| The ideology of Cuban socialism arises out of the Marxist quest for reconciliation of private and public life--for a revolutionary social order which achieves the unity of the personal and the collective aspects of human life, but not at the expense of one or the other. This study of Cuban economics and politics suggests, however, that the effort to realize the Marxist vision readily takes a totalitarian form, destructive of the private sphere, i.e., a political system in which the state and its organizational instruments are the only form of social life.;Cuban leaders have experienced multiple frustrations in their quest for social transformation. Nevertheless, they have reacted mainly by deferring achievement of their most ambitious goals and by exaggerating the progress already made on others. Officically, they are optimistic that the socialist ethos is being increasingly internalized by every Cuban, and that personal aspirations will eventually coincide completely with the demands of collective welfare. Nevertheless, the regime's elaborate apparatus of control suggests that a considerable gap remains between the official ideology and an unregenerate civil society. Unwilling to renounce its lofty transformation goals, the government is unable to relax its grip on society.;Neither Cuban economic or political institutions have performed effectively according to the expectations of Marx's theory. But the failings of socialism in Cuba do not arise from a lack of faith in the principles of socialism on the part of revolutionary leaders. The shortcomings of Cuban socialism arise from the inner contradictions of Marxist theory itself. Centralized economic allocation is not the perfection of rational social control, but a costly effort to substitute political commands for the preferences of individuals. Similarly, the political exclusion of autonomous social groupings is an obstacle to democratic processes, not a means to their fuller realization. These two basic elements of the Cuban system are best understood as the institutional weapons of a determined elite in perpetual conflict with the spontaneous tendencies of its own society. |
