Interpretations of José Martí in the academy and in politics
It is an honor to give this presentation, and I thank the Pedro Pan Group for the invitation.
It is my intention to answer all of your questions at the end of my talk. I am not an expert on José Martí, but I did work in the academy for over 40 years and I have seen a dramatic change in how Martí has been treated and criticized by modern scholars. In fact, I will begin with an event that happened at Holy Cross College, in MA, about 18 years ago.
Once a year we offered a college-wide lecture on Hispanic topics around “5 de Mayo.” The speaker was a Puerto Rican Professor teaching in New York.
The topic was Martí’s involvement in the founding of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano. Most of the presentation was standard fare and nothing new was added --except for the ending, which almost led to a fist fight between the Cubans present and the speaker. The speaker said, to end his talk, that he found it amazing that after Martí had initiated the liberation against Spain, he did nothing for Cuba after the island gained independence and instead spent several years in New York City enjoying the good life! The Cubans in the audience jumped up and declared that Martí had died in Cuba during the struggle, something that the speaker denied. The fist fight would have been appropriate, but it was contained to a mini-riot.
As you can imagine, I do not want any such experience to occur in this presentation. Hence I will summarize now the nature of my talk and my views on José Martí. He was definitely a genius, something that was reflected both in the quality of his poetry (which I will not discuss) and in his bringing together the necessary leaders to achieve Cuban independence. He was also devoted to promoting education, racial equality, freedom of expression, and revolutionary action. Martí created our national identity. He was neither a socialist nor a capitalist, but a political liberal who believed in wealth redistribution and supported democracy and freedom of expression.
In recent times, Martí has been attacked for his devastating criticism of immigration to the United States, for inaccuracies in his newspaper reporting, and for being a practical man when it came to the revolutionary struggle --the three topics that I will address. I will defend his devastating attacks on immigration using theoretical grounds that are generally unknown to the majority of people. The arguments I use came to light in 1950, when a scholar and later Nobel Prize winner demonstrated that under some general conditions democracy can not operate effectively because of intransitivity, to be explained later.
Let’s begin with Martí’s life. He was born on January 28, 1853 and died in combat in Cuba on May 19, 1895 at the age of 42. He lived in Havana for most of his first 18 years of life, except for visiting Valencia, Spain as a child, for two years. He spent 6 months of hard labor in a Havana prison and was briefly transferred to the Isle of Pines when his sentence was commuted to house arrest. However, this transition was very brief and at the age of 18 Martí was exiled to Spain, where he acquired a university education and published pamphlets against the Spanish government. Later he moved on to Mexico and Guatemala, returned to Cuba for one year in 1879 (when he was once again expelled to Spain), and finally settled in the United States in 1880. Therefore, Martí lived in Cuba for approximately 17 years of his life. He visited many other countries for short periods of time.
With regard to family, Martí had seven sisters, of which 5 lived into adulthood. All but one was dead by the year 1901; that one lived until 1944. He had 20 nieces and nephews, with whom Martí had no significant contact. One of his grand-nephews fought in the War of Independence. It is widely accepted that Martí had two children. He was visited by his father in New York in 1883 and by his mother in New York in 1887. The manner of his death has always been controversial, but now there is compelling evidence that the original version of the story, as told by Maximo Gomez, was incorrect --Martí had not been ordered to stay behind the column that Maximo Gomez was leading into combat, and hence Maximo Gomez had some responsibility for Martí’s death. This has now been well documented by Professor Lopez in 2016.
The rest of my presentation is about Martí’s political and educational thoughts. Everyone agrees that Martí was highly interested in promoting education, and a lot of his writings involved educating his readers about all sorts of topics. Martí wanted all Cubans to be highly educated. This has led to conflicting views between us in exile and the followers of the Castro brothers. One of the first things academic visitors to Cuba are told (including me during my first of two visits to Cuba after 43 years of exile, in 2003) is that there were fewer than 6 universities in Cuba prior to the Castro revolution, but Cuba after Castro has over 60 universities. This is true on paper --but my experience in Cuba told me a very different story.
I visited the University of Havana, and the classrooms were in near total ruin --and I could make the comparison between before and after the revolution because I visited the classrooms where my uncle used to teach, when he was Dean of the School of Commerce. I also visited one of the newest universities, in Matanzas, where the number of books at the library were about twice the number that I owned --yet the librarian insisted that the number of books (and I am not kidding) was “infinite.” I had conversations with scholars at both universities, and their knowledge of the sugar market (the topic of my doctoral dissertation) was abysmal. Not only that, I asked every Cuban I met about the level of taxation in Cuba, and every single person I met (with one exception in Varadero) told me that there was NO TAXATION OF THE POPULATION IN CUBA. Yet, Cuba had one of the highest levels of taxation in the world! People in Cuba have acquired professional skills, but none of the education that is required to practice democracy.
Martí, as we all know, was against Spanish imperialism, and it can be argued persuasively that he also opposed American imperialism --which was channeled with the purchase of vast Indian territories from France, the annexation of Mexican frontier lands (including California), the acquisition of Alaska, and the take over of Hawaii --which began in 1893-- and later, gaining the custody and control of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. The US attempted to purchase Cuba on various occasions, something that Martí opposed. But Martí was opposed not just to imperialism, but also against the oppression that imperialist governments imposed on conquered lands, including the treatment of native Americans in the US. Martí was in favor of freedom and democracy, including free speech. It is for this reason that Martí abandoned Mexico one month after Porfirio Diaz took power. In December 1876 Martí traveled (incognito) for three weeks to Cuba and then moved on to Guatemala.
To me, the Guatemala stay is the most controversial move that Martí ever made. When he lived there for less than a year, he did benefit personally from the aggressive and progressive presidency of Justo Rufino Barrios, who had confiscated the properties of religious institutions and had taken over many lands that belonged to the native populations. One can argue In Martí’s behalf that he wrote articles in favor of the Native people, but he never objected to the confiscation of church properties, as far as I know. He returned briefly to Mexico to get married on December 20th, 1877 and then went back to Guatemala, writing his famous poem about La Niña de Guatemala, moving back to Cuba in 1878 --where he was expelled after one year, as previously mentioned.
Academic attacks on José Martí are nothing new. The most famous of all might be the disgusting article entitled “Martí y Lenin” by the Cuban communist intellectual Juan Marinello, published in Repertorio Americano 30 (January 26, 1935). Since the article is difficult to access, a reproduction of it can be found on-line and it is cited in the appendix --which I will soon share with you. Since much later the Castro government decided to reject the communist view of Martí, this attack on him is not reproduced in the communist press. Yet Marinello remained the leading scholar on José Martí until his death in 1977, according to EcuRed, which is the Cuban equivalent of Wikipedia. The Cuban intellectual Carlos Ripoll lifted the veil on the communist misrepresentation of José Martí in a 1991 article entitled The Falsification of José Martí which is available on-line under Google Scholar. I also recommend the book by Carlos Ripoll mentioned in the Appendix.
The recent attacks on José Martí take up three approaches. One is to point out that Martí was intensely opposed to mass immigration to the United States, since these individuals were bringing values that conflicted with traditional American values. Martí was so vociferous in these attacks that former President Trump’s attacks on immigrants are extremely mild in comparison. My presentation will discuss the significance of these attacks on our current understanding of the democratic process. A second line of attack picks and chooses among Martí’s writings and exposes Martí’s factual errors in his newspaper articles.
Both of these topics can be found in the recent book José Martí; Estados Unidos en la Prosa de un Inmigrante, published in 2021. The assembler of these writings, Nestor Díaz de Villegas, may not have had the intention of destroying Martí’s reputation: he simply reproduced what Martí had said. What is remarkable is that this book was promoted by the Cuban diaspora, which truly proves that the exile community, following Martí’s lead, believes in freedom of expression.
The third line of attack is what has been termed “The Myth of José Martí,” begun by the book with that title by Lillian Guerra, a Cuban-American writer. This book was published in 2005, after the author had spent many years in Cuba doing research and reconnecting with her distinguished family, most of which chose to remain in Cuba under Castro. The argument in this book is that three different groups in Cuba --identified as the pro-imperialist nationalists, the traditional supporters of the rebellion against Spain, and the popular or progressive nationalists-- accepted very different interpretations of what Martí had actually said. However, even if Martí was purposely ambiguous in forging a revolutionary coalition, there was no “myth” about Martí; rather he should be praised for bringing together persons with different political views in order to achieve a united front against Spain. One could even argue that Martí’s support for President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, and for the Southern Democrats in general, was necessary to support the transportation of arms to Cuba during the forthcoming War of Liberation, since both the Federal Government and the South needed to acquiesce in the transportation of arms to Cuba --which they did.
Due to time constraints, I will discuss only briefly another aspect of the so-called Myth of José Martí. I want to call to your attention a statement made about Martí: “Martí had promised to found a republic for all. However, he never explained the form of government the republic should take. As he himself admitted only days before his death, Martí did not explicitly promise democracy, but the honesty and sincerity of his and other leaders’ personal authority.” This statement is followed by a footnote (#7) which gives as reference a letter from Martí to Manuel Mercado dated May 18, 1895. Well, I have read that letter, and I found no discussion of democracy or forms of government at all. The damage to Martí’s reputation is embedded in the author’s analysis: namely, that Martí did not explicitly promise democracy after the revolution --a statement that could please the defenders of the Castro regime. However, this assertion is difficult to accept given that Martí practiced democracy when creating the Partido Revolucionario Cubano.
Let us now briefly review four factual (of many) errors found in the writings of José Martí. He called Oscar Wilde a Saxon early in the book and later claimed that Oscar Wilde was born in London. Both of these assertions are false. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin and raised in Ireland for the first 20 years of his life. His parents were both born in Ireland and modern scholarship traces his whole family to Ireland. Now, you may treat this as an insignificant error, but this will be used in the academy to destroy the credibility and reputation of José Martí. Far worse was his assertion that the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass was a Senator in the US Congress, and totally reprehensible was his moral equivalency of Jesus and John Brown--the latter called by Martí himself a mad man made up of many stars, when Brown had been involved in terrorism and murder. Martí’s medical assertions are beyond the pale, including that the prolongation of feeding babies with mother’s milk is one of the causes of insanity. I could cite many other absurdities. I assure you that there are multiple historical errors in this brief compilation of Martí’s writings.
From the political perspective, Martí’s attacks on immigration are relentless. About the Chinese, he says that they work hard, but enter the US illegally --and on top of that they are not cheerful, for they come to this country without their wives. They also smoke opium. The Irish, outside the few having a few intelligent children, are made up of people who hate others, are lazy, are sickly and are troublemakers. The English are rude, killed Byron, cut short the life of Keats and disdain everyone else. From Europe we got the coleric Irish, violent Germans and the out of control Russians, who bring iniquity to these lands. From Europe the US got people who tried to enforce their foreign passions. Marti appears to be less offended by the Italians and the French, although he criticizes the Italians for being controlled by the Catholic Church. Can we defend these outbursts of hostility? Imagine if former President Trump had characterized any immigrant nationality in these terms during his 2016 election campaign or during his presidency!
But Martí goes beyond these attacks and wonders if democracy can be sustained with people who think so differently from the average American of his times. And the answer to that question, if his presumptions about culture are correct, is NO --because there are reasons to believe that democratic elections involve an internal contradiction, which was initially demonstrated by the French intellectual the Marquis de Condorcet around 1785. It took almost two hundred years to generalize these results, which was done in 1950 by Kenneth Arrow, one of the most brilliant scholars of the 20th Century. Let me explain the nature of the problem.
GIVE OUT APPENDIX, FOUND BELOW.
Please concentrate on Part B of the Appendix.
Three individuals, X, Y and Z have to vote on, say, choosing one of three orchestras for a party, which are denoted by the letters A, B, C. Under the name of each individual you find their personal ranking of the three orchestras. X prefers A to B and B to C. The rankings for Y and Z are also given. Note that if a sequential vote is taken, orchestra A is preferred to orchestra B; and a second vote yields that C is preferred to A. Therefore the conclusion seems to be that C is the winner of the election. Yet, if a third vote is taken, where B is reintroduced to the voting process, B wins! But we know that A is preferred to B! In other words, there is no clear winner, and there is always a different majority to overturn the election. This was Condorcet’s voting paradox.
Years later, in 1950, Kenneth Arrow was able to prove the conclusion that under general conditions, situations arise where there is no clear winner in democratic elections; this applies to choosing people as well as to choosing policies. In other words, our intuitive understanding that democracies achieve “the popular will” is a mistaken notion. Democracies work, of course, if there is a widespread consensus in the population --say, if the vast majority of the voters prefer one alternative over all other alternatives-- but as the number of issues increase and the number of voters increase, it is almost certain that democratic processes fail because, in the aggregate, they fail transitivity, one of the most basic rules of logic. An example of transitivity occurs when A is taller than B and B is taller than C; therefore, A has to be taller than C.
How can this problem be resolved? It can be done in three classic ways: one is to divide the population into groups that share similar values, as it can be done in large countries having diverse populations --operating a variety of states and having freedom of movement for the population: we call it federalism. Alternatively, intransitivity can be prevented by clever rules that give power to those who run elections and legislative committees, or by preventing the population from addressing so-called irrelevant issues. Both of these strategies are used by most governments. I need to state that if values are measured across a single dimension --even when the dimension has opposite poles-- intransitivity is avoided. For example, if everyone across the spectrum are either liberals at one pole, and conservatives at the other pole, intransitivity is avoided
The third alternative is extremely problematic: namely, preventing the population from considering certain alternatives, which can be denoted as irrelevant alternatives. Let me give you an odd example. Suppose we want to determine the level of noise that is permitted during national celebrations, like the 4th of July. Some people may like a lot of noise while others may prefer very little noise. So far, so good and a middle ground can be found via a democratic vote. But suppose that some voters indicate that it is not just their preferences that need to be taken into account, but also the preference of animals and especially dogs, who cringe at loud noises near them. Most voters would reject such objections as irrelevant; but notice, too, that the use of elections to decide such issues will likely lead to intransitive results --precisely because some preferences depend on factors that are extraneous, namely, the rights and preferences of dogs in this case. It is easy to make up many other examples.
In legislatures, intransitivity is generally avoided because a) committee heads determine if a vote is taken or not, b) committee heads determine the order of voting, c) votes are taken over single dimensions, such as voting first on the level of expenditures, and then on the level of taxes, d) losing proposals are not brought back for a second vote, and e.) parties influence how the committee members vote by penalizing the members who vote against the wishes of the leaders. Many scholars believe that intransitivities are rampant in legislatures, arguing that the practice of log-rolling [one legislator votes for a proposal he or she dislikes in exchange for a second legislator voting for the first legislator’s pet project] is rampant; if clear majorities existed for various projects, log-rolling would not exist --and log-rolling is found in all legislative bodies.
Historical exceptions to intransitivity exist. George Washington was of course the overwhelming leader chosen in the US to be the first American president, but we must remember that those who disagreed with him fled North to Canada or South to the two British colonies (in the American South) that sided with the British throne. Can members of the audience name those two colonies--of the 15 British colonies that existed (South of Canada) at the time of the American revolution? The Fifth American President (Monroe) was clearly elected by almost universal acclaim, while some others (including Teddy Roosevelt) likely lost presidential elections as a result of biased rules in the electoral game.
How do countries deal with the cycling problem of intransitivity --besides not teaching their populations about this problem of democracy? I mentioned before how legislatures can handle the problem via voting restrictions and log-rolling. Also, primaries are used to eliminate as many potential cycling threats as possible at the local, regional and national levels. Besides, the educational process is mainly in the hands of state governments --that use this power to teach values that assure consensus, at least within the states.
But it is the immigrants, brought up in different societies and having different cultural values, who create greater turmoil to the democratic process --and that allows the party in power to sway elections one way or the other, since the immigrants lack the historical context in which elections take place. It is within this context that I perceive Martí to thunder against immigrants that did not share the American values that prevailed in the United States when he was living in New York. Far more surprising, of course, was his defense of the American South after the American Civil War, but I mentioned before a plausible defense of Martí’s position on this issue, given the need for the shipping of armaments to Cuba in a future war against Spain.
So, what are my conclusions? First, let’s recognize that Martí made several factual errors in his historical reporting --which puts him in the company of Issac Newton, who wrote copiously about the origins of European kingdoms and linked them to Noah in the Bible, which is of course an absurdity. Newton did extensive work on alchemy and had a poor understanding of chemistry --and much of this research has not been published to protect his reputation. It is much easier today to destroy a reputation, and Martí has been a victim of modern standards.
Second, the United States has been able to survive as a democracy (in the form of a constitutional republic) for almost 250 years because of its size and the mobility of its population. Federalism fosters many different cultures and ways of thinking within the various states, since people try to live close to others who share their cultural values, including their political values. When people share the same values, democracy is attainable--when people don’t, inconsistencies arise and most policies will be disagreeable to the majority of the population. We should be delighted that our state governments likely represent our values, and realize that the federal government follows policies that are not supported by vast segments of the population, even when the executive and legislative leaders are elected in democratic elections.
Third, Cuba was and is a small country with many different cultures that will never be able to resolve their political differences through the ballot box. Cuba has two options to resolve its political conflicts: join other Latin American states as part of a larger Latin nation, or become part of a recognized global enterprise, similar to the United States or the European Union. I prefer the first option on cultural grounds. If you find this conclusion controversial, I express my deepest apologies.
As far as I can see, if we want democracy for all in Cuba, we must advocate for a bigger country with strong regional boundaries (or autonomous zones) within the larger country. Democracies fail when people are at each other's throats, for valid or invalid reasons. For the time being, Cuba needs to give its citizens the freedom to travel and to live wherever they want. José Martí taught us to love freedom and democracy but his dream was not and is not viable in the Cuba we all adore.
I will be pleased to answer any question. Please note that the Part A of the Appendix mentions some of the works that I have consulted for my presentation, and if you want a written copy of my talk, write to me and I will send it to you. Also, it is now known that many prestigious universities across the US have been receiving billions of dollars from foreign governments, and I would not be surprised if some of that funding is affecting the way that American universities are describing American history and even José Martí. [The following article is a good source for foreign funding: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231208230952463. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="5">https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231208230952463 .]
THIS VERSION DOES NOT INCLUDE FOOTNOTES.
DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION. WORDS: 4121.
APPENDIX; PART A
Most university libraries have access to research databases, such as JSTOR, which is one of the author’s favorites. If you do not have access to a university library, go to Google Scholar, which gives you access to many important articles, books and documents.
The books, articles and documents that I consulted for my presentation, in chronological order:
José Martí, Obras Completas, which can be found on-line.
Nestor Diaz de Villegas, José Martí, Estados Unidos en la Prosa de Un Inmigrante, 2021.
Nestor Diaz de Villegas, De Dónde Son Los Gusanos, 2019.
Alfred J. Lopez, “Myth, Martyrdom and the Many Deaths of José Martí,” Cuban Studies, 2016. (This is available in Google Scholar.)
Alfred J. Lopez, José Martí and the Future of Cuban Nationalism, 2006.
John Lawrence Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898, 2006.
Lillian Guerra, The Myth of José Martí, 2005.
Dennis G. Mueller. Public Choice III, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Carlos Ripoll, “The Falsification of José Martí,” in Cuban Studies, 1994. (This is available in Google Scholar.)
John D. Barrow, Chapter 16, “Rational vote doomed,” in Between Inner Space and Outer Space, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Carlos Ripoll, José Martí, The United States, and the Marxist Interpretation of Cuban History, 1984.
John M. Kirk, José Martí, Mentor of the Cuban Nation, 1983.
Juan Marinello, “Martí y Lenin,” which can be found on-line and was written in 1935:
http://www.habanaelegante.com/Archivo_Marti/Marti_CamachoMarinello.html. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="6">http://www.habanaelegante.com/Archivo_Marti/Marti_CamachoMarinello.html .
APPENDIX; PART B.
Key search: Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem.
Three individuals, X, Y and Z rank three choices of orchestras, A, B,C, in the following manner:
X Y Z
__ __ __ Notice that if a vote takes place ranking A and B, A will win.
A B C
B C A Notice that if a vote takes place ranking A and C, C will win.
C A B
Does that mean that the group has chosen C? The answer is NO! Why? Because if the vote were between B and C, B would win….. But we know that
A beats B! Yet C beats A… and B beats C… The decision depends on the
ORDER of the voting! Those who control the voting process can control who wins!
“Arrow showed that any election obeying a few simple general requirements that we would expect of any democratic system, will create this paradox of collective choice.” John D. Barrow.
Author: Nicolas Sanchez, Economics and Accounting Department, College of the Holy Cross, Professor Emeritus
Ph. D. University of Southern California (1972)
B.S. (cum laude) California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA (1967)
Fields: Property Rights Analysis, Economic Development, Micro and Macro Theory
