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Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Social control in Cuba, and elsewhere

After our discussion earlier this week about Castro and Cuba, this article caught my attention: Castro's Tactics of Control in Cuba by José Ramón Ponce Solozábal Military Review (US Army) July-Aug 2006. An earlier, Spanish version is available: Las Tácticas Empleadas y Elaboradas para el Control de la Ciudadanía Military Review Edición Hispanoamericana Julio-Agosto 2005. The English version is a revised version.

Ponce is evidently a refugee who worked in Cuban countintelligence. After our recent experience with Ahmad Chalabi's merry band of Iraqi refugees, appropriate cautions are in order. This from the opening page doesn't recommend his political-science type judgments too highly in itself:

U.S. complacency [in Latin American policy] about went hand-in-hand with the apparent assumption that Cuba's Fidel Castro had shriveled into permanent irrelevance, having devolved into a mere anachronism of the cold war, an obsolete curiosity and relic of failed Socialism on the junk heap of history. Unfortunately, to the unpleasant surprise of many in the U.S. government, it is now quite apparent that Castro was cleverer than anyone had given him credit for. Not only has he survived the widespread collapse of global communism to become the virtual ideological world leader of what remains of the communist faithful, but he has emerged as the leading ideological leader in the Western Hemisphere. As such, he plays an increasingly dominant shaping role in hemispheric politics, aided and abetted in large measure by continuing U.S. indifference to the region. This is evidenced by resurgent regional interest in his methods for taking power and for governing, both of which are being emulated and promoted to ever wider and more sympathetic audiences as alternatives to "democratic capitalism" linked to "international trade agreements." The most notable current champions of Castroism are Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's President Evo Morales.

The last sentence is particularly unconvincing. Let's see, Castro came to power through a guerrilla war and has run a one-party government since 1960 with far-reaching restrictions on public debate and dissent. Chavez and Morales came to power through, well, competitive democratic elections. The kind that it's supposed the policy of the Cheney-Bush administration to impose on the countries of the Middle East by bullets, bombs and torture. I'm not sure how that counts as "Castroism".

But he does make a couple of points there that are significant. One is that, unlike the Soviet Union itself and the Eastern European "people's democracies", the Communist regime in Cuba has survived, even though it was particularly dependent on Soviet economic aid in various forms.

In addition, Castro has become "the leading ideological leader in the Western Hemisphere", according to Ponce. Dick Cheney will be disappointed to hear that, I'm sure. And even if that evaluation is overblown, he is pointed to the reality that Castro and his government do enjoy a significant regard among many Latin Americans. Even if we think that evaluation is mistaken, it's worthwhile recognizing some of the sources of it.

Ponce's article is focused in particular on the means that the Cuban regime has used to maintain itself in power. Some of it is stated very generally, which makes it subject to contradictory interpretations. But some of his observations are interesting in a more general sense than using them to figure out ways to make life harder for Latin American regimes who displease the Bush dynasty. To a large extent, his article is about marketing from the standpoint of a government.

This is an intriguing observation about a goal of regime propaganda :

Provide a unifying cosmic paradigm that satisfies all groups. For example, Nazism and Communism were distinct from other political ideologies because their proponents recognized that political ideology alone was unlikely to achieve much without the addition of "spiritual" content. Emulating this strategy, Castro’s regime set itself apart from the relatively weak Communist movements of Eastern Europe, which abandoned any spiritual or emotional appeals to the masses in favor of rational persuasion.

As a result, those movements lost their fanatical adherents and leaders and then their general psychological hold over the people. (By way of comparison, similar emphasis on promoting the "spiritual" component of fundamentalist Islamic extremism appears to be a prime motivating factor for adherents of the faith that is fueling global terrorism.)

I could think of other examples in which fundamentalist spiritual propaganda is used to bolster support for a particular regime or cause.

And, of course, when you're marketing something, market research is always helpful:

The government spends an enormous amount of time collecting public-opinion information based on the premise that it cannot influence, control, or direct a population if it does not know what the people are thinking and doing. Analysis of this knowledge guides follow-on action. a totalitarian society, such information is usually obtained by posting agents and informants in the community. The Cuban government sponsors two kinds of extensive data collection efforts: structured and incidental. The former describes collection from agents and observers who routinely circulate through communities to collect observations. latter occurs when observers are sent to collect data associated with a concrete and current situation, normally one involving a conflict.

Ponce says that "the major objective of all totalitarian regimes [is] absolute political power by asserting total control over every aspect of a population’s social, political, economic, and moral life." James Dobson? Dick Cheney? Karl Rove? Are you listening here? Did you entince Ponce to leave Cuba to be a Republican political consultant?

This is also a reminder that even a non-democratic government has to maintain some kind of base of public support; Saddam Hussein's reliance on the Sunni miniority and the tribal clans from his own Tikrit area is an example.

This summary of Cuban history is informative:

Cuba was the only Latin American country to fight continually against Spanish colonialism (for over 100 years) to gain its independence. However, following the end of Spanish rule, Cuba’s attempts at establishing a democracy were constantly interrupted by political instability and civil unrest that persisted into the 1920’s and early 30’s (and which, unfortunately, was abetted by the U.S.’s ill-advised meddling). During this process, the bloody, tyrannical government that assumed power in the early 20th century was ousted by a popular insurrection that aimed once more at establishing a democracy. However, the democratic forces were again thwarted in 1952 by dictator Fulgencio Batista, who seized power by coup d’état, promising to establish democracy.

Instead, he proved to be an especially cruel and exploitative tyrant. So onerous and corrupt was Batista’s rule that his government fell easily in the late 1950s when challenged by the relatively modest but persistent insurgency led by Fidel Castro, another charismatic but utterly self-possessed dictator who, like Batista, came to power promising democracy, but on assuming power reneged on his commitment.

In contrast to the short-sighted venality that characterized Batista, Castro was a much shrewder analyst of the tide of human events. Unlike Batista, who lived to exploit the populace to support his own luxurious lifestyle, Castro lived for acquiring power. To this end, he followed a strategy of first consolidating power by currying favor with the Cuban middle and lower economic classes, followed later by implementing more extreme measures to consolidate total psychological and moral control over the rest of the population once power was firmly in his hands. (my emphasis)

But however close or far away the Cuban regime is from "total psychological and moral control", a government still has to find a way to maintain a social base, even if its a relatively narrow one.

For some reason, the following marketing techniques sound awfully familiar:

* Repeat slogans and mottos over and over until they reify, becoming established in the popular mind as axiomatic “common knowledge.”

* Create heroes and martyrs. The essence of propaganda is creating a mythos typified by people who can be held up to the masses as exemplars of the movement’s ideals.

* Create villains to serve as scapegoats and counterpoints to the heroes and martyrs. This exploits the natural human tendency to defend the herd from an external enemy. The identification of villains strengthens the cohesion and unity of the masses, stimulating and focusing their collective anger while sowing discord in the ranks of the movement’s opponents.

Part of the article talks about the ways to use demonstrations and mass gatherings. I'm not sure how much of this may apply much more to Latin American countries than to the US, though I'm not quite sure why. I heard on the radio yesterday that supporters the "left" candidate for Mexican President, who believes along with his supporters that the recent election was stolen from him, were having mass demonstrations and blocking off streets and such things. I do wish the Democratic Party had a little more of that attitude in 2000 when the Scalia Five handed the Presidency to Dick Cheney - with a major assist from our mainstream media and their atrocious role in the campaign.

I was also fascinated by Ponce's brief description of the role of community institutions:

These organizations are directed and controlled at different levels, some locally, some nationally, and some by the head of state himself. Community organizations active in Cuba include the Revolutionary Defense Committees (comprised of neighbors in each block who are willing to support the government and keep watch), the Federation of Cuban Women, trade unions (which in Cuba are formally chartered arms of the state Communist Party), the University Students Federation, and the High School Students among others.

Community organizations enable control over the population by-

* Rapidly mobilizing large numbers of people for mass demonstrations on behalf of the government.

* Conditioning behavior by compelling individuals to take part in events with which they might not agree. Cuba, individuals often participate in community organizations to avoid government scrutiny and trouble.

* Providing a ready force that, through effective management of its emotions, can be launched against opposition demonstrations.

* Neutralizing any possibility of the rise of opposition groups.

* Complementing the government’s ability to monitor what is happening in society even in obscure or insignificant locations.

* Providing a controlled and monitored outlet for organization members to express disagreement and feelings of helplessness. Unmonitored discontent could lead to recruitment of disaffected group members by opposition elements.

* Generating pro-government sentiments through affective association.

* Facilitating the government’s ability to meet the needs of the population in real as well as paternalistic
and disingenuous ways.

I can believe that some of these institutions play a repressive role by encouraging people to rat out dissenters. But I also have a strong hunch that these institutions play a much more contradictory role than that. Here in America, "town hall" democracy is mostly a nostalgic memory. Getting people out to a neighborhood watch or earthquake safety meeting is a real organizing accomplishment.

Ponce waits until last to say that one of their functions is to facilitate "the government’s ability to meet the needs of the population in real as well as paternalistic and disingenuous ways." In other words, there is likely to be a significant, grassroots-democratic side to these community organizations. That could mean that some of them could provide a base for pushing Cuba to a more democratic form of national government. Or, if we use Ponce's questionable term, to the type of "Castroism" that Venezuela and Bolivia and other Latin American governments practice.

It is also worth remembering that, democratic or not, those community groups could also be effective foundations for organizing resistance to a foreign occupier.

Ponce makes that point more clearly in his conclusion, where he says:

The success achieved in a number of countries and regions where rigorous socio-psychological methods have been applied to control, influence, and direct the population shows that mastery of this knowledge is indispensable for anyone who seriously aspires to leading or managing large groups of people. These methods can help establish a stable system of government, or they can be used to disrupt and destabilize a society prior to a grab for power. Properly applied, they can also render a society nearly impervious to outside influence.

The antidote for extreme measures of authoritarian control is to shore up social mores and formal political institutions that promote the free and open expression of ideas and opinions. Among these are inculcating by law and ethical instruction at all levels of society respect for the personal moral rights to openly criticize the regime in power without fear of retribution, and to personally participate in the selection of those who are in power. (my emphasis)

The "antidote" may also apply to situations where less "extreme" measures are producing authoritarian results, as well.

For those who read Spanish, El Mundo has a blog that deals with Cuba, called Mi leña al fuego

posted at 11:21:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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