Rising criticism in runup to Communist resentation are elected by indirect suffrage, is in fact directly controlled by the CCP. Local authorities, of which the delegates are in principle recallable, are reduced to tasks of municipal management.
The problem of the single party has
Party Congress hardly been raised, but, on the other hand, monolithism, the lack of respect for differing opinions and the impossibility of expressing them in written form have been strongly criticized and problems of corruption, double morality and hypocrisy have been unceasingly brought up.
THE economic difficulties and social tensions which Cuba is experiencing come on top of the questions raised by the crisis of the countries of Eastern Europe, long presented as bastions of socialism. Doubts, worries and uncertainties about the future are finding expression in the preparatory assemblies for the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist
Party (CCP), which should have been held during the first quarter of 1991, and which has been postponed.
Relegated temporarily to the background by the Gulf war, the holding of the congress constitutes a dilemma for the CCP leadership; how to respond to the expectations raised by the numerous appeals for debate? And, above all, what to say to those who ask how and if the country is going to survive?
These questions are accentuated by the difficulties of everyday life, and the leadership of the CCP is obliged to respond to the growing impatience which is manifesting itself amongst young people and intellectuals.
JANETTE HABEL
ONVENED under the symbol of the proclamation of Maceo the capitulationist rejecting
Pact of Zanjon, the Fourth
Congress sets itself in the tradition of the wars of independence, of the struggles for dignity and national sovereignty, "for the defence of revolutionary, patriotic and internationalist principles without dogmas or foreign schemas"2
, at a time when the imperialists "think they are witnessing a definitive and irreversible crisis of socialism"3
Faced with the collapse of what was still called until recently in Cuba the
"socialist camp", Fidel Castro seeks a return to the — profoundly nationalist — sources of the revolution. But this appeal to resistance, in an economically alarmsituation*, cannot divert ing attention from the more fundamental debates: historic (how this situation has come about, why an analysis of the situation of the countries of Eastern Europe had not been developed earlier), political and economic.
As Granma underlined again on February 10, 1991, the congress must give pri-
12 ority to the "economic development and democratization of society"
including
International Viewpoint #207 • May 27, 1991
"the democratization of the Party", while reviving "a broad national dialogue". It is in these terms that the local assemblies, often very animated, have debated, sometimes well beyond the fixed limits.
If little is known about the deliberations of certain provincial assemblies, there is information on the debates organized in Havana by the intellectuals and professionals of different sectors, at the university, amongst the journalists, the writers and the artists, and by the Institute of Cinema. Far from confining themselves to sectoral preoccupations, these open Party meetings have reflected more general political demands.
In these relatively favoured circles — they have, amongst other privileges, the possibility of travelling, a right claimed by the majority of youth - the enlargement of political rights is at the centre of the discussions. The criticisms put forward spare neither the press, nor the institutions (including Fidel Castro himself, nor the CCP. The largely formal character of the Organs of Popular Power (OPP) and of the National Assembly have been challenged; the latter, whose provincial leaderships and national rep-
Economic hypercentralization is identified as being responsible for the difficulties of everyday life; voices have been raised demanding the legalization of certain private activities, such as free markets for peasant produce and in diverse areas of artisan production (which are currently carried on in a clandestine fashion and beyond any control, because the inefficiency of the state sector makes everyday life a hell).
### Social control negated
As speakers at the assemblies underlined, finding a plumber to repair the pipes outside of relief work is very difficult and costs a fortune; the ban by the authorities not only does not stop private enrichment or corruption, but negates all social control and favours the diversion of the resources of the state sector on a grand scale. It is henceforth vital to render more transparent an economic system where bureaucratic opacity favours, in the last resort, the anarchic and speculative development of petty commerce and cottage industries. The authorization of these activities might, at least, control their development and pricing
In the absence of all official explanation for, and any coherent analysis of, the crisis in the former Eastern bloc, which would necessarily have consequences for the Cuban institutional system, the interpretations put forward are all over the place.
Some intellectuals, who until now would not have put forward the shadow of a criticism in front of foreigners (private criticisms have always existed), express their bitterness today. One such is the writer Lisandro Otero, who was once president of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC), and whose 1. Antonio Maceo, a black general, was one of the principal leaders of the wars of independence against Spain at the end of the nineteenth century. On February 11, 1878, a meeting was held at El Zanjon between the Spanish and the insurgents to establish the conditions for peace and an end to the war. In fact it was a veritable capitulation which promised neither independence nor the emancipation of the slaves. In March 1878, Mace gathered 1500 officers and soldiers at Baragua against the dishonourable peace and for the pursuit of the struggle. 2. Report for the Assembly of the CP at Havana, AFP, February 1991. 3. Appeal for the Congress. 4. See /V 205.
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CUBA
REPUBLICA DE CUBA S
3
last novel, "The Tree of Life" (set in the years of bureaucratization) has been published in Mexico but not in Cuba: "The revolution is a heartrending, beautiful, terrifying thing. It is the end of one thing and the beginning of another. In Cuba, the revolution has allowed us to make a nation of what was no more than a colothe revolution survive? According to Otero: "It's very difficult to say. There are many very deep problems. People here are very angry now and very There's a lot of anxiety and irritation. The bureaucrats do nothing. That's how they protect their jobs. On the other hand, you don't see graffiti, you don't see demonstrations. People are restless, but they have not yet reached breaking point....
"The single party cannot work. Before, in Batista's time, there were fourteen parties. That didn't work. We need something halfway. We want discussion, ideas, a new dialectic; we don't want this authoritarianism. We need to stimulate personal initiative. The problem with socialism is that everything's abstract".
Does he consider himself against the regime? "I do not consider myself a dissident. There are still many things about the revolution in which I believe. I suffer no harassment, no coercion. They just omit your name from the list. I am living in a social vacuum, a void....
I am writing my memoirs. I think that they will get me into a lot of trouble but the artist must speak for himself.... You have to be nearly 60 to do that!"
The intellectuals are subject to a malaise. The case of Otero, a once orthodox writer, is not an isolated one. Since the Cuban Institute of Cinema Technicians and Artists (ICAIC) enjoys a real decision making autonomy, critical political allegory runs through the best Cuban films; satires on the bureaucracy, the official discourse and the competence of the regime appear in such films as "Supporting Roles" by Orlando Rojas or "Alice in Wonderland" by Daniel Diaz Torres, made in collaboration with the great Cuban writer Jesus Diaz. In the latter, Alice finds herself in the village where
3
PESOS
ne tronados (a popular expression 1o1 the bureaucrats who have lost their posts because of a decision of the party hierarchy) are reeducated, and has a sinister experience of the horrors of the place.
It is not astonishing that one of the longest general assemblies held in preparation for the Fourth Congress (it lasted three days) took place at the ICAIC, in the presence of the immense majority of the personnel - artists and technicians, militants or not of the CCP — numbering several hundred people. Cuban film makers have a long critical tradition; they have suffered the intolerance of the conceptions, inspired by socialist realism, which impregnated the black decade from 1975 to 1985, during which films like "Techo and Vidrio" by Sergio Giral or novels like "Las iniciales de la tierra" by Jesus Diaz? were banned for several
Birth of internationally recognized cinema
But it should be underlined that in this area, as in others, the repression has not been comparable Europe. These artists are also conscious of the fact that the birth of an indigenous internationally linked to the revolution; the exile cinema has yielded practically nothing.
However, the current opening from which the artists and intellectuals are benefitting — in particular in the domain of the human sciences, as is witnessed by the critical researches, notably on Stalinism, carried by reviews like Cuadernos de Nuestra America or Casa de las Americas — is not reflected in the political press linked to the CCP. The official daily Granma, when it can be found (which is difficult with restrictions on paper) remains a bastion of teque-teque (wooden language), and even a review like Bohemia remains poor. From all the evidence, control of the press, whether daily or weekly, is much more strict: Castro denounced some years ago the "secrecy syndrome" from which Cuban journalists suffered; if this syndrome remains, it is obviously
CUBA not the fault of the journalists, but rather the monolithism imposed by the single party which stops all public debate.
Youth constitutes another sensitive sector. The apparatus is today paying the price of a major contradiction; the generations born after the revolutionary victory have benefitted from a mass education - some tens of thousands of youth go to university; the raising of the cultural level is impressive. Cuban youth have the highest level of training in Latin America; but at the same time they are confronted with a blocked society. Their aspirations come up against institutional rigidity, macho prejudices, obstacles. Social advancement, a major feature of the preceding generation, is more difficult with the current crisis. This leads to the marginalization of some sectors of youth and an apolitical attitude.
Suicide is sixth amongst causes of mortality; according to the Cuban statistical annual, the most vulnerable sector consists of young girls who get pregnant and whose families manage the situation bad-
Police attack rock concert
The incidents reported recently by the French Communist Party newspaper L'Humanité are equally worrying; police intervened at a rock concert in the House of Culture in the district of Playa in Havana. "Very many jeans and ripped t-shirts. Long hair and some earrings. And also some ordinary adolescent rock fans. Several Cuban groups played at the concert; Horus, Red, Metal Oscuro. This House of Culture regularly these types of concerts and it lends its offices to groups so they can practice, without any particular problem. Several hundred youth were at the concert when the police intervened to evacuate the building'9
According to the official version, the police intervened to put an end to a fight; the correspondent from L' Humanité, who can hardly be suspected of political animosity, heard different versions and indigovernment had been heard and, for the stones thrown at the police; earlier police interventions, motivated, in by problems with alcohol, had never been on such a scale, although tensions were perceptible between the young police officers, who come from the coun tryside, and an urban youth who, like their equivalents almost everywhere in the world, dress in a particularly "American" manner, hardly likely to please a leadership whose radical anti-imperialism 5. Guardian Weekly, March 17, 1991 6. On this subject, see the study by Paolo Paranuaga, "Letter from Cuba to an unfaithful Europe, Political position of Cuban cinema", to appear in the British review Framework in May-June 1991. 7. To appear in Acte Sud editions in Autumn 1991.
13
9. L'Humanité, April 26, 1991. May 27, 1991 • #207 International Viewpoint
CUBA expresses itself in a critique of the totality of the American way of life.
That Cuban youth are rebelling against stereotypes, including revolutionary stereotypes, is confirmed by Roberto Robaina, secretary of the Young Communists: "This generation does not think only of amusing itself", but it must "seek how in the current period, to be capable of playing the role of a generation continuing revolutionary work". Youth are not homogeneous, "and when someone finds that it is bad to be criticized, I am annoyed, for it seems to me to indicate a lack of confidence in the youth of today to accuse them of immaturity".
The generation gap
There is a clear gap between the generthemselves in totally opposed historical contexts; for the Castroite the apogee of the struggle for national liberation and the victory over neocolonialism; for the new generations, the collapse of the "socialist" camp and the challenging of
The leadership of the CCP risks paying a high price for the absence of pluralism, the monolithism and the sclerosis of institutions and the organizations which results from it; in the absence of mechanisms of debate, of structures of exchange and discussion, young people could become cynical and apolitical. All the more in that the newspaper of the Young Communists, Juvenreasonably open, appears less frequently the lack of paper coming
The same goes for the Federation of
Women (FMC), led by Vilma Espin, who, despite a glorious past in the Sierras Maestra, has only recently been elected to the political bureau, until then entirely male. This organization has been the object of numerous challenges, nota-
14
International Viewpoint #207 • May 27, 1991 bly for its failure to struggle effectively against a macho culture. It was late to take account of the feminist radicalization and the problems of young adolescents, in a context where changes in sexual morality area also the generation gap is enormous. The same goes for homosexuality, now society has undergone in years a colossal change; the population has almost doubled, it has become urbanized (70% now live in towns, 20% in Havana alone); in a country which was 25% illiterate in 1959, books are now fought over. In these conditions, to wish to continue to impose the ossified structures imported from the USSR, to not respect the diversity of currents of opinion, the critical manifestations of the youth, the new cultural phenomena however heretical, is an aberration; it is the entire conception of the single party/state party (not exempt from corruption, moreover) which is challenged, in a context where absolute truths are no longer put and where the contradictions between words and deeds - the double morality — are more and more percepti-
Leadership paralyzed
The leadership of the country - which reacts differently, according to whether it represents sectors of the apparatus or the Fidelist kernel - seems paralyzed by doubt the postponement of the Fourth Congress. Yet events are accelerating, under the pressure of outside developments, but also of the population, and the necessary changes cannot be put off indefinitely if more serious upheavals are (including the most lucid exile sectors) none of the dissident groups is truly representative; often in hock to the most reactionary of the Miami-based groups, they do not represent, for the moment, a real threat to the regime. The most offensive criticisms come from inside - or around - the CCP, a fact that should favour the expression of pluralism in the revolution around the two big questions of the moment; economic policy and institutional democratization. To these two problems, there are at least two responses; that of Fidel Castro, and that of the bureaucrats whose first motivation is to preserve their privileges.
The pragmatic and empirical Cuban leader is ready to accept important concessions in terms of privatization in the difficult situation which the country is agreement with the USSR, signed after a difficult process, is already not being totally respected. Castro appears contradictory; his denunciation of "capitalist does not concern agreements with foreign monopolies; mixed are growing, quences in the matter of deregulation of work and inequalities which create an ultimately explosive contradiction. He condemns, on the other hand, the personal enrichment of the artisans or peasants, without realizing that these private activities could lead to an improvement in eve-
The process of "rectification" has gone through all kinds of permutations, and little remains of the original project. A series of economic initiatives are being undertaken out of the control of the Cuban leader; a monopoly of speeches is one thing — "always talk" say some of the technocrats in private - and practice quences; on the one hand it is a debureaucratization from above, authoritarian and not really subject to mass control, and thus necessarily fragile; on the other, it profoundly destabilizes the apparatus which endeavours to protect itself often efficiently - from the offensives of the Cuban leader, who does not take the measures which would allow an efficient struggle against the bureaucratic cancer which is gnawing away at the country.
Recycling of bureaucrats
The proof of this is the fate already met by the measures, taken in the framework of the preparation for the congress, aimed at reducing the number of bureaucrats, and the already effective recycling of a certain number of them (some propositions of a reduction of 50% of the posts had been adopted in these assemblies).
All the same, the changes undertaken in the manner of electing CPP officials -direct and secret election - have had consequences at the base, on the local plane, but it seems that they have had little impact at the provincial or national scale. The relationship of forces established at the local level, to the extent that election does not take place on the basis of a platform or a mandate, largely formal. The rank and file delealthough democratically elected and, moreover, often new, have not carried much weight in the provincial elections for the Party. The manner in which the political debates have been treated, despite the initial proclamations, prove it.
On July 1, 1990, Granma reproduced a long note from the political bureau: "The Communist Party is favourable to a broad national debate...The defence of socialism cannot be combined with a closed or resistant position. If we speak of rectification, we cannot defend excessively our current methods". The appeal to debate
Socialismo o Muerte!
should permit " a more democratic functioning of the political institutions and of the state". The note underlines "that the quality of the meeting can in no case be measured 'as we have done it in the past' by the rate of unanimity or the absence of questions considered as problematic or divergent. We should not complain if points of view, until now repressed or inhibited, manifest themselves publicly today, because they offer us the possibility of discussion, bringing forward new elements and avoiding confusion and errors"
Eight months later, in February 1991, the report made to the assembly of the Party, in Havana, synthesized what had happened in the other assemblies; drawn up after the holding of 11,337 base meetings to canvass the opinions of around a million people, the report underlined that one person in 15 "had given their opinion openly"; some "neo-liberal and capitalist propositions" have appeared, that the document considers as "quantitatively negligible" and motivated by "political naivete, by confusion or inspired by positions openly opposed to the policy of the Party"
According to the report, some "pronounced themselves for the privatization of production and services, for the installation of a market economy, for the reestablishment of free peasant markets, and, in very limited cases, for multipartyism"
There was, in certain cases, "a lack of combativity or a certain naivete" on the part of Communists and revolutionaries, and "it was necessary to proceed to some analyses in the base organisms of the party, to clarify the essence of these propositions... In a general manner, the explanations given have been understood; however, it has been necessary to apply disciplinary measures to some militants and to make critical remarks to some cells which have not been capable of defending Party policy". In these conditions, the broad national debate could well be cut short and the Fourth Congress could reaffirm a line summed up by the Cuban expression "mas de lo mismo" ("it comes to the same thing").
The report ends by a quadruple refusal; no to privatization, no to the market economy, no to multipartyism, and no to the entreguistas (capitulationist) capitalNo challenge to bureaucracy
Castro in no way gives the impression of going down the only road that could challenge the ravages of the bureaucracy, the denunciation of its privileges, its cynicism and its corruption, for that would imply giving a real power of control to the popular masses (which does not exist in the OPP, emptied of all their substance, as a public and official survey has established), a measure linked challenging of the single party, and to the mode of paternalist leadership inaugurated by Castroism.
Even if it is not through pure power interests that the commandant in chief opposes change, but rather in the name of an overall ideological conception, inspired by militarism, equating defence of the revolution with monolithism and incomprehension of the social, political and cultural diversity of a country like Cuba, this conception is increasingly contested. This cult of homogeneity is
CUBA linked to the defence of the single party.
It is true that some Latin American leaders disagree with this vision - Fernandez Huidobro, leader of the Tupamaros in Uruguay, for example — for, for them, "Fidel is the leader of the opposition, and more often a leader put in the minority"|!. For Huidobro, Fidel is fighting "against something elusive, which is below him, but above the people and which seems invulnerable. Something big, thick, sticky and coarse". But why, after 30 years, is this bureaucracy, for that is what it adds up to, invulnerable?
The increasingly numerous criticisms, sometimes even public - which is new — of Castro, are not entirely innocent. Here also the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Profoundly worried since the Ochoa affair of July 198912 - a major trauma in the history of the island — a certain number of apparatchiks are beginning to think that in the current conjuncture, they could be in danger, if the popular discontent brings down on them the wrath of a Castro whose popularity is still real. That is why, for the first time, some high functionaries pronounce themselves in private in favour of economic reforms, in a "perestroikist" sense, and for political changes, a greater opening, which would allow the role of Fidel to be relativized and theirs to grow. This orientation, which would hardly have been credible only a short time ago, is more so today, in view of the changes underway in the Cuban exile community in Miami.
The Cuban immigrant community represents an economic and political power 11. Mate Amargo, March 13, 1991. 15 12. See TV 173. 13. Jacobo Timerman, El Pais, December 16, 1991. May 27, 1991 • #207 International Viewpoint
CUBA in Florida; a million and a half CubanAmericans live in Miami. Until recently, the objective of the "exile old guard" was to provoke an invasion of the island by US marines or to succeed, with the help of the CIA, in the assassination, many times botched, of Castro. These far right sectors would not hesitate to organize reprisals, attacks and murders against the dialogueros, the partisans and "national reconciliation", who do not consider Miami as their town and who dream of returning to "their" island
Such people, once a minority, are in the process of becoming hegemonic for several reasons. On the one hand, because the Soviets increasingly seek to negotiate a peaceful and economically beneficial way to lighten the burden that Cuba represents for them; the Cold War is over, Cuba no longer interests them, but they wish to organize an acceptable and therefore peaceful transition, to preserve their image in the Third World. On the other hand, the hopes of a violent overthrow of longer plausible; as Jacobo Timerman underlines in El believed in Miami that the aggravation of the conditions of life on the island will provoke a against Castro"13.
The hypotheses envisaged for two years have not been confirmed; the idea of a suicide squad, or, more precisely, Castro's being arrested by the military and subsequent sent to the USSR, in the context of a Soviet plot (an idea which tion of Ochoa in July 1989), are hardly credible. Finally, and here there is a major change, the trips and the contacts which have developed between families in exile and the interior (the majority of Cuban families have a member exiled in Florida) have contributed to a change; numerous Cuban-Americans fear a violent end to the crisis and the dialogueros are not favourable to a US intervention — the repetition of a Gulf War does not enthuse them. Indeed, in a Situation of civil war, "the United States could intervene. It would be disastrous to see the US handing over power to an Endara [the Panamanian president, imposed after the US invasion of that country], even a slimmer one, called Valladares"14
One thing is clear, the premisses for an eventual negotiation are based on the fact that this must take place between Cubans. "The transition towards freedom and democracy must be discussed by all Cubans. The destiny of the nation must 16 be decided in Cuba and by Cubans, not in Moscow or Washington" declared the International Viewpoint #207 • May 27, 1991
Cuban Democratic Platform, created in Madrid in August 1990, with the backing of the Spanish government. For the first time, the government of Felipe opponents of Castro is contact with the
Whereas the Spanish state figures at the head of Cuba's European partners, this decision is certainly not unconnected to the affair of the embassies in July 1990. According to the Platform, political forces which should participate in this dialogue are the following: broad representation of the movements and parties which seek to promote political and social change in Cuba; a broad representation of the exile community; a delegation from Cuban government; and international observers which give their backing to the negotiations". A particularly balanced relation between political currents!
Possibility of a coalition government For the exile community, their are a outcomes: the best would be a coalition government (possibly Fidel!); in the same way that Humberto Ortega remains head of the army in NicaRaul Castro at the head of the minant place investing in the conand second homes for the Cubans of Florida who would come to spend their weekends, without counting the family aid that the Cubans in exile, "like the Turks, the Greeks or the Portuguese", could furnish.
This scenario is, in reality, only a first stage. Understanding that the perspective of an armed regime from outside is improbable, the Miami community has drawn the lessons of what has happened in Eastern Europe and is preparing for a progressive transition and ultimate change of the regime, which it seeks to undermine through its
It is certain that contacts exist between Havana and the most moderate exile leaders. But what are the conditions already put by Cuba for the opening of a dialogue? The end of the US embargo, the return of the military base at Guantanamo (all the more urgent in that the
USSR is reducing, for the first time, its deliveries of arms); a possible political opening - in respect of the Cuban social regime — if guarantees are given to cease all measures of harassment and aggres-
As Carlos Aldana, leader of the CCP, has said: "We wish to make the system more efficient, more democratic, more effective on the economic plane. If you really want to leave us alone, accept Cuba as it is — which would be a beautiful expression of world pluralism, if pluralism consists in accepting several forms of government - one could see then if our system is capable of perfecting itself in the sense of a greater democracy. But in cornering us, in harassing us, in slandering us and submitting us to all kinds of pressures, you cannot demand that we advance further in this direction than good sense and the instincts of survival
The outlook is discouraging: Cuba's allies in Central America are cornered, the Spanish state as well as the principal Latin American govemments support "dialogue" Miami-style, and the situation in the USSR is all too clear. The evolution of the situation in Albania and North Korea, the economic opening in Vietnam, faced with the combined pressures of the Soviets and Washington (after its crushing victory in the Gulf show the difficulty in resisting with one's back to the wall; moreover, the "Chinese" model - economic opening combined with repression à la Tiananmen Square - which might tempt some elements in the apparatus, is not conceivable in Cuba.
The Cuban government cannot ignore the risks of a negotiation whose economic counterpart is uncertain - we have already seen what became of the promises of aid to Panama and Nicaragua Can the leadership regain the initiative?
In such a difficult situation, it is to be hoped that the Castroite leadership will take the initiative-lest it be imposed, in conditions that it will no longer control - of an institutional democratization, in all necessary fashions. It is also an essential condition for the preservation of the mobilization of the masses and the credibility of the system - in short the revolution that the Fidelists wish to defend at all costs. * 14. Former policeman of Batista, incarcerated for a long time in a Cuban prison, where he faked a paralysis. He was liberated by the intervention of President Mitterrand, with the help of Regis Debray. He is leader of the US delegation to the Geneva Commission on Human Rights. 15. The Democratic Platform includes Christian Democrats, liberals, social democrats and conservatives, all supported by their interational equivalents. 16. Cambio 16, Madrid, Interview reproduced in Courier International, April 18, 1991.
Alternative dead-ends
PANCHO
COMECON more painful than expected, either in the countries concerned or in the West. POLAND The director of the Viennese Institute for Comparative International Economics (WIIW), Professor Friedrich Levcik, sees
THE Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation (Comecon)
was founded in 1949, with the aim of creating a counter-balance to the American-sponsored Marshall Plan and the European Economic Council and presenting an economic alternative to the capitalist West. Today, 42 years later, the former Comecon countries are in the grip of a pro-capitalist euphoria. In the following article, which first appeared in the April-June, 1991 issue of the Austrian quarterly, Ost-West Gegeninformationen, Jürgen Mittermüller records the end of an illusion.
JÜRGEN MITTERMÜLLER
THE conference has noted that successful economic relations prevail between the aforementioned countries, especially advantageous from the point of view of increased trade. The creation of these lively economic relations and the pursuit of a common policy of colthe People's laboration have enabled
Democracies and the Soviet Union to undertake their reconstruction and the development of their national economies.
"The conference has also noted that the governments of the United States and
Great Britain, as well as the governments of other West European countries, have effectively engaged in an economic boycott of the People's Democracies and the
Soviet Union, because they have found it impossible to subject these countries to the dictates of the Marshall Plan, which they have resisted because the Marshall the responsible economic officials of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the USSR announced the foundation of Comecon. A year later East Germany joined, to be followed by Mongolia (1962), Cuba (1972) and Vietnam (1978).
Today the only thing these states discuss is how to dismantle the Council and the relations established within its framework. But here also unity is an idea of the past - the so-called "conservative" part of the community (the USSR, Romania and Bulgaria) are demanding the creation of a successor organization, while the "progressive" countries want simply to become members of the European Economic Community (EEC).
The present economic situation in the former Eastern bloc countries is catastrophic. The generalized efforts to move
Poland as the only one of these countries that might experience an economic improvement this year. This statement arouses a certain cynicism. Poland's economy is really on the floor. Even the Communists were unable to reach quite such a low point.
The policies imposed by the international financial authorities — described as "shock therapy" — have caused a drop in production so intense that it can only be followed by an upturn.
Despite this, Poland's leadership remains determined on a thoroughgoing restoration of capitalism. At a Comecon (dissolution) meeting in February, the Polish representatives insisted that their government had decided not to back a "purely cosmetic re-edition" of this association.
Regional collaboration in Europe, they insisted, required entirely new structures. The progress of the former fraternal coun tries is, in the eyes of the Polish leaders, and above all Walesa, too hesitant. The concerns of the working population continue to be afterthoughts under the new leadership. This was shown by recent decrees which give workers in the private sector big advantages over those in the state sector. HUNGARY meanwhile, has set out on the road of "gradual change". Finance minister Kupa spoke of an "ideology free" reorientation of the economy under his four-year programme. But he too has had to realize the impossibility of such an approach. Hungary has bravely met its obligations to the IMF. The budget deficit has been cut from
Plan would harm their sovereignty as well. to a market economy are turning out to be as their national economic
Taking into interests.
POLITICAL ECONOMY account these conditions, the conference has decid-
SUGGEStIONs Box ed to create an organization which will have the aim of creating wide- ranging economic cooperation between the People's Democracies and the