The Myth of the Perpetual Revolution
By Fernando Dámaso
Translating Cuba
November 29, 2017

Maintaining the concept of “perpetual revolution” is convenient for government authorities because, in this way, those who do not agree with them are not against the government, but against the “revolution,” that entelechy turned into a myth, and confused by most of the citizens with the Nation and the Fatherland. It is a primitive formula that has given good results for sixty years.

Revolution is simply a violent change in the political, social or economic structures of a State. Nation is a human community generally established in the same territory, united by historical, linguistic, religious and cultural traditions and economic ties to a greater or lesser degree. The difference between the two is notable.

All revolutions have a beginning and an end, totally unrelated to the wishes of those who execute them: in the case of political, social or economic revolutions, they begin with the assault on the established power and end with the institutionalization of the new power. They are ephemeral phenomena, although their consequences and effects extend over time, beyond the periods of their own existence. The Cuban Revolution is no exception: it existed only during the transition stage.

To speak of the Cuban Revolution today, as if it were still a current event, and even worse of the “Revolutionary Government of Cuba,” as it is often written in official statements, in addition to referring to something that does not exist, is illegal, since, what the Constitution recognizes is the Government of the Republic of Cuba. It seems that this absurdity responds to the need that the “old revolutionaries” have to maintain their “histories” and to defend their old conceptions, without daring to insert themselves in the present.

They are addicted to the little word (economic, agricultural, industrial, educational, cultural and other revolutions), although over time, despite having tried to erase the so-called bourgeois period, changing the political, social and economic structures, and also the names of many towns, companies, businesses, and health, educational, cultural and other centers, as well as plazas, parks, avenues and streets, they have become well-off leaders and officials, with higher standards of living than those of the bourgeois they fought, with the difference that the old bourgeois lived off their own resources while the well-off leaders and officials live at the expense of the people’s resources.

They will continue to call themselves “revolutionaries” until the end of their days, but their revolution has long since ceased to exist.