From 1959 to today, which has allowed Castroism to face and overcome each crisis has not been fortune, but its ability to survive.
Havana.- I read a few days ago Cubanet A job by Efraín González entitled The “luck” of Castroismcommented and I agree with my colleague in his approaches, but not with that idea of ”luck”: I would call it rather “ability to survive.”
The dictionary Larousse Define luck as: “Chain of events; good or bad fortune that indicates possibility, eventuality, chance, that is, without depending on any physical or material circumstance”. Instead, skill is: “Capacity, intelligence for a thing”. That difference is essential.
The thesis of Efraín González is that it is difficult for the Cuban regime to fall even if the Chavismo of Nicolás Maduro collapses, because, as happened in the past, Castroism has managed to maneuver in each crisis to cling to power, always imposing itself by force. And he doesn’t lack reason. When the socialist field collapsed and the Soviet Union disintegrated, Castroism found a way to survive.
In these 66 years, its ability to destabilize democracies in Latin America has been remarkable. First, through support for guerrilla movements, and then supporting leftist parties that, after reaching power by electoral roads, have been undermining the institutions until they become authoritarian regimes. The case of Nicolás Maduro is the clearest example.
Venezuela is vital for Havana: it guarantees oil, money for medical missions and benefits through murky businesses with the Los Soles poster. But, if Caracas falls, Castroism will look for another subsistence route, as it has already done before.
González’s article recalls the connection of the regime with drug trafficking during the dictatorship of Manuel Antonio Noriega in Panama, a link that ended in the famous cause No. 1 of 1989: the general Arnaldo OchoaColonel Antonio de la Guardia and other officers were shot, sacrificed by Fidel Castro to evade accusations of drug trafficking and avoid a possible military intervention in the United States.
The history of Castroism is marked by its ability to survive. Survived failures such as Moncada and the landing of Granma; He resisted the invasion of bay of pigs and the crisis of missiles; The American embargo cape; He endured the catastrophe of the Ten million harvest and the collapse of the Soviet subsidy after the disintegration of the USSR.
For six decades the regime has remained afloat thanks to strategic alliances: first with Moscow, then with the Chavez Venezuela, and more recently with Russia, China and other related governments, moved by economic interests, ideological affinities and political loyalties.
History is not explained with miracles, but with causes and consequences. What looks like “luck” is actually calculation, maneuver and opportunism. From 1959 to today, which has allowed Castroism to face and overcome each crisis has not been fortune, but its ability to survive.
I agree with the analysis of Efraín González, but I observe it from another angle: everything that happened in these 66 years – and even before, from the Moncada, the Granma and the Sierra Maestra – responds to historical causes that derived in this long and funesto regime. A system that Fidel Castro defined how “Revolution for the humble and for the humble”but that in practice has become the opposite.
