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The Path of Democracy in Cuba

Do we know how to
carry out a
transition?
Manuel Cuesta Morúa
Historian and Political Scientist
Speaker of the Arco Progresista Party
National Coordinator of the Platform New Country
Member of the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration (CIR)
Havana, Cuba

I

t is likely that the question in the
title is poorly posed from the point
of view of the actual richness of the
historical events and the human failure
every time we have tried to imitate God.
Political transitions often occur without
any control. The facts can rotate,
change, delay or simply postpone
whatever seems inevitable. And what
about pure chance? It’s said that
Cleopatra's nose changed the course of
history in Ancient Rome. And that
Trotsky’s
cold
—caught
while
hunting— prevented him to be present
at the appropriate time and place in
which the course of the Russian
Revolution was determined. Would the
history of Rome have been different
without the libido impact of Cleopatra's
nose? Could have Trotsky avoided the
totalitarian path in Russia by 1918 if he
had not succumbed to the aristocratic
taste of duck hunting amid a
revolutio