Destruction of man

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz Canel, with Raúl Castro.ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP

The announced political disappearance of Raúl Castro is a good moment to return to the duality of meanings that the Cuban Revolution holds. It was undoubtedly the most beautiful revolution of the last century, tinged with the heroism of its protagonists and the announcement of a transformation that would avoid the charges of repressive criminality and bureaucracy of the Soviet antecedent. When he enters Havana in front of his bearded men, Fidel is "a Greek hero in a collective orgasm" (Carlos Franqui). He presents himself as redeemer, heir to José Martí, spokesman for a humanist revolution, which even tolerates the survival of the conservative

Diario de la Marina.

It seeks support from the communists, but distrusts them and will later crush their leaders when they try to assert their hegemony.

The younger brother, Raúl, has been the other side of the coin since before '59, but of the same coin.

Since a youthful trip to the USSR, he believes in the Soviet paradise (and in the virtue of its repressive power).

It is proven as soon as the Revolution triumphs in Santiago, by inaugurating the cascade of executions without trial that marks the beginning of 1960. Next to freedom, the emblem of revolutionary enthusiasm was “¡Paredón!

Wall! ”.

He himself directs the communist infiltration in the party and the army, against the July 26 Movement.

Fidel's doubts will be resolved by his need for a solid organizational support, which only the

fish

can provide you.

Then Soviet aid will do the rest and bowling will freeze the ineffective utopia of the bearded men, in favor of the feeling of a besieged fortress that presides over Cuban life.

The fascination that Fidel exercises finds its complement in the fear that Raúl inspires, beyond being despised as a cusquito or a Chinese. It is pragmatic, as was proven in 1994 with the economic response to the

maleconazo,

and therefore the succession of Raúl to Fidel in 2006 represented not only the guarantee of a guaranteed repression but also the hope of an economic evolution in the Chinese or Vietnamese sense. After the collapse of the "special period", Cuba rediscovered its survival as a "subsidized revolution" thanks to Chávez.

The reforms were in the right direction, although insufficient (Mesa Lago). In economics, the obstacle of bureaucratic opposition to a free economy was insurmountable; in politics, Manichaeism subsisted against a pluralist democracy. The slogan "Cuba will be an eternal Baraguá" by Maceo in the face of the peace of Zanjón had been in the 90s the motto of resistance to the death of Castroism, regardless of the collapse of what was the second largest Latin American economy in 1959. Return to the present in the new collapse caused by the end of the Venezuelan mana, the Trump offensive and the tourism crisis due to covid-19. The goal of reasonable well-being had again been subordinated, repression through, to the myth of a devouring revolution of the real man. As the endless history of Raúl Castro's power closes,Cuba 2021 definitively records the failure of the revolutionary utopia of 1959.

With very different characteristics, and following disparate paths, this destructive dynamic is shared by the evolution of the two main communist countries of the past, Russia and China, despite the formal abandonment of the Soviet and Maoist patterns. The path of dehumanization does not differ much between them. In the course of the revolution, the finalist, emancipatory dimension was immediately inscribed in the simplification of the dualistic approach of fighting an enemy to be destroyed, which determined the inevitable suppression of pluralism and the establishment of an iron dictatorship. Technical requirement: a permanent repression. Emancipation is then maintained as an obsessive slogan, destined to cover the affirmation of its opposite, forced servitude.

"Socialism with a human face" was only feasible through a difficult turn towards democracy, between the 30s and 70s (Italy, Spain, France), during which time it fulfilled positive functions, only to end up fading.

On the other hand, the mutations of the Stalinist and Maoist viruses are in good health, compared to first appearances. With the backing of his KGB, Stalin turned the USSR into a country of whispers (O. Figes), always threatened with hunting, capture and gulag, and also a great power heir to Tsarism. The CPSU was unable to renew itself and the system collapsed with the USSR itself. This is not why a democratic conscience and practices arose. Embodied in Putin, the spirit of the KGB and an imperialism made in the USSR, made possible the resurrection of the repressive regime, no longer economic communism. A scenario that Vázquez Montalbán would have liked. In addition, the aggressive push for Soviet restoration, in Georgia and Crimea, received broad nationalist support from the population. From that antecedent,Putin resumed the path of external aggression, again against Ukraine, and against the internal opposition, without renouncing political crime. The old capacity for destruction of man, typical of Stalinist communism, is there again.

The same can be said of “post-Maoism” (J.Lovell), personified by Xi Jinping. Here in perfect continuity with the dictatorship of the Communist Party, only replacing Mao's solar utopia, in his imperialist way, with a new imperialism founded on economic success. Origin faced, balance coincident. With Xi "the dream of China" has little spiritual adventure. It is based on overexploitation, within an Orwellian project of eliminating pluralism at the service of a Confucian order of discipline. Contrary to what some interpretive complicities suggest, faithful to Xi's propaganda, we are not facing alternative values ​​to the universal ones, but rather their cynical elimination. With Taiwan on target. Uyghurs and Hong Kong are not marginal cases, but the tragic expression of a conscious destruction of man,that it should only arouse resolute opposition from democracies.

Finally, not only is post-communism embarked on this dynamic. The imperialist vocation gives rise to the common denominator. The third emerging empire, Erdogan's Turkey, coincides in the expansive dynamic with warrior airs of magical flavor (objective: to conquer the "red apple" on the path of the Ottoman Empire), as well as in carrying out the destruction of the other from a sectarian Islamism. Not from the Koran, but from the complementary literature of the Prophet's sentences, which tell us nothing less than the refusal of angels to enter where there are dogs and images. Reason enough today to end the basilicas-museums of Atatürk, covering up the iconography of the two

santasofías

and of the most beautiful decorated Byzantine church, Saint Savior of Chora in Istanbul.

The same justification as the Islamic State in Palmyra and Nineveh: erase the images.

Vandalism (Lemkin) suppresses the conception of art as a necessary dimension of man, of his creative capacity.

In addition, it proposes to bury the culture of a great civilization, and confirms the idea of ​​a war of religions in which Islam must be imposed by the force of conquest.

The representative of Erdogan supports him from the effective presidency of Unesco: Turkish sovereignty is indisputable.

With which, the function of Unesco itself is annulled, to impose tolerance and respect for state sovereignty in defense of cultural pluralism.

An international project of a humanistic nature is ruined by an intolerant will to power that destroys an essential dimension of man.

Antonio Elorza

is a professor of Political Science.