Educational revolution and revolutionary morality in Cuba: the ‘New Man’, youth and the new ‘Battle of Ideas’

Abstract

Education and morality have been essential codes of the Cuban ideological apparatus since the victory of the Revolution in 1959. Rooted deep in the political traditions that created that ideology, drove the rebellion and shaped the Revolution, but reinforced by the following radicalisation and mobilisations, these interrelated codes also informed the seminal experiences of the 1960s educational revolution and underpinned the ethos of the ‘New Man’. The same codes, somewhat downplayed in the late 1970s and 1980s, re‐emerged out of the 1990s crisis and the Elián González campaign, to drive the post‐2001 nationwide programme of educational reform, with its explicit goal to reinforce the ideological (and therefore moral) impulse of the revolutionary process and to reinvigorate Cuba's youth as part of the current ‘Battle of Ideas’. This article analyses this latest campaign within the historical context of Cuba's ideological development, the perceived moral crisis of the 1990s and the underlying principles guiding the notions of participation, responsibility and character formation.