68 Chapter 3
like (Brenner et al, 2007; Bunck, 1994; Miller, 2008; Fernandes, 2006). Seem-
ingly, nothing significant can take place outside La Revolución.
Secondary parameters delimit political participation within the system. Made of
both implicit and explicit rules, these parameters are a constant source of
uncertainty because implicit rules are typically unclear and explicit ones tend
to change frequently.^1 Crossing the line delineated by the secondary parame-
ters can be construed as a venial offence. This can be redeemed—unlike dis-
respect of primary parameters (mortal sin!), which cannot. Both offends La
Revolución but in the first instance, La Revolución may be merciful. Writers, art-
ists and especially intellectuals are dealing with parameters in a very special
way, because parameters shape not only their daily routine and lifestyle but
also their work. They have more to win if they do it well and more to lose if
they don't. In that sense, Montaner is probably right to contend that “there
is no other group in Cuba more nervous than intellectuals” (Montaner, 1999:
124).
The arbitrariness and the uncertainty of rule is a common denominator of
all political systems not anchored in the rule of law. This uncertainty is com-
pounded in “revolutionary” regimes such as the Cuban's because of the fun-
damentally contradictory nature of the master narrative (Goldfarb, 1978;
Lefort, 1999). Recalling Paul Valéry's bon mot that “two mortal dangers
threaten humanity: order and disorder,” one can argue that order (the state,
the regime, the statu quo) and disorder (revolution, insurgency, and concom-
itantly criticism, imagination, and autonomy) represent a danger for each other.
They require very different sets of skills and dispositions. Communism is a
humanistic ideology theoretically impervious to dogmatism and alienation.
In practice it has been the official ideology of totalitarian states. Unlike non-
mobilizational forms of autocratic government, communist regimes always
appear to care deeply for culture, humanity, l'homme. And yet, Communist
parties rarely make their top positions available to intellectuals (the Italian
Communist Party being the exception), especially if they are in power. Intel-
lectuals have been the prime victims of communist and revolutionary
regimes. Communist regimes typically have ambiguous justification for the
distribution of power in society. Under the oxymoron “Democratic central-
- For instance, over the past five decades it has been more or less advisable to be Christian,
heterosexual, to have no contacts with family in exile or with foreigners, not to speak out of
turn about economic reform or corruption, to criticize the Soviet Union (during the late
1980s), to praise the Soviet Union, to demonstrate peacefully, and so on.