Joaquín Bustelo on Marxism and Religion (2006)

Í wanted to interject a couple of thoughts into the Marxism and religion debate, in particular around the Cuban case.

I think it is particularly important to see the Cuban CP's decision to drop atheism as a requirement of membership in its historical context.

That historical context was the collapse of the "really existing socialism" bureaucratic regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR. In that context, the question that was posed for Cuba was, can we remain a "socialist country" (as the Cubans use the term, what many on this list might call a workers state).

The answer I think will surprise people. Because it wasn't "sí se puede," yes it can be done, but rather, WE DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER CHOICE. Either Cuba remains socialist OR it stops being Cuba, it will be swallowed by the United States. And this reality was recognized not just by Cuba, but by the United States. The laws passed by the U.S. Congress in the 1990's (Cuban Democracy Act and so on) were openly and shamelessly ANNEXATIONIST, down to detailed instructions on election procedures who could (or couldn't) be a candidate and so on.

BEFORE the mid-1980's, at least, Cuba did not view the fundamental axis of its political challenges in such stark terms. Cuba viewed itself as part of a working-class bloc of countries (true, a very messed up bloc) but Cuba's attitude was like that of a local revolutionary union leadership that was part of a reformist national union. They took initiatives to push the national union as far as they could, and their own initiatives OUTSIDE the framework of the "national union." And of course Cuba viewed itself as part of the Third World of oppressed peoples battling colonialism and neocolonialism, and acted in the same sort of way in that "bloc".

But AFTER 1989, once the question was posed in terms of survival of the nation, that raised the question of how should the Cuban Communist Party define itself as the guiding political force of the nation, as the maximum expression of the *national movement.* The conclusion that inescapably follows is that either the party is open to ALL patriots who recognize that "socialism" (again, as the term is used in Cuba) is the only possible way for the nation to survive, or it becomes a *faction* of the national movement, and not the expression of its most conscious and advanced elements *AS A WHOLE.*

THAT is where the decision came from, there and the conviction that UNITY OF THE NATION was the most important weapon in its battle for survival. There was not just a drive by the leadership to stop discrimination against believers (and not just and not mainly Catholics but also followers of Santería, especially among Cuban Blacks), but also to counter social prejudices against gays and what seems to have been, as best as I can piece together, something like a "don't ask, don't tell" or perhaps "look the other way" policy in relation to party membership.

I do not believe that there is any question but that dropping the ban on believers is an entirely ORTHODOX application of the Marxist method, DESPITE what Lenin (and Marx before him in the Critique of the Gotha program) wrote. The reason people believe that some all-powerful but fundamentally unknowable force called "God" controls their fate is because that is the way that society presents itself to them. The key to eliminating religious THINKING is to do away with the alienation of people from their social existence.

As Marx wrote:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions."

For Marx, "Religion is the opium of the people" because it is a PAIN KILLER. And Dr. Marx's prescription was not to withdraw the opium and let people tough it out, but to DO AWAY WITH THE PAIN. This is not an "ideological" struggle, a "battle of ideas," to use the Cuban phrase, but a MATERIAL one. What Marx was saying is that the only REAL way to combat religion is to eliminate the social conditions that make it not just possible, but *necessary.*

The Cuban Revolution is not only far removed from being able to do away with the pain, it is very clear that the Cuban Revolution, in and of itself, cannot do away with the pain, that two or three Cuban revolutions cannot do away with the pain, that the PREcondition for people figuring out how to eliminate the chasm between human beings and human society is the elimination of capitalism on a world scale.

Thus what is the correct, Marxist, i.e., materialist decision for Cuba to make? The Cubans say their decision is to unite all who can be united in the political struggle against imperialism whatever their religious/philosophical views. This is not an abstract, theoretical question of "principles" but a practical, political question of the consciousness among advanced layers or Cuban workers and patriots.

People can and SHOULD draw lessons and generalizations from this Cuban experience, but that doesn't mean that the Cuban decision was the "application" of some general principle or law or guideline, because it was not. It was a concrete political response to a specific political question. At the heart of it was an understanding of the revolution as a fundamentally and *irreducibly* national revolution, even at this stage, several decades AFTER the seizure of power.

Joaquín



http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2006-August/002800.html