es gunning for Castro
Sam Stacey 1991 will see a Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. It is liable to be an unusual affair in the wake of events in Eastern Europe. With the "collapse of communism", the attentions of American imperialism, fresh from the Nicaraguan elections, have been centred on Cuba, its prime target.
In Miami in the Cuban exile centre, car bumpers sprouted stickers saying *next Christmas in Havana". At any rate US imperialism has set out to step up its pressure on Cuba, in the knowledge that events in Eastern Europe have had a material impact on the already blockaded Cuban economy.
The White House is now waging a campaign to block loans to Havana and to prevent allies trading with Cuba. This led, to take a couple of examples, to Japan cutting sugar imports, and a Spanish firm ready to invest millions into the tourism industry, pulling out. In July, Bush made western assistance to the Soviet Union contingent on cutbacks in Soviet aid to Cuba.
The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has proposed amendments to further restrict foreign subsidies of US companies that trade with Cuba (trade estimated at $250 million); to allow for seizure of any vessel in US ports which has engaged in trade with Cuba in the last 180 days, and to reduce economic assistance to importers of Cuban sugar.
Already the Cubans have made prepara tions for a dire economic situation which they face - "a special period in peacetime", which amounts to virtual wartime measures. It would be declared if Soviet oil deliveries are reduced from the present 12 million tons to 8 million or below. Castro warned that in such a situation they would have to halt all social development programmes, which means the construction of schools, day care centres, clinics, houses... for perhaps one, two, three, SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30. February 1991
FEATURES four or five years". Electricity consumption would be halved, and state resources would be channelled to export agriculture, nickel mining, tourism and other production to generate hard currency.
The achievements of the Revolution are dismissed out of hand by its opponents as simply a result of Soviet money. Such assis tance has been crucial, that is true. However, since 1986 Cuba has paid above the market price for Soviet petroleum. Prazitelstvenniv Vestnik, the weekly magazine of the Soviet Council of Ministers, has reported that in 1988 Cuba paid 1.9 billion roubles above market price for Soviet goods - 1.3 billion for oil, 0.6 billion for machinery, equipment and transportation.
The Cubans are now faced with not only the possibility of less goods from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but with paying more for them. Moreover they face a situation where previously reliable sources are more sporadic. The impact is already being felt.
Cuba's bus system was crippled when their Hungarian supplier began demanding hard currency for spare parts. The supply of light bulbs from Poland has dried up. Bulgarian chickens and canned food imports were cut, leaving supermarket shelves even more bare. The sugar industry depends on computer and other high-tech equipment from what was East Germany. Its electrical equipment is mostly Czech.
Sporadic supplies of industrial imports and petroleum have led to plummeting productivity and some factories (such as one Havana electronics plant which failed to fulfil its plan for lack of Soviet components) are operating at just 40-50% of capacity according to Cuban economist Jose Luiz. Rodriguez.
In carly 1990 shipments of wheat and chicken feed failed to arrive on time, owing to rural strikes in the Ukraine. As a result bread and eggs became scarce, leading to tighter rationing and an unprecedented raising of the
price of these staples.
Whilst a new trade agreement with the Soviet Union was signed in April, with an increase over the previous year of 8.7%, the Cubans are obviously worried about the reliability of their supplies. According to a report in Izvestia, some Soviet enterprises are already trying to get out of the Cuban market. Soviet administrators complain that exports to Cuba require special packaging, tropical modifications and extra documentation. The report commented:
"Given the greater headaches, what is the point when an enterprise is going to get the same roubles from Cuba as it does working for domestic customers?"
Soviet Vice president Leonid Abalkin answered criticism of the deal from some parliamentarians:
"We have to bear in mind who gave us a helping hand after the Armenian earthquake and who has taken in our children from the Chemobyl tragedy. These are incompatible gestures. One has to have a healthy, sensible mind and not be a vulgar merchant."
However, with down state control, and giving greater freedom to individual enterprises it seems inevitable that more and more of them will pull out of deals with Cuba, at least when contracts run out.
In any case the "grace" period which Cuba was granted on its debts to the Soviet Union, estimated by Ivestia at 24 billion roubles, soon expires. Pressure for repayment is liable to be stepped up.
By any standards this is a dire situation. Anybody expecting a simple repeat of events in Eastem Europe however, will (risking a prediction) be disappointed or disproved. The Castro leadership has an incomparably greater moral authority and support amongst the populace, not only because it was an indigenous revolution (rather than one imposed by Soviet tanks) but because of the genuine
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benefits of the revolution to what was a downtrodden, poverty stricken population before the overthrow of the Batista regime.
A leading Cuban dissident, Gustavo Arcos, head of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, caused a furore among the Cuban exile community when he conceded that a considerable part of the people support the government and its leaders, and called for dialogue with the govemment.
The Cuban masses are not about to rise up to overthrow Castro, even though there is a great deal of frustration and dissatisfaction with the bureaucracy. However, the defence of the gains of the revolution are undermined by the politics of the Communist Party and state bureaucracy which weighs on the backs of the
But the monolith of the CCP and the apparatus of govemment is being prised open by the realities which Cuba has to face. In March the CCP issued a call for widespread discussion on preparation for the Fourth Party Congress to be held in the first half of 1991. This was a departure from the past because it did not offer the Cuban Party Politburo's agenda for resolving the
It spoke instead of public analysis and debate of alternative policies. Unanimity (known as "democratic unity") was rejected in favour of tolerance of
A round of meetings, to open up this debate were organised in April. However, nobody risked saying what they thought. Speakers rose to give pacons of praise to the
Carlos Aldana, the head of the CC's Department of Revolutionary Orientation (which usually works out the "line') stopped these sessions, so disastrous were they. Obviously many people were sceptical of the party leadership's sincerity. Some believed it was public relations, others feared a trap for opposition elements.
At any rate a month later new meetings of provincial party and mass organisations were organised. Some of the proceedings were televised. The floodgates opened. Daily. people could see sharp criticisms of economic institutions, bureaucracy, ineffective political structures and policies. The debate hooted up.
A June 23rd Politburo statement set up some limits to the discussion, denouncing the idea that there was no democracy without a multiplicity of parties.
In July the debate was extended into the workplaces where not only national issues, but local problems were given vent t. Issues previously considered too problematic for public discussion were given an airing.
The legislative assemblies, the 'People's Power', were criticised as formalistic, impotent at the local level and unrepresentative at the national level. The structures of the CC are also being scrutinised. The official newspaper Granma reported that at a Havana Page 26
FEATURES party assembly, the first secretary of Artemisa argued that the CCP must put an end to "clandestine" discussion of issues. Many delegates have called for elimination of bureaucratic party structures and democratic processes for electing the party leadership. There has also been criticism of fusion of the party and state. Delegates argued that the functions of the Council of State and legislative bodies, the ministries, and the CCP. should be clearly defined and distinct. "Conservatives" in the party have been attacked by the UJC (the youth wing of the Party). dominate the country politically and economically, form an insuperable barrier. It is clear that further development is impossible without a process of democratisation. The debate taking place within the CCP has at it s heart the question of whether they can afford to make reforms, or whether they can afford not to. There has been a debate amongst marxists Most importantly its defence is linked to the revolutionary struggles of the Latin American
masses, for without a revolutionary breakthrough on the continent, Cuba cannot hold out indefinitely in the new conditions as to whether the problem of bureaucracy in Cuba means that a political revolution to kick it out of power, is necessary. (This author thinks it is.) It may be argued that there is no bureaucracy, as a distinct social group whose interests are separate from and opposed to those of the working class. But it would be pretty difficult for anybody to deny the ab solutely bureaucratic, anti-democratic structure of the CCP and its state apparatus.
On one thing the CCP bureaucracy is certain: the single party monopoly is not up for discussion. Even some reform-minded Party members are worried that moves to a multi-party system would threaten the gains of the revolution. But in the last analysis, the defence of these gains can best be achieved through the working class assuming direct power which at present is monopolised by the CCP.
How does the experience of Eastern Burope relate to this question? Trotsky, writing of the political revolution in the Soviet Union, spoke about the ending of the single party monopoly, and the right of formation of "soviet parties" - those that defended the gains of the revolution. The working class, he said, would determine what were "soviet parties".
However, given the unexpected longevity of Stalinism and the degree to which it soiled and bloodied the name of socialism and communism, the developed illusions in parliamentary democracy. Though this has meant the freedom for pro-capitalist parties to emerge, to have opposed the growth of a "multi party sys tem" under such circumstances would have
isolated the minuscule forces of the left even more than they are.
The workers in these countries will only begin to adopt a class approach on the basis of class differentiation becoming clearer, and as a result of having to face the realities of the attempts to "marketise" these economies. This is one of the painful overheads of Stalinism.
In Cuba there is much more of an anti-imperialist consciousness, threatened as they have been by US imperialism on their very doorstep. Bourgeois democracy does not have such a resonance as in Easter Europe. Certainly a "multi party system" in the sense of capitalist democracy would enable imperialism to organise unfettered, in Cuba. However, it is not just this that the regime op poses, but workers democracy - the right of organised opinion within the working class; the right to organise different parties and organisations within the camp of defence of the gains of the revolution; the right to fomm
unions independent of the state and CCP.
These are demands which
revolutionaries should raise; demands
which will surely find expression as the
debate hots up. The greater the resistance of
the bureaucracy, the more certain it is that
workers will be forced to build an altema-
tive outside the CCP.
All those who argue that challenging the
monopoly of the CCP will play into the hands of imperialism, are in practice acting to undermine the defence of the revolution, which requires a revolutionary mobilisation of the working class — which in turn calls for a democratisation of Cuban society.
Most importantly its defence is linked to the revolutionary struggles of the Latin American masses, for without a revolutionary breakthrough on the continent, Cuba cannot hold out indefinitely in the new conditions -especially if the aging Fidel Castro, who sits atop the clique which dominates the bureaucracy, were to die. The reliance on diplomacy does not serve the defence of the revolution, especially since it rests on maintaining friendly relations with capitalist governments in Latin America and elsewhere. To take the latest example, Cuba has continued more or less to lend political support to the bourgeois PRI government in Mexico, even after its recent outrageous electoral fraud.
For socialists and opponents of imperialism in Europe it is crucial to work for the defence of Cuba.
In Britain, in the Labour Party and unions, that requires a battle against the "special relationship" with "our US allies" which Kinnock is so keen to continue. The possibility of a Labour government means that the demand for a break with the US blockade of Cuba, and for a Labour government to provide aid without strings, are demands which must be raised now, and fought for should they come to office. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30. February 1991
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