[Kepa Artaraz] Cuba and Western Intellectuals sinc(BookFi.org)

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.An important moment of self-definition and one that demonstrates thedegree of acceptance of this view among certain sectors of intellectuals172 Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959took place within the first three issues of Revolución y Cultura at thebeginning of 1968.Two commentaries by Lisandro Otero and JorgeSerguera in issues 1 and 2 of the journal called for an abolition of the divi-sion between guerrilla fighter and intellectual.23 This was immediatelyanswered by a letter of protest in which virtually the entire editorialcommittee abandoned the publication in protest against those views.Thiscommittee included a number of leading members of the PhilosophyDepartment such as Rolando Rodr�guez, Aurelio Alonso, Jes�s D�az, andJuan Antonio Blanco and leading writers Roberto Fern�ndez Retamar,Ambrosio Fornet, and Edmundo Desnoes (Fornet et al., 1967).Yet, as inother historical examples of the relationship between power and intellect,the completeness of the intellectual-guerrilla remained paramount inCuba where a sense of inferiority was pervasive in this generation as theyaccepted their secondary role to the real vanguard embodied in Castroand Guevara who were considered intellectuals of the same stature asLenin (Editorial, 1967b).The ambivalence of the relationship between the political and thepurely intellectual lived unchallenged in theory (never in practice) untilthe logic of international events forced a rupture.The alliance betweenthe Cuban political leadership and the intellectuals, between the ThirdWorld and the European New Left, began to disintegrate only sevenmonths after it was established during the Cultural Congress when theleadership supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Otero,1986).From this moment on, once the inherent superiority of the guer-rilla leader was acknowledged, there was no time for the philosopher toregain lost status.Previous chapters described the process of rupture ordistancing between the Cuban Revolution and the various Europeanintellectual groups as well as the personal consequences it had on Cubanmembers of the New Left.It is important to acknowledge at this stagethat the 1960s witnessed the birth of an intellectual movement whoseenergies were devoted to the development of a concept of the intellectualthat was politically effective yet independent.The decade ended,however, at the same point it started: with a re-emphasis of the overridingpower of the political over the intellectual.ConclusionAt this point, the argument has gone full circle.The decade started withan intellectual rebellion that demonstrated a genuine desire ofCommunist Party members to affirm their status against the politicaldirection of anti-intellectual parties who demanded that intellectualsfulfilled a pamphleteering role.Thus, the transition that took place inThe New Left 173the first half of the decade transformed this dependence on the politicalinto an independence of thought and action.In all cases, the second halfof the 1960s was dominated by a new generation of actors, a new intelli-gentsia trying to make the reverse journey, starting at a position of initialindependence from the traditional institutions of the working class to onethat recognized them as revolutionary intellectuals.At this point, variouspossibilities opened up in terms of the degree of association with a revo-lutionary party that the intellectual was prepared to endorse.Either theyreturned to an earlier Marxist form of engagement (i.e., to Leninist formsand, in the case of Cuba, to a new dependence on the political), or theyrejected any engagement altogether.The idea of the intellectual s politicalcommitment received less and less attention and eventually becametaboo.Either way, the notion of the uniqueness of the Third World alsodied, with the political failure of attempts to ignite revolution from,among others, Cuba; thus, the question of the role of intellectuals tied tothis element no longer was important.It could not possibly have beenotherwise.As Gouldner (1975) and Bourdieu (1999) argue, intellectualsare a cultural bourgeoisie whose main capital is knowledge, which in turnmakes them a relatively autonomous social grouping prepared to alignwith one or more historical agents.This is partly why in the 1960s theyattached themselves to the Third World, seeking new answers to theeternal search for a role both universally valid and ethically satisfying.Yet,in their dialogue, they could only revert to the language, models of ratio-nality, and discourse of the West.This page intentionally left blankChap t er 9Conclusion: Cuba sNew Dawn, Part IIThe 1960s represented the birth of many nation states in Africa and Asiathrough a process of decolonization that gave them the opportunity tojoin either the capitalist or the socialist systems.Alternatively, the newlydecolonized nations could, as Cuba attempted to do, create their owncoalition of countries in a Third World bloc.On the whole, by the end ofthe decade, this idea failed to embody an alternative model of develop-ment with a single global political presence, and the individual countriesthat for a while dreamed of this possibility had to choose between the twodominant camps, including Cuba that by 1972 was formally part of theSoviet area of influence.The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s put in jeopardy theideological certainties as well as the economic survival of the Revolutionthat Cubans were accustomed to during the 1970s and 1980s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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