Research On The Theory And Practice Of Participatory Democracy In Cuba

Democracy is the ideal goal that human society pursues tirelessly.Any theory of democracy cannot avoid one of the most fundamental problems of modern politics: how to expand the orderly participation of citizens to promote the deepening of democracy and the all-round development of people?Around this core topic,different countries have created various modes of democratic theory and practice according to the actual requirement.As a new democratic paradigm in modern Western countries,participatory democracy revives the ideal and exploration of citizen participation and brings about the innovation of democratic mode.Although participatory democracy originated in the West,it is not exclusive to the West.Other countries can also learn from the achievements of human political civilization on the basis of integrating their own cultural traditions,historical experiences and actual national conditions,and independently explore the development path of participatory democracy in line with their own national conditions.As the only socialist country in the Western Hemisphere,Cuba has embarked on a path of socialist democracy with its own characteristics after the victory of its revolution.This paper attempts to conduct a comprehensive and systematic study on the generation and development of participatory democracy in Cuba from the combination of history and reality,theory and practice.Participatory democracy in Cuba is the democracy with deep theoretical and practical origins.On the one hand,Marxist democratic theory and Cuba’s native democratic thought provide an important theoretical source for Cuba,meanwhile,Cuba is also influenced by the world’s progressive political thought.On the other hand,participatory democracy in Cuba has been nurtured on the basis of multiple factors in the domestic and foreign environment.From the perspective of foreign development environment,Cuba’s participatory democracy is profoundly influenced by the trend of participatory democracy in the international community,and has deeply learned from the experience and lessons of the dramatic change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.A series of participatory democracy practices carried out by the Latin American left wing to seek alternative solutions of neoliberalism have also provided some inspiration for Cuba.At the domestic level,Cuba’s socialist regime,economic democracy for all,very diverse and inclusive culture,fair and equitable environment for social development have provided profound soil for its growth.Theoretically,participatory democracy in Cuba is the democracy with Marxism as its fundamental guiding ideology.In essence,it is an accurate expression of Cuban people’s democracy and that represents the fundamental interests of all the Cuban people.It advocates that under the framework of the people’s power system,the broad masses of the people can actively and orderly participate in the political and social life in all aspects and levels of the party and the state,forming a nationwide,comprehensive and whole-course democracy,which fully demonstrates the theoretical characteristics of participatory democracy in Cuba,and distinguish it from the Western participatory democracy.In practice,Cuba’s participatory democracy is a kind of democracy that is advanced in practice and endogenous based on practical needs.After the development stage of direct democracy,the establishment and continuous improvement of the people’s power system,Cuba’s participatory democracy has gradually taken shape and been enriched and improved in the democratic political reform.In order to realize people’s participation,Cuba has established direct election system,decision-making participation system,democratic consultation system and national supervision system to constantly ensure and expand the channels of people’s participation,so as to construct a democratic development path that combines direct democracy with indirect democracy,electoral democracy with decision-making democracy,macro-democracy with micro-democracy,and intra-party democracy with people’s democracy.In this process,Cuba has always adhered to the people’s participation as the core,constantly enriched the forms of democratic participation,improved the comprehensive and extensive system of democratic participation,and promoted the process of participatory democracy with the leadership of the Party as the fundamental guarantee.This demonstrates the extensive and genuine democratic advantages of socialism in Cuba.It is precisely because of the rich theory and practice of participatory democracy in Cuba that it exhibits characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of democracy.It did not absorb the essence of Marxist democratic theory in a dogmatic way,but realized the inherited development of Marxist democratic theory according to the reality and formed the socialist democratic theory with Cuban characteristics.At the same time,instead of copying Western participatory democracy theories,it transcends Western participatory democracy theories based on different social systems,development concepts and practical paths,and builds a comprehensive picture of the reality of participatory democracy in Cuba.The establishment and development of participatory democracy in Cuba is not for the purpose of being unconventional,but rather the democracy that suits the national conditions and effectively meets the needs of the people,which fully demonstrates the superiority of socialist democracy,plays an important role in the governance of Cuba,serves as a tool to unite the Cuban people,and conforms to the trend of democratic political modernization.In the face of complex domestic and international situations,Cuban socialism has always stood firm and it’s participatory democracy has played a powerful role in governance.In this process,Cuba has followed the important laws governing the development of democratic politics,put forward political plans that meet the requirements of democracy,and accumulated successful experience in independently exploring the development of democratic politics based on a country’s historical national conditions and development path.As a form of democracy with positive significance,participatory democracy in Cuba is also of great reference value to the development of democracy in other countries,and of great inspiration to the construction of democracy in China,especially the development of socialist deliberative democracy and whole-process people’s democracy.