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The book interprets the Cuban revolutionary movement from 1868 to 1959 as a continuous process that sought political independence and social and economic transformation of colonial and neocolonial structures. Cuba is a symbol of hope for the Third World. The Cuban Revolution took power from a national elite subordinate to foreign capital, and placed it in the hands of the people; and it subsequently developed alternative structures of popular democracy that have functioned to keep delegates of the people in power. While Cuba has persisted, the peoples of the Third World, knocked down by the neoliberal project, have found social movement and political life, a renewal that is especially evident in Latin America and the Non-Aligned Movement. At the same time, the capitalist world-economy increasingly reveals its unsustainability, and the global elite demonstrate its incapacity to respond to a multifaceted and sustained global crisis. These dynamics establish conditions for popular democratic socialist revolutions in the North.
List of contents
1. The Global and Historical Context.- 2. The Cuban Anti-Colonial Revolution.- 3. The Failure of the Cuban Neocolonial Republic.- 4. The Taking of Power by the People.- 5. The Cuban Revolutionary Project.- 6. The Structural Crisis of the Neocolonial World-System.- 7. The Third World Project of National and Social Liberation.- 8. Socialism for the Twenty-First Century.- 9. Seeking a Just, Democratic and Sustainable World-System.- 10. Appendix: The Rise of Trump and the Failure of the Left.
About the author
Charles McKelvey is Professor Emeritus at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, USA. He currently lives in Havana, where he actively participates in Cuban intellectual life.
Summary
The book interprets the Cuban revolutionary movement from 1868 to 1959 as a continuous process that sought political independence and social and economic transformation of colonial and neocolonial structures. Cuba is a symbol of hope for the Third World. The Cuban Revolution took power from a national elite subordinate to foreign capital, and placed it in the hands of the people; and it subsequently developed alternative structures of popular democracy that have functioned to keep delegates of the people in power. While Cuba has persisted, the peoples of the Third World, knocked down by the neoliberal project, have found social movement and political life, a renewal that is especially evident in Latin America and the Non-Aligned Movement. At the same time, the capitalist world-economy increasingly reveals its unsustainability, and the global elite demonstrate its incapacity to respond to a multifaceted and sustained global crisis. These dynamics establish conditions for popular democratic socialist revolutions in the North.
