Usa Forum - Why the Cuban CP Dropped the Requirement for Atheism

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8/23/2006 4:09:00 AM

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Why the Cuban CP Dropped the Requirement for Atheism

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sent by Joaquin Bustelo (Marxism list) - Aug 21, 2006
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2006-August/0...

Cuba: dropping the ban on believers as party members

by Joaquin Bustelo

I wanted to interject a couple of thoughts into the Marxism and
religion debate, in particular around the Cuban case.

I think it is particularly important to see the Cuban CP's decision
to drop atheism as a requirement of membership in its historical context.

That historical context was the collapse of the "really existing
socialism" bureaucratic regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR. In that
context, the question that was posed for Cuba was, can we remain a
"socialist country" (as the Cubans use the term, what many on this list
might call a workers state).

The answer I think will surprise people. Because it wasn't "sí se
puede," yes it can be done, but rather, WE DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER CHOICE.
Either Cuba remains socialist OR it stops being Cuba, it will be swallowed
by the United States. And this reality was recognized not just by Cuba, but
by the United States. The laws passed by the U.S. Congress in the 1990's
(Cuban Democracy Act and so on) were openly and shamelessly ANNEXATIONIST,
down to detailed instructions on election procedures who could (or couldn't)
be a candidate and so on.

BEFORE the mid-1980's, at least, Cuba did not view the fundamental
axis of its political challenges in such stark terms. Cuba viewed itself as
part of a working-class bloc of countries (true, a very messed up bloc) but
Cuba's attitude was like that of a local revolutionary union leadership that
was part of a reformist national union. They took initiatives to push the
national union as far as they could, and their own initiatives OUTSIDE the
framework of the "national union." And of course Cuba viewed itself as part
of the Third World of oppressed peoples battling colonialism and
neocolonialism, and acted in the same sort of way in that "bloc".

But AFTER 1989, once the question was posed in terms of survival of
the nation, that raised the question of how should the Cuban Communist Party
define itself as the guiding political force of the nation, as the maximum
expression of the *national movement.* The conclusion that inescapably
follows is that either the party is open to ALL patriots who recognize that
"socialism" (again, as the term is used in Cuba) is the only possible way
for the nation to survive, or it becomes a *faction* of the national
movement, and not the expression of its most conscious and advanced elements
*AS A WHOLE.*

THAT is where the decision came from, there and the conviction that
UNITY OF THE NATION was the most important weapon in its battle for
survival. There was not just a drive by the leadership to stop
discrimination against believers (and not just and not mainly Catholics but
also followers of Santería, especially among Cuban Blacks), but also to
counter social prejudices against gays and what seems to have been, as best
as I can piece together, something like a "don't ask, don't tell" or perhaps
"look the other way" policy in relation to party membership.

I do not believe that there is any question but that dropping the
ban on believers is an entirely ORTHODOX application of the Marxist method,
DESPITE what Lenin (and Marx before him in the Critique of the Gotha
program) wrote. The reason people believe that some all-powerful but
fundamentally unknowable force called "God" controls their fate is because
that is the way that society presents itself to them. The key to eliminating
religious THINKING is to do away with the alienation of people from their
social existence.

As Marx wrote:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real
suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people.

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the
demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions
about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that
requires illusions."

For Marx, "Religion is the opium of the people" because it is a PAIN
KILLER. And Dr. Marx's prescription was not to withdraw the opium and let
people tough it out, but to DO AWAY WITH THE PAIN. This is not an
"ideological" struggle, a "battle of ideas," to use the Cuban phrase, but a
MATERIAL one. What Marx was saying is that the only REAL way to combat
religion is to eliminate the social conditions that make it not just
possible, but *necessary.*

The Cuban Revolution is not only far removed from being able to do
away with the pain, it is very clear that the Cuban Revolution, in and of
itself, cannot do away with the pain, that two or three Cuban revolutions
cannot do away with the pain, that the PREcondition for people figuring out
how to eliminate the chasm between human beings and human society is the
elimination of capitalism on a world scale.

Thus what is the correct, Marxist, i.e., materialist decision for
Cuba to make? The Cubans say their decision is to unite all who can be
united in the political struggle against imperialism whatever their
religious/philosophical views. This is not an abstract, theoretical question
of "principles" but a practical, political question of the consciousness
among advanced layers or Cuban workers and patriots.

People can and SHOULD draw lessons and generalizations from this
Cuban experience, but that doesn't mean that the Cuban decision was the
"application" of some general principle or law or guideline, because it was
not. It was a concrete political response to a specific political question.
At the heart of it was an understanding of the revolution as a fundamentally
and *irreducibly* national revolution, even at this stage, several decades
AFTER the seizure of power.

Joaquín

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Why the Cuban CP Dropped the Requirement for Atheism

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