Cuba Trumps threats constitutional reform and the economic situation

Marxist Theory · 2019-04-17

Core Argument¶

The article argues that the Cuban Revolution faces a convergent crisis: renewed US imperialist aggression under Trump, deepening economic fragility following the collapse of favourable relations with Venezuela, and an internal political drift toward market concessions that risk restoring capitalism. The central thesis is that the constitutional reform process of 2018–2019 exposed a fundamental struggle between those pushing for a Chinese or Vietnamese path — i.e., the restoration of capitalism through state-managed marketisation — and those defending the socialist character of the revolution. The author claims that the only viable defence of Cuba's revolutionary gains lies not in further concessions to the market, but in deepening workers' democracy, fighting bureaucratisation, and pursuing international socialist revolution.

Theoretical Grounding¶

The analysis draws on the classical Marxist tradition of Lenin and Trotsky, particularly Lenin's The State and Revolution, to argue that a workers' state must be a "quasi-state that immediately begins to dissolve" through democratic control, elected and recallable officials, and wages no higher than those of skilled workers. This framework is deployed to critique the bureaucratic degeneration that results from isolation and scarcity, a dynamic identified in the Soviet experience and now visible in Cuba.

The article also engages with the Marxist theory of the transition from socialism to communism, arguing that concessions to the market — even when presented as pragmatic responses to crisis — generate their own class dynamics: the accumulation of private capital and the emergence of a bourgeois political expression. The Chinese and Vietnamese cases are cited as empirical evidence that marketisation under bureaucratic state ownership leads not to socialism but to capitalism, with super-exploitation and extreme polarisation of wealth.

The concept of imperialism is central: the Helms-Burton Act's extraterritoriality clause is analysed as a violation of international law and a weapon of economic warfare. The article situates Trump's escalation within a longer arc of US policy, distinguishing Obama's strategy of "restoring capitalism through market penetration" from Trump's return to open aggression, while insisting both share the same ultimate objective.

Conjunctural Relevance¶

The article was published in May 2019, at a specific conjuncture:

Geopolitical: Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton announced on 17 April 2019 — the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs — new restrictions on remittances and travel, and the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, allowing US lawsuits against foreign companies operating on expropriated property in Cuba. Trump also threatened a "full and complete embargo" on 30 April, during the Guaidó coup attempt in Venezuela.
Economic: Cuba's economy was already under severe strain. The crisis in Venezuela had sharply reduced subsidised oil imports and favourable trade. The withdrawal of Cuban medical personnel from Brazil after Bolsonaro's election further cut hard currency earnings. Remittances and tourism — the two other major sources of foreign exchange — were directly targeted by Trump's measures.
Internal political: The new Constitution, approved by referendum on 24 February 2019, had been debated for months. The initial draft removed references to communism, the goal of building a communist society, and the commitment that "Cuba will never return to capitalism." It introduced recognition of private property and the market. Mass opposition during the consultation period forced the restoration of some communist language, but the economic concessions remained.
Class dynamics: The article identifies the emergence of a potential bourgeois opposition, visible in the church-led campaign against same-sex marriage — described as a "dress rehearsal" for organised counter-revolutionary politics. The polarisation of wealth is noted as an incipient but real phenomenon.

Where the Argument Continues¶

This article opens several lines of analysis that are developed elsewhere in the IDOM corpus and broader Marxist literature:

The Chinese and Vietnamese paths: The article asserts that these represent the restoration of capitalism, but does not elaborate the mechanism. This is taken up in other IDOM articles on China's economic trajectory, the nature of the Chinese state, and the limits of capitalist development in the Global South.
Workers' democracy and the fight against bureaucracy: The article invokes Lenin's State and Revolution but does not develop a concrete programme for Cuba. This connects to broader Trotskyist literature on the political revolution against bureaucratic degeneration, and to IDOM's analyses of the Cuban state's internal dynamics.
The Venezuela-Cuba axis: The article notes the deterioration of this relationship but does not explore the internal dynamics of the Bolivarian Revolution. This is covered extensively in other IDOM articles and Against the Stream episodes on Venezuela.
The Helms-Burton Act and extraterritoriality: The legal and geopolitical dimensions are stated but not exhaustively analysed. Further reading on US sanctions law and imperialist jurisprudence would be found in IDOM's coverage of Iran, Russia, and the broader sanctions regime.
The constitutional debate as class struggle: The article identifies the debate as a proxy for a deeper conflict over the direction of the revolution, but does not provide a detailed account of the forces involved — the Communist Party factions, the emerging private sector, the churches, or the international pressures. This is a gap that other IDOM pieces on Cuba may fill.

Connections¶

Lenin, The State and Revolution: The theoretical foundation for the argument that a workers' state must be a democratic, dissolving state, not a bureaucratic one.
Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed: The classic analysis of bureaucratic degeneration in the Soviet Union, directly relevant to the Cuban trajectory.
Ariel Dacal, "Where do the words that were left out go?": Cited in the article as a key source on the constitutional drafting process. This is an internal Cuban Marxist critique.
IDOM articles on China and Vietnam: For the argument that marketisation under bureaucratic state ownership leads to capitalist restoration.
IDOM articles on Venezuela: For the analysis of the Bolivarian Revolution's crisis and its impact on Cuba.
Marxist debates on the transition to socialism: The article implicitly engages with the tradition of Paul Sweezy, Charles Bettelheim, and others on the nature of Soviet-type societies, though it does not name them.

Key Quotes¶

"Although the ultimate objective of both administrations was the same – the destruction of the Cuban Revolution – Obama recognised that the politics of direct aggression had failed, and so pursued the same goal in the economic sphere instead. The objective was to restore capitalism through the penetration of the market into the Cuban economy."
"Concessions to the 'market' generate their own dynamics, which are dangerous and carry with them the accumulation of private capital and subsequently the political expression of those sectors that have accumulated said capital."
"The entire experience since 1956-62 demonstrates that it is not possible to build socialism in one country (and that was also the experience of the Soviet Union). Faced the growing threat of US imperialism, the Cuban Revolution must be strengthened through a thorough debate about what socialism means and how to build it."
"A workers' state, as Lenin described in his classical text, The State and Revolution, is but a quasi-state that immediately begins to dissolve, as it represents the dictatorship of the majority over the minority."
"The gains of the revolution, which are what give it its strength and capacity for resistance, are based on the state ownership of the means of production - the abolition of capitalism - and they would be impossible to maintain under a regime of private property."
"The only way to effectively continue the struggle to defend the gains of the revolution is through workers' control, the fight against bureaucracy and a perspective of international socialism."