Review article

Pedagogical assessment of the Marxism-Leninism discipline in Cuban Higher Education

Luis Manuel Díaz Román^{1  *} 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7128-7497

¹Universidad de La Habana. Cuba.

ABSTRACT

The learning of the principles of Marxism needs to continue perfecting the educational work and the management of strategies adequate to the demands of the current context. Such demands have motivated a didactic forum of permanent discussion, formal and informal, in institutions, teachers, students and society, which is materialized in studies of multiple approaches, often dispersed, urgent of synthesis, generalization and systematization in correlative links. This article is inserted in this debate by confronting the diversity of updated, novel and representative arguments of the whole research spectrum on Marxism itself and its teaching, offering its own criteria and interpreting the whole of the expositions. A necessary process to determine the main tendencies and to facilitate new ideas and investigations that keep indoctrination and other undesired consequences away from daily praxis. The qualitative character of the research appeals, among others, to dialectical-materialistic, historical-logical and systemic approach methods. It consults and values primary sources, tributary to the scientific perspective of Marxism in the student imaginary, development of autonomous reflective possibilities and mostly from the last five years. As a result, the main attributes, coincidences and differences in the reasoning were determined. The Conclusions affirm the emergence of a Cuban Marxism with an autochthonous methodology for its teaching, political science and other subjects that transcends time, cultures and frontiers.

Keywords: Leninism; Marxism; Marxism-Leninism; methodology; process; socialism; teaching

Introduction

The socialization of the teaching of Marxism in Cuba responds to purposes of a historical and universal nature that seek to transform the economic, cultural and power relations that exist until today.

Epistemologically, this pedagogical task implies challenges of a diverse nature, since its assimilation cannot be linear or spontaneous, since the sense organs do not perceive directly, they interpret the totality of its complex nature; Therefore, it is essential to train the most specialized processes of thought, abstraction and generalization, in the midst of uninterrupted multidisciplinary scientific feedback.

For the teacher, achieving the essence of Marxism requires, in addition to understanding its plural and deep dimensions, to adapt the theoretical approaches to the methodology of its delivery in each circumstance.

Until today, achievements and dissatisfactions have been achieved in this task, some of which have become systemic due to their persistence since the triumph of the Revolution and provoked reflections by various authors, which are manifested in the production of an abundant State of Art and varied, rich in confrontations, coincidences and some consensus.

That vitality in the debates is synthesized by this article with the aim of generalizing and systematizing them, to facilitate the work of researchers and teachers who make the teaching of Marxism-Leninism, its characteristics, history and educational process in Cuba, the center of his actions; as well as achieving in the student body their understanding from science and not from dogma, a way of thinking and knowledge and developing capacities for autonomous reflection and inquiry.

To do this, it places Marxism in a historical and geographical, international and Cuban context, makes synchronous cuts and focuses on analyzing and interpreting the work of national teachers, published mostly after 2016, and selected for reasons of novelty, topicality and representativeness. of generations, provinces and universities. The bibliographic search did not find compilations, summaries or anthologies in any format dedicated to collecting, studying and reviewing these purposes in a diachronic perspective of the story that classifies the research as exploratory, descriptive and explanatory, where the methods of analysis are applied. -synthesis, dialectical-materialist, induction-deduction, historical-logical, hermeneutic and system approach.

Development

Marx and Engels created their work in the first half of the 19th century from "central axes that will form a theoretical and guiding instrument" (^{Arkonada and Klachko, 2016}, 21), transcendent for the purpose of liberating the European working class from the alienation in which he lived and the scientific method to investigate reality. They did not look for absolute recipes, they did not even think of giving it a name, they founded change and permanent negation, typical of the dialectic that excludes any idea of absoluteness. " They never wrote for teaching, nor for academic studies, but for the philosophical, political and ideological struggle, they contemplated contradictions and rectifications to their own analyzes as a natural, organic and essential element and at the same time conformed the new philosophy" (^{Guadarrama, 2018, 36}).

Time has denied or has not corroborated some of their theses, which they also foresaw, such as the main role of the working class in the transformation of economic, cultural and power relations or the criteria that today, out of context, could be considered denigrating Latin American peoples or leaders, by supporting, in the name of progress, the dispossession by the United States of more than 50% of the territory of Mexico and infamously insulting Bolívar and the Aztec people themselves, which poses the task of " deciphering the reasons behind of Marx's inability to approach the Latin American world with minimal sympathy" (^{Torres Beregovenko , 2019}, 46).

For ^{Martínez Heredia (2018}), the theory of Marx and Engels denotes that:

...two convictions govern his personal position and his intellectual work: the social class of the proletariat can and must be the protagonist of revolutionary change, justice and freedom and in capitalist society there is an antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat inherent to it, new in the history, and social and human liberation will not depend on a return to anything lost, but on the insoluble contradiction of the impetuous development of capitalism itself (^{Martínez Heredia, 2018}).

Such a redemptive essence linked it to the left, "one of those denominations that survive all vicissitudes and keeps in its ambiguity and plural meanings a greater richness with respect to the complexity it refers to" (^{Martínez Heredia, 2021}) and that in the 20th century it inspired ideological and political programs to "carry out the proletarian revolution and transition from capitalist forms of material and spiritual production to higher stages" (^{Rafuls and Sabater, 2015, 31}) and try to build societies based on state dominance in all social activity.

The feasibility of his ideas is reaffirmed every day in six underdeveloped countries in Asia and Latin America, with more than 1.3 billion people, a fifth of the world's population, who maintain lines of non-capitalist evolution, each seeking their own socialism.

This vitality is opposed by the dominant powers in the world by uniting to attack it on all levels: cultural, economic and political, exacerbating the confusion; while: "Marxists have allowed the kidnapping of their own categories, laws and definitions. The theoretical offensive in its neoliberal version has been carrying out a renaming of processes and phenomena; as if it were talking about the same problems, but in another language, from the logic of capital, attractive due to its description and rapid diffusion" (^{Pérez Soto, 2021}).

In Cuba, Marxism, without being an autochthonous creation, has been accepted in a consensual manner and has been mixed with a diversity of visions in our cultural mixed, despite the fact that due to secular tradition and idiosyncrasy, Cubans have placed more hope and confidence in their beliefs, superstitions and religious background than in the abstraction inherent in philosophy, as well as spending more energy, vocation and time to express their feelings through music, dance, art and other activities of the spirit than to the organized and systematic thought of science .

Until 1959, the evolution of Marxist thought did not have the strength or depth of other social sciences such as History, Economics, Literature or Art.

The revolutionary triumph, legitimized by civil society, quickly controlled the State and the Government, reaching acceptance in the proposal to build socialism. To that end, a cultural program was drawn up that would develop all its manifestations in harmony and complementarity, including the socialization of Marxism-Leninism; preponderant philosophical and ideological orientation in the main leaders: Commander in Chief Fidel, his brother and second, Raúl Castro and others, who " turned Marxism into the heritage of millions and enriched it in the construction of socialism that we do every day" (^{Alberti, 2018, 4}). "I am a Marxist -Leninist and I will always be" (^{Castro, 1961, 1}). "The contact with the revolutionary theory of José Martí and Marxism-Leninism, the influence that Fidel already exerts on him, the student and revolutionary activities and responsibilities in which Raúl participates, were decisive in his revolutionary formation" (^{Díaz, 2018, 9}). The educational and instructional plan for their teaching and learning ranged from the family to the press, with the school, science and the official discourse as the main spokespersons. A flexible execution was foreseen, whose results would be measured in generations and not in magnitudes of time, seeking the best methods of interpretation, apprehension and critical assimilation.

The First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in 1975 assumed that "Marxism-Leninism constitutes the scientific conception of the world; nature, society and thought, the revolutionary theory and the scientific ideology of the working class" (^{Rojas, 1978}, 5), because" ... it correctly evaluates the events of social reality: it sees the problems historically, how they have happened, what relationship exists with others, attached to the concrete experience" (^{Díaz, 2019, 60}).

As a system of ideas "Marxism and Leninism are present in the ideology of the Cuban Revolution, in the interpretation of history and society" (^{Monalet al., 2019}).

Behind the imperceptible difference between a hyphen (-) and a (y), from one or another representative of currents of ideas within Marxism, there is in the background a progressive conceptual divergence and approaches, although ideologically and politically both defend it. The particularities in this regard have been very little treated; they are still debated in very small academic fields, there are even professors, specialists, political, state, social and economic leaders together with the majority of society who have not yet perceived these differences.

Marxism-Leninism had all the institutional support and managed to impose itself almost totally on the other currents of Marxism, to the point that dissent or deviation from the official ideological line was considered a sign of anti- Sovietism, revisionism, pseudo -socialism and even counter revolution, which could carry civil, labor and political implications, since the unconditional fidelity to the USSR was reflected in article 5 of the Constitution with echo, in governing documents and attitudes of all organizational, ideological and institutional levels.

Teaching of Marxism

The exhibition of a panorama of the 60 years of teaching of Marxism-Leninism in Cuba, is a period that several authors subdivide into stages. ^{Santana (1995)} starts from considering the epistemological basis that supports education as an object of study of pedagogical science, a system of the various ways of teaching and learning that conceives society, man and itself from philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives. The principle that the teacher needs to know to teach begins with "the understanding of the thought of Karl Marx, the social characteristics of his appearance and associated with the history of philosophy in Europe, the predominant ideologies and the context of the time" (^{Valdés - Dapena, 2018}), as well as that "it is necessary to define what is understandable when saying `Marxism-Leninism', an issue that seems to be forgotten by a large part of Cuban professionals and society" (^{Vila Blanco, 2018}, 97), as well as This occurs with the words Leninism, Leninian , Marxian, Marxologist , etc. to "avoid distortions in the ideas that are supposed to endorse and legitimize them" (Ibid.).

The institutional organization for this work included the Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education (MES), which created their specialized departments in Marxism to respond to the specific demands of each one; while the Ministry of Culture, the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry (ICAIC) and others also supported it.

The first was transformed in 1982 into the Institute of Philosophy and today it is incorporated into the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment. It publishes the Cuban Magazine of Social Sciences with a wide spectrum of humanistic disciplines that totally dedicated its first fourteen issues to Marxist philosophy.

The MES institutionalized the Central Group of Political-Ideological Work, to which it subordinated the direction of Marxism-Leninism and History, which is responsible for teaching the discipline in all universities, institutes and careers.

In the Teaching-Learning Process, it was possible to standardize, homogeneous or identical, the study plans in research and teaching, since the Soviet originals were almost translated, without considering cultural and contextual differences.

Today it is unquestionable that it constituted a deformation beyond education: "The relationship at the social level, between Marxist philosophy and natural sciences, repeated some errors of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), even without reaching its extremes" (^{Estévez Rams, 2019}, 82).

The same happened with the manuals, some of which became "classics" due to their dissemination, such as those by Afanasiev, Konstantinov, Nikitin and others, essential for the study of Philosophy, Political Economy and Communism or Scientific Socialism, basic subjects taught in various semesters during the first two years of study.

The study by manuals was criticized by Ernesto Guevara, who considered essential to be natural to feel Marxist and those volumes were far from reflecting reality.

The same happened with other mental models imported from the USSR, which were metamorphosed and established in the cultural heritage, to the point that even today they cannot be eradicated and interfere with the Guevarian ethical conception that " was based on two essential elements: re-educate the adult man and train the new generations, in charge of continuing the revolutionary process" (^{Naranjo Castilla, 2021}, 896). His thought and practice legitimize Marxism as an economic, political and social theory and constitute an alternative to doctrinal Marxism and ideological domination applied in the 20th century.

However, there have always been isolated academics or in very small groups, with criteria that did not coincide with the institutional interpretation, especially from the Faculty of Philosophy and History of the University of Havana, who faced and survived all the criticism and subjective attacks and materials.

During decades Soviet Marxism-Leninism coexisted in opposition to a Western Marxism, with greater French and Italian influence that tried to become independent by returning to the original meaning of Marx, Engels, Lenin and expanding to Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Georg Luckács, Antonio Gramsci and others with eclectic and heterodox positions to assess the current circumstances, past and future prospects. The five-year period lived by the Critical Thinking magazine under the direction of Fernando Martínez Heredia reflected such heterogeneity (^{Pulido, 2018}).

In parallel , structural changes occurred in the discipline, until in the 21st century four subjects have been stabilized, regulated by ministerial guidelines, where the newest, Resolution 83/20 ( ^{Ministry of Higher Education, 2020}), readjusted its nominations again , leaving them in: Philosophy, Political Theory, Studies in Science, Technology and Society and Political Economy, the latter "the one with the greatest exodus of professors, because many had been trained in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, without being prepared to explain a Socialism in crisis" (^{Pulido, 2018}), although in general "there is a loss in the training of competent professionals" (^{Vila Blanco, 2018}a, 141), for various reasons.

In the field of civil society, the Cuban Society for Philosophical Research (SCIF) emerged, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) attached to the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISA), which has achieved, as professionalized, an integrating status in the field of philosophical research and political science, publishing a newsletter called Philosophical Problems and other publications, as well as organizing international events every year where theoretical-methodological and practical aspects are addressed through the appreciation of scientists from the five continents (^{Fung, 2020}).

A world view of reality, from the Marxist point of view, is reflected by the international magazine Marx, now (^{Monal, 2020}).

In 2020, in the midst of a universal pandemic by COVID-19, Cuba remembered the 200th anniversary of the birth of Federico Engels, one of the original founders of Marxism, and from April 16 to 19, 2021, the Communist Party held its VIII Congress, confirming its Martí, Fidelist, Marxist and Leninist theoretical base, as well as the Revolution, the State and the Constitution that changed its Marxist-Leninist postulate.

In the teaching sector, dissatisfactions and difficulties typical of all human action appear, "the process of training professionals in the Marxism-Leninism discipline requires preparing them so that they can learn throughout their lives, that the teaching developed from the direction of the teacher promotes self-management of learning" (^{Leal et al., 2018, 625}), counteracting criteria of the type "in our country `Marxism' does not have problems, but its teachers, researchers, promoters or some who do not comply with what is `stipulated'" (^{Vila Blanco, 2018}, 143), which persist without being a generalized opinion, which shows why it has always been a "much more complex issue than what the ideological discourse, the educational system and the publishing and publicity movement reveal" (^{Alonso, 2009, 217}).

The difficulties presented by teachers in their apprehension project in the student body, the youth and the population manifestations of misunderstanding, apathy, indifference, formalism, rejection, disbelief, disinterest or disappointment regarding its usefulness and validity; above all, after the radical changes that occurred in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the permanent national economic crisis that for more than three decades, no theory has been able to accurately describe or solve.

In the specific university environment, expressions and reflexes of resignation have been observed since then in the face of the curricular obligation to pass it in order to graduate. The diverse nuances range from skeptical, nihilistic and distanced to anti-Marxist and open enemies, some due to reflections or personal interests and others due to mimetic and influences.

Among the various factors that have led to this situation is the use of a repetitive discourse, predictable even in its changes and updates, with a doctrinal intention and therefore scarce or completely lacking in arguments and foundations, but full of commonplaces, of stereotyped phrases and abstract concepts, often not understood by those who quote them, which reveals their opportunistic side producing boredom, fatigue and rejection that disturbs teaching objectives, and the formation of volitional, evaluative and ethical capacities.

Until now it is a minority, but its existence should not be ignored, which together with the encouragement they receive from the enemies of the Revolution can massify a reason for ideological confrontation raised by a sector of them. The response to this danger is offered and legitimized by Marxism itself with its critical and revolutionary nature, "permanent self-criticism is our best ally" (^{Marx and Engels, 1973}).

Analysis of transcendental experiences in Cuban academics

^{Delgado Díaz (2018)}, in his essay "The teaching of Marxism-Leninism at the University", (pp. 159-184) establishes Marxism in general as the matrix of Marxism-Leninism in its functions of doctrine, ideology and academic discipline and distinguishes three different issues: Marxism, Marxism-Leninism and the teaching discipline of the same name (p. 161), since the first two constitute systems of ideas with different histories, contents, theoretical consequences and interpretations, which should be considered the own theoretical complexity of the matter in a context of international, national, local and temporary circumstances that affect an unequal disposition to its assimilation, acceptance or rejection by those who constitute the object of this effort: university students.

By critically analyzing the origins, evolution and characteristics by stages of the teaching discipline, the author explains and suggests why the theoretical and practical relevance of the subjects that comprise it should be reviewed; proposes to incorporate definitions of essential categories, a methodology that, due to the epistemological value with which it argues each of the steps that compose it, deserves to be debated in the teaching staff and the strategic directions, to overcome the difficulties detected and recover the acceptance and image as a corpus of useful subjects.

On the other hand, he minimizes what he considers to be an unavoidable problem: the Marxism-Leninism manuals, which have infected our universities, and although not all of them divert essences, many have led to "the dogmatic conversion of Marxism, the transition from science Marxist that denies itself as part of its work, to a dry ideology" (p. 183) and this "causes damage to Marxism, by caricaturing it and depriving it of its creative force" (^{Delgado, 2018, 183}).

Similarly, this author considers the pedagogical criteria emanating from the study on the improvement of the Marxism-Leninism discipline between 2015 and 2017 that the MES advocated a significant contribution, which must be continued and systematically re-evaluated.

^{Gómez Velázquez (2018}a) complements and outlines ideas in various writings. "Marxism in Cuba today. You can't wait any longer"; is a compact reflection of the aspects that most influence the characteristics of contemporary Marxism, where he argues the need to renew debates that exclude exegesis, doxa, formalism or catharsis and start from contextualized criteria, since... "the Marxism is critical and contradictory. Neither linear nor positive, nor always nor only successful" (p. 153).

Likewise, he establishes that "The story of a Marxism without real life can only alienate potential stakeholders" (p. 153) and in self-criticism he asks and alerts "Could it be that this has happened to us?" (p.153).

It also substantiates:

One consequence of this vulgar Marxism is the deterministic interpretation. That thesis in its absolute and structural character, simply does not correspond to the historical experience of revolutions or socialism. Historical-social content is also relegated to the status of a particular segment of a speculative "conception of the world", expressed in laws and categories in the abstract, which supposedly serve to carry out any analysis and guarantee political correctness (^{Gómez Velázquez, 2018}a, 154).

In "The Russian Revolution in its centenary: political hermeneutics and pending issues", ^{Gómez Velázquez (2018}b) goes beyond the impact of its history given in the political, ethical and intellectual dilemma, which make up the illusion-disillusionment dichotomy and claims the possibility to identify the conflicts, the contradictions, the essence of the facts from the social attitudes that should be integrated into the information provided. It clarifies that:

...revolutionary theory is not the partner of revolutionary life, they do not go in parallel. Rather, theory, strategy, intellectual criticism, is only capable of generating and making an effective contribution, growing from within the real political movement of revolutions. When they bifurcate, the revolutionary intellectuality- being revolutionary! - ceases to be organic, takes refuge in the academy, in their own curricula, and makes formal speeches, even if the matter is political (^{Gómez Velázquez, 2018}b, 369).

He also asserts that all this "has already been diagnosed in Marxist literature for about a century, and is contained in the historical experience of the course of socialism, of Marxism and its tradition" (^{Gómez Velázquez, 2018}b, 369).

The novelty of the approaches is attractive to all teachers, regardless of whether they are not directly oriented to teaching, since they constitute handles to resort to to complement the teaching of the very nature of Marxism.

^{Gómez Velázquez and Vila Blanco (2019}) are integrated into "For a Marxism with real life, beyond the discipline and the norm" and agree that Cuba thinks, questions and reflects on Marxism, socialism, and the revolutions, of: "the ways in which Marxism as thought and praxis made its way in the country and remains until today, over the claims -already historical- of several generations of academics, researchers, and professionals from different areas of knowledge , who have invited with their arguments to radically and transversally rethink these issues, and also to question -with particular emphasis- what is said about them and what turns out as prophesied" (^{Gómez Velázquez and Vila Blanco, 2019}).

For teachers and students alike, they are unusual angles of vision that open pathways to motivation and broader understanding.

^{Vila Blanco (2018}a), also in various creations such as "Culture, identity and Higher Education in Cuba: defragmenting realities", interacts with literature and social sciences in argumentative axes about culture, Cuban identity and Higher Education, seeing them as dispersed fractions of our complexity, capable of opening new and unsuspected horizons of visibility: "The pressing inquiries should move from the why segmented into specific areas of knowledge -laudable, necessary, insufficient aspects, where there is vast experience- to the modes manifested in the connectivity that is inherent to living (p. 124).

The various dilemmas experienced by the nation provoke and project a debate within society, confirming that" The understanding of the transience of all forms of life does not symbolize the naked and flat uncertainty that intimidates us so much, in which we have been indoctrinated in fear" (p. 136).

Soothed in Martí, she claims that the word is not to build screens to the truth, but rather to "reveal the depths of the human fabric; because more than theorizing about `socialist' and `democratic' processes in the abstract, what is meditated on here is about the traces they have left on society" (p. 135).

In "Communist arrogance: VI Lenin in his `and' our labyrinths", ^{Vila Blanco (2018}b) delves into topics that have been little discussed or completely ignored by ideological and pedagogical instances. It breaks paradigms that by dint of repetition and linear descriptions has become absolute, such as the unconditional acceptance of thinkers, heroes and leaders as immaculate symbols, Lenin among them.

The worst thing is that this phenomenon is transferred to teaching, for which he points out: "to know the legacy of a thinker, you have to read it in its entirety, observe the diversity of criteria that gave texture and vitality to one or another work and/ or intervention in their specific and changing contexts" (p. 329).

His sense of self-criticism and combativeness works as an open door to new cognitive dimensions by pointing out:

It is necessary not only to deploy a forceful criticism of the prevailing global system that plunders the best of the human race, but together with it to the very ways in which it is fought against, in which emancipatory alternatives are developed and advanced, many of which in their Enormous searches reproduce the forms of interaction that they intend to eliminate, thus originating deep exclusions that can ultimately mortgage the future (p. 335).

^{Hernández Rodríguez and Díaz Domínguez (2013}) in "Trends and manifestations of the process of humanistic formation...." identify from a local situation, a university in Pinar del Río, regularities that are reflected throughout the country and allow them to corroborate the "absence of correspondence and interrelation between the professional and social mode of action" (p. 102), since humanistic training is not contemplated from the transversality of knowledge in the subjects of the curriculum, which implies an insufficient integration of these with the appropriate values to interpret social contexts and transform particular circumstances, in becoming the permanent subjects of change.

It is evident that the humanistic training process has gaps in its implementation, it is " non- systemic, descontextualized and lacks sequenced actions based on the objectives of socio-humanistic and ethical training in the future professional " (^{Hernández Rodríguez, 2016}, 186).

The generalization and discipline capabilities shown in the research constitute transcendental theoretical models to search for pedagogical essences in the first place, but also methodological and epistemological.

^{Fung Riverón (1999)} considers Marxism approachable from all points of view and objects of work: history, economics, philosophy, politics, particular sciences, art and common knowledge, therefore, useful and practical in all fields.

It saw in the objective and subjective, internal and external conditions, facilities for its rooting in some intellectual sectors in Cuba since the end of the 19th century, with a trajectory of increasing intensity that today makes it possible to focus it from transcendence as a phenomenon in the national culture and where teachers have played a fundamental role, despite all the difficulties encountered (^{Fung, 2020}).

^{Cabrera Rodríguez (2002}), in his article "Marxism: three integral parts? Only one piece?" reflects on the internal structure of Marxism when trying to "rescue the true dimension of its paradigm" (p.38) and assures from the original manuscripts of Marx and Engels that: "the critical theory that they are shaping from their investigation of the mode of capitalist production leaves no gap to deduce `three integral parts'. On the contrary, this social organism could not be analyzed with scientific rigor if it is not taken as a whole in its multiple relationships (p. 39) and he asserts that "it must be conceived as a single piece" (p. 40).

He considers the article "Three sources and three integral parts of Marxism" (^{Lenin, 1961}, 31) absolutized and canonized, which "deserves to be conceived as one more approach and not as the only existing one" (p. 40), since it is " the need to distinguish the fundamental moments that made up this social theory", he adds that "following the scheme of ordering in sections, one could speak of four integral parts of Marxism and a fourth source".

The courage to break paradigms protected by static thinking is an essential quality to understand and explain Marxism.

^{Cervantes (2020)}, in his keynote address "Being a Marxist-Leninist like Fidel", analyzes the historical contexts of the continent and of Cuba in which Marxism-Leninism developed and today acts as a variant of Marxism; appreciates that its strength and validity guarantee the future, basing it on the thought and successful practice of the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, who never resigned or denied it and endures after 60 years of internal social rearrangements and resistance to changes and external pressures in all spheres.

Conclusions

It is necessary to agree on definitions, concepts and representations of the terms in academic, official and popular use on Marxism, Marxism and Leninism, Marxism-Leninism and Leninism to reduce confusion and facilitate the fulfillment of the cultural and political functions inherent in the teaching of the work of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci and others.

The State of the Art accumulated in research, teaching and interpretation have managed to establish an autochthonous Marxism with its own epistemology and methodology for its teaching and research, as well as a guiding instrument in the conduct of society in post- capitalist transition.

The epistemological and methodological contributions of Cuban Marxism transcend geographical, cultural and temporal limits and constitute the source of a new and specific Political Science for the peoples of the South.

The leading role of the faculty in the teaching process determines that the conception assumed about the main theoretical contradictions and practical problems that Marxism currently faces, condition the motivation for learning and its demand in student training dynamics, as subjects of critical thinking and citizens with social responsibility.

Converting the epistemological, axiological, ethical and aesthetic essence of Marxism into a pedagogical program constitutes a challenge of still indeterminate and inexhaustible dimensions, since its plural, controversial and eternally self-denying essence is not learned from traditional systems, but rather is apprehended as a quality thinking.

Conceiving multiple interpretations, considering the complexities, uncertainties and interconnections and adapting the methods and means of reflecting and teaching to the rhythm of realities, not of institutions and doctrines, is to think as a Marxist.

In contemporary times, teaching Marxism forces us to dismantle traditional frameworks and interact with science, technological innovation, art, humor, fun, entertainment and all fields of objective and subjective activity, in accordance with the dialectic content that imparts.

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Received: May 02, 2021; Accepted: November 17, 2021