For the moment, no one knows where the rectification is heading. Launched as a campaign against "the technocrats and new capitalists," it has continued with measures for increasing labor productivity. And who knows what the next stage will be? As one Cuban journalist has pointed out, the rectification process "has its supporters and its enemies. The first group are trying to put on the brakes, and the second want to go full speed ahead.....Cubans are used to blaming mistakes on the managers, and managers on functionaries. It is easier to see the mote in your neighbor's eye than the beam in your
This commentary makes its point well offensive," the rectification policy masks contradictory social interests. The adminis trators are in favor of more autonomy for firms, from which they are the primary gainers. It is obvious that in ruling circles, a mute struggle is going on to strip Fidel's line of its content, by trying to use voluntarism, moral impulses, as well as appeals for revolutionary consciousness and ideological motivation to put across draconian measures designed to increase workers' productivity.
Along with these ambiguities, we have to note also the economic decisions made concerning the establishment of mixed enterprises by West Germany and Cuba in the food industry, as well as the industrial cooperation projects that may also be fi nanced by the European Community. True, the mines, sugar industry, and public services will not be affected, as Castro has said. '3 But the mere fact that these mixed economy investments are increasing, including in the export sector, shows the extent to which things have changed compared to the June 1987 positions, and to the restrictions then placed on mixed firms.
Castro's opposition, expressed on many occasions, has thus been outflanked. Is this because of the gravity of the economic crisis? Or, as one commentator stressed, "because some of his collaborators have been converted to the advantages of capitalism and the market economy?" 14 Or is it under pressure from the USSR and the Comecon reform? In any case, such measures can only engender new contradictions.
Contradictions of increased tourism
Tourism can bring in hard currency, and is doing so. But it is also aggravating the tensions inasmuch as the contrast between austerity in Cuba and the luxury available to visitors is already arousing protests from the population. The mixed enterprises can make the export of Cuban goods easier, but the particular conditions of the workers employed there go against the egalitarian goals of the rectification.
In the Cuban context, the choice of ideological motivation, of an appeal to mass consciousness and to mass mobilization is still possible. But to be of any use, it has to 7. Trabajadores (magazine of the CTC), July 5, 1986. 8. Statement of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma, October 2, 1988. 9. Granma, December 11, 1988. 10. Granma, January 8, 1989. 11. Latin American Weekly Report, January 19, 1989. 12. Granma, September 18, 1988. 13. Granma, January 1, 1989. 14. Le Monde, January 3, 1989.
Will socialist or capitalism win out?
I READ many International dispatches, and a lot of capitalist press agencies are trying to portray us as utoplans or Idealists. I
March 20, 1989• #159 International Viewpoint involve new powers of control and decision making for the masses. This presupposes a break with the monopoly of political power held by the Cuban Communist Party, power concentrated in the hands of one leader and his associates. It means that the slogan "put
CUBA do not deny that we have been Idealists at certain times. We have all the best in charge," 15 applied locally in the been Idealists, and I would even say that we have been that in the best micro-brigades, also has to be implemented sense of the term. We recognized at a certain moment that we commitnationally to put an end to bureaucratic ted Idealist errors. But we have suffered from bungling - In rectifying waste and ineptitude, the biggest obstacle one error we have fallen into another.
to increased productivity.
They are trying to sow confusion by saying that we are departing from the soclalist formula. I say here categorically that we have no Intention of departing from the soclalist formula defined a long time ago of 'from
Avoiding workers' all according to their capacities to all according to their needs' - that self-management
Is, that distribution Is effected in accordance with the quality and quantity that each person contributes to the soclety.
In stating that "the secret of productivity
In this stage of our revolution, we cannot depart from this formula. The lies in discipline and technology...the raquestion Is how to Interpret It. We cannot always apply the principle of tional and efficient use of materials and giving to all in accordance with the quantity and quallty of their work. If manpower" and that it is possible "to do we see a worker's child in school, we do not look at the quantity of labor better than the capitalists if you are capable provided by Its father nor at what that contributes to soclety, because of leading people — that is the secret — one of the concerns of the state Is to give children the best possible with revolutionary methods" (January 29,
1989), Fidel Castro has risked convicting
We find ourselves facing a great historical challenge: What will himself and the team surrounding him of trumph? Who will win the game? The egolstic, chaotic, Inhuman capitalthe lack of such capacity. Either that, or he
Ist system; or socialism, a more rational, more fraternal, more human is trying to challenge the non-revolutionary system? That Is the challenge that has to be taken up by Cuban youth methods of those who are in command of and the Cuban people, by the youth and peoples of the soclalist the state apparatus and the economy and take his distance from them.
Naturally, that requires from all of us, especially the new generation, a
In criticizing alternately the masses and the apparatus, depending on the occasion,
We have to see very clearly the task that awaits us In the battle that
Fidel Castro manages to preserve his role as we are waging today to perfect soclalism in our country. The objective an arbitrator. But his credibility is being of this fight - and that Is perhaps the greatest challenge - Is to per worn away by this balancing act.
fect soclalism without resorting to capitalist mechanisms and the capl-
The Castroist leadership's attempt to talist style, without playing at capitalism. This Is what we are working on avoid both glasnost and workers' self-
In the framework of the rectification process.
management cannot succeed. One way or
I sald a few days ago that the results of this process were visible. We another, it will be necessary to make a have seen examples and I will mention one - the bullding teams. We choice, both domestically and internationhave seen the public works bullt by these teams In varlous provinces.
ally. But the room for maneuver is very
And the principles applled in these workers' collectives have nothing to small. Will the initial objectives of the recdo with capitalist stimull. I am sure that this sort of collective exists notification - to consolidate the mass mobilization on an egalitarian basis — be no bang so animate we more roner becau maintained?
Gorbachev wants Cuba to fall in line with are hit with clubs or have carrots dangled in front of their noses,* his policies of negotiation with American imperialism and to accept an economic policy of true prices and austerity, leaving the
Fldel Castro, Granma (French edition), January 29, 1989
USSR a lighter burden of aid. Bush encourages this pressure, in which he sees a way to divide the social base of the regime.
Castro himself is speeding up his rapeducation...
но сивая реорів, ву на
countries.
speclal effort at Improvement.
where else. prochements with Latin-American governments and trying to negotiate — with the benefit of the Angola accords — a rapprochement with the United States. But this policy also implies a concession. You have to respect the club rules if you want to join, or as one Latin-American diplomat said: "Cuba can't play football using baseball's rules." 16 In other words, to join the club, you have to fit in — end all aid to foreign revolutionaries, tighten your belt at home and modernize an inefficient system (as Spanish premier Felipe González put it)."
Gorbachev has a similar line: Cuba must choose, either to go it alone and take the consequences, or play the game with the other so-called socialist countries and reform its economy.
Caught in this vise of contradictions, the Cuban revolution can still - unlike the other countries in Eastern Europe — rely on mass mobilization. That is, it can as long as it understands that the lack of motivation on the job (apart from the limited vanguard sectors, organized in the building teams or the micro-brigades) is the consequence, in the final analysis, of a lack of political motivation. With such corruption and bureaucratic waste, why should the population work harder for results that will still be undone by bureaucratic ineptness?
Voluntarism and revolutionary consciousness can only be effective if they are accompanied by a real power to organize, control and manage for the workers themselves. For the future of the Cuban revolution, this decisive choice is more and more urgent. * 15. Bohemia, October 21, 1988. 16. El Pais, January 2, 1989. 23 17. Ibid