Cuba Aping the USSR: inevitable?

[Julio Pino <jpino@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   I hate to defend May Alice-in-Woderland and her partner in crime , but
on the issue of Cuba being economically unprepared for the collapse of the
Soviet Bloc and what that would mean for Cuba's domestic economy, she and
Barnes are right on target. In the 1970s Cuba grew ever more dependent on
the Soviet bloc, in part by economic necessity, but also by choice, because
they had become convinced of the superiority of the Soviet model to theirs,
especially after the ten-million ton disaster. The Fidelistas forgot Che's
critique of COMECON,  and the socialist international division of labor
that delegated Cuba to exploiting its comparative advantage in sugar in
trade for Soviet oil(and Bulgarian tape-recorders, as Fidel once joked---in
1990).Wage incentives for surpassing production quotas were re-introduced,
and the Labor Code installed stricter penalties for "vagrancy, absenteeism,
lateness for work." Not bad goals in and of themselves, but it hugely
increased the power of factory managers, who made such chastisements on the
spot. None of this was forced on the Cubans by blind economic forces. Cuba
consciously decided to copy the Soviet economic model more than ever
before. (You may have missed it, but now even Fidel admits this was a
mistake, cf. his interviews with Italian journalist Gianni Minna.)
   Waters was also right(and in your own way you agree, Lou) that this
economic dependency was bound to transform Cuban politics.Take pedagogy:
instead of learning from  Marti and Marx and Che, textbooks on
"Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism" were imported from the USSR and taught
per rotum, from high schools to the universities. (I use to own one of
these turgid tomes myself; I never finished it---do you suppose any Soviet
or Cuban citizen ever did?)Reminds me of a story I heard from a Cuban ie.,
Castroite, historian at a Miami conference a few years back. When he went
to the USSR in the 1960s to take his degree, it was still possible to major
at Moscow U. in "Militant Atheism." (Let's see, tovarich, I think I'll take
a major in militant atheism, with a minor in loathing for organized religion.)
 It's debatable point whether the Bolsheviks intended the NEP to be a
stopgap masure or an important feature of the Soviet economy for a quite a
long time. The writings of Lenin can be cited for either interpretation.
(For inquiring minds, I recommend the two volumes of Charles Bettleheim's
"Class Struggles in the USSR".)It's hard, therefore, to draw anologies with
Cuba during the Special Period and the Soviet Union 1917-23. But we can't
take it for granted that Waters and Barnes are assuming a "holier than thou
attitude" towards the Cuban leadership on the question of making
concessions to multinational capital just by quoting from Lenin et al. And,
yes, I will agree with them that reading Granma, especially the
International edition, leaves one politically confused; so does the
official webpage of the Cuban Government, which, after the obligatory
slogans from Fidel and Raul, also has a section for foreigners on "how to
invest in Cuba": rum, sugar, sunny-beaches, anything you like. I realize
this may be necessary, but do they have to flaunt it? BTW, have you noticed
how vacation ads for Cuba now feature the obligatory T and A Mulata
enchantress? Hombre, I thought this only happened in Brazil!

I'll stop here---I have students to teach. But next time, if you like, we
can discuss the not-so-subtle changes in the Cuban Constitution, formulated
in 1976, revised in 1992, that downplay socialism.
Julio Cesar
El Pinero

Lou Proyect: If you look at an
>August 1994 speech given by Mary-Alice Waters ("Defending Cuba, defending
>Cuba's Socialist Revolution") contained in New International #10, you will
>find a rather nasty attack on Castro under the guise of providing
>solidarity. Just to refresh people's memory, this was the time of the
>'special period' when collapse of the USSR had caused one a severe economic
>crisis in Cuba. In order to move past this crisis, Cuba began to explore
>the possibility of opening up to foreign investment. Waters speech
>contained several outrageous assessments of what was taking place in Cuba,
>delivered in the tone of a seasoned critic reviewing an inferior Broadway
>play.
>
>She chides the Cubans for scrambling around trying to cobble together an
>new economic policy. A more profoundly gifted Marxist leadership would have
>made contingency plans understanding that support from the USSR was not
>permanent. She says, "But the Cuban leadership acted as if the Soviet and
>Eastern European regimes would last forever--and so would the aid... As a
>result of this mistaken political judgement, the Cuban leadership hadn't
>prepared for the inevitable and wasn't ready when the crisis hit in
>1989-1991." Well, my response to these dingbats is that there was nothing
>in the pages of the Militant in 1970 or 1980 warning the Cubans about a
>nasty curve in the road up ahead. In point of fact, as long as Cuba was
>part of the socialist bloc, there was little it could do except make the
>USSR a primary trading partner. Politics and economics are inextricably
>related.
>
>In a question-and-answer period following her talk, Waters evidently had to
>cope with some challenges to her interpretation emanating from some party
>membes still in touch with objective reality. They must have drawn an
>analogy with the New Economic Policy, introduced in the Soviet Union for
>reasons identical to those prompting the changes Waters was criticizing in
>Cuba. She rejected this, making the point that the Cuban leadership was
>inferior to Lenin and Trotsky's (and by implication that which held court
>in West Street.) She states:
>
>"Several delegates have made references to the NEP in the course of the
>discussion. The difference, above all, is the question of leadership and
>political clarity... Unfortunately, we can't quote from any...clear,
>communist explanation being put forward in Cuba today... Read GRANMA
>INTERNATIONAL every week and imagine how confused--how demoralized--you
>would be if that were your only source of information about what's
>happening in Cuba, to say nothing of the rest of the world."
>
>Odd, that would be my reaction to relying on the Militant: confusion and
>demoralization.
>