DOCUMENT**
"The most decisive
stage of the
revolution's history'*
_ The fall of the bureaucratic dictatorships in Eastern Europe and the rampant crisis in the USSR have had and will continue to have important consequences for the future of the Cuban revolution. Paradoxically, at its birth the revolution was protected by the division of the world into two camps. The dynamic of the East/West confrontation allowed Cuba — given its particular geo-political situation - to benefit from Soviet aid and protection , which helped the country to survive for 30 years. "Détente" , or more precisely the American-Soviet rapprochement pushed by Gorbachev, diminishes the role of Cuba and its strategic interest for the USSR. The Malta Accords and the resolution of so-called "regional conflicts" leave the field open for external interventions by imperialism. Increased American aggressivity has paved the way for an accumulation of defeats that are demoralizing the vanguards, even if the crisis of the Communist parties and the relaxation of bureaucratic control encourages the revolutionary potential of third-world liberation movements in the long term. In the context of the international relationship of forces, which has become unfavourable, third-world revolutionary organizations are on the defensive.
The consequences of this situation are currently felt most acutely in Central America. Imperialism has had two important victories there in the space of a
54 International Marxist Review few months: in Panama and in Nicaragua. It is also seeking to follow up its advantage in El Salvador and does not hide its aggressive intentions in relation to Cuba.
Profiting from the events in Romania, American imperialism intervened directly in Panama without raising any massive protests, even in Latin America. This relative impunity is unprecedented. It was helped along by the exceptionally poisonous campaign carried out by the Western media. This is demonstrated by the figures known today concerning the number of victims in the two countries: around 100 deaths in Timisoara, between 2,000-4,000 in Panama. Even if Noriega's discredit helped the military aggression, it is clear that the American government knows how to profit from the debacle of the East European bureaucratic dictatorships and the lack of credibility for socialism to step up its intervention. The stagnation of the revolutionary offensive in El Salvador in November also expressed the change in the international relationship of forces to the benefit of imperialism, despite the exceptional example of the FMLN whose mass influence, military initiative and political intelligence are clear — no other Latin American revolutionary organization yet enjoys a similar relationship of forces in their country. However, the Front is on the defensive: as well as the disastrous effects of the San Isidro Accords, establishing a symmetry between the FMLN and the Nicaraguan Contra, there was the FSLN's defeat, which was a big blow to the struggle of the Salvadoran people. The electoral defeat in Nicaragua has effects that go beyond the Central American isthmus to the whole of Latin America. Nicaragua was a victory for so-called "low-intensity" strategy. This was prepared over a long period and combined arming the Contra, internal political intervention and the Machiavellian use of elections to progressively wear down the Sandinistas' influence with military aggression, an economic blockade and political errors made by the FSLN, who were desperately seeking international support which never came, in particular from the Gorbachev leadership.
Imperialist tactics in Nicaragua should be carefully studied, because they represent a more subtle and more dangerous threat. They shed light on the orientation followed in relation to Cuba and indicate the traps being set for the Cuban leadership. They make organizing international solidarity more complex at a time when there are growing threats facing Cuba and economic and social problems are accumulating in the country.
press s economic dificulties are amply underscored by the intonationa which however omits to give the same weight to those laced b
other third-world countries being hit by an unprecedentedly serious crisis.
While Western institutions (thanks to petro-dollars) offered considerable sums in the form of loans in the 1970s — a period, moreover, when raw materials' prices were high — the international conjuncture has changed.
The unfavourable economic climate of the 1980s, the dramatic fall in prices for raw materials and the weight of the debt penalized third-world economies and have had extremely serious economic consequences. These were under-
The economies of the ACP countries are not developed, on the contrary. This attects all sectors of economic life. Poverty has grown and pauperization is spreading...Hospitals and schools close because there is no money to pay doctors, nurses or teachers, factories grind to
The hunger riots in the Ivory Coast, Argentina and Venezuela are witness
10 the scale of the poverty and misery of the population, in contrast to the shameful enrichment of a tiny minority. Although Cuba also suffers from the fluctuations in raw materials' prices, from the weight of the debt and the lack of credit, it is recognized by international bodies that the Cuban people benefit from incomparable social gains in terms of education, healthcare, social security and the right to work.? This is in spite of the severe restrictions caused by the American blockade. The progress realized by Cuba in terms of infant mortality are particularly significant: according to UNICEF, infant mortality was 118 per one thousand births in Haiti in 1987, while in Cuba it is
But these gains are today under threat: the conditional aid provided by the
USSR is in question. Comecon's collapse is forcing the Cuban leadership to carry out an economic reevaluation of its foreign trade and to reexamine a policy that was based on the existence of the so-called socialist camp and which led them to accept the constraints of the "socialist" division of labour that ruled inside Comecon. The forms of these exchanges did not allow
Cuba to escape from the hazards of sugar production, and the effects of this economic dependence on the USSR are cruelly felt. From now on, uncertainties hang over the future of commercial trade with Eastern European countries, whose political evolution changes the relations with such a peripheral partner thousands of kilometres away. Some of them — Hungary, for example — have in practice already denounced the clauses of the contracts agreed
The economic vulnerability of the country is dramatically illustrated by the fact that Fidel Castro has already made known his fears of seeing the country e y n al y le rt or nic nal by
11 per thousand.
with Havana.
Decisive stage in Cuba 55
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lined by the recent Lomé Convention IV: a halt because of lack of spare parts, raw materials or fuel.! fall victim to a drastic reduction in oil deliveries:
56 International Marxist Review
The country must be prepared for the worst... If we don't receive the 12 million tonnes of petrol annually, we must know how we will manage if we only get 10, 8, 6, 5 or 4 tonnes.*
Indeed, oil deliveries have already decreased, from 13m tonnes in 1988 to 12m tonnes in 1989.
In February 1990, the daily bread ration per person was 80 grams. The grain shortage has provoked massive slaughter of poultry and egg price rises. Deliveries of citrus fruits destined for the USSR have not been made "because of difficulties affecting Soviet trade and maritime transport". Some 15% of the Soviet merchant fleet is allocated to transport with Cuba.
But while it is true that real problems have played a role in these difficulties (the strike in the Ukraine delayed wheat flour deliveries, the ethnic conflicts in Baku at the end of 1989 supposedly disrupted the depart of oil tankers), it is no less true that the campaign to discredit the Cuban revolution taken up by the Soviet press was not done to encourage trade — quite the opposite. It is significant that, for the first time, the newspaper Argumenty i Fakiy (March 17-23, 1990) revealed the cost of the aid, hypocritically referring to "Western estimates that ... the volume of Soviet aid to Cuba will be 5 billion roubles a year" '. According to Izvestia (cf New York Times, March 8, 1990), the Cuban debt to the USSR — never made public before — could be 15 billion roubles (nearly $10 billion).
Moreover, Moscow News and Soviet television have indulged in sarcastic comments on Castro's "ideological principles" and have echoed the discontent revealed by dissidents. Finally, the United Nations votes by Bulgaria and Hungary in favour of a resolution condemning Cuba for not respecting human rights — a resolution that was sponsored by Poland and Czechoslovakia — touched off a crisis. These votes were interpreted by the Cuban leadership as bargaining counters destined to obtain American financial aid for the countries concerned. Although these countries only represent 15% of Cuba's annual trade with Eastern Europe, a break would have a noticeable impact, particularly if the effects of the annexation of East Germany (and its integration into the EEC) are also taken into account, it having been the second largest purchaser of Cuban sugar in Comecon. Even if the USSR is not going to make up for the shortcomings of its exComecon partners, and even if a reduction in aid is envisageable, a sudden rupture of the accords is not very likely and it is very probable that Gorbachev will modify wheat supplies in relation to fluctuations in his internal and international policies and to the evolution of relations with Havana. This is even more the case given that the benefits of economic exchanges are less unilateral than certain newspapers would have us believe. Cuba provides the
Decisive stage in Cuba S7 SSR with a third of its sugar and 40% of its citrus fruit consumption, and Comecon absorbs 75% of Cuban annual nickel production. To buy these goods on the open market would cost them very dearly in hard currency, and Soviet agriculture is in no state to produce the four million tonnes of sugar inat Cuba supplies.
As Abalkin pointed out during the twentieth session of the InterGovernmental Commission meeting in Havana from April 12 to 17, 1990, he USSR also derives advantages from its relations with Cuba. "We need sugar and Cuba needs oil", he declared.? But it is likely that the exchanges - ill be planned over one or two years from now on rather than five years and -at will be subject to big variations, in particular in relation to political revelopments in the USSR and the interests of Soviet enterprises, whose -anagement is now autonomous. Abalkin stated that these enterprises will Provisionally benefit from tax advantages if they trade with Cuba in order to . •ercome the consequences of this. But not only is it a temporary measure, the protocol of the accord signed in april only concerns the one year 1990. According to this agreement, the - SSR must continue to supply Cuba with fuel, food, raw materials and : quipment goods. For its part, Cuba must continue to export sugar, minerals - d citrus fruit to the Soviet Union, plus, for the first time, medicines and •çh technology equipment. The level reached by Cuba in terms of public *calth — in some sectors superior to that existing in the USSR — will stimuLe increased trade in this field. Some Cuban stomatologists are going to intribute to medical aid in the USSR, in particular in the mining regions. -round 10,000 children from the regions contaminated by the Chernobyl astrophe will be received in Cuban medical centres, the first thousand -ving in June 1990. In the same way, combatants wounded in Afghanistan • are cared for in a high-quality Cuban orthopaedic centre. However, Abalkin did not miss the opportunity to stress that he did not cow what economic relations between the two countries would be like in y1. Although he had affirmed that the divergences between the two gov—ments were not "a tragedy", these uncertainties put the Cuban economy at * mercy of any changes in the USSR and make it even more vulnerable. The mobilizations organized by the Castro leadership in expectation of aacial periods in peace time" (mainly in case oil deliveries are stopped) *ew that they are preparing for any eventuality that could arise because of rbachev's ideological credo, as much on the economic level as in terms of *: alons with imperialism. In one sense, the revolution is just as threatened :•ine political evolutions in Moscow as in Washington.
58 International Marxist Review
For the time being, military aid has also been maintained (some MiG 29s and other arms were delivered as foreseen). The Cuban army enjoys a particular prestige with Soviet military in a good position to know that this aid -unlike that given to other armies in the Middle East - is not accorded in vain.
But it is not the threat of a direct military invasion that is the immediate worry. The Americans know very well that the cost of such an intervention would be considerable, and Fidel Castro brandishes the example of Vietnam to remind them. Washington's policy is based on a deteriorating situation, combined with wearing down of a population confronted by economic difficulties and daily problems, discontent with wastage and corruption, disinterest of young people and criticisms from intellectuals particularly fed up with monolithism and restrictions on political freedoms. In an unfavourable international context, only a coming together of these factors would then allow them to envisage a military intervention with a rearguard of one million Cuban émigrés 90 kilometres from the Cuban coast in Miami. The Castro leadership is conscious of this risk, to which the "rectification process of errors and negative tendencies" implemented since 1986 is supposed to be an answer. overall socio-economic, political and ideological reorientation in a new international context after Gorbachev's election to the leadership of the CPSU and the perestroika turn. The internal situation was marked by the worsening of the economic and financial crisis since the beginning of the 1980s, and social tensions exacerbated by the inequalities and privileges produced by the economic reforms applied in the framework of the System of Economic Planning and Development (SDPE), the economic policy applied since the Ist Congress of the CCP in 1975. Conceived as a movement impelled from on high but relying on mass mobilizations to struggle against the "technocrats" and the "new kulaks" who were supposed to do well from the market reforms, the rectification also testified to differences that appeared inside the apparatus on which economic policy was to be followed. These divergences were publicly revealed by the ousting of Humberto Pérez, the leader of the Juceplan, in charge of implementing the SPE, and deputy-minister, who was excluded from the Central Committee by his peers in December 1987. Three years later, for still unclarified political reasons, the Ochoa affair was to illustrate the conflicts at work
The balance-sheet of the rectification is ambiguous and contradictory. Certainly, an economic turn has been carried out since 1986. There have been challenges to the economic reforms on the basis that they encourage the enriching of the private peasant farmers, stimulated price rises and provoked much social tension. The free peasants' markets, authorized since the reforms were adopted, have been suppressed; private activities which had been allowed in certain sectors (housing, among others) have been forbidden; market mechanisms have been denounced; the system of bonuses and ihe hierarchy of wages, which has grown since the application of the SDPE, have been challenged. But appeals to foreign capital to create joint-ventures and develop tourism are increasing. The contrast between the advantages offered to tourists paying in hard currency when the population lacks basic
The rectification also meant a reorganization of labour, a reevaluation of norms, a rationalization of personnel, and austerity measures which have caused a certain lowering of living standards. The attempts made to restrict the bureaucracy's privileges have remained very limited, as is shown by the revelations made during the Ochoa trial in 1989. Exorbitant privileges, corruption, waste and the uncontrolled power of high government officials contrast with the appeals for austerity and sacrifice, and put the contradictions of the rectification in stark relief. The criticisms made of financial incentives
On the economic terrain the situation has not improved. Labour productivily is still very low except in construction (the most dynamic sector in 1989 according to the State Statistics Committee). Here, real results have been obtained by the micro-brigades: the time taken to complete work and its quality show an improvement in productivity. But the working conditions and the substantial advantages (in particular in terms of housing and food) that the into account, in particular the effects of the drastic fall of imports. The rectification alone cannot be blamed for current economic problems.? The falls in production and the disorganization of certain sectors of industry are due in
Since 1986, the last year when economic growth was registered (according to a Cuban Bank report in June 1989), the country's financial situation has seriously affected imports paid for in hard currency. The production of consumer goods has been the hardest hit by these restrictions. The problems with inside the apparatus.
products risks being explosive.
have not had the same effect on everyone...
micro-brigade workers enjoy are not generally applied.
In order to assess the "rectification"
particular to a lack of previously-imported spare parts.
Decisive stage in Cuba 59
, objective difficulties have to be taken
60 International Marxist Review deliveries from some Eastern European countries, as well as the bad climatic conditions, have had repercussions for agriculture. Finally, the numeric growth of the work force (82,900 more workers even before the big return from Angola) has had unfavourable consequences on labour productivity, which, according to the National Bank, was decreased by 3.9%.
But what are the specific effects of the economic policy such as it was expressed by Fidel Castro? In agriculture, was the fall in production of citrus fruits, bananas, tubers, vegetables, coffee caused by the suppression of the free peasant markets? Was the incorporation of a young, inexperienced workforce supposed to compensate for the bad will of the peasants which had provoked a fall in productivity in the private sector which, although very small, has a big contribution to food production? There is not the information available to reply to these questions. However, it is in agriculture that the economic balance-sheet of the rectification could be most significant.
Successive political events since 1986 have confirmed the existence of political tensions within the state apparatus and the objective of the rectification to define new ideological references and to separate the wheat from the chaff. The partisans of the SDPE — Stalinists yesterday, Gorbachevites today — have been dismissed from responsibility for the Juceplan, and a new body responsible for planning has been created under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The most corrupt sectors of the apparatus have been warned and a certain number of those in charge fired. The calls for sacrifices, emulation and voluntarism, and the reference to Che in clear opposition to Gorbachev's perestroika, have been accompanied by an increasingly overt criticism of the Soviet institutional "model" established in the 1970 and of the political and cultural dogmatism that have flowed from it. This reevaluation was prolonged during the recent period by a violent critique of East European countries — emphasizing the fact that they never carried out an authentic revolution, which, according to the Castro leadership, explains why they have initiated a process of capitalist restoration. It is obvious that the spectacular growth of the bureaucratic apparatus in the space of 10 years — the number of civil servants has tripled and social differentiations have crystallized — has destabilized the Castro leadership. Rejection of the leading bureaucracy and contempt for the new, incompetent and corrupt upstarts is frequent in the population. Even if Fidel Castro is generally exempt from these criticisms and still has a widely recognized prestige, he cannot ignore the dangers that such a situation holds for the revolution, dangers that are aggravated by the evolution in the USSR and Eastern Europe,
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Decisive stage in Cuba 61 while daily life is more difficult and imperialism more aggressive.
Sooner or later, bureaucratization threatens his own power, and the revolution. Criticisms of technocrats far removed from the masses, cut off from their people (as in Eastern Europe) and ignoring their social needs, and calls for mobilizations against privileges and corruption, are an attempt from "on high" to consolidate, to remobilize the regime's social base against those sectors of the apparatus that have a tendency to become excessively autonomous from the tutelage of the Commander in Chief.
The coherence of this policy has been harmed, however, by the rapid development of the international situation, Gorbachev's reforms and the radical character of glasnost which has put Castro in a tricky spot. The similarity of democratic demands, the disastrous effects of monolithism, the challenging of Stalinism: these demand answers other than an ambiguous cultural revolution. Gorbachev's "democratic challenge" needs an overall response that cannot be limited to a critique of perestroika, particularly as Castro implicitly supported Honecker and Ceausescu before their fall, and Chinese repression at Tiananmen by unhesitatingly proclaiming Chinese Minister Qui Chen an honorary citizen of Havana after the June 1989 events. The fact that Cuba will from now on be China's second trading partner in Latin America does not justify such excesses.
The complexity of the present situation and its gravity results from a combination of two processes. In the first place, the belated institutionalization of the regime — consecrated during the 1st Congress in 1975 by the adoption of the Constitution fifteen years after the seizure of power — was undertaken under the leadership of the Soviets and on the basis of the political defeat of the Commander in Chief. These institutions have given a certain autonomy to state bodies and reduced the role of the CCP. The economic reforms and the partial decentralization linked to them accentuated this development. The growth of the administrative apparatus stimulated bureaucratization and corruption.
Second, while it is true that another objective of the rectification was to struggle against bureaucratic gangrene, for Fidel Castro it was a question of developing his own conception of power: the Party must be at the centre of society, and he himself at the centre of the Party. The goal of the rectification was to clarify this conflict between the two possible roles of the CCP. In the context of the reforms, the prerogatives of the state apparatus were better defined, and there was a certain separation of powers — administrators, managers, those in charge of mass organizations, enjoy a real decision-making autonomy. This was what came out of the decisions of the first two CCP con-
62 International Marxist Review gresses. In the process initiated by the third congress the Party must "be watch over, control and resolve everything", inspired by unfailing revolutonary vigilance.
This conception flows from a fixed idea of Fidel Castro's that military victories can be repeated in daily life, heroism on the battle fields being no different from the fight for productivity and economic development. But the reality in the enterprises — including those of the FAR — is a long way from this vision, and periodic purges do not change this one iota.
The Castro group is looking for an ideological spring to restore labour productivity, but Fidelist voluntarism is not sufficient to do it. Social resistance will in future be too strong to be fought by appeals to virtue: 31 years have gone by, and the nomenklatura has dug itself itself into veritable institutional fortresses. Incompetence, waste and privileges can only dissuade large sectors of the popular masses from accepting very heavy sacrifices when it is public knowledge that these efforts are compromised by incompetents over whom there is no control.
Moreover, the rectification has brought out into the light of day the obstacles encountered by the base units of the Party in trying to implement their own decisions and correct the errors of the leadership. Numerous examples confirm that neither the workers' assemblies — which are supposed to ratify membership applications to the CCP in relation to established criteria (devotedness, selflessness etc.) — nor the local and municipal leaderships control the national bodies, and that they only have very limited powers, not to say none at all. The Ochoa affair showed how little weight should be given to the exemplary virtues demanded of leaders. Interest coalitions, family or friendship networks, mutual back-scratching and complicity of all sorts are protected by the opacity of the bureaucracy. To combat this situation — which is a brake on and a major danger for the revolution given the current difficult circumstances — transparency has to be imposed on economic and political functioning. This implies an end to single-party monopoly over the state apparatus, and allowing effective participation and control of the popular masses. Major sacrifices cannot be demanded at the same time as denying all power to those who have to suffer the consequences. • level of democracy aulhorized does not correspond to the level of devel- The Cuban revolution is now contronted with a major contradiction: th opment of the popular masses. An absolute majority of the population was born after the revolution and has benefited from primary, secondary or uni-
Deicsive stage in Cuba 63 versity education. Its intellectual demands and cultural aspirations are stimulated by the opening and development of contacts with Latin America, the pressure exercised by the widely accessible American media, and more generally the evolution of the international situation to which young people cannot remain insensitive. In this context, the poverty of discussion and publications, the dogmatism in education, can only have negative effects on the state of mind of young people and encourage their depoliticization. It is in fact characteristic to see that their interest is diverted — given there are not any other interests — towards the most derisory expressions of Western culture. Lacking any alternative, the radicalism and rebelliousness of young people tends to be invested in their "look" and a rejection of official conformism. Rather than stimulating critical consciousness, confrontation and polemic, rather than educating by encouraging openness towards the outside, it was at first thought possible to win the support of young people by references to the past, by appeals to internationalism (which was effective), and anti-imperialist feelings. There is today an attempt to "recuperate" their aspirations by allowing cultural events that were previously criticized for their apoliticism, but this is not where the problem lies. Jazz and rock are not going to make democratic demands disappear, and the contrast with appeals to sacrifice and austerity is simply all the more striking.
None of the mechanisms supposed to guarantee a democratic functioning work. This is the balance sheet.
The OPP, initially conceived as real organisms of people's power, are at hest organisms with a real local or municipal activity, at worst an empty shell, but in any case they are stripped of effective power and the Council of State, which is their highest expression, is only a recording chamber for decisions taken elsewhere. The mass organizations suffer the same fate. The secretary of the Confederation of Cuban Workers was replaced just before the congress which is, in theory, sovereign. In the workplaces, the workers complain of the ineffectiveness of meetings whose decisions often have no effect.
Confronted with the Gorbachev challenge, the Castro leadership seems conscious of the need to change this situation. The call for the Fourth Congress, which is scheduled to be held at the beginning of 1991, underlines the need for an open or even contradictory discussion. The press insists on the :¿jection of the dogmatism generated over the last 20 years inspired by methods and a style foreign to the country and the need to discuss in a democratic : limate where all opinions, including those of non-militants, have the same *eight.° However it should be remembered that such an appeal for mouths io open is not new. From the beginning of the rectification process, Fidel
Castro had criticized the "mystification syndrome" which Cuban journalists suffered from, referring to the poverty of the press. Baptized "leader of the opposition" by the foreign press, the head of government did not go lightly with his criticisms. However, nothing has really changed since them, despite
The damage done by the one party/state party will not be counteracted by such limited measures. For the congress, the leadership is recommending a new measure that is already more effective: election of the Cuban Communist Party leadership by secret ballot. Although significant, this measure does not attack the root of the evil: the lack of pluralism of opinion and organization guarantee the party leaders' impunity, rule out all popular control and tend to identify all serious political criticism with opposition, thus inevitably provoking repression because only the opinion of one party is legal and legitimate. Although it is not comparable to what existed in the USSR and the
Eastern European countries, the repression of "enemy propaganda" in Cuba has undoubtedly punished crimes of opinion and made possible the imprisonment of people whose only mistake was to have expressed disagreements or criticial judgements on the policy followed by the government.
Although a leader of the FEU (Federation of University Students) unhesitatingly stated that there are more different positions within the CCP than there are between Republicans and Democrats in the USA, nobody knows about them and can therefore judge. Discussion in closed session does not fulfil any of the educational functions related to the free confrontation of opinions. The experience of several decades in countries as different as the
USSR, China, Czechoslovakia and Albania make it possible to deduce a gen-
Bureaucratization, corruption and privileges, cannot be fought against by those who benefit from them to a greater or lesser degree. Even in Cuba the appeal to the exemplary voluntarism of leaders has not functioned because, as Che said, you cannot make elms bear pears nor can men educated under
All opposition is identified with being a dissident, because nothing can exist outside the party. From then on, ideological repression is inevitable and growth of the police apparatus as well as summary procedures.
Censorship is preferred rather than education of the masses which could only take place on the basis of their own experience. This inevitably produces depoliticization. In time this generates cynicism, disinterest and the "each for themself" ideas that are deadly for a revolutionary process. The banning
64 International Marxist Review a few timid attempts to open up.
eral law.
capitalism abruptly turn themselves into "new men"
tions of which he was one.
", apart from rare excep-
Decisive stage in Cuba 65 of Moscow News and O gonyok are a caricatural example. The Cubans, rather than making up their own minds about Soviet policy, get what information they can by listening to Radio Marti transmitted from Miami, while the party has available the whole media arsenal to comment on the easily-criticized content of these publications.
Fidel Castro openly opposes the holding of parliamentary elections. It is true that the Nicaraguan experience as well as the Machiavellian use of the democratic/parliamentary weapon in the framework of low-intensity conflict, should make us think. In Panama, Endara was "elected" president on an American military base under the protection of GIs and thanks to an invasion. Since, and despite the requests of the Latin American parliament, no democratic election has ratified this nomination. It is not difficult to understand that imperialism for the moment fears the verdict of the ballot boxes after an invasion which led to several thousand dead and wounded and considerable damage. Similarly, Washington was reticent about demanding eleccions while the situation was not stabilized following the military coups d'état that it encouraged in Latin America.
Nor can the Nicaraguan balance sheet be ignored. Not only were the opposition parties financed by imperialism but the vote for Chamorro appeared as the only solution that could put an end to the blockade, to poverty, to war. Marvels were also promised in Grenada but in 1990, seven years after the invasion, there is 29% unemployment. Taking into account this balance sheet, Fidel Castro makes formally correct arguments against bourgeois and parliamentary forms of democracy. But he does so in the context of arguing against any development of pluralism or opinion and organization in Cuba. That is wrong. We oppose any imperialist inspired campaign for "parliamentary elections" in Cuba. But such opposiLion is much less effective without the development of other kinds of genuine democratic forms in the country. But other than denouncing fraud and electoral manipulation, Fidel Castro ises another argument: the danger of division for a small and threatened country and the use of this division by imperialism to weaken national cohesion. The risk exists inasmuch as it is true that the cold war is far from being over for Cuba. But the Cuban leader, who identifies with Lenin, could be reminded of the experience of the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and the public discussion within its leadership on the eve of the insurrection. Fidel Castro is obviously thinking of Nicaragua, but he should learn another lesson from that experience. As demonstrated by the balance-sheets hat are beginning to emerge in considerable number, the first error of the
66 International Marxist Review Sandinista leaders was not giving their own militants the guarantees of a democratic debate as demanded by sections of the FSLN, on the pretext that the war and the crisis did not allow it. Perhaps such a debate would have avoided, according to the terms used by Henry Ruiz, "a rupture between the Icadership and the people"; perhaps it would have demonstrated the necessity for an authentically socialist democracy. Moreover, political pluralism — in a country like Cuba — can take different forms, and the expression of opinions and the right to organization can be regularized in a framework that does not allow interference — particularly financial — by the counter-revolution, respecting the framework of the people's power institutions. Finally, a difference has to be made between simply formal democracy (delegation of power in the framework of bourgcois parliamentarism) and real democracy (which supposes genuine mass participation, accountability of deputies and right of recall). Socialist democracy has to be a social democracy and allow direct expression of the population, in the workplaces and in the localities. Socialist democracy is first and foremost direct democracy. Secret ballots are essential but they are useless if the real choices are evaded, electoral promises unkept, without mentioning financial manipulations, as evidenced by American election campaigns.
The key problem for fighting against bureaucracy and privilege is the existence of effective popular control and power, a political and economic management that enables "the emancipation of workers to be undertaken by the workers themselves" ", all of which assumes a public confrontation of different, if not opposing, points of view. This means combining a "Soviet"-type electoral system and political pluralism. Soviets, without an expression of multiple parties and tendencies, are no guarantee against bureaucracy, as the Russian experience demonstrates. Multi-partyism alone is also no guarantee of either democracy or public morale when it only exists under a bourgeois parliamentary form, as shown by the Western experience. If we take account of the balance-sheet of real socialism, in certain countries it could be necessary to have double representation for a whole period.
The Cuban leadership is conscious of the worsening bureaucratization and its dangers. Analyses of the bureaucracy, understood as a privileged social layer cut off from the people, are published in the central organs of the CCP, and this understanding is used to explain the events in Eastern Europe. There is even talk of "bureaucratic deformations" in Cuba, using the texts of Che as a guide. But practical measures and efficient decisions for countering this phenomenon do not exist. This is not simply due to ideological limits, but to
Decisive stage in Cuba 67 social resistance. Although limited, the rectification process ran into an opposition which prefigures colossal difficulties for any policy aiming to combat not only the economic but also the political privileges of the regime. The self-organization of the masses in OPP having a real controlling and managing power would make it possible to fight against the dangerous bureaucratic deformations admitted by the CCP leaders.
It is true that in a society in transition to socialism, in a peripheral and particularly in a dependent country, the decentralization of power is not without risk. But the centralization of power tends to erase arbitrarily the diversity of a social formation, the existence of different interests and of heterogeneous levels of consciousness by pretending to give them a single political expression in a voluntarist and therefore speedily repressed way. A real socialist democracy can accommodate this monolithism even less, as its essential supports must be ethical conviction and political education.
Certainly such a democracy would not resolve all the economic difficulties of Cuba, difficulties in which the effects of fatigue and demobilization should not be underestimated. But one thing is to support daily privations when they are collectively decided in conditions of equality, another is to live in the midst of waste, of inequality, of corruption, of incompetence with a eeling of useless effort. Such a situation can in time only undermine the revplution. The lessons of Nicaragua confirm this.
In an international context which is very dangerous for Cuba, the need to break the isolation imposed by the imperialist government with the acit complicity of the Gorbachev leadership requires a redefinition of its foreign policy. From 1991 (according to the ad hoc group formed at Sofia in :990), the prices within Comecon should be fixed in line with international prices and bilateral payments made in convertible currencies. The idea is to ransform the "fake market" of the Comecon into a "real market", "to kill off cartering in volume and define all trade in value with payment in strong currencies". " Even if Cuba partly escapes from these rules in its trade with the - SSR, its status is going to be considerably modified. The annexation of East Germany by West Germany and its integration into the EEC will already have serious consequences: the GDR is Cuba's second trading partcer through its buying of sugar. However, not only is the EEC an exporter of sugar but its exchanges are made within the ACP network (Protocol of _omé). Finally, what will happen to the Cuban specializations in bioachnology and micro-electronics envisaged in the Comecon plan for the : гаг 2000?
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68 International Marxist Review
To the imbalances with Eastern Europcan countries are going to be added important changes in relations with the third world, victim of the new international situation.
The chairmanship of the non-aligned movement in 1979 had confirmed Cuban influence in the third world. The military interventions in Angola and Ethiopia had confirmed the military potential of Havana in the eyes of many African governments and encouraged the development of commercial exchanges (notably barter agreements) and health and educational aid in particular (by granting scholarships to students resident in the island for several ycars). This policy of cooperation and technical aid concerned 35 countries in Africa and the Middle East in 1988. But today nobody can predict what will come of this. The tripartite agreements made in December 1988 between Cuba, Angola and South Africa sanctioned the military victory of the Cubans, but on the political level the evolution of the Angolan regime and the scarch for an agreement with Unita is hardly encouraging for the Castro leadership.
It is the same in Ethiopia. Havana's illusions about Mengistu have been disappointed. Unlike in Angola, Cuban military intervention in Ethiopia had provoked protests from many sections of progressive Africans who never accepted Havana's aid — direct or indirect — to the oppressors of the Eritrean people.
It is difficult to measure the repercussions of the deepgoing crisis of the African continent on Cuba, which had based its hopes on the development of long-term cooperation. In any case, the troop withdrawal confirms the end of a period where their role and Cuban presence, despite the country's limits, had encouraged the extension of its influence and its prestige. In Latin America, the diplomatic breakthrough of the last few years has been accompanied by a growth in trade. But the hope of seeing the formation of a common front against the debt has not taken a concrete form. Similarly, the perspective of Latin American integration has not taken shape and the perspectives of forming of a new international economic order, and advancing a third world/third world dialogue are postponed sine die. Despite Fidel Castro's battle, his hopes remain a dead letter. Recent developments show that the Latin American bourgeoisies, far from wanting to constitute an anti-imperialist front, seek a way out of the crisis in separate agreements with Washington and fear the development of popular struggles above all. This is why their precondition for a rapprochement with Cuba is an end to support for all revolutionary organizations, starting with El Salvador. In these conditions, the search for unity against imperialism can only happen on the backs
of the masses who remain, despite the current difficulties, the main potential
In its diplomatic relations with Latin American governments, the Castro leadership has overestimated the anti-imperialist potential of the Latin American bourgcoisies. While it is easy to understand the diplomatic constraints, nothing forced the revolution's leader make his first official visit to Mexico to approve the fraudulent election of Gortari, and nothing indicates that a less visible personality would have changed anything in the state of relations between the two countries. On the other hand, this opportunist policy has discredited the Cuban leadership among broad combative sectors of the Mexican people, thus endangering the defence of the revolution at a time when it is particularly threatened. Nothing is more dangerous than subordinating popular support, which has demonstrated its effectiveness in the past, to the hypothetical support of more and more shameful governments, as is shown by the Venezuclan and Argentinian examples. The feeble reactions to US military aggression in Panama do not invalidate this judgement: the discredit and corruption of the drugs traffic have been a major handicap for solidarity and even if, despite this, it was necessary to oppose the invasion, for the popular masses of the continent the game was not worth the candle.
The social gains of the Cuban revolution have to be completed by the extension of democratic rights and freedoms. This is also an imperative condition for popular support, underestimated by the Castroist leadership, as shown during the course of the Ochoa trial. While the accusation of drug trafficking seems to be confirmed, it involves other reponsibilities than those of the four shot. Who? The trial did not make it possible to establish beyond all doubt who was complice. In these conditions, doubt continues on the motifs which could have led to an execution which was not justified by the defence
The threats hanging over Cuba are not an invention of the regime: after
Noriega and Ortega, American officials have cynically proclaimed their desire to overthrow "the last dinosaur". Elliott Abrams, former Assistant Sec-
First Manuel (Noriega), today Daniel (Ortega) and next Fidel (Castro).... Cuba is on the list...after the changes in Eastem Europe and in Nicaragua Castro is more isolated and older
For others it is enough to wait and see, above all do nothing and "leave
Cuba alone» as Tad Szulc said in the article already quoted. An amendment to a law recently adopted by the American senate entitled "Law of emerging
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ICdel
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:ks support to the Cuban revolution.
of the revolution.
han ever... we have to see what to do.
Decisive stage in Cuba 69 retary of State for Inter-American Affairs did not hide this.
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7
70 International Marxist Review democracies in 1990" — a law which aims to apply overseas — proposes to outlaw transactions belween American companies and Cuba, 10 take sanctions against boats which transit in Cuba possibly by forbidding them entry 10 American ports (a measure which the EEC commission considers could be considered as an infraction to international legislation on neutral shipping even in wartime, and which is therefore completely unacceptable in peacetime), and to stop aid to countries importing sugar from Cuba.!3
The pseudo-democratic concerns of the American governments hide their desire to restore their prerogatives in their former backyard. The solutions envisaged by certain Soviet economists would be a death blow for the revolution: economic reforms whose disastrous effects have already been seen in Poland in terms of price rises and unemployment (and this is only a beginning), undermining popular support for the regime; and then parliamentary elections promising aid from the big Northern neighbour through the intermediary of parties abundantly financed by imperialism.
As the American writer Saul Landau said:
Americans — we could say the capitalist countries in general — have no valid model or alterative which makes it possible to guide third-world countries in their transition from colonial status towards real sovereignty.... They only have a model for repression and counter-revolution...
The only future which Western capitalism could offer Cuba would be, in the best of cases, that of a country subject to multinationals, using a docile and cheap labour force, tamed by repressive governments or military dictatorships in order to protect the investments of firms which are completely uninterested in health or education and for whom protection of the environment is the least of their worries. Grenada and Panama could wait a long time for the economic aid promised to justify the invasion. And it should not be forgotten that, according to UNICEF, the developing countries currently pay the industrialized countries $178,000 million per year for debt servicing, three times more than the sum total of the aid they receive.
In this context we cannot reproach Fidel Castro for refusing to exchange the legitimacy of the revolution against a fraudulent electoral legality. We can only support him when he demands the dismantling of the Guantanamo military base and an end to American manoeuvres and the economic blockade, the re-establishment of credit without particular retaliation, an end to Televisión Marti transmissions and total respect for Cuban sovereignty in all fields. This does not mean that it is not necessary to hold really free and pluralist elections in the framework of the OPP. Because the absence of democracy, far from strengthening the revolution, weakens it. Even if the state of
semi-war in which the country is living imposes particular modalities that do not allow imperialism — in the name of its "democracy" — to destroy the conquests of the revolution, the broadening of democratic rights and political freedoms is vital: freedom of the press; plurality of expression for currents in the CCP; the organization and free expression of the popular masses, who must vote and make decisions about their workplaces and localities and choose between different orientations and programmes; the autonomy of trade unions and mass organizations — these are measures that would allow power to be really exercised from below, and not simply delegated from on
International solidarity, which is more than ever necessary for Cuba under threat, would be strengthened and the imperialist campaign neutralized.
Finally, the perspective of socialism would gain credibility.
At such a dangerous time, the survival of the revolution depends on it.
** This document was adopted by the International Executive Committee of the Fourth Inter-
Fidel Castro addressing the Seventeenth Congress of the Cuban Workers' Federation in
ACP: African, Caribbean and Pacific countries associated in trade agreements with the
European Community through the Lomé Conventio. The quotations are from Le Courri-
2. The Guardian (London), May 11,1990 pointed out that social services of this standard are
Comecon is the most widely-used abbreviation for the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (CMEA), the economic organization of the countries under Soviet influence.
5. The New York Review, Tad Szulc, May 31, 1990; Financial Times, March 21, 1990.
9. Mesa Largo, Carmelo, "Cuba's economic counter-reform (Rectificación) — causes, policies and effects" in Frank Cass ed. Cuba After Thirty Years, London 1990.
- y g
S
- y n
*
1.
e y mi e e e
D
NOTES national at its meeting in June 1990.
January 1990.
e ACP, EEC, March/April, 1990.
4. Speeches on March 4 and 7, 1990.
7. Granma, April 29, 1990.
8. The Guardian, May 11, 1990.
10. Granma, May 6, 1990.
11. Le Monde, May 26, 1990, L. Stoleru.
12. La Jornada, Mexico, March 21, 1990 high, thus further guaranteeing the revolutionary process unknown to most Latin Americans and even some North Americans.
6. The Guardian, May 11, 1990; FT, March 21, 1990.
13. Alberto Betancount, Washington, April 18, 1990.
Decisive stage in Cuba 71
The emergence of revolutionary Christianity and liberation theology in
Latin America opens a new chapter and poses exciting new questions which cannot be answered without a renewal of the Marxist analysis of religion.
Michael Löwy begins the process in this notebook which reviews traditional and recent Marxist views on the subject and focuses on the experiences of
Brazil, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Appendix by Frei Betto.
N°1 - The Place of Marxism in History, by Ernest Mandel. 20FF, £2, $3.50.
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20FF, £2, $3.50. N°5 - Class Struggle and Technological Change in Japan since
1945, by Muto Ichyio. 48 pp., 25FF, £2.50, $4. N°6 - Populism in Latin America, by
Michael Lowy, Adolfo Gilly, et al. 40 pp. 20FF, £2, $3.50. N°7/8 - Plan, Markes and
Democracy: The Experience of the So-Called Socialist Countries, by Catherine Samary. 64pp, 40FF, £3, $5. N°9 The Formative Years of the Fourth Insernational
Five issues: 100FF, £10 $16; air mail add 20%. Please indicate with which issue subscription begins (you may include back issues). Payments to P. Rousset. Preferred: French francs payable in a bank located in France, postal giros to CCP Paris
11 541 97 T. Also: sterling payable in UK or dollars payable in US. Avoid Eurochecks. Mail to: CER/NSR, 2, rue Richard-Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France.
Notebooks for Study and Research
Number 10:
Marxism and
Liberation Theology by Michael Löwy
40 pages. £2, $3.50, 20 FF.
Also available:
1933-1938, by Daniel Bensaid. 48 pp. 25FF, £2.50, $4.
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the Irish national
IS THERE an Irish national question any longer? Events since the Anglo-
Irish Treaty of 1921 and, more particularly, the inconclusive struggle of the last 20 years have caused the national question to be reexamined, in a number
Traditionally, Marxists have described the Irish situation as being one in which the island-nation is oppressed by its neighbour and where opposition to this oppression tends to be a progressive struggle preparing the way for — and, indeed, leading into — the struggle for socialism. How this struggle is envisaged has varied. At first, Marx and Engels believed that its victory must await that of the British workers; later they supported the nationalist rising of the Republican Fenians in the 1860s; and, finally, they concluded that the constitutional tactics of the Parnellite Home Rule movement, which had started to eliminate landlordism, could also subvert the imperialist state machine that held the country. In their time, Lenin and Trotsky continued to accept the
Home Rule perspective, partly because most of the landlords' holdings had
After the Easter Rising of 1916 had opened the way for a new and partially successful national democratic revolution, the belief that land reform had blunted Irish revolutionary fervour disappeared: communist leaders, includy in rich on. nal • of 50. 50 id -же by and Sanal PTeans по-
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