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Yvon Grenier, St. Francis Xavier University

Presented at the International Political Science Association conference, Madrid 2012. Please do not quote without permission

Introduction

Miklós Haraszti, 1987: 150.

My ambition in this paper is to contribute to knowledge on the nature and limitations of political participation in non-democratic regimes, by focusing on a unique group of actors: artists, writers and intellectuals. My main case study is Cuba, but I wish to think about the issue comparatively and theoretically.

I raise two questions:

1) What is the role of cultural agents in the production of both stability and change in non-democratic political regimes, and concomittantly, what do authoritarian regimes do to coopt and ultimately control the production of politico-cultural forms?

2) When and how writers and artists actually expressive powers in a way that challenges the dominant values and institutions of their societies.

My working hypothesis is that non-democratic regimes use arbitrarily and elusively defined spaces for semi-autonomous expession and participation as a way to achieve control with stability. I also argue that the politico-cultural field offers a revealing example of that phenomenon, though this field presents its own challenges to the state because culture can never be completely controlled by government.

-pluralist way) or as I prefer to say, mobilizational, using an official ideology and state-controlled media and mass organizations, as of course it is the case in Cuba, artists, writers and intellectuals are required to participate actively in the reproduction of a strictly defined but all-encompassing official culture. In the case of an authoritarian (not totalitarian) and moderately mobilization regime, for instance Mexico under the PRI (1929-2000), artists, writers and intellectuals (AWIs) were also invited to participate actively, this time in the reproduction of a loosely defined official culture. Mexican AWIs certainly lent their skills to the state and became politicians, civil servants and diplomats during the period of nation/state building (roughly from the 1920s to the 1960s). When

the most ambitious cultural policy in Latin America (largely because they were both born of a revolution), both with the ambition of creating a new society and a new state, one realizes that both mobilized AWIs in a way that is revealing about the new rules of the political game in the new political environmen. Both represent cases of authoritarian and mobilizational regimes; one (Cuba) -

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authoritarian to semi-democracy (from the mid-1990s) to an admittedly very flawed democracy since the year 2000. In both countries artists, writers and intellectuals oscillated between participation and some mearure of dissent, especially during the authoritarian period in Mexico and not without experiencing episodes of tensions and contradictions. In both cases, these actors have enjoyed special privileges in exchange for a certain loyalty to the state. The

largely became part of the elite.

Examining the interaction between AWIs and the state can yield interesting insights on how much autonomous or quasi-autonomous participation the regime can afford, and how much actors actually want to participate or to conquest autonomous space (how

literature on AWIs tells us that they are hard wired to criticize dominant values and institution. Looking at these issues in order, I want to address first the issue of how much (if any) freedom of expression an autocratic regime can afford, looking at the specific cases of so-introducing the concepts of primary and secondary parameters. Then, I look at the dispositions of AWIs (bypassing the debate on whether there are genuine intellectuals in Cuba) and I draw some preliminary conclusions on the splendeur et misères of participation in non-democratic regimes.

I- Expression of F reedom without F reedom of Expression

Some of the new scholarship on authoritarian regimes takes a closer look at practices and institutions, in which nominally non-state actors can enjoy some level of autonomy, negotiate (clearly from a subordinate position) with the regime and even push for meaningful change, either within the regime or even toward regime change. For Jennifer

face two basic problems of governance: first, the need to obtain cooperation from some segments of society and, second, the need to neutralize potential opposition. Dictators can solve these problems by using nominally democratic institutions to share the xxii). Such a phenomenon, the literature suggests, is more common in regimes that are

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We already knew that monistic regimes are not necessarily (in fact rarely) monolithic, but comparativists missed how significant the interface between authoritarian regimes and various forms of limited pluralism can be for the stability and changes of those regimes. Most of the work published on this question concern the use of the electoral system.

- -party elections with predictable outcomes for the top political positions. Now, these very confined spaces for autonomous expression and mobilization, for instance (but not exclusively) in the electoral field, can grow and in connection with other factors, may indeed foster qualitative change.2

- 3 This field includes not only my three key actors (artists, writers and intellectuals) but also public officials and all kinds of intermediaries (state artists, censors, cultural

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apparatchiks, managers of state-owned galleries and museums, etc.). It has both a cultural and an institutional dimension, which helps thinking about relations between actors without resorting to a sometimes useful but ultimately misleading binary analytical model (i.e. sharply distinguishing between state and non-state actors, state and civil society, public and private actors, dominants and dominated, and so on).4 Implicit here is the notion that the field operates according to its own logic, within a broader ensemble made of other fields with their own logics and of course, shaped by power, which in Cuba flows from the top.

In autocratic regimes, AWIs are controlled either passively or actively by the political leadership: that is to say, passively in exclusionary, non-mobilizational regimes, and actively in inclusionary, mobilizational ones. Totalitarian autocrats, whether they are personally interested in art et lettres or not (there are some interesting variations here), typically pay considerable attention to what is going on in the PCF. In contrast, it stretches the imagination to think about a Trujillo or a Pinochet spending considerable energy and political capital in witch-hunts against the likes of Heberto Padilla, Boris Pasternak or Ai Weiwei.

i.e. born out of a revolution. The most relevant features of this type of regime for our discussion here are the following: extensive and centralized state apparatus, totalitarian

objective. Also noteworthy is the expansion of state-sponsored cultural activities and increased access to cultural resources, in education as well as art, for the many. In fact, one can talk about a widespread politicization of culture, to the point of turning the sta

communist country had its 1986, the Ayatollah Khomeini established the Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution in Iran. The logique surplombante that governs this revolutionary strategy is well summarized by French historian François

(Furet, 2000: 153).

In the twentieth century, revolutions took place in developing societies and led to a pattern of state and nation building that immediately mobilized and rewarded the cultural elite. Initially at least, modern revolutions in semi-modern countries have much to offer to AWIs. They were elevated to the position of

-tai d euphoria and a sense of hope

among many intellectuals and artists. In the early years, the CCP was heartily welcomed by many individuals who, though not necessarily agreeing with or understanding Marxist

nation long mired a social dislocation,

intellectuals and artists whom I interviewed in recent years still recalled with great , 2011: 19-20).

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Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa evokes this process eloquently in reference to AWIs in emerging socialist societies, including theVelasco Alvarado in Peru (1968-75):

qui se reproduit de façon fatidique, dirait-on, dans le

les forces armées (jméprisés par une société inculte et ses gouvernements rustres, voient soudain, avec la

culturelparticipent au processus historique et au grand changement social opéré dans le pays : une grande audience nationale à travers les médias, un bon salaire, des voyages officiels

a condition

par découvrir la vérité de leur situation: exécutants docconsulte ni ne les écoute, instruments inconditionnels des hommes qui occupent le pouvoir, ils ont pour unique fonction de les protéger et de les encenser au besoin avec des citations classiques sophistiquées pontanément et librement, par

leur position, tandis que la mise est remportée par les plus cyniques ce qui ne signifie

état de choses immunisé contre le changement, et dans lequel le socialisme ne se différencie pas encore des vieux systèmes: le pouvoir ne paie pas le travail mais la

-4).

Revolutito the many, which in turn fosters loyalty to the patron-state.5 They favor traditional cultural and scientific institutions the Bolshoi Theater and the Academy of Sciences in S --, not to mention sport, a nationalized activity for which totalitarian regimes produce exceptionally good results. It also constrains cultural activities within strict and yet elusive political parameters. As Milosz once wrote about socialist realism (the ideal-typical trend in cultural policies of communist regime, even though it is neither Communist or Marxist in inspiration): it

ts and mutilates great ones] (Milosz, 1988: 206).

For a self-regulate culture involves a risk, because of its contradictory and intangible nature (Goldfarb, 1978; Grenier, 2011;

state, the regime, the statu quo) and disorder (revolution, insurgency; and concomitantly, criticism, imagination, autonomy) represent a danger for each other. They require very

one typically finds in official rhetoric numerous calls for unwavering obedience to the

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leader and the party, and simultaneously a celebration of debate and even criticism. This

be compatible with the revolutionary ideology. For an illustration, article 53 of the Cuban

Communism is a humanistic ideology that celebrates struggle and liberation. It is theoretically impervious to dogmatism and alienation. In practice it has been the official ideology of totalitarian states obsessed with unity and conformity. Unlike non-mobilizational forms of autocratic government, communist regimes always appear to care deeply for culture, humanity, . And yet, Communist parties rarely make their top positions available to intellectuals (the Italian Communist Party being a possible exception), especially if they are in power.6 Still, they value participation--at the right place and at the right time precisely because its legitimizing principle is not one of crude exercise of power but one of struggle against injustice and alienation and for human development; in a word, an essentially cultural project. Hence, intellectuals have been simultaneously recipients of privileges (if not power) as well as the prime victims of communist and revolutionary regimes when they fail to negotiate the latest turn of the orthodoxy (Haraszti, 1987).

Revolutions tend to empower societies, if only symbolically, giving citizens a sense of political ownership of their country. Mexican poet and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz (1914-1998) described the Mexican revolution (in fact a series of civil wars without a clear avant-garde or program) a -101). Regimes that wish to use revolution as the main source of legitimacy need to adopt

organizations and mobilizations are tools of choice for the rulers, as well as discursive

revolutionary myth was born with the belated and frustratingly incomplete struggle for independence during the late nineteenth century and therefore predates the 1957-59 revolution against dictator Fulgencio Batista. In fact, it has been the dominant mobilization myth of modern Cuba; the current regime consistently presents itself as the latest, final and never-ending episode of a long revolutionary quest for sovereignty. In the absence or severe limitation to basic freedoms (movement, association and speech), the only successful strategy for dissenters who wish to avoid persecution is to protest in the name of the revolution. Certain types of protests can be tolerated (for better wages, for more equality, to fight corruption, and the likes) or even validated by the regime. For the

jeopardizing its ideational monopoly of the legitimate use of the revolutionary myth. But again, it designates a space that can be manipulated but enot entirely owned by the regime.

Finally, revolutionary regimes often make basic education and higher education more accessible to the many. Schools and universities are invested with a political mission to indoctrinate and mobilize. Though it is tempting to conclude that they often improve

schools and universities, and the likes) but not

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control of social sciences and humanities, political screening for access to universities, poor treatment of educational professionals generally), the fact is that education, like the revolutionary myth, is a double-edged sword for the mobilizing regime, for it gives people resources that cannot be fully controled. The recent examples of successful non-violent revolts in Egypt and especially in Tunisia show that the strong correlation between higher literary and human development on one hand, and the capacity for social mobilization on the other, especially in the age of social media and the internet, which of course is tightly but not completely controlled anywhere with the possible exception of North Korea. In China, according to Edward Wong, the critical, so-literature developed in the 1980s by writers like Yu Hua, Mo Yan and Su Tong remain

anaging director of Penguin China, Jo Lusby, saying,

This is not to say that higher levels of literacy will necessarily lead to democratization.7 After all, the great men of letters and artists of modern time were not particularly enamoured with democracy and were often the most enthusiastic devotees of the guillotine.8 But it is to say that education comes with a repertoire of codes and information and critical skills that can be mobilized for change (for instance by internet and social media) with an adequate structure of opportunities.

If the mid-sful twentieth century revolutions, which featured artists, writers and

intellectuals as enthusiastic supporters and often as second-tier members of the political leadership, were not typically led by them and even less likely to reward them with real power. In Cuba, few AWIs were really involved in armed struggle against Batista. Che

t cultural, moral and intellectual upheaval that was the sixties in the West. But the bulk of their activities took place after the downfall of the old regime and concerned in-group competition for status and resources, within the fast expanding PCF. Revolutions are very macho events that make use of the pen but celebrate the sword.

The level of loyalty expected from AWIs varies from one country and case study to another. Many variables can be taken into account: how institutionalized power is, the importance of personal connections, how famous and internationally recognized an artist, writer or intellectual is; \ Frederick II of Prussia, Tsar Nicolas I, Hitler and Stalin seemed to have a genuine interest in arts and letters; Fidel Castro is bookish (he reads mostly biographies of great men) but seems indifferent to arts and literature.9 In Cuba, close relations with (and of course total loyalty to) Fidel definitely confer privileges.10 Furthermore, as far as adhesion to the official party is concerned, one would need to control for factors such as the relative importance of the party itself in the overall model of governance. It was never very important in Cuba (the new regime was built before its creation and it became an administrative armamong others of Fidel and now Fidel and Raul Castro). In sum, one can see a great deal of variation from one case or period to the next.

Opening and Closing

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Modern authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are not monolithic. They oscillate between

or they have bureaucratic infighting between different organs of power or policy fields. The ebb and flows of repression is most clearly reflected in the amount of freedom given

independent, dissonant or critical voices; previously banned works or art or literature resurface and may even be celebrated (especially if their authors are safely dead).

-narrative but to signify a pause from politics, to supply a space for peace and reconciliation. The two points I want to mak

as opposite or contradictions but rather as moments of the same dynamic. Regimes that cannot handle pluralism have to fake it, one way or another. Historically and synchronically, it is just not possible to be overly rigid and predictable in outcomes.

In official cultural milieu in Cuba it is acceptable to identify the five years from the Congress on Education and Culture of 1971 to the creation of the Ministry of culture in 1976 as the Quinquenio Gris (or Grey five-year period, a term coined by Cuban intellectual Ambrosio Fornet) as the only period of harsh cultural repression in Cuba. Cuban architect Mario Coyula talks about a Trinquenio Amargo (bitter fifteen years period) starting in the mid-sixties (Farber, 2011: 23). In fact, cultural repression started at the onset of the Castro regime. By 1961, no independent cultural institution or media existed on the island. Cultural institutions and universities had been thoroughly purged of their politically undesirable elements. One can argue that the late 1970s and early 1980s were periods of relative tolerance, compared to previous years, but the evidence is contradictory (Miller, 2008). A prominent observer of Cuban culture and politics, Cuban-born historian Rafael Rojas, even argue, counter-intuitively, that the 1980s were more tolerant than the 1990s, a decade of relative relaxation of control in the economic and cultural fields according to most observers. The literary magazine Criterios (1972) and the movie Ustedes tienen la palabra (1973), both considered relatively dissonant, were realized during the Quinquenio Gris. In any case, the division of La Revolución in

themselves as practitioners of revolution who are willing to make adjustments and correct errors.

Signals of opening and closing are typically sent to the population in an arbitrary and entirely unpredictable manner.11 The dramatic policy initiatives adopted recently in Cuba were not even submitted to the legislature (which meats only a few days a year any way)12 This grants the regime some flexibility and keeps everybody, except the ruling elite (in Cuba, except the Castro brothers), guessing what will come next. Furthermore, it allows the regime to play the role of its own opposition when it is convenient: for

el comandante

cultural actors, intellectuals and even the media (the most tightly controlled cultural institution) are criticized for being too timid. In his closing speech at the first National Conference of the Cuban Communist Party (February 2012), Raul Castro repeatedly condemned what h in the media (to recall: completely

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controlled by his government), e more critical (Castro, 2012).

In North Korea, according to Tatiana Gabroussenko, one finds no real aesthetic or political difference between artists who are purged and those who are not. For her,

virtually zero. Close investigation of supposedly heretical texts whose authors were purged for alleged ideological transgressions provides no proof of any ideological defiance. North Korean literature appeared to be remarkably homogeneous in terms of ideological and Party loyalties, and all writers, including the victims of the political campaigns of the 1950s, eagerly re Gabroussenko: 168-9). In 1992, the year the Cuban constitution was reformed to reflect the reality of the new post-soviet period, the ideology called Juche (Kim Il- -nationalist concoction) replaced Marxism-Leninism in the North Korean constitution. Whether this marked -totalitarianism or just an ex-post-facto decision with little practical consequences, is open to discussion. What strikes me is the way it reflects the state capacity to change its own narrative and to destabilize actors within and in the periphery of the state, leaving them to guess what are the probable implications for themselves.

istry of Culture, which controls censorship and issue licenses for newspapers and journals, adopted more liberal policies, inaugurating a period of press freedom and diversity. But the Judiciary, headed by a conservative ally of the Leader, used its powers to close down newspapers and indict and jail reformist journalists and editors who had incurred the displeasure of conservatives. For every newspaper that was closed down, the Ministry of culture would issue a new license and the newspaper would appear unKeshavarzian, 554). Iran is a good example of an authoritarian regime (in fact, almost totalitarian) with contradictory political institutions that end up providing space for limited pluralism and popular sovereignty. Cultural forms and representations have been a key dimension of more or less tolerated resistance to (or at least dissonance with) the diktats of the clerics. Perhaps it is within the so-called Green movement (to recall: a protest movement, supportive of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mussavi, following the disputed 2009 presidential elections), or the grudgingly tolerated cultural forms (cinema, music, even television), even perhaps the parliament (the Majlis), which does not hold much legislative poweseeds of changes for the future. One implication of this case is that opening and closing can take place simultaneously, with some individuals or sectors getting some slack and others not, and this in part because of contradictions within the regime.

This is not to say that in the kind of regimes under discussion, periods of openings are pure fiction with no real consequences. In China, according to Chan tai-Hundred Flowers Campaign, mounted by the CCP between 1956 and 1957, saw the Party granting greater freedom of expression to intellectuals and artists. But when the increased freedom gave rise to a series of sharp criticisms of the government, the Party reversed its policy and, in mid-1957, initiated the Anti-Rightist Campaign, which eventually led to the political persecution of more than half a million intellectuals, artists, and skilled

-up by

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policies or just toler 13 has been real and consequential over the past thirty years. Finally, the freedoms afforded by

Simply, one needbenefits) that prompts regimes to take that kind of risk.

Parameters

In countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, groups and individuals either 1) toe the line; 2) voice criticism only at the right time and the right place, usually without retribution (i.e. when their assessment of what a right time and right place was correct; 3) voice criticism any other time and suffer the consequences (harassment, lost of privileges, marginalization insiliooption that many writers and probably most visual artists of the 1990s (who were the first beneficiary of the opening to the global market) chose over the past two decades in Cuba. I am leaving aside an important dimension of life in non-democratic countries: the parallel life, the double-

009) and Vincent Bloch (2007). These phenomena are relevant to the study of parameters but in the private domain.14 Here I am focusing on public expression.

between state and non-state actors that allows the expression of some freedom in the absence of freedom of expression. The line between those two options is both elusive and

the first option appealing to many writers, artists and intellectuals, especially since it is the most rewarding in terms of privileges and status. Official artists and writers are among the most privileged individuals in Cuba, other than the top political and military brass. No wonder officials have to lecture them now and again for not being critical enough. Why taking the risk to cross the line?

designates formal and informal political constraints to civil and political liberties participation (Grenier, 2011). Cultural agents in Cuba are familiar with both the term parameter and the practices of parametraje or parametración. I argue that parameters are not created equal. There are two types.

First, the primary parameters, which shield the meta-political (foundational) narrative of the regime. In Cuba these parameters shield three dogmas: a) La Revolución is an ongoing process or movement (i.e. not a past event); b) La Revolución is Fidel Castro (and Raul) and vice versa; and c) La Revolucíon is a unifying force (e.g. what fosters divisions is counter-revolutionary). The past, present and future of La Revolución are in movement, subject to redefinition by itself, which practically means by the Castro brothers. La Revolución is more than a goal, an ideology, or an utopia: it actually acts and it is known for its accomplishments. It is common to say that this hospital, this

If in other communist countries the state is the administrative agency of the Communist party; in Cuba the state and the party are the administrative agencies of La Revolución/the Castro brothers and their close

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associates. Primary parameters directly shield top leaders from criticism coming from lower ranks. In that pyramidal scheme, however, only one leader, at the top, has been beyond criticism (not counting auto-criticism) or even scrutiny. Over the past twenty years it has been increasingly possible to criticize the (defunct) Soviet Union but not

instance, Cuban writer Leonardo Padura Fuentes recently published the historical novel El hombre que amaba a los perrosMercader.15 This novel is an explicit and devastating denunciation of Stalinism, a daring endeavor in Cuba (if not anywhere else). It is also, implicitely, an oblique criticism of Leninism, which by extension can be interpreted as a challenge to the official narrative on the Cuban regime. The final scene, in which the main Cuban character is found dead in his appartment, crushed under the fallen roof of his decaying building, is nothing less (or more) than suggestive

political and social conditions in contemporary Cuba, Padura Fuentes plays safe: Fidel, the ubiquitous and bigger than life political force in the country for all his life, is not mentioned at all.

The dogma according to which Revolution is an ongoing process or movement is arguably the core of the master narrative. It is probably unique: to my knowledge, leaders of countries in the Soviet bloc, China, North Korea or Vietnam do not constantly refer to

but in democracies they are not shielded from criticism by anything else than consensus and social pressures. In dictatorship, especially in the ones that features totalitarian values and institutions, primary parameters are fairly explicit on what cannot be publicly discussed, let alone criticized, in the country, either by locals or visitors.

Secondary parameters delimit political participation within the system; i.e. what can be said and done, how, where and when. Made of both implicit and explicit rules, these parameters are a constant source of uncertainty because in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, implicit rules are never clear and explicit ones tend to change quite arbitrarily. Crossing the line delineated by the secondary parameters can be construed as a venial offence. At times this can be redeemed unlike disrespect of primary parameters (mortal

Writers, artists and especially intellectuals are dealing with parameters in a very special way. Parameters shape not only their daily routine and lifestyle but also their work. They

parameters can apply differently to different actors. Currently the Catholic Church in Cuba is successfully imposing itself as the legitimate (i.e. within the parameters) civil society voice for dialogue with the government on issues the government agrees to discuss. No other actor (for instance, more critical representatives of the Catholic movement for change in Cuba) is given this kind of space.16 Communist Cuba never broke relations with the Vatican and the choice of the Archbishop of Havana Jaime Ortega as the person the government prefers to deal with reflects a policy of maintaining open dialogue with the Church at the highest possible level.

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In sum, we have not one but two sets of lines that should not be crossed: the first one (primary parameters) apply fairly consistently and to everybody, all the time; the second parameters are elusive and may change both over time and from one set of actors (or field) to another. A change in the primary parameters would probably indicate a situation of regime change; changes in secondary parameters

are simply a rule of the game in authoritarian regimes.

2/ A rtists, W riters and Intellectuals: C riticism and Recognition

It is hard to make solid claims about the political movitations of artists, writers and intellectuals. And yet, the literature on the subject is pretty unanimous on how, if they are true to their unique calling, they will, consciously or not (i.e. somewhat unwittingly,

institutions, shed light on what is being obsured by propaganda, cultural imperialism, publicity or techné. One advantage of this group of actors for the analyst is that it loquacious. To know their views, one just has to collect them.

We also know that in authoritarian regimes, what AWIs say or express publicly through their works may not reflect exactly what they think. Cuban intellectual (now living in Spain) Ivan De la Nuez summarized this situation eloquently. For a Cuban writer, he

nous disons, publier moins que ce que nous écrivons. Telle est notre condition" (quoted ll

insufficiently critical public statements by AWIs in Cuba or other autocratic countries should necessarily be considered as deceits, but rather because one never knows for sure if (or the extent to which) it is truthful or not. On the other hand, the moment AWIs leave the island for good they almost automatically become vocal opponents of the Cuban regime. They are now free to express themselves and speak their mind. Within the revolution, nothing; outside the revolution, everything! It is conceivable that life in exile is not exempt of peer pressures, however. It is interesting to see how contemptuous Cuban intellectuals are of dissidents who, not long ago, were in Cuba in position of authority. The director of the magazine Témas, Rafael Hernández, who in several of his writings come across as embittered toward his former colleagues now in exile, writes that

functionary who is neither credible nor possessed of the ability to express his or her own

according to established discourse of the outside, a personification of the state a an examination of the personal history of many champions

of credibility will demonstrate that, paradoxically, the identity card which certifies an intellectual free spirit is more accessible to escaped officials, repentant Stalinists, turncoat functionaries, ex-professors of dogmatism, and former straw men of cultural conformity than it is to those who always sought and fought for room to think and act on behalf of freedom, independence, and the progress of the nation, who have paid the price for this attitude without abandoning a political co(Hernández, 2002: 125-but a cast of characters with whom he seems quite familiar in Cuba. Or is it that the few bad apples all left the island already?

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Additionally, it is possibly unfair to assume that all Cuban AWIs in Cuba are sicophants or supporters of the regime, who opt to stay (assuming they had the option to leave), as Nicola Miller somewhat gratuitously claims, because government built up a reserve of legitimacy during the early 1960s that for many people has never been

--one of them, perhaps the most common in Cuba,

views from deeply held beliefs and motivations.

In sum, the study of political motivation in a divided nation like Cuba is not as easy as it may seems. What can be said without hesitation is that AWIs are not free to say or paint or publish what they want in Cuba, that there are clear restrictions (the primary parameters) and not so clear ones (secondary parameters) to what can be expressed publicly. Without those, one would have had, over the past fifty-two years, at least some expressions of dissatisfaction with the regime and its leadership. That cannot be explained only or even primarily by the popular support to the regime (which may well be a factor too), as Miller claims. It is important to take into account testimonies from AWIs from both the island and the diaspora, but for all the peer pressures existing in the latter, one cannot forget the real limitations to speech that exist in the former. This is a fact

This being said, I cautiously want to make one comment about AWIs motivations and emphasize the importance of the quest for recognition. Again, the literature on intellectuals insists on the propensity to rebel, to criticize, to speak the truth to power, and so on. Furthermore, there is a substantial body of literature in Latin American studies based on the premise enunciated systematically by the Latin American writers of the boom (Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Benedetti), according to which the genuine intellectual, at least in Latin America, ought to be the voice of the voiceless, the

Llosa) (Van Delden and Grenier, 2009)

themselves as the critical conscience of society. The government, La Revolución, the Leader, the Party monopolizes that function and intellectuals mostly look after themselves. Lisandro Otero once proclaimed, is to support the government. Of course there are

lin and all his Politburo colleagues were now (if they had not been before)

whether the hypothesis on recognition is valid for a comparative analysis across regime types. Presumably, the emphasis on the propensity to criticize is always balanced by the quest to participate and be recognized, the combination of these two propensities being what varies from one case to another.

Artists and writers always seek recognition, at least by some peers. In the USSR, under -cultural field disappeared after the mid-1930s. In Cuba,

the competition for recognition between different groups has emerged periodically,

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starting at the very onset of the revolutionary regime. The battles brought to an end publications and groups like Lunes de Revolución (1959-61), El Puente (1961-65), the cultural supplement of Juventud Rebelde under the directorship of Jesús Díaz entitled El Caimán Barbudo (1966-83), Pensamiento Crítico (1967-71), the Paideia (late 1980s and early 1990s) and Naranja Dulce. The case of the purge of the Centro de Estudios de las Américas (1977-1996) shows how the party can actually sponsor semi-independent research and then rein it in when researchers (who at the CEA turned to the analysis of Cuban problems in 1989) cross the line.

All these groups and organizations were run by writers who thought of themselves as avant-garde revolutionary intellectuals and artists, many of them members of the Communist Party. Because they were embracing La Revolución and, for the most part, belonged to the cultural elite, they mistakenly assumed they could be a bit irreverent, affect an aesthetic detachment, be humorous, and even ridiculed their bureaucratic supe La Revolución. They were not anti-establishment; in fact, many continued to strive for recognition by the state after their demotion.17 Many succeeded. Peter Johnson offers a summary of cases

-Rojo, demoted in 1970 from the directorship of Casa de las Américas Center for Literary Research to an entry-1976 as director of the Center for Caribbean Studies. Eduardo Heras León, dismissed from the editorial board of Caimán barbudo for his 1971 book Los Pasos en la hierba

Los Siete contra Tebas (believed to be a veiled criticism of Raúl Castro), succeeded in 1984 in having his partially autobiographical novel La Caja está cerrada published, even though the

A good illustration is the case of Cuban writer, intellectual, filmmaker, cultural official and philosophy professor Jesús Díaz (1941-2002). Díaz is

-Cultural Field, and whos

dictatorship fell Díaz was only 17 years old. He had joined a rebel unit in the Sierra Maestra and reached the rank of captain in the Rebel army, an uncommon distinction for a budding writer. He then fought against anti-Castro forces in the Escambray mountain, came back to finish his high school and take some classes (on international relations) provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1961-62). Only a few years later, he became an awarded writer (he won the Casa de las Américas Prize in 1966 for a collection of short stories under the title Los años duros) and a university professor of Marxism in the department of philosophy at the University of Havana. Between 1966 and 1968 he directed the cultural section and then a monthly cultural supplement (El Caimán Barbudo) for the communist youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde. Those were considerable achievements for a 25-26 years old. No doubt the huge turnover and ideological frenzy of the revolution made this possible.

His political views have changed over the years. Díaz was considered by many as a -core member of the Communist Party (a party he joined

when it was at its most dogmatic in 1971) who went after some of his peers for lack of revolutionary orthodoxy (the literary journal El Puente, for instance).18 And yet, one can

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find early on, in some of his interviews and in his literary works, a taste for a certain amount of autonomy as an artist and as a writer, and perhaps a propensity to test the limit of what I called the secondary parameters. In an interview with Mariano Rodríguez Herrera, published in Casa de las Américas, Díaz refuses to support realist socialism or to admit that there is such a thing as a Marxist aesthetic. His answers to pressing questions on the influence of his Marxist philosophy on his literary work, are supportive of the Revolution, Fidel and the Che, but remain evasive on the key issue of the logic of artistic creation and the autonomy of the artist. Ask if his marxist philosopy influenced his

that everybody has a philosophical position, consciously or not (Rodríguez Herrera, 20).

force. He refused to call his literary work as M in the same way he rejected, decades later and a novels. Basically, his position is: artists, like anybody else, are immersed in politics (or

inspiration. This is not a clear philosophical or analytical answer, since free art and politics are not necessarily mutually compatible in a country like Cuba. But it was a prudent political answer at the time, in a country where the absolute ruler had declared (in 1961)

Díaz is a good example of an artist and intellectual who was torn between his dispositions to test the limit of the secondary parameters and his desire to participate, to fit in. Progressively, these dispositions made him a closet member of the insilio, a man who seem to have had debates with his own conscience for years about the central dogmas shielded by the primary parameters. His desire to participate is no less noteworthy. He lost the directorship of Caiman Barbudo because of ideological deviation (Díaz, 1998). In 1967 he and some colleagues from the department of philosophy founded the cultural and theoretical magazine Pensamiento Crítico, which was forced to close in 1971 for not

19 After that, recalls Díaz, his

the history of cultural repression on the island (the infamous Congress on Education and Culture held in April of that year, marking the onset of a new wave of cultural repression), his department of philosophy was shut down by the government. Like many other writers and artists in Cuba over the past five decades, Díaz sought refuge at the Instituto Cubano de Artes e Industrias Cinematográficas (ICAIC), perhaps the most open cultural institution in the island. Its founder Alfredo Guevara (the founding director of ICAIC in 1959) is an old friend of Fidel Castro and this gave him more latitude to negotiate more space for the Institute. Díaz started contributing in various ways to the production of films and documentaries and later on, he taught cinema, both in Cuba and abroad. His work at the ICAIC did not shield him from Díaz was a close collaborator of director Daniel Díaz Torres in the production of the movie Alicia en el Pueblo de Maravillas (1990). Presented during the period of

ceased to be presented in theaters Julio Garcia Espinosa) had to resign.

most famous and accomplished novel, entitled Las iniciales de la tierra, could not be

15

published in Cuba for eight years (until 1985, and after being rewritten). He was never given proper explanations (let alone apologies) for the delay.

In 1992 while in Germany on a scholarship Díaz pronounced a speech entitled Los anillos del serpiente. It was immediately published in Switzerland and then in various countries (Díaz, 1992). In this text he espouses the central myth of the permanent revolution (since

condemns tourism on the island and the

L in exchange for the convocation of a plebiscite in the island on the political future of the country. This is clearly in violation of the primary parameters. Surprisingly, the text was published in Cuba, in the

Gaceta de Cuba (though with a harsh response from Fernando Martínez Heredia), indicating that his fate had not yet been sealed in Cuba, at least not as far as was known within the cultural milieu (his fairly critical novel Las palabras perdidas was also to be published in Cuba).20 But the harsh and almost histerical response by the Minister of education Armando Hart (he called Díaz a traitor who deserved death penalty) made it impossible for him to return. That is to say, even though he must have been aware of the fact that he was crossing the line, by basically adopting the US position on the quiproquo between political freedom in Cuba and the lifting of the embargo, the minister is the one who ultimately made him a dissident and a new member of the diaspora. Apparently, Díaz was hoping to come back to Cuba. As I said earlier, individuals decide to stay or return to Cuba for a number of reasons, not all of them political.21 And yet, it is fascinating that it took him thirty years and basically a life sentence upon his return to finally break with a regime that censured him repeatedly. Afterward, he founded Encuentro de la cultura cubana in 1996, an attempt to create a space where Cuban intellectuals from Cuba and from the diaspora could engage in constructive dialogue as a judge and many times expressed his sorrow and repent for what he did (participating in cultural repression,22 (not being courageous enough) while in Cuba. Again, one cannot escape the impression that even in exile what he was longing the most was participation in the politico-cultural activities of the Cuban nation.

Conclusion

What the study of AWIs show is that the PCF is arguably the one policy field where some political experimentation can be tolerated, provide it is limited to that field and does

economic crisis following the end of the privileged commercial relations with the Soviet bloc. Arguably, it was by necessity, not by choice or design, that the government became more tolerant of dissonance in the PCF. Simultaneously, the government became to

work abroad (Corrales, 2004). Writers and especially artists have developed lucrative relations with foreign publishers and galeries, sometimes living abroad for extended

talking for about two years about the possibility of easing restrictions to travel for Cubans, perhaps the privileges granted AWIs are part of an experiment to see how the

16

beneficiaries would make use of it. Based on the evidence, better-to-do artists and writers with enhanced freedom of movement do not breed more criticism of government and greater appetite for autonomy and freedom. Of courseto the population at large, they would not be privileges any more. AWIs are part of the elite and they are the ones who should be given a stake in the preservation of current political arrangements. Given their apparent craving for participation and recognition, the

may reflect an experiment in elite control freedom and democracy. Note that I am not saying rather than an

opening, because there is no contradiction between opening and experiment in elite control.

One government act one way or another. In an interesting text on modern democratic

ll makes the case that they are characterized not by one

useful to think comparatively between various regimes in the same democratic family. For instance, one finds relatively stronger democratic and republican logics in France, liberal and republican logics in the US, liberal and democratic in the UK, and so on. Similarly, one could think of autocratic regimes as being characterized by different logics. Arguably there are more types of autocratic regimes and more logics within each of them. In Cuba, one could find a mix of century-old nationalistic and revolutionary craving, caudillism, socialism, communism, totalitarian, post-totalitarian, even traces of

ic. Furthermore, inasmuch as the popular sovereignty is at least a promise of

abuses at its own risk, as I argued above, one can even talk about the presence of a democratic logic. Paired with the republican logic, this could very well be the seed for the yet-to-come process of democratization in the island. The presence of internationally known bloggers (if not so well known inside the island) and independent journalists, who are under surveillance and are routinely denied permission to leave the island, represent a

Estado de SATS, which air a series of filmed interviews with intellectuals, artists and writers, posted on YouTube and circulated in the island on DVDs, is equally significant. It is coordinated by Antonio Rodiles, a Cuban-born media entrepreneur who lived in the US and Mexico before returning to Cuba. One can also mention the non-governmental human rights commission directed for years by Elizardo Sánchez; the magazine Voces coordinated by Yoani Sánchez and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo. In an interview, Rodiles also mentions the important work of the Asociación Jurídica Cuba directed by the lawyer Wilfredo Vallin (Rodiles, 2012). None of these can be reduced to experiments in cultural control by the government. Culture can be sponsored by the state and manipulated for political purposes but it cannot be completely controlled and can find in itself the vigour to grow.

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1 For post-1997), post-totalitarian (González, 2002: 5-7) and post-totalitarian charismatic (Mujal Leon and Jorge Saavedra, 1997). 2 See for instance Greene, 2007. 3 adding another element: the political. See Bourdieu, 1992. 4 repressed dissident expression cannot be drawn as neatly as these studies imply. Public expression supported by the party and state does not necessarily mirror party values, and public expression repressed by the state is not necessarily dissident. Official policies with direct influence on public expression do not simply have the one dimensional consequence of promoting supportive expression and repressing politically dissident expression" (Goldfarb, 1978: 921). 5 Sheila Fitzpatrick (1992) makes some interesting comments on what could be called the parvenus of revolutions, looking at the case of the USSR: -1930s, the sociological and political configuration of the intelligentsia was being changed by the emergence of a new cohort of graduates from Soviet institutions of higher and technical education. These were the vydvizhentsy -

had been mobilized for further education during the First Five-oppressive cultural orthodoxies and deadening spirit of conformity that took root in the professions in the 1930s must in part have reflected the needs and insecurities of the vydvizhentsy: it is the poorly trained and inexperienced professional, after all, who wants to be told exactly how to do a job and what model to

vydvizhentsy, sent to study during the first Five-Year Plan and entering the professional and administrative elites from the middle of the 1930s, were more typically beneficiaries of

6 (aside the workers and the peasants). However, by intelligentsia he meant the cultural and administrative elite of society (himself included). Fitspatrick, 1992: 15. 7 See

more education made them more eThe Economist June 25th., 2011.

8 For a recent illustration, poet and Nobel recipient Czeslaw Milosz, in discussion with two other Nobel literary prizes (Octavio Paz and Claude Simon), contended that intellectuals are responsible for the horrors in Bosnia, for they initiate the new nationalist tendencies there." Milosz, Paz, Simon, 1996. 9 Fidel et Gabo?? 10 Think for instance about filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, whose movies often irritated the Castro brothers but escaped censorship (if not self-censorship) because of his renown and his contact with Fidel.

trend indicator rather than (what they really are) exceptions. In the Soviet Union, Maxim Gorky, who was

20

Union in the early 1930s. Fitzpatrick, 1992: 10. 11 In Cuba th(1966-70); 2) the relative opening of the economy after the disastrous experiment of rapid industrialization and the ten-tons sugar harvest of 1970 (1971-85); 3) the -market and anti-perestroika (1986- - ), a period

-) is very much in line with the measures adopted during the special period. 12 Samuel Farber mentions a few major decisions that were made, in the past two years, by President Raúl

state land to private farmers; the decision to eliminate limit on state salaries; the decision to expand self-employment; the announcement of a massive layoff state employees, etc. (Farber, 2011: 30) 13 Looking at the case of Cuba, sociologist Haroldo Dilla calls this 2005: 36-37). 14

censorship and control. 15 First published in Spain (Tusquets editores) and then in Cuba (a limited edition that sold instantly and, like his other books, is hard to find in bookstores). 16 de La Habana, on March 30 2012. (espaciolaical.org). Some errors by the Cuban government are denounced and the overall tone is critical of the current situation but one finds no direct condemnation of la dirrección movement are not invited to the dialogue. See (http://www.estadodesats.com/2012/05/aclaraciones-a-un-editorial-de-espacio-laical.html) 17 When the so- -year Plan in 1928-humiliated, removed from their jobs, and in some cases arrested. They found no effective way to fight back,

werlessness and vulnerability, familiar from the civil War, returned. But this time the threat was more psychological than physical, and the victims often seemed pained and surprised that the Soviet regime did not recognize their (comparative ) loyalty to 7 my emphasis). 18 Some of the contributors to El Puente became dependable members of the politico-cultural elite in Cuba, like Miguel Barnet (currently director of the writers and artists union) and Nancy Morejón. According to Linda HowNicolás Guillén, who was director of UNEAC at the time, protected Morejón somewhat, and she continued to find work. However, those twelve years of silence seriously a40-the event can be found in Díaz, 2000. 19 Díaz likes to remember Pensamiento Crítico as fairly dissonant and open theoretically, though in retrospect the positions defended there never strayed very far from standard marxist-leninist positions. Many of his collaborators (Aurelio Alonso, Hugo Azcuy, Fernando Martínez and Juan Valdés Paz) were given a second chance to form a research center in 1977, the Centro de Estudios sobre las Américas, with a mandate from the Communist Party to look into some of the social and economic problems in the island. This Center was shut down in 1996, by Raúl Castro, and for the same reason: ideological deviation. One of its members, Rafael Hernández, went to found yet another journal, Témas. 20 And for Las palabras perdidas to be published in Cuba; it was published in Spain by Anagrama in 1992. 21 Interestingly, in his novel Dime algo sobre Cuba (1998), the main character (named Stalin Martínez!) who ended up in Florida by accident (his ferry was highjacked) implausibly decide to return to Cuba, to find that his wife (Idalys) is now living with another man, and only then decide to leave the island for good, with tragic consequences. In an interview with François Maspéro Díaz explains his reasons for wanting to return to Cuba in terms of fear not to adapt to the tough capitalist workd and nostlagia for the island and the ocean.

21

22 In Dime algo sobre Cuba, the main character feels guilty for having thrown eggs and insults at fellow Cubans (including his own brother!) who were attempting to leave the island through the port of Mariel in 1980.