Marxism lite: Cuba’s new constitution

Cuba’s 86.85% yes vote for its new constitution falls a little short of those 99.99% election endorsements rigged up by Fidel Castro and his friends in the old Soviet Union.

In this week’s referendum, there were at least some voters — 700,000 of them — who felt sufficiently free to mark the no box or spoil their ballot papers. That’s quite an achievement for a plebiscite in which only the government was permitted to campaign.

Observers who want to see significant steps towards the creation of a system resembling a democracy on the island will see little cause for celebration.

Yes, the new structure recognises habeas corpus, private property and the interests of foreign investors.

It resembles China’s updated Marxism: Capitalism is good, as long as the state can control it. And when it comes to the state, the new-look constitution is simply a re-statement of the old one, the only permitted party being the Communist one. People, it reads, can “reach full dignity” only through “socialism and communism”. Fidel’s legacy endures.