Beyond the Crossroads

(June 19, 2006. 22nd and last article in series)

I conclude my series with this title, because I called my 1994 series, “Cuba at the crossroads”. I was worried that what socialism there was would evolve, at best, into a social welfare state.

The leadership was also worried about the derailing of socialism. With the fall of European state socialism, the island was all the more isolated, and the people, as a whole, were passive. Corruption and thievery were rampant.

Fidel and Raul Castro held one speech after another against these internal negative characteristics. In Raul’s 1994 speech, “Si, se puede” (Yes, one can), he signalled “the start of a campaign against passivity, routine and bureaucracy.”

Today, progress is undeniable. Besides the many economic and social advances already delineated, I cite a few concluding positive indications.

In contrast to a plethora of prostitutes and hustlers, these opportunists are now rare. I never frequent tourist spots where some prostitutes are said to hang out, but there are fewer and they are not walking the streets. Some young men still hustle stolen cigars but they are fewer and they are more wary of being caught.

Thanks, in fact, to the fall of Comecon countries, many Cubans are more self-reliant and more responsible workers.

Thanks again, in fact, to the tightening US blockade, there is greater patriotic consciousness. Cubans, as a whole, may not be as revolutionary as many supporters believe but they are determined to defend their sovereignty against foreign invasion.

While “no coges lucha” (don’t fight city hall) is still a common motto, some Cubans are acting to overcome that anti-revolutionary attitude. There are initiatives in some “barrios” (localities) by social workers and participatory sociologists to stimulate people to involve themselves in projects to improve the community.

A friend of mine, Maritza Lopéz, is one. She was the organiser and director of the young cultural-dance group known as Haralaya. Once it dissolved, she joined others in the “Paulo Freire” community house, in Havana’s La Lisa district.

They teach people to think critically, to get involved, to pressure the local government to meet basic needs often neglected, such as garbage collection and the repair and painting of residences. They seek to shape natural leaders from the “barrios”.

The Martin Luther King Centre, in Marianao, Havana, works similarly, in addition to promoting brotherhood across borders, in King’s spirit.

Often, though, when engaged with old or new acquaintances in the perennial discussion—how goes Cuba—they point only to the negatives, even calamities.

One such calamity is the poor judgement—in my opinion and some Cubans—made by top leaders in trusting the enemy, something rarely done by Cuba’s leaders.

In 1998, Cuba was still reeling from a series of bombings at tourist hotels. One tourist had been murdered. Cuban leaders hoped the FBI would do something to stop this, but it was a security and foreign policy mistake to believe that the FBI would actually assist Cuba by stopping their Miami friend’s terrorism against Cuba. It was over-optimistic of state leaders to give the FBI documentation of Miami terrorist activities and plans for more terrorism.

Instead, the FBI figured that much of Cuba’s information must have come from their sources infiltrated into the Miami terrorist groups. This led the FBI to find out who they might be, and that ended in the arrest of the Miami Five.

I bring this up here to point out that this mistake cost five good men many years in prison, which could discourage other brave patriotic Cubans from deciding to infiltrate the enemy in the future.

I make this case also to point out that the best of leaders make mistakes of judgement and actions, and thus there must be some mechanism to prevent as much of this as possible, or when mistakes are made that there be mechanisms to criticise them, in order to avoid as many as possible in the future. Some call this “checks and balances”. I mean that there is all too little of this in Cuba.

Back to Raul’s 1994 speech. If the working class was really opposed to “passivity, routine and bureaucracy” why did it not initiate its own campaign against them?

This is so, first and foremost, because the working class does not control the means of production or the country’s internal and external politics—not directly. Union leadership has some input at top levels, but union leadership is appointed by the top.

There are no demonstrations without the top authorising and organising them. Strikes are not permitted, although technically not illegal. Communist party directors do not allow real grass roots debate about policies in the media. Critique only occurs when leadership decides to take up a controversial theme.

I do not propose opening the media or demonstrative platforms to pecuniary tributes, but I do suggest that the media be opened to true probing voices of Cuban workers. A debating society can be dynamic, healthy.

The main hindrance to worker control, to real socialism, is the world domination by capitalism and imperialism. The fact that the United States lays but 150 kilometres away is the greatest hindrance.

I believe, however, that if the Cuban leadership had had more trust in the working class back in the mid-60s, once US military attacks were turned back and the internal counter-revolution defeated, the leaders would have gradually turned over to the working class significant say in productive relations and in making local and national policies.

Nevertheless, I must admit that I am uncertain that this would ultimately have been in the best interests of the working class or for Cuba’s existence. One can not know if, in fact, most workers were capable or interested in taking a socialist-communist direction. Cuba’s leaders could not have known if the working class would have sustained that fight long enough to win it had there been true democratic decision-making. Perhaps, they knew what was best for the workers.

No one likes to hear this. But, as Lenin told us, we must face facts as they are and history as it has unfolded. A true democracy has never been tried. No working class has had the power or exercised the power to build socialism or any system. Perhaps, as some interpret Marx, it can not happen until world capitalism is defeated and swept aside so that, then, the construction of socialism by the working class itself can begin.

So what does that mean to us Cuban solidarity activists, to us leftists? It means that we continue our solidarity work, continue fighting against the evil system of profiteering-individualism, and continue educating for a collective system run by and for us all.

The only difference is that we drop the illusion that a few million people living on an island just off the Yankee coast can, in fact, create socialism all alone.

Socialism must be forged regionally, at least. There must be equal trade partners. There must be more democracy in day-to-day policies and in production, or the workers will be passive, thus less effective, wasteful, careless and corrupt. That is to say, alienation of labour will be extant, as it is.

The state and Communist party—both essentially guided by one irreplaceable man—still control the society. Yet more authority and decision-making has been decentralised since a decade ago. Decision-making, however, is still made by a few leaders. The working class, as such, still awaits decisions from above, albeit some of that is now localised.

I believe that, like all government leadership, Cuban leaders are still suspect of the population. The difference is that Cuban leaders truly want a socialist system to function in the interests of all. That is more positive than what we live under in the “democratic” capitalist system, where “freedom of expression” and “free elections” favour the rich.

Regardless of whether Cuba has achieved socialism—it is a process, after all—the Cuban people and the government are more than worthy of our love and support. They have done no harm to the world and they have helped many millions of people.

They have held out against “the enemy of humanity” to quote the Sandinista anthem. In so doing, they have held out hope for billions of us.

As filmmaker Humberto Solás said, let us not expect Cuba to be the salve of our consciousness. For the joyous people they are, for the inspiration they are to us, we owe them our energies. If Cuba falls, we would all be the poorer.

[Printed in Morning Star with the same head, August 1. End of series]