A journalist and historian, the winner of the Princess of Asturias Award in 2022, the transition to democracy in his country cannot be understood without him. An advisor to the Solidarity trade union and its leader, Lech Walesa, he took part in the Round Table Talks between the military in power and the opposition forces, which led his country to be the first in the Soviet orbit to leave the dictatorship behind. A trace of those years is embedded in the name of the newspaper he founded, Gazeta Wyborcza (“The Electoral Gazette”), which soon became a media independent of politics and to this day is the most important in Poland.
I don’t know if the Spanish or Polish path can be repeated exactly in Cuba. What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that it is our duty to help Cuban democrats replace the dictatorship with a democracy. It would be extremely important for the entire Latin American continent, because Cuba has been a model for the entire Latin American left for too long and it is a disastrous continue reading
model. I believe that there is a democratic potential in Cuban society that will allow it to overcome this crisis, but it will not be easy.
I am very afraid that now, after Trump’s victory in the United States, the external constellation around Cuba is not going to be very favorable to the cause.
14ymedio: What can be done from outside to help Cuban democrats, as you said? Because when it comes to creating democracy in Cuba, it is often said that “it is the Cubans who must do it, no one can help them.” Was this the case in your country?
Michnik: The idea that it is the Cubans themselves who must bring democracy to themselves is fair and correct. This was also the case in Poland, because it was the Poles who brought democracy. It is true that in the case of Poland there was a constellation of international forces that was very favorable to that happening. I am very afraid that now, after Trump’s victory in the United States, the external constellation around Cuba is not going to be very favorable to the cause. But then, when the coup d’état was declared in Poland in 1982, the constellation was not very favorable either. We always repeated one thing to ourselves: no matter how long the night is, the day must come. And it will come to Cuba as well.
14ymedio: There is a whole generation that believed that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Castroism would also fall, and that did not happen. Of course, at the end of the 1990s, Hugo Chavez took power in Venezuela and came to play the supporting role that the Soviet Union had played until 1989, but before that there was almost a decade in which the dictatorship did not fall. What happened or what should have happened and did not happen? Why was this?
Michnik: I think there is an important factor to take into account. In both Spain and Poland, one of the factors that helped the democratic transition was that within the forces of the dictatorial regime there were reformist sectors, which, although they did not understand democracy in the same way as we do, did help in some way. This happened with the late Franco regime and with the communists in Poland. In the case of Cuba, there was no such sector at any time.
14ymedio: It was also thought that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “history was over,” as Fukuyama put it: there would be no more conflicts because liberal democracy had prevailed by the majority. This was blown to smithereens first by the Islamist attacks of 9/11, and then by Putin’s attitude of recovering the idea of “Great Russia.” There is a tendency to view the world, with the war in Ukraine, with what is happening in Israel, with pessimism, and from what I read and hear from you, you are an optimist. How do you see it?
Michnik: I’ll start with Fukuyama. Fukuyama’s curse was the title [The End of History and the Last Man], but not the content, because the book is interesting. He’s a smart guy, but the title killed him. It was absolutely clear to me from the beginning that there was not going to be any end of history. Fukuyama’s central idea, that is, that nobody had invented anything better than a liberal democracy, human rights, a market economy and a pluralistic society, is true. Nobody has ever invented anything better. Everything that has been invented since then by Putin, the president of China, the president of Turkey, Erdogan, or Hamas, everything, is much worse.
The optimist has the fuel to keep thinking and above all behaving as if he were a free man even when he lives in a dictatorship.
And I’m going to my optimism. Where do I get the strength to be optimistic? In Poland, the easiest thing in the world is to be a pessimist, because it always happens, so pessimists are not interesting. When you are an optimist, you come and arouse curiosity, especially in women, and they look at you with different eyes: “It’s worth having a relationship with that guy.” The optimist has the fuel to keep thinking and above all to behave as if he were a free man even when he lives in a dictatorship. If someone wants to live like a slave, a pessimist, let him live, that’s his business, I’m not going to do it. The optimist’s idea is that even the thickest net has holes, and you have to put your finger, foot or head in them to open the mesh.
14ymedio: In Praise of Disobedience, in the interview with Maciej Stasiński, speaking of his “anti-Soviet Russophilia,” you have a phrase that seems very pertinent to me: “There are no peoples, nations or countries condemned by nature to live in slavery.” I don’t know if you can expand on that, because it is also a commonplace to say, for example, that the Russians get what they deserve, or the Cubans get what they deserve.
Michnik: Fine, then the Americans have Trump because they deserved it, the French had the Jacobin terror because they deserved it, and much later they had the Vichy Republic because they deserved it, is that right? The Italians had Mussolini and the Germans had Hitler. All peoples and nations have black pages in their history that they prefer to forget. We are here with the mission of reminding these peoples of the black chapters of their history. Russia is going through an absolutely dramatic moment today, but blaming an entire people for having a criminal as their ruler is a rather frivolous diagnosis. In 1989, everything that was happening in the Soviet Union was a hope for the whole world. We must remember that if it had not been for the transformations in the USSR and perestroika in Gorbachev’s time, the peaceful transition in Poland would not have been possible.
It is clear that Putin is a disgrace to the world and a curse to Russia. It is a sad and tragic moment in the history of Russia that we are living through, but there is no enthusiasm for this war in Russia. What there is, first of all, is fear and also pessimism, a collective resignation, and a great exile, of people who do not know what to do with this situation and leave Russia. This, of course, can last for some time yet, but it is clear to me that Putin is leading Russia to a debacle. I cannot predict what form this debacle will take, but my prophecy is that Putin will end up very badly. I do not rule out that they will hang him from a lamppost like Mussolini. This is not so clear right now: for him it is a good moment, because Trump has won.
What I could advise Cuban democrats is, despite these moments of demoralization or despair, not to waste time.
14ymedio: One of the most moving moments of the articles collected in Praise of Disobedience is undoubtedly the Letter from the Prisoner to the Jailer, which you wrote in 1983 to the Minister of the Interior, Czesław Kiszczak, refusing a golden exile in exchange for getting out of prison. It is the letter of a hero. Do you recognize yourself as a hero?
Michnik: I assure you that when people get to know me better, I lose a lot of my charm. The author of the letter to the minister was furious at the offer that had been made to him.
14ymedio: Did you, the opponents of the communist regime, see the light in the midst of despair? You could not read the future, you could not know that a few years later the dictatorship would fall. What did you think in the darkest moments?
Michnik: I can repeat a little of what I told Yoani Sánchez when she was in Warsaw receiving the award from our newspaper: you, Yoani, could repeat the same thing that Fidel Castro said before the Tribunal. Why? Because history will prove you right. In the midst of the pessimism that reigned, I had one thing very clear: that the truth, what was just, what was right was on our side.
14ymedio: The last moment of hope in Cuba was the demonstrations of 11 July 2021, to which the regime reacted with repression. More than 600 people are still in prison, some with long sentences. Later, in November of that year, there was another attempt, also repressed, and after that, there has only been exile and despair. And that is the saddest thing about Cuba, more than the misery and the blackouts: the demoralization. What words of encouragement would you give to Cubans?
Michnik: Things do not happen once and forever. At times when it seems that it is not possible to change the world, we must at least try to understand the world. When I was in prison – I was there many times – I used the time in my cell to read a lot, to try to understand and to write, because I could not go out into the street and try to change the world. What I could advise Cuban democrats to do, despite these moments of demoralization or despair, is to not waste time, and to start thinking about what they want the Cuba of the future to be like.
If the Round Table in Poland had been decided by the exile, it would never have taken place
14ymedio: One of the tools that the Cuban regime continues to use against dissidents is precisely that: exile or prison. Should dissidents be required to resist? Should the existence of heroes be required?
Michnik: It is not legitimate to demand that Cuban democrats stay and reject exile. That is something that each person must decide; this demand cannot be imposed on them. One cannot be a hero at someone else’s expense.
14ymedio: In the Cuban exile community in Miami, the majority position is not to give in on anything, not to make a pact with the regime. They even call a possible agreed-upon arrival of democracy a “fraudulent change.” They fear, of course, that in reality nothing will change, and that perhaps, as in Russia, the military will keep all the economic power. Both the cases of Poland and Spain show that pacts are necessary. How can this help reconciliation?
Michnik: If the Round Table in Poland had been decided by the exiles, it would never have taken place. The starting point for a compromise and a democratic transition has to come from the Cubans in Cuba, not from the exiles. That does not mean that everything that happens in Cuba has to repeat the model of Spain or Poland, but if we want to repeat that model of an agreed, peaceful, democratic transition, the Cubans cannot be subordinated to the dictates of the exiles. The exiles can help, but they cannot replace the Cubans on the Island. That was the case in Poland. In 1989, when we started the Round Table, the Polish democratic exiles supported the negotiation, but they could not replace it, and I think that should be more or less the case in Cuba.
Now, the fear of a “fraudulent transition,” that Cubans will be deceived by the regime, is perfectly natural. Such a transition is an undertaking that requires new, bold and often risky decisions. The paradoxes, traps and twists of a transition are masterfully reflected by Javier Cercas in The Anatomy of a Moment. On the other hand, shaking hands with the executioner, convincing someone to do it, is very difficult, and often impossible, because the victim refuses. For me, the lesson of Chile was very important, where the victims had to accept that they were going to have to live in the country with their jailers and their executioners. If one wants to establish a democracy for one’s country after a dictatorship, there is no other way. Human suffering cannot be an instrument to destroy solutions of agreement and coexistence.
The political police files are a repository of poison, they have done no good to the democratic cause
14ymedio: A very important point when democracy comes to countries is the opening of the political police files. What is done with this? Should we dig or not dig in these files, where one can find that a neighbor was turning one in or that one’s own brother was an informant? Any advice for Cubans in this regard, for the Cuba of the future?
Michnik: There are no easy answers to this. Although archives are an absolutely essential source of historical knowledge, it is knowledge that must be learned. Archives must be read well. If these archives are used as an instrument of political struggle against my adversaries, those who do not agree with me, they become an absolute disgrace. Because these files, ultimately, say much more about their authors, about those who were keeping them, than about the supposed or real informants recruited, or the victims who were being watched by the police. To this day I have not looked at my archive, I have not wanted to look at it.
14ymedio: Why?
Michnik: Because I am convinced that my knowledge of myself and of the communist dictatorship of which we were victims will not be expanded by reading it. It will not provide me with any valuable knowledge, for example, to know that a girl who was my lover or my girlfriend was later an informer or recruited as an informant. It does not provide me with any additional knowledge to read in the files that at some point I had been cowardly or brave. I know what I was like. Moreover, the authors of these archives, of these files, could not tell the truth, or even more: deliberately lie. What am I going to do with that? What is the use? What I do know is that in no country where the police files have been scrutinized – Stasi, in Germany, or any other – in none of them has it served to improve the atmosphere of coexistence and tolerance in society, and in no country has this scrutiny and its results represented an effective shield against threats to democracy. It has not served, I know that for a fact. In fact, the files of the political police are a repository of poison. It is like watching pornography. This matter has not done any good service to the democratic cause in any country. These files were drawn up not to establish the truth, but to oppress, to enslave people.
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EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 20 November 2024 — The American streaming platform Netflix will premiere the first two episodes of its new miniseries “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in December in Cuba. The series is an adaptation of the well-known work of the same name by Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez.
