[Marxism] Comments on the first item in IV's series on Cuba

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following is the first article in the promised series on Cuba in the
Fourth International's 'International Viewpoint.'  Frankly, it reads more
like sophisticated New York Times coverage rather than a revolutionary
standpoint. Even down to the suggestion that the Cuban people were ready to
revolt when Castro became ill but wisely decided to "wait" until the feared
dictator is safely dead.

The whole framework is the standard bourgeois one of "change" coming after
Castro dies, as though "change" would be something brand new in stagnant and
rotting Cuba. The pivot of the whole series seems to be the perspective that
Cuba is going back toward capitalism, and that only the Fourth
International's organizational councilist schemas -- portrayed as the only
road to "revolution from below" -- can reverse the trend.

The promise of articles to come seems entirely based on the view that the
regime is the main danger facing the Cuban revolution.  Hence the promise to
get articles only from "critical Marxists" active in Cuba (whatever "active
in Cuba" may mean).  Does that mean that anyone besides Hart will be
published who basically support's the government's extremely difficult
fifty-year struggle to preserve the revolution based on the mobilization and
social activity of the people.

The regime is treated as firmly Stalinist in essence, even though the term
"Stalinist" may not apply technically. 

The problem of the "critical" left is their profound disillusionment,
disappointment, and cynicism about revolution today, in which a "from below"
schema is persistently counterposed to everything that moves.  We should
remember how long it took to convince a sizable section of this movement
that the Chavez and Morales governments represented conquests of the poor
and oppressed, not just obstacles to their struggle.  And those battles are
still far from over.

I am also struck by the contempt that these hard-core ideologues have for
"the battle of ideas" in Cuba.

However, I admit that progress has been made on Venezuela and Bolivia.
Maybe even the prejudices that surround Cuba will not prove invulnerable,
especially if forward motion rather than a predominant return to capitalism
dominates the picture.

On Cuba, where at least today, there are a lot of needed things that capital
(and especially international ties) can do that neither the state nor even
the people organized outside and independent of (i.e., against, in this
current's schema) the state have the means, strength or even competence to
do at the present time. We have to get rid of all variants of
socialism-in-one-country that denounce governments for failing to solve all
issues within the framework of nationalized, planned economy when this
requires a much broader international basis than exists at present.

The danger in Cuba is not capitalist counterrevolution in the immediate
period but strengthening the viability and productivity of the economy while
maintaining the popular mobilization, deepening to the extent possible the
masses' decisive participation in  politics, and continuing the regime's
support and solidarity to attempts to extend popular revolution and resist
imperialist aggression around the world. And, as we know when we look at the
real world, no government in the world is as consistent about pursuing these
goals as the Castro government in Cuba.

I don't worry about capitalist restoration in Cuba in the near future, or as
a short-term consequence of Castro's death (which I am beginning to think
may well be delayed long enough -- it is inevitable, of course, to be yet
another demoralizing blow to the would-be Miami party-goers). 

The real challenges that face Cuba right now are very difficult ones, and
success is not guaranteed in meeting them.  But it strikes me that the  IV
series is on the wrong track about what they are, because of preconceptions
about the situation.
Fred Feldman




International Viewpoint
News and analysis from the Fourth International
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org 

IV Online magazine : IV385 - January 2007 
Cuba Discussion
The Leadership Succession Bears the Mark of Continuity
Jean Castillo 


Where is Cuba going ? Can the social achievements of the Cuban Revolution of
1959 be maintained? How to maintain a non-capitalist society? What are the
dangers of a capitalist restoration?

What is at stake in Cuba is essential for the workers of the entire world,
because a capitalist restoration in Cuba would call into question for a long
time the legitimacy of all projects of socialist transformation.

Without claiming to be able to give definitive answers, we have decided to
open the debate on the analysis of Cuban society and the orientations that
could make it possible to maintain and develop its achievements. In the
coming weeks we will be publishing a series of articles, including some by
critical Marxists who are active in Cuba. Our first article is a report by
Jean Castillo, a French Marxist who has regularly visited Cuba. We hope by
publishing these articles to further a debate whose aim is to better arm
those who are attached to the defence of the achievements of the Cuban
Revolution.




Fidel with brother Raul
For the present generation of Cuban adults socialism is synonymous with
shortages, bureaucracy and vertical and authoritarian power relations. How
did we get there after the victory of a revolution whose slogans of social
justice and national sovereignty were taken up and implemented by millions
of Cubans for more half a century?

Over the last 15 years the revolutionary process has marked time. With the
collapse of the Soviet Union Cuban had to adopt itself to an international
context with no safety net. That led to radical changes in the way people
behaved, to a recomposition of social norms, to a turning upside down of the
social pyramid: with the development of tourism prostitution returned and
jobs as waiters or taxi drivers became much more lucrative than those of
teachers and doctors.

Almost the entire population could not live on their salaries alone. With
the exception of the"remesas" - the money sent by exiles - there remained
few alternatives ways to survive in a situation of shortages of everything.
The Cuban expression "invent, resolve, find the way out"  [1] has today
become "steal, corrupt, bribe".

So what legitimacy can the revolutionary process still lay claim to today,
when the foundation of values on which it rested is eroding as the double
morality [2] infiltrates Cuban society and we can see the return of certain
capitalist values?

In this context, the leadership of Fidel Castro functioned in spite of
everything as a compass. So when the historic leader handed over power,
without however completely abandoning the conduct of affairs, and reserving
for himself the possibility of returning, the Cuban population, for a large
part disoriented, decided to wait.

What popular base has the revolution today?

When you walk through streets of Havana, away from the tourist quarters,
what is first of all evident is fatigue, discontent, disappointment. If you
risk asking a question the reply is invariably followed by the refrain "ah,
it's not easy" or the slightly more dynamic "it's the struggle, comrade"
[3]. The daily struggle, not the revolutionary struggle. Because to succeed
in obtaining the food and products that are necessary for an ordinary life,
not a luxurious one, is a real battle everyday. Certain things are only
available in foreign currency, such as oil, whose price varied between 2.10
and 2.30 CUC . [4] a litre in the summer of 2006, whereas the salary of a
state employee is on average 15 CUC a month.

The government knows thi,s but refuses to increase wages for fear of setting
off an inflationary spiral. So the majority of Cubans live according to
their old national maxim "the state pretends to pay me, so I pretend to
work". So we can only wonder at the figure of economic growth (11.8%) that
was announced by the Cuban authorities for the year 2005 [5]. Since income
from work has become symbolic, the Cubans "find a way" to survive in some
other way.

This economy of poverty leads to a loss of ideological references and to a
certain recomposition of socialist norms. There is an anecdote circulating
according to which a pupil explained to his history teacher during an
examination that he lived at present in a socialist regime, since there was
poverty, whereas before the fall of the Berlin Wall Cuba was capitalist; we
lacked nothing.

To be able to live when the salary alone cannot cover the needs of families,
Cubans are forced to take time off work to go and look in the streets for
the resources that are necessary to survive, or else to steal and corrupt in
their own workplace, which is sometime an important source of revenues. The
workers in cigar factories, oil refineries, building enterprises, daily
steal a not negligible part of their production. Thus an ordinary worker in
a cigar factory estimated in June 2006 his daily gains at 1500 Cuban pesos,
whereas the monthly salary that the state pays him for his work is around
400 Cuban pesos. The gains of foremen and factory managers are, thanks to
their functions, considerably more than that.

To try and deal with the situation the government is fighting on the terrain
of ideas. In 1999 there was launched the "battle of ideas" whose main
objective is to bring back into the arms of the socialist fatherland, with
its collective ideals, the sheep who have strayed onto the road of
capitalism and triumphant individualism.

However, two serious mistakes undermine this campaign: it does not confront
the real economic problem which is the source of the disillusionment of
Cubans in relation to socialism, and it was launched by the veterans of the
revolution, the old leaders of the revolutionary army, not very suited to
mobilize on a large scale and in a lasting way around themselves hundreds of
thousands of young people. As long as the problematic relationship between
consumer prices and wages has not been resolved and there has not been any
renovation of the bureaucratic and dogmatic functioning of the regime, no
political attempt will be able to really convince Cubans that there exists a
valid socialism, one that is synonymous with neither poverty nor repression.

"Socialism" or "communism" have become symbols of authoritarian,
bureaucratic and vertical systems. It is worrying to see that as in the
former Soviet Union, the deviant practice of functionaries at the highest
level has made possible the amalgamation between a kind of regime, from its
economic and political choices to its objectives of social justice, and
certain dogmatic and repressive practices against everything that is not in
the defined political line.

Cuban youth is today responding to the hyper-politicization of public space
(advertising hoardings on the roads, media, compulsory meetings at work and
where people live) by a marked disinterest in politics. As for the Cubans of
the previous generation, when you ask them to define themselves politically,
they say that they are above all "Fidelistas". It is respect and admiration
for Fidel Castro, as the historic leader of the national social
transformation, which makes of these Cubans people who "conform" to the
ideology that is promoted by the authorities, and not their attachment to a
system of "socialist" ideas, values, and practices. That is why the spectre
of his coming disappearance is preoccupying for the survival of the regime.
The leading elites understand this well and ceaselessly repeat that the
passage of power to Raul Castro backed by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) is
perfectly legitimate and that it is taking place in the greatest
revolutionary continuity.

The government's strategies at a time of unrecognized political crisis

The Cuban regime has been built since it came into existence on cycles of
opening and closing, of the greatest tolerance followed by the harshest
repression. Since 2003 a repressive cycle has clearly opened, with first of
all the launching of a campaign against illegal minor trafficking and
commerce at the beginning of 2003, then the arrest of the 75 dissidents in
the spring of that year. Since then we can see a recentralization of the
economy, the putting in place of mechanisms of social control, reinforced
with the creation of the corps of social workers which is made up of 28,000
young Cubans and the unleashing of the campaign against corruption in 2005.

On the economic level the partial opening up to the market and the right for
150 trades to exercise more or less freely their profession have been put
into question. In fact, the licenses which give people the right to exercise
their profession are not always renewed, and few new licenses are issued.
The frequency of control checks is constantly increasing, although sometimes
one can question their effectiveness, given the common practice of collusive
transactions among Cubans, in other words exchanging favors: the boss closes
his eyes to the fiddles of his subordinates provided they reserve a share
for him. Since almost all Cubans make part of their income through illegal
trade, it is not in their interest to denounce anyone else because behaving
in that way could easily turn against the informer.

The economy continues to be dual: in the national currency, the Cuban peso,
for the commodities that are sold at a low price, in convertible pesos (in
US dollars until the end of 2004 at which time the dollar was withdrawn from
circulation in favor of the new peso) for trade in foreign currency. It
seems probable that in time the government's objective is to fuse these two
systems into one, with a single currency. But the present strategic choices
do not seem to confirm that. In reality the priority that is given to
tourism and the service economy (biotechnologies, high-quality medical
services, welcoming Latin Americans in particular for simple surgical
operations that are not accessible in their own countries) goes along with a
territorial and social segmentation of Cuban society.

The spaces that are given over to the market economy are conceived of and
function as enclaves within the Cuban national economy. Some neighborhoods
on the outskirts of big cities have become the new centres for receiving
Latin Americans who are waiting for the medical services promised by
operation Milagro  [6] These places are consciously cut off from the centres
where the rest of the Cuban population lives. They are well away from the
town centre and are difficult to reach by public transport. In the same way
the tourist centres have been planned from the beginning as enclaves, most
often on the coast, and run in such a way that the contacts between
foreigners and Cubans are kept to the strict minimum.

However, these policies have not been crowned with success. More and more
foreign tourists, students, journalists, and businessmen mix with Cubans in
the cities and particularly in Havana, which has made possible the
development of prostitution, gambling, and new forms of petty crime. Part of
Cuban youth no longer works and waits for the "yuma", the foreigner, who
provides their livelihood. Many workers of other generations have made
similar choices: they leave their job in the public administration as a
teacher, doctor, lawyer, or nurse to become a waiter, a taxi driver, a guide
in museums or in town, professions that are much more lucrative because they
are paid in foreign currency.

To stop the inexorable exodus of qualified professional people towards the
market sector (both formal and informal) of the Cuban economy the government
has launched big projects to repair the two sectors that have been the most
damaged: health and education. These are "maestros (teachers) emergentes"
and "infirmieros (nurses) emergentes". "Emergentes" can be translated as
emergent, but also as urgent. So these programmes have become in Cuba the
object of endless jokes about the real urgency of training teachers and
nurses in the face of the extreme shortages that the country is confronted
with. Given short training courses directed towards the most concrete aspect
of their profession, these young people, who have been quickly accorded
their diplomas, do not have the same degree of knowledge as their
predecessors on the job, and Cubans complain of the worsening public service
in hospitals and schools.

Bandages on wooden legs, these programmes can therefore only be very short
term solutions and can in no case replace a real questioning of the way the
nation's human resources are distributed across different sectors. If the
population is waiting, the dominant impression one gets is that the
government and the top civil services are also waiting and do not dare to
launch real programmes to renovate the project of social transformation that
was at the origin of the Cuban revolution. Such programmes are however
indispensable in order to safeguard the social gains that have been won over
nearly half the century.

A controlled passage of power

When on the evening of July 31st 2006 the news was announced of Fidel
Castro's illness and consequently the passage of power to his brother Raul,
the Cubans of Miami invaded the streets of their city for a big spontaneous
party. On the island of Cuba the streets were deserted and silent. In the
following days very few people risked touching on the subject in a public
conversation, whether in the office, on the building site, or at the bus
stop. Deprived of the slightest information concerning the health of their
head of state, closely controlled by the police, state security and the
army, reinforced for the occasion by tens of thousands of reservists, people
were in fact excluded from the process of political decision-making that
governed the passage of power.

So the Cubans decided to wait. Paradoxically, whereas Cuban public space is
extremely dominated by ideology a part of the Cuban population, which we
cannot measure exactly, seems very depoliticized. Because they know that
they will not be consulted, because they know that they will have no
influence on the strategic choices that are made in the name of the nation
by leaders disconnected from the realities of precarious daily lives. The
passivity that is linked to depoliticization is worrying because it could in
time make possible a capitalist restoration almost without resistance, as
was the case when the Soviet Union became Russia again.

Invoked everywhere, the Cuban people therefore has no real existence
anywhere. Mythified, encouraged, harangued by the leading cadres of
organizations and of the government, the Cuban people is in reality
fragmented, discouraged, tired, engaged in a short term battle with daily
necessities and less and less in tune with the grandiloquence of the
speeches of the leaders about the "revolutionary sacrifices" that have to be
made for the future of the nation. Faced with this popular disaffection for
the regime and its highest representatives, at this extremely delicate and
dangerous moment, the moment of the passage of power (for the moment
officially provisional) between Fidel and Raul Castro, the government is
firmly insisting on continuity. Continuity between the two Castro brothers,
the continuity of the revolutionary paradigm and its values, the continuity
that is ensured by the role of the PCC as a political vanguard.

In August meetings of support to Fidel were organized everywhere, invariably
closed by interventions of militants wishing the "Comandante" a speedy
recovery. Changes had already taken place from the month of July on the
institutional level: the party was put forward again, after having been for
decades a framework for approving decisions rather than making political
proposals. Its permanent secretariat has been reactivated. In public spaces
placards praising the party as the only legitimate heir of the revolutionary
process have appeared.

Political continuity is therefore the present political programme of the
heirs designated by Fidel Castro in the proclamation that was read by his
personal secretary on July 31st 2006. It is certainly obvious that it is not
in the interest of the leaders to propose radically reforming the regime
while the historic leader of the revolution is still alive. It is legitimate
that they should take support from the fragile status quo that exists at the
moment. But this position can't be maintained for very long. Inside the
country Raul Castro does not have the charismatic authority that his brother
has.

Abroad he doesn't have the same political status as him either. So it will
be much more difficult for him to face up to the pressures, whether they
come from Cubans living on the island who seem to want a change, certainly
progressive, which will make it possible both to engage more freely in trade
and to obtain civil and political freedoms while maintaining the
revolutionary social gains: or from the international community and the
Cuban exile community, who are pushing for a systemic political change which
would in time give birth to a new neo-liberal capitalist society on the
Western model.

When Fidel Castro was finally unable to lead the Cuban delegation to the
Non-Aligned Summit that was held in Havana in mid-September 2006, the
speculation about his state of health and the supposed "transition" which
will take place in Cuba were widespread. It is certain that the historic
leader of the revolution is weakened. It seems difficult to imagine that he
will ever take back his positions at the highest level and cancel the
delegation of power, although it is still provisional, to his brother Raul.




It is however very premature or already obsolete to talk of a Cuban
transition. It is obsolete because for 15 years now the analysts have
thought they could see a "transition" in Cuba without anything fundamentally
changing. It is premature because you cannot project political schemas that
were created during the regime changes in the South American cone or during
the passage from really existing socialism to democracy and the market
economy in Eastern Europe, onto Cuban reality.

There exist in Cuba progressive forces who are trying to make the ossified
structures of a socialism that was inherited from the Soviet Union evolve
towards a socialism that can combine all civil, political and social
freedoms and maintain an economic model whose objectives are social justice
and real participation by the citizens. These forces are weak. There does
not exist in Cuba an independent trade union force or social movements that
speak with a voice distinct from that of the government in the public space.
All the mass organizations [7] without exception are in reality para-state
organizations, which function more as transmission belts for the
orientations that are decided at the highest level than as structures in
defense of the interests of their members.

Some members are trying to renovate their internal functioning from below,
since they are unable to change the practices from above. Others are trying
to build within these unavoidable structures, to which all Cubans are
supposed to belong, spaces for reflection on the revolution as a political
process. What is involved is small groups who are not formally organized, we
should really speak of a loose network which is more or less elastic
depending on the period.

These groups do not of course constitute a strong dynamic for renovation in
the real sense of the world in Cuba, but they are fighting within their own
reality to safeguard the revolutionary conquests at the same time as
reoccupying the political spaces that have been in part confiscated by a
certain leading elite enjoying new privileges since the fall of the Berlin
wall. It is on these forces that we have to take a chance, so that the
island is not once again transformed into a banana republic or into an annex
of the United States, economically dependent, politically dominated, and
socially unjust.


Jean Castillo, who is a teacher, is a member of the Revolutionary Communist
League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International). He has made
numerous trips to Cuba and gives us here his impressions of the situation
there and some ideas based on what he has seen.

NOTES


[1] In Spanish, "Inventar, resolvar, alcanzarse".

[2] Publicly supporting revolutionary values so as not to have problems with
the authorities, while at the same having pactices that are far removed from
these values (theft, lying, embezzlement, corruption, etc.).

[3] "Aah, no es facil". 'Es la lucha, companero".

[4] CUC is the convertible peso. 1 CUC = 0.85 euros

[5] Granma, official press organ of the PCC, Deecmber 22nd, 2005.

[6] Literally, "Operation Miracle", whose aim is to restore sight to those
who are wholly or partly suffering from cataracts, by means of an operation
that is simple, but expensive in the other countries of Latin America.

[7] These organizations are : the CTC (Cuban Workers' Confederation); the
FMC (Federation of Cuban Women); the CDR (committees in Defence of the
Revolution); the ANAP (National Association of Small Farmers); the FEU
(Federation of University Students); the FEEM (Federation of Middle School
Students); the Pioneers (primary school pupils) and the UJC (Union of Young
Communists).




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