Anti-Bureaucracy Slogans in Havana Parade

Dmitri Prieto

Foto: Jimmy Roque Martínez

HAVANA TIMES, May 2 – A group of activists of the Critical Observatory Solidarity Network participated in the International Workers Day march in Revolution Square in the Cuban capital.

The activists carried several improvised posters with slogans against the bureaucracy and in support of the workers.  The content of the signs was agreed to by group consensus on the eve of the activity.

One of the posters displayed a large “@” symbol, alluding to the need for digital connection to articulate the struggles for greater freedom and to communicate the messages of diverse movements committed to addressing the social problems in Cuba and around the planet.  Another representative banner specified “Socialism is Democracy – Dump the Bureaucracy!”

“Socialism is Democracy – Dump the Bureaucracy!” - foto: Jimmy Roque Martínez

Along the route, groups of youth, workers, students and athletes taking part in the march joined with the activists of Critical Observatory, who also entered into fraternal dialogue with other participants in the march.  The group livened up the crowd with a conga line in which mottos consistent with the ideas of the Observatory were chanted.

For this network of groups and cultural initiatives that defends the rights of human beings and the planet, it is essential to promote critical commitment in the defense of the Cuban Revolution – a revolution that we seek to free of all its conformist ballast and that we understand as the self-organization of society “from below.”

The recovery of the popular content of the Cuban revolutionary process and the construction of a culture allowing the emancipation of creative work against all forms of capitalist and bureaucratic control constitutes the main objective of the Critical Observatory.  Those elements were the ethical foundation of the group’s active participation in this year’s Havana May Day march.

Dimitri Prieto-Samsonov

Dmitri Prieto-Samsonov: I define myself as being either Cuban-Russian or Russian-Cuban, indiscriminately. I was born in Moscow in 1972 of a Russian mother and a Cuban father. I lived in the USSR until I was 13, although I was already familiar with Cuba-- where we would take our vacation almost every year. I currently live on the fifth floor of an apartment building in Santa Cruz del Norte, near the sea. I’ve studied biochemistry and law in Havana and anthropology in London. I’ve written about molecular biology, philosophy and anarchism, although I enjoy reading more than writing. I am currently teaching in the Agrarian University of Havana. I believe in God and in the possibility of a free society. Together with other people, that’s what we’re into: breaking down walls and routines.

4 thoughts on “Anti-Bureaucracy Slogans in Havana Parade”

  • Communism is at its most developed when there is no longer a communist party, and a merit-based communal democracy, where all people take part in choosing the wisest managers.

  • Popular communism!

  • Maybe the only hope for Cuba! I am eager to find out how I can help the Observatory. But I want to be sure that there is no underlying “free-market” oxymorons involved. I am especially supportive of the internet declaration, as free flowing communications and aggregation of council planning requires highly accessible informatics infrastructure. I had an opportunity to send hundreds of P4s and better to Cuba but the importation bureaucracy is impossible.

    In the highly educated Cuban society that has been delivered thus far by the revolution, there is no longer any excuse not to turn real power over to popular participatory planning. The bureaucracy is preventing a culture of meaningful involvement and is therefor having to turn more to market reforms to induce incentives for production. This is a betrayal of the revolution! The bureaucrats are thus the first enemies of the revolution. All real communists should support the Observatory call. Down with the coordinator class!

  • That is beautiful! I think it is great to see those examples fighting to improve to revolution and not just blindly accept what have happen so far.

    Greetings from Sweden!

    /Sebastian

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