Cuba: Socialism and Democracy

by Peter Taaffe, Mai 2000

 


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Contents
 

 
Appendix

Reprint of Cuba: Analysis of the Revolution

This pamphlet was first published in three articles in Militant, on 27 January, 3 and 10 February, 1978. They were published together as a pamphlet, 'Cuba: Analysis of the Revolution'. Some minor alterations were made in order to render the analysis of the Cuban Revolution more precise.

The Cuban Revolution

Events in Africa and the Caribbean have once again forced Cuba back onto the world stage. Having pressed South African forces to invade Angola in an attempt to defeat the revolution, US imperialism then foamed at the mouth when Cuban troops and material were used to support the MPLA. This probably turned the war in favour of the MPLA and resulted in the elimination of landlordism and capitalism in Angola.

At the same time, Cuba has become a pole of attraction for those countries of the Caribbean, like Jamaica and Guyana, which have been devastated by the world slump of 1974-75. To the masses of Latin America, moreover, in the vice of military dictatorships and plagued by hunger and famine - as in Argentina and Chile - Cuba seems to be a haven of progress and tranquillity.

In the advanced industrialised countries also the charismatic figures of the Cuban Revolution, like Fidel Castro and the murdered Che Guevara, contrast favourably in the eyes of some sections of youth looking to end capitalism as against the grey figures like Brezhnev and Kosygin. Even Arthur Scargill, when challenged by David Frost on a recent TV programme, gave Cuba as a model of the society he was aiming for.

Can Cuba act as a guide either for the workers and peasants of the backward countries or the labour movement in the advanced capitalist world in the struggle against capitalism? What is the nature of the Cuban regime? These questions can only be answered by examining the causes and subsequent development of the Cuban Revolution.

Before the revolution, Cuba was a paradise for the rich - a playground particularly for American tourists - but a nightmare for the workers and peasants. In 1950-54 the average per capita income in Delaware, the richest state in the United States of America, was $2,279, while in Cuba it was only $312, ie $6 a week. Even in Mississippi, the poorest state in the USA, average per capita income stood at $829! Fifty-four per cent of the rural population had no toilets at all - not even a privy, and malaria, tuberculosis and syphilis were rampant. There was 25 per cent illiteracy and a similar percentage were unemployed at any one time, ie one in four of the population. Fewer children proportionately of school age went to school in the 1950s than in the 1920s, yet Havana in 1954 had more Cadillacs than any other city in the world!

At the same time, the land was concentrated in a few hands, in huge latifundia. One hundred and fourteen farms, or fewer than 0.1 per cent of the total number, encompassed 20.1 per cent of the land. Eight per cent of the total number made up 71.1 per cent of the land while at the other end of the scale 39 per cent of the total number of farms were made up of small peasant holdings of less than one acre - but they encompassed only 3.3 per cent of the land.

Imperialism dominates

Moreover, the Cuban economy was dominated by the giant American monopolies. Thus the share of US firms was 90 per cent in the telephone and electric services, about 50 per cent in public services and 40 per cent in raw sugar. Bound with iron hoops to the American economy, Cuba was compelled to concentrate on one main crop, sugar, for the American market. Most of Cuba's sugar was exported to the US under a fixed yearly quota and set prices.

Crowning the whole system was the dictatorship of the gangster Batista. It was estimated that between his second seizure of power in 1953 and his overthrow in 1959, upwards of 20,000 died at the hands of his soldiers and torturers.

Cuba in the 1950s had not been able to carry through the tasks of the capitalist democratic revolution, ie land to the peasants, freedom from the stranglehold of foreign economic and political domination and the development of industry along modern lines. The experience of the Russian Revolution - brilliantly anticipated by Leon Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution - demonstrated that only the working class in the backward countries is able to lead the nation in completing these tasks. Once having come to power and having carried through the capitalist democratic revolution, the working class of Russia went over to the socialist tasks - nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy - and also provided the spark for the beginning of the international socialist revolution.

'Progressive'

Contrary to this experience and the methods of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the Cuban Communist Party - in line with most of the Communist Parties of Latin America today - stood for an alliance with the so-called 'progressive national bourgeoisie' as the means of completing the 'anti-imperialist patriotic and democratic revolution'. But the Cuban capitalists invested in land and the owners of the big latifundia in industry. No serious land reform could be carried through with the support of the Cuban capitalists. Nor were they capable of leading a struggle against US imperialism upon whom they leaned for defence against the Cuban masses. The hunt for the mythical 'progressive national capitalists' led the Cuban CP into actually supporting Batista soon after he first took power in 1933.

To begin with, party leader Blas Roca condemned Batista as "that national traitor in the pay of the imperialists". But in 1938 the CP Central Committee had discovered that Batista had "ceased to be the leading figure in the reactionary camp"! This magical transformation had been occasioned by the fact that Batista had been granted 'democratic' credentials by none other than US President Franklin Roosevelt. Moreover, the humble origins of 'Sergeant Batista' meant that he now received the benediction of the CP leaders. Batista reciprocated by legalising the CP in 1938 and four years later he took two CP ministers into his Cabinet! Blas Roca - who was later to sit in Castro's Cabinet - appeared on the same balcony as Batista in 1942 to receive the cheers of the Cuban masses. Notwithstanding their support, Batista was forced out of office in 1944. Fidel Castro, on the other hand, was denounced by the CP in 1947 as a "gangster"! Even later, when the CP was compelled to change its attitude towards Castro, they still doubted that Batista would be overthrown by the guerrillas, and in November 1958 called for a "democratic coalition government".

Batista's second coup in 1952 provoked widespread opposition in Cuba and particularly from the students and intellectuals, like Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl. With 120 followers they launched an attack on the Moncada barracks on 26 July, 1953. This was defeated, and Castro was first imprisoned and then released only to go to Mexico to organise a guerrilla force which landed in Cuba in 1956. In a heroic three-year struggle they launched a guerrilla campaign which, with the support of the impoverished peasantry, resulted in the defeat of the overwhelmingly numerically superior Batista's force. Some of Batista's soldiers and even officers were won over to the side of the guerrillas.

Harmony

In 1961, faced with a life and death struggle with American imperialism, Castro was to claim that "he had always been a Marxist-Leninist at heart". At the same time, as KS Karol ironically remarks in his book Guerrillas in Power:

"Some of his comrades who were even less entitled to that label, claimed they had all the time been Marxists without knowing it while others had never been anti-Communist and were therefore open to conversion".

The truth is that Castro, up to this stage, had been no more than a radical middle-class democrat whose ideal was democratic capitalist America. Thus, to the American journalist Herbert Matthews, in an interview during the struggle against Batista, he declared:

"You can be sure we have no animosity towards the United States and the American people... we are fighting for a democratic Cuba and an end to dictatorship." [New York Times, 24 February, 1957]

Moreover, in a document of Castro's movement - the 26 July Movement - in 1956, it stated that it adhered to "Jeffersonian philosophy" and subscribed to the "Lincoln formula", and proclaimed the desire "to reach a state of solidarity and harmony between capital and labour in order to raise productivity".

Even after he had ousted Batista, Castro declared on 6 March, 1959, to the Association of Bankers, that he desired their collaboration. He also added, according to the US 'News and World Report', that he had "no intention of nationalising any industries". Perhaps this was a 'crafty ruse' merely meant to fool the landlords and capitalists? On the contrary, all the evidence shows that Castro and his supporters never started off their struggle with a clear socialist programme and perspectives as had Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia.

Lenin based himself on the working class. He anticipated that the workers would lead the poor peasantry in a struggle against Tsarism. Castro and Guevara relied on the peasants and the rural population. The working class only entered the struggle through a general strike in Havana when the guerrillas had already triumphed and Batista was fleeing for his life. The dominant role of the Russian working class with the conscious management and control of the state and industry which they exercised through workers' and peasants' councils - the most democratic institutions ever seen - led to a powerful movement of the working class of the world rallying to the cause of their Russian brothers. They attempted to emulate the Russian Revolution in their own countries.

Impasse

The fact that Castro came to power through a predominantly rural movement shaped the whole character of his movement. It was only a peculiar combination of circumstances which resulted in Castro - who to begin with never envisaged going beyond the framework of a capitalist democracy - presiding over the expropriation of the landlords and capitalists.

On the one side, was the utter bankruptcy of Cuban capitalism to show a way out of the impasse of society. At the same time, there was the colossal pressure of an aroused peasantry and the working class. With the defeat of Batista, the peasants moved to occupy the land and the working class clamoured for wage increases and the reinstatement of those sacked under the previous regime. Thus, in the spring of 1959, 6,000 workers of the Cuban Electric Company declared a slowdown in order to achieve a 20 per cent rise in wages, and 600 workers who had been dismissed in 1957-58 began a strike before the presidential palace. The masses were armed and formed into the militia. Meanwhile, the representative of American imperialism, Eisenhower, panic-stricken by the radicalisation of the Cuban masses, sought to pressurise and blackmail the Cuban government into submission.

Resistance

This came to a head over Russian crude oil which was to be delivered to Cuba under a trade agreement between the two countries signed in January, 1960. In June the three big oil companies (Jersey Standard, Texaco and Shell), under pressure from the US government, refused to refine the Russian oil. But the Cuban government then 'intervened' (a form of supervision) and put the oil through. The companies retaliated by refusing to deliver oil from Venezuela. Cuba then agreed to take all its oil from Russia.

The Eisenhower administration hit back in July by cutting the remaining 700,000 tons of Cuban sugar due to be delivered under the quota agreement. This was calculated to bring the Castro regime to its knees. But Russia immediately stepped in and agreed to take the 700,000 tons of sugar. At the same time, on 6 August, the Cuban Telephone Company, the Electric Company, the oil refinery and all the sugar mills - which up to then had only been 'intervened' - were all nationalised. In the next four months, in a rapid succession of blows and counter-blows, all Cuban and American big business was taken over.

In September, the Cuban subsidiaries of United States' companies were taken over. Cuban companies were taken over in October and by the end of 1960 capitalism had been eliminated in Cuba. US imperialism retaliated by declaring a complete trade embargo and preparing for a military intervention to crush the Cuban Revolution.

The pressure of the masses, the weakness of Cuban capitalism, and the miscalculations and blunders of American imperialism, all combined to push the Castro regime into expropriating landlordism and capitalism. We thus witnessed in Cuba a verification of Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution in a caricatured form. The capitalist democratic revolution could only be carried out against the resistance of the capitalists in Cuba and internationally. This, in turn, compelled Castro to lean on the masses and to go over to nationalise big business and establish a planned economy. There was no conscious foresight nor a worked-out perspective, as with Lenin and Trotsky in the Russian Revolution. Indeed, if Castro could have been shown before the revolution a film of his subsequent development he probably would have condemned it as a monstrous fabrication!

The Soviets, with democratic control and management of the state, together with the consciousness on the part of the masses that the fate of the revolution was bound up with the victory of the world revolution, were decisive in provoking the revolutionary movement of the working class in Europe and the world following the Russian Revolution. Because they could see their own class in power, despite the monstrous slanders of their rulers, the workers of Europe and the world came to the assistance and tried to emulate their Russian brothers in the stormy events of 1918 and 1919.

Earthquake

The Cuban Revolution had the effect of an earthquake - particularly in Latin America. But because of the forces involved - a predominantly peasant army - and the absence of conscious control and management by the working class and poor peasants, the Cuban Revolution could not have the same effect as the Russian Revolution. A workers' state had been established - almost in the jaws of American imperialism - but a deformed workers' state, with power concentrated in the hands of a layer of privileged officials.

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Power in the Hands of a Bureaucratic Elite

The elimination of landlordism and capitalism in Cuba in 1960 sent shock waves throughout North and South America. Determined to snuff out the revolution at the earliest opportunity US imperialism financed and armed the invasion force which landed in Cuba at Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) in April 1961.

The invaders masqueraded as the 'saviours' of the Cuban Revolution. The fact that 1,500 men of the invasion force had once owned between them a million acres of land, 10,000 houses, 70 factories, five mines, two banks and ten sugar mills was, of course, purely coincidental!

But the mass basis of the revolution ensured the defeat of this and other counter-revolutionary attempts of the CIA-backed émigrés. Without doubt the Castro regime enjoyed enormous popular support.

The masses were armed in the 200,000 strong workers' and peasants' militia. The conservative historian of the Cuban Revolution, Hugh Thomas, recorded the comments of a fifteen-year old armed schoolboy in 1961:

"We Cubans are an army people." [Thomas, p1321]

There was undoubtedly an element of workers' control in the factories in the first period of the revolution and every neighbourhood and street had a 'Committee for the Defence of the Revolution'.

An indication of the widespread support for the regime is demonstrated by the enormous crowds which gathered in Havana to listen to Castro's speeches. At the meeting where Castro delivered what came to be known as the 'Second Declaration of Havana', one million - out of a total of six million - gathered in Plaza de la Revolución on 4 February, 1962!

But at the same time the masses had no control or management of the state machine. KS Karol, in his book Guerrillas in Power - which is mostly sympathetic to Castro and the Cuban Revolution - comments on his visit to Cuba in 1961:

"These enthusiastic people [the working class and the poor peasants] would have had to talk about their 'soviets' or about their 'socialist plans' (for the revolution to be comparable to Russia or the Spanish Civil War). Now I had tried in vain, in the provinces as well as in Havana, to find signs of any great enthusiasm for either among the rank and file. There was an impressive amount of support for the revolution but the absence of political initiative even among the militia and the rather primitive level of socialism was rather surprising". [Karol, pp39-40]

The plebiscitary nature of the state - which is a feature of Bonapartism - was shown in the mass meetings addressed by Castro. The workers were called upon to say "Sí" or "No", but not to discuss or decide on issues.

Hungarian Revolution

But without the conscious control and management by the masses themselves, the development of a new elite is inevitable. Even in Russia with brilliant leaders like Lenin and Trotsky and the conscious participation of the working class in the running of society, bureaucratic degeneration was inevitable so long as the revolution was isolated in a backward country.

The Bolsheviks envisaged that the Russian Revolution would provoke the revolution in Europe, which would then come to the assistance of Russia with economic aid, technicians etc. The beginning of socialism and with it the dissolution of the state machine is only possible on the basis of a level of production higher than the highest level of production reached by capitalism, ie higher than capitalist America.

A Socialist United States of Europe leading to a Socialist World Federation would undoubtedly have enabled this to be realised. But the isolation of the revolution to a single country - and a backward country at that - led to the bureaucratic degeneration of Russia personified by the rise of Stalin. The masses were elbowed aside by the bureaucratic elite from any real say in the running of the country.

But in Cuba, right from the outset, management and control was concentrated in the hands of Castro and his supporters, the officialdom in the state machine, the governing party and the army, etc.

The character of the regime was demonstrated by the contrasting attitude adopted by the Russian bureaucracy towards the Cuban Revolution on the one hand and the Hungarian Revolution on the other. The existence of Soviets in Hungary in 1956, with power in the hands of the masses, was a mortal threat to the bureaucratic upstarts. If it was allowed to succeed similar uprisings - political revolutions - would have swept through Eastern Europe and Russia itself. The bureaucracy could not compromise with the Hungarian Revolution. The 'liberal' Khrushchev determined to drown the revolution in blood.

Towards the Castro regime, however, the Russian bureaucracy extended the hand of friendship. Indeed, without massive Russian aid - in excess of $1 million a day - the Cuban Revolution would have collapsed. Forty per cent of Cuba's foreign trade is with Russia. Ninety-five per cent of its oil comes from the same source while the Russian bureaucracy is to pay 30 cents a pound for Cuban sugar - compared to 14 cents a pound when the agreement was signed in 1975 - under the agreement which is to last until 1980. Moreover, the enormous estimated debt of between $3 billion and $4 billion owed to Russia was deferred under the same scheme.

"He who pays the piper calls the tune". During one quarrel with the Cuban regime a Russian embassy official is reputed to have arrogantly declared: "We have only to say that repairs are being held up in Baku for three weeks and that's that"!

Differences there have undoubtedly been between Castro and the Russian bureaucracy - involving also its acolytes in the 'Communist' Parties of Latin America - but the Cuban Revolution posed no real threat to the privileged elite in Russia. On the contrary, the establishment of a regime basically similar to its own on the doorstep of American imperialism served to strengthen the power and the prestige of the Russian bureaucracy.

Planned Economy

Yet the enormous aid extended together with the advantages which flow from a planned economy has meant a gigantic development of Cuban society - particularly when compared to the unemployment, the starvation, and the misery which stalks the Latin American continent. In practically every field the living standards of the Cuban masses have outdistanced those of their Latin American counterparts. Thus, by 1975, the infant mortality rate - 27.4 per thousand - was the lowest in the whole of Latin America.

The life expectancy in Cuba is now 69.2 years compared to 45.3 years in Bolivia, 58.5 in Colombia, 59.7 in Brazil and 60.6 in Chile. Before 1959, half the children of primary school age had no education at all.

Today, all receive some education and there are now almost two million primary school pupils compared to less than 720,000 before 1959, and 79,000 primary school teachers now compared to 17,000 then. Day nurseries are available to all children from the 45th day. Even historian Hugh Thomas conceded:

"Few die of malnutrition and, in the country, particularly in Oriente province, the very poor peasants must be fed better than before the revolution... unemployment has undoubtedly fallen despite the new use in the economy of many once housebound women." [Thomas, p1425]

Contrast this to Argentina where it is estimated that living standards have dropped by 50 per cent since the army took power!

Moreover, from an unlikely source, Mr Pat Holt, the Secretary to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in June 1974, came confirmation of the remarkable development of Cuba since the revolution: "The island in 1973 has the highest per capita income in Latin America ($1,578) with the exception of Venezuela." And Venezuela is only ahead of Cuba because of its rich oil resources.

On the other hand, Cuba remains a predominantly agricultural country with sugar still the main product. In 1974, 85 per cent of foreign exchange earnings came from sugar. But at the same time there has been a development of industry. Thus, between 1959 and 1965, industrial production increased by 50 per cent. In 1975, the economy increased by something like 9 per cent. Nickel has now surpassed tobacco as the country's second most valuable export after sugar. Steel production is planned to increase in the next period to about one million tons. As striking as these achievements are, they are as nothing compared to what could have been achieved on the basis of workers' democracy.

Mismanagement, tremendous waste and zigzags in economic policy are inevitable without the planning, checking, control and initiative which is only possible through workers' democracy. This is as necessary to a planned economy as is oxygen to a body. Without it the pores clog up and virtual seizure of the organism is inevitable at a certain stage.

This is now the situation in Russia and Eastern Europe where the bureaucratic caste of Brezhnev and Co are now an absolute fetter on the further development of society. In an undeveloped country like Cuba the bureaucracy can still play a relatively progressive role in developing industry - by borrowing the technique of the advanced countries and seeking to catch up with them - but at the cost of colossal overheads. Mismanagement and waste has been evident from the first days of the Cuban Revolution.

Thus, in 1963, in the first flush of enthusiasm Castro accepted Khrushchev's offer of 1,000 tractors to mechanise the sugar harvest. But only after they had arrived in Cuba was it discovered that they were unsuitable for cutting sugar cane which requires special machines! At the same time Che Guevara - in a secret speech which was for the "private use of political and economic leaders" [Karol, Guerrillas in Power] - castigated managers for poor quality of goods.

He pointed out that:

"There is at present a shortage of toothpaste... Only when the reserves began to run out and no raw materials were coming in, did those responsible become galvanised into action... undeterred the comrades succeeded in making a toothpaste pleasing to the eye and as clean and white as any, but which hardens after a while... in a few months' time people are going to object because we are selling them stones in tubes"!

From the top

Guevara and Castro bemoaned the symptoms but were unable either to diagnose the disease or prescribe the cure. Arbitrary decision and low quality goods which accompany them are inevitable in a regime where the 'decision makers' are not subject to mass criticism, election and recall. So also are the crises and the zigzags in economic policy, which have characterised the Castro regime from the beginning.

Thus, in 1961, Guevara predicted that Cuba would be an industrialised country within 12 months! Given the weaknesses of the Cuban economy such a perspective was utterly utopian - even with the enormous assistance of the Russian bureaucracy. Shortly afterwards this gave way to a concentration on agriculture and particularly on sugar. But the targets on sugar production were decided by the tops and handed down to the masses.

The real possibilities in a planned economy can only be decided on the basis of thoroughgoing discussion among the masses who can add the necessary correctives, additions, etc. Without this discussion and a reliance on mass initiative to implement the plans, blunders and mistakes are inevitable.

This has proved to be the case in Cuba in relation to the sugar industry. Thus, Castro declared that Cuba would produce 10 million tons of sugar by 1970. Yet, even given the vagaries of the weather - where agriculture is concerned - it was subsequently demonstrated that such a target would only have been possible on the basis of the mechanisation and development of industry. Only this would allow the harmonious development of industry and agriculture together. Leon Trotsky showed in his criticisms of Stalin's blunder on agriculture that a correct correlation between industry and agriculture is impossible on the basis of a regime of bureaucratic absolutism.

Without committing the same crimes as Stalin, Castro nevertheless attempted to substitute the massive use of voluntary and sometimes forced labour for Cuba's lack of the industrial and technical means of realising the targets which had been set. Thus, in the drive for the 10 million tons of sugar, over 400,000 Cubans were mobilised in the harvest of 1970. Industrial workers, housewives and the youth were mobilised to bring in the harvest at the cost of an enormous disruption and dislocation of industry. Yet only 8.5 million tons of sugar was produced. In 1975, only 5.4 million tons were harvested and even by 1980 it is now planned to produce 8.7 million tons; a clear demonstration of the sheer impracticability on the basis of the present regime of the earlier targets.

Preceding this, the regime launched the 'Great Revolutionary Offensive' - a Cuban version of the 'Cultural Revolution'. Denunciations of 'bureaucracy' and the virtual militarisation of labour, was combined with the proclamations about 'moving towards Communism' and a campaign to eliminate small businesses. In 1968, something like 58,000 small businesses - including shops, stalls and even 9,179 craftsmen working on their own - were nationalised!

The government then claimed that Cuba was now the "socialist country with the largest nationalised sector". But to eliminate every small business without first of all creating the conditions whereby the state trusts are in a position to supply the goods - particularly the consumer goods - and services provided by these firms added enormously to the general scarcity of certain goods which in turn led to growing discontent. The purpose of the campaign was also to cut down the privileges of the bureaucracy to accumulate the necessary resources for industrialisation and the mechanisation of agriculture and in a forced march to reach the targets, which had been arbitrarily decided by the government.

Similar boasts in relation to living standards were also made by Castro. Thus, in 1960, he predicted that Cuba would enjoy a living standard comparable to Sweden by 1965. The next year severe rationing of food and clothes was introduced! Rationing continued right up to the 1970s and has only been eased or ended in some consumer goods in the last few years.

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For a Socialist United States of the Caribbean and Latin America

Faced with an impasse Castro was forced to alter course. Thus, in November 1973 at the 'Congress of Trade Unions', he admitted that, "Cuba was not ready for communism and must in some certain respects go backwards due to the revolutionary inexperience of many Cubans and the low rate of production in some sectors of the economy."

On 14 January, 1974, he also confessed that "more workers were required to carry out the same jobs than had been the case under American ownership".

Only four hours of productive work per day was the national average in Cuba in 1966. Absenteeism had reached 16 per cent in light industry and 31 per cent in the food industry. Castro declared in 1975: "The people can replace anyone; me as well if they want," and called for more participation in decision making.

In reality there were no democratic channels for the masses to change the policies or their leaders. Thus, KS Karol remarks:

"All its [the Communist Party's] organs from the Central Committee down to the lowest office are appointed from the top by Fidel Castro and his closest collaborators." [Karol, Guerrillas in Power, p458]

The Castroite Cuban CP was established in 1965 yet its first Congress was held in 1975! Even during the Russian Civil War under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky the Bolshevik Party held its conference every year.

It was left to Dr Jorge Risquest, Castro's Minister of Labour, to give an inkling of the real causes of this malaise. In July 1975, he attributed "the country's economic problems mainly to a widespread passive resistance by the workers". He also admitted that "there was no proper rapport between workers on the one hand and the state administration, the officials of the Communist Party and the trade unions on the other".

As a means of ventilating the accumulated grievances against the bureaucracy a draft constitution was published in 1975 establishing so-called 'popular power'. Experimental elections were held for 'municipal assemblies' in the Matanzas province in the same year. Usually two candidates stood but sometimes as many as 15 participated in the election.

One Party

But the rub was that all candidates had to be members of the Communist Party, or constituent organisations of this party, like the Young Communist League! In other words, the elections were a farce. Imagine the reaction of the British workers if they were told they could support candidates from only one party in shop stewards' or trade union elections!

The apologists of the Castroite regime - some of them alleged 'Trotskyists' - object that Castro has not hesitated to denounce bureaucracy and the Russian bureaucracy in particular - characterising them as 'pseudo-revolutionaries' - in the past. Moreover, they say Castro attempted to spread the revolution to the Latin American mainland, thereby coming into conflict with Communist Party leaders in the area.

Stalin, Mao Zedong and Tito have all in their time denounced the 'bureaucracy'. But they attacked the excesses of their own system, making scapegoats of the most glaring and blatant cases of bureaucratic mismanagement, waste and greed, the better to defend as a whole the privileges of the caste that they represented. Castro clashed with the Russian bureaucracy when the interests of the Cuban state were threatened. Thus, in 1962 and later in 1968, he denounced Aníbal Escalante as an arch-bureaucrat.

But behind the conflict with Escalante was the clash between two national bureaucracies. Escalante - a leader of the Cuban CP before it fused with the Castroites - was a pliable tool of the Russian bureaucracy, echoing their behind-the-scenes criticisms of Castro, denouncing his 'ungratefulness' to his Russian benefactors, and his 'adventurism' on the Latin American mainland. Yet the manner of dealing with him spoke as much against the methods of Castro as Escalante.

Guerrilla War

Escalante was accused of organising a 'micro-faction', a crime which did not even exist under Cuban law! Compare the attitude of Castro to that of Lenin at the time of the Russian Civil War. Lenin conceded the right of Bukharin, Radek and others to publish a daily paper which passionately argued against Lenin's views on the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and other related issues!

To be sure, in the first period when the lava of revolution had not cooled down we witnessed the Second Declaration of Havana with its brilliant denunciation of the misery of the Latin American masses and the call to revolution. Che Guevara was murdered in a heroic but futile guerrilla adventure in Bolivia. But Castro denounced the opportunist Communist Parties - particularly in Venezuela - not for its abandonment of revolutionary perspectives but its refusal to take to arms and embrace his guerrillaist strategy.

At no time did Castro look towards the powerful working class of Latin America as the main agency for socialist change. Artificially attempting to transfer the guerrilla experience of the Cuban Revolution to the Latin American mainland all hope was placed on the peasantry. The reason for this attempt to extend the experience of the Cuban Revolution to Latin America was to be found in the vicious trade embargo against Cuba enforced by American imperialism and its satellites in the continent.

But foreign policy is a continuation of home policy. The consolidation of the Cuban bureaucracy together with the easing of the boycott was bound to result in a change in the foreign policy of the regime with attempts to find an accommodation with US imperialism and its cohorts in Latin America to the detriment of even verbal support for revolution in the continent.

Thus, when the veiled military dictatorship in Mexico massacred more than 300 students in October 1968 not a word of protest was forthcoming from the Cuban government or Communist Party. The students had proclaimed their support of the Cuban regime but Mexico was one of the few capitalist governments to have maintained diplomatic relations with Cuba! The national interests of the Cuban state took precedence over 'international solidarity'.

Similarly, there was stony silence in Havana when 10 million workers in France occupied the factories and shook capitalism in Europe and the world to its foundations. Not even a message of support for their French counterparts emanated from the state-controlled student movement, the UJC-FEU!

This tendency will inevitably be reinforced with the lifting of US imperialism's boycott of Cuba and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Carter Administration is prepared to recognise the Cuban regime once it abandons its intervention in the African continent. With undisguised satisfaction US imperialism recognises that the Castro regime has abandoned its earlier 'adventures' in Latin America.

Privileges

Disillusionment with Castro also began to set in among his most fervent Latin American supporters. In 1967, Castro denounced the Venezuelan Communist Party and supported the guerrilla struggle of Douglas Bravo. But by 1970:

"According to Bravo, the Castroites stopped aiding the Latin American revolution the moment they decided to concentrate on their own economic problems and to rally to the Soviet Union." [Karol, Guerrillas in Power, p536]

Castro underlined the nature of his regime with his support for the intervention of the Russian bureaucracy in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Shortly afterwards, one of his ministers, Llanusa, told students in 1968: "We shall not have a Czechoslovakia here." These developments are not at all some kind of an aberration. Ideas don't drop from the sky. In the mouths of political leaders they reflect the material interests of classes or social groupings in society.

The Cuban bureaucracy now fears both the victory of the socialist revolution in the West and the political revolution against the bureaucracy in the East. Either would mean the replacement of this bureaucratic elite by workers' and peasants' democracy and the elimination of its privileges. Castro is the representative and supreme arbiter of the Cuban bureaucracy. Both in relation to the mighty events in France and in Czechoslovakia his attitude was a gauge of the fear which gripped the growing Cuban elite at these developments.

The elements of workers' control, the workers' militia, etc, which existed in the first period of the revolution have been either weakened or eliminated altogether. Thus, KS Karol writes:

"Cubans no longer boast about their workers' militia or about their Committees for Defence of the Revolution. The latter now have a purely repressive function."

The privileges of this layer have existed from the outset of the Cuban Revolution. But on a low economic and cultural base the differences between the workers and peasants on the one hand and the bureaucracy on the other could not be as great as in Russia or Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, even as early as 1963, KS Karol remarks that, in one factory he came across, an engineer received 17 times the wage of a worker!

Moreover, he cites other perks and privileges cornered by the bureaucracy, such as the "high class" restaurants, like 'Monseñor', the 'Torre', the '1830', the 'Floridita' and others which charge colossal prices for meals. At the CP Party Conference in 1975 a decision was taken to allow Cubans to buy cars --which up till then had been the preserve of the party and state officials!

With the development of the Cuban economy these differences, rather than disappearing, will grow apace. But with the differentiation of Cuban society so also will grow the opposition to the stifling atmosphere created by the ruling privileged stratum of officials.

From a relatively liberal atmosphere in the first period, suppression of all dissent has become the norm. Thus, in 1962, the works of Leon Trotsky were on sale in Havana and there was a flowering of culture and art. Now the dead hand of the bureaucracy pervades everything. Thus, unorthodox writers, poets and artists like Padilla are now frowned upon by the regime. As in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, the toleration of freedom for artists threatens to provoke a movement of the masses for the same rights. The Hungarian Revolution began with the writers' opposition gathered together in the Petofi Circle.

The Cuban Revolution has demonstrated the gigantic possibilities which flow from nationalisation and a plan of production. In the statistics which record the rise in health care, education, social security and the development of the economy, it has been more than justified. It has also given a big push to the revolution in the Caribbean and in Latin America.

But because the revolution took place in a backward country with a leadership which based itself on a predominantly agrarian movement and with national limitations, bureaucratic degeneration was inevitable. Undoubtedly the Castro regime still has much more of a popular base than the Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe. But the development of industry will also mean the growth of the working class and with it increasing demands for workers' democracy. Moreover, political revolution in Eastern Europe or the social revolution in Europe, America or Japan will have their repercussions in Cuba itself.

The victory of the socialist revolution in Argentina or Brazil, for instance, would have a dramatic effect on Cuba. In these countries the social weight of the working class is so decisive that the socialist revolution would develop along the lines of the Russian Revolution. A victory of the working class in either country would detonate the socialist revolution throughout the continent and lead to a new revolution in Cuba - this time a political revolution and the establishment of workers' democracy.

Like iron filings being pulled into a magnet the countries of Central, South and also even North America, together with the Caribbean, would be drawn into a great Socialist Federation of North and South America. The Cuban Revolution has shown the tremendous possibilities lodged within a planned economy. But even these achievements will pale beside the great possibilities which will open up on the basis of workers' democracy and a Socialist Federation. The Cuban Revolution demonstrates that only the socialist revolution and workers' democracy offers any salvation for the workers and peasants of Latin America and the Caribbean from the nightmare of landlordism and capitalism.

 
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