After the overthrow of the dictator Fulgencio Batista at the beginning of 1959, the new Cuban government embarked in an ambitious experiment in participatory democracy.   Cubans  at every level of society gathered in their neighborhoods and their workplaces to discuss the problems facing the nation as well as their local situations.  Cadres summed up discussions and forwarded popular concerns and recommendations to ministries and agencies responsible for synthesizing a national consensus.  In 1961, at a meeting of several thousand writers in Havana, Fidel Castro insisted that intellectuals were vital to the expanded democracy Cubans were creating.  Like all Cuban citizens, Read more