Cuba: The Revolution in Peril (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 157 boundaries, state function, and other crucial issues beyond the single issue of abolishing apartheid. Indeed this book gives credence to each movement's willingness to take on a new challenge, whether as one movement or two, but always on good terms. Its emergence under the seeming auspices of approval may also serve as one of the most significant indicators that the apartheid state will not survive. Let us hope. Cuba: The Revolution in Peril. By Janette Harbel. Translated by Jon Barnes. London: Verso, 1991. 241 pp. $34.95/Hardcover. Reviewed by Carlos Maxwell, M.A. Candidate, SAIS. Luís Aguilar de León, a renowned scholar of Cuban history, has noted that most of the literature on the Cuban Revolution is divided between two ideological camps. To him, conservative and liberal political analysts either decry Castro's authoritarian and Marxist nature or support him and the revolution because of its leadership in the Third World. Harbel's book, Cuba: The Revolution in Peril, is clearly in the latter camp and, unfortunately for the reader, the author becomes caught up in her own socialist rhetoric, giving rise to unsophisticated analysis. She summarily blames the continued United States embargo on Cuba and changes in the now disbanded Soviet Union for current problems in Cuba. Nevertheless, her criticisms of the revolution and Castro's surrounding clique take Harbel beyond the corpus of socialist literature on the Cuban Revolution. While frequently accurate, her criticism is often diluted by her biases and devotion to socialism. She consequently fails to delve deeply into the Cuban revolution and the problems it faces today. In essence, Harbel is entangled by the polemics over Cuba and can not seem to free herself from them. According to Harbel, Cuba suffers from the bureaucratization of Castro's revolution. To her, the government has lost its ideological zeal personified by leaders like Ché Guevara. Programs instituted during the early eighties were attempts to alleviate Cuba's economic problems and bring back the revolution's idealism. According to Harbel, however, these pseudo-capitalistic programs only made things worse. They contributed not to economic growth and revolutionary vitality but to a social inequality and corruption that has come to threaten Castro's legitimacy only today. In effect, she implies that these social problems disappeared after the revolution and have only recently surfaced because of Castro's poorly conceived economic reforms. To Harbel, then, the only way to solve Cuba's ills is not through the "seductions of perestroika," but through more socialism and dedication to the ideals of the revolution. Furthermore, Harbel believes that the recent changes occurring in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have threatened Castro's government. In fact, Harbel seems quite bitter about these changes because ofthe resulting challenges Cuba will have to face. Many scholars and world leaders have concluded that these revolutions have marked the end of socialism in Europe and are thus a prelude to Castro's own fall. She writes, however, that the changes in Eastern Europe are merely attacks on stagnant bureaucracies and not against socialism 158 SAISREVIEW per se. Today's changes, while apparently threatening, will be overcome in the future by a return to socialism in a more politically democratic form. Consequently , Harbel advocates a purer form of socialism for Cuba and a restoration of Guevara's Utopian programs to build a "new Cuban man." While naive and idealistic in her attitudes towards the changes in Europe, Harbel does rightly suggest that Castro's rule by force has been damaging and contrary to the dictates of socialism. While she says "no to perestroika," she encourages glasnost in Cuba. Harbel believes that political democracy is necessary for the revolution's revitalization. Castro's continued obstinacy, however, is not fully investigated by Harbel. In fact, she neglects the possibility that political democracy in Cuba may bring on Castro's fall and the end of the revolution. Instead, she only discusses how the revolution's ossification has threatened workers' and women's rights and has brought on the need for an allinclusive system of economic planning. A discussion that does not at least question Castro's legitimacy makes for an incomplete analysis of...