Fredo Arias-King*

If there was such a thing as “readiness” for a successful transition from communist rule, Cuba would be an almost-model case. Judging by the 28 post-communist countries (which, because of their wide diversity, can indeed be compared to Cuba) and how they’ve fared, we can draw an optimistic scenario.

The eight ingredients of probable success include:

One nation. Those countries that were largely mono-ethnic in post-communist Eurasia did better in their transition. Scholars speculate as to why, but it is easier for communist elites to practice the divide et impera principle with their subjects when they are from different groups—inciting Serbs against Albanians was how the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević launched his career to the big leagues, for example. Even though composed of many races, Cuba is considered one nation, which should, when the time comes, allow the people to change their rulers without worrying about ethnic infighting. This can put Cuba in the same league as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and other nations where there is a dominant titular nationality and a tradition of statehood.

Regime repressiveness. The repressive nature of the Cuban regime will act like a boomerang for its perpetrators. It will likely ensure that the democrats coming to power will exclude the previous elites. Of all the reforms adopted by transition leaders, this turned out to be the most crucial in retrospect. In a way, this gives justice to the Biblical axiom that “the last will be the first.” Those countries with the most Stalinist and draconian regimes, such as the Czechoslovakia of Gustav Husák and Soviet Estonia, also had the most successful transitions. The reason being that there was little in the way of overlap and negotiations when the communist party just collapsed, leaving the reformers room to dismantle the previous regime with gusto. Where the regimes were not as repressive toward the end of their rule, such as in Poland during the round-table negotiations, the Hungary of Gyula Horn, and the USSR during glasnost and perestroika, many reformers had the “well, these-guys-are-not-so-bad-after-all” syndrome and ended up including several of them. This proved counter-productive, since the regime survived underneath the veneer of democracy and made spectacular comebacks in all cases: 1993 in Poland, 1994 in Hungary and 2000 in Russia. In a way, Fidel Castro’s obduracy is doing a favor to the future Cuban reformers. There will be few voices in the Island in favor of leaving the communist elites or their privileges in place.

Civil society and alternative elites. Success in Eastern Europe also came in those countries where the democratic forces had a cadre of people who had organized while in opposition, and were therefore ready to take over the reins of government. Where the communist regime ended by default and without consistent and organized civil society opposition (as in Central Asia), the communists found it easy to stay in power under different appellations—such as “national patriotic” or “social democratic” ones. On the other hand, in Poland, Solidarity had ten million members in its apex; the Karabakh Committee in Armenia also had upwards of 100,000; Sąjūdis in Lithuania perhaps another 200,000; etc. Under very repressive circumstances, the Varela Project managed to garner over 20,000 signatures, which is significant. In similarly repressive Czechoslovakia, Charter 77 had one-tenth that strength. That, however, was more than Václav Havel needed to form a good government—the main chartists became ministers after the transition.

Active diaspora. While most accounts curiously consider this a negative phenomenon in the Cuban case (echoing the regime’s official propaganda), in fact diasporas provided many benefits for the captive nations of Europe and their transformation—but only when they accepted their sidekick role to a genuinely democratic government. Diasporas from the Western nations provided many experts that the domestic democrats lacked, which was a perfect compliment. The successful military and security services of the Baltic states were created by American, Canadian and West-European experts of Baltic origin. The most successful privatization, Estonia’s, was the work of an Estonian-Swede who also happened to be a former manager of ABBA. In Ukraine, returning co-ethnics (including President Viktor Yuschenko’s current wife) were important in training civil society and in nation-building—as they held Ukrainian national values that had been nearly buried by Stalin and successors. Madeleine Albright, who presided over the incorporation of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary into NATO in 1999, had been the head of the Czechoslovak Society of America and had helped dissidents during communist times. The Armenian diaspora overall played a positive role, but some of the more nationalistic-minded ones intervened too directly in the domestic politics during Levon Ter Petrossian’s presidency, mostly over his overtures to normalize relations with Turkey. But this is virtually the only example of conflict between a democratic government and a diaspora. In the rest, diasporas helped not only to liberate, but to consolidate the post-communist gains. Cuba’s large diaspora has the knowledge and the money, and as long as it understands that theirs will be a supporting role in the coming transformation, things should be more than fine.

Geography and history. It was harder for new states to consolidate democracy right after their liberation. Whereas the Czechs, Estonians, Poles and Hungarians had memories (and the actual constitutions and legal codes) of their pre-communist statehoods, in Slovakia, Ukraine, Croatia and Moldova, among others with no prior memories of independent statehood, the communist elites could hijack the transition since state-building was considered the priority over democracy-building. Cuba of course belongs in the first group, and, while late for Latin America, it did have a solid history of independence, a liberal constitution, and a distinct identity that can help it navigate a successful transition. Cuba is a Western country in the geographical and cultural sense. Hopefully, it can use its transition to successfully navigate out of not only communism, but the also-pernicious latinoamericanismo—so well described in the book Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano or in the more recent Intento de psicoanálisis del homo hispanus. In addition, challenging geographies put some reformers at a disadvantage in Easter Europe. Consider Philip Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Havel, who did his best to reform the economy but faced many challenges since his country happened to be separated from Europe by the Yugoslavian civil war. Or consider Hrant Bagratyan, whose radical reforms in Armenia succeeded despite a de-facto war with Azerbaijan and its isolation and blockade by Turkey, and whose real only outlet was Iran (talk about a bad neighborhood!). Cuba is blessed geographically: An island nation surrounded by friendly countries, including the most powerful economy in the world. Hopefully Cuba will not take this for granted and slack in its reforms, since a period of very fast annual economic growth after whatever form of transition comes is virtually guaranteed.

Economic structure. Cuba is not an industrialized country, unlike several of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. When the communist-era managers took over the industries in those countries after botched privatizations, they created a strong financial and political base to negatively affect further reforms, essentially privatizing the state as well and preventing genuine enterprises from emerging. Even if the Cuban communist elites privatize to themselves the few industries, and assuming that the new reform government tolerates this move, Cuba will likely create a new economy quickly which will surpass the old industrial base, allowing new entrepreneurs to make money without a nefarious political project attached to that money. A diverse economy will prevent a re-imposition of the old elites, which may have an initial advantage in the new market economy (as they always do), but given the right reforms, that artificial advantage will erode.

International community prepared. Not only will Cuba be the only transition of its kind chronologically (unless North Korea just happens to collapse at the same time), thereby receiving the focus and attention it needs, but also the international community is much better prepared than in 1989-91 to assist it. The sheer number of countries liberating themselves from communism in Eurasia proved overwhelming for outsiders, which were in any case little prepared to assist. Inevitably, only those fortunate enough to have a loud diaspora or friends in very high places in the West, could get the needed attention. Speaking to transition leaders from that era, one is taken aback by how alone they were, oftentimes ignored by the main outside actors that should have been helping them. What’s worse, the international community was confused as to what to do, and would give contradictory advice. The IMF actually told the Estonians to not leave the Russian ruble zone (fortunately that advice fell on deaf ears). Others told them not to conduct a purge of the old elites. Incredibly, the reformist government of Yegor Gaidar in Russia in 1992 did not get any assistance for its transformation from President Bush senior, even though he provided it (barely) to Poland. Now however, it is much clearer what needs to be done. A cadre of transition leaders formed the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba to provide their expertise, and the U.S. State Department has an office dedicated to the Cuban transition.

Leftist non-communist forces. The most successful transitions in Eastern Europe began with a government from the democratic Right—a mixture of classic liberals and anti-communist patriots. However, they mostly forgot to also take over the left in the political spectrum, leaving that wide open for the communists to cynically rename themselves “social democrats” and wait for the pendulum to swing their way, as it inevitably did in Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Hungary and Albania. However, those democratic forces coming to power that also formed a genuine social-democratic party from among their ranks (again, the Czechs and Estonians) have not witnessed a return of the communists (who remain Stalinist and marginalized), but a healthy alternation between center-Right and center-Left democrats. Cuba also has some genuine social-democratic forces, such as the party led by Vladimiro Roca, an ex political prisoner. If the Cuban democrats manage to realize that the fall of the communist regime is not the end—but only the beginning—of a transition, the democrats of all ideologies should continue to coordinate between them so as to completely wipe out communist power, and only then start the healthy democratic debate between them. The worst they can do—which happened often in Eastern Europe—is to start bickering right away before they dissolve the vestiges of the previous regime. It was not unusual to see former democratic political allies using the communist secret services against one another for short-term advantage. Hopefully, the Right and the democratic Left in Cuba will realize they can have the whole political spectrum just to themselves—gently relegating the communists to the ash heap of history.

Conclusion

These factors should be enough to carry the day when the regime breaks and there is a transition. Castro and his regime have certainly learned from the collapse of their comrades, and are probably aware how precarious their situation is once their time is up. Unlike in Poland, where the (re-named) communists remained a force in politics, the Cuban communists are likely to go the way of the Czech and Estonian ones.

However, there is one major pitfall that Cubans and their friends need to keep in mind, and that is Cuba’s presidential system. This can be harmful to transitions, since the president after the election becomes unaccountable and can easily be coopted by rent-seeking elites, including from the previous regime. The most successful transitions in Eurasia were more parliamentary systems than presidential. A prime minister that does not please his or her allies can be removed from office at any time, and this keeps them focused and loyal to the original cause. Presidents, on the other hand, become wary and ambitious “fathers of the nation” and begin to stray from their allies and original platforms. Some of the biggest failures and missed opportunities of transitions were presidential systems: Boris Yeltsin, Viktor Yuschenko, Emil Constantinescu, Vojislav Koštunica, Ebulfez Elçibey. They acted very similarly to Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua and Vicente Fox in Mexico to leave the previous regime intact, implement minimal reforms and miss other opportunities that eventually made them political fossils and froze their countries into a mediocre limbo. The only presidential system that conducted a successful transition was Czechoslovakia under Havel (late 1989 to 1992). But Havel is unique in more ways than one—we must assume that this was the exception that proves the rule. Unfortunately, Cuba is likely to become a presidential system and one can surmise that the new leader will not act like Havel, but instead like Yuschenko, in the worst-case (yet typical) scenario.

Even if the new president becomes another Vicente Fox, in any case anything is better than the current system. After all, even hijacked transitions that alternated with lame reformers, such as the pathetic Iliescu-Constantinescu pairing in Romania, became members of the EU. While no Estonia, Romania is certainly much better than it was under Ceauşescu. Even a failed transition is better than no transition for Cuba. In any case, the factors in favor of success are worth remembering, because Cuba is indeed over-ripe for a successful transition. Those pushing for it should be confident of this fact and act decisively.

*Fredo Arias-King is the founder of the academic journal Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of the Post-Soviet Democratization, published since 1992 in Washington. Between March 1999 and July 2000 he was a foreign affairs advisor to the National Action Party (PAN) of Mexico. He also advised the democratic forces in Moldova, Russia, Peru, Cuba, Belarus and the Ukraine. He writes on transitions to democracy and has published two books, the second of which, Transiciones: Las lecciones de Europa del Este, was published by CADAL in Buenos Aires in 2005.