W obleganej twierdzy każde odstępstwo jest zdradą”. Polityka władz kubańskich wobec środowisk twórczych i intelektualnych po 1959 roku

Abstract

„In a besieged fortress, all dissidence is treason.” Cuban government policy towards artists and intellectual circles after 1959

This article is an attemptto presentthe Cuban government policy towards art­ists and intellectual circles after 1959. The cultural policy of the Cuban regime focused on adjusting all intellectual and artistic activity to the only valid ideology. In the years 1959-1965, the artists and intellectuals were compelled to join institutions controlled by the government. The freedom of thought and creation was subordinated to the dictate of the State: defense of revolution and construction of socialism. Individuals unwillingto cooperate, distantfrom the ideał of the "revolutionary subject” or demonstrating critical attitude automatically became interior enemies that were persecuted and obliged to obey. In the end of the 1980’s, with the fali of the social- ist błock, the hope for changes arose in Cuba. In response to awakening of intellec­tuals and dissidents, the government tightened the system of repression: in the Law 88, enacted in 1999, further sanctions against freedom of communication were introduced. The government increased persecution of independent journalists, human rights activists and authors of independent cultural initiatives. In 2003, 75 dissidents

-  most of them promoters of the Varela Project and members of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación - were arrested and sentenced to many years of imprisonment under the Law 88. The assuming of power by Raul Castro in July 2006 did notbring any change; on the contrary, persecutions were intensified. There is a growing number of Cubans sentenced on the charge of a "precriminal social danger”. In view of this, the government’s tolerance of marginal opposition in the "besieged fortress” - paradoxcally - may be simultaneously used as another method of spreading terror among Cuban citizens.