Cuba’s Socialism: Is There a Path Beyond Crisis? A Reflection on <i>Science &amp; Society</i> ’s Special Issue, “The Cuban Revolution at 65”

The S &amp; S Special Issue admirably brings together a range of Cuban and external authors to reflect on the Revolution, its problems, and possibilities, at 65 years. It also, however, combines support for the Revolution’s goals and values with an underlying unease about extricating those values from the crises of the present and enunciating a positive vision for the future. A major source of the impasse is a view of the possibilities that is limited to a single dimension of choice: either defend the state sector and remain mired in economic stagnation; or introduce “market” reforms and lose the solidarity, equality, and dignity that have defined the Revolution since the start. A model of systemic socialism—Multilevel Democratic Iterative Coordination (MDIC)—can break the impasse and point the way forward for Cuba to a mature socialism of democratic planning.