“Popular participation in every essential measure”: The Influence of Cuban Mass Political Participation on State Economic and Labour Policy

From the Cuban Revolution’s successful conquest of political power in 1959 right through to the present day, the practice of democracy in Cuba has been an issue of enduring polarisation. While some look to Cuba as an example of proletarian, participatory democracy in action, the more mainstream view, at least in the Western world, has appraised Cuba as politically unfree and undemocratic: a citizenry held in a tight grip by an all-powerful Communist Party. For a host of different reasons that cannot be explored here in much depth, this article is broadly sympathetic to the former’s interpretation of Cuba’s political system. To summarise, it is my view that the charges that Cuba is “undemocratic” can be attributed to either an erroneous theoretical belief that Cuba’s avowed form of democracy cannot in fact deliver democracy, or a misunderstanding of how the Cuban political system functions. It is not for this article to reckon with the challenges to Cuba’s democratic character in a general sense – other works have in my judgement already dealt adequately with these – but rather to