Cuban Communism under Raúl Castro (2006-2014) Ramón I. Centeno Miranda Department of Politics University of Sheffield This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2016 ii To Our America Acknowledgements The completion of this PhD would not have been possible without the support of many people. First of all, I would like to thank Steve Ludlam for all his advice and constant support. It has been a pleasure and a privilege working with him. I also would like to thank the feedback I received on my research from colleagues in the Annual Conference of the Society of Latin American Studies (2012 and 2014), in the Annual Conference of the Cuba Research Forum (in 2013 and 2014), in the Annual Postgraduate Colloquium of the Department of Politics of the University of Sheffield (2014), in the Annual Congress of CLACSO’s working group Latin America: governments, movements, and continuities (2014), and in the Annual Conference of the Latin American Studies Association (2015). This thesis owes a lot to the criticism and recommendations of insightful academics from many different countries. I also learned a lot about Cuba’s economic reform in conversations I had with economists of the Centre of Studies of the Cuban Economy (CEEC, in Spanish) of the University of Havana. Thanks to Omar E. Pérez Villanueva for welcoming me. Thanks to Liam Stanley for his savvy feedback on the first draft of this thesis. Of course, while the input of many academics accounts for the strengths of this thesis, all the remaining weaknesses are my sole responsibility. Thanks to the superb assistance of the Library staff of the University of Sheffield. Thanks to Juanita! :-) Thanks to my parents, Laura and Ramón, my brother, Paco, and to my sister-in-law, Elizabeth Guerrero, for all their support during these years. Thanks to all the people that made of my time in Sheffield a wonderful experience. Thanks to CONACYT for funding my studies. iv Abstract Drawing on a theory of non-transition from communist rule, in this thesis I argue that in the period 2006-2014 Cuba experienced a change from a charismatic post- totalitarian regime to a maturing post-totalitarian one. The basic argument behind these concepts is that the loss of the charisma of Fidel Castro as a source of legitimacy – he stepped down in 2006 – has pushed forward economic performance as a compensatory source, which explains the market reforms of Raúl Castro. Thus, I demonstrate in this thesis that the Cuban regime during the presidency of Raúl Castro has experienced a ‘double political shift’ at the levels of leadership and ideology. On the one hand, I claim that the charismatic character of the leadership has been replaced by a collegial arrangement. On the other, I hold that the model of centrally planned economy (CPE) has been replaced by market-socialist ideology. After substantiating the existence of the leadership’s and ideological change, I discuss the relationship between them as part of a re-equilibration of legitimacy. The peculiarity of the Cuban case is that socialist ideology is still central to Raúl Castro’s claims to legitimacy. Therefore, the new role of the market has been inscribed within an non-capitalist framework, as expressed in the official advocacy for a “prosperous and sustainable socialism” – i.e. a form of market socialism that, in contrast to cases such as China and Vietnam, have not yet restored capitalism. Keywords: Cuba, regime, leadership, ideology, legitimacy, post-totalitarianism. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... iv Abstract ........................................................................................................ v Table of Contents ......................................................................................... vi 1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Political intentionality ............................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Analytical approach .................................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Summary of the argument .................................................................................................... 12 1.4 Methods and data collection ................................................................................................ 16 Make-up of this thesis .................................................................................................................... 21 2. The Marxist critique of real socialism ...................................................... 23 2.1 Totalitarian rule: a communist concept .......................................................................... 24 2.1.1 From the critique of Stalinism… ..................................................................................................... 24 2.1.2 …To the critique of Fidelismo .......................................................................................................... 29 2.2 A Marxist dead-end path ....................................................................................................... 38 2.2.1 The invention of ‘state capitalism’ ................................................................................................ 38 2.2.2 The so-called capitalist Cuba ........................................................................................................... 43 2.3 Trotsky reconsidered .............................................................................................................. 47 Summary .............................................................................................................................................. 53 3. The theory of post-totalitarian Cuba ....................................................... 55 3.1 Marxist handling of transitology ........................................................................................ 56 3.2 The post-totalitarian regime-type ..................................................................................... 62 3.3 The (charismatic) Cuban hybrid ........................................................................................ 68 3.4 Normalisation after charisma? ........................................................................................... 74 Summary .............................................................................................................................................. 82 4. Vicissitudes of Fidel Castro’s Cuba ........................................................... 85 4.1 The oscillation of Cuban politics ........................................................................................ 85 4.2 Leadership: the FAR-PCC ruling coalition ...................................................................... 91 4.3 Ideology: the case of the managers ................................................................................... 99 vi Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 106 5. The revolt of Raúl Castro ....................................................................... 108 5.1 Cuba when Fidel stepped down ....................................................................................... 108 5.2 The provisional leader (2006-2008) ............................................................................. 114 5.2.1 Leadership: two models of succession ...................................................................................... 114 5.2.2 Ideology: a change of tacK ............................................................................................................. 119 5.3 Paving the way to the Sixth Party Congress (2008-2010) .................................... 124 5.3.1 Leadership: dismantling charisma ............................................................................................ 124 5.3.2 Ideology: relaxing CPE orthodoxy .............................................................................................. 129 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 134 6. The victory of Raúl Castro ..................................................................... 136 6.1 The battle of the Sixth Party Congress (2010-2011) .............................................. 136 6.2 The new contours of Cuba (2011-2014) ...................................................................... 143 6.2.1 Leadership: the rise of collegiality ............................................................................................. 143 6.2.2 Ideology: the rise of marKet socialism ...................................................................................... 153 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 164 7. Political characterisation ....................................................................... 166 7.1 Regime-type development ................................................................................................. 166 7.2 Liberalisation as a collateral symptom ......................................................................... 174 Summary ...........................................................................................................................................