies are now dead, in exile, in jail, or cowering in fear of arrest. While everything else in Cuba seems to be breaking down, the repressive apparatus is more effective than ever. The small dissident movement, hounded by the police and government mobs, offers an example of high courage -- but no apparent alternative for ordinary Cubans. The very fact of Castro's survival in the face of multiple predictions of his demise seems to have braced up the Cuban dictator psychologically. It has also strengthened the interpretive hand of those of his apologists, supporters, or sympathizers abroad, who would have us believe that, whatever has happened elsewhere in the world, in Cuba -- a country once known for rum, cigars, beaches, gambling, and the rhumba -- communism has finally found a place where it really "works."

This view is not wholly confined to the far left. Not long ago a right-wing Chilean congressman of my acquaintance urged me to consider the possibility that "in some countries, socialism, that is, Marxist socialism, can become a national project." When I objected that this particular national project seemed destined to starve an entire people to death, he agreed. It was an unpleasant project, he averred, certainly not one he would wish for Chile, but an authentic expression of that particular country's national quest nonetheless. Or consider an excerpt from a cover story of the international edition of Time magazine (December 6, 1993). "Through a combination of charisma and pride," wrote senior editor Johanna McGeary, Castro "still holds the island's fate in his hand ... Cubans [regard] their revolutionary heroes as Americans do...Che Guevara is their Lafayette, Fidel their George Washington." If this is so, one cannot help wondering why, thirty years on, we are still awaiting the appearance of Cuba's version of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe. Or is it rather that Cuba -- unlike the United States, France, or for that matter Russia -- is somehow capable of surviving indefinitely on the myth of a single cathartic revolutionary moment?

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